Dark and Moody Online Dice Roller

As part of my job as Steward of Scotland in RK it became necessary to use an online dice roller that was simple to use and provided accessible time stamped results that are publicly viewable. I needed it for the selection of Scotland's first Grand Jury from a number of volunteers for this important work. It was very important that the process be transparent, nothing worse than a bunch of suspicious scots with an axe to grind, so I thought I'd remove the most likely source of their suspicions.

After calling for volunteers, we needed to cut down the number to the eighteen that were needed, and then to allocate them to either the Grand Jury per se or one of its two alternatives. Doing it by random lot seemed to be the way to go.

After looking at several sites, I settled on using this one.

The Dark and Moody site also seems to be the home of traditional RPGs translated into an online environment, and bears checking out for that alone. I particularly like the fact that there are Call of Cthulhu games going on here, that being my favoritist ever game system and amongst my favoritists games to play.

Steward of Scotland

In Renaissance Kingdoms Scotland we have recently lost a number of players to the Kingdom(s) of Ireland. Amongst those that emigrated was the recently elected Steward of Scotland. He says it was due to an affair of the heart. Be that as it may, and without any personal animosity, the player really let the Kingdom down with his departure. The Steward is the pre-eminent position within the Kingdom available to players, providing leadership to the nation. Losing a leader is like a kick in the guts.

Anyways ... there was an election for a new Steward. I was nominated and elected without opening my mouth. So now I am the Steward of Scotland, and everyone expects me to solve their problems. Which I can't do, but can help them solve their own together. I hope I do better at it than I did as General of the Galloway Regiment. I am more diplomatically inclined as a player than militarily. Or maybe I am more of the Strategist type thinker than the Operational level activist. Either way, I think I'm better suited to the present role.

Needless to say, I have created a new banner:

Dadlean Anthropology

Some of you may recall that I have an interest in anthropology. Sometimes I feel like an ethnographer when I play on the MMPORG worlds I'm involved in. I do try and keep an interest in the general state of play in academic anthropology on cyber realities. I haven't really tightened my own thinking on the subject a great deal but do keep it in the background amongst my intellectual pursuits.

Recently came across this site, the Dadleaus Project which uses a sociological approach to tracking World of Warcraft and other video based MMPORGs, and deriving social science insights on the cyber realities that millions share. If you're into this kind of thing you might find it interesting.

Roadside Sacrifice

My character from Tribal Nations has recently been travelling through distant provinces of 15th Century Aztec Mexico with the intention of using the coded mechanism for 'robbing' to conduct 'sacrifices' of travellers to the road gods (you can follow my travels on this evolving map).

We had our first successful attack on the first day we set ourselves up on a 'node'. We made a tidy profit and, judging by the following mail which my character received, rather upset the victim:

"You are aware that I want back everything you stole from me. Of course ... I'll make an official complain (sic)."

Judging by what he was carrying at the time he was transporting goods between towns as either a trader or as an 'official' who was moving goods to help the economic development of the more isolated towns.

I sent him the following mail in response:

"We thank you for participating in our roadside sacrifice. The high priests of your tribe will no doubt also be pleased at your sacrifice to the gods of the road, in conformity with the sacred lasw of Yohualtepec which encourage devout worshipers of the road gods to sacrifice travelers who travel alone."

The silly bugger might in future make an effort to form a group before travelling with such valuable goods as he was.

We have moved on to another location in the province to conduct further sacrifices. More news as it comes to hand...

Another TN Map

This map of TN world at the moment is by 'Metztli' from the TN forums. Me and my buddy are at Cuauhtinchan at time of writing*. We're not going to spend any time here, instead continueing to head down through the major central road intersection. We are going to ignore the new province of Quiyauhteopan (Blue) to the west of the five way intersection and continue south on the nodes on the road through Huehuehtlan and places south in the province of Youhualtepec (Green). The five way intersection node is in the later province.

*I will keep updating this map with our journey as I find it a nicer map to look at.

Map of the RK

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the RK world, here's a map of it (albeit, there's now another county in Ireland with 4 towns in it that has just been added, and a few connecting roads in the balkans that aren't shown here). As you can see it is a huge place. The only english speaking parts are Ireland, England and Scotland.

