Things Denis Can't Do

Since my little operation, cough and laugh are high on the list! Both require movement of the diaphragm and stomach, and both cause me considerable discomfort!

Getting a general anesthetic is an odd sensation. I went in around 3pm, Thursday. I remember talking to the nice nurse and anesthesiologist, and joking about various bits and pieces. I was told that they were first giving me medicine to just make me feel "good", and I might feel a prickly sensation on the back of my arm where the drip was. I felt the sensation, but pointed out that I didn't feel any different. The anesthesiologist told me that one of the doctors had a theory that the medicine takes longer to affect people who can hold their drink better, but I pointed out I don't drink. He said something about throwing that theory out the window. The nurse explained that it can come on quiet fast, and she had seen lots of people saying "This isn't wooooooooooorkinnnnnnng........" and they were gone!

And that's it! That's all I remember. I was fine. I was looking up at the big lights, trying to see if things would start to change, or swim, or blur, listening to the staff chatting around me and suddenly I was waking up in recovery! Someone asked me if I was alright, and I tried to ask for the time, but my mouth was all dry and scratchy. It was 7:30! One second it was somewhere around 3pm, and the very next second it was 7:30! My groggy mind swam trying to understand what had just happened, then I remembered why I was there and felt the surgical dressing. After spending an indeterminate time in recovery, I was wheeled back down to my bed, where Claire had been waiting all that time.

Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly in the mood for talking, so I told her everything was alright, and sent her home. Then I lay on my back, and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Schrödinger's Patient

I might be going into hospital today for a minor operation, but thanks to the wonderous Irish Health System, I don't know for sure yet. I'm currently awaiting a call to let me know whether or not there is a bed available.

Thus, at this moment, as far as I am concerened, there is both a bed available, and not. The quatum wave form for the availablity of a bed will not be broken until my mobile phone rings and I answer.

Suddenly, my life seems very... binary...

Edit: Well, the results are in! I'm going in, but not until 7pm, instead of 2pm, and they're putting me in a different ward! Sucess, but only barely.

Should We Just Call The FF?

Session One: Adventuring 101- Thrilling Tales and Monstrous Creatures

Available: Sir Alistair, Ares Astral, Maurice LeBec

The groups contact at Atlantic Philanthropy (AP), Donald Fairfax, informed the attending members of trouble in Chicago. Reports were coming through of unusual disappearances and large holes around the city. The party was to travel to Chicago immediately and make contact with an associate of the Society, Professor Harvey Dale.

On arriving at Chicago they were greeted by a Friendly and Talkative taxi driver who filled them in on the large science labs overlooking the city, what little he knew of the Professor and the rumours that were spreading through every district about what might be really going on. Suspicions were firmly on the labs, but there was no time to think them out, as another car slammed into the side of the taxi, putting both through a shop window!

An Elephant Sized badger stood between the party and the remains of the entrance to a hospital. Obviously Bad Tempered and Out of Control, it was thrashing and causing chaos! Two Japanese tourists raced past the shop window screaming something about a mutant dinosaur. After being driven into, set on fire and generally shot at, the monstrous creature was lured up onto a building and onto the tracks of an elevated train, frying itself and shorting out the line! Ares investigated the remains, with the assistance of Sir Alistair, before both clambered down the ruins and headed toward Maurice, who had made it into the hospital.

Maurice had discovered that the creature had come up through the hospital floor with some more unnatural friends, and was seemingly lead by a small, grotesque man who, according to one hysterical nurse, referred to himself as "The Mushroomoid". The hole they came up was already filled in, and the creature dealt with.

As Chicago's finest arrived on the scene, the party chose to beat a hasty retreat instead of having to stand around answering questions. The ventured on to the labs, using a car Maurice appropriated.

Greeted warmly by the staff at the labs, the party was immediately brought down an elevator into a large, advanced lab, and was met by Prof. Dale, who showed them an interesting goo that had been discovered and delivered to his labs some months ago. Only in the last few days have they made any progress with it, as running an electrical current through the goo causes it to move, shift and reach out tiny fingers of goo. However, they discovered too late that their experiments were coinciding with the strange occurrences in the city, and fear there may be a connection.

After some brief talking, the lab began to shake and rumble, and the party, after making successful Alertness rolls, felt as though they were back in the elevator again. The lights went out, and everything and everyone was plunged into darkness. Maurice's excellent night vision allowed him to see strange creatures moving in the shadows, and over the din of the chaos, he heard a high-pitched voice command "The gir*crash*! Take *crash, bang*rl! Pretty girl. So commands the Migh*crash, bang, wallop*manoid!!"

