DUNE ONLINE

 

My friend Adam whom I met at Total Con, turned me on to this Dune online game site during Rising Phoenix. This, in return for introduc-ing the original boardgame to him at Total Con.

First of all, the interface is absolutely beautiful. Having said that, it can be a little confusing at first and may take some time to get used to first. It incorporates the Basic and Advanced games, plus all of the current supplements into the game. You can play other humans or some AIs that are really smart. Today, I witnessed the Atreides score a solo win. (I'm not sure I've ever seen a human player do that. But that may be more of a function of the players I used to play with. YMMV)

My only two quibbles are: the AI sometimes gets stuck in a loop and can take some time for it to get unstuck. The other is that I've yet gotten the hang of how to leave the game temporarily and then to return to it while it's still in progress. Grade: All things considered, I'd give it a solid A. Just thrilled to discover that I now have the opportunity to regularly play one of my all-time favorite board games.

BEING TEXAN: AND BEING OTHER THINGS, TOO

 

At lunch, I went to The local greasy spoon to eat. I had in-hand the new book Texas: An American History at my table. The waitress on-duty at the time I believe is a Marlborough native, and she was talking to some townies there in the familiar way that folk who've lived in one place their whole lives do. When folks do, I try to imagine what it's like to live in one place for all your life, or even most of it. (I really have no clue!)

When I tell people I'm a Texan, I feel a little weird about it, because we only lived there for eight years. I'm not a native. I was born in Missouri. But I identify strongly to the state, and I feel my time living there has shaped me indelibly. Hell, I pretty much spent my whole childhood there. But I still feel weird making the claim.

However, I did do a little math at lunch. What percentage of my life did I spend in each place? I turn sixty in two weeks, so I took that as my benchmark. Here's what I came up with, from high to low:

Wisconsin 23%
Indiana 23%
Massachusetts 18%
New York 17%
Texas 13%
Mississippi 7%
Illinois 3%
Missouri 1%

Wisconsin: Check. I can see that in how it shaped my view on the world. We lived there throughout my adolescence and early adulthood.
Indiana: Hmmm. Don't identify as a Hoosier at all, and don't see it shaping me at all. Went to Valparaiso University for two years and started my library career at the St. Joseph County Public Library. But no. (And yes, I do know Pete Buttigieg, albeit in passing). Probably retire there -- hopefully in either Bloomington or Indy.
Texas: Double-Check. Everything weird or idiosyncratic about me seems to come from my being Texan. My dialect, which is faint but detectable by those with trained ears for Southern accents. We lived in both Sweetwater and Seguin, Texas.
Massachusetts: I'd like to think so. But really, it's pretty late in life for me to be much influenced by it, though. My second and third library gigs are here.
New York: Definitely. Where I learned to shed my Midwestern and Southern reticence and learned to be assertive. Also my rate of speech sped up by 25-50% faster.
Mississippi: Not a chance. Just too young to retain anything about it. Only some really faint childhood memories that have nothing to do with it anyway.
Illinois: Naw. Just passing through for graduate school at Northern Illinois University.
Missouri: Not a chance. Born there, baptized in Mississippi. No memory of it.

An interesting exercise. The percentages may not add up exactly mathematically, between there being some overlap and the effect of rounding things up. But I now have more confidence in the answer I give when people ask me: Texas Wisconsin New York. And doubling down on Texas when folks insist I choose one. Not so much numerically, but in absolute terms. But up there and in terms of my character formation and personal habits, being there at the easily the most important time in my life.

Postscript. Another interesting mathematical fact about my moving around. I have lived in 16% of the US states. Nearly 17% of the Continental US.

WHY DID THE FIRST WORLD WAR END SO ABRUPTLY?

 

By chance, I came across this lecture about the causes of the armistice from Gresham College. As you may have gathered, I'm fascinated by the history of the First World War. For many reasons.

But one of them is that it was one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, yet seemingly also the most incomprehensible. The Second World War, by contrast, seems to have clear narratives to follow. A war of ideologies, of decidedly modern strategy and means, a war against world tyranny (the allies) or for lebensraum and prestige (the axis), antisemitism and wartime atrocities, etc. 

While horrific, the First World War fails to present us such clear narrative explanations. Instead, we have to look to large, structural historical changes going on in the Western World at the time. Much of the focus has been on its causes and which nations were responsible AND the harsh demands of the Versailles Treaty and its future, historical consequences. And the cultural impacts it had on the Twentieth Century and beyond (see my previous blog post on the subject).

But I've not come across as much discussion or analysis of the end of the war and the lead-up to the armistice. The questions posed by this lecture:

1. Why did the Germans first reject Wilson's proposal for an armistice, then months later, propose and accept those same terms?
2. Why did the war end abruptly in November 1918, instead of continuing further into 1919?
3. In what sense were the allies the victors, when the Germans still occupied French territory even up to the end of the war?

These questions help to frame both the armistice and the eventual outcomes that led to the Versailles Treaty. I found this lecture to be both powerful and provocative in its explanations and approach. Highly recommend.

PLAYING HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

 

As I mentioned before, we played Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on Friday night. It's not an actual game in itself, of course, but what Chris the GM chose to run using the Powered by the Apocalypse playset. It was a fun game, with a great set of role-players at the table. Sadly, because of my hearing loss and the ambient noise in the room, I only managed to hear 50% of what was going on in our game.

I played Marvin the Paranoid Android and truly channeled the depressed side of my bipolar disorder. My rejoinder to everything was "you organics are going to get us all killed!" and "we're all going to die!" (And dammit, as if the organic players weren't just out to prove my point for me!)

As with most games at a con, I decided from time-to-time elected to be an agent of chaos to keep the story moving into new territory. I try to do it in character, though. We had a moment when we were about to activate the improbability drive to travel to the Greater Magellanic Cloud and when I threw my bucket of water on it to short it out! Instead, we travelled all the way back to before the Big Bang! Much hilarity ensued.

