My geeking summer #1: "Oop north"

Land of the White Rose

England, York, &
the White Rose

I mentioned last time that I was holidaying with family in York after a trip to Bradford. I’m back home now and reality has finally reasserted itself, so it’s back to the old bloggery. Where better then to begin than with a geek’s eye tour of my wee visit to the legendary county of Yorkshire (no prizes to readers who offer suggestions, constructive or otherwise!- NB, that’s no prizes, not ‘No Prizes’, OK?)?

Blast-off in Bradford

The geeks

The expanding Hive

The convention I attended in Bradford wasn’t a geek-con as such, but it was hoaching with geeks of all kinds. I’d been hoping to get some gaming in (I even took along a few cardgames for that very purpose) but the gaming area wasn’t very well organised, so that turned out to be a bogey. Still, I had fun handing out my card, which turned out to be a great way of smoking out the other games geeks (not that they needed much encouragement). Among the highlights of those encounters were:

A long time coming

Sorting out unfinished business

Still crazy after
all these years!

A few years ago I made a couple of passing references—one, writing about my Penumbra’s Talons; the other, writing about GW’s mighty Space Hulk 3rd edition—to a project which involved a nameless friend and a Space Hulk set. I am pleased, at long last, to be able to tell you that this friend- Matt Forbeck, who I met at Bill King’s wedding back in 2005, will soon be getting his hands on that set of Space Hulk 3 he’d almost, but not quite, forgotten about (who could forget Space Hulk 3?).

My first Truly Epic
RPG campaign

I can’t take much of the credit here- it’ll be a long time before I revive and renew my miniatures’ craft skills to the point where I can paint my own Space Hulk set let alone one for someone else. No; credit—for the fact that Matt and his kids will soon be enjoying playing Space Hulk with their own fully-painted set—starts with Andy, who gave me the recommendation which finally broke this years-old logjam. And who did Andy recommend when I spoke to him about contracting-out this paint-job? None other than Brian, who regular readers will remember as Siegfried- murderous lowlife with a heart, from my Ashes of Middenheim campaign back in the glory days of Green Ronin’s stewardship over WFRP2.

Changes, changes

Old habits die hard: tabletop miniatures games

"Very pretty John, but
what does it mean?"
(Damned if I know BTW)

When you're depressed you often become withdrawn to the point of being reclusive. The resulting emotional disconnection from so much of your life means that a period of depression really isn't the best time to make decisions of any consequence about your life, not least because coming out of depression means that you face putting back together everything which has been disrupted when you were down. So you could easily dispose of things or give up on activites which are really important to you because you take your depressive emotional disconnection at face value, when you're really just expressing your dread of the effort it'll take to get everything sorted out when you're feeling better.

Memories, sigh

All of which is by way of preamble to an explanation of some changes in my gaming tastes and habits which have come upon me in recent months. First and foremost is that I'm giving up tabletop miniatures gaming. This is something of a painful break, and even as I type this I'm struck by a sense of unreality, not to mention wistful nostalgia. After all, my life as a hobby gamer started nearly 40 years ago when my brother and I made up our own rules for playing proper games with our Airfix 1/72^nd Napoleonic toy soldiers.

Of GW, the lure of Chaos, gribblies, and stuff

Space Hulk wins 2 Golden Geek Awards
My recent visits to the pages of Black Library novels: Graham McNeill's Heldenhammer- which I picked up at Conflict 2010, and Nathan Long's Bloodborn- which I reviewed last month; these visits to the world of the book have revived my interest in tie-in fiction set in two of my favourite gaming universes. And so it was that last Saturday saw me dropping in to my local GW in search of new reading matter. Also available was the new issue of White Dwarf. I confess I'm in the camp who finds GW's house magazine to be of limited utility in terms of adding value to my GW gaming interests- namely 40K, but I always like to read interviews with the creative types at the Design Studio. White Dwarf #368 features two, so I bought it.

One mighty game; two well-deserved awards

Skimming through the pages of news and new releases, as you do, I was pleasantly surprised to read Jervis Johnson's grateful acknowledgement of the two 2009 Golden Geek Awards the BGG community had awarded Space Hulk, whose 3rd edition was released amid great fanfare last year. The awards were:

• Best 2-player game.
• Best artwork/presentation.

