Rowan Tree and Red Thread

(courtesy of bryant by way of Claw/Claw/Peck.)

"So: you're about to leave for a desert island. There will be four to six other people on the island; they will magically adjust to suit your gaming preferences without being annoyingly similar to you. Or if you want, they can be your best friends, whatever suits. It's magic.

You can bring ten tabletop RPGs. (You can also bring ten boardgames, but that's a different post.) You get the core book plus all the supplements. For something like the new World of Darkness, you get the core rulebook, plus the appropriate game-specific rulebook, plus all the supplements."

Right, let's get my thinking cap on.

• Pendragon - Best. Game. Evar. With tragic romance and fights over faerie berries too.


• Over the Edge - simple, flexible and a great rulebook full of ideas and drug references. Also stands in mechanically for Risus, Ghostbusters and Star Wars at a pinch.


• (Classic) Traveller - Just imagine having all the supplements in one place! For those times when I want to set up a triangle trade route that just happens to wander into a shooting war, alien invasion or a man with a sure-fire claim to an unexploited asteroid belt.


• Runequest (2e) - My nostalgic fantasy number 1. All that creamy Gloranthan goodness wrapped in limb-loss and scrabbling for copper coins under the merciless Praxian sun. Possibly just the new BRP edition, but then I'd be without the Big Rubble and Pavis boxed sets.


• Mutants and Masterminds - For flexible superheroing without quite as much number crunching as Champions.


• D&D 3.5 - For the supplements so I wouldn't have to build a shack. I could just live under the Complete X books. Also dungeon crawling is always an option.


• Spirit of the Century - I'd finally read the damn thing and stop pretending that I know the rules from a quick skim. Plus Zeppelins with Robo-Gorilla Marine squadrons.


• Dogs in the Vineyard - Mechanically a real thinky game and morally compelling.


• Primetime Adventures - The indie game I've never played I most want to play.


• Paranoia - The best SF game there is. And the only game I've played where painting a corridor can lead to a death count double figures.

Games I considered but dropped. Call of Cthulhu, Everway, Ars Magica; each one a dagger in my heart.

Courtesy of irishkate, sammywol and a_d_medievalist.


The Rules
1. You can ONLY answer 'Yes' or 'No'.

2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and asks—and, believe me, the temptation to explain some of these will be overwhelming. Nothing is exactly as it seems.
( Me, me, meme... )

Omnivore's Hundred (as lifted from agrumer)

1) Create a new note and copy this list, including these instructions.
2) X all the items you've eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (Hah! As if.)
See http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/uncategorised/the-omnivores-hundred/ if you want to know more.

( The VGT Omnivore's Hundred )

Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair (ha!). Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.

From September 2008

I am an hairy man.

courtesy of agrumer

( That perception personality test thingy... )

I guess I'm just a sucker for big plants in the foreground. Gimme a rubber plant any day.

brianrogers here asks us to reminisce about our first encounters with role-playing and/or D&D, in tribute to the late Gary Gygax.

Unlike many gamers of my vintage I suspect, I didn't find gaming through D&D, at least not at first. We'd just moved over to Paris from Dublin as my father's job took him to the Irish Embassy there after a spell at home (1978-82 in Dublin). This meant I was taken out of secondary school at home after the 1st year and ended up in an American-style high school 9th grade in St. Cloud, outside Paris. It was all a bit confusing and all I really remember of my first year at school was loneliness, reading books at lot during breaks and finally discovering friends through gaming either late in '82 or early in '83.

My very first exposure to role-playing games, I think, was in a games shop in a shopping arcade (remember them?) off the Champs Elysees in Paris sometime in late 1982, where I saw, and wheedled my parents into buying, SPI's Dragonquest. Shortly afterwards I also bought Universe, also from SPI, and was hooked. Basic D&D followed within the month, and through that I met the friends who saw me through high school: Sean Crowell, Phil and Sean O'Connor and later Phil and Matt Shedlick.

We played D&D and Runequest, dipping our toes in lots of other games in the glorious mid-80s explosion of games, but always coming back to our two old favourites. I was GM for the most part, and don't really have any 'favourite PC' stories of my own to relate, though I remember the exploits of many of the PCs with fondness. It's something like 25 years since those early games, and I don't know if I'll ever capture the thrill and excitement of them in role-playing again. I've discovered other aspects of the hobby that appeal to me, and other ways of role-playing that never occurred to me all those years ago, but those early experiences set me on a path I've happily trod ever since.

