Low Heat

Out of the many I played, I'd like to play more of the following:

Microscope - Beta, doc available
Mythender - alpha, no doc available
Combat Diaries - beta, doc available
It wasn't me - actually released in nordic short form book
Anima Prime - Beta, doc available

So I played a lot of games that were new to me, which was perfect.   Out of these, I'd really like to try playing "It Wasn't Me" with nongamers; the system is so darn light and easy that it feels more like a party game.  I'll be buying that book.  Right after this post.

Mythender was probably the biggest experience for me.  I killed Thor, and I had all the ravens in the world as my weapon.  I play a lot of fantasy rpgs with over the top action, but Ryan Macklin just did a fantastic job of running it and the system is built from the ground up to provide the right kinds of pressure on the players.  One of my favorite moments ever in gaming.

Anima Prime remains sturdy and reliable.  I want to play it because I want to expand on it, and it's so easy to run that I may just have to start using it all the time as my go-to for prep-less nights.  Starting asap.  I ran it as my first con-game ever, with less than complete prep, and it worked good.  It would have worked even better with no prep whatsoever.

Combat Diaries is a good game for a big crowd.  WWII platoon game.  I'd almost like to start a gaming week with Combat Diaries as a team building exercise.  And it's also pretty light.

And Microscope; it's the one I want to try more.  Not sure how it would look if we knew how to use it well enough to really build with the system.  Hmm... some weekend soon.

There you have it.  I also played Believer (fun, but I need some time before I can play that again), Roach (I'm not good at comic games at cons; too much energy!), and a bit of Gun Smoke, which had only one real notable fun bit, which was pointing guns at players.

One of the last rituals in kung fu class is Sam Sing (sp?).  You whack your forearms against another student's forearms for a minute or so to strengthen the bones.  At some point, one of the students will signal that it's time to stop with a particular hand gesture.

For some reason, when I first started, I thought I heard that the older student always gave this signal.  So I would go on smashing my arms until the older student signaled that we should stop.

This has been a painful misunderstanding.

There are some students that won't stop; they just keep going, for whatever reason.  They usually have very hard arms.  I assumed they were just jerks, since it was traditionally their role to call it to a halt; they were trying to force me to break tradition or something by asking them to quit.  So for the last year, they probably thought I was the jerk that was challenging their strength by not signaling that I needed to stop.  Ouch ouch ouch.

Anyway.  That's the tricky part about learning in the traditional way.  A lot of rules are unspoken, or explained only once, and you're expected to pick it up or listen the first time.  It's about respect.  But I've run into some false assumptions as a result, here and there.  And mistakes can hurt.

So, still training.  Rough first day back after sitting around all weekend at GPNW, but I feel 100% better after sweating out all the fancy food and beer I consumed.

My dad sent me a request to join facebook, at which point I discovered exactly what it would take to get me to join another social networking site. 

Another post up on cegames on balance issues.  Really just outlining the problem.  I'd love to hear your ideas, here or there.

Tonight I finally blissed out, completing my first game of Bliss Stage.  Hitomi Ish, the innocent young sweetheart, went on her last mission mere hours after her lover, the eager young soldier, died in the dream, awakening hundreds or even thousands of sleepers in the process.  Hitoshi was sent to protect them as they awakened.  Ravaged by the death of her grandfather and lover within the last two days, she threw herself into battle, attracting hordes of alien drones from the Puget Sound.  To defend the waking humans, she pushed herself to the limit, using the FarLine device so extensively that her own body faded away into the dream while her anima fought on, slaughtering drones until she reached the Pacific.

Days later, when a diplomatic mission was sent to meet the newly awakened people, she was spotted fighting the aliens, guarding the convoy.  She had become the ultimate weapon, a sleepless dream of combat, sorrow, and hope for humanity.

Games I'm in:

Two DnD 4e games, that meet once a month or two
One Terrestrial Exalted game, which I'm running, which tends to meet monthly
One Bliss Stage, currently blissing out.
One PTA game, currently on hiatus
Playtests of Project Sandstone, scheduled irregularly, which I run every other time.
Playtests of various Andrew games, generally once a week.


