Jeremiah Genest

Too many Dalek Stories

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:19:10 GMT

Army of Ghosts (10th Doctor)
Bad Wolf (9th Doctor)
The Chase (1st Doctor)
Dalek (9th Doctor)
The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1st Doctor)
Daleks in Manhattan (10th Doctor)
The Daleks' Master Plan (1st Doctor)
The Daleks (1st Doctor)
Day of the Daleks (3rd Doctor)
Death to the Daleks (3rd Doctor)
Destiny of the Daleks (4th Doctor)
Doomsday (10th Doctor)
The Evil of the Daleks (2nd Doctor)
Evolution of the Daleks (10th Doctor)
Frontier in Space (3rd Doctor)
Genesis of the Daleks (4th Doctor)
Journey's End (10th Doctor)
Mission to the Unknown (kind of first, maybe, sort of)
The Parting of the Ways (9th Doctor)
Planet of the Daleks (3rd Doctor)
The Power of the Daleks (2nd Doctor)
Remembrance of the Daleks (7th Doctor)
Resurrection of the Daleks (5th Doctor)
Revelation of the Daleks (6th Doctor)
The Stolen Earth (10th Doctor)

So we have: 4 for the 1st Doctor (3 years), 2 for the 2nd (3 years), 4 for the 3rd (4 years), 2 for 4th (7 years), 1 for the 5th (3 years), 1 for the 6th (2 years), 1 for the 7th (2 years), 0 for the 8th (big surprise he doesn't count), 3 for the 9th (1 year), 6 for the 10th (3 years), and 1 thats an odd ball.

So yeah, thats way way too many Daleks. In 4 years we've had twice what the 3rd doctor had in 4 years and almost 5 times as many as the 4th doctor had in 7 years.

I hope I never see another Dalek again in my life, they are worse than Skrulls.

Watching Dr Who

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:37:55 GMT

Because it had my favorite Sarah Jane Smith in it I decided to watch the last two Dr Who episodes. Okay we've watched the first one, and due to its ending we'll probably watch the second.

But its fan fiction at best, and not even very good fan fiction.

I can do better. Maybe.

At least I wouldn't have such a stupid Davros (doesn't he know that if he can divide cells enough to make millions of Daleks than he doesn't need more than a few stem cells tops? Stupid super genius).

Oh, and Daleks are way too overdone.

Free RPG day

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:32:47 GMT

If anyone goes by an RPG store tomorrow and sees a copy of the Trail of Cthulu give away grab me a copy. Tomorrow is the day of the potlucks for the kids.

Princess stories

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:07:29 GMT

The starchild is hugely into princess stories and we just got Princess Grace from the library today. And one of the princesses mentioned as Noor Inayat Khan whom I had never heard of. Which is a great outrage, so I decided to post about this amazing person.

Evolution of a Gumshoes game, a narrative

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:52:20 GMT

So we ran esoterrorists, which got me thinking that I would like to use this for a long-term game.

So I posited a secret history of crime, in maybe a few cities, and considered the place of magic.

Then I let it brew for a week and came up with a campaign framework. Let that serve as a call for players, wait and see what happens for interest.

Discernible only in glimpses, a Gumshoes game

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:46:06 GMT

L.A. is epidemically everywhere and discernible only in glimpses.
-- James Ellroy, “James Ellroy Comes Home,” 2006

Setting

The city of angels & demons, a landscape that changes at such warp speed that its impossible to keep up. A game of occult detection would be the passport to excavate the city’s layers, nose behind the scenes explore a city that is at once mythic and alive, pulsing with a thousand short stories unfolding all at once, tales of heartbreak and triumph, survival despite incredible odds and tragedy so horrifying it could come straight from the ancient Greeks.

Los Angeles is the birthplace of all things noir, starting with the Depression and World War II era films that oozed an edgy fatalism and sexy recklessness mirroring the social anxiety of the times. Noir’s sensibility of shadows, silhouettes and urban labyrinths informs the entire game, and not just those stories set in those eras. This narrative style defines how we see the city and shapes the stories that are told about it.