Like brianrogers said: "My job is what pays me. Gaming is what I do."

sammywol gave me 1999 as the year for my 'Where Was I' year in this meme. Free association and other ramblings follow. Feel free to request a year of your very own in comments if you like.

( all about my 1999 )

And, I have to admit, like the old fogey I am, at no point in the year did I actually party like it was 1999. Ah well.

though that's not as much fun as it sounds.

Comment and I'll give you a letter; then you have to list 10 things
you love that begin with that letter. Afterwards, post this in your
journal and give out some letters of your own.

I got a 'D' from sammywol.

( Saving you from the memery )

iTunes survey lifted from peaseblossom

( Leaping from tree to tree... )

Lifted from The Mighty Atom (who got it from Vincent Baker)

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

You then take the pic and add text to it (I cropped mine and adjusted the color a bit, too), then post your pic.



I'm not sure if Cuarenta are Ecuadorian folk-jazz, a forty-strong band of close-harmony steveadores from Guayaquil, or just your common or garden post-rock electronic sound-collage merchants from West Ham.

(photo copyright Pablo “silencio” Selman, taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/silencio/2224339713/, and is re-released under the same Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike license.)

Lifted from viktor_haag, who got it from life_on_queen, a meme that actually makes me do something, assuming I get any responses.

For the first five people who reply to me and re-post this challenge, I will send you something. It might be something I've made just for you, or something cool from my collection, it might be a mix CD or a book I think you will enjoy, a graphic or something else that I think you might like. Whatever it is, I promise that I will get it to you in 365 days or less or you are allowed to beat me with a wet noodle.

The only thing you need to do in order to participate is to be one of the first five to reply to this, AND post this entry on YOUR live journal - 'cause its fun to give people stuff.

That's it.

The American Film Institute has released an updated 100 best films listing. Bold those you've seen, strike out those you couldn't make it through, italicize the ten *you'd* have put in the top 10.

( My list behind the cut. )

thanks to james_nicoll, I discover that I'm just about as I expected. Conventionally weird, if this thing is to be believed.

So, mylescorcoran, your LiveJournal reveals...



You are... 4% unique (blame, for example, your interest in thinking rude thoughts) and 11% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy writing). When it comes to friends you are popular. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.

Your overall weirdness is: 36

(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 77% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

Nicked from artw. Quiz meme with a singular twist.

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

( Snip, snip. )

Lifted from mizkit, a meme wherein you draw a picture and are told nice things about yourself. Well, nice things if you're an artistic genius like mizkit and myself.



What does your drawing say about YOU?

The results of your analysis say:

You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously. When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.
You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
You are creative, mentally active and industrious.
You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.

Yay me. For the curious, some of the short things with curly tops are flowers, some are children. Do not pick the flowers.

On my good days, I'm told I have a resemblance to General Zod.



Obvious, innit?

Got your own seal?

Thanks to Accent Monkey for the pointer, and the Official Seal Generator for the pic.

Yoinked from viktor_haag, the meme of the moment.

search for your birth-year on YouTube; post a music video.

I was born in 1969, baby!

(and refrain from posting much cooler stuff by Miles Davis, the Stones and Janis Joplin. Gershon Kingsley is more my (corny) idiom. I'll also cop to Space Oddity, though.)

Lifted from Queenie (on her Sad Percy blog).

"Welcome to the new edition of getting to know your friends. Okay here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun! Just copy (do not forward) this entire e-mail and paste into a new e-mail that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you."

I don't generally condone wanton e-mailing, but in blog land you can always ( cut for length )

or pretty picture? Hey, it's a meme/quiz/thing.

Get your own spectral analysis from Area 23®

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Most Noble and Honourable Myles the Mad of Throcking in the Hole Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Well, that about says it all really.

With thanks to nhw.

Here I'm looking back at 2006 in the form of my first post of each month.

( 2006 in the rearview mirror of LJ. )

So I am, unsurprisingly, a heavy quiz and meme slut who blogs about his daughter and occasionally gets pulled along into political acts by more courageous and active friends.

Your 1920's Name is:

Pierce Archibald

Feared throughout the underworld, Pierce Archibald the Piebald Assassin is a dapper gentleman with a natty line in black and white pinstripe suits, perfectly tailored so that the pistols he carries holstered under each arm don't spoil the line of his clothes.

Bang, bang, and then a gimlet and cards at the club.