Games I miss, in no particular order:
Seventh Sea, with Lukas running (system is broken, sadly, for me, but such fun fights!)
Anima Prime, with Andy running (because he knows how to throw the lever)
Burning Wheel, with Hans running (because he can do it bloody well)
Adventure, with Jason running (burning castles!)
Exalted, with Joe Jay Dixon running (because it's not me :) )

And many many others.  But those are the ones I miss right now.  

Addendum: Looking at these games, one thing strikes me: apparently I'm into fighting stuff in fantasy/pulp settings.  That is all.

Started learning the lion dance tonight.

In the days of yore, in China, allegedly, the lion dance was one way of demonstrating a kung fu school's prowess.  The heads of the lions often had swords concealed in them in case things got out of hand when dancing with other schools.  Essentially, you could see based on the tricks they did and how well they were performed the strength of their stances and their endurance.  In the jerking of the head, the power of a student's strikes could be demonstrated.  It's an incredibly exhausting performance as well.

I am fortunate, in some ways.  I am big (by this I mean tall and relatively heavy compared to most other students).  I will not be jumping on top of people and balancing on their legs/shoulders.  I am the one that will be jumped on, for most tricks, it seems.  And I can handle that; all it takes is a good horse stance.  Tonight all I did was learn to do stacks, and I had the lightest partner, which helped.  He would jump up onto my thighs with his butt in my face, and then we would slowly rotate.  It was a lot of fun.  If you want to see the lion dance, we'll be opening a new school in Redmond on August 9th; I'm pretty sure the dancing will be open to the public.   And you can see me sweat and breath through my mouth!

In my regular class, I have nearly surpassed the little 11 year old girl.  She only comes once a week!  I already know more form techniques, but she is farther along in the basic exercises of the class.  Someday!  It is, however, not an advantage to be big in regular class.  I get worn out a little too quick, an don't have enough strength to do frog-jump situps at the end of class.  I tried on Monday... and ended up losing my breath for a good fifteen minutes once I finished.  Being big does give me an advantage when attacking though... I can blunder through most people's stances, and if I want them to stop advancing I can just hold still.

One of (the many) odd things about learning Kung Fu is how it informs my roleplaying.  Roleplaying is an odd hobby; violence is fetishized and studied intensely entirely independent of its actual execution.  I played various violence-heavy games for most of my gaming career (and enjoyed them; I am not very deep), but relied on movie tropes to inform what I was actually trying to reproduce.  Which is strange; not quite black-face strange, but a little weirder than playing rockband all the time and never learning an instrument.  And also there is a bit of an air of dehumanization in the process, since combat is reduced from the full experience to a few pithy highlights.  I'm not really explaining this well.  Here's an example.

In one of Andy's games, I play myself, and I got in a fight with another martial artist.  I'm starting to see how hard it is to model an actual fight; in game I was trying to visualize the opponents attacks and what counter would be appropriate for the situation.  I don't know if it made it more or less fun.  The more I learn, the less likely I am to use flashy, cinematic attacks, in favor of direct blocks, strikes, and stancework.  Anyone else experienced something like that in play?  The more you know, the less spectacular it plays out.  Also, until I started learning to fight, I always preferred characters that favored mental abilities, and relied on magic or other special effects rather than physical prowess in conflicts.  Now I seem less interested in those character types.  Perhaps you only decide that there is some sort of virtue in rigorous physical training when you've tried?

Stayed up too late last night to beat Metal Gear Solid 3, which was about three times as good as MGS2.  It didn't delve into fake personalities and excessive metaplay.  It made the Big Boss a sympathetic character, which is something Raiden never achieves (such a whiner!).  The boss fights were very challenging, though.  The strategy I finally adopted (primarily due to the lack of skill required for its execution and its reliability) in the final boss fight was to charge into a machine gun, punch the boss in the face until she fell down, and then shoot her with tranquilizer darts.  Very painful, but (a) she can't counter my punches when she's shooting a machine gun and (b) tranquilizer darts don't cause health damage, so it doesn't trigger her "I'm about to die so I change my tactics to become even harder" mode.  I found out the hard way that setting TNT next to her prone body and detonating it when she stands up does not work when she's in the last third of her health bar.  Bleh.