As for the ruleset, I'm glad we played. I realized partway through that Usagi Yojimbo is powered by the Apocalypse. So it gave me a chance to see how it actually plays out as a ruleset. I'd kickstarted the game on the strength of the graphic novel tie-in and its Japanese theme.

Very cool!

PLAYING SPACE HULK AT RISING PHOENIX

 

This is one of my favorite figure/scenario games. We used to play it a lot back-in-the-day at my friend Brett's house (who owned the game). I've played the marines a few times, but mostly played the Genestealers instead. It's an balanced, but asymmetric game -- which I like.

It's got a great vibe. Though it's based in the Warhammer 40K universe, it really feels like you're playing in the Alien franchise universe -- but more specifically, replicating the very feel of the Aliens sequel. Think about it, it's got marines, it's got genestealers who resemble the aliens in the movie in how they look and behave, and you've even got the blips that display when they're detecting movement in the movie. It was always an expensive game -- I don't know what it's original retail was, but it had to be at the top end. I bought the reissue with larger figures and game pieces about twenty years ago for about $120.

On Saturday night, I played a mega-game of it, that incorporated four squads (two squads of marines and two squads of tau), each with their own secret missions and spanning two entire decks of a hulk. There were two genestealer players, so we started out spawning two blips from the start, then four, and by the next turn when we ended the game due to time constraints, we were about to spawn six blips per turn!

The Imperial players (for that's what we'll call them) played well tactically. They were always able to set it up so that we were always one square short of being able to close assault. And they did a good job of planning overlapping fields of overwatch with their variety of weapons. But in the end, we were able to slow them down with the threat of our units attacking. It wasn't until the near the end of the session where we were able to inflict substantial casualties. Having said that, we still lost by one 3/4 of a point to the Marine players. But if we had continued on just one or more turns, when we start spawning six blips at a time, I think the outcome would have been substantially different.

We did make a mistake with how we used our Licter. It's a power piece, with the ability to intentionally spawn in front of the Imperial players. It was tough, and it can respawn endlessly. I'm afraid I didn't really understand its game-changing abilities well enough to employ it to maximum effect. But I hope to be able to play in a similar scenario in a future convention. But as the Genestealer, of course.

I'll need to look for some original sets and appropriate minis, because that game we played. Was. Simply. Awesome!

RISING PHOENIX 2025

 

A couple years back, I was introduced to this Con by mutual friend and artist Ogmios. It wasn't until this year that I actually attended. Whenever I go to a con, my wife asks me how it was. My usual answer is "fun." This time around, she noted that I instead said "satisfying."

Why was that? Well, the start of my first day there, one of the organizers stopped right away and asked me if I needed any help. Which even then I thought was remarkable. It wasn't a big con, and there were some structural issues. 

But it was the vibe that was right. Everybody was friendly, enthusiastic and inclusive in their attitude. Every game or session I attended was good, but most often great. And the caliber of players, experienced or not, was pretty good. And I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here's what I did:

Friday; Workshop on Scenario and One-Shot Design, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (powered by Apocalypse)

Saturday: Beowulf demo, Intro to Enclave, Spacehulk

Sunday: Workshop on Scenario and One-Shot design (repeat), Seminar on Using History in your RPG

I also ran into someone who I met previously at TotalCon, Adam, who it turns out I'm remarkably simpatico with. We plan to meet online to play Diplomacy, Dune and (hopefully) some Advanced Civilization.

Some favorable impressions:

• First and foremost, as I said, everyone was very friendly.
• The panels I attended were awesome! I learned about structuring one-shots for con games, how to prep a caper adventure, and pointers for my creating a post-apocalyptic episodic campaign. And we had a very thought-provoking conversation about how to incorporate real-world history into your fantasy world.
• RPGs: I had immense fun playing Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (powered by the apocalypse). My experience with Enclave was more meh! than not. 
• Boardgames: Enjoyed playing Beowulf, and I had an absolute blast playing Space Hulk (as the Genestealer player, of course!).

Some less-than-favorable impressions:

• The Website: While it was visually striking and dynamic, I found the website less useful and difficult to navigate. This is not unique to Rising Phoenix -- to a lesser degree, it's a problem with Total Con, too. They should really do some quick usability study to see how users really interact with the website. One particular gripe I have is in finding the URL for where to find my schedule, which is buried in the middle of some text and is not hyperlinked! Really a simple fix, though.
• The Venue: The hotel was nice, and the food is good. But the space is really tight. No lobby to speak of, narrow hall runway, and not enough tables and chairs for free recreation.

But that's me just being a little churlish. I hope they take note of my nitpicks, but on the whole the experience was satisfying and simply awesome!

13TH WARRIOR - HOW AHMAD LEARNED THE NORSE LANGUAGE BY LISTENING

 

Just a quick follow-up to my other Beowulf / Thirteenth Warrior post. There are many things I love about this movie, but most of all, I love its focus on culture and language. At the start of the movie, it mixes Greek, Latin and Norse. It deals with problems with linguistic diversity, the problem of translation, language learning and literacy.

Ahmad ibn Fadlan is a cosmopolitan character, presumably multilingual. (Certainly, his companion, Omar Sharif's character is.) What I like is that he learns the language through repeated exposure to it, through listening and parsing out semi-familiar words and deducing their meaning, etc. Very naturalistic. This is something I really would like to incorporate into my game . . . .

ALL THINGS BEOWULF

 "Fate often spares an undoomed man when his courage is good."

This morning I learned how to play Beowulf the Legend boardgame. Mechanically, it smoothly combines three main elements: a bidding game, elements of a push-your-luck game, and traditional token progress / narrative track for movement. I was struck how well I thought the mechanics matched the theme and plot of the classic Anglo-Saxon epic.

