benlehman

What a weekend.

On Friday I went out of Providence with wirednavi. What we talked about on the train, don't know. I think it was about Riddle of Steel combat, and the relative virtues of Block Open and Strike versus Simultaneous Block Strike, and a bit about stop thrusts and the Counter maneuver. This is getting my geeky weekend off to a great start.

I transfer around the terrible MBTA system and end up in Fitchburg, where I meet lumpley and kids. We geek out about games, talking about our old game experiences (we have only one game in common, which is Cyberpunk), and just generally shooting the shit all the way back to Greenfield. Vincent is awesome. I am slightly overawed.

We get to his house, he puts the kids to bed, his cats molest my shoes, and we talk more about gaming. I introduce my theory that Gamism and Narrativism are actually pretty much the same thing, just with different metagame components, and we are totally on the same page, which is cool. I'm going to have to retype that damn thing one of these days. Meg, his wife comes home. We talk more about gaming. I eat leftover macaroni and cheese, and sleep in the kid's room, which is full of awesome toys I wish I had when I was there age, and awesome books that I did have when I was their age.

Saturday morning, I think, there was more talking about games, and I feebly tried to fix up Polaris's resolution by twiddling little bits of it. You have to understand that when I say "talk about games" it is essentially like a Forge thread but faster and without Ron to chew us out about not splitting the thread when we veer off-topic. Lunch is macaroni and cheese, but all homemade and good, with hot dogs in.

Meg and Vincent show off their 1337 parenting skillz with infinite patience.

In the afternoon, keirgreeneyes arrives. She is both more intellegent and cuter than I thought. This is troubling, because that's a pretty high bar to exceed. She also talks *exactly* like she posts. There's a little bit more game talk, and I start reading through her GMless play article, which is, like, damn awesome, with some problems. We chat about problems. I bitch about Polaris sucking (actually, I'm doing this all the damn time.)

Meg and I go out shopping and to sell some books at the local game store. She introduces me as another game designer. I am wigged out.

I am momentarily roped in to NPC a giant robot (with death ray) in Emily and Eliot's game.

That evening, nikotesla and the woman-I-feel-like-a-cad-for-not-remembering-her-name-but-I'm-bad-with-names- and-I-remember-her-character-was-named-Sam arrive. Working on a theme of raising the bar, J is smarter and cooler than I thought. (Idea for a sequel game to "Over the Bar" which could be called "Raising the Bar" or possibly "Razing the Bar.") There is more game geekery. I think that there might have been some discussion about things that were not games, but damned if I can remember. J talks about his new epic quest game, like The White Hart and a thousand others. I can only wish him well, and tell him to read tRoS.

At night, we eat insane pepper shrimp, which is insanely peppery -- Vincent, I want to try that with a little 華角 (Sichuan pepper) mixed in -- drink Emily's really good beer, and talk aabout GenCon, I think, which Meg and Em and J and Sam and all are thinking of attending this year. That would be the awesomeist. I hope I can make it. Food is *so* good. It is my favorite thing to eat.

After dinner, Vincent and Meg demonstrate their awesome parenting skills again while Em and J and Sam and I talk about techniques for a science fiction game that might not suck. My best idea: a matrix for generating social issues and technological interactions with them. Em's best idea is that you generate fact but not meaning for alien worlds, so you can grow in understanding of them.

Then we play PrimeTime Adventures: Epidemonology. It is awesome. I will point you at the actual play report when it happens. Two thoughts:

1) I have no character at all, but yet I have far more ability to contribute to the game than I do in a lot of white wolf and any LARP that I have ever played in.
2) Everyone cross-plays, which means the game is sexy sexy sexy. You can just feel the sexy in the air. My god, I want to shag them all (the characters, that is.)

After the game, we talk about a bunch of things, including Unitarian sex-education procedures (awesome), until we are all falling down tired and can barely stand anymore, let alone carry on a conversational thread. Em and I are sharing the kid's room, and we stay up 'til god-awful-in-the-morning talking sleepover style, on opposite sides of the bed in our jammies. This conversation is just amazing. We are talking, of course, about games, but about our experiences of them and also the games that we are working on and how things really work out with group contributions in practice and negotiation systems and she talks about Under My Skin which is the coolest game ever, but also a name I wanted to use so damnit, but it's okay because she helps me solve Polaris resolution so much that it is going to be the best fucking thing ever you will see. Also, in SF games, the setting is a character. The setting is, perhaps, a *member of the party*

The next morning, we eat pancakes, rehash the game, talk about all sorts of stuff. In the afternoon, Em and Meg and Vincent and I play Murray Hula, which is the best card game ever. It is designed by Vincent's younger siblings. Game design is genetic. I am depressed, 'cause it means that Seb will write better games than I ever will, but happy, because I will get to play them.

I am invited back. Next time, I will bring Polaris, when it rocks.

There is more stuff in Boston, but that's it for now.

So much fun!

So Dogs in the Vineyard has some great GMing advice, but my favorite piece is from the system, which is that, as the GM, you have to "say yes, or roll dice." The only way you can stop your players is to play fair, with the system. Nobilis does this, too, and calls it the "Monarda Law," I believe. Phrased like that, it goes like this: "Say yes, or say 'yes, but...'" In the more-fiat-than-Dogs-but-still-not-a-lot-of-it Nobilis system, it amounts to the same thing.

This is great advice.

( But it's wrong... )

This is a draft. It also assumes that you have read Polaris

( Non-sucky version )