Random Burblings

Architectural Bad Manners

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 09:44:18 GMT

By all accounts, Edward I was not a monarch to cross.

So when Llwelyn ap Gruffydd and his brother did just that in the late 13th Century, the result was a chain of stonking great fortifications around North Wales that would leave the locals, in case somehow they weren't sure, in no doubt what-so-ever just exactly who was in charge here.

Harlech sits lonely and windswept on its promontory, forsaken by the sea that used to crash against its mighty foundations. Its towers are no longer home to the thirty men charged with local security, only the gulls and crows that nestle amongst the broken stones in the teeth of the winds rolling in from the great arc of the bay below.

And then there is Conwy, crouched at the entrance of another bay, its sturdy walls encircling a tiny town, its lofty towers full of chattering students and exhausted tourists bemoaning "Not another one!". The almost delicate foot suspension bridge echoes the military might of its watchful master, as does that of the twin tunnel rail bridge next door, its faux facade a Victorian sop to the impressive surroundings.

Finally there is Beaumaris, unfinished and forgotten, brooding in its beautiful marsh, but somehow managing to show the beginnings of the structural ideal brought to fruition at Deal Castle, Henry VIII's anti-artillery marvel on the South East coast of England, some 250 years later.

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, father of Portmeirion, talked of the architectural good manners he hoped to instill in his secluded valley. Although these three statements of stone intent are not the only castles rebuilt, remodeled or required by Edward in the area, they are a most profound declaration of his enduring architectural bad manners, softened only by time and the trample of weary feet.

Architectural Good Manners

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:23:29 GMT

Portmeirion is a magical place. Clinging desperately to the side of a steep Welsh valley, the sugary colours of the stucco stand in counterpoint to the dark, lustrous greens of the surrounding woodland. The sweeping vista of the bay carries your eye to the brooding hills above Harlech and out beyond the lighthouse you can see infinity on a clear day.

Born of the imagination of Sir Clough Willaims-Ellis (and I say born because it has an organic feel to it that discounts words like built and designed), it shows that architecture can be approachable, entertaining and gentle on the eye despite a riot of colour. A true eccentric, Williams-Ellis became something of a masonry magpie, accepting donations of bits of building that no-one wanted anymore leaving Portmeirion, in his own words, as a bit of a "home for fallen buildings".

We had the good fortune, after an off the cuff remark by a good friend, to spend a few days there this last week. Of course, you can't visit the Village without some reference to the Prisoner, the show which made it nationally and internationally famous. I'd never actually seen the Prisoner before we booked to go, so I had dutifully sat and watched the entire series on video (yes, video) once we had. The authorities at Portmeirion do kindly show an episode of the Prisoner on their private guest channel at 6 every day, which made us smile in the way that these gentle, knowing touches always do.

There are places where you instantly feel that you belong and I certainly believe in genius loci, the spirit of place. Like certain other locations we have visited over the years, you can feel that this one has been, and still is, greatly loved. The chance to stay in one of the Village houses and have the run of the place after closing time was very special. To sit on top of the Colonnade and watch the sun go down over the Piazza in perfect stillness was only one highlight of an amazing few days; to see sights that normal visitors can't because they cannot pass the "residents only" signs was even more so. The entire Village became our playground and we small children again, climbing, exploring, discovering, laughing at each new find, each glorious new perspective.

So while Portmeirion is most definitely worth visiting, it is even more worth while discovering by becoming your own miniature version of the Prisoner. But as someone else once said, once you've seen the place, you really have to wonder why he ever wanted to leave.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:46:41 GMT

Well, there we go, the last episode of "Ashes to Ashes". Nice ending (which I will not be spoiling).

Only probelm being, BBC, it would have been sooooooo much better if you hadn't announced the next series before you showed tonight's episode. So whilst it was still a nicely done piece of work, it lacks some of the "OMG" factor that it should have had.

Someone really needs to sit down and teach the BBC's publicity department something about um, well, publicity...

Mixed Emotions at the (almost) End of the Academic Year

Wed, 20 May 2009 16:24:54 GMT

Its not been an easy year, either at work or personally.

One issue at work is in the process of being resolved, there being no evidence of me ever having bullied a student. Well, I knew that and so did all the people I work closely with; if anyone was being bullied, it wasn't the student. I have wrestled professionally with one group of difficult students and been pushed to the limits of tolerance for lazy, ignorant and manipulative people across most classes.

And yet I have also taught two of the best groups I have ever had the pleasure to bring into a lab. They are effectively polar opposites: a group of 17/18 year olds fresh out of sixth-form and a group of mid- to late-20s who have (on the whole) a very poor prior experience of education (some were proper bad lads by their own admission when they were at school). Both groups have an enormous sense of humour, to such an extent that we frequently have visits from the lecturer in the room next door to find out what all the laughter is about. To be honest, those two groups are the only reason I went back to teaching this year. I am immensely proud of both groups, where (apart from one or two exceptions) they have worked hard and done all that has been asked of them.

At the end of the day, give me a determined, honest, hard-working student over a bright but lazy one any day. As I tell them all when they start, work with me and I'll go to the ends of the earth for you, mess me about and you're on your own. That's probably desperately old-fashioned, but do you know what? I don't care.

So whilst part of me can't wait to see that back of this academic year, there are some people I will miss very much indeed.

Indulgence

Wed, 06 May 2009 20:10:31 GMT

I have scenarios to write. I have laundry to do. These are important things that need my attention. They are things that require some thought .(Yes, laundry requires thought or you end up with pink knickers. Or worse).

But most of all, what I want to do is go for a long soak in a nice hot bath, with lots of bubbles. I don't have to think in the bath, I can just be...

Sometimes its nice not to have to think.

Body Parts Deserving of Admiration

Mon, 04 May 2009 19:48:42 GMT

Having watched Australia, Wolverine and Coraline over the last few days, I started to muse about Hugh Jackman and physical attributes. Yes, its a quiet evening (Ashes to Ashes isn't starting for another half an hour) and yes, Coraline doesn't exactly fit into that pattern but I thought I'd mention it for it was a damn fine movie and the 3D on it was glorious in its lack of gratuity.

