I think it's time we blow this thing...

Gamex 2013

2013-05-04T00:26:56Z

Tonight We Slay a Dragon or Die in the Attempt
Tonight, my friends, we shall slay a dragon. Or else, in the attempt, we shall ourselves be slain. Should we succeed, the tale of our deed will be told in mead-halls and wine-sinks for ever more, and our names will be spoken in tones of reverence and awe. Should we fail, we shall die and so shall our names. But hear this, my boon companions: Live or die, we will have flung the dice of fate, we will have stared in the face of the impossible, we will have lived on the icy edge of death, and we will have been heroes.

This game provides a suggested preset scene structure and several archetypes. The table will create the story, the characters, and perhaps even the rules.

Tonight We Slay a Dragon or Die in the Attempt by Simon Carryer.

ΚΡΑΤΟΦΑΓΙΑ
The crashed ships of the Progonoi pierce the land like teeth of a dead god. The domed cities of the Katoikoi lie squat and empty among them, strewn like droplets of the land’s blood. The air is fetid and deadly, but you’ve learned to breathe it. You’ve learned other things besides. And your swollen glands thirst to know more. In the land of the dead, you eat or you die.

A sick and disturbing mash-up of Dungeon World, Dungeon Planet and Geiger World. Credit to Iosephus Lee, Tim Oliver, Adam Koebel, Jan-Yves Ruzicka and Mat O'Farrell; blame to me.

Handy Advice.

2013-04-04T06:55:45Z

In the same vein as the Pro post a couple of weeks ago:
Writing advice from writers handwritten on writer's hands.

OrcCon 2013: Friday and Saturday

2013-04-03T19:18:28Z

Friday Afternoon: The Sprawl: The Flint Termination
This was a new scenario for The Sprawl, and it went as well as any new scenario has gone so far, although it didn’t go quite as I expected. Both of those are good things! I’ve written several scenarios for The Sprawl by this point, and I generally find that the first one doesn’t run particularly smoothly, at least from behind the screen. Hopefully this means I am getting better at working out how to design missions for the game, and that I can translate that into some good scenario design advice!

Saturday Morning: The Regiment: Colonial Marines
This was my first time running the regiment and it went very well. The squad was tasked with recovering the crew (and cargo) of a downed spaceship, and of course the cargo turned out to be... special. The first half of the mission involved the exploration of the jungle planet and the spaceship and the second half involved recovery of the cargo from the mercenary company which had stolen it. There was an alien, but it was more for atmosphere than as a major source of conflict.
The only problem that turned up was a difficulty with trying to manipulate the Synthetic. The Synthetic doesn’t take stress, and the manipulation move deals stress, so there’s no way to brow-beat or pull rank on the Synthetic, short of the threat of physical violence. I definitely think that’s a feature rather than a bug, but it’s interesting to note.

Saturday Afternoon: Dungeon World: Number Appearing
Number Appearing is a Dungeon World supplement for playing monster races that appeared as a backer reward in the kickstarter campaign. I hadn’t played or read it yet and I didn’t think I’d get to play in Colin’s game, but he successfully squeezed me in as a fifth player. Everyone had an additional monster race playbook which essentially provides a new set of world generation lists to guide the description of the monster races. That slows down character generation a little, but the extra time is spent on creative collaboration, so that’s not really a problem. What did seem a bit of a problem, at least I found it so on this occasion, is the provided lists are quite specific and are a touch small for the suggested number of options when multiple players have one of the same playbooks. Our game had three Towering Brutes (and Ettin, an Orge and a Troll), one Small and Sneaky (a Ratkin) and one Hungry Dead, so the Towering Brute flavour lists were taxed a little.
But the game was, of course, awesome. We were all associated with a tribe of ogre/ettins (ogres being ettins who have lost a head – my ogre cleric’s second head had been a heretic, so I cleansed it with fire) living a Storm Giant monastery in a dormant volcano which was attacked by an Apocalypse Dragon. There were many heroic and foolhardy attempts to kill it or drive it off, but in the end we only succeeded by destroying our home as we caused the volcano to erupt. There was quite a lot of PvP as well... definitely more of an Apocalypse World flavour (complete with hardhold, in a way) rather than the standard gung-ho DW fare.

Saturday Evening: Dungeonhearts
I had jokingly proposed a reskin (hur-hur) of Monsterhearts to replicate the immature social/sexual interactions of a group of typical D&D characters at a previous Strategicon, and the name Dungeonhearts got stuck in my head. Thus, Dungeonhearts: The Messy Lives of Teenaged Adventurers was born. I’s played Monsterhearts three times previously, but had not run it before, so this was a slightly nervous experience for me. Fitting really.
It went really well. I had four players who knew about Monsterhearts but had not played, and they got the concept and ran with it. There was lots of great character interplay, some poignant scenes, some dark scenes, some terrible decisions were made, the darkest of magics were performed, a traitorous noble was brought down, and a burgeoning relationship was shattered. Everything you’d expect from a Monsterhearts game, but in a fantasy village.
Having just finished Storm of Swords I’m struck by the devious idea of running this again in the wake of catching up on the Game of Thrones tv series... Certainly, next time I run the game, I’ll write a couple of adventuring moves, as the occasional move selection dilemma could have been thereby removed.