Pleasant: because it was good to see that Space Hulk had received these accolades from the BGG community, and because it was nice to read Jervis' appreciation of this in the pages of White Dwarf. Surprising: because, regular BGG user that I am, I had no idea of these awards- the official awards ceremony was in November last year, until I read of Space Hulk's 2009 success in White Dwarf.

Death becomes them all

Again with the old pals routine
My old pal Rob- whose job regularly takes him to Sweden for weeks at a time, was back in town last week so we decided a trip to the cinema was in order. We chose to go see Black Death, a film which has been on my 'would like to see' list ever since I noticed its release. Regular readers should have no difficulty in guessing why a film set in plague-ridden medieval England should appeal to me, but I'll come back to that later.

The critic's eye
There is a lengthy review on the IMDb Black Death page in which I think the reviewer is quite quite wrong. The IMDb page correctly tags Black Death with the horror and mystery genres. These features of the movie are nowhere addressed in that review; poor form and a shame, because these were the movie's strengths.

UK Games Expo'10 #4. Winding up and wending home

Birmingham geek-out!
My travel plans on the Monday after the Expo gave me a day to spend in Birmingham. I deposited my luggage at the station then pondered my options: was I going for the cultural day out, or the geek day out? I chose the latter, naturally enough (no slur intended on the cultural attractions of the fair city of Birmingham I assure you dear readers, this option just proved easier to pursue on the day).

Who goes where?
Decision made, I set off to visit the local GW as is my wont when I'm on my travels. Luke- the staffer on duty, gave me the familiar friendly GW greeting when I arrived. I gave him my card and told him the story of my trip to Birmingham, then we fell to chatting. Answering the usual questions, I told him that I'm a DIY Space Marine Chapter Master and filled him in on some of Penumbra's Talons' background. I talked about how Belon (the Talons' home world remember) is located in the Eastern Fringes, which is where it's all going down in the Dark Millenium these days:

• There are rumours that the protracted death of the Emperor on his Golden Throne has reached a point where the Astronomicon- upon which depends all human interplanetary travel, no longer reaches the Eastern Fringes; or that it is at least weaker and less reliable than ever.
• The imminent Deathwatch RPG is to be set in the Jericho Reaches: located in the Eastern Fringes, and the target of a major Imperial Crusade aiming to reconquer lost Imperial worlds.

Little did I know what I was letting myself in for all those years ago when- on a simple whim, I plumped for the Eastern Fringes as the location for the home of my lads.

My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim

This is the index for the WFRP2 campaign I ran in 2005/06. The campaign featured:

• 'Pretty Things': the scenario from the Game Master's Pack.
• 'Through the Drakwald': the scenario in the WFRP2 core rulebook.
• 'Rough Night at the Leaping Frog' (AKA the Three Feathers): a classic 1st edition scenario reprinted in Plundered Vaults.
• The Ashes of Middenheim.
• My own lengthy and spurious subplot which I was able to turn to good effect in the end.

I have left out a couple of inconsequential posts which have nothing to do with the actual story (these can be found via the 'my little old world' label). The campaign history is otherwise presented exactly as I wrote it, warts and all.

Web 2.0 and tabletop roleplaying #1: the past

A big day for all concerned?
World-historical anniversaries are all very well but today also happens to see my 400th post here @RD/KA!, so I've been racking my brains trying to think of a topic suitable to highlight this latest small landmark in my bloggery. What could be more apt I decided, than a subject which has its roots in my halcyon days- the 1980's; about which I wrote right back when this blog was but a stripling; which represents furthermore one of my major unfulfilled aspirations as a roleplayer?

Phase 1: "When ah were a lad..."
My fascination with what Web 2.0 can offer tabletop roleplayers is rooted in experiences predating the invention of the World Wide Web itself. It all began, naturally enough, with Katana: Sword Against Evil™, that renegade ninja who has set out to destroy the Evil that spawned him.
(Graphic via Trends in the Living Networks)

My 2010 gaming wishlist #3: Roleplaying

Looking back
The bad
That definite hankering which came upon me earlier this year gnaws away at me ever more insistently, and yet we didn't get any roleplaying going. Why? Short form: there wasn't enough interest around the table for me to want to change tack with a successful boardgaming group. Long form: well, therein lies the rub.

Readers with more than passing roleplaying experience will be well aware that clashing playstyles and other social dynamics are core issues which can confound a roleplaying group. They are also very personal issues since they arise from the relationships between friends. Tempting as it was therefore to sound off a GM's frustrations here @RD/KA!, I could never escape the realisation that any such roleplayer's bitching in which I felt like indulging should be kept strictly face-to-face. It's only fair after all.

