Games Night Catch-Up (Part 2)

How did we get to be planning a smuggling operation that takes place during a charity DJing gig? This will see the three of us jump out of a plane - while one of us spins his decks - all so that we can hopefully hide in plain sight the fact that we are smuggling anything at all.

The previous plan was looking like it was going to involve a lot of really crazy legwork and sneakiness - either persuade someone else to act as a mule, or else sneak the materials on to an official who wouldn't be likely to be searched at customs, and then steal them back from them after they have got back in to Liverpool. And all of this while we are possibly under surveillance for previous "crimes". Yikes.

It dawned on us though that all of our plans had been based on the idea that we would be moving the goods by ship. What if they flew? What if it was a private plane, a little less likely to be searched to begin with, but then there was still the matter of getting it past customs at the other end... Then it hit: what if we were to parachute the contraband out of the plane?

And then it really hit: D's character, the East German Rockerboy DJ extraordinaire has been at the heart of every plan that we've made which has gone at least a little well. WHAT IF: Gustav smuggled the goods whilst DJing, jumping out of a plane, DJing in freefall and then after his parachute has opened?

It will take preparation: but really, what was wrong with the plan? How could it possibly go wrong?

I'm sure we'll find out over the coming weeks... More on this after this Thursday's games night!

Games Night Catch-Up (Part 1)

The four of us in our gaming group, including the GM, have lots of things going on lately. This has meant that it has been difficult to keep Tuesday as our night. Take tonight for instance: switched to Thursday.

The good thing is that this gives me the chance to catch up on what we've actually been doing in our Cyberpunk game.

There are several big plot threads running through what we have been trying to accomplish. One is the fact that P's main character owes the company that he works for 20,000 euros: and they've given him a deadline to pay up or else. So we're aiming for several big scores to try and give him the chance to raise the cash.

One of these big scores has sort of paid off: we successfully pulled off an abduction of someone connected with a group that our mysterious overseers wanted investigating. It involved quite a bit of planning, and there is nothing that directly ties P and D's characters to the abduction apart from circumstance. My character, Davey Smith, the Fixer, was the person who actually abducted the person, after staging a car-jacking. The police have called on P and D, but not on me. And we keep rolling Awareness but coming up empty. Are we being followed or are we being paranoid? Are the two mutually exclusive?

D's character, a Rockerboy, actually has a good career. We joke quite a lot about maybe just role-playing being hangers-on and helpers for D's day-job, but actually it would probably be much less risky and much more profitable.

Nearly every plan we come up with lately somehow centres around D's character, a charismatic East German House DJ who is on the rise (and yet somehow finds the time to work these schemes with us). Previously, D was DJing a big club night, which gave us the excuse to invite this person that we abducted. Now we are planning perhaps the most audacious scheme ever: smuggling contraband from the Isle of Man to Liverpool by means of a charity gig that will see the three of us board a plane and skydive into Liverpool, all the while having the contraband secreted about our persons.

Hiding in plain sight, the three of us having never jumped out of a plane ever: what could go wrong?

More on this later, and how we came to this most incredible and so-crazy-it-can't-fail scheme...

GAMES NIGHT!

Looking forward to this evening: we're hurtling back to Soviet Cyberpool and I get the feeling that something big is going to happen. I don't see how it can't. We have been building up to this for weeks. And after finishing the final Joe Pitt book, I am quite prepared to follow my comrades down the rabbit hole and see what we find in the murky underbelly.

Maybe we'll go after the assassination; maybe we'll go for the kidnapping; maybe (please God no, it can't work, it won't work) we'll go through with the smuggling out of the Isle of Man, past the all-seeing gaze of the customs officers. I've been a bit reluctant to follow through on some of these plans before, because they seem doomed to end up with us nursing multiple bullet holes in our skulls: no more. Let's go for it.

The story goes on and on.

Missing Games Night (leads to strange thoughts)

I had to go away for work this week; the workshop was good, great to get back into the groove after a month of working from home, but it did mean that I was away for two nights - and ultimately meant that a weekly games night was cancelled. So who knows what has been happening in Soviet Cyberpool? Which mission will our characters go on? Will our team's leader see reason (and not send us to the Isle of Man)?

