I received a letter from them today announcing among other thing a new class of member ship Senior Member for I quote "who have demonstrated performance that sets them apart from their peers. "

I know quite a few seniors whose performance when using computers sets them apart...

The fact that they were built and designed for someone's game makes them even better, and apparently it is not the first time they've done it. ( I think the game is more treasure hunt than LARP but still).

I now really want to do something similar. I only need the round tuits and the idea - although I tend not to be too short of the latter.

Of course the game I'm working on at the moment is Victorian era so it not the best place to mine for this but ideas are like buses....

Belgium! Man

But seriously person they interviewed suggested the only things the Flemish and the Waloons have in common was "the King, the Beer and the Chocolate". He didn't mention the Frites.

I could only think of wanting to run a free form set in Belgium so a Player could shout..

( Read more... )

twistedanimator

We played a quick-ish game of Citadels while waiting for everyone to else to arrive which saw me winning Horrah. by a it a luck - and stealth points totals, followed by a fun werewolf variant.

However the game I just have to mention is the epic War on Terror: The Boardgame . I say epic because the game just went on and on and on . Despite this it was fun to play and had many of almost literally rolling on the floor in laughter.

The designer's suggest a ordinary victory can be achieved it a reasonable evening's play to to be honest I doubt that it is possible with 6 new players of the game. The terrorism mechanic is just to seductive. You start to use it and the everything goes pear shaped.

I think if I was working on the rules I'd add some sort of end of the world or other mechanic because about the only end that the game guarantees you will reach is that every turns into a terrorist.

If for no other reason that any player can turn terrorist at any point - but cannot ever turn back. I suspect though in a game where most of the players have played before and are looking for a victorious empire (that illusory 'ordinary' victory I mentioned earlier) that deals etc could be made which would make it more likely to come the the desired conclusion. If for no other reason than the other player would be more alert to want the full consquences of terrorism are having played before.

Of course our game must have been unusual because we went about 5 full turns (eg 30 dice throws) before rolling the 'Spin the Axis of Evil' result (it happens a single result of a D6)

As a result of not having a axis of evil player meant the early part of the game to more powerful terrorist cards weren't in play for a while..., until one players was knocked out. Then the game turned deadly.

Suddenly everyone realised you couldn't beat terrorism in the war on terror, and turned terrorists give the terrorist's the victory.

Which was surprisingly satisfying

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I've put the website they are developing into revision control so that chnages made can be tracked, and so they don't need to develop on the live site.

But judging by the emails I'm getting from them they seem to having some trouble with the concept of revision control. I haven't actually asked them to drive the VCS driectly yet , I've been quite happy to commit their changes for them and propagte the chnageset on to the live site.

Is revision control really unusall in this space?

One of my colleges says yes, at that revision control is unique to the Unix development environment and that web and windows developer rarely (read: practically never) use it.

But I still think they should be familiar with what a VCS p=tries to achieve even if there haven't used one.


x-posted to itprofessionals </B?

[	Tags	|	gaming	]
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In working thinking through what the dice mechanic should be I came up with the following realization and easy way to further characterise "roll and add" systems. Technically "Roll under skill" systems are very close, but my guess is the fit into the hierarchy about one half to one dice under there actual dice use.

If it not clear already I'm characterising systems by there dice, specifically the number of dice rolled on each test so GURPs a 3d6 system would come under 3dice, althouth I would expect 2-2.5 dice better represents it. Similarly D20,Rolemaster and the unisystem all come under 1 dice, while Classic and Megatraveller are both two dice systems.

On further two dice system which is worth mentioning is the Babylon Project in which you roll (1D6 - 1D6) ie rolling a positive and a negative dice. Statistically this is no different from rolling 2D6-7.

So know we to which class or system falls into what does this tell us about the system - well I've made the following pretty basic observations, hopefully they aren't revelation to the serious gamers out there , but on the other hand I don't think I've seen
anyone put it down in print (or html) before.

1 Dice Systems
I think of this as being essentially random - the random element of the result come from a flat distribution so you are as likely to get a good result as a bad result.

One way in which the designer can affect the way this works if by tweaking the range of skills v, the range of results from the dice.

If the range of skill level available to the players is much wider the the range of values from the dice then skill predominates the result, but if the opposite is true then the dice are in control which is great for using the dice to add thrills and spills to a story but can be problematic.

2 Dice Systems
I think of two dice systems being good for high fantasy and wide ranging space opera. As yet we are not seeing a bell curve but we do have a triangle shaped distribution - eg, the sides are linear.

