lategaming

What the fuck is this all about?

Damned if I know.

“Have you seen my Jim? Have you seen him? My son? About four feet tall, blond hair, covered in freckles? … what about you, sir? Have you seen my Jim? He’s about four feet tall–”

- worried mother, Ealing, Day 1 after the end of the invasion

“We opened fire with the mortars, next. I tell ya there was nothing like that feeling when we first got one of ‘em. After that bleedin’ Heat Ray had wiped out ‘alf the squadron, including Sergeant ‘arkins, remember ‘im? Sometimes I wish those Invaders ‘adn’t all been killed by the measles, or whatever it was. That way, we’d get to kill ‘em proper.”

- Corporal James Walker, East Surrey Regiment, Day 10

“The wing itself is curved like a teardrop, causing the air to move over the top of it. The air below the wing is thus at a lower pressure than the air above, causing lift. It is brilliant in its simplicity, and eminently reproducible.”

- Hiram James Maxim, addressing the Royal Society, Week 3

“Of course I’m sure. I ‘ad it from Bert Tate’s sister, y’know the one with the big ears, who ‘ad it from her brovver-in-law. ‘E’s a sergeant in the Buffs and ‘e saw one of the Fightin’ Machines go down into the water near Margate. There’s been nothin’ about anythin’ being recovered in Margate. I reckon we could make a bloomin’ fortune.”

- overheard in a pub near Canterbury, Week 5

“If you thought Black Strawberries were strange, you should see the Black Barley that’s growing round our way. Not sure I’d drink the Black Beer that might come from it.”

- farm hand, Sussex, Week 37

“My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but it seems to me that Carver’s suggestions as to the reason of the rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a proven conclusion.

At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species were found. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the reckless slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance of the putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no means a proven conclusion.”

It is my firm belief, in the face of the evidence presented, that a Martian could survive on Earth, in our air, indefinitely. In our post-mortem examinations of the Martian carcasses, we discovered three facts.

1. The Martians possess blood, as we men do, and utilise the molecule Haemoglobin for transport of essential gases around the body for they too metabolise oxygen gas in order to generate energy for movement and thought.
2. The only bacteria present in their systems were similar to those present in the normal human flora and fauna. There were no signs of abnormal tissue necrosis.
3. The Martians studied suffered from intravascular coagulation following their injecting of Human blood. This would have caused them severe pain and eventually proved fatal.

It is therefore my belief that the Martians lacked foresight into their food supply upon Earth. It is entirely possible that with appropriate treatment, perhaps rivalling Landsteiner’s seminal work on blood typing and coagulants, the Martians may be able to safely inject Human blood. It is not known whether animal blood will have the same effect as we have no test subjects.

The urgency remains that in the event of a second attack, if the Martians bring blood purification devices or even more of their common biped food supply that we will not escape so easily.

“Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the Heat-Rays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element…”

The disaster at Ealing laboratories was the first attempted removal of the Heat Ray device from a Fighting Machine. What is known is that, despite the dormancy of the machine, the power generator was still active and caused an explosion which claimed the lives of the entire scientific team.

The second disaster, at South Kensington, involved the death of only one technician but caused many thousands of pounds worth of damage. The power generator device and heat ray had been decoupled from a fighting machine but upon activation it was found that there are sensitive control mechanisms within the cowl of the machine. As many of the components communicated with the power generator using unknown wireless means, this was an understandable error.

For the next few months, all investigations of the Heat Ray have been within the confines of intact Fighting Machines. Thankfully, there were still several of them with which the military scientists can work. Even with this limitation, there were amazing breakthroughs in the areas of adaptive hydraulics and inorganic ‘muscular’ machines for lifting and loading.

In an unparalleled level of co-operation, the Government permitted the Americans to send some of their top men to view the Martian devices. These scientists worked with the Naval Science Liaison, Harry Matthews, and successfully decoupled the Heat Ray from the generator. One of the scientists involved, Nikola Tesla, would later ‘defect’ to the United Kingdom in order to spend more time with the technology, a move which caused strained relations with the Americans for several years. Treaties of mutual co-operation and sharing of technology were only a partial solution and the scientists were forever escorted by bodyguards due to the danger of espionage.

Tesla and Matthews quickly became the acknowledged worldwide experts on the process of understanding and reproducing Martian technology.

