Animatium
Animatium was awfully good fun. The first game of a new system is often slow to get going, but that was not my experience of this one. The players all jumped in feet first so far as I could tell, and Friday night had a nice gentle start to allow people to find their feet in the system, and Stuff (tm) started off at dinner time.
My character is a secretary and notary, and I learned that being a secretary is a very good way to become a massive plot hoover, as *everyone* brings you all the bits of paperwork and plot that they find. Amusingly, people also assumed that I could translate the various ancient languages, but no, I merely 'know a man who can'. On the downside, I now need to do some OC work of cataloguing and note-making, and write up an account of what happened.
I also have a secret, which is now less secret than it was as I had to reveal it to a few people on Friday night.
I ended up staying up all night Friday night drinking, and indeed stayed up all the way through to 1.30 Saturday night. A stretch of 42.5 hours. Not the most sensible thing I have ever done! There was an IC reason to do so however, not that the six of us doing it were IC (although we went IC as soon as anyone else got up and joined us). I could have had a nap in the middle of the day but I went for a swim instead, and actually that was far more refreshing.
My character was set up to help create and control scandal, but it was not my intention to *be* a scandal. Whoops. But hey ho, it's all good fun, and if you are going to misbehave IC, misbehave properly!
Dear god it was hot. I love hot weather, but it turns out that even a light cotton dress is too much for those temperatures. Alas, I could not have got away with the shorter skirt and vest tops I had for OC wear ;-). I did dump the chemise and stays and return to modern bra, which affected the hang of the dress but was much more comfortable.
It was a wonderfully complex system and plot, IC sounding damage calls. So far I cannot think of any critical feedback, although I didn't interact particularly closely with the rules. There were possibly more characters who are flange beasts than I'd ideally like, but that does fit the setting, and I have my own flange despite being entirely mundane (there may be about 4 PCs who are mundane). It appears Pete has only a loose attachment to his own character generation rules, but he's fair in its application, ie everyone ends up not understanding how they have so many merits...
As well as developing a scandalous reputation, I also developed an IC phobia of spiders. I didn't have one, but then when I was strolling with my employer towards some woods that looked cooler than the open lawn, he spotted a lovely physrep spider and stopped me walking into it. It took me by surprise and my character reacted sharply, but later pointed out that being scared of a spider that big was merely sensible. Turns out it was only an illusion. Then there was another one on the stairs right in front of me, so another strong reaction. Ironically, the thing most likely to generate illusions of scary spiders was someone being scared of scary spiders... I intend to take the merit of phobia associated with this incident...
Pinewood is an awesome site, it's a boarding school, and it is gorgeous. There are lots of rooms to poke around in, and the grounds are lovely. There is even an open air pool! There is a cricket field, there are extensive lawns, there is a little copse. Everything one could possibly need. The bedrooms are mostly comfortable - although not as airy as the downstairs rooms. 10/10 would definitely trek to Swindon for a game again.
I might stop frothing now, but there may be more later!