Aquarionics

Ah, the first daily update fail. I went to a LARP event. I meant to queue some posts up for the weekend, but then I had a week of doing stuff every evening. Anyway, I had a weekend of roleplaying, politicing, dancing, wandering about in the snow in a kilt, and not enough sleep. Therefore I got home, rebooted this server (May have to reimage or something, something is screwed somewhere) had a bath in the hope that my shoulders would stop hurting, and went to bed.

Because this was somewhere around 8pm, I then woke up somewhere around five. Clever Aquarion.

I have returned from Maelstrom Event 1.

Maelstrom is a Fest-style LARP system run by Profound Decisions.  In the greatest of 1980s educational films, lets break that sentence down into smaller bits.

LARP stands for Live Action Roleplay. It’s very much like the standard “Tabletop” Dungeons and Dragons style games which you are probably more familiar with. You create a character (“Bob is a Normal Male Human”, “Jenny is an Undead Female Badger”, “Joe is a Giant Talking Cock”), Assign them some attributes within the system (“Bob is a Barbarian with lots of strength and candyfloss for brains, giving him +5 to all battle roles and a +3 sugar rush three times daily”, “Jenny is charismatic, but unfortunately let down by the way her arm keeps dropping off. +5 to sustained impressions, -4 to first impressions, +9 to sewing”, “Joe is in love with the chicken of his dreams. -5 against anything chicken related – does not include KFC – +6 to endurance regained from a good night’s sleep”). And run adventures with you playing the part of that character (This is not a necessary order. You can create the character and choose skills and race to fit, or you can do whatever you feel to make a character that works for you and the game. Time-travelling geologists may not apply, depending on setting).

The central difference between Tabletop and LARP is that instead of sitting around a table, you are actually in a room or field or other open space playing the actual character. Depending on system, this means that various skills may be classed as “hard” and “soft”. Hard skills are those that the player must possess to use them, soft skills are those which the game provides for the characters to use. For example, I play in one system a Pyromancer. His ability to run across the field is a hard skill (and is lacking), his ability to convince people he really *isn’t* going to destroy the world is also a hard skill – it relies on his host’s charisma, but his ability to fling a massive fireball at a fleeing demon is a soft skill.

Core to this in most instances is a set of calls which do not exist in the game world, but affect the game itself. These are the system calls. If, for example, I cast the above spell, my character may shout this:

By the power of the beautiful and destructive element of fire bent to my will, I set you ablaze: TIM RED QUAD.

Tim is not a system call in this case, it’s an identifier as to who it’s aimed at. If I was to attempt to hit someone with a sword, I’d not use that as it is perfectly obvious who the aim is at. RED QUAD is a damage call, and requests that player to take four points of red damage. By this structure of rules the game can proceed almost completely without a referee needed to oversee every action as a game master would in a tabletop system, most interaction is with each other.

(As an aside, yes, this means the game is mostly self-governing, with obvious holes where a person can shout things they cannot do and ignore hits they should have taken. Generally, however, people stop playing with the people who are being dicks.)

Maelstrom is a system written mostly by Matt Pennington and run by his company, Profound Decisions, in the form of four weekend events a year, Easter weekend being a full four day event. The central premise is a swords & gunpowder world with various humanoid/animal races, and one day a path opens though the permenant storm that is at the edges of their world into a new one. The new world has magic, native races, whole new races born of magic and, most dangerously, the angels of the gods who fell from grace and now must consume souls for power. This leads to a game of multivarious levels, from the colonies from the old world claiming land and building upon it to the dismay and anger of the native races, the political issues between the colonies themselves, though the attempts of the churches of the old world to maintain a foothold in this one (and convert the natives from the – oddly similar – native religions) and up to the war between the loyal eidolons of the five old-world faiths and those who declared freedom from them and fell from grace.

It’s really cool, I’ve been going for about three years now. There are more details on Profound Decisions’s site.

The system is almost entirely player led, with very few major elements thrown in by the referees. The religion system works well (Players pray to their gods by writing things and handing them to the refs. The refs write things and give them to players who play the angels of the gods. The players of angels do as they feel they should.) The economy mostly also works (Four different currencies with player-led exchange rates and various different bases. One is 81 Riels to the Kyat, for example. Another is based on the old english system. Kind of. If it were devised by Salvador Dali. While he’s on drugs).

(While I mention drugs, there are drugs in the system as well. They are scary, and my character goes nowhere near most of them.)

