Notes

Perhaps The Weirdness Returns

This week, I took a break from working. This was the longest time off since July, so it was very nice to have an opportunity to take a break.



Again, my financial dependence on an employer makes me very sad.



Books



This week, I didn't read any books. I think I need to get some new reading material again The majority of the unread books I've got left are RPG rulebooks and nonfiction and I go through them when I'm in the mood.
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Gaming



Ars Magica



This week, I ran the first session in my new Ars Magica campaign. The characters of the game were asked to help find the missing village children who nobody had seen for some hours. It was the vernal equinox, a night of magic and folklore. the children were under the influence of a kelpie which was intent on acting out its story of drowning victims who were not aware of the dangers.



There wasn't really much to do, the characters just had to (1) locate the way to fairyland, (2) walk in straight lines through a fairy forest which tried to confuse their sense of direction, and (3) drive off the kelpie in some way. It was very easy to manage and the players had a few choices. I created a deliberately simple plot so that we'd be able to gradually get used to the system. This proved to be a good idea, as even with just this we had to consult the spell creation rules numerous times (which I had hoped for). I was astonished to discover that they initially saw the large horse faerie and decided to take on it physically. But after one of them nearly dying (doing the Ars Magica equivalent of making death saves), and another realising there was a solution that was magical I'm hoping they'll be more likely to attempt magic the next time.



I definitely failed to predict the length of time it would take though, I had a complete second adventure (visiting and making a positive impression on the abbot of a nearby monastery) planned which we didn't have the time to get into at all.



Inscryption



This week I got into Inscryption which is a bizarre deck-building / escape-room game which is like being trapped in an escape room with a crazy game master who's composing rules as he goes.



The first part is. There's another part that seems very different based on the small amount I've played so far I'm not certain if I'm going to give it a go, as it was the weird atmosphere which really attracted me to the game in the first place. Maybe the weirdness returns? I'm not sure if would like to wait to discover.



We've received a release date set for Minecraft 1.18, the 30th!



I'm not a huge Minecraft player nowadays, and I'm prone to becoming bored once I've got a self-sufficient base in place (which takes no time at all) because building large things doesn't appeal to me at all. I'm not sure I'm the game's target market.



But I do like playing with it every now and again, and playing with my friends. 1.18 brings some very fundamental changes to the world generation that I'm looking forward to testing.



Miscellaneous



This week I was able to catch up on some TV: I watched The Mandalorian and Foundation. Both were pretty great, lots of very amazing visuals (like this FTL jump from episode 1 of Foundation00In fact I believe this is the single coolest version of FTL jumps I've come across. If this series had been released prior to the time I started my Traveller game, I would have been strongly tempted to re-do all the standard ship deckplans to have a big rotating black hole-powered jump drive.



). I'm looking for more.



If I had to criticize it, it would be because I find the Empire storyline from Foundation more compelling than the Foundation storyline. This is a reflection of the stories that I like. The Empire storyline revolves around large epic, galaxy-shaking events as well as the fall of a dynasty. It's more about the events than the people. The Foundation storyline is much more about the individuals and the events are smaller in size. However, I prefer the large-scale things!


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