Los Angeles brings with it Hollywood and its giant shadow. The seductive blur of artifice and reality this gives to the game will be a constant theme with the idea of the possibility of shucking off the past like last year’s frock and reinventing oneself beyond your wildest dream always being a possibility. That desperation that can descend wen a dream goes sour, the duplicity that can lurk behind beauty, the rot of the jungle flowers, the riptidea of the sugar sand beaches that carry away the unwary will be a constant theme.

Following the the footsteps of writers like James Cain, Dorothy Hughes, Chester Himes and Raymond Chandler this game will strive to understand both the hope and the terror that Los Angeles inspires. Mix that with the earthquakes, the fires, the mud slides, the riots, the poverty, the glamour, the wealth, the crime, the crackpots, the cults, the gangs, the scandals and you have a heady mix of story possibilities.

Spanning time we will tell a multi-generational story that starts a city where today’s suburbs were yesterdays orange roves and that fifty years ago many of the ethnic enclaves of today’s city hadn't even taken root and continues as the city morphs into a surreal sprawl where the First World and the Third World live cheek by jowl and people are connected across lines of race, class and geography, especially when crime, secrets and passion intersect.

In short a game that is a literary travelogue that stretches from the mountains through the harsdcrabble flats to the barrios and middle-class suburbs, the mansions of the wealthy and the shores of the Pacific Ocean where we finally run out of continent. From the frontier era of the 1800s through the hard years of the Depression to the modern polygot. The presence of the occult will be the funhouse mirror reflecting back into infinity. Through detection, the occult and multi-generational stories we’ll explore a state o mind that is Los Angeles.

Style

The game will draw from various styles and sub-genres of crime novels knit together by a multi-generational saga of families connected to the city and the land.
1880s -- Sherlock Holmes
1920s -- Golden Age
1930s -- Weird Menace
1930s (late) -- American PI
1940s -- WWII (Furst), maybe
1950s (late) -- Dragnet style Police procedural
1960s -- Tough Guys
1970s -- Police Story style police procedural
1982 -- Hill Street Blues style police procedural
1989 -- Lawyers-at-Large
1995 -- Homicide style Police Procedural
2004 -- The Wire meets CSI style police procedural

Rules

This game will use Gumshoes. Each story arch will have its own ability list and some variants may be introduced.

Pitch

James Ellroy and Tim Powers meet at a hotel bar.

What about the occult

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:56:27 GMT

Its no secret that I like (love) occult weirdness, eliptony, conspriacy and the unexplained. Its my natural stomping ground.

And so, as I consider Secret History of Crime as a Gumshoes game I have to look at what the elvel of occult is going to be.

I love Occult Detectives and occult spies, and there is a very cool arching story I can tell, with lots of neat side stories.

But then again, it would be interesting to play these with little to no supernatural. I think it really would depend on where the inetrest (if any) would lie.

City as character

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:44:00 GMT

G. K. Chesterton claimed that “The first essential value of the detective story lies in this, that it is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life”, by which he means “the poetry of London,” and urban text of histories and meanings waiting to be read.

This wasn’t always borne out (not even by Chesterton) but it does represent the stream of crime literature that appeal so strongly to me.

The Secret History of Crime (need a better name) will thus focus on the city as a character (though it probably won’t be the subgenre called urban fiction, I don’t think I could do that justice). And thus it will have one city that’s the focus of the story is set. And based on the fiction I’m looking at, it makes sense for that city to be American.

Here are the cities I’m considering.

“It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.” (O Henry, “A Little Local Color”)

Because of its sheer size and cultural influence, New York has been the subject of many different and often contradictory, portrayals in literature, especially that of crime. From the sophisticated and worldly metropolis to the hellish and chaotic urban jungle New York has served as the backdrop for virtually every conceivable viewpoint on big city life. New York has been home to a disproportionate number of crime dramas, which continue to make criminality in the city as their subject even as New York has become the safest large city in the United States in the last two decades. And trust me I’d love to play with that concept.