And that’s pretty much what my weekend was like. It was awesome. I helped found a new church, dealt with the fallout from a friend of my character being killed, dealt with the funeral of said friend, inducted people into my faith, almost shot someone, held a supplication to my goddess, and – somewhat to my suprise – failed to die. Again.

52 days, 19 hours until the next one.

And counting.

Most of what I’m doing right now is working, and due to the nature of my working, it’s dull. I’m mostly writing unit tests. And because it’s work, it’s occasionally awesome and fun, challanging and occasionally frustrating. We are, however, looking for PHP dev to work in our Kings Cross office, so if you know any PHP devs looking for a new job, fire an email at nicholas care of trutap dot net. I do hope to be able to shout about stuff we’re doing soon.

Because I’ve moved to the place with the most integrated transportation network in the country, it’s obvious that the next thing I need to do is learn to drive. Since my last experience I haven’t actually had any driving lessons at all (Well, not true. I got one while in Bedford, but taking a two hour lunch break meant I missed my bus home and didn’t get back to Letchworth until 22:00. I didn’t repeat the experience), But I’ve just signed up with Go Red for a lesson on the 1st August. Now to pass my theory test for the third, and ideally final, time.

One of the reasons for the above is my current habit of going LARPing, and the fact that lugging all my stuff on trains is annoying. Also, National Rail always seem to schedule line work over me coming back from Maelstrom, which is irritating. A car would make getting there – as well as Treasure Trap in Cambridge – easier. This weekend is another Maelstrom weekend, which should be fun.

This means that I’m going to not only miss LUGRadio Live, which annoyed me, but when it became the very last LR event ever, it just seemed like malice. I’ve listened to, and enjoyed, the show from the first episode, and while I’ve recently not been much part of the community, I’m proud of the bits I have been part of. LUGRadio is a staggering achievement, and I hope someone picks up the idea and does it half as well as the various generations of Gents have over the years. I don’t know what they’re planning to do with the site after it’s over, but if it fractures into a few dozen local LUGRadio divisions – such as was originally the plan for the series, I believe – it will be interesting.

Still not completed GTA4 yet.

Most of my “home” coding right now is being done on AqWiki, which is now running a community wiki for Maelstrom fans as well as one for an Ikariam alliance – pushing the under-developed macro system to the limit with treaty managers and databases. I’m also working on Lampstand, which is an IRC bot again for Maelstrom fans. It’s based on the Twisted framework, which is something of a run-up all of its own, and eventually I hope to integrate it into a django-powered community site.

So, this weekend I went to Maelstrom, which is a LARP event. Further updates will appear at some point in the IC Diary. If you want to know more about the setting, you can watch the promotional video (Which, Maelstromers, is the same thing as is on the DVD you got in an event pack) or visit their website

Stuff that was good:

• The sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realise that that major bit of drama going on over there is partially your fault.
• The “Explode on death” blessing as a concept
• Finally making it to Jade Lotus (IC japanese resturant) which was nice.
• Playing croquet.
• Group angst! Yay!
• Singing songs around the fires.
• The ginger cider
• My character making his mind up about something cool.
• The weather not being too hot or too cold.
• The trebuchet.
• Meeting Shebit & Rhiannon IC.

• FOIP
  

  Stuff not quite so good:

• New tent is too small.
• Campsite is a deathtrap in the dark, due to pools of well-lit areas with black pits of rocks, sudden slopes and guy ropes between them.
• Campsite is too small for the event – event isn’t going back there, though.
• IC traders (ie, us) being too far off the beaten track
• OOC traders being too far off the beaten track.
• There not being much of a beaten track, really.
• The musicians who were playing in the OOC camping area at 4am on Sunday.

• Leaving my pirate hat on the train.

So, went to Maelstrom.

Character got sinking feeling as massively bad things happened which are partly his fault, due to treating entities as people and vice-versa. Consort not with angels, for Shit Will Happen.

Water doesn’t work at home, due to boiler deciding to start screaming sometime about 2am.

Currently at my desk at work – since 7 – because work has tea where home doesn’t.

More, better updates when I have brainspace and can say more about work.

The next Maelstrom event happens at the same time as the next Harry Potter book.

From the head ref, Matt Pennington:

(GOD is the Games Operations Desk)

Just as a teensy-weensy small point to bear in mind. If anyone so much as mentions this book or one word of the contents in my earshot in GOD I will throw you off site and ban you for life. But on the plus side I will only attempt violence against you if you are smaller than me or a girl. Try not to see this as a threat, I like to think of it more as a sort of public-service broadcast….

