Author: matt

Gamer. Writer. Dad. Serial Ex-husband. Creator of The 23rd Letter, SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO, ZOMBI, Testament, Creed. Slightly megalomaniac

Zombie Links

This isn’t a link blog, but these are very fun.

Zombie World News

“ZombieWorldNews.com is , as far as we can tell, a departure from other Zombie sites. Instead of the reader being a spectator, we hope to draw you in through a dynamic, ever changing scenario, that you can just read and enjoy, or jump right in and contribute to yourself. The main focus is on the world wide impact and reaction to a credible Zombie virus. How countries deal with it. Become insular, close borders, increase security, quell panic, fear and paranoia, even make arrangements for undead disposal. We also want to touch on some often overlooked aspects of a Zombie rising. Such as, how do you cope with shooting someone? For most people it would not be like a shooting gallery. It would be horrific. Is there remorse? These were people, friends, neighbors. What is the personal toll? The psychological effect.”

The Zombie Squad

“Q: What is Zombie Squad?
A: Zombie Squad is disaster preparation community.
We focus our efforts towards promoting the importance of emergency preparation awareness and working with local communities around the globe to teach them what is needed to survive whatever crisis may come along like natural disasters or man made disasters. Our mission is to make sure you are prepared for any crisis situation that might come along in your daily life which may include your home being invaded by the undead menace. Zombie Squad also supports other local and international disaster relief organizations/charities. Check out our events page for the latest charity event we have coming up.

Captain America and other patriots

From onegoodmove we have Stephen Colbert on the tragic death of Captain America

One of my friends, Gav, mentioned the Civil War storyline. Cap represents the forces of liberty and Iron man is a defense contractor. I can’t help but think that there’s a writer in Marvel’s hallowed halls who’s sick of the current government situation in the US. But that’s dangerously close to satire and reality so let’s change the subject.

I’ve always liked “patriot” characters. I’ve never managed to make an Irish one though, I’ve always ended up with British super-patriot heroes. Some of them (Yeoman, Lionheart, RUCman) have become staples of my superhero backgrounds. A lot of this is because I was always an avid reader of Captain Britain.

Some of these characters I have a lot of empathy for.

Yeoman, the hundred and forty year old WW1 hero who shows no sign of failing health and yet who is possessed of the most desperate ennui. But he’s a knight of the way and his shoulders are broad and he still has a long way to go.

Lionheart, the modern clone of Yeoman, full of Thatcherite reason and lately New Labour sincerity. Violent and aggressive, just like the general populace.

RUCman, short-lived in terms of the campaign but oft remembered. This superhuman attaché to the RUC has left the shackles of the government since the change of the organisations name to the PSNI. PSNIman doesn’t have the same ring….

Local Boy living the dream…

BBC News Northern Ireland writes:

A man accused of a stealing underwear from a shop in a knifepoint raid believed he was a female elf at the time, Belfast Crown Court has heard. He told defence counsel Anthony Cinnamond that within his small social circle he had been participating in a game known as Shadowrun. The game was set in the future and the assumed characters were criminals, he said. He told the court his character was a shaman, or magical elf, who carried a small Japanese sword as a weapon.

That’s really quite embarrassing. (Thanks to Graham for the heads up and no, I don’t know this guy). Here’s more coverage of the same event

Episode Two – 26th October 2000

At 9 am, the doors to the conference room open and a motley crew of individuals file in. At the head of the table sits Jack White, the marble-faced CEO of WatchTower New York. Clockwise around the table we see Father Julian Devon (later to be known as Balance), Jason also known as INDIGO and three new individuals. The first introduces himself as SkyCrane (though you can call him Ben), the second calls himself Red Shift (speaking with a deep Southern accent) and the third as Psiren. It becomes apparent that Skycrane can lift huge weights with the power of his mind and fly and he quickly slots into the role of the team “Brick”. Red Shift claims to be “fast, too fast to see proper”. Psiren claims to be a telepath and empath and that she can become the communications backbone of the team.