“The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the evening star trembled into sight. It was deep twilight when the captain cried out and pointed. My brother strained his eyes. Something rushed up into the sky out of the greyness–rushed slantingly upward and very swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds in the western sky; something flat and broad, and very large, that swept round in a vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly, and vanished again into the grey mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the land.” - Chapter Seventeen: The Thunder Child

The atmosphere on Mars is much thinner than on Earth and despite the lower gravity, it would be almost impossible to engineer a glider to achieve aerial transport on Mars. It is a testament to the cerebral abilities of the Martians that they were able to engineer and build a flying machine in a matter of weeks following invasion. While our best minds on Earth, with years of experience manage to glide awkwardly, these invaders soared!

The Flying Machine was salvaged from the pit and moved to a British Army training ground for study. While scientists and engineers from all around the world clamoured for access to Martian technology, the Army sought out Hiram Stevens Maxim, an American-born inventor who had invented the Maxim machine gun and had spent over a decade working on winged flying machines up at West Norwood. Maxim was a portly gentleman with a bushy white beard and unkempt hair. He could often be seen pacing up and down past the massive sheds which housed the Martian machine and his many decidedly-earthbound prototypes, bawling loudly at his assistants. He would work twenty-hour days and expect the same of his staff: as well as insane, the man was profoundly deaf! He proposed to meld the design of the Martian machine with human engineering principles - adopting the work of Elling and Barber in the production of a reliable turbine engine.

It took months for Maxim to produce a flying machine which could be operated by a human. But then, what a sight!

The Narrator of the book was close to one of the arrival sites but this was not necessarily the most active site. He also spent more than two weeks (or a three week invasion) hiding in a collapsed house. He was not the first to discover the dead Martians at the end of the invasion and perhaps was even one of the last. We have to speculate what else happened during the time he was hiding and we have only the barest hints from the book

Week 1
This period is overshadowed by killing and destruction as the Martians make their presence known and start to cow the human populace and deter any efforts of the Military to gain any meaningful intelligence on their movements. The Martians spend this time constructing their machines to defend themselves and then set about building their towers and handling machines. The Humans, when they are roused from their overconfidence in the stability of their way of life are immediately routed and the roads fill with refugees. Some individuals attempt to hide among the ruins. Others still try to fight, joining the hundreds who have become an informal militia, both under-equipped and relatively low of morale considering the onslaught of crushing defeats. Armed with only relatively static and heavy guns, the defenders have to face the physical might of the Fighting Machines as well as the dreadful gaze of the Heat Ray and worse, the deadly caress of the Black Smoke.

Week 2
The Martians start to establish themselves and build their main factories. They shift their production facilities at the cylinders to constructing Handling Machines which process their raw materials as well as herd their ‘food’. They have built great cages into which the Fighting Machines deliver hundreds of frightened humans daily. The Handling Machines also start to collect and manufacture food for their human herds, raiding homes and shops at first and then upon analysis, producing it from the earth itself. These captive humans are under constant threat of death but after the first few days of captivity, their cries and wails die down as they become resigned to their fate. For those who misbehave, food and water are withheld from an entire group and that quickly becomes the leveller. Most relevantly, the Martians have exhausted all other food sources and start to feed upon their herds.

Week 3
The Martians are already deep in decline and the Red Weed itself seems to be suffering from a similar malady. Though the Martians never managed to adapt to our gravity, it is noted that they have become excessively lethargic, even their Handling and Fighting machine seem to spend long periods resembling statues. And in some cases, their installations are completely abandoned. Cage farms quickly become the domains of petty warlords, those who are strong and charismatic enough to mobilise a breakout and take control. At the same time, the remnants of a once-proud military nation start to creep back to their cities and resume their lives to find domains carved out of neighbourhoods, the destruction of homes and landmarks, the looting of food and valuables. There is also the opportunity cost as the British Empire is upon it’s knees at home and lifting it’s head once more just as news of it’s fall was reaching the colonies.

War of the Worlds: Earth is set at the dawn of the 20th Century. You have the legacy of Victoriana, the sunset of the British Empire and the rise of other nations including the independence of former colonies. Even back then, state education was available to all, the British Empire (even as late as 1921) held sway over nearly half a billion people and covered about a quarter of the Earth’s total land area. Britain became a global policeman (the origin of Pax Britannica) and due to it’s prominence in world affairs became increasingly influential even in economies where they held no sway. Remnants of their influence are felt worldwide in legal systems, economics, the military, educational reforms, sports and most obviously in language.