I’m not allowed to read the book until after the event on the incredibly flimsy basis that I will simply stay up all night until I have read it. Therefore I have to wait until later. The last time I had to “wait until later” the most moronic girl in the universe just happened to mention that Qui Gon Jin gets a bit unwell before the end of the film. I have one regret to this day. I regret that that woman is still alive somewhere….

Obviously you’re fine discussing any part of the book in GOD unless you happen to be overheard by my other half. She is much more sensible and mature about this than me. She will use the database to find out where you live, drive round your house that night and burn it to the ground. I am told this leaves less witnesses. She has checked with the DPA and apparently this does not constitute an infringement of the act as she is not passing your data to a third party. However I think these things are best handled by face-to-face interaction with the criminal and that it is why I will be bringing a real machete to the event.

Maelstrom is a Live Action Role playing Thing. Basically, it’s much like tabletop, traditional role playing, except there is no GM (though there are Refs, and the refs Know All. Or most) and the fighting is done using latex weapons and numbers instead of dice and numbers. The effects of this are that your actual, real person ability to, say, dodge an axe blow are a large amount of your character’s ability to do so. If you’re hit, you’re hit. (Probably, taking into account armour, magic and random acts of senseless plot). In the Geek Hierarchy LARP is looked upon as more geeky than normal RP. I can only beat my new level by becoming a 13 year old gamer. I have sunk to a new high of geekyness.

So, we have two stories here. They clash sometimes, intertwine sometimes, and sometimes they have no relationship to each other at all.

The first is the story of Nicholas ‘Aquarion’ Avenell, Sysadmin, Programmer, Geek and Larper, who has been convinced to go to Maelstrom. Wears glasses, a white shirt and red trousers. And a hat.

The second is Detail ‘Det’ Marshall, Self professed Light-greysmith, Gunsmith and seeker after cool new things. He has been sent to the New World beyond the Maelstrom by his father, who is a celebrated blacksmith, to learn to be a proper blacksmith and smith things. Assumably blackly.

He is my character. His background is basically that he was born into a family of blacksmiths and is awful at working iron, beyond the specific requirements for making pistols. Pistols not being the family trade, his father has given him the plans to build a smithy in the new world and the instructions not to return until he can use it. He plans to use it to make pistols, unless he finds something more interesting to do. His mother, however, is related to another family who have have representatives in the New World. These are Marshall Enterprises, and taking his new family’s name, Det has joined up to make as much money as they can.

Det wears glasses, a red shirt and white trousers. And a hat.

Friday I got to Cambridge, found my lift and got to Maelstrom (Thanks Geoff for the lifts both ways :-) where I hung around for a while getting an idea of the place until the rest of the group arrived when we filled in my character sheet, I handed it in to Game Operations Desk (“GOD”), and they suggested I come back for the full event pack (And stuff I needed to officially roleplay) in about an hour. Wandered around a bit more, put up tent, got into character costume and went to GOD to queue for ages and pick up pack. Hollow laughing. “Try tomorrow morning”. Blah. Dinner from the burger place.

Wandered around a bit with the rest of the group, but felt headachey and decided I had – despite hat and shades – been out in the sun too long, though it was late evening by then. Went for a lie down.

Woke up at 4am, and was heartily and repeatedly sick, fortunately outside the tent, whilst trying to remember where the paragraph about the phrase “Heartily sick” that was running around my head was coming from. Still headachey. Began to hate the world and everyone inside it. Drank lots of water. Went back to bed.

When GOD reopened I went to get my character pack, and began a wonderful pattern that lasted several hours. It would involve standing in the queue for a while, getting to within two people of being served, and then having to dash off to the toilets. Feeling progressively more dead tired and ill, I eventually lasted long enough to get my character pack and dashed back to the home base, via the toilets.

Got shouted at a bit for losing the representative card for a bit of equipment, was apologetic but didn’t care much due to death. Recharactered properly, and went officially In Character.

Advanced hatred of world and everything in it to hatred of whole new world which I didn’t understand and couldn’t comprehend due to illness. Failure to remain in character. Most of day spent dazed in tent drinking water. Grah.

We went and talked to a Dragon, which was interesting (The system requires dragons to require the full costume, which is something of an ordeal, especially on a weekend like this weekends was), and various other people. We watched Stuart Marshall – our glorious leader – overcome great odds to win a Circle of Treachery (Read: ‘Civilized’ Mass battle)

Saturday evening I recovered. So I ate some food, and satisfied that it was staying where I put it, did the only thing sensible after a day of feeling sorry for myself and dozing in the tent. We went drinking.