I can see how Hideo Kojima gained his following; he deserves it.  Of the other "action" type games I've played lately (Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, COD4, Fallout 3) the storylines in MGS1 and 3 are obviously superior, the mood more pronounced and distinctive, and the gameplay is both deeper(fallout 3 excluded... mostly) and more playful (no exclusions).  So I'm bidding on a copy of MGS4, and getting a copy of metal gear 1+2.  So much for my gaming habits.

My other passtime remains reading; I leave with this quote:

"I must choose to cease from suffering or to cease from loving.  For, just as in the beginning it is formed by desire, so afterwards love is kept in existence only by painful anxiety ... Love, in the pain of anxiety as in the bliss of desire, is a demand for a whole.  It is born, and it survives, only if some part remains for it to conquer.  We love only what we do not possess."

The narrator, in the pangs of jealousy over his live-in mistress, Albertine.

My current game is nearly over; my enthusiastic and bubbly Innocent Sweetheart became a secret lover of another pilot before turning into a devoted speed-popping granddaughter for the dying authority figure.   The worst part about the game is that it's in the process of ending.  I'm adding this to my (incredibly short) list of "games I would gladly GM if I ever run my exalted game into the ground (and I know well enough to GM competently)", including Anima Prime and Magical Land of Yeld.  Someday I'll probably read enough Mouseguard to add it to the list as well.

The key to getting the most out of the game (for me, a min-maxing powergamer) is having definite drives for your character and projects that they are working on.  The game can bog down if the characters don't have anything going on in their lives; if they just want to have scenes for the purpose of having scenes and getting the attendant benefit.  Ideally, when you're having social scenes you should already know what you're working on with the people around you, what things your pilot is striving for; this makes it more likely the gm will call for scenes (what happens next!) and gives missions added spice, since they interfere with your plans and add tension to them.

 I suddenly have more time for my project than expected, and a new lenovo T500 to do that work on.   It doesn't scream, but compared to the T43, it might as well, which makes work much faster.  All this really means that I won't have to spend my weekends working or worrying about whether I should be working.  Excellent.

Which means that between games and parties this weekend, I can get cracking on writing some real setting information for the project, start writing the most ridiculously jrpg-pulped out game of Anima Prime ever, and start training for the combination wedding/club opening.

The kung fu club's sifu's son is getting married.  There will be three dragons, three northern lions, and three southern lions.  We'll also be carrying sedan chairs.  That's a lot of really tough work.   The next day, they're doing it again when the new branch opens in redmond.  Both will have shaolin monks demonstrating kung fu.  There will also be giant chinese buffets at both events, and ancient masters (even older than sifu) demonstrating.  Everyone is going to be called in; they expect to need 47 people at each event.  So I probably need to start learning how to work a lion or keep time on the dragon, or haul chair.  It should be a lot of fun.  But I have to start training, which means no more Friday nights out and about.  But I feel like I need more conditioning anyway, for some reason...

There's this vague sensation that something is coming in the near future that I'll need to be ready for... perhaps its the end of the school year (and my wife's freedom from indentured servitude), or the project making progress, or GPNW coming up rapidly, or the steadily rising heat.  But I have high expectations for this summer.  And I intend to be ready.

Hey, I'll be at GPNW this year, first time.  And I'll be running my first con game ever.  Any tips from you folks that have run billions of con games?  Common pitfalls?

Realistically, I know that I will play this, regardless of any scruples.  I'm just not sure if I should have any.  Scruples, that is.

It's basically Castle Crashers meets Capture the Flag.  You play one of many soldiers in a tiny kingdom, trying to rescue your princess while hanging on to the enemy's princess.  It's also online for 16v16 play.  Lots of blood, explosions, and it looks like some fortress building mixed in.  Sounds aweome.  The twist is that you can help hang on to your stolen princess by feeding her massive amounts of cake.  Which makes her heavy.  Which makes it harder for enemies to carry her away.

I'll set aside the "save the princess" aspect of the game.  It's a trope that I don't feel the need to publicly revile out of hand, since it's so quintessentially stereotyping it rises into the realm of a Jungian archetype in the gaming community.  It is what it is.  But promoting overeating for captives as a defense against their rescue?  Is it cute or horrifying (or both)?  Of course, I'd rather not judge it before i see it; the concept was apparently developed by a woman, including all the art.  Does it matter?

