Blog Stats
- 393,667 hits
-
Recent Comments
Christmas, Mithras a… on The Myth of the Pagan Christma… Dave Schumacher on Why Everything We Think We Kno… trev on Who Ya Gonna Call? The Problem… CJ’s Critique… on Who Ya Gonna Call? The Problem… Moses Horowitz on Who Ya Gonna Call? The Problem… Top Rated
Categories
- atheism (25)
- Debunking myths (80)
- Dreadful attempts at humour (30)
- Fiction (7)
- Fun forthcoming events (19)
- Games (44)
- History (36)
- History religion and society (1)
- Paranormal (122)
- Religion (52)
- Reviews and Past Events (79)
- Science (80)
- Social commentary desecrated (81)
- Student Life in Cheltenham (6)
- Uncategorized (8)
- Unclassifiable! (14)
- Uninteresting to others whitterings about my life (154)
Blogroll
- Cheltonia : curiosities of Cheltenham.
- Crafting Gentleness
- CRIGGO
- ersby
- Games from Folktales
- GSUK – my ghost forum
- Gurdur's Blog
- Meditative Dishwashing
- Oasis Stories – modern fiction and myth
- POLTERWOTSIT
- Public Parapsychology
- Richard Wiseman
- Roy Stenman's Paranormal Review
- Skeptiko Podcast
- The Amazing Meeting London
- The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley
- The BS Historian
- The Dispersal of Darwin
- The Rather Friendly Sceptic
- The Tytalan Way
Friends
Top Posts
- Cheltenham Ghosts Part One: University of Gloucestershire Ghosts
- Not Bronze Age Myths - let's end this misleading cliche
- Do try this at Home - the Mustard Seed Experiment
- Why Do Ghosts Go "Woo"? Part One.
- Boardgame Review: Agricola
- Million Dollar Psychic: An Interview with Dr. Matthew Smith
- The 12 Games of Christmas -- Board Games are not ALL Terrible!
- A Serious Warning to University of Gloucestershire Students: They Aren't Lying To You About Cars (Updated for 2015)
- RPG Review: Mars Colony, a 2 player Tabletop RPG by Tim Koppang
- Eostre never existed???: why Easter is NOT a Pagan Holiday
-
Recent Posts
Meta
Tag Archives: Grand Tribunal
How I came to organise a Convention (and why you probably should too!).
Firstly, and foremost. It is all Kevin’s fault. I never set out to organise anything – organisation and me are distant acquaintances, at the best. I rarely know what day it is; I sometimes struggle to recall the year. I … Continue reading
Ars Magica the Computer Game: Interview with the Black Chicken Kickstarter Team
First up, do me a favour. If you don’t know or care about Ars Magica, but you enjoy strategy games, or fantasy games, or history games, go to this Kickstarter and think about pledging $20. If it funds, you get … Continue reading
Posted in Fun forthcoming events, Games, History, Reviews and Past Events, Uninteresting to others whitterings about my life
Tagged Ars Magica, Ars Magica computer game, Ars Magica interview, Ars Magica kickstarter, Atlas Games, Black Chicken, Black Chicken interview, David Chart, Grand Tribunal, House Diedne, Kickstarter, Sub Rosa fanzine
3 Comments
The Battle of Fornham 1173: re-fought with Ars Magica!
I have written a lot on games recently and not much else, but back to the normal soon. Despite the title this post is as much about real English history as my game, and therefore possibly worth reading — you can skip the sections with green headings and read the ones with dark blue heading to find the fact rather than the game stuff! I have just finished hosting Grand Tribunal 2012 the Ars Magica roleplaying game convention, and so am still full of enthusiasm for my gaming exploits. This year saw a rather unusual one — trying to recreate a rather important if obscure event in English history (a battle at Fornham, just outside Bury St Edmunds in 1173) with a combination wargame/freeform/rpg game set in the world of Ars Magica, using the 5th edition rules.
However, let’s start with the real world history… Continue reading
Posted in Games, History, Reviews and Past Events, Uninteresting to others whitterings about my life
Tagged Ars Magica, Ars Magica 5th Edition, Atlas Games, Battle of Fornham, Bury St Edmunds, Bury St Edmunds wargames, Fornham 1173, Fornham All Saints, Fornham St Martin, Fornham St. Genevieve, Grand Tribunal, Grand Tribunal 2012, Lark Valley, medieval wargames, Mildenhall Road Bury, rpg/wargames, Suffolk history, Tayfen Meadow, wargames Ars Magica, wargaming, wargaming 12th century England
2 Comments
A Hotel Oddity
OK, so not much going on here. I’m busy organising hotels for the Grand Tribunal rpg convention — and I have noticed a rather curious fact, something that maybe some of my friends from the hospitality industry can comment upon – in the process. I was thinking of trying to organise a block booking for the convention delegates – we could book quite a lot of rooms in theory. I checked the hotel prices online from their websites (not third party bargain sites) and established prices. Then I called round, cited the number of rooms i was interested in, and found — the prices cited with the group booking were higher than the rates currently on offer. The discount appears to be applied to the standard rate — whereas by booking a couple of month early, one gets a cheaper rate. So by booking using a group discount option, it would actually cost me more per night per room than if the guest just book individually online now. Curious, and a fact well worth considering if you should ever have reason to want to book a lot of hotel rooms for any reason. Continue reading
