*Just wanted to mention that I'd be out from posting for a little while longer as I recover from hand surgery.
*C2E2 was great and my next two big projects got announced recently-
I have a story in Rocketeer Adventures #2 so check that out.
I'll be scripting for the Project Superman mini from the DC Comics Flashpoint event this summer.
I hope to be back to game posting next week, assuming everything goes well with the recovery.
Showing posts with label general. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general. Show all posts
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Twelve General Thoughts
So a couple of quick things since I've been off the blogging radar for a little while. A general post here and then I'll get back to an rpg post in the next one.
1. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and look at our story in Legends of the Guard #2. I thank you for your generosity in spending that effort. It means quite a bit to me.
2. So the doctor says that my foot injury is probably a tendon tear in the right heel, or something close to that. I'd gone after a full week of pain, figuring that was a reasonable window to get worried about it. Unfortunately I was informed that these kinds of injuries take two weeks to heal up. On the plus side I have a full license to be a lazy slob and prop my feet up until I recovered.
3. So I suspect that the injury came out of the increased exercise Sherri and I have been doing. We'd been walking 4-5km in the evening as our “dailys.” Sherri's approached this current health and weight loss program like a true gamer: with careful min-maxing, planning out of strategies, and making things into quest tasks. She's finally quit smoking as well which makes everything a little easier. So all good things-- once I'm able to walk around again and actually do some physical activity for a significant amount of time.
4. I love my doctor-- I went in with a list of other general health questions and such and he pretty much walked through the list in under five minutes. He's pretty direct and doesn't go for a lot of extra testing and such.
5. Three additional reasons for the delay in blogging: one, worked on a quick project proposal for something Gene's wanted to do. We'll see if that comes together-- I think we managed to put two really great spins on a classic property for a short story. Two, been sketching out ideas for a screenplay I want to write. I don't know why-- but it is something I figure I can reformat once I've done it into something else. Its built on an idea I put together for a collaboration that never went anywhere.
6. ...and three, I'm working on a new rpg campaign. I've mentioned what I'm thinking about to a couple of people and I've started to sketch out some notes. I'll use Action Cards again, with some twists. I want to talk about some of the things I've picked up from reading John Wick's new samurai rpg, Blood & Honor. Not ideas about samurai stuff (that's not the game), but more about campaign and community building in games. I suspect this game will be closer to City of Ocean...or not, still thinking about the frame.
7. Went to two movies this last weekend (thanks to Kenny & Tammy). I loved Inception, even in those parts where I was aware of the artifice. Nolan does a really great job of building up the visual grammar of the film in order to help the viewers keep track of where they are from moment to moment: there's effects based both on the colors and stages setting as well as based on certain repeated sequences. I can't even imagine what that screenplay must look like or how he wrestled that beast into place. Like Momento he goes in really novel directions-- but I think this is more accessible than some of his other movies. I also saw The Sorcerer's Apprentice which was fun, if goofy. It was a good summer movie in the classic "Hero's Journey" mode but really could have used an editor to cut about ten minutes out to increase the pacing.
8. Hans Zimmer did the score to Inception. In some ways he's become as ubiquitous as John Williams or Danny Elfman. Some of Zimmer's scores feel a little weak (Pirates, Kung Fu Panda, The Last Samurai) but others really work for me (The Ring, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes). I think Inception falls in the latter category. He has some great moments, particularly the dream-fixed sequences, which have more than a little echo of Philip Glass. Since I love Glass, I enjoy hearing Zimmer do his own take on that.
9. Rock Band 3 will have the ability to rate items in your collection and thereby determine how often they come up in the random sets. That's enough for me. I'll be buying that. That plus new songs makes that pretty much an obvious purchase. I also have to get a second upgraded guitar, but now I think I'll probably wait on that unless there's a huge deal somewhere. Current fascination is with the game Blur on the PS3. If you have a PS3 you really ought to buy this-- it is insanely fun.
10. The New Pornographers album Together is quite good. Not as great as Challengers, but really strong. Explosions in the Sky finally announced they will be going back to the studio to make an album for 2011. Other than that I've been listening to Beirut's Gulag Orkestar again more recently-- that's a solid album.
11. Finished a Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William Bernstein. Really, really good and pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this kind of book. A detailed history combined with cultural ideas and explanations. If I walk away from a non-fiction book with one or two really distinctive new ideas or ways of thinking about things I feel pretty satisfied. I came away with at least one per chapter.
12. Last but not least, with the new diet I've been trying a number of new dishes and recipes, some with more success than others. I made a Beef and Cucumber Salad, with the beef being a kind of fine oriental stir-fry, and it was pretty amazing. The cucumbers became really bitter but complimented the beef and flavorings very well. Not a bland dish. The Shrimp & Spinach Miso soup I made Sherri liked, but I found a little earthy for my taste. It had edamame beans in it which I found odd, but I liked the miso flavoring. Also Sherri liked the Thai Stir-Fried Rice with Chicken and Mint better than I did. It used brown rice which I was worried about, but came out nicely. Still it was fairly bland-- it needs more kick and flavors to it, which I'll put in next time I make it. I think that's a common problem with the Weight Watchers recipes-- they are a little bland to make them workable for a larger population. For example the Chicken with Savory Peaches I made-- which I liked-- will be significantly improved by the application of a doze of red chili flakes in with the ginger and garlic. Lastly we made Southwestern Tacos in the crock pot that turned out really, really well-- simple and on the plan. The trick lies in how well fresh lime goes with beef. Really, really well as it turns out.
1. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and look at our story in Legends of the Guard #2. I thank you for your generosity in spending that effort. It means quite a bit to me.
2. So the doctor says that my foot injury is probably a tendon tear in the right heel, or something close to that. I'd gone after a full week of pain, figuring that was a reasonable window to get worried about it. Unfortunately I was informed that these kinds of injuries take two weeks to heal up. On the plus side I have a full license to be a lazy slob and prop my feet up until I recovered.
3. So I suspect that the injury came out of the increased exercise Sherri and I have been doing. We'd been walking 4-5km in the evening as our “dailys.” Sherri's approached this current health and weight loss program like a true gamer: with careful min-maxing, planning out of strategies, and making things into quest tasks. She's finally quit smoking as well which makes everything a little easier. So all good things-- once I'm able to walk around again and actually do some physical activity for a significant amount of time.
4. I love my doctor-- I went in with a list of other general health questions and such and he pretty much walked through the list in under five minutes. He's pretty direct and doesn't go for a lot of extra testing and such.
5. Three additional reasons for the delay in blogging: one, worked on a quick project proposal for something Gene's wanted to do. We'll see if that comes together-- I think we managed to put two really great spins on a classic property for a short story. Two, been sketching out ideas for a screenplay I want to write. I don't know why-- but it is something I figure I can reformat once I've done it into something else. Its built on an idea I put together for a collaboration that never went anywhere.
6. ...and three, I'm working on a new rpg campaign. I've mentioned what I'm thinking about to a couple of people and I've started to sketch out some notes. I'll use Action Cards again, with some twists. I want to talk about some of the things I've picked up from reading John Wick's new samurai rpg, Blood & Honor. Not ideas about samurai stuff (that's not the game), but more about campaign and community building in games. I suspect this game will be closer to City of Ocean...or not, still thinking about the frame.
7. Went to two movies this last weekend (thanks to Kenny & Tammy). I loved Inception, even in those parts where I was aware of the artifice. Nolan does a really great job of building up the visual grammar of the film in order to help the viewers keep track of where they are from moment to moment: there's effects based both on the colors and stages setting as well as based on certain repeated sequences. I can't even imagine what that screenplay must look like or how he wrestled that beast into place. Like Momento he goes in really novel directions-- but I think this is more accessible than some of his other movies. I also saw The Sorcerer's Apprentice which was fun, if goofy. It was a good summer movie in the classic "Hero's Journey" mode but really could have used an editor to cut about ten minutes out to increase the pacing.
8. Hans Zimmer did the score to Inception. In some ways he's become as ubiquitous as John Williams or Danny Elfman. Some of Zimmer's scores feel a little weak (Pirates, Kung Fu Panda, The Last Samurai) but others really work for me (The Ring, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes). I think Inception falls in the latter category. He has some great moments, particularly the dream-fixed sequences, which have more than a little echo of Philip Glass. Since I love Glass, I enjoy hearing Zimmer do his own take on that.
9. Rock Band 3 will have the ability to rate items in your collection and thereby determine how often they come up in the random sets. That's enough for me. I'll be buying that. That plus new songs makes that pretty much an obvious purchase. I also have to get a second upgraded guitar, but now I think I'll probably wait on that unless there's a huge deal somewhere. Current fascination is with the game Blur on the PS3. If you have a PS3 you really ought to buy this-- it is insanely fun.
10. The New Pornographers album Together is quite good. Not as great as Challengers, but really strong. Explosions in the Sky finally announced they will be going back to the studio to make an album for 2011. Other than that I've been listening to Beirut's Gulag Orkestar again more recently-- that's a solid album.
11. Finished a Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William Bernstein. Really, really good and pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this kind of book. A detailed history combined with cultural ideas and explanations. If I walk away from a non-fiction book with one or two really distinctive new ideas or ways of thinking about things I feel pretty satisfied. I came away with at least one per chapter.
12. Last but not least, with the new diet I've been trying a number of new dishes and recipes, some with more success than others. I made a Beef and Cucumber Salad, with the beef being a kind of fine oriental stir-fry, and it was pretty amazing. The cucumbers became really bitter but complimented the beef and flavorings very well. Not a bland dish. The Shrimp & Spinach Miso soup I made Sherri liked, but I found a little earthy for my taste. It had edamame beans in it which I found odd, but I liked the miso flavoring. Also Sherri liked the Thai Stir-Fried Rice with Chicken and Mint better than I did. It used brown rice which I was worried about, but came out nicely. Still it was fairly bland-- it needs more kick and flavors to it, which I'll put in next time I make it. I think that's a common problem with the Weight Watchers recipes-- they are a little bland to make them workable for a larger population. For example the Chicken with Savory Peaches I made-- which I liked-- will be significantly improved by the application of a doze of red chili flakes in with the ginger and garlic. Lastly we made Southwestern Tacos in the crock pot that turned out really, really well-- simple and on the plan. The trick lies in how well fresh lime goes with beef. Really, really well as it turns out.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
41
OK, so 41 yesterday. Thanks to everyone who sent greetings and wishes. Been a little out of it-- finally nearly done with this bronchitis. Haven't posted as much as I've been distracted by the lack of nicotine. Getting on two weeks clean on that front. Ran three games this weekend and I slowly regained my focus each session (the first one was pretty rough). I've also been playing City of Heroes to distract myself from general cravings.
Plan on getting back to regular postings next Monday.
*****
Star Wars first session this weekend and I'm nearly ready. Going to let the pilot pick some options (three) for his ship. I've put together a list below:
Armor: The ship can take an extra hit or two that gets past the deflectors without damage going to the internal systems. The ship can also take a few extra bumps and run ins with other ships or with debris that the deflector shields cannot handle. Armor is an ablative system, but relatively easily repaired. Armor's most useful against solid or mass based weapons.
Autoturret: One of the weapon or gun stations on the ship has a state of the art targeting computer, allowing it to fire on enemies without a gunner.
Back Up Systems: If a system, like life support, the hyperspace computer or the like goes down, the ship is equipped with a back up system which can take care of this until repairs are made. The back up systems choice is generic and doesn't need to be assigned, but can only hold up one system at a time.
Chaff/ECM Systems: The ship has launched systems which can disrupt tracking by missiles or other ships. In the latter case, it can disrupt tailing ships for a moment, allowing the pilot to take a free action to escape or shake pursuit.
Cloak and Grapple: The ship can easily hide and evade pursuit with modest cloaking functions. It can attach quietly to other ships. This is often a choice for smugglers and assassins, or those evading Imperial entanglements.
Combat Evasion Systems: The ship has built in defensive maneuver systems, giving it an additional repull for defensive maneuvers once per turn.
Comfortable: Quarters and space are tight on the ship normally. This option allows passengers to travel on the ship, provides room and space for some privacy and generally keeps the crew from killing each other over long flights.
