ajaxtalbot

Dear Santa...

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:43:02 GMT

So, I decided my Sindbad game for the 2010 season, and decided to make it more Hollywood Arabian Nights fantasy. So I needed this and that, and the caliphate is in danger, and the enemy should be--?

Hmm. So I started looking for just who Harun's big enemies were. The biggest threat to his tenure of the throne was his nephew, Ja'far ibn Musa al-Hadi, son of his elder brother. Their father, al-Mahdi, had decided to fiddle with the succession long after he was dead though (arguably to get Harun's mother off his back.) So, his will said that al-Hadi got the throne, and when he died Harun got the throne--even if al-Hadi had a son, which he did.

Well, when al-Hadi conveniently expired, the Barmicid viziers and the imperial bureaucracy favored Harun, and the army favored Ja'far.

And to find the real story, I need to get v. 30 of SUNY's translation of Tabari's history. Gah!

So now you know what I want for Christmas :-)

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:36:02 GMT

Sigh.

So, there are some people I follow (athletes, actors, musicians etc.) and when I don't see them for a while I go looking for news.

Yesterday I read that one of the professional wrestlers I've always enjoyed watching, Jamie Noble, retired, at the age of 32. Back, neck and shoulder issues--imagine that.

Damn. There weren't many of the "Not hulking brute" school left in the big leagues, and I'll miss his style.

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:36:05 GMT

Well, if nothing else this past weekend gave me the time to decide what my core games will be for 2010.

Edison Force vs. the Martians
Sindbad and the Sword of Kingship
M-Town Vice: A Funkadelic Frankenstein Adventure
It's the End of the World, Charlie Brown!

And for my kids in St. Louis, Spellsinger part 3 is entitled "Support Your Local Shire Reeve."

Enough is too much

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:05:38 GMT

I finally broke down last week.

Monday I visited friends with cat, dog and rabbit, and got shunted into the seat by the rabbit. I lasted a half hour before I had to either leave or have an asthma attack.

Tuesday I called the allergist and made an appointment to get myself tested so I can restart allergy shots. My life is getting too restricted by avoiding places where the allergens dwell (and since all animal danders and dust are high on the allergen list, you can see where that might be a problem--especially given that every SCAdian seems to have at least one cat.)

Keep your fingers crossed. I might be able to live like a real person again eventually.

What a week

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:35:04 GMT

Somewhere towards the end of last weekend, some plant of terror began to pollenate and like a good boy I did what my doctor prefers me to do, take antihistamines rather than a antihstamine-decongestant combo. Result, I still reacted to the pollen and did not drain the sinuses, resulting in a sinus infecion.

Wednesday is an entirely blur to me. I slept almost all the way through it, and broke the fever that way. But there was still draining to do, and the rest of the week my body was going "Just let me sleep!"

So, it you talked to me this week and I was less communiative than usual, that's why.

Oh really

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:15:27 GMT

So, this is the synopsis of the books I'm cataloguing:

"It is an argument over pineapple pizza that finally prompts jewelry-maker Suzannah to leave her stale marriage for a ramshackle cabin in the foothills of Wyoming's majestic Teton Range. As she strings necklaces, she untangles her complicated relationships with the mother she's losing to Alzheimer's, and with the adopted son who's spent his life chasing after his birth mother. But it's her new home's previous owner, easygoing "Marlboro Man" Bo Garrett, who threatens the satisfying life Suzannah is building for herself-and inspires her to explore more fully what it means to truly stand on her own."

That's odd, last time I saw the name Bo Garrett he was not precisely standing and he was definitely not with a woman. Suffice it to say it is not safe to google him from work. :-)

Two feisty old ladies

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:55:21 GMT

I was directed towards a blog:

http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com

And when I was done laughing my butt off, I bookmarked it so I can read it religiously. It matches my politics rather nicely, and, oh, the turns of phrase touch my heart.