But back to Hugh Jackman: Having caught bits of X2 on the telly on Saturday night, it was obvious how much more buff he was in Wolverine; a quick rewatch of the original X-Men movie confirmed it (and how young he looked; but heck, that was nine years ago and we all looked a lot younger then). Whatever it is that makes grown, intelligent women go all giggly and wobbly-kneed, that man has it in spades.

There's a lot to be said for a lovely set of shoulders, sturdy arms and a mighty fine looking back (ladies, watch the utterly gratuitous bucket of water scene in Australia if you need further proof). Patrick Swayze never did much for me, except for the bit in Dirty Dancing where he's got his shirt off and they're practising the dance and you can see his shoulder and back muscles rippling. Mr Jackman's rather engaging physique stirs similar sentiments (you know, the hot under the collar, ever so slightly flushed feeling), albeit with a much prettier face on top. Still, all that aside, in the grand tradition of my family, its the sparkly eyes and cheeky grin that nails it. It also helps if they have a nice pert bottom. He's doing well on all counts so far...

Of course, we're merely talking window shopping here. Nothing could persuade me to swap my lovely hubbie for Mr Jackman, even if he was available. For a start, I'd have to be constantly beating pretty much every other female on the planet off with a big stick. But the whole point is that a little bit of fantasy is quite a nice thing. Especially if its shaped like Hugh Jackman.

Phases

Mon, 04 May 2009 15:36:50 GMT

Several years ago (4 or five, I think) a tutor suggested I should join a local exhibiting embroidery group. I was a bit surprised, as I'd never really thought about it, but was thrilled (seeing as she was the person who created the group in the first place).

As it does, life got in the way; the thought was there, but the opportunity didn't seem to arise. I was invited twice to their yearly residential workshop; I struggled with the tasks in the first one but was made to feel very welcome and thought "Hey, yeah, maybe this is something I can contribute to". I am partly ashamed to admit that having been to a few of their exhibitions I thought some of my work a lot better than some of the members, but kicked myself mentally for being uncharitable.

The second one was a brilliant workshop; I really made progress and the visiting tutor was wonderful, giving me the confidence to tell the other members (many of whom already knew) that I would like to join. You know that feeling when the temperature drops the moment you open your mouth? I came away with the distinct impression that not everyone was happy with the idea. Whether or not that had to do with some of the internal politics going on within the group, or the fact that many people from other embroidery parts of my life are always assuming I'm already a member, I don't know. I also suspect that said tutor asking me why I wasn't a member yet at one of their exhibiton openings may not have helped, either, but there you go.

After that, every time I mentioned it to the person who suggested it in the first place, she'd change the subject. Or I'd be told I'd be invited to an application meeting in September, only for that to change to January; the date just never seemed to arrive. And that all of a sudden, there were loads of other people interested and the competition would be stiff. And I'd get criticised for using graphics packages to help my design work because it isn't the be all and end all, you know, when one of the members of the group only uses them, nothing else (and is also an ex-pupil of the tutor, who can do nothing but rave about her use of the computer). Sounds petty, doesn't it? Well after over two years of hearing that, it doesn't feel it; it feels like young people who did textile degrees are allowed to use computers, but no-one else is.

By October of last year, despite having worked hard to put together a portfolio of work for the application, I'd come to the conclusion that my presence really wasn't required/desired (delete as applicable). That and the fact that the whole process had pretty much sucked out all of the enjoyment I had in textile design. To be fair to the lady involved, she has had a really rough six months, but there are others who could have been sorting this out for her; its a pretty big group all told.

And this afternoon, six months after deciding I needed a break from embroidery and really wasn't interested, I get an e-mail telling me that the application forms are sorted and that there's 7 people going after three places. Maybe I've been misreading all the signs, but something tells me I've been here before. And , to be brutally frank, I can't be bothered after everything that's happened so far this year to build my hopes up when I'm not sure I care anymore, but would be crushed if I got rejected. So good luck to the other applicants; I'm not sure your chances have just improved, but it means there'll be less of other people's presentations to sit next through on the day.

Plus, I've gone back to writing, something I still enjoy and have missed, seeing as its been a while. For now, I don't have the time or the passion required to be part of a group that has one large and several small (selling) exhibitions a year. Let someone who can devote the time have it; maybe another year I will care and there will be a place for me. If not, well, that's life.

Moving On, Slowly but Surely

Fri, 01 May 2009 15:28:39 GMT

I've been back at work for a fortnight now and things are slowly moving on. Many of my students were genuinely pleased to see me, which was a much needed boost and the students who knew what had happened made things so much easier, despite a few tears. I have two really wonderful groups this year, for which I am constantly grateful (I started with five and am now down to four in total).

My youngest remaining group are willing participants in film, TV and gaming nerdery; I sat there invigilating an exam for them wearing bright pink pixie wings this week (don't ask) and they've asked if they can have their last lesson in full costume. If anyone ever needs their faith in young people renewing, I'll let you borrow them for a bit, as long as you promise faithfully to let me have them back again.

Fallen is very nearly complete, at least in terms of a recognisable game with bells and whistles. Friends and students have been roped in to play-testing it (so we have the experienced hands and the complete newcomers making sure I haven't written utter tosh). I'm very interested to see what the gaming noobs (as they labeled themselves) are going to make of it. They were really excited to do some table-top gaming, as they've only ever done the computer variety before. Let's hope I don't scare them off...

And "Fields of Silver", my travel guide come murder mystery for the Dying Earth RPG game has been hanging around the top ten on RPG Now's pdf sales (as high as 6 at one point, apparently), so I was interviewed for a podcast on RPG Countdown last night. Now all it has to do is stay there until Tuesday Wednesday and I'm in the programme ;)

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=61301

There you go, shameless plug for it; its only $4.98, that's half price, you know. No-one can resist a bargain ;)

Marking Time

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:17:20 GMT

This is just a short post to let those of you who read this know where I've been hiding, and to say thank you to our good friends on here for their love and support.