Worldbuilding & HERO #1: Brass tacks

Vast open expanses?
Worldbuilding- AKA. subcreation, is an essential feature of roleplaying; a creative endeavour in which many players- GM or otherwise, love to indulge. As readers will be well aware, this places roleplaying games squarely in a cultural trend the 20th century great grandaddy of which is J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. (Map via: geektyrant.)

The history of subcreation in our own culture of the fantastic is not my subject here, but I cannot pass by without mentioning Greg Stafford's Glorantha. Best known as the setting of the RPGs Runequest and HeroQuest, Glorantha is unusual among RPG settings in that it wasn't a gaming setting at all when it was first created; unusual, but not unique- M. A. R. Barker's Tékumel was the same. The only adventure gaming settings I can think of which might rival these extraordinary creations in their subcreationist breadth and depth are GW's Warhammer Old World and 40K Dark Millenium.

Unexpected arrivals

A fond farewell
Many readers will be aware of last week's news that the Borders Books UK chain has gone into liquidation. I was saddened to hear this because Borders has been my favourite bookstore for several years now. For all I know Waterstone's might be a better bookshop- it was certainly my introduction to modern chainstore bookselling; but I preferred Borders' ambience. My visits there down the years have netted me a great wodge of cheap crime novels and thrillers as well as many bargains in the military history department. Borders even featured in the first series of posts here @RD/KA!

I already knew I was going to miss the place, but I didn't expect to be mildly shocked at the stark reality when Bill and I visited yesterday in search of more bargains, from the closing down sale. The shelves around the store were already picked half clean, giving the place the eerie air of the rotting hulk of a familiar old ship in which I'd travelled halfway round the world and back.

This, that and the other

I've got various ideas simmering away at the moment, looking for the hooks that'll make them into stories. Meanwhile, it's time for another pot pourri...

So it goes...
I warned you yesterday dear readers, of my intention to follow through on the story of the controversy generated by the RPGpundit's 6th November blogpost about FFG and its GW RPG licences. El pundito posted his 4th installment today. To keep this brief, I will just make a few points:

• This post is a succint example of the hate-filled bile (here aimed at two of his favourite targets- RPG.net and the so-called "Storygames Swine") and overweening sense of self-importance which have defined the pundit's hyperbole from day one.
• The pundit's excuse for "not post[ing] this link" (to a Storygames thread)- his "policy of not providing assistance to the Swine in promulgating their filth", is lame almost beyond words:

1. Embedding links is so easy that I cannot help but imagine the man with the red flag from the early days of the motor car.
2. The pundit's persistent unwillingness to enable this technologically trivial cross-checking cannot but cast further doubt on the credibility of his commentary.

• The pundit's celebration of the publicity the whole affair has garnered cannot be said to have proved my speculations of yesterday, but I believe they remain valid and open.

There will be more I imagine. :-\

Stuff and... nonsense?

He is The Law!
Passing through Borders bookshop the other day in search of a classic 20th century novel and that search proving futile, I made a beeline for the graphic novels there to surrender gleefully to the impulse I'd carried over from my last visit to those same shelves, picking up what I know will only be the first of many more: Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 (59 progs' worth of strips in 320 pages for £13.99?-: a real bargain!).

Moments when a cultural encounter profoundly define a person are relatively few and far between I reckon and become rarer as the years go by, for simple reasons I would suggest:

• There is naturally some kind of limit to people's self-definition through cultural consumption; a limit determined both by the dynamics of human growth and maturation on the one hand, and by the available cultural wealth on the other.
• I would aver that there is too a limit to people's capacity for reinvention; a limit imposed ultimately by age.

Perhaps rarer still even in our increasingly rich and diverse culture are those moments when you can get in right at the very beginning of something that proves to be a genuine phenomenon.

Geekish grab bag!

As I said on Friday, I want to celebrate the latest small landmark in the life of RD/KA! by looking to what the future might bring for this geek and his games.

Memoir'44
Regular readers will know that Badger and I have recently taken a break from our 2½-year Combat Commander odyssey. We'll be returning to this great game for sure (there're scenarios still unplayed and more to come); and then there'll no doubt be a taste of Chad's next WW2 tacsim- Fighting Formations: Grossdeutschland Infantry Division; but not before we've indulged our taste for Conflict of Heroes.

