TMFD

I WAS A GOBLIN: In Which I Was Actually A Goblin

I was suspicious of Live Action Role Playing for a long time. I had three excellent reasons: it couldn’t possibly work, it verged dangerously close to SPORTS, and most of all White Dwarf strongly hinted it was a stupid idea. At the time I took White Dwarf very seriously. There was a whole underworld of role-playing fanzines who saw White Dwarf as the enemy of all that was righteous in the hobby, intent on straitjacketing the minds of infant games with their barely disguised pimping of glossy, shallow Games Workshop products. These fanzines were broadly right. But I didn’t read them: as far I was concerned, the Dwarf was mega and skill.

Games Workshop – White Dwarf’s publishers (hence the pimping) – had placed certain bets on the direction the HOBBY OF THE 80S was going to swing in. Their bets involved carefully painted dioramas rather than minibus rides to wet caves, so the magazine spent a lot of time taking the piss out of LARP. Some of this was also the unslakable thirst of the nerd to find someone they can look down on – sad we may be, but we don’t wave rubber swords around (we only paint lead ones). And some of it, it must be said, was justified. Like a lot of geek businesses in the 80s, LARP attracted a few thrusting young Thatcherites whose bold entrepreneurial spirit was matched only by their willingness to scarper with the money at the first opportunity. It gained a reputation for spivviness. more »

Tom in TMFD • 8 Comments

The Levellers

I wrote a post before. in the “I Was A Goblin” series, about how the Dungeons & Dragons concept of player “levels” and “levelling up” was an innovation which became hardwired into pretty much every game since. That was back in 2006 or so. Now we’re seeing a lot of talk about how the priciples and mechanics of gaming can be transferred into everyday life – see this blog post on the “Decade of Gaming” for an excitable* example.

I have another blog where I can dig into the details and issues around that, but I thought it would be interesting on Freaky Trigger to delve a little into the history of the “levels” idea. So this is a bundling of sources – comments from anyone who can fill in more or have other ideas would be extremely welcome.

A brief recap of what we’re talking about – “level” is used in multiple senses in games: to talk about player rank, specific game areas, and the ambient level of challenge in the game universe. We’re interested here in personal ranking. The idea is that a player (or avatar) earns points through successfully carrying out actions or tasks: get enough points and you go up a level, which generally involves an increase in your in-game abilities or access to new ones. So where does that come from? more »

Tom in TMFD • 14 Comments

Why Capello really dropped John Terry

Of the thousands and thousands of words that have been written about The John Terry Situation this week, Louise Taylor’s ridiculously florid piece in the guardian on Wednesday which starts:

Fabio Capello’s still somewhat limited English vocabulary may not yet incorporate the term “invidious position”

must have been the turning point where Fabio decided that he had to go. Not because of Ms Taylor herself, but, I think, because of the following piece of genius from Freaky Trigger’s very own Patron Saint of Sport, Lord Harry of Bassett:

Dave Bassett endorsed [Glenn] Roeder’s view that a Rubicon has been crossed. “The problem is John Terry’s a wrong-un. He’s masquerading as one of the chaps but he ain’t because this shouldn’t happen,” the former Wimbledon and Sheffield United manager said. “Of course you have players misbehaving when they’re married. But they aren’t doing it to a team-mate’s missus. That’s off bounds.

“It sticks in the throat. There’s an unwritten rule that you don’t start messing with players’ missuses. I’ve had players who have left their missus or had bits and pieces on the side but they’ve not gone off with a team-mate’s bird. That’s crossing a line and where it comes unstuck with Terry. I don’t recollect it in all my years in football.

Gawd Bless yer Harry!

CarsmileSteve in FT /TMFD • 2 Comments

The Most Important Game Ever Made #23: Druuuuuuuuugs

Been away for a while and will probably be away for a while longer, but I have a brief window to advance this now-glacial series a little further. So then, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds:

William Shatner’s version, given a little extra ‘treatment’ for the YouTube generation by videoist Paul Heriot. I remember Lee and Herring describing this as Shatner believing that he had to be on LSD in order to sing the song, and Heriot certainly seems to be running with that ball (and also the Star Elephant that will forever be in any room Shatner inhabits). Personally, I love Shatner’s vocals and I think this might be the perfect song for his somewhat unique stylings… but this is a series about Beatles Rock Band and not Shatner Session Band so we’ll move on.

more »

Vic Fluro in FT /TMFD • 1 Comment

Baseball roundup

I’ve left it a little late, huh? The season could be over tonight, around 11pm. That’s Eastern Standard Time, Bronx Time, the time at Yankee Stadium, where the World Series returns this evening after a brief and inconclusive middle eight in Philadelphia. But now we come back to the chorus, the refrain heard so often in early autumn: the Yankees are about to win the World Series.