Deflector Shields: All ships have deflectors to handle basic space garbage and the glancing turbo laser shot. This gives the ship more advanced systems, tooled especially for space combat. The deflectors capacitors can handle multiple laser hits more readily than standard ships. It can also shed other energy damage better. Deflector shields are most useful against energy based weapons and attacks.
Drop Stop: The ship can burn off its inertia and stop on a relative dime. The ship must come back up to speed after doing such a maneuver.
Extra Gunnery Station: The ship is assumed to have a single basic gunnery station, this option provides a second gunnery station which can be operated by another crewmember. This provides better coverage for defense and allows the gunners to coordinate.
Fast Hyperspace Computer: Calculating the jump to hyperspace can be a difficult matter for the piloting computer. It has to read from the most up to date information, calculate position and calculate problems along the path. This ship possessed a more sophisticated hyperspace computer allowing it to crunch those calculations faster and in problematic situations (such as inside of an asteroid belt).
Fast: The ship is at the top end of speed for its class. It can, over time, outrun ships in a similar range. This represents the engines maximum speed, rather than maneuverability. Only ships with like adjustments or with Super-fast engines (such as Interceptors) can keep up with the ship in a straight race.
Fuel Efficient: The ship rarely needs to refuel.
Hard to Destroy: It might take a lot of damage, but the ship it tough-- meaning it will hold together despite heavy punishment. It might be a floating hulk with minimal life support, but it will stay intact.
Heavy Weapons: One of the weapon or gun stations on the ship has a significantly heavier weapon than normal. It can do critical damage to opponent ships and possibly overwhelm standard deflectors for ships of its class.
Maneuverable: The ship is highly maneuverable, making it more dangerous in combat and allowing it to safety pass through trick obstacles. In part this functions as a bonus repull to any maneuver test the pilot makes. It also means the ships better at handling the stresses of such maneuvers.
Medical Facilities: The ship has advanced medical facilities on board, allowing medical care for higher level wounds to be given.
Pod/Shuttle: The ship has a separate small launch which can function as a very light fighter or as a vehicle when the ship is on the ground.
Reliable Engine: The engine on the ship is sturdy and reliable, allowing it to bounce the first critical hit it takes. The engine itself can take stresses and can be more easily repaired than a normal one. Parts for the reliable engine can be found anywhere or with a skilled engineer, parts can be easily fabricated or jerry-rigged.
Scout Sensors: The ship has been equipped with advanced long-range sensors. It can scan passively from a distance and pick up more sophisticated and specific information than normal ship readings. Such sensors are useful for plotting hyperspace jumps, being able to keep away from pursuit in a system, and maintaining a safe distance from problematic targets.
Secret Weapon: The ship possesses a unique and odd weapon which can be developed by the player.
Smuggler Systems: The ship has systems built to foil or present a false image to other ships, ports or starbases scanning for information or contraband. It also has hidden compartments where some cargo can be concealed and not detected during internal searches.
Plan on getting back to regular postings next Monday.
*****
Star Wars first session this weekend and I'm nearly ready. Going to let the pilot pick some options (three) for his ship. I've put together a list below:
Armor: The ship can take an extra hit or two that gets past the deflectors without damage going to the internal systems. The ship can also take a few extra bumps and run ins with other ships or with debris that the deflector shields cannot handle. Armor is an ablative system, but relatively easily repaired. Armor's most useful against solid or mass based weapons.
Autoturret: One of the weapon or gun stations on the ship has a state of the art targeting computer, allowing it to fire on enemies without a gunner.
Back Up Systems: If a system, like life support, the hyperspace computer or the like goes down, the ship is equipped with a back up system which can take care of this until repairs are made. The back up systems choice is generic and doesn't need to be assigned, but can only hold up one system at a time.
Chaff/ECM Systems: The ship has launched systems which can disrupt tracking by missiles or other ships. In the latter case, it can disrupt tailing ships for a moment, allowing the pilot to take a free action to escape or shake pursuit.
Cloak and Grapple: The ship can easily hide and evade pursuit with modest cloaking functions. It can attach quietly to other ships. This is often a choice for smugglers and assassins, or those evading Imperial entanglements.
Combat Evasion Systems: The ship has built in defensive maneuver systems, giving it an additional repull for defensive maneuvers once per turn.
Comfortable: Quarters and space are tight on the ship normally. This option allows passengers to travel on the ship, provides room and space for some privacy and generally keeps the crew from killing each other over long flights.
Deflector Shields: All ships have deflectors to handle basic space garbage and the glancing turbo laser shot. This gives the ship more advanced systems, tooled especially for space combat. The deflectors capacitors can handle multiple laser hits more readily than standard ships. It can also shed other energy damage better. Deflector shields are most useful against energy based weapons and attacks.
Drop Stop: The ship can burn off its inertia and stop on a relative dime. The ship must come back up to speed after doing such a maneuver.
Extra Gunnery Station: The ship is assumed to have a single basic gunnery station, this option provides a second gunnery station which can be operated by another crewmember. This provides better coverage for defense and allows the gunners to coordinate.
Fast Hyperspace Computer: Calculating the jump to hyperspace can be a difficult matter for the piloting computer. It has to read from the most up to date information, calculate position and calculate problems along the path. This ship possessed a more sophisticated hyperspace computer allowing it to crunch those calculations faster and in problematic situations (such as inside of an asteroid belt).
Fast: The ship is at the top end of speed for its class. It can, over time, outrun ships in a similar range. This represents the engines maximum speed, rather than maneuverability. Only ships with like adjustments or with Super-fast engines (such as Interceptors) can keep up with the ship in a straight race.
Fuel Efficient: The ship rarely needs to refuel.
Hard to Destroy: It might take a lot of damage, but the ship it tough-- meaning it will hold together despite heavy punishment. It might be a floating hulk with minimal life support, but it will stay intact.
Heavy Weapons: One of the weapon or gun stations on the ship has a significantly heavier weapon than normal. It can do critical damage to opponent ships and possibly overwhelm standard deflectors for ships of its class.
Maneuverable: The ship is highly maneuverable, making it more dangerous in combat and allowing it to safety pass through trick obstacles. In part this functions as a bonus repull to any maneuver test the pilot makes. It also means the ships better at handling the stresses of such maneuvers.
Medical Facilities: The ship has advanced medical facilities on board, allowing medical care for higher level wounds to be given.
Pod/Shuttle: The ship has a separate small launch which can function as a very light fighter or as a vehicle when the ship is on the ground.
Reliable Engine: The engine on the ship is sturdy and reliable, allowing it to bounce the first critical hit it takes. The engine itself can take stresses and can be more easily repaired than a normal one. Parts for the reliable engine can be found anywhere or with a skilled engineer, parts can be easily fabricated or jerry-rigged.
Scout Sensors: The ship has been equipped with advanced long-range sensors. It can scan passively from a distance and pick up more sophisticated and specific information than normal ship readings. Such sensors are useful for plotting hyperspace jumps, being able to keep away from pursuit in a system, and maintaining a safe distance from problematic targets.
Secret Weapon: The ship possesses a unique and odd weapon which can be developed by the player.
Smuggler Systems: The ship has systems built to foil or present a false image to other ships, ports or starbases scanning for information or contraband. It also has hidden compartments where some cargo can be concealed and not detected during internal searches.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Still a Geek
Will be slow posting this week as I'm answering questions over at rpggeek. I expect that will trail off later as people realize this just gives me the opportunity to write long and self-aggrandizing digressions on role-playing. If you haven't taken a look yet, check out the thread. Thanks to everyone who has posted questions and I encourage everybody to post there. My players will be rewarded, a not so subtle hint.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Last Things To Be Said About 2009
Honestly 2009 ended up a really solid year for gaming, but pretty much an awful year for most everything else. We had some general awfulness from my sister-in-law who managed to drag the family through more turmoil after soaking us for a chunk of money we're clearly never going to see again; we saw a good friend go through an awful divorce that- while for the better for her- still meant her having to suffer through a lot of unpleasantness which I certainly wouldn't have wished on anyone; my mother went through a cancer scare that shook her (and me) pretty badly though the surgery went much better than we could have hoped; my father as well went through a number of health emergencies and problems that also freaked me out; my incipient ulcer; we had a couple of new people in the group pull back their masks to reveal the crazy; and of course my job hunt remains unsuccessful.
Good things would be that we're still alive and intact. We got through the holidays which, pretty much from Halloween on feels like a rapid downhill slalom. I got a story published with Gene in a Spanish and American anthology, so it was great to see that in print. We had a great visit from my sister- honestly the highpoint of the year for me. We only got out of South Bend once this year, but that was to go to Gene's pretty amazing birthday party in Chicago. My niece started at Indiana Academy which I consider an epic win for her. We found some new coffee that we like and generally managed to avoid anything too traumatic in life.
I did see a few things that stuck with me this year-- Kung Fu Panda and Wal-E on Blu-Ray. I finally got more caught up with the new Dr. Who which I like but don't love. Better to say that I love some of it, but not all. I blew through How I Met Your Mother which is a solid show, doing really good stuff with characters. I'd count Fringe, Better Off Ted, Castle and Modern Family as the only other TV shows I follow with any regularity-- pretty much strictly on Hulu. Movie-wise I don't remember all that much I saw in the theater-- Paranormal Activity was strong, but other than that? Did Watchmen come out this year-- if so I count that a disappointment. I'm more fascinated with odd cinema now that I can find that on DVD through Netflix. I worked through quite a bit of classic wushu stuff-- both TV series and movies. I caught quite a bit of Seijun Suzuki's work, a Japanese direction who is something like a midpoint between Lynch and Goddard. Worth checking out but be prepared, especially on his later efforts, to be lost wondering what is happening. I think my favorite surprise film this year was the Thai martial arts film Chocolate which has a weak plot but absolutely amazing fight sand choreography.
I don't think I really bought much new this year in the way of actual rpg books. A traded for some of the Gumshoe stuff, including Trail of Cthulhu which is dynamite. I'd recommend Play Unsafe and Things We Think About Games-- both of which gave me some really strong ideas. Reading the first of those led me to read Keith Johnstone's Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre which I think is necessary reading for thinking about running NPCs for the players-- how to react with an open approach, how to change up the scene, and how to denote status shifts. I did read HeroQuest 2e by Robin Laws and I think that's one of the most important rpg systems I've looked at. I really does most of what I want a game to do.
I managed to put up 237 posts in 2009. Let's chop a quarter of those off to being filler, and another quarter to being just not so good. That's 118 I'd sign my name to again, and probably half of that I'd say are really strong. I also threw a good deal of effort into geekdo (aka rpggeek)-- becoming one of the largest contributors to database entries, posting reviews and session reports, and putting up geeklists and threads. I've really enjoyed that experience and I encourage everyone again to take a look around there and contribute if you can.
Jim McClain makes a nice observation that resolutions sounds a little off, that goals is probably the better way to put this, so in short, my goals for 2010:
1. Keep up an every-other day schedule for blogging here.
2. Go back through last years entries and where I started a series of ideas but didn't finish, get through written up.
3. Do campaign post-mortems for a couple other games.
4. Put titles on blog entries this year.
5. Get the Action Cards rules done up nicely into a 3e version playable by others.
6. Run Action Cards at a convention with a cold group.
7. Finish revisions to one of my board game designs and submit it somewhere. Get one or two of the other designs somewhat in shape.
8. Get a job.
9. Finish one novel.
10. Get something significant published.
11. Get out of town at least four times this year.
12. Finish video games I buy this year-- or at least improve my record significantly on that.
13. End one of my campaigns and start something new I haven't run before.
14. Reduce and eliminate my smoking.
15. Follow through more consistently on my exercise.
16. Play every board game I own that I haven't played at least once.
17. Develop at least three new core recipes for my dinner repertoire.
18. Listen to more new music.
Good things would be that we're still alive and intact. We got through the holidays which, pretty much from Halloween on feels like a rapid downhill slalom. I got a story published with Gene in a Spanish and American anthology, so it was great to see that in print. We had a great visit from my sister- honestly the highpoint of the year for me. We only got out of South Bend once this year, but that was to go to Gene's pretty amazing birthday party in Chicago. My niece started at Indiana Academy which I consider an epic win for her. We found some new coffee that we like and generally managed to avoid anything too traumatic in life.