This has possibly been the longest four weeks of my life. Some of you already know that I had a miscarriage earlier this month; the pregnancy had not long been confirmed when we found out that the twins had died and that we had to wait for nature to take its course. Its been difficult to talk about it, but those we did tell have all been very supportive and helped us both greatly. Thank you.

Pleasant Surprises

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:52:54 GMT

For a very long time, a good friend has recommended Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody books to me as a rollicking good read. At Christmas I decided to treat myself to the first one and also picked up a book about an Edwardian railway detective (Necropolis Railway, I think).

I read the railway one first; it was a bit slow, with a fairly unsympathetic lead character, Conan Doyle's trick of not telling you all the information you need to sort it out yourself and, worst of all, it didn't actually end. You have to buy the next one to find out what happens, yet nowhere did it mention this was on ongoing story. Sadly, it wasn't really interesting enough to warrant buying the next one.

Then I moved on to "Crocodile on the Sandbank"; well, what a difference! I read virtually all of it yesterday as we watched the snow falling, then we forayed out and I treated myself to the next two. Val was right, it was a good old pulp Victorian romp, with lots of dashing gallantness and derring-do, which after the fortnight I've had was exactly the sort of escapism I needed.

Its rare these days that I find a book I truly enjoy; I've either pretty much read it before (i.e. virtual carbon copies of stories tackled by different authors), the story is dull and fails to engage me or I get so annoyed at the characters being complete idiots that I couldn't care less what happens to them (I've tried Memoirs of a Geisha twice because of this, and still can't finish it).

It was also a tremendous luxury to just sit and read for the pleasure of reading, something many of us no longer have the time to do. Most of my reading is work related. I have to admit to feeling a little guilty for indulging myself in this way, but it was worth it.

Ethical Quandries

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:29:56 GMT

Back to the guarded comments.

All our school lives, we are told not to give in to bullies, to stand up to them. But children aren't the only bullies.

I was bullied out of a good job once. Despite the fact the person doing the bullying had a history of it and I was only the latest in a long line of people she had intimidated, the interview I had about the situation with the management ended with the line "sadly, she's indespensible and you're not". Funnily enough, I handed in my notice, cashed in my holidays and left, despite them begging me to stay.

I will not go through that again, but I fear (quite literally) that the price of resistance, acting like a professional, following my conscience and doing what is right could be high.

Creating the Wave

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:05:20 GMT

Thank goodness that week's over.

I'm co-delivering a course for primary school teaching assistants at the moment. Its at almost the exact opposite end of the age scale to my normal work, but its great fun. Having been on a few training courses myself to get up to speed, there are some wonderfully creative people out there who are trying to make this age group see how much fun science can be.

In order to make our course fun, we've been coming up with all sorts of games. One uses dice to create "designer babies" (a term which usually makes my blood boil, but its very appropriate here). Because these games are to be used with littlies, we need big dice. As a gamer, I am as susceptible to the lure of dice as many others of my kind. We've ordered some (blind) that are supposed to bounce, but I won't know how good they are until Monday.

So we've been out today looking for big dice; soft, wooden, foam, big enough for little hands. On the internet, not such a problem, but you try finding shops that sell so much as normal dice these days. And we have the Metro Centre to go at! I did find quite a large wooden one (about 10cm across), so I've bought that. I also found some balsa wood blocks (about 6cm across), so I've bought one of them and I'm painting it up. I think it would be nice if the children could do that too; not only could they be really creative with the decoration, it'll help them to add up if they stick to the opposite faces adding up to 7 thing.

And that brings me on to creativity: Many of my students won't believe me when I tell them that to be good scientists they need to be creative. Creativity is not the same as artistic ability, something which is often forgotten. And if you're going to link creativity to science and have people believe it, then you need to start young.

Why can't people just behave

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:19:08 GMT

For a variety of reasons, this one has to be cryptic; things are not good at one of the places I work. For my own protection I cannot comment much further, but wouldn't it be nice if people:

a) did their jobs properly
b) took personal responsibility for their own failings instead of trying to foist the blame on others and
c) were awesome to one another

Here endeth the lesson for today (and hopefully not permanently).

But if anyone needs a half-way decent free-lance writer...

People you need a big stick for

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:06:43 GMT

Now, I can understand why (to some extent at least) that Richard Dawkins gets hate mail from fundamentalist Christians. No-one likes it being pointed out to them in a cultured English accent that they're idiots, especially when it happens to be true.

But when the same nutters start making threats against Sir David Attenborough, its time to get the big whacking stick out and delivering some natural selection...

I'll give 'em Darwin in action.

I'm with Garfield...

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:33:24 GMT

I have a lot of stuff to do today, so I didn't have my Sunday morning lie in and was being pretty organised so that i could get it all done. Only snag is, I can't get the monitor on the desk top pooter to turn on, and that's where all the files are I need to do the work. Knickers. Rich is out shopping and his mobile is dead, so I can't ask him. There's a whole load of cabling under the desk and unplugged plugs, but if I go under there I may never come out again.

So, the attempt to get ahead failed miserably, which means I'll be working into this evening to catch up. I could mark exam papers, but I need a couple of days off from that after dreaming about marking them (that's what you get for marking over a hundred in the space of a week).

I am most definitely with Garfield on this one, so where exactly did I leave that chainsaw...

Educational Crankiness Part 2

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:23:46 GMT

So today it has been announced by some bright spark (yes, I am being immensely sarcastic) also known as the Centre for Policy Studies, that essay questions in Sats tests are "stressful to mark" and "essays written by students in England these days are often virtually unintelligible with even basic errors not being corrected".

Now, I would have to agree about essay questions being stressful to mark precisely because they are virtually unintelligible. I have 18 year olds who are writing at a standard I'd surpassed by the age of 8. I received an essay recently where one sentence was eight lines long (typed, in Times New Roman 12 point) with absolutely no punctuation at all. I only knew it hand ended because they started a new paragraph with a capital letter.

