This afternoon we had a small board gaming session. DaveL came over and together with lulucthulhu and threetrees, I got three games out on the table.

The first was an old favourite to get us into the mood. It is a while since we played Red Empire and I had intended to showcase the game at Games Expo, but did not manage to get it out of the bag. So we played a lot of Pandemic instead. We were quickly into the swing of things, with only two changes of presidency (between me and DaveL), and we managed to deal with all but one of the Crisis, ending the game by exhausting the deck. We got in a little table talk too. I managed to win 65 points to 49!

At DaveL’s suggestion we introduced threetrees to Pandemic. We set the game at medium level, so had plenty of Epidemic cards to deal with, and we had the Medic role (threetrees took this role, as it is the easiest to play), so it was slightly easier. We got threatened with Outbreaks several times – we only got as far as four, but the number of cards we had to draw each turn went up to four too! We had the Researcher and Scientist too, as well as the Dispatcher, so I got to move everyone around. We won, but it was a close run thing, the draw deck not quite exhausted.

We ended the session with a new game, Days of Steam, a game that I picked up at Games Expo. This is a train game, but a relatively easy one. It involves you laying tracks and towns, collecting the goods from each town and delivering them elsewhere. The game has a nice balance between the need to lay track and the need to build up steam to drive the trains so that goods can be delivered. The game plays well and looks very nice, although the rulebook does need a polish.

The second RPG I tried at Games Expo was the (now) Origins Award winning Mouse Guard. This was first thing Saturday morning, with DaveL and I rushing to get there, and not be distracted by everything that was new and on sale! We did not even have time to visit the face painter and get our faces done as mice. Which would have been very silly, but funny all the same.

We had a group of six and were playing the “Deliver the Mail” scenario from the core book. I only know this now because I am currently reading the core book. I also know that we were not playing the game as written, there being no adversarial division in the game between the GM and the players. So instead of the GM’s and the players’ turns, the game was played more as a traditional RPG.

One very nice touch was that the GM has finger puppets for each character, complete with the right colour cloak and weapon. This was because Mouse Guard is regarded as an introductory game – it is and it isn’t, being slightly too complex for that, but in the hands of a good GM it is – and while we did not use them as finger puppets, we did use them as miniatures. Although a comment was made that we could play the game in one-to-one scale right there on the table, mice not being all that big.

Despite not adhering to the turn structure we all had fun. I kept arguing that we needed to deal with problems that were coming up before rushing off to deliver the mail, and that actually developed into an argument. I lost. In the end though, I was proved right. We had to go back and deal with a major threat to one village.

What was interesting was our having to adjust to thinking down to mouse scale. Nature became much, much more of a threat.

We were all very brave and clever where it was needed! I attacked a ground squirrel and stuck it with an arrow before DaveL dived in and drove the arrow into the creature’s skull with his spear. I gave him the name “Nosestriker” for that! Lastly I defended us against a snake by striking it from the inside! I had to be cut out and I was battered and bruised.

It was a fun game and I do hope that DaveL runs it. I just hope that dinkybruiser will like it.

This is traditional.

Happy birthday tax-dodging, religion dissenting...

REBEL SCUM!

If you are going to say happy birthday America, say it with fireworks. North Korea did.

Which was nice.

So Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska is going to step down and not run again.

lulucthulhu has been wondering if her next career move will be as a Tina Fey impersonator?

I did manage to get some roleplaying at Games Expo. On Friday I tried the new fantasy RPG from Triple Ace Games, Hellfrost, which is inspired by Scandinavian/Northern Europe cultures. This is set in a world of encroaching winter, and the cold influences all aspects of the game. The scenario I played will probably be available soon, but it can be best described as a tournament, in which the prizes were a village’s best girls. The competition came in three stages, the first being a storytelling session, the second a drinking contest, before ending with an egg hunt.

