Sign of Life

For some reason, this post is the one that draws the second greatest number of googling visitors to my blog. At time I originally wrote this I wasn't around a lot, I am around a lot more these days. If you want to see what I'm up to more recently, click on 'Adelaide Gamer' above and leave a comment on the most recent post.

Postscript: I have left the large number of junk comments on this post as it is probably something in them which is drawing the visits (or perhaps it's the post title). Also, it's a reminder to me of the spam plague that can strike a site without notice.

[Above comments were posted 12 June, 2011]

Month and a half since I last posted here, and that was only a 'sign of life' post, like this one. Obviously things are going on distracting me from this place. Rather disconcerting since I was doing so well. Probably lost most if not all of my regular visitors. Can't see things changing here for a little while, so will have to content myself with sign-of-life posts like this one for a little while yet. Still, it's a long run project so I'll just get through this bad patch and hopefully be able to move forward again. Until then, if I'm patient with myself, will you be?

Still Kicking

Just to let you know I am still around and busy. Will start more regular posting again very shortly. Presently am (still) right into my Renaissance Kingdoms and Tribal Nations online RPGs, have recently gone through a stage of Mafia FPSing and am taking up Medieval 2 again for a strategic burst. Have again had my gaming/painting room taken over by a family member who needed a roof so have again lost opportunity to revert to my original self and create tabletop gaming things.

More later.

Atmosphere and Elegance

In commenting on this post over at the Grog I said the following:

I got closest (to the epitome of 'elegance and atmosphere', minimal rules, maximum affect) when I used the philosophy of cutting, not adding, elements in the rules and campaign setting. I boiled it down to a couple pages of charts. All was taken from AD&D (1.00000). The emphasis shifted from books and paper to dialogue, imaginings and the dice. With less dice rolled, each became more important. It was great.

When I walk into a game store these days that stocks the latest morph of D&D I never cease to be amazed at the number of volumes available, their expense, their quality of production and the amount of shelfspace they consume. Adding it all together I come to the conclusion that, besides being much more affluent than me and my 1e gaming friends were, modern gamers seem to be much more 'thing' oriented. I won't rant about the consumer society, but it worries me when I see the concentration on this vast profit making enterprise to the exclusion of home made fun and backyard businesses.

This isn't just about AD&D, RPGs, mass market computer games and so forth, but includes the other types of game as well. For example, in my little history of flight simming I have played on something for the Super80 way back when (!) right up to my present IL2 passion. I have tried maybe two dozen flight sims in my time. My favorites were 'wings' on the amiga, '1942 - Pacific War' on windows 98 and IL2 on XP. Each of these games faced off against more action oriented or more extravagent simulations, yet it is these to which I continue to return (in the case of IL2 and hopefully one day in the case of the others). Why?

Because they work well (elegant) and you can 'smell the avgas in the morning' (atmosphere).

It's like comparing the joy of the orginal squad leader game with the monster that it became - one is beer and pretzels , the other is abstract literary expertise. Both are fun, don't get me wrong, but you can probably guess which one I prefer.

Drummore, hive of activity

It is now about two weeks since I first distributed plans for Operation Drummore. There are presently around 16 soldiers in Drummore (which I expected) with squads from all the towns (which I had hoped for).

I am about to start a three day 'advanced training course' for six of my officers/NCOs. They will head out and 'scout' the nodes on the road between wigtown and drummore. I will be running a tour of inspection of their positions with two of my MacTavish bodyguards. I have all the different scouts operating on different 'settings', and will get a chance to see what they see, and what I see, during the inspection. We will all need to post our sightings on the regimental forum to pass the examination.

While advanced training is happening the soldiers will be all working in the Drummore mines, except of those rostered for sentry duty. They will post what they see on the Regimental forum. This is their basic training.

I have asked all the soldiers in the mines to give me their 'receipts' for their labours. I will be collecting them on the Regimental forum. This is our 'civil aid' mission.

While the above is all happening ingame, we are running a 'military camp' Role Play thread on the town's local forum. I also seem to be meeting a lot of soldiers in the generally otherwise empty taverns. This is raising the profile of the RSA in this isolated town.

From around 10 July, the first scouts will leave town to cover the route for the return journey. On the twelfth, the squads of the Regiment will pull up their stakes and go back to their homes. This will complete the basic training requirements for the recruits. By leading one of the squads and participating in the scout training or cover force, the NCOs will have completed the formal element of their training.