And what, I hear you ask, is the remedy to this situation? Teach them how to spell? How to use punctuation?(Any punctuation would be nice, to be honest, but proper punctuation would be lovely). How about getting really drastic and teaching the lazy little buggers to take some pride in their work?

No. The answer is, apparently, to remove essay questions altogether and give them more multiple guess questions.

Please insert your fingers in your ears now while I scream incoherently and put navvies to shame.

(Addendum: the Department for Children, Schools and Families have at least said that it is important to test writing skills. Shame they don't actually believe in teaching them as well)

What's a Pulp Victorian Game in Africa Without Dinosaurs?

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:15:29 GMT

Having marked 30 exam papers today (40 in total so far, with another 50 or so to go before another 25 roll in tomorrow), I'm treating myself by having old Columbos on in the background while I rejiggy my game (the new ones, like Highlander 2 and the Star Wars prequels, never actually happened). Still not sure about the altered mechanic, so I'm going to do all the edits that would be common to old and new, then create a new file for the new version. Sometimes I think I'm far too organised for my own good, then I look at the state of the sitting room and the piles of stuff everywhere.

Anyway, as threatened, the rest of the play test report is hiding under the cut below. If you want to know what the title of this post is about, you'll have to read it. Unless you knew a certain Isabelle from the Company of Crimson, of course, at which point you'll probably be able to guess.

Scene 2 – Slipping Between the Cracks
Knowing she needed somewhere forgotten, Issy headed back to her former home at the missionary station. It was all boarded up (what hadn’t been rogued away by her and the tribe) and the air of loss and neglect was palpable. Making her way to the room that she’d slept in, Issy stood and concentrated, searching for the light that was her essence (Between the Cracks, with Brass). Rich narrated this in a very Time Machine type way, which worked beautifully; the mission station was taken down around her and the jungle grew back until she felt she was in the right time and stepped out into the past.

Issy felt it would be best to avoid her tribe if she could; after all, it might be a bit awkward when she returned to her own time. She nearly got discovered after a screwed up Lie of the Land roll, but she managed to get away with it.

She got another fright when she realised that the Leslie expedition was not that far behind her on the trail. Now if there’d been other players, Issy would have wandered into the camp to interact with them so that the other players would have had roles to take (and Rich also mentioned that he would have given the tribe’s people in the previous brief encounter to players as well). But, seeing as there was just the two of us, she decided to double her efforts to get there first, which also nearly led her to a sticky demise.

Technically here we go to scene 5a

Scene 5a – Jungle Perils
What’s a Pulp Victorian jungle adventure without dinosaurs? Exactly.

Rich asked me to roll my Spirit of Africa (and we decided that if a GM asks/forces a roll of a Talent, the player doesn’t have to spend Hope to activate it but can still spend Brass). Issy got a really bad feeling about this, because the whole jungle was silent. Something big was out there hunting, something that Africa recognised but she didn’t. So she sat tight in her little bivouac and thankfully whatever it was wandered past (although she could hear it as it moved near by). Somewhat nervous, Issy used Spirit of Africa to make sure the damn thing had gone before she crept out to examine the large, bird-like tracks it had left behind.

(Coincidentally, one of the best LRP experiences we had was at a League of Crimson event, set in 1920s darkest Africa with an elderly Issy along for the ride. The dinosaur effects on the Saturday evening were fantastic, all achieved by sound and shadows as we quaked inside our tent. The fake blood that splattered up the front of the tent after one chap rather foolishly announced “just off for a slash!” was a wonderfully sticky highlight, as was the ref under the table doing the old Jurassic park table-wobbling thing in time with the footsteps.)

Scene 6a – The City
Being very, very careful, Issy made her way to the lost city and scrambled carefully down into the mile-wide crater it was hidden in. Even with an extra dice, I failed a Spirit roll and walked round a corner into the line of sight of another big lizard (player knows raptor not T Rex, character doesn’t really care; its big and was eating something but is now heading for her instead; Rich was going to give the dinos to players to control, had there been anyone else playing).

It’s amazing how critical successes know when you need them, because that’s what I got on a rather panicked Shadow’s Veil roll, disappearing at high speed through a wall into darkness accompanied by the satisfying sound of the dino smacking its face into said wall somewhere behind me. But fate is fickle and Issy completely failed to strike a spark in the velvet blackness of the building she was now in and was reduced to fumbling around, feeling her way along the walls (failed Lie of the Land, successful Song of Ice).

To cut a long story short, she found the skull and just touching it drained the Starlight back into her, catapulting her consciousness out in the heavens and then into blackness. Back came all her Hope and Brass and she was alone in the city again. (I’d spent 5 Hope and 8 Brass by the time I got to the skull; possibly I was being a little cautious with the Brass but I was interested to see how well two dice worked on their own)

Not fancying her chances against the big lizards, she used Shadow’s Veil to “feel” her way out of where she thought their range was. Problem with that was that when she got there, she couldn’t use Between the Cracks in that location because it was too well known and used by her tribe.

So off she went, back into the range of the dinos, definitely an abandoned region (at least she knew now why no-one really hunted these areas or went to the city; they had more sense). Rich narrated that it was much more difficult for her to pinpoint the right time on her way back because the place had no meaning for Issy, unlike the missionaries’ house (that and the fact she kept feeling dinos walking past her; he can be properly evil, my husband).

On her return to the village, the tribe greeted her happily (it wasn’t unknown for people to wander off for a bit after their coming of age ceremony), but something was distracting her. One of the young hunters has a book, the book Charlie was reading, and it was whispering to Issy. Wandering over, she flicked through the pages to find a poorly rendered sketch of a creature with a glowing horn…

(So, yes, next time we’re after Mokele Mbembe, be it dinosaur, rhino or unicorn. Apparently Rich has nearly a whole campaign mapped out for me already!)

All in all, a fairly traditional game, but very good fun. It was odd playing my own game and I was potentially more passive than I should have been, but I didn’t want to trample all over Rich’s vision of what was going on. It must have been fairly odd for him running it too.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.... (part 1)

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:54:52 GMT

So we grabbed the bull by the horns today and Rich ran a session of Fallen for me. The report is also over on the Collective Endeavour site, but I'm posting it here too, under the cut and in two parts again so you don't get too crashingly bored by the whole thing (because as all gamers know, someone else's game stories are rarely as interesting as your own).