Superior tacsims all though these games are (or promise to be), none are intrinsically more exciting than Memoir'44; nor do they relegate the game from its well-deserved status of light wargame to some nether region of little or no interest to this grognard. Days of Wonder themselves are doing their bit to maintain interest in the game, with their planned December release of Memoir'44 Battle Maps Vol. 3: Sword of Stalingrad, featuring:

• 2 Overlord scenarios.
• 2 Standard scenarios.
• Summary cards for the previously published Battle Maps and Mediterranean Theater expansion.
• Additional cards for in-game play - the new Combat Deck (see above) specifically designed for urban warfare (DoW News centre).

WTF?! WFRP3... & FTW?

An otherwise fruitless trip last week to the big F in Glasgow's FLGS- Static Games, netted me some news which frankly had my mind reeling in horror and tooling me up to join an internet mob of torch-and-pitchfork-wielding heresy hunters. I refer of course, to FFG's announcement on August 12th of the impending Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition (all rumour of which had completely passed me by). My entire vocabulary of superlatives distilled into ichor would barely summon the merest whiff of my rage, instinctive and despairing, at another oh so typical corporate betrayal in the face of which I was already brewing vituperation and vitriol (all sight unseen, naturally enough).

Kenny, Static's proprietor was pretty astonished himself. Telling me of reports from the FFG WFRP3 seminar at Gencon, he explained that this was going to be a completely new system. What? Why? What was wrong with WFRP2 (except that it wasn't FFG's own product, naturally enough)? We both agreed easily that WFRP2 was an exemplar of how to do a new edition well, and that it had been successful and popular. We discussed the issue at length and I left, none the wiser but determined to remain true to the prejudices awakened by my spasm of geek rage.

A definite hankering...

It's been a long time since I did any roleplaying, and longer still since I've GM'ed. There are various reasons for this, but they all boil down to two in the end: dissatisfaction and weariness.

My WFRP campaign ran for about 30 sessions over a period of some 16 months, ie. roughly every other week on average. I wasn't a seasoned GM, and I'm not really the seat of the pants type either, which meant that I put a lot of work into those games, not including the write ups here at RD/KA! (Keynote was a godsend!). In the end it was all too much for me. I was worn out.

What was more, I wasn't getting the satisfaction I wanted from the game. As I explained to the lads one night while we were eating dinner before a game with Bill: playing boardgames with Badger is a simple matter of opening the box and off we go; a 100% successful recipie for enjoyment, which couldn't be said of the roleplaying, even when it was going well; which wasn't all the time, naturally enough. This was my motivation to turn the Sunday sessions into a regular boardgaming bash.

Even when Bill became the GM, the group dynamic changed because the midweek date ultimately reduced us to just 2 PCs: Tony and me. I think this just wasn't enough to give the games real momentum. Quite why the 3 of us failed to reach critical mass escapes me, although I do know of some contributory factors. I now believe that primary among them was Katana.

Readers who've known me since bygone days might be shocked by that admission, since they'll be all too aware that Katana is one of my all-time favourite PC's, so close to my heart that I coined the phrase 'primary projection' to express what he meant to me. That is to say: he was a creative expression of some of the deepest wellsprings of my subconscious strivings. Well known primary projections include Conan and Philip Marlowe.

At first sight you'd think that I'd've been delighted to return to a PC like that; in the hands of the GM who presided over his creation and the first phase of his adventures; and with the player - Tony, natch - who, as GM, gave Katana the second phase of his adventures, when we first roleplayed together back in the late 1990's. And I was. It's a nice experience to pick up an old PC and 'put him on' like you would a well worn coat. And that blog I wrote upon his return weighed heavily in the balance which eventually tipped in favour of my acceptance that rpg's are art.

Even so, with the benefit of hindsight after the roleplaying had unravelled, Bill mused that going back to Katana might've been a futile attempt to relive old glories. He was right, of course. Precisely because Katana is that primary projection, he is too deeply embedded in pasts that can't be revisited. Sure Bill and I could do Katana easily and well, but it was, as Bill said about Frank Miller's Sin City, a five-finger exercise.

