Gaming Updates, Music Reviews, Rodent Withdrawls

[tcpip]

Some pretty good gaming experiences in the past week are worthy of jotting down. Firstly, last Sunday put the Werewolf Yugoslav Wars game on hold for a while to start a 7th Sea Freiburg as recommended by usekh. We pretty much did character generation and an opening scene, for the standard (and extensive) scenarios offered in the Freiburg set, although I do find the libertarian governance of the city to be highly improbable at best. On Thursday ran another session of Masks of Nyarlathotep, where the Investigators managed to get quite a lot done, visiting a range of strange individuals, accumulating an enormous array of clues, and even catching up with a person who they have been chasing for several game-months. After such a success and elation, true to the Call of Cthulhu theme, it'll be appropriate to send them mad or to the maws of monsters in the next session. Also, as expected, my review of Pirates & Plunder has been published on RPG.net. The next issue of RPG Review ("Pirates & Swashbucklers") is due this week, however I have my suspicions that it will be delayed.

Last night went to see 20000 Days on Earth, the Nick Cave biography documentary, at the Astor. Nick was present for a Q&A session afterwards. Erica managed to get her copy of The Birthday Party Definitive Collection signed along with And The Ass Saw The Angel, whereas I have reviewed the show on Rocknerd. This week I also wrote an article for an upcoming gay music 'zine, entitled Industrial: Music of A Cyborg Sexuality in the Fin de Siècle. Tonight I am off to see and review The Underground Lovers. I swear, I am a bloody demon when it comes to reviewing or critiquing music, I could easily do several a day if I had the opportunity to do so.

Suki rat's owners came over on Wednesday night; we had managed to keep her alive and well for that period with an aforementioned course of forced feeding of critical care, antibiotics, and of course a great deal of human empathy. Instructions for care were passed on to her owners, who were both pleased to see and also concerned with her state. However we have since been informed that she's recovered somewhat and is now eating of her own volition. The household is now however ratless, and I'm suffering from withdrawl symptoms. Whether as young nutters bouncing around the place or as elderly sleepers. Despite this immediate desire, imajica_lj has made the sensible suggestion of finding rescue rodents post-xmas.

Comments

[redcountess]

Sorry I didn't make it to Sunday's session, or the one before, I'm finding it impossible to get up before lunch time at the moment.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

But will we see you this Sunday? Also feel free to turn up late if you have to :)

[redcountess]

I'd like to if I'm up to it, but I've been following the conversation in the emails, and it sounds awfully complicated!!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Only complicated for power-gamers and the GM. For players it's simply a case of asking what you want to do and rolling the dice :)

[redcountess]

Ok, lol, well I'll see how I'm travelling when I wake up tomorrow, thanks :-)

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

Seventh sea is a wonderful game. What do you play in it?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm running it!

There are two issues I have with it.

The first is the notEarth issue, which led my to throw my arms up and say "for goodness sake, just use a fantasy Europe". What particularly irked me was the emphasis on sailing adventures, given that there is no other continents apart from Théah. This is, of course, not a problem in the current campaign.

The second is the roll-and-keep system, which I think is a good flawed concept. From our experience of playing Legend of the Five Rings the additive system from a non-insignificant number of dice slows things down. I haven't really got a solution to this one, except to run a more storytelling style and reduce die rolls to critical moments.

Apart from that I think there is a lot going for the game. The notEurope setting in itself quite good, I do like mix of sorcery and gunpowder, it's pretty stylish etc.

[redcountess]

Is that what you're playing tomorrow, or are you back to Werewolf?

PS. Rescue rats are awesome, our second set of ratty brothers Jake and Elwood were rescues.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

GURPS Middle Earth tomorrow.

Rescue rats are indeed good; we had Ragamuffin and Scoundrel.

[redcountess]

Oh cool, that will have the added advantage that I am familiar with the mythos :-)

Hahaha! You'll laugh at this...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I read your response as a reply to the second sentence.

Familiarity with the rat mythos!

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

Roll and keep has a curve for certain. I found after a month or two I was reading the dice quickliy though.

The drama dice especially as reward and the ability to call raises are, in my opinion, really wonderful innovations.

Like you, I found the fake early modern Europe to be too confusing. However I did find that players without history degrees really responded to it as a fun digest form, and that really seemed to be the line of division.

As a frequent GM and sometime player I recommend to you an underrepresented character type that plays nice for gms. The master of disguise

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Sure, I can read the dice quickly, as can some other players. But not all.

I do like the drama dice and the called raises, that's true.

The history issue irks a few players at the table (no history majors as such, but a lot of history buffs). The real one which gets me still is the large sailing vessels without the geographical need for them. But I can just invent a "new world" as a justification for their existence, knowing full well that the PCs will never go there :)

The master of disguise

Sotto voce. My players read this ;)

[leo-sosnine.livejournal.com]

I'm a big Nick Cave fan.

"Have mercy on me sir allow me to impose on you
I have no place to stay and my bones are cold right through..."

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

There's a lot to him. In my mis-spent youth, I found myself particularly fond of The Birthday Party, in particular "Mutiny In Heaven" and "Blundertown".

Actually, the idea of Nick Cave planting his roots in Brighton did remind me of a lot of Blundertown, although it lyrically based on a river rather than the sea. In the movie there was mention of how many of his diary entries were based on a psychoanalysis of Brighton's stormy weather. One very amusing entry was "I can control the weather with my moods. I just can't control my moods".

It was very J.G. Ballard...

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for running it. He is not quite as swashbuckley as I originally planned but I think Axel suits the local theme, and has his own "charm" once I settle in to proper table top.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Not quite swashbuckley, yet. Alex has going to have plenty of character development I foresee..

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Got a few ideas :) also being a wordy mofo and long term MU*er I have some more background and other details if you are interested? :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Sure send through a few basic ideas and we'll see where we can take them...