| Day of Games |
[May. 9th, 2012|10:18 pm] |
Wellington's annual Games on Demand con, Day of Games, was on Saturday. This time it was in Brooklyn so the food options were better than the usual spot in the business district on a weekend. I even managed to find a market with a couple of decent beer options.
For the first session, I almost played Psi*Run, but a couple of latecomers turned up, so I grabbed a set of Dungeon World character sheets from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) surrealfish and ran that for four players (all new to DW). I had the players all write down a monster and a location and wove together a quest that saw a wizard, a cleric, a bard and a ranger sneak, run and battle their way through a haunted fungus forest, over a treacherous sea bridge guarded by a manticore to the island lair of a medusa on a quest for knowledge. The game ended with the cleric persuading the medusa to release the bard, select other of her victims, and as much of her treasure as they could carry in exchange for her life. The game was as reliably awesome as usual.
After lunch I played Microscope (which I hadn't played, but was interested in doing so), facilitated by Steve Hickey (whom I had only played with once, years ago). Microscope is Ben Robbins' GM-less and mostly character-less game of epic history (which he talks about it a little in this PAX panel on GMless roleplaying that I just listened to). Essentially, it takes the "lonely fun" of world generation and makes a social experience of it. We played out a history of "humanity moves the stars", a sci-fi future which spanned the age from the discovery of evidence of Jupiter's stellation to humanity's establishment of an intergalactic empire. The three threads that we followed in the 3 hours of play were a cult dedicated to Jupiter, the theme of interstellar mobility, and Robots! This was our tableau (squinting may be required...). I'm keen to try this as a setting generator for a GMed game of something else.
After dinner I ran The Sprawl for Steve, surrealfish, Dan and confusiontempst. We had Ritter was a broke Hunter who had scavenged and saved to but the cybereyes that were now destroying his optic nerves; Grit the company Soldier and team leader, owned by the military tech corporation Therma AG; Zero the Infiltrator, grown, along with her six sisters, in a Nissan-Disney vat; and Kennedy the monofilament-wielding Killer, hunted by Fox-Warner and owned by a underground drug cartel-cum-investment scheme. Their mission was to extract a corporate asset from a semi-secure facility before a corporate counter-espionage arrived to relocate and interrogate him. The run turned a little hairy at the end, and I should have pushed more at the end to make it more skin-of-the-teeth, but it went well anyway. My prep for this one was definitely better than on previous occasions, although I still forgot a bunch of principles. Thus there are many useful things to contemplate and incorporate into the game's procedures. It also got me back into thinking about The Sprawl, after a bit of a lapse.
In the final session (a condensed two hours) surrealfish ran Dungeon World. I played something of a reprise of my regular Elven Fighter from the Glendale game, but in a game with a very silly tone and a PvP ending. The pace was frenetic as surrealfish pushed us through the ideas we'd provided in search of the mythical DRAGON BEARS!
After slaying them, the thief tried to sell us out to a sorceress we'd previously encountered, attempting to blow up the paladin with an explosive chest. The paladin had the last laugh, but then (shades of Get John Carter here) my Fighter was ensorcelled by the sorceress and killed the Paladin before the spell was broken. The game-slash-social contract threatened to go pear-shaped for a little while there, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves in the end.
So that was Day of Games. Great location, pretty good timing (all of my games finished on time, and I'm the four hour advocate!), and great games. Thanks to all my GMs, players and interlocutors! |
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| I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. |
[May. 9th, 2012|09:11 pm] |
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.
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| Apocalypse Nerdly. |
[Apr. 28th, 2012|10:45 am] |
I've never seen anyone write as consistently complete AP reports as Sean Nittner. I played in his Apocalypse Galactica AW hack at Nerdly Beach Party last weekend; now he's written it up: Apocalypse Galactica: Beyond Thunderdome. I was lukewarm going in because I haven't yet seen any of the BSG re-boot, but it was a great game.
