Graham's Blog

Anticipated sleep didn't happen last night, unfortunately, but gave me an opportunity to reflect on this increasingly sorry blog, amongst other things.

There is a whole world that I am thinking and feeling right now that I cannot express here, so what we have is a skewed picture that barely reflects where I am. So, perhaps for a while, it might be best for me to press the pause button on the blog and only press 'play' when I feel I can.

All the best.

In a sleep hazed bid for the heady delights of corporate anonymity I found myself on the commuter train this morning. I watched micro particles of decaying soul flail off people as they sat, shuffled and weaved to their places of toil. The lemming like herd squishing up escalator and flymo'd into ticket gates was a scene to behold. The day I get used to it is the day that I am officially dead.

This morning I decided to walk through Leeds station with my feet pointing inwards really a bit too much in an attempt to stand out, a rebel flying the sun tinged flag of individualism, embracing their inner stupid. It worked, after a fashion, but the moment passed all too quickly.

An enthusiasm for soulless normality was all too expected. It's odd that now I look for it I find I can't embrace it with anythng other than a sideways smirk.

The plan today is to continue getting into my 'rhythm' with work, which is now starting to fill up with many worthy tasks and to return, pointy toed, to the station for the 16:11 to Penzance. I'll get off at Sheffield and be home in time for family hugs, tea, and bedtime routine.

I'll round off with a smoke of my pipe by the fire as I read the Daily Mail Personal Section*

*Please please please do not believe that this is true...

Well, actually probably not.

I could spend today repeating the mantra 'I am a lovable person', however evidence suggests that might not be such a corking idea. Instead, I have cancelled my solitary walk through the glens of Scotland at the beginning of September. It was a difficult decision, but a week in my own head, so relatively soon, could be disastrous. I just can't face Fort William and Ben Nevis now - I would be haunted. I'll save the money for something else.

Still, with a Saturday with Cam before me, I could wash the car or something to cheer me up!

Back to work on Monday, which will be a good distraction. I continue to only manage 2-3 hours of sleep a night without any medication, it's amazing how you can keep going with so little for so long. There's a vague hope that the pace of work will induce necessary slumber but I am not sure that it always works that way.

In an attempt to cheer myself up I decided to watch my favourite film, Chungking Express, with Dave. Crazy decision.

One of Wong Kar Wai's masterpieces, it is a story of missed, failed and yearning love, of connections and regret all shot in a kaleidoscope of colour and motion against a Hong Kong back drop. The lovelorn protagonists exude their grief with humour and the strength of human spirit as they realise that love is not what they thought, that it is transient and impossible to hold onto. Connections made over a 24 hour period can irrevocably change their world.

In the second story we are left allowing to hope that those connections, where there is underlying attraction, chemistry, love, have brought two people together in the uncaring city.

The film left me with a chasm like pit stretching beyond the bottom of my stomach and a profound sense of impending loss.

"If my memory of her has an expiration date, let it be 10,000 years..."

I think, next, I'll look at a sword and sorcery epic instead.

This afternoon I drove Erin and Cameron to see auntie Ruth and uncle Ross in Brisol; we're here for the weekend. It's a time for recuperation and enjoyment and it is overdue. Sal and Connor remain at home undertaking a house restructure, day long yoga, and obliterating Nazi zombies. I'll leave you to work out who is doing which.

Sun warmed grass between the toes. Tig and mini Olympics. Hop skip and jump, long jump, running, silly running, throw and catch. Laughter. Ice cool water, mint potatoes and fresh vegetables. Rest and cool clean sheets. Bird song and peace. Loving family.

To have this even at difficult times provides some welcome and much needed perspective.

It has been especially lovely just talking and playing with Erin. She's lovely.

The changes keep coming...

I am now working four days a week! This big decision was made to help provide time to focus on other important parts of my life. It really hasn't sunk in at all. I have dropped all my web development projects as they were swallowing my most valuable asset: time.

Further I have, reluctantly, resigned from the Continuum roleplaying convention committee. It is unlikely that this period of transition that I am going through will have settled during the run up to the convention in August 2010. Forum browsing has also dropped to almost zero, freeing up an amazing amount of time. In future weeks I might even use this time productively?!