Worse still, with the benefit of lengthy reflection on Bill's offhand remark, I have come to the conclusion that not only was Katana too easy to play for the pair of us; he was also an unfair obstacle we unwittingly threw in Tony's path. I mean to say, teaming up Tony's Witchblade with Katana effectively reduced her to a guest star in Katana's continuity, instead of being a co-star in her own. This is OK for one-offs or short mini-campaigns based on player transience, but not if you want a proper ongoing series. Each and every player should enjoy equal billing after all.

All of this is by way of looking back at some of the mistakes made in past roleplaying in the hopes of avoiding them in the future because, yes, we're talking about doing some roleplaying. In the end Donald's wish to roleplay again was just too keen to ignore.

I'd already suggested to Donald that he try the HERO system, and was pleased he was agreeable. On that basis, Donald is talking about a couple of ideas. It's likely that we'll begin with his first: an outlaw mini-campaign using Iron Crown Enterprise's highly esteemed 1987 Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign. I am already looking forward to this. I'm thinking of a character who is a master of the quarterstaff. Whatever complaints people might have about HERO, it cannot be gainsaid that its skills list and combat system renders weapon mastery in rich detail, and with mechanics that reward real tactics and actual practice as opposed to just dishing out stat upgrades.

For my part, I have two ideas for mini-campaigns of my own. One is HERO too: a return to my take on TSR's 1993 Bughunters. One of two books I've got from the late, unlamented Amazing Engine system, I liked Bughunters' concept: clone troopers in space fighting the bugs? What's not to like? I immediately realised though that I would run this game with HERO instead of the dumbass TSR AE.

I ran this with Tony and other friends back in the late 1990's. I've still got all the material I worked up for the game and the setting (a piece of background work was posted to the Trollslayer forums a few years ago). It just needs to be updated, and I'd be ready to run it again. This is something I'd like to do, because I liked the kinds of stories I was aiming at in the setting; and I had a few surprises in store for my shell-shocked players. Unfortunately we moved on to other games, and never went back to my Bughunter.

My other idea is to go back to WFRP, naturally enough. I'd like to run a more hi-octane game in a classic D&D style, albeit with a bit more than just dungeon bashing; a game in which I'd unleash without let or hindrance the full power of the game's hideous antagonists and its deadly combat system. Of course, I plan on making the potential rewards commensurate with the risk.

We still don't know quite how, when and with whom our return to roleplaying is going to pan out, but we'll be getting something going for sure. Expect to hear more. ;)

A parcel of rogues...

Rogue Trooper
Donald, Gav, Tony and I made 4 for boardgames on Sunday. Casting around for the main event as you do I spied, tucked away almost out of reach on a high shelf, my as yet unplayed second hand copy of GW's Rogue Trooper boardgame from 1987.

I confess I was never a big fan of the Rogue Trooper story, which made its debut in the galaxy's greatest comic - 2000 AD, in 1981. To paraphrase a friend at the time, there are only so many ways to ring the changes with "Eat chemcloud Norter scum!" The story was very popular though, so it was hardly surprising that a Rogue Trooper game was added to the series of licenced 2000 AD products which came out of the young design studio's halycon days.

Crucial apps #1: KeyNote

My article earlier this month about download dependence and Open Source has inspired me to write more about software.

My practical and theoretical ICT education and training is limited and out of date, so that to begin I'll confine myself to comments about favourite freeware and Open Source applications. This time I'm going to sing the praises of my single most used application: Tranglos' KeyNote, which I've been using for some 4 years now.

What KeyNote is
According to the designer:

"Keynote is a flexible, multi-featured tabbed notebook, based on Windows standard RichEdit control... It's always accessible with a single keypress, even if you work in another application. Take a look at the screenshots page."

The key phrase here is "tabbed". There are other note-taking apps, but a professional writer friend who's spent a lot of money on different packages assures me that he's only come across 1 that he thought was better than KeyNote - Scrivener, only available for the Mac.

How KeyNote works

In a few short paragraphs I can only hope to scratch the surface of what these features of KeyNote has to offer, but these 2 screencaps should help. Above you can see the fully expanded tree of the tab I use every day, mostly to draft articles for RD/KA!. To the left you can see the fully expanded KeyNote, showing:

• The Templates tab of the Resource Panel (RHS), which contains useful tools.
• The text-editor window, containing the contents of the 'codes' tab, namely all the HTML codes I use when drafting articles for RD/KA!, and which can come in very useful when I'm commenting on other people's blogs.
• The closed nodes tree (LHS), in which every node opens another text-editor window.
• The 'note' tabs across the top, in which every tab is just like the one here displayed.
• The bold blue text at the top of this window is a 'KeyNote link', a handy wee link back to an earlier draft of the article that window is about (this one, BTW).