We found a pirate camp, where they were drinking grog port. We sang songs, including the Pirate Alphabet, which starts like this:

A is for ARRRRRR! as in: “ARRRR! MORE GROG!” (Take swig of drink)
B is for BOOTY! which you can sell to buy GROG, as in: “ARRRR! MORE GROG!” (Take swig of drink)
C is for CHESTS OF BOOTY! which you can sell to buy GROG, as in@ “ARRRR! MORE GROG!” (Take swig of drink).
D is for DAVEY JONES’ LOCKER! ([hat to chest] [pause] [replace hat]) “ARRRR! MORE GROG!” (Take swig of drink).
E is for EVEN MORE BOOTY! which you can use to buy GROG! as in: “ARRRR! MORE GROG!” (Take swig of drink).

etc.

There was port, there was alcoholic liquid white chocolate, there was a pineapple and vodka drink in a hollowed out pineapple, and there were drinks of many and varied different sorts.

Much Grog.

I slept… better that night.

Sunday was Fun. We talked to people, drank tea, and I was alive enough to enjoy the whole experience. Plans were plotted, deals were done, and in the background plot happened.

All in all, something I’d like to do again. Once more with health, I think.

On the way home we hit a pheasant, then I came home, had a shower, got a drink and promptly slipped on a bit of paper on the floor, hitting my head on the window and spilling my drink over my bed. To a large extent, this has not been my weekend.

1. I am going to Maelstrom for the hotest weekend of the year (Not that there’s a hell of a lot of competition). How would you like your Aquarion: baked, boiled or fried?
2. For the They Who Evolve World Cup Sweepstakes, I have drawn the Ivory Coast. Who are doomed, for no better reason than their connection to me.

1. Every so often I obsess over songs and grab all the covers I can find. iTunes’ Music Store is bad for me for this reason. I am not, apparently, the only person to do this. Thirteen covers of The Smith’s ‘There is a light that never goes out’

   More things:

   • Animation verses Animator
   • Fight Club’s plot, in 3D, in lego

• The new Aquarionics design (v12) is mocked up and sitting in PSP. Soon, I will get around to implementing the blasted thing.

Er, yeah. I did have an entry here, and it was carefully constructed and humourous and contained references to Eddie Izzard and Shakespeare and stuff and was to lead up to an important insight into the human condition and how it relates to my new bed.

But I closed the browser window while before I hit save, so it’s Etherized. Sorry.

So, Friday went out with company, drank beer, ate curry, more beer, debated interface design and moving house, listened to coworker singing, home, discovered that missing LARP was a bad decision, collapse for a bit, awake, then bus to Cambridge, LARP linear, back to pub, drank cider, kidnapped, taken to nice party, talked, geeked, drank wine, back to Cambridge, bus to Bedford, stagger to Fortress One, collapse.

As a result I’ve spent Sunday catching up on sleep, watching movies and playing Neverwinter nights.

This has been a good weekend. Thanks to all people who have helped make it so, and happy birthday Stephen :-)

So, I went to Cambridge.

In order to get to the place I needed to be on time, I had to get a taxi, which was something of an unexpected expense, but fun is worth spending money on.

And it was fun.

My new character – and bore you with it at great length will I if proded – is Philip Panama, Mage at small. No job too easy, No fee too high.

Panama has been added to the increasingly stale Hero Diaries project. I intend to keep that up to date, if only for my own notes (Warning, TT folklets, may explain more about Panama than you need to know, though Deep Dark Secrets contain it not). The idea of tHD was a place to keep track of characters and things, but with my shift to the UK servers (With implied lack of other people to play with), I haven’t developed either of the characters very far into the plotlines I gave them. One day, when in the future there are robots, I will write Raynebow’s story, because it’s fun.

So I did the Interactive on friday, and charactered the Adventure on saturday and there were green people and white people and shiny, shiny costumes and swords and staves and beer and undead and nightmares and magic and mercenaries and peanuts and newspapers and stories of demons and jam and Kender and elves and warriors and mud and money and cider and…

…and buses home. Why did I move from Cambridge again? Oh yeah, work. I nave a new reason to learn to drive. And it’s not a vital, work-type reason, so I might just do it.

Resolution two: Get a hobby that doesn’t involve sitting in front of a computer. Complete. Next?