I’m in the middle of an extended purge of boardgames and roleplaying games. I’ve let too many accrete over the years, and I’m worried of the possibility of a singularity occurring in the study/gaming room.
Actually, the truth is that I have run out of space and also realised that there are some that I may never actually get to read, or even if I have read the, there are some that I just can’t see myself getting to the table. I also know that the better half would like a significant reduction in numbers and I completely get that.
This week’s casualties (or perhaps escapees) are Troika and some more OSR material that I can’t see myself playing. I do like Troika, and have kept back Acid Death Fantasy as I could see myself doing something with it. I’m also secretly happy that the core rules haven’t currently been bought by anyone (yet). But everything else is gone. I’ve also completed the purge of Leyline Press’s material which makes me happy.
I’m approaching the point that the next step is to pick some more systems to cull. Glorantha keeps on getting close to the drop, but each time nostalgia and Pavis pull me back from the brink. I know some Traveller material can go; I’ve enough of the PDF compilations to know that I can check for canon using them. Someone else may as well have the joy of them.
The replacement Kindle Paperwhite 2021 arrived the same day as I ordered it and wrote the first blog piece (the cover took another day to arrive) and I've used it heavily over the last few days. It's a 16GB WiFi Paperwhite without Ads. Build quality feels excellent, at least on a par with the Oasis. The screen is flush and has a slight tactile feel. The charging connection is USB C (which I welcome over the old and slow charging Micro-USB).
Showing the warm light effect on the Paperwhite. Indistinguishable from the Oasis version.
Screen quality feels as good as the Oasis, and the device feel snappier in use. The screen feels slightly taller and narrower but I suspect that's the 6.8" vs 7.0" coming out, and also the asymmetric design of the Oasis which makes it feel wider. I didn't really notice the lack of auto-brightness but now I think on, I think I'd overrode that setting. The warm-light setting feels very much the same as the Oasis.
Battery is noticeably better. I wonder if part of that is because the Paperwhite doesn't have a cellular connection? However, I do usually run in airplane mode so it shouldn't make that much difference. It may also be the number of backlight LEDs (the Oasis has 25, the Paperwhite 17). However, it's just noticeably better. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise as the Kindle Voyage was also much better than the Oasis.
The buttons; I miss the tactile feel of the buttons and the fact that you can rotate the Oasis to use it left or right-handed easily. I found the touch controls intuitive, but I'm surprised you can't select the handedness of the device in settings. That seems like a silly miss from Amazon. Control is fine for me if I use it left-handed (I'm a righty) but less useful when held right handed.
Overall, I'm pleased with the change and don't feel like it's a step back. Happy with this new version so far.
I read a fair bit, somewhere between 80-100 books a year. You may have read my posts related to that. I was given a Kindle Keyboard many years ago (for my 40th birthday), partly as part of the better half’s plan to reduce the number of books that I had in the house. That plan kind of worked.
The first Kindle Keyboard died after 364 days but Amazon Customer Services were solid and replaced it free of cost. The second one lasted quite a while. However, I eventually upgraded to a Kindle Voyage because it had a backlight and a higher quality screen. The backlight means I can read in bed without disturbing the better half. I liked the Voyage, but the ergonomics weren’t quite right. On extended reading sessions, the edge of the reader could dig into you. However, I loved the haptic buttons. I prefer the tactile button pressing options.
I picked up a Kindle Oasis on eBay from a store that was closing down. It was a huge jump; bigger screen, proper buttons and the ability to have a slightly amber screen at night. An absolutely lovely device. However, the battery life was always a bit poor, and increasingly I’ve come to it to find that it is empty of charge. It’s really frustrating when I’m travelling and a device I charged a couple of days before is now flat, especially as it can take a while to take enough charge to restart.
I’ve had it four years, so it could be battery deterioration. However doesn't go through anywhere near as many charge cycles as a phone for example, and they usually talk about lithium cells being solid for at least 500 cycles. However, it still works okay so I figured perhaps this was time for a change.
Anyway, frustrations boiled over (very first world) and I’ve just traded my Oasis in for a new generation Paperwhite (which was on offer for the bank holiday weekend). The screen is a bit smaller (6.8” vs 7.0”), but it does do amber (albeit it is a manual brightness adjustment) and goes to a USB C connector. The only thing that concerns me as I wait for it to arrive is the lack of buttons. Will that be frustrating? Is the tactile experience as big a thing for me as I think it is?
I’ll play it by ear, but if the worst comes to the worst, I do know that the trade in value and the 20% voucher towards another Kindle mean that I can pass the Paperwhite onto another family member and pick up a new Oasis at under half price.
Mothership Deluxe arrived when I was at North Star. I’m a bit preoccupied with Outgunned at the moment so here’s a quick unboxing to show the goodies in the set.
