Graham Robinson
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| Tuesday, March 29th, 2005 | | 2:57 pm |
LJ Name Change
I've long been puzzled by the habit some people have of referring to others on their blogs by live journal username rather than by real name. This strikes me as odd - no one ever calls me "Buserian", it's just a name that I use because you have to sign up as something online, and "Graham" is normally taken. The habit also has the slight problem of making blogs unreadable for those not "in the know". If you have coffee with Susan I'm far more likely to know who you mean and be interested than if you have coffee with sexycyberwitch37. (Of course, perhaps the faux-anonymity and exclusivity is the point. I dunno. And if you *are* sexycyberwitch37, great username, please say hi!) Anyway, it turns out that "grahamrobinson" is available as a username on live journal. So I've signed it up, and will be switching over the mirror to that username as soon as I find the time. Anyone with content locked to friends that they might want me to read should add the new name to their friends list and any filters - I don't expect I'll be using the buserian account much from now on. Read or Post Comments | | Friday, March 25th, 2005 | | 9:23 am |
More Issaries Fan Policy
The debate over the Issaries Fan Policy has so far been singularly unhelpful. I'll not go through the objections to the policy, but the arguments put forward by those who support it are, um, interesting : "People should give Issaries the benefit of the doubt" Over a legal document? Really? "People should wait to see if there are any problems before complaining." Might be fine for those who don't need to adopt the license. Unfortunately, I'm already being asked by Issaries to adopt the license for some of my work. I need to decide now whether to do so. Once I've done so, it will be too late to find clauses that cause me problems. "The policy will stop litigation [that Issaries can't afford]" Worryingly variants on this have come both from someone claiming to be a lawyer and someone at least semi-official. No legal document has any meaning unless backed by the courts. Stating publicly that Issaries can't afford litigation is tantamount to saying that they will not enforce the license. That seems extremely stupid, and I hope (and expect) is wrong. "Issaries needs to protect its IP" Yep, fine, true. No one has claimed otherwise. Comments like this really annoy me. Effectively it's saying "you aren't allowed to have an issue with one sentence in one section because something a little like the whole twelve page document is necessary". A childish straw man argument which pretty much shows those making it have no answer to your actual complaint. Read or Post Comments | | Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005 | | 9:22 pm |
Issaries Fan Policy
Issaries finally published their Gloranthan fan publication policy a couple of days back, and it has led to a certain amount of debate, and bad feeling. This evening I've had the first smatterings of a flamewar, which I have hopefully doused - I'll find out in the morning, and bang heads together if need be. Much of the policy is pretty innocuous. I have some problems - the "concept use" statement has no place in any contract, for instance. I also suspect the entire exercise is pointless. I've spotted enough stupid wordings that I suspect an experienced lawyer will be able to drive a truck through this. Some people have bigger worries, and if half the stories of what Issaries have been saying and the reasons for some of these clauses are true, they have reasons. Mainly, I'm waiting to see how this plays out in practice. Would be interested to know what others think, though. Read or Post Comments | | 11:41 am |
Placebo
I was intrigued by this article on the New Scientist site. (Link stolen from Neil Gaiman.) The article lists thirteen current mysteries in science, most of which I'd already come across. The new one is the placebo effect. Everyone knows the basics of this - if you give someone morphine for pain relief, then replace it with saline, they still benefit as if they were receiving morphine. The normal explanation for this is something psychological. The interesting bit here is that if you add a drug that blocks morphine's effects to the placebo, the person does not experience pain relief - even though they don't know its there. There's something more complex going on here, and I'll look forward to seeing theories as to what. Read or Post Comments | | Saturday, March 19th, 2005 | | 6:18 pm |
Bored
I'm now recovered enough to feel bored, but not enough to manage to do any work that takes more than ten minutes or so. When I sit around doing nothing, I feel alright, but doing anything makes me tired and breathless. Very frustrating. As a result I'm poking various online discussions, and arranging to spread my evil germs around a few friends this evening. Hopefully I'll be back up to speed in a couple of days. In news from the bird table, the last two days have seen flocks of green finches descend on the garden. I counted eight yesterday, and Claire saw five at once this morning. Claire has also today spotted our first ladybird of the year, and possibly our first bumblebee. Spring is here, which pretty much guarantees rain and frosts by the middle of next week. Read or Post Comments | | Friday, March 18th, 2005 | | 8:36 pm |