I did see a few things that stuck with me this year-- Kung Fu Panda and Wal-E on Blu-Ray. I finally got more caught up with the new Dr. Who which I like but don't love. Better to say that I love some of it, but not all. I blew through How I Met Your Mother which is a solid show, doing really good stuff with characters. I'd count Fringe, Better Off Ted, Castle and Modern Family as the only other TV shows I follow with any regularity-- pretty much strictly on Hulu. Movie-wise I don't remember all that much I saw in the theater-- Paranormal Activity was strong, but other than that? Did Watchmen come out this year-- if so I count that a disappointment. I'm more fascinated with odd cinema now that I can find that on DVD through Netflix. I worked through quite a bit of classic wushu stuff-- both TV series and movies. I caught quite a bit of Seijun Suzuki's work, a Japanese direction who is something like a midpoint between Lynch and Goddard. Worth checking out but be prepared, especially on his later efforts, to be lost wondering what is happening. I think my favorite surprise film this year was the Thai martial arts film Chocolate which has a weak plot but absolutely amazing fight sand choreography.
I don't think I really bought much new this year in the way of actual rpg books. A traded for some of the Gumshoe stuff, including Trail of Cthulhu which is dynamite. I'd recommend Play Unsafe and Things We Think About Games-- both of which gave me some really strong ideas. Reading the first of those led me to read Keith Johnstone's Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre which I think is necessary reading for thinking about running NPCs for the players-- how to react with an open approach, how to change up the scene, and how to denote status shifts. I did read HeroQuest 2e by Robin Laws and I think that's one of the most important rpg systems I've looked at. I really does most of what I want a game to do.
I managed to put up 237 posts in 2009. Let's chop a quarter of those off to being filler, and another quarter to being just not so good. That's 118 I'd sign my name to again, and probably half of that I'd say are really strong. I also threw a good deal of effort into geekdo (aka rpggeek)-- becoming one of the largest contributors to database entries, posting reviews and session reports, and putting up geeklists and threads. I've really enjoyed that experience and I encourage everyone again to take a look around there and contribute if you can.
Jim McClain makes a nice observation that resolutions sounds a little off, that goals is probably the better way to put this, so in short, my goals for 2010:
1. Keep up an every-other day schedule for blogging here.
2. Go back through last years entries and where I started a series of ideas but didn't finish, get through written up.
3. Do campaign post-mortems for a couple other games.
4. Put titles on blog entries this year.
5. Get the Action Cards rules done up nicely into a 3e version playable by others.
6. Run Action Cards at a convention with a cold group.
7. Finish revisions to one of my board game designs and submit it somewhere. Get one or two of the other designs somewhat in shape.
8. Get a job.
9. Finish one novel.
10. Get something significant published.
11. Get out of town at least four times this year.
12. Finish video games I buy this year-- or at least improve my record significantly on that.
13. End one of my campaigns and start something new I haven't run before.
14. Reduce and eliminate my smoking.
15. Follow through more consistently on my exercise.
16. Play every board game I own that I haven't played at least once.
17. Develop at least three new core recipes for my dinner repertoire.
18. Listen to more new music.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
12/1/09
OK, so I made it through the Thanksgiving holidays. They are by far the busiest time of the year for us. We get started on things usually on that Monday, but we ended up losing that day due to illness. I actually had to cancel the Sunday game the day before that as I wasn't feeling 100%. However by Tuesday I felt decent. We got through the multi-stage shopping and in the evening my niece Kali joined us. She once again was a lifesaver for getting things done. Plus she got the chance to play Batman Arkham Asylum which my brother had lent me. She worked on that for about eight hours straight.
T-Day itself went off pretty well-- we had about fourteen people, which was down a little, but we had a nice mix and Kenny and Tammy joined us since their Thanksgiving had gotten moved to Saturday. I got up a little earlier than I usually do since I was working with a 27 pound bird. Surprisingly, the bird actually came out earlier than I expected-- I left it in an extra half-hour to be sure which I shouldn't have. The temp was pretty certain and I should have just taken it out to come up to rest. We had at least a dozen and a half different dishes-- a crazy amount of food. We got through perhaps half of it. I then collapsed on the couch until my brother stopped by to grab some late-night food (he'd been at work) before heading out of town.
Friday saw me sleeping in and then getting the house straightened up. I worked on my game for the last couple of hours of the day and then did a session of Libri Vidicos. The group had decided to head to a strange place to find out information, so a good deal of the session was given over to interactions with the environment and exploration. We had the good fortune to have Art Lyon sit in on the game as well-- which gave me a chance to show off the Action Cards system. The session went well and I pull out a couple of revelations I'd been saving. Probably one more session of their summer break and then we begin Year Three of that campaign-- so new classes and events for the characters this year.
Saturday, of course, saw the Big Videogame day which some have dubbed Lowellapalooza given the amount of Rock Band being played. We had plenty of food, and only a couple of logistical problems. Once again people generously pitched in to fill out the video games available-- I have to thank Kenny, Rob, Eric, Dave & Chas, Will and Steve for bringing televisions, consoles, controllers, and games. Beatles Rock Band went over pretty well and I was pleasantly surprised by new Boom Blox game for the Wii. It is much better than the original in that you can do party play right out of the box. Anyway, we started about noon and I think I gave people the boot about 10pm.
Sunday pretty much saw me sleep in and recover. I also caught up with the new Dr. Who series, finally watching up through the end of Season Three. I took about half of the turkey carcass and made stock from it. I then made a Thai Turkey and Rice soup, flavored with chilies, ginger, garlic and lemongrass. It came out pretty well-- you serve it with fresh cilantro, basil and scallions. I hadn't considered turkey as a Thai ingredient, so I was pretty shocked at the flavor. The stock came out nicely, though it was a good deal of work. The other half of the carcass I'm going to need a cleaver to break up, so I have that freezing right now.
Did some work on Changeling, got caught up on my editing project (although I'm in a holding pattern right now on that) and did some cleaning. I have some more to do which I'm going to head off to in a second. I have Rites of Passage by the Indigo Girls on the machine, an album I'd forgotten the greatness of.
My next ambitions, for December:
1.More job hunting
2.Finish revising this script for Gene
3.My full rewrite of Action Cards
4.Get to play L4D2 with my brother
5.Get caught up on emailing people
6.Blog regularly through the month.
7.Get the next two arcs (for Changeling and Libri Vidicos) off to a good start
T-Day itself went off pretty well-- we had about fourteen people, which was down a little, but we had a nice mix and Kenny and Tammy joined us since their Thanksgiving had gotten moved to Saturday. I got up a little earlier than I usually do since I was working with a 27 pound bird. Surprisingly, the bird actually came out earlier than I expected-- I left it in an extra half-hour to be sure which I shouldn't have. The temp was pretty certain and I should have just taken it out to come up to rest. We had at least a dozen and a half different dishes-- a crazy amount of food. We got through perhaps half of it. I then collapsed on the couch until my brother stopped by to grab some late-night food (he'd been at work) before heading out of town.
Friday saw me sleeping in and then getting the house straightened up. I worked on my game for the last couple of hours of the day and then did a session of Libri Vidicos. The group had decided to head to a strange place to find out information, so a good deal of the session was given over to interactions with the environment and exploration. We had the good fortune to have Art Lyon sit in on the game as well-- which gave me a chance to show off the Action Cards system. The session went well and I pull out a couple of revelations I'd been saving. Probably one more session of their summer break and then we begin Year Three of that campaign-- so new classes and events for the characters this year.
Saturday, of course, saw the Big Videogame day which some have dubbed Lowellapalooza given the amount of Rock Band being played. We had plenty of food, and only a couple of logistical problems. Once again people generously pitched in to fill out the video games available-- I have to thank Kenny, Rob, Eric, Dave & Chas, Will and Steve for bringing televisions, consoles, controllers, and games. Beatles Rock Band went over pretty well and I was pleasantly surprised by new Boom Blox game for the Wii. It is much better than the original in that you can do party play right out of the box. Anyway, we started about noon and I think I gave people the boot about 10pm.
Sunday pretty much saw me sleep in and recover. I also caught up with the new Dr. Who series, finally watching up through the end of Season Three. I took about half of the turkey carcass and made stock from it. I then made a Thai Turkey and Rice soup, flavored with chilies, ginger, garlic and lemongrass. It came out pretty well-- you serve it with fresh cilantro, basil and scallions. I hadn't considered turkey as a Thai ingredient, so I was pretty shocked at the flavor. The stock came out nicely, though it was a good deal of work. The other half of the carcass I'm going to need a cleaver to break up, so I have that freezing right now.
Did some work on Changeling, got caught up on my editing project (although I'm in a holding pattern right now on that) and did some cleaning. I have some more to do which I'm going to head off to in a second. I have Rites of Passage by the Indigo Girls on the machine, an album I'd forgotten the greatness of.
My next ambitions, for December:
1.More job hunting
2.Finish revising this script for Gene
3.My full rewrite of Action Cards
4.Get to play L4D2 with my brother
5.Get caught up on emailing people
6.Blog regularly through the month.
7.Get the next two arcs (for Changeling and Libri Vidicos) off to a good start
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
11/18/09
Overwhelmed Skip Day
Question for the Day: Is it a sign of the times that I love Keyboard Cat but I've never actually watched the viral video for it?
Question for the Day: Is it a sign of the times that I love Keyboard Cat but I've never actually watched the viral video for it?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
10/20/09
Linkdump October
As I catch my breath from the overly long L5R article I posted over the last couple of days. Sidenote: feeling slightly better, certainly less pain or at least more manageable. We'll see how this plays out-- I had planned on going back for another round of tests, but if the Prilosec's finally having an effect, I'll finish out the course of this and then check in.
* Here's a nice article on Japanese Storytelling conventions and ideas- in manga and anime. Sherri's an I were talking about this the other night after we watched Princess Raccoon. That's an unapologetic and strange movie. I've watched some anime recently where I tried to figure out what was subtext and what was text...at least in the case of Shikabane Hime, I hope there's some ironic commentary, if not I feel dirty.
* I've mentioned my love for the Shin Megami Tensai video games. This is an interesting article from the design team behind Persona 4 talking about what they thought went right and wrong with the product. I always like seeing those behind-the-scenes posts.
* Steamcon! and more Steampunk!
* I like the new Modest Mouse EP and there's a bizarre fan-made art project video for my favorite song from it.
* Tempting...
* A bookstore I'd like to visit.
* A link to a linkdump-- a nice collection of articles on role-playing.
* More of Robin Laws' insightful take on narrative and rpgs, the idea of The Win Space.
* Video games and the commodity model of sex.
* The Free RPG Blog is worth following as is gameplaywright.net which I linked to yesterday.
* Autotune Sagan plus.
As I catch my breath from the overly long L5R article I posted over the last couple of days. Sidenote: feeling slightly better, certainly less pain or at least more manageable. We'll see how this plays out-- I had planned on going back for another round of tests, but if the Prilosec's finally having an effect, I'll finish out the course of this and then check in.
* Here's a nice article on Japanese Storytelling conventions and ideas- in manga and anime. Sherri's an I were talking about this the other night after we watched Princess Raccoon. That's an unapologetic and strange movie. I've watched some anime recently where I tried to figure out what was subtext and what was text...at least in the case of Shikabane Hime, I hope there's some ironic commentary, if not I feel dirty.
* I've mentioned my love for the Shin Megami Tensai video games. This is an interesting article from the design team behind Persona 4 talking about what they thought went right and wrong with the product. I always like seeing those behind-the-scenes posts.
* Steamcon! and more Steampunk!
* I like the new Modest Mouse EP and there's a bizarre fan-made art project video for my favorite song from it.
* Tempting...
* A bookstore I'd like to visit.
* A link to a linkdump-- a nice collection of articles on role-playing.
* More of Robin Laws' insightful take on narrative and rpgs, the idea of The Win Space.
* Video games and the commodity model of sex.
* The Free RPG Blog is worth following as is gameplaywright.net which I linked to yesterday.
* Autotune Sagan plus.
