I was organizing my gaming stuff today. So far I have written three games: one Spycraft LARP and two Kobolds Ate My Baby LARPs. At Archon this year we discussed what the next Spycraft game will involve. I am going to join Jason and Ron, a talented writer who writes for the SLUGS Vampire LARP, in putting together a game set in the late 70s, arguably the golden age of spy movies. This gives us a lot of material from which to draw.

As I thought about what the next game might be like. I wondered if I would be onboard to write a third, a fourth or more. I recalled the conversation I had with David Collins at GenCon. He has written dozens of LARPs using his Courting Murder rules system. He told me that he usually writes five or six games in a setting before he moves on to another one. This made me realize that perhaps there is such a thing as a creative limit. This may explain why some of our favorite shows jump the shark in dramatic fashion. I loved the X-Files but, friends, the latter seasons were never as great as those that preceded them. I want to believe that I can realize this in my work before it happens.

Every game I write I like to challenge myself to introduce conflict in new and fresh ways. The conflict can take many forms: character vs character, character vs environment and even character vs herself. For "The Black Tie Affair" we used a dysfunctional family. All of the family members were at odds. The father was missing and probably dead. The mother put out a hit on her son. The son was a dope fiend with no love for his mother. For "Kobolds on a Plane" the clan leader was dead and two different Kobolds wanted to claim his spot. In "Tabriz School of Magick" there were two houses with many rivalries between them. Of course, sometimes the players take the conflicts and turn them on their ear. The player who played the mother in "The Black Tie Affair" decided to cancel the hit and reconcile with her son. I'm okay with that. After all the game is for the players and we should never make them a slave to the story.

I spent some time today watching Rev Glen Kaiser's School of Blues Instructional DVDs. In the first volume he covered acoustic blues, showed some of his gear and discussed techniques for slide guitars and the dobro. In volume two he talked about electric guitars, what kind of amps to use and even how to mike a harmonica.

At one point he discusses why he chooses to play the blues. He rightly points out that the Psalms is the largest book in the Bible and that a full 57 of the 150 psalms are laments. Christians, like all people of faith, are subjected to indignities, temptations and sufferings. He asks, "Why aren't there more people of integrity writing, singing and playing real music that deals with real life as we all know it?" Amen, brother, amen.

Archon is a few weeks away. I have been putting together a Kobolds Ate My Baby LARP for the Atomic Squash gaming group to run there. The game is called "Tabriz School of Magick". All of the players are Kobold freshmen trying to avoid death and destruction to win the school cup for their house.

We learned a few lessons from the last game and are using them to make this year's game better. First of all, I expected all of the players to act as individuals looking out for their own self-interest and survival. What happened was amazing. The players joined together in a group leaving the group occasionally to pursue their own goals. This year we are grouping players in two houses to give them a group of which to be a part.

I gave everyone in the last game a goal of escape and did not give anyone a clear way to accomplish it. This year we have the school cup that one group of players will win.

A player familiar with the tabletop game suggested that we include edges and bogies. This rules are indeed hilarious and work well. But I haven't thought of a way of including them in the LARP without disrupting game balance. In LARPs it is important that no single player is overly powerful. If there is a powerful vampire for example, it is important to have a powerful vampire hunter. Last game I gave players special abilities taking care to maintain balance. I think it worked well but am thinking about how to improve them.

We charge money for the game. We ask the players to pay one dollar. We aren't in this to make money. We do this because we limit the game to twelve players and want to insure that players who sign up actually show up to play the game. By the way the money are got last time we gave to a group who came from out of state to run games at Archon.

CptSquash and Pancake have already given me some great ideas that I need to write up in our private wiki. I'm trying to organize a brainstorming session with them for this weekend. I think our players are going to love the great material and improvements we have made this year.

Hey Nick, it was great seeing ya at DieCon. Congrats on fatherhood. Dis onez fo' you, know what I'm sayin!

( bad language and biting social satire... )

During my trip I finally read C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Although he is better known for the Narnia series, it is considered one of his better books. He considers the fact that we know relatively little about the afterlife. In his fantasy world the afterlife is a strange and dangerous place where souls take a phantom shape. Residents of the strange world try to coax the phantoms into repenting and entering into Heaven. Interestingly he compares a soul's time on Earth to being in Hell. It is an existence of joyless, friendless unhappiness. Hell is represented by "grey town". an ever expanding metropolis that is grey and grim. In some ways it reminds me of playing some MMORPGs.

I am looking forward to the arrival of Prince Caspian in theaters. Although the critics have panned its overt Christian references, that is exactly what makes it interesting and, yes, refreshing.

I woke up Friday and decided to skip the final keynote address and remaining sessions. I had a raging headache and was anxious to get home. I did a little shopping for Mother's Day. Then I took the subway to the airport to see if I could catch an earlier flight. Unfortunately, I did not have luck and settled in for the four hour wait before my flight.

It was probably best that I did not good back to the convention center. I probably would have bought another book from the bookstore. Here is a list of books which I bought while at JavaOne:

• Think Better by Tim Hurson
• The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
• Effective Java, 2nd Edition by Joshua Bloch
• Prototype & Scriptaculous in Action by David Crane and Bear Bibeault with Tom Locke

Yesterday the headache returned. I spent most of the day taking it easy including a three hour nap. When I finally checked my email I saw this notice:


I feel much better today. I am catching up on chores and preparing for my week. I am looking forward to discussing some of the interesting things I saw with coworkers and friends.