The Special Hell

dancing wildly

2009-11-11T19:05:39Z

I have brilliant ideas.

So, we (my roommate, my girl and I) went to see A Chorus Line at the theatre yesterday (it was a cute little show - very meta). On our way out afterwards (my roommate drove), the lines leading out of the parking lot were loooong and sloooow, with people trying to force their way into the line so they could get out faster (resulting in no one moving). At one point we watched two cars nearly collide because they were trying to back into the line from opposite sides of the car in front of us, so they couldn't really see each other. (My roommate honked to get their attention.)

Anyway, we're bitching and you can tell that other drivers are bitching at the whole thing. The radio music was boring, so we pop on the soundtrack to Rent.

Then I declared that the most appropriate thing to do in this frustrating situation is to roll down the windows, crank up the volume, and sing at the top of our lungs while dancing wildly in our seats.

So we did.

It was awesome.

Garglesnarwargelpar Randomness

2009-11-06T18:57:34Z

1. I'm a TA for a course with four professors. The professors are new to teaching this course and some have little teaching experience. I have TA'd this course once before, and I took it during undergrad, which makes me the veteran. I have no doubt you can imagine your own horrors. While I will note that everything's under control and moving smoothly for the most part, there are times when I want to tear my hair out. (The students have just written their second midterm, some of which I have to mark. I've just read through the midterm. I... am annoyed.)

2. Started playing Dragon Age: Origins as a dwarven noble fighter. So far, the game is pretty neat. I'll have to get used to the play setup as I realized that most of the RPGs I play are Japanese style RPGs (Final Fantasy and the like), so the format is different. Seems to be fairly straightforward though - for simplicity, I've put all my points into Combat Training so I whack with the best of them. :P Also, I have the strategy guide, mostly for making sure I can find all the side quests and also for party relationship stuff. I am amused that there is a (somewhat tricky) way to get a foursome together. I may attempt that on another playthrough. For now, I've decided to chase Leliana whenever she shows up. Romancing a jealous assassin/bard seems like a dandy idea, don't you think?

3. My latest blog post on Genetics Made Complicated ate my brain. Mostly because I had to figure out what all the math means - and then get it down to the essentials so that the reader doesn't have to figure out what all the math means. I probably didn't have to go through all the effort, but I get lost in detail sometimes.

4. LARP tomorrow! I play a eunuch! Whee!

Is Race Genetic?

2009-11-03T19:21:34Z

Over at Genetics Made Complicated, I've started a series of posts called "Is Race Genetic?" Part I is here and the index post for the series is here

Spam!

2009-10-29T16:33:37Z

A new post at Genetics Made Complicated:

Genomes Go Public

That should be the last of the spam for this week. :P

New post at the genetics blog

2009-10-28T14:18:24Z

I'm trying to keep a decent update schedule, and this one is a mite time sensitive, so here's the latest post on Genetics Made Complicated:

"Gay Genes" Aren't Enough

It's alive!

2009-10-27T15:12:28Z

I've launched a new blog called Genetics Made Complicated, in which I talk about genetics, biology, and its intersection with society and philosophy.

Come tell me why I'm wrong! :D

crossover software?

2009-10-26T21:56:18Z

I'm experimenting with a free program called Mendeley. It's intended for academics and is essentially a digital library where you load up your pdfs and it'll scan for authors, journals, blah blah blah and generate citations. You can also open up the PDFs, highlight stuff, make annotations, create tags, search through ALL your papers/tags, sort papers into collections etc. There's also an online component where you can share your collection like a reading list or make a shared collection with a limited number of participants so you can see each others' annotations/notes.

Then it occurred to me that I can upload my RPG PDFs into it.

I'm not sure how useful this will be. It means that I can take notes on my PDFs and highlight text, and when you consider that many of the PDFs I have are meant for research rather than play (unless they're short enough that I can print 'em and not feel like I may as well have bought the book), that's pretty good. If I want to, I can export the PDF with my notations and send if off to someone else. Maybe I want to give feedback about the text? It does help me organize my RPGs into a handy interface and tags are always nice. Currently the program is in beta, so some functionality isn't there - advanced search might be nice. I'd like to be able to sort the notes that I make. (They appear in a side bar, so you can jump straight to the page with the note by clicking the note. I like this.)

I've got it open now, mucking about with scientific papers, but my RPG folder is lookin' at me....

Hee

2009-10-21T17:46:08Z

This appeals to my science-geeky side.