More tomorrow!

Rules Modifications:

After reading the feedback, I had a go at the central mechanic. I talked this over with Rich to get it clear in my own mind and had intended to be rather radical and ditch the original one altogether and go for a three dice (2 good, 1 bad) system, no points in sight. In the end, Rich talked me round to a hybrid system.

Original system: roll two dice, look at the table to see how you’ve done, spend Brass to lift failures to successes. Non-Focus Characters (NFCs) can spend Brass to alter rolls and in contested rolls you would spend points to tussle over the result. Hope was spent only to activate Special Talents and Solitude really didn’t do much.

Hybrid system: You still have Hope, Brass and Solitude points. The table has gone; if a dice roll is needed you roll a Hope (+ve) die and a Solitude (-ve) die. The idea is to represent the positive effect of your Hope being challenged by your fear of failure. If the difference between the two dice is one, it’s a minor success/fail. Pretty much anything else is just a success/fail. But if you roll a 6 on your Hope die and a 1 on your Solitude die, that’s a critical success (fireworks etc.); a 1 on your Hope and a 6 on your Solitude is your fear getting the better of you and you’re really cocking it up big time, getting a point of Solitude in the process. For the moment, we decided to go with rerolling any ties, but that might get changed.

So what does Brass do now if we’ve ditched the bidding bit? It buys you an extra die to roll (only one, mind). If you really want your roll to succeed, spend a point of Brass to get an extra positive die (representing your determination to succeed; you have to declare you’re spending it before you roll the other two dice though, no adding it later ‘cos you’ve failed), and you add the Brass and Hope dice rolls together. Critical fails now demand a 1H, 1B and 6S roll. Critical success is a 6 on either positive dice and a 1 on the Solitude dice.

Contested rolls work as a straight versus thing (both roll their dice and see who wins/fails; ties roll again). If you want to assist, spend your Brass to add another die (?Ending up with 3 positive dice; this needs work).

Brass points: Goons/grunts have zero Brass (so you can wade through them with little trouble); a normal NFC would have 7 Brass, a fairly determined one would have 14 and a Boss-level NFC would have 21 (so they could at least be a bit of a challenge).

Character Creation:

It was my turn creating a character this week and I was a bit unsure what direction to go in; should I try and create/use one of the example characters from the draft game, or go for a new one. In the end, I sort of went for a third option – attempt to recreate a character from a different game that would actually fit into Fallen.

The character in question is Isabelle Montgomery, my Victorian big game hunter from the Company of Crimson LRP. The Fallen version isn’t exactly the same as the Company one; they’re more cousins J

So, once again we started with a period and an idea and worked backwards to the Fall. Issy fell because of her fascination with exploration, discovery and adventure. The setting would be Pulp Victorian Africa (late 19^th Century, but not specifying too much). She was found in the bush by tribesmen, alone and confused, in her mid-teens. They took her to the local white missionaries (brother and spinster sister), who adopted her and raised her as a foundling. She lived with them for many years, but was always sneaking off to be with the tribe because their life was far more exciting. When her adopted parents died of malaria, the tribe took her in.

In terms of Ties, I decided on Loyalty (to those she regards as friends and family) and Africa. In terms of Talents, we discussed this a bit and came up with a Unique Talent called “Spirit of Africa” (not completely happy with that name, but it will do for now). This gives her a real feel for the land and the creatures in it, quite literally; she knows before the weather changes, when something bad is coming, above and beyond the normal awareness. In terms of normal talents, we went with Lie of the Land (tribal hunting, tracking and survival skills suitable for the bush; importantly no guns) and Accomplished Young Lady (reading, writing, singing, piano, embroidery; a reflection of her tutelage by the missionaries). At the beginning of the game, she’d be in her early twenties.

…

Rich asked for twenty minutes to come up with a few ideas for the game. We’d already discussed that I was going to bring Issy into the game that morning so he had some ideas, but she’d developed into a somewhat different beast to the one from the Company and he wanted time to rethink. He could see two potential pathways the game could take, so he jotted down a few guiding sentences for himself and sketched a few NFCs. This is what he wrote down:

Scenes:

Awakening – Shamanic ritual.

Scene 1 – Visitors. Explorers retracing steps of previous expedition.

Explorer: Victor Talbot, expedition leader. Brass:14, Explorer. Has maps, notes and an article on what was discovered previously (crystal skull, in the British Museum, discovered in the lost city of Kalukima in 1857 by Thomas Leslie; and he wonders why we tease him constantly about an Indiana Jones obsession).

Scene 2a – Return to the past – old missionary house.

Scene 3a – Camp: Explorers off to find city

Scene 4a – Stampede?

Scene 5a – Jungle perils. Dinosaurs in the jungles?

Scene 6a – The city: traps, perils, crystal skull. Can take the skull or just touching will give starlight.

Alternative path:

Scene 2b – Journey to Britain across Africa

Scene 3b – The sea voyage. Pick pockets, pirates

Scene 4b – London

Scene 5b – The museum

…

Awakening:

Rich asked me what I wanted from the Awakening. I mentioned that some sort of coming of age ritual might spark it (yes, we watch too much Bruce Parry). This was narrated from a very traditional viewpoint, with Rich talking me through what was happening and asking for my reactions. This wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned Awakenings working, but as Rich was in charge, I went with it. It mostly matched what I would have done (comes of nearly eleven years of marriage, I suspect), but it did feel a little passive.

We talked about this afterwards and it became clear this needed clarification in the written game – the GM (if there is one) and the other players are there to ask questions as the focus character describes what happened, to flesh out the background and give everyone a sense of what is important to the player’s view of their game. That concept was in my head, but not on the paper and that’s exactly why games need to be run by other people.