| | Thursday, March 17th, 2005 | | 7:54 pm |
Musical Memories
Claire's blog today includes the comment "choose at least 6 tracks or albums listen to them and tell us what they make you think about or feel when you hear them." So, more or less at random, here's six from my collection : The Kid From Kensington, the Dogs D'Amour. In the late eighties, the Venue (rock night-club in Glasgow) decided to hold an under-18s night. A group of us would head up every weekend. Many of us were into the Dogs D'Amour, but the DJ would only play one of their songs, The Kid from Kensington. He claimed it was because no one would dance to any of the others - I reckon it was the only one he liked. As a result, Kid became a regular, at least for the five or six weeks until the Venue decided they weren't making enough cash, and the under-18s night disappeared without warning. Since we'd turned up, we went to the pub, and then to the over-18s version anyway. Sonic Temple, the Cult. This album came out while I was reading many Lovecraft stories for the first time. To this day, some of the riffs make me think of Deep Ones. Take Five, Dave Brubeck. Along with its cousin Unsquare Dance. In order to avoid compulsary torture (aka P.E.) I signed up for a crash music O level in my fifth year. There were five of us in the class, and not nearly enough time to teach us the syllabus, so the teacher (Dave Bringham, probably the coolest teacher I had) talked to us about stuff that was interesting and vaguely relevant. Dave Brubeck stands out in my memory, but he also introduced me to the works of Dave Allen. Other standout memories include Jason, Jonny, and me playing Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden on recorders, discussions on whether the score for Eric Clapton's Layla needed the words "Guitar Electrico Obligato" at the start, and listening to early Whitesnake. The Everley Brothers. Not any particular song here, just their entire work. Mum was always a fan, and I grew up with the Evs complete works playing semi-constantly. Their early work still defines good pop music for me, and albums like "Songs our Daddy Taught Us" and "Stories He Could Tell" are minor country masterpieces that show the genre can be so much better than Dolly Parton and Achy Breaky Heart. See also Kenny Rogers. Floodlands, the Sisters of Mercy. Goth nowadays seems to mean wearing a bit of black lipstick or lace. Uhuh. True goth was defined by Andrew Eldritch and Patricia Morrison, and This Corrison remains the genre's finest five minutes. The Perceptions of Johnny Punter, Fish. Discovering Marillion was a dividing point for me. Either my parents or friends' parents were willing to attend Status Quo and Ultravox concerts with me, but heading up to Christmas 1987, Marillion at the Edinburgh Playhouse was too much, and Mum waited in the car till I reappeared. It was the point at which I really started to discover my own musical identity. Shortly afterwards, lead singer Fish left the band, who have carried on to bigger and better things, none more so than last years stunning Marbles collection. Fish, on the other hand, produced two decent albums, a collection of covers, and one album that was decidedly dodgy. In the process he went through three record labels. He was starting to look a little washed up. On my birthday in 1997 I was in Glasgow with Claire, at the time a relatively new girlfriend, and wandered into one of the record shops on Great Western Road. They had a new CD by Fish that I hadn't even heard about, Sunsets on Empire. So, Claire bought it for me as a present. We spent the rest of the night in the Queen Margaret Union, in my case getting riotously drunk. The next day, I played the disk for the first time. It opens with this track, a deceptively simple, rolling riff, confrontational lyrics, and production values that Fish has never matched before nor since. There are many great tracks on the album, but the opener represented the first time I'd been so excited by a Fish album since he left Marillion. Much of that was to do with this guy, Steven Wilson, who produced the whole album, as well as co-writing and playing guitar on most tracks. I'd never heard of him before, but soon found out that he had his own band, Porcupine Tree, and picked up their live album, Coma Divine. Since then I've enjoyed a voyage of discovery alongside Mr Wilson, discovering with delight his smaller projects - Bass Communion, IEM, Blackfield - and a host of other artists he's worked with or been inspired by. Much of my current interest in music can be traced back to this one track. Read or Post Comments | | 6:41 pm |
Birthday Plans
Coming up worryingly fast is my 30th birthday (*). I've no idea what I'm doing this year, but it will happen on 7th May. (Assuming that's the Saturday - if I've got the number wrong, I mean the Saturday...) Most likely this will involve a party at my house, and possibly a bbq. I am open to better ideas. As usual, everyone is invited. Mark your diaries now. (*) What do you mean you don't count in base 11? Read or Post Comments | | Wednesday, March 16th, 2005 | | 5:12 pm |