I dare say that you could get by with just 1 tab (ie. none, as such), but the facility to have more than 1 is really neat, and I'd want something else really, really useful (Scrivener maybe?) before I was happy to give it up. KeyNote's designer explains why this is so useful:

"The basic idea in KeyNote is that you can include many separate notes within a single file. This means that you do not need to open several files - for most purposes it is enough to create only one file and hold all your notes inside it. With the addition of the tree-type notes, you now have a three-dimensional notebook: many notes within one file and a multi-level, nested pages within a single note."

What this means is that, whether you are writing one long piece - eg. a novel; doing research for a shorter, yet still substantial one- eg. an academic thesis; or just writing regular short articles - eg. a blog; you will find KeyNote a great convenience because it makes all your work easily accessible in a single file. And the tree structure means that file can be logically subdivided so that you're not scrolling through endless pages in long documents either.

What KeyNote is useful for
I'm hoping that reader who themselves write regularly might already be realising that software of this ilk is an electronic addition to the tools of writing more valuable perhaps even than the most fully featured word processor. Turning again to the designer:

"What is KeyNote useful for? In general, any structured of [sic] free-form information, especially the kind of information which lends itself to hierarchical representation, such as lists or outlines. KeyNote's powerful search facility quickly locates information you're looking for."

The picture above shows the note tab from the WFRP campaign that'll be familiar to old hands here at RD/KA! (new readers can check out the 'my little old world' category, also at the bottom of the page). This used to be part of my everyday KeyNote file, but I exported it to a new KeyNote file when I stopped GM'ing WFRP.

After a few false starts I developed a simple approach to using KeyNote as a GM's aid. I maintained a list of NPC's, which I'd just copy and paste into the new node I opened for each upcoming session. This I would print out for ready reference. I added little details like the date and other stuff to keep them handy too. The tree structure of the nodes also proved ideal for making notes as I worked to figure out what was going on and how to keep up with the plot.

All in all then, I'd have to say that KeyNote is nearly the perfect tool for GM's, enabling them to keep campaign information in a format ideal for their purposes. I certainly found that to be true, and I've barely scratched the surface of the app's functions, some of which I'm sure would prove every bit as useful.

There's got to be a catch?
If something looks too good to be true, it usually is. My enthusiasm aside, KeyNote's main issue is that it is a dead program, the designer having given up on development back in October 2005, mere months after I'd taken it up!

I guess that this will lead to significant problems sooner or later, even for an app as stable as is KeyNote. It's certainly true that I've experienced 1 or 2 minor bugs as my Windows versions have moved on, but nothing that actually affected the functionality. Most serious perhaps is that Windows Vista no longer supports the code for the KeyNote Help files. There is apparently some fix for this, but efforts to implement defeated my limited computer ingenuity!

Conclusion
KeyNote is the single most useful piece of writing software I've ever owned, and I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of what it is capable of. Most of what I write is drafted in KeyNote and then copied and pasted into whichever other app it is intended for. Checking out the screenshots on Tranglos site while preparing this article has reminded me that it's time I found out more about its other capabilities. I expect I'll report on those in the future.

In the meantime, it might well be that the Open Source movement has already come up with a better app (in which case I'd love to hear about it); and the app's obsolescence might one day prove problematical (unless, that is, it picks up new followers and starts to enjoy some geek love from code monkeys in the Open Source movement; oh, if only!). Those caveats aside, I just cannot recommend KeyNote too highly. Suck it and see, as they say! ;)

Meanwhile...

A healthy diet of roleplaying
My little Old World
Restarted last month, the WFRP saw my PC's accept the challenge to venture further down the Paths of the Damned, driven if nothing else by Berthold's unexplained insistences on tracking down the mysterious Dagger of Yul K'Chaum, which apparently contains yet another daemon of the sort that perished in the cleansing fires of the Sacred Flame of Ulric. Hopes of advancing her wizard's apprenticeship frustrated by the Middenheim Guild of Wizards and Alchemists, Alane too was keen to visit Altdorf to meet her mentor Van Nilstrom. Grundi, Seigfried and Mordrin had nothing better to do, and wintering in wartorn Middenheim was not the most appealing prospect in any event. So off they all went.