Into the Zone

Note: another province has opened up to the west of this map, but it doesn't affect our present travels. I'll update as appropriate in future...

Me and my mate are now in our hunting zone where we intend to pursue good deeds on the roads. We have stayed in Tzilacaapan for 3 days, will probably then go to Cuauhtinchan for one more day of fishing. Then we will hop onto the 'nodes' and head south to the sacrificial area. All this time we have been eating meat which we bought up in Tecalco. With five days of travel to the first roadside shrine, my mate will have increased his fighting coefficient to 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5). I will have joined him at that strength level within the week.

Travel in RK and in TN occurs at the rate of two nodes a day unless one has purchased 'tokens' (with real money) in which case one can travel three nodes. If a town is on the node one stops on, one will be in the town for the following day. If one stops on a node without a town, one will be 'on the road' the following day. If one is in a town, one can visit its taverns and markets (and one's own home property if the town is one's home town). If one is on the road, you just camp out. The disadvantage of stopping at a town is that a lot of people notice you. If one slinks around 'on the nodes' and don't stop in at the towns one has a good chance of passing undetected through the countryside.

PS: I am updating this map as we go, tracing our path through time.
3/2/09 - travelling on the nodes south of Cuauhtinchan. Between the town and the intersection to the south is actually another node, so it is a full day to the intersection, another day to the mine site node.
7/2/09 - Successful sacrifice south of Huehuehtlan.
9/2/09 - Sacrifice west of Tecamachalco
12/2/09 - Sacrifice on the five way intersection (shown as 3 way on map above) by far and away our most successful sacrifice yet.

Blog on blog

Came across 6D6 Fireball on the comments to another gaming blog. It seems to act as a digest of gaming blog articles, concentrating on traditional Fantasy RPG and Wargame miniatures sites. Worth the odd look for a taste of what else is happening on the gaming blogosphere.

Fishing in Tzilicaapan, Church in Dumfries

My Aztec character is presently fishing in Tzilicaapan with his friend while we both eat meat before heading further south to do good deeds. Our apprenticeship in the dark arts has already commenced with our studying the rather idiosyncratic laws of the various provinces of the Empire. For example, one province encourages roadside sacrifices on Wednesdays and Saturdays, another sets aside one week a month for the purpose. It is all academic as we consume our meat diets in honour of the war gods (to raise our combat proficiency) but we will soon venture forth to do good so is handy to know.

My Scottish self has spent about a month in the rather unfriendly town of Dumfries. For the first few weeks I tended to defend the walls of the castle, but have of late been spending my days contemplating life in the church. From being an extremely tense situation when I first arrived (to the point that suffered an assassination attempt on first attempt at entry) the town has calmed down such that there are no longer any mobilised armies here. I would call this "mission accomplished." With any luck, will close the pub and start the return journey to Whithorn tomorrow. Have a mountain of paperwork to deal with.

I've been away from home IRL over the past five days. Managed to keep an internet connection, despite being 500 miles from home and having the use of a borrowed laptop. I'm not generally a fan of pay-as-you-go intenet, but sure is handy when travelling. I did enjoy the 'rest' of having only to deal with the basic ingame functions of my Tribal Nations and Renaissance Kingdoms MMORPGs, giving the multimedia aspects (chat, forms, etc) a break.

Monster Camp

Last night I watched a TV show called Monster Camp. It is about a fantasy Live Action Role Play group near Seattle. Very interesting. Basically, used a weekend meeting of these keen 'live FANTASY role play gamers to document what they do and who they are that do this strange thing. Well made as a reality mode film, with lots of little subplots between the characters on the way. Not to mention the intrinsic interest of seeing the sea elves, vampires, lizardmen, goblins and all sorts of assorted heros and heroines which these people turn themselves into for the weekend.

Basically, for seven years, some keen fanatics have run similar weekend gatherings for groups of gamers in the woods in a nearby national park. College age and above, there are about 50 odd folk that turn up for the show. Perhaps a dozen are involved in the running of it all ('plot keeper', logistics, on the 'plot team', costumery, admin, etc), about twenty play Non Player Characters at the orders of the plot master, the rest are Player Characters.