This town of Boston has a history. It is not an accident, not a windmill, or a railroad station, or cross-roads tavern, or an army-barracks grown up by time and luck to a place of wealth; but a seat of humanity, of men of principle, obeying a sentiment and marching loyally whither that should lead them; so that its annals are great historical lines, inextricably national; part of the history of political liberty. I do not speak with any fondness, but the language of coldest history, when I say that Boston commands attention as the town which was appointed in the destiny of nations to lead the civilization of North America." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Boston" )

There’s something to be said about sticking with what you know. And Boston is a fascinating city that is often as much a state of mind as a place. As such a setting of Boston includes not only the political boundaries of the city, but also the closely connected communities of Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop, Brookline, Quincy, and areas loosely identified as Boston suburbs or near Boston. Because Boston is such a state of mind, this allows a few archs to be set outside the Boston area if the characters are so closely tied to Boston and Boston values and ways that they carry Boston with them, be it upper class Bostonians in the wild west of the 19th century or a working class South Boston policeman in London and North Africa on the staff of General Eisenhower in World War II.

“Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” (Frank Lloyd Wright)

Los Angeles, a post-Fordist industrial metropolis and an incredible mix of people is traditionally fertile territory for crime fiction. The complexity of the city and the discontinuities between its public image and the reality of living there are ripe and the size and scale of the city offer an amazingly complex backdrop against which to set this game. Myths about Los Angeles depict the city as a forbidden territory, a violent land, an entertainment mecca—anything but a real place with historical roots where people live and are in constant need of better living conditions. I’d love to explore the tensions between those two (or more) poles.

Games I'd still run (or play)

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:59:34 GMT

Using the gilt tag prompted me to go back and look at them.

I'd still like to do sexy Rome. Actually that deserves its own post.

Drink and the Devil had done for the rest strikes me as the best of the ideas from that time. Not that they all weren't good, I think I was just in a horrible place for gaming.

Damn too many of these were good ideas. I hate this utter lack of free time.

The secret history of crime

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:36:57 GMT

I’ve been thinking about Gumshoes (the engine behind Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulu) and what I’d run for it as a campaign. While I’ve thought of different crime genres and subgenres that could work. Match this to secret history (and occult detectives) and its the particular blend of stuff that I seem to be notorious for. But I’ll be honest I’m extremely tempted o play it safe. No deep conspiracies, no occult, no weird.
I’m thinking of a grand arch of stories, made up of different smaller archs set in a different decade(ish) and a different style of crime/mystery. Set in the same city (with perhaps exceptions) this would capture the importance of the city as a character in many of the great crime novels (most recently think Lehane or Pecanoes).
 Where to start is tough. The occult buff in me wants to turn to Poe, but I think for simplicty sake I’d do Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes: Starting here, the longest lasting of the detectives seems a no-brainer. Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and is renowned for his skillful use of "deductive reasoning" while using abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) and astute observation to solve difficult cases. The arch about scientific detectives would equally pay tribute to the Holmes of the first two novellas: the uncanny, bohemian, manic-depressive genius who stalks the fellow fog of London, takes cocaine and morphine to ease the torment of living in “this dreary, dismal, unprofitable world,” and abates his drug habit by compulsively scheming to peel bak the common place surface of other people’s lives, portraying secret histories of violence and vice.

I’m really tempted to then segue into Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (perhaps not in order) but that may be too much Victoriana.

The Golden Age of Detectives (Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayer and Ellery Queen): The 1920s adventure will focus on the style of detective story in which an outsider -- most often a gifted amateur -- investigates a murder committed in a closed environment by one of a limited number of suspects. Gumshoes will be tested for its ability to conform to the confines of the whodunit, where great ingenuity may be exercised in narrating the events of the crime, usually a homicide, and of the subsequent investigation in such a manner as to conceal the identity of the criminal from the reader until the end of the book, when the method and culprit are revealed. In particular the story will be structured on S.S Van Dine's Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.

Weird Menace and Supernatural Detectives: Paul Chadwick and Donald Wandrei meet William Hope Hodgson. Probably set in the 30s -too late for Hodgson, but I need something to cut Chadwick with.

The American great PI, tribute to Raymond Chandler/Dashiel Hammet and all that beautiful film noir, set in the late 30s.

A tribute to Spillane, MacDonald, McBain (tough guys all) set in the 60s.

