After a two-week "continuation"...
Got to Brum airport with no trouble at all, train to New Street. That's where the trouble started. One train left the station and turned back; queued up for an age for information; another one didn't turn up at all, leading to a mass decanting to another platform. Eventually that one made it, but the whole thing had turned a hour's journey into over three. It was a sufficient level of 'transport chaos' that British people were talking to each other without having being properly introduced! Stolen signaling equipment at Nuneaton, I was told; I was moved to share that nothing good had ever come of going anywhere Nuneaton, in my experience, and this brought a measure of agreement from elsewhere. This all also made me rather nervous about my return journey to catch my flight, but no delays in that direction, as it turned out. (Thanks to Matthew for the lift back to the station, and apologies about wandering off with my room key! (I did post it back, though.)
Somewhat fumbled my attempt at finding John Foster Hall: having gone up Gleve Road to Beaumont Hall, I somewhat stumbled around a bit before I found out what direction the right one was from there. At one point ended up in some chap's front garden: hey, it *looked* just like another Hall, really! On the plus side, I hadn't missed dinner; I arrive during the opening ceremony, and food was just after that. On another minus side, the food was down to the standard one expects of univerity halls of residence, and wasn't that cheap, either: fiver a pop. Admittedly, living in Ireland somewhat innoculates one to overpriced mediocre dining, but still. There then followed an evening of talking rubbish about this and that topic, with intermittent boozing, which would be to a pretty good first approximation the pattern of the weekend. One of my first victims was Roy, on whom I inflicted a pretty pedantic critique of grammatical pedantry. mr_malk, where were you when I needed you!
Felt rather horrible on Saturday morning: one eye was horribly bloodshot, and felt it, too. Was sure I was coming down with something, but it seemed to get better fairly quickly. Must just have "slept funny", I suppose (and too little, but that wasn't something that changed for the duration, needless to say). My room did seem to be very hot at night; granted it was a fairly warm weekend, but I think i must have been getting some heat "bleeding through" from the plumbing or something too, since it seemed to be out of proportion to the temperature anywhere else.
Was gratified to see that someone'd been paying attention to some of my Biffy-related ravings: grahamrobinson reported having listened to two of their albums. I assumed the World's Biggest Steve Wilson Fan would have preferred the one with the most changes of time-sigs per square inch -- that'd be The Vertigo of Bliss, I reckoned -- but somewhat to my surprise he preferred the musicianship on Puzzle. Must actually crack open some Porcupine Tree, by way of a reciprocal gesture... Ended up engaging in more musical blather with w00h00 on Sunday night.
Several seminars, mainly Jeff-led ones. Nothing ragingly controversialist that I can recall -- is he mellowing, or something? Pretty interesting and generally sensible, was my overall impression, in fact. Several very intruiging things coming up in the Moon Designs line, some very... Illuminating discussion of the Lunar religion. Bought a copy of the Heortling Mythology book.
After a busy Saturday not playing in any of the Pendragon games -- there weren't that many slots, and by the start of the con only Camlann was available, and that was the one I'd played at Tentacles -- I toddled up to the seminar room, where there was a midnight video hookup with Greg. He'd some updates as to status of the 'line', though I don't recall the earth being shattered as such.
Among the many other topics I plagued Benedict with was some chat about Diaspora, which he'd just bought, and which I've been playing in a game of. We mused over the merits of a fixed skill system, and whether FATE-style 'compells' might be compatible with freeform-ability games, such as (most obviously!) HeroQuest. Had a dining-room chat with Oliver Dickinson about the current tenses to use in Runyon pastiches, and about Greek triple, sextuple, and nontuple earth-goddess aspects. Sadly, that one didn't really get past the "aspect" concept.
Was recruited to 'deputise' for Ian Cooper in Matthew's 'ghost feud' HQ game, which as it happened had been plugged in one of the seminars. We really struggled to get in any reasonable fraction of it in in four and half hours; I think we should, in hindsight, have started skipping/moving briskly along much earlier on. Interesting take on a HeroQuest, though, being one of the 'start off in the mundane world, perform journey to ritual site that also becomes part of the ritual, end up in other side' type.