Beowulf is one of my favorite literary works. I've taught it a few times, and I've always had some students who expressed their admiration for it. When I told friends and acquaintances that I was going to play the demo, I was shocked at how few had any familiarity with it.

Rather than recommend reading the original, I have suggested instead that they watch the movie 13th Warrior or its source novel Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton. The novel is a continuation of in the telling of an actual manuscript fragment written by the Arab emissary Ahmad Ibn Fadlan which recount his travels among the Northmen in the tenth century.

In the continuation, he comes into contact with Buliwyf )(Beowulf) and his retinue as they prepare to voyage by sea to the kingdom of Hrothgar, to free Hurot (Heorot) and his people from the depredations of the monster Wendol (Grendel), his mother, and the glow-wyrm (dragon) -- all of which have naturalistic explanations for them.

Grade: For 13th Warrior and Eaters of the Dead, a solid A. For the boardgame, based on my limited play, I'd probably give it a B, but with the understanding that I might elevate it after I've had more extensive experience playing the game.

CONLANGING: DIALECT RPG

 

Dialect is a structured language creation game, where you start out with an imaginary,  isolated population of speakers whose environment / situation leads to linguistic drift. 

Players take turns to create words and use them in conversation over the course of three rounds, known as ages (where some significant event happens that changes the course of your evolving dialect.)

In structure and gameplay, it reminds me somewhat of Fiasco, but with a cooperative feel, rather than an agonistic one. There is a tradition within the conlanging of gamefying language creation.

Finding this game has put me in mind of Langmaker by Jeffrey Henning. The book is a compilation of articles written on the Zompist.com site. The articles are written from the hobbyist point-of-view, with a popular linguistics bent. There are articles about taxonomies of conlangs, the history of conlanging (e.g., Hildegard von Bingen, J.R.R. Tolkien, etc.), a variety of sample conlangs.

But most relevant in this context, it includes some examples of language games one can play to exercise your creative and linguistic faculties to create or prepare you to create your own conlang. Examples of language games and thought experiements include: Dublex, Fith, Ilish, Intermythic (similar concept to the TNG episode "Darmok"), etc.

Grades: I've read Langmaker all-the-way through multiple times. I absolutely love its playful, playing-with-language approach. And based on my reading of the Dialect rule book and how I imagine its gameplay with interested player, I give both a solid A.  

FRENCH POP: "ACROBATE" PAR L.E.J.

 

L.E.J. pronounced Elijay is a French ensemble of vocalists and a celloist. The name is an initialism of their first names: Lucie, Élisa  and Juliette. They are childhood friends from St. Denis, a suburb outside of Paris -- who were brought together and united by their love of music. They are each classically trained and bring those chops to their fashioning of (to my ear) some truly fascinating pop. Enjoy!

BOARDGAMES OF YORE I WISH I HAD

Today I'm at Rising Phoenix, a small tabletop gaming convention in Milford MA. Talking to folk, I'm reminded about how I started out in the hobby. It was in high school, and we had a wargaming club that I participated in. This was in the 1980s.

We played Dawn Patrol and Circus Maximus a lot, as well as WWII miniatures. It was here that I was first exposed to Diplomacy and other, similar political games. Which tended to be my jam. Talking about all this put me in mind that there are at least two games from this period that I lack and that I really need to work at acquiring. Both are ameristyle games with broader political / cultural themes at play.

Let me explain the notion of Ameristyle games. This is a dated concept / genre that has largely been superseded by the more family-friendly, mechanical and now-dominant genre of Eurostyle games. 

Ameristyle games are derived from wargaming and are primarily aimed at simulation -- what if and how history might have played out differently if X happened instead (e.g., Napoleon won Waterloo instead of losing it) OR what X experience would feel like / be like if you participated in it (e.g., what flying a biplane in WWI would be like). The rules are meant to recreate that experience. The downside is that because things can snowball in real life, you can often know who's going to win the game well in advance of reaching the actual victory conditions. If you are on the losing end, well, you need to find your joy elsewhere in the game.

Eurostyle games privilege mechanics over simulation, with the theme usually being more of a theme / skin than an attempt to replicate an experience. To make them more player-friendly, for players of various backgrounds and abilities, they build into the game "catch up" mechanics to give players at the bottom of the pile still a chance to catch up and perhaps still prevail in the end and win!

Both are valid. But I do miss me some classic Ameristyle games. These two are at the very top of my list:

Machiavelli is an official Diplomacy variant, set in Renaissance Italy. I've mentioned elsewhere that I find traditional Diplomacy tending to become somewhat static with repeated play and the incentive to exploit established lines of play. One aspect of Machiavelli I love is that it uses scenario-based setups, where each game has a different feel and development based on the different available starting points provided by the scenarios. It also has some mechanical variations that include -- use of gold as the medium to measure competitive status and success, the garrison as a new unit (and the ability to convert from army to navy or vice versa with the garrison as a transitional state), elite units, and optional rules for plague and assassination. I didn't have much chance to play it much before I lost the game in a fire.

The other is Advanced Civilization, not to be confused with the Sid Meier computer game. At the time, it was notable for the fact that it didn't use dice or cards (mostly!) to resolve situations on the board. It is a game or resource management, since you can only have a combined pool of population and money equal to 55 tokens. Each phase of the game is an algorithmic, mini-game of its own, that add up together to provide a unified game experience. Which power starts each phase depends on different criteria for each phase, which tends to effectively shift tactical advantage throughout the game in semi-predictable ways. The problem of course is that once one power gets ahead two or three squares on the Archeological Succession Track, there is precious little to nothing you can do to stop them from winning. However, because of its multi-phase gameplay, there is always something in the game you can work on improving or "winning" at. Both are long-ish, which was a feature not a bug, in that this is what us grognards at the time were wanting it to be.

