Table of Contents
Welcome to James Kemp's Wiki
This is a collaborative web platform that allows people to edit1) the web pages to provide additional content for some of the stories I have written and the roleplaying games that I am involved in, whether as a player or GM.
There are several namespaces operating slightly different wiki subjects. These are, in no particular order:
- Skyss - Story Background - a fantasy novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2016.
- Perfects - background for the near future story and some police roleplaying that I ran in that universe
- Theocracy of Daprav - A D&D campaign that I ran with Glasgow University Games Society around 2002-3.
- Jim Wallman's Universe - a roleplaying by e-mail campaign that I play in, this is an unofficial wiki and none of it is canon unless Jim says it is.
- Interstellar Freelance Unlimited - subset of the Universe pages covering the activities of a mercenary company that we are currently roleplaying every Full Moon.
- Earth Imperium pages. These cover the activities of the Government of the Solar republic (aka Earth Empire) in Jim's Humanity Will Prevail campaign, including the Earth Imperium News Items.
- Free Worlds Alliance - covering the activities of another emerging polity in the Humanity Will Prevail campaign. Mostly contributed by Eric Moroney.
- Universe Background - page collecting the various bits of background info that have come up in various e-mail discussions for the campaigns set in Jim Wallman's Universe.
- Master map of the Universe (6Mb PDF, as at 3212).
- Delta Green - some roleplaying campaigns about horror and conspiracy. The main one was set in Berlin in 1953.
- Free games rules - a collection of free rules for wargames and other sorts of face to face games that I have designed or run.
- Wargames rules - I'm not just a player of games, I also do rules for them from time to time as well as one-off games. A primary outlet for this is through Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group.
- Other free rules - at the moment just those for the 1689 (Orange or Lemon? and Bonnie Dundee, respectively about the debates in the Scots Parliament and then the military campaign of Viscount Dundee during 1689) and The Other Side of the COIN (about what makes people become insurgents). All games that I have have produced for Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group.
- Background for a near future universe where I have written some fiction and also run some roleplaying games in.
Comments and complaints to me at webmaster@full-moon.info please.
James Kemp
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Recent Additions
Forerunners
One of the long running plot threads in Jim's universe is that there was a mysterious alien forerunner species that inhabited a lot of the systems that humans have spread out to (well all of them as far as we can tell). To investigate this humanity has combined efforts to create the Interstellar Forerunner Foundation.
| 19 Jan 2012 21:02 | James Kemp |
Other Games
These are the games that don't seem to belong to another sensible grouping.
Kim's Game
Props: A variety of small items, a tray, a tea towel to cover up the tray, some paper and pencils.
Time: About 5-10 minutes depending on how long you give the Beavers to remember the items.
Instructions: to quote Baden Powell himself “The Scoutmaster should collect on a tray a number of articles - knives, spoons, pencil, pen, stones, book and so on - not more than about fifteen for the first few games, and cover the whole over with a cloth. He then makes the others sit round, where they can see the tray, and uncovers it for one minute. Then each of them must make a list on a piece of paper of all the articles he can remember… The one who remembers most wins the game.”
Comments: This is the famous game from Rudyard Kipling's story '//Kim//'.
A variant is instead of getting the observers to write things down is to remove an item and get the beavers to spot what is missing.
Sweeties
Props: Some small plates (one per group) and some packets of different sweets (dolly mixtures, skittles, jelly beans or similar)
Time: About five minutes.
Instructions: Beavers need to be split into groups of about 4-6. Each group gets a paper plate with about five or six small sweeties on it. They all need to be distinguishable, so things like smarties, skittles, dolly mixtures etc are good. One beaver sits with his back to the group and the others quietly choose a sweetie on the plate. When they've done this the other beaver turns round and eats the sweeties one by one. If they tough the choosen sweetie then the other Beavers yell “STOP!” and that is the last sweetie they get to eat. The plate is then replenished and the next Beaver takes their turn as the 'eater'.
Comments: A perfect game to play just before sending the beavers home…
Fill A Minute
Props: None required, although a kitchen timer could be useful for the more outgoing members…
Time: about a minute per performer (although it can be used as a random filler with volunteers)
Instructions: Everyone has something that they can do to entertain the group, for about a minute. It could be telling jokes, singing a song, performing a magic trick, some acrobatic showing off or even a skit with a friend (if they've been expecting this). It could even be 'tell us about…'
Comments: This can either be an organised session where everyone has to take a turn, starting with volunteers and working on to the shyer members of the colony, or it could be used as a random filler between activities or on a walk. If Beavers don't know what to do you might want to prompt them with something you know they know about, most small boys will talk excitedly about something…
Scouting Games
Since Alexander has started with the local Beaver colony (5th Reigate, based in Merstham) I have been helping as an assistant leader (going under the nom de guerre 'Hawkeye'). These are the write-ups of some of the games that I have either played with the Beavers, or which I remember from my teenage years when I was an adult instructor with the 1st Glen Lusset's cubs and scouts.
