Anyway... after a long time away from this place I have returned to post the kind of things that Livejournal has become known for: whining that is too long for either Facebook or Google+.
Last night we had our weekly gaming night and got to play For Sale, Funny Friends and Race for the Galaxy. And it was a mostly dry and boring affair. This made me realise two things:
1. I need a fun gaming night once a week to unwind and relax. Without it, I'm bored, tense and whiny at work. 2. There are games, where playing to win or even playing most efficiently and effectively does not generate a particularly entertaining experience.
Case in point, we played a three-player game of For Sale, which is a blind bidding game. It's a filler game that shouldn't take more than 30 minutes and should be a laugh. I was stuck with two players who focussed on calculating their maximum bid for strategic effectiveness to maximize their victory points. A legitimate strategy, sure... but also a painfully dull and uninteresting one. There could be bluffing, goading or even teasing to make the game more interesting.. instead we were just bidding silently and picking up cards. Because apparently, that's how games are played now.
A fourth player joined us, as we wrapped up the game and we followed up For Sale with Funny Friends, which is essentially a nerdy and funnier version of Game of Life. It's a card game where you try to achieve certain Life Goals by adapting your life to qualify for them. One of my Life Goals was to be a single & happy, which required me to not be in a relationship, have some money, have some drugs and not be unhappy. (All qualities which you can influence during the game by playing certain events.) It's a funny game, where the various events end up creating sometimes hillarious narratives of a person's life. We had one "neutral character" (not played by another player) who ended up in a relationship with every one of us during the course of the game. And again, the other players were aggressively pursuing their goals to race to the finishing line. I think that the game invites and encourages players to just take funny detours with their characters, and make them do things because they are just fun (like joining a Bible class to steal somebody else's girlfriend). But sadly, none of this seemed to interest the rest of the group. What makes it all so discouraging is the realisation that none of them seem to acknowledge this part of gaming (creating a narrative as you play, infused by the social dynamics of the group) as something valuable or something to play towards. I think to them it's just something that happens accidentally during a game and they're happy when it does. But they don't really care if it doesn't... or worse, they blame the game design for it.
We wrapped things up with a game of Race for the Galaxy, which as you can probably guess, was right up their alley. No meaningful interaction, only the most rudimentary elements of narrative building and a race towards victory points. A game that is built around the idea of playing efficiently and strategically, and purposefully ignores the social dimension of playing games together.
Because as I've learned, there's little that's less fun and depressing than going to a great gathering of people, and wandering around the hallways on your own.
Why isn't anybody talking about Ashes to Ashes? This has got to be one of the most intense and fun surreal shows on TV right now.
It beats Lost at its own game. I'm really excited about next week's final episode. If it really does wrap up both Life on Mars and itself, it might just get me to buy all seasons on DVD, just because it is so fantastic.
Being bored... I had a look at the Torchwood pilot. I don't think I've heard anybody actually recommend it, but I wanted some Who-methadone.
The episode didn't start out too bad. There were some cheesy moments here and there... but the ending... was quite crap. Random death, that's less shocking and grave (like it would be in most Who episodes) but simply feels cheap.
And what's with characters standing on top of buildings looking into the distance? It doesn't make any sense. And I don't even mean plot-wise or plausibility-wise (although the last scene was weird).
It just seems so casually pointless on a narrative level.
Just finished Series 4 of (new) Doctor Who. It was... well... something. Good bits, mixed in with atrocious bits. Still not as bad as the end of Series 3.
Looking forward to the Specials. I caught Waters on Mars when I was in Spain and hope to get through the rest before the end of the month. Despite a lot of hokeyness it is a fun show.
So.. I've been rapidly making my way through the first two Tennant series of Doctor Who and must say I quite enjoyed it.
Human Nature/Family of Blood was quite touching and Blink was - despite the hype - really fantastic. Unfortunately that made Utopia/Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords seem even more cheesy than it might have on its own. What an embarassing ending to a series. The Doctor floating through the air, radiating, forgiving his nemesis while humanity chants his name and choirs are singing.
It was really quite... a shoegazing moment.
Anyway. Have had a quick look at the Doctor Who RPG (which might have started my interest in the series) and I'm starting to get the feeling that it's a very glossy, very offical but not particularly well designed game. Basically a reskinned, generic RPG. With some remarkably bad GM advice. My "favourite" being: Try to avoid clichés. In a roleplaying game! IN A DOCTOR WHO ROLEPLAYING GAME!!
And don't get me started on the ten pages wasted on explaining that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. As if that was something that people didn't know, or as if that distinction would be of any help to a GM who is actually trying to figure out why the game drags or is over too quickly.
Oh... and a point buy system for character creation. Quite possibly the worst way to make characters. The illusion of creative freedom placed under arbitrary point limit restrictions. ("You can't be that attractive, unless you get some drawback... like forgetful or impulsive. So you have the points to do buy the attractive trait.")
I'm kind of guessing that the game works if played as freeform RPG with some story points occasionally changing hands to push one idea or another, and adding some dice rolls whenever people can't agree what should happen next, or don't care one way or another. Not sure why you would need more than 40 pages for that. Maybe another 50 pages for pictures and inspirational... puns.
I'm starting to get a little disappointed with Dollhouse. There are some interesting ideas buried in there, but something just feels off about the whole thing. It's like the entire show has a self-defeating approach to its own ideas.
annoyed
hopeful
excited
cheerful
free-falling
disappointed
confused
amused