(probably not) (if you read this, just kidding P.!) ;)

During my last OU course I really loved the term "Magic Circle" to denote the space/place/time in which the game exists and matters. For a game like the one we are playing, what that magic circle is, and where it comes from is quite fascinating to me. Because if one of the players steps away to get a drink, the magic circle still potentially exists. If we all get up for the mid-session break then it feels like the magic circle is being left at the table. But I don't think that the circle is bound in the dice and character sheets, which are left at the table.

And who knows if magic circles even apply to tabletop RPGs; I'll have to try and find a link, but there are certainly some ludologists who believe that they don't quite qualify as games in the first place...

Misc, January 26th 2012

OU module: have been and had a quick look around the micro-site for my latest module. As the module is finishing this year they have decided not to update the aesthetics and navigation; a pop-up appeared to tell me that the site was designed for IE5 or later, and that my browser might not be able to see everything. Considering I am running Firefox 9 this seems to be a curious oversight on the part of the site maintainers.

Wedding: a friend of mine is getting married this weekend! Which is really nice, and so I am trying to make sure that I don't forget my camera. I'll remember everything else. The camera, I will forget. Or I will forget to charge the battery. (excuse me a moment...)

Reading: I'm reading a short story/novella by Adam Roberts on my Kindle called Anticopernicus, which is pretty good. I'm plowing my way through Getting Things Done by David Allen (something I have meant to do for a long time but have only just got around to). Already this is starting to blow my mind. In conjunction with another book that I bought recently for the Kindle called Discardia this could be just the wake-up call I need to get things on track and productive.

(and I just had an Amazon delivery in the last two minutes of two books that I ordered with my birthday vouchers: the final Joe Pitt novel and A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster! Things to look forward to)

Finally: I've been noodling around with numbers about dice rolling ever since I mentioned it the other day. And there is the beginnings of a tickle of an ideas. At least for starting to get a regular kind of expression for probability distribution with an AdN kind of situation (where you have a certain number of same-sided fair dice). Give me time...

Midweek Excitement

The area on the OU website for my next course has gone live! Admittedly at the moment there is not much there, but pretty soon there will be details on all the various things that one can do to "start writing fiction" (the name of the module).

I've taken part in National Novel Writing Month several times, and if you look for things with the "flash fiction" label on here you will see some of the little short stories that I have written. I'm hoping that I will get two things from this course - no, actually, three. First, I want to be one step closer to the BSc; second, I want to feel like I have some kind of integrated thought pattern on actually writing fiction, which is, after all, what the module is about. But probably most importantly, from this module I want to build up the habit of writing. I want to want to write - whether that's fiction, or blogposts, or letters, or things on my workblog, or even just things which are for work. 

I want to want to write.

So: let's see what happens.

Games Night review

Last night's Cyberpunk game session was good; my GM was amenable to me switching in my Fixer, who in some ways is a bit more capable for the scenarios that are unfolding. We have three ongoing conflicts that need resolving.

Firstly, we have been asked to "provide" a person from a certain organisation to P's character's corporate masters. We have had some dealings with other shady individuals related to this, and some limited successes against to them. The extraction plan for this is alright, but perhaps there are things that we could do that would make success more guaranteed.

(incidentally, we have a strong motivation at the moment as P's character has incurred some sizeable debts at the expense of his corporate masters; some of those debts can be laid at the feet of mine and D's characters, some can not)

Secondly, we've been asked to assassinate someone on behalf of their rivals. However, the assassination/disappearance poses huge risks. We have also discovered some materials that could be used to blackmail the rivals in some way. Is this a better way to make some much-needed money?

Finally, we have been asked to smuggle some contraband across the Irish Sea and into Soviet Liverpool. Huge risks, but a big pay-off. The plan so far is going to get us killed, I'm sure of it. If we smuggle it ourselves we take enormous risks. If we get someone else to smuggle it our risks are lessened, but we lose control. The plan at the moment is to have someone unknowingly smuggle it (a Party official whose car would not be searched anyway) and then steal the contraband back. Hugely risky.

What to do, what to do?

Last night was a lot of fun because we did lots of planning and brainstorming, lots of researching too. Previous weeks, which have involved violence and sneaky legwork have been good, but for most of yesterday we were throwing ideas around to try and come up with good plans of action. Roll on next week!

Games Night

So tonight is games night! We are currently playing a hacked Cyberpunk 2020; the setting is a parallel 2011, a Soviet Liverpool of Russian corporations, cyborgs and dirty dealings.