In the 80s/90s there’d be a Lawyers-at-Large arch, paying tribute to Turow, Grisham, and Lescroart amongst others.

Police procedurals; I’d like to set police procedurals in the 50s (Dragnet), 70s (Police Story), 80s (Hill Street Blues), 90s (Homicide: Life on the Streets) and today (CSI and the Wire).

What I’m missing includes:

Serial killer plot, probably involving FBI agents. May be able to unite this with X-Files. Both make the most sense in the 90s, which may be getting full.
Spy masters: Whether leCarre or something more “amercianized” like McCarry, Littell, Silva, or Furst. Out of that list Furst is the one I like the best. Maybe do a WWII spy story in his style?
I really feel compelled to pay tribute to the work of Grafton, Paretsky and Highsmith.
What about the medical thriller?

So timeline I have (help me fill in the gaps):
1880s -- Sherlock Holmes
1920s -- Golden Age
1930s -- Weird Menace
1930s (late) -- American PI
1940s -- WWII (Furst), maybe
1950s (late) -- Dragnet style Police procedural
1960s -- Tough Guys
1970s -- Police Story style police procedural
1982 -- Hill Street Blues style police procedural
1989 -- Lawyers-at-Large
1995 -- Homicide style Police Procedural
2004 -- The Wire meets CSI style police procedural

Fleshing out to be a very interesting game concept. So this post is to gauge interest, solicit feedback and commit to developing more.

The only mechanical challenge I envision with Gumshoes is the need to create an appropriate ability list for each story. A great detective set of characters ill have very different investigative abilities from a character from Spillane.

Skills in Esoterrorists

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:23:59 GMT

I’ve been thinking about the Gumshoes system a lot since playing Esoterrorists. Mostly I‘ve been thinking about the skill and resolution system. Or rather systems.
For those who haven’t read it, Gumshoes has two skill systems. One for investigation (where you always succeed) and another for other stuff.

Mostly my thoughts have to do with skills and what skills exist. For investigation skills this is crucial. Every investigation skill basically demands a certain type of adventure. And when you have clusters of skills, you tend toward very specific types of adventures. For example the nexus of Anthropology, Archaeology, Architecture, Art History, History, Languages, Textual Analysis and Document Analysis lends itself to a very specific style of game. And when these 8 skills are 38 (21% of the total skills) that really influences the types of stories that are to be told. I actually think this is one of the weaknesses of Esoterrorists as there is no real guidance on running stories where these are the investigation skills that are most important, nor have I seen any of the published adventures that focus on this.

Actually I find Esoterrorists, which comes across very much as FBI meets CSI kind of weak and vague in its skill set. The skills really need to be revised to more accurately reflect the chosen genre, mood, style and themes of the game. Trail of Cthulu does a better job of this, though I tend to think it needs more investigative skills that reflect antiquarians and their interests.

In my opinion the most important part of coming up with a Gumshoes game will be the skill list. A lot of balancing needs to happen to reflect the stye of investigative game. Marlowe has different investigagtive skills from Sherlock Holmes which is different from police procedural which is different from a legal thriller.

My second major observation is about the General Abilities, those skills that aren’t investigative. My first impression is that several of them belong in investigative (Filch, Infiltration and Surveillance are really just two ways of gaining clues) and the second is that there really needs to be more logic applied to them.

Basically once you get beyond Robin Laws tendency for goofy names (something you see in many a Robin Laws game) you basically have four groups of abilities: those to avoid obstacles or to escape (Athletics, Drive, Preparedness), those to overcome obstacles by beating people up (Scuffling, Shooting), those that cover damage from Obstacles (Health, Stability) and those that recover damage from obstacles to keep you going (Medic, Shrink).

I’ll be honest that I think there are too many of these (and thus too many points). I think, again, that depending on the game these should be majorly trimmed down. Driving for example is only really important if you want car chases. So unless your playing Starsky and Hutch, Chips or James Bond you can probably get rid of it. The same for Athletics.
There are two doing damage, but both reflect only one of the damages. Not sure if I want a skill for Stability dealing damage (we are playing the good guys) so I can accept that. Though I might distill scuffling and shooting to one skill.