Friday, October 16, 2009
10/16/09
Thousand Word Status Update
This morning I dropped Sherri off at work and came back home. I pulled up to the bridge intersection to the aftermath of a major car crash. One car had been thrown up onto the lawn of a house, a pick-up bent across the southbound lanes and another still sat there in the intersection. Glass, debris, pieces of car everywhere. It had to have happened minutes before I pulled up and maybe minutes after Sherri and I had been in that same intersection- it doesn't take me long to drop her off and get back to the house. Really kind of freaky.
I flashed back to the other car crash (besides my own) stuck in my mind. Years ago I was in Chicago with Art and Matt having just seen a movie (Ran or Last Temptation of Christ, I don't remember which). We came down a hill and saw a car in an intersection completely flipped over. It was still slowly spinning. I think that's what I remember...I mean how much of that have I embellished in my memory now? Some things I have crystal clarity about-- mostly stupid things I did and said years ago that come back to me suddenly and make me groan. I know that those have veracity, an exactness of detail I can't avoid. But things like these seen-at-a-distance stories. I mean I tell a lot of stories and run a lot of games, so how much do I reweave those in my own head.
To quote from an email I sent my players- I've been down with some unexplained pain since last Thursday-- forcing me to two games last weekend, miss Kenny's session, skip a special board game event, and pass on my niece's birthday party. Not that I'm bitter. Anyway, I saw the doctor this week and the first round of tests didn't show anything. He's got me on Prilosec and we'll see if things calm down, if not, there's a bonus round next week of more invasive procedures (yit-yeh...?). So yes-- old guy walking.
Things I've watched or read recently that struck me: I still like Castle on ABC but it becomes clearer each episode that I only watch it for Nathan Fillion. I gave up on Dollhouse after seeing the unaired episode on DVD- an episode which pretty much presented closure to the entire arc. I don't need to see any more. Will tells me Season Two has started out pretty weak. Been following Community on NBC and while I like it, I don't think the show yet knows what it wants to be. Anime-wise I finally watched all of Ergo Proxy. Anime falls into one of two categories for me: OK or WTF? This fell lightly into the latter group. That must be what it is like for my players when I spin an overly complicated story and they just go along for the ride. Read the third volume of Absolute Sandman (before handing it off to my niece for her birthday). There's some amusing undercutting of his own ethos that Gaiman pulls off there--making fun of the poseur nature of things. It is done lightly, not like the kick in the teeth FU of Neon Genesis Evangelion where the writer seems to be taking revenge on the viewers. Read and saw some other things, but nothing that sticks with me right this second.
Trying to hunt down a copy of Castle Falkenstein the rpg. We had a couple of copies before the fire. That's another one of those games I had on my list to run years ago and never go around to doing so. It is interesting that it came at the start of what would eventually be a real fascination with Steampunk. But I don't want to go one too far as I'm writing someone up to accompany that article I did on Cyberpunk rpgs and literary genres.
I love police procedural mysteries, but more and more I can't stand watching them. Netflix has a bunch of them available for on demand viewing (Numbers, Wire in the Blood, CSI, and so on) but there's something off-putting to me about most of them. The British ones appear to have more sophistication and depth, but I think that's kind of an illusion. Mind you I may be a little jaded since I just got done finally catching up on The Wire.
Four campaigns going on-- I had to bump two of them last week. Planning on running the other two this weekend. Libri Vidicos continues on well. I tried a narrative trick with memory loss and flashbacks that has worked pretty well and broke up the usual structure of the game. We had a nice puzzle session last time. I always happy when players are stumped for a little bit and then work out a solution, especially one which taxes their resources. The last Wushu game went pretty well. I still have to do some tweaks on the combat system, possibly turn sequencing, and definitely need to give the warrior archetype some additional options. I also have to write up the last several session reports for the game. Changeling continues to go pretty well, although that was one that got bumped. The Third Continent game works in great part based on really good play and character banter as much as anything, and I'm enjoying that. L5R continues to pull at me and I think I want to sit down to figure out how one would adapt that to HeroQuest 2e- if nothing else I really want to try that system out.
Played a few new boardgames, but nothing that really grabbed me. I'm got a couple of larger “monster” games that I really want to get a chance to play but they'll take some hours on everyone's part. There's a new local BG group so I'm hoping to go to their next meeting. That's in Goshen, so it means a half-hour drive.
End.
This morning I dropped Sherri off at work and came back home. I pulled up to the bridge intersection to the aftermath of a major car crash. One car had been thrown up onto the lawn of a house, a pick-up bent across the southbound lanes and another still sat there in the intersection. Glass, debris, pieces of car everywhere. It had to have happened minutes before I pulled up and maybe minutes after Sherri and I had been in that same intersection- it doesn't take me long to drop her off and get back to the house. Really kind of freaky.
I flashed back to the other car crash (besides my own) stuck in my mind. Years ago I was in Chicago with Art and Matt having just seen a movie (Ran or Last Temptation of Christ, I don't remember which). We came down a hill and saw a car in an intersection completely flipped over. It was still slowly spinning. I think that's what I remember...I mean how much of that have I embellished in my memory now? Some things I have crystal clarity about-- mostly stupid things I did and said years ago that come back to me suddenly and make me groan. I know that those have veracity, an exactness of detail I can't avoid. But things like these seen-at-a-distance stories. I mean I tell a lot of stories and run a lot of games, so how much do I reweave those in my own head.
To quote from an email I sent my players- I've been down with some unexplained pain since last Thursday-- forcing me to two games last weekend, miss Kenny's session, skip a special board game event, and pass on my niece's birthday party. Not that I'm bitter. Anyway, I saw the doctor this week and the first round of tests didn't show anything. He's got me on Prilosec and we'll see if things calm down, if not, there's a bonus round next week of more invasive procedures (yit-yeh...?). So yes-- old guy walking.
Things I've watched or read recently that struck me: I still like Castle on ABC but it becomes clearer each episode that I only watch it for Nathan Fillion. I gave up on Dollhouse after seeing the unaired episode on DVD- an episode which pretty much presented closure to the entire arc. I don't need to see any more. Will tells me Season Two has started out pretty weak. Been following Community on NBC and while I like it, I don't think the show yet knows what it wants to be. Anime-wise I finally watched all of Ergo Proxy. Anime falls into one of two categories for me: OK or WTF? This fell lightly into the latter group. That must be what it is like for my players when I spin an overly complicated story and they just go along for the ride. Read the third volume of Absolute Sandman (before handing it off to my niece for her birthday). There's some amusing undercutting of his own ethos that Gaiman pulls off there--making fun of the poseur nature of things. It is done lightly, not like the kick in the teeth FU of Neon Genesis Evangelion where the writer seems to be taking revenge on the viewers. Read and saw some other things, but nothing that sticks with me right this second.
Trying to hunt down a copy of Castle Falkenstein the rpg. We had a couple of copies before the fire. That's another one of those games I had on my list to run years ago and never go around to doing so. It is interesting that it came at the start of what would eventually be a real fascination with Steampunk. But I don't want to go one too far as I'm writing someone up to accompany that article I did on Cyberpunk rpgs and literary genres.
I love police procedural mysteries, but more and more I can't stand watching them. Netflix has a bunch of them available for on demand viewing (Numbers, Wire in the Blood, CSI, and so on) but there's something off-putting to me about most of them. The British ones appear to have more sophistication and depth, but I think that's kind of an illusion. Mind you I may be a little jaded since I just got done finally catching up on The Wire.
Four campaigns going on-- I had to bump two of them last week. Planning on running the other two this weekend. Libri Vidicos continues on well. I tried a narrative trick with memory loss and flashbacks that has worked pretty well and broke up the usual structure of the game. We had a nice puzzle session last time. I always happy when players are stumped for a little bit and then work out a solution, especially one which taxes their resources. The last Wushu game went pretty well. I still have to do some tweaks on the combat system, possibly turn sequencing, and definitely need to give the warrior archetype some additional options. I also have to write up the last several session reports for the game. Changeling continues to go pretty well, although that was one that got bumped. The Third Continent game works in great part based on really good play and character banter as much as anything, and I'm enjoying that. L5R continues to pull at me and I think I want to sit down to figure out how one would adapt that to HeroQuest 2e- if nothing else I really want to try that system out.
Played a few new boardgames, but nothing that really grabbed me. I'm got a couple of larger “monster” games that I really want to get a chance to play but they'll take some hours on everyone's part. There's a new local BG group so I'm hoping to go to their next meeting. That's in Goshen, so it means a half-hour drive.
End.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
9/1/09
Post-bump post.
My mom's finally packed up from her apartment, seen off to the airport with my sister, and winging her way to Seattle. Will miss her- but not the stress of getting everything that's needed to be done over the last three months (medical and otherwise).
And of course found out Friday my Dad went in for emergency heart surgery last week. Talked to him Sunday and he seems tired but recovering.
I'd like nothing stress inducing to occur for the next couple of months please. What a weird, weird summer.
Blogging will be as blogging does.
Edit: Just a heads up--probably will be blogging infrequently for the month of September-- want to get some things written (a couple of articles, some novella drafts, some rpg stuff, and my board game rules) plus the ongoing job hunt. So I'll try to concentrate on that first.
My mom's finally packed up from her apartment, seen off to the airport with my sister, and winging her way to Seattle. Will miss her- but not the stress of getting everything that's needed to be done over the last three months (medical and otherwise).
And of course found out Friday my Dad went in for emergency heart surgery last week. Talked to him Sunday and he seems tired but recovering.
I'd like nothing stress inducing to occur for the next couple of months please. What a weird, weird summer.
Blogging will be as blogging does.
Edit: Just a heads up--probably will be blogging infrequently for the month of September-- want to get some things written (a couple of articles, some novella drafts, some rpg stuff, and my board game rules) plus the ongoing job hunt. So I'll try to concentrate on that first.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
White Mountain, Black River Session One
Finally hoping to get things back on track-- been really jumbled for about the last eight weeks. As some of you know, my mom had been planning to move to Seattle at the end of July and had made the necessary arrangements. However, in mid-June, we got a diagnosis of colon cancer. That put everything on hold. Long story short, we had to make many other arrangements and preparations. Cat, my sister, arrived and has been handling most of that- with a skill and energy I have to envy. Having her here has been a life-saver on all accounts. Bottom line, my mom is back from the hospital, recovering well and in all likelihood will be well enough to travel at the end of August.
I want to thank everyone for their well-wishes and support. I also want to thank everyone who had been patient and tolerant with us over the last couple of months-- between all of that, cat illnesses, trying to get two new campaigns up and running, new projects I've been working on, and various other crises in the lives of others in the group, I'm been bad about keeping up with things. I appreciate your patience and understanding. I'm dreadfully behind on game emails, and I'll try to get caught up on those.
Had a good evening yesterday-- Cat joined our normal Rock Band crew and we had a nice full house. The memorable moment for me will always be my brother Eric singing "Sex Machine" by James Brown. For other it may also be me singing "Pretty Fly for a White Guy". Will also coined a couple of new catchphrases, of which one- Kobold- I plan to use often. Nice session and just about wiped away the bad taste of having several people in the group rip away their faces away to reveal The Crazy recently.
Anyway, back to blogging-- beginning with a session write up for the Wushu campaign.
Wushu Session One
So we finally got started with the Wushu game and the first session which gave us a chance to see how the combat and action mechanics modifications actually worked in practice. After just two combats, I'm generally pretty hopeful. We'll have to see how it plays out over the course of several more fights, but I think it will work.
Right now the group is:
Wu-Long, Warrior (Kenny): Wu'Long also goes by the Taoist name 'Dancing Wind'. I see Wu'Long as a classic character to this genre. The young well trained warrior, with a variety of styles and weapons at his disposal. He has a trait that will be interesting, in that he believes that his life is being steered by the Heavenly Mandate of the many Gods. In effect he believes he is the hand of fate and watches the world for signs guiding his actions. We shall have to wait and see if this is a blessing or something more problematic. He is also a recognizable figure in some Wulin circles and is often confronted and challenged by others from opposing schools and clans. Much to their dismay, they shall find out for themselves that his Kung-Fu is strong.