There was recently a paper published in Nature Physics about a new revolution in the way we think about Darwinian evolution which has received some criticism. Apparently, physicists talking about the next revolution in evolutionary thought occurs often enough that some people wrote a paper on it (free PDF).

Sometimes, I love my field.

Haunting economy

2009-10-14T23:38:32Z

Gaming again gets me thinking about Haunting. Here's the newest economy setup.

Note: I'm using placeholder names for resource stuff. They are mostly historical terms (ie: terms I've used in the past) and are also, in their new form, really wrong. I'll change 'em later.

The two resources are Chains and Memories. Chains + Memories can never be more than 10. (Or some other arbitrary number.)

You walk into game with 10 Chains. Chains are effectively XP for other players. You can attach a Chain to another player's Goad (Thingum Which Represents Something) by making something up about the Goad and if they accept it. These Chains do not count towards their Chains + Memory = 10 thing. That's XP for later.

Memories are Power Points. You get Memories by escalating relationships. You use Memories to use your powers (whatever the hell they are). Powers always work but they also always cost. You pay the cost of the power to the victim of the power - that means they get Memory when a power is used on them.

If a person's Chains + Memories = 10 and they get more Memory due to having a power used on them or if they escalate a relationship, then the excess Memory converts Memory into Chain. Like so:

Bob has 7 Chain and 3 Memory. I hit him with Power X, which costs me 2 Memory. I hand him 2 Memory... but he can't accept Memory because he's got 10 Stuff. There is an excess of 2, so he converts 2 Memory to Chain, giving him 9 Chain and 1 Memory.

(One advantage to leveling up Goads is to adjust things like the Chain:Memory balance you start with when you walk into game and that sort of thing.)

Scene tags still exist and right now muck about with the number of Memory/Chain you can get, can give, that sort of thing. In essence, call 'em in, get more resource to throw to someone else.

So, this system encourages:
- adding to other people's fiction (need to get rid of Chain to make room for Memory)
- accepting when other people add to your fiction (XP!)
- using your powers on other people (use up Memory so that it doesn't get converted to Chain)
- incorporating scene tags (free resources)

That said, this feels clever. I need someone to help me kick the shit out of it. Oh, and powers. I need powers. *headdesk*

Scenes from a larp

2009-10-11T23:39:55Z

Went to the Hunter game last night. It had some cool scenes, which I shall now share because I like talking about my character.

Well, and also because I like to highlight stuff that crops up in games.

The Hunt

Our group consists of a Quebecois hippy who can actually see things, an old voodoo priest, a violent redneck (me!) and a kind-of demonic sociopath. Hunters huntin' the good hunt and savin' folk, we ain't. Anyway, Papa Beau, our voodoo priest has heard about some weird zombies, so we're going to snatch one and run off with it to conduct unspeakable experiments on it.

Turns out the weird zombies are building a... something... out of human flesh. Thankfully, as I mentioned, we're not "save the world" types, so the demonic sociopath dives into action, beatin' the shit out of everything. I follow close behind, pistol-whipping zombies (too much gunfire would lead to Official Notice). Our hippy picks off a zombie and I grab it so's we can run off. Unfortunately, our sociopath gets overwhelmed and has to be dragged out. Thankfully, our voodoo priest has a magic thingum, takes control of a zombie (the head zombie, by chance) and orders it to keep the other zombies off us. We run off.... Well, except that there's a zombie in the way. So I pistol-whip the shit out of that one (with the hippy helping). And now we have two zombies to study! Yay! Mission complete.

As a random side note, later on at a hunter gathering the Military Types wanted us to fill out some paperwork so they could figure out collateral damage and all that. It was short stuff, but in the notes section we wrote, "The zombies are building something out of human flesh. We don't think think they have a permit."

The fiction was pretty cool. The gameplay? Boring. I mean, it would have been easier and faster if we'd just sat down around a table and rolled some dice. The gameplay at the gathering of hunters was waaaaay cooler and it was one of those "and I didn't have to pull out my character sheet!" type of things. It makes me shake my head.

Gunfire on the staircase

So, the hippy has had visions of Bad Shit Comin' and she's been using her wacky powers to try to figure out what's going on. She's gibbering about Something Happening and I, as the Crass Yet Protective Redneck, am with her in case something needs beating. She's becoming increasingly frantic and we're on a set of stairs (with people at the top and bottom, might I add) when she cries out, "It's right there! Right THERE!!"