I haven't been on eBay for a long time, but it looks like it's time to re-engage and work to score some games in relatively good condition. Probably will cost me a tidy sum to acquire them, but in my mind, it'll be well worth the time, cost and effort to re-acquire them.

HEAVY METAL WORKSHOP DOES KING CRIMSON - LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC, PART 2

Another Larks' Tongues in Aspic cover. This time from a Japanese ensemble of classical musicians who do covers of, well as their name implies, heavy-ish rock compositions. Their name is Heavy Metal Workshop, and they are a band that transposes music for one instrument for another, completely different one. Here, piano for guitar. But also tuba for bass, flute for violin, etc. I like how this version lays bare the structural components of guitar and bass interplay. Enjoy!

CR CALCULATOR

 

One of the aspects that's tricky about creating / adapting homebrew monsters is assigning them a CR. I've never managed the trick for assigning them manually. Granted, it's not really a science -- there's always some degree to which you have to eyeball it. Too many damned variables.

Recently, I discovered this online tool for calculating CR. And I have used it for assigning CR to the creatures I have adapted from the Neverland and Oz RPGs. Granted, it's for the 2014 edition, but it seems to also work just fine for the 2024 edition. (At least, I haven't yet found any obvious problems with it so far.)

I hope you find it as useful as I have!

WONDERLAND: MATCHMAKER (SMALL HUMANOID CR 01)

 

The matchmaker is a creature adapted from Andrew Kolb's Wonderland: A Fantasy RPG.

small humanoid, chaotic neutral

AC: 12, HP: 12 (2d6+4); Initiative: +2; Senses: passive Perception 09; Speed: 30 ft.

STR: 12, DEX: 14, CON: 14, WIS: 08, CHA: 12

Resistances: fire and poison damage; Language: Common; CR: 01 (200 XP); PB: +2

TRAITS

Rather Gullible:  They have Disadvantage on saves against mind-affecting magic.

Spontaneous Combustion: When they are reduced to 0 HP, they explode. Creatures within a 5-ft. radius must make a DEX save DC13. Failure: 4D4 fire damage. Success: half damage.

ACTIONS

Love Tap: melee natural attack (+3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: D4+1 bludgeoning damage)

Shoot Fireworks (recharge 5-6 each): They can choose from one of the following options when available.

• Fountain of Love: Each creature within 30-ft. radius must make DEX save DC13. Failure: 4D4 fire damage. Success: half damage)
• Real Firecracker: ranged weapon attack (+4 to hit, reach 5 ft., D4 targets. Hit: D4+1 fire damage)
• Romantic Candle: special weapon attack (+4 to hit, reach 5-ft. D4 targets. Hit: D4+1 fire damage)
• Spin the Bottle Rocket: Each creature within 20-ft. radius must make DEX save DC13. Failure: 2D6 fire damage. Success: half damage.
• Wedding Cake: Each creature within 60-ft. cone must make DEX save DC13. Failure: 4D8 fire damage. Success: half damage.

SPECIAL

Wondrous Hat: As an item, this semi-cursed hat confers the following effects upon its wearer while in Wonderland.

• Resistance to fire and poison damage.
• Disadvantage on saves against mental-effect magic.
• Whenever near an open flame, must make a WIS save DC15 or be compelled to start a dangerous fire.
• Once put on, the hat can't be removed for 1-hour in game.

NEVERLAND: GABRIEL HOUND (HUGE FEY CR 04)

 

The gabriel hound is a creature adapted from Andrew Kolb's Neverland: A Fantasy RPG. 

huge fey, neutral

AC: 16 (natural armor); HP:  130 (10d12+60); Initiative: +3; Senses: truesight 60 ft., passive Perception 10; Speed: 30 ft., fly 30 ft. (hover)

STR: 20, DEX: 16, CON: 22, CHA: 14

Immunities: mind-altering magic, Resistances: bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non-magical weapons; Languages: all, CR: 4 (450 XP); PB: +2

TRAITS

Mirror Gaze: When encountered, its face will have the likeness of an individual member from the opposing side. That creature has disadvantage on all attacks against it, plus the target has disadvantage on all saves versus effects caused by the gabriel beast.

ACTIONS

Multiattack: It can make up to two claw attacks.

Claw: melee natural attack (+7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2D8+5 slashing damage PLUS target has disadvantage on its next attack)

Chain Lightning (recharge 5-6): As per spell of same name.

Howl: CON save DC12. Failure: gabriel hound has advantage on all its attacks against target for the next minute.

REPOST FROM GNOME STEW - NEWS AND REVIEW POF

Just a quick note on my part. I've been trying to get back into the habit of reading D&D / RPG blogs of late. Gnome Stew used to be one of my go-to's for RPG tips, tricks and design.

As you may have realized, since COVID, one of my abiding fascinations has been with conlanging (the hobby / act of creating constructed languages). I've been reading up on it and on popular / academic linguistics.

Here is some news / review about a relatively new one-shot RPG Dialect where you and your friends create aspects of a new dialect over the course of this storytelling RPG. They also have a similar product where you create a new sign language over the course of the game -- inspired by the case of a new Nicaraguan sign language that spontaneously developed among deaf children in an orphanage there that were temporarily isolated from their greater society. There's also one called Xenolanguage that I haven't been able to dig much into its description yet, but which I find potentially very exciting.

The article can be found here. Woo-hoo!!

OZ - WINGED HOWLER MONKEYS (MEDIUM MONSTROSITY CR 1/2)

 

These winged monkeys are adapted from Andrew Kolb's Oz: A Fantasy RPG.

medium monstrosity, neutral

AC: 12; HP: 15 (3D8); Initiative: +2; Senses: passive Perception 14; Speed: 30 ft., climb 30 ft., fly 60 ft.

