Noghri Death Squad, part 7: Let's go with 'handmaid orgy'

Personal log, Zatti.

Operation Foment Rebellion continues. The others came up with plans that largely seem to involve wearing people's faces. While I have no problems with this, I felt that a multi-pronged approach would be more effective.

Vesk went looking for a slicer to unlock the data pad he had. I suggested he go to the bar and look for a man with long hair in a black t-shirt. Success! Once Gannis the slicer had unlocked the data pad, I paid him to create some fake holovids depicting some of the salacious rumours that 'Wanksy' had been painting on the walls.

He produced two videos. 'Spinebreaker', depicting Lord Vader doing unspeakable things to Queen Stefani, resulting in her needing the wheelchair, and 'Handmaid Orgy', fairly self explanatory. The others joked about them being for my own personal use. Honestly! What kind of pervert do they think I am? There are humans in those holovids! Gross.

I waited until dark, then stealthed my way into the communication tower, sliced into the broadcasting equipment, and deployed my holovids. All undetected! Nerve-wracking, knowing I could be found at any time and that my combat efficiency without the rest of my team is significantly diminished, but I got the job done.

The others were busy too. Aoghri did some more Wanksy graffiti, which was honestly a work of art, to the point where I was wondering if it might get some kind of preservation order put on it. The way he rendered the bread helmets of the royal guards was quite exquisite.

Wuzu went shopping, and came back with what I think was some kind of weaponised coffee grinder for Vesk. (It's possible I may not be very good at identifying tools.)

Vhoak headed out into the desert and killed some kind of large monster. Apparently you can get paid for that kind of thing. He did look a bit squished when he got back.

Tensions were high, and it was only one day before the royal visit, but we had other things to worry about. Oobidoo Abida was not happy about us killing a bunch of his people, and had sent a squad to take us out. We learned of their arrival when they exploded a hole in the back of our shuttle. Bastards!

I opened up the entry hatch, so that if anyone threw a grenade into the back of the shuttle it could roll right through and out again at the front. What it actually did was reveal a group of Oobidoo's Barabel goons.

I'm glad to say that I maintained maximum combat efficiency in the resulting fight, putting the disruptor pistol to good use and neatly dodging the Barabel's attacks. They appeared to have prepared rather badly, bring insufficient ammunition and shoddy weaponry. Not quite as badly as Voahk, who had not yet recovered from fighting giant monsters in the desert and spent most of the fight horizontal. Wuzu took a different approach, and persuaded one of the Barabels that it was in his best interests to leave before any of us got to him.

We hadn't taken on a group of this size before, and it was a very stressful experience, with blaster fire flying in all directions. Aoghri and me were constantly dodging projectiles, and throwing yourself around like that while maintaining cover is exhausting. By the time we'd made a substantial dent in the opposition, I was on the point of passing out and Aoghri was running out of working limbs. But as I was about to collapse, the lead Barabel threw a smoke grenade, shouted some macho crap about how we 'hadn't seen the last of Shank', and sodded off.

The remaining two Barabels surrendered. We promptly executed them, as is the Noghri way.

Probably shouldn't go to the bar right now, given how they feel about us doing surgery on the tables. Could really use a martini right now. Although, come to think of it, I do have a bottle of Corellian whiskey in my bag. Maybe it will be friends with me?

Crew of the Aliya, part 5: Subterfuge

With Lavin safely on the Aliya with Gurgeh to look after him, we decided it was time to retrieve the statue.  Slightly concerned about Lavin's radiation poisoning, Sayah suggested a geiger counter might be a good investment.

Tahir, Lila and Sayah set out together.  Alqadi, who had finally been persuaded to get off the spaceship, followed them at a distance to check for observers.  He tipped them off to a drone following them.  After a rather confusing comms conversation, in which Tahir repeatedly referred to 'it', which Alqadi assumed to mean the drone they'd just been talking about while Tahir actually meant the statue, we came up with a plan.

It was evening, but shops were still open, so the main group went shopping for environmental scanners.  While Tahir loudly bought a second hand scanner, and Lila bought a brand new one, Alqadi made his way to the bridge and quietly retrieved the statue.  Once he let the others know he was clear, they went looking for the statue themselves, and of course, didn't find it.

We met up back at the Aliya and examined the statue.  It was mildly radioactive, but nothing that caused us any concern.  It portrayed a monkey, dancing, wearing a hat and holding a mace and an object we couldn't identify but which might be a mask.  Sayah compared it with some photos of the item, and spotted that it looked slightly different.  The arms weren't in exactly the same place.

It was late, and we all needed sleep.  We took some photos of the statue, then put it in a box and left it with cameras pointed at it.  Alqadi was somewhat concerned that it might wake up and try to kill us all in our sleep, but when we checked the next morning it hadn't moved.

We contacted Merez and let him know that Lavin had authorised us to sell the statue.  We arranged another meeting at the cantina.  Once again, Alqadi hung back, leaving the other three to do the negotiations.

Merez's face lit up when he saw the statue.  Sayah took the lead.  She was asking for a high price, and he was offering a much lower one, but none of the crew wanted to be short changed when the Aliya needed constant maintenance.  With the help of Lila's enthusiastic explanation of how the statue had moved, Sayah got a good price for the statue - enough to keep the ship up and running for a while and also provide Lavin with proper medical care after we were gone.

A bunch of syndicate goons watched us from another booth, while Alqadi watched them.  Merez didn't seem too concerned about them.  It looked like they might be working for him.

We headed back to the ship, and on the way ran into Jinna again, wanting to know if we'd found Lavin.  We reassured her that he was fine, but Sayah insisted that we had to make sure he was OK to have visitors before she could see him.

Lila had found something interesting while unwrapping the statue - a tag with a set of coordinates on it, which she suspected to be the dig site on Kua.  Perhaps we should pay it a visit?

Lavin was stable, and quite keen to see Jinna.  He took the money we offered him, but declined the offer to join us at the dig.  Jinna was going to look after him now.  With Lavin on his way, we did some pre-mission shopping, then departed the station to head planetside.

A relatively short journey later (perhaps not improved by Sayah's efforts to learn to play the oud) we were approaching the planet.  A rather out of the way area, on the opposite side of the planet to the monolith, and with only a few settlements of locals nearby.  Sayah ran the ship's sensors over the area we were heading for, and found a Legion encampment with a warning about possible interference in the area.  Tahir carefully avoided the Legion and selected a promising looking landing spot in the form of a large flat plateau.

The plateau itself looked a little less natural once we were standing on it.  Someone had sculpted this place, possibly some of the First Come.  Checking the coordinates again, we realised we were pretty much on top of them, and climbed down to the next level of the plateau, where we found three caves.

The middle cave was blocked by rubble.  Alqadi suggested using the ship's guns to blast it out of the way, but Tahir reckoned it would be too tricky to fly, and Sayah insisted that shooting was not the proper way to do archaeology.

The first cave had the excavation team's base camp.  Some boxes and other bits and pieces were still lying around, and Alqadi and Sayah started trying to get them open.  Alqadi succeeded where Sayah failed, but there was nothing very interesting in the boxes, besides some arrakh that Sayah took an interest in.

What we didn't find was any bodies.  The plot thickens...

Noghri Death Squad, part 6: Facilitating atrocities

Personal log, Zatti.

It was unfortunate losing BS-OJ and Gax, but fortunately we found some prisoners at the base and took them with us. Voahk is another Noghri who enjoys shooting things, and Wuzu is...actually I'm not sure what he is, but he claims to be a professional shopper, so if I ever decide to acquire things by spending money on them he'll be very useful.

We loaded the speeder bikes into the shuttle, checked it for bombs and tracking devices, and then flew away, blowing up the base behind us.

We headed for Restus, where we had no trouble landing due to being in a legitimate Empire ship that had been stolen by the rebels. Time to foment rebellion!

It was at about this point that I realised I had entirely misunderstood the mission parameters, and we were actually supposed to be stirring up rebellion against the Empire to give the Empire an excuse to come in and deal with the Naboo royal family.

Vesk and me weren't feeling too well after the fight at the base, but it turns out Voahk is slightly better at doctoring than Gax was, and he managed to get us all fixed up again. Wuzu went shopping and sold all the speeder bikes. I had a feeling that might not be the best idea, but I didn't find out until it was too late as I was off doing my own bit towards rebellion: stealing stuff and planting evidence. I got away with a digital lock pick and some Corellian whiskey.

I was right about selling the bikes being a bad idea, because while I was back at the shuttle playing with my new lock pick, the others went out for a drink and got attacked by Oobidoo Abidaa, the head of the Backstreet Magpies, and some of his gang, who wanted to know why we hadn't killed that smuggler yet and what had happened to the speeder bikes they loaned us. Fortunately the team is maintaining maximum combat efficiency and dealt with the problem effectively, although they did later get thrown out of the bar for performing surgery on the tables, as is the Noghri way.

Vesk and Aoghri got a head start on the rebellion fomenting, by doing some graffiti. Using some stencils and the pseudonym 'Wanksy' they adorned the walls of Restus with pictures of Lord Vader and Queen Stefani, with some appropriate commentary.

We came up with a plan that initially involved stealing the guards' uniforms, disguising ourselves as guards, and going and committing some atrocities in the local shanty town that we were already blaming for the graffiti. This was then refined into getting the guardsmen drunk, convincing them to go to the shanty town, and trying to spark trouble when they got there.