Lights come up, and a hole leading out of the base of the lab into a cavern is found. Once in the cavern, it becomes clear that the labs have been Sunken Into the Ground, and now only the top floor of the building remains above ground. Following some tunnels leading down and towards the city, the party ended up in a huge, deep chasm with a spiral walkway leading all the way down, and several dodgy looking bridges criss-crossing the cavern. Wandering downwards they hear scratching and scraping noises from several of the tunnels leading off this central area. Below, a blue glow illuminates the floor of the cavern from a side tunnel, and strange creatures can be seen scurrying around. Reaching the floor, the creatures turn out to be blind Naked Mole Rats! Huge, blind, naked mole rats! Everyone made Stealth checks, Maurice blending seamlessly into the shadows, while Ares trips on a rock and stumbles into Sir Alistair, both falling loudly onto the cold rock floor. Some mole rats wandered over to investigate, but a quick bright flash of a torch into their faces caused them to reel back in horror and flee.

Investigating the blue glow, the party discovered a smaller cave with a Tesla Coil, a Mysterious Contraption, made of bits and pieces of various stolen things from the city, a pedestal with the goo positioned between the Tesla Coil pylons, and a badger in front of it. Just the regular kind! And finally, to one side of the cave was an impish, ugly man, siting on a rough stone throne, with a female lab technician chained to the wall, as all good Damsel In Distress' should be!

The small figure gestured dramatically, and complained loudly about surface dwellers invading his Subterranean Empire, sacred home of "The Mighty Shrewmanoid"!! Yup. Turns out, the nurse has misheard him, much to his annoyance once the party explained questioned it. This brought howls of laughter from all three players who had been quizzing everyone in the labs earlier about intelligent fungus, and discussing among themselves how to defeat a plant-based opponent!

Combat ensued, someone shot the Mysterious Contraption, Maurice used the shadows to get to behind the Shrewmanoid, Sir Alistair was horrified by a Star Faced Mole, and Ares tussled with a large, but not elephant sized badger! Once the dust cleared, Maurice had a wire around the Shrewmanoids neck and a few rounds of combat was brought to a dignified conclusion. Dragging the villain to the labs, with the rescued lab assistant in tow. Questioning him got all the answers they needed, before handing him over to the authorities.

Overall, the first session went well. Most importantly, everyone had a blast, there were lots of fun moments and laughter, and the players got right into the spirit of the game! None of us really made much use of Fate Points, and I needed to reread combat before the next week. Also, I learnt that I need to be harsher in combat. Characters can take a lot, and don't go down easily. I tend to be cautious in dealing damage as I don't want to remove players from the game. Mechanically, though, that's a rather difficult thing to do, so I need to be more ruthless with what my NPCs can do!!

Let's Get This Party Started

Session Zero: Character Generation
Note: While this first session was going to be CharGen and the start of an adventure to get everyone going, CharGen ran on longer than expected.

Spirit of the Century, for anyone reading that hasn't played it is an awesome experience in and of itself. Rather like the City of Heroes character generator, you can have tonnes and tonnes of fun just throwing up characters and playing with ideas. And that is what happened for this group. Two of the five players were familiar with the rules, while the other three's experiences of role-playing were mostly limited to White Wolf's World of Darkness. It took them a long time to wrap their heads around the freedom SotC's CharGen system gave them, particularly in relation to creating Aspects.

A brief word on the CharGen system for SotC in case you're unfamiliar with it. As it's a pulp style game, character names usually include dramatic, short descriptions, such as Doc Savage, Man of Bronze. Aspects are character traits illustrated through phrases or character quotes, like "First on the Scene", or "Where Did You Come From?" They are completely up to the player to invent. Players tag them by saying things like "Ah! But perhaps Jet arrives early and is "First on the Scene"?!?" gaining additional successes to the role, or affecting the flow of the story. Interesting Aspects should be ones that the GM can compel to put the PC in harms way, by saying "Ah! But Jet arrives early and is "First on the Scene"", before throwing him early into a conflict, now horribly outnumbered and awaiting back-up!

