Marlborough, Physio and Stretching

I've been laid low with sciatica. Some months ago I decided I was going to have to bail out of the Marlborough Downs 33 mile challenge.
Very disappointing, especially as I'd persuaded / challenged my brother to run it this year. We're looking to raise money for the Kenya Community Education Project - a small non-profit school funding project that my brother's been involved with.

I'd seen the doctor about my sciatica, and been told to rest and take ibuprofen. The NHS website has a few stretches to combat sciatica, which I was trying to remember to do regularly. Nothing was getting better - in fact, with work requiring me to drive assorted hire cars with badly adjusted seats on long hauls, and my lab stool being badly set for typing up reports, I was getting worse.

One day I was in such agony that I just made a private appointment for a physiotherpay session, then went home, calling in sick for the rest of the day.
That was my best move of this saga!

Physio at Daventry's  Heartlands Physiotherapy (not a sponsored plug, just a genuinely grateful nod) discovered a bunch of things wrong with me that were causing the sciatica - but which all boil down to one overall issue: I'm not supple, and running was tightening everything up.

When I first satarted running, I used to stretch a bit afterwards. I seem to have stopped bothering at some point. Part of the reason I was doing it was to strengthen my knees - but the knee troubles of my novice days seemed to have disappeared, so I suppose that's why I stopped.

I've never been able to touch my toes with my knees straight - but I'd been gradually getting worse. Toughening up my legs with long distances was also shortening my muscles and ligaments. I was less and less flexible.
When the sciatica hit, I could hardly even touch my knees! (Exaggeration, but not much.) And putting on socks was a real struggle.

I'm not actually this skinny

So I was prescribed a bunch of stretches - hamstring, piriformis, side core, knee - and some strengthening exercises - squats. Twice a day. The pain started to go away. I need less ibuprofen.

I have a couple of pages of diagrams like this

After a couple of appointments to check progress, I got back to running short distances, and have built up the miles gently. I've got back into a routine, but added to it, too - now I'm running shorter distances at the weekend, but more often. Instead of running 30km in one go, I'm doing two lots of 15km - one in the morning, and one in the evening, and then again the next day.

So now, after 3 months, I'm ready for the biggest run of the year.

Click here to sponsor me (or my brother - the choice of charity was his).

I'll never neglect my stretching again!

Buying Shoes

Shoes are hard to buy for long distance running, because you don't really know what they'll be like until you've run a serious few in them - and then it's too late to take them back.

Here, then, are some problems I've found over the last 4 years:

• Stripes - dynamic stylish stripes on shoes can cut into the instep. Maybe they're added for arch support? But for me, they are usually a sign of bleeding soles to come.
• Width fitting - I've got skinny ankles but wide toes, and my spread starts back at the arch. If I don't get medium width or wider shoes, I get compression across the bones of the middle of my foot.
• Differences in sizing - a 9 is not a 9 from all the shoe makers. At least this one is easy to spot in the shoe shop, or before I go running, but sometimes I've been caught out by shoes that are only slightly too small, and thinking I'll get away with it. Black toenails from repetitive briuising are the result - not good.

Moat of these issues take about 6km (3-4 miles) to manifest. The shoes by then are muddy and the soles are clearly scuffed. It's cost me an average of about £100 each year in hardly used shoes - I wear out shoes every 500 miles or so.

This outburst today was brought to you by the shoe sale at our local sports store, from which two pairs of low priced lemons have recently made their way, via a 6 mile detour round my running routes, into the charity shops.

So for the 33 mile ultramarathon next month, I'll be running in my old, nearly worn out shoes - cause I'm not risking wrong shoes on the race day!

Sciatic nerve pinch!

It feels like I've somehow pinched my sciatic nerve - the leg nerve that runs from the back of the pelvis to the calf. It's a sharp pain in the back of my right hip, that gets worst when I raise my right leg, especially if I keep the leg straight.

No, it's not some Vulcan incapacitating technique, it's an injury.

Apparently this is common in runners, though I've only just experienced it after years of happy running.
Weight lifters also get it, so maybe the leg lunges with weights I was trying out to strengthen my knees started it off.
Lower back mobility is another issue - and I've always had difficulty touching my toes with straight legs, ever since I was a kid.

There are a bunch of exercises to strengthen the core muscles, which should prevent it from re-occurring, and there are a load of stretches to ease it off in the mean time.