I remain physically and emotionally drained. Eating has returned slightly, though I am finding that sleep has been so heavily disrupted that it is proving difficult to switch back to a more stable pattern. Indeed, as I type, my heavy eyes lull me into the opinion that I am bound for sleep. I dare not to dream just now so hope for a regenerating oblivion.

And so 'The Circle' production comes to the end of its run. It has been an excellent and memorable play run. I even remembered my lines. It's all left me quite drained and exhausted.

I will be a bit pre-occupied over the next few weeks, so I may not be so visible in my usual on-line haunts. Doing a bit of a de-clutter and a re-think on a range of issues, which will doubtless challenge my spare time and limited brain capacity.

And so I wave goodbye to Sally and Erin as they jaunt off to Spain for the week. It's just me and the boys at home with my cooking.  I have an itinerary  of Cameron's weekly routine and a full freezer. What could possibly go wrong?

I confess to liking the German Eurovision entry. Did I say that out loud? Oops.

Cameron and I watched his first proper thunder storm from Erin's window last night. He knew about the effect from a Peppa Pig episode and it was a delight to watch him watching the storm. He was both filled with wonder and scared at the same time. Brilliant.

I have pre-ordered The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, the world first publication of a previously 'unknown' work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, and of his wife, Gudrun, and the fate of the Nibelungs.

It is released into the wild on the 5th May. I expect it will inspire Doom laden roleplaying games for some time.

To balance this neatly, I have also just ordered 'The Tough Guide To Fantasyland' by Diana Wynne Jones, which I am lead to believe leaves no Western Fantasy Trilogy cliché untouched!

I am supposed to be taking Cameron to the park for ice cream and a bicycle ride right now, but on arrival found that he was deeply asleep. He continues to slumber on the sofa.

My netbook and desktop have now been flawlessly upgraded to a Jaunty Jackalope.

They are so pleased with themselves.

I am all stressed today. Annoying - it's the weekend!!

It's all go since I last posted here. While the seductive nature of Twitter keeps me ephemerally alive to the social network, it is all in 3" lengths, so not very useful.

I have been cast in the next SUDS play, Somerset Maugham's brilliant comedy 'The Circle'. Unexpectedly I have been cast as the more youthful Teddie who breezes about in flannels extolling the virtues of Empire, shooting, and Malaya. A straight as a die good natured Englishman, that given my advancing years, I am playing as a sort of Woostery character who over expresses himself slightly with his semi controlled arms and legs. I should get laughs. The key thing for me will remain ensuring that the very beautiful younger actress acting opposite me as my love interest continues to be comfortable and happy about our combined performance. We have acted together before and have good chemistry, so all bodes well.

Conpulsion saw me and Elaine train up to Edinburgh for a weekend of gaming. We had a great time. Elaine captured the event well in her review.

Weekly gaming will recommence for me in mid June. It now looks as though we have a new group on Tuesdays and with a slightly larger pool of people. Our only main problem is going to be choosing what to play as we are all GMs and have huge lists of options. I look forward to it greatly. The May TomCon has me in the GMs chair (probably). As it is a Chinese themed wekend I will be offering Qin: the Warring States. I am glad to get it off the shelf at last.

Hellfrost is currently pushing my old skool Savage buttons.

Easter week was spent with family, with me in charge while Sal went off camping with Kate in Whitby. Everybody was fed and there were no unexpected fatalities, so I take that as a success. With Cameron especially, as he is only three, I find the dedicated time and mumless reliance builds and deepens our relationship. Great.

Wordplay text should be back at the end of this month for a final trot through responding to editors comments and then we are into PDF/book production. Exciting, in a 'I don't quite believe it' kind of way.

I have just bought a Flip HD pocket video camera. The immediate intention is to capture Cameron running through the woods. His exuberance and joy lifts my spirits unfailingly.

Work is entering a new and challenging phase which I will find character forming. I am glad of all the wonderful things mentioned above.

Where is this year disappearing?

Direct tweets are now received via SMS for Vodafone customers in the UK. A nice addition and further evidence that Twitter continues to raise its profile.

Smashing

I feel responsible for provoking a dialogue on peer reviews of gamemasters at rolelaying game conventions. It appears to have struck something of a nerve, so here's my fuller take on it.

