/var/log/orava

Minireview: STUFF (Paranoia)

STUFF is (gasp) an equipment book for Paranoia . Of course, since this is Paranoia we’re talking about, it’s not quite the usual collection of weapons, armor and other useful gear you’d typically find in an rpg equipment catalog.

Since the new version Paranoia has a twisted version of internal economics and even an eBay clone (C-Bay!), this book is centered on those. All the items are portrayed as being C-Bay listings… which means that there is even more than the usual levels of Paranoia bullshit going on, since the PCs are getting item descriptions from other NPCs (all with agendas). No big surprise that most (all?) of the descriptions are missing lots of relevant details, and a large number are flat-out lies. There are various payment and delivery methods (again mimicking eBay), all with their own risks. Fun stuff.

The book contains a grand total of 225 items, separated into categories by vague item type. You get stuff like Gravitic Gauntlet (one size fits all), Threat Evaluation Eyewear, Treason-Free Speech Limiters and LubriSkates. Oh, and let’s not forget the inspiring 101 Fun Songs to Sing in Line songbook.

It’s a great resource for a Paranoia game, no question. The only complaint I have is that the GM descriptions of the items (what the things actually do) are next to the “listings” themselves, so if you want to let your players browse this like an in-game C-Bay listing you’ll need to do a lot of creative printing/cut-pasting or some such. I’d much have preferred to have the GM descriptions in a totally separate section.

Minireview: Bloody Hearts - Diablerie Britain (Vampire)

In the early days of Vampire: the Masquerade White Wolf was still trying to figure out the direction of the game – and nowhere is that more apparent than in the early pre-gen adventure modules. While WW adventures have a well-deserved reputation for sucking, these early “gems” really excel in that arena. So, here’s Bloody Hearts: Diablerie Britain, a sucktastic adventure “module” which continues in the hallowed footsteps of Awakening: Diablerie Mexico.

Well, the good parts first. It’s better than Diablerie: Mexico (though most things are). Instead of just being a high-level vampiric dungeon crawl, this one is only partly a high-level vampiric dungeon crawl. The other part contains some actually quite interesting NPCs, including the “target” Methuselah. The NPCs are mostly good and could easily be used to good effect elsewhere, and the Methuselah backstory is pretty cool and a bit unusual.

Then the bad. Well, first off, the thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The PCs are expected to be Archons in service to a Justicar (an example one is provided here)… and then they are expected to suddenly decide to go to the U.K. and diablerize an ancient vampire, hidden deep underground. Wtf? Sure, a McGuffin is provided to drive this “plot”… but that doesn’t help all that much. In addition, while this is ostensibly set partly in the U.K. (with a geographically-challenged map in good old WW tradition), there is pretty much nothing British about the whole thing. It could be called Frozen Hearts: Diablerie Greenland just as easily, with minimal changes. There is some good in this, of course: this can be relocated to where ever easily, and at least WW doesn’t fuck up non-U.S. locations in their typical fashion since those locations are scarcely even mentioned here.

To top things off, there’s the dungeon crawl. It has a few interesting bits, but mostly consists of stupid “magic traps” and other things that so do not belong in Vampire. And in the end, the PCs get to fight a Methuselah. Whee.

So. Crap. But with some redeeming qualities, namely some nice NPCs that can be repurposed. In addition, it’s fun to spot the characters and items than have since been made into VTES cards. This book gives us Madame Guil, Hafsa the Watcher, and the Sword of Nul (renamed to “Sword of Nuln” in VTES for some weird reason), among others.

2009 in music

Since I keep track of the music I buy anyway (for various reasons), here’s a list of what I bought in 2009. Most is from eMusic, but some are still old-fashioned CDs.

Make of it what you will.