Relay Races
One of the primary sorts of games are relay races with the beavers/cubs/scouts split into even sized groups.
Circle Games
As the title suggests, games where the beavers/cubs/scouts sit in a circle.
Other Games
Some other games, not involving racing within teams.
- Kim's Game - an old classic from Kipling, needs about a dozen random objects and a cloth to cover them up
- sweeties - needs dolly mixtures or similar sweets
Circle Games
All these games involve the beavers/cubs/scouts sitting in a circle. In most cases the circle wants to be fairly wide, with the kids evenly spaced and not quite touching each other as they sit cross legged round the perimeter.
Duck Duck Goose
Props: None.
Time: As long as necessary.
Instructions: One beaver is chosen as 'it'. They then walk round the circle tapping other beavers on the shoulder and nominating them as either a “Duck” or a “Goose”. When a beaver is nominated as a Goose then they have to chase the person that tagged them round the circle. The beaver that is 'it' will run round the circle and attempt to take the Goose's place in the circle, if they make it then the Goose becomes 'it'. If not then they carry on with another round.
Comments:
Chinese Whispers
Props: None, although you might want to write some short messages on a piece of paper to get things started.
Time: a couple of minutes per message
Instructions: A classic game. The first beaver whispers the message to the beaver on their left, and so on round the circle (keeping the volume down so only the next beaver hears). When the last beaver (on the right of the first beaver) hears the message they then tell the whole circle what they have just heard. The first beaver then tells the circle what the original message was.
Comments:
Keys
Props: A set of keys
Time: 5 minutes or so.
Instructions: Number the beavers round the circle so that there are 3-4 each with the same number. The leader then calls out a number (making sure to rotate through them all). When their number is called out the beavers jump up and round clockwise round the outside of the circle until they get back to their own space. They then run into the middle and grab the keys before sitting back down in their own space.
Comments: The central object can be anything that will sit still when put down and is easy to grab. Bean bags work as well as a set of keys and may well be safer.
Catch / Don't Catch
Props: A bean bag or small ball
Time: about five minutes per round.
Instructions: The beavers sit in a circle and a leader goes in the middle. Moving round the circle one at a time the leader throws the beanbag to the beaver, first instructing them to 'Catch' or 'Don't Catch' at random. If the beaver does the wrong thing then they are out. (NB, attempting to catch counts as a catch whether or not it is successful).
Comments: The bean bag/ball needs to be thrown gently so that there is a reasonable chance of the beaver catching it. It makes sense to aim off if you don't want them to catch it so that they don't get hit by it!
The Other Side of the COIN
Or what makes people become insurgents?
This is a game first played on Sunday 5th September 2010 at CLWG, and had a second outing on Saturday 1st October. It is due for a third run at CLWG on Sunday 1st January 2012. If you want to come to the game please let me know by e-mail in advance if you are not already a CLWG member. Over the next couple of days I expect to post the rules and some of the general background briefing on this page (or at least as a link from here).
Background for the 1 Jan 2012 game:
- General game briefing - gives an overview of what the game is about and how it ought to work;
- Key to capability cards - explains how to read the capability cards and how to build capabilities;
- Pashtunwali explained - the key tenets of how traditional Pashtuns live their lives;
- Short guide to Islam - some background on Islam, key beliefs and some of the bits that could be relevant to those living in a conflict zone. Of necessity hugely simplified and not covering the full depth, but sufficient for an outsider to get some limited insight.
Game Description
This is a game to explore why people become insurgents (or perhaps not).
Most of the players will be tribal elders leading their group of peasant farmers and directing their decisions about what to grow where and making sure that they can feed themselves and afford to buy the things they need to improve their lives and farms. Loosely set in modern Afghanistan I've taken huge liberties with the agrarian system and abstracted it to a level that can play through years in minutes. However I want to play on an event based accelerated real time basis through a period of a few years with a semi-kreigspieled combat system (should that even be necessary). Loosely we'll be doing a quarter every 10 minutes or so, with pauses in time to deal with any significant events.
Player Roles
I think it would work best with about four to six local players, plus a couple of police and military players (1 ANA & 1 NATO) and perhaps another umpire to assist. At a minimum we can probably do with three players and me and I'll plumpire the military side. If turnout was good I think that it could absorb a couple more players, so 3-10 people plus me. Minimum time is probably a couple of hours.
Background
Not directly game background, but I discovered http://kingsofwar.org.uk/ when I was doing my research. It is an interesting blog by the students and faculty of King's College Department of War Studies. Worth reading in my opinion. In fact I've been following it for over a year now, the only blog that I've done that long.
Game Materials
- Generic Farmer Briefing - they were all broadly similar but I changed the order of their objectives and the scores.
- Weapon counters - mined from google images.
I've also introduced a 'capability' tree for the community to show what facilities that they have, and also specific individual objective cards for players.