Issy had her coming of age ritual (a rather mundane affair where she ate some roots from the tree that had been there as long as the tribe, completely non-hallucinogenic, but interestingly had a star painted on her forehead by the tribal shaman as her totem). Having brought some shards of mirror from her previous home (the missionaries house, shut up after they died), she had her Awakening when she saw the star on her forehead. She saw her fall and scatter, but couldn’t see where the bits landed. Then everything went black in the mirror and she went back to partying.

Again, we were going to diverge from the game as written as there was only the two of us and go straight from the Awakening to the game proper. However, the initiation ritual would be a good place to move on to someone else.

Educational Crankiness

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:39:49 GMT

Went on a training course in self-evaluation and changing practice today. It wasn't quite as advertised, but it was still useful. However, my indignant, righteous streak came out from under the bed again at several points. So, please excuse me jumping on my soap box for a second.

From the courses I've been on lately (looking at science teaching to 5 - 10 year olds, roughly), everyone seems to be making a real effort to get the children thinking and solving their own problems. Now, these courses are most likely not representative of education as a whole, no matter how much I would like to think so. By the time I get them at 16, they have no independent learning skills and have to be spoon-fed like toothless crones. So what the hell is happening to them for 6 years?

League tables, that's part of it, the fact that every child is a number not a free child (oh, even now Mr Mcgoohan's opus is ringing the warning bells). Sod education, let's make a profit and turn out little, mindless drones. Let's not tell them what they can reasonably achieve, lets lie to them and give them a ludicrous idea that everything comes easy and perseverance is not required. I've ranted about this before and it isn't entirely the kids' fault, but they frequently won't make any effort either; they just give up at the first sign of challenge and go for the easy option. And don't get me started on people not taking responsibility for their own failings...

And then part of me gets really worried by what else I saw today - science co-ordinators who don't know any science. These are the people responsible for the cohesive delivery of science education at a point when if its done wrong, its ruined forever. Not knowing that a millilitre is the same thing as a cubic centimetre is really quite alarming to me. Someone telling me they know nothing about science but they're running training on it to other staff is another. Okay, they don't need to know it to degree level, but most primary school teachers won't even necessarily have studied science until they were 16 and its certainly not an entry requirement onto teacher training programmes for that age group.

So can someone please tell me how, as a nation, we're supposed to deliver a generation of scientifically literate people to drive Britain's resurgence as a great economic power?

No, didn't think so.

Fallen's First Playtest Part the Second

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:34:35 GMT

As threatened, and hidden behind the cut (which I really do know how to use now) is the rest of the playtest report for Fallen. Enjoy ;)

The Game

I shall condense this or it will go on for pages: basically Tommy Atkins (I know, I know) was selected for a mission behind enemy lines to recover some sort of weapon that was allegedly about to be tested on the British Forces. We ran it pretty traditionally and not as set pieces, but I can break it down roughly into those for this write up:

1. Flash of Light:

Whilst Tommy was on guard duty, there was a huge flash of light and a bang. No-one else saw it, but as he was diving for cover Tommy saw a farmhouse, a well and a distinctively shaped tree (Flash of Inspiration). As far as everyone else was concerned, this just added to their discomfort – Tommy was obviously not quite right.

2. The Mission Briefing:

Sent by his Captain back to HQ (in a nearby town), Tommy found himself in a room with 9 other regulars, a sergeant, a handful of paper pushers and a very commanding figure

“Sir!” – Mission Officer: Brass: 21, Talents: Butter Wouldn’t Melt (confidence, grace under pressure), Sharp as a Box of Knives (quick thinking, intelligence), Air of Authority (command skills). A dapper man who exudes authority in a no questions asked sort of way. Plays his cards very close to his chest and reveals only what people need to know when they need to know it.

The briefest of outlines was given (we’re going to get the weapon, we leave after lunch, any questions?). Tommy dared to ask a question and duly got himself noted. (I know this is all probably a bit WWII rather than WWI, but we were doing Boy’s Own Adventure, after all). Although he was hungry to find his Starlight, one of his Ties is Duty, so he felt obliged to go and not desert.

3. The March:

Sneaking through woodland to get behind enemy lines to the unknown target location (well, unknown to Tommy), the unit have to hide from a German patrol. Tommy decides to get his gun out ready for action. I asked for a roll, which duly botched up as a catastrophic failure. This time Rich decided it would be a good idea to spend Brass to alter the result. Not sure how long the game was going to take, he only lifted it by three points to a minor success. He narrated how, as he was trying to get the rifle off his back, the strap caught on a branch. Fortunately he realised just before the branch snapped and although the gun wasn’t in a position to use, he at least hadn’t alerted the patrol as to their presence. “Sir!” saw it all, but said nothing.

4. Arrival

The unit arrived at their destination, a farmhouse nestled in a quiet valley. Rich decided to use Song of Ice to see if his Starlight was anywhere near by. Although he couldn’t see it (meaning it was hidden), he could hear it singing to him and could catch the scent of carnations on the night breeze. In the moonlight, he also recognised the tree from his vision. However, there was something very wrong with the scene below – there were no lights, no animals and no sound of farm work.

5. The Farmhouse

The plan of attack was somewhat spoiled by a German soldier coming round the side of a barn in the farmyard and seeing half the unit sneaking along the edge of a wall. Rich decided that Tommy should fire and rolled a normal success. I argued that it was pretty dark even with a full moon, so the shot wouldn’t be that accurate, spending three of the soldiers rather hurriedly assigned 14 Brass, bringing the result to a failure. Rich argued that a break in the clouds briefly illuminated the soldier (spending two Brass of his own to increase the roll back to a minor success), which I agreed was a mighty fine excuse and let him have it, so he winged the soldier as he shouted the alarm. Sir got him in the chest and floored him, but of course the element of surprise was lost and all hell broke loose.

As Tommy attempted to sneak past the downed soldier, it turned out there was still some fight in him and he attempted to stab Tommy in the leg with his knife. Here was our first contested roll! We both rolled and got a minor success. As a tie, that means Rich got to bid on changing the roll first, spending one Brass to lift his roll to a normal success. I spent three points to drop that to a failure for Rich (leaving the soldier still on a minor success). Rich spent three more Brass to go back to his success, but the dying soldier still had plenty of fight in him, so I spent 3 more Brass to get him back down to that failure again. Rich decided that he didn’t really want to get stabbed in the calf muscle, so burned another three points to get the success back. He had to have a success or he couldn’t beat the soldier’s original roll.