Father Julian looks confused but is assured by White that everything has been sorted out with his Bishop. More on this later.

The team are informed of the plans for WatchTower. They will be the primary team operating out of TriBeCa. The second team will be operating out of the WatchTower NY training facility in the Catskills. They are also informed of White’s intentions to construct a WatchTower franchise outside of the United States through a special Sanction Zero which has been proposed by the United Nations. He refuses to elaborate at this time.

After this briefing, the team is introduced to Nicole Menshikov, the Public Relations Executive. Her job is to help the team settle into their new role, manage relocations and cement public identities and ensure that private identities are protected. She criticises INDIGO for his lack of insignia, questions Father Julian about his codename (which he eventually relents to, with Balance) and discusses the facilities available to WatchTower staff for keeping identities private. The meeting finishes as the group start to chat among themselves with Psiren finishing questions before they are asked which some find irritating.

The last thing they do is look up the now-deceased Squall. Known accomplices including two superpowered miscreants known as KillerWatt and HellStrike.

As lunch Approaches, Father Julian invites Psiren, also known as Alice, to lunch at Liberty Island. His gesture is more investigatory than complimentary and they spend time walking around the island. He and Jason bring a multimeter and test various objects in the environment. He’s looking out for any signs of Squall’s accomplices.

Psiren is able to detect empathic impressions from the area and she elucidates her feelings on the region. Suspecting collusion, Jason flashes his WatchTower badge at the head of security, a short, balding man called Lopez. He promises to fax over the duty roster for the 24th. The group also resolve to obtain schematics of Liberty Island. There must be something beneath….

WotW: Earth – The Martian Outpost

In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places.

“I stood staring into the pit, and my heart lightened gloriously, even as the rising sun struck the world to fire about me with his rays. The pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and wonderful in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, rose weird and vague and strange out of the shadows towards the light. “

The pit at Primrose Hill was the largest outpost the Martians secured in Britain and perhaps the world. Their fighting machines collected the materials from their cylinders and brought it to this pit so they start the construction of new machines. Handlers, refining machinery and buildings dot the landscape of the newly turned earth and their trails, dotted with powdered metal and the bones of their victims, weave an intricate web of snail trails.

Lofty towers affording observation of the surrounding countryside and armed with the dread funnel from which smoked the Heat-Ray. The land approach of the pit was of blackened turf and charred ruins of houses, tree stumps and the wreckage of anything that dared come near.

Now, the work of exhuming the dead and giving them a decent burial has occupied hundreds of men and women, eager to work for food, over the last weeks since the defeat of the Martians.

Do women look for more depth?

Inanna Jones writes a bit about this sexism thing here on the IrishGaming livejournal:

So generalising remark: women look for more depth.

I disagree with Inannajones. I think both men and women look for depth. The depth is just in different seas.

There is a group of guys who look for cheesecake art. They like the hawt Drow femmes and they think that Larry Elmore is a god. They are in the minority and seldom are over 18.

So, what’s with “women look for more depth”?

I don’t know what InannaJones looks for precisely, she says:

I play RPGs fundamentally for the sake of a damn good story and being able to be personally, intimately part of that story. I love being a hero, love solving mysteries, love being part of a living, breathing, 3+ -dimensional fantasy world. In my experience, both sexes are allowed to do that equally well.

Okayyyy…..that’s what I like about gaming. I love the story, I love characterisation, I love putting on an accent, I like making twists and turns in a plot and I love it when my players react as their character rather than as a player. As a GM I have to play believeable male roles as well as believable female roles. I have to play hearty heroes as well as vile villains, of both sexes and of variable sexual preference.

She continues:
I have never found RPGs or the RPG culture to be particularly sexist.

On the same post, deannawol writes:

If anything, the cute, fluffy, romantic “for women” games would piss me off. But that’s just me.

It would piss me off too. And I’m not even a woman.

