Sunday, July 11, 2010

Continuum 2010

Last weekend was Continuum. Claire's sister had agreed to dog-sit for us, so we decanted Sarah, Chris, and too much luggage in to the back of the car, and headed south. We made good time, arriving about four. Signed in, and unloaded the car into the rooms. John Foster halls were much as I remember them - large, clean, sparsely furnished rooms, and too frickin' hot. We had time to catch up with a few friends, and grab a pizza. Then it was time to get in to costume for the first game.

"Veterans Day" is a superhero game, set two decades after the heroes had thwarted an alien invasion. I'd been cast as a rockstar, with cheerleader-style regeneration/immortality powers. No type-casting there. Claire and Sarah spent half an hour on my hair and make up. Combined with leather trousers, frilled shirt, and swishy highwayman coat I presented the fine image of a new wave poseur. (Sadly, there appear to be no photos from the game.) The love of my life (played by Claudia) had dumped me years before for "refusing to grow up", and getting her back was my major goal. I had to spend half the game trying to seduce Claudia - the hardships I suffer for my art. The rest of my time was largely divided between trying to find out who was stealing my money, and why, and trying to figure out just how big a bastard one of my former bandmates was. "Veterans Day" is a great fun, rules free game, and was the highlight of the con for me. Play it if you get a chance.

I'd set Saturday aside as a quiet day. Following a pretty decent breakfast, Claire and I wandered into nearby Oadby, in search of last minute props for my game, and raided the Asda. Bottled water being deemed essential in the heat, we chickened out of walking back, grabbing a taxi instead. A kindly, and magnificently armoured, orc helped us carry the shopping from where the taxi could drop us to our little flat. Unfortunately, the cleaners were in the kitchen. I walked in, giving them a shock. Then the poor lass saw the orc behind me...

The rest of the day was spent in chatting, watching the rubber sword larpers taking on all comers, watching the Germany match with German friends, playing with friends' children, and generally relaxing. We headed back in to Oadby to the Wetherspoon for dinner. They kept up their usual standard of customer service - we ordered four steaks, covering the possibilities from rare to medium-well. They arrived covering medium to shoe leather. Replacements were requested. Then they took forty-five minutes to bring out the belgian waffles, which only appeared when we chased them. Back to the con, and the most one sided game of Battlestar Galactica I've ever seen. The cylons were clearly going to win before the first jump occurred, partly through bad luck, partly through the secret cylon Boomer using the recon power to stick the best of the crisis cards to the bottom of the deck. By halfway through, my only chance of victory was being dealt the remaining cylon loyalty card. I got lucky, and had one turn as a cylon before "we" won.

Sunday was freeform overload day, with my "The Last Voyage of the Santa Anna" running twice, morning and evening. Both went well, though rather differently. The players seemed to have fun, the big plots worked more or less, and the "oh, cool" stuff I had planned was greated with "oh, cool". I'm not going to say too much, as I plan to run again, after I pile through the three pages of tweaks I've so far assembled. If anyone else has feedback or photos, both would be very much appreciated. I was very impressed by both the high standards of play, and the high standards of costuming. Thanks to everyone who took part.

In between "Santa Anna" voyages, I was playing a thinly disguised Del Boy Trotter in a game based on Firefly. Costume this time was my Victorian gentleman outfit, with a more modern shirt and a couple of toy pistols. There are some photos of this, but mainly of the back of my head. I've not seen a decent picture. The game had some definite fun moments. Early on, I was being interviewed by the sheriff, and he hit the triggers for my flashbacks of the war. As I over-acted this, I misjudged where a table was, and scrapped my nose. Between the noise and the blood running down my face, a crowd of people soon gathered, worried both in and out of character. The sheriff's explanation that I'd "just fallen over in the cells" didn't help... After being released, I did a quick loop round the gaming area, complaining loudly about "police brutality", before washing the blood off and getting back to the game proper. I ended up ditching my ship to pay some old debts, joining the Serenity crew as co-pilot, and dating Kaylee. Apparently, she was impressed by my piloting skills. Overall, I think a win for me.

Too many players to list turned out excellent performances, making for an enjoyable afternoon. Unfortunately, the game itself has some major flaws. The rules are too complex, and the most complex bit I had to deal with (spaceships) isn't explained at all. The GMs didn't know the rules, resulting in them overrruling each other. Achieving anything positive is hard work, but negative effects can be played on someone else in seconds without thought. (In my case, two hours of hard work was undone in under thirty seconds.) Worst, there's an auto-kill built into the rules. I, and everyone else I've spoken to, had a goal of "see the Doctor about..." At the end of the game, the GMs announced that everyone who'd been to the doctor was dead. Okay, several of us decided that something that stupid hadn't really happened. But killing characters for completing a straight-forward goal without even a hint that this might happen is just plain dumb. All of which is a shame. There's a decent game in there, but the writers need to overhaul the parts that don't work.

Sunday night devolved into the usual late night drinking, chatting, tall tale telling (how can anyone not know the story of the dread gazebo?), and only occassional shepherding of drunk norwegians. Two years may be too long to wait for the next one. But next time, I'm bringing a fan.

Posted by graham @ 10:20 pm

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Twitching Again

We'd just sat down to watch telly, when I noticed...

Claire quickly grabbed a camera, and the sparrowhawk posed nicely for us, until Tara wandered over to see what the fuss was about. Giant dogs were a bit much, obviously, and the hawk shot off. This follows on from yesterday's sighting of a red kite flying over Edinburgh.