The controversy over the game happened a year ago, but it's getting released this month.

(Incidentally, the studio developing the game is located in pioneer square)

 Hey, I'm not writing much seriously lately because I'm actually working a lot.  Playtest 3 went fairly well; getting closer to a chargen system that isn't lousy.  Playtest 4 is tonight, but i'm not in charge.  Which is super, because I'm totally too busy to write even this.

 Working on work all weekend.  Had a decent playtest (still too gm-talky... bloody exposition).  Now I'm trying to mimic what I can only assume is a giant series of mainframe computers in a major airline for testing purposes.  This is difficult.

Recaulked a section of the bathroom a couple of nights ago.  I have helpful tips on caulking:

1. Don't worry about messing up.  You can do it over and over again, for added fun.  This is my third time working on the caulking in that bathroom. 
2. Have everything ready at hand before you start.  You'll need a putty knife to remove old caulk, a smaller blade for narrow spaces, paper towels to clean up caulk, a tool to smooth the caulk into place (a little rubber edge tool), a caulking gun, caulk, a rough sponge or brush for removing traces of old caulk, dish washing gloves, a damp rag for cleaning out the void left by the old caulk, and gin.
3. People will tell you that you should use water-based caulking since it's so easy to clean up.  They are filthy liars, execrable buffoons.  Water based caulking shrinks and doesn't stick nearly as well as the heavy stuff.  Clean up is a minor concern compared to the problem of having caulking that doesn't keep out water.
4. If you don't use all the caulking, and you're using the good stuff that makes you cut off the tip of the container to determine bead size, you can't reuse any leftovers.  It will dry up so hard in the tip that you can never get it to come out again, even if you stick a tiny eyeglass repair screw driver into the tip a good two and a half inches and wiggle it around.   It's gone.  Buy a new one.  No leftovers

I also prettied up the garden, planting the few miserable starts that survived my intensive planting regime in the office (weekends are murder on starts; they die of thirst).  Two immediately died; the cucumber suffered stalk damage at some point, and there is some kind of bug that ate all the leaves on my pepper (it's also eating the leaves on my blueberries.  I am furious).  So I only actually managed to successfully plant three varieties of basil.  So I'm restarting the cucumber, as well as the dill and coriander that died in the office, and some black beans, and an avocado pit.

Finally, I'm also trying to fix a bunch of the broken stuff in the house.  I straightened the busted towel rack pin and used metal epoxy to seal it back on; the towel rack now works.  Next is to fix the solar lamp from outside (kicked apart when someone ran through our backyard; local homeless sometimes use the back path as a shortcut and bathroom).  Then I need to fix the seal on the door downstairs, somehow, and tack the trim down in a few places.

Also need to replace the dishwasher... more work ahead.

Odd: a few days ago I half-whimsically posted a question regarding which country you would choose to flee to; the responses were surprisingly personal, which shows how easily surprised I am.  And they were awesome, but I'm wondering if I can dig deeper to get more specific information, if anyone happens to be in the know.  Down with the PT scene.

I've been reading Neil Strauss's "Emergency", a book about bugging out and bugging in, borrowed off of covenantscave.  It documents in one section his struggle to get dual citizenship so that he can escape America, if necessary.  It's a thought that's been on my mind lately because I love to travel, and Dawn and I often think about how fun it would be to emigrate to a new place someday.  I keep returning to Ireland in my mind, mostly because:

(a) citizenship takes five years (Italy takes 10)
(b) I know the language, but there's still another language to learn
(c) they need tech people, including testers, and they need them badly enough to give green cards for them instead of work visas, which simplify a few things
(d) they are EU members, which means I can see Europe again with no hassle, and
(e) I loved it there more than any other country I visited.... I think.

A long range goal, maybe... I'd rather wait until the current housing downturn has become an upturn, but it's been on my mind as something to gnaw on.  But I've been wondering if there are countries that have easier emigration requirements or better job prospects.  And if they are not openly hostile to English speakers, that's also cool.

 Did you play patapon?  Okay, yeah, you're cool.  If you found the gameplay in any way interesting, you should get patapon 2.  The evolution system for your little patapon warriors is vast improvement, there's now an easy mode, you have a hero to go with your little pons to fight, and there's a multiplayer option.  And the story is still full of trible goodness and fun music.