I took some time off from the con on Sunday, so as it turned out, the best game of the con was the last game of the con.

Very Sad News

2013-04-03T19:13:40Z

Iain Banks diagnosed with Gall Bladder Cancer.

Fuck cancer.

How The Professional Behaves

2013-02-28T04:11:06Z

CK posted a note earlier in the week which I've looking at regularly. I tire of keeping the Facebook tab open, so I reproduce it here for my own reference. It's taken from Steven Pressfield's The War of Art.

Steven Pressfield, in his terrific book THE WAR OF ART, breaks down the difference between the Pro and the Amateur. Here is how a Pro behaves:
The professional shows up every day
The professional stays on the job all day
The professional is committed over the long haul
For the professional, the stakes are high and real
The professional is patient
The professional seeks order
The professional demystifies
The professional acts in the face of fear
The professional accepts no excuses
The professional plays it as it lays
The professional is prepared
The professional does not show off
The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique
The professional does not hesitate to ask for help
The professional does not take failure or success personally
The professional does not identify with his or her instrument
The professional endures adversity
The professional self-validates
The professional reinvents herself
The professional is recognized by other professionals

The Amateur does not do these things, or does the opposite.

To remind myself to do better.

Food for thought

2013-02-27T09:38:44Z

The other day I read two articles from two entirely different sources that interacted in an interesting way. Both include aspects that I'm interested in reading and thinking more about.

The first was on Ian Morris' 2010 Big History book, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Shape of History.

The second was about how social scientists are discovering that culture determines perception and cognition: We Aren’t the World.

The latter may seem a bit of a no-brainer to anyone trained in the humanities who thinks about it directly, but nevertheless there is an extent to which we often assume that people of different cultural backgrounds share certain cognitive traits with us without necessarily establishing whether it's true.

Given that my own work involves an examination of how a past culture perceived and understood a certain physical, political and social space, this is a pretty relevant question.

In a suit, no less

2013-02-27T09:28:28Z

So, this was a thing that happened: Sydney breaks temperature record

OrcCon 2013

2013-01-24T14:56:46Z

This is a hold page for my games:

LV-572 (The Regiment: Colonial Marines)

The Corporation lost contact with this colony a month ago... Everything looks calm... "Contact! We have a blip sir!"

The Flint Termination (The Sprawl)

Sometimes the job's just straight out wetwork.

The Sprawl is a game of mission-based action in a gritty neon-and-chrome cyberpunk future. You are the extended assets of vast multinational corporations, operating in the criminal underground, and performing the tasks that those multinationals can’t do, or can’t be seen to, do. Deniable, professional, and ultimately disposable.

DungeonHearts (MonsterHearts)

A story game about the messy lives of teenage adventurers.

2013 Gaming Resolutions

2013-01-16T02:30:18Z

I'd intended to set myself high goals for gaming in 2012:

Play the RPGs I have with me in LA that I have yet to play.
Get Cyberworld (and A Certain Kind of Decision) to the external playtesting stage.
At every con I attend, offer at least one prep-intensive game.
Submit one of those games to the 2013 Kapcon SDC.
At every con I attend, offer at least one game that I haven't run at that con before.

2012 was characterised by almost all of my gaming being at cons. I didn't manage to sync up with my Glendale group when I got back last January, nor did I manage to get my Hollywood group going, except for some board game evenings. I did play in a couple of Google Hangout games, one of which is ongoing. Between that The Sprawl, I didn't end up with much gaming time to tackle these. I more or less managed to tread water on #1 again, mostly less if I consider various completed Kickstarters for which I can some percentage of the completed rewards. #2 is a tick; except for A Certain Kind of Decision, and that Cyberworld is now called The Sprawl. #3 only succeeded if I include scenarios for The Sprawl, which was not the kind of "prep intensive" I intended, and thus #4 also failed, despite the new SDC one page game seed category, which is far more in my usual mode of game prep. I have no idea how I did on #5, so lets take a trawl through the archives to see what I ran in 2012...

January: Kapcon 1 2 (Dungeon World x3 (one prepped), The Sprawl: The Kurosawa Extraction)
February: OrcCon (Dungeon World x3 (Living, so some prep), The Sprawl: The Kurosawa Extraction)
March: HyphenCon (Monster of the Week: Zombiefest)
April: Nerdly Beach Party (Geiger World)
May: Day of Games (Dungeon World, The Sprawl: The Essilor Sterilisation)
June: Buckets of Dice (The Sprawl x3 (The Essilor Sterilisation x2, The Cazares-Bell Obselence))
July: Not-D&D-Con (Dungeon World (2 sessions using a published D&D module))
August: Confusion (The Sprawl: The Cazares-Bell Obsolescence); GenCon 1 2 3 4 (Monster of the Week x2; Psi*Run x2; Dungeon World x2)
September: Gateway (Dungeon World x2 (Living), The Sprawl: The Essilor Sterilisation)
October: Big Bad Con (The Sprawl x2 (The Boyle Recovery & The Essilor Sterilisation))
November: Nerd SoCal Game Day: Didn't run anything.
December: Nerd SoCal Game Day (The Sprawl: The Boyle Recovery); Big Gaming Week (Ocean)