It was a fun scenario, although it felt not unlike the scenario from the back of The Legend of the Five Rings, which itself ended with a giant egg hunt. I had fun and I was very competitive, doing reason ably well in the storytelling, and holding out in the drinking contest by supping strong ale rather than going for the brandies and other spirits that the others drank in a drunk or glory bid. For the egg hunt, we faced rival competitors, bandits, an enticing ceremony, and a riddle setter. I did well on finding eggs, but decided to buy more from the others, having won various bets in the tavern the night before. These were on two arm wrestling contests. In the first I bet that a weedy elf could beat the champion – and he did! The second, I bet against a soldier against the champion, and he lost!

Armed with a sack load of eggs, I did indeed win the competition. I choose to take the first bride, who was very pretty and vivacious. Unfortunately she was demanding and penniless!

So I lost. I should have taken the alternative cash price.

We have tickets to see I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue in Birmingham in September.

Hurrah.

Torchwood - Asylum is on Radio 4 tomorrow afternoon.

Interview here with Ken Hite, the author of The Day After Ragnarok.

Radio 4's The Today programme broadcast a short discussion of the Space Opera genre.

It was broadcast at 08:50. (So you need to scroll down a bit...)

Critical Hits has the results of the 2009 Origins Awards.

The website for http://www.originsgamefair.com/ -- where the awards are held, does not.

Nor does the page devoted to the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design.

No other website does. No gaming news site does. The Mouseguard website does.

I have three thoughts on this situations. The first is that the award went to a deserving title. I am sorry that Trail of Cthulhu did not win, it was a worthy nominee, as was Mouseguard. Of the other loser, I am not surprised that it did not win, and would have been dismayed had it actually won. Others may feel very different, but Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition is not an RPG. It is at best, half an RPG, a hybrid with too heavy an emphasis on self-contained combat encounters, and too many constrictions that leave it inflexible when compared to its forebears. I can play it, I can get a good game out of it, but to call it an RPG? No.

My second thought is to wonder if this means that the industry has recognised or co-opted the indie RPG or at least accepted it? After all, this is Luke Crane's second win -- he won in 2007 for Burning Empires. It is more likely that Luke is producing something more commercial and more mainstream, and thus more acceptable, because since the rise of the Indie RPG, there have been better and more interesting games appearing from the pens of the "little" designer than from the major publishers. But it took five years for the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design to recognise that fact.

My third thought is this. The Origins Awards are the gaming hobby's equivalent of the Oscar Awards. Why are they not being reported upon by the industry?

I contend that it is a sad state of affairs when the industry is so small that it cannot support anything other then amateur journalism devoted to itself. The advantage of there being only amateur journalism is that any comment made has neither legitimacy nor authority, and is easily dismissed by those being commented upon.

Sent lulucthulhu off to her works do with the suggestion that she have as tolerable a time as was possible. Which compared to me, is incredibly tolerant. I could not tolerate a works do where I work. Free, but boring versus doing what I want to do, and with my money? Oh the latter every time. Of course, any works do where I work would devolve to the lowest common concept of fun. A meal, a dance, alcohol, and enforced merriment.

In other words, loathsome...

Date:	2009-06-25 22:38
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	restless

I rarely go out in the garden. It is not just the fact that I hate gardening, but at this time of year, it is not the best place to be.

As has been proved this evening. lulucthulhu called me out to see next door's new kitten, Skittles. She is cute, being white with large black, tabby, and ginger splodges. Curious as young kittens are, she amused herself with the dressing gown belt hanging off the washing line, determined to drag it away.

Anyway, I was out in the back garden for about five minutes. It was enough.

I am now wheezy, coughing, and tight chested.

Oh the pleasures of Summer.

Alex completed her last exam today. Her primary concern was not having to wear her school uniform ever again. Well that and a band she wants to see in September.

She is so pleased with herself.

In the meantime, I hope that she can catch up with some of the books and DVDs I gave her for her birthday and Christmas.