We narrated this as we went, with the soldier lunging at Tommy, but Tommy getting his gun in the way, the soldier trying to get his knife in behind the stock, but Tommy moving to smash the soldier in the face with the butt of his rifle, which the soldier blocked before Tommy managed to crush the soldier’s wrist under his boot before finishing him off with his bayonet.

6. Akustich

Tommy used Shadow’s Veil to get into the cellar of the farmhouse and managed to find the well from his vision. As he was looking at it, the door to the cellar opened and he had to hide as a soldier came down into the cellar and into one of the storerooms down there. Tempted to go in and off the soldier, he felt a tug on his sleeve, pulling him back into his hiding place (me basically activating his Guardian Angel ability as I knew he’d been burning through the Brass). Of course, there was no-one there when he looked round.

After discovering a hidden way in to the building, the remaining British soldiers crept up into the farmhouse. Unfortunately they did this just as two technicians carrying what looked like a large, ornate wooden box came out of a room opposite them. Rich decided to use the Talent In a Heart Beat, stopping time because he could see his Starlight glowing within the box. Because of the range, he had to spend Hope and Brass to take care of the whole cottage. Sadly, he didn’t roll well when trying to get the front off the box and had to adjust it to a minor success. This was narrated as he did get the lid off and grab his Starlight (nestled in the heart of the box in amongst a whole jungle of wires), but the release of energy caught him by surprise and blew him backwards, cancelling the Talent (as well as regenerating all of his Brass and Hope, and increasing his Hope permanently by 2 points as well).

Rich asked if he could trigger the Talent again. If he hadn’t just recharged his batteries, I’m not sure I would have let him (he was pretty low on Hope and Brass just before hand) but I made him roll for it, seeing as regaining part of his being would have been a bit of a shock. The jammy bugger got a spectacular success. Needless to say, there wasn’t a German soldier left in the building by the time he’d finished, leaving the three technicians gibbering wrecks as people fell down dead in front of them without anyone having apparently touched them.

The unit got the technicians and the remains of the Akustich weapon back to base and Tommy was sent back to his platoon with a stern warning to keep his mouth shut.

Key points from this:

We just sort of ran with this, but you really need to sit down and sort out major non-focus characters (NFCs) and their Talents before you start playing so you don’t get caught out. There’s not much pre-prep I could do seeing as I didn’t really know what Rich was going to come up with in terms of character. Running it on the fly was fun, seeing as I know what he likes in game terms and could make it up off the cuff, but there was one sticky moment when a major NFC needed to do something and I needed to think of some stats very quickly. I also created an NFC that never came into play. This could happen, but I think it was more because I forgot about him; I suspect that if he had been assigned as an NFC to someone, he would have made an appearance. Anyway, here he is for completeness (all names made up after we’d finished):
- Captain Ansel Waechter, Project Commanding Officer: Brass 21; Hard as Nails (fighting, stamina), In the Right (command ability and confidence), Crack Shot (gun skills, but also observation). A competent CO chosen to guard the last stages of the Akustich weapon development, prior to its first tests on the British front line.
In terms of what other players would have done during this (if we’d had any), I think the other soldiers on guard duty, Sir!, other special unit members, Captain Waechter and the technicians all spring to mind as NFCs.
NFCs probably need to have ranked Brass points: no-name grunts who are there to make up the numbers don’t get any (it would be terribly embarrassing to get tooled over by a grunt); major NFCs should have 14 (enough to put up a struggle, but not enough to derail things) and minor ones 7. Well, that’s the working theory for next time at least, anyway.
NFCs can only oppose a character’s roll twice to avoid never-ending contested rolls. And once a result has been reached, the NFC can’t start off essentially the same struggle again.
Shadow’s Veil: if there isn’t a shadow where you want to be, you’ll turn up in the next nearest one, sort of like walking into a locked door in the dark, then shuffling round until you find an open door you can go through.
We had a huge debate about In a Heart Beat. It is very powerful, but we did settle on it being a static effect with time stopping for everyone else (we did wonder about the character speeding up and it being a localised effect). It has a boundary that if you cross it, time snaps back to affecting you in the normal way. Still not sure we’ve sorted it, but we’ll see.
Yes, it was the old sonic weapon (powered by a very early crystal radio, the “crystal” being actually a piece of Starlight and the only reason the thing would have worked)

Satisfying session as it ironed out a few creases, but I did get a bit lost towards the end with what was happening due to the distinct lack of any form of planning on my part. It can be winged, but we were no doubt horribly historically inaccurate as we decided not to do any research.

Fallen's First Playtest

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:27:01 GMT

I sat down amidst the howling gales with my lovely husband to do a bit of one-on-one playtesting this afternoon. It worked well, despite me being a bit nervous (and therefore cranky).

For those of you who are interested, the first part is hidden behind the following cut (which I've finally found out how to use, second part tomorrow). For those of you who don't want all the gory details, lets just say that it confirmed a few suspicions we had about elements that needed polishing and brought up a few things we hadn't really considered. So, a success. Next week, Rich will run a game of it for me.

Character Creation:

Having had a bit of a think, Rich wanted to create a soldier character but in a pulp/ Boy’s Own Adventure vein. He couldn’t decide between WWI and WWII and asked for my (the GM’s) opinion. I thought WWI might be a more interesting starting point, what with odd battlefield occurrences like the Angels of Mons (maybe the glowing lights that were mentioned in some “reports” were actually his star falling).

Rich knew how he wanted his Awakening to happen, but was having difficulty with his Fall. He didn’t really want it to be a fascination with war and death, because that would be a bit grim in a pulp type adventure, so I suggested that maybe what had drawn him was the human spirit and its ability to survive even the grimmest situations. He quite liked that, and felt that fed in to a couple of nice Ties, Camaraderie and Duty.