When we get home I will collect all the receipts which the troops have collected when they worked in the mines and see how we can use this to obtain some cash from the County.

Of interest, since we have been in town the price of bread has risen, the wages paid in the mines have dropped, and some of the locals are whinging about the fact that where we go we are bound to attract trouble.

Sigh.

(With this post 2009 becomes the year in which I have (so far) written more posts (n=66) than any year bar one (2007) since 2004).

The General's Office

It has been interesting getting a second chance to do the job of 'general' in the Galloway Regiment of the Royal Scottish Army in RK. The first time I ran around the country from one fragmented crisis to another until became an absolutely exhausted tragic hero in popular imagination. Good for tall tales in the tavern but not what was needed. Though, looking back, it was about the only thing that could have been done, and provided a popular base for the rebuild.

Here I am, half a year later, with the privilege of leading the Regiment again. The decay and demoralisation upon entry was pretty bad, and numbers are down. So. I have taken a rather different approach to my duties.

Have spent a lot of time in the General's Office, a subforum open basically only to the general. I must say I have got done a lot of work in there. I appointed officers to all the vacant positions in the regiment and set a timetable for setting up the infrastructure (town band forums, usergroups up to date, numbers, names) and a plan of action. People were hanging out for activity.

Putting a lot of time into it in the office, I soon had timetables, newsletters, task lists and piles of correspondence begining to pile up. It took a lot of planning and sweat to get it all happening.

And most of it happened behind closed doors.

Drummore or bust!

In RK I am on a little jaunt with 'my' regiment the Royal Scots of Galloway of the Royal Scottish Army ('RSA'). I had quite a plan worked up, drawing squads from the three main bands together in Wigtown and then marching them over to Drummore. There was force procection scouts planned to be on the nodes before we passed, a 'slack' day in Wiggie to absorb inevitable delays, and a coordinated push through to Drummore, picking up the scouts on that road as we passed.

Things have not gone as planned.

Whithorn put together two squads, which could have been one. They had a scout leave town, but he has kept on marching and arrived in Drummore after three days out on his own. I was intending to lead the second squad to wiggie on the day after the first squad. Turns out the first squad left the day after me. They have only now gotten to Wiggie, the day after we were meant to leave.

My squad has therefore had a day chopping wood. We would have left on the day planned except that the Kirk squad has also arrived a day late. And they didn't scout the road before them.

As for the Wiggie band, the band leader seems to have 'disappeared'. She is still opening her mail so I assume she has read her orders, but I have had no response and it seems that the no one in town is doing what they're meant to. Which means there's no wiggie squad waiting to go out, and there is no one scouting the road to Drummore ahead of us.

The delays to Whit squad 1 and Kirk squad were both caused by waiting for someone to finish some business in town.

Dariangreen is trying to get something happening with the wig band. He used to be their adjutant before he became my military councillor so he has the contacts. Not much operational experience though.

When we get to Drummore I am seriously thinking of rostering the soldiers to mines/sentry duties, while I take the officers on a crash course of small unit tactics (command protocols, scouting techniques) so that they can then start training the soldiers of their bands on the return journey.

An interesting subplot that has worked was organising for the officers and those of my former bodyguard to be issued 'RSA Sporrans'. This entailed getting the town mayor of Whit (in the case of the non commissioned bodyguards) and the County Trade Minister (for the officers) to 'issue a travel grant' to these people. Basically, a grant is an inventory that is independent of your personal inventory that travels around with you. Thus, even if thieves rob your personal inventory, the contents of the grant remain safe. So I rebadged it as a RSA Sporran, had them issued, ordered the officers to keep emergency rations and weapons in them. Seems to be a popular move. Will have them issued to the whole regiment just as soon as we complete Operation Drummore and work out exactly who is in the Regiment these days.

The week that was

IL2 Campaign - RAAF, 1942 New Guinea, P40E

I have flown my third mission over Moresby. I actually played it most nights, having up to three attempts at the mission per night. The situation is that a small flight of 4 x P40s (Kittyhawks) take off as their airfield is bombed by about 20 Japanese level bombers escorted by a flight of fighters. My plane was being shot out from under me or I was crashlanding with a damaged plane. I kept replaying it until I managed to at least land my damaged plane in one piece before progressing to the next mission. I occasionally got shots on target but didn't succeed in shooting one of the bombers down before I made my forced landing.

