Dollhouse

We’re watching Dollhouse now, Mr Whedon’s latest. It will, of course, be cancelled and not renewed – that happens to anything I enjoy watching, it seems. (Maybe I should write to screenwriters and threaten to watch their shows unless they buy me off?)

The premise is that a group of people, kept in the titular Dollhouse, have their personalities erased, and are used as programmable slaves – the client specifies a task, and the Dollhouse programmes someone to carry it out perfectly. After the mission, the programming is erased, so the agent retains no memory of it.

This started me thinking. If this technology were to exist, how do I know I have not been programmed with fake memories? Which of the many personalities who have used a physical body would have the best right to keep it permanently, and why? An interesting variation on the simulationist hypothesis.

Beneath the Village of Harken, Part 1

The party’s adventures continued last Sunday… Having assimilated the lesson that diplomacy works better before you open fire, and having been hired to eliminate a nest of goblins, our merry band of heroes barged in on the goblins claiming to be a travelling band of chefs sent to pay homage by serving the them a meal.

OK, I thought, goblins are not the sharpest tools in the box, couple of good dice rolls… let’s see where this goes. Idaho Caramba, the ranger, started laying out food on the table. How would this be cooked, the goblins wanted to know? By magic, Idaho explained, it’s all part of the service. Gather round the table and our wizard will cook the food.

You can see this coming, can’t you? Burning Hands, followed by screams and violence. One slightly singed goblin escaped towards the next room, to be hacked down by the warforged fighter in the doorway. The session ended just as the warforged looked up from the body to see the rest of the goblins looking on in surprise and alarm. Nick is now trying to persuade me he can take an extended rest before tackling this new group, so that his Brute Strike power will regenerate. I think not.

Notably, for the first time on record, Giulia’s character didn’t get mortally wounded. Not even a scratch. She still isn’t hitting anything, though.

The 15 Books Thing

A challenge from Facebook; list the first 15 books you think of in 15 minutes that will stay with you forever. Here are the ones I came up with, and this will cross-post to Facebook so it should turn up there too…

• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• How to Make War by James F Dunnigan
• Secret Service: 33 Centuries of Espionage by Richard Wilmer Rowan and Robert G Deindorfer
• Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein
• The Empire of the East trilogy by Fred Saberhagen
• The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
• The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley
• The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
• The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
• The Star Fox by Poul Anderson
• The Winds of Gath by E C Tubb
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig

Interestingly, unlike Anna (who generally doesn’t read anything written after 1830) I see all of mine are post-1930. These are just the first 15 I thought of; I notice Conan, Sherlock Holmes and Dracula are missing, despite also being tales that will stick with me forever.

Scrub Up Good, Don’t They?

Here’s a picture of Anna and Giulia at the recent wedding of their friends, Jonathan and Esther…

Anna (left) and Giulia at Esther and Jonathan's wedding

TPK

For the first time since 1978, a Total Party Kill!

Or it should have been. But given that they are all first level in a points buy system, they could all regenerate their characters exactly as written. And a recurring nemesis is much better from a story perspective; so having reduced them all below zero hit points, and not being much better off itself, the dragon limps off to dog their footsteps in later adventures.Lessons for the party to learn when cornering a young white dragon in its lair:

1. Don’t massacre all its minions, throw spears at it, and then try to negotiate afterwards.
2. Don’t allow the party wizard to be stunned by dragon breath and then spend the rest of the encounter continuously failing his saving throw – do something about it.