/var/log/orava

DNS blackout

Seems my registrar’s DNS servers (nameresolve.com, via Dotster) were on the blink yesterday – they had to do an IP switch, and due to DNS cache propagation orava.org was unresolvable for a while. It seems to be working again now for me, but of course that depends on where you are and what nameserver you’re using.

Bit of bad timing there, the huge Ropecon VTES tournament is on Friday and I have a lot of prep (pre-registrations etc) to take care of. Here’s hoping things will be stable now.

Minireview: Mandatory Mission Pack (Paranoia)

The somewhat misleadingly named Mandatory Mission Pack is actually a collection of various NPCs, places and events to use in generating encounters etc on the fly in a Paranoia game. There’s a list of various briefing rooms, briefing officers, hallways, secret society orders, etc. Some of them are so-so, but most are wonderfully bizarre and fun. In any case, it’s a fairly thin book but also a cheap one, so pretty good bang for the buck here.

Together with this and some of the other “random mission blender” stuff in earlier supplements, you could probably run a Paranoia mission with minimal prep time. Of course, the main use for this is as an “emergency idea resource” for those times when the players do something unexpected and you’re having problems with coming up with something suitably cool on the fly. Just say “wait a sec”, run to the bookshelf, pick a random item from the relevant section, and you’re good to go. Well, in theory at least.

Water + electronics = sad car

I’ve been trying to get my Peugeot 306 Cabriolet roof to work for a while now. It used to work, though not quite reliably. Some months ago the roof stopped working for good, so I sent it to the dealer’s for some debugging. After poking around a bit, they charged me 200e to tell me that the control unit is probably shot and that an official spare would cost 1400e(!). So I said “no thanks”, and started gathering info for a DYI attempt.

The whole thing is an electro-hydraulic system, where a small control box in the trunk checks various inputs (are the windows open, is the motor running, etc) and if everything looks good tells a hydraulic pump (also in trunk) to do its thing. The dealership guys said that they had checked the wiring and contacts as such, so I took them for their word: the control box is the likely culprit.

Well, even though there aren’t many of these cars in Finland, turns out there’s a big user group in the UK and the thing is apparently pretty popular with hobbyists. Thanks to the kind folks at peugeot306cabrioletclub.co.uk, I quickly managed to track down a seller on eBay with a spare control box (ecu) for sale and some moments later I was somewhat under 200e poorer and had a new control box coming my direction in the mail. Something in that price range I can take a chance on, unlike the official spare part price… and hey, it’s not like it’s an especially complex piece of electronics. The users group also provided me with links to wiring diagrams etc, should I need those.

The thing arrived some days ago, and yesterday I opened up the control mechanisms in the trunk and took a try at swapping modules, since the weather was good and I felt like poking around. Due to the slightly cramped space, unscrewing the original module was a bit of a pain… but once I did that, I at once noticed something in the “hmmm” department: the old control unit was leaking water. In fact, the whole box was full of water, and surprise surprise totally corroded inside. Explains why the thing refused to work, and why it had been acting flaky for a long time.

Turns out that some Einstein had attached the box the wrong way at some point, with the wiring-side up. This makes swapping wiring easier, but it also turns the box into one big plastic cup. Combine that with torrential rains some time ago and some small leakage in the hood, and voila, we have a mini-swimming pool instead of a control unit.

All this has a happy end, for now: once I swapped the replacement unit in, the roof started working at once. I wasn’t quite expecting that, I was pretty sure I’d have to go through the wiring also… but hey, not complaining. I also attached the new unit the correct way round this time, so moisture should not pool inside. I’m not exactly sure where the trunk leaks, but it’s an old car and pretty much none of the seams are at 100% anymore. Moisture happens.

So, thanks to the wonders of the Interwebs (UK car group and eBay both), I now have a working convertible again. Whee!

Minireview: The End of Eternity (Pathfinder #22)

The End of Eternity (by Jason Nelson) is the fourth episode in the Legacy of Fire adventure path, and is also perhaps the best episode so far. Events take a sharp metaphorical left turn at the end of the last installment; this one happens entirely within an enclosed demiplane. Now, that can be good or bad, but in this case it’s pretty much all good. The demiplane involved is very cool and is essentially one big sandbox (literally, in parts) for the PCs to explore. Naturally enough, they need to figure out a way to escape… but thankfully that’s a puzzle with multiple solutions. Sure, there is a “most likely” way for them to get out, but plenty of other options are also presented.