Health and Stability are about right, though I think variants like Trail of Cthulu’s Sanity can work. Also I like how both of these really represent plot immunity for damage. You don’t really get hit by a bullet until your health drops below zero, and then your out. So I’d probably change that name.

So again, the skill list is crucial here, and probably didn’t get nearly enough thought in Esoterrorists or the other Gumshoe games I’ve seen.

My final thought is about game master advice. There is an awful lot scattered between the various books and online. I really wish there was a master document of Gumshoe investigation planning, with a nice index, it would make my life as a gamemaster much easier to have one toolkit document so I can draw on all the various advice and suggestion bits out there.

Soon I’ll actually post an idea for a gumshoes campaign I have brewing.

The conversations we have

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:06:45 GMT

The boy was describing some comic he's reading (Time Warp Trio) on the way to soccer

the boy: So Frankenstein was created by Marry Shelly because she had some bad dreams and then told some ghost stories on a lake.

Me: Yep, thats a pretty famous event.

The boy: And with her with this Dr Polodori guy who wrote a story about a Vampire.

Me: Mm, hmm

The boy: And he based it on a poet named Byron, who became a vampire in the comic.

Me: Byron is one of my favorite poets

the Boy continues to rattle off about poets telling ghost stories on some lake in Switzerland and how cool Frankenstein's monster is.

These are the types of conversations my family has.

Fake Crystal Skulls

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:11:53 GMT

Just in time for the new Indiana Jones movie the BBC reports that archaeologists are really, really sure the crystal skulls are fakes.

Not that such surety will settle the matter for true believers.

I could tell you but then you would have to be destroyed by me

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:27:03 GMT

I just got the book I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Black World by Trevor Paglen from the library and its very very fun. I definitely want a copy of this one.

Esoterrorists the story continues

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:20:50 GMT

If folks are up for it how about Wednesday the 21st? I'm not feeling well today (home sick) and gaming tomorrow might be a little too much.

I fear technology

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:29:33 GMT

peaseblossom suggested that I should export all the blogs I read into Google reader, as it appears people can't believe I suck so much at pop culture references (trust me I miss them all). So I did, but now I can't figure out how to share my feeds, all I can figure out how to do is share individual items.

Help?

Oh, and the public page is here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/17358649324155503028?hl=en

I think.

Dad, Who's Charles Fort?

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:42:25 GMT

The boy is reading Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist and he asks

"Dad, who's Charles Fort?"

So I explain that Charles Fort was a scholar who collected the unusual and the unexplained and believed the world was a stranger place than science allowed.

And the boy says "He wrote a book called Lo!, do we have that?"

And then he was curled up reading Fort until his grammy showed up.

I definitely have to read this kid's mystery.

Thoughts on Esoterrorists

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:30:48 GMT

Last night we played Esoterrorists for the first time. bluegargantua, bryant, foxtown, jeffwik and peaseblossom were there. Bryant, Jess and Jeff have already written about this on their livejournals so I won't go into the player's side.

For me it went pretty easily. There wasn't the stress of what should be exposed when and I never felt like I was drowning in exposition or pulling teeth. Which was nice.

Prep wise I'm worried this game would be hard to run long-term, I'm also worried that it lends itself more to serial play than I like and there would b some difficulty in having long-term NPCs an big plots, both of which are favorites of mine.

I think I very much underestimated the amount of stuff necessary for a story or a night. We ended just before the end of the first arch (I planned three thinking I'd need it). I actually think the one arch would have been fine and I should have paced things better. That said what we did do was very fun.

Still curious how the action mechanics will work, and especially stability. Next session will see more stability checks (I could have required a few for the research going on but didn't think of it until after I wrote the thing).

I think with practice I could get writing adventures down to 1:1 with gaming time. Which may be more prep work than I've done in a decade for a game.

And I'm with Bryant, next time I run this I'm bringing a tack board (I have a nice foldable one at work) and letting the players arrange clues all Wire style.

Speaking of next time, is there interest in continuing? Wednesdays work very nicely for me.

Esoterrorists this Wednesday

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:59:51 GMT

I have five players (Jess, Tom, Bryant, Kirby and Jeff) and an adventure mostly ready to go. We'll start at 7 at my place, but feel free to be there earlier like around 6:30.

