Preview: The Play’s The Thing RPG
A famous author, important in our history
Finds a new home in the digital age
From immortal text springs new revelry
And young gamers take their turn upon the stage
Late in October last year a project appeared on the fundraising site Kickstarter. It was a simple proposal, a roleplaying game where the players took on roles within an acting troupe about to perform a Shakespearean play. There was a catch, however. Each player would be allowed to alter the play to better suit their character’s desires. Richard III could end up the hero, while Romeo and Juliet could live happily ever after.
What I Play, Why I Play
I was reading one of Frontline Gamer’s Sunday Sermons recently and it got me thinking. This, in and of itself, is not unusual. I’ll often see, or read, or hear something that sets the old gray matter in motion. This was just one of those times where the motion turned out to be useful. A bit like the time I realised my favourite musical genre is ‘Soundtrack’.
The entry discussed how gamers are usually broken down into two groups: Win At All Cost (WAAC) and Fluff At All Cost (FAAC). The titles are fairly self-explanatory, but just in case: WAAC gamers will bring anything to the table that will ensure their victory, will be vainglorious in victory, and will insufferable when defeated. FAAC gamers, on the other hand, insist on taking a more narrative approach to the game, even insisting that ‘fluff equal rules’. Frontline Gamer goes on to describe how this simplified method of defining gamers is, basically, a complete load of bollocks and that actual gamers are a lot more nuanced. There’s a bell curve and everything. It’s well worth reading, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
Anyway, I got to the end of this article and felt that familiar sensation of my brain starting to process and interpret what I had just read. Overall, I agreed with the article. There is a lot more than two types of gamers, not just in general either. Each different game system has its own strata of gamer types. The more I thought about it, the more I realised my position within each game was more or less the same. I’m a fluffy player. Not re-enacts battles from novels fluffy, more fluffy lite. I let the story inspire me, but ultimately the rules are still in control. Before I go on any further, I should perhaps provide a little background.
Fiction: Untapped Power
The following story takes place in the universe of Warmachine/Hordes and the Iron Kingdoms. It doesn’t fit into a specific period of time, and the persons and places involved were chosen for style reasons. I don’t care if Pendrake is actually a captive of the Skorne, or if Point Bourne has actually been captured by Khador. It’s just a story. Enjoy.
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Private Declan checked the bayonet mount on his rifle for the third time in as many hours. Some of the men in his unit thought he was being over-cautious, but Declan didn’t want the blade falling off at an inopportune moment. The mount was fine, as usual, but that would only quiet his worry for so long. If something interesting didn’t happen he knew he’d be checking it again soon enough.
Declan’s Trencher squad was one of two squads assigned to the command of a haughty Journeyman Warcaster named Bridges. He, in turn, was protecting some professor from Corvis University. An odd fellow by the name of Pendrake. Pendrake had arrived at Point Bourne three days earlier and immediately approached Declan’s Platoon commander. He requested a small force be put together that could aid him with investigating ruins that lay to the north. The front had been quiet for a while now, so the commander agreed and set about assembling the necessary men.
To Hobbiton and Back Again
Late last week I received a message on Facebook from a friend. She was wondering if my wife and I wanted to come with her, her husband, and his son on a trip to Hobbiton. I resisted the urge to immediately say yes and instead restrained myself to “let me check”. It’s not that my wife doesn’t love the Lord of the Rings films, though she has only read The Hobbit, it was more that it takes a couple of hours to drive to Matamata (the town nearest to the set) and that would mean having to get up a lot earlier than is usual for a Saturday.
Saturday had not yet dawned when we started getting ready. Sadly, Saturday would not properly dawn all day due to a thick, persistent layer of cloud over the North Island, so it was more of a pallid murk. It felt like the Dark Lord was already casting his shadow over our expedition, but we were not deterred. There was just enough time for a quick bite to eat and a drink before our friends arrived and we were on our way.
Review: The Adventures of Tintin
I should state from the outset that I have been a fan on Tintin for many, many years. Decades, really. Ever since I first spotted one of the books at my local library. Tintin (along with Asterix) was my comic of choice when I was growing up, and one that has always held a special place in my heart.
