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Last week was a pretty good one for leisure media and entertainment.
Games: Gaming group this week! We met at an inconvenient (1+ hour drive) but favorite tavern since there was also a birthday to celebrate. Alas, the games we'd planned to try out (including some recced during![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowflake_challenge) were unavailable, so we played First to Worst and King of Tokyo, and had a great time.
The first is a familiar standard; we mixed things up by eschewing scoring entirely and having the ranker draw only four cards from the deck while the rest of the players collectively tried to correctly order the ranker's preferences, to sometimes hilarious results (one player's partner insisting that they disliked "gift giving" much more than the other three, trivial options, or shocked disbelief at another player's—correct—insistence that their partner genuinely preferred pickles and journaling over ice cream sundaes).
The second, is a familiar group standard but one I had personally yet to play (on account of generally playing Betrayal in the House on the Hill or such instead). The setup is that the players are a group of kaiju battling to level Tokyo. It strikes me as a very Munchkin -or MtG-esque game in that the first several players who look like they have a chance at winning will invariably be leveled by the other players. My low-and-slow strategy got me one victory point away from winning the game, but a bad role ultimately gave the GC the win. Still, not bad for a first playthrough.
And now, a brief digression so I can gripe about AI. As I mentioned, not all of us had played King of Tokyo before, so as is typical, the game's owner got out the rulebook and started to explain the mechanics, when "No, no, stop," said one of the other players. "I'm gonna set up an LLM."
"Huh?" asked the owner.
"To answer questions about the rules for us. I just have to find a PDF of the rules online for it to ingest."
"But what if it hallucinates?" asked one of the players.
"I'm gonna train it to only give answers from content in the rulebook."
And, I mean, this player did find a PDF online, feed it to the LLM instance, and have a back-and-forth with it about not making up rules that don't exist in response to questions...
...but it was just profoundly faster to look up any questions, as they arose, in the four page guidebook. Like, even after he'd got the thing set up, we consistently found the answers to our questions before he'd finished typing—let alone refining—his prompt about whatever we were trying to adjudicate at that moment.
Maaaaaaybe this approach would have made more sense for a more complex game, or one with a less-than-thorough guidebook (I'm looking at you, Dragonfire), but even still, I'm just not convinced it has anything going for it over a good, initial readthrough of the rules with one's Human Eyeballs, augmented by ad hoc consultations as necessary.
We also played more Hive and picked up copies of Betrayal, Everdell Farshore, and Witchcraft, the latter of which I am about to try out very shortly here.
Music: We had a very excellent house session on Monday, after which one of the players used some fancy software to transcribe my playing of some of the tunes. It's pretty cool to see what I'm actually doing set down in notation.
Podcasts/Articles: No podcasts, as I just haven't been in a longform audio mood for the last several months. I did read one longform article: Irish Gothic, however.
Roleplaying: Nothing this week, although there are noises about starting up Oldest D&D Group's homebrew campaign back up.
Television: Late days at work last week + the full slate of extracurriculars meant the GC and I weren't up for much aside from cute animal videos this week, but we did watch Max Headroom S2 Ep 3 today. The main plot was another variation of the "how channels try to corrupt the elections" storyline, and was convoluted with several gaping holes, but one of the subplots is among my favorites in the series. To wit: Edison sees Theora at home with a man and throws a sulky bitchfit. Theora tells him it's none of his fucking business who she goes home with. Edison intensifies the bitchfit, to the point where it prompts Edison and Theora's boss Murphy to take her aside and ask if everything's okay, because there seems to be some tension between her and Edison. He's upset because he saw me at home with a man, Theora reluctantly tells Murphy. Well, fuck him, Murphy says. It's none of his business who you go home with. And there the matter rests...until Edison apologies to Theora, at the episode's conclusion, for throwing a bitchfit over something that was none of his business.
This was how American network television handled that subplot. In 1987. No wonder the backlash was so strong, and so well organized.
Video Games: I'm still playing Pentiment and Ultima IV, and started Machinarium; we also got Ghost of Yotei.
In other news, I wander in the wilderness no more, namely because Famous Local Stationary Store finally put their planners on sale this weekend. The date at which this happens has been creeping steadily later each year, with deleterious effects on my ability to keep track of the things I need to keep track of.
I learned, through some fortuitous web browsing, that the planners had finally gone on sale an hour or so after a group buffet at a favorite local Indian place, and made my way down forthwith. This was no easy feat: for under 20 bucks this buffet provides a dozen or so entrees, plus unlimited nann, plus unlimited dessert, and when we go it is the only meal we eat all day. It is amazing. But you are not really going to do much moving after you've eaten there.
Nonetheless, I managed to get myself down to the store, passing two people on the way who had just picked up their sale planners (for those of us who are into such things, this sale is a big deal) on the way down. Alas, the remaining planners in good colors had the worst layouts, the remaining planners with the best layout were in mustard yellow (nope), and the remaining planners with the closest-to-best layouts were jet black (not ideal).
I got the jet black one, relieved to have a useful layout but somewhat bummed by being stuck with this uninspiring color. Then it occurred to me that I have been stockpiling washi tape for years, AND IF NOT FOR NOW, WHEN?
So now I have a jet-black planner adorned with a fetching ribbon of gold stars on a midnight blue background, which also matches the barrel of the fountain pen I am using to write in it. And at last, I am on top of my must-do's, to-do's, and coming-up's again.
