Ever Shambling Onwards...

So - it's been a while since I did a proper "what's up" update. So I'm going to do one now. It'll probably be somewhat patchy and with vast gaps in it... but hey, at least it's an update!

Work:
Work has been, quite frankly, barking. As an example of how daft it's been, I've been working solely on one project, and I was scheduled for the past four weeks to work on that project for five hours a week longer than I actually work. Naturally, I have not worked those extra hours. I've been working without proper breaks and generally exhausting myself making sure it gets done, because it'll fall on my head if I don't. As you might expect, my opinion of my current workplace has dropped like a stone. Considering how poor it was before, this is quite impressive.

I am working hard to either get a better job, sort this one out or (if the situation arises, which is a distinct possibility) steal my bosses job.

I am currently in the running for at least one other job, and have a promised "we'll get back to you" from another (I actually believe they will, too). More news as it happens...

As for the project from hell, I've managed to get my bit of the current workload done. I have another bit to be getting on with (fixing the accessibility gaffes the consultancy have made and that we've introduced in the process of CMS wrangling), but I figure I'm going to take it fairly easy today... I consider it payback for my missed breaks for the past few weeks. I probably have about a day's worth.

Home:
We have a mysterious broken/not broken shower. We lost internet for about three days for no readily discernable reason. I have also discovered the mightiness that is WH40K Dawn of War on the PC, but am still striving to remember that there is life without it.

Edit: I do think, having played the campaign a bit, skirmished a bit and played multiplayer, that it's a game best played with other humans, though.

Family:
I don't talk about it a vast amount, but for the unaware:
For about a year and a half leading up to the start of this year, my parents were trying to get divorced in spite of the efforts of the solicitors who were allegedy representing them.

This last weekend my dad re-married, so izzy_stradlin and I went to the wedding. It was odd, but enjoyable. Also got to meet up with blufive and calatrice, which was also good. Amongst other things, we discussed the fact that I'm hoping to attend my first Eastercon in a couple of years - Orbital 2008. The Guests of Honour make me think that a couple of other folks may also be interested...

LARP:
Unknown Armies was a blast. I didn't get back from the wedding until about 1:30/2ish, so was frantically trying to finish getting things ready prior to time in, which kind of meant that I missed the beginning of the game I (allegedly) run! Still, there was chaos, distrust, headbreaking, an atmospheric meeting in a rainy beer garden, identical sextuplets, headbreaking, amusing drunkards (IC), phone conversations on hands-free and more headbreaking. So that was all good. I must confess that I'm enjoyng running it every bit as much as I enjoyed running mage - making it joint top of the "LARPs I've enjoyed running" list.

Every LARP I've run has it's ups and downs, but so far UA seems to be almost entirely ups with only a couple of minor downs. I think this comes down mainly to two things: A fantastic group of players (and co-GM) and having created characters ahead of finalising the plot. This has let me hook all of the characters into events in some way, and I think people are generally starting to see the results of that... I think only one hasn't yet seen much direct involvement, and I'm working on fixing that.

Music:
I have been listening to the finest in audio cheese! I admit it - I can't help but find power metal cheesy, but Dragonforce were sold to me as "what Dream Theatre would sound like if they were less clinical, faster and had a decent singer".

Now, the Dream Theatre stuff that I like isn't really that clinical, and I'll defend James LaBrie a little - he's a good singer as long as he's singing songs by other people - It's Dream Theatre's own stuff he's not so good at. But anyway - I've been giving Dragonforce a listen, and it's all pretty enjoyable in a compressed, high speed, musically very proficient yet still incredibly cheesy kind of way.

Game is this sunday... Details on runnymede_ua.

So, I now have a userpic for Unknown Armies related posts.

[UPDATED AGAIN!]
Updated PCs and the like... groups:

barty - (Character has no name!) - Missing persons - Statted
cream_horn - Christopher Parker - Missing Persons AND Weirdshit Investigators - Statted
cryx - Alice Winters - Missing persons - Statted
izzy_stradlin - George - Weirdshit Investigators - Statted
lawrencegillies - Ben Fox - Missing Persons OR Weirdshit Investigators - Statted
lucifermourning - Laura - Missing Persons - Statted
thankyoukindly - Whitfield Keating - Weirdshit Investigators AND Missing Persons - Statted
themadone - Robin Slater - Missing persons - Statted

darklittlefox - (Character has no name!) - Group Undetermined - Planned

Additionally:
anonymous_james - Matthew Hammet - Weirdshit Investigators - Statted, but unsure if he'll actually make the games...

First game is This Sunday, probably starting around 2:30ish. If all goes to plan, one group will meet at HoP, the other elsewhere (themadone & darklittlefox? Your place likely to be usable by a group of three to five folks and a GM?). There is a chance that we'll start all at the same location OOC and then transport one mob elsewhere after a bit of a chat about rules and how the game will work etc... more information will become available through the week. Bringing packs of normal everyday playing cards would be handy!

Anyone not in the list above and wanting to play, leave a comment.
Anyone who needs to gen their characters, leave a comment with available times!