First of all, I can't believe that this is the seventh North Star convention that we've run. It's remained surprisingly popular (the most well attended of the four Garricons that I'm involved in organising) and has a slightly different crowd to the others.
North Star is all about Science Fiction roleplaying games; it was born from a discussion by Graham and I about running at Travcon North. That never got off the ground (despite the first two years of Travcon being held at Hebden Bridge) but we decided that there was some mileage in having a convention that was more focused on SF RPGs. It was also the first con we took virtual during the pandemic lockdown.
The format is the usual Garricon. We only use the top level so we have seven tables with five slots across the weekend so a maximum of 35 games offered, with between four and seven player seats on each table. Free tea and coffee throughout. GMs typically offered one or two games, but I ended up running three because we had a drop out late on. I think that we could probably fill the lower level too and add another fifteen games (three tables) if we pushed hard but it's a nice size when we've a slightly smaller organising team.
The organisation of the con pretty much runs on rails - Google Forms for Registration, Google Sheets for game management, Graham for Garrison liaison. The Garrison is a little challenging at the moment as the events organiser we've dealt with long term has left and we're building a new relationship. That said, I ended up much later than I liked doing the game allocations because work went crazy (I was involved in a two day 550 person conference the week before). It's also weird how doing game allocation has become a spectator sport. I got some messages from people as I was doing the pseudo-random assignment of people into games. Why pseudo-random? Well, that's because some people don't want to play with other people, and also because I may tweak allocation to ensure that that we get enough viable games. This could mean that you end up with a slightly lower preference but it does mean that everyone gets a game. I had to do that with two players in one slot this year, so it's not that common.
The comms piece can be challenging. Shachar has started helping us on this, but despite doing comms on four channels (email, Facebook, Discord and the Tavern) we still had people come back and say we haven't updated them. One good thing that's happened is the introduction of the Garricon FAQ which is a document we've created for guidance about all the cons we run at the Garrison Hotel, and open to suggestions.
I closed out the game allocation by the middle of the week before, which needed some cat herding to get final choices. We had a few last minute drop outs, but managed around that. The badges got done, now with the QR code innovation from Revelation that gives a link to the timetable and game allocations.
Somehow, I managed to find time to gather a bring and buy set of boxes as Patriot Games weren't there. Overall, that was pretty successful. I took two and half boxes, and came back with around half a box. It helps in the current game purge I'm going through.
I drove over on the morning of the con, arriving before 9am. The room was pretty much set up; Graham had stayed the night before but was opting out in the Saturday evening (which on reflection meant I was the responsible person on site). Once again, he tried to dodge me videoing the conference opening speech but I got most of it. We've tried to make it more friendly for new people. We do have a large group of regulars but also get a number of new people every time, and it's easy to forget how intimidating going to a con can be for the first time.
Alien, Slot 1
Slot 1 saw me playing Sue Savage's excellent Alien scenario, Misfits on Tour. Naturally, we all died horribly. I was playing a disgruntled ex-Colonial Marine who was doing tour security for a punk band signed by Weyland-Yutani. The players were a great bunch and things slowly degenerated. I ended up with 10 stress dice at the end, and it was amusing watching the panic cascades around the table as we rolled 'facehuggers' and fell apart at the end. Great group of players with a special call out to Craig for his ex-Navy Pilot and Debbie for the Doc.
Lunch via Morrisons.
The Fall of House Prosh
Slot 2 saw me doing the game I'd offered as a fill-in, The Fall of House Prosh. This is very much 'Dune with the serial numbers filed off' mixed with Twilight Imperium. It's a political drama story game where all the players are collaborating to tell the tale of tragedy as House Prosh takes the throne only to see it slip from their fingers. We started slowly and it took us a while to get tuned in. Each player had two named characters from the three factions (House Prosh, House Kotar or the Servants), and we had the bizarre experience of Keary playing the leaders from both Houses. It ended with a suitably messy result, with a sting that the heir to House Prosh ended up adopted into House Kotar as a retainer. I enjoyed the game, which had slightly less brutal character-vs-character engagements than I expected.
Dinner at KFC with Keary and John O. Great catch up followed by frantic re-read of the STA crib sheet to load the game back into my head (in the hope I didn't get it confused with Achtung! Cthulhu).
The crews of both the USS Yorkshire and the USS Lexington at the end of the game.
Slot 3 was the sequel Star Trek Adventures scenario, Echoes II, which Dr Mitch and I only finished writing on Thursday night! This included timey-wimey stuff, TNG and TOS cross-overs, Romulans, Tholians, alternative timelines, lots of explosions and walkie-talkies, combined with cross table shenanigans. It was great to see quite a few players returning from the year before. I came out of this on a high, and enjoyed it greatly, and the players seemed to have a blast.
Had a drink at the bar with Dr Mitch and Matt. There may be a sequel to Echoes II, but we'll let it brew for a while and see how we feel closer to the event.
Lovely Garrison breakfast.