STR: 12, DEX: 14, WIS: 14

Skills: Acrobatics +4, Perception +4, Stealth +4; Vulnerabilities: electrical and weather-based attacks; Language: Common; CR: 1/2 (100 XP); PB: +2

TRAITS
Flyby Attack: It doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity when it flies out of its opponent's reach.
Lift: Treat them as Large for determining their carrying ability.
Monkey See, Monkey Do: It can mimic any spell up to 2nd-level it sees performed, including cantrips. To perform this action on its next opportunity to act accordingly, it must make an INT save versus the DC of the original spell.

ACTIONs
Multiattack: It can make up to two rend attacks.
Rend: melee natural attack (+3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: D6+1 slashing damage)
Throw Object: ranged weapon attack (+4 to hit, ranged 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: D4+2 bludgeoning damage)
Screech: CON save DC10, radius 60 ft. Failure deafened for 1 minute.
Summon Winged Monkey Allies (1/Long Rest): Summon D4 winged howler monkeys. Summoned winged howler monkeys may not do likewise in the same encounter. 

KING CRIMSON "DISCIPLINE" - PIANO COVER

Wow! Came across this video this evening, and had forgotten about it. I realize this cover displays the complexity and beauty of this song better than the xylophone one did. Both visually and sonically. Enjoy!

DIPLOMACY LAB

 

Something I've discovered playing Diplomacy over the years is that it can become rather static in its strategy and gameplay. You have the same board and pieces, the same constraints and often the same players. With the same seemingly finite positions and outcomes. And the problems to solve are always the same, too.

Often, it is about how to get past some strategic point in a stalemate line -- local or strategic in nature. But it could be about discovering new or unorthodox alliances that work or finding new strategies for limiting or eliminating powers more efficiently, etc.

That's why it's always exciting when you get into a game where your seemingly stable knowledge of the game gets overturned by new dynamics and situations at the board. It's somewhat rare the more you play the game, but when it happens it is so exhilarating! It's as if you are discovering new Diplomacy knowledge with possibilities for how you play the game again in the future. (Or it could be a one-off, which in actuality doesn't make it any less exciting IMHO.)

It occurs to me then, that the random solo play approach I outlined in my previous post may be a useful way to simulate and test new strategies and approaches, the variables being the assumptions you make in terms of the relationships and goals that are in-play. The natural ebb and flow of the random turn structure can simulate the ups and downs of actual play to some extent. Powers that draw early will have to play things more conservatively, while those that draw late can be much more aggressive. The random nature of the turn order from turn-to-turn will help to simulate the knife's-edge feel of actual play.

Or at least, that's the idea . . . .

MONEYBALL / MICHAEL LEWIS

 

I'm not a baseball fan per se. I played in Little League when I was a kid in Texas and used to have a trophy our team Holly Farms won. But I was never very good at it, and I find actively watching it anywhere but the ballpark to be very boring. 

However, Baseball has a history, tradition and folklore that makes you want to like it. They make for the best sports movies as narrative because the long baseball provides for narrative room for the narrative to go from rags-to-riches and be believable. (Football only works narratively IMO on the level of the game itself -- a pivotal or meaningful game.)

When I taught First Year Writing in college, I had many students who wanted to write the sports paper. What I asked them to do was to narrow their topic by writing instead about Sports and _____. Sports as Culture, the Mythology of Sport, Sports as Economics, Sports as Narrative, etc. Moneyball scratches this itch for me in a major way. I think it is significant as Nonfiction Narrative, but also as important in the analysis of Sports as Economics and Human Error in Judgment into What Is Important in a Phenomenon.

The premise of Moneyball is that in a market where large market teams can easily outspend small market teams it is important to identify how to analyze and realize where the real value in the market is. Because of market inefficiency caused by mistaken notions of where value lies, one's ability to realize where meaningful, quantifiable measurements of performance can lead to a competitive edge when fielding a team. This can apply to many areas in life beyond baseball, I believe. There's something intellectually heroic in being able to turn what seems so commonsensical so thoroughly on its head.

(The movie captures this dynamic ably and deserves its own review.)

Review: I can't tell you how many times I've read this book on pure whim. It's both provocative in its analysis and engrossing in the telling thereof. Solid A.

OCEAN'S TWELVE: LOST IN TRANSLATION

 

I'm a fan of the Ocean's films -- actually I'm pretty much a fan of caper films in general. Ocean's Twelve, however, is a movie plot-wise that really doesn't make much sense. Oh well.

Having said that, I happen to absolutely love this scene, the "Lost in Translation" scene! In the movie, I know it's a scam to put Linus off his game. But I'd love to think it was an actual method for secret communication among professional criminals. And in my game, it is.

This is Thieves' Cant in my game. It is a way of communicating secretly in public and is based on innuendo, misdirection, hidden metaphor and parable. It's less of an actual language as a means, strategy and practice for hiding secret meanings in plain speech. As such, it does require that persons involved must share a language in common in addition to Thieves' Cant to pull it off. (It does have the advantage, however, of being very much a universal form of communication.)

ZAZ - JE VEUX

Zaz (Isabelle Geoffroy) is a French pop / jazz singer. Her early music is very much in the Gypsy Jazz mode. I love the fact that in this case, she is performing it as street music and that she plays the kazoo on it. This is the song that launched her highly successful musical career. She has been called by some "This Generation's Answer to Edith Piaf. High praise indeed! (And as a side note, she could easily get into the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Art Museum her in Boston FREE -- since her given name is . . . Isabelle.) Enjoy!

CLEVELAND-DETROIT GRAND PRIX

 Back in the 1990s, my friends and I played a lot of Daytona 500 by Milton Bradley. The games were so cheap that we would buy up multiple games and we ended up hacking the game by combining decks and creating a variety of new tracks. (When I say "we" I mean my gaming group, since became an infrequent player due to other circumstances in my life.