Renaissance Kingdoms

General Dracmuller spent several hours per day in the process of rebuilding the Galloway Regiment. He has appointed the necessary skeleton of staff, issued basic standing orders, planned and got underway a major regimental peacetime maneuver - 'Operation Drummore'. You will hear more of this as it unfolds. Otherwise, just the usual puttering around my various scottish haunts and at least an hour a night spent in a pub chatting and encouraging town activity.

Blog Roll Blog Posts of Note

DM as alchemist, neat summary.
Quiet times, social occasions and the rhythm of Dwimmermount.
John gets excited about Claymore '09.
Another DMG is sighted in cyberspace.

I don't know if it is just me but there seems to be a bit of a sense of community developing within the small part of the gaming blogosphere which I frequent. Hard to put a finger on it exactly, but seems to be something changing...

Back in Black

My latest RK Banner.

I have fully recovered from my injuries and am able to hit the road again. To mark the change of circumstances I thought it time to change my look again...

I enjoyed the 45 day period during which I was unable to travel, work my forge, defend the power, etc. It meant life was a lot simpler - chop wood on most days, spend time in the pub each evening, participate in the Wigtown Veterans' Hospice forum based RP. Particularly this last as it flowed over into the interactions that were happening in the pub across the road and also because it allowed for some sustained literary RP over time with clan members who I would only fleetingly meet normally.

I have heard that Whithorn has gotten really quiet so it is with some trepidation that I return to my home town. If nothing else, I'll be able to work my forge and concentrate on a few things that need doing (army duties leap to mind).

Go!

When I started this blog I had recently been given a Go set for xmas, or my birthday, or whatever. Full of expectations I eagerly awaited playing games of Go against all and sundry. To date, however, almost nothing. But the game has never yet released its hold on my imagination.

To me, Go is the epitome of a strategic contest boiled down to an abstract game form. And it is deliciously simple. Rather than try and write an introduction to it I've stayed clear of it on this blog.

And now I read this post on Tabletop, and think the whole presentation of the blog as well as its content (an examination of those 'gamey games' for 6-600 year olds) is worth a plug. Beautiful blog and a guide to get you go-ing.

Flying High Again

After a long long time and much thinking about it I finally took to the virtual skies again in a P40E Kittyhawk over New Guinea on Il2-Sturmovik:1946. Escorted a bunch of B17s from Morseby down to Milne Bay, took about an hour and a half to fly there and back again. Only saw a few enemy way out on the horizon. Bombers hit their target. I crashlanded safely.

Took a little while to get the hang of the controls again but it was a reasonable first mission after such a long break.

Girvan Crisis - Summary

Twenty five characters had been 'killed', with about the many wounded, over the crisis. The maps still showed Girvan belonging to Ayr. New seeds had been laid for future conflict (the campbells and the macgregor 'marines', for example, had unfinished business). The army had had a successful outing again (good for morale).

No one knew how this would all work out when it began, and no one guessed the way it acutally did end. Yet there was a remorseless logic to it all. At one time there were over a hundred people in the various armies within scotland, and there was an english army over the border to contain things to scotland if it had gotten seriously crazy. In the post mortem of the crisis there were resignations from the army, complaints, redrawings of charters, court cases, feuds and many many tales told.

For me, it gave a glimpse of medieval warfare from the 'inside', the lumbering of large national armies, the scooting around of auxilliary forces, the importance of politcs and personality to war, treachery, loyalty, mistakes and plans gone awry.

Great fun.

And, finally, at time of posting this, I have about two or three days left in the Hospice in Wigtown and then I will be recovered and can go home to my forge in Wigtown and start doing what I've wanted to do for ages ... living the quiet life.

Sure...

Girvan Crisis (conclusion)

I'll keep the rest of the events of the Girvan Crisis to as short a narrative as I can as I suspect that some or all of you, my beloved readers, might be getting a bit tired of it all.

The individual soldiers of the Galloway Regiment continued over the following several days to try and sneak past the hostile town of Girvan. One of my previous bodyguards and the present General of the Regiment were amongst these. Their names were on the Kill list. They ended back in Wigtown in the Hospice. The rest (numbering nearly a dozen) got through and joined up with the northern regiments, gathering in Ayr.

Meanwhile, in Girvan, the Ducal Guard contained in its ranks many who were candidates in the Galloway election. To take their positions they'd have to march back into the county the day after the polls closed. Which they did, leaving Girvan in the care of their fellow renegade army, the marines.