I went back to the bar with Wuzu, and assisted him with negotiating with the guards. They proved easily persuadable, and soon they and their bread helmets were heading for the shanty town, while I got on the dark space web to find some salacious gossip about Queen Stefani that Vesk and Aoghri could add to their graffiti.

Voahk headed stealthily to the shanty town (at least I assume that's where he went, as I certainly didn't see him go) to throw rocks and kick off a riot, which from what I heard later went very well, with plentiful acts of brutality being committed by the royal guards. Combined with the truly disgusting things written about the Queen on the walls, I think everyone is going to be appropriately pissed off when she arrives for her royal visit, and we will soon achieve our goals. Glory to Lord Vader!

...That is our goal, right?

How many martinis did Wuzu buy me?

*thud*

Choosing what to play

Most of my experience of tabletop RPGs has been with my home group.  And deciding who plays what game has more to do with which days of the week people are available and how many people we can comfortably fit around the table than anything else.  Deciding what we're going to play comes down to what one of us is interested in running and is able to sell the rest of the group on.

We've played a lot of Pathfinder.  Because we all like Pathfinder.

But conventions, and the MK RPG club, are very different situations to my home group.

The club

Games at the MK RPG club run in eight week blocks and three week short blocks.  On the second week of the short block, all the people offering games for the upcoming long block present their game pitch, and then we all write down our top three choices of game.  One of the club committee then has the unenviable job of attempting to assign everyone to a game, taking into account additional factors like the fact that returning players get priority in games that span multiple long blocks, and that minors have to be in the same game as their responsible adult.

By some magic, most of the time people do get into their first choice of game, and those who don't know that things have been done fairly.  But I'm glad I'm not the person who has to decide who doesn't.

The best thing about the club for me is the large pool of players.  I don't know if we can sell my home group on Coriolis, but out of the 50 or so club members there's enough people interested that the game can run.

Conventions

It constantly takes me by surprise how many people want to play D&D 5e at conventions.  I like 5e, but part of the fun of a convention for me is to be able to try out different games.  The last thing I want to play is the thing I already play regularly, when I could be playing something I've never played before, or something I like but my home group doesn't, or something that just works better as a one-shot.

But what I actually intended to write about here was sign-up systems.

There seem to be two main ways that this works out - advance booking, or on the day.

I've yet to experience an advance booking convention (although that should change next year) and I'm a little dubious.  Probably because I'm not used to it.  At Concrete Cow, I've made spontaneous decisions to attend, and even to run a game, as well as the spontaneous decisions of which game to sign up for.  Advance booking rules out all that spontanaity.  Is that a bad thing?  Until I've tried the alternative I won't know.  But it was a little irritating to find out about a reasonably local convention on a weekend I was free, and then realise I couldn't go because it was advance booking and I was too late to sign up.

But I can see there could be advantages.  No worrying about whether you're going to get into a game you like when everything's sorted out in advance, and if you've got the kind of personality that likes to have these things nailed down it's probably an easier experience.

What I don't know is how the sign-up process actually works.  Doubtless there will be a sequel to this post once I know more about it.

When it comes to on-the-day sign up, I know of two methods, which I will call Tombola and Shoving.

Shoving is what I've experienced at Dragonmeet.  Sign up sheets are out, and when sign up is called, a horde of locusts descend.

I don't like it.  It means your chances of getting into your first choice of game are entirely dependent on your ability to shove your way through the crowd and get to the sheet before it fills up.  This means anyone smaller or weaker than the average gamer isn't going to get their first pick, which is inevitably going to disproportionately affect women, children, and people with physical disabilities.  I don't think that I should get last choice of games every time just because I'm not as strong as the average gamer.

Tombola is what's used at Concrete Cow and Spaghetti ConJunction.  Everyone gets a ticket with a number.  Numbers are called out in a randomly generated order, and you sign up for a game when your number is called.  The number order is reversed for the second session, so if you were last in the morning, you'll be first in the afternoon.  Golden tickets are usually available for first-timers, people who offered a game in advance, and children.

This is my preferred way to do it.  At least half the time I'm going to be signing up near the start without having to fight my way there, and have a good chance of getting into the game I want.  I've seen complaints that when you're in the bottom half you end up playing a mediocre game - but that only happens if there are actually mediocre games on offer, and even when I've ended up in a game that was way down on my list of preferences, it's never been mediocre.

The only downside I've found of the tombola system is that several times I've been one of the first to sign up, picked the game I want, and then when sign-up finishes it turns out nobody else wanted to play that.  So I then have to pick a game from what's left over after everyone else has chosen, rather than what I might have picked if I'd known my first pick wasn't going to run.

So it's a good thing there haven't been any mediocre games.

Maybe that's way 5e games are so popular.  It's a safe option.  When I sign up for a game I've never heard of with a GM I don't know, I'm taking a risk.  What if I hate the setting?  What if I hate the mechanics?  What if I'm just no good at playing this game?  When you play 5e you know what you're getting.

I don't go to conventions to play it safe.  But not all gamers think like me.

Noghri Death Squad, part 5: Combat efficiency

Time to shut down this rebel base! I did a brilliant job on the communication array, making it look like outgoing communications were being sent, but in fact we were completely cut off from the outside.

We then made our way to the officer's quarters to see what we could find there. Gax and me took one room, while Vesk, Aoghri and a temporarily shut down and in a box BS-OJ took the other. While Gax and me were completely silent, the other group ran straight into a group of maintenance droids.

I didn't want to let a bunch of rebel droids distract me from the mission. All the same, my first attempt to open the door failed. I got it open on the second attempt, but it opened rather suddenly, and I embarrassingly faceplanted straight through the doorway, in front of the station commander Ford Harrison.

Gax opened fire, and I nimbly leapt up and shot Harrison with my sonic blaster, disorienting him and incidentally destroying the desk he was using as cover. Unfortunately he then shot me back with a disruptor pistol, which significantly impacted my combat capabilities, leading to my choice to make a tactical retreat.

Right, who said 'coward'? I'll bite your knees off!

...Ahem.

The fight with the maintenance droids didn't seem to be going too well, and I was in no position to improve it, so I slipped away out of sight and used another stim pack. After looping around I was able to meet up with Vesk again, who had just demonstrated a superb example of a stealth take-down on Ford Harrison by emerging from a ventilation shaft that he had definitely not been hiding in. He relieved Harrison of his disruptor pistol and handed it to me.

We then heard a loud noise, that sounded rather like a thermal detonator going off. It didn't seem like a particularly sensible choice to run towards the sound of an explosion, but we did anyway. There we found:
The almost obliterated remains of two droids.
A fine smear of red mist across the walls, which we assumed to be Gax.
BS-OJ, lying on the floor.
Another droid, vigorously beating BS-OJ with a shock stick of some kind.
The unconscious body of Aoghri.

I raised the disruptor pistol and disintegrated the droid. I love this pistol. Since acquiring first the sonic blaster and now this disruptor pistol my combat efficiency has improved significantly. Vesk says the pistol is illegal, but then, so are we.

Unfortunately, BS-OJ had already been smashed and electrocuted beyond repair, but we were able to get Aoghri back up again with the aid of a stim pack. Together we searched Harrison's office, where we found a glowing cube that talked. It said we should check the computer. So I did, and found some very exciting battle reports, plus some encrypted information on our home planet. Something to look at later. For now, we're going to properly loot this base, rescue any Imperial prisoners who might be locked up here, and then blow the place apart.

How to get into LARPing

If you like the idea of LARP but aren't sure how to get into it, here's a few ways.

Ask your mate

The easiest LARP to get into is the one your mate plays.  They're probably mad keen for you to go, and will want to fascilitate it by doing things like offering you a lift to site, loaning you kit, helping you make a character and so on.  If it's a camping LARP and you've never camped before, your mate will know all the things that make camping unpleasant and how to avoid them.  If it's a larp with weapons, they can help you with a bit of fighting practice beforehand.

Your mate wants you to LARP.  They will make it happen.

Go to LarpCon

Don't have a mate who LARPs or don't fancy the LARP they play?  Go to LarpCon.  A bunch of LARP organisers have stalls at LarpCon, and will be delighted to tell you about their game.  There's also a bunch of kit traders, so you can pick up costume and other kit at the same time.  And in the evening is the Larp Awards, where you can learn even more about the different games available, and which ones are likely to suit you in terms of genre, size, family friendliness and other considerations.

Get on FaceBook

There's a massive LARP community on FaceBook, and UK LARP EVENTS is a pretty good place to start.  Not only are there adverts for a lot of upcoming games, there are also occasional posts where someone asks for recommendations in a particular genre and/or location, and usually gets a bunch of good suggestions.

Pretty much every LARP group has its own FaceBook group, where you can talk to the existing players and get a feel for what its like.  And once the algorithm starts to think you're interested in LARP, it will start recommending groups to you.

Be a monster

In association with all of the above, a great way to get into LARP is to be a monster.  Unlike tabletop, where the GM plays everyone who isn't the PCs, live games need some actual humans to put on goblin masks and go and get killed.  You can learn the rules without worrying about getting your character killed, because you don't have a character.  You can try out a bunch of different skills and character types and find out what you enjoy without committing to anything.  You can meet the existing players and see how you get on with them.

You can usually get away with minimal kit, because the team running the game will have a bunch of things you can borrow, and you can usually book a monster ticket for free, meaning you'll have minimal expenses beyond travel and food.  If you're unsure about how you're going to get on with LARP, monstering is a great way to find out.

Obviously this is all based off my own experience, which is primarily with weekend-long larps with costumes, kit and usually weapons.  I know absolutely nothing about parlour larp, or mind's eye theatre type games.