Fun Fact: When Neil and I were graduate students at Northern Illinois University, we met Matt Leacock (designer of Pandemic) at Kinko's where he worked as an undergraduate. His field of study at the time was graphic design. HE created the monster track on which our group played Daytona 500 with multiple decks.

This is essentially the same game, with just one huge tweak -- the track itself. Both games simulate a racetrack. Daytona 500 is played on a regular oval track. Cleveland-Detroit on the asymmetrical track above.

How to Play: There are six colored race cars. You bid on which ones you want to play in a given race. To move your car, you have to play cards that have your color or a wild card dot on it. Now here's the catch: You have to move all cars with colored dots on your card, in the order they appear. The full amount -- unless it's impossible. The cars are awarded prizes by the order they cross the finish line. 

Simplexity: This my design principle-ideal for games. Simple mechanics that lead by their aggregation or choices present to produce complex behavior in actuality.

When we have played it, we have also 'ported over one rule from the original Daytona 500 -- namely, Drafting: If your car is located in the square directly behind another car, and that car starts its move, you also move directly ahead one square as a result.

A typical game is three races, alternating between the two tracks, whoever has the most money at the end of the series wins. That's it!

One Quibble: The money in the game is denominated in Monopoly -style paper bills, but with the color scheme running opposite from Monopoly. I find this highly confusing in the moment. I suggest playing with actual Monopoly money or with poker chips.

Grade: I love this game and will play it anytime, anywhere. Solid A.

FRÉRO DELAVEGA - LE CHANT DES SIRÈNES 2

 

Fréro Delavega is a French musical duo (but now split up) who competed on the French musical contest show La Plus Belle Voix in 2014. The duo was made up of Jérémy Frérot and Florian "Flo" Delavega.

This song Le Chant Des Sirènes 2 is from their second album Des Ombres et Des Lumières. As was Le Coeur Éléphant. These are my two favorite songs from the album that I just wanted to share. There is, incidentally, a Le Chant Des Sirènes 1 from their first album that I may post in the future. Enjoy!

BEING TEXAN: HOW THE PEN/PIN MERGER SCREWED UP STAR TREK FOR ME!

 

So here's an example how problematic the pen/pin merger, which is diagnostic of a Texan accent, can be. When I was a kid and TOS was just then being syndicated on afternoon and late-night TV, I came across this classic episode. "The Empath" S03 E12.

First of all, I recognized the actress playing the mute empath as Kathryn Hays, who portrayed Kim on As the World Turns. As I said she's a mute empath, and McCoy decides to give her a name, so they don't call her something like "Hey You." To my ear, he names her Jim after Captain Kirk -- why I don't know. Anyway, at the end of the episode, when the trio are talking about her, Scotty says that she must have been a "pearl of great price" (referring to the NT parable). I never entirely understood how Scotty quite got there, but I just accepted it.

This is an episode that I've seen many times and liked, as kind of a Rod Serling-esque take on the morality play. I only realized lately that McCoy actually named her Gem instead -- which was actually meant to set up the Scotty anecdote as a parable and in-episode joke. (Much like the son/sun confusion in the episode "Bread and Circuses, but much more visibly so.)

Could they have called her anything else, like Jewel, Ruby or Pearl to make the reference / joke more obvious to this poor Texan's ears and understanding. Apparently not.

BEING TEXAN: TALKIN' LIKE IT

 

I like Olly Richards. He is pretty knowledgeable and a pretty low-key popular linguist. Our library owns a number of his learn-a-foreign-language-through-story books in our ESL / Foreign Language Literature collection. And he's got a pretty good ear for languages and dialects in a variety of languages. Here, he explores the nine basic accents that make up the Texas dialectical soundscape. 

Most people tell me that I don't have really much of an accent. What they are hearing from me is the largely unaccented tone of my learned Midwest-Wisconsin accent that I picked up when we moved north from Texas. But my base accent is pure Texan, buried deep but detectable by people who have experience with a variety of Southern and Western accents. They'll ask me where I'm from, and when I say that's difficult because I've lived in eight different states by now -- they'll stop me and ask me where I originally came from and whether it was south of the Mason-Dixon line.

So it gets more complicated than that. I actually have two distinct Texan accents competing for attention under my normally midwestern-sounding Wisconsin cover accent. To my ear, I've elements of the North Central Texan accent (#4) characteristic of Sweetwater and Abilene, and the Texas Triangle accent (#8) characteristic of Austin and San Antonio (but also Dallas and Houston apparently).

It comes out in some words and minimal pairs. Some mergers such as the pen-pin and cot-caught mergers, words like route/root with a tight /oo/ sound, the lazy /z/ sound in greasy, genuine pronounced jen-yoo-aye-n, an insert (v.) / insert (n.) sounding the same as /in-ZERT/. And so on OR und so weiter. More on that later.

 

BEING TEXAN: LIKE A NATIVE

 

So I'm not a native Texan, though I wish I was. It would be somewhat easier to explain the state's profound influence on me as a person if I could say "born and bred."

I was born in St. Louis, but there is hardly anything about that state has shaped me. Apart from the purely bureaucratic. (There is a St. Louis county, but St. Louis ain't in it!)

Nor Mississippi, which is where we moved to shortly after I was born. No, it's TEXAS as a southern state that has most shaped me through my childhood there. We lived there from 1969 to 1977, and we lived in two distinct regions of it: north-central (Sweetwater near Abilene) in the Big Sky / Dustbowl part of the state AND in the south-central region (Seguin near both Austin and San Antonio) in the River Valley / Hill Country part of it.

Or in another way of thinking: from the Scotch-Irish-Appalachian part of it, to the German heart of the state. Some clues that you have met a Texan:

They ask you "What part?" when you say you lived there or visited there.

