Spoilers for The Last Jedi are ahead.

So I went to see The Last Jedi, at the Screening Rooms, a more expensive experience than the main cinema, but the more comfortable chairs, and smaller number of seats both appealed to me. I didn't take advantage of the wait service to your seat for snacks and drinks, but I think they make a lot of their money that way. Anyway the audience were well behaved, I heard no random talking during the film and the going to the cinema experience was very positive. All of which was good as this is a longish film, not Lord of the Rings long, but apparently the second longest Star Wars film.

I had been carefully avoiding reviews, or even random posts on facebook about the film. So now I am reading them, a couple of positive reviews in the Guardian. Then I came across this one which was the one from the 2601 reviews that IMDB decided to show me.

It is a one star review.

The shameful end of the beloved story.

15 December 2017 | by kuschilop – See all my reviews

The movie seems to be made by a neural network. It's sewn from the same familiar patches: a space battle here, a joke there, a teacher and a student story, a battle between light and dark side of the force. The winner of the battle? A new, SHITTY side of the force.

Evil characters are not serious and just pathetic. The story is not real anymore: it's just another comic book where the laws of the universe are changing on the fly, and there's no real risk. Storylines mostly make no sense, rendering the characters' feelings as fake and overblown, giving the movie a touch of a soap opera.

It's quite obvious that here the director has nothing to say. Seems like a board of executives were voting up and down for every episode, fiddling with the movie in a fear that it won't earn enough. And here we are: the film is a politically correct product of corporate cowardice and creative impotence.

It's all especially painful for those who grew with the pure miracle and magic of the original movies. You know, there's always a faith. But this time it was destroyed in a really mean way.

If you follow the link above the person, or people, using this identity have posted two reviews, the other one spends quite a lot of time praising the Russian empire before the revolutions that led to Soviet Russia. I do find it funny that someone who genuinely thinks an evil empire was the best version of Russia has written a Star Wars review.

So this all got me to thinking about the accusations of "politically correct product of corporate cowardice and creative impotence."

So corporate cowardice, yes it is a shame that many of the films currently being made at this level of blockbuster are franchise movies. I don't think the accusation that each scene was being ruthlessly fiddled with holds water.

So creative impotence and political correctness (spoilers start now).

Lots of strong female characters. Not only that though, Poe Dameron gets told off and demoted for a successful attack on a dreadnought because of the number of rebels killed, and because vice admiral Holdo won't tell him the secret plan he acts like a jerk and almost gets everyone killed. (There are other examples that androcentric people will not have enjoyed.)

The other big politically correct moment is when it becomes apparent that Rey is not descended from some famous Jedi. I know this has stirred up some controversy but I felt this was one of the best ideas in the film.

The other thing I felt was an interesting creative move was the end of the rebel fleet, because now the rebellion will have to be from the ground up.

There were bits I did not like, Leia's use of the force to save herself felt a bit hollow. And the pacing was a bit off.

All in all this is my favourite of the franchise.

 

Furry Pirates Play test review

So how did it play?

Very smoothly, though that was probably helped by the very enthusiastic players. If I run it again I will design a scenario where the characters can do a bit more swashbuckling.

There were no easy to find rules about making crude grenades, and give role players gunpowder they will want to make crude grenades. I decided that in the ship to ship combats the master gunner would be responsible for all the gunnery on the ships. There wasn't a boarding action, but I have no appetite for running a couple of hundred NPCs, so if that crops up it will be major NPCs versus player characters (like the Sid Meier's Pirates computer game) as long as the sides are relatively even. The player with the magic user character found his way round the magic rules easily (but there are Ars Magica players so you would hope so).

There was some role playing around the Furry aspects, especially the only botch of the game which saw the Lynx based Master Gunner being accidentally dumped in the water by an unsuccessful flight spell.

So I am up for running this again, next Grand Tribunal.

Given that I won Unknown Armies in the raffle I might well run a game of that as well.

Furry Pirates Swashbuckling Adventure in the Furry Age of Piracy

Read through review of a roleplaying game

I am going to be running this at Grand Tribunal, because it is published by Atlas games and GT is an Atlas games role playing convention.

After I've run it I might post a play test review.

The physical product

Available from Atlas games, either in PDF or a softcover. I have a softcover to review, loaned to me by C.J. Romer. A quick google search failed to track down a UK based shop with it in stock, but it is still in print at Atlas games.