Phew. I narrowly missed a con every month in 2011, but I got it in 2012 if I include the game days! As for resolution #5, well, it was going okay until August (counting different Sprawl scenarios as different games, which is actually a different kind of dodge to the way I worded the resolution), then the repeats come in. My main problem with this one was that my heart wasn't in it! I could have run a greater variety of games, but I wanted to get as many different people playing The Sprawl as I could, and Dungeon World is so fun and easy at this point (even if someone did have to correct me on the new damage system at Day of Games!). That gives me two games per con (8 hours), which is about my average (12 hours at three-day cons), so there's not much time to squeeze in another game, plus the prep for it.

So what about this year?

Play one new RPG every month.
Finish a complete draft of The Sprawl.
Offer a game with pre-gens at every con.
Submit a game to the 2014 Kapcon SDC.
Offer a new game at every con.

Which is a retooled version of last year. #1 is more generalised; it will be harder this year as my con schedule will be lighter, so I'll actually have to find gamers outside of a con environment. #2 is the next step in the process. #3 is essentially what I meant by last year's #3; yes, pre-gens are prep intensive in my gaming world. I expect the release of Fate Core will help me here. #4 is the same. #5 is last year's #5, but without the dodge. Lets do it!

Tune in next January to see how I did!

A Timely Notification

2013-01-10T03:06:09Z

I recorded a bit for the Penny Red podcast last month. It's aprt of an episode on Christmas gift recommendations; perhaps not so useful now, but here it is for posterity: EPISODE 45: DOOMSDAY.

It's been a while since I played around with Audacity; I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it.

My 2012 Music Charts, aka, I still haven't bought Manslaughterer.

2013-01-07T04:14:30Z

Less tardy than last year.

My top 10 listened artists with (2012 playcount) and [overall ranking since 2005]

Shihad (230) [2]
The Prodigy (175) [10]
Fear Factory (146) [14]
The Sisters of Mercy (136) [1]
Garbage (117) [28]
Pendulum (96) [92]
Electric Six (88) [14]
Joy Division (80) [5]
Scooter (73) [89]
Flunk (67) [165]

This is a surprising list for two, probably related reasons. I would not have expected to see artists like Pendulum, Scooter and Flunk in there (Flunk in particular, I think I decided weren't to my taste). This most likely reflects more listening to playlists of electronic music while I work, as well as a continuation of last year's trend of working more on campus than at home. Last year the 10th ranked artist was VNV Nation with 136 scrobbles (this year they had 12 [12]), then six more artists were over 100 scrobbles each. This year only another three artists received over 50 scrobbles.

2010: 14 over 100 and 48 over 50.
2011: 16 over 100 and 39 over 50.
2012: 5 over 100 and 8 over 50.

Artists featuring in my overall top 10 not appearing here are The Killers [3], Rammstein [4] Carter USM [6], Lordi [7], Oomph! [8], The Nova Echo [9].

My top 10 listened albums with (2012 playcount) and [overall ranking since 2005]:

Shihad – Ignite (70) [14]
Garbage - Version 2.0 (54) [54]
Pendulum - Immersion (51) [223]
Scooter - Jumping All Over The World [CD2] (47) [302]
Garbage - Garbage (46) [39]
Shihad - Beautiful Machine [Limited 2 Disc] Disc 1 (44) [22]
Midnight Youth - World Comes Calling (38) [355]
Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight (36) [7]
The Cars – Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology (2 of 2) (36) [26]
The Nova Echo – The Nova Echo (36) [1]

The only continuity between 2011 and 2010 was The Nova Echo; this year Shihad, The Cars and Frightened Rabbit join them. Counts are down here as well. All ten scrobble counts from last year's list would have beaten all ten of this year's. Once again, the big change here is an increase in electronic music as working background music.

My list of top tracks is comprises multiple tracks from Shihad, Frightened Rabbit, The Sisters of Mercy, Death Cab for Cutie, The Nova Echo and Garbage, as well as individual tracks from Allison Weiss, The Prodigy, Moby, Scooter, Midnight Youth, a couple of other electronic tracks and a few from The Sixty One. Given I haven't used The Sixty One much this year, it's another testament to the low entry bar this year that anything from that source made it near the top 25 (there was a fifteen-way tie for 11th place with 7 listens).

So, 2012 was a year of largely lyricless rhythm here at my place. Will it be repeated? I'd say probably not, as I sit here listening to Basshunter...

Six Hour Lunch [Live]

2012-12-28T23:58:37Z

We have arrived at the annual Six Hour Lunch, a lengthy port and food event named for the long lunches port merchants would have waiting for the boats to arrive on the tide.

First up:
Krohn Porto Ambassadeur (Ruby) [12.30]
Lovely deep ruby colour. Odd (chemical?) nose. Sweet, plums; apple finish.

Torlesse Port [12.54]
An experimental port by the Torlesse vineyard, bottled in 2007.
Red-brown colour. Rich raisin nose, some alcohol comes in later. Fruity, prune finish. Very nice.