The demiplane in question is an abandoned personal “resort space” of an ancient wizard, and as such contains plenty of bizarre features. As an added bonus, this back story makes for a good excuse for all that weirdness, which would not be very realistic elsewhere. Not that realism is even remotely something that D&D wants to be involved with, but still. Internal consistency is a good thing.

The only negative I can say about this section is that it requires some railroad in the previous episode, and also that it throws the PCs into something that’s quite different than what “they signed up for”. Most groups will consider this to be fine and have lots of fun with this… but someone may of course disagree.

In a way, this episode reminded me of Exalted. The demiplane shown here has many features that would be right at home in an Exalted game. I consider this praise.

Minireview: House of Suns, by Alastair Reynolds

Reynolds is a weird writer. Not in what he writes – it’s fairly straightforward modern huge-scale “space opera”, in the style of Iain M. Banks and others. Weird in that he seems to polarize opinions a lot, without any (to me) clear reason as to why that is. I love his books, as do many others. However, I know many people who more or less can’t stand his books. I’m not sure why that is exactly, but it’s something to do with his characters I think. Now, he has always been an “ideas writer” (and oh boy, what ideas), while his characterization has been at best “ok”. Like early Arthur C. Clarke, his characters tend to be fairly two-dimensional, and when he does try to make them more interesting the results can be mixed. Now, I’m ok with that, his ideas are just so good that I’m willing to forgive some bland characters – but maybe some other people are much more sensitive to that. Dunno.

In any case, Alastair Reynolds is one of the few modern-day writers who can elicit a true sense-of-wonder feeling in me. He writes in the large (huge!) scale, and is fascinated by concepts like Deep Time (what happens to civilizations and sometimes individuals when the time scales examined stretch to millions of years). A lot of his books go in the “transhumanist” genre, i.e. how much can humans adapt and change while still being “human” on some scale. It’s heady stuff. Well, to me at least.

His latest novel, House of Suns, is a worthy addition to his line of books. In fact, I’d rate it among his best works, if not quite the best. It’s set in its own universe, distinct from the “Revelation Space” books… probably. It could be argued that it might be set in the same universe, but due to the viewpoint in the book that does not really matter.

The story concerns an “illegitimate” couple, Campion and Purslane, who are decendants… or actually, clones of one Abigail Gentian. You see, way back when Abigail decided to clone herself into 1,000 copies and start wandering the universe at a spread-out “cloud” of “identical” people. She wasn’t the only one to do so, and these “Lines” form a galactic power block at the time the story takes place (which is millions of years after the first cloning). Millions in absolute terms anyway, though for the clones it has “only” been some tens of thousands of years of relativistic time. They are not immortal, but it’s close. Campion and Purslane are breaking one of Abigail’s original edicts by sleeping together, a taboo of sorts… and one they expect to get punished for, soon.

Every once in a long while, the whole Gentian Line meets up and exchanges memories and other things. The next meet is approaching. Campion and Purslane hurry to make the rendezvous but are sidetracked by… an event, which leaves them host to Hesperus, one of the Machine People. After that, they get a message, one that makes it clear that someone is trying to kill off the whole Gentian Line… and they are next.

After that, things get complicated. The story is interspesed here and there by Abigail’s memories, recounting hes childhood and events that made her make the leap into infinity.

It’s a great book, featuring Reynolds trademark immense time spans and lots of musing on what it may tak e for a civilization to survive in the long run. Modern-day humanity may imagine it’s been on the planet and “civilized” for ages now, but really, that time is a gnat’s eyeblink in galactic (or even “geological”) terms. How does one survive as a coherent civilization for 100,000 years? A million years? Ten million? Can you engineer a society for that? Must you?

The very end is maybe a tiny bit anticlimactic compared to the buildup, but at the same time it’s very fitting… so I can’t complain about it much.

People who already like Reynolds should love this. People who dislike his books won’t find anything here to change their minds, I suspect.