So, today I've been spending money again. I really need to do that less often, but hey, it was payday on Thursday.

Picked up four CDs in the MVC closing down sale. Cost me about the same as I'd normally spend on one CD, so I think that's not too bad... Two Mercury Rev CDs, one The Church CD and one Led Zeppelin CD.

Then I went to Rymans and bought a bundle of bits and bobs for use in the UA game, which I will refund myself for out of the game's funds when it has some (after the first game, most likely). Some of these supplies will quite likely go on to be used in subsequent games as well, as I do plan on running a lot of short-run or one off LARPs, and resilient folders for character dossiers are generally going to be a good plan I feel. Especially as I'm not planning on re-printing character sheets every game... the same sheet should last all the way through. If new sheets are needed then they can be printed, but they won't have all of your XP and skill progression on them... basically, losing your character sheet will mean losing your XP. So don't do it!

But I digress.

After Rymans, I decided it was ages since I'd had any dried banana chips, which I quite like. So I popped into Julian Graves to get some and found that they stock Boaters teas and coffees too. So I acquired a few boaters bits and bobs for experimental purposes.

I am now home, and testing my new CDs before embarking on a mammoth UA prep-session... about which, more shortly!

I'm thinking of postponing the UA game until the first sunday in February, mainly due to the following:

• A whole bunch of stuff I need to get sorted that probably ought to take priority over the game
• Difficulties caused by an awkward first sunday in january and GM unavailability on alternate dates, meaning that the second game probably wouldn't happen until feburary anyway - 2 month gap between first two games = bad
• We're already a bit short on time for me & urizen to tie all of the characters into the plot. We're aiming for everyone to be involved in some way from the outset, hence pushing people for characters quite early.

Having said I might postpone it, I may be prepared for some characters to do a bit of soft, plotless RP beforehand so that they can get to now each other a bit. Although, that'll depend on how much I think it'd detract from the first game. I want revelations to happen and character links to be discovered in game if possible.

Does the delay sound bearable to player types? It should result in a better game and a smoother start.

As some folks have gathered, I'm planning to do a bit of an Unknown Armies character creation session on Sunday. I'd like to work around re-enactment as much as possible, but my main goal is to get a bunch of characters created, with basic bullet point backgrounds written, trigger events and group associations worked out and stats genned.

I think I am going to have to aim this firmly at locals and runnymede regulars (usually ex locals, but occasionally others as well). I'm going to be limiting players to a maximum of 16, and aiming for a minimum of 12. If I don't meet the minimum, I'll open things up further afield - although I think things would work with as few as 8 players. If it looks like I'm exceeding my maximum, I'll deal with it in a way that seems appropriate at the time. Hopefully I won't need to.

Also to be noted: Please don't be offended if I turn you away. There are a fair bunch of people who've already expressed an interest, and they'll be the people who get first refusal on the places in the game.

I'm hoping to get a website up with a bunch of info sometime this week, which will include various bits and bobs. In the interest of recapping, there's a chunk of it there at the moment, but it's seriously incomplete and doesn't have much about magic yet. It might help you recap the setting, etc, though. What there is can be found at: http://www.eggbox.org.uk/ua/

So, if you're interested, Sunday sometime. If somebody can let me know what's what with fight practice I can work around it.

[EDIT: Sunday is not the only option for character gen, but I'd like to get a bunch done if I can as it means I can start working characters into the plot...]

So... I'm starting to have second thoughts about my Unknown Armies LARP.

Not about running it... nothing can stop that now (well, actually several things could, but I prefer not to think about them)... but about one of my ideas for how to run it. The "Actually go there" one, which means that if your characters want to go somewhere, you actually go there.

I'm not abandonning it yet, but I'm starting to have concerns about how to handle party splits and how to bribe NPCs or DPCs to lurk in locations just in case PCs decide to turn up. Also, we're approaching winter, and I don't want to have to plan my game around our somewhat unpredictable weather... but with not so many cars in our gaming group things could get awkward.

I'd like to keep a certain element of this kind of thing in there, but basically I'm wondering about player acceptance of having to actually get up and go somewhere, potentially in bad weather. Moreso for anybody I want the players to be able to meet at that location, as they'd have to be waiting there for players to turn up - again, potentially in bad weather.

What do people think? Should I start it as a venue based game (still going with two distinct groups, two distinct venues - most likely people's houses) and move towards excursions when they seem to be appropriate/practical?

Time travelling strangeness can be found at:
http://www.johntitor.com/

There's not a lot of information supplied before you start going into the posts themselves, just a set of dropdown boxes. My own personal belief is that this is a very well executed hoax by somebody in a related part of the scientific community.

But all the same, it's a damned impressive piece of hoaxing - it hangs together well, the guy keeps a consistent voice and attitude the whole way through, it's pretty internally consistent. Whoever's behind it has a pretty decent grasp of a whole bunch of different things from politics to science, as they've had to make some pretty decent educated guesses about what will or will not be big news...

It's good enough that if america starts going a bit more nuts than usual over the course of the next year, then some little alarm bells might start ringing in my mind.