But if the idea of a full weekend of dressing up in a costume and fighting evil for a weekend appeals, it's out there and waiting for you.

Noghri Death Squad part 4: Womp rat day

Personal log, Zatti.

Woke up, feeling great! Why are the speeder bikes still running? Oh no, giant monsters! BS-OJ has got in a box. Giant monsters are bullet proof and have knocked over a speeder bike. I'm going to pick it up and leave. Dammit, giant monsters have crushed the speeder bike. Best bet is to make like Aoghri and try to get picked up as Vesk drives past.

Personal log, Zatti.

Woke up, feeling great! Why are the speeder bikes still running? Oh well, time to continue fomenting rebellion for the glory of Lord Vader. Oh no, giant monsters!

Personal log, Zatti.

Woke up, feeling great! Why are the speeder bikes still running? Everyone is keen to get on them. Oh no, giant monsters!

Personal log, Zatti.

Woke up, feeling great! Why are the speeder bikes still running? Everyone is keen to get on them. Let's get out of here!

Personal log, Zatti.

Woke up, feeling great! We've made it to the city and I'm ready to make trouble! Except that filthy droid, MX-XP is back in a new body, along with a friend. Mass shooting occurred. I failed to hit either droid with my speeder bike guns, but did inspire the others to perform better before switching to my new sonic blaster. We smashed those droids to bits, as is the Noghri way.

...Huh? Glass? Bacta?

Personal log, Zatti.

Woke up, feeling great! Why are the speeder bikes still running? I appear to be alone. Bastards are having a laugh at my expense. Just because I couldn't steer a jetpack. I'm a lot better at driving now. Oh no, giant monsters!

Personal log, Zatti.

Woke up, feeling angry!

Resisted the urge to smash my way out of the bacta tank, as is the Noghri way (as already demonstrated by some of my colleagues) and activated the emergency exit functionality. Spilled out in a massive puddle of bacta and threw a punch at one of the filthy rebels. Missed, but did inspire the others to beat him to death.

BS-OJ was on a table, missing his limbs. GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY DROID I didn't say, because I was being shot by a Twi'lek, but fortunately Vesk and Aoghri had things well in hand. Once all but one of the rebel scum were dead we were able to convince him to put BS-OJ's limbs back on.

Gax did some doctoring, but was pretty rubbish at patching up 'shot by Twi'lek' wounds and I had to resort to stim packs again.

So here we are at Whisper Base, ready to take out their communications and hopefully deal with MX-XP once and for all. If I get my hands on him I'm reprogramming him into a toaster.

Crew of the Aliya, part 4: Moderately Famous

We'd received word that the Fatima's Bounty had been sighted at an ice moon, and Tahir was quite keen to go after them, but the rest of the crew had more of a humanitarian mission in mind.  There were all those survivors that needed relocating.  Plus there was the reporter from the Bulletin, Anata Gram, also looking for a ride back to Kua to deliver her story in person.  Tahir was overruled.

Shahim had jumped ship, and Alqadi was also nowhere to be found, so we urgently needed a new crew member.  Fortunately, one of the survivors who'd lost his own crew and ship in the Ghazali incident was in search of a new berth.  Hamsa signed on as the new mechanic, and also ship's accountant.

Sayah and Hamsa went to talk to the station commander, in the hope of getting some money out of him regarding the survivor relocation.  Unfortunately he was unmoved by tales of having to replace extensive amounts of furnishings, but he was persuaded to give us a free refuel, so we could at least get the ship to Kua.  And the stasis pods for the passengers were a loan, and would be picked up at the other end.

Tahir and Lila talked to Anata Gram, convincing her to pay an appropriate fee for passenger travel, and also setting some ground rules for her time on the ship.  No entering the crew member's private quarters, and no recording without permission.

We loaded up.  Suleiman got renamed to Aliya (with a change of voice), just in case Anata noticed anything about the AI.  Lila, resident portal obsessive, plotted the jump and Tahir set a course.  We climbed into our own stasis pods and waited.

We awoke on the other side, feeling slightly sick as usual, but definitely in the right place.  Gurgeh broke out a game of Dungeons & Dragons, and we entertained ourselves for the rest of the journey to Coriolis.

Sayah sent a message ahead, to warn the station we were bringing in the survivors and request that they had people ready to pick them up.  Anata sent some messages of her own, setting up an appearance on a breakfast talk show.  Tahir and Lila agreed to make an appearance.  Sayah refused, Hamsa wasn't of interest to the show at this time, and Gurgeh had been banned by the rest of the crew from talking to anyone.  They did still attend the recording for the free meal though, with Sayah taking Gurgeh shopping in advance to rent him some decent clothes and get a dupatta to hide her face with.

The talk show was a great success, with Tahir and Lila making sure to talk about the Fatima's Bounty and the actions of Sabetha Pour and the captain, in between discussing our heroic actions.

We attempted to contact our patron, Dr Wana, but she was unavailable due to currently being planetside.  She did send word that someone would be coming to talk to us, however, and it wasn't long before Tahir got an email.  It was a bit suspicious, referring to retrieving an item without much associated information.  Sayah got on the data net and space googled (spoogled?) the sender's name, Merez Alcan, which got us a decent amount of information.  He did seem somewhat dodgy, but we decided to meet him all the same.

Sayah took advantage of the plentiful markets of the station to go shopping, returning with a small packet she was unwilling to share, and an oud.

We went in search of Merez Alcan, and found him in the bar where we'd agreed to meet.  We shared drinks while hearing him out.  He was an artifact dealer.  A contact of his, Lavin Tamm, had found an interesting statue and was offering it for sale.  He'd checked with his buyer, and had the sale agreed, but when he tried to contact Tamm again, he couldn't get in touch with him.

He gave us some leads - the area where he'd last been seen, and his favourite drink, a rather unusual beverage known as Miran fire kohol.

Gurgeh scanned the picture of Tamm into a drone, set the facial recognition running, and sent it to fly around the area.  Sayah went back to the market, and spoke to a kohol trader who was able to direct her to the White Turgah, a dive bar selling Miran fire kohol.  Sayah bought a bottle of wine from him by way of maintaining good relations.

The whole crew headed for the bar, a thoroughly classy place with a door shaped like a giant cat's head with sabre teeth either side of the entrance.  Sayah soon established that Miran fire kohol was on the menu, and Gurgeh ordered shots for everyone.

The shots were served on fire.  Lila, Sayah and Tahir (the well brought up members of the crew) put theirs out with their hands and drank them.  Gurgeh (pleb) put his out with a coaster.  Hamsa (also pleb) attempted to drink his while it was still on fire, and managed to burn his nose hairs.

Some chatter with the barman persuaded him we weren't intending to get his customer into trouble, and he pointed out Jinna, a friend of Tamm who might be able to help us find him.  She took off when she saw us heading her way.

Lila set off in hot pursuit.  Sayah did the same, slightly concerned about Lila getting into trouble by herself.  Gurgeh didn't run, but did find a short cut.   But it was Lila, after narrowly wriggling free of the grasp of one of the guards, who finally caught up with Jinna.

The talk show had been a worthwhile exercise.  We and our ship were now moderately famous for our heroic exploits, and it helped persuade Jinna that we didn't mean Tamm any harm.  She let us know where to find him.  A boarding house.

The boarding house owner was surprised to see so many of us, but quite happy to have Lavin Tamm taken off his hands.  Apparently he kept throwing up in plant pots.  We went up to his room, where we found him looking extremely ill.  Radiation sickness, we assumed, and Gurgeh confirmed it for us.  He didn't want to come with us, but was ultimately persuaded that if he wanted to live, he needed treatment in our med lab.

We wound Sayah's dupatta around his face and headed back to the Aliya (where the AI had been renamed Suleiman, at Sayah's insistence.)  He told us about the statue and where he'd hidden it, but warned us that someone else was after it.  He wanted nothing more to do with it.

On the surface this seemed like an easy job.  We knew where the statue was, after all.  But who else was after it, and why?  And how, exactly, had Tamm picked up such a serious case of radiation poisoning?

Noghri Death Squad, part 3: Wheeee!

Wheeeeeeee!

Oh yes, personal log, Zatti.

Out of that horrible little town. Feeling a lot better. And we're going to do what we came here to do - head to the city and foment rebellion!

Message from Agent Flamingo. Strange goings on at a nearby base. Advised to stay away. Gax wanted to investigate, but Vhesk and me are feeling unusually strong willed, and refused. We had a job to do.

Looking at a map, we could see the quickest way to the city was to get on our speeder bikes and drive them along the river.

Wheeeeeee!

We set off with Gax taking the lead, closely followed by Vhesk, Aoghri and me. (I have no idea where the diplobot got to, after Aoghri found his restraining bolt, but doubtless he'll show up again eventually.)

Gax took an early lead through the rapids, while Vhesk made solid progress ahead of me. Aoghri collided with an overhanging branch, but somehow managed to style it out, performing an apparently effortless somersault over the branch and landing perfectly back on the bike. Unfortunately I wasn't quite so lucky, slamming straight into a branch, which left me...well, let's just say that after surviving both being shot by own of my team and light sabered by a jedi, it would have been very embarrassing if I'd happened to collide with any more branches.

But I didn't. Instead I stylishly took the next turn with immaculate form and balance, slapping a stim pack into myself with one hand and gunning the throttle with the other. Round the corner I could see Gax using the speeder bike weapons to gun down some filthy rebels who were attempting to shoot at us from the top of the gorge, performing a perfect 360 as he trained the guns on them.