As the higher successes (and failures) become decreasing likely (in a linear fashion) we are putting more meaning into the specific skill level a player may have . Given a good balance of skill level vs. die results as we mentioned above , we see the characters begin to tend to a mode in their ability to perform .

It is now possible for a player to rely on a base level of competence of their PC but good results occur often enough to keep the story flowing and alive with surprises.
3 Dice Systems
At this level a recognisable bell curve has formed. I see this category as for 'realistic' games. There is still a large enough variance to expect outstanding results reasonably often but you there is a strong basis towards the mean.

In some ways this is a useful mean position for a system to take and then use other characteristics to push it down to Gritty or up to high fantasy.
4 Dice systems
I'm currently not aware of any specific four dice systems, except those with variable dice in which 4 dice tests exists. I see this as being only truly suitable for gritty roleplaying. It will be rare that you roll an outstanding success or failure. Your character is good or bad at what he does, and it's rare it she out does herself.

This is probably the biggest weakness of this level - how often do you want to play a nobody trying to be a hero. On the other hand this seems tailor made for Film Noir

Well there it is , take or leave it, but I'd be interested to hear thoughts.

Oh and since I started this about talking about a new systems (which currently only exists in my head) I'll let you know that modulo playtesting I believe I have working 2 and 4 dice conflict mechanics for it , as such it can be used it a variety of genres.

But please , I'm not suggesting you mix these two mode in a single campaign - that would be stupid.

After some discussion about what we would play - during which I was berated for not mentioning Esoterrorists is a Robin Laws game , it was finally decided we should play Esoterrorists.

As usual the players did there best to not follow the module like been written in any way - including trying there best to get lost on their way to the mission breifing.

The team seemed to decide that subterfuge was the best way to find the clues, rarely telling anybody even what their cover identity was and generally keeping me on my toes.

The as a result I found the Gumshoe concept of a core clue important to keep the action moving as if I saw the players were likely to reach a dead end I could make sure thay had the core clues ready by manipulating the storyline allowing them to get it - even if the module wasn't originally written that way.

The only place this was much of a stretch was when I had to change to character of one of the NPC's (Barry Milk) to be more forthcomning than he might otherwise has been.

Overall I have got a number of interesting impressions of the Gumshoe system which I will be putting together in a later post , but in short we too hit the 'impression of railroading' problem - which may come from fact he system makes it hard for a GM to hide the system workings, ie. how can you indicate to the players there is a spend available without coming right out and saying it.

The players said they felt forced to make a spend if there was one there to make. Obviously in a longer game the players can see this as a resource management problem - but it doesn't hide the awkwardness that the Players will know where the 'unfound' clues are. I think this problem is greater that the just ooc/ic information problem - If I know I've not got a clue an I am struggling with a investigation , I'm going to assume the missing clue is important whether it was or not. I'm worried then taht this can distort the game's feel.

Also it when you look at running it, the system seems to have 3 different resolution mechinacs. ie. automatic,point spend, and roll . The players kept assuming that they would have to spend points even when some of the clue where automatic.
But perhaps I didn't explain the system well at the beginning which given it was quite noisy where we were sitting, I can understand that the players may not have heard everything.

I would like to think all the players enjoyed themselves though and the mechanic certainly didn't get in the way of the story , and their simplicity allowed me to concentrate on keeping the story moving which is all good.

I have some ideas about an interesting variant on the system which may work slightly better (IMHO) but I'm going to need to give the whole think a bit of thought as file the edges off.

On the whole - hats off to robin_d_laws and simonjrogers for a thought provoking game and system.

So I open a window, turn the fire down and make myself a cup of tea and wait for my headache to clear.

SO what happen's we get a blizzard outside.

A real honest to god blizzard .As in I can't see to the end of road through the sleet and I certainly cant hear myself think over the sleet and the rain on the window.

And the draft round my feet gets colder...

And now having posted this its all stopped again.

Make yer mind up.

It was trapping between the engine block and the cover.

So the car need to be booked into to see a professional.. So I'm prolly going to relaint on borrowed trasnport for the next week or so.

Ho Humm.

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Unfortunately I know that wine is in fact one of the worst thing in a keyboard , as it appears to attack the conductive tracks on the membrane quite aggressively. On the other hand I turned the laptop upside down and shook it immediately - followed by pulling the power and rinsing the keyboard (after taking out the rest of the laptop).

So I know the laptop core is working and there is no chance of any data loss. I should still be able use it with a PS/2 keyboard (no tested yet).

