Where Worlds Collide

“Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends…” Yes, it’s that time of the week again, so it’s time for Carnival of the Vanities!, hosted this week by Greeblie Blog.

This week’s Game WISH is about Campaign Styles

Do you prefer campaigns to be limited-plot, with a definite ending, or open-ended, so that they can continue indefinitely? What about things like “convention campaigns” where people meet irregularly to pick up old characters and game together? What are the pros and cons of each sort of game? Which is more common in your gaming experience?

I see three forms of game structure:

Over the years I’ve had experiences of all three; there was the long-running AD&D Spelljammer “Vikings in Space” which fizzled out before any final conclusion, my equally long-running GURPS Kalyr game which did reach a final conclusion after 5 years, and an largely episodic Runequest game. Since then much of my off-line gaming has been convention-style one-shots.

I have some experience of “convention campaign” games; so far I’ve played three day-long sessions of an interdimensional Fudge-based game called “Guardians of Dimension”, and expect to play a fourth this Easter. On-line games are different again; most have been of the ‘open-ended’ format, even though a typical long-running PBeM or message board game only gets though as much actual plot as a convention one-shot. So far I’ve only ever played in a single on-line game that’s run to a conclusion, all others have either fizzled out or are still continuing, although many ran for two or three years before folding.

My preferences are for games that come to some sort of conclusion, either one-shots or short, focussed campaigns. If I want something long-term I’ll go for an episodic format, but I do find one of the big advantages of one-shots is that they give the opportunity to play in a lot of different genres.

Patrick Crozier has already outlined what he might do if he ran a railway company. Here’s what I might do if I ran one:

• I would make my timetable robust, optimising for reliability and punctuality. This means I will not attempt to run any services that I didn’t have the rolling stock, the staff and the track capacity to run reliably.
• When obtaining new rolling stock I will never entertain the idea of ordering large fleets of new trains of a totally untried design straight off the drawing board, with the whole lot due for delivery before the manufacturers have time to iron out the bugs in the design.
• When taking delivery of new trains I will not dispose of the old ones they replace until I am totally satisfied with the performance of the new trains. Even then I will keep some older trains in reserve in case of unforseen problems or sudden increases in traffic.
• I will paint my trains in a livery that cries “train”, rather than try to pretend that my trains are buses or aircraft. I will also make every effort to keep them clean both inside and out.
• I will foster a pride, loyalty and ‘can do’ attitude amongst my staff. I particular I will listen to any new ideas any of them come up with rather than have a ‘thats the way we’ve always done it’ culture.
• I will consider radical new means of ticketing, such as smart cards for regular passengers that respond to transponders on the trains themselves. If these systems prove successful I will encourage their adoption thoughout the industry, especially for operators that share routes or provide connections with my own trains. However, if David Blunkett asks me to link these smart cards with his stupid national ID card I will tell him to bugger off in no uncertain terms!
• I will build partnerships with other business whose customers are also my passengers wherever both parties benefit from such an approach.
• I will have a positive attitude towards rail enthusiasts and the preservation movement.
• If a public body such as a local government is prepared to give me a subsidy for a service that would otherwise not be economic for me to operate I would take the money!

More musical musings: how many original members does a band need to still be considered the original band?

There are an awful lot of acts from the 60s and 70s that are still recording and touring, despite the fact that only two or three members of their most successful lineups remain. I’ve heard some people describe the current lineup of Uriah Heep (with only guitarist Mick Box and drummer Lee Kerslake from their 70s peak lineup) as ‘a tribute band with a couple of original members’, which I consider a little unfair, although the current lineup does lack the original frontman (the late David Byron) and the original main songwriter (Ken Hensley). However, the current lineup has now been together for more than sixteen years, half their thirty-two year existance!

Similarly, Blue Öyster Cult were known as “Two Oyster Cult” when reduced to just Eric Bloom and Don “Buck Dharma” Roeser plus three new guys, although Allen Lanier has since rejoined.

How much does it really matter? When you go so see Uriah Heep, Blue Öyster Cult or Deep Purple, what are you going for? Is it to see a particular bunch of guys perform, or is it to hear their music performed? I say this because I’ve seen all three bands perform in the past couple of years, and have enjoyed all three. However, one of the best shows I’ve seen all year has been by The Musical Box, a Canadian tribute band reproducing Genesis’ 1973 tour!

Noted game designer Greg Costikyan has a brand-new weblog focusing, naturally, on game design.

Andrea Harris explains why Lord of the Rings is so much better than Star Wars.