Productive rains

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:14:13 GMT

Well, I can say that while I pity the folks out setting up for Pennsic, I was very productive today. I have basic notes written on all the Gencon games that I'd been brick-walled by all summer. No idea what it was about lightning and pour rain that set the gates of creativity open.

I'm most plesed by the background for my "serious" game "Human Resources". All tied up with the political fallout of the first war between the Elohim--no, not the Lucifer one. Gosh how I love messing about with Canaanite religon.

I'll see if I can use down time at Pennsic to finish the details. Yes, I know, gaming's not period, so sue me.

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:16:11 GMT

Thank you Randy Milholland for reminding us that "just because you buy a book for your kindle you don't actually own that copy. They can take it back whenever they please."

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/

Slept up

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:14:42 GMT

Well, I think I have gotten caught up on my sleep again--just in time to go to Jersey for Dexcon. What's the word I'm looking for? Frakking masochist?

Well, if I get half the reaction I got from players at Origins, it will have been worth the while. :-)

Origins 2009: Sunday report

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:57:02 GMT

Last day, and I drug myself in to run Calamity and Holmes. Good group, but you could tell that people were seriously dragging by this point in the convention. After Mary Moran and her cronies were defeated, I wandered about saying goodbye to folks and trying to find where Johnny Ampersand had wandered off to (we found each other outside the dealer room after I picked up our unsold stock--yes, we sold books thank you sweet baby jesus!)

After that it was simply a matter of consuming way too much Old Bag of Nails fish and chips and then crawling back home to collapse into a heap. But a well-contented heap.

So, what were the pluses? Great gamers, great games, efficient and friendly volunteer staff running the RPG HQ table, friends, family, some new dice (I found dice with Arabic numbers on them at the Koplow Games and tried to sell them on making d20s because those would be way cool with Sindbad--as well as any other d20 Arabian Nights game; we'll see what comes of this) and good food at the North Market.

The minuses? Was attendance down this year? All my games ran and most were full, but there just seemed to be too few bodies in the space. There were people there I'd have loved to meet, but couldn't because of commitments. Oh, and one really crabby waitress at Max and Ermas (and this was on Thursday.)

Was the con worth it? Oh hell yeah!
Can I wait until next year? I guess I'll have to (and make do with Dexcon and Gencon and...)

Origins 2009: Friday and Saturday report

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:05:34 GMT

There was a change to the whole feel of the convention once I was down to only one game a day. It was weird.

In any case, throwing all forethought to the wind I said I would sit at the demo table at the GPA booth on Friday morning (and a more productive two hours of watching people walk past looking blank I've not had in years.) And of course it didn't occur to me until Friday morning that Johnny Ampersand had to get his badge from me, and he couldn't get into the dealers' room where I was to get it. Oh, kvark.

Then my second comeuppance. Apparently I'd also reset my new phones ringer so that it was inaudible and non-vibratory so that when Mr. Ampersand did call, and call, and call, I was sitting there like a bedazed cow. Sigh, had I mentioned that I don't do technology?

Happily they let him run his game, and I was able to pop up about halfway through and deliver his badge and game attendance sheets. I will let Johnny talk about his own games, but they I never saw one that was under-attended.

I had Support Your Local Spellslinger, my fantasy/western followup to The Necromancer's Apprentice from last year, and eventually our journeyman spellslingers managed to figure out how to defeat the meanest hombe in the Western Wilds, Xeno the Superswift (you get points for figuring out where I stole that one from) and thereby save Silver City from Certain Doom!

Johnny's Gilgamesh game was in the evening, and I thought that I had better show up to support this because who in the right mind would show up to play Gilgamesh? Well, an entire crew of gamers that kick RPG ass was who, including probably the only drooling Gilgamesh fanboy at the convention. And by drooling I mean he aws quoting Gilgamesh's lines from memory and had "Gilgamesh" in cuneiform branded into his upper arm (but the scarrring was healing and he needed to have it done again.) Shall we say, this was an epicly enjoyable game.