• ABC: Traffic
• Aimee Mann: The Forgotten Arm
• Ani DiFranco: Fellow Workers, Educated Guess, Little Plastic Castle, Not a Pretty Girl, So Much Shouting So Much Laughter
• Beirut: The Flying Club Cup, The Gulag Orkestar
• Big Blue Ball: Big Blue Ball
• Billy Joel: Piano Man
• Bon Iver: For Emma Forever Ago, Blood Bank
• Cranes: Cranes
• Eric Prydz: Proper Education
• Gary Numan: Dance, The Pleasure Principle (Expanded Edition)
• Girlyman: Little Star
• Happy Rhodes: Rhodes II
• Heaven 17: Live At Last, Naked As Advertised
• Hem: Eveningland
• Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins: Rabbit Fur Coat
• Jethro Tull: J-Tull Dot Com, Jethro Tull Christmas Album
• Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: Global A Go-Go, Streetcore
• John Foxx: Metamatic, The Garden, The Golden Section
• John Mellencamp: Life Death Love and Freedom
• KMFDM: Symbols, Blitz
• Katatonia: Night is the New Day
• Kenji Williams Terra-Illusion EP
• Lisa Loeb: Gypsies Tramps and Thieves, Hello Lisa
• Meat Loaf: Bat out of Hell, Dead Ringer
• Miljoonasade: Lelukaupan häät
• Múm: Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is Ok, Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know
• Neko Case: Blacklisted, Furnace Room Lullaby, Middle Cyclone
• Nitin Sawhney: London Undersound
• O.M.D.: OMD Live - Architecture And Morality
• Paradise Lost: In Requiem, The Anatomy of Melancholy, One Second, Draconian Times, Shades of God, Icon
• Patty Griffin: Children Running Through
• Placebo: Battle for the Sun
• R.E.M: Accelerate
• Rapoon: Church Road, Dark Rivers, Melancholic Songs of the Desert, Darker By Light, Cidar, Time Frost, Rapoon vs Kinder Atom
• Rökkurró: Það kólnar í kvöld…
• SPC-ECO: 3-D
• Seabear: The Ghost that Carried Us Away
• Sia: Some People Have Real Problems
• Sin Fang Bous: Clangour
• Sufjan Stevens: The Avalanche
• The Clash: London Calling, Combat Rock
• The Gaslight Anthem: The ‘59 Sound
• The Prodigy: Fat of the Land, Invaders Must Die
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show Original Soundtrack
• The Waterboys: Universal Hall
• The White Stripes: Elephant
• Thom Yorke: FeelingPulledApartByHorses, The Eraser
• Underworld: A Hundred Days Off
• compilations: Dark Was the Night, Songs For Tibet

Minireview: Spook Country, by William Gibson

William Gibson is a very different writer now, as compared to the man who brought us the stunning Neuromancer. I still think that book is one of the “important” works of modern science fiction, and it’s still quite a ride despite the concept of “Cyberpunk” having evolved; we can now talk about “post-cyberpunk” with a straight face. After playing around with the cyberpunk concept, Gibson moved on to more vague near-future scenarios – the latest of which aren’t in the science fiction realm at all anymore, despite toying with bleeding-edge concepts.

Spook Country is very similar to his previous book, Pattern Recognition. Both deal (partly) with modern subversive forms of art, both have a strongly individualist female protagonist who starts to semi-accidentally to poke into hidden things, and both share a common “feel”. There’s a distant and floating quality to the evens and the storytelling. Unfortunately, what worked very well in Pattern Recognition doesn’t work all that well here. The story fails to come together, and is left at somewhat loose ends even though it does more or less wrap up in the end.

It’s not a bad book, as such. The story involves locative art, intelligence operations of dubious legality, rich moguls with vague and possibly sinister goals, ex-Cuban teenage intelligence operatives, and a strange shipping container. There are lots of cool scenes here, and the base theme of rogue “intelligence ops” which have spun out of control is an important one. The book makes the (offhand) point that nowadays nobody really knows the big picture, with all the multiple curtains of secrecy and deniability nobody is left in control anymore. That culture of deniability becomes a part of general culture itself. Modern society is a complex thing.

…however, this book fails to really make a definitive point. It’s so in love with style (over substance), that in the end you’re left with lots of nice and potentially interesting scenes, but behind that…. nothing much.

Minireview: Rogue Trader

When the Dark Heresy game book came out, one of the most common complaints was that the power level was too low; you were playing low-level Acolytes serving a higher-up (Inquisitor). While it seemed fine to me, apparently most of the WH40k fiction has characters with much more power and some people were expecting that. Fair enough.

Rogue Trader is the next game in the line, and it has you playing Rogue Traders (duh). In the 40k world, these are individuals with ancient “warrants of trade” which give them power to do as they please (within limits). In the 40k universe, where most things are static and individuality is usually a sin, this is a big thing. A very big thing. And yes, these guys are much higher on the power scale than Acolytes – your typical Rogue Trader is captain of a huge (and I mean Huge) starship, commanding hundreds if not thousands of crew members and possessing vast wealth.

This has several important implications. First off, in a normal game this means that one player will be playing the Rogue Trader with the others staffing senior crew positions (think “bridge staff on Enterprise” sort of thing). I think that’s a cool feature, but of course does mean that one player is the leader. This may not sit well with all play groups, but it’s not a showstopper; the book suggests several ways of dealing with this situation. First off, the players could all be senior crew members, with the Rogue Trader played by an NPC. Or many of them could be Rogue Traders, sharing the trade warrant and command via some agreement.

Secondly… well, let’s go back to that Star Trek comparison. Star Trek always has the bridge crew rushing off to explore new worlds (and get into trouble). Realistically, that doesn’t make sense, but it does make for fun stories. Rogue Trader expects the same, it expects the PCs to get personal and head all exploration etc. But what if players try to get smart and send their hordes of underlings to do everything? Well, they can do that, but fortunately there are game world elements making that a non-optimal idea. Most importantly, there is reputation: Rogue Traders are all about rep, and someone who sends underlings to do his work tends to get a rep of “coward”… which can be bad. Secondly, the warrant of trade and associated documents actually say that a Rogue Trader has to personally do all sorts of things (claim a ship as salvage, claim a new world, or whatever), otherwise the claim is not valid. And of course there is the fact that many situations require negotiation. Nobody wants to negotiate with a flunky, that’s a sure-fire way to insult people. So… in case your players try to stay safe and use their low-lever crew members to do the important stuff, you have lots of ways of having that backfire on them.