I am thinking about switching in a different character; I've contacted my GM (who was also the best man at my wedding) to see what he thinks. My current character is a kind of take on a Nomad. His "Family" is a digital one, in some respects he is more of a private investigator/freelance spy than anything else. I tend to call his "Family" skill "Network" or something similar. It then becomes more of a skill based on what his "Network" can offer or provide.

I'm not sure entirely how successful he has been in terms of his character class - given that, actually, I've not defined "Network" very well - but he has been pretty good at getting himself into and out of sticky situations. Given that the other two players' characters have all been knocked out of play (no-one has died but several have been benched in-game for a couple of weeks), it seems like it might be good to switch out Simon Anderson, freelancer, and switch in, Davey Smith, fixer.

Oh, and another thing: I need to get a 12mm handcannon like my fellow players have kitted their characters out with! I haven't thought much about weaponry in-game, tending to hope that I won't need more than a simple pistol. After all, how crazy would it be to see people running around a city with huge automatic weapons? But this 12mm pistol does 4d6+1 damage!! You only need 8 points of clear damage in a single attack to completely mess-up a body area, and for an NPC/enemy that is usually a knockout.

Anyways, just some thoughts ahead of the weekly game. Come back tomorrow (if you're interested) for what happened!

The Fourth Degree

I started a degree with the Open University last September under their Open Degree programme. I have a long term goal of completing another degree by the time I am forty (nine years to go!). So far I have finished one 10 credit module, which leaves me with 350 credits to make up. There are some restrictions to what I can study, but only in that I need to get certain numbers of credits at certain levels.

My first module was on computer games, and while I enjoyed learning about the industry and development I was much more excited by the philosophical side of things which was covered in the first few weeks and the historical side of things. In a few weeks I will start another 10 credit module on writing fiction, and I am currently planning to take a module on the "story of maths" in May.

I already have a BA in Maths and Philosophy, and MSc in Mathematical Sciences and a PhD in Maths (all from the University of Liverpool), but after three years away from the learning side of higher education I decided that I needed more. I want to keep learning all through my life; I know that I am anyways, outside of the OU, but doing what I have come to call my "BSc in Interesting Stuff" has really given me some motivation.

After my "story of maths" module I will have a break for a few months, and then most likely start a big module on creative writing for the autumn. I'm currently trying to build a good writing habit (after years of "wanting" to do it) which I think will help all the things that I do work-wise in lots of ways. Creative writing definitely comes down on the Arts side of academia, but so long as I do plenty of maths and tech modules in the years following I will definitely come out the far side of the OU with a BSc.

And who knows... Since my original BA lead to an MSc, maybe this will be a BSc leading to an MA...

Tabletop Games and the Odds

I have been thinking for a while about probability in tabletop role-playing games. Mechanics that determine actions influenced by chance make for interesting times, but a few things recently have had me thinking seriously about what the odds are of things happening in games. The first thing that has taken my thoughts in this direction are the influences of the OU module that I took on games (mostly on computer games, but there was a good chunk of time spent on the philosophy of games). The second was playing Apocalypse World.

In Apocalypse World, virtually every action that has a chance element is determined by rolling 2d6. Without any modifier, one needs a 7 to get a "hit" (at least some kind of success), and a 10 or better to get a high hit. There are 11 outcomes (2, 3, ..., 11, 12) for rolling 2d6. The probability of getting a particular outcome is not evenly distributed though - you have to get 1 on both dice to get an outcome of 2, but there are six ways of making your required 7 minimum.

Without modifiers, any chance situation has a 21 in 36 chance of working out (at least somewhat) in the player's favour. More than half, actually, 7 in 12. This makes for quite a balanced sort of game mechanic (I think). But by the end of the campaign my character had a +3 modifier for whenever he tried to do something involving aggression or violence (my character's class was "Gunlugger"). So then from a 4 onwards he was going to get a "hit" - maybe not totally get his whole way on a situation, but he would be successful. What does that mean? Avoid a 2 and a 3 and I'm home free! (well, OK, more or less). Suddenly I have an 11 out of 12 chance of some success. Quite a jump. And the chance of me getting a high hit is more than 50/50.

So OK, enough of all that: this has lead me to thinking that there must be a simple way of qualifying the odds of getting X or more on 2d6. Or Y on 3d8. Or Z on AdN (arbitrary integer A, N (and X, Y, Z)). It is simple enough to draw some tables, noodle some numbers down and do it case-by-case. But my gut says that there is a formula. If this screams "Obviously!" then for now please don't tell me, I want to see if I can get this from working some examples and then generalise. More to follow on this, when I have time to work it out.