Saturday I had Intro to QAGS in the morning, but only had one taker, so I tol her about how QAGS works, and how we've used it, found out that she was from the Coshocton area and going to be at Con on the Cob where I told her we would be as well, and then sent her off to get her refund for minimum number of players not met.

An afternoon game, a quick dinner at Barley's Irish Pub, and then I was back for Return of the Space Gods. Fate and Icebear showed up for this, along with Great Scot, my brother, and a few unsuspecting souls, and in total over the top skiffy action we rearranged the cosmos to prevent the Space Gods from coming back into Spacetime to destroy all life. Johnny Ampersand may say he's never prepared for games, but he runs a mean improvisation if that's the case, 'cause we were loud and raucous.

And then home, where I wrote my Sunday gamign group and said that Uncle Ajax was going to be totally brain-dead after Origins closed on Sunday, and he would not be running another frakking game for a week!

Origins 2009: Wednesday and Thursday report

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:43:11 GMT

They love them some QAGS here in Origins Game Fair-land, and I have to say that if the rest of the con is as good as the first two days, then I am coming back for the fun of it, not the duty.

GAMA decided to add a full day Wednesday this year. Experience from previous years had show us that Wednesday games were very popular. It may be because there is not as much competition, but whatever the cause this year proved no exception to the rule.

I had two games: Fairy Tale/Noir in the afternoon and Strange Times: I Am Mythos in the evening. FTN got a crew that was learning the system (yes, we got new blood) but they managed to find out what shady stuff was going on in the PDF (Professional Dwarf Fighting) and bring a resolution that did not work out very well for Snow White and her boytoy, Tripple ZZZ (Sleepy.) Oh well, them’s the breaks—literally. Then Strange Times roared onto the stage with a terrorist attack on the ST corporate offices, and our intrepid reporters had to go back in time and stop the Order of Leviathan (a weird Middle Eastern terrorist group that was not remotely Islamic, though they were certainly fundamentalist in the truest sense of the word.) They ended up with an alien death walker (a la War of the Worlds) and managed to get it back to New York in time to put the kaybosh on the Leviantanites. Great fun was had by all in both games.

I need to mention that Our Friend, Mr. Evangelista, was running QAGS games of his own this year (Doc Svage and the Green Hornet,) and he caught me was I was coming in. “Hve you seen the schedule yet?” “Uh, no I just got here.” “Your game tomorrow is at 7AM.” Oh frak. “Okay, thanks for the heads up.” And it proved true. Yours truly apparently can’t type “7PM” reliably, so I was doomed this morning to get up and face the music at Oy Dark Thirty.

And I’m glad I did. There were 6 players there for a 7 Ay you have got to be kidding me Em game, and they were the Best Damned Players I’ve had so far. Eager, creative, emotive, devious—they ran the original FT/N scenario in such a way that we have spectators. They were trying to look in conspicuous, but they were listening to the game anyhow. The guy, Timmy, who ran Ernest the Third Little Pig (Weakness: flashbacks to watching his brothers getting eaten by the Big Bad Wolf) was so good, I am going to give him a copy of QAGS when I see him tomorrow. He really was the best role player I’ve seen in a while, let alone be privileged to run for. (And best of all, he's frmot eh Catskill region and possibly going to bring his friends to Dexcon in a coupel of weeks to do the QAGS.)

The afternoon game, Toon Messiah, only got two players, a guy and his girlfriend, and she was unsure about role playing. The game went off, but since I'd been hoping for a whole WB zanifest it was just a little underwhelming. Most of the zany that did happen was because I prompted it, and the full toonish wackiness was just not popping. Oh well, they still got through the scenario and seemed to have fun.

So far, nobody’s walked out, and every game has had enough to run.

Only three games to go (for me.)

Oh, and I walked the dealers' room but didn't see anything I want except a DVD entitles 1612 about an invasion of Russia after the death of Boris Gudanov. The bit I saw had loud noises, promary colors, and a Polish knight (They had these imbecilic wings added to their armor--God alone knows why, but they did) galloping around the battlefield with him and his wings blazing. That's going to leave a mark.