As well as aspects, you then get to choose from a list of Skills. You get one Superb, two Great, three Good, four Fair and five Average, with everything you didn't pick considered at Mediocre. These are things like Athletics, Drive, Pilot, Fists, Science and so on. I'll include the top three each player choose in the character descriptions below. Players then get five Stunts, special abilities related to their Skills.

One of the most interesting parts of SotC CharGen is the concept of Novels. As everyone is essentially a pulp hero, they each have their own novel, the story that outlines their background. However, they also guest star in two other PC's novels, allowing the game to start with everyone knowing some others in the group, if not all of them! This is really handy, as it eliminates the "Why are we all here?" problem most stories have to deal with. There is already a connection between the PC's, and the game starts with them all working for Atlantic Philanthropy, operating out of Boston. The novels all contribute to Aspects that the PC has.

Other than any interesting background they care to create for themselves, they're done. Sounds simple, but the freedom involved leads to hilariously difficult choices to be made and interesting co-operative character development among the group.

So, without further ado, the party as it stands is as follows:

Maurice LeBec, Retired Gentleman Thief (Gar)
Novel: The Man In The Fog
Sample Aspects: The Man in the Fog; The Style Justifies the Means; So, Your Plan Requires my Death?; Your (Chloe, see below) Sister Stole my Heart
Skills: Burglary, Stealth, Sleight of Hand
Guest Staring In: The Chrono Catastrophe; Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror

Sir Alistair Montgomery, Inventor to His Majesty King George V of England (Ray)
Novel: The Chrono Catastrophe
Sample Aspects: If Wishes Were Horses; Never Enough Cogs; Pull it out of my Hat; For King and Country; The Evil Dr. Eternity!
Skills: Engineering, Academics, Science
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; Areas Astral Vs. The Ice Queen of Mars

Chloe "The Siren" M (Stephanie)
Novel: Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror
Sample Aspects: Old Flame; Exit, Stage Right; Where Did That Come From?; At the Last Possible Second
Skills: Deceit, Rapport, Alertness
Guest Starring In: The Chrono Catastrophe; Hank Scorpio in The Mystery of the Blood Medallion

Hank Scopio, P.I. (Tom)
Novel: Hank Scorpio in The Mystery of the Blood Medallion
Sample Aspects: Don't Lie to Me!; And it all went Dark; Of all the Gin Joints; Dames...
Skills: Investigation, Rapport, Drive
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror

Ares Astral, Prince of Mars (Brian)
Novel: Areas Astral Vs. The Ice Queen of Mars
Sample Aspects: Things Man was not Meant to Know; Stranger in a Strange Land; I Never Suspected my own Brother!; Ares, my Friend! My Camel is your Camel!; If Only we had More Time
Skills: Mysteries, Resolve, Guns
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; The Chrono Catastrophe

And there we have it! An interesting bunch that have given me food for thought! They are a great group to game with, and everyone is really getting into the pulp swing of things! Hopefully I'll have some time to write about each of the adventures they've been on so far soon. I'd like to keep a record of how things go, and where I feel I could have improved on it.

For now, though, don't touch that dial! Keep watching for further updates, and more thrilling adventures!

The Little Movies That Could

Amongst all the blockbuster, high action, computer generated, explosion driven, super hero, sci-fi testosterone fests that clog up our cinemas lately, every now and then we get something that is actually worth watching, and even rarer still is something that is worth watching more than once!

This week, I was extremely privileged to see two as a comedy, and the other is a sentimental feel-good movie such movies! One is a drama that masquerades as a comedy. Similar, but entirely different in presentation. Both, however are small, quirky movies that that are more interested in the characters than the action.

Juno is a wonderful movie that made me smile throughout, with a powerful cast that deserve every bit of credit and praise that they are currently receiving. The humour is bang on, and the story is, in my opinion, riveting. The cinematography was beautiful, full of subtle references and wonderful choices of camera angles and movement. There is really very little I want to say about this movie, bar advising you to go see it. I don't want to talk about the story or characters, and there is very little else to discuss. I will warn you that Claire did not enjoy it. She found the movie just didn't grab her, and she made no connection with the story or characters. While I laugh loudly at the few moments in the movie geared toward that response, she just found them mildly amusing. Eh. To each their own. I loved it, and look forward to seeing it again. It reminds me very much of Garden State, another fine example of a quirky American black comedy.