So what’s the game about? It’s sort of like a dark 40k version of Star Trek. Explore strange new worlds, exploit the natives for resources, battle chaos entities (or deal with them for profit), bravely go forth and make a profit. I mention the profit motive here a lot because the game makes it explicit; profit is one of the most important game mechanics for the PCs, as it determines a lot of things. There is a new mechanic of “Endeavours” which is how the PCs generally increase profit, and it’s very nice. Pretty much anything can be made into an Endeavour. The players get the idea of shipping the exquisite wood from planet X to some Imperial hold, to be made into ultra-expensive furniture? Great. Make it an Endeavour. They want to negotiate with Death World natives in order to guarantee a supply of Groot Eggs for resale? Endeavour.

It reads like a lot of fun. I suspect it does need quite proactive players, but otherwise this should be a lot of fun to both run and play. It’s very different from the Dark Heresy game environment, with more room for heroics and player free choice. And let’s not forget that the players are captains of huge floating space cathedrals, with thousands of crew members. Someone else always cleans the floors.

Avatar and other stuff

We stayed cooped up inside for most of the New Year extended weekend; we originally intended to “do some stuff”, but the extra-chilly weather and general laziness put a stop to that. It was nice to just cozy up inside for days, don’t get me wrong. Anyway, yesterday we felt like doing something, so we decided to go see Avatar since a) it’s by Cameron who is generally awesome and b) it had been getting generally positive though slightly mixed reviews.

Well, it was very much worth seeing. It’s not a perfect movie; the plot is more than a tad predicable and follows the classic “boy meets girl and becomes hero” pattern a bit too much by-the-numbers. Maybe the most fitting thing to say about the plot is that it was serviceable; while it could have been (a lot) more original, it didn’t get in the way. But the visuals. Damn, they were jaw-dropping, especially when seen on the large screen with 3d. This is the best visualization of a science fiction world and native culture that I recall even seeing. Even though I knew that most of what I was seeing was computer-generated, my eyes were telling me the stuff was real. During the whole 3-hour span, there was only one short clip where the CGI was obviously CGI in a way that jarred me. That’s damn well done.

So. The complaints about the plot do have merit. But it’s not that bad, and this is one movie that is worth seeing for the visuals alone. They are just that good. The star of this movie is the planet Pandora.

(Added later: here is a hilarious plot summary. Spoiler alert, you might want to skip until you’ve seen the movie!)

Apart from that, I actually spent a large part of the mini-vacation coding and watching “TV” – coding in one window with a video player running in another. I’m working a hobby-project Exalted character generator web thingy. I’m not sure when if ever it will be ready, let alone ready for general use, but it’s one of those things – a way to learn lots of new tech while building something useful. I’m using a lot of bleeding-edge stuff, and Ruby on Rails of course. Among the toys are: authlogic, declarative_authorization, formtastic, css_dryer, jQuery & jQuery-UI, AJAX (with dynamic jQuery/Javascript generation via Rails views), and rspec test cases for all models and controllers. Fun stuff, and complicated enough to keep it interesting.

On the TV side, I managed to watch:

• True Blood season two. Good stuff, and very interesting “bad guy”. Still among the best of the current crop of series. Not for the prudish, though.

• Californication season two. Very good and very funny. Also not for the prudish, and I mean it: this show is mostly about sex. And about how people deal with it. I really like this show, because the characters are excellent and it somehow manages to be lewd & irreverent and warm & understanding at the same time. The characters screw up (and just screw) all the time, but you can’t help understanding and liking them at the same time.

• The Doctor Who “specials” Waters of Mars and End of Time (parts 1 & 2). Watchable but nothing all that special. Will be interesting to see how the new Doctor works out, since these were the final ones with the (great!) David Tennant.

• Some other bits and pieces… some Heroes (meh, but at least getting a bit better), Sanctuary (meh), etc. Nothing much worth commenting on.

Where's my flying car?

Somehow 2010 sounds very futuristic, yet my car solidly refuses to fly and I can’t find any reasonably-priced flights to the moon in the morning paper. It’s a scam.

We were at a nice New Year’s party, which went on until the early hours. Uncharacteristically we didn’t grab a taxi home at some point, but instead stayed there until something like 6am and then took a morning bus home. The rest of the day was a wash, of course, but still… fun.

The Ice Age conditions outside (-18 – -20C) put a stopper on our preliminary “let’s go do something outside” plans, so we’ve just lazed about and played computer games and stuff. No complaints, as such. Yawn.