This is a book for White Wolf’s Werewolf: the Forsaken line, detailing the “bad werewolves” of the setting. Naturally, with it being a horror game, the “good werewolves” are not exactly models of virtue and restraint, but they are supposed to be much more sympathetic than the Pure. The Pure are driven by an unwavering belief in their own virtue, and a genocidal hatred of the Forsaken, the “good werewolves”. They are the religious fanatics, the “master race”, and the merciless hunters of the setting.

The book struck me as a solid, workmanlike performance that covered all the necessary bases. But it didn’t inspire me. This could be just me, of course. There’s a lot of material in it, and plenty of things that could be used in a game to showcase the ways in which the Pure differ from default werewolves, so anyone who found the Pure inspiring, whether as villains or as flawed protagonists, in the core rules would probably find a lot of good stuff here. I never did, and that may well be the problem.

On the up side, there is plenty of material here that I could use if I decided to include the Pure in a game, and it would certainly save me a lot of work; there are sample characters, Rites, Gifts, and fetishes, and discussions of the sorts of things that the Pure get up to. But that extra spark is missing. In the terms I used when marking essays, it’s a solid II:i, but it’s missing that something special needed to make it a first.

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Another fairly self-explanatory title… The series of Cambridge Companions aim to provide a range of scholarly essays on a topic or philosopher, to help advanced students to get to grips with them. Thus, they are introductory from one perspective, but very far from superficial, which makes them an interesting read.

One interesting thing about this book was the number of important medieval Jewish philosophers I’d never heard of. Given that I’ve studied medieval philosophy in some detail, that was a little surprising; not even the names had come up with any frequency. Of course, there were some, Maimonides and Gersonides, most notably, of whom I had heard; I’ve even read Maimonides. One question running through the book is the degree to which Jewish philosophers engaged with Christian and Islamic philosophers in the period, and vice versa, and in many cases the evidence for engagement seems fairly slender. Maimonides and Gersonides are exceptions, which might well be why they were the two I’d heard of; I’ve tended to approach medieval philosophy from the Christian direction.

Another interesting point was the discussion of Judah Halevi, an early twelfth century philosopher who wrote a book known as the Kuzari, dramatising the conversion of the Kazars to Judaism. In this text, he apparently argued that the Jews were racially superior to all other people, and that only Jews could ever be truly virtuous. Conversion was not an option; you had to be a genuine blood descendant of Israel. It’s the first time I’ve come across clear ideas of racial supremacy in a medieval context; the Christians were big on ideological and religious supremacy, but don’t seem to have cared very much about races. Jews (or Muslims) who converted to Christianity were just as good as those who were born that way. Of course, Halevi may have been isolated; certainly, Maimonides seems to have been much less racist. But it was still something of a shock to come across such a pure form of racial supremacy in a medieval text. It’s also something of a shock to come across Jews being racist; they are normally the victims of prejudice in the period. (Not just in the medieval period, either, of course.)

The book also discusses the origins of Kabbalah, albeit somewhat indirectly. Kabbalah tended to be mystical rather than philosophical, and some of its practitioners were opposed to philosophy. Similarly, there was a strong current of medieval Jewish philosophy that thought Kabbalah was a load of rubbish. However, there was also a group, quite important in some areas, that combined Kabbalah and philosophy, generally in a Platonic way. They influenced some Christians who were important in the Renaissance, such as Pico della Mirandola, and that seems to be how Kabbalah broke out of the Judaism and found its way into the mainstream of European occultism.

The book covered far more than I’ve mentioned here, and I now feel like I have a much better grip on what was happening in Jewish philosophy in the period, which should help when it comes to studying Christian philosophy from the same era. It’s rather specialist, but I think it’s a good book.

Books, History, Philosophy | 1 Comment »

This is the World of Darkness sourcebook for the UK. That may, indeed, be fairly obvious from the title, not to mention the cover image, but it still seems like a sensible place to start talking about it. Most of the authors are British, as far as I know, and quite possibly all of them. Certainly, I didn’t spot any gross errors as I was reading through, and quite a few points picked up on things that are of contemporary concern in the UK. (As far as I know from reading the Guardian website from Japan, so I suppose that Americans prepared to do research could have managed it equally well.) The proof that at least some of the authors are genuine Britons is the reference to the Wombles. Mind you, I’m not sure that I could work the Wombles into any variety of horror game.

The book was published as part of the general World of Darkness line, rather than as part of one of the subsidiary game lines. However, it reads as though it was originally written as a Werewolf supplement, and then moved after a policy decision that there would be no more regional sourcebooks for the individual games. There is a lot of emphasis on the werewolves of Britain, with details of packs and fully-statted sample members, and much less on the vampires and mages, although not nothing. There is also some material on other horrific things to be found around the UK, both from old legends and from more recent events.