Aoghri shot past me and up the side of the gorge, executing a spin that lined him up to rejoin us, while Vhesk vanished from sight as he sped up the opposite bank. I took the next turn at speed, spraying water in a sparkling fan as I caught sight of Gax again.

Vhesk reached the top of the cliff and slammed his bike straight into one of the remaining rebels, who plummeted off the cliff as Aoghri rejoined us from the other side. Moments later, Vhesk flew off the cliff, executing a perfect landing at the front of the group.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Further down the river and closer to the city we stopped for a rest and to allow Gax to patch up his speeder bike, which had taken some damage from the rebels' gunfire. But we soon realised we had company incoming. Vhesk and me built a barricade using our speeder bikes, while Aoghri dived into some bushes.

Down a slope came a gang of filthy rebel scum on speeder bikes, accompanied by a droid that we recognised at once as MX-XP.

The filthy rebel scum proved basically irrelevant as Aoghri, now completely hidden from side, lobbed a bunch of grenades out of the bushes and took out all of them. The droid was more of an issue.

Gax and me fired from behind our speeder bike cover, with Gax effectively taking out the droid's own speeder bike. Vhesk lept out to engage him in combat. He promptly broke both his molecular shiv and his vibro-knife on the droid's shielding, and had to resort to using his Noghri teeth and claws. The rest of us kept firing, despite the disorienting noise from the droid's sonic blaster. Gax slammed rifle fire into him. I managed one perfectly aimed shot and disoriented him right back, although I did get knocked over by the blaster's kick back.

We took him down. An X-wing was hovering overhead, and as he was about to break we heard him begin to upload himself from his body into the X-wing. Vhesk jumped into action to disrupt the upload. We saw the X-wing stop, hovering in the air for a few moments, spin round a couple of times, then fly away.

On to the city now, to spread stories of how the evil rebel droid MX-XP brutally slaughtered a group of innocent people and how only the might of the Empire can protect them from such atrocities.

We might need the diplobot for that. I wonder if I can reprogram him a bit?

In Character Relationships

In the 15 or so years I've been playing tabletop RPGs, my perspective on this has changed.

The thing about in character relationships is that it requires everyone at the table to be mature about it and ensure that the IC/OOC boundary isn't being blurred.  And I haven't always been in a group where that was a realistic expectation.

When I first started playing Dungeons & Dragons, I was the only woman at the table.  Any attempt by anyone to get their character into a relationship with mine would have been met with great suspicion by everyone there.  When the GM had an NPC from a small tribe propose to my character because it would be a way for him to get away from his fairly horrible home, suddenly the entire group felt the need to leave the room.

(My later livejournal whinge: "Guys, the GM is not trying to get into my pants.  Even if he was, I doubt he'd be attempting it through the medium of dispossessed swamp nomads.")

At that point, any attempt at an IC relationship would have looked far too much like an attempt to blur the IC/OOC boundary, so it simply didn't happen.

More recently, several important things have changed in the group dynamic:

• Two of the guys brought their girlfriends into the group, so I'm no longer the only woman (even though I am the only woman in the current subset of the group that I play in).
• While previously a lot of the group were single or in fairly casual relationships, most of us are now married or in long term relationships.  (I did, in fact, marry the GM from that first game.)
• We've all matured a lot.

Meaning we're now in a place where in character relationships are possible without it getting weird, as it's a lot easier for us to maintain the IC/OOC boundary.

I forget exactly what sequence of events lead to my character waking up in a hammock with one of the other female PCs.  Both our partners were also at the table, and nobody was going to read anything into this brief hammock-based relationship, the details of which were almost entirely glossed over.  It was a minor character detail that added a bit of flavour to things and a note of pathos when my character died.

It was a critical failure that lead to another party member inviting my character on a date.  I could have had her turn him down, but having known the player for over a decade, I felt confident we could play this without making it weird.  The resulting tale of obsession and ego was more creepy than romantic, and served to drive character development and generally make things more interesting.

So while at one time I would have said IC relationships were a hard no, I now feel that they can have a place providing everyone is able to deal with them sensibly.  Relationships done in a way that everyone at the table is happy with can make a game more interesting.

That said, I still can't see it happening often in the groups I play in, because it's just not the focus of most RPGs.  And the few where it is (e.g. Monsterhearts) aren't games I'm interested in playing.  Romance bores me (on occasions I've accidentally picked up a crime novel that's turned out to be a romantic crime novel, meaning my other half is treated to the sight of me yelling at my Kindle, "Stop shagging and solve the murder!")  If I'm going to roleplay a relationship, it's going to have to have a lot more to offer than mere romance.

Noghri Death Squad, part 2: Bad few days

Personal log, Zatti.

Bad few days.

Long walk. Tired.

Trail of destruction through the jungle. Looked promising. Followed. Splattered corpse. Certainly looked like my team's style. Tracked them to a cave that was about to be attacked by space bats. Lacking equipment, attempted to punch a bat. Failed. Not a problem, as the others emerged and stabbed them up, getting covered in neurotoxin in the process.

Not a problem for me, anyway.

---

Feeling much better after getting some rest and my stuff back. I'm ready to break locks, infiltrate facilities and hack computers! Except we're still in the jungle and the only electronic thing around is BS-OJ, and after the way he's been oiling himself I don't want to touch him.

It seems I ran into the team in the middle of carrying out another task on our list: finding a rogue Jedi. There's something weird going on at a nearby village, so I stealthed my way down to take a look at the medical centre. Comparing notes afterwards it was clear something was badly wrong here, with villagers acting peculiarly and sometimes disappearing entirely.

We're going to take a group trip into the village to try to get some clear answers.

---

With hindsight, perhaps going to the village like that wasn't the best idea, but something had happened to my brain that was stopping me making good decisions, and I have no reason to believe the same thing wasn't happening to the others. I'm a bit confused about what happened next. I think I wanted to go to the temple but wasn't allowed. The next thing I'm clear about was being strapped to a chair, which isn't normally the way round that kind of thing happens, but I was feeling like myself again so I wasn't going to complain.

Clarice, the woman in the medical centre wanted someone to find her missing husband. Naturally we had more important things to concern ourselves with than hunting for missing persons, but I had a hunch that we might end up finding him anyway.

With only 24 hours until we risked having the medical treatment wear off and succumbing to brain rot again, we had to work fast. The temple seemed like the best place to look for a rogue jedi, given that all of us who had fallen victim to brain rot had wanted to go there. Taking advantage of disease to strengthen filthy Jedi mind tricks sounded like just the kind of thing a rogue Jedi might get up to.

Realising that I'd been the victim of disgusting non-Vader-sanctioned use of the force made me very angry, so after stealthing into the temple and seeing the jedi converse with BS-OJ I was ready to kill.

Ready, but not able, as the strange chitinous carapace he had grown was deflecting my blaster fire. Gax demonstrated some excellent shooting and shot his light saber right out of his hand, but that did nothing to affect his force powers. I saw him hover in the air and shortly afterwards heard the clang of Noghri on droid as he used his jedi mind tricks to turn one of our own against us. But I didn't have time to think much more about that, because another jedi had arrived.

I realised straight away who it was. Clarice's husband. I didn't have time to say anything though, because he attacked me with his light saber, and moments later I realised that Gax had also succumbed to jedi mind tricks as he turned his rifle on me.

I woke up some time later under the influence of a stim pack, struggling to focus on anything with two massive wounds still visible on me. There were some dead people in the basement, from some kind of experimentation, presumably the work of the rogue jedi given how many of them had chitinous carapace parts. The other jedi had a necklace with pictures of Clarice and her child, so I was right about who he was.

After that we went back to the village, where Aoghri killed Clarice and her child. I wasn't expecting that, but the child was clearly a potential jedi so needed removing. All the same, I've realised just how poorly briefed I was on this mission.

Another item ticked off the list, but I don't think we've done much to foment rebellion, and I can't see anyone in this village being willing to listen, even to our diplobot, after what just happened.

I hate this planet.

What use am I with nothing to slice?

Maybe if I ask nicely BS-OJ will let me look at his circuits.

I can still see where Gax shot me.

I hate jedi.

Foment rebellion. Then we can leave.

Bad few days.

Spaghetti ConJunction 3b

Was I in time for Spaghetti ConJunction 3b?  As I approached the Geek Retreat I saw a small crowd of obvious gamers outside.  Clearly I had not missed anything.

I paid the incredibly reasonable entry fee of £3 and dug out my sign up sheet.  Another outing for my Scum and Villainy scenario.  Would I get players this time?  I had a browse of the other sheets in case not.

I needn't have worried.  My game filled up.  Maybe it was my new and improved sign up sheet with appropriate logos and a slightly improved blurb.  Maybe there were just more Firefly enthusiasts.  Either way, with a full set of character archetypes, the crew set out to acquire a space ship and begin their journey to independence.

What I love about running this scenario is that I never know how it's going to go.  Even the very start of the game has ended up being different each time, with each group taking a different approach.

It occurs to me that it wouldn't be hard to change this adventure from its current slightly dark space western feel to full blown horror.  With more descriptive language and going into a lot more detail about certain things I could do some very different stuff with it.  But at the same time, while I maintain there's nothing wrong with including horror content in a Firefly game, if people have signed up for Firefly they're probably expecting more action adventure than horror.

But I've just acquired a copy of Coriolis, which has a similar feel to Firefly, but with a different setting where it's possible I could make it work.  Something to think about for future scenarios.

