A mug's game?

If your electoral system was a game system, which would it be? And would you play it?

To set the ball rolling, for the UK, I might say first edition Warhammer Roleplay - a great tone and huge influence, but an official development that narrowed fast and a slow death.

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Chess scenarios (2) - Viva La

Another scenario in the series of alternate chess setups. Like the first, this one is also fairly obvious, but it's worth pointing out that the pawns are played with their colour, so the two sides really are in contact already and the pawns a step away from promotion.

It's a reflection of general understanding of what revolution is, a bloody process unlikely to change the underpinnings of a system. That could mean it's now an unlikely event, and that today's revolutions may be internally transformative, growing out from within.

That could mean many revolutions, some of them more like the one shown in that chess game in the Doctor Who story "The Curse of Fenric", in which the colours work together.

In play then, assuming that the black king isn't in check yet owing to the need to protect the white, tactically white and black each have just a single initial option for survival, and strategically the game quickly becomes one of dynamic reordering. Thoughts welcome.

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Odcházení

Václav Havel passed away today. I've not mentioned a death here that I can remember, but I'm doing it now for how relevant he could be to wargamers, roleplayers and writers.

That said of course, in general anyone who helps bring a community together to tackle a violent domination, and does so through art, who keeps going despite a clear danger of personal loss and harm, who takes high office and appoints Frank Zappa as a special ambassador on trade, culture and tourism has a life that rewards reflection, and all in.
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Mary, Mary, quite contrary...

This is the first of two loosely linked posts, inspired by other blogs, real world events and Ms Shelley. This post has the short forms and the next will have some ideas for gaming.

Number one is for this week's Flash Fearsday, an attempt at horror in 140 characters.

Orchards, greenhouses and potting sheds; warm earths and leafy beds... 

As they stalk freezer drawers, of what do Frankenstein foods dream..?

The second is for the last Expansion Joints, which is 15 words, one of them shock.

Shock! Sparks fly; a monster born. Doomed to destruction!

But how if made of men?

It could be taken as scathing commentary, but if The Telegraph got there first, is it..?

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Review - Minority Report

What an interesting film this is. I deliberately catch up with big movies and books years after release so it was the first time I'd seen it. I think a delay helps balance the gadgets and gimmicks better with the more subtle themes, and this seems like a film to benefit.

On the whole I enjoyed it. In terms of inspiration it's got lots to take away. The concept and accumulation of detail are impressive, exactly as we'd expect, although for me it's not as profound as it seems to want us to think it is and there's plenty that doesn't work, is too loose, oddly tired or silly, and all the obvious laughs felt somehow out of place.

It does still manage to surprise though, on many levels, and there's a feeling of a natural development despite the railroading, with plenty of observations to make and layers to peel back. I'm still thinking about the construction, the relationships of the characters, the painful ambiguity, especially of the ending, and the very human, honest approach.

Appropriately, given the water theme, it's the immersion in the world that really grabbed me, though more the subjective world or worlds of the central figures than what I saw as a rather uneven near future setting. It also has one of the best shots I can remember in a blockbuster, downstairs at the hotel, 10 to 15 perfectly realised seconds of cinema.

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Character building

Another day, another discursive Bell of Lost Souls discussion. This time a good post by Just_Me on creating new characters in 40K runs into roleplaying - not as regular a theme as the past two days would suggest - old sourcebooks, Dune and geopolitics.

Meet the new boss?

It's hard to follow current events without thinking about the ordinary, everyday and routine whirling into the extraordinary, and why and how this happens. It's something we all face, albeit on a far lesser scale, when we refuse to accept a thing and set events in motion to change it, whether planned or in the heat of the moment. We might break delicate balances, cause distinct worlds to merge, make ourselves and others highly uncomfortable in the short term.

Looked at like this, gaming seems even more like escapism, with a relatively ordered situation, clear rules, perhaps a top-down view and a cool head while the characters and models are driven on into the crucible on our behalf. Why do we get this luxury? Didn't a wargame ought to show us too more war, or a roleplaying game force us into what could suddenly look a less appealing role? After all, the fun will always come, at the very least, in knowing we can make a nice cup of tea at the end, leave it all behind. In that light, why not put ourselves through a more real grinder, why not live the game more?

The high frontier

A lot has been said about spaceflight over the past few days. That's understandable, but there's much else that isn't. For example, why we are still here. For anyone interested in our potential, and how we squander it through short-termism and little in the way of informed discussion, I point to a timely post at Beyond Apollo.

I found the link in the exchange at this article, which is a good look at the detail of the present moment; be sure to read the comments too.

If you didn't read this text via the Star Maker post, you might well be in the mood now.

Story arc

Last month I suggested looking into legend, myth and history when creating scenarios in wargaming, roleplaying and writing. Here's an example, a great story arc that almost comes full circle. It looks fantasy but is just as easily sci-fi, or horror. Do you recognise it?

In a war-wracked land an illiterate shepherdess is brought up in a deeply religious home. She has visions at the age of 12; saints tell her she will lead the armies of the occupied nation, drive the invader from the realm and bring the rightful king to coronation. She is shown how to achieve this and takes a vow of chastity.

At the age of 16 the time has come. A relative drives her to a friendly garrison where she asks to be taken before the heir. She is turned away. Almost a year later she returns, to prophesy an imminent military defeat. News comes that the battle is lost; the shepherdess is escorted on the long journey to the royal candidate.

Big beasts

I don't do politics here, and definitely not party politics, but this post at Gene Expression hits above the belt. Can it be true?

If it is, I have a funny feeling I'm so conservative I'm actually liberal. Which is to say I'm so liberal I'm conservative. The spectrum's really a colour wheel after all. If not a sphere. Or a hypersphere.

We are large, we contain multitudes.