Books & Stuff (NS, No 5): Reading in August 2020

Robert A Heinlein, Starman Jones

The Heinlein juveniles are dear to my heart, and I occasionally pick one up to re-read.  Starman Jones was the first (and the first Heinlein) that I read, aged about 12 (so around 1980!).   

The plot of the book revolves around the use of log tables, which I'm just old enough to have done at school (probably a year or so after first reading it).  The prompt to pick it up was an exchange in a Discord channel about log tables (in the context of AD&D).

Stanley Ellin, The Speciality of the House

It took me months, but I've finished this great collection of short stories.  I find that if I read too many short stories one after another I loose the effect, so I'm treated it as a book to dip into.  Well worth the effort.

Bayt al Azif: A Magazine for Cthulhu Mythos Roleplaying Games, Issue 2 (Aug 2019)

Number 2 of this magazine, which keeps up the high standard of No 1 (which I read back in June).  I keep thinking I should do a proper review of both issues.





Currently Reading

Simon Harris, The Other Norfolk Admirals: Myngs, Narbrough and Shovell

Biography of the aforesaid admirals.  Another study of the Restoration navy.

I'm only nominally reading this - I don't think I've picked it up for weeks!

Gaming in Aug 2020

 ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

• 16 Aug  - The Tonisborg Dungeon (on-line)
• 23 Aug - Call of Cthuhlu (face-to-face)
• 26 Aug - Blackmoor (OSE) (on-line)
• 29 Aug - Dark Sun (on-line)

Original D&D - The Tonisborg Dungeon

I discussed this one-shot briefly here.

Call of Cthuhlu

• 23 Aug

This was by way of a birthday treat.  It was my first face-to-face session in over six months, and it felt great!  I introduced 'the Home Group' to Call of Cthuhlu, playing the 'Edge of Darkness' module from the 7th Edition Starter Set.  

It went down very well.  After a couple of false starts with unecassary intimidation (and "I shoot the nurse!") the group got settled into the idea of investigation and spent a lot of useful library time.  We got much further into the scenario than I expected - I'd thought that it might take three sessions (if they wanted to go on past the first), but they're more than half-way through and are planning the next.

In prep for the next session I've statted up a NPC who they had dealings with as a spare in case of character death (I may also do a second, just in case).

It was also the first time I'd been Keeper in a Call of Cthuhlu game, something I'd been looking formward to.  I must have been doing something right - the mother of one of the players claimed that she had nightmares!

Blackmoor (OSE)

• 26 Aug

The first session of this Blackmoor-based old-school game saw us mapping on behalf of the the Tunnel Fighters Guild of Booh.  I got to play a cleric of my favourite petty god - King 'Shroom.  Dozens of giant rats and goblins were encountered.

Dark Sun/Dying Star

• 28 Aug - The One With the Tortured Templar and the Vegan Undead

This was our last session in this setting for a while as Dave focusses on the Blackmore/OSE.  I've missed the last few (three?) sessions, so had a bit of catching up to do.  We continued on our mission(s) in the Ziggurat of Tyr.  Torturing a Templar, defeating the Undead Guardians (50 of 'em!) and a couple of giant psychic centipedes.  Much fun was had!

Playing (Very!) Old School

As you know, during Lockdown I've been playing online, most games being run by Dave Aldridge from the dPercentile podcast.  In Oct 2019 Dave interviewed Griffith Mon Morgan III, writer and co-director of the 2019 documentary Secrets of Blackmore, which explored the contribution of Dave Arneson to the creation of Dungeons and Dragons.

When Griff offered to referee a one-shot session of Orignal D&D, I was lucky enough to be able to bag a seat at the table.  He presented a delve in the Tonisborg Dungeon, the second-oldest dungeon to come out of the Twins Cities Group, created by Greg Svenson in 1973 and apparently lost for 35 years.  

Well, four hours in and we came to an exciting plot point (and lots of knob jokes), so the one-shot is going to be a two shot...

It was all recorded for posterity (a hell of an editing job for Dave).  I'll keep you up-dated and link to the Actual Play and the podcast episodes that will invariably follow.

But in the meantime, what are my impressions of Very Old School?  Well, not much that will be a surprise.  

• There were seven players with 12 PCs between us, which at first I thought was a little crowded.  But (V) Old School is quite lethal, so soon enough the seven of us were playing 6 PCs (Barney did one of his virtuoso performances once he'd had two characters shot from under him and was promoted to being the Mule).
• This was the first occasion that I've met a dragon playing D&D.  Contrary to rumour, a sharp punch on the snout from a Level 1 character is not sufficient to send them packing.
• Interest in "character story" was minimal.  We were playing pre-gens, so we didn't own the characters as, such.  But even so, I found it hard to differenate between them.  For the first three hours the referee found it easier to use numbers rather than names!  (To be fair, Skype contributed to that, he admitted that he wasn't getting the sense of the table.)
• It was very low-magic.
• Dice rolling was minimal, at the ocasional request of the referee.  I think we had three combats in four hours.

Kickstarter Watch: Hobgoblin Raiding Party by Midlam Games

 

Just a quick post to point to the latest Kickstarter from Midlam Games.  