Porto Krohn Vintage 2003 [13.21]
Opaque plum colour. Acetone nose. Intense raisin flavour; apple finish.

What kind of grapes is Port made of? Luci says Port is made of "Porty grapes". So there you go.
Alternatively...

Smoked Brie and Smoked Gouda interlude! [13.36]

Grant Burge 10yo [14.10]
Transparent golden red-brown. Delicious and very well balanced nose and flavour, delicate raisins.

Trond and I discussing NYE cocktail ideas:
"It's not New Years unless you've done something wrong." "Define wrong." "Something right."

Croft Fine Tawny Port [14.23]
Red, starting to brown. Alcohol nose, vague raisin taste. Sweet, rich, alcohol taste with hints of raisin.

"The internet demands pictures of Trond running down the street smothered in guacamole!"

Will blames his love of this travesty on Kaikouria (which means "to eat Crayfish"):

Croft 10 year aged Tawny [14.40]
Not much browner that the last one. Spicy nose. Spicy palate mellows into a delicious jammy-ness. Possibly my favourite so far.

"When the wax rain comes, your umbrella will not be enough."

Fonseca Porto Bin 27 [15.45]
Rich Burgundy colour. After the alcohol burns off, a herbacious nose. Tannins on the palate along with some smooth dried-fruity sweetness.

And the spilling and breaking portion of the afternoon has begun. Dyson time!

[15.55: Gold is is also posting here.]

Graham's "Six Grapes" Reserve Port [16.39]
Dark ruby red. Rich savoury nose with a hint of alcohol. Tannins and spice, sweetness and not a lot of length. Good, but a little underwhelming.

Graham's Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) 2007 [16.47]
Same dark ruby red. Generic sweet nose with some alcohol. Fruity and raisiny.
Hftkasdgfakhsfv;kjkshf.

Taylor's Late Bottled Vintage Port 2001 [17.19]
Rich ruby red, starting to brown a bit at the edges. Savoury nose. Sweet, initial spicy hit, a little bit of tannin.

And we're done!

Eleven O'Clock Movie Monster

2012-12-17T04:05:39Z

I arrived in New Zealand at some ungodly hour this morning, having managed some sleep, and also a few movies:

When I saw the trailers for Ted (2012) it looked fun in a purile way, but it was surprisingly smart; very reminiscent of Family Guy but without the random asides.
I was definitely right to watch the original of Total Recall before the remake. The first (1990) was a fantastic sci-fi action movie that managed to take a serious look at futurist issues while keeping a slightly campy tone. The 2012 remake had some visually cool moments but the numerous tweaks to the original plot all detracted from the plausibility of the scenario.
I liked the 2003 remake of the The Italian Job, so I watched the original (1969) on this occasion. Veeeery simple movie; mostly a chance to see some driving and Michael Caine doing his thing. The final scene was fun, but displayed a poor knowledge of leverage and gravity. I liked that the way they finally ended it though.
I had a few East Asian movies on my watch list, and in the end I selected Wu Dang (2012) because it was the right length. Unfortunately, PA interruptions and other such nonsense meant that I missed the end of the denouement (which in turn reminds me that I still need to watch the last 5 minutes of Space Battleship Yamato (2010)), but I was sold on the DVD after well before then anyway. The story shapes as if it's going to be a kung fu Indiana Jones, but most of the movie follows the love stories of two couples... with lots of kung fu. If, like me, The Man with the Iron Fists (2012) left you wanting more of The Gemini, then one of the final scenes will scratch that itch. Highly recommended for fans of the genre.

Sadly Looper (2012) was not yet on the list.

The trailer doesn't do it justice, but here's a taste of Wu Dang.

[My earlier call (that Dredd was my movie of the year) stands, with the caveats that I have yet to see Looper or Skyfall.]

[Edit: Oh yeah, and I saw the first instalment of The Hobbit before I left for the airport "yesterday". I was curious to see how Jackson was going to take a short book and turn it into three movies; An Unexpected Journey gave me a taste of how that's going to go... and I'm ready for some more! As a fan of Middle Earth lore, I loved the integration of various threads of backstory, and as a fan of fantasy action, I loved some of the fight scenes. Gandalf displaying his swordsmanship? Hells yeah!

I'm interested to see how it stands up to a second viewing. I wonder if it might drag a little as does Fellowship.]

Papering-over Incompleteness

2012-11-06T16:54:24Z

[This is an archive/reference of some thoughts I had on Twitter late last week.]

I came across a Kickstarter the other day and read this piece of promotional copy: "the mechanics get out of the way, and let the story take center stage."

As I said on Twitter*, This is a warning sign for me, most simply because it implies that the author has learnt nothing from the last 10 years of game development. System matters.

It implies that mechanics are a wall between you and fun that need to be circumvented in some way. Don't do that. If the mechanics are in the way, keep working on your design. Don't move the mechanics out of the way, integrate them!

To the credit of my Twitter peeps, I didn't have to reemphasise the individual nature of this mantra.

* With the ensuing conversations visible on the same page.

Political geek music for voting day: HSAS.