Dog Days

I have recently got into tabletop roleplaying games. I have read about the hobby for years and years, but never known how to break into it. Last autumn a friend suggested that I come along to a game that a mutual friend was going to GM and see what I thought.

After three hours of play my thoughts were mostly, "Wow."

We were playing Apocalypse World, a game by D. Vincent Baker, and there was a lot about the game that I really liked (I have written some blog posts about it before, here, here and here; I'm sure I will write some more on this blog as well). Recently our group has shifted games to an alternate present setting that is being run with Cyberpunk 2020 rules, which has been hugely entertaining - the mechanics of play are quite different, the setting is light years away from Apocalypse World, and our party has an unfortunate tendency to get severely injured (although not my character, I am happy to say!).

Over the last few weeks I have been reading through the mechanics and setting for another game by D. Vincent Baker, Dogs in the Vineyard. Again, vastly different to both games I've mentioned so far, but keeping the real streak of relationships and consequences of both games that our group have played recently.

I've never GMed a game before, but with some more re-reading and assimilation of the core of Dogs, I think I'm going to put myself forward to GM a campaign later in the year. The setting just calls out to me: gun-slinging missionaries whose word is law; travelling from town to town to keep the peace, calling the Faithful and casting out demons. Really, what's not to like? There are lots of dice used, but the emphasis with them is the random nature of the dice supporting the storytelling; it's really about a great unfolding collaborative narrative that is stitched together by the GM and the players (rather like the distinctive coats that the game's Dogs wear).

So anyway: I expect that over the coming months I'll be posting up some notes on here, as and when I get some ideas in place - although there won't be spoilers for the players who will be taking part!

Birthday

That was today. And it was great.
Lots of thoughtful and lovely presents from my wife and family, a quiet morning at home, a nice afternoon out in New Brighton, a visit with my mum and sister, and then returned home for a simple couple of hours with the internet on and Sleepy Hollow in the background.

I've started thinking and writing several posts connected with my OU degree and with games (of various types), and with any luck I'll get one or more of them up tomorrow. But now I'm going to go and look through my presents again!

Today

There was a time when this was a blog about a man who was trying to do 101 things before he was 30. And something even more fantastic than those 101 things happened: I got married. And moved house, travelled across America, went to Japan and then went back to the US for my honeymoon.
I have continued occasionally blogging on my "work" blog. But nothing really personal or about my interests. I'm 31 in a few days, and over the last few weeks I've been thinking more and more about writing and what I want to write.
I'm starting an Open University short module about writing fiction soon, and so returning to blogging proper seems like a complementary thing.
All of this is quite a long and round about way of saying: I'm blogging again. I'm blogging about things that I've been thinking about, things that I might be working on, things that really interest me. I might go back to some of my 101 things. I hope to talk about maths things from time to time.
So, in short order, things that interest me:

• Books
• Games
• Writing
• Learning
• Maths
• Life

I used to go by the handle of zero_zero_one, but now it is NathanRyder. And that's all to say about this!

Trillions

My sister got me a book for Christmas that I've not read in nearly twenty years, and yet as I was reading it I could feel it all coming back to me. Trillions by Nicholas Fisk is a book that captivated me when I was in primary school, a sci-fi story that grabbed me before I ever really knew that I was in to sci-fi.

The book was a lot slimmer than I remembered, and was over and done with in 120 pages (I'm not sure where my sister got it from, it's been out of print for years I think). It's a slow build, and then the ending appears in the space of comparatively few pages - but it's a book that dazzles thanks to the brilliance of the ideas in it. A small and sleepy coastal town in England is the first place in the world to be visited by tiny jewel-like things from space, but it's not long before they appear all over the world. The 'trillions' are mimics, and make shapes, bracelets and even building-like constructions - and it's not long before people in positions of power come to see them as a threat.

The novel is nearly forty years old, but is quietly timeless in a way. It's a children's novel, and the way that some things are explained and brought up reflect this; the ideas on display are fantastic though, and in reading it one thing screamed out at me: "The BBC should be making this into a mini-series."

Track it down if you can, and give an hour or two to thinking about some big sci-fi ideas.

Thing 68: Done!!!

Apologies apologies, once again, blah blah blah, same old story, etc etc.