Then we tackled Talents (the skills section): going back to the whole battlefield angel theme, his Unique Talent would be “Guardian Angel”, really a sixth sense of imminent peril that helped to keep him alive in dangerous situations. He decided only to take one Normal Talent to start with, “Pack Up Your Troubles”, which we decided covered the basic skills a WWI soldier would have (rifle use and basic survival). Anything else that comes up in play would be open for negotiation. (Yes, we grew up watching Sapphire and Steel and that one in the Railway station left a deep impression).

Key points from this:

Actually coming up with a reason to fall can be quite tricky. An alternative character creation path could be to decide upon the initial period setting and type of character, then work back to why they could have fallen.
A check sheet for character creation would also be really handy, either at the end of the section on that, or as an appendix.
It should cost two points of Brass for a unique talent, not one, as potentially they are actually quite powerful.
What a Talent name actually covers in terms of abilities should be determined by discussion, with the GM’s word being final. If there’s no GM, it should be a group decision with a vote if all else fails. If that doesn’t resolve anything, toss a coin.

Awakening:

Seeing as this was a one-on-one session, we went straight to the Awakening. Rich narrated that his character woke up on the edge of what appeared to be a huge shell crater, his uniform tattered and his head swimming with all sorts of weird feelings and understanding, the colour of the battlefield oddly leeched by what he at first thought was the smoke from the shelling. Bodies were all around, but he was fairly certain that someone from his unit was still alive under the corpse of a comrade.

He made his way over to the soldier and checked he was alive, then struggled to pull out his compass to work out where his own lines were. Due to the “concussion” he was suffering, I called for a roll (just to get that side of things going) and he got a minor success; his hands were shaking too much to use his now rather battered compass but he figured it out when he saw the medical corps coming over the top to collect the dead and wounded. Quite wisely, he decided it wasn’t worth altering this roll.

I started to lay on how people’s reactions to him had changed (something I kept on feeding in throughout the game); the orderlies with the stretcher weren’t being rude to him, but no-one actually asked him if he was injured and they wanted to be away from him as soon as possible. The fact he was completely uninjured was really spooking them, seeing as he appeared to have been directly under the shell when it hit. He wandered stoically back to the barracks beside his injured comrade.

If there had been more people involved, I would have stopped this scene here and moved on to someone else’s Awakening.

Key points from this:

You can’t take mortals through shadows, only other Fallen
- I had said that although he couldn’t have described it to anyone had they asked, the character just sort of knew about how to use his Talents, like a memory.
Character creation and Awakenings would make a decent convention strategy

Existential Coke Cans

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:10:18 GMT

The weather here is appalling. The mighty cold snap has loosened it's grip, but instead we are being pummeled by very high winds. We live on the top of a big hill, so this is Not a Good Thing (TM).

And, as always whenever we have very high winds overnight, there was a coke can (or some sparkling beverage container of the metallic sort) rattling backwards and forwards up and down the front road during the wee small hours. And also as usual it appeared with a clang just as I was about to doze off, not having been there thirty seconds earlier, and vanished (to reappear later in the night) just as I was commenting on the fact it had popped in to existence again to Rich. And its not like there was anyone around to drop the stupid thing, either.

My conclusion is, therefore, that tiny temporal holes appear due to the high winds at the moment of greatest inconvenience that are somehow linked to the planet of the aluminium beverage receptacles. Its not much of a theory, but I'd like to see you disprove it (in the words of my former Physics teacher).

If You Blink

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:30:50 GMT

Once again, the week has vanished. I have refrained from hunting down the back of the sofa for it, although it must have gone somewhere.

Its been a bizarre week, all in all: back at work, stressed students, stressed staff, won a short story competition, lots of requests for Fallen, nowhere near enough sleep and probably too much caffeine and Christmas choccy. And its been freezing cold as well.

And its not as if we have a quiet weekend lined up, either. Still, I intend to have an early night tonight and maybe a nice soaky bath with some of my Christmas treats. Not in that order, obviously.

I also think its about time they Anglicised some of these mood buttons. We need one that says knackered, desperately

Tarting One's Wares: Fallen

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:51:42 GMT

Its always lovely when someone recommends something and they turn out to be right; its happened twice this week. I wrote a game over Christmas and wasn't quite sure what to do with it next. Robin recommended Story Games for advice on publishing indie rpgs, and they recommended Collective Endeavour. Both forums have been very helpful so far, even forgiving my half-asleep divitness of posting in the wrong place.

Anyway, the game (pasted from the Collective Endeavour forum):

"The basic premise is that you play a star that has fallen to earth due to your fascination with mortal concerns. When you fell, you lost your starlight and your memory. Recently something triggered the awareness of what you were and a longing to go home, but you are held to earth by your lack of star stuff and ties that you have developed (either as a result of your fall or made during your "blank" period).

In terms of play, its one character in the spotlight per session, with other players taking on the roles of major NPCs. The background details generated during character creation are used to give an idea of the general tone of what each player wants out of their session. Hopefully it can be run in a reasonably traditional way with a GM, but also as a completely co-operative experience, but in both cases ideally every one would be contributing ideas as to what is likely to happen and who the characters are likely to meet.

I hope it would appeal to people looking for something a little whimsical, with a lot of freedom (you can go anywhere in history in your search, but it could be a fantasy, sci-fi or horror setting if that's what you prefer), who like Neil Gaiman, Steven Moffat, Hayao Miyazaki and Guillermo del Toro (to name but a few)."

Its about to get playtested between myself and Rich for a start, then hopefully with the other half of our former gaming group. If anyone else is interested, drop me a line.

Day One

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:14:25 GMT

And we're back in the room, which, of course, is freezing cold as usual. Many of our international students are missing and the local ones with children can't come back because once again the local education authority can't co-ordinate its holidays.

Still, I have destroyed one red pen and am well on the way to totaling another in my never ending marking quest.

Every job has a nemesis activity; when I was a research scientist, it was reading dry, worthy and frequently weighty papers. Now I'm a lecturer, its marking...