Where Worlds Collide

Your essential reading for today is the RPG Cliche List. Some randomly quoted examples:

Amber Law. Gamemasters and players can be fully expected to try and screw each other over, even during character creation. (So named for a game that actively and legendarily encourages this. For similar reasons, this also could have been called the Synnibarr Law, but there is no reliable evidence that anyone actually plays that game.) See also Mode: Zero Sum Game.

I’ve only played Amber once, but everything I’ve heard from Amber fanatics suggests there’s more than a little truth in this one.

“I’m Different, Too!” Law. In a typically feeble effort to establish their own style, most games (especially modern-day occult ones) will invent alternate terms for “gamemaster” and “campaign”. The worst of these games will also find alternate terms for “player” and “game session”. This law is also known as Ackels’ Law, after the creator of Immortal: the Invisible War, a game that redefined almost every single gaming term (yes, even “character action” and “levels you have in something”).

Who remember Aria’s “Mythguides” (i.e. GMs) and “Dramatic Personae” (otherwise known as Player Characters)?

PBEM Law. Play-By-Email RPGs invariably fail. Those that don’t are instantly relegated to the realm of mythology.

Hey, that means Kalyr (7 years and counting!) is now mythological!

Tavern Rule #1. In fantasy games, player characters usually not only start the campaign in a tavern or inn, but immediately become best friends. As with the Tolkien Law, this is one of the oldest cliches in existence…pretty much every fantasy gamemaster has used it.

What, you mean like in the Phoenyx Fantasy Game?

Weird Pete Myth. Many gamer groups actually do know a grizzled, thickly-bearded, overweight, irascible old veteran gamer. And this individual usually does (or did) run or own a game store.

I’m not even going to comment on that one…

Link from a post on the Fudge Mailing List.

Or not, if you’re a British railway modeller who doesn’t think the universe ended in 1968. Electric Nose‘s observations explain what it is that really attracted me to Swiss outline modelling. And it’s not the better running qualities of the locos.

Where all the hippies go to…

Stonehenge!
Where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live and they do live well

Stonehenge!
Where a man is a man
And the children dance to the pipes of pan

Stonehenge!
Tis a magic place
Where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s face

Stonehenge!
Where the virgins lie
And the prayer of devils fill the midnight sky

And you my love, won’t you take my hand
We’ll go back in time to that mystic land
Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow
I will take you there
I will show you how

It could have been worse; I might have posted the lyrics of Big Bottom…

The announcement the Pink Floyd have finally called it a day leaves Yes as just about the last ones standing of the big prog-rock bands from the 1970s. They’ve gone through so many lineup changes over the years that they’ve become something of a soap opera; I’ve lost count of how many times Rick Wakeman has left and rejoined. Fortunately he’s back with them for this tour.

The sound was superb; I’ve never been to show at the MEN Arena before; but I’ve suffered bad sound in enormodomes; Wembley Arena in London was particularly horrible. But this time they got the sound balance just about right, and the twiddly bits (of which there were a great many) weren’t lost in the echoes.

The band were on top form musically; especially Steve Howe. As I overheard on the tram on the way home “A bunch of granddads can show younger bands something”.

The set predictably drew heavily from the band’s 70s heyday, although later material wasn’t neglected entirely. With such an extensive back catalogue they can’t play everyone’s favourites, but most of the standards were there. I won’t give you a song-by-song account; the setlist seemed identical to Scott’s account, except there was only time for one encore, so unfortunately we didn’t get “Soon”.

“Mind Drive”, from 1996′s “Keys to Ascension II” was just awesome. It always was the standout song from their patchy 90s’ and 00s’ albums; Live, this epic is close to being the high point of the show.

“South Side of the Sky” always reminds me somehow of Lovecraft’s “The Mountains of Madness”, and this was reinforced by the inflatable Roger Dean scenery. The thing suspended above the band looked more than bit like the plush shoggoths I’ve seen on sale. In fact, the whole stage set looked disturbingly cthulhoid.

The acoustic set immediately after the interval showed some interesting reworkings of older songs, and Rick Wakeman on the grand piano was especially good in this section of the show. “Roundabout” works surprising well as a Chicago blues number. Likewise “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, with a wonderful piano solo replacing the original guitar solo, and dramatic piano chords replacing those cheesy 80s synths.

While I’ve never been a great fan of “Tales from Topographic Oceans”, the percussion section of set closer “Ritual” was pretty spectacular, with Chris Squire and Jon Anderson joining Alan White on percussion accompanied by synthesised swooshes from Wakeman.

“Starship Trooper” is the only possible encore, and it didn’t disappoint. Overall, a superb show, and proof that, even if recent albums have been patchy, they’re very far from being a spent force live.

Cold Spring Shops reminds us of one flaw about steam locomotives that some of us forget, those cinders in the eyes.

I still remember travelling on the 2′ gauge Vale of Rheidol in Wales when I was about 13, back in the days when it was still coal-fired, and a very painful cinder in the eye on the return trip, which didn’t budge until that evening.

My best train memories of that holiday aren’t of the narrow gauge steam lines at all, but the traffic on the Cambrian main line which ran right past the holiday cottage the family rented for the week. There was the class 24 spluttering up the Dovey valley on the evening Aberystwyth to York mail, a couple of Mk1s and a string of grubby parcels vans including several four-wheelers. Then there was the ‘daily freight’ along the coast line with its mix of 16t minerals, vanfits and the distinctive metal bodied gunpowder vans. And the two 24s double-heading the Saturdays only loco-hauled string of Mk1s to Pwllheli.

