Walhalla/Gothcamp, Recognition of the Ainu, Other Gaming, Other Fun

[tcpip]

Gothcamp (it's not really a camp) in Walhalla, a very enjoyable experience. An excellent summary of events has been provided, including the enormous opening lunch, afternoon cemetery tour, evening ghost tour and 4WD tour the following day. I was particularly impressed by the unexpected presence of the Wolseley Car Club, which suited the town a great deal. I also took the opportunity to visit the monthly Anglican service, conducted by Reverend Neil Thompson on the theme of "Christianity and Sex". It was a far too theistic and conservative for my tastes, condemning pornography, homosexuality etc and the like as sins. In my youth I probably would have been quite angry at the presentation. Instead I felt a little sorry for the tiny congregation with their hopelessly out-of-date absolutist moral code.

It is rare moment that one can correlate gaming and politics; but an opportunity has arisen. Many months ago I started a story-game based based on a fantastic version of the Ainu in medieval Japan, with a great deal of the thematic content around the daimyo wars, Japanese imperialism and the conflicts within the indigenous Ainu. Back in the real world however I am very pleased to see that after over a hundreds years of official assimilationist policies ("there are no other ethnic groups in Japan") and cultural destruction (including invasion, suppression, acquisition of their lands, legal prohibition on the use of their language etc), the Ainu are now finally recognised as the indigenous people of the land, with a unique culture, language and religion. Much of this victory, no doubt, is at least partially based on the lifelong work of the now deceased Shigeru Kayano.

In a related topic my review of Legend of the Five Rings has been published. Appropriately, I've made a start on a Bushido review as well. In the meantime however, I have reviewed a rare gem, Swordbearer, which should be available next week and have started the only mailing list in existence for rules development and actual play threads for this old game. Perhaps not surprising, I am also going to Gencon Oz in Queensland in a couple of weeks which includes the official launch of D&D 4th edition.

Saturday was a journey to Knox with caseopaya for a work social function; ten-pin bowling no less. The train journey back from Boronia onwards reminded why I so dislike the outer suburbs; Boronia has all the architectural appeal of Dachau concentration camp, people stumbling around hammered out of their brain at Ringwood, a punch-up in progress as the train pulled in to Bayswater Station etc. Later in the evening we joined a collection of people for the Winter Solstice tour of the St. Kilda Cemetery, which has its share of famous Australians. The tour was of mixed quality; a group of 19th century-style actors were very good, but the group was too large and our tour guide did not speak to the crowd effectively. Audience contributions were invited however, and I gave a couple of additional facts which were well received. In the course of the proceedings I took the opportunity to escape the crowd and pay my respects to Alfred Deakin. It reminded me that I really should attend some of the Deakin Lectures next year.

Comments

[grailchaser.livejournal.com]

Yey for the Ainu!

That they place great store in Bears in their animism is of interest. When the Japanese first came to Japan they had to drive out a native population called the Emitsu. I wonder if these were actually Ainu? The "Shogun" originally got his name from doing this: Sei-i-tai-Shogun mean Great Barbarian Quelling General. The Japanese Royal Holy items are thought to reflect their origins - so we have a Mirror (probably of Chinese origin), a tachi (sword) and a Magatama beads (commar shaped beads worn by the Sun Goddess which may be a stylised shark's tooth or maybe... a bear's claw).

I emailed a professor in the US a few years ago to query something about her book on the Mummies of Urumichi - I'd noticed that some of the Ainu rope weaving techniques resembled those found in the unique ropes found in the Caucasian graves of the Taklamakan basin in Western China (Urumichi). Instead, I got her colleage. We got to disussing the origins of the Ainu and he reckoned that the Ainu were an offshoot from the Amerindian migration that went across the Bering Straight land bridge. A much older people than those found in Urumichi, it seems.