What pisses me off more is being called a jerk and an asshole by an ignorant bigot who knows nothing about the hobby and assumes that just because we’re debating whether there is sexism in the hobby, it must mean that there is sexism in the hobby and anyone who says otherwise is the white, heterosexual, male oppressor.

This is a conversation for the pub, or a convention panel. And if any women want to look at the games I have in development here and on the LateGaming private wiki and talk about whether I am making a game with inherent sexist bias then I’m interested to talk.

It seems I agree with InannaJones.

Shakespeare at least had Viola.

Apparently, I’m exercising the power and privilege of my gender by criticising the idea that we should actually de-cliché a cliché in order to make everyone feel secure about themselves. (Question: if a cliché is de-fanged, doesn’t it become meaningless?)

The author goes on to criticise my statistics because the sample size is not representative and I wasn’t scientific in my evidence gathering. Is the author actually going to refute the statistics or just the method of gathering? Is the author going to provide information that tabletop gaming is NOT dominated by the male gender? Because this post is to discredit mine and yet proves nothing of the sort. My statistics may be off, but not by an order of magnitude. Come on Andrea, rather than attacking the method, attack the result. I don’t need to count people at my local club in order to obtain the result that tabletop roleplaying is dominated by male gamers. If you want to prove me wrong, get some proof.

The author admits they “can’t speak for tabletop gaming” but then goes on to compare the situation to that of videogames.

Not the same thing. I’m not interested in the video game community so I’m not going to bother going to the links provided which will tell me how women are starting to become a larger percentage of the video game industry (which, by the way, is a way of admitting they don’t dominate it without actually saying that). It’s irrelevant anyway.

In a video game, a designer might fill the game with cheesecake art and then expect you to play through it. The gratuitous boob and crotch shots are something that are in your face all the time. You want to play the game, you vew the graphics. Part and parcel. This isn’t the case with a tabletop roleplaying game. In many games, you read the book once, then put it down and reply on your imagination to pull you through. Does the reading of the book pollute your imagination with cheesecake art so that you’re so pre-occupied with it that you cannot roll a dice, act your way through a scene or enjoy a social activity with some friends?

See, it’s not the same situation as a video game, this is tabletop roleplaying; an area the author admits they “can’t speak for”. She criticises that I compare this game to literary works. The game we’re talking about is a direct homage, a game set in the world of these literary works. That fact that the game is filled with clichés that are representative of the literary genre is relevant. If you change them, they stop being clichés.

Our author, Andrea Rubenstein goes on to say that I’m being non-inclusive. That I’m being a callous asshole. She furthers her ignorance of the subject by claiming that I’m a jerk telling a woman to basically shut up and realize that gaming is for the boys. She probably doesn’t know that I’ve created gender-inclusive games (at least by the standards of the piece). she doesn’t even know what being “inclusive” means in terms of tabletop roleplaying so quick is she to compare it to a competely different medium.

So why get involved in an argument when you don’t know anything about the industry?

To grab a headline. Duh.

Andrea doesn’t realise that tabletop roleplaying games are literary works. She doesn’t realise that reading through many games is the same as reading a short novel. They tell a story and provide a framework designed to inspire the imagination. This is completely different to her straw man about video games which are a passive form of entertainment (yes, videogames are interactive but only in the sense that certain actions allow the story to be told. You’re limited to what’s presented to you on the screen. You’re not required, or in many cases able to use your imagination. But ignorance of the medium of tabletop roleplaying is central to Andrea’s assertion that I’m a jerk and an asshole. Central to her argument is the assertion that tabletop roleplaying must be the same as video gaming.

Andrea Rubenstein is not stupid, nor is she a jerk, nor an asshole. She’s just ignorant.

If she and Mary are going to criticise roleplaying games for their content then they really should start criticising other literary works for their content. Let’s start with the works of Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming and J. K. Rowling. Each of them has almost a monopoly on male protagonists with women having secondary, weaker or evil roles.

Shakespeare at least had Viola.

So I had to go ask some women….

The Bitter Guy calls this a really retarded response.