First of all I was delighted with a recent review from the respected 'EvilGaz'. As noted elsewhere a 7/10 is a very fine score from such an exacting and knoweldegable GM. More importantly to me EvilGaz was an excellent player in the game and really contributed to the session. I'll score him 8/10. He asked me if I'd like to see my review before he posted it. The implication was that he would have posted it whatever I thought of it, but it was nice of him to ask. In the end I was comfortable that he post it and would have felt a bit weedy saying 'no'. And it was from the Gazmeister and I rate him. So I just told him to post it up. Did his review teach me anything new about my GMing, the scenario, or the session dynamics? No. Did it tell me how much he enjoyed the game? Yes. Inevitably this will often be the way with such reviews. In any case, I reckon 7/10 is a creditable 'pass', which means that I am now Smart Party accredited (Foundation 2nd class). ;-)

I'd have liked a fuller critique on the scenario and the superb character detail in the hands of the players to provoke intra-party conflict, the quality of the flavour text etc. We'll come back to quality of reviews later.

You see, I am just wary of self appointed amateur peer reviews. This holds true even if they come from experienced and competent amateurs with their hearts in the right place. Let me explain why.

One of the other scenes that I haunt is amateur dramatics, an activity that is more traditionally open to a number of types reviews. There is, of course, the response of the audience, informal feedback from acting peers, gushings from loved ones and the expected opening night review of the play in the local press. However, in my city there was, for a time, a further set of reviews that had to be endured. There was a local association that drew together amateur groups, put on occasional big productions, ran a one act play competition and sent their reviewers out to plays to critique and score them for the annual award ceremony. Goals were laudable: to encourage quality and raise standards amongst our amateur groups. Personally I don't feel the association achieved its goals. The reviews, bound by a code of conduct that was routinely ignored, were of variable quality, lacking a standards baseline,often limited in comprehension, and often served as unintended entertainment themselves. They were not, unfortunately, harmless. I had to witness at least one director fall apart at the narrow and spiteful critique. The play didn't deserve what she got.

Your asking people to pay, so you should be open to review and criticism. Agreed. However the association reviews almost never told us anything we could actually use for improvement, and often missed important points that we had already accounted for. In the end we stayed in the association, so that we didn't appear elitist or 'splitters' but allowed directors to opt their plays into the review/competition cycle. Not one did. Other than some smiles when cups were won, I really think the goals could have been worked towards in different ways.

[sidenote] Some Cons ask you to pay for RPG sessions. As long as I live and breathe and have influence on Furnace it will never do this. This is a subject for another post.[/sidenote]

So, there's my history and let's get back to the UK Con RPG scene. If a self appointed group, whoever they are I am not picking out the Smart party here, wish to see improved quality of convention RPG game sessions then that is also entirely laudable. Will short, unstructured, ad-hoc peer reviews of individual sessions make any difference? No. Is there the potential for scarce resource convention GMs to take exception when some peer know-it-all starts critiquing their sessions? Yes. Could some people with thinner skins stop running sessions after a bad review? It could happen. I could go on and I probably have for too long already.

This all comes across as very negative. I am a good GM with a lot of experience and still open to improve and learn. I don't mind having reviewers play in my games. Others might. So, lets end with another look at how we work on quality. Here's a couple of ideas:

1. It would be great to have a place where guidance could be pulled from. One such place that has the potential is the recently created website for the afore mentioned Smart Party. I hope that continues to grow with home grown wisdom also and becomes a source of links, a portal, to other places on the web where there is good guidance on GMing and running sessions. I'd certainly find that more useful than simply one group's view.

2. Opt in. Rather than inflict reviews on unsuspecting grognards, create an association of learning where GMs can opt in to work on their GMing. Peer review members, run seminars at cons, give out badges, bring in the old masters, look beyond Savage ;-).

I'll draw a veil there and think some more about it.

I went to Concrete Cow yesterday and had a really good time. The 05:30 start was not so hot, but I had three to pick up on my way down to Milton Keynes for 09:30 and wanted my porridge first! Hoorah for the Tom Tom, which flawlessly took me from one destination to another. Well apart from the fact that I put the wrong postcode in for the last leg -but no harm was done. So, with Elaine, Evilgaz and timgray  all safely collected, we arrived in good time for start.