I can't see anything so I gibber, "Where?!" as I pull out my gun. She's pointing, I'm shouting, and then I shoot where's she's pointing. (And miss, cuz, y'know, can't see anything there.) We run up the staircase, she's gibbering in French, I'm yelling at her to speak a real language, she's still pointing at (as far as I can tell) empty space, so I shoot again.

And then the whatever it is disappears and people are taking away my gun and yelling at me for shooting at nothing. So I get mad at them because we're bloody hunters and when the only person who can see Bad Shit says there's Bad Shit, I'm going to shoot it because that's what I do.

These are the same people who, afterwards, kept coming to the hippy to ask her to let them know if she saw anything going on. It was great, and I love how it makes my character really resentful of everyone.

I made a friend!

I'm drinking from a rum bottle (full of tea, in case you were wondering) and as a leather-clad, sunglasses wearing injured chick walks by, I hold it out so she can have some. She takes a swig and I say, as I take back the bottle, "So, what kind of emo-bitch are you that you have to wear sunglasses in a dark room?" After I find out that she's allergic to light, I snort and say, "What, are you vampire or something?"

This is funny because I know ooc that this character used to be a vampire thrall and is now a vampire hunter

She doesn't punch me then (though one of her teammates warns me about it). Then the hippy makes jokes about me being gay, I get offended, the chick slaps my ass, there's some insulting jibes, and we get into a fist fight.

Afterwards, we introduced ourselves to each other and shared an amicable moment of swearing before wandering off. I haz a new friend!

*

I'm really liking the gathering scenes, especially since they're mostly freeform. I just wish that the hunt scenes weren't quite so... tedious.

Random

2009-10-04T14:36:23Z

1. Most important announcement thus far: I haz the Mouse Guard RPG. \o/

2. Got talked into acting in a LARP last night. My girl and I are playing emissaries sent to the group to see if they are, as we have been told, willing to submit to our lord's rule in order to destroy the infestation of demons and the demon-tainted mortals that are plaguing the world. We feel out the characters and at the end ask for a show of hands - it's mixed. We're on our way out, ("Now we know. Thank you for your time.") when the following happens:

Theophilus (PC): Wait! How do we know you're who you say you are?
Me (thinking "It's a little late now, isn't it?"): *laugh* Come with us! We'll go meet Divus (our lord) together.
[My girl poses with arm outstretched, beckoning to Theophilus (we couldn't have planned that better!)]
Theophilus: *backs up nervously* I... don't know if I would be walking into a trap.
Me: *laughs again and leaves*
My girl: Either you have faith, or you have none.

(Her parting words have much more impact in the context of the night and the themes of the game.)

It was cool.

3. I'm not prepped for my demo game today! Why am I on LJ?!

I'm stoopid

2009-10-03T05:00:13Z

Pure Spec is on tomorrow and Sunday. Tomorrow, I'm running short demos of Cog Wars, Don't Rest Your Head, Spirit of the Century and Dogs in the Vineyard. Because my printer ink has crapped out, I'm not sure if I have enough char sheets. Then again, I don't know what kind of traffic I'll see. If I were in the lobby, I think I'd be more worried - but I'm in the Main Hall and I suspect that people coming in may taper off after a while since games aren't especially staggered.

Sunday, I run a game of Cog Wars.

I really need to read through the rules again. And get more ink.

Even though I'm running fewer sessions, this may kill me like last year.

Bleah

2009-09-28T19:41:40Z

I'm sick. Again. This is bloody infuriating. Why is my immune system so screwed up?!

Well, this weekend was a cock-up. That might be why. (There was familial drama and hospitalization - separate incidents and wasn't me in the hospital, fyi. And no, I don't want to get into it.)

Guh. I don't have time for this nonsense.

Alive and home

2009-09-19T03:29:50Z

Back from conferencing.

Best conference EVAR. I talked with people. Like, important, dean of the faculty of law type people. They were nice. And smart.

Too tired to really give details but my brain is now full of cool.

Norman Borlaug gone

2009-09-15T16:13:08Z

I don't usually do this, but Norman Borlaug, the guy who could be called the Father of the Green Revolution, died a few days ago.

If it wasn't for him and his work, we wouldn't be having as many debates as we are about ethical ways to grow food, monocultures, biotech in agriculture, etc. We'd be talking about starvation.

Posing!

2009-09-13T21:13:41Z

This made me snorfle.