On the whole, I thought it was well done. However, once again I felt that there was too much emphasis on the created characters, who could fit in, with few changes, anywhere in the world, and not enough emphasis on the background of the UK. More UK legends and haunted places, with suggestions on how to use them in stories, or tie them to different kinds of supernatural creatures, would be more to my taste. As a halfway house, maybe have some supernatural groups tied strongly to local legends, and then sketch how they might also interact with other, slightly more generic groups. This isn’t really a criticism of the authors, because they have done a good job of what they were, doubtless, told to do. It’s not even really a criticism of the editor, because I’m not absolutely sure that my idea would be an improvement. It’s more a general expression of something I think should be tried for a regional book. Until it is tried, we won’t know whether it’s actually better.

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This is a very interesting book, concerned with attitudes to wildlife in the mountain villages of a small region in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. It’s more interesting than that makes it sound, because that draws in attitudes to nature more generally from all across Japan, although the focus is on the one small region where the author did fieldwork.

Throughout the book, he considers the perspectives of three groups; farmers, foresters, and hunters. However, he makes it clear that a large number of people belong to more than one of these groups, because it is very hard to make a living doing any one of them exclusively. Indeed, many residents of the villages have other sources of income as well. The central focus of local attitudes is the damage that wild animals do.

After an introductory chapter explaining the basic situation in Japanese mountain villages, the following chapters consider one type of animal each: Wild Boar, Monkeys, Deer and Serow, Bear, and, finally, Wolves. Wolves stand out because they are generally believed to be extinct in Japan, although there are a few who believe that they are still there in the deep mountains, and the debate is largely about re-introducing them.

None of the animals are subjects of pure hostility, although the damage they do to crops and tree plantations is enough to inspire farmers and foresters to commission hunters to employ lethal force. There is still a recognition that post-war forestry policies have left the animals with little choice about where to get their food, and the declining and aging population of the villages means that it is increasingly difficult to simply scare the animals away.

The clearest message that came from the book was that the rural areas of Japan need a new approach. Since no Agriculture and Forestry Minister has lasted longer than a couple of months this year (one suicide, two resignations, and one who lost his job when the Prime Minister who appointed him resigned), it seems rather unlikely that any leadership will come from the centre. This may be all to the good; it seems that the people living in the mountains believe that the people living in the cities neither understand nor care about their problems, so it is probably better for them to change things for themselves.

The problem with local change is that, when half of the village population is over 60, there isn’t a great deal of surplus energy, and the villages tend to be poor. Since an effective policy is likely to involve tranforming the forests on the mountains, among other things, it’s something that needs long-term commitment, substantial resources, and a lot of energy.

It seems quite possible that people will simply cease living in the mountains of Japan. There are already a number of villages that are completely abandoned, given back to the wild. I’ve seen a couple of documentaries visiting them, and they’re rather eerie. There were no disasters; everyone simply left, when the local authorities could no longer afford to maintain basic services, or when there was no-one else willing to live there. I’m not at all convinced that this is a good trend; the cities are already very crowded. But the imagination and leadership necessary to reclaim the mountains, and create a way of life in which both people and animals can survive, seems to be almost completely lacking.

Books, Japan | 1 Comment »

Shadowrun is a cyberpunk roleplaying game with elves and magic. It’s set in, in this edition, 2070, after magic returned to the world in 2012, awakening dragons, elves, dwarfs, orks, trolls, and magic. The player characters are freelance criminals who do dubious work for corporations. Although, since large corporations are effectively countries, they might better be described as freelance secret agents. The ethical background of the player characters is, to say the least, rather dubious. Despite this, it’s a game that I’ve liked since the first edition, and I have the rule books for all four editions, along with some supplements. I’ve even managed to play it, once, which is more than can be said for a lot of the games I have on my shelves.

Compared to the previous editions, I think that the fourth is an improvement. The rules have been simplified and streamlined, making it look a lot easier to run. At a glance, the general balance of the systems also looks good. By far the largest apparent improvement, however, is the better integration of deckers into the game. Deckers are the characters who deal with computer matrix, and in previous editions they would always have little solo adventures without the other player characters, and then have nothing to do while the others did their thing. That’s bad game design.

The new edition makes use of wireless networking to bring the deckers along, although, as they no longer have cyberdecks, they are now called hackers. Most of the time, a hacker is only partially in the matrix (Shadowrun has called its virtual world the matrix since long before the film came out, but it never seemed to run into a trademark clash), and thus can participate in actions in the real world as well. He can become fully immersed, but this is set up as being something that he does briefly, before rejoining the real world and moving on.

