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robin_d_laws

08:35 pm - Gen Con Oz, Day Three

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA — Saturday was the make or break day, attendance-wise. Would the unusually high preregistration numbers be matched with enough walk-in trade to make the show work? Looks like they did very well, with aisles bustling and a lobby full of folks heading through the purchase and badge queues.

The day began with Tracy and Laura Hickman’s signature event, the legendary Killer Breakfast, recalibrated for a stellar line-up of Aussie victims. They’ve been doing this at flagship Gen Con for years: a mass participation event in which players are given old school D&D characters and troop up on stage to sit on a table to be subjected to Tracy’s very funny and viciously adversarial DMing. The only certitude is that your character will hilariously die. If you can vamp entertainingly, you can postpone the inevitable for a while. Tracy and Laura unfurl the showmanship—there’s video, prizes, mini-games... They even sing! Normally I would run at maximum speed away from any threatened singing of well-known songs rewritten with parody fandom lyrics (sorry, filkers) but the Hickmans really sell it. Here at Gen Con Oz the event was spotlighted as a show highlight, literally center stage in the middle of the hall.

Both of my seminars today were old reliables, garnering the expected strong attendance. Late morning was Freelancing: the Next Step, along with Aussie writers Kyla Ward and Steve Darlington. As always, I tried to lay out the tough realities of the field without being completely discouraging.

Early afternoon was Peter Adkison and I for What’s Going On In Gaming, a.k.a. State Of the Gaming Industry. Naturally the debut of 4E and its effect on the cyclical RPG category gave us a natural starting point. Peter’s history as past and present game company CEO and Gen Con poobah gives him a wide perspective from which to prognosticate. His thoughts on the coming revolution in electronic game components were alone worth the price of admission. If there had been a price, that is.

Nathan Russell, who took part in the indie panel on Day One, kindly slipped me a copy of his Space Rat: the Jack Cosmos Adventure Game. I’m tempted to describe it as the game for people who found Macho Women With Guns insufficiently ironic. The game presupposes a nonexistent entertainment property and then prompts you to emulate its tropes. Space Rat, a rodent analog of Futurama’s Zap Branigan and is an icon of cheesy 70s novels and a TV series. He is an NPC; you play the bevy of scantily-clad, pulchritudinous space girlfriends who, in competing for his shiftless affections, actually do all the work in successfully completing his assignments. With modest conceptual fiddling Space Rat looks like it could be serve as the basis for Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen Adventures: the Roleplaying Game.

In other news, I have been presented with several additional explanations of the difference between a latte and a flat white. Charmingly, no two of them seem to agree exactly, leading me to conclude that the Australians don’t know what they’re going to get when they order coffee, either.

doc_mystery

10:34 am - My Vacation (so far) at the Honda Dealership

The trunk of my zippy silver 2002 Honda Civic SiR seized three weeks ago.  You couldn’t open the trunk with the electronic key, the regular key, or even from the inside of the trunk (crawling in through the back seat).   After a week or so it mysteriously worked (both times after a big electrical storm, making me wonder if there was a problem with the electronics), and then it wouldn’t open again.

All this was explained to the Service Analyst on the telephone, and about our need to have the trunk working properly for our upcoming vacation, and an appointment was arranged for me to bring my car in on Wednesday, the first day of two weeks worth of my ‘official’ vacation.

10:46 am - Irregular Webcomic! #1987

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1987.html

bigscary

02:55 am - A victory for Liberty and America!

It's Grave Dancin' Time!

ecmyers

12:54 am - urgent donations needed for Clarion West students

As reported elsewhere on the internet (such as here and here), someone broke into the Clarion West house and stole four laptops and some personal belongings. This being a writing workshop, and an expensive one at that, this is a pretty significant problem.

I believe that temporary computers have been secured for the victims, but they still need to replace their computers after the workshop. I don't know their specific situations, but in addition to the tuition and housing expenses, these four students are also losing six weeks of income from their jobs, have to pay rent and bills back home for the duration, and in some cases have even quit their jobs in order to attend CW. Throwing on the cost of a new computer is an even bigger hardship.