This game is not set in the OV default setting of Esoterrorists. The basic idea is that folks are investigative types who have had little to no experience with the supernatural (though may have occult knowledge) and this will draw them in.

All the characters have, in their past, a significant mentor, Dr Emily Thorne, who has a distinguished teaching record of 30 years in linguistics and classical studies and she's now curator at the MFA. Her son went missing 24 hours ago and she's reached out to you for help. In the years since you were her student you've gone and forged your own life (allowing players to be police, FBI, CIA, academics, etc) but when she called you came to Boston immediately.

With 5 players thats 20 points amongst the investigative, remember you don't need supper high scores. Take a look at these sample characters for ideas.

Here's the Investigative Ability breakdown:

Ability	Core Clue Tally	Total in Adventure
Anthropology	5	12
Archaeology	3	8
Architecture	4	13
Art History	6	12
Forensic Accounting	2	6
Forensic Pathology
History	8	10
Languages	6	14
Law	4	4
Natural History		3
Occult Studies		7
Research	10	19
Textual Analysis	5	6
Trivia	2	2
Astronomy
Ballistics
Chemistry	4	6
Cryptography	4	5
Data Retrieval	4	7
Document Analysis	5	8
Electronic Surveillance	2	2
Forensic Entomology		1
Evidence Collection	5	14
Explosive Devices
Forensic Anthropology	2	2
Fingerprinting	2	9
Photography	3	6
Bullshit Detector	6	10
Cop Talk	4	9
Flattery	5	9
Flirting	0	3
Impersonate	0	2
Interrogation	7	11
Intimidation	1	7
Negotiation	6	12
Reassurance	5	15
Streetwise	3	9

Free Comic Book day

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:12:26 GMT

Took the kids to Free Comic Books Day today, we ended up hitting New England Comics in Cooldige Corner. Which is not where I planned on being (I was thinking Comicopia) but with the housewarming tonight I needed to pick up some things and thus we were nearby.

I'm glad we were. One of the starchild's favorite artists, Andy Runton of Owly was there, and she got the newest book A Time to be Brave signed (with illustration) and also a picture of Owly ice skating which she is very ecstatic about. She did a great job waiting in line for an hour behind all the annoying older guys getting art work for way to many relatives so I also bought her a stuffed Owly.

The boy was very excited when he got home and read his issue of Super Friends (which we bought, Tiny Titans was the Johnny DC title this year) and found a picture he had done of the Justice League when he was 6 on the letters page.

Yet again SF awards make me wonder why I'm in this hobby

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:07:49 GMT

"America split up over a vision of what strength is. Male power versus female negotiation. Force versus knowledge, dominance versus tolerance, simple versus complex. Faith and Flag and patriotic Song stacked up against the New Math, which, let's face it, no-one outside of quantum specialists really understand, Co-operation Theory and the New International Order. And, until Project Lawman came along, every factor on the table is pointing towards a future so feminised it's downright un-American." (p. 116)

This quote isn't from some horrible piece of right wing wank fiction, instead its from the new Clarke award winner, Richard K Morgan's Blackman (US Titlte; Thirteen).

Now granted, I could have missed something, but my tendency is to find this one more damning indication of how our little cultural archipelago is stuck in place and sometimes slides horrifically backwards.

But really, this is a book that is not just unremittingly masculine, its hyper-masculine in a way I find rather destructive by a writer who specializes in writing hyper-males. And frankly I had a great deal of trouble getting beyond the sex and violence that the author clearly enjoys writing to any meaningful view of our society, which is what good SF is supposed to be about. And frankly I'm not so sure this author has that.

And yes, before people point out that in 2002 Gwyneth Jones one for Bold as Love,, and in 1993 Marge Piercy one for He, She and It, I'd like to state that the awards has had high points in the past, but a few more low points than I'd like (and way to much Mieville love for my tastes)

All things Oz

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:52:04 GMT

The boy is hugely into all things Oz right now. He's on, I think, the 6th of Baum's books and he's read Shanowar's comics. And desperately wants to se the movie (if soccer gets cancelled this week I think we will watch it).

