Shores of Night

As I said in the last post Eve, my wife, is rather keen on me doing another ten lessons I've learned, I think this is purely because this is my 20th year of gaming, which is I guess I should have kept my mouth shut about. Having had a think about it I came up with the following: 1. Keep the Game Moving: Pace is a difficult thing to get right, and it is also something that varies from group to group. One set of players will lovingly linger on a combat, relishing every bit of damage dealt out and every NPC death. Others will breeze through to try and get past the fracas as quickly as possible in order to get to the plot. The same can be seen in all aspects of a game, some players want action, action, action whilst others want to take their time and get an idea of place, shape and character. There are even players who will happily roleplay mundane things like shopping or going to the pub (one GM I had would happily let us sit our characters in the pub for a game session, talking in...

 As I'm pondering about gaming and what's referred to as 'best practice' in the hellish circles of administration in which I labour in my real life, I've started to realise that I've actually learnt some stuff about running games over the past 20 or so years where I've been a roleplayer. I've started to try and gather some of it together into one place and put it to use.  Given how many games I've run that have failed (most of them since you ask), I do feel a bit of a fraud but at the same time, I believe that we exist in a 'try, fail, try again, fail better' situation even within the hobby and that if you don't stop to think about your mistakes then you're going to repeat them ad nauseum. Below, I've put down ten things I've learned, with some collaboration from my friend Bert via email. They are a  mixture of 'game hacks' to help things move more smoothly and general things that really need to said from time to ti...

As I ponder dipping my toe back into roleplaying, coming to the realisation that this means looking for an entirely new group from top to bottom (with the exception of my wife), I find myself stopping in wonderment at what a strange thing the roleplaying game is. Strange too is the role of the Games Master, Storyteller, Referee, whatever you want to call the person who tries to put it all together and make the thing work. Please note that this blog does have examples, which are entirely fictional (and yes I made the games up too). There are no intentional references to persons living or dead within this blog post. Gaming sits in a peculiar confluence between story, game system, action and acting, all ruled by that most subjective of values; fun. The perfect roleplaying experience balances on the peak of a pyramid, each side of which is one of these four elements. If it slips down one side too far the experience runs the risk of becoming 'unfun' for someone in a group, som...

One of the things Eve bought me while we were away was this: So the 'not surviving because we don't have foraging skills' argument may just have changed, which can only be a good thing.

Last week Eve and I went on a break down to Kingston Upon Thames, partly because we had not been away for a while and in part because I wanted to go away as a treat for finishing the MA. There were things we wanted to see in London and also wanted to head down to Brighton to see the Pavilion and meet up with a couple of friends. We did not get as much done as we wanted, because of Eve's joints and because of travel times and the weather (November is not a month to go vacationing if you want sunshine, no matter what lies the end of October tells). The first thing we went to was the British Library's Gothic exhibition ( you can find it here) . It traces Gothic from the very beginning to the modern day, with a strong focus on the original works and how the genre has changed over the centuries. It is stunningly put together, with loads of nice bits and some great film clips to illustrate the changing face of the Gothic. There was perhaps less of a focus on the work I'm most f...

The monster has been with us for a long time. From the very start of stories the monster has been there; in Gilgamesh the wild man Enkidu is arguably the very first monster, though it is equally likely that he is only the first monster to have been written about. The same culture and those close to it, also gave us depictions of half man, half animal people, mostly famously as the gods of ancient Egypt. Tales of djinn and ghouls originated from the same region later on in later eras and arguably served as a crucible for myths and stories that spread across the globe. But there are stories of monsters in every part of the world, heroic traditions that paint horrors into the darkness. A natural aspect of the human psyche mythologises things we do not understand, and for most of our history the night has been the great barrier. Seen as the harbourer of evil, it was the great unknown, where the Devil and his minions dwelt. This is the root of much of the antipathy directed tow...

Brink of Disaster The 1980s began with a bang, literally. As Ronald Reagan took the stand to make his inaugural address, a shot rang out and he fell; his body vaporising. Panic spread through Washington. With the Vice President, George H Bush hastily sworn in; the White House and Pentagon began sabre rattling directed at the Kremlin. Ships were moved to strategic points in the Atlantic and Baltic; the Eagle suits and their pilot were sent to Berlin. In response, Red Army units were moved into Eastern European countries. Pro-democracy campaigns came under intense scrutiny and even threats. Poland's Solidarity engaged in clashes with the authorities, something that came to an abrupt end when the New Man, Gusar (Hussar), was deployed to crush a demonstration in 1982. The march turned into a riot, and over a hundred people died as Gusar let loose with his powers. At the height of the riot, however, something strange happened. The New Man's powers suddenly failed and he ...

On Wednesday, I got my final mark for the MA in Writing, earning a 60 for my Final Project. I have mixed feelings for about the mark, though I am sure it was the right one. I fell down on my grammar and that's annoying because I thought I had fixed everything.  Overall it means I have a Commendation, which suits me fine, I am perfectly happy with that and do wonder if the Black Bug Room is just stirring up trouble at the back of my head and making me irritated for the sake of it.   What concerns me more is where I go now. I took the job I am doing now because I felt juggling study, work, looking for work and writing was too heavy a burden to bear. I had a really bleak episode last year, on the way back from an interview at Southampton University where I actually felt so numb, emotionally, that I wondered if it was worth continuing with anything. This prompted me to take the job I am doing now as a permanent place; but I do not have much affection for it, though I am fond of...

Some history today: History: An Inauspicious Beginning Super powered beings did not appear until the 1960s. Soviet experiments at the Tunguska Incident site created the first of their 'New Men', a super powered figure who rose above the old distinctions of class, sex and other 'shackles', ready for the perfect Soviet state. By the end of the 1960s the USSR had a cadre of these figures, and the United States was in a panic. The Cold War had come close to heating up in '63 with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Space Race had seen shots exchanged between Russian and American spacecraft, though neither side acted on these events. The appearance of the 'New Men' opened a new front, one which people were wholly unprepared for. The White House ordered an investigation into the feasibility of creating an American equivalent.  Military scientists scoured available technology without success. Everything was too big, too clunky or just didn't work. In Janua...