Big Bad Report

2012-11-06T08:14:17Z

After the fantastic success of last year's Big Bad Con Morgan and I once more made the road trip from Los Angeles to Oakland to sup from the chalice of Bay Area gaming. This time Andrew was already in situ (although got screwed a bit by work) and Colin was in baby-caring mode, but Jesse was able to join us in the car and David met us up there, so a fair number of the LA crew were in attendance. Big Bad Con is currectly a three day con (Friday noon to Sunday afternoon) We drove down on Thursday after Jesse had finished work and drove back on Monday in order to maximise our gaming time.

Friday
After good breakfast at Fifth Wheel, Friday's gaming menu began with Anarktica, a steampunk hack of/scenario for Archipelago II (in the GoD room). The system gives a kind of loose structure to the game (essentially it's just a scene-framing mechanic with card draw for success - more in this S-G thread), but this particular session didn't fire for me. I'm not really sure if there was a systemic reason beyond the scenario and players not gelling for me; Sunday's Love in the Time of Seið uses the same system and it rocked.

In the evening I ran a pickup game of The Sprawl for David, Jerry and Matt. I used a new scenario, 'The Boyle Recovery', and it needs some work. The Sprawl itself is working well, and the game was followed by a very productive conversation that will result in a new XP system (in typical AW hack fashion!)

Saturday
The only game I signed up for before the weekend was The Dirty Half-Dozen, a Dirty Dozen-style bunch of criminals given a chance to win their freedom by undertaking a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. The game used Paul Riddle and John Harper's excellent WWII AW hack, The Regiment (Forum | Begining of an AP rabbit hole). My hardened Commando got to strafe the Nazi Schlosse with a quad MG42, and try to jump a tank in a motorcycle, so I was happy. Great game, both this session and the game itself.

In the afternoon, I ran The Sprawl on the books. I used The Essilor Sterilisation, which I could now probably run in my sleep, but this was the first time the group failed the mission. Practically a TPK as they tried to escape the mess they'd made.

After dinner (an extremely long wait for Indian from across the road) I played Witch: The Road to Lindisfarne, another scene-framing game about a group of medieval characters escorting a witch to her execution, this time with a tightly themed act structure, very evocative characters, and a negotiated conflict resolution system. I played the dishonoured crusader-knight as a "be true to thyself stoic-type" in the battle for the squire's future with the hard-as-nails, death-before-social-dishonour old knight. Daniel Hodges recorded a quick episode for his podcast, Penny Red, immediately afterwards. Our hasty departure from the room we played in to the quite of the next room was apparently bemusing to the group playing out an intense awkward-sex scene (in Jackson Tegu's Silver and White in the room we'd left.

There's also a super-detailed, Sean-Nittner, AP report of the Witch game.

Sunday
In the morning slot, I played another hack of Archipelago II, this time for Nordic blood opera, Love in the Time of Seið. This game really went off. The system was pretty much the same as Anarktica, but either the setting worked better for me, or the table vibe among the players was better. I suspect the latter. At any rate, I'll be picking this one up.

The last game was My Life with Master, one of the original indie games to come out of The Forge, but one that I hadn't got to play yet. We solved that in spades. I showed David the Master we'd created as he was passing the table, "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" I was going to type it out, but... suffice to say he was kidnappy, mind-controlly, frankensteiny, and eugenicsy.

Monday
No gaming. Just breakfast at Cock-a-Doodle Cafe, shopping at Endgame, a couple of beers at The Trappist and a a pizza for the road at Lanesplitter.

Swag included Dominion: Dark Ages, Fastlane and several classic Shadowrun adventures.

Game ideas germinated or developed on the road included Smurfpocalypse World and DungeonHearts.

Fear Addicted, Danger Illustrated

2012-11-06T06:55:28Z

It's been a very busy month and I had trouble remembering what I'd played at Big Bad Con this year. Fortunately I got there in the end, so there'll be a late (and probably backdated) con post shortly.

I thought my computer had died today, so I spent all day on campus working with a furious energy to overcome the sting of a potentially huge bill. Fortunately when I got home I was able to tackle the issue more rationally and sorted it out. Phew!

Now I'm writing said Big Bad Con 2012 report and having a drink.

Here's some 1999 for you (me).

Take me on a trip; on your magic swirlin' ship.

2012-09-25T05:16:30Z

Click play on this delightful video of William Shatner singing 'Mr Tamborine Man'. Scroll down to look at the GIF below.

Thanks to @Sarah_Haw and apologies to Psy.

Are you the teachers of the heart?

2012-09-16T20:19:52Z

Inspired by a twitter discussion with Gina, who I recently discovered is my LA Sisters sister. I should have guessed actually... At any rate, here's my pick of essential non-album* Sisters tracks.

First 2:30, most important Sisters song not on an album (Teachers); remaining time, a slowed down version of one of the best Sisters songs full stop (Adrenochrome):

Best Sisters song not on an album:

Best Reason to buy Temple of Rarities Vol 2:

(Or, Some Boys Wander By Mistake apparently; an album I don't own. Anyone know where I can get it?)

And, just so there's an actual video in this lot:

I hear the dive bombers and empire down.