It is understandable then that I was rather excited to hear that someone was making Tintin movie. Sure, it isn’t the first to be made – there where three live action attempts back in the 60′s that received mixed reviews, the animated movie Lake of the Sharks, and an animated series from the early 90′s. What got me so excited this time around was who was behind the film. Steven Spielberg as director, Peter Jackson as producer, and Weta handling the CG. Could it get any better?
One of the things that had bugged me about the previous live action attempts was they all seemed to end up with Snowy, Tintin’s faithful dog, being a little too realistic – mostly because they used a real dog. Sure, there were limitations at the time. They couldn’t just add a CG dog in later, and using a puppet or animatronic dog would have just looked wrong. I also believed that having characters on the screen who actually looked like the ones in the books would help the movie enormously.
I’m pleased to say I was not disappointed.
Something a little different
The most recent episode of World’s End Radio included a short summary of the life of the Emperor from Warhammer 40,000. It’s not overly detailed, but still quite entertaining. I was so entertained by this that I decided to add some images and turn it into a video…
Fresh blood for old bones
Ever since Games Workshop went into rumour control mode, the number and quality of previews has dropped dramatically. Now, almost every preview we get comes directly from GW themselves. I say almost, because there are still a few enterprising folks out there who manage to get their hands on things much earlier than the rest of us. One of these persons was able to get their hands on a copy of January’s White Dwarf magazine and take a few photos. What makes these photos worthy of discussion is that they are of the new Warhammer Vampire Counts army book and some of the new models being released along side it. You can take a look at the photos here.
New Year, New Resolutions
The clock has stuck midnight, the fireworks have exploded harmlessly within the persistent New Zealand cloud layer, and now there is only one thing left to do. It’s resolution time again, and unlike most years, I’m actually making some this year.
Words Left Unsaid
At the end of October I made my first career change in almost a decade. Way back in 2002 I started working for at a helpdesk for one of New Zealand’s bigger internet providers. Back then my role was mainly taking calls from customers with dialup connections, but after a while I was also dealing with broadband. I was working for a third-party who held the contract to run the helpdesk, not the company itself, but after a year a group of us moved across to set up a ‘in house’ helpdesk. There was less than 40 of us in the beginning, but we quickly grew in number until the helpdesk was 300+ strong.
Over the years I moved around a little. I spent some time providing support for my fellow reps, a couple of years in a slightly more advanced team (not quite tier 2, more tier 1.5), and I even spent three years working the graveyard shift. One thing remained constant over all those roles, however, I spent most of my day with a headset on my head, ready and waiting for the next call to come through. There were busy times were you didn’t have to wait. As soon as you finished your current call, another was waiting. You quickly learned to appreciate the quiet times, but it was still a surprisingly stressful job.
All that changed last year, however. I moved into a seconded role elsewhere within the company, helping Online Team migrate one of our internal knowledge bases from one platform to another. What was originally a six-week role kept getting extended, to the point where I was still with the Online Team a year later. All this changed once I got back from my honeymoon. The helpdesk had become exceedingly busy over the winter and they needed me back. It was something of a culture shock going back, but it also strengthened my resolve to get out of the helpdesk once and for all.
My chance came a couple of months later when one of my former team members announced he was pulling up stakes and moving his family to Australia. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity and applied for the vacancy his departure had created. An interview or two and a couple of weeks later I got the role. I had finally escaped. The stress lifted from my shoulders and I felt elated. Only one task remained, writing my leaving email.
I’d long considered what I would say should I ever leave the helpdesk. I’d seen so much during my time, it would be hard to put it all in to words. Others had mentioned specific people in their leaving emails, but I wanted to avoid that. Not because I didn’t want to, but because a lot of the people I’d worked with over the years had already moved on, and those who remained I could always talk to in person. Ultimately I never got around to writing my email, but I’m going to try to do so here. It isn’t exactly what I wanted to say, but it should convey the message well enough.
