Monthly Archives: September 2015

30 days of anime

Following on from #rpgaday2015 for blog topics, I’m contemplating doing 30 days of anime, something which popped up on my feed a little while ago. The list is below.

  1. Very first anime you watched
  2. Favourite anime you’ve watched so far
  3. Favourite male anime character ever
  4. Favourite female anime character ever
  5. Anime you’re ashamed you enjoyed
  6. Anime you want to see but haven’t yet
  7. Your anime crush
  8. Favourite anime couple
  9. Best anime villain
  10. Favourite fighter anime
  11. Favourite mech anime
  12. Saddest anime scene
  13. Anime character you are most similar to
  14. Anime that never gets old no matter how many times you’ve rewatched it
  15. Favourite animal sidekick, pet, or summoning from any anime
  16. Anime with the best animation
  17. Favourite supporting male anime character
  18. Favourite supporting female anime character
  19. Most epic scene ever
  20. Anime character that gets on your nerves
  21. Favourite goofy anime character
  22. Favourite weapon, gear, or armour used in an anime
  23. Favourite attack someone used in an anime
  24. Moment that shocked you the most in any anime
  25. Saddest anime death
  26. Best anime fight
  27. Most badass scene from any anime character
  28. Favourite quote from any anime character
  29. An anime you wished was real
  30. An anime you wish never ended and continued on

I may not do these in order, and I may not do them continuously like I’ve been doing #rpgday2015. We’ll see how it goes. I can already answer some, and some would take more consideration – a lot more.

Reasoning for doing something like this is topics, really. Having something to talk about is a useful thing, and writing – even about silly things – means that I’m improving those skills. Plus, I get to talk about anime which can be fun.

Given I’ve binge-watched four seasons of Hunter x Hunter in 12 days, I may be watching a lot of anime at the moment…

Empire 379YE Autumn Equinox

Ugly

  • We got caught by a speed camera as we approached the site
  • Craig was in an accident the Tuesday before and had whiplash
  • Getting so dehydrated I felt ill and nauseous in Conclave

Bad

  • Taking the field meant I didn’t have as much time for running around organising things
  • Missed Saturday dinner due to not stopping all evening
  • Attaching latex scales took much longer than I expected
  • Trying to attend multiple meetings scheduled for the same time doesn’t work very well
  • Going “feck it” to touching up my makeup on Sunday morning means there a few photos of me with a rubbed off forehead
  • So tired on Saturday evening – kept napping everywhere
  • My bag got nicked while doing a ritual and we lost the covenstone
  • Bonding at last event went wrong and it turns out I wasn’t actually bonded to my robes…
  • Never stopping moving. Google can confirm that the only times I really stopped moving was Conclave…

Good

  • Taking the field meant I got to (a) try out chainmail as my elite mercenary without losing my new latex scales to an orc mask and (b) got to be part of Team Saker as part of the back-up Day ritualist team
  • Salted caramel cream liqueur goes down as well as ever
  • White chocolate strawberry fudge also went down well
  • Dem Cambion girls
  • Chilling on site on Friday meant I had time to experiment with latex scales
  • Two addresses and a gambit meant I got to make my name in Conclave
  • Being recognised in Military Council was a new experience
  • Tent is sufficiently cool during the day to mean beers aren’t overly warm
  • Civil Service Hub cushions are good for napping on
  • Now known by name to archmages, grandmasters, generals, senators, and the warmage
  • An Imperial Title has been created for the job I’m doing because people thought I deserved one
  • Political drama generating MC politics on Sunday
  • Suaq dance party
  • The Nightclub of Worlds
  • Mana rich for a while (before I miscalculated and gave more away than I meant to)
  • Tea-stained map experiments were a success
  • Mhorish breakfasts
  • Carrying the stool around gets annoying but it’s worth it in Conclave
  • Still not from Urizen

A lack of game

I don’t know why but I don’t do LARPs very well. I don’t seem to be able to hook into them or get involved in things. Plot passes me by and I never know how to get into the game.

It’s not just an IoD thing, but I feel it more there. At Empire, event plot pretty much passes me by but I’m so busy doing other thinBluträchergs that I don’t notice that I didn’t get involved in it. This is likely part of the problem I had in LT as well – I couldn’t get involved in things, so I didn’t like playing.

I can recognise this in IoD games as well – in Requiem, where I’m Harpy, I don’t notice as much that I’m not involved in the plot that everyone else seems to be pulling out of the woodwork somehow. In the other games, I can’t find my way in, and I feel lost as a consequence and don’t enjoy the games. I find myself asking if anyone would even notice my absence.