Anyway, the adventure went entertainingly as always.  I think I could have handled the end better, as it wasn't particularly exciting and cinematic and could have used a bit more tension, but otherwise I'm happy.  I'm going to take the suggestion I've seen to set silent alarms to go off at certain points during the session to help me keep the pacing and make sure things wrap up nicely at the right time.

One nice thing about playing at the Geek Retreat is that you can order your lunch at the bar and go back to your game and they'll bring it up to you.  The food is mostly burger and chips type stuff.  I had a chicken and bacon toastie with chips, which tasted great and was decent value as well.  (I would have liked some salad with it, but appreciate they probably don't have a particularly salad-friendly clientele.)  The coffee is excellent, and while my current calorie counting efforts meant I avoided the milkshake this time, they certainly looked as good as they did last time, as did the waffles and ice cream I saw other people eating.

There is the option to get food elsewhere, but given that the very low price of this event is partly due to the venue making money on food and drink sales, I'd rather spend my money there and have the convenience of table service.  And the coffee really is excellent.

In the break I decided to check out the raffle prizes.  I hadn't bought tickets on the way in, in order to help speed through the queue, but seeing there were two copies of Zweihander up for grabs I decided it was worth buying a few tickets for a shot at getting hold of one of them.

Zweihander, incidentally, is a very appropriately named game.  The book is of a size that should definitely allow it to be used as a weapon, but you will absolutely need two hands to wield it.

With a fairly huge number of raffle prizes and a limited number of people after a few of the morning crowd went home, I wasn't entirely surprised when more than one of my tickets got pulled.  I didn't get a copy of Zweihander, but I did come away with some Lovecraftian fiction from Chaosium, a Call of Cthulhu sourcebook about Arkham, and some kind of virtual Cyberpunk adventure that may never get played but I've no doubt I will enjoy reading.

Raffles can be quite tedious, but with Simon Burley in charge and determined to set a new speed record, we got through about thirty raffle prizes in just over three minutes.  Probably the most enjoyable raffle I've entered.

Afternoon sign up.  With smaller numbers but still seven games on offer, I didn't bother using the 'go first for having run a game' option, and just signed up when my number was called since I already knew it would be near the start.  I chose the Starfinder game.  Unfortunately nobody else did, so I had to scramble to find a game.  Fortunately there was one space left in The Outhere: The Storm and the Tower.

While the game blurb is my primary factor in choosing a convention game, seeing the name Christopher Dean did help push me towards this game as I'd previously encountered him running '28 Trains Later', the Thomas the Tank Engine survival horror game that I'd been wanting for some time.  This time he was running a playtest of The Outhere from Braincrack Games.

He had a set of pregen characters, but had edited them all to make them non-gender-specific, which I really appreciated.  As someone who prefers to play female characters, when there are gendered pregens I feel pushed into choosing a female one.  With no specified genders, I could pick a character that seemed interesting, in this case an antelope person with a focus on light magic.

An interesting system.  D6 dice pools, but you add the results then divide by 5 rather than counting successes, thus avoiding the irritating part of dice pool systems where you've rolled a bunch of very nearly successes, but have still completely failed.  Also reminicent of tagging aspects in Fate, as you can get extra dice by invoking your character details or making use of narrative details.  We managed to provide some useful feedback at the end of the game.

I enjoyed the setting.  A variation on the normal fantasy setting, with the non-human races being the aforementioned antelope people, fennec fox people, rhino people and golems.  An emphasis on exploring desert ruins.  It's definitely got potential and I'll be interested to see where it goes from here.

By the time we finished, the cafe was close to closing, so I gathered my bag of books and went home.

I like the spontanaeity of being able to just show up on the day for these one day conventions rather than having everything booked in advance.  I also like the sign up system with the random order, meaning that I don't have to fight my way to the table to sign up for things.  It means I sometimes don't get into my first choice of games, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to have a good game.  I didn't get my first choice yesterday (thanks to nobody else wanting to play it) but I did get into an excellent game all the same.  At the last Concrete Cow I didn't get my first choice for the same reason, but that meant I had a fantastic game of Delta Green instead.

I've never had a bad game at Concrete Cow or Spaghetti ConJunction, but I have had some games I would never have considered signing up for in advance, and still had a great time.

Gender diversity remains poor.  There was one other woman there (and we did have a nice chat while waiting for sign up to start) out of around 30-35 people.  But both of us were offering games in the morning, which isn't bad.  I hope more female GMs will help attract more female players.

Transport-wise, I really appreciate being able to park practically right behind the venue.  The last thing I want as a woman alone with a heavy bag is to be wandering the streets of a strange city after dark.  The short walk to the well lit car park is definitely a selling point for me, and at £5 for 12 hours, the price is quite reasonable.

Overall, a great day out and worth braving the M6 for.  I hope to be back at 4a in February.

Noghri Death Squad, part 1: Is this some kind of game?

My Thursday group are playing Star Wars: Edge of the Empire.  It's about as bonkers as our Thursday games normally are...

Honestly, I don't know what the others are complaining about. If they looked after their electronics properly they wouldn't have these problems. I mean, mine works and look what just happened to it! Bunch of technophobe...

...Oh yes, personal log, Zatti.

Having completed a training and assessment exercise, Agent Flamingo has given us our next assignment. And when I say 'assignment', I mean a loosely connected set of different jobs, which all just happen to be on the same planetary system, plus a few extra jobs from various people. What do they think this is, some kind of game?

We contacted the Backstreet Magpies to arrange transfer of our equipment to Rori while we flew in a completely legitimate and non-suspicious way to Naboo.

Job list:
Find out if Queen Stefani's handmaiden Amazonia is still a loyal spy or if she's leaking information.
If she is leaking information, deal with her and frame the Alderan ambassador for it.
Find Gosk, some loser member of our tribe who's failed his mission, and deal with him.
Arrange discreet transport to Rori
Put a stop to Darius Scrive's smuggling operation.
Find a rogue Jedi on Rori.
Foment rebellion on Rori.

Was that all? I think so. I hope so.

We split up to get some of the grunt work done. BS-OJ the diplobot went looking for Amazonia and found she was leaking secrets to the ambassador. Shortly afterwards they both died of poisoning. I was going to try to plant some fake news to make the ambassador look bad, but thanks to some video BS-OJ took, everyone is sufficiently embarrassed already.

We did a bit of shopping, in my case without any transfer of funds being involved, and went after Gosk.

Why this involved crawling down a searing hot ventilation duct I'm not sure, but we successfully got into the prison where he was being held, at the cost of feeling extremely stressed about it. Fortunately there were a lot of blast doors between him and us, and after spending some time hacking the electronic locks I felt a lot better.

I did fail to open the second door, but BS-OJ deployed his fusion cutter and we weren't slowed down for long - just long enough to shoot the guards who found us. Between some more hacking, shooting, stabbing and fusion cutting it wasn't long before we'd retrieved Gosk and were on our way out.

Back to the task list. I was able to tick off several items, which was excellent.

I broke into Darius's house along with Aogrhi, and got shot by a booby-trapped blaster for my trouble. We had a good look around, but unfortunately his datapad turned out to be extremely well protected. Fortunately Aoghri already had plenty of good intel, and after dragging BS-OJ back from another shopping trip to do some negotiation for us, we had transport to Rori arranged on Darius's ship. He was charging far too much, but of course we could always kill or blackmail him later.

We broke atmo on Rori and donned our jetpacks to make our way down to the planet's surface. I was initially descending with the rest of the group in a controlled fashion and on target for the landing zone. And then we hit turbulence.

One moment I was swapping hand signals with the rest of the team as we helped guide each other down. The next I was veering off out of control. Initially I thought I could pull it back together, with some help from the others, but with the descent speed and turbulence getting worse, I ended up losing sight of them and the landing zone entirely.

I've now crashed landed somewhere in the jungles of Rori. I'm in pain, I've no idea where I am, I don't know how to find the rest of the team, and all the gear I've got is what I was carrying during the drop. I don't even know which way to walk to get out of this.

All the same, I've started walking. The team are going to need me back soon. Plus, there might be people in this jungle. I've got a rebellion to foment.

Crying at LARP

Last weekend, while enjoying some post-game coffee and cake, I noted to the organiser and his wife (the organiser of my other favourite LARP) that they were three for three on making me cry at their events.  Hopefully I got across that this is a good thing.

I've cried at LARP before, but it's not always a good thing.  I remember crying once because lot of people were shouting angrily.  My mental health is generally good and the kind of content that requires a content warning isn't something I need to avoid, but angry shouting upsets me pretty badly, and I was in a position when I couldn't just walk away.  I'm very grateful to the person who spotted something was up and got me out of the room.

But at these two LARPs it was different.

Two characters having an argument.
So obviously there was an aspect of the angry shouting mentioned above, but this time there was also my character's reaction.  This was her new home.  She'd only been there a few hours.  And it was the first time she'd ever felt something resembling hope, to the point where she didn't even know what she was feeling.  Into this last and first desperate hope came this sudden note of discord, and it terrified her without her even knowing why.

A room with natural light.
My character had not seen natural light in months, maybe longer.  We found our way into a room where a light well brought brilliant sunlight down into the darkness of the undercity.  Those who had lived all their lives in the undercity covered their eyes, blinded by the light.  My character stared at the sunlight, shedding tears of joy and regret.

Inflicting pain.
Touching the bones was bringing back a memory related to his missing eye, but it was causing him pain and he kept snatching his hand away.  He told my character to hold his hand down so that he couldn't let go.  She did so, and he began screaming.  She wanted to let go and make it stop, but he'd told her not to.  She held on.  And then he collapsed, unconscious and bleeding.  She'd done that to him.  She should have let go.