Fei-Lang, Scholar (Scott): Sent to monastery at an early age to learn the scholarly arts, he was abducted by an evil Snow Queen and forced to serve her. Learning her icy sorceries, he was eventually able to make his escape, but the Snow Queen's minion's are always searching to get him back. This, combined with his upbringing in a secluded monastery, has caused him to develop an aversion to beautiful women.
Zhen Ai, Courtier (Sherri): Charitable and possessed of the sort of beauty that inspires love at first sight from all the wrong people, Zhen Ai is the perpetual tag-along to her other Gorgeous Cousins. If only they let her play too...
We also have a fourth character, Brandy's Alchemist (who I don't have a name written down for). She's a magical scholar as well, but of a very different kind than Fei-Lang. All four of them are cousins, children of a set of heroic brothers (and one sister) who helped fight for the Kingdom in the previous generation. Because of those connections and their own native skills, they have been appointed to the new post of magistrates for the Offices of the Provincial Inquiry. They spoke with General Jing Ping who formally assigned them to their posts. He also instructed them that they would be in charge of handling matters in the Province of Yanzhou, a delicate responsibility. Three other Magistrates would also be assigned to the province (the other PCs: Dusty, Gene and one other) who would meet them in the province. These magistrates would be traveling from time to time and meeting up with them as the opportunity or cases arose.
The group agreed to the responsibility and received further instruction. They would travel incognito to the province and head to the city of Rooted Serenity. The city governor there, Flawless Ning, is said to be a close ally of the Provincial Governor Qui Cheng. In fact he's often described as the Governor's man. In any case, Flawless Ning holds a small tournament of skill for youthful martial artists and scholars. The group would travel to Rooted Serenity, participate in the tournament and gain acclaim. Only after having established their reputation would they reveal themselves as incoming magistrates- a plan devised by the General to make sure that people take the new agents seriously.
However, in order to gain entry into the tournament, the players would have to travel to the town of Willow Repose, in the province of Geyuan, south of Yanzhou. There they would meet with Shenhua Fudoyan, a person of importance owing favors to the general. He would provide the proper papers to allow the players entry into the tournament. They agreed and set off, with one additional complication, in that their Alchemical cousin would have to wait behind a couple of additonal days in order to repair a particularly devastating accident she'd caused. She would catch up with them later.
The group traveled north, following the path of the Black River. Arriving in Willow's Repose, they began looking about for directions to the estate of their benefactor, Fudoyan. However they noticed some things while in Willow's Repose, the first being a certain laxity of enforcement on the part of the city magistrates. Open gambling, thugs lazing about on the streets and so on. They even had the sense of the watchmen perhaps looking them over to see if they could be exploitable persons, and thinking better of it. Fei-Lang also noted a couple of persons heading towards an inn, disguised to blend in, but bearing themselves as members of the wulin world.
Zhen-Ai assessed the situation and decided to seek out a senior member of the Beggar Clan, a society found throughout the Empire. After some hunting and the appropriate donations they made the acquaintance of Fulsome Dog. He told them of the waywardness of the town guards. Some of the thugs in town belong to a group run by Iron Monk Yan, a wushu master who had recently gathered a number of them together. Through payments, he'd clearly become a friend to the local officials and to the gambling houses. When asked about the strangers at the Inn, Fulsome Dog told the group that they had arrived a few days ago and seemed to be waiting for someone. After they had a good sense of the town, Zhen-Ai asked if Fulsome Dog and the Beggar Clan might be able to provide them with a guide. He agreed and summoned his own niece, Scampering Weeds who agreed to lead them to Master Fudoyan's estate just outside of town.
At the estate they found things in disorder-- or at least the general household tending now untended. They gained an audience with Master Fudoyan, who reluctantly agreed to tell them of his troubles. He clearly wished the aid of the party but could not openly say so. It seemed his son had fallen in with iron Monk Yan, wishing to become like him instead of following his father's path as a fruit merchant and distributor. His father had forbidden him from associating with the Iron Monk, but the son had disobeyed in an unfilial way. Then his son had recently returned, begging for forgiveness and saying that he would break with his bad ways, if only his father would sign a small letter of credit in order to cover his gambling debts. The father agreed and signed off. However, the next day Iron Monk Nan's men returned, showing the paper Master Fudoyan had signed-- which agreed gave away Master Fudoyan's daughter, Sun Petal to Iron Monk Nan in marriage. After some further questioning regarding the details, the group agreed to handle the matter so that Fudoyan could devote his attention and actually finish the paperwork they needed from him.
Back in town, they tracked down several of Iron Monk Nan's men, while Fei-Lang watched over the Inn in case the strangers turned out to be associated with the thugs. Using a spell, his drew their words to him and heard whispered talk about a master arriving that evening, a cart, and the transport of some valuable goods-- but nothing about the Iron Monk. Meanwhile Wu-Long confronted one of Iron Monk Nan's men in an alley. After questioning him by dangling him over a latrine, the thug provided information about the path to Nan's hideout through the woods and into the mountains. Wu-Long left the thug to soak in the outhouse.
Deciding that the strangers and their fruit transport cart were likely uninvolved the group traveled into the woods, finding the carefully left path markers. They noted that Nan had left no guard down here-- and began to fear that they'd been recalled for a wedding celebration! They hurried forward and eventually found Nan's fortress, an abandoned small military post on a cliffside. Using the power of Lightfoot and Fei-Lang's mastery of the air, they flew silently up over the walls. The realized that the location was only lightly guarded and spotted the likely place for the holding of Fudoyan's daughter-- however when they went to rescue her, she screamed, alerting the guards. Luckily Fei-Lang has taked the time to lay ice down on steps and in front of doorways. The half-dozen guards, rushing forward in the dim light fell down and were made short work of. Wu-Long questioned one and discovered that Iron Monk Nan and his men were elsewhere-- carrying out a raid-- on the strangers' caravan which Fei-Long had overheard details about!
Leaving Sun Petal in the care of Scampering Weeds, they flew through the woods and came upon a gruesome scene. Iron Monk Nan had begun with three dozen men, while the caravan guards had started with only a half dozen. The strangers' now number only two, with a ten times that number left to harry them. The group flew into the melee, taking wounds and cutting down bad guys left and right. Wu-Long struck with furious reach, Fei-Lang let loose with ice mastery and Zhen-Ai humiliated the Iron Monk by striking him across the face and painting his cheek with a rude ideogram. The tide turned and most of Iron Monk Nan's crew fell or fled. The Iron Monk, seeing his chance flew away, vowing revenge. W-Long grabbed up Master Fudoyan's son and destroyed the letter agreeing to the marriage.
In the aftermath, the two remaining stranger revealed themselves as wulin brothers, members of the Pilgrim's Ox Escort Bureau. The older man, Turbulent Stone, thanked them for their assistance and explained that they were transporting valuables hidden in fruit to Yanzhou. They'd made the purchase of fruit from Master Fudoyan's son, who had in turn tipped off Iron Monk Nan. The two groups discovered that they were heading to the same destination, Rooted Serenity, and decided to journey together. Turbulent Stone's sister, Dawning Rose, planned to take part in the tournament there as well. All returned to Master Fudoyan's estate where he greeted them warmly and gace them both hospitality and the letters necessary for entrance to the tournament.
I want to thank everyone for their well-wishes and support. I also want to thank everyone who had been patient and tolerant with us over the last couple of months-- between all of that, cat illnesses, trying to get two new campaigns up and running, new projects I've been working on, and various other crises in the lives of others in the group, I'm been bad about keeping up with things. I appreciate your patience and understanding. I'm dreadfully behind on game emails, and I'll try to get caught up on those.
Had a good evening yesterday-- Cat joined our normal Rock Band crew and we had a nice full house. The memorable moment for me will always be my brother Eric singing "Sex Machine" by James Brown. For other it may also be me singing "Pretty Fly for a White Guy". Will also coined a couple of new catchphrases, of which one- Kobold- I plan to use often. Nice session and just about wiped away the bad taste of having several people in the group rip away their faces away to reveal The Crazy recently.
Anyway, back to blogging-- beginning with a session write up for the Wushu campaign.
Wushu Session One
So we finally got started with the Wushu game and the first session which gave us a chance to see how the combat and action mechanics modifications actually worked in practice. After just two combats, I'm generally pretty hopeful. We'll have to see how it plays out over the course of several more fights, but I think it will work.
Right now the group is:
Wu-Long, Warrior (Kenny): Wu'Long also goes by the Taoist name 'Dancing Wind'. I see Wu'Long as a classic character to this genre. The young well trained warrior, with a variety of styles and weapons at his disposal. He has a trait that will be interesting, in that he believes that his life is being steered by the Heavenly Mandate of the many Gods. In effect he believes he is the hand of fate and watches the world for signs guiding his actions. We shall have to wait and see if this is a blessing or something more problematic. He is also a recognizable figure in some Wulin circles and is often confronted and challenged by others from opposing schools and clans. Much to their dismay, they shall find out for themselves that his Kung-Fu is strong.
Fei-Lang, Scholar (Scott): Sent to monastery at an early age to learn the scholarly arts, he was abducted by an evil Snow Queen and forced to serve her. Learning her icy sorceries, he was eventually able to make his escape, but the Snow Queen's minion's are always searching to get him back. This, combined with his upbringing in a secluded monastery, has caused him to develop an aversion to beautiful women.
Zhen Ai, Courtier (Sherri): Charitable and possessed of the sort of beauty that inspires love at first sight from all the wrong people, Zhen Ai is the perpetual tag-along to her other Gorgeous Cousins. If only they let her play too...
We also have a fourth character, Brandy's Alchemist (who I don't have a name written down for). She's a magical scholar as well, but of a very different kind than Fei-Lang. All four of them are cousins, children of a set of heroic brothers (and one sister) who helped fight for the Kingdom in the previous generation. Because of those connections and their own native skills, they have been appointed to the new post of magistrates for the Offices of the Provincial Inquiry. They spoke with General Jing Ping who formally assigned them to their posts. He also instructed them that they would be in charge of handling matters in the Province of Yanzhou, a delicate responsibility. Three other Magistrates would also be assigned to the province (the other PCs: Dusty, Gene and one other) who would meet them in the province. These magistrates would be traveling from time to time and meeting up with them as the opportunity or cases arose.
The group agreed to the responsibility and received further instruction. They would travel incognito to the province and head to the city of Rooted Serenity. The city governor there, Flawless Ning, is said to be a close ally of the Provincial Governor Qui Cheng. In fact he's often described as the Governor's man. In any case, Flawless Ning holds a small tournament of skill for youthful martial artists and scholars. The group would travel to Rooted Serenity, participate in the tournament and gain acclaim. Only after having established their reputation would they reveal themselves as incoming magistrates- a plan devised by the General to make sure that people take the new agents seriously.
However, in order to gain entry into the tournament, the players would have to travel to the town of Willow Repose, in the province of Geyuan, south of Yanzhou. There they would meet with Shenhua Fudoyan, a person of importance owing favors to the general. He would provide the proper papers to allow the players entry into the tournament. They agreed and set off, with one additional complication, in that their Alchemical cousin would have to wait behind a couple of additonal days in order to repair a particularly devastating accident she'd caused. She would catch up with them later.
The group traveled north, following the path of the Black River. Arriving in Willow's Repose, they began looking about for directions to the estate of their benefactor, Fudoyan. However they noticed some things while in Willow's Repose, the first being a certain laxity of enforcement on the part of the city magistrates. Open gambling, thugs lazing about on the streets and so on. They even had the sense of the watchmen perhaps looking them over to see if they could be exploitable persons, and thinking better of it. Fei-Lang also noted a couple of persons heading towards an inn, disguised to blend in, but bearing themselves as members of the wulin world.
Zhen-Ai assessed the situation and decided to seek out a senior member of the Beggar Clan, a society found throughout the Empire. After some hunting and the appropriate donations they made the acquaintance of Fulsome Dog. He told them of the waywardness of the town guards. Some of the thugs in town belong to a group run by Iron Monk Yan, a wushu master who had recently gathered a number of them together. Through payments, he'd clearly become a friend to the local officials and to the gambling houses. When asked about the strangers at the Inn, Fulsome Dog told the group that they had arrived a few days ago and seemed to be waiting for someone. After they had a good sense of the town, Zhen-Ai asked if Fulsome Dog and the Beggar Clan might be able to provide them with a guide. He agreed and summoned his own niece, Scampering Weeds who agreed to lead them to Master Fudoyan's estate just outside of town.