*Not including bootlegs here, of which there are a ton.

Look Ma, No Gaming!

2012-09-11T19:17:33Z

Over the past year or so, my LJ has gradually returned to its original status as my gaming blog. One of the other things I used to use it for was my various foodie antics. To a large degree, that now takes place on my twitter, but most of my craft beer drinking is now focused on Untappd (with the more interesting beers, photos or comments also pushed to twitter).

I also spend a fair amount of time drinking and discussing craft beer with John and Julie at Beer of Tomorrow, a beer blog focused on the Los Angeles craft beer scene. It occurs to me that I should link to more of those here. Accordingly, on Friday night, Paula and I tried a bunch of beers with J&J, and John's Beer of Tomorrow post is here: Three Takes on Hoppy Wheat Beers.

Gateway 2012: Monday

2012-09-10T04:54:25Z

As usual, I hadn't scheduled a Monday morning game. I was prepared to run The Sprawl, but Rob's flight would have made for a very short game, so we played a couple of rounds of Conquering Corsairs to test out some of the new ideas that had come out of the playtest with Antoine and developed over the weekend. Expect a much more quick playing and focused game in the next iteration.

The con finished with a hat trick of Pann's which was also a hat trick for fried chicken (although this last serving was as part of a breakfast waffle order).

So that was Gateway 2012. Hopefully not my last Strategicon, but quite possibly it was. I've had a good run of them over the last few years, and through them I've made a lot of great friends and done a lot of great gaming outside them, including most of the other cons I've attended while I've been in the US, especially the Nerdly Beach Parties. Game on dudes!

Gateway 2012: Sunday

2012-09-10T02:31:45Z

Sunday morning was more Conquering Corsairs playtesting in the main boardgaming hall. All I'll say here is that people love pirates! I discuss the playtests in slightly more detail in the previous report.

Piracy is serious business!

I hadn't pre-registered for anything in the afternoon, but I saw there was a slot free in Chris Czerniak's 6 (ugh!) player MonsterHearts game. Fortunately none of the alts showed up, one player was a no-show, and another spent a brief time looking at the playbooks before deciding it wasn't his kind of game and bowing out. SURPRISE 4-PLAYER MONSTERHEARTS GAME, YAY!

I outsourced much of my chracter selection to Twitter; a couple of people suggested The Queen very quickly (Thanks Hans and Jenn!), so The Queen it was (perhaps I'll play The Ghoul next time, Colin)! Jenn also suggested I play a rock star in a high school band, so that's what I did. Drake, The Queen (Hot 1, Cold 2 [H], Volitile -1 (raise to 0 during play), Dark -1 [H]; The Clique and Many Bodies; Streaming gained during play), vocalist and lead guitarist of Strobe Panda Hypothesis (thanks to Hans and David for suggestions), Dan my rhythm guitarist, Kylie on bass and Savage on drums. He would earn his name by the end... The other players were Lucian the Vampire, Damien the Infernal, and Lenora the Ghost.

The first two-thirds of the game took place in the high school with the usual high school antics that make MonsterHearts great: popularity contests, social politics, sexual tension, watching people watching people have sex with people you hate, making pacts with the librarian servants of dark masters, rocking out a pep rally to lure into a trap, and attempting to claw the face off the people who you blame for your death. Then shit got wacky. The final part of the game took place at a high school football party which my gang (by this time including Lenora and Damien) attended to get back at the linebackers who beat up Drake. Things got violent immediately and, except for a brief patch in the middle where Drake restored order and led the gang out of the party only to have things go to shit again in the street outside, the rest of the session was an all in brawl. Savage knifed a linebacker in the knee; Kylie, Savage and Drake all got baseball bats to the face; Lenora was chasing after a pair of vampire hunters who were trying to kill Lucian; and Lucien dug out the heart of the linebacker with the bat with his bare hands (on the second attempt -- under the ribcage, not through the ribcage). Good times!

After MonsterHearts, we piled into the Magnum and headed to Pann's for more fried chicken before returning for the finale of Living Dungeon World III in the evening session.

And just like that, it was time to finish our little Dungeon World arc. With only three GMs this time, and neither of the other two being able to run games in the final session, we only had a single game to finish the arc. Because of that and the game registration confusion, there was rather more demand than I could handle. I had five players registered and three alts for a four player game. I usually end up accepting an extra player when I run Dungeon World, so it was no problem to take all the registered players, but we definitely could have filled a second game.

In the end, I had three characters who had played through previous sessions: Lanethe the Younger (Gina), a third-level city elf Ranger with a pet rat; Golden Axe Jones (Rob), the human fighter from my first session, now fourth-level and with a young griffon mount; Menoliir "Grimjaws" (Jason), a third-level high-mountain wood elf druid with a proclivity for shapeshifting into the form of a cave bear. Then there were two new characters: Rath Berict (Mook), a wandering elf Wizard; and Sigrund Twice-Born, a dwarf cleric of Gildor (God of Blades from my first session, now defined further as a god of bloody conquest).

