Last night I ran a game of The One Ring. I recently reviewed The One Ring core set on RPG Geek, as part of the Iron Reviewer Challenge for 2013. What I found in reading the game for the first time was a system that seemed to be great, but failed big time in organisation. The core…
When I turned 35, I weighed almost 16 stone. It hadn’t really occurred to me just how much I weighed. It seems to be I attained a steady state of 15 stone something about a decade before that and nothing changed. I guess that means that while I weighed a lot, I didn’t eat so…
I’m loathe to set myself any resolutions. People do, obviously. However, the receive wisdom seems to be that most folks who set resolutions don’t keep to them. I suspect people set themselves a goal without really considering the implications, or the practicalities of achieving it. Consider the SMART goal setting mnemonic. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable,…
This Saturday past, I ran a session of the Gumshoe time traveller TimeWatch, by Kevin Kulp, at the Dragonmeet convention in Kensington. Not yet finished, funded or available (my understanding is it’ll be Kickstarted some time soon), I ran it from a playtest copy of the rules and a very brief outline for an adventure. I hope to…
Going through a period of pencil use at the moment. At work I cycle through favoured scribing implements on a regular basis. Maybe fortnightly, or at the very most monthly, I will find something new to write with. I’m not sure what triggers the transition to a new implement, but it always comes around in the end. I…
Twenty four years ago, I helped write and performed in a Christmas pantomime at school. We performed it in the Sixth Form Common Room to an audience of students and teachers. Embarrassingly, I had taken on some of the writing duties, but utterly blanked. In the end, I ripped off a bit of Python and hoped no one would notice….
Someone asked me, “So , what’s the crack with the spiders in the last episode?” I considered this for a moment and then decided I couldn’t see any relevance to the spiders. Nothing pivotal or surprising. I thought the theme of this half of the series ran along the lines of ‘People live and die;…
I did sort of hope that all the Daleks would have made more of an appearance in the ‘Asylum’, after all the hoo-haa about getting hold of older models. Indeed, I didn’t feel we saw enough older Daleks – of which plenty must exist amongst promotional groups. How many conventions have you visited on the…
I realise that programme planning depends on many different factors, but from the viewer perspective if you leave something for too long surely you pass from longing through frustration to grouchy indifference. i appreciate that Doctor Who requires a lot of time and preparation to complete a season – 13 episodes of scripting, casting, rehearsing,…