Fair enough. It probably is retarded to point at something that’s fucking stupid and say that’s fucking stupid especially when the stupid thing is something that is “pro feminisim”. Yes. Terrifyingly stupid. I do have to wonder however as I’ve brought this up with just about every woman I know (and yes, that extends beyond my mum, my sisters and my 4 year old daughter) and all of them agree that the criticism of the original material, that being the representation of genre clichés, is entirely appropriate. Some great responses were:

“I read late-gaming, and nearly vomited. Sorry, but the thought that there are people making games that allow females to enjoy their drama-mama, nico-teen angst makes me want to hurl. What? Do I get points for “Snappy Comeback”? For “Catch His Eye”? For “Best Entrance”?

Do I get experience for bedding the hot guy at the party or for getting through the night without sloshing wine on my new dress? ”

“I’ll admit, I’d have a hard time playing an authentic game where women were subjugated. However, I’d either find a way to play in that time period and do whatever I was going to do “underneath that”, or I’d play a guy.

Of course, I’m also the type of person that thinks that pandering to someone’s social inadequacy because one “must equalize in retrospect” is… er… insecure. We’ve forgotten how to bank on our intelligence in the wake of learning how to bank on our sexuality. I think modern women don’t want to have to admit that the “equality” they have grown up with is a trend. I think it denotes a high degree of insecurity, too, that they need to have everything “just so” in order to rp.”

“I think people bend the rules a lot when it comes to creative history in order not to offend women’s “delicate sensibilities”. We’re not really free, you know? As long as we get all riled up about not being equal and whining about it. By patronising them through changing in-genre clichés, you’re saying “You women can’t rp in a world that isn’t perfect for you, so let me soften everything up, dumb it all down, and then you can play with me.”

or

“Yes, I’m so attached to my insecurities, that I need to you to homogenize and sterilize everything.”

We’re getting into some of what I feel is wrong with feminine culture these days.
Being restored our sexual prowess has swung over into being restored our right to be slutty.
Unfortunately, some people don’t realize that slutty all the time makes it lose its appeal.
If I can’t make a guy want to fuck me with all my clothes on and nothing of interest really showing, then I’m fucking lame.

I think maybe you might need to just employ methods of getting women to divest themselves of their inbred “everyone has to make me feel equal” problem, and just write your damn game.

No, I agree with your post. I don’t need to be pandered to in order to rp. “

Okay….that’s a long one….but there’s more, in another detailed breakdown of my post…

More on sexism (plus registration and comments)

I’ve turned off registration for comments because it should be off. Bit of a mea culpa there.

I am enjoying the discussion on sexism in RPGs which has been continued on thedeadone.net and Mary’s blog.

I wrote: “Some game companies are currently trying to market cute and fluffly and romance and “social” games to women which is utterly patronising.”

Mary writes back: “I can answer this personally without examples. I see games as inherantly a social thing. Hanging out with a group of people is a social thing.

I’m not disagreeing here but I deliberately put “social” in inverted commas. Gaming is a social activity because it usually means hanging out with people who have a similar interest. This is not the same as a “social” game.

I don’t know if I’m communicating this well but I’m trying to illustrate the difference between “gaming as a social activity” and “a game which contrives social situations in game”. We all know the former and real men squirm at the thought of the latter. Ahem.

Do I need to examine the way I do things? I have no women in my gaming group. Does this mean I have been shooing them away with my inherent and aggressive male chauvenism?

I did a check with the women I know. Some gamers, some not. They don’t think I’m a male chauvenist. I did need to check.

It’s about starting conversations with new people

I started a little storm in a teacup with my last post. Even got someone else linking to me. And some of the comments on that posting (e.g. “Enh, I went and read the Late Gaming post, and it’s so stupid, I couldn’t even work up the energy for a reply.”) just prove the point.

Now. Jeremiah has a good point that perhaps the point of female archetypes is to make it easier for females to visualise character possibilities. Okay, I can accept that. The problem being that his commenters immerse themselves in political correctness. For the guy who didn’t have the energy to reply because the post is so stupid, thanks for commenting. You could have just put a me too and provided just as much contribution.