More recently, the last couple of times I’ve visited my nearest preserved railway, the East Lancashire, was during their diesel galas. Hymeks and Warships and Westerns, oh my….

Wave of Right-wing Spam Floods Germany

Thursday morning a flood of spam was released on the Internet containing German-language right-wing propaganda. Experts say extremists are using a “spambot” to spread their xenophobic messages as widely as possible.

Not just Germany. Like any other junk email, this hate spam knows no national boundaries. So far I’ve received several of these racist screeds at my work email, to which I’d not previously seen a single spam. Judging by the cc list the spambot seems to be generating random addresses for my work domain, and by chance a few of them turn out to be valid group mailing lists. Although the big flood appeared across the net today, I got the first one on Monday.

MaxSpeak annouces the winner of the Vicious Instapundit Blogroll Contest!

The judges’ comments:

We also observe in these quarters the sophomoric desire to shock liberals. The quoted bloggers express a desire to win the vote. They think their viciousness is a badge of machismo, like suburban white boys who affect ghetto gangsta postures. We had the Beastie Boys, and now we have the beastie bloggers. They try to act dangerous, but all they really want to do is become commodities, and they don’t even know it. There is no reason to fear nameless little people with keyboards. Rather, the approach is clinical, like the study of bugs.

I just hope that the right wing of the Blogosphere isn’t representative of the American right as a whole. One shouldn’t judge a whole nation by it’s wingnuts.

I meant to respond to this meme a few days ago. It’s to name three three songs I’d rather stick my head in the oven than listen to

I’ve avoided the cheesy novelty records like “The Birdy Song”, or entire genres like the Spanish Disco Records that fill up the charts every September. Instead, I’ll give you these three…

“D’Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart. Most. Evil. Earworm. Ever. I blame the residents of Northumberland. It was their job to keep Hadrian’s Wall in good repair.

“Geno”, by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. I suspect the only reason the Ginger and a lot of other participants of this meme nominated “Come On Eileen” is that they hadn’t heard this one. It’s worse. It has to be one of the most excruciatingly awful performances by a brass section ever committed to record. Kevin Rowland (the man with a chip on his shoulder the size of the Wirral) sacked the entire band after this record.

“Misunderstanding” by Genesis. It’s not just because this song is a horribly banal piece of self-pitying mawkish sludge. It’s because it represented the band’s “Jump the Shark” moment, the point where Genesis became the Phil Collins Bland.

I just had to quote this; it comes from the editorial of Model Railway Journal

As has often been observed, the dress sense of many modellers leaves much to be desired. In 7mm circles especially, tweed jackets unravelling at the cuffs and egg-stained society ties still appear to be de rigueur, decades after they vanished from the greater world at large. How refreshing, then, to encounter the Goth-fixated ladies and gentlemen of Diesel and Electric Modellers United (DEMU). Amid a welter of black leather, red fishnet and multiple body piercings, some seriously good modelling appears to be going on. Admire their display at an exhibition near you - visit www.demu.co.uk or catch the DEMU Showcase Event at Burton on Trent on the 5th June.

Quoted by Alan Monk (serious Closterkeller fan) on the Demodellers mailing list.

I went to the DEMU Showcase, and it was true! It seems I run into more Goths at model railway shows than I do at RPG conventions. There’s even the lady who wants to build a layout in a coffin.

Update: Some of those individuals here.

All good things must come to an end. The 100th and final Game WISH asks us:

Tell me your favorite war story. Why is it your favorite? What does it show about your character or the game/campaign you were playing? What does it exemplify about why you like gaming?

The game was a one-shot convention game played at a Sashcon, a private convention at a hotel in Leicester about five years ago. The system was Unknown Armies, with the PCs as ‘normals’, volunteers at a centre treating sleep disorders. My character was a hacker with no social skills, but with a high skill in rollerblading (which she never got to use). Another player remarked early on out of character that “because the players know it’s a horror game we’re all acting paranoid, when the characters have no reason to”.

Still, it wasn’t long before weird things started happening; it became more and more apparent that the ‘sleep disorder treatment’ was a front for something much more sinister. Not only that, half the PCs had Dark Secrets.

What makes the game memorable is the ending. My PC plus one other ended up hanging upside down above a pit full of grey dust. One other surviving PC tried to rescue us, made two critical failures and fell into the grey dust. Then he just dissolved. Then the final surviving PC battled his way into the chamber. “He’s come to rescue us!”, we thought. But no! He was from the New Inquisition, and shot us both, “to save our souls”.

I can’t restrict this to just one. I have to mention the grand finale of the In Nomine game at GenCon UK 2000, in Manchester, GMed by Jo Hart. I was playing a servitor of Vapula, Demon Prince of Technology. “I’ll take a raygun”, I said. “Bright green, looks like a child’s toy”. Entirely up the GM what, if anything, it actually did.

The climax of the adventure took place at a village fete in Devon, attended by Tony Blair. It ended up with a firefight against Tony Blair’s bodyguards, who turned out to be Malakim (think DnD Paladins in a modern-day setting and you get the idea). My raygun turned out to make a loud “RRRRRR” sound, and paralysed the target. I remember that, having been paralysed, one of the Malakim then died at the hands of a the Lilim in a portable toilet. A horrible way to go? Of course, after two uses, the gun overloaded and melted, leaving my character with a molten green mess stuck to his hand.