At the estate they found things in disorder-- or at least the general household tending now untended. They gained an audience with Master Fudoyan, who reluctantly agreed to tell them of his troubles. He clearly wished the aid of the party but could not openly say so. It seemed his son had fallen in with iron Monk Yan, wishing to become like him instead of following his father's path as a fruit merchant and distributor. His father had forbidden him from associating with the Iron Monk, but the son had disobeyed in an unfilial way. Then his son had recently returned, begging for forgiveness and saying that he would break with his bad ways, if only his father would sign a small letter of credit in order to cover his gambling debts. The father agreed and signed off. However, the next day Iron Monk Nan's men returned, showing the paper Master Fudoyan had signed-- which agreed gave away Master Fudoyan's daughter, Sun Petal to Iron Monk Nan in marriage. After some further questioning regarding the details, the group agreed to handle the matter so that Fudoyan could devote his attention and actually finish the paperwork they needed from him.
Back in town, they tracked down several of Iron Monk Nan's men, while Fei-Lang watched over the Inn in case the strangers turned out to be associated with the thugs. Using a spell, his drew their words to him and heard whispered talk about a master arriving that evening, a cart, and the transport of some valuable goods-- but nothing about the Iron Monk. Meanwhile Wu-Long confronted one of Iron Monk Nan's men in an alley. After questioning him by dangling him over a latrine, the thug provided information about the path to Nan's hideout through the woods and into the mountains. Wu-Long left the thug to soak in the outhouse.
Deciding that the strangers and their fruit transport cart were likely uninvolved the group traveled into the woods, finding the carefully left path markers. They noted that Nan had left no guard down here-- and began to fear that they'd been recalled for a wedding celebration! They hurried forward and eventually found Nan's fortress, an abandoned small military post on a cliffside. Using the power of Lightfoot and Fei-Lang's mastery of the air, they flew silently up over the walls. The realized that the location was only lightly guarded and spotted the likely place for the holding of Fudoyan's daughter-- however when they went to rescue her, she screamed, alerting the guards. Luckily Fei-Lang has taked the time to lay ice down on steps and in front of doorways. The half-dozen guards, rushing forward in the dim light fell down and were made short work of. Wu-Long questioned one and discovered that Iron Monk Nan and his men were elsewhere-- carrying out a raid-- on the strangers' caravan which Fei-Long had overheard details about!
Leaving Sun Petal in the care of Scampering Weeds, they flew through the woods and came upon a gruesome scene. Iron Monk Nan had begun with three dozen men, while the caravan guards had started with only a half dozen. The strangers' now number only two, with a ten times that number left to harry them. The group flew into the melee, taking wounds and cutting down bad guys left and right. Wu-Long struck with furious reach, Fei-Lang let loose with ice mastery and Zhen-Ai humiliated the Iron Monk by striking him across the face and painting his cheek with a rude ideogram. The tide turned and most of Iron Monk Nan's crew fell or fled. The Iron Monk, seeing his chance flew away, vowing revenge. W-Long grabbed up Master Fudoyan's son and destroyed the letter agreeing to the marriage.
In the aftermath, the two remaining stranger revealed themselves as wulin brothers, members of the Pilgrim's Ox Escort Bureau. The older man, Turbulent Stone, thanked them for their assistance and explained that they were transporting valuables hidden in fruit to Yanzhou. They'd made the purchase of fruit from Master Fudoyan's son, who had in turn tipped off Iron Monk Nan. The two groups discovered that they were heading to the same destination, Rooted Serenity, and decided to journey together. Turbulent Stone's sister, Dawning Rose, planned to take part in the tournament there as well. All returned to Master Fudoyan's estate where he greeted them warmly and gace them both hospitality and the letters necessary for entrance to the tournament.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A Meta-Chronology of the Game World (Part Four)
Sorry, lost a day there-- I'll try to get an extra post in to keep my every-other-day schedule relatively intact.
Blogging may be sporadic next week and even this weekend though. I have three games to run this weekend, and my mother goes in for her surgery on Monday. She'll going to be in the hospital after that for at least three days, so my sister and I will be spelling each other on keeping an eye on here. We'll see how things go.
My best wishes go out to Dave and Chas in hopes of a positive result from the invetro procedure.
We also need to say that Brandy kicks ass, all the time.
Lastly, before I get into this-- if anyone has rpg questions-- about a particular game you played in, about gaming in general or about how I go about what I do, I'd love to answer those.
A Meta-Chronology of the Game World
Part IV
Part III here
I'd taken a break from running for a time, but eventually I couldn't take that anymore. If I don't have the creative outlet of game prep, I find myself becoming frustrated and more irritable. Even doing other writing doesn't help-- there's something satisfying about the creative process and large scale construction that goes on in campaign creation that I really love. I'd begun to think about doing another fantasy game on the Second Continent, since something like a year had passed since I'd done anything in that game world. I had conversation with Barry at that time in which the topic of Steampunk came up. While the genre concepts for that had been around for a while, they'd just begun to permeate out into the wider culture. “The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne” had just started to be shown on Sci-Fi channel, and I'd read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Barry convinced me I should run and try to get back in some players who I hadn't game with for a while.
The problem, however, was twofold in adding Steampunk elements. First, I'd had gunpowder eliminated from the setting some time before. Once once in the entire course of the many campaigns have I ever handed out wishes. One of them landed in Scott's lap and he wished away black powder weapons. So, I couldn't use any of that stuff-- instead I'd use Volters, based on magic crystals, to simulate that. The other, more major problem was that if I really wanted to have Steampunk be a major element, society and history would have to evolve. I probably could have simply dropped things in, but I think that would have bothered me. So I decided to advance the timeline for the continent forward about 300 years. That was a radical decision and I worried about it for many weeks-- going back and forth before finally deciding to go for it. I think part of my worry would be how that would affect the timelines on the other continents. But I wanted the genre to feel whole and real, and I did a good deal of research about the 1700 and 1800's-- of which this new world would be a hybrid, a kind of combination of Swashbuckling of Dumas and the Steampunk ethos which we would call Steambuckler. I actually called the campaign Arcane Rails at first because I had a vision of magical railroads and travel, but I ended up not going in that direction.
The game went very well-- I went back to Gurps for probably the last time. There's much I like about the system, but the magic just doesn't work in the way I want it to. That's a real problem in a fantasy setting. I'd hoped that the new edition of Gurps might solve those problems, but instead the system took a step backwards-- becoming more opaque, more mechanical, and doing nothing serious to fix the problems of the original magic rules. System aside, I was pretty happy and the campaign ran 2+ years, moving through a complete arc that made some drastic changes. We gained and lost some great NPCs and we despite the significant move forward, we had a number of connections between the PCs of the campaign and those of previous ones. I was particularly pleased with the identity reveal of the major patron as being a former PC of Rob's from many, many campaigns ago.
At some point in this timeline, I also started running another Legend of the Five Rings campaign, this time adapted to Storyteller. In retrospect I'm not sure exactly why I went with Storyteller, since I'd only run a little of it, but I knew I didn't want to use Rolemaster or Gurps for this, and I hadn't yet come up with my Action Cards system (which would have been great now that I think about it). In any case, I set the L5R game in continuity with the previous game, which meant that it was in continuity/connection with the First Continent and therefore with the shared world.
Then it gets weird-- so bear with me. We played the L5R game for some time before I revealed that in fact the players weren't in that setting-- they were in a variation of Rob's HCI premise of shared VR worlds. However, they soon discovered that even this wasn't entirely true-- the company didn't actually have a VR Samurai world-- and the were supposed to have been in another portal game entirely. Long story short, they would eventually discover that the various portals and worlds of the VR had become connected to magic, in fact had become a battleground for Mages (ala Mage: The Ascension). The world they'd been to had been real, but it was as if they'd become like demons-- dropping in to possess these “characters” in the portal, while still retaining memories, motivations and skills of the bodies.
I need to sidebar here for a moment, and then I'll come back to the HCI stuff and its connection. In the middle of this extended campaign, I also ran a short campaign set in the heart of the First Continent-- away from the L5R portion in the southeast corner. I'd built up an elaborate cosmology and history which I'd intended to use for some kind of campaign in the future-- breaking the areas down into several regions, writing up about thirty+ pages of background. For this short run campaign, I kind of put a shotgun to that and blew away the existing structure. That is, I had the players undo the existing power structures that united the various kingdoms. It was a pretty interesting game-- seven sessions using a high improvised Storyteller system, and in the end I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the First Continent. I had good material, but I didn't like it for that context-- in some ways it felt too much like other things I'd done.
Back to the HCI-- step two, and we increase the weirdness. Just to demonstrate the meta-level strangeness of this, the HCI game was set in the same modern world in which I had run two previous World of Darkness games, both Vampire, one before and one after Gehenna. However the HCI game took place in 2036. So that builds a bridge between that world and the shared fantasy world. They went to other “portals” some of which were real and some of which were strictly VR simulations. They returned to Rokugan several times, ending with the big climax of the campaign. The walked into the middle of the Scorpion Clan Coup-- a game changing event in the L5R Continuity. However things began to fall out in the different way from the original events-- in part to take into account the world differences, in part a response to the PC's actions, and in part to throw off Will who knew the history well. In the big climax, massive magical forces from the various worlds collided-- changing things radically. The PCs were, in a sense, split-- their souls returning to the “real world” of 2036, their Rokugani selves continuing on, but also a portion of themselves going back to the original founding of Rokugan and becoming the Kami who had originally fallen from the Heavens and founded the various Great Clans. However, these would be very different Kami-- the same names for the lines, but very different temperaments for the Seven Great lines. The campaign as a whole ran for a little over three years.
How does that fit in? That's the Rokugan that presently exists on the First Continent. Their interference with the timeline, plus some earlier fallout in terms of elemental time from a previous campaign has drastically shifted the events of the First Continent. It still works, but things happened very differently, at least in the timeline of that continent. For example, the actions of dealing with the two big bads occurred in the distant past there, and the short term campaign forms a portion of a kind of prehistory. Again, I'll come back to that. The bottom line is that the timeline of the First Continent became shifted backwards several hundred years from where it had been connected to the Second and Third Continents.
OK-- jerry-rigged enough for you?
That leaves four other campaigns set or connected to this shared world left to discuss. And we'll finish that out soon.
Blogging may be sporadic next week and even this weekend though. I have three games to run this weekend, and my mother goes in for her surgery on Monday. She'll going to be in the hospital after that for at least three days, so my sister and I will be spelling each other on keeping an eye on here. We'll see how things go.
My best wishes go out to Dave and Chas in hopes of a positive result from the invetro procedure.
We also need to say that Brandy kicks ass, all the time.
Lastly, before I get into this-- if anyone has rpg questions-- about a particular game you played in, about gaming in general or about how I go about what I do, I'd love to answer those.
A Meta-Chronology of the Game World
Part IV
Part III here
I'd taken a break from running for a time, but eventually I couldn't take that anymore. If I don't have the creative outlet of game prep, I find myself becoming frustrated and more irritable. Even doing other writing doesn't help-- there's something satisfying about the creative process and large scale construction that goes on in campaign creation that I really love. I'd begun to think about doing another fantasy game on the Second Continent, since something like a year had passed since I'd done anything in that game world. I had conversation with Barry at that time in which the topic of Steampunk came up. While the genre concepts for that had been around for a while, they'd just begun to permeate out into the wider culture. “The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne” had just started to be shown on Sci-Fi channel, and I'd read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Barry convinced me I should run and try to get back in some players who I hadn't game with for a while.