And back from the Doctor
I have a "bad cold". No surprise there. I'm under orders to put my feet up, relax, and sleep as much as possible, but have no interesting pills to take - fair enough, they probably wouldn't do any good. I also have a sick line in case the Uni wants to see it. I also got a bit of a lecture on how the local practice works. Apparently, if you phone up before nine o'clock you will get an appointment the same day. Anyone after that gets put off till next week, unless they're an emergency (i.e. argue hard enough.) The idea of phoning up for an appointment the next day is, apparently, just something weird I've come up with. Thankfully, on getting home, Robin Laws and his economics of dungeon-bashing made me smile. Read or Post Comments | | 4:13 pm |
Bloody NHS
Update : NHS 24 passed me back to the surgery, who now want me to go straight down and see someone today. Why they couldn't do that in the first place, I've no idea. Seriously upset. Read or Post Comments | | 3:51 pm |
Bloody Viruses
I've been slowly coming down with a cold for a few days now. Last night's game went pretty badly - I was having trouble concentrating, and my NPCs were frankly dull. Today, I feel worse. Bad enough that I've taken the unusual (for me) step of trying to get a doctor's appointment. Note the "trying". Apparently they have no appointments till next Tuesday. Apparently this is my fault for not phoning earlier. Apparently someone might cancel, so if I can haul myself out of my sick bed long enough to phone up every half hour I might get seen before I die of old age. Bitter? Moi? So, I've tried phoning the other surgery in the town, to be told that it would be "unprofessional" of them to treat me. Eh? Then, I tried phoning the nearest hospital, who suggested phoning NHS 24 (08454242424) who so far seem quite helpful, if a little bizarre. Details have been given, and a nurse should phone me back "soon". Not sure how the nurse will listen to my chest, let alone write me a prescription. I really need to see a doctor, but apparently all I will get is someone to talk to. Maybe I should just go back to bed. Read or Post Comments | | Tuesday, March 15th, 2005 | | 7:50 am |
Triple-booked again
I've just had confirmed that I'm now triple-booked for Saturday, 26th March. This fine day sees my sister's birthday celebrations, the latest Conpulsion in Edinburgh, and the first episode of the new Doctor Who. I wonder how Anne will react to me watching the new show during her party? Read or Post Comments | | Monday, March 14th, 2005 | | 8:00 pm |
The Weekend
I was going to write a fairly detailed post about the weekend just finished, but Claire got there first. My weekend was pretty much the same as hers, but I drank on Friday, drove on Saturday, and didn't wear a short skirt at all. This weekend did prove pretty good for bird-watching. Three pairs of buzzards were spotted (one on Saturday morning, two on Sunday afternoon) along with a couple of kestrels. Returning from the party on Sunday morning, we nearly ran over an owl sat in the middle of the road - thankfully it flew off. The size and colouring led us to identify it as a little owl, quite a rare sighting. In the past we've also seen barn owls, a sparrowhawk, and a peregrine. Birds of prey are obviously doing well in this area. Alex Ferguson has proposed an alternative system for naming the victory levels in Heroquest. I like this, a lot, and intend to use this in future. Read or Post Comments | | Saturday, March 12th, 2005 | | 5:10 pm |
Cat Religion
This morning, Claire and I woke up to a powercut. Not a huge problem, really - I had to boil water in a pan rather than the kettle to make tea. What did intrigue me was the cats' reactions. Something was wrong. They knew what was wrong, they just didn't know why. Cisco refused to walk through the middle room, even though it was between him and his food. The middle room has one small window, so normally there's a light permenantly on in there - presumably that absence was bothering Cisco. Cary, on the other hand, was generally upset. When the power came back on around quarter to nine, I was a little surprised at how much background noise we normally live with - central heating, fridge, not to mention all those computer fans. After that the cats were fine. In humans, this sort of fear of the unknown led to the development of religions. I wonder what beliefs cats have? Read or Post Comments | | Wednesday, March 9th, 2005 | | 1:25 pm |
Comments Re-enabled
I've added some hacks that should prevent most comment spam, so commenting here is re-enabled. I'll leave comments turned on at the livejournal mirror as well, at least for the moment. The anti-spam stuff might cause some problems - if it affects you, let me know. Read or Post Comments | | Monday, March 7th, 2005 | | 8:30 pm |
What I think makes a good role-player