With thanks to fjm, ( my xmas stocking ). Leave me something you think I'll like.

I am participating in esmeraldus_neo's experiment. She's measuring the speed of meme transmission across the blogosphere, by means subtle and electronic.

Brief instructions:

1. Write a post linking to this one in which you explain the experiment. (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, etc.)


2. Ask your readers to do the same. Beg them. Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply I'm one of them. (Do whatever you have to. If that fails, try whatever it takes.)


3. Ping Techorati.

So I've done it, at the prompting of mizkit, and now, if you like, you can do the same.

I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for mylescorcoran are close by:

• iliketea (200 - 250)
• pwca, chadu, simonjrogers (250 - 300)
• rhakir, candorite, kriz1818, mearls, irishspy, freeport_pirate (300 - 350)

( More results below the cut... )

Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift.

TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends list?

Finally prompted to this by doc_mystery and a long incubation period.

( Long list hidden for courtesy... )

Name 12 characters you have played in RPGs, before looking at the questions that follow. List your characters numbered 1 to 12, with the name of the RPG you played them in. Once you've picked your 12 characters, look at the questions and answer accordingly. (No peeking until you've picked your characters!) Put your answers behind a LJ-cut.

Well, I'm almost always a GM and not a player, so I've had to resort to some popular (or most hated) NPCs from the past. Here's the characters:

1. Cerebro Masivo, Spain's Greatest Brain!


2. Morgan le Fay, Arthur's half-sister sorceress


3. Sir Francis Walsingham, head of Elizabeth I's spy network


4. Sagramore le Desirous, a doughty knight of the Round Table


5. Reverend Bastian Joshua Mulliner, vicar and hopeless romantic from Blandings Castle


6. Morgenstern, son of Julian of Amber


7. Gabriella the Striga, Italian witch


8. Valdamar the Issaries Tracker


9. Andrew Thomas, Welsh telepath


10. Magdalen Crow of the Sewerworkers' Guild


11. Baron Malborne, nemesis to the Fellowship of the Silver Rose


12. Earl Robert of Salisbury, Arthurian buffer

( And here's the cut. )

Lifted from nhw. He said

"Look at your LJ userpics list....

If you have fewer than 50 icons, pick every fifth one.
If you have between fifty and seventy-five icons, pick every seventh one.
If you have over seventy-five icons, pick every tenth one.
If you have fewer than ten, pick all of 'em.

List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly why you have it, why it's interesting to you, what significance does it have."

( And here they are...  )

Like a few other LJ friends, I have a personality. Allegedly.


My Personality

Neuroticism	52
Extraversion	14
Openness To Experience	97
Agreeableness	38
Conscientiousness	46

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report Bebo, MySpace Codes and MySpace Layouts by Pulseware Survey Software

Not sure it's super-accurate; I don't think I'm half as novelty seeking as it makes me out to be. However, the rough proportions are right.

( It's that interests icons meme! )

Some bloody odd choices there, and that's after I got rid of the All Anal Movies icon for the 'Movies' interest.

I'm no nhw ( but ... )

This one is silly but persuasive.

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

✓ I miss somebody right now.	✓ I don't watch much TV these days.	✓ I own lots of books.
✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses.	× I love to play video games.	× I've tried marijuana.
✓ I've watched porn movies.	× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.	× I believe honesty is usually the best policy.
✓ I curse sometimes.  (If by sometimes you mean most of the time.)	× I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.	× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

( it goes on... )

Damn you leedy, trapped me in a dead end and ate my head. Join in, anyone who fancies it.

Which ones have you read? I've listed the ones I've read in bold and the ones I've started but not finished in italics.
(lifted with thanks from nhw and autopope simultaneously.)

( Cut for length )

It's back again. Courtesy this time of wwhyte who indulged my blatant begging for another letter. Today I am 'M'.

( courtesy cut )

Four of a kind. Fill in your own answers if you like.

( courtesy cut )

Prompted by agrumer, here's a meme.

"How it works: Comment on this entry and I’ll assign you a letter at random. Write ten words beginning with that letter, and an explanation of what the word means to you and why."

agrumer gave me a 'V'. Anyone who wants a letter from me, ask in a comment.

( cut for length )

I just did my Nohari profile to compliment the Johari profile I did a couple of days ago.

Add to the Johari one here and the Nohari one here. See the current Johari results here and Nohari results here.

See the flipside of the intelligent, knowledgeable mylescorcoran. Marvel at his insecurities and self-delusions.