As the session started, we found our heroes employed by the Derelian Empire to search out a magical weapon factory in the mountains north of Neustria (homeland to all the characters). They found the site a battlefield, littered with the bodies of Golden Axe warriors and elite soldiers of the Kingdom of Sethran, the great rival of the Derelian Empire. Inside the mountain, they found further signs of battle and a vast underground chamber, robbed of the magical weapons they sought, but containing a giant, explosive-lightning-ball-throwing stone golem animated by magical gems. A titanic struggle began, which ended when Golden Axe threw his axe at the creature, striking a critical gem holding the powerful magics in place and triggering a massive explosion (he rolled a 6-) and flinging Menoliir against the wall like a rag doll, even in bear form. Fortunately, he rolled a 10+ at Death's Door and having glimpsed the dark future that threatened Neustria, he awoke surrounded by the concerned faces of his companions.

The group had found signs of survivors of the battle for the factory and they followed these through the mountains towards Neustria where they caught up with a small band of elite Sethran guard and a pair of Golden Axes. They ambushed them: recovering several crates of magic weapons and discovering a plan to use them to strike at the Derelian Empire through their homeland. But why were the Golden Axes involved?! Abandoning their Derelian mission, they hurried back to Neustria, equipped the border guards with this new supply of magical weaponry, and scoured the land interrogating Golden Axes and attempting to root out the treachery. Finally they prepared themselves for an assault on the Golden Axe fortress.

They infiltrated the outer keep through a riverbank sally-port, crept through the castle to a sewer tunnel leading into the keep, and made their way to the grand hall of the Golden Axes atop the keep. It was only when confronted with the golden doors that their plan was discovered and they soon found themselves surrounded by Golden Axes, including the kung-fu styles of Golden Axe Jones' one through twelve. Epic battle commenced! Sigrund and Menolirr moved to protect Lanethe and Rath respectively while Golden Axe Jones (now revealed as Golden Axe Jones #181) summoned his griffon and flew at Golden Axe Jones #1. Numbers two through twelve formed a whirling vertical circle of kung-fu badassery. Between the bear form of Menoliir, the archery of Lanethe, Sigrund's mighty blade, Rath's charms and missles and the golden axe of Golden Axe Jones ~~#181~~ #172, the corrupted Golden Axe Jones #1 was forced to flee for his life. As #1 fled, Golden Axe Jones ~~#181~~ #172 threw his mighty axe after him, but only succeeded (6-) in breaking a hole in the wall through which #1 could dive into the river far far below. Golden Axe Jones ~~#181~~ #172 was hailed as the new #1 and the land was saved!

Gateway 2012: Saturday

2012-09-09T21:40:05Z

Saturday was playtest day.

The morning session was The Sprawl. There were four players and we created the following list of corporations:

Virtual Interface (Data storage and cyber security)
Aeon Nova (Translation Software)
IrisTech (Optical technology and consumer electronics)
RadCom (Hazardous waste disposal)
Vaser (Manufactured goods)

The characters were:

Mé Moi (Gina), an articifically sweet looking Killer with a metallic cyberarm. Her father was a corporate exec for Virtual Interface; after he was killed, she was raised by the corporation (owned x2).
Taylor (Jim), a Hunter with an tacky augmented reality visor implant (cheap cyberware); disowned from a wealthy family.
Spectre (Mook), a small Infiltrator, utilitarian and nondescript down to the cybereyes. Indentured to IrisTech.
Shard (Nicco), a burned-out ex-simsense star gone open-source Pusher. Hunted by the holder of all the copyrights on his 24/7 life experiences, IrisTech.

Unsurprisingly, IrisTech and Virtual Interface featured heavily in the Links phase:

When Shard still worked for IrisTech he filmed an exposé against RadCom (Taylor found where the malpractice was occuring; RadCom clock at 1800).
Mé Moi assassinated an IrisTech exec who had come into possession of VI proprietary data, and recovered the data (Spectre was the exec's bodyguard; IrisTech clock at 1800).
Spectre was sent by IrisTech to steal the data back! (Shard distracted the IrisTech security; Mé Moi was investigating the security breach; Virtual Interface clock at 2100).
Taylor investigated a Vaser VP's personal life (Mé Moi was having an affair with the VP; Vaser clock at 1800).

None of the clocks were very high, so there was no pressing need to alter the mission accordingly. Character generation had taken 1:15.

I've run this mission (The Essilor Sterilisation) a couple of times before and it has played out quite differently each time. On this occasion, the team spent about an hour in the Legwork phase investigating the site and gathering resources. It seemed to take a while for them to make a plan (possibly because the Infiltrator was hacking the facility's system, but not very well!), and they eventually settled on a frontal assault with an EMP blast to knock out the extensive camera system. A couple of key misses (and hard moves) resulted in a well advanced Legwork clock (2200), so the target knew they were coming.

