The Stand Begins

The message board game based on The Stand is now running, and I've got my first player posting up! Since this game is just starting up, it's a good way for anyone that wonders what message board games are like, and how they work. It doesn't hurt that Amadan is a master GM.

This is my first player post

A week away from home. Bristol's short of drivers, and St.Blazey has no-one on leave this week. Since Ivor was passed for the Golden Valley route, he gets a week on 'foreign' diagrams. Today his duty includes the Swindon-Longbridge car parts.

It's still foggy when Ivor eases 66111 into the Rover Group sidings a mile east of Swindon station. He reflects on the fact that Swindon was once a major railway town, where they built the Castles, Kings and Westerns, but that's now history. The town is now part of 'silicon valley', full of IT-industry nerds.

He buffers up to the rake of shining red 'cubes', and waits for the shunter to couple up. Once done, he performs the obligatory brake continuity test, and slowly eases the train towards the connection with the main line. The signal is red, of course; passenger traffic on the main line has priority. Two early-morning London-bound HSTs sweep past in blurs of lights a few minutes apart, full of bleary-eyed commuters. Then the signal turns green, and Ivor opens up the power.

The sun tries breaking through the mists as Ivor approaches Swindon station on the down main. He seems the yellow light and the feather indicating the Kemble line, and the train curves off the main line onto the branch. Ivor's been looking forward to this trip, the 'Golden Valley' through Stroud is beautiful this time of year.

He's just approaching the point where double track becomes the single line section as far as Kemble, legacy of short-sighted economy cuts thirty years ago, when...

Someone on the track!! Ivor flashes back to that fateful day....

He instinctively makes a full emergency brake application, futile with this little distance, and prays that whoever it is gets out of the way in time.

OK, so it's not 'great literature' - I'm under no illusions that I'll ever be a bestselling author. Although what you're reading is pretty much unedited first draft. Amadan's 'take no prisoners' approach to GMing is clear, he's hit me with my character's greatest fear in the very first move!

I've taken a few liberties with railway operations; I have no idea whether seconding EWS drivers to another depot is common practice or not, but it's one way of justifying having a St.Blazey driver working a train from Swindon to Birmingham. I also have a feeling the Swindon-Longbridge no longer runs, and was diverted away from the Kemble route a few years back in any case.

You can follow the continuing story of Ivor and the other ten characters on the Dreamlyrics message boards.