I have also, as a result, just read The Wizard of Oz to the starchild.

It's quite interesting to approach the books through a child's perspective. I had, quite frankly, gotten a little dismissive of Baum, and its amazing to see the power he still can hold in a child's imagination.

Plus its a welcome change of pace from bionicles, pokemon (though Magic helps there) and Harry Potter.

Esoterrorists, Wednesday May 7th

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:41:42 GMT

Looks like I have 4 players for Esoterrorists on May 7th which means one to three more open slots.

Should be fun, I like any game which demands I use flowcharts.

One Shot, call for players

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:48:35 GMT

I’ve threatened to do this before, and maybe this time it will happen.

I plan on running Esoterrorists. Anyone available Wednesday the 7th? I imagine 4-6 players would work quite well, but I can handle a few more if there is that much interest.

Gumshoes is a game focusing on investigation. Basically it has a version of drama points broken down into flavors (investigation abilities) that drive one’s investigation. Usually having investigation abilities, like Forensic Anthropology, allow you to find the important clue – Quincy always finds the important bit of medical evidence – that allows you to progress along the mystery. You can spend from your pool to basically establish cooler facts, usually to drive character development, which is why I liken the rule to mechanics. The rest of the game (basically fighting, escaping and other stuff) is a pretty standard test system. I appreciate the fact that social skills are mostly bundled in the investigative. You just succeed when it’s appropriate and roleplay away.

Esoterrorists is, as you can tell from the name, an occult investigation game. X-Files and Conspiracy X and the like. I won’t commit to actually using their background for this game, but I doubt that will matter to most folks as it’s a rather generic background of “we all work for a secret society out to keep the insane occultists from making the world more insane” system. Little more than a framework to explain the supernatural and get the characters to where they need to be.

Thoughts on Tweet

jeremiah.genest@verizon.net — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:12:32 GMT

peaseblossom has already done a good job talking about Jonathan's Tweet problematic post. This post evokes a few things that, quite frankly, cause me to react in a public way.

Tweet is a public person for this hobby, stating these things in a very public way. And when someone comes out with very sexist statements it is only right to have to evaluate their work in the context of their statements. Now I'm the first to admit that we all make mistakes, and we can all say things we regret saying. So it is important to look at people's opinions over time. And in Jonathan Tweet's case there is a long strand of problematic statements. This most recent one is not isolated, and it needs to be looked at in context.

So I'm left believing that Mr Tweet has issues of sexism. Which causes me to consider his works thoroughly. The first way I have to observe his work is whether there is sexism in it, and if so how to deal with it. And yes, I do mean all his work. Now folks who read me regularly know that I was just considering blowing the dust off of Ars Magica, so that is the game I'm going to look at (and yes I recognize he is several iterations of editions back). I don't own other games of his anymore so there is less of an issue for me.

Second I need to consider that even if his work isn't sexist (and Ars Magica is no better or worse than other games) there is the need to send a message. Mr Tweet is a recognized leader in the hobby because of his reputation in large part for writing games like Ars Magica. And frankly I'm not sure I want to continue to give him cachet by playing his games.

I believe firmly that one must hold people to standards, and when they disappoint not to partake in their creative output. The only way I personally can state my disagreement is by refusing my own participation in Mr Tweet's work. He's still alive, he can change, and maybe if enough people make clear their displeasure he'll change. Heck, I even hold out hope that Frank Miller will change if enough people refuse to partake of his sexist work. Not much hope but I'm an optimistic person.

Finally I think there is responsibility on WotC's part. Jonathan Tweet wrote these things on a company forum in his official capacity. He was not operating as a private individual. He was acting officially. And as such WotC bears responsibility for what he wrote. Frankly I'd like to see WotC put him on some sort of probation and require a public apology. And than make clear in very, very public ways that they do not support sexist, gender dividing ideas and dedicate themselves in some very real ways to improving the situation in this hobby.

So in short, I will not support Jonathan Tweet by playing his games. So no Ars Magica for me. And I will not be supporting WotC until they remedy this grievous issue. Which may not sound that big to you when you think of me personally. But remember I have a 7 year old, and he just discovered Magic.