If you are of a certain age, you will remember Target Books and numerous novelisations of the Doctor Who adventures that it published.The BBC broadcast a rather enjoyable documentary, On the Outside it Looked Like an Old Fashioned Police Box on Radio 4. It was matched by the article, The Tome Lord. True, the article repeats a great deal of the radio programme, but both are worth catching if you are a Whovian.

Over all, it is a good day if you are a Doctor Who fan. Cubicle 7 posted the cover to its forthcoming Doctor Who RPG.

This article in the Guardian discusses the background behind the recent cancellation of ITV's only home grown genre shows of the last ten years,* Demons and Primeval. There has been much discussion of late with regard to the falling revenues in commercial television, and this article highlights the effects of that. Essentially, the cancellation of the more expensive and probably the more interesting series, which will be replaced with less expensive series aimed at broader audiences.

I gave both series a shot -- Primeval was by far the better of the two, but not good enough to re-watch or to buy on DVD. Demons was tedious and derivative.

Looks like the number of genre shows will be shrinking once again. Time to stab that nostalgia button.






* I am hard pressed to think of any others.

Finally getting down to the editing that I have been promising myself all week. It took a phone call with the author to allay my fears of going too far. I do not quite have carte blanche, but if the text is made better by my suggestions or changes, then I have the permission needed.

Having to deal with Virgin Trains, its idiotic website, and its nonsensical pricing policy (Why exactly does a Return ticket cost more than the price of two singles?), plus being told that life does not revolve around me when it comes to my daughter by her mother just about combined to irritate the hell out of me last night. So I gave up and went to bed.

Fortunately, lulucthulhu had the patience to order the tickets over the telephone.

There was an apology forthcoming too, but I am not sure that I am in the mood to collect it.

In the meantime, I am tackling the editing I planned to start last night.

If you were not aware, then you should know that I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has returned, though of course, without Dear Old Humph.

Stephen Fry makes a very amiable host, and this episode marks the "reappearance" of an old favoutite.

One of the objectives at Games Expo ’09 was to take Nick shopping. Nick is stuck in the wilds of Devon, where the only gaming that he gets involves a regular of Dungeons & Dragons (and nothing else) and various board games at which his partner, Kerry, regularly beats him. So, Nick was looking for other board games at which his partner could beat him.

So on Friday, I took along a small bag of games, including Pandemic, Red Empire, and Formula Motor Racing.

We really only tried a few games over the course of the weekend. We started with a borrowed copy of Ticket to Ride: Europe, a version of the game that I had not played before. I had wanted to introduce Nick to the basic game and would have suggested that with just Kerry to play boardgames at home with, that he purchase Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries and Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, as both are designed for two to three players, not two to five. Val, a friend of Paul and Helen of Cthulhu, won, but Nick liked it enough to buy a copy of this base set.

Dave brought with him, Chrononauts. I managed to loose three games of this, despite being a reasonable player of Fluxx. In fact I would describe Chrononauts as being an advanced version of Fluxx as both are about matching states with a constantly shifting situation. Nick seemed to enjoy the game though, and he bought both Fluxx and Fluxx. The latter because I said that he had to.

Pandemic once again proved to be popular all weekend. My initial game on Friday night was not successful, but everyone was intrigued enough to play again and under Dave's direction, we played two further games on Saturday night. The first game was a disaster. The black plague was set up in the black zone, and very quickly the cities in the black zone were drawn, and then drawn again after the first Epidemic card. We just could not get on top of the cities with two or more black cubes fast enough, and thus could not stop the Outbreaks. We lost inside a couple of turns.

The second game was a whole easier, in part because the disease was not so concentrated, and we had the Medic role in play. We also made use of the abilities to swap cards and move the other roles to better effect, but without the Medic role, the game is a great deal more difficult. Overall, we had fewer Outbreaks and kept control of everything to win. Nick did not buy the game though he was impressed, but he is a Vet and he said that it would feel too much like work! Finn of Yog-Radio liked it enough to buy a copy, and I suspect that it will get plenty of play because Mrs of Cthulhu does not like games with a "Take That" aspect.