Posted by graham @ 09:31 pm

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Morning After

A few predictions :

The Economy Is Shafted. The Tory priorities of cutting (already pretty modest) borrowing and cutting taxes (for the top 1% of earners) means cutting services and investment. Both of which mean job losses and therefore lower private spending. We'll be formally back in recession by Christmas, and this time we'll see double the business failures, double the house re-possessions, and half a million extra unemployed. Maybe worse.

The Cause of Electoral Reform will be set back by a Referendum on AV. Alternate Vote is not PR. It's enforced tactical voting. There'll be the odd constituency in which it makes a difference, but in most it's irrelevant. In some cases, it will even entrench the sitting MP. Where I live, Labour has 49.8% of the vote - not much to pick up on second votes for an overall majority. On the other hand, under 3 member STV we'd get two Labour, one SNP. Make it 5 member and the Liberals may well get one as well.

AV is a distraction - we need STV. But a referendum, won or lost, will make it harder to get that reform. Either we'll have just changed the system, or we'll have just tried to change the system and failed. Either way, real reform takes a step backwards.

The Lib-Dem Vote Will Collapse. I don't know about the rest of the country, but in Scotland, Lib-Dem supporters are angry. Never mind that Clegg is doing exactly what he said before the election, the reality of a Tory PM propped up by the Lib-Dems was not what Scottish supporters wanted. Many of the 11 Scottish Lib-Dem MPs will be out at the next election. Labour may make some gains, but I suspect the SNP will pick up most of those seats. Unlike in '79, the SNP have been pleasingly anti-Tory and progressive in their negotiations over the last week.

Another Election in 2012. There are pretty much zero policies in common between the Lib-Dems and the Tories, but they're committed for now. The earliest crisis point is the budget next March, the latest the following budget. I think the latter one more likely, so I think a vote of no confidence over the budget in March 2012, with a general election following from that.

Posted by graham @ 08:58 am

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Birthday BBQ

Yep, that time of year again. I'm nearly another year older, and charred food and beer is the traditional celebration. Everyone is welcome, and we'll be providing lifts from/to the closest station (Linlithgow). You probably know the drill by now, but in case, here's the details :

Where? Our House

When? Saturday 8th May, from roughly 6pm.

Bring? Yourself, something to eat, something to drink, friends.

No presents, just your presence. Donate some money to charity if you really want to mark my aging.

Any questions, drop me an email or text.

Hope to see you then!

Posted by graham @ 09:31 am

Friday, April 2, 2010

Dates for the Diary

In case anyone's keeping note...

24-25 April - Student Nationals, Heriot Watt. I'm running the excellent "Carry On at Camp David" freeform in the evening, roughly 6-9, and still need two more players, preferably girlies. If you're interested, sign up here.

8 May - Birthday BBQ. The traditional cook out and booze up. All welcome.

2-5 July - Continuum, Leicester. Britain's finest convention. Sign up now.

7 August - 10th Wedding Anniversary. We've booked Bo'ness Town Hall to celebrate a decade together. Formal invites will go out soon, but we've got 150 spaces, so we're hoping we can squeeze everyone in.

Posted by graham @ 08:24 am

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Six is Company?

I'm on my own this weekend*, as Claire's away being crafty. So, I was wondering about having people round for chat/games/music/whatever on Saturday. Anyone interested?

* - You're never alone with three dogs, a cat, an internet connection**, three phones, and a pile of CDs.

** - Although the internet may also be abandoning me on Sunday - they're doing work in my area that "shouldn't" interrupt service...***

*** - And now that the nested footnotes are way longer than the body text, I'll stop. Sorry.

Posted by graham @ 08:12 pm

Friday, February 19, 2010

Bridge over Politics

I suspect that for many students, their first serious contact with politics is being part of a student society, club, or union. These typically have all the trappings of democracy. Votes! Elections! Meetings! Debates! Speeches! Factions! Votes of No Confidence! In fact, far more democracy than you'd ever be allowed with something as unimportant as government. Some people get terribly excited by the whole thing, and engage in as many acts of democracy as possible. Often without noticing that the society/club/union carries on pretty much the same regardless, acting out of tradition ("We always meet on a Thursday") and with most of the work being done by those with the enthusiasm or organisational skills needed, whether they've been elected or not.

I do wonder what effect all this has on the average person. Are they put off by the arguments and factionalism, and engage with real world politics in a more mature, considered manner? Or do only those who enjoy the arguments and factionalism go into politics for real? I've bad feeling I know the answer to that one...

Gordon and I lampooned these tendencies quite deliberately when we founded the Glasgow Uni Bridge Society. Everyone who joined - all 20-odd of us - got a place on the executive, with their choice of title. You couldn't use the same one as someone else, but since no one did anything, it didn't really matter what you called yourself. Whatever would sound good on the "membership of clubs & societies" bit of graduate recruitment forms. We had a president, treasurer, secretary, social secretary, games convenor, tournament convenor, and many more. I can't even remember what my position was - probably secretary, as I did maintain the membership list (with titles), and wrote the constitution. This was largely an exercise in using the word "quorum" as often as possible, and ensuring that the complicated rules for a quorum boiled down in practice to "having enough to play Bridge". We did have lots of meetings (where we played bridge) and charged a pound for membership (which we spent on tea and chocolate to welcome the newest exec member). Ah, happy days.

(For the record, I was games society treasurer, bridge society secretary (probably), and try to keep real world politics at the far end of a ten foot pole...)

Posted by graham @ 08:21 pm

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