So the difference is that it's not really me crying - it's the character.  But the game is so immersive, and the moment so powerful, that I'm not just roleplaying my character's emotions.  I'm feeling them.

This happens a lot at these two games, but it's when I start to cry a fictional character's tears for them that it's most obvious.

Trying a new LARP: Macabre

As the rain hammered down to the point where I had to put the wipers on max and slow down to 50mph to be able to see enough to drive, I began to wonder if camping was really the right choice for this weekend.  I consoled myself with the thought that if it was really horrific I could just leave everything in the car and drive home to sleep.  It was only an hour away.  Or would be, if I wasn't having to drive at 50mph.

But by the time I arrived at the Grange, the weather had cleared.  I pitched the tent, assembled my bed, then went and hung around the player area to meet people.  A bit nerve wracking, since the only person I already knew was Leah, but fortunately this game is full of lovely people - even if one of them did make a joke about LT that's so old it was old when I started playing LT twelve years ago.

I was there for Macabre, a Renaissance horror LARP, set in a kingdom ravaged by war and the black plague.  At the time of the game, however, there are much worse things to worry about than mere war and pestilence.

Into costume.  I was worried by my ongoing failure to find the kind of dress I was imagining (something Landsknecht-esque), despite a fair amount of shopping at the LT summer events, but looking at the event photos reassured me that I could get away with something a bit more 'generic peasant'.  So my actual kit was cannibalised from three other costumes with only the white surcoat as a new piece I picked up second hand.  I think it worked, and I was warm, although I think a less blingy cloak would have looked better.  I own two other cloaks, but the fleece one I wear at LT didn't seem to fit, and the proper medieval wool one I already know is too big and heavy for prolonged wear.  So I went with the shiny cloak as the best option.

I'd decided to play a leper with impaired vision, and I'd been wondering how to phys-rep that.  I considered contact lenses, but the idea of putting anything in my eyes worries me a bit, so I decided on the simpler option of veiling my eyes.  This would have the additional benefit of being easy to remove if I needed better sight.  I looked up some medieval head wraps, and settled on one that looked comfortable, was historically in keeping with the setting, and could be slightly modified to cover my eyes.

This proved to have a number of benefits:
1. Stuck my hair in a plait on Friday, left it in all weekend, zero effort hair and still clean when I got back.
2. Kept my head warm.
3. Made me look different, which helps me get IC.
4. Visual reminder for other players that this character can't see well.
5. Blurred writing to the point where I couldn't read it, making it a whole lot easier to ignore any writing I encountered.

And despite appearances, I could see reasonably well through the veil, especially in daylight - the only time I had to lift it up was at mealtimes (I needed to see my dinner) and when walking back through the woods after it got dark (I needed to see the ground).  I think some of the players may have underestimated how well I could get around unassisted.  Or maybe they were just roleplaying being really helpful?

Into the game itself.  Macabre avoids the usual larp problem of new people having no idea what's going on by making every character an amnesiac, so nobody knows what's going on.  The existing players know that new people will walk in knowing maybe their name and a couple of basic things about the setting, and they behaved accordingly, attempting to fill in the new players about what was going on in the world.  In this game, being unable to remember the names of the people you spend all your time with and what happened two days ago is more of a feature than a bug.

Each character starts out with some hazy memories.  I had two interesting ones and one kind of horrifying one.  I was wondering how to bring them up, but both of the first two got triggered by events in game, giving me the perfect opportunity.  As it turned out, one of the interesting memories turned out to be far more horrifying than I could have imagined, and my character is now attempting to come to terms with the things she's done in the past.

What impressed me most is how seamlessly my character's memories slotted into the existing story.  It's like the organiser knew right from the start that my character would be joining the game at event 9, despite the fact I didn't get my character done until a few days before the event.  I don't know how he does it, but it was an incredible experience.

I didn't know what I was looking for in this larp, but apparently I found it.

Two things really add to the immersion of this game: the build, and the food.  In addition to the usual marquee, a set of temporary buildings are constructed for the event, to create key areas like the lab, the shrine and the leech pool.  The set dressing is superb (if in this case a little soggy, thanks to the aforementioned deluge).  All meals are held in character, and are a strong focal point for the characters.  Meals are a great time to hold an important discussion, since we're all sat down at the table together, and nobody is going to be moving very much for some time after the giant piles of food that emerge from the kitchen at regular intervals.  The cloister appears to be operating on a two day week, consisting of Friday and Pieday.

I was not ready for Pieday.

My only regret is that I didn't join this game until its ninth event.  This game isn't for everyone, but it's absolutely for me.  10/10, would sob into a flesh golem's shoulder again.

Crew of the Aliya part 3: Aftermath

The Aliya, ungainly and overloaded, dragging escape pods and cargo behind it, left the star behind as the wreckage of the Ghazali plummeted to its fiery doom.

No easy job this. With both the cargo pod and the drop ship to move, and without the power to manage both at once, the Aliya flew back and forth to accelerate each container away from the star and towards the nearest portal station.

Once out of the radiation interference from the star, Gurgeh opened up communication with the station, and Tahir sent a message requesting aid and also mentioning the Fatima's Bounty and the presumed contraband they were carrying.

A fleet of tugs appeared as the Aliya approached the station, and cargo pod, drop ship and escape pods were all collected and delivered to the cargo loading area, while the Aliya herself docked up. Alqadi, Shahim and Sayah emerged, hot and stressed, along with the other survivors and the box containing Suleiman. Alqadi had managed to contact a Legion representative, who had arranged for the pods containing Nekatra to be safely relocated so that nobody got eaten.

The crew reunited to deal with a particularly irritating bureaucratic type intent on inspecting the ship. Gurgeh had locked down the computer systems as much as possible while the survivors were being unloaded, and hoped it was enough. The inspector was finally allowed on, and wanted the entire crew off, but Tahir insisted at least one person stayed on the bridge. Shahim stayed, while everyone else talked to representative of the Colonial Agency, the group we'd been working for as part of the Ghazali mission. She gave us an inadequate award in exchange for the emerald disc recorder. We didn't mention Suleiman.

She also gave us access to the public baths, so we all headed off for a wash. Tahir and Lila didn't stay long, wanting to get back to the Aliya (and also give Shahim the chance for a bath.) The others stuck around for perfumed steam baths and massages, and also ran into a journalist keen to learn more about the Ghazali. Gurgeh immediately said that it had been attacked, although Alqadi and Sayah quickly backtracked to say that they didn't know what had happened, having been in stasis at the time.

With the official finally evicted from the ship with adequate paperwork, Tahir went to talk to the station Akbar, and Sayah went to visit the souk for replacement rugs and tapestries, bedding and cushions. Somehow, Tahir's fancy clothing had escaped the fittings purge - how had we missed his wardrobe?

With the ship redecorated, refueled and restocked with tea, there was just one thing left to do. Shahim and Gurgeh worked together to install the memory cores into the Aliyah's computer, and then Sayah joined them for the final installation and activation of Suleiman.

"Hello, Sayah," he said at last, much to everyone's relief. He complained briefly about how his new home seemed to be a lot smaller, but Sayah pointed out it had the major benefit of not being inside a sun.

The journalist reappeared, keen to do interviews with the heroic crew. Lila and Sayah declined, with Sayah in particular trying to keep her face off camera. Fortunately the new rugs provided plenty of cover.

Where next? While Tahir was all too keen to volunteer the crew for a follow-up rescue mission, the station was very keen to have at least some of the survivors relocated. If the cargo bay was filled with stasis pods, there was enough room for forty people including the crew. While many mysteries still remained - why had the Ghazali been attacked and where had the Fatima's Bounty with another forty survivors aboard gone being the main ones - it looked like our next port of call would be back on Kua.

Crew of the Aliya: Sayah on the drift

A brief vignette between game sessions.

It was cramped in the escape pod. Five people in a space meant for four. She hadn't wanted to be here. She'd wanted to be back in the Aliya with Lila. But there was space for her in the pod, and having one less person on the Aliya would benefit the already overcrowded ship.

Except it left the Aliya without its data djinn. Tahir was a great pilot, but that was no use without a djinn to tell you where to fly.

Gurgeh could take her chair if he had to. He knew what he was doing. But was he good enough to find five floating escape pods in a sea of spaceship debris? Only one way to find out. Embrace the Gambler. Take a risk. Roll the dice.

She didn't share her fears with the four other people in the pod. They were already scared, and looking to her for reassurance. So she provided it. She told them that the Deckhand was keeping their pod safe and functional. That the traveler was guiding them as they ejected from the ship. That the gambler was smiling on them for the risk they had taken.

And huddled together, united in their fervent prayers, she found she could start to believe it herself.
What she could not believe was Khomina, the fortune teller. Acting like she'd somehow looked into Sayah's heart, and see the fear and exhaustion that had driven her since the day she'd been forced to start running. Rather than just looking up her name. Perhaps not the easiest of things to dig up, but these charlatans knew their business.

And her crystal was fake, and more importantly, her words had been proved untrue. They were not all doomed to meet the icons in the heart of the star. One ship had already escaped, and the Aliya would soon follow. She had been foolish to let the woman's words trouble her, and cloud her judgement when speaking to Sabetha.

No. She should not think of these things. The others could not see her distressed. She thought instead of Lila, who had been the one friend who stuck with her, and the Aliya itself, her new home, which would be coming back for her soon.

