At the request of my secret stalker:

Yes, my stalker's been harassing me again, desperately trying to get me to update my blog so that she has something to read. (It's either that or she starts writing horrible things all over the shrine on her bedside table.)

So, what have I been up to?

Well, the police station job fell through. After the suckiest interview I've ever had (stammering, mind-blanking, admitting that I suck at interviews, lots of sweating), I had the assessment a week later. The assessment was a piece of piss. I whizzed through multiple choice questions on decision-making and non-verbal skills (pattern recognition sort of stuff), and felt at the time that I had most, if not all, of the questions that I answered right (you weren't expected to answer them all within the time limit).

Unfortunately, that afternoon I received a phone call where I was told that, although I did extremely well in the assessment, my interview let me down.

So that's my career in the police force over, unless I decide to go for constable training. That would take a rejection from the GTTR and general bad luck in finding a permanent job before then, but I think it could be an intriguing job - if a little depressing and unpleasant at times.

I'm currently taking the leave I saved up over the past six months in one two-week blob, finishing at the end of my contract on January 31st. From then, I'm unemployed again. Fortunately, I'm in a far better position than last time for getting a new job.

There's currently a £19k a year undergraduate recruitment job going at the university. I'm handing in the application form for that tomorrow. If I get it, I may have to reconsider standing for LURPS Tabletop Rep, since it involves a lot of travelling and 'substantial' stays away from home. If that's only an occasional thing, I may still be able to combine the job with an exec position, although I'd have to make clear at the hustings that I'd be absent at times, but that I'd ensure that any information went to the meetings via a proxy.

Tonight, I had the nightmarish experience of trying to start a roleplaying campaign without any written notes, other than that the PCs were hunting Resistance Talents in Paris, 1st June, 1944.

Okay, I spent the afternoon researching the leader of the Abwehr (German military intelligence), Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and his... contributions... to the Nazi war effort, plus his eventual fate, but I didn't get the chance to plot out NPCs, places, events, and so on.

I can (just about) run a mid-campaign session without plans, because then at least I'll have unused plot from previous weeks, the consequences of previous actions on the part of the PCs, and ongoing sub-plots. In fact, I did this once or twice in Cthulhu Dark Ages (Note to self: finish that fucking plot summary, and redraft the Example of Play.)

Start a campaign on the fly, with PCs that have only just been generated? No. Can't do it. Maybe if it had been a more fantastic universe (Warhammer 40,000 with my Imperium system, WFRP, or even Smog & Mirrors), I'd have had a chance, but a historical setting needs a realistic (i.e. researched) grounding to the campaign.

Character generation went well. I had to veto Ricky's first character concept, though. I have no problem with GMing for a character who's a convicted rapist, but I drew the line at his Harm power manifesting as lethal ejaculate. In a serious game, like Godlike, it's too silly. In a more light-hearted or non-gritty game, it's just sick and tasteless.

Anyway, the party are an Abwehr intelligence-gathering and scouting unit, led by:

Naomi: A hauptmann (captain in US Army ranks) with an incredibly charismatic voice. People will shoot themselves at a word.

Cath: A leutnant (2nd lieutenant) who can fly, and who is an uncannily good shot with a rifle. A veteran of the Eastern Front, who has heard of the deadly depredations of Das Spukhaus, an apparently Russian 'Mad Talent'. But surely, Hitler himself said that only the German people had the breeding to unlock their superhuman abilities?

The rest of the squad are all of the rank of schutze (private):

Thomas: An Aryan Nazi who despises communists, and came to hate Jews because it was the done thing. His powers included *cough cough* Matrix-fu. Basically, an enhanced Coordination stat, combined with the Multiple Actions power, so he can dodge and shoot his MP40 submachine gun at the same time. He's also got the interesting ability to become bullet-proof, but only when singing Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alle while waving the German national flag and feeling confident that he's going to win the current battle. So, a great one for stealth missions...

Owen: A 65-year-old bookseller from Dresden, and a veteran of the Great War. They couldn't kill him in that war, and they sure as hell aren't going to kill him in this one. Particularly since he's now Extra Tough, has Heavy Armour, and has his stats boosted to the degree that he can tote a machine gun one-handed. As such, he's armed with the MG42-S, a variant on the classic German weapon, designed specifically as a sidearm for superstrong Talents, that has a magazine, rather than being belt-fed.

Ricky: A Zed Talent, with the ability to reduce or nullify the effects of any Talents within a 100 yard radius. On the downside, anyone within this area, Talent or mundane, feels very depressed and loses a dice from their pool on any actions. This could be an interesting one. It's a shame I had to veto Ricky for the second time in the night when he told me his character's alias: Null. In canon, which I'm trying to stick to as closely as possible, Null is Hitler's personal Zed Talent bodyguard, an unfortunate coincidence. Damn you Dennis Detwiller...

Erfalaswen: This one's not actually been plotted out entirely, since Kate wasn't there this evening, although the current plan is for her to have the Detection power, which essentially gives her radar, and possibly X-ray vision for seeing through walls.

A vague idea running through my head at the moment is Godlike 2003, set during the invasion of Iraq. If this campaign works, it may join the list of games to run next year.

My Blogspot journal has the advantage over Blurty in that it can be found on search engines, and my counter can log them. Long-term readers may remember that during my first run on Blogger, I occasionally mentioned interesting referrers on the blog. I've decided I'm going to share them more often. Here are five from the last couple of days:

"You deserve a hug" (Hear that, stalker?)
"archangel the superheroes in heaven"
"what must i do to get girlfriend in GTA SAN ANDREAS"
"uk schizophrenic helpline" (referencing mediawatch-uk, Tony Martin being schizophrenic, and me refusing to work on a Tourist Information helpline)
"termination letter"

There we go, secret stalker, happy now? *hug*