But the horrifying crux of the matter is - I should stop running till the pain goes, then build back up gently.

Yuk! Horrible idea!

I've got three and a half months till the Marlborough 33 miler - so I've got to rest if I'm going to get better.

In the meantime, I'll be back at the boxing and static bike - and I'm looking to get a rowing machine maybe - to keep the cardio up and help with the core flexing and strength.

Snowdonia Marathon - earning XP

I knew Snowdonia was going to be tough, but I didn't think it'd be that bad.

I trained at running up and down hills, because I live a relatively flat part of the world. The nearest steep hill I've got is a couple of miles long, with a maximum gradient of 20% - whereas the three Snowdonia ascents get up to nearly 30%. So I trained with ankle weights on.

I'd heard that for marathons, it's better to run three days of 10 mile runs than to do marathon length runs as training - so I did that.

I'd been told that the Snowdonia marathon was mainly road, with a little bit of track and path - so I mainly trained for road, with a little off road.

On the day, I slogged up the first ascent and down again without much trouble. The long down hill and flat section was steady, then the second ascent went reasonably well.

Some loon who thinks he can run

More loons

It was about 20 miles that I started to really tire out. My feet ached from pounding down the hills as well as the long distance. I had to stop for a moment and massage my legs and rest my feet - just for a moment. I spent the rest of the flat section shuffling slower and slower.

The last mountain was where I picked up the pace again - going up hill puts less pressure on your feet. I'd trained and trained at the uphill running. From mile 23 or so, I climbed about 200 metres in single run, then as the ground was just levelling out, I had to slow to walk. The road turned into a rocky path, all uneven footing and sharp edges. My knees and all the fine-control muscles hurt like hell, and my feet ached.

When I'd made it to mile 23, I'd been on track for a personal best marathon. If I'd had that bit more stamina to manage the flats and the hard terrain at the top, I'd have managed it.
As it was, I still made a respectable time for my first Snowdonia - just under 5 hours. I'd been hoping for under 5.5 hours. I'd have been happy with under 6 hours.

My brother, the rugby-playing runner, by contrast - he passed me at the top of the last climb, and bounded down the rocky descent.

So - the lessons:

1. Train the long distances till they're routine.
   I want to run marathons fortnightly, so I'm prepared for those last six miles.
2. End on bigger hills, including the descents.
   Going downhill when you're tired is hard. I need to condition myself to run down hills after a long tiring run.
3. More off-road.
   The surprisingly tough surface at the end ofthe run threw me. I do a fair bit of off road running, but I should have done more long distance off-road for this one.

The subtext here, of course, is that I'll be back - Snowdonia is an amazing marathon.

They print your name on your number sheet, so everyone calls it out as you go past - "Come on, Alastair! You can do it, Alastair!" That's still with me - but my knees don't hurt anymore.

Rules and the Game

Why do we use rules to play games? What are rules?

I'm an inquisitive engineer, with a background in sciences, and a love of games. I've been finding that when I talk to people about game rules, there's quite a different reaction even among those who love to play the same games as me. What's that all about?

The Game / Narrative / Simulation theory suggests players can be split into three camps - those who play the game as a challenge, those who play to create stories, and those who play to simulate an alternate reality - and that real gamers can be placed on a three axis graph that reflect their love of each.

[dons pretentious beret and roll-neck]
But like Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I've found there seems to be a split among gamers between what he called Classical thinking (dissect in-game situations to create simulation rules) and Romantic thinking (just do whatever feels right for the enjoyment of the game).

And like Pirsig, I think there's a way to create harmony between these two camps.
[stashes pretentious garb - for now]

I'm going to start with two questions, and see where those lead me: What are rules (in RPGs)? and What are rules for (in RPGs)?

What are rules?

In the context of RPGs, what do we mean by rules? Is everything in the AD&D Players' Handbook (for example) a rule? I think possibly not.

RPG books tend to present a few different types of material, so let's look at each in turn.

Character rules

Character abilities - how strong and smart the character is, skills and so on: these are obviously rules. Without these, the character you play isn't defined.

Mechanics of a game - what dice to roll, numbers to add, targets to beat, etc - especially where these are the mechanics for conflict resolution (can you hit the monster with your sword? can you climb over the wall and escape? can you argue your way past the palace guard?): clearly these are rules.