That’s the biggest difference. Shadowrun has a metaplot, which means that the background has moved on since I last looked, but it’s still recognisably the same world. It still feels like Shadowrun, and I still like it. I’m really not at all sure why, though. Some sort of atavism, perhaps, and the same reason that pirates are popular. Shadowrunners are a lot like pirates, after all, in that they kill and steal for a living, but still manage to be somehow heroic. When I played, I think my character was rather less violent than the setting assumed…

Still, it’s well put together, and I like it. Another recommended game.

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I’ve been reading a lot of books about bilingual education, and this is the latest. Actually, I’ve read three, and the other two are both recommended in the back of this one, which is quite encouraging. They all have distinctly different approaches, but they also all agree on two points.

First, raising your child bilingual is a very good idea, and very good for the child. Second, it’s a lot of work. You have to think carefully about the language environment, and try to balance it.

I think it’s inevitable that Yudetamago will grow up with stronger Japanese, unless we move out of Japan (no plans for that at the moment), since Yuriko and I will continue speaking to each other in Japanese; I’ll talk to Yudetamago in English.

Anyway, the main difference about this book was that it is more focussed on schools, and on minority languages. This is no doubt due to the author’s background: he lives in Wales, and his children are English/Welsh bilingual. Thus, there is a lot of interesting information on how to set up schools to support bilingual children, and on what to look for in a school. I suspect we won’t get as much choice as we might like, although sending Yudetamago to an English-medium school would be an option, if we had enough money.

Another interesting point was that this book confirmed something I strongly suspected based on personal experience. Older children and adults learn foreign languages faster than young children. The difference is that younger children tend to end up with a better accent, and have more years to study in total. I was convinced that my Japanese was better than a Japanese seven-year-old, and it’s nice to be told that I’m probably right. In another eight years, I might even be able to write grammatically-accurate Japanese.

Overall, I think that this book will be less immediate use than the others, due to its emphasis on schools, but in a few years’ time it will probably be very useful indeed.

Books, Our Child | 2 Comments »

Ghouls is a book for the World of Darkness, specifically for Vampire: the Requiem. It concerns humans who are given vampire blood to drink. They become addicted to the blood and, fairly quickly, come to regard the vampire supplying it as the most important being in their world. The blood also gives them access to some of the powers of vampires, making them stronger than normal humans, but they do not suffer the limitations; most significantly, they can go out during the day. Thus, they are the perfect servants for vampires, and that is their main role in the game.

This book thus serves two purposes. First, it develops ghouls in more detail as supporting characters, serving the player characters or their opponents. Some ghouls manage to maintain a precarious independence, and they can be allies or antagonists in their own right.

Second, it considers the possibilities of ghouls as player characters. Bound by their addiction and forced adoration for a master who is normally abusive, they are not in a particularly pleasant situation. However, for a series of roleplaying games that are about personal horror, this is not at all inappropriate. Indeed, I think they would make a very good viewpoint for examining the horror of the World of Darkness.

There is, however, a problem. Ghouls are almost all bound to vampires. This deprives them of the freedom to take the initiative in setting up stories and adventures, and this is a significant limit on a roleplaying game. What’s more, it would be unusual for a vampire to have enough ghoul servants to make a viable group, and even if he did, he would be unlikely to use them as a group. Mixed groups pose their own problems. Mixed ghouls and vampires face the problem that ghouls are active in daylight. Mixed ghouls and non-ghouls raise the problem of why the vampire allows the ghoul to associate with the others.

In short, the problem is that, although I can see how to build good stories around a single ghoul, I cannot really see how to work them into a group. The book does do some work towards dealing with this, and, of course, this is not the primary intended use of the material, so this is certainly not a major problem.

On the other side, however, a lot of the detail in the book is unlikely to see much use unless there are ghoul player characters. The information on how different clans and covenants of vampires tend to treat their ghouls is interesting, but player character vampires get to choose their own approaches. Similarly, the detailed rules on character creation are redundant if the ghouls are NPCs, and will thus be created to reach an appropriate power level. The information on ghoul families may be an exception to this; it can be used to create a new and interesting antagonist for a chronicle, or a background for a character who takes on a role other than ghoul.

In sum, this is a good book, with good ideas that make me want to use it. However, I’m not sure just how easy it would be to really use most of the information given here. If it had that extra bit of information, it might be a great book.

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Or, as I like to think of it, “Paranoid Parents’ Problem Primer”. Seven hundred pages of things that could go horribly wrong with your child.