Jeremiah writes:“And I have to say that some people just don’t get it. And at this point I am thinking it is on purpose.”

Yes, some of it is in purpose. The whole point of blogging for me is not a confessional – there’s not a lot of point in writing something if it’s not going to start a conversation. As Robert Scoble says It’s good for us to change our scenery and start conversations with people we wouldn’t otherwise talk with..

Would Sherlock Holmes have appealed to more women if Dr Watson had been a genre-and-era-busting female doctor? At that point it’s getting petty. It’s like a TV show committee sitting around a table and cynically asking whether they could appeal to the bi-lesbian-gay-black-asian community more if they included some token characters in their sit-com. Do you really want to be targetted like a demographic rather than an individual? Do you want to be excited because a game has an archetype that breaks the demographic of the genre or would you rather be excited because of the opportunities the game presents. It seems to me that games WITHOUT art might actually appeal to women more if cheesecake art is such a turn-off.

Some game companies are currently trying to market cute and fluffly and romance and “social” games to women which is utterly patronising. There are some games which are really interesting to me from the point of being an immersive roleplayer. Nicotine Girls for example, does not appeal to the side of me that wants to play a muscle bound mutant. But I’d love to find a gaming group that would play it. I may have that gaming group right now but I’m not sure. For one thing, they’re all blokes. For a second thing I’ve only started gaming with them recently and I don’t know how far I can push them. Introducing them to Troupe Play was a big leap….

One issue with game companies making games that seem to appeal to males more than females? These male gamers are buying games. That means the law of supply and demand will apply to the big companies. It’s a small enough hobby already and the percentage of women who will play has always been a small fraction. I’ve always promoted strong genre-busting female character roles for the female players in my group (some may remember Aemilia (Ars Magica), Petrina Miles (Ars Magica), and Christine (SLA Industries) from my games (all played by my lovely ex-wife). Therefore you can look to indie game companies where the developers are writing for the love of the game rather than the money. I will have to ask some of my female gamer friends about whether my own games have appealed to them with positive character possibilities. It’s a conversation I have to have with myself at some point I guess.

Mary’s blog about games that appeal to her leaves me a little confused. One one hand I can see there are some really cool images here. The image for Gurps: Reborn Rebirth looks cool indeed. That’s a positive gender model. The image just above it, with the schoolgirls with the swords doesn’t inspire me at all. It features more of the things in Japanese culture that we whitebread westerners find odd or disturbing. Okay, the things I find disturbing.

But then it’s not about whether I’m inspired obviously. Or what I find disturbing.

I didn’t write yesterday’s post as a whitebread western male. I wrote it as an indignant gamer and I had significant input from a female friend who agreed totally. No-one wants to be patronised.

If Jesus had tits, would you believe in God?

On mer writes about rpgs we find an opine about how it’s such a shame that the pulp-rpg “Spirit of the Century” included archetypes such as:

Gadget Guy, Gentleman Criminal, Jungle Lord, Man of Mystery

and not

Gadget Girl, Lady Criminal, Jungle Queen, Woman of Mystery

Yes. It’s a bloody shame. So why don’t we create games where sexism and racism are reversed?

Okay, how about we compromise. Let’s look at my local gaming club and make some calculations. On Monday night we had about thirty people. And not more than 4 were women. So slightly more than 13%. Let’s build games to attract the 13% rather than the 86%!

That doesn’t make a lot of sense.

People have wracked their brains in how to attract more women into the hobby and I have to say that I am beginning to see it as futile. There was a huge influx of females (especially hawt gothy babes) when Vampire hit the streets. And now the bubble has popped? They’re gone. Or doing other stuff. there’s been some releases of anime/manga games which are more feminocentric (that’s got to be a new word…) but I look at them and consider them patronising. There are some that even promote love and romance but again, how subtle are they?