Species (human, vampire, elf, vulcan, etc) - the playable species (specieses?) of the game also forms part of the rules. Some games may present rules for creating new species, so that playable species are all of a similar power.
Similarly monsters and other adversaries - examples and / or rules for creation form part of the rules.

Are spells, equipment and gadgets rules? Probably, yes - they establish the power of players' characters and their tools. Again, like species, maybe the underlying systems should be put forward along with the spells, equipment etc, to explicitly show the system from which the examples are derived.

Tools, species, and adversaries are benchmarks for the power of the games elements. While most games will give examples, some will also provide rules for creation - what bonuses are appropriate for tools to provide, what are appropriate damages for weapons to deal, how tough adversaries should be, and so on.

Tables of options - like settlement population, random encounters, treasure and the like - are these rules? Maybe not...
Is it a rule of the game that settlements have certain population sizes and demographics, or is this a guide on setting, rather than a game play rule? Would you bother to ask the question about a list of random character or pub names?

Although lots of elements may appear in the rule book to help with play, not all of them are really rules - there's a lot of guidance and flavour in RPG books.

What are rules for?

As well as having my own opinions, I asked around on some RPG forums to get a sense of what other people think. It's always worth it - some people confirmed what I was thinking, but there were some gems of insight I'd never have thought of for myself.

So, in no special order, here's what rules do for us:

Fair play - rules make the game fair.

They create a system for fair interaction, including by randomisation (by Jenga tower, dice, cards or whatever) - rather than the players directly deciding the outcome of their characters' actions (GM included), there is a random element. This avoids bias, or the suspicion of bias.

Fair play also includes fair and equal access to an enjoyable experience. The player's abilities should not hold them back from having fun playing the role they want - the game rules should allow everyone to play equally.



A superspy yesterday

Just as the game rules allow weak students and office workers to play strapping tough warriors and action heroes, I think that the same attitude needs to be applied to social skills. So I may want to play a suave and seductive superspy, but I have the flirting skills of a celebate monk - and the game rules can allow me to do just that. As a player, I should be free to spout cheesy flirting and pick up lines, but my inept skill with them shouldn't override the character's skill.


Gaming the rules - we can play with the mechanics to achive our goals.

The combat rules of the d20 systems have various manoeuvres that can knock down or reposition your opponent, steal or destroy their equipment, and so on. Using these rules imaginatively can be very satisfying.
Rules must serve the style of the game, and enable players (see Fair play, above). Rules should focus attention on the important bits of the game (arguably, d20 games aim to make combat a focus of game play) - they certainly shouldn't get in the way.

Challenges - without rules, what limits you?

If we don't have any rules, can't we just declare the actions of our characters? What stops us being invincible? Can't we claim to have special armour and ignore the attacks of enemies? Can't we call on powers at will and without precedent?

Where do I stand?

Yes, I like rules - but if you come to my game, will you find me invoking the rule book? No, not really.
I prefer to run games by eyeballing the situation - using freeform instincts, within a rules set that I'm largely familiar with.

In my day job, I have a bunch of several-hundred-page safety standards that I have to refer to to test products for safety - but each of these boils down to a set of prescribed tests, built around a small set of safety principles.
Now, I know those principles very well. When I'm testing, I only need to look up the specifics of the test standard when the result is hard to call - most of the time, it's obvious whether the product meets the principles or not.

Of course, knowing the core rule concepts is vital.
Years ago, a gang of us used to do Live Action Role-Playing at the weekends, and we'd sometimes co-opt our non-RPing mates to come and make up the numbers too. One of these non-RPing guys - Jon - clouted a player character - Mike - across the legs with his sponge axe during a fight. Mike asked how much damage the axe dealt - and Jon said "Dunno - ten?"
Now 10 points of damage was a vast amount. Mike's character had 2 hit points on his legs - so Jon's hit had supposedly chopped them off completely. Basically, if the game's Ref had briefed Jon properly, he'd have known not to say "10" - Jon needed to know the ball-park area in which to make an educated guess.

So the rules are important, if only to act as a frame on which to improvise sensibly.
Like jazz [puts on the beret and roll-neck again] - an incompetent random honking on a bunch of trumpets sounds terrible, but a skilled player with an understanding of the rules can break those rules in an entertaining and exciting way.