As a writer, my computer is one of the essentials in my life, so I know how horrible this must be for everyone involved. If you have a computer in good working condition to donate to one of these unlucky students, please contact info@clarionwest.org to see if they can use it. Otherwise, I think cash donations are more helpful at this point, whatever you can spare. You can donate directly via PayPal at this page, but please mark it for "Computer Replacement" or such. Your donations are tax deductible. Clarion West is classified as a non-profit educational organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Federal EIN 91-1352168).

If this had happened to me during my time at Clarion West, it would have been emotionally and financially devastating. I'm shocked and angry that the workshop experience has been marred for this year's class, when all they should have had to worry about was writing the best work possible and learning as much as they can. I hope they can still have an enjoyable and educational time; it would be a lot easier if they could recover from this with minimal loss. Money's tight for everyone always, but I'm going to contribute what I can, and I hope you'll consider doing so too. Please also pass on this news and request for help as you see fit.

Current Mood: apalled

womzilla

11:20 pm - Reading old Usenet posts: Fruit and Meat

Back in 2006, I was involved in a discussion of combinations of fruit and meat, which included this exchange:

Nate Edel: Prior to reading RASSF, I had no idea that anyone ate the cranberry sauce (whether jellied or not) as a condiment on top of turkey, rather than simply as a commonly-accompanying dessert/side dish.

Fruits and meats often go together very well.

One of minor ways I denormalize my world is to think of tomatoes as fruit and marvel at how it's completely not used as one in typical American cuisine. Hawaiian pizza (ham and pineapple) is especially exotic.

Moshe Feder made a terrific beef with prunes and apricots the one time I had Passover at his place.

jimhenley

10:40 pm - Form and Content and Stuff

montoya had a thread the other day about the paleolithic internet, which reminded me that when I designed a website for my Amber PC, Carton, I did it in deliberately retro, 1997 fashion. Remember when the default background of all pages was not white but grey? If you don't, you're a n00b. Actually, if you never used gopher, you're a n00b.

But the main thing is, the experience reminded me that there's some good stuff on that website. I can read "Containers," the Prince Carton "origin story" with more pleasure than embarrassment. (Note to leighleighla: That's right. I wrote fanfic! ;)( ) It's got some real life to it, thanks to my wife's birthing experiences being fresh in my mind at the time, and I think some of the scene transitions are pretty okay. Meanwhile, the photo trumps do not look like photo trumps (*autobackpat*). (Actually, that top one, based on a Chuck Norris image, looks pretty photo-y, much moreso than the ones below it.) Even the FAQ has a certain, dare I say, wit?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, Me == Swell!

doc_mystery

09:39 pm - [Book 48] Dead Beat by Jim Butcher (2005

Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only Consulting Wizard, still nursing his charred hand from his most recent adventure, has insult added to injury in the very first chapter.  Karrin Murphy, the blonde and attractive police officer he has somewhat a crush on, asks him to watch her house while she goes away for a dirty weekend to Hawaii. 

Talk about being crushed…

And then a potent and fearsome enemy of Harry shows up and delivers a blackmail ultimatum; they will release to the authorities dangerous evidence against Murphy that will force her to lose her job or even go to jail unless Harry helps them to find a certain book of power written by a long dead practitioner of the black arts.  A book of power from a master of black magic and necromancy once so powerful that it took the combined power of the White Council and all its Wardens to stamp them out.

Book 7 is one of the better entries in the long-running (!) Harry Dresden series of modern fantasy noir.  The stakes are higher, the villains more horrific, and this time Harry is not allowed to make use of his friends or call for help in the usual deus ex machina fashion.  While Dead Beat starts off a little slow, the ending is crisp and crackling.

Two wands of wonder up.

::B::

doc_mystery

09:20 pm - [RPG] The Return of Dragon Warriors

It looks like Dragon Warriors, the long OOP British fantasy RPG written by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson that James Wallis had been promising to re-release after so many uncounted years, is finally coming out this October 2008. It’s also coming out under something called the Mangnum Opus Press imprint, with Mongoose Publishing distributing it!

More from Mongoose’s press release here.

I have several of the books (after being intrigued by the ads and some write-ups that appeared in the 1980s in White Dwarf Magazine), and found the rest of the books online. The system is fast and fun, and the quirky fantasy setting reminds me a little about James Blaylock’s early fantasy writings like The Stone Giant and The Elfin Ship.
 