* * *

I've always viewed Legend of the Five Rings with a mixture of awe and disgust. On one hand you have a book full of insights into estoric Taoism and Japanese Culture and on the other hand its so full of Western Stereotypes of asian culture that its almost sickening. That coupled with a combat system that does not promote heroism - I guess its just too realistic that when you take a sword blow you're so wounded as to be guaranteed to lose every subsequent fight. Ho hum. I'd rather play Historical Japan with a magical bent and Hero sytem rules - which I did - for three or four years.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd love to get hold of Shigeru's "Romance of the Bear God", I suspect it would be right up my alley...

As for the Urumichi, I must confess I was completely unaware of them. From my understanding (all carefully gleaned from sources as diverse as Lee Gold's GURPS Japan and Wikipedia *grin*), it would seem that the Ainu have chromosome haplogroup D which suggests common ancestry with Tibetans.

I remember of your Hero system game; I remember some of the works in an old issue of the Phantas annual. Personally, I don't mind a non-heroic combat system as such, but I do want some means for players to "invoke narrativism" (as one player is fond of saying). L5R could have done this with Void points, but didn't. Bushido sort of does it with Chi.

[grailchaser.livejournal.com]

When combat related skills are the only skills a system covers - then other means of resolving conflict are limited and the mechanics for heroism are essential to gameplay.

[antayla.livejournal.com]

And here I was just wondering yesterday if you aussies called it Summer or Winter when it's the cold season. Well, now I know. I suppose it makes sense that way, but still...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Seasons in temperate zones are astronomically determined by solstices and equinoxes in a mirror relation between the hemispheres, although it is far more common in Australia to use meteorological reckoning rather that astronomical reckoning due to the effects of seasonal lag. (I just like the pagan-ish use of the astronomical method and hence refer to it)

Dammit, I can even talk about the weather and make it non-trivial :-)

[theamaranth.livejournal.com]

http://theamaranth.livejournal.com/364814.html?thread=3138318#t3138318


hehehehhe.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*blush*

It seems that I am destined to be in the company of intelligent and beautiful women.

Oh woe is I.. ;-)

[theamaranth.livejournal.com]

lol i know, what a crap destiny that was thought out by the flying spag monster! lol

[gods-mistake.livejournal.com]

I used to play Legend of the Five Rings. I might still have a few character sheets. I played it before D&D bought it ^_^

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I have the D&D version as well, both the Oriental Adventures book and the Rokugan book. They seem pretty good but I haven't read them in detail. I understand that a lot of people weren't entirely happy with the d20 borg taking over for understandable reasons.

I think the "roll and keep" method gives quite a lot of opportunity to play around with various incarnations and it's a pretty interesting idea overall - it combines expertise and effect in a single roll in a way that makes sense! However it does seem that more workshopping was required.

The supplements were largely quite good too. I have made some use of "Way of the Ratling" which is quite delightful, "Winter Court: Kyuden Seppun" which helps the game-world story development and "Bearers of Jade: The Second Book of the Shadowlands" which I haven't looked at closely, but seems thematically good.

[gods-mistake.livejournal.com]

I didn't play for an incredibly long time... but one of the things I liked about it was that it was realistic. For instance, if you get a katana to the body and aren't wearing any armor, you are NOT living. None of this "saving your ass with magic" bullshit that D&D makes up with the d20. Though it does kill the shit out of your newbie characters.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree, especially when compared to mid-levels of D&D and onwards (of course, low level D&D is incredibly deadly). As someone who has spent much of their life playing RuneQuest however I actually felt that L5R's deadliness wasn't high enough!

[aurickandrien.livejournal.com]

That's very cool to hear about the Ainu being recognised. :)

...

The official launch of 4th Ed is after it's out in stores?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The official launch of 4th Ed is after it's out in stores?

*double-checks*

Hmm... Now I can't find it (mind you, it is possibly the worst website in the world). Of course, what you say is entirely possible, especially given overseas and advance orders and the like.

Ahh. Now I remember. IIRC when I was originally planning to go I believe I saw advertising saying that it was going to be the official launch. Mind you that was about a year aho and it seems that things have changed.

Either that or I'm completely wrong, which is entirely possible as well :-)