I won't describe their weekend or how they do what they do except to say that it looks tiring, fatiguing and fun.

I nearly switched off several times, some of the subtexts to the documentary were striking close to home I suppose. Other times, my heart went out to certain of the characters, or I found myself nodding in understanding at the various existential problems (!) which they were revealing to the camera (ie. the crossover between Real Life and In Game, personal growth through gaming, the bonds one forges with other players, the importance of the social, the stress of playing against people with different ethics, etc etc etc).

I don't think that I'd go and do the Live Action Role Play gaming myself, but I can understand why those who do, do so.

The film was certainly a good show when taken as a whole. If you are into any type of role play gaming, see it if you can.

Aztec Odyssey

Above is a map taken from the Tribal Nations forums, showing the extent of that world at the moment. My home town is Tecalco. I have just been on a journey to Quecholac, Xochimicatzinco, Cuauhtlan and Epatlan. I'll soon be heading off with a friend via Ehuacalco to the Southern province to do good deeds.

Sure.

I am going to be spending a few days away from home and have access to web only via someone else's computer. So I needed to store my map somewhere where i can access it. Might as well be here as anywhere else...

Another Roman gamer blog

I came across Bigredbat recently, a newish blog with a pretty serious miniatures ancients gamer behind it, judging by the armies to be seen on it.

Happy Hogmonay 2009!

May your dice roll true!

(My new banner in Tribal Nations)

In the Dog Days

Xmas 2008 has been and gone and we're now in the period between xmas and New year. The romans used to call these the 'Dog Days' and, at different times in their history, held the Saturnalia festival through them. I use them to think a bit about what has been and what is to come.

Miniatures - very little activity on this front. I have accumulated a number of 1/32 figurines of Napoleonic French to paint up, have started some but my painting room keeps being used as a spare bedroom (heresy!) whenever the urge hits, so have stalled. Similarly with the He 123 model. As for the miniatures wargaming, a distant memory waiting to come to life again!

Comp Games - Updated my versions of East Front and Operational Art of War. Played a small series of EF games v friend via email. Lost a week of my July Holidays to playing 'Great Invasions' - if I can find the time this holiday I'll be getting back to the dark ages for at least some of the time...

IL2 Flight Sim - Have accumulated only a few dozen hours flight experience this year, mainly in the form of chase scenarios to sharpen up my own skills while waiting for the time and energy to get back into the online arena.

Blogging - This blog has suffered also this year, with only a couple dozen posts on it - and a lot of them seems to be focused on the one aspect of my present gaming life (online MMORPG). On the other hand, my favorite bloggers in the gamesphere keep going from strength to strength and have kept me going when I wonder what it's all for. Keep it up guys!

MMPORG - Continue to immerse self in Renaissance Kingdoms. Becoming reasonably skilled at the modes of online organsiation and communication which this game relies upon. Have thrived in the RP aspects of the game, even having my 'home RP' being nominated for Kingdom wide awards (a great privilege). Clan Leader, General of the local Regiment, Advisor to the Steward of Scotland, local celebrity, peace keeper, traveller. My online persona keeps me busy! Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, my aztec peasant in the Tribal Nations continues to grow strong in his pursuit of fishing and bean farming and will soon be strong enough to tour ancient mexico.

So - it's been a good year for MMORPG for me, but the other aspects have suffered. Due to domestic issues, for example, have hardly touched a 'traditional game'. As 2009 creeps over the horizon, I wonder what will be next in the evolution of this little gamer.

Happy yuletide to you and yours, and a safe new year! May your dice continue to roll above the odds!

RIP Gary Gygax

I've just learned that Gary Gygax, co-author of the original Dungeons & Dragons, passed away earlier this year (March). Quite a shock and a tear in the eye.

This guy affected my life in a very major way, and gave me many many many hours of some of the most exciting friendship filled fun.

Despite the monster run away commercialised mega rip off that the orginal game seems to have changed into (it was out of his hands for more than the past decade, in defence of his memory), Gary's ethic was always to have fun, cut the crap, remember that the game is all. So true.

R.I.P Gary Gygax