I've been avoiding posting my own answer to the survey, in case I bias the results of someone who hasn't yet taken it. (If you haven't taken it, head to http://grahamrobinson.com/survey.html now. Come back here after you've sent me your own answers.) I'm starting to think that if I don't answer soon, I never will. So, here's my order, with copious explanatory notes : I'll start with the essentials, common to all good role-players : 1. Ensuring Enjoyment for Others. Role-playing is a group hobby, in which everyone participates to have fun (for some definition of "fun"). Nothing screams good role-player to me like someone who goes out of their way to make the game more fun for others, especially at their own (character's) expense. 2. Tell Stories. Equally, role-playing is all about stories - whether the story is "we killed this big dragon" or some complex political drama, complicated by star-crossed lovers. Good role-playing is about telling interesting stories. 3. Creativity. Perhaps this isn't obvious, but it is perfectly possible to role-play without any creativity. There are plenty of people who can raise a laugh by quoting Monty Python, play a character by memorising the Toreador clan book, or suggest a plan that worked well for Captain Kirk that one time. Given a wide enough range of reading, tv watching, etc. such a person may be a hugely entertaining, impressive role-player. But the gamer with genuine wit, imagination, and panache! Ah, there is true greatness. Next come the optionals. These are areas which may be missing entirely from a great role-player, but which if present often help to impress. 4. Acting. I'm a pretty lousy actor, so I hope this isn't essential... 5. Humour. Apparently there are people who play role-playing games entirely seriously. Cor blimey. 6. Goal Completion. This (and the following problem solving) are important as they allow the plot to move forward and achieve its potential. Not every player needs these abilities, but having them in the group is very, very useful. 7. Problem Solving. 8. Game Mastery. Someone who can use the rules and/or game world to produce unexpected results can be very cool. 9. Props. In freeforms, props and costumes are very important, and this category would move up four or five places. At the tabletop, props are cool, and costumes are weird, bordering on the creepy. Now we come to two categories which are essential, but only because their complete absence is a sure sign of bad role-playing. 10. Immersion. The game gets going. A real atmosphere is building. Someone makes a dramatic comment. Then one person says "That reminds me of a character I played in another game years ago..." Nothing wrecks a mood faster than gamers who won't stop going off at tangents. Breaking out of immersion is needed - to make dice rolls, for example, and someone needs to get the door for the pizza delivery man. But a good role-player knows when its appropriate, and how to do it with minimal interruption for others. 11. Playing the Character. Ah, yes, the favoured excuse of disruptive players. (For examples, see pretty much any issue of Knights of the Dinner Table.) Having no consistency to characters is a disaster - "You fool! Why did you trust me! I am famed throughout the land as a master thief!" "I thought you were playing a paladin?" Beyond that, it's rarely important. Real people are complex, contradictory and frequently unpredictable. Plot, interest and meta-game often provide reasons for a particular decision. Character consistency barely gets a look in, and, if applied too fervently, can lead to one-dimensional characters. (It has recently struck me that perhaps some people see this more as exploring a character. If that exploration is external, that means its being done via the character's interaction with other characters and the broader plot, that would seem to me to be telling stories. After all, it is hard to see what sort of stories a role-playing game can tell which aren't character based. On the other hand, if the character exploration is entirely internal, that may be fun for you, but how do I tell? As an analogy, method acting might make Dustin Hoffman a good actor, but it doesn't make him a better actor than Laurence Olivier.) And finally, the areas that seem pretty irrelevant : Character Survival. If anyone really cared about survival, why would anyone play Call of Cthulhu? Rules Mastery. If someone at the table understands the rules, they can explain them as needed. If no one does, make it up as you go along! Treasure Collection. This is very important for a good game - people like to be rewarded. But it isn't part of good role-playing. Read or Post Comments | | 8:26 am |
Tommy Vance RIP
Tommy Vance died of a stroke this weekend. When I was teenager, there were four DJs worth listening to on the radio. John Peel died last year, now this. I've no idea if Alan Freeman, or Clyde's Tom Russell are still around. I hope so. God I feel old. Peel played the sort of music you thought you ought to listen to, in case you heard something you liked. Vance played rock, the genre that dominated my teenage years, and to a lesser extent still does. He played music with enthusiasm, and in a way that would be impossible in these "DJ presses the button to play the next track chosen by the station manager" days. I once heard him play the (at the time) new single by Fish, Credo. Afterwards Vance said "That was a great song. A really great song. That's such a good song, I think I'll play it again." So he did. A great man, sorely missed. Read or Post Comments | | Friday, March 4th, 2005 | | 1:36 pm |
"...but I was only playing my character!"