While I'm at it, I also ran Geiger World (Colin's DW hack) set in NZ: Sheeple running in confusion from the sabotaged Marmite plant, the heroes hitching a ride from The Tron to Sky City with a Wetaman biker gang (The Entymology Mob), and Hello the albino fellinoid milking Shelob for a bungie cord as they fell from the Skytower. I was a bit rusty at DW, but it turned out pretty well in the end.
I also played a shortened playtest of the Atomic Robo RPG. At the moment it's still a bit too close to the increasingly complex FATE Core to feel properly true to the genre, but there's a lot of really promising things in there. |
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| Tinker, Tailor, Stuntman, Spy |
[Apr. 26th, 2012|11:09 am] |
I've seen a number of excellent movies in the last couple of weeks.
First was the excellently fucked-up Old Boy (2003). I was put on to this Korean revenge movie most recently by discussion of the cinematography of the scene in which Oh Dae-Su, armed with a hammer, fights a crowd of goons in a hallway. That's a fantastic and memorable scene, one of many in the movie. It's a pretty intricate mystery with a brutal twist and a fascinating ending.
Next was the excellently fun District B13 (2004). This is essentially a French parkour movie with the amusing feature of a heavy handed and unnecessary commentary on democracy from the world's other oldest democracy. I now want to see a movie starring Vin Deisel and Cyril Raffaelli. They could call it Separated at Birth. But seriously, check out Raffaelli's stunt and choreography credits. His co-star, David Belle is the founder of parkour, so that's the main value in this movie. Other than the action, the dialogue is decent and there are some cool characters.
The Raid: Redemption (2011) recieved a limited release earlier this year (only three theatres in LA, for example), which was recently widened to include one of my local theatres. This saved me the cross-town trip that the buzz on this movie would have compelled me to take. This is the first Indonesian movie I've seen and it's set a high bar; It's pretty much the perfect action movie. There's no wasted space here; much of the characterisation and plot is conveyed with glaces between character, occasional lines of dialogue, and the action itself. The action scenes are dynamic and inventive including a homage to the Old Boy hallway scene mentioned above and a lengthy climatic fight between two heroes and a villain in a single bare room which remains exciting and interesting throughout despite the lack of props of scene furniture. If you like action movies, this is a must see. And watch out for Welsh director Gareth Evans in the future!
Finally, I saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) on my flight back to NZ. Based on the John Le Carré novel of the same name, this is a masterful slow-burn spy thriller with a insanely good cast. Gary Oldman, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy give fantastic performances. In a similar manner to The Raid, there's no wasted space in this film; every scene moves the mystery along exactly as much as it needs to to maintain a sense of progress, and ratchets up the tension as it does so. If you like gritty espionage thrillers, see this. |
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| Thoughts of Games |
[Apr. 26th, 2012|10:15 am] |
Day of Games is only a couple of weeks away. I'm not sure when I'll have definitively completed the list of the games I'll be taking; at last check, it looked like this.
My process will begin with The Sprawl. I'll take a look at that over the next few days and see if I can come up with a compelling set of love letters. If so, that'll be on offer. I'll also take a look at Geiger World and see if I can finish up some new origin moves for my Aotearoa expansion. If so, that'll be on offer. I need to read the new Dungeon World Beta and give that a run, so if I finish reading that, then that's a possibility too. I'm currently reading Technoir; I'm not sure whether it's demanding that I play it, but it might yet. I may try to get a war movie or two under my belt as prep for The Regiment (I know Steve is keen), but I definitely need to get into the mood for that one first. I'd like to run Monster of the Week, but that will also require another read through and some thought about a Mystery. Finally, I promised drbunnyhops an Apocalypse World game, so I'll probably read through Hatchet City and give that a go. I may also take another look at a half-written scenario inspired by the road trip to Big Bad Con last year.
I forgot to bring my hard copy of Barbaren!, so I think that's out. Maybe for BoD. |
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| The Hunger Games |
[Apr. 8th, 2012|03:17 pm] |
This post and the linked articles contain spoilers. Exercise discretion.
