The Bucket O' Nothing

Setting idea I'd like to run in a tabletop RPG. Campaign going by the name of "This Isn't What We Meant", since it was inspired by listening to the Savatage song by that name. It's only in the early stages of planning, and I don't have any idea of system yet, though some possible inspirations spring to mind.

---

In the beginning, gods and men lived together. Man was young at first, and knew nothing, and the gods taught him; man asked, and the gods gave.

But soon man grew older, wiser, and shrewder; man asked for more, and the gods gave more, until man asked to be as the gods himself; and the gods did not give, and man was angered, and the gods left the world.

Thus ended the First Age.

Man was saddened by his loss, and the gods took pity, and to some of his number they spoke, and these men spoke for the gods; in return they spoke to the gods, and the gods listened, and the gods gave as they saw wise.

And, in turn, man grew to understand more of the world, and became wiser and shrewder still; and still some of his number spoke to and for the gods, but as the years passed and father gave way to son, he spoke to the gods less, and in turn they spoke less to him.

And this continued until all there were left were the words of the men who spoke to the gods, and the signs that the gods gave in reply. For man had grown so much that he rarely needed the gods, and in turn, the gods rarely spoke to him. Those who spoke to the gods still remained, but that they spoke to gods was forgotten; the words themselves were known and remembered, though their language was no longer, and the words themselves held power.

---

This is the Second Age, a time of learning and enlightenment, a time of improvement, a time of progress.

The world has become vast, and man has become many, and he makes war upon himself. Those who know the words are few, but they hold the power of the world, and they use it for themselves. Some use it to build cities. Some use it to hold kingdoms in sway. Some use it to burn.

But there are whispers spreading. Across the world, people are hearing words in their dreams, unearthly voices speaking phrases over and over again, phrases in a language nobody knows. Phrases that hold power; prayers that may change the world anew...

I'm planning to go home to Watford for Christmas as usual, and (unlike last year) go to York with family for New Year.

I'm also planning to look in shops that we don't have in Cambridge for stuff. :)

So, does anyone know of any yarn shops in Watford or York?
Also, does anyone know of any shops in Watford or York that sell sourcebooks for tabletop RPGs? I will probably be looking for Ars Magica books and anything else that catches my eye.

I'm keeping a list for comparison here. More will be added as I find them.

( Cambridge )

( Watford )

( York )

And since I'm visiting Florence for a few days next week, I'm planning to look at yarn shops there (no RPG shops, they'd all be in Italian anyway).

( Florence )

I like our Friday evening Ars Magica game because

(a) we are FIGHTING CRIME in the Rhine Tribunal, and it is fun,
(b) trying to figure out the most ridiculous and yet still appropriate time to say "give us all your vis" is always fun (thank you Dave),
(c) it's the kind of game where you can geek about Latin and discuss what declension "vis" actually is,
(d) Dave, Nick, Chess and Edith are great fun to RP with, and Tristan is a cool GM,
(e) did I mention FIGHTING CRIME?
(f) also the ethics of erasing your own memory after you committed a crime came up in the last session, and that still has me thinking about it,
(g) some day I am going to get a chance to slam my hands on the table IC and yell "OBJECTION!", I hope. :)


(For reference, "vis" is one of four irregular nouns in the third declension.)

I've just finished a one-off tabletop RPG with several friends, and it reminded me of some of the fun things about RPing. In particular, the mad OOC comments.

"Okay... you hit the Daikan over the head with a stick." - our GM, Kyo. Due to all the characters having sticks of some form or another, this happened several times before the end.

"I shake my stick. It makes a tinkling sound." - my crossdressing monk (whose crossdressing was never revealed, due to us only having a one-day game).

"Let's persuade them we're travelling performers."
"Okay, so we're putting on a religious play?"
"What are those two, then?" *pointing to the heavily armoured samurai and the ninja*
"Well, he *points at samurai* can be the stage."
"Ah, and the ninja's doing the special effects."
"And backstage work." - Fib's miko (shrine maiden) and my monk. Incredibly, we rolled high enough on Performance to convince a peasant family that we were performers, and to take us in for the night.

"Right, what can I do?"
*looks at charms on character sheet*
"I inspect my horse with an appraising eye." - Fib's miko, in the middle of combat with a rather fearsome samurai.

The best one, however, was something that happened on the IRC channel on which we were discussing characters before the game:

<Fib> Kyo: I take your silence as meaning 'yes you can have a horse'
<Kyo> dan: or it can be coated with self brewed stuff
* The_Blunderbuss managed to get those lines mixed up and assumed Fib was going to have a horse coated with something he'd brewed himself.

Final reflections:
- The Exalted system is cool, but requires a certain amount of modification to work in seventeenth-century Japan;
- Character plot points are not really worth taking for a one-off game;
- When designing a healer character, it's preferable to have one that can actually heal *in battle*, as mine couldn't;
- And the idea of playing a game of Paranoia is seeming quite oddly appealing now. (Everything you say is IC. Mentioning the rules is above your security level, and means you will be killed. Random character death all around. Madness, but madness that sounds like a lot of fun.)