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 Instead I felt a little sorry for the tiny congregation with their hopelessly out-of-date absolutist moral code.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

[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!