I watched The Hunger Games last week and I came out of the film eager to read the books. Today I read a couple of articles discussing the character of Katniss in interesting ways.
The first, Katniss Everdeen, A New Type of Woman Warrior, discussed Katniss as a new type of American hero figure who, rather than being a loner detached from society (as most Western Heroes are), is thoroughly integrated into society.
The second, What's Wrong With The Hunger Games Is What No One Noticed criticises Katniss' lack of agency in the movie. The question of agency is an excellent one to think about when considering this kind of story, but there are a couple of broad problems with the article. 1) The author makes several arguments about intention that imply to me a deeper knowledge of the material than simply the book, however, several commenters in the thread below assume the opposite, that the author was not familiar with the books. That sounds warning bells. 2) I'm not convinced that the story isn't intended to present a certain lack of agency which could be overturned as the trilogy develops. The author argues that the lack of agency is intentional, but as part of an ideological complex denying agency to women in contemporary society.
( Discussion contains spoilers )
So I am more inclined towards the optimistic view of the first article, but I am glad that people are pushing against the movie. While the Hunger Games is a step in the right direction, it's only a first step.* One thing's for sure, this has only made me more interested to read the books!
* I'll also note that the character of Dejah Thoris in John Carter is also pretty good in this regard.
Also, archery, yay! (cf. Hawkeye.) |
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| A Princess of FATE |
[Apr. 8th, 2012|11:17 am] |
A year or so of craft beer obsession and a couple of disappointing St Patrick's day outings in past years had me unenthused about my usual cross town Irish pub expedition, so Morgan's invitation to play a St Pat's one off for Actual People, Actual Play was an excellent substitute. We had all recently seen John Carter and were in the mood for some planetary romance, so Morgan's brought out his FATE emulation of the genre, Spirit of the Red Planet.
I'd had a great time playing Cyrus Turner, the John Carter guy, when I played this game at Neoncon 2010. This time I played his rival for the heart of the princess, Kalyan Akash, the Martian Sky Pirate.
Episodes of Actual People, Actual Play are recorded immediately after the game finishes; they start with a description of the game and are followed by a discussions of selected topics inspired by or arising from the game. It was a lot of fun to participate, and now you can listen:
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| Mash Up |
[Mar. 7th, 2012|10:50 pm] |
Another episode (the 9th) of Epic Brewing Co's NZ Craft Beer TV was posted today, so I've updated my compilation post. If I'd realised when I was back in NZ that proceeds from sales of Epic's Mash Up Collaboration Ale were going towards editing this, I would have bough more of it! |
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| The Sprawl: Session 1 |
[Mar. 7th, 2012|12:40 am] |
This evening we made characters for The Sprawl's (formerly CyberWorld) first extended playtest.
The first step in character generation is creating a set of Corporations. Accordingly, we have:- Time Warner, all consuming media corporation.
- Hosaka, biochemical giant.
- Orbital Bank of Zurich, financial puppeteers.
- NuKraft, generically modified food conglomerate.
- Maas, corporate Lords of War.
The four characters are:- Tower, the attractive, meticulous, Driver; cruising around The Sprawl in a sleek black halftrack. In the pocket of Mayor Watanabi of Los Angeles.
- Kit, the iridescent-cyber-eyed Sneak you don't want to mess with; recording the reality of The Sprawl for Time Warner Cable.
- Turnus, Soldier, weapons expert, former company man; he's got a plan for everything in The Sprawl. Owned by Maas and wanted by the Elysian Mafia
- Dead Rob, the dying Hacker kept alive by the drugs Saint Sewer pushes; under The Sprawl and all over cyberspace. The Mob think he's dead, for now...
(At this stage the unselected playbooks were Killer, Hunter and Ganger.)
I really like the character generation process and the groups it produces. That took 60-90 minutes, so we started on a first mission and got through the legwork phase. Dead Rob took a bullet from Kit's TWC contact; awesome. |
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