Security was quick to respond to the breach and a bloody firefight erupted inside the building as the team met the internal security forces, and outside, as the external security forces arrived in force and outmatched Shard's enthusiastic gang of open-source simsense fans and activists. Shard himself took several bullets, going down. In the final assault, Taylor put a bullet through the head of the the guy they were supposed to extract. On the brink of failure (Mission clock at 2300), the team evacuated the bodies of Shard and the target; the former was rushed to a hospital by his fans, but too late; the latter was rushed to the meet with their employer. They handed over the body and received their payment, but as they looked, somewhat unbelievingly, at the briefcase full of money, they were bathed in the light of a dozen or so halogen spotlights. The credits roll to the sound of safeties clicking off; Taylor had missed the Getting Paid move. (The whole mission played out in about 2 hours - I rushed the end a little as I incorrectly thought we were running out of time.)

It was the first time I'd seen a non-Hacker use the Matrix rules, and it was good to see that it worked, but was suitably difficult. It was also the first time I've seen the team miss the Getting Paid move; previously the clocks haven't been nearly so advanced at the end. So a good playtest.

After lunch, Rob and I ran a couple of playtests of Conquering Corsairs in the boardgaming area. The first was with Strategicon guest of honour Antoine Bauza (designer of 7 Wonders and Ghost Stories) who gave us a lot of really useful advice and feedback. Following that game, we spent some time brainstorming some changes, then over the rest of the con we played with the old rules, wishing we had time to make some changes! On Monday we playtested some rules changes and the resulting games were a lot tighter and quicker.

Our second game of Conquering Corsairs went long, so Rob and I missed the convoy to Pann's. We phoned in our takeaway order, talked Conquering Corsairs, then ate our delicious delicious chicken (thanks, Colin!). I hadn't signed up for a game in the evening session because I was meeting Paula at the airport. As it turned out, her flight was delayed, so I could have played most of a session. Instead, I sat in on a live recording of an episode of the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast and had beer with Will, Gina, and Jason. Paula and I got back from the airport in time for Barcon to be closed down by hotel security (thanks in no small part to the Sheraton messing up our room block booking), but we took the party to the lobby.

Gateway 2012: Friday

2012-09-09T19:19:07Z

After pushing to finish an externally-playtestable alpha version of The Sprawl last Thursday, I wound my way through the streets of Los Angeles towards the LAX Sheraton for Gateway 2012.

First slot was an off-schedule playtest of Rob's Asterisk World, his deconstructed playbook-less point-buy version of Dungeon World. I played Rapido, one of Los Hermanos Pies (with Morgan's Fuerte), a pair of halfling luchadors. I was a Monk with a suite of different cool-looking abilities which I didn't really end up using at all. Asterisk World is being designed for Rob's home game, and it definitely feels like a game that will suit a particular kind of group, namely one that prizes character flexibility over strong archtypes.

As usual, Friday's dinner was pizza delivery in the Barcon suite.

In the evening, I kicked off Living Dungeon World III with an in medias res sabotage mission. The characters were Golden Axe Jones (Rob), a human fighter from a mercenary franchise-family; Humble (David), a human thief who was run out of his homeland without his buried stash; Cassius the Younger, a human Paladin dedicated to Gildor, God of Blades; Azraebelle (Kryssie), an elf bard with harpy ancestry; and Sinestro (Sayler); an elf druid. All of the characters were mercenaries from a minor border region called Neustria and in this mission, they were employed by the Derelian Empire against the city-state of Magnamar. There was a battle atop a tower mounting the city's great ballista (including a great moment when both Cassius and Golden Axe Jones jumped off the tower to catch Humble who had been thrown off by an ogres), a stand-off in the thieves guild then a midnight heist of their former allies, and finally a knife fight between Humble and a drunken dwarven pirate captain for control of the ship they needed to blow open Magnamar's sea-gate.

Oppan Turtle Style!

Sayler and I were supposed to run two parallel games of LDW in the 8pm friday slot, but we were a little short on players, so we combined the games. In another situation, maybe I would have stuck with a couple of two player games.

The Sprawl: Alpha Version

2012-08-31T06:02:09Z

The Alpha is done.

Download and discuss on Barf Forth Apocalyptica, here, or on Story Games.

Edit: Now there's a dedicated subforum for The Sprawl.

Interview Edition

2012-08-24T19:52:30Z

A couple of months ago I was interviewed by two separate people. One of those interviews appeared online yesterday, the other several weeks ago, but I neglected to post about it here.

Out Of Character is the club 'zine produced by the University of Canterbury gaming club, now called SAGA (formerly the Fantasy Gaming Society, FuGSoc). I served as editor of OOC for several years back in the late 90s. The current editor, Jan, put together an interview edition in the weeks after Buckets of Dice 2012 and as a regular attendee despite living in the US, included me in the line up. I give some comparisons between NZ and US conventions and rather inexplicably launch into a digression about my GMing style...

The interview is in Issue 4.

The second was a blast from the past and a small gaming world story. A former university gaming friend from mid-90s Christchurch who now lives in Canada got in touch on G+ via Sean Nittner in the Bay Area. Daniel has now published a Victorian era game (Victoria) as Hazard Gaming and also runs a podcast (Penny Red) in which he interviews gamers about their roleplaying background and philosophy. The episodes are long (which I like, but others may not), but those I've listened to have been quite interesting.

My interview is episode 25.

I'm in good company, episode 26 is with Vincent Baker, and there are probably a few other names you'll recognise, but the interviews with the ones you don't are often just as good.