Perhaps the Weirdness Resurfaces

This week, I took a break from working. This was the longest time I've been off work since July. It was wonderful to have time off.

My financial dependence on my employer has made me very sad.

Books

This week, I've no books. I'm thinking that I need to find some new reading material. The majority of the books I have left are RPG rulebooks or non-fiction. I only read these when I'm in a need.

Gaming

Ars Magica

I conducted the first session of my brand new Ars Magica campaign this week. The participants were asked take part in the search for missing children of the village. They had not seen them for hours. It was the vernal equinox-a night of folklore and magic-and the children had fallen under the influence of a kelpie, which was intent on acting out its story of drowning innocent victims.

There was not much to do, the characters just had to (1) find the way to fairyland, (2) walk in an unidirectional line through a forest of fairy tales that would try to confuse their sense of direction, and (3) get rid of the kelpie. It was very easy to follow, and not any choice for the players. I created a deliberately simple plot so that we'd be able to gradually get used to the system. It proved to be a good idea, as even with just this we had to consult the rules for creating spells several times (which I'd expected). I was astonished to discover that they initially saw the large faerie horse beast and decided to take on it physically. However, after one nearly dying (doing the Ars Magica equivalent of making death saves) and another one realised there was a magical solution, I hope they'll be more inclined to attempt magic the next time around.

While I wasn't sure how the duration would be however, I did have a different adventure (visiting and making an impression on the abbot of the nearby monastery) that I had planned, but didn't have time for.

Inscryption

This week I was able to play Inscryption, a weird deck-building game that is like being trapped in a cabin with a mad game master who's making up rules as he goes.

At least, the first part is. There's another part that is quite different from the small amount I've played to date I'm not certain whether I'll give it a go, as it was the strange atmosphere which really attracted me to the game in the first place. Perhaps the oddity returns. minecraft servers I'm not sure if it's worth it to spend the time to discover the truth.

We've received a release date set for Minecraft 1.18 30th!

I'm not a big Minecraft player nowadays, and I'm prone to becoming bored once I have a self-sufficient base in place (which takes no time at all), as building big things isn't my thing that much. I'm not sure I'm the game's target market.

However, I do enjoy trying it out every now and again, and playing on servers with my friends. 1.18 introduces some fundamental changes to the world generation that I'm looking forward to testing.

Miscellaneous

This week, I was able to catch up on some TV I watched The Mandalorian and Foundation. Both were pretty great, many very impressive visuals (like this FTL jump from episode 1 of Foundation00). In fact, I think this is the most amazing version of FTL jumps that I've seen. I would have been tempted redesign the deckplans of the ship in the event that this series was available before I started my Traveller game.

). I'm looking forward to reading more.

If I had to make a complaint, it would be that I find the Empire storyline from Foundation more compelling than the Foundation storyline. I think this speaks to the kind of stories I prefer. The Empire storyline is about large epic, galaxy-shaking events as well as the fall of a dynasty. It's more about the events than the characters. The Foundation storyline is more about the people while the events themselves are smaller in size. However, I prefer the larger-scale things!