So, suppose you had in mind the thought that you could spend a little time actually thinking about how a playtest should be run, instead of just throwing a game together and then breathlessly asking, "So, what did you think?"

My ideas on this so far:

1. Provide paper and pens for players to take notes to provide feedback.
2. Explain to players before the game which parts (a) need feedback (b) aren't really finished and don't need feedback just yet.
3. Explain to players what they should do if they have questions during the game, or if they have comments on a gameplay element as they go.
4. Record the game.
5. At the end of the game, give players a moment to collect their thoughts and write down any last notes.
6. Ask targeted questions about parts mentioned in 2a.
7. Record the feedback.
8. Resist the urge to explain why you did what you did and why what you have actually works even though they think it doesn't.  Ie, don't defend, just listen.
9. Request any additional unstructured feedback.
10. Thank your playtesters and collect the notes. 

This might be formalizing things a little too much, but what do you folks think?  Is it useful to organize a playtest, or will it create a "fake" atmosphere that won't be true to actual play?  Maybe it's good for early playtests, and later playtests can be less screwed down?

 If you were fleeing a spiritually and economically bankrupt country in search of a new life Abroad, which country would you choose, and why?

PS: Please, no suggestions referencing "a new life in the colonies!"  I've no interest in fighting my rebellious replicant servitors.

Health:  Found out that my chronic stomach problems were most likely some form of "functional dyspepsia", which is sort of like heartburn, maybe, or reflux...?  All they really know is that everything I enjoy in life causes this disease, and I must give them all up to be able to eat: spicy food, coffee, tea, alcohol, eating late at night, citrus fruit, citrus juice, overeating, tomatos and tomato sauce, sleeping on beds that are not inclined planes... etc.  I've given up coffee and strong tea already, which essentially eliminates caffeine from my diet.  I'm still hoping I can keep having a drink in the evening, but every time I've done it so far I've been rewarded with abdominal pain.

Which is affecting my kung fu, which I cannot allow.  I ended up leaving my class halfway through on Monday, which was unutterably embarrassing.  As a result I overworked myself pretty hard on Wednesday, trying to prove that I'm not a wuss.  And I can't really afford to blow my energy in the first half hour when I've got to spend the last twenty minutes practicing my Lau Ga Kuen over and over.  Anyway, everything is screwed up.

What food is there, besides spicy, acidic food?  If you're a vegan?  I'm going to end up eating nothing but shadows and dewdrops before this is over.

Anyway, finished Sodom and Gommorrah, book 4 of "In Search of Lost Time", and the last book published during Proust's lifetime.  As he ages, the works become more melancholy.  The precision and depth of his insights continue, unabated, but his discourses on romantic love are still really alien to me.  I married the only girl I ever dated for more than three months; I never "took a mistress", as it were, so I don't really understand a lot of his motivations; they are bizarre and shameless, cryptic and evocative.  His "love" throughout the book, Albertine, seems singularly devoted to him, but he's bored of her and considers their time together to be a loss... until he discovers that she probably had romances with other women in her adolescence, which will soon be resumed, and he decides that he must possess her to prevent this from happening.  It makes no sense... or does it?  When you cease to love someone you are with, are you pleased when they also seek new love, or are you jealous?  Is it universal?  He presents his love (his desire, more accurately) as this thing that exists as a fact, independent of any volition; it is a desire for an ideal which he seeks in the women he dallies with, but never enjoys in them (consciously, as he writes, but unconsciously as he lived).  It's a very different concept of love and life than any I'm familiar with, restless and selfish, after being brought up with endless sermons on selfless love and hollywood visions of eternal (repeating) crush.  It's consuming, and it consumed his life... only it didn't, because he lived to write it, to make something of all the wasted time, to understand the unslakeable passions that drove his life and the lives around him.  But the fruit wasn't his to enjoy; the author is dead when book 5 is published, and he is still only a young adult, having just declared that he must marry Albertine... how must it be to die with nothing but your fictionalized follies of youth on display?

So I'm pushing into book 5, reminded of my own young reading habits, when I would devour trilogies of pulp fantasy, always wishing to prolong the series indefinitely...