OK, it’s not quite as bad as that. The first chapters are all about normal development, and thus much less paranoia-inducing. They do talk about the things that can go wrong, but they also talk about what “going right” looks like, which is likely to reduce the level of worry. Those chapters are divided by age, and each includes a box on things you should do to help your child’s mental development. A few things appear on every list: “Provide a loving environment” is one of them. Another is “Speak a foreign language at home if you know one”, so it looks like the consensus in favour of raising Yudetamago bilingual is overwhelming.

The most paranoia-inducing section was the chapter on accident prevention. “All accidents can be prevented!” Translation: “If your child has an accident, it’s your fault.” Actually, this chapter felt like it was written by the AAP’s lawyers, not its doctors. Some of the advice is actually impossible to follow. For example, when shopping, it says that you should not take your eyes off your child even for a moment. To, for example, choose items of the shelves, get money out, or pay. So, if you’re a working single parent, you cannot shop and still be a good parent.

I’m going to be taking the prevention advice with a pinch of salt. Some bits are clearly right; I’ll be getting child covers for the unused plug sockets in the flat, for example, and a fire extinguisher. Other bits add up to being silly. In the section on preventing sunburn, they say that you should not let your child play outside between 10am and 4pm. In the section on preventing insect bites, they say you should not let your child play outside around dawn, late afternoon, and dusk. Obviously, letting your child play outside in the dark is dangerous. Best to keep them inside, safe in their disinfected padded rooms.

The book is also clearly American in a number of ways. One is the discussion of insurance plans, but another is the discussion of moving your baby. The only modes of transport discussed are cars and planes. No discussion of buses and trains. Bicycles are mentioned, but only to say that it’s far too dangerous to mount a child on a bicycle. This is mildly annoying, since we are likely to be transporting Yudetamago on buses and trains, and some advice on how would have been very helpful.

The second part of the book (a bit less than half) is a list of things that could go wrong with your child and what to do. I can see that this will be very useful when Yudetamago is ill; looking through will help to decide whether we need to call the doctor, or whether kissing it better will be enough.

Sometimes, however, it is less encouraging. “This is a serious and perplexing disease”, “However, despite intense research, no bacteria, virus, or toxin has been established as the cause of the disease”, “In most cases the blood vessels return to normal after a few months, but in some cases they remain weakened”. This is the sort of mysterious illness that parents get really paranoid about.

The fact that it is called Kawasaki Disease is not helping.

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I ordered this book from Amazon Japan, and it arrived on the day of release. The packaging had a sticker on saying “Deliver after 8:01 am on July 21st”, so that it would be after midnight London time, but it didn’t reach me until about 1pm. This is clearly discrimination.

I did still manage to finish it on the day of release, and thus avoid spoilers, but that didn’t leave time to write about it. And then there’s a backlog of book comments to post to my blog, so it got held up more.

The downside is that I don’t get to look like a cutting-edge opinion former, posting my review almost as soon as the book hits the streets.

On the bright side, that reduces the chance of my blog spoiling it from someone who really wants to read it. By this point, I suspect that most people who really want to find out how the series finishes by reading the book have done so, and can’t have it spoiled for them. Still, there might be a few left, and on the off chance that they are reading my blog, I’ll hide the actual spoilers from the front page.

So, if you click to read more, you will find out what happened. You Have Been Warned.
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Boston Unveiled is the default setting book for Mage: The Awakening. These books serve a couple of functions. The most obvious is to provide a developed setting for chronicles, to save storytellers a bit of time. The other is to provide examples of the ways that the rules can be used, and the sorts of characters you might create. On the whole, I think they are more successful in the second role.

This book is no exception. As a collection of example mages and cabals, it does a very good job. It fills in the details of what the Awakened might do with their time, or want from their power, and, naturally, makes them all slightly tainted, because the series is essentially a set of horror games. The non-mage ideas are also good; I particularly like The Prince of 100,000 Leaves, an imaginative and terrible horror. That’s an idea that I immediately want to steal.

However, I’m not sure that they work so well in the first role. The problem is, I think, inherent to the form. They fix the broad outlines of the chronicle, but leave most of the details to be filled in. However, designing the broad outlines is the fun and easy part; it’s filling in the details that takes time and effort, at least for most people. On the other hand, it’s very difficult to do the details without the broad outlines.

I think the Tribunal books we do for Ars Magica are a bit more useful, because they provide a lot of information on the history and medieval myths of the area, and that saves storyguides a lot of research. But, fundamentally, they suffer from the same problem; they run the risk of cramping the storyguide’s style without saving him a lot of time.

This is not, therefore, a criticism of this book. I think it’s a good book for Mage, and very useful for people playing the game. I’m just not sure that it actually achieves, or can achieve, the ostensible aim.

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