I just don’t think that gaming means the same to girls the same way that obsessive devotion to an obscure hobby holds attracton to women. What’s the percentage of female train-spotters? How about computer geeks (you know, the ones who don’t do it for money?). There’s a reason why males suffer more from mind-blindness than girls (Asperger Syndrome affects 3-4 times as many boys than girls). Asperger’s has been referred to as excessive maleness

I tend to look at the women in gaming with respect to sexism and racism in gaming media with soft focus. For years we’ve been subjected to pin-up style art of BOTH male and female protagonists wearing nothing but beach-wear for armour while fighting dragons, spiders and immense giants. We don’t hear many men complaining about the men. I just think it’s a tired, contrived trope.

Does it really spoil your enjoyment of the game if the archetypes are male? Do you find it jarring and upsetting if the pronouns in a game are exclusively male? Does it pain you to your very soul that Wells chose male characters for his books The Time Machine and War of the Worlds? Would Emma have been better if Jane Austen had named the character James and made a comedy of manners about the debut of a young squire? Why the hell wasn’t Moses a girl? Would Jesus have been a better saviour if he’d had mammary glands?

It’s a male dominated hobby with a target market of males, written by men most of whom have given up trying to attract women in the hobby because, frankly, they’re only interested if it’s anything but straight tabletop roleplaying. Add in a bit of haemo-eroticism, some corsets and black lipstick and we’re flooded with the buggers all happy to play happy families with the one or two male players who wash more than once a week. We’re meant to make women excited to play the game by throwing in some token archetypes (voiding the genre I might add) and making more references in the text to fictional female GMs?

What happened to making people excited to play the game because of a compelling background, a system that didn’t make me want to push d10s into the eyes of the GM and a player community that didn’t just really creep me out with the fact that ten years later, the people at your local club all the same, just older, fatter and still playing D&D.

Sure. Next game I write, I’ll add in 50% female archetypes. See how excited everyone gets.

[Yes, this has turned into a rant and I’ve made the title a good bit more inflammatory than I might have originally. I’d have commented directly on Mary’s blog but…I’d have to register on wordpress.com for that and really I can’t be bothered. I did have about 40% female archetypes in Qabal….but that was a long time ago]

WotW: Earth – Air Superiority

“They’ve gone away across London,” he said. “I guess they’ve got a bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky is alive with their lights. It’s like a great city, and in the glare you can just see them moving. By daylight you can’t. But nearer–I haven’t seen them–” (he counted on his fingers) “five days. Then I saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night before last”–he stopped and spoke impressively–“it was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they’ve built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly.”
I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes.
“Fly!”
“Yes,” he said, “fly.”
I went on into a little bower, and sat down.
“It is all over with humanity,” I said. “If they can do that they will simply go round the world.”

As if their Heat Ray and Fighting machines were not enough, the Martians have a deep understanding of science and in the weeks post-invasion were able to analyse our environment and create flying machines. Our most seasoned scouts were able to describe this process as they experimented with their machines, sometimes resulting in disaster for the Martian who sat in the hood but with every setback, the hammering within the pit would resume and soon enough a new machine would be created. The Flying Machine crumples easily, possibly due to the lightness of it’s manufacture and most resembles a “flying wing” style craft.

“Across the pit on its farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great flying-machine with which they had been experimenting upon our denser atmosphere when decay and death arrested them.”

The Martian Flying Machine uses compressed air to launch itself into the air with a loud popping sound and further air jets and aerodynamic surfaces to provide forward motion and lift. They cannot hover effectively and are currently limited to strafing runs for deploying Black Smoke and attacking with the Heat Ray, a tactic which has proved thus far to be utterly devastating.

Forward observers have noted the craft are simply too swift to be targetted by normal artillery and even our best riflemen have expressed doubt at whether they could provide an effective hit. Scouts describe the screaming roar of the engines to be as terrifying as the howls of the machines themselves.

