Compromise and Conceit

Infernal adventuring…

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An Australian statistician and role-player living in Japan, interested in the theory and practice of role-playing…

Category: Fantasy

  • Grognarding in Japanese

    Is what happened today, at my monthly convention. I turned up at 9:30 with Ms. Uma, on time, carrying a huge bag of rice balls, and thus well placed to hear the introductions to the various games that were being played today. One of the choices, by Mr. 123, was a session of old school…

  • Current viewing: Solomon Kane

    Based on the Robert E Howard novel of the same name, this movie will probably attract the usual ire of Howard fans, who worry perenially that his work will be mocked in film – a fear I can understand, though I don’t agree with it. In any case, in this situation it doesn’t matter, since…

  • Current Viewing: Avatar

    It’s as if James Cameron sat down one day 10 years ago and asked himself (as everyone should!), “how can I make a movie that is perfectly designed to please faustusnotes?” and, before he’d even had a chance to put his hand to his forehead, out of the blue came the answer: combine Nausicaa, Last…

  • Current reading: Warhammer 3

    The owner of my FLGS gave me a copy of Warhammer 3 (yes, in Steamy Beppu, the FLGS really is Friendly) to read so I can run a game in Japanese, so recently I’ve been reading it and doing some trial fights[1]. I don’t get to run a game until late June, but I think…

  • GMing Pathfinder in Japanese 2: Treachery in the Steam Vales

    When last we left our heroes, they were recovering from a horror ambush, in which gnomish guns almost beat them. However, having prevailed (and left one gnome permanently enveloped in a shroud of high-speed comedy stories, in response to which he could only ever laugh, laugh, laugh…) the characters were soon ready to push on…

  • DMing Pathfinder in Japanese: Preparatory notes

    I’m DMing a Pathfinder session in Japanese tomorrow night, for 5 people, 3 of whom I’ve previously met and 1 of whom is a raw beginner from my FLGS. I kind of arranged this tentatively before I met the gaming group 2 weeks ago, so I’m in a bit of overload here. It’s a trial…

  • Playing Pathfinder in Japanese

    Yesterday I played my first ever role-playing game in Japanese, at the Oita Evil Spirit club Konkon convention. This convention is held every month in a public hall in Oita, which is near my town, and runs from 10am to 6:30pm. As far as I know not many English-speaking Westerners get to experience Japanese role-playing,…

  • The use of Tolkien to defend fascism

    Today I discovered an interesting interview with one Stephen Shapiro, University of Warwick, which was conducted in 2003 by the German Tolkien fanclub (at least I assume that’s what it is). At that time it would appear he had been working on a research theme similar to that which I’ve gathered here and here, about…

  • The Shock of the New and the Benefits of the Familiar

    I remember playing a few sessions of Talislanta when I was much younger, and feeling confused and underwhelmed for most of it. I think this was largely because the Talislanta setting is so alien and rich with new ideas that unless one has done some kind of pre-development work of some kind it’s impossible to…

  • Current reading: The Court of The Air

    Before moving back to Japan I bought an eBook Reader (more on which later) in hopes of reducing the size of my bookcases (they aren’t so portable, really). I then stumbled on the horrendous problem of choosing books to read, since doing so no longer involves browsing a bookshop. This is challenging. So in the…