Be Kind, Rewind, however, is much closer to being a quirky British comedy than an American one, yet it is entirely American. Well, almost entirely. It is directed by Michel Gondry, who is best known for his strange and interesting Björk music videos and the wonderfully odd Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Be Kind starts off slow, but escalates into a wildly hysterical ride through a series of old favourite movies being refilmed. Despite strong performances from everyone involved, including an entirely watchable Jack Black, it is the change of pace in the story that makes this movie so incredible. Again, rather like Juno, I hate to talk about this movie too much, suffice it to say, it is a far more intelligent movie than a simple spoof written to poke fun at classics from Driving Miss Daisy to Ghostbusters to Rush Hour 2, as the trailers suggest! I will say that in the case of this movie, it benefits the final product that the trailers only focus on the first half of the plot, as the shift in the final movie has more impact because we see nothing of what is to come prior to it happening on-screen. All that aside, the spoofs are incredible! Watch out for moments like Mos Deaf falling from a building during Rush Hour 2, or Jack Black doing a remake of King Kong! Priceless!

Two in one week! I needs to get my geek on! Come on Iron Man, time to get the adrenaline pumping.

Pulp, Fantasy & Oh So Very British

Six months ago role-playing games didn't even factor in my social calendar, either as a regular or irregular event. I hadn't played in anything for months, and my GMing experiences could be counted on one hand, despite the fact that I really wanted to let people play in some of the fantastical worlds that swam in my head!

But things have started to change in the last few months. I got in on a regular Monday night gaming session with Gar that started off as Spirit of the Century (SotC), in which I played a Gadgeteer. Once it was officially announced that Gar was writing the new edition of Traveller for Mongoose, we started play-testing the mechanics he was working on within the Firefly setting, as none of our group had much experience with Traveller, and were far more keen on playing space-cowboys anyway! In Firefly, I started off as a Rogue, before dieing, apparently completely forgettably, and returning as a Core-Worlds doctor, secretly under the employ of Blue Sun to investigate the origins or Reavers. That wrapped up all too fast before Christmas, and we moved on to something else in the New Year.

Now we're play-testing the upcoming Doctor Who RPG, which is fun, though admittedly, I'm playing it as an SotC game! I play a 1944 RAF pilot accidentally caught up in wacky time-travel shenanigans! Even though I'm not a fan of the Doctor Who series, Gar was careful to gauge our interests and play towards that! Plus, although I dislike the show, I love the concept. I love the time-travel, action adventure, the pulp-styled gadgets and over-the-top fun, the lovable ridiculousness of the TARDIS and the odd creepiness of the Daleks. What I don't like are the cheesy villains (pet hate: living plastic! Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot!!) and the over use of low budget effects or props. There isn't an excuse for them anymore. The show has both a sizable budget and an endlessly creative crew. Episodes such as Blink, Sound of Drums and Family of Blood illustrate the inventiveness and ingenuity of the crew at all stages of an episodes production, yet despite these few shining moments, we still have to put up with living plastic and gas mask-faced zombies!! If you haven't already seen it, do yourself a favour and watch Blink. It is incredible, and due to the nature of the episode, everything you need to know about the Doctor is explained within the episode, so you could watch it without ever having seen another one!

Sorry... that got a bit rantish there. Well, I guess this is my blog, and I can talk about what interests me, but still. I've gone way off track!! Back to RPGs and the current situation I find myself in.

Um... actually, where was I? *blah, blah, blah* Play-test... *blah, blah* Doctor Who... Oh yes! Now I'm up to my own game! After months of trying to get a group together to play my own SotC game, I finally struck gold and pieced together a stunning and enthusiastic group for a Tuesday night ongoing story. As SotC is supposed to be a "pick-up-and-play" game, I've designed each episode to run within a single night, and there is very little of an over-arcing plot. It's fun, fast and pulpy. Last week was all character generation, which ran longer than expected as three of the five players were new to the system. However, while it officially starts tomorrow, I've spent the last week adjusting some of my stories to fit into characters backgrounds. Instead of Professor Bob, madman extraordinaire, they'll now fight Doctor Eternity, nemesis of Sir Alistair, inventor to His Majesty King George V. Honestly, I've never looked forward to a game more than this one!

And to top it all off, I'm now playing in Claire's D&D game on Sunday nights!! So far, there isn't much to say about this one. We're investigating the spread of a plague that doesn't kill anyone, we have no-one in the party that can heal, and I'm playing a customised version of a WarForged, essentially based exclusively off of RoboCop! This one's gonna be fun.