The problem, however, was twofold in adding Steampunk elements. First, I'd had gunpowder eliminated from the setting some time before. Once once in the entire course of the many campaigns have I ever handed out wishes. One of them landed in Scott's lap and he wished away black powder weapons. So, I couldn't use any of that stuff-- instead I'd use Volters, based on magic crystals, to simulate that. The other, more major problem was that if I really wanted to have Steampunk be a major element, society and history would have to evolve. I probably could have simply dropped things in, but I think that would have bothered me. So I decided to advance the timeline for the continent forward about 300 years. That was a radical decision and I worried about it for many weeks-- going back and forth before finally deciding to go for it. I think part of my worry would be how that would affect the timelines on the other continents. But I wanted the genre to feel whole and real, and I did a good deal of research about the 1700 and 1800's-- of which this new world would be a hybrid, a kind of combination of Swashbuckling of Dumas and the Steampunk ethos which we would call Steambuckler. I actually called the campaign Arcane Rails at first because I had a vision of magical railroads and travel, but I ended up not going in that direction.
The game went very well-- I went back to Gurps for probably the last time. There's much I like about the system, but the magic just doesn't work in the way I want it to. That's a real problem in a fantasy setting. I'd hoped that the new edition of Gurps might solve those problems, but instead the system took a step backwards-- becoming more opaque, more mechanical, and doing nothing serious to fix the problems of the original magic rules. System aside, I was pretty happy and the campaign ran 2+ years, moving through a complete arc that made some drastic changes. We gained and lost some great NPCs and we despite the significant move forward, we had a number of connections between the PCs of the campaign and those of previous ones. I was particularly pleased with the identity reveal of the major patron as being a former PC of Rob's from many, many campaigns ago.
At some point in this timeline, I also started running another Legend of the Five Rings campaign, this time adapted to Storyteller. In retrospect I'm not sure exactly why I went with Storyteller, since I'd only run a little of it, but I knew I didn't want to use Rolemaster or Gurps for this, and I hadn't yet come up with my Action Cards system (which would have been great now that I think about it). In any case, I set the L5R game in continuity with the previous game, which meant that it was in continuity/connection with the First Continent and therefore with the shared world.
Then it gets weird-- so bear with me. We played the L5R game for some time before I revealed that in fact the players weren't in that setting-- they were in a variation of Rob's HCI premise of shared VR worlds. However, they soon discovered that even this wasn't entirely true-- the company didn't actually have a VR Samurai world-- and the were supposed to have been in another portal game entirely. Long story short, they would eventually discover that the various portals and worlds of the VR had become connected to magic, in fact had become a battleground for Mages (ala Mage: The Ascension). The world they'd been to had been real, but it was as if they'd become like demons-- dropping in to possess these “characters” in the portal, while still retaining memories, motivations and skills of the bodies.
I need to sidebar here for a moment, and then I'll come back to the HCI stuff and its connection. In the middle of this extended campaign, I also ran a short campaign set in the heart of the First Continent-- away from the L5R portion in the southeast corner. I'd built up an elaborate cosmology and history which I'd intended to use for some kind of campaign in the future-- breaking the areas down into several regions, writing up about thirty+ pages of background. For this short run campaign, I kind of put a shotgun to that and blew away the existing structure. That is, I had the players undo the existing power structures that united the various kingdoms. It was a pretty interesting game-- seven sessions using a high improvised Storyteller system, and in the end I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the First Continent. I had good material, but I didn't like it for that context-- in some ways it felt too much like other things I'd done.
Back to the HCI-- step two, and we increase the weirdness. Just to demonstrate the meta-level strangeness of this, the HCI game was set in the same modern world in which I had run two previous World of Darkness games, both Vampire, one before and one after Gehenna. However the HCI game took place in 2036. So that builds a bridge between that world and the shared fantasy world. They went to other “portals” some of which were real and some of which were strictly VR simulations. They returned to Rokugan several times, ending with the big climax of the campaign. The walked into the middle of the Scorpion Clan Coup-- a game changing event in the L5R Continuity. However things began to fall out in the different way from the original events-- in part to take into account the world differences, in part a response to the PC's actions, and in part to throw off Will who knew the history well. In the big climax, massive magical forces from the various worlds collided-- changing things radically. The PCs were, in a sense, split-- their souls returning to the “real world” of 2036, their Rokugani selves continuing on, but also a portion of themselves going back to the original founding of Rokugan and becoming the Kami who had originally fallen from the Heavens and founded the various Great Clans. However, these would be very different Kami-- the same names for the lines, but very different temperaments for the Seven Great lines. The campaign as a whole ran for a little over three years.
How does that fit in? That's the Rokugan that presently exists on the First Continent. Their interference with the timeline, plus some earlier fallout in terms of elemental time from a previous campaign has drastically shifted the events of the First Continent. It still works, but things happened very differently, at least in the timeline of that continent. For example, the actions of dealing with the two big bads occurred in the distant past there, and the short term campaign forms a portion of a kind of prehistory. Again, I'll come back to that. The bottom line is that the timeline of the First Continent became shifted backwards several hundred years from where it had been connected to the Second and Third Continents.
OK-- jerry-rigged enough for you?
That leaves four other campaigns set or connected to this shared world left to discuss. And we'll finish that out soon.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
RPG Linkdump
Scion tomorrow, sentimentality today.
So today is Sherri's birthday. Fooling her into marrying me still stands as the best decision I ever made. She's the person whose company I enjoy most. When I was at the Press and had to travel for work, I'd be excited for the first day about going somewhere new. By the second day, I'd be missing her. By the third day, I'd be deeply heartsick. I'm not one for too much public sentiment, but I truly love her. Plus she's a gamer, which I consider a bonus on top of everything I enjoy about her. She's hard to buy for, as she's usually pretty happy with what she has. The only thing she really wants is for me to tell her more stories.
*****
A bit of linkdump as well today if you managed to get through my gushing there. As an adjunct to the campaign postmortem's I've found a few articles that cover some of the same ground.
Soren Johnson’s Game Design Journal has an interesting column looking at Sid Meier's rules for game design. I think some of those apply generally to narrative creation and rpgs.
As you may know White Wolf has done some of its lines in a limited format-- only a certain number of books to be published in non-core lines. I said before I think that's a good idea. They've restarted their downloadable pdf magazine (now called Epitaph) and the first issue has a two-page postmortem on the development of the Changeling line. The next book they put out will likely be the last. You can find the magazine for free download here.
Finally there's an interesting article looking at The World Ends With You, an action jrpg for the Nintendo DS. I tried it, but found it a little to reflex intensive for my taste. Still I loved the ethos and design-- SquareEnix always does a nice job with that. Some of the design team posted a brief overview of what went right and what went wrong with the development of the game.
I like being able to go back and look at the evolution of these kinds of interactive ideas and the decisions which went into the final design.
So today is Sherri's birthday. Fooling her into marrying me still stands as the best decision I ever made. She's the person whose company I enjoy most. When I was at the Press and had to travel for work, I'd be excited for the first day about going somewhere new. By the second day, I'd be missing her. By the third day, I'd be deeply heartsick. I'm not one for too much public sentiment, but I truly love her. Plus she's a gamer, which I consider a bonus on top of everything I enjoy about her. She's hard to buy for, as she's usually pretty happy with what she has. The only thing she really wants is for me to tell her more stories.
*****
A bit of linkdump as well today if you managed to get through my gushing there. As an adjunct to the campaign postmortem's I've found a few articles that cover some of the same ground.
Soren Johnson’s Game Design Journal has an interesting column looking at Sid Meier's rules for game design. I think some of those apply generally to narrative creation and rpgs.
As you may know White Wolf has done some of its lines in a limited format-- only a certain number of books to be published in non-core lines. I said before I think that's a good idea. They've restarted their downloadable pdf magazine (now called Epitaph) and the first issue has a two-page postmortem on the development of the Changeling line. The next book they put out will likely be the last. You can find the magazine for free download here.
Finally there's an interesting article looking at The World Ends With You, an action jrpg for the Nintendo DS. I tried it, but found it a little to reflex intensive for my taste. Still I loved the ethos and design-- SquareEnix always does a nice job with that. Some of the design team posted a brief overview of what went right and what went wrong with the development of the game.
I like being able to go back and look at the evolution of these kinds of interactive ideas and the decisions which went into the final design.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Probabilities
So, a probability question for those of you who know the maths...
I'm trying to work out the probability of the rolling the following, if using d10s.
From a pool of 3d10, rolling two 10's.
From a pool of 4d10, rolling three 10's.
From a pool of 5d10, rolling three 10's.
From a pool of 6d10, rolling four 10's.
From a pool of 7d10, rolling four 10's.
and so on...
I, of course, took Formal Logic and Pre-Calc rather than Statistics in college, so I'm not sure how to do the numbers on this. I assume there's a basic formula somewhere.
It does seem a little odd that I didn't take Stats in college, but at the time I thought I wanted to be a Physicist. That lasted until half-way through Pre-Calc, and my ass being thoroughly kicked. The first and only course I dropped and then retook. And retook because I was convinced I could figure it out-- so the second time around I went to tutoring sessions, read extra books on the topic, and bulled my way through. And got a C-. After that, the liberal arts looked really, really good.
Anyway, I should have taken stats if only because I'm a gamer...but well, bad life choices. Like Anthropology as a Major, but live and learn.
Also, The Flaming Lips cover "Borderline"-- here. And that's why I love them.
I'm trying to work out the probability of the rolling the following, if using d10s.
From a pool of 3d10, rolling two 10's.
From a pool of 4d10, rolling three 10's.
From a pool of 5d10, rolling three 10's.
From a pool of 6d10, rolling four 10's.
From a pool of 7d10, rolling four 10's.
and so on...
I, of course, took Formal Logic and Pre-Calc rather than Statistics in college, so I'm not sure how to do the numbers on this. I assume there's a basic formula somewhere.
It does seem a little odd that I didn't take Stats in college, but at the time I thought I wanted to be a Physicist. That lasted until half-way through Pre-Calc, and my ass being thoroughly kicked. The first and only course I dropped and then retook. And retook because I was convinced I could figure it out-- so the second time around I went to tutoring sessions, read extra books on the topic, and bulled my way through. And got a C-. After that, the liberal arts looked really, really good.
Anyway, I should have taken stats if only because I'm a gamer...but well, bad life choices. Like Anthropology as a Major, but live and learn.
Also, The Flaming Lips cover "Borderline"-- here. And that's why I love them.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
4/25/09
Blog weekend off. Still busily writing rules and getting details crunched. Our house has begun its easy-bake oven cycle.
Friday, April 24, 2009
4/24/09
Short blog post today-- working steadily on the game for Sunday. Problem is, of course, that it is really too nice outside. I've had trouble focusing on work all week. Now it has actually gotten warm outside. I'm getting a little antsy since I'm home most of the day...plus additional distractions today...had some delicious comics sent to me...plus I finally got in the mail today some games I'd traded through Boardgamegeek. Actually, I got a bunch of them: Age of Empires III, Senji, Way Out West, Oltre Mare, Cuba, Lost Cities the Board Game, and Colosseum. Now I have to go through and check components in all of them, and read rules...
...sweet delicious rules which will be hanging over my head like the grapes of Damocles while I try to get anything done...
Anyway, so that's why the post's short and filled with nothing today. I blame the environment.
...sweet delicious rules which will be hanging over my head like the grapes of Damocles while I try to get anything done...
Anyway, so that's why the post's short and filled with nothing today. I blame the environment.
Monday, April 13, 2009
4/12/09
Food coma.
At least part of that brought on by my own bringing of mashed potatoes. I found it very strange when I talked to a couple of people a few years back and found they'd grown up on instant potatoes-- despite having other higher end foods in the house-- real mashed potatoes were apparently too much work. Anyway, I stole my recipe from Alan, and it is pretty simple.
So, a big batch, like I did today consists of an eight pound bag of potatoes. You can certainly work with less and scale it. I usually peel and slide the potatoes into half-inch segments and put them in cold, salted water. Cutting them up, rather than working with the whole potatoes makes them cook more thouroughly in my experience. The water's usually about an inch above the top of the potatoes. I also rinse them pretty well to reduce the loose starch.
Anywa, boil the potatoes until they're pretty soft. Then a minute longer. Drain them well-- I use a mesh colander. While the potatoes are still steaming hot pour them into a big mixing bowl. In the bowl you should already have about two sticks of butter-- sliced into pats and about 2/3rds of a can of your standard Kraft Parmesan cheese. The heat from the potatoes will melt these. Work the potatoes a little with a spatula to distribute the materials and break up the largest chunks. Add cream, maybe half a cup or so to start. Then go at it with a hand mixer. This is why you use a big, big mixing bowl, because it you don't, you get a nice thin line of mashed potatoes over everything. Work the material heavily, use the spatula to move anything that's on the bottom, and add cream as needed to get the creamy consistency people love. Add salt and more butter to taste.