Buh

2009-09-12T19:34:50Z

Conferencing in a few days.

To-do list:

- Get new notebook for taking notes and stuff
- Recheck business card design (I'm there to network and if I have business cards, I might actually do it) and print out some cards.
- Go snack shopping for the rides there and back

Bloody hell, I'm terrified. This is ridiculous.

Random

2009-08-30T16:30:39Z

1. Got to play a paragon level encounter last night in D&D 4e. The Warhammer game fell through due to lack of players so we went ~~on a quest for adventure~~ to the mall, picked up Dungeon Delve, threw together characters (the character builder is sweeeeet) and whapped some undead. There was a Goliath Warden, a Halfling Barbarian (me! and I loves it so) and a Half-Elf Bard. I screwed up the monsters a bit (we didn't have a GM and sort of passed the book around though I played the monsters, mostly) but given that we'd forgotten to scale back the encounter to account for less than 5 players, it worked out. Worked out quite well, in fact. The halfling barbarian worked like a charm (starting off with a bang by launching herself off the shoulders of the goliath to land on the other side of a flaming zombie and flank) and the howling and yelling and raging were great fun. The goliath warden soaked up piles of damage, and the bard was throwing around all sorts of temp hit points and other random goodies. Wacky fun.

Of course, now I really want to play in an Eberron campaign with a halfling barbarian and a raptor mount. *sigh*

2. Hey, Levi. Remember that game I couldn't remember the name of? It's called Agora and it's being worked on by Josh Roby.

FFXIII

2009-08-27T17:01:17Z

This is why I bought a PS3.

Science trundling

2009-08-24T22:33:31Z

Had a meeting with my supervisor. I came off as a gibbering idiot, but she poked me with a sharp stick until I was coherent again.

Data that I have looks good. Signs point to having a reference genes which will be usable (thank god) soonish. I have hope again (and am quietly waiting for it to be dashed).

Will likely be going to a 5th International DNA Sampling Conference called the Age of Personalized Genomics, which focuses on "the ethical, legal and social controversies that characterize the rapidly developing field of personalized genomics." This sounds like the coolest conference EVAR. Check out the titles of the talks in the concurrent session I want to go to (damn concurrent sessions - I wants more talks!):

- Race, Risk and Odds Ratios: the Relevance of Personal Genomics for the Non-European - Sandra Soo-Jin Lee
- The Persistence of Race in Biotech Patenting and Drug Development - Jonathan Kahn
- Human gene patents and genetic testing in the UK: results of an empirical study - Naomi Hawkins
-Promoting and Subverting Control: The Double-edged Effect of Personalized Genomics - Robin Pierce

Squee! Here's hoping I can get organized enough to get down there.

And now for something completely different

2009-08-23T00:05:05Z

Ganked from scribblemoose

Haunting Echoes

2009-08-22T22:15:38Z

One of the components of Levi's relationship scheme was that relationships could resolve. It tends to come about because both players realize that now is the time to end the relationship. In Haunting, you can do that first. These are known as Echoes.

Like so: Bob's character is Sue's character's Vexation (that is, Bob is someone who Sue feels is a rival of some kind). Sue takes Bob aside and says, "So, to resolve this relationship, I think it would be great if I went crazy and eventually stood over your character's broken, bleeding body." There might be a bit of back and forth negotiation, but so long as both of them think this is cool, it's cool. They can choose to play out a minor scene (the "echo", as it were). Chances are, this will be without trappings, as it's only the most intense elements of the resolution which echoes backwards.

This means that, for the rest of the game until the relationship ends, everything that happens between them foreshadows and adds to the final resolution. When Bob wins a poker game and Sue grips her heavy goblet angrily, Bob thinks, "Is this it? Is it now?!" When Sue levels up her Goad (a cane), she thinks, "Dear God, this is what I use to beat Bob bloody!"

Now, you don't have to set up your relationships with echoes. It might be more interesting to leave the ending open. At present, this is purely optional. Of particular note: you can't declare someone dies as a part of an echo. That's because one of the "level up" things you get is the ability to declare, "And then I die."

Level up - you get a home

2009-08-20T22:09:10Z

I'm flipping through some old posts on Haunting and it occurs to me that a "level up" for a Goad could be giving the character a place. Like, sure, there's a study in the house and scenes happen there and whatever... until Father's pen gets a bazillion ribbons hung from it and suddenly you have Father's Study. And interacting with Father's Study necessarily impacts Father, especially if, now that there is Father's Study, all other nebulous studies fade into that background. All scenes now happen in Father's Study if they happen in a study anywhere.