Minireview: Hunter: the Vigil

I’m actually glad that Hunter: the Vigil wasn’t the first “monster hunter” game White Wolf came up with. Even though this game is actually what most people wanted the first time round, Hunter: the Reckoning did end up as an underappreciated gem and a very neat game of monster hunting with some unconventional features. It was also extremely dark and nihilistic, making the new Hunter: the Vigil almost shiny & happy by comparison. But only by comparison… this is a fairly grim game also, starring people who hunt monsters and usually pay a high price for doing so.

As far as I can figure, this is the first White Wolf roleplaying game which has “normal people” as PCs . Sure, you could argue that the new WoD core rules plus the “generic” supplements are actually the first “mortals” game – and you would have a point. In any case, this is a first where a named group (“Hunters”, here) is not endowed with supernatural powers… except that some of them are. Let me explain.

Hunter: the Vigil is a toolbox game about monster hunting. As part of that “toolbox”, you’re given three different “levels” of running a game. At the lowest level, you just have a group of people who have encountered something supernatural and have decided (or been forced to) deal with it. The second involves more organized groups of hunters, here called “compacts”, which provide for local-scale groups of organized monster hunters. Last, we have some global-scale monster hunter groups, here called “conspiracies”. At street level, the PCs will be free to do pretty much what they want, but will have very limited resources. At “conspiracy” level, they’ll have lots of resources (some supernatural) but will have at times extreme limits on what they are and aren’t allowed to do. You can also mix and match… start small, and slowly introduce larger “metaplot” if you want. I like this model, though it’s not the first time I’ve seen it (Unknown Armies had a very similar setup going).

The compacts and conspiracies presented here are a varied and interesting lot, especially if you take them as they are meant to be taken: as examples and ideas. If some of them don’t work for you, don’t use them. I personally loved the Ashwood Abbey, the Lucifuge and many others, while Strike Force: VALKYRIE came off more than a bit campy… but I can easily see using it in a slightly more tongue-in-cheek Buffy-style game. I guess that with work you could get it to work in a “deadly serious” context too, Delta Green style, but my first reaction was more in the “amused” category. Ashwood Abbey is great for being just so… weird. I mean, a bunch of aristocratic decadents hunting monsters “just for kicks”, while high on drugs or whatever? Priceless. Also, the Lucifuge is awesome for presenting a bunch of offspring of Lucifer ferchristsake (according to them)… who aren’t bad guys, quite the opposite. Oh, and there’s The Cheiron Group, for some Pentex-style action. It’s a very nice collection of extremely different groups, and showcases the game nicely. It’s also nice that not all of the groups presented here are “good guys”. Some of them operate in extremely grey moral areas, and some cross over at times into “bad guy” territory… but that depends on your viewpoint. There’s a lot of moral relativism going on here. For example… if you hunt witches using tools which are (objectively) supernatural, are you yourself any better?

As noted, Hunters are normal people who don’t have supernatural powers. Mostly. At the Conspiracy level, they can get access to some weird shit that is firmly in or close to the supernatural category. Biotech implants, weird military superscience, magic potions, ancient artifacts, prayers that work… all kinds of stuff. Of course, these toys come with lots of strings attached. Lots.

We get some new rules along with this book. Hunters have Tactics, which are codified group tactics which can be practiced and then performed out on the field, with nice results. These can be developed with “Practical Experience” points, which are gained alongside with normal Exp in the game. There are some tweaks to how Willpower is used and gained, encouraging Hunters to use a lot of Willpower (good choice, given that not using Willpower can sometimes mean a bloody death).

I really liked this game (and I also liked the original Hunter, which is a very different beast). This seems like an excellent basis for running “normal(ish) people fighting the supernatural” games, and those can be a ton of fun. Hell, watch a few episodes of Supernatural and you’re ready to rock. You could ask “why do I need this game, I already have the base WoD mortals rules?”. And you’d be right… you could run a monster hunting game with those rules and using many of the WoD sourcebooks. You get a lot of tools with this separate game book and a ton of fun ideas specific to a monster hunt game – but there is no reason you absolutely need this book. That said, I’d much rather use this that the code WoD for a game like that, simply because this game does a lot of groundwork for you and is full of really cool ideas.

The theme of this game is “light versus the darkness”, with the Hunters as the candles that shed some small limited light into the dark, hungry unknown. The subtitle “Vigil” refers to being guardians of humanity, standing guard and being awake while most sleep. It’s a nice symbolism.

Rick goes grunge

This made my day.

It’s not a Rickroll if you know about it. You have been duly warned.