But look at the title of this post! I come with interesting news!

Less than two years into my 1001 days I have read 101 books! Fabulous, what?

That makes 23 things done, and so many still left to do. I became resigned to the fact that I wouldn't get them all done some time ago, but am still determined to get a lot more of them completed in the next year, just as I am to eventually pick up the pace with this blog and get it somewhere near a regular thing again.

See you in the New Year?

Things Completed

In my all, "being lax on blogging because I'm doing engagement and wedding related stuff" I have neglected to mention that I have recently completed two more of my 101 things.

Thing number 12
I filled my Terramundi finally! In case you don't know, a Terramundi is kind of a piggybank. And after just under two years I filled it up with one pound and two pound coins.

Thing number 70
Finally watched 30 films, and so will keep an ongoing list of the films that I'm watching.

Sorry I'm not more chatty with the post, just got so much to do today! More soon, I promise.

Once again, time slips

Sorry to anyone who continues to check this blog! I have been lax of late, since my return from Japan, not because I have not been doing anything towards my 101/1001, but because I have been doing so much else besides as well that it has been difficult to update this blog. I need to build some time into my day/week in order to do this more. In fact, I have some half-written posts about the end of my US Road Trip that I should finish soon, and lots and lots of pictures from that trip to upload to Flickr too.

Why has it been taking me a long time to write? Well...

...I got engaged!!! So my time has been invested instead in thinking about engagement party planning, wedding planning, life planning, work planning - lots of planning! It's all good, and sooner or later I will establish some rhythm to my life - at the moment there is not so much rhythm to my days, hours and weeks as there is freeform happiness.

Life is very good, and I hope to continue sharing that in the near future. 'Til then, take care, and do check back.

Oh, hello!

It's been nearly a month since I wrote on here, and so much has happened, as I'm sure you can guess from my last posts. I went back to Japan! So I have a lot to tell you about regarding that, details of the trip, the wedding that I went to, the culinary delights (and others) that I tried, and so on and so forth. I had a really great time, and am still feeling slightly tired from it all.

I still have to finish writing about my time in America, which I think I need to do soon in order to make sure that I get everything down. I want to have finished writing about both trips before Nanowrimo starts, and October and November are going to be quite busy with work as well. Busy busy busy!

In the last few weeks I've read a couple of books and seen four films as well - and just like that I am within a stone's throw of completing two of my goals - to read 101 books and see 30 films at the cinema. I now have only seven more books to read and one more film to see at the cinema! I want to read those seven other books before the end of the year (which sounds immediately doable, but remember that I won't be reading anything during Nanowrimo, and I have a stack of magazines that I subscribe to I need to read), and it's entirely possible that I will go to see that final film some time in the next week or so.

(not that it will be the last film that I see until I am thirty! You know what I mean)

Anyways, this post is an update and a prelude: in the next few days I am hoping that there will be a deluge of posts that will hit this blog. That's what I am planning for anyway. So, you'll hear all about my trip very soon I hope!

Thing 39, Japan, about to begin

I know that I haven't finished writing up my American Road Trip (or even uploading the pictures to Flickr), but time has rolled around, and tomorrow I leave for Japan! In fact, I leave home tonight as am staying at girlfriend's this evening as she lives closer to the airport.

It may be three weeks until I blog again, unless I get something down while I'm travelling. As with the USA trip I will be writing notes as I go, so there will be a series of posts when I get back.

So, until the next time I'm back, I hope you take care, keep well and do amazing things!

Thing 65: Done!!!

It's only in completing this goal that I realise just how straightforward it was, I mean, 101 pictures is not very much, right? But consider: before this I would only ever take my camera with me on a holiday. I would never think to take it on a night out, and I certainly wouldn't think to take it out with me during the day time, what would the point of that be?

Now my camera is part of my mental checklist, part of the kit that I try to remember to have with me when I am going out. It doesn't mean that it is always in my bag or my pocket, but I am getting better. And I'm really excited about sharing photos with people! I'm not sure that I would ever get so far along as to have a super-fantastic amazing camera, but I think that I will be taking photos more and more as time goes on. Perhaps for my next 101 things my goal will be to take 1001 pictures and share them on Flickr?

Enough about the future, I still have to try and accomplish as many of these 101 things as I can. For now, I hope that you enjoy my photos over on Flickr, my photostream can be seen by clicking here.

That makes 19 things done!