Bloody hell.

Historical ghost story

2009-08-20T22:00:33Z

Let's say that you're on vacation somewhere and you're taking a tour of some of the historical sites. Your helpful guide takes you to someplace interesting and says, "This place is supposed to be haunted. It's an interesting story...."

What's the story? That is, what sorts of things would you expect the guide to tell you about? What sorts of places would you expect the guide to tell you stories about?

Let's say that you had to option to wander around and even spend the night at the haunted place. What sort of stuff would you expect to be there? I don't mean what sort of weird occurrences might you expect if the place actually was haunted. I mean things like an old embroidered handkerchief forgotten in a drawer or a weed-filled, overgrown garden with, hidden away and found only because you happened to drop something, a rare breed of rose. Ordinary things which somehow add to the haunted-ness of the place without being supernatural or necessarily creepy.

Hoard character progression

2009-08-18T01:28:33Z

Hoard's character progression is pretty straightforward. As you run around, you get older. One adventure takes you from hatchling to fledgeling, three more takes you to soarling, four more to lordling and seven more to sovereign. (That's a total of 1, 4, 9 and 16.) With each change in age, you not only get bigger but your powers expand.

Ultimately, though, I've never really liked it. It always felt too arbitrary and the sort of the thing that a GM with any kind of experience would throw out the window when faced with the way her own campaign is running. That's fine, but if it's so easy to throw out, why have it there in the first place? Arguably, it's more or less identical to any other "leveling" system where you get some sort of arbitary thing to track to somehow appropriately pace the growth of your characters (XP being the most obvious). Thing is, I don't think there are enough "levels" in Hoard. Take D&D 4e. There are a lot of levels, so if your players confront the Crazy Evil Thing at level 9 instead of level 11, the difference isn't necessarily extreme. Now imagine if the difference was confronting the Crazy Evil Thing when you were a Hero instead of a Paragon. Or, heaven forbid, instead of an Epic. With fewer dividers, the difference in scope has the potential to be a lot bigger and, when we're talking about dragons, it makes sense for it to do so.

For Hoard, I think the age of the dragons should match the scope of the game. A fledgeling might conceivably infiltrate a group of cultists. A lordling damn well better be running the cult. Instead of arbitrarily deciding the number of adventures before switching to a game with a wider scope, it makes more sense to me to tie the scope directly to age. As a handwaving kind of idea, imagine that at every age a dragon faces three kinds of threats:

1. Insects: Irritating, potentially hazardous if you're stupid or careless, but otherwise not much of an issue. Remember bug spray and you'll be fine.

2. Enemies: Threats that are about your scope. They could defeat you, you could defeat them and it's a little up in the air who will beat who. They have reason to want to be your adversary and you, just by wanting to survive, probably have reason to want to be theirs. Like amateur dragon hunters who are hunting hatchlings. They aren't trained to go after the big prey yet, and while the big ones fetch more money, hatchlings still yield enough to make it worth it as they learn.

3. Big Bads: These guys are out of your league. With cleverness and a lot of luck, you might survive a direct confrontation with them but likely only once. For the most part, if you keep your head down, they only come looking for you if they have nothing else to do. These might be much more professional dragon hunters. They might bag a hatchling if it landed on their tent, but otherwise it's not worth the trouble.

There's a kind of fourth level made of Gods, but they're so far up they send Big Bads after you so you never see 'em. Anyway, let's say a fledge of dragons doesn't age until they have reached a point where they've defeated their Enemies. In other words, Enemies have been effectively reduced through play to the level of Insects. Once that's happened, why not make it mechanically so? The Hoard mechanic of Extras and Scope fits into similar mental space as shifting the scope of Insects-Enemies-Big Bads. Turning Enemies into Insects also makes it more likely for Big Bads to notice you - and wouldn't it be nice to be able to meet them on an even footing once that happens?

The Special Hell

*dancing wildly*

Garglesnarwargelpar Randomness

Is Race Genetic?

Spam!

New post at the genetics blog

It's alive!

crossover software?

Hee

Haunting economy

Scenes from a larp

Random

I'm stoopid

Bleah

Alive and home

Norman Borlaug gone

Posing!

Buh

Random

FFXIII

Science trundling

And now for something completely different

Haunting Echoes

Level up - you get a home

Historical ghost story

Hoard character progression

dancing wildly