これで以上です。
Games: Gaming group this week! We met at an inconvenient (1+ hour drive) but favorite tavern since there was also a birthday to celebrate. Alas, the games we'd planned to try out (including some recced during
snowflake_challenge) were unavailable, so we played First to Worst and King of Tokyo, and had a great time.The first is a familiar standard; we mixed things up by eschewing scoring entirely and having the ranker draw only four cards from the deck while the rest of the players collectively tried to correctly order the ranker's preferences, to sometimes hilarious results (one player's partner insisting that they disliked "gift giving" much more than the other three, trivial options, or shocked disbelief at another player's—correct—insistence that their partner genuinely preferred pickles and journaling over ice cream sundaes).
The second, is a familiar group standard but one I had personally yet to play (on account of generally playing Betrayal in the House on the Hill or such instead). The setup is that the players are a group of kaiju battling to level Tokyo. It strikes me as a very Munchkin -or MtG-esque game in that the first several players who look like they have a chance at winning will invariably be leveled by the other players. My low-and-slow strategy got me one victory point away from winning the game, but a bad role ultimately gave the GC the win. Still, not bad for a first playthrough.
And now, a brief digression so I can gripe about AI. As I mentioned, not all of us had played King of Tokyo before, so as is typical, the game's owner got out the rulebook and started to explain the mechanics, when "No, no, stop," said one of the other players. "I'm gonna set up an LLM."
"Huh?" asked the owner.
"To answer questions about the rules for us. I just have to find a PDF of the rules online for it to ingest."
"But what if it hallucinates?" asked one of the players.
"I'm gonna train it to only give answers from content in the rulebook."
And, I mean, this player did find a PDF online, feed it to the LLM instance, and have a back-and-forth with it about not making up rules that don't exist in response to questions...
...but it was just profoundly faster to look up any questions, as they arose, in the four page guidebook. Like, even after he'd got the thing set up, we consistently found the answers to our questions before he'd finished typing—let alone refining—his prompt about whatever we were trying to adjudicate at that moment.
Maaaaaaybe this approach would have made more sense for a more complex game, or one with a less-than-thorough guidebook (I'm looking at you, Dragonfire), but even still, I'm just not convinced it has anything going for it over a good, initial readthrough of the rules with one's Human Eyeballs, augmented by ad hoc consultations as necessary.
We also played more Hive and picked up copies of Betrayal, Everdell Farshore, and Witchcraft, the latter of which I am about to try out very shortly here.
Music: We had a very excellent house session on Monday, after which one of the players used some fancy software to transcribe my playing of some of the tunes. It's pretty cool to see what I'm actually doing set down in notation.
Podcasts/Articles: No podcasts, as I just haven't been in a longform audio mood for the last several months. I did read one longform article: Irish Gothic, however.
Roleplaying: Nothing this week, although there are noises about starting up Oldest D&D Group's homebrew campaign back up.
Television: Late days at work last week + the full slate of extracurriculars meant the GC and I weren't up for much aside from cute animal videos this week, but we did watch Max Headroom S2 Ep 3 today. The main plot was another variation of the "how channels try to corrupt the elections" storyline, and was convoluted with several gaping holes, but one of the subplots is among my favorites in the series. To wit: Edison sees Theora at home with a man and throws a sulky bitchfit. Theora tells him it's none of his fucking business who she goes home with. Edison intensifies the bitchfit, to the point where it prompts Edison and Theora's boss Murphy to take her aside and ask if everything's okay, because there seems to be some tension between her and Edison. He's upset because he saw me at home with a man, Theora reluctantly tells Murphy. Well, fuck him, Murphy says. It's none of his business who you go home with. And there the matter rests...until Edison apologies to Theora, at the episode's conclusion, for throwing a bitchfit over something that was none of his business.
This was how American network television handled that subplot. In 1987. No wonder the backlash was so strong, and so well organized.
Video Games: I'm still playing Pentiment and Ultima IV, and started Machinarium; we also got Ghost of Yotei.
In other news, I wander in the wilderness no more, namely because Famous Local Stationary Store finally put their planners on sale this weekend. The date at which this happens has been creeping steadily later each year, with deleterious effects on my ability to keep track of the things I need to keep track of.
I learned, through some fortuitous web browsing, that the planners had finally gone on sale an hour or so after a group buffet at a favorite local Indian place, and made my way down forthwith. This was no easy feat: for under 20 bucks this buffet provides a dozen or so entrees, plus unlimited nann, plus unlimited dessert, and when we go it is the only meal we eat all day. It is amazing. But you are not really going to do much moving after you've eaten there.
Nonetheless, I managed to get myself down to the store, passing two people on the way who had just picked up their sale planners (for those of us who are into such things, this sale is a big deal) on the way down. Alas, the remaining planners in good colors had the worst layouts, the remaining planners with the best layout were in mustard yellow (nope), and the remaining planners with the closest-to-best layouts were jet black (not ideal).
I got the jet black one, relieved to have a useful layout but somewhat bummed by being stuck with this uninspiring color. Then it occurred to me that I have been stockpiling washi tape for years, AND IF NOT FOR NOW, WHEN?
So now I have a jet-black planner adorned with a fetching ribbon of gold stars on a midnight blue background, which also matches the barrel of the fountain pen I am using to write in it. And at last, I am on top of my must-do's, to-do's, and coming-up's again.
これで以上です。
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