It was a convention for putting faces to names. In particular I got to meet Rich Stokes and Pete (IndyPete) and played in Rich's 'Umlaut' game of metal bands. This one is a must have buy later this year when it is released. All the players create a band and then take it in turns to play out a scene of differing types to further the cause of their band, often at the expense of the others. The centre piece of the games are the gigs wheer you play off against another one of the bands to see who can win the most glory (and Hope and Fanbase). Rich has captured the hillarious fractios nature of metal perfectly. I fell in love with my band: Consumption, a Goth Metal band. Albion Crow, the fickle Jessica Morn and Jeffrey Smile (on bass). A titanic duel continued between my band and Ragarokski, Pete's Polish meatl band. Hillarious and lots of fun.

I got to catch up with Angus Abranson and talked games and plans. This could have planted a useful seed that may bear fruit later in the year.

I ran Dom Mooney's 'A Cold Dark Grave', a Traveller scenario for a fantastic group of players including Graham Walmsley, Nathan and the RPG critic Evilgaz, one of the Smart Party illuminati. I used Mongoose Traveller with a few minor tweaks. I thought the game went well with some very strong play, good engagement from the players, and one of my first ever Total party Kills (TPK), so a session to be proud of. It's reinforced Traveller to be an easy game to pick up and play and one I'll be using again. Gaz's review of the game can be found here.

I'd like to have stayed later, but there were limited games available and I had half an eye on the lengthy journey home. We went to the pub across the road where we recieved cheerful service and managed to avoid the fights round the back.

Fond farewells and a smooth journey home in good time topped off an excellent day. Maybe I'll do it again. If I do then I mustn't stay too late if I'm driving.

One thing I have noticed is the increasing likelihood that when you offer and run a game at a convention that you also get 'reviewed' and scored out of ten in the public glare of your gaming peers. Depending on the person reviewing this can be useful and done in a good constructive spirit. I have to admit I rather miss the more innocent amateur days when you just pitch up and play and everyone says  'thanks very much'. No pain no gain I suppose, but you know, really...

Some cherished annual leave saw us take a visit to the Armouries in Leeds. I went in with Cameron, whilst Sal and Erin went into town to meet up with Grandma and do some shopping. Connor almost joined us but simply couldn't get up in time.

It turned out that Cam was quite tired so didn't have the stamina for the three hours I'd been allocated. He enjoyed the arms and armour a great deal as this is his current obsession. Our visit would have been quite short were it not for the shop. Here, Cameron discovered helmets, swords and shields of various combinations that he could try on, and theoretically buy.

He tried them all on. Every combination. On trying a new set on he insisted on trailing over the full length of the shop to show them off to the suit of armour - 'the knight' - whose voice I provided. The knight was very impressed with Cameron's arms and armour and nervously suggested they be friends.

A trip into Leeds on my shoulders provided a carton of jelly in the BHS restaurant, which swallowed up the excess time and lowered my height by a further inch.

This is a record of the persistent snowy deluge.

Our front garden caked in the white stuff, as was everywhere!

We ran a murder mystery party for Erin's 11th birthday. Pictured are the spies and suspicious millionaires that arrived for the MI6 briefing. The kids were brilliant roleplaying to the hilt throughout. I was on security and ran the event, while Sal sorted catering and photos. Dave came round to support by keeping an eye on Cammy. Team work!

Everyone had an absolute blast doing this. We got the walky talkies working so that 'Storm Eagle' on the door could keep in touch with 'Windy Sparrow' in the kitchen. ID badges were available for all characters and 'champagne' to start with chocolates.

It was a great evening and will be long remembered.

New Year was all about friends. We hosted a great party at our place. Our old University chums, gamers, Anna, Andrew, neighbours all came together for a good evening.There was a real buzz and it was a great way to see the New year in.

On New Years Day we all went up to the Crawleys and enjoyed a walk around High Storrs in the freezing conditions. great food to follow and altogether saw in the New year with great style.

I took Cameron to Kirklees Light Railway as he was just coming round from his Christmas Day cold that somewhat knocked him out. Cam played with the wooden train tracks in the main reception with great focus and enthusiasm.

The train ride itself was a 20 minute clatter along a nicely maintained line, followed by the engine being turned around on a hand pulled turn table to then take us pretty much straight back.

Here is Cameron sitting in the coach. Thumb in mouth indicates that he is tired and not really fully back to full energy levels.

More wooden trains followed and then the trip back. A lovely day out, which we both enjoyed a great deal