My lack of ability to hook myself into the games has led to me abandoning playing Forsaken to NPC, and abandoning playing Awakening to aST/NPC. I don’t really know why I haven’t given up on Lost yet. The thing is that I know I can enjoy these games, but typically the times I enjoy playing these games is when I have things to do that aren’t relevant to the plots of the game. My last Forsaken character was a lot of fun because he just wanted to punch things, talk about punching things, and intimidate people – and I enjoyed that game as one-dimensional as it was.

I find I always feel that there are groups of people who find the plot and run off with it and become epic in the game, and I drift along at the sidelines with no idea how to do that. The only reason that I’m where I am in Empire now is because Rob offered me some work and after a year of doing it, I’ve managed to make myself known to the point of being recognised by most of the Conclave.

It feels like there’s some trick I’m missing – something that I’m doing wrong or not doing at all that leads to people having fun at games and getting involved in epic plots. It feels like I’m failing at my hobby, and like there’s no point in my trying because I’ll never manage that.

Part of all this is that I’m terrible at setting character goals for myself. When I write an NPC for myself, it’s not an issue to find goals because they’re related to making the plot work right, but when I write a character I just can’t do it right. It’s sheer luck that I’ve managed to both get a character goal and (potentially) achieve it at Empire, and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been handed a job by someone else.

Perhaps I should just stick to crewing and storytelling as it seems to be where my abilities are stronger.

urgh

I feel sick, it’s hard to focus, hard to breathe, and I’m trying not to let on that anything is up.

My little brother was run off the road this morning by someone driving recklessly and is currently in hospital waiting for a CT scan. He (and his new car which dove into the ditch with him) was supposed to be on the boat from Shetland tonight, and we were going to be heading down to Empire on Thursday.

Now I don’t know if he’ll be able to leave the hospital today, never mind attend a LARP at the other end of the country this weekend.

What makes me feel worse is that I feel terrible about looking at alternate travel arrangements. This is a nightmare, and I feel awful about being selfish like this.

Self-censorship

Last week I wrote a 1000 word post on some issues that I felt needed said. I was venting into that post, and it was one of the most inflammatory pieces of writing I have ever written. Three people have seen that post, and the general responses were “yeah, you probably shouldn’t post that”. I set it aside, scheduled it to post on Saturday and let it be.

Then after a couple of days, I wrote it again without the anger and bile, and with a better attitude in general. If I hadn’t written the first one, I’m not sure I could have written the substantially better second version. Having written that, I felt much better about not publishing the first one and removed the first one from my scheduling queue.

It was an act of self-censorship as I’m not going to be saying things as directly or matter-of-factly as I was before, but I’m saying what needs said in a better way – and that’s rather more important.

I’m aware this post is a little cryptic, and I kind of apologise for that, but I’m sure the context can be garnered by those aware of certain situations.

Larperlei Reinforced Leather Jerkin

No Rest Costume

So I’m playing the next event, and I’m looking into my costume options for Trysten. I’ve asked the lovely Ms Bell to make me some layers, but I’m looking at getting this reinforced leather jerkin from Larperlei. (This tabard may also be in consideration but I prefer the jerkin, I think.)

My problems with ordering this are essentially two-fold: the first problem is budget, the second is timing. If I order it today, I might have it in hand in time for the event (November 6th). I get paid in a week and a half and I still have to pay for Empire food and travel.

To put that in perspective, if I order it this week, I’m on a tight budget for the next two weeks, but I might have it for the event. If I don’t order it this week, I almost certainly won’t have it for the event.

The general costume idea would be to have a tunic, with this jerkin over the top, then a surcote over the top of that. I’m liking how it looks in my head (bit hard to tell how it would look in reality. My other options would be to either not have it at all (which removes any armour from the character), try using my old leather jack from my LT days and see how that suits (I already know it won’t look as good), or try using the leather top I picked up (which isn’t quite the right size for me (but that wouldn’t be noticed under the surcote) and is black which detracts from the general colour theme I’m building I think.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Input welcomed.

Nextbit Robin

This morning, I’ve seen a bit of buzz about the Nextbit Robin, a new Kickstarted smartphone from the guys who made Baton.

I looked at it and thought “that looks awesome, and it makes me want to get one more than the OnePlus Two does. Thing is, I have Baton on my phone – courtesy of a CyanogenMod update and I’ve never used it, so I have no experience with this company. I’m wondering if I’m just experiencing a bit of Kickstarter fever.

