Fastavaled-out

Oh, that roleplaying game convention is just amazing. Even though I underscheduled this year, to have more time to meet with people, I had things to be done all the time, it seemed.

Schmoozed with amazing folks. All the folks were wonderful, but Claus J (and his media student friend), and Frederik J (who works at a company with 100+ APL programmers, imagine that) are people that I will phone and force to come and play games. Fredrik (of Jeepen and NBH) said that we will now congregate every Wednesday, to play games. I hope I can make good on that, this time.

Me and Tobias railed against awards (if not the ceremonial dinners that accompany them). It was interesting then, that Tobias & Frax’s Tvivl won 2 Otto awards (Best Story & The Jury Special Prize).

A serious story about love. About that a shared look can stop time. About daring to love and daring to go forward.

Doubt is two stories, that are about each other. A life, and a theatre play. Tom and Juliet love each other. Both on stage and in private. It is about temptations. About the meaning of loving and being loved. About choosing each day. About becoming one with another person, but dreaming about others at the same time.

In Doubt, the players will take responsibility for the story. Decide Tom and Juliet’s future. Play the play to the end. Two players play Tom, and two players play Juliet. And supporting cast. And extras. And lovers.

A fine little love scenario.

I game-mastered Tvivl, and I sucked. I was so nervous and useless that I had to break. Then I had some water and ran the game. (My nervousness had made the game late, but a John-TV shoot that had started in our room made us 10 minutes later. Irritating.) My players were amazing, and kept getting better, and I was shocked back to leading the game. They were stunning.

When we were done, the players gave some great feedback on how to make the start sequence simpler and more intuitive.

Read more about other Fastaval-goers’ experiences at Alexandria’s page for blog feeds from the Danish RPG scene.

[tags]fastaval,fastaval2007,convention,rpg[/tags]

Rob’s childhood food description: Future of roleplaying texts?

[Robert Paterson](http://smartpei.typepad.com/) writes about [the food of his just-post-war British childhood](http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2006/06/recalled_to_lif.html), in a lovely voice.

*This* is how roleplaying game texts should read.

And, at the end of it, a simple axiom for how to play.

(Is it < 800 words? Danish rpg convention Fastaval had a “daily magazine” this year, with a less-than-800-words scenario in each issue. This reduced form called for Other Techniques of cramming in 2-3 hours entertainment. Some of the techniques could be called **axiomatic**.)

Denmark has a roleplaying game school

A Danish school with a very cross-disciplinary approach to education, [Østerskov Efterskole](http://www.osterskov.dk/), will open its doors this fall. [Malik Hyltoft](http://alexandria.dk/data?person=66), winner of this year’s Honorary Otto Award is part of the staff.

The school needs materials, and have assembled a wish-list. If you have anything you wish to donate to the school, send an email to “osterskov” at their domain “osterskov.dk” with the subject “Donation”, and they’ll contact you to make out the details. All donated materials will be labelled, and the benefactor will be named, unless otherwise is specifically noted.

This is a chance for you to get rid of a load of “perhaps-useful stuff” (aka useless junk) from your library, and your games collection. Here is a translation of the wish-list in bulletpoint shape.

* Danish fiction
* Atlas
* Books on history
* Encyclopedias, old and new
* Thesaurus (in plural)
* Works of popular science
* School books for grades 9 and 10
* Fantasy literature
* Science Fiction
* Roleplaying game books (rules, scenarios, compendiums, source books)
* Volumes of Illustrated science, National Geographic, and such
* Comics: albums in good condition
* Books in English in all of the above categories
* Easy-to-read books in German, Swedish and Norwegian