The rules I've been palying around with inventing recently have been largely about the game setting. You see, I feel like I need to understand what is normal - long before I go deviating from it.
In storytelling, normality must be established / understood before the fantastic events take place - this creates base from which to operate, and avoids players' awkward questions.

I personally really don't like those questions - you know: "Why is XYZ not like ABC, as is normal?"

"Why is there such a long distance between towns? In Medieval Europe, there was generally less than a day's walk between villages - so why is it different here?"

"How can the Dark Lord muster an army of a million, when that'd require a support staff of double that amount? There surely aren't that many people on the continent."

"Why would anyone build a castle here? That makes no sense."

I hate being caught out like that - so I like to explore what is normal first, so I can make sure my games reflect something like reality - or so that when I chose to step away from the normal, I know that I've done so!

Then I can say: "Yes, that is odd, isn't it?"

Playing with rules

Last word from me on this topic - and the pretentiousness really piles up with this bit, I'm afraid.

Listening to Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage, when presenters Brian Cox and Robin Ince were talking with maths author Alex Bellos and number theorist Vicky Neale, the love of discovering new mathematics was brought up - and it rang a big lovely bell with me. Let me paraphrase...

Making up rules is to play with quantifying the world in tables.
I'm finding the patterns, which I then use to provide a simulation.
Rules aren't made, they're waiting to be discovered and expressed.

[adjusts beret, strokes goatee]

In praise of one-off sessions

Throwing together a one-off game for an evening is something that the group I used play with used to do a lot.
Or rather, Tim used to do it a lot. I used to do it a bit. Other players used to do it sometimes. Tim was our hero GM, really. Hail Tim!

But I digress - making up a one-off game, that would last just one night, is what I want to blog about here.

I've got an ulterior motive here - I've become Tim. I'd like to get to play now and then, but I seem to be the only person in my gaming group who runs games.
Just like with Tim, I suspect that's because I volunteer to do so, and other GMs don't feel the need to step up.

Low investment

If your one-off game goes a bit wrong, who cares? You only spent an evening on it, and you still got to muck about with your mates.

You only have one evening, so the game needs to be quite simple, too. Don't try to have a complex plot, cause it'll be harder to show it in just a few hours of play. Keep the number of encounters to a minimum. Have just one villain, and a few minions. Don't have too many puzzles.

Cut to the chase

Get the game into the action as soon as you can. I've already blogged on where I got it wrong with one of my own one-off sessions. Here's what I learned

Maybe start in media res

Don't get bogged down in details - move on quickly, jump to the end of the journey

Don't use challenging encounters as a warm up

Also, my desire to start with the action has led me to a way of doing things that works quite well if you have a day or so of notice: tell the players up front what the adventure set up is going to be, and ask them why their character is going to be there.
For example: The adventure will be taking place in the castle of Baron Vileness, who is hated by the locals for his harsh taxes and bad behaviour. He often abducts pretty young folk and abuses them. He is said to have vast reserves of treasure and magical artefacts.
Why does your character want to break into the castle, and what are they planning to do there?
This lets the players think up their own characters' motives, which may only overlap with the other characters' motives in that they're both trying to get into Castle Vileness and get something from it.
Armed with the players input, I then tweak the adventure to give them what they want.
You get to steer the players into your adventure, but they control their characters' motivations.

Why is this good for one-session games? Because we start the session at Castle Vileness, with everyone already knowing why they want to be there and what they have to do.

Building on short games

One-off adventures are the best start. When you've never GMed before, or if you don't GM very often (hint, hint), it's far less daunting to run a game for a few hours, than it is to think about how a game will last weeks of multiple sessions and need an interlocking story and game-world and so on.
A short story is far easier to write than a novel - and a novel is easier to write than a whole game multiverse.

The setting that I use for my games is actually the result of a couple of decades idle thought, and collaberation from the other GMs.
What I actually have written down is tiny compared to the time it's taken. I'm actually very lazy - it just looks like I've done loads of work.

I've been watching Star Trek's original series - and it's really clear that each episode is adding to a galaxy that was rather sketchy to start off with. Ideas change and mutate over the course of the first season - but it doesn't matter! Each episode is self-contained.

So if you feel the urge to make up a whole complex multiverse, then don't try to do that before you start playing - the short games will build that game world as you go along.

Where I Go Wrong - short, one-off games

Here's my first post beginning a series of posts about mistakes I find myself making while GMing, and thoughts about how to fix those mistakes.