Dazzling special effects are no longer sufficient to hide a weak storyline from the audience. The storyline in Lord of the Rings exposes the Star Wars “mythos” as a randomly pasted-up pastiche of old fifties sci-fi, Saturday matinee serials, rescue-the-princess fairy tales, and badly-digested kung-fu-movie pseudo-mysticism.

I thought Star Wars was just an entertaining film, and nothing more. There’s no deep philosophical meaning, and no consistant worldbuilding behind the scenes. But there was never meant to be.

Anyone that tries to make sense of the “Star Wars Universe” as a coherent world deserves to spend eternity trying to make sense of the continuity of Dr.Who.

On the other hand, LOTR was Prof. Tolkien’s life’s work. And it shows.

There’s a new left-wing British political blog on the Blogosphere, filling what seems to be a gap in the market - politX - vote hard, vote often,

I haven’t blogged about music for a while - time to rectify that!

I’ve been listening to Tommy Bolin’s two solo albums, “Teaser” and “Private Eyes” recently, and it’s becoming clear what bugs me about Tommy Bolin’s sole studio contribution to the Deep Purple canon, the 1976 album “Come Taste the Band”.

The two Bolin albums, especially “Teaser”, released while he was still in Purple are choppy funk-rock. Meanwhile David Coverdale, as demonstrated by his later solo albums and with the earlier incarnation of Whitesnake (forget the late 80s MTV hair-metal version of that band!) was more into Hammond-heavy blues-rock. “Come Taste the Band” is an unhappy mix of these two styles, which for me is why the album as a whole doesn’t quite work for me. Some songs, such as “Dealer”, “Love Child” and “I Need Love” sound to me like bits of songs from “Teaser” and “Lovehunter” crudely chopped up and spliced together! The songs which do work, such as “Lady Luck”, “Drifter” and “You Keep On Moving” are where one style (Coverdale’s) predominates.

Saying that, “Teaser” and the heavier follow-up “Private Eyes” are fine albums, and it’s a pity Bolin’s career was tragically cut short by drug abuse; it’s just he was the wrong choice for Purple.

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened had Purple either chosen someone else, or sacked Bolin (and Glenn Hughes) in 1976. I’m guessing we’d have ended up with something much like early 80s Whitesnake, only with a flashier guitarist. Who was available in 1976? What about Gary Moore? Just what would a David Coverdale - Jon Lord - Ian Paice - Gary Moore - Neil Murray lineup have sounded like?

Patrick Crozier of Transport Blog describes how he’d run a railway. I’m not sure about this bit:

So, tickets and stations. Al Gore said “Every vote must be counted.” I say “Every ticket must be checked.” At the start and end of every journey. It is not simply a matter of preventing fare evasion. Manned stations show that you care about your property and passengers. They also have a role to play in curbing crime and other forms of anti-social behaviour. If I cannot staff a station (even temporarily) then I will not stop at it. If it means asking passengers to get off at a nearby station and putting them in taxis, so be it. If there is a station that proves persistently difficult to staff then I will close it down.

I can’t imagine CrozierRail operating anything outside major conurbations like that. While staffing every station at all times is ideal, in my book an unstaffed station is better than no station. Dumping passengers at the previous stop and sending them in taxis is the sort of nonsense Virgin Trains is rightly castigated for. And I personally find “open stations” where you don’t have to queue at a ticket barrier a far more pleasant passenger environment.

Checking tickets is another matter, but it’s possible to do that on board the train. It’s something some operators seem to be able to do perfectly well, even if others, such as Thames Trains, can’t be bothered.

As for having a staff presence at lesser-used stations, perhaps CrozierRail (or for that matter any real train companies) should look at what happens in Switzerland. I’ve seen some little-used local stations where you buy tickets from the conductor on the train with well-maintained buildings complete with hanging baskets full of flowers! How do they manage this? By renting the station houses to retired railwaymen. The ultimate example of this was Blausee-Mitholz on the BLS between Frutigen and Kandersteg; the station is still immaculately-maintained even though no trains stop there!

Sad news for class 50 fans. After spending several years slowly rusting away in a Sheffield scrapyard, No 50001 “Dreadnought” has been cut up for scrap. Only twenty-two (at the last count) of the fifty locomotives built now survive, not bad for a class of locomotive officially retired ten years ago. Most of those are in working order, and several are main-line certified.

I took this picture of 50001 hauling an empty ballast train back in 1989, just after the rundown of the class had commenced.