We have to remember, however, that War of the Worlds: Earth paints a post-apocalyptic picture of Britain. The Government had, for the most part, fallen during the invasion which lasted merely three weeks. Refugees streaming out of the flaming cities would be a melange of social classes with Lord and Lady mixing up with paupers and cadgers. The rigid barriers of society were shattered and with everyone seen in the same light, broken spirited and soiled from their rout from home, it was not possible to tell apart Prince from pauper.

Afterwards, rebuilding society would have been incredibly difficult with thousands dead or missing and even those who returned to their homes would not always be the same. What right of ascendancy did the nobility possess when all were equalised by the invaders? More than anything, the new society of the 20th Century must embrace the potential for revolution, for regime change.

TUAW has a link about Subversion for Writers.

Subversion is a popular open source version control system. “It allows you to work collaboratively with folks on the same files (in most cases code) without fear of overwriting the work of others. Subversion tracks all the changes made to those files, and who did them, and allows you to rollback changes or branch off into different directions with having to worry about mucking up the entire project.”

The instructions are a little hairy if you’re not used to the Terminal but you can always get someone to help you set it up and host it for you.

(Now, wouldn’t it be neat if you could find a collaborative text editor (like SubEthaEdit) which also had automagical Subversion built in?)

This weekend I was busy with family duties but still managed to do a bit of work on WoTW:Earth. Most notably taking the draft ideas Aidan sent through and turning them into mechanics and flavour.

Collaboration is hard.

I’m very conscious that I’m an ignorant so-and-so with strong opinions and a jeadstrong way of doing things. One sure-fire way to motivate me into completing something is to provide me with something that is not the way I’d do it. This isn’t to say that it’s wrong or that my way is actually better, but just the fact that it’s different is enough for me to work on something to illustrate my way.

Am I bloody minded enough to expect mine will be used? I’d like to think not but I think that even after all these years, I find it hard to work with others. Case in point: the lifepath systems we’re building for WotW: Earth can be done in a number of ways. I received Aidan’s notes and I wrote mine out and sent them on and I did say and will continue to say that it’s a work in progress. I don’t know, however, whether my personality (my bloodymindedness) can be put down by soliciting comment and inviting co-work. I’d have to get Aidan to be honest here about whether I am an ogre to work with.

Writing is hard

Harking back to the post on Quality of Play that I made the other day - I need to be very enthused by a game before I’d write for it (which is why I guess I don’t get paid to write - though I’ve never solicited paid writing work nor been asked). When enthused (the Solo Play part), I tend to be quite prolific and productive with writing which is why Crucible Design only published three games and they were the games that I conceived and wrote.

The irony of course is that my most productive times were when I was busy. I worked a 9-5, had a girlfriend, had a weekly game (or two) and would often have to do additional work at the weekends for my job. But I managed to hammer out The 23rd Letter. The next most productive person was Colin who had the job, the girlfriend, the hobbies and managed to do some excellent work on the Projects for The 23rd Letter. Everyone else was either in full time education (and no, it is not more work) or unemployed and getting writing out of them was impossible.

Vision is easy

What it tells me is that it’s easy to have a vision about something. It’s easy to think up a soundbite of a concept and pitch it at a small group of friends. You can wow them with some names you thought up, maybe even some basic sketches that are a subsititute for ‘real work’. The ‘Ideas’ page for LateGaming is incredibly long and I know that perhaps only 10% of them will ever have any real work done on them (and yeah, you can ask and no, they’re not all my ideas).

What this means is that in over five years of ‘writing’, we produced three books and they were the brainchild of (and written by) one person. We had plans for other books and games but none of them were ever completed and few of them got anywhere beyond the most basic concepts. Fancy playing a pirates game? We intended to write one (about 5 years before 7th Sea came out). Cowboys? Check. Corporate Superspies? Check. Commercially-minded Superheroes? Check. But I think that natural selection weeded out the weaker ideas.

The conclusion to this is going to be ‘What about Qabal?’

What about Qabal

It’s just a little too big for me and I need to get back into the flow of writing, raise the bar in terms of production values for the next books I bring out and re-learn a lot of terms. I need to ask friends who do design work for a living to help me with the look of the books and help me visualise the whole process. And all of this before I put any more pen to paper.

At the moment, I have smaller fish to fry.

Title taken from the Tom Waits track.

This blossomed into a scenario where the PCs were sent to investigate a murder. A newcomer to a quiet US suburb was found beaten to death in his home. The house is trashed. And no-one else in the suburb heard or saw anything…

Anyone else have done something similar? Created a scenario out of a song? (And let’s face it. this song is pretty much the entire inspiration for Desperate Housewives. Imagine the pitch - “It’s like that Tom Waits track….but with boobs!”