She did believe, but perhaps she could give fate a helping hand? She checked the pod's transponder, ensuring that it was broadcasting as loudly and clearly as it could. It was working well.

She rejoined the others at prayer. She had done all she could. Now she just had to wait.

Crew of the Aliya part 2: Evacuation

It was time to start getting everyone loaded for evacuation. Alqadi and Sayah both made an attempt at talking to the fortune teller, but ultimately it was Lila taking her away for a quiet chat that changed her mind. Changed it a lot. Unsettlingly so, in fact, but the job was done.

Sayah told Suleiman to prepare for having his data cores moved. Sabetha asked again about her cargo, but was rebuffed by an increasingly stressed Sayah, and went to make alternative arrangements.

Tahir began herding people down to the dock, while Alqadi went to contact the Nekatra. With some assistance from Gurgeh he was able to convince them to get into three of the escape pods and prepare to launch. Gurgeh also had a look at the remaining escape pods, and managed to identify a fifth pod in usable condition.

Back at the Aliya, Sayah unlocked the doors and began preflight checks, soon finding out that the navigation systems had been affected by the proximity of the nearby star. She set it to recalibrate, but it would be a slow process.

It was perhaps not a complete surprise when we realised that the other ship had disengaged from the Ghazali.

They weren't complete monsters. They had loaded the twenty-five people that the Fatima's Bounty could hold along with Sabetha's cargo, and had taken the ship round to the cargo bay to pick up one of the containers of stasis pods. But now we had an extra twenty-five people that we needed to find space for.

Sayah opened the lock on the door to the main cargo dock, and there was a brief shootout between Alqadi, Tahir and the captain of the Fatima's Bounty. The captain was shot and incapacitated, but it was too late to stop the ship from launching.

And then all our plans (neatly drawn on the Aliya's whiteboard by Tahir) were thrown into further disarray when Suleiman's voice came over the tannoy to tell us that the reactor core was melting down and instead of six hours to escape, we had one.

We had an extra escape pod, and while they were built for four, we reckoned we could squeeze one extra person in there. Alqadi tried to convince the Nekatra to fit themselves into two pods instead of three, but they refused.

Lila and Sayah began stripping the Aliya, throwing out literally anything non-essential to create extra space, shedding perhaps a brief tear at the loss of all the soft furnishings. It was around this time that Sayah came up with an excellent plan, albeit one that required having been thought of a couple of hours earlier to actually be successful: agree to take the cargo, then once the other ship had launched, knock out Sabetha, ditch as much cargo as necessary to fit the remaining people on the ship. But it was obviously far too late for that.

There was a drop ship in the cargo bay, too damaged to fly, but part of it was still air tight. It was hardly an ideal solution, but if they could get it launched, a few more people could be kept alive inside it until the Aliya could come back to tow it to safety.

Sayah disconnected Suleiman's memory cores, and Shahim used a loader from the cargo bay to transfer him into one of the escape pods. Alqadi got in the pod with Suleiman and Shahim, while Sayah got into the other with the four other survivors that we'd planned to send in the pods.

The rest of the crew got the second container and the drop ship ejected and got into the Aliya. Tahir's piloting skills, plus some fervent prayers to the Traveler, got them clear of the ship and picked up the container. With Sayah unavailable in an escape pod, Gurgeh took over the data djinn's chair, and was able to guide the ship to pick up the drop ship. Finally they returned for the escape pods.

Sayah's pod was the first one they found, possibly thanks to her efforts to boost the transponder signal. Then two of the Nekatra pods. Two pods still to find. A tense few minutes. And then a fourth pod was found - the one containing Alqadi, Shahim and Suleiman.

We never found the fifth pod.

Crew of the Aliya, Part 1: Assessing the Situation

We're playing Coriolis, a game that's basically what would happen if Firefly had been inspired by the Middle East instead of the Wild West.  The new campaign starts in just over a week, but first here's the story so far...

We're playing a published adventure at this point: The Last Voyage of the Ghazali, so spoilers ahead.

We're a team of archaeologists, hunting down rare artifacts. Our crew consists of:
Tahir El Fadil, captain, pilot and speed freak.
Lila, lead archaeologist and mystic.
Shahim, engineer, likes his drones better than people.
Alqadi, former soldier with a strong moral code.
Sayah Bint Suleiman, data djinn with a dubious past.
Gurgeh, assistant archaeologist.

We'd been recruited for a rescue mission. A bunch of small independent ships, all heading out together to the Taoan system to answer a distress call. To get us there together, an old decommissioned cruise liner, the Ghazali, had been put back into service and fitted with stasis pods for everyone while our ships were docked to the outside.

We had instructions to leave any weapons on our own ship before getting into the Ghazali's stasis pods. We decided not to attempt to smuggle anything aboard, but Sayah did spend some time with the electronic locks on the way out to make sure nobody else could get in while we were out.
We slept...and then we awoke. Something had gone badly wrong. We had woken up too soon, after the first jump but before the second. We got dressed and went to investigate.

With Shahim sending his drone to scout ahead, we made our way out into the ship proper. The section of ship we were in seemed pretty unstable, so first priority was getting to somewhere a bit more robust. Once out of danger of being imminently spaced, we found a panel, and with some data djinn work from Sayah, we got access to the ship's AI. Whose name turned out to be Suleiman.

Ignoring Sayah's minor freak-out about that, we obtained as much information as we could about the ship, including plans, the fact that the ship was damaged probably beyond repair, and that we were on a time limit to escape before the Ghazali would fall into the nearby sun.

We managed to locate some kind of engineering and repair room, after Tahir insisted on opening every door we passed, and Shahim built a concussion grenade. Armed with wrenches and bits of pipe we continued on our way to the med lab.

This was where the majority of survivors seemed to be, although Suleiman was aware of a lot more whose stasis pods hadn't woken them up yet. Alqadi made sure to get them woken up, and we hunted around the med lab for some trauma kits. Gurgeh stayed put for the moment.
We headed for the bridge next. Suleiman wasn't able to access the bridge, and we could see why when we got there. We had to space walk to get there, a worrying prospect, although fortunately with Tahir to lead the way we all made it safely.

The front of the bridge was missing, looking like it had been the victim of some kind of attack. An emergency force field was keeping things together, but of course that would not last forever, and there were some worrying looking space fish hanging around outside. We got to work. Alquadi and Tahir found a weapons locker and sorted out arms for everyone. Lila, Sayah and Shahim got to work on the computers, finding as much information as they could and finally removing the emerald key recorder for later examination.

We made our way back into the ship proper, reluctantly leaving behind the very beautiful rugs that adorned the floor of the bridge, which were alas too large and heavy to bring with us. We'd received a message from the chapel, saying that there were people trapped there, and we had to at least try to rescue them.

We'd become aware over the course of the journey that there were a group of Nekatra aboard the ship. Not wanting to get into an altercation with a bunch of lupine super-soldiers, Alqadi attempted to send them a message, and we left them some food before continuing on our way. We also encountered another group of survivors, and there was some brief tension until we managed to convince them to head for the med lab with everyone else.

We found some of the corridor blocked with debris as we headed for the chapel, but with some fiddling with controls, Shahim altered the gravity in the corridor to let us clear things easily. We still couldn't make it all the way to the chapel without another space walk though.

Once again, Tahir lead the way and got us all safely to the next airlock. We found some more usable space suits on the other side - lucky, since we only had six between us. The chapel's anteroom had a really lovely tapestry depicting the Ghazali and the Icons, and we were very disappointed to realise that once again we were going to have to leave a beautiful item of soft furnishing behind.
The group in the chapel weren't in a good condition. They'd run out of water hours earlier, and the plumbing for the sinks had broken. Worse, many of them were showing signs of radiation poisoning. Tahir started organising people, and along with Alqadi took the first group of survivors through the airlock, leaving the rest of the group behind.

Shahim, not liking being around so many people, went to take a look at the plumbing. It wasn't long before he'd managed to get water to the sinks again. Unfortunately this lead to a lot of rehydrated people wanting to hug him, which did not please him.

Meanwhile, Sayah decided to try to calm everyone down ready for the next space walk, and persuaded them to pray to the Gambler to bless them in the risk they were about to take.
The Gambler was clearly with them, as the second space walk was successful, getting everyone across intact. Repeated exposure to radiation was starting to affect the party, however, with Lila and Sayah getting the worst of it.

We headed for the med lab to get everyone treated for radiation, and got there without further incident.

The med lab was significantly more crowded than when we'd left, with over a hundred people present. A fortune teller that we'd noticed earlier was still there, doing card readings and telling people that it was the will of the icons that we plummet into the sun. The priest we'd met on the first trip through the med lab was not keen on her and her pronouncements, and asked Lila to attempt to do something about it. Lila watched her for a while, and got a card reading herself, which didn't impress her very much.

Then she noticed something interesting. The crystal ball the fortune teller had with her wasn't a mystic item at all - and Lila knew mystic stuff. It was a ball of sugar with some LEDs in it. Lila began spreading the word.

Sayah was approached by a woman calling herself Sabetha. She had a lot of cargo she was interested in getting off the ship. Only two of the ships attached to the hull were still in servicable condition - the Aliya and the Fatima's Bounty. Having identified the crew of the Aliya, she approached Sayah, offering a large sum of money to have her cargo taken on board. Unfortunately this would take up enough space to transport twenty-five people.