The last week has been interesting. Saturday, we started playing the Light Bringer's Quest, which is (a) very long - I expect we'll finish around May - and (b) surprisingly deadly. I mean, I knew it was dangerous, but I wasn't expecting to nearly kill the Orlanth character twice before the second station had been reached. Tuesday, one of my players (encouraged by two others) managed to disturb me somewhat - at least enough that I'm going to find it difficult to sleep in the same house as him. And Thursday's game failed to happen, due to player illness. We've also been having a little debate on the wattgamers-chat list. Its now evolved into "What makes a good GM?" but the original (and to me more interesting) topic was "What is the essential difference between a GM and a player?" To me this is more intriguing, as it leads to the possibility of role-playing differently - could a game work with every player also doing part of the GM's job? Or a game without a recognisible GM at all? So far we've got (to my mind) the following : 1. The GM is the final arbiter of disputes. 2. The GM is responsible for a consistent framework within which the characters interact. (Including rules calls, playing minor characters, providing info on how things look and sound and smell, etc.) Anything else you can add would be interesting. I'm also starting to see ways in which even these could be dropped, or passed on to the players. I haven't yet had enough responses to the recent survey to reach any conclusions. (Anyone who hasn't taken part yet, see http://grahamrobinson.com/survey.html for details.) However, I have been very surprised at how highly most people are placing "Playing your character" as a sign of good role-playing. While I'm not going to claim that playing your character is completely unimportant, it seems to me to be a fairly low priority. Take the following example choices : 1. A new player bellies up to the table. You have the choice of : (a) doing something to ease the player into the game, or (b) doing something that makes it difficult for the player to join the game. 2. In a given situation, you have the choice of : (a) doing something fun, interesting, or entertaining. (b) doing something dull. Both of these should be no-brainers. Anyone answering (b) to either question in pretty much any circumstance has probably got the wrong hobby. For another example, look at Babylon 5 : 3. Londo asks G'kar to join him for a drink. Does G'kar : (a) Make an insulting remark and leave? (b) Enthusiastically get drunk with his old friend? (c) Try to murder his old enemy? Depending on the episode, you can justify any of these. G'kar's character is interesting precisely because what is "in character" for him changes so drastically. (For yet another example, see Garibaldi, whose "out of character" behaviour signals one of the better plot lines from year four.) Now I'm not arguing that "playing in character" is entirely irrelevant - some consistency is needed for meaningful interactions. What I'm saying is that (a) for a good role-player acting in character is normally a minor consideration, well below being entertaining, ensuring enjoyment for others, and encouraging interesting stories in the priority stakes; and (b) what constitutes "in character" is so complex, that very little behaviour of a well-rounded character can't be justified if the player has some motive to do so. Otherwise we might as well go back to those early D&D campaigns, and loudly proclaim "What part of 'I'm Chaotic Evil' don't you understand?" Read or Post Comments | | Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005 | | 6:14 pm |
Server Move
Two unexplained power outages within a week mean that that server needs to be taken out of production. I've spent much time moving the last few sites to a new machine within a (hopefully!) more reliable data centre. I'm also way behind on e-mail, and not updating this journal as often as I like. These facts may be related. Read or Post Comments | | Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 | | 2:17 pm |
Quick Survey
I know there's a number of role-players read this - everyone else can skip now. Below is a list of areas that might be considered important to "good role-playing". I'm not going define the term any further - it means what you think it means. What I'd like people to do is take the list, and place it in order from most to least important in your view. Once you've done that, either e-mail me the list (you can drop the bits in brackets) or post it as a comment on the live journal mirror. If you like, you can include a cut-off, below which you consider everything else to be irrelevant. I'd also like an idea how long you've been role-playing (to the nearest year if well under a decade, nearest five years if longer). Please only give me one response, although you can make that anonymous if you wish. I'll post the results of this totally un-scientific experiment at some point. Any questions, comments, or areas I've completely forgotten, please let me know! Playing the Character. (Making decisions, performing actions, etc. that are correct for that character.) Immersion. (Not getting distracted by the world outside the game, not making comments that only make sense out of game.) Acting. (Including dramatic speeches, emoting, accents, and so forth.) Humour. (Making yourself or others laugh.) Problem Solving. (Including murder mysteries or other detective work, finding and defeating traps, riddles, etc.) Character Survival. (Possibly including not losing essential body parts or sanity.) Rules Mastery. (Someone who doesn't rely on the GM, other players, or the manuals for the mechanical bits of the game.) Game Mastery. (This is about players here - by this I mean ability to get good results out of the rules system. Anything from min-maxing character creation to inventive spell use.) Tell Stories. (The character is secondary to the plot.) Ensuring Enjoyment for Others. (Involving others in the game, helping them achieve their goals, etc.) Treasure Collection. (Including coins or macguffins, and also xp, hero points, ticks-in-the-boxes or whatever your system uses for character advancement.) Goal Completion. (Ability to focus on the goals, whether set by the system, the player(s), or the GM.) Creativity. (Bringing new ideas, focuses, plotlines, details, etc. to the game.) Edit : Props. (Including handouts, detailed backgrounds, weapons or tools, costumes, etc.)Anything Else. (If I've missed something, add it in! Be specific!) I've edited this, so anyone wanting to add "props" to their list, please just reply to your comment... Read or Post Comments |
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