For those of you who can’t wait for fall for the release of the new edition (which I'm planning on getting),  PDFs of the original 6 paperback books can be found at the Underdog’s site here.

::B::

robin_d_laws

06:16 pm - Gen Con Oz, Day Two

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA —My schedule kicked off with a packed panel entitled Philosophy Of Game Design, with Steve Darlington and Peter Adkison (who slid into place at about ten minutes in, having all but literally come straight from the airport.) A replacement moderator had been appointed just a few moments before start time, which had me sweating a bit. As a general rule, the more abstract the seminar topic, the more desperately the panelists require a moderator to direct the initial discussion. Philosophy of game design could take us just about anywhere, but it’s a rare enough topic that I don’t have a standard five minute starting spiel in pocket to get the ball rolling. Anyhow, we quickly threw to audience questions and dealt with such issues as convergences between tabletop and computer gaming, the role of marketing in game design, and the virtues of designing resolution systems that express a game’s central idea.

It was midway through this panel that I used up my entire quota on the word “paradigm.” The Friday morning is very early in the show to burn through it completely. In my defense, I will say that I am on a lot of panels here.

This was followed by another hour of signing/chatting in the guest area. I was worried that the signing schedule was over-ambitious but in fact I had folks to talk with for pretty close to the whole time. The con area doesn’t really have a pub or other social locus so the signing ritual (whether or not any signing is actually involved) gives attendees their only real chance to stop by for one-on-one chit-chat with the guests.

Later in the afternoon came the Q&A with Robin event. This had a smaller turnout than previous seminars, but that was good, in that everyone got the chance to ask a question, and could sit close enough that it felt more like a conversation than a one-way communication. I fielded some general gamemastering-type questions as well as specific queries on GUMSHOE and HeroQuest. We did a compare-and-contrast of Feng Shui mooks versus 4E minions, and traced the influence of the indie movement on the new D&D.

Peter blew into town intent on playing Gray Ranks, which he’d been turned onto at Origins. So after a very nice Turkish dinner (mmm. baby octopus) we rounded up a couple of additional volunteers and explored this GMless game of teenage Polish partisans during the doomed uprising against the Nazis in the waning years of WWII. A show like this, without the networking responsibilities Gen Con Indy entails, provides a rare opportunity to actually play a game with industry cronies. There is no more devoted fan of the indie scene than Peter. His enthusiasm for Gray Ranks helped propel us through any jet-lag related confusion over the intricate interlocking rules structures designer Jason Morningstar employs to drive its collaborative narrative.

doc_mystery

03:38 pm - Happy Independence Day!

...for all those Americans celebrating the Fourth of July today on my LJ!

And have fun firing off all those fireworks tonight, too!

::B::

bigscary

12:38 pm

Happy 4th!

smalley_smoot

10:51 am - Update

Well, things continue to get back to normal. Since my last post, I got the results of a "nuclear stress test," my office moved and I made the first move towards running an RPG session.

The nuclear stress test consisted of two separate injections of radioactive dye (what they called a "marker"). The first session required walking on a treadmill while connected to a 10 lead monitor (they ran a continuous EKG while I exercised). When I got to 70% of the maximum heart rate expected for my age, they injected the "marker" and I had to continue for at least a minute at that same rate. I presume this was to pump the marker through the bloodstream. Later, they took a series of pictures of the heart. In the second session, the injection was made "at rest." My cardiologist called to tell me there were "no surprises" and there was no difference in the pictures of the two sessions. Oh, and, on the treadmill day, they have you exercise until you quit (9 1/2 minutes for me). The way it works is the treadmill speeds up and increases the incline every 3 minutes. I get a good workout on Monday, Weds. and Friday (at the cardiac maintenance class) but nowhere near what I was doing at the 9 minute mark. So, I guess I can exercise without a problem.

Our offices did move early in June. As my friend Avy Lou said, I have to get another photo for my LJ postings. The current one is in my old office and before I lost some weight.

It looks like the RPG group that started at the Game Castle will resume in a few weeks. We have to pick a day that is convenient for everyone. And, GenCon is just over a month away!