Corollary: "I'm from _____ near _____." Texas is THAT Big. And the second place can easily be forty minutes to an hour-and-a-half away. (Padre Island was nearly three hours away from Seguin, and we used to regularly go both ways in a day to "go to the beach.")

They use the expression "couple of" to mean two or more AND "few" to mean three or more. (That is, in my experience.)

 They use the expression "all hat, no cattle" to mean "all talk, no action." And then smile when you learn that and think it's ALL it means!

They order Sweet Tea, and then they add more sweetener to it after it arrives.

The pen/pin merger. They can't seem to distinguish between minimal pairs having em/im or en/in in them. (It's diagnostic of the many Texan accents that exist there.)

When they go to the local HEB (supermarket chain), they park in the shade, rather than closer to the entry. Though actually, that's just part of being Southern.

There's much more to it than that, of course. Just what I can think of right-off-the-top-of-my head. Much more to come later, I'm sure! 

 

PARA -NORMAL RPG (WITH TAROT CARDS)

 

Para is a horror-drama RPG that uses Tarot cards for its action resolution mechanic. In a nutshell, that's it. But though extremely simple in its design, when I played it at Total Con, I found it engaging way beyond its simple mechanics.

First, though I want to make a shout-out to Eerie Games and to John Del Toro from the company. They were extremely friendly, engaged and quite hospitable. I spent a lot of time at the Con, on-and-off stopping by their booth to chat. The publisher is very old-school, and we enjoyed chatting about Talisanta, one of my favorite RPGs from back-in-the-day that I used to GM.

John ran an adventure one evening that he was so gracious to let me join in. I played a kinda maladjusted, goth-type teen boy, who hated his parents, school and pretty much almost everyone else. And he was a pyrotechnic (a talent I only availed myself near the very end of the adventure). Para is about the paranormal and how we respond to it and possibly grown from engaging with it.

The core mechanic is to declare what you want to do, to combine an attribute with a talent to arrive at a success number. You also have an affinity established for one of the Minor Arcana Suits. That is the number that you are trying to get equal to or below from each Minor Arcana you draw. The number of successes you need to get to succeed is determined by the GM, somewhere between 1-6.

You draw three cards for your action tableau. For each Minor Arcana drawn you earn one point for each card at or beneath your success number and one for any cards that have a suit for which you have affinity. All Major Arcana constitute an automatic Success. Thus you can achieve successes anywhere between 0-6. You have the option to re-shuffle when the GM has determined that the action has moved on to its next phase or act. (I didn't, since I'd been drawing mostly high cards and knowing that not shuffling them back in increased by odds for multiple successes per draw.) There's a bit more to the game beyond that, but not much more.

Everything else about the game has to do with motivation, drama, tone and atmosphere. Which frankly, is what RPG-ing is really what's all about IMO. Grade: At this point, I'd have to give it a B+. I need to play it much more before I can actually say I love it. Like yes, love not yet. It should also be said that they already have some other tied-in games for different genres, specifically a cyberpunk-themed game. So I do expect that I'll be visiting this system again in the not-too-distant-future. Enjoy!

WALTER BISHOP - JUST BEING SILLY TO "LOVE AND HAPPINESS" BY AL GREEN

 Fringe is one of my favorite speculative fiction series on TV. It is a thoughtful, fully self-consistent science fiction/mystery/conspiracy TV shows, and features an exceptional ensemble of actors portraying an intriguing cast of characters: John Noble (Walter Bishop), Joshua Jackson (Peter Bishop), Anna Torv (Olivia Dunham), Lance Riddick (Philip Broyles), and Jasika Nicole (Astrid Farnham), and others too-many-to-be-named.

Far away, the most fascinating character and the character with the widest range to play with is Walter. Here he is being silly and dancing to an Al Green's "Love and Happiness" to calm down the mystery child before putting the device on to his head to read his thoughts. The episode is "Inner Child" S1 E15. Made this mid-level hit so memorable for me that it is now one of my favorite tunes from Al Green's Greatest Hits. Enjoy!

MARVEL LEGENDARY - DECK BUILDER GAME

 

This is my favorite deck builder game. I know a lot of people like Dominion. Leaves me cold, frankly. Of course, as anyone can see, I'm a Marvel fan in general. Always have been. So there's that. 

But what I like about it is the theme, but also the fact that it is semi-cooperative, that it has a pretty cool "AI", and that there is a built-in use for building your deck so that you can beat down the baddies. As simple as that. I like that it can easily scale down to Solo play without much change and similarly upward.

Of course, this is a game that really depends on the expansions to really make it go. Which, apart from the cost of it, I'm OK with it. At least, you know exactly what you are getting when buy an expansion. Unlike buying into a CCG, where luck plays a pretty large part in what you get when you buy expansion packs. Like Magic: The Gathering, where IMO "he who wins is he who spends the most." I do think the game is eternally on the verge of becoming "out of print." Which can be a problem when looking for it and buying into it. Still . . .

Grade: I give it an A+, because as I said, it's my favorite deck building game -- and makes me want to play it despite my general antipathy to the genre. 'Nuff Said!

DOCUMENTARIES: ARMISTICE (2008) / LONG SHADOW (2014)

 

I really enjoy a well-made documentary, one that is both informative and has good production values. I especially like it when the documentary turns my understanding of a topic and turns it inside-out and with good reason. And this is what both of these WWI documentaries by David Reynolds do for me. 

Parenthetically,  he is also a historian of WWII, and his documentaries on Hitler's Soft Under-belly (the Mediterranean campaign) and on Stalin (Man of Steel) are also equally well-done.

What Armistice does really well is break down the military / political situation on the Western Front and establIshes the centrality of Eric von Ludendorff in all areas of the German offensive during WWI, both in-theater and at the home front, and both how he nearly won the air, but more importantly ultimately lost it, based on both his strategic and tactical brilliance, but more importantly based on his own personal character flaws.