Saw etyries clutching a copy of Viking Fury later on in the con; I should have asked him for some strategy tips, as I ended up playing it shortly thereafter! (Report due here soon(ish).) One of the last-gasp things I (just about) recall from late on Sunday was discussing neo-paganism/Goddess worship with Tressy who at one point mentioned a women's worship house (I forget the exact term) in Glastonbury. Not quite so phallocentric as all that, then, at the death!
Somewhat fumbled my attempt at finding John Foster Hall: having gone up Gleve Road to Beaumont Hall, I somewhat stumbled around a bit before I found out what direction the right one was from there. At one point ended up in some chap's front garden: hey, it *looked* just like another Hall, really! On the plus side, I hadn't missed dinner; I arrive during the opening ceremony, and food was just after that. On another minus side, the food was down to the standard one expects of univerity halls of residence, and wasn't that cheap, either: fiver a pop. Admittedly, living in Ireland somewhat innoculates one to overpriced mediocre dining, but still. There then followed an evening of talking rubbish about this and that topic, with intermittent boozing, which would be to a pretty good first approximation the pattern of the weekend. One of my first victims was Roy, on whom I inflicted a pretty pedantic critique of grammatical pedantry. mr_malk, where were you when I needed you!
Felt rather horrible on Saturday morning: one eye was horribly bloodshot, and felt it, too. Was sure I was coming down with something, but it seemed to get better fairly quickly. Must just have "slept funny", I suppose (and too little, but that wasn't something that changed for the duration, needless to say). My room did seem to be very hot at night; granted it was a fairly warm weekend, but I think i must have been getting some heat "bleeding through" from the plumbing or something too, since it seemed to be out of proportion to the temperature anywhere else.
Was gratified to see that someone'd been paying attention to some of my Biffy-related ravings: grahamrobinson reported having listened to two of their albums. I assumed the World's Biggest Steve Wilson Fan would have preferred the one with the most changes of time-sigs per square inch -- that'd be The Vertigo of Bliss, I reckoned -- but somewhat to my surprise he preferred the musicianship on Puzzle. Must actually crack open some Porcupine Tree, by way of a reciprocal gesture... Ended up engaging in more musical blather with w00h00 on Sunday night.
Several seminars, mainly Jeff-led ones. Nothing ragingly controversialist that I can recall -- is he mellowing, or something? Pretty interesting and generally sensible, was my overall impression, in fact. Several very intruiging things coming up in the Moon Designs line, some very... Illuminating discussion of the Lunar religion. Bought a copy of the Heortling Mythology book.
After a busy Saturday not playing in any of the Pendragon games -- there weren't that many slots, and by the start of the con only Camlann was available, and that was the one I'd played at Tentacles -- I toddled up to the seminar room, where there was a midnight video hookup with Greg. He'd some updates as to status of the 'line', though I don't recall the earth being shattered as such.
Among the many other topics I plagued Benedict with was some chat about Diaspora, which he'd just bought, and which I've been playing in a game of. We mused over the merits of a fixed skill system, and whether FATE-style 'compells' might be compatible with freeform-ability games, such as (most obviously!) HeroQuest. Had a dining-room chat with Oliver Dickinson about the current tenses to use in Runyon pastiches, and about Greek triple, sextuple, and nontuple earth-goddess aspects. Sadly, that one didn't really get past the "aspect" concept.
Was recruited to 'deputise' for Ian Cooper in Matthew's 'ghost feud' HQ game, which as it happened had been plugged in one of the seminars. We really struggled to get in any reasonable fraction of it in in four and half hours; I think we should, in hindsight, have started skipping/moving briskly along much earlier on. Interesting take on a HeroQuest, though, being one of the 'start off in the mundane world, perform journey to ritual site that also becomes part of the ritual, end up in other side' type.
Saw etyries clutching a copy of Viking Fury later on in the con; I should have asked him for some strategy tips, as I ended up playing it shortly thereafter! (Report due here soon(ish).) One of the last-gasp things I (just about) recall from late on Sunday was discussing neo-paganism/Goddess worship with Tressy who at one point mentioned a women's worship house (I forget the exact term) in Glastonbury. Not quite so phallocentric as all that, then, at the death!