10:54 am - Irregular Webcomic! #1986

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1986.html

drcpunk

02:56 am - ASUS: 10, Caprice: 10, FedEx: 0, Me 1 laptop

( My laptop has returned after a three day 'overnight' delivery )

02:17 am - Hearthstoning the discussion

http://www.spaaace.com/cope/?p=117

If you’ve been commenting to my last few blog posts on the World of Warcraft, or you have a scientific hypothesis of your own about the nature of Azeroth and how it came to be that way, or you have too much time on your hands and enjoy thinking about stuff that doesn’t make sense, then I have created a Google Group to act as a venue for the continuation of the valuable discussions begun here. It’s called Azeroth Science and I urge you to sign up to it.

trinityvixen

08:18 pm

I have less that seven hours before I need to be awake and wending my way to the airport. So, naturally, while I come home most other days from work ready to nap, I'm very wide awake. Maybe it's the thought that I'm going Atlanta for the weekend. Trinity + the South + relatives she hasn't seen since 2005 = not the best of circumstances. Will make the best of it. I will.

In other news of absolutely no consequence: I just ate an entire red pepper like an apple. Not as fun, I have to say, as cutting it up and eating it piece by piece. That'll teach me to be lazy, I suppose.

Happy 4th, y'all. (oh no, it begins!!!)

robin_d_laws

07:38 pm - Gen Con Oz, Day One

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA — In founding Gen Con Oz, impresario Ian Houlihan undertakes a bold entrepreneurial stroke. The flagship show expanded incrementally over many years, paralleling the growth of hobby gaming as a whole. Although Ian has run other shows before, Gen Con Oz starts its life as a mammoth event — or is meant to. If they get the attendance numbers they’re hoping for, it starts its history as the third biggest adventure gaming show in the world. Advance registration bodes well. Now it all hangs on walk-in numbers.

The entire event takes place in one cavernous hall (or two halls with the dividers removed, to be precise): dealer’s hall, tables areas for RPGs, CCGs, wargames and minis, signing tables, theater for screenings, and seminar rooms. The latter two are carved from the floor with rod and curtain. Some seminars take place in rooms on an upper level, which look down on the rest of the hall.

An ingenious solution to the “everything in one hall” dilemma is provided in the form of confessional booths, each containing a single roleplaying table. Other roleplaying events, like the RPGA and Indie Explosion events, occur out on the floor, sacrificing privacy and sound-proofing in furtherance of their proselytizing missions.



The Thursday attendees seem dwarfed in number by the size of the play hall. On the other hand, word is that all of the RPG sessions were fully booked. Seminar attendance was gratifyingly full. Panel attendance can be swingy from one convention to the next, and as guest you don’t want to let down the side by attracting only a handful of diehards.

First up was Building A Better Fight Scene, with Stephen Dedman and Adam Windsor. We talked about sprucing up fights by providing tactical goals beyond overcoming the enemy and giving the PCs an emotional stake in the action. Also discussed were techniques for keeping the action moving, and how to make provisional adjudications to move rules arguments out of fight time to the post-game wrap-up. My favorite question required us to recall our top RPG and movie fight scenes. For the latter I picked two Chow Yun Fat classics: the hospital shootout in Hardboiled for sheer sustained tempo, and the confrontation with Zhang Ziyi on the bamboo trees in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as an example of a fight scene that expresses character drama.

My second panel was a survey of the indie scene with Andrew Smith, Nathan Russell, and Michael Wenman where we named titles of interest and looked at stuff that could be stolen and incorporated into more traditional games. I gave my wish list for the future of the scene, which I think is spinning its wheels a bit after a long period of incredible creative fertility. Basically I’d love to see a focus on content over form, with more emphasis on what the story is over the new gimmick that encourages you to tell it.

womzilla

06:36 pm - The meaning of tragedy

The meaning of tragedy is: All is in order, all is in train.
The meaning of tragedy is: It only hurts for a little while.
The meaning of tragedy is: Change is the first law of life.

--Peter Straub, "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff" (1998)

womzilla

06:33 pm - Garden Path sentences

Two weeks ago, at the NYRSF weekly meeting, agrumer and bugsybanana both commented on a sentence that was hard to read correctly, the first time through:

The play is anchored in the tripartite model of being proposed in Sartre's Being and Nothingness (1943).

North Korea has turned in to China [pause] its declaration of its nuclear weapons programs.