The Long Shadow traces the consequences of WWI on the political and intellectual history of the twentieth century and beyond. It is easy to overlook WWI in the shadow of WWII. The First World War lacks the same kind of clear narrative and explanation for it that the Second World War possesses. It lacks the kind of heroes and more importantly kind of villains that WWII has. But it can be argued, as Reynolds does, that it is the more consequential of the two. Not solely based on its immediate aftermath, but in its lingering influence beyond its immediate horizon on the political and social mores that came into being in the post-war environment. In it, he focuses on three major intellectual changes that we might take for granted as being from natural law and common sense, but are really direct consequences from the idealism and trauma that shaped the First World War. Those being: the anti-war and peace movement, popular democracy and suffrage, and the idea of national self-determination as a normative ideal for international law. And, of course, through Treaty of Versailles, the ultimate inevitability of WWII.

Grade: I'd give both of them a solid A. If I had to favor one over the other, I'd give Armistice the edge. It made me see the conflict and personalities involved from an entirely different angle. The Long Shadow echoed my own thinking, but in such a detailed and orderly way as to be IMO supremely persuasive.

CAIRN OSR

 

This is an RPG I originally picked up on a whim. it had that 0E feel/vibe to it -- that I still remember from back in the day. (My very first foray as a player was in a homebrew dungeon using the white/brown D&D booklets. I quickly graduated for an equally brief time to the Holmes basic and B1: In Search of the Unknown, before we dove into the newly published 1E.) And boy, oh boy, does this game deliver on the vibe! It is an even more stripped-down version of the original RPG experience. (And when they Kickstarted their "boxed" second edition, I immediately signed on!)

Some differences from standard D&D of any edition. First of all, there are no other species than Humans in the game. There are, however, different occupations / backgrounds to choose from, somewhat reminiscent of DCC. Second, EVERYTHING, including magic use are item-based and rely on a very simple slot-based encumbrance system. Second, there are NO TO-HIT rolls. You just roll damage. Third, you only have three stats: STR, DEX, and WIL --plus HP (Hit Protection) -- to deal with.

Roll damage, subtract armor and remaining HP. The use of stats is two-fold. You roll against them to perform any actions that have any degree of risk attached to them or to use them to potentially save against any other negative effects. They are also used to represent your personal wherewithal to survive different types of permanent damage.

Monsters are pretty straightforward, too. HP, armor, the three stats and a brief description that describe what they are, what they look like, how they behave, and any strange or unusual abilities that might have relevant game effects. Haven't played it yet, but I'm eager to on-spec. And I will, as part of our Summer Reading Program at the Library, under the heading of Try a Different RPG.

Grade: Right now, I'll give it an A, because I do love its aesthetics. I will update my grading after I actually play the damn thing!

DE GUSTIBUS NON DISPUTANDEM (EST)

 

This was to be one of my earliest posts that I was going to write. It is behind my reasoning to cast my letter grade ratings in terms of my own personal reactions to a work, rather than trying to create some sort of objective ratings scheme for it. (Just a reminder: Letters indicate the degree to which I personally like/dislike something. The pluses have to do with whether there are characteristics or attributes that tend to elevate or depress the perceived value of the work in question.)

The Latin expression that sums up my critical aesthetic in evaluation works is De gustibus non disputandem est. Which is usually translated (incorrectly) as: "There is no accounting for taste." Which is what the supposedly enlightened say to the perceived philistines as a put-down. But it literally translates as "There is no arguing with taste."

Or in other words: "You like what you like." Period. No arguing with that. Again, period.

And as a corollary: There is really no such thing as a "guilty pleasure." Period. You like what you like.

And it also means, that we can agree to disagree about the quality of a work. And we can both be equally right/wrong about the work. Or the question itself is meaningless. Your mileage may vary (YMMV). 

Do you follow where this leads to?

Aesthetics is generally about us trying to explain/justify the difference between what we like and don't like in some systematic, consistent way. But here's the catch: it assumes that our aesthetic responses can be described in terms of discrete groupings of works (genre), but also across the universe of discrete groupings of works (genre). Recommendation algorithms on commercial websites assume this. But I think, after some honest reflection, I think you'll realize we simply aren't.

Aesthetic responses are much more complex and contradictory than we generally recognize them to be.

Again, We like what We like. YMMV.

HUMAN ERROR: A PANORAMA OF OUR GLITCHES, FROM POINTLESS BONES TO BROKEN GENES / NATHAN H. LENTS

 

Promising topic, but uninspired treatment IMO. When I read non-fiction, I expect to be entertained in equal parts to becoming more informed on the topic. My brother and I have talked a lot in the past about evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and problems in our understanding of both.

It is true that the Human body has its design flaws. Evolution works with what it has, and good enough is good enough. So, this is a rich topic to explore the vagaries concerning the historical contingencies involved in our evolutionary history.

The thesis of the book is that many of our design flaws come about because they were not selected out, because environmental factors, such as diet compensated for those flaws. Which is a good point. The prime example of this is that primates are unable to synthesize Vitamin C, unlike the rest of the animal kingdom. The fruit-eating diet of our ancestors supplied the Vitamin C that their bodies couldn't produce, so there was no evolutionary selective pressure to eliminate it from the gene pool.

What if fails to explain, however, is how such genetic change becomes universal within a species, without selective pressure to weed out any competing genes. Yes, I can see how a genetic change that is presumably maladaptive can persist if there is not environmental pressure to eliminate it from the gene pool. But again, I don't see how it can predominate without selective pressure in the environment enabling it to flourish.

On a stylistic level, I just found the writing to be too prosaic to engage my attention and imagination.

Grade: I give it a C+. It's my first grade I've given something that is below a B. Meh, is my best description for my reaction. I give it an extra plus for the one insight and example.