Coriolis - The Great Dark (and I got to use my Constellation dice!)
Slot 4 saw me playing Coriolis - The Great Dark run by Paul Baldowski. This was from the rough-around-the-edges Quickstart. We had a lot of fun; I just hope that the game does more than just the delving into alien ruins. This was Paul's birthday game so I hope that we delivered a fun time for him. I know he loved Keary's GM coaching. The scenario had double crossing, alien-blight and massive artefacts and a very satisfying gun fight. Enjoyable.
Morrisons for lunch. I'm nothing but predictable, eh?
Across a Thousand Dead Worlds - players finalising characters
Slot 5 had me running Across a Thousand Dead Worlds. This is an OSR flavoured game which draws heavily on Fred Pohl's Gateway novels for inspiration. The characters get to join a crew who board an alien (Àrsaidh) vessel on an asteroid. They activate ship, which then takes them to an unknown location which they explore and hope to find scientific data and things that will make their fortune. The catch is that the destination could be lethal, and that journeys can take any length of time, typically from one to seven weeks each way. The Karum corporation provides 6 weeks of air and food by default (the average needs) but if you don't have enough then you can die enroute or on the way back, or have to make some unpalatable choices.
The crew standees for the table
What the game does very strongly is pick up the emotional dynamics of being packed into a small space with a group of misfits heading to an unknown destination. I'd used the demo crew which was provided to Kickstarter backers as a starter. We tailored the characters at the table; the players finalised skills, selected nervous tics and mannerisms, and purchased equipment. Fortunately, they bought enough air for to cover 7 weeks each way, because as things worked out that was what they needed! They actually had a party on week 6 of the voyage because 'we'd all be dead now if we hadn't bought enough air'!
Getting on the ship generates stress and that stress can make your character less stable; drugs, alochol, sex, meditation are all ways to manage this. You can also lash out, but that's dangerous in a small space as it can escalate to violence. There's a procedural route for playing through each week starting with a random check if you reach your destination, and also having an encounter triggered. These can be social or technical. Along the way we had a leak develop in the ship, a fight between two characters when one tried to reduce stress by lashing out, another character trying to meditate unsuccessfully for four weeks. The game got that feeling of stress and paranoia and frustration right.
When they emerged, they landed on a habitable planet. They were on world for less than two hours but walked away with findings that could make them for life. They discovered a tribal native race, nearly got sacrificed to a lizard when their attempt to communicate failed, and found a source of liquid form àrsaidh metal. I loved the improvisation - one of the characters filled his hazardous environment suit with the metal and got it on the ship. Perhaps my favourite image was when Paul's character, who was the official team leader, was standing starkers about to be sacrificed when the other players shot the lizard and then the leader of the tribe at long range through a window. He raised his hands and got the natives to bow down. They then ran for it, escaping ahead of an angry tribe. Of course, they've set up a situation where any future visitors will have a very hostile reception.
Overall, I really enjoyed the game. It emulated the feel of the books excellently and let the players have some great opportunities for interaction. The players seemed to enjoy it a lot as well.
Then it was all over - I cleared the tables, removed the backing paper from the windows (used to take the edge off the sun, and loaded the car to head back. Overall a great weekend from my perspective.
We'll be doing it again next year (10th/11th May 2025northstarcon.org.uk ) but hopefully I'll have the game allocation done earlier!
Six books and 2,278 pages this month, which leaves me at 35 books and 10,329 pages this year, well on track for the book a week target I set myself. It was nearly eight books as I finished two on the first day of May.
Two roleplaying books this month; the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Core Rules and the Fall of the Imperium sourcebook for the same. I’m conflicted on the Dune implementation at the moment, as there is a very slick and light implementation of 2d20 in it, let down by poorly expressed mechanics. There is an art to writing a clear rules text, and there are few editors who seem to get that these days. Clarity is key.
Fiction books included The Searcher by Tana French, Damascus Station by David McCloskey, Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds, and The Silence by Susan Allott.
The Searcher and The Silence were impulse buys. The former has a retired American police detective who has settled in Ireland, and gets drawn into the search for a local young man who has disappeared. It’s nicely done and I may check out the sequel which has been released since. The latter is a tale of a dysfunctional family who have emigrated to Australia. The father comes into suspicion of a murder many years before and the daughter, who has returned home from London, tries to understand the dark secrets of the past. This also touches on the forced adoption of aboriginal children, so is quite a dark story.
Pushing Ice was a reread, but I’d not returned to it since it was originally released. This is classic Reynolds, with mysterious alien objects and tensions between the crew of mining spacecraft drawn into exploring it. The book ends ripe for a sequel, but it was a good point to finish.
My favourite book of the month was Damascus Station. McCloskey tells a taught and gripping tale of CIA espionage set against the disintegration of Syria. I will definitely read more of his books going forward. This felt tense and very real, and interesting has a lot of recommendations from former intelligence community members.