A new reasons for Wednesdays

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:42:19 GMT

Fate invited me to come and join her Wednesday night game, so last night I went came over, made a Serenity character, and did not manage to offend anyone (even though I'm running a male Companion which should get interesting eventually.)

I need to go over my character again (less on the fly) since he hasn't technically been introduced into the game yet, and see if he's really the way I want him to be. I think there may be one or two tweaks I have to make.

Yeah, not yet introduced, the rest of the party was busy finishing a two-parter scenario, stealing an old decommissioned patrol vessel and wrecking the bejeesus out of the firefly. Since part of my "listen to" at work includes podcast actual play sessions, this was something I was used to, and it gave me an insight into the people I'll be playing with.

Oh, and watching Fate running "Mute Ass-Kicking Girl" is amusing in its own right.

Must be Summer

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:42:20 GMT

In the last three weeks I have gotten my rebaptism by fire in running pick-up games. One of the Marcon games was ad lib (Pirates vs. Dinosaurs,) as were the last two Sunday games (Murder Inc. vs. the Viking Gang, and Western Vampire Hunters.) I think I'm ready for just about anything this weekend at Diecon.

Whee!

It's official

Tue, 12 May 2009 13:16:03 GMT

I am getting bifocals. I am now officially an old fart!

Sat, 09 May 2009 18:13:32 GMT

Well, the sun is shining again, and work has given me another reason I shouldn't give them one more second of my consideratino than they're paying for.

And I have con season starting. Gotta get my scenarios outlined.

Happily I have ideas. Like setting Brokebk. Mts. in Pig Bottom, Udaho. That sounds western, doesn't it?

TANJ

Fri, 08 May 2009 18:26:28 GMT

There ain't no justice (for the Niven challenged.)

Here I am suddenly aware that maybe I should work on the scenarios for Marcon in a couple of weeks. Okay, one of the games is totally improve, the second is already written, and the third (CS Primeval) I have notes on.

So I pull those notes up and am editing them when I think "I should check this." Quickly get wikipedia and scroll down the Primeval article--- WAIT! What do they mean HE dies in the third series! Dammit dammit dammit!

Thumbsuckers!

This is what I get for researching my games.

Life (such as it is)

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:30:26 GMT

Mostly over the blahs-- just in time for a (hopefully) final bout of snow.

I've gotten our Gencon and Origins games in, am playing middleman between King Yak and the game scheduler at Diecon/Archon (their computers are too something to talk to one another but both can talk to me,) am getting ready to incorporate KY's edito's comments into Mountains of the Moon 2.0, have most of "Sindbad and the Demon Pumpkin" written (although I'll probably recast the whole thing and present it more as a surface dungeon,) and have an idea of how I need to write up Sindbad in India.

In addition, I'm debating whether or not to go to Dexcom out in NJ. We were invited to come out last year, but real life (that bastard) hit most everybody hard, and we had to say maybe some other year. In any ase, I've got a few days to decide.

And we began my next Sindbad campaign last Sunday. Same crew continuing their same characters, except for the one character who declined every opportunity to actually act like a part of the company. She's starting a new character who has so far been slightly more social than the previous one. Here's hoping. But, I've got the adventure divided into about six sub-campaigns with three parts each, once they leave China, that is. Right now they're off trying to save Zinjistani Prince Durban's intended bride from the Gold-Tooth People in the mountains. Neither one of these NPCs is currently slated to go back to Africa yet, but I thought it made a good chance for the players to remember the rules of the game. We just came off of Shadowrun and need to get used to QAGS again. Praise Eris! Or don't.

Marcon isn't for just over a month, and Terpsichore is past, so I can actually think about gaming for a while. Wow.

Isn't this pathetic?

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:54:54 GMT

I have done jack nothing so far this year that I consider worthy of writing about.