Thankfully the range of these terrible air-borne scourges seems to be approximately 50 miles. It would not have delayed their eventual defeat even by a day but should their range have been much greater, we can only imagine the destruction they would have wrought upon us.

WotW: Earth – London

“And as I looked at this wide expanse of houses and factories and churches, silent and abandoned; as I thought of the multitudinous hopes and efforts, the innumerable hosts of lives that had gone to build this human reef, and of the swift and ruthless destruction that had hung over it all; when I realised that the shadow had been rolled back, and that men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast dead city of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave of emotion that was near akin to tears.”

As an aside, Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds will be playing in the Odyssey in December. Am I going. Oh yes, I am.

Episode One – 24th October 2000

Tonight….

We introduced two of the characters to each other.

Father Julian Devon, a priest with a secret, is taking his orphans to Liberty Island. Meanwhile, a young scientist is trying out his new Stealthsuit, a suit of armour which also gives him the ability to turn almost invisible and, wait for it, teleport 25 000 000 miles in a second…

Father Julian notices a dark cloud heading in to shore and racing up the Hudson. Under it, floats a lone figure in black. Emergency responses alert the WatchTower which then alerts it’s first recruit, the scientist operating under the code name INDIGO. He teleports to the top of the World Trade Center and from there, to the observation deck of the Statue of Liberty. As he arrives, the cloud has reached the foot of the statue and the person it carries has touched down.

As the storm clouds swarm, everyone crowds inside the statue building, all save one: Father Julian. He confronts the dark figure and words are exchanged. The dark figure raises his hand and a brilliant bolt of lightning arcs down from the skies. There is a huge burst of light and when our eyes clear from the flash, only the priest is standing. His antagonist lies smoking and burned upon the grass. Father Julian touches him and utters a short prayer, as stunned as anyone at what has happened.

The emergency services response arrives and everyone is required to give statements. The burned man is taken in an ambulance to hospital and later dies from his injuries. INDIGO decides to investigate this priest further but before he can take action, Father Julian, urged by a young nun at the orphanage, arrives at the WatchTower to confess his actions. He reveals his powers to INDIGO and Jack White, the inscrutable, marble-skinned CEO of WatchTower New York. Jack agrees to speak to Father Julians Bishop and see if they can resolve his feelings of remorse at the accident earlier that day.

Next Week….some of the other heroes who will inhabit WatchTower New York, will arrive.

Conventions for the remainder of 2007

I missed Warpcon in Cork which annoyed me and I just realised that this weekend is Leprecon in Dublin. Would I go all the way to Killarney? That’s a long way. As is Galway. I’m not really into going across the water to England or Scotland at this point unless I can get a small group to go. As a result, realistically the next con I can go to is Q-CON in Belfast, a con I helped start 14 years ago. That’s kinda scary.

Dragonmeet would be nice….

  • K2 2007. Killarney Country Club, Killarney.
    Friday 2nd – Monday 5th March 2007.
    lir@lspace.org
  • Itzacon III. NUI Galway, Galway, Ireland.
    Friday 9th – Sunday 11th March 2007? Dates TBC.
    http://www.itzaconeire.com
  • Conpulsion 2006.Teviot Student Union, Edinburgh University, Scotland.
    Saturday 25th – Sunday 26th March 2007.
    www.conpulsion.org
  • Student Nationals RPG Championships. Teviot Student Union, Edinburgh University, Scotland.
    Friday 30th March – Sunday 1st April 2007.
    http://www.studentnationals.org.uk/index.php
  • Sillicon 9. The HUB, Dublin City University, Ireland.
    Friday 30th March – Sunday 1st April 2007.
    http://sillicon.redbrick.dcu.ie
  • Battlemasters 2007. Digby Hall, Leicester University, UK.
    Friday 13th – Sunday 15th April 2007.
    http://www.eurolog.org.uk/
  • Salute Zero Six. ExCel, London, UK.
    Saturday 21st April 2007.
    http://www.salute.co.uk/
  • Beer & Pretzels XVIII. Town Hall, Burton-upon-Trent, UK.
    Saturday 12th – Sunday 13th May 2007? Dates TBC
    http://www.spiritgames.com/bnpdetails.php
  • Tentacles. Castle Stahleck, Bacharach, Germany.
    Friday 25th – Monday 28th May 2007.
    http://www.tentacles-convention.de/
  • UK GAME EXPO 2007. The Clarendon Suites, Stirling Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK.
    Saturday 3rd – Sunday 4th June 2007.
    http://www.ukgamesexpo.com/
  • Vaticon 2007. Student Centre, UCD Belfield, Dublin 4. Ireland.
    Saturday 9th – Sunday 10th June 2007.
    http://www.ucd.ie/gamesoc/vaticon/
  • Q-CON XIV, Queen’s University, Belfast
    Friday 22nd – 24th June 2007
    http://www.q-con.org.uk/

