Eggbox in Transit - soon to be settled again!

Month: August 2012

How to use my holiday

I’m stressed, I’m tired, I’m having a bit of a run of insomnia (although I seem to be getting clear of that now). I’m also getting that “outsider” feeling again.  So I think I need a holiday.

Conveniently, I have one coming up.

Two weeks in a secluded mansion house in Devon with a bunch of friends.  I’m really looking forward to it.  I’m also toying with trying a few experiments whilst I’m there.  Nothing particularly shocking, but things that may be interesting all the same.

First, I have a couple of development projects I want to try, and which I might be able to convince a couple of people to experiment with in a “we’re shut in a house in the rain” kind of a way.  With post it notes and everything.  More on the ideas shortly.

Second, I want to try getting back into RPGs after a couple of years away.  I have the germ of an Unknown Armies game, and I have a hankering to try “Don’t Rest Your Head” as well.  I might have to give one or both of those a shot.  I want to specifically ask for some feedback about the feel of RPGs before then, though, so I’ll get to that shortly as well.

Development Ideas

I have two main ideas for things I want applications for, and I lack the skills to pull them together in an amount of time that fits in my attention span.  So here’s the skinny:

Idea 1 – IC Computer Interface

The number of times I’ve been in a LARP and we’ve had computers as part of the game is pretty high.  The number of times could have actually had a real, working computer present is also pretty high…  but the number of times we’d have been able to just let a player loose on it to see what they turn up is pretty damned low.

What I’d like to do is come up with a styleable, themeable application that could run on a standalone device (laptop booted from a USB stick, Raspberry Pi, etc).  Something that would let GMs pick a rough interface style, seed it with some data for the players to find, or some “enable / disable” type controls.  Something that could be used by a GM to easily mock up the relevant parts of a computer inferface and populate them with data, and then procedurally generate a pile of crud and chaff around it.  Ideally without having to install anything on the PC being used (hence the USB boot / live install / VM approach).

Passwords and codes could be supplied to players based on their characters’ skill levels, and then used to bypass security, or even just run some simulated “cracking tools” that run for a duration based on a skill check and then spit out hidden info or unlock hidden areas.

It makes sense to me to create a basic framework for this kind of thing, and I can see it being a cool development project for a couple of interested parties.

Idea 2 – Game Journal & Planner

I’ve never been as comfortable running a LARP as I was when I could use Grapevine.  More than just a character sheet tracker, this was a godsend for tracking plotlines and interactions.

But it was WOD specific and is also dead as a doornail.  All the various successors have focussed on tracking stats, rather than on the relationships between characters, objects, events, rumours, plots, etc…  Relationships between what I call game objects.

I’d like to see a tool that helps game runners keep journals for each of those game objects, allowing them to keep a timeline for each object, and to easily relate those objects and timelines to each other.

Character sheet tracking holds little appeal to me, but keeping track of all the balls in the air in any given game?  That’s important.

RPG Question

I also mentioned that I wanted to get back into RPGs again, and mentioned UA and Don’t Rest Your Head.  These are both games with a certain element of horror to them, but they also both work best when there’s a frantic pace to the action.  A pace that’s often missing when folks actually try to play them.

It’s all too easy to let the pace drop , particularly when your players don’t really know the setting yet and so don’t know what is or isn’t possible.

I’d like to know if anybody has any thoughts on how to pick up that pace, and how to get all of the players into the right sense of freefall.  How to get them to react instead of thinking things through, and how to get a game in a manic setting to actually feel manic.

Any and all suggestions welcome in the comments!

Positive and Negative realisations

Two things have come to my attention over the last couple of days, and I thought I’d share them.  Neither are particularly earth shattering, but one’s positive and the other is negative.

I’ll start with the negative.

My right knee is a little bit buggered.

I know exactly why this is – the most recent batch of orthotic insoles I bought were a different brand, as my usual ones were out of stock.  These ones aren’t as good, and the ones I’m using right now are my spares, as one of the proper ones tore when I turned by ankle the other day.

This all means that my arches aren’t properly supported, which means my feet roll inwards.  Because the different bits of my body are actually connected to each other (bizarre, I know), my feet rolling inwards means that my knees twist inwards too, in a less-than ideal way.

So, since I got my substandard orthotics, and since those fell apart and left me using my sub-substandard ones, my knees have been twisted at funny angles whenever I walk.

Which hurts.

I’ve got new ones of my usual make coming from my usual supplier shortly, so I should be able to fix this soon enough.

Next up, the positive:

I appear to have lost an inch and a half off my waistline.

Since moving house, I’ve lost some weight.  I’m guessing that some of this is because:

  1. I’ve now got a longer walk to and from the station
  2. I’ve been eating less takeout and cooking more of my own food instead
  3. I now have to go up two flights of stairs to get to the front door

…but it still came as a bit of a shock.  For the past year or so, I’ve had some trousers that were a bit too big and some that were a bit too small.  Trousers that actually fit me properly don’t exist, so those are my options.

Yesterday I was looking through the wardrobe to find some of the “slightly too small” trousers and found that they no longer existed.  I now own trousers that are slightly too big and trousers that are quite a lot too big.

It’s quite pleasant when that happens, except for the fact that I now need to go out and buy more trousers.  I loathe clothes shopping.  Most of the time is just spent trying to find something that’s even close to my size – style choices barely get a look in!

Cursed.

After a few days of insomnia medication related late arrivals at work, I was determined to make it in to work on time today. The universe had other plans.

In order:

  1. My alarm didn’t go off – I was only woken up by the sound of flatmate leaving for work.  Will have to check bulb & fuse when I get home.
  2. Got caught at the level crossing on my way to the station.
  3. I nearly made a train that’d get me in only ~15 mins late, but about 3/4 of the way to the station I turned my ankle and mashed my left orthotic insole badly enough that I had to go home again to find my spares.
  4. On the way home, I got caught at the level crossing again as the train I was meant to be on came through.
  5. Spent 10 minutes finding my spare insoles so I could have wearable shoes again.
  6. Got caught at the level crossing again on my way back to the station, and watched as the last useful train for ~25 minutes went through.
  7. Finally got on a train, and couldn’t get a seat. Ended up standing all the way to Clapham.
  8. Arrived in the office just after the morning standup finished, so didn’t even get to sneak in unnoticed!

Today is cursed, clearly. Trying to read “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell” also doesn’t work too well when standing on a crowded train, so I ended up buying it on the kindle to avoid killing anybody with it.  Oh well – I’m sure my wrists will thank me for that, at least.

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