Last night, I ran a game for a couple of mates in which an incident while the heroes were out hunting was supposed to lead the story into another, more significant event that was happening nearby.
The hunting was coincidental to the real adventure, but it bogged down and dominated the game session, so much so that what I had planned to be a single three hour session of gaming has now ended with a cliff-hanger, with action to be concluded next session.

Here's how it went down:

A Duchess wants to butter up a Count so that he is amenable to negotiations, and claims that the best way to do this is to arrange for him to have a successful kill of a great beast - a sabre-toothed tiger - while hunting. The heroes are to steer the count to the beast, and aid in the kill - but not steal the kill, so that the Count feels awesome.
This hunting expedition is actually a set up so that the player characters are on hand to witness some other event that happens nearby. I'll not go into what that event is, because the players may be looking - and it doesn't really matter for this post, except as the true aim of the game session.

Beardy, a player of Sefu the warrior hero, was late arriving - he thought we were going to play at the local games club for some reason. (Mrs Alastair, player of Silwen the caster hero, was on hand, due to being Mrs Alastair.) The lateness isn't too significant, but I suspect it should have alerted me to the need to keep things short...

After a little preamble in which the patron Duchess explains her needs, Mrs Alastair gets stuck in with questions. These are all good, valid questions, but we further delay getting to the action as her concerns are addressed.
I go through some descriptions of the landscape and scenery, and arriving at the Chateau where the hunt is going to start - then make the time-consuming mistake of having the guard on the gate halt them. From my description of him - trying to inject a little humour by making him a sloppy Gallic reprobate, smoking a cheroot while supposedly on duty - Sefu the warrior hero wants to sort out the guard's uniform and tell him off (Sefu was a guard on an airship before graduating to heroism). Now we take a few more minutes to discuss whether it's possible for Sefu to straighten the guard's helmet without starting a fight. I say "No - he's got a pike: if you try to close with him while he's challenging you, he'll kick off." We agree that yes, the guard would be minced up pretty sharpish, but that wouldn't be a good way to start employment as beaters for the coming hunt.
Then I compound my mistake by role-playing discussions on the logistics of beating, gameskeeping and so on. Fun, but not what I'm trying to do with this session.

Of course, throughout this actual game play, we get distracted with the usual nattering off topic as well - so that by the time the hunting party has set off with our two heroes inserted as beaters, it's well past 9pm.
We engaged in somewhat curtailed role-playing within the hunting party, as I'm now increasing aware of the lagging time. I spring the tiger action on them after just a few minutes of banter.
The fight with the dire tiger was rather exciting, to be honest - mainly because of the extra requirement of having to make the Count believe he was the one who killed the beast, I think. Making the players think differently about the fight, seemed to add something.
The fight started with one of the NPC beaters being ambushed - and outright killed - by the tiger. The tiger then made off, dragging its prey over the heath. I played the tiger as instinctively as possible - she wasn't interested in the hunting party except as obstacles to avoid as she made off with her dinner... until they started to seriously injure her - then she fought back.
The players were pulling their blows a little to let the count make the significant hits - until Sefu was mauled by the tiger, and dropped. Then Mrs Vexed unleashed the big spells, and the Count really had to fight it unaided. A few more injuries, and the tiger fled for her life.

By this time - about 10:45 - the tiger was well cut and stabbed and burned - and the Count's arrow was the last hit before it bled out into unconsciousness.
With a little wrapping up of the session (healing Sefu, performing the coup de grace on the tiger, role-playing of the woe of losing a beater, calming down after the excitement), I produced a cliff-hanger for the next session: rising smoke in the distance, and the flash of swords in the sunlight.

What did I learn from this?

• Move on quickly - we get sidetracked with funny scenes or colourful encounters, but the action needs to move on. 
• Rather than debating whether the guard would attack Sefu, I could have just had him bluster comically, and then direct the heroes where they were meant to go.
• Rather than dwelling on the set up of the hunt, I could have jump-cut to the heroes' hunting party travelling overland toward their goal.
• Maybe start in media res - a logical extension of the jump-cut: we could have begun with the hunting party, and recapped the introduction. These players are quite happy with narrative leaps (I've used plenty of "Cut to the Death Star" type scenes to build tension, before), I could easily have used them.
• Don't use challenging monsters as a warm up. The dire tiger was too tough, and took too long - especially as it was just a preliminary to the real point of the scenario.