Without pre-empting a possible write-up, sufficeth to say that the journey has been very eventful so far, with beastmen attacks, some unexpected company, and an object lesson in how the stuff of Chaos impregnates the very warp and weft of the fabric of reality.

Eberron
Bill, who ran the Midnight session last June (written up here, and here) has managed to fulfil his promise to start his own regular midweek game. He chose to run WotC's Eberron- which he's run before- to make life simple for himself.

The game began as a True20 adaption with just myself and Tony (a.k.a. Alane elsewhere). So we had 2 PC's each to begin with. I went with a rogue- who was my first choice for the archetype I wanted to play; and a warforged fighter- who was to be my backup 'schmuck'. With Brian and Andy (Seigfreid and Berthold to regular readers) soon joining in, I had to choose which of my 2 PC's to keep playing. Confounding my initial expectations, I had no difficulty whatsoever in deciding to run with my warforged fighter. Why? Easy: I couldn't resist the sheer vicarious thrill of being near invulnerable in combat (having an Adamantine Body does that for you) while dishing out the smites great cleaving with my mighty warhammer. Thus began the saga of K'Dun the Hammer.

The game itself soon changed too, as Bill decided to run it as a True20 D&D hack instead of the original True20 adaption. This is working very well. Meanwhile I'm having fun nurturing my inner munchkin as I contemplate the new feats I'll be buying with my new levels even as I wade into combat full of the joys of the various buffs the party spellcasters use to make my smites ever smitier. Heh.

Meanwhile, Brian has started his own blog: Dangerous Brian: A Wargaming Blog; check out his first Eberron post for a quick introduction to the PC's.

Finally for now... DiceConEast 2006
The Scottish Boardgames Association's biannual boardgames event DiceCon takes place in Edinburgh today. A bunch of us are going through for the day. I'm taking a big bag of games. You can be sure that M44 and C&C:A is among them. There'll be a few old favourites in there too no doubt. I'm looking forward to some good gaming. More anon I trust. ;)

Meanwhile...

As ever, no prizes to regular readers who know where I've been the past couple of weeks. Bitter and twisted as I am upon emerging from yet another slough of despond- and this one without any gaming at all to raise my spirits- I feel the need to vent my spleen in a pointless rant or two at some hapless non-moving targets. So I'll start with...

The turning of the season...
Autumn's definitely upon us here in Glasgow: the nights are drawing in (as we say), with darkness now descending by 7pm. The clocks will go back to gorram GMT before we know it and we'll have to endure those long months of mid-afternoon dusks. Gah, but I hate those long dark nights! Seasonal Affective tendencies aside, it's a bit of an age thing I think: when I was a youngster I used to find delights in autumn and winter; then, about 10 years ago, I realised I just hated the long months with too little daylight. I realised I was getting old.

Spires of Altdorf? Gah!
Since the diversion that was The Madness of Father Ranulf, and after the Serenity interlude, I've been thinking about how to get my PC's back onto the Paths of the Damned. Spires of Altdorf looks like a worthy sequel to Ashes of Middenheim, and I'm looking forward to getting it rolling.

But SoA is a very different adventure from AoM. In particular, it features a large cast of NPC's with whom the PC's must interact. These are fully detailed as you'd expect from BI's WFRP scenarios, with the key NPC's including lots of information that should prove very useful to the would-be GM. All well and good then. So what's my beef?

It's simply that those key NPC's are so well detailed that the information as presented in the book strikes me as being too cumbersome for easy use during play. What a GM (this one at least!) really needs with NPC's like these is to have each one available on handy reference sheets; large postcards would be ideal, but A5 at a pinch. Unfortunately, not content with the NPC's as laid out in the book requiring irritating page-flipping to get at; with the information often split across different pages, the layout is also such that you couldn't even photocopy the relevant pages to construct your NPC reference sheets.

In this ICT day-and-age, it would've been the easiest thing in the world for BI to have produced PDF's alongside their print books. With a bit of copying and pasting to a handy WP package it would then've been the easiest thing in the world to compile the much-needed references. But BI, in their infinite wisdom, have so far declined to join the rest of the rpg industry in producing PDF's of their line.

So there's nothing for it to resort to a serious session at the scanner before I can get to work on compiling those references without which I won't feel comfortable trying to deal with the complexities of SoA's interesting looking plot. Gah! And again- gah!