I'm quietly confident about the keyboard but it needs to be left to dry out quite thoroughly. Which is why it is currently looking little lost clustered around the bed linen in the airing cupboard.

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Christmas as relatively quiet with a few small presents.
ravenrigan joined me for a few days included the shopping trip for new clothes which resulted in a substantial number of new jackets. Now I've just got to remember to wear them.

the new year was seen by a wonderful party at bytepilot's

Last weekend was stabcon. It's the first time I've been to stabcon and I didn't entirely know what to expect.

We arrived in good time , unpacked, then joined the gaming throng .

First call was the bar and while I was ordering beer there was a groups who trying to work out the rules for citadels - I was offered a place in the game since I had played before and me and ravenrigan had played before.

After that we wandered round a bit and hand some food, and didn't really find a game I was much interesting in playing. So kibbutzed on a game of shadows over camelot during which bytepilot and thalinoviel arrived. I sat down and had a chat with thalinoviel and joined her friends in a game of St Petersburg, which I won despite being a game I normally do quite badly at. This one I managed to win by one whole point - due to some lucky availability of nobles in the last turn. This was followed some serious "Are you a Werewolf".

I advertised a rpg game which seemed to have slow signup which left me a little down - I'm enjoy boardgames but a con of just board games I find a little repetitive, In the end how all was not lost as I got enough signups - I played ravenrigan's Dying Earth on Saturday Afternoon followed by my own Gurps infinite worlds adventure which will be tidied up and improved for Recombination.

Sunday saw us playing Phil Masters' 'Meme Thing' Transhuman space adventure which I really enjoyed - following by debugging some interesting game concepts from various members of the Crowther family.

All in all I quite enjoyed stabcon - but I'm not sure it's a must go for me.

On the way back, I managed to get involved with a traffic accident as lorry ran into me as I try to join the
A14 .
The drivers door is seriously dent and I am without a drivers side wing mirror. Additionally my windscreen wipers have stopped working. - This linkage broke - I spent this evening trying to fix it in the dark - but I don't know how long it's going to last.

And tomorrow I have to with the insurance. Poo.

gbsteve

ravenrigan

Also because there we a chance of a costume change during the larp I had was wearing more clothes than usual and was getting quite warm .

I've found Hans (my character) can be quite difficlut to play - I found him a little harder to play than in the previous game.

I think part of it is my interpretation of him as the 'Nice Guy' who won't stoop to the level of the other characters. He also isn't the charaismatic sort who is `hot'¹ very often. More problematic was in this game I felt is powers where not quite right for the character I just don't see Hans as someone who throws 'Hissy fit's. On the other hand the obvious power to resist other peoples powers (which others did have) wouldn't have actually helped either as nobody used their power on Hans either.

Getting towards the end of the game there was a charity auction in which the opportunity to sing with the space girls was sold, - this was the opportunitity for my costume change and the bidding immediatley went over the amount of money Hans started with. At this point it looked like most of my objectives had where unreachable so I just started having a bit of fun with the character - letting him see how much of a arse Stig - his wandering partner - really was just as the vote of no confidence came up in the game as it happens.

Supporting Melissa Dracul was in Hans intersests anyway as she had f pledged support for the PinkGaming group on the basis she didn't have to actually have to wear pink

Finally I realised Collete and Nigel seemed to have had a falling out and since Nigel had won the auction for the chance to sing she was a natural ally. So we formed an alliance and she arranged the dirty deed while I disappeared for a costume change. Steve intercepted my on the way back form the change and brought me as a surprise at the appropriate moment.

.
So Two of my characters objectives achieved then. And the second one rendered irrelavent by in game
machnations.

After the game I changed in some much more confortable clothing - athough the costume change itself had made me quite a bit more comfortable as I was at least wearing a more usual number of layers. Then I went round the trade hall and purchased a few bits and pieces that looked good (including esoterrorists - more about later), before playing gbsteve's (again) esoterrorists demo.

I found the demo a little short to really explain why the Gumshoe mechnic works properly but more in a later post when I will a review of the system next based on reading the supplement in full and the demo. Unfortunately I don't see a chance to playtest it soon.

After that we had a couple of very enjoyable games of Are you a werewolf before watching and bidding in the charity auction.

All in all a very good day out, lot of people on the Trade hall when I spoke about my various campaign's in development seemed to liek the ideas too. A girl on the Collective Endenavours stand was quite enthuastic about my Cthulu-Matrix ideas too.

1: 'Hot': One of gbsteve's game mechanics which means more News (in the Hello! sense) worthy characters get more powers.