  • Recombination, New Hall, Cambridge, UK
    Friday 10th – Sunday 12th August 2007.
    http://www.recombination.org.uk/
  • Gen Con UK 2007. University of Reading, Berkshire. UK.
    Thursday 30th August – Sunday 2nd September 2007.
    http://www.horsemenevents.com/
  • Furnace 2007. The Garrison Hotel, Sheffield. UK
    Saturday 20th – Sunday 21st October 2007.
    http://www.rpgfurnace.com/
  • Consequences 2007. Naish Holiday Village, Highcliffe, Christchurch, Dorset, UK.
    Friday 16th – Sunday 18th November 2007.
    http://www.ishtari.co.uk/consequences/index.php
  • Dragonmeet 2007. Kensington Town Hall, London, UK.
    Saturday 1st December 2007.
    http://www.dragonmeet.com/

  • Continuum 2008. Beaumont Hall, Leicester University. UK.
    Friday 1st – Monday 4th August 2008.
    http://www.continuum.uk.net.

Would I GM for money?

There’s a bloke on StoryGames who’s advertising his new business: Will GM for money.

The price is $50.00 per month of weekly play, as of the 23rd of Febuary, the price is $10.00 per week payable in advance, which including includes snacks and drinks: a five session pass comes with a spiffy membership card with your characters mug on it in full color. We meet weekly on Friday, 4:00 to 6:00, at at Eudemonia on 2154 University (and Shattuck) in Berkeley, California

Are good GMs really that rare?

I’d not pay a red cent for this kind of crap. I don’t know about you but I expect a basic level of language for a GM and frankly, a GM who’s an egotistical prick is a major turn-off (And yes, I mean other people who are egotistical pricks. I’m fabulous!) This bloke…well…his command of his first language is not where it needs to be for a PAY-FOR game.

The odd thing is that during character generation on Monday night we had a brief discussion of exactly this subject. We did moot the idea that my players could bribe me. A quid ($2) for a random re-roll and two ($4) for a favourable result. And two again to cock up someone else’s roll. And there would be a bidding system that would go up in increments.

That beats the shit out of card based and stone/paper/scissors rubbish we’ve all been inventing over the last few years.

My Superhero Game.

I’m not happy with the current crop of superhero games.

My favourite is Advanced Marvel Superheroes from TSR which is nearly 20 years old. It’s certainly the most flexible and from the most basic amounts of text, oyu can extrapolate so much.

I’ve tried most of the games out there and I’m really not happy with them.

There are a few things I want to get across in the game I want to write:

  • A character sheet it takes a minute to write.
  • A simple mechanic for fatigue or energy loss.
  • The ability to look at two characters and know how tough they are.
  • Some sort of way of scaling the numbers so they’re less meaningless.
  • It has to have the flexibility of Marvel for sure.

I’ll add more thoughts as I think of them. Hmmmm. Chewy….

[Edit: Aidan adds more thoughts]

  • It has to allow super-heroism without losing touch with reality.
  • Making Magneto should be as straightforward as making Cyclops.
  • Combat should kill the stupid or unwary, or at least put The Fear into them.
  • Any one action should only require one dice roll.