I have gotten more and more hibernatory during the winter months in the last few years, and it shows on my productivity. I need to get my butt seriously re-energized in the creativity department.

Oh well. BASHcon in a week and a half. Maybe that'll be the prod it takes.

Audiobook no. 1 of the year

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:17:47 GMT

I don't know if these should count, especially as it's a re- er, re-read? Is that the word I want? In any case:

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann.

I read this when it came out and found it to be an interesting review of what 1491 stands for, the long-debated (and often-dismissed) question of what human civilization in the Americas was like before the Europeans crashed the party. Sure, some of what is presented is speculative, but it takes the baby cereal version of pre-Columbian history we were all brought up on and adds intriguing dimensions. I recommend it.

Duck and cover

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:21:15 GMT

I have to inflict this on my friends.

I've been going back to check on webcomics that I've fallen out of the habit of reading, and I found this at "Thinking Ape Blues."

Comic #381 at http://thinkingapeblues.com/archive.php

Book 23 of the year

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:23:01 GMT

The Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

In this book, a followup to his "Travels with a Tangerine", TMS follows the route of his Tangerine, the 14th century Tangiers-born Arab traveler Ibn Battutah, on the Indian leg of his travels. It's a interesting juxtaposition of IB's accounts and TMS's attempts to find surviving physical links to the travels.

It's well past the period of Indian history I'll need to dig into for my proposed Sindbad in India supplement, but it gives me some idea of the daunting size of the job ahead. Shall we say that I've made a lot of notes and started to compile a reading list.

Oy.

In any case, TMS is as always a delight to read. I feel smarter just having his book with me. :-)

Books 20-22 of the year

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:55:23 GMT

I know everyone has to assume that I took up illiteracy as a hobby, they you dn't know how my bain works. I have about three books going at any given time, and I reread books.

In any case, here are the latest additions to my researching Sindbad file:

The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad and the Roots of the Sunni-Shia Schism by Barnaby Rogerson

An interesting look at the politics of the Arabian Peninsula from just before the death of Muhammad until the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate. The author confessed the limits of his scholarship from the beginning and then wove a riveting story, dwelling on the personalities as much as the politics. I really enjoyed this book because it didn’t spare the rod or the laurels where they were appropriate, and I recommend it to people who want an introduction to this period of history.

Atlantis of the Sands : the Search for the Lost City of Ubar by Ranulph Fiennes

This is not so much a book about Ubar as a book about the man looking for Ubar. I’d read “The Road to Ubar” several years ago, and it spent much more time dwelling on the probable history of the place and description of the country. With this book I have to admit I was less than impressed. Only about a quarter of the book relates to the expedition that discovered what was likely the root of the Ubar legend while the rest established Fiennes’ character and went on (at length) about what kept him from mounting the expedition. I’d recommend it only as a supplement to “The Road to Ubar.”

When Baghdad Rules the Muslim World : the Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty by Hugh Kennedy

This was the perfect complement to Rogerson’s book, tracing about two centuries of the Abbasid Caliphate from 720 to 850, or rather from the foundation of the conspiracy that raised the Abbasids to the caliphate to their final loss of all political power. Kennedy presents the story as family saga as much as history, reviewing the family politics juxtaposed against the sweep of Islamic history. He even spends some time talking about court culture, the place of women in the picture, and the layout of an Abbasid palace. Fascinating reading.

Crud

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:06:40 GMT

Well, one way to keep me from getting too prepared for 2009 is to make sure I forget to take preventative drugs at Crystal Ball. I was sick on Tuesday, but a day of bed rest did nothing but encourage the crud growing in my sinuses. Come Friday, I said "That's it!" went home crawled into my "breaking a fever" sweats and crawled under all the covers I have. 36 hours later, the majority of the crud have been vanquished leaving only a mopping up action that might take a few days.

So, when I say allergic to cats, and dust, and that stuff, I do mean it.

Now to get Confusion figured out.