The book itself is well laid out, plenty of furry themed pirate illustrations throughout, some maps, illustrations of various ships that can be used for and against pirates, and various tables for things like combat and ship to ship combat. If I was running this game regularly I would have a bookmarked PDF for the game mechanics stuff and give the copy of the rule book to the players.

The game

Furries

 There are no humans, only Furry Sapiens. The species that can become Furry Sapiens need to have backbones, also no species that spends most of its life in water can be a Furry. Furry Sapiens are also between 3 and 8 feet tall. The animals that Furry Sapiens are based on (evolved from in game) still exist. In the game world carnivores tend to have higher social status than omnivores, and ominvores higher social status than herbivores. In 'Furry Outlaws' a game by the same authors but set in the 12th Century these class divisions were rigid, but seen as less so in Furry Pirates, also the players are pirates and so might not care too much about social class. In game mechanical terms larger furries are stronger but less agile, and smaller furries are weaker but more agile.

Furries can only have children with others of their own species, although they can fall in love and have sex with any Furry Sapiens.

Game System

The game uses the "Halogen System" which was apparently also used in Furry Outlaws. The system does not seem to have had any traction outside of Furry Pirates.

Characters have nine abilities with a normal range of 3-30. Three of these are called attack abilities (Strength, Dexterity and Ego), three are called defense abilities (Agility, Reason and Constitution) and three are called descriptive (Appearance, Luck, Social). The can be randomly rolled; or a point spend system can be used.

There are a bunch of skills that can be given at character generation, and developed through an experience point system, with a lot of focus on combat skills, some focus on ship handling, a magick system, and the lots of other fairly generic skills. This is what one might expect for a game about being a pirate in a slightly supernatural setting.

A first level character begins with 10 skill points to spend (with the option to start characters at a higher level so at least they are competent).

There are no skills for such things as tactics, seduction, persuasion,  instead these are to be role played.

In combat there will be a combat ability, which is skill level taken away from 50 pitted against a defensive skill by adding the two numbers together. The player has to roll against this number, trying to get higher than the result. It follows that low attack scores and high defense scores are good.

Outside of combat there is skill level taken away from 50 pitted against a difficulty set by the person running the game (GM), again the player has to roll over this number.

There is no system for a player to claim an automatic success or otherwise affect the GMs story.

Characters fumble on a very low roll (01-05 for a first level character, 01-02 at 10th level).

So this reads like a fairly old fashioned system, even for 1999 when it was first printed.

How it plays is of course unknown until I play it.

There is a detailed set of rules for ship to ship combat, which might work best as a game using miniature figures.

Setting

The game takes place in 1690, which despite the existence of Furry Sapiens rather than humans, and the fact that magick is real has had a history identical to Earth. There is a lot of detail in the book about what is happening in the world now which has been furrified. Another review (written in 2003) claims "Furry Pirates provides the most historically accurate and abundant background information" I have no reason to disbelieve the claim. 

Overall

If you're looking for a game about pirates, and want a little bit of magic and the ability to play Furry Sapiens this seems like a good starting point. I would not run this, or play this as a long term game because I think the game mechanics would annoy me and I don't have the space to adequately run the ship to ship combat mini-game.

Some thoughts about life and death

Gosh it has been a long time since I felt motivated enough to write a blog post. Anyway don't want to talk about writer's block. This is about me writing stuff so I don't just keep ruminating on it.

Recently my friend John Bull died. We first met because of CJ Romer and a trip he organised to Bury St. Edmunds for the Student Parapsychology Society at Chetlenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education. When he moved to Cheltenham we met more regularly because of role playing games.

This is not a eulogy for John see this blog for some moving tributes https://jerome23.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/eulogy-for-john-francis-bull/?preview=tru, his death has led to some reflections.

John was 47 when he died, a similar age my father when he also died of a heart attack.

When my father died my mother and he had finished paying the mortgage on the house they bought together when I was an infant, he also had two children.

Looking around at my friends, from work and from role playing house/flat ownership is relatively rare. I am not the lone exception but it is far more common for my 40 something to 50 something friends to be renting accommodation rather than owning it.

Looking around at my friends, again from work and role playing, not having children seems more prevalent than having children (again mostly people from 'Generation X', but also some like me from late Baby Boomers).

My, not very cheerful, thoughts are what happens in 20-30 years time when we begin to be infirm and in need of care. We will not have children who can act as unpaid carers. Many of my friends will not have any capital assets that could be sold to provide for care.

Not sure what is going to happen when my childless friends who have been renting all of their life need expensive social care.