I have a slight Kickstarter problem, you see, and this would be a big investment – buying a new phone outright when the old one isn’t even a year old yet. I bought the OnePlus One because I wanted to get out of the cycle of contract upgrades and buying phones that cost twice as much as they should through those contracts.

The Robin is $349 (£228), which is cheaper than my OnePlus One was (£269 last November, £219 now), but I don’t know how much use I’d get out of the flagship feature – I’ve never had a storage warning on my OnePlus One.

So my question to myself is: how much of this is going “ooh shiny?”. Backing the Kickstarter saves $50 on retail (according to the campaign), and maybe I’ll just wait for the retail package in February next year rather than prospecting a new phone now that I won’t get for at least six months.

But still… I kinda want to back it. I’ve put it on reminder so I can make a decision closer to the end of the campaign. Except for the “special SIM tray”, I’ve not seen any reason other than the discounted price to back the Kickstarter, and they’re fully funded now so they’re going ahead in any case.

#rpgaday2015

I have completed by run of #rpgaday2015 posts as I am giving up on finding one for day 27. You can find links to all of the posts below if you’re interested.

  1. Forthcoming game you’re most looking forward to
  2. Kickstarted game you’re most pleased you backed
  3. Favourite new game of the last 12 months
  4. Most surprising game
  5. Most recent RPG purchase
  6. Most recent RPG played
  7. Favourite free RPG
  8. Favourite appearance of RPGs in the media
  9. Favourite media you wish was an RPG
  10. Favourite RPG publisher
  11. Favourite RPG writer
  12. Favourite RPG illustration
  13. Favourite RPG podcast
  14. Favourite RPG accessory
  15. Longest campaign played
  16. <a href="http://www.drunkoncaffeine pop over to this site.com/2015/08/18/rpgaday2015-day-16-longest-game-session-played/”>Longest game session played
  17. Favourite fantasy RPG
  18. Favourite sci-fi RPG
  19. Favourite supers RPG
  20. Favourite horror RPG
  21. Favourite RPG setting
  22. Perfect gaming environment
  23. Perfect game for you
  24. Favourite house rule
  25. Favourite revolutionary game mechanic
  26. Favourite inspiration for your game
  27. Favourite idea for merging two games into one
  28. Favourite game you no longer play
  29. Favourite RPG website/blog
  30. Favourite RPG playing celebrity
  31. Favourite non-RPG thing to come out of RPGing roleplaying

Looking for book recommendations

Looking for book recommendations. I’ve just finished listening to Nexus by Ramez Naam, before that was Off to be the Wizard by Scott Meyer, before that Strata by Terry Pratchett, before that Firefight by Brandon Sanderson, before that Armada by Ernst Cline, and before that Dune by Frank Herbert.

Specially looking for audio books as I listen to them while cycling to work and exercising in the gym.

On the subject of audio books I’ve gone from loathing audio books to listening to then voraciously. A change in times and an extra fifteen years will do that to you, I suppose. Probably helped that I’ve been listening to excellent readers, but I do still find my concentration slips away from the book pretty easily sometimes. On the other hand, I’ve found myself just as enthralled listening to an audio book as I have with paper copies, so it does vary.

I should post more book reviews, really; get down my thoughts on some of the many books I devour throughout the year.

New routine

Dragged myself out of bed to start my new morning routine this morning. So far so good. Well, apart from the bit where one of my bungee cords came loose, got dragged through the gearing before jamming it up. Took five minutes for me to fish all the bits out of the gearing before I could get going again.

So, the routine, such as it is, is this:

  1. Get up early
  2. Go to gym to do workout
  3. Tram back to Murrayfield
  4. Walk back to flat
  5. Get bike
  6. Cycle to work

Strava tells me[1] it only took me 17 minutes to cycle to work even with having to untangle a bungee cord from my gears (13 minutes moving, 17 minutes total), so with that, the walk from tram to flat (9 minutes), and the workout (45 minutes, including 5 on cycle machine, 15 on elliptical, and 6 different weight machines), I’m well over an hour of activity even before my ride home again.

I’m also pretty happy with the commute time as it’s been taking me 17 minutes to get to work the last few times due to a wicked headwind pushing me back. That my morning commute moving time is about what my evening commute time usually is makes me happier. Also turns out that I got my personal record on getting up the hill on the way in even despite breaking down just before the hill really kicks in.

Feeling good about it, but a little drained of energy.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. I’ve started using Strava to record my bike journeys – it’s a pretty decent app