It’s enough to set your teeth on edge. The privileged golden boys of baseball – Derek Jeter, Andy Pettite, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and his mentor Joe Girardi – all of these guys first won the World Series way back in 1997, when owner George Steinbrenner was still giving great quote to reporters, when the World Trade Center was still standing, when the Yankees were still on WPIX every day through the summer and the “YES Network” (“Yankees Entertainment Sports”) was still just an agitprop gleam in Steinbrenner’s crinkly eye. more »

Elisha Sessions in FT /TMFD • 7 Comments

Films Are Short – GET A NEW BLADDER

Things I have never really understood.

a) Pies at football
b) People going to the toilet during a movie

Both of these are predicated on the same issue really. Football matches take less than two hours. They take place, usually, in the afternoon – cannily timed between usual meal times. And yet at half time there are queues for the pie stall you cannot believe. You would think they were knocking out tubs of Ambrosia (foor of gods not rice pudding) for the stampede for a piss poor Pukka. Can’t you wait or do you have to graze at every opportunity?*

Ditto, films are usually about two hours long. I was taught, post potty training, how to hold it in for at least that long. Perhaps you had a few beers beforehand, perhaps you are drinking a VAT of coke. Perhaps this will add strain but you only have yourself to blame. Nevertheless for NAMBY PAMBIES with peanut sized bladders there is now a useful i-Phone App. Introducing RunPee: an application that tells you the best time in a film to have a wee. HAS IT COME TO THIS? more »

Pete Baran in FT /TMFD • 7 Comments

I Hate Andy Murray

Andy Murray chastises a tennis ball

During Wimbledon’s inaugural set of night-time tennis on Monday night, played under what’s become the most famous roof since the Sistine Chapel, I found that I loathe every particle of Andy Murray.

Now, I realize Andy Murray is a professional athlete. Macho theatrics and being as interesting as a pile of firewood come with the territory. But Wimbledon is not just a collection of freakishly fit young adults whacking things between each other, it’s a drama, and in this drama he pushes buttons I didn’t even know I possessed. more »

Elisha Sessions in FT /TMFD • 68 Comments

Its Not Just Cricket, Its Maths!

I cannot say I was over the moon when the Netherlands beat England in the opening game of the 20 20 World Cup.Clearly as a neutral it is great when a minnow beats a big gun, especially when said big gun is hosting the tournament. To win such a game at the “Home Of Cricket” is even more exceptional. However I am not a neutral, I want England to do well, and thus I could appreciate the excitement of the result, it felt horrible, we looked like we were going out.

Last night however, when England beat Pakistan comfortably I felt a little robbed of a close game. more »

Pete Baran in FT /TMFD • 2 Comments

Suspicious? Don’t be ridiculous!

Two recent results from the South African Vodacom Second Division:

Young Pirates 2 Real Madrid (not that Real Madrid) 26

Namaqua Stars 50 Kakamus Cosmos 0

Extraordinarily, the South African FA is suspicious, and is investigating. They’ve already suspended all the match officials. My favourite bit, from this story from Kick Off, is from the spokesman for Namaqua Stars: “It’s quite possible to get 50 goals in one match. I wasn’t at the match, but the score at half-time was around 25-0. It is a genuine result, not fake, but we are concerned because how can Real Madrid score 26 times against such a good side as Pirates?”

Yes, 25-0 at half-time explains it all.

Martin Skidmore in TMFD • 2 Comments

Blind swordsmen are like football teams with ten men

Hard to beat. Love and Honour the sadly generically titled final film in Yôji Yamada’s samurai trilogy is a sedate, old fashioned tale which features a blind swordsman. The ICA for some reason had to show it on DVD, whose reduced resolution made it look like a fifties Japanese film, which was exactly how it felt (like a low powered Ozu). This is no Zatoichi though. Instead we have a court food taster who ingests a bit of poison and it removes the power of sight. A few rumours and a wife needing to do what they can to survive and this peon finds himself committing to a battle for honour with a local samurai.

As we reached the climatic battle, and all the training sequences showed just how hard it is to fight someone when blind, I thought it might be the antidote to Zatoichi. The food taster wasn’t that handy with a sword in the first place, so by rights he should have been diced to pieces. SPOILERS: more »

Pete Baran in Do You See /TMFD • 3 Comments