Having spent a day in Wigtown to accept their positions on the council, the ducal guard proceeded to return to Girvan. At the same time the northern regiments descended from the north upon the town. Things were reaching a climax.

It was assumed that the marines would allow the guard within the wall (them being allies and all). Although they were majorly outnumbered by the northern regiments it would be a close fight once the defensive bonus of the walls was factored into the expected climactic battle that would follow.

The following day, however, there was a surprise. The northern regiments attacked, as expected. The campbells ('ducal guard') tried to get into the walls. The marines, however, kept the doors barred. The campbells were killed almost to a soldier as the combined northern regiments fell upon them in front of the town walls (needless to say this caused much hilarity amongst the loyalists but greatly upset the campbells).

The following day the northern regiments attacked the walls, manned now only by the marines. With some nifty generalship, however, the marines managed to sneak away with only a handful of casualties. They ran all the way to Dumfries on the English border, chased by a triumphant loyalist army.

The conflict finally reached a negotiated settlement in distant dumfries, with the marines laying down their arms and seeking refuge within the castle walls. The Clan army of the Wallaces, which had been acting as 'backstop' to the loyalist forces, marched into Girvan and reannexed it to the County of Ayr. This marked the end of the Girvan crisis.

Girvan Crisis (7)

Our deaths were not in vain. We had determined that there was a kill list in operation in the renegade army (our best argument to bring the pacifists onside). We had shed Gallowegian blood (bringing the glaswegians onside). Our two deaths probably increased the strength of the loyalist armies by many times that number.

The outpouring of grief on the forums as word of my death travelled brought tears to my eyes. I didn't know how widely or how well regarded my character was within the Kingdom. I found myself soon having to notify folk that i was 'resurrected' within Wigtown or some folk would have done stupid things (eg. leave the game because the 'nice guys' are getting killed).

Perhaps most valuably, by my death I had removed any middle ground between the warring factions. Killing a nice guy like me was a fact that the renegades couldn't explain away, especially as I was heading too Girvan, not past it to the northern regiments. They were now seen as common cutthroats by those who had not already thought this of them due their propoganda to date.

As we set up a RP forum thread called 'Wigtown Veterans' Hospice' to occupy ourselves during our enforced stay in the town we felt some satisfaction knowing that our deaths were not in vain, even though we were now out of the action for the rest of the crisis. Our duty had been done.

And with that, we watched events from afar while we settled into our rehabilitation.

Girvan Crisis (6)

The Wallace and myself marched to Girvan in our group of two. We were prepared for hostility. We were still rather surprised when 'reset' happened and a new day began and we found ourselves back in Wigtown.

Shock.

We had been attacked and 'killed' by the ducal guard upon our reaching Girvan. We were automatically sent by the game system back to the last town we had been in (Wigtown). Although able to 'resurrect' ourselves we had lost a portion of our stats (stength, charisma, intelligence). Our swords and shields were broken beyond repair. We were not able to step outside the town for 45 days while we recovered.

We were the first casualties of the Girvan crisis, killed on a 'beer run to Girvan' as the publicists were soon broadcasting across the kingdom.

Girvan Crisis (5)

At the time of arrival in Wigtown, our soldiers had been travelling in bands of five for self protection. These bands would only be chewed up if they came into contact with the hostile armies blocking our route to the north. So we split up the groups and issued orders to the troops to make their individual way onto the nodes and then to try and sneak past the town walls of Girvan.

The exception to this was myself and one other volunteer. Anjel Wallace was not in the army, but had come along to help out. He was generally pacifist. I had spoken to him a few times about what was happening. He wanted to fight but wouldn't take part in any attack upon a town. I thought that if he saw what I suspected was happening in Girvan (gangs of thugs running rampant over a terrorised townsfolk) he'd change his mind.

So Anjel and I formed a group of two and went direct to Girvan.

There was a further reason for this action of ours. So far, no one had been hurt in the evolving crisis. We didn't know whether there was room for a negotiated settlement or not. The only way to know would be to determine if there were kill lists in operation for the ducal armies.

If we went straigth to Girvan we'd come into contact with the occupying army a day before the other soldiers would be attempting to sneak around the town. They would be able to see what happened to us and at least be prepared for the possiblities. If we were attacked, so be it. If we weren't, we'd be able to gain valuable intelligence about the situation within the town.

So, Anjel and I said our farewells and headed out on the road to Girvan.