We had Easter over at Sherri's parents where we had five more people than we were expecting. It ended up pretty packed-- the food was excellent. However, because I'm home a lot by myself, I've found being in large, packed groups of people now makes me more uncomfortable than it used to. I mean, I never liked crowds-- but clearly my wound tightedness has certainly increased over the last year. I ate and then went outside and sat and watched the birds work over Sherri's dad's feeders. A genuinely pleasant experience, but it took some time to shake my general anxiety. To tell people who know me precisely how tense I was:
I skipped the cake.
At least part of that brought on by my own bringing of mashed potatoes. I found it very strange when I talked to a couple of people a few years back and found they'd grown up on instant potatoes-- despite having other higher end foods in the house-- real mashed potatoes were apparently too much work. Anyway, I stole my recipe from Alan, and it is pretty simple.
So, a big batch, like I did today consists of an eight pound bag of potatoes. You can certainly work with less and scale it. I usually peel and slide the potatoes into half-inch segments and put them in cold, salted water. Cutting them up, rather than working with the whole potatoes makes them cook more thouroughly in my experience. The water's usually about an inch above the top of the potatoes. I also rinse them pretty well to reduce the loose starch.
Anywa, boil the potatoes until they're pretty soft. Then a minute longer. Drain them well-- I use a mesh colander. While the potatoes are still steaming hot pour them into a big mixing bowl. In the bowl you should already have about two sticks of butter-- sliced into pats and about 2/3rds of a can of your standard Kraft Parmesan cheese. The heat from the potatoes will melt these. Work the potatoes a little with a spatula to distribute the materials and break up the largest chunks. Add cream, maybe half a cup or so to start. Then go at it with a hand mixer. This is why you use a big, big mixing bowl, because it you don't, you get a nice thin line of mashed potatoes over everything. Work the material heavily, use the spatula to move anything that's on the bottom, and add cream as needed to get the creamy consistency people love. Add salt and more butter to taste.
We had Easter over at Sherri's parents where we had five more people than we were expecting. It ended up pretty packed-- the food was excellent. However, because I'm home a lot by myself, I've found being in large, packed groups of people now makes me more uncomfortable than it used to. I mean, I never liked crowds-- but clearly my wound tightedness has certainly increased over the last year. I ate and then went outside and sat and watched the birds work over Sherri's dad's feeders. A genuinely pleasant experience, but it took some time to shake my general anxiety. To tell people who know me precisely how tense I was:
I skipped the cake.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
List of Topics
So apparently my once a week day off will vary. Anyway, better bloggers than I have said that blogging about blogging is a sin-- a potentially wallowing set of commentaries. So, slightly appropriate on this holiday weekend that I indulge in that. I hit my 100th consecutive fairly full post, if I include linkdumps in that count. So, what do I think about it so far. It is more difficult than I thought, but not that much more.
My original goal was to get myself in the mode of having a single writing task each day that would push me to keep producing something. I think on that score it is successful-- it does push me to organize myself and get some material prepared each day, of varying quality. I've been able to use the blog to double up on some work-- where things I need to get done can be posted here as well. On the other hand, in some cases it has been a small wedge from doing some kinds of writing. I haven't for example, gotten much done on either of the novels. There's also some campaign development stuff that I don't want to post, in that I might use some of it at the table. I've also had a fairly rich set of player-campaign emails I've been working through, both for Libri Vidicos and Changeling. I suspect when I go to run the Sunday Third Continent campaign, I'll try to keep off-table emails to a minimum.
On the whole, though, I'm pretty pleased with it. I've recycled some material-- previously written summaries and the just I've just begun to archive from The Village board. So I'll stick with it for another hundred days, and try to get more interesting material out here.
Things that I mentioned I wanted to write about but haven't yet-- either incomplete series of blog posts or other things mentioned in passing:
-Further discussion of the problems of rpg games in a historical setting
-Final article on authors who have influenced me
-Another piece on striking rpgs that helped shape my approach
-Campaign postmortems-- Vampire, Prophet King, Steambuckler, Bloodlines, Black Company/Planescape, Scion, HCI
-Summaries of older campaigns in the shared fantasy world I've run in
-The New Weird in rpgs
-On the beautiful ephemera of strategy guides
-Approaches to campaign length (medium and long style campaigns)
-Narrative resolution, crunch and argumentation in table play
-Player expectations, meta-discussion and shared personal maps of the campaign shape
-Consensus, player dynamics, and why I won't run for certain people anymore
-Male vs. Female tabletop dynamics
-Robot Zero
-Coming to Classical Music through perfume
-Why I hate orphans in games
-Gender, Race and Sexuality as topics in games
-Sketches for arena game-- both mechanics and setting
-Overcomplicating my plots
-Recent games I've run
-Anime/Manga structures and conventions and their application to tabletop games
My original goal was to get myself in the mode of having a single writing task each day that would push me to keep producing something. I think on that score it is successful-- it does push me to organize myself and get some material prepared each day, of varying quality. I've been able to use the blog to double up on some work-- where things I need to get done can be posted here as well. On the other hand, in some cases it has been a small wedge from doing some kinds of writing. I haven't for example, gotten much done on either of the novels. There's also some campaign development stuff that I don't want to post, in that I might use some of it at the table. I've also had a fairly rich set of player-campaign emails I've been working through, both for Libri Vidicos and Changeling. I suspect when I go to run the Sunday Third Continent campaign, I'll try to keep off-table emails to a minimum.
On the whole, though, I'm pretty pleased with it. I've recycled some material-- previously written summaries and the just I've just begun to archive from The Village board. So I'll stick with it for another hundred days, and try to get more interesting material out here.
Things that I mentioned I wanted to write about but haven't yet-- either incomplete series of blog posts or other things mentioned in passing:
-Further discussion of the problems of rpg games in a historical setting
-Final article on authors who have influenced me
-Another piece on striking rpgs that helped shape my approach
-Campaign postmortems-- Vampire, Prophet King, Steambuckler, Bloodlines, Black Company/Planescape, Scion, HCI
-Summaries of older campaigns in the shared fantasy world I've run in
-The New Weird in rpgs
-On the beautiful ephemera of strategy guides
-Approaches to campaign length (medium and long style campaigns)
-Narrative resolution, crunch and argumentation in table play
-Player expectations, meta-discussion and shared personal maps of the campaign shape
-Consensus, player dynamics, and why I won't run for certain people anymore
-Male vs. Female tabletop dynamics
-Robot Zero
-Coming to Classical Music through perfume
-Why I hate orphans in games
-Gender, Race and Sexuality as topics in games
-Sketches for arena game-- both mechanics and setting
-Overcomplicating my plots
-Recent games I've run
-Anime/Manga structures and conventions and their application to tabletop games
Sunday, April 5, 2009
4/5/09
Had one of those days yesterday-- where the weather change and allergies combine together for fantastic effect. We had a good game the nights before-- both Changeling and Libri Vidicos. I'll write that up soon enough. Unfortunately we had Shari out sick for Friday's game which was a big sequence wrapping up some big threads. I'll have to try to get a good summary of the happenings together.
But as for yesterday, Mark's trying to start a monthly Saturday open board games session-- a catch as catch can for when he doesn't have other events scheduled. He and I have been playing board games together fairly regularly for going on five years now every Tuesday night, and he's been more than generous to me over the years so I wanted to head up to support this endeavor. Plus, as you probably know, I love's me some board games.
Well, I remembered why I don't usually care for open board gaming. Having that right play group is nearly as important in board games as it is in rpgs. There's less time involved, but boy do you get a chance to see the worst in people in a compressed environment. We had six people-- Mark, my friend Matt and his wife Amy and two new guys-- a nice fellow named Brian and another guy who I'll simply call Jackass, since I couldn't even bother to remember his actual name. He managed to combine some of my favorite traits in one voluminous and sweating package:
1. No control of his indoor voice
2. Constantly knocking shit around
3. Overrolling-- shaking the dice cup until my ears bleed
4. Reaching over and touching other people's stuff
5. Restating the rules that other people already know
6. Wet-voiced
7. Listening to music while playing
8. Giggling at other people's misfortunes at every opportunity
9. And an absolutely poor loser...
This last one is what killed it for me. We decided to play the Alhambra Dice Game. I quite enjoy it and it was the only game I'd brought that supported six players. I should have brought Union Pacific, but live and learn. I explained the rules carefully and tried to stress several times that you needed to focus and that it was a dice game-- you could get fairly behind in it, especially on your first play of it. It is easy to pick up but easy to miss some things early and get screwed later on-- especially with six players. We didn't have a runaway leader problem, in that we had nearly everyone actually competing seriously for the lead.
Except, of course, Jackass who by the second round started whining and complaining. Complaining and stomping his feet about bad rolls, sulking that his plays didn't go off, bitching that other people were 'attacking' him when they were just making strategic choices since there's little or no direct attacking in the game, and of course by the last two rounds screaming that he'd never win.
IF YOU'RE LOSING A GAME. DO IT GRACIOUSLY. ENJOY THE PLAY. LET EVERYONE HAVE SOME FUN AT HOW BADLY YOU'VE MANAGED TO DO. DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. DON'T MAKE EVERYONE ELSE FEEL BAD.
Play to win, but be good in losing.
Ugh. I've been spoiled for some long by playing with good people. As I drove home I realized I'd been gritting my teeth for the last hour-- and had a headache that took until today(combined with the aforementioned allergies and weather) to go away.
On the plus side, the Brian guy we played with was quite nice. I liked him.
But as for yesterday, Mark's trying to start a monthly Saturday open board games session-- a catch as catch can for when he doesn't have other events scheduled. He and I have been playing board games together fairly regularly for going on five years now every Tuesday night, and he's been more than generous to me over the years so I wanted to head up to support this endeavor. Plus, as you probably know, I love's me some board games.
Well, I remembered why I don't usually care for open board gaming. Having that right play group is nearly as important in board games as it is in rpgs. There's less time involved, but boy do you get a chance to see the worst in people in a compressed environment. We had six people-- Mark, my friend Matt and his wife Amy and two new guys-- a nice fellow named Brian and another guy who I'll simply call Jackass, since I couldn't even bother to remember his actual name. He managed to combine some of my favorite traits in one voluminous and sweating package:
1. No control of his indoor voice
2. Constantly knocking shit around
3. Overrolling-- shaking the dice cup until my ears bleed
4. Reaching over and touching other people's stuff
5. Restating the rules that other people already know
6. Wet-voiced
7. Listening to music while playing
8. Giggling at other people's misfortunes at every opportunity
9. And an absolutely poor loser...
This last one is what killed it for me. We decided to play the Alhambra Dice Game. I quite enjoy it and it was the only game I'd brought that supported six players. I should have brought Union Pacific, but live and learn. I explained the rules carefully and tried to stress several times that you needed to focus and that it was a dice game-- you could get fairly behind in it, especially on your first play of it. It is easy to pick up but easy to miss some things early and get screwed later on-- especially with six players. We didn't have a runaway leader problem, in that we had nearly everyone actually competing seriously for the lead.
Except, of course, Jackass who by the second round started whining and complaining. Complaining and stomping his feet about bad rolls, sulking that his plays didn't go off, bitching that other people were 'attacking' him when they were just making strategic choices since there's little or no direct attacking in the game, and of course by the last two rounds screaming that he'd never win.
IF YOU'RE LOSING A GAME. DO IT GRACIOUSLY. ENJOY THE PLAY. LET EVERYONE HAVE SOME FUN AT HOW BADLY YOU'VE MANAGED TO DO. DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. DON'T MAKE EVERYONE ELSE FEEL BAD.
Play to win, but be good in losing.
Ugh. I've been spoiled for some long by playing with good people. As I drove home I realized I'd been gritting my teeth for the last hour-- and had a headache that took until today(combined with the aforementioned allergies and weather) to go away.
On the plus side, the Brian guy we played with was quite nice. I liked him.
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