Sayah was definitely interested in large sums of money, but wanted to know what the cargo was. Sabetha was reluctant to say anything other than 'medical supplies' which Sayah assumed meant drugs. Sayah didn't think she could convince the rest of the crew that the cargo was worth leaving twenty-five people behind for. Sabetha pointed out that lots of people had radiation sickness and probably weren't going to make it anyway. They should just save the healthy people, like them.
Sayah, knowing how badly affected by radiation she already was, didn't much like that argument, but agreed to put the proposal to the rest of the crew, even though she was pretty sure she knew how this was going to go.

Then there was the matter of Suleiman. He might be an AI rather than a human, but he was still a person and we were quite keen to take him with us. We could potentially get his memory cores onto the Aliya, but it was going to be a tight squeeze.

We got a final count of who was actually aboard. A hundred and thirty five people besides our six crew members, plus ten Nekatra and two or three person's worth of Suleiman's memory cores.
We had two usable ships, capable of holding fifty people each, enough escape pods for sixteen people, plus a couple of stasis containers that could hold another forty.

A hundred and fifty six spaces. A hundred and fifty four to fit on board. It would work, but it was going to be tight. It wasn't looking good for Sabetha's cargo.

And was everyone currently on the ship actually on the manifest?

Two games, one genre: Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk as a genre seems to come and go in popularity.  Right now it's firmly on the way up, with recent adaptations like Ready Player One and Altered Carbon, and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 video game, which I will absolutely be playing.  So it's not surprising that more cyberpunk RPGs are appearing, although as yet I haven't played many.

Cyberpunk 2020

The second edition of the original cyberpunk RPG and apparently the only one people still actually play, this game is intended to let you play characters who've walked straight out of a William Gibson novel.  The world is detailed and evocative, and the gear list includes pretty much anything you could want to carry or implant.

It's brilliant, and it's no surprise people are still playing it now.  But, as I said after I played Shadowrun for the first time, it's no surprise it's nowhere near as popular as Shadowrun.  Because this game has aged spectacularly badly.

The combat system, Friday Night Firefight, is apparently one of the most realistic systems out there for modern combat, using actual FBI data on gunshot injuries as the basis for damage levels.  Gunfights have the potential to be extremely dangerous, and getting shot in the head without a helmet is pretty much a death sentence.  Sounds good in principle, but in practice it means abandoning the principle of style over substance that's supposed to define cyberpunk as everyone either cowers in the face of danger or tools up to the max.  And while the rules for armour and armour stacking might be realistic, they are absolutely not easy to understand.  I've given up trying.  I just make sure the GM knows what armour I've got, and refuse to engage beyond marking off however many hit points I'm told to.  And I'm not stupid, or even particularly stubborn - I just can't get my head round this insanely complex system when all I want to do is wear cool cybernetics and destroy corporations.

Which brings me onto gear.  Between the original rulebook and the giant pile of Chromebook expansions, there's a vast amount of gear available to a Cyberpunk 2020 character.  And in a more narrative based system this could be amazing.  Of course you'd consider getting the smart mirror shades instead of the smart goggles, even though they have fewer add-on slots and cost more, because they look cool and it's your signature style.  But in the heavily stats and rules based world of early 90s RPGs, that just doesn't fly.

It gets even worse when you get to the cyberwear, because at that point you aren't just paying money, you're paying humanity.

My first Cyberpunk 2020 character was a Rockerboy.  I wanted to give her a ton of cool looking implants, but once she'd got skinweave, a nu-throat and tech hair, she'd already lost enough humanity that adding many more implants was going to start tanking her empathy score.  And with the rockerboy being Cyberpunk 2020's biggest face class, she really needed a decent empathy stat.

My second character was a Solo.  This time I was going full min-max, with the empathy stat being the 'how much cyberwear can I fit in without going insane?' stat.  She was tooled up with muscle and bone lace, corvette legs and mono wolvers.  Her empathy was tanked - down to 4 by the end of the game, I think.  But all her cyberwear was 100% practical, fully devoted to making her better in a gunfight.  Read about Cyberpunk 2020 and there's all this cool stuff about creative uses of various implants - things like using implanted video screens to disorient your opponent - but I couldn't use anything like that because I'd rolled so much humanity loss on the practical gear there was no room left for anything imaginative.

In short, while the game wants you to be able to play cool William Gibson style protagonists, the rules constantly hinder your ability to do that.

The character classes are also a problem.  Some of them, like the Cop and the Corporate, leave me wondering what on earth these respectable people with proper jobs are doing hanging around with a bunch of street punks.  Fixers make far more sense as NPCs than as PCs.  Netrunners are so badly designed most GMs won't even let you play them, as they're basically playing a whole different game to the rest of the party.  Media and Rockerboy can both work as face classes but you've really got to design the campaign around them.  There are some solid options in the Solo and the Med-Tech but overall if you're trying to create a coherent team it's just a mess.

As a 30 year old futuristic game, it's unsurprising the whole thing is smothered in zeerust.  This isn't all bad.  There is a certain charm to playing in the 80s version of the future, where phones are huge and wifi barely exists and somehow the only music is hair metal.  But if you want to play a modern cyberpunk game, you're going to have to do some major updates to make the setting feel like the actual future.

So it should be obvious that the only reason I play this game is because I love cyberpunk as a genre so damn much I'll put up with this game's many drawbacks to make it happen.  However, there is one thing that Cyberpunk 2020 does absolutely brilliantly.  The life path.

Sometimes my characters show up with fully formed backstories.  More often, they don't.  But in Cyberpunk 2020 you can grab your dice and generate yourself a full character background, detailing their origins, family status, siblings, sense of style, and significant life events from the age of 16.

Which meant that Requiem, the solo I mentioned above, wasn't just a practically tooled up solo.  She was the child of Hispanic gang members who sent her away at a young age for her own protection.  Scarred by this, she grew up eschewing human company beyond befriending members of law enforcement for her own protection and training in combat.  Embracing this background meant that even with the game's rules constantly getting in the way, I had a well realised and unique character to play, and I still have happy memories of the strange tale of love and obsession that played out in that game.

I suspect Cyberpunk 2020 holds out more due to nostalgia than anything else, and while I'm interested to see if the new Cyberpunk Red rules fix any of the enormous problems, I'm not holding my breath.  But the life path generator?  I'd use that any time.

The Sprawl

I immediately loved The Sprawl, because this Powered By The Apocalypse game strips away so much of what I don't like about Cyberpunk 2020.  No spending ages trawling through Chromebooks to try to work out what equipment you're going to have - your playbook gives you a few options to pick from, and you decide for yourself which corporation's branding is on your gear.  No concerns about tanking your empathy - your cyberwear comes with other, more narratively interesting drawbacks.  Combat is the usual PBTA combat - fast and narrative driven.  And with the game only a few years old, there's nothing dated here, although at the same time there's nothing to stop you playing it in the 80s future if that's what your group enjoys.

Digging a bit deeper though, I still found problems, and one of them is the playbooks.  The Sprawl could really have done with taking less inspiration from Cyberpunk 2020 here.

The Media character is still here, as the Reporter, and once again doesn't really fit in unless you structure the campaign around them.  The Rockerboy is also back, as the Pusher, and has the same issue.  The Fixer, again, makes a better NPC.  What the game really could do with instead of these is a solid Face class like Shadowrun has.

Over-specialisation might be a theme, in fact.  The Hacker is a vast improvement on the Netrunner, but in the game we played the Tech was able to do plenty of hacking without dominating the session and still having other options.  The Driver doesn't have the flexibility of Shadowrun's Rigger.

There are some solid options in the Infiltrator, Soldier and Tech, but overall a smaller number of more flexible playbooks would make for a better game.

I also wasn't entirely sold on the planning and action phases.  While I can see that the planning phase that consists pretty much entirely of making some dice rolls to acquire the Gear and Intel currencies is intended to prevent the game turning into a strategic planning meeting, the way Shadowrun seems prone to doing, it's difficult to get your head around as it doesn't seem to involve any actual roleplay, and isn't that why we're all here with our pencils and dice?  The way Blades in the Dark handles this with flashbacks is in my opinion a much better way to avoid extended planning sessions.

All the same, a well run game of The Sprawl can easily hit all the cyberpunk notes and tell a fun story without the rules getting in the way too much.  It brings some of the Cyberpunk 2020 nostalgia with significantly less mathematics to work out if you're dead or not.  A lot of love has been put into this game.  It's just not as good as it could be.

Conclusion

I love cyberpunk enough to overlook the flaws with both these systems, and would enthusiastically sign up to play The Sprawl if I saw it offered at a convention.  What I'd actually recommend though...

There's not a huge amount of cyberpunk games out there.  I've never played Corporation or GURPS Cyberpunk (although I am familiar with the story of how the latter was the target of a Secret Service raid, and if that's not a plot hook I don't know what is.) The only other game I've played is Shadowrun, and while I'm not personally a fan, if you don't have the same, "Ew, you got elves in my dystopia" reaction to the urban fantasy elements of Shadowrun, it's a better game than both of these.

But the cyberpunk game I really want, the one that I hope is going to fix everything that's wrong with every other cyberpunk game I've encountered, is Null Vector.  It's the cyberpunk hack of Blades in the Dark that everyone and their dice have been waiting for since 2015.  It was apparently in alpha at the end of 2018, and according to people who can see the backer-only kickstarter updates there's going to be a preview available in November.

While I've had a bunch of fun with PBTA games, for mission-based gaming I've found the Forged in the Dark system to be absolutely superior, and I can only hope that John Harper won't keep us all waiting too much longer.

But that life path generator?  Still gold.  Use it.