This one is Hobgoblin Raiding Party, Vol II (I must have missed Vol I).  I'm intending to back it because a friend likes to pay half-orcs, I I think these will do.  I backed a few of Midlam's Kickstarters before and have always been pleased both with the KS fulfilment and the miniatures.  I'd have no qualms in recomending them.

As I write (the day before I'll publish), there are 13 days to go and they already have pledges of £3725 against a £600 goal.

Gaming in Jul 2020 (And Some Wider Thoughts)

This is a post is very overdue.  Regular readers will know that I try to give an overview of the month's gaming, and often do it in the very early days of the next month.  Often I have written up my notes of the various sessions and link to them.

Well, several things have conspired against this for July/August.  First is a positive one: for me furlough ended on 23 June and in the journey back to 'normality' I've pulled a lot of six-day weeks.  Because of that I've been too busy or tired to sit down and write up session notes (they may eventually come, but the longer I leave them, the less important they are - and most of them seem to be from June).  Secondly, a major blow in my personal life means that I've withdrawn from gaming, social media and some social stuff altogether.  But as I write (on 16 Aug) I'm getting ready to play my first game in well over a month, so I want to get this draft post out of the way.

Of course, the 'campaigns' have moved on in my absence.  Both of those I was in were (intentionally) limited to 8-10 sessions and they are now ending.  As this might be my last write-up, I'm going to give some opions of them.

ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

• 3 Jul - Dark Sun (Online)

Dark Sun/Dying Star

3 Jul - The One Where We Went Underground and Had Spider Flambe

Following on with our party's reluctant involvement in the politics of Tyr, we have been engaged by a couple of groups of rebels to do (mutually incompatible) missions in the Under-Tyr.  So we went underground and have a traditional dungeon delve.  We were rather too cautious and indecisive for my liking.  Dave talks about it here.  There have been several subsequent delves which I've missed.

This min-campaign is drawing to an end.  I enjoyed it a lot (follow the link to my write-ups), but to be frank I enjoyed it more when we were a bit more free-flowing and sandboxy than when we got involved in the politics that are part of the canon of the published literature.  That's not to dis the GM or my fellow players: quite the opposite, the relative freedom of the earlier sessions brought out some great creativity.

ODD Sci-Fi

After a few Jobs that I missed, the crew of the Bastion have now suspended operations.  This is a great shame, as I think the game had legs (but better to go out on a high). 

I enjoyed these sessions a lot (no surprise to those who know that I've a great Firefly and sci-fi fan).  I will miss the characters that our players developed.  It was an experiment by our GM, who wanted to try out the Electric Bastionland/ODD system, but disliked the EB setting.  Well, the system I think works very well.  It is very light - it can be explained in a couple of pages*.  Indeed that's part of the problem people have, because the product does that, and then the rest of the book is very setting-specific.  I don't have a problem with that, but then I suspect that I would quite enjoy the setting anyway.  Not everyone has Dave's way with creating his own settings (which as I've hinted takes and twists the tropes of such things).

*Which a free version does here.

WAR GAMES

I still haven't written up my quick-ref precis of Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls or indeed played a game since last May.  This is a shame because (as you all know), 6 Aug was International Naval Wargames Day, being Fred T Jane's birthday.

However, co-incidentally, I have bought a copy of  Battle of Trafalgar 1805 by Florian Richter and Peter Denis in the Fleets in Profile series which Helion & Co have produced*. This includes colour profile models of every ship on both sides and is a bargain (as we know, teeny-tiny ships are horribly expensive!).

*The only other title I've seen in the series is Armada 1588.  There are more titles in the Paper Soldiers series, some of which (PLUG, PLUG) Diplomatist Books carries.

Books & Stuff (NS, No 4): Reading in July 2020

So what did I read in July?  Furlough for me ended on 23 June, and I practically been pulling six-day weeks since then, so reading time has cut-back.  Nevertheless...

J D  Davies, The Blast that Tears the Skies

The third in the Matthew Quinton series about the Restoration Navy.  It's 1665: the year of the plague and the Battle of Lowestoft.  How can it not be exciting?

In this one Quinton is given command of a large but ancient ship and tasked with the dealing with the (historical) rumour that twenty captains from the old Parliamentary Navy will defect during the first battle with the Dutch.  There's also various politicking within his family.

Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

A moderately amusing collection of odd and annoying things people have said to booksellers.  It will appeal to anyone who has worked in a shop and ever thought that life would be a lot easier without customers.

Currently Reading

Stanley Ellin, The Speciality of the House

I'm carrying on with this great collection of short stories.  I find that if I read too many short stories one after another I loose the effect, so I'm treating this as a book I'm dipping into.  As it's a rather large collection, it'll be a while before I get to the end.

Simon Harris, The Other Norfolk Admirals: Myngs, Narbrough and Shovell

Biography of the aforesaid admiral.  Another study of the Restoration navy.

Bayt al Azif: A Magazine for Cthulhu Mythos Roleplaying Games, Issue 2 (Aug 2019)

Number 2 of this magazine, which keeps up the high standard of No 1 (which I read back in June).  I keep thinking I should do a proper review of both issues.