Once again the local populace decided to celebrate my presence – and it’s not even my birthday yet! My birthday constitutes week-long celebrations with dancing in the street, festival stalls, games for children and all sorts of events. This time however, it’s just a simple interview in the local paper:
Filed under: Uncategorized
Recently we had a couple of Aussies come to stay over. One was my brother D, and another was his workmate T. His girlfriend, who I shall call E, came a bit later.
During the visit they went all over Japan. While they were at my house though, I forced them to play Carcassonne: The City, time and time again:
We also taught them all about the famous Japanese cuisine - specifically TAKOYAKI!
Filed under: Japan
If you’re like me you have a Japanese PSP-3000, and no matter how hard you try, the ChickHEN exploit just will not run. I searched forums, tried all sorts of theme-resets, language changes, voodoo and so on, but to no avail. It just would not run. All that happens is the PSP would crash. Then just today I was in a bookstore and I noticed this!
Luckily I had 725 Yen on me so I picked it up. It turns out that somebody over here has already written and published a book about running ChickHEN and other homebrew on the PSP-3000. They don’t mess about!
After fiddling my way through it I had a couple of goes with my PSP. At first it didn’t work, but I didn’t give up. I tried again to no avail. Finally I combed the book once more for any insight and found something! It was so simple, how could I have missed it? So I tried, and then suddenly it worked!
Here’s how I did it:
Those kids are at it again, this time they recap the amazing events of a previous session. LISTEN and be amazed at what you hear. WATCH and be devastated when it all comes to an abrupt and unexpected end…
Filed under: Japan, Organized Event, Real Life Adventures | Tags: Bears, Big Blue
I’ve been struck down by a disease so virulent and deadly that even by reading this post you have a chance of being infected. You have been warned.
Apart from that I’ll have another episode of Big Blue up shortly, hopefully including my new intro! Here are a few notes about the making of Big Blue to tide you over. Two of the kids regularly attend Saturday / Friday classes where the game might get played every other week. I’ve found it to be incredibly effective at motivating them to express ideas that they might otherwise not get to practice, and to use English in all sorts of crazy new ways.
This session that I taped was originally intended to go for a couple of hours, but unfortunately we started late, so the first season is a short one. The rules are incredibly simplified 4e rules, although every so often I’ll step them up a little when I think the group is ready. Strangely though, the kids all feel that no matter what pokemon mechanics will apply to the game and every monster in it.
I hope you enjoy it, and if you do feel free to let me know by commenting. That way I’ll know whether to keep going with it or to abandon it like a Jehovah’s Witness at the door.
What happens when a group of Japanese students have a school camp and play a simplified role-playing game? Watch and find out. This episode starts with an explanation of the rules for the kids, and a little sorting through the miniatures that will be used.
Filed under: Uncategorized
December 28th 2008 is going to be my RPG day held here in Nishinomiya at my school – Bears. I will be running a D&D 4th edition game for people to try, although if somebody else wants to run a different game too, we can certainly make time. As a note, I have some dice, but if you BYO that would help immensly.
Apart from that there are two quick things to cover – Creating characters for the game; and how to get here! First, here are some quick guidelines for the characters:
Filed under: Uncategorized
Present shopping!
It’s always hardest to shop for people who rarely leave your side for more than 30 minutes. I have to plan a commando run all the way to Sannomiya, and even then she knows exactly why I’m going. It’s easy to know what to get her though. Her hints are about as subtle as tabasco.
I’ll post more when I make the run!
We’ve finally reached the end of the first chapter of our 4th edition campaign. The second chapter will be starting, and will have its own thread as soon as possible. The first chapter was called “The muddy fields of Trouse,” while the second chapter is called “A warm welcome.” I intend this chapter to be a bit shorter than the last.
I had hoped to start this chapter with a live session, but I realise that organizing one of those these days is about as easy as teaching a dog to fly. Nonetheless, a Maptool session should be played as soon as possible.
In the meantime, here is a brief summary of events so far:
On the weekend I finally had the chance to get my Maptool implementation of Space Hulk playtested. Needless to say, there were lots of bugs, and I have a lot to do before I have a truly workable, intuitive game.
If you’re interested in trying it – here’s the campaign file:
http://www.4shared.com/file/71854783/206d7a5/SH-M2_backup.html
It’s mission 2 from the 1st edition mission book. All the rules and mission description (which you’ll need) can readily be downloaded at www.boardgamegeek.com or other sources. In making this I had help with the blip deck macro from PyroMancer2k and the pictures themselves are mostly from an upload by somebody called jamz (both from the RPTools forums).