That brings my weekly gaming experiences up from zip, to three games a week, running Sunday, Monday and Tuesday! Not bad for someone that had lost all interest in gaming not so long ago. I'll try to add various bits of short fiction based on the games as I go along. I enjoy the three settings I'm playing in at the moment, and I love adding to the backgrounds or just general bits and pieces. Keep me bookmarked, and feel free to comment on things, or add your own ideas to my stories!

Personal Diary: Stg. Valentine "Val" McDonald, RAF

May 28th, 1944
By goodness, this house is odd. The upstairs lavatory flushes entirely of its' own accord, and the piano in the dining hall randomly bangs out notes as if a tone-deaf child were playing on it. Worse, the new wing that we were using to bunk in is constantly cold at night. Even with a fire in the hearth it was too cold for a night's sleep. Today we spent the morning moving the bunks into the room we were using for storage, and moving the equipment into that hellish icebox. The storage room is smaller, but at least we'll be able to rest at night. Minor annoyances, but annoyances none-the-less.

Yesterday I was busy helping the lads set up some of the perimeter flak cannons. I've flown through fire from those things quite a few times now, and let me tell you, they're as impressive up there as they are on the ground. With enough firing into the night sky, the law of averages says you'll hit something. We now have the manor surrounded with flaks and two further anti-aircraft guns in the drive. Nothing to stop a tank rumbling up to say hello, but this far into the British countryside, I doubt those krauts will make it here on the ground. We should be fine.

June 1st, 1944
A new month. The boys and I have been here three weeks now, waiting for orders and monitoring the situation on the continent. Reports from command suggests that there is something big going to happen very soon. Thompson has been telling me that he's heard through the grapevine that we're going to assault France, but as usual, the boys here have been left out of the loop. I can't imagine we'll have anything to do. This manor has been under RAF use for four years now and it's the dead-zone assignment. Anyone who gets stationed here just sits on the ground for their term of duty scratching their hind quarters and praying for a scrap.

That is something that still unnerves me. The war is raging across Europe, yet we're here with four Spitfires, three American Hurricanes, our own Lankie and far too much anti-aircraft support for such a small area so far inland. I've seen the command centre in the study. It certainly looks the business, but I can't help feel that it's too far away from anywhere it can do any good. And why have a fully manned bomber here? The Spitfires and Hurricanes I can understand. They're here in case we do end up getting hit. But what would our target be? There's nothing for miles around this manor, and I know even our Lankie would need to refuel before carrying out a mission over the Channel. Sitting in my safe on board the bird is a sealed set of orders. I wish I knew what they said, but I'll have to wait for an attack to open them.

Honestly, I hope I never do.

June 13th, 1944
Reports on the radio say that D-Day was quite the jolly good success. Now that the smoke has cleared and a fair chunk of occupied France is no longed occupied, it looks like this war might finally be coming to an end. The boys around the manor are claiming intelligence has word that Hitler thoughtNormandy was all a decoy! Never underestimate us Brits. Best damned military in the world, despite what the Americans claim. Gretzky loves to get the boys blood boiling, talking about all the great things America has done in the war already. I know he's just having fun, and I try not to rise to the challenge, but he isn't making any friends among the lads, and we've been here long enough now.

Too long for some. Wilkinson worries me. He's gotten used to constantly being on the move, never in one place for more than a few days. Last night he told me that he's been seeing ghosts. He claims to see them moving on the back stairs, but I use that all the time and have never seen anything. If this were any other of the lads, I'd send them packing and restrict rations for a few days for trying to pull such a pathetic prank. But Wilkinson is not like that. I don't think I've ever heard him tell a joke or try something funny. He gets so focused on the task at hand, and he keeps that focus. I think it might be that. He's been focused for five weeks now. Everyone's getting on edge. We've been here too long.

God. Let this war end soon, or let us back in the air for something more than test and maintenance runs. We have a lousy two hours scheduled for tomorrow in the air. We haven't spent more that a few hours among the clouds since we first got here five weeks ago. This is the longest most of us have been on solid ground since the war broke out.

June 15th, 1944
While I was dropping off yesterdays flight check reports to the command room I noticed the pins on the wall-map. Seems like the Luftwaffe is making pushes into the English countryside under the dead of night. I'm not sure what they're looking for, or why it's so important that they are willing to come this far into enemy territory, but if I didn't know better, I'd say those pins were coming here.

Damn this house. Damn this place. Damn this war.