The RB tournament for Master of Orion will open on April 5. The first game will run for three weeks. Visit the Imperium One Thread at Realms Beyond Orion for more details about the inaugural game.

Interested players should review the tournament rules. Epics veterans from RBCiv will find a familiar structure with only a couple of particulars to note. Players new to RB strategy game tournament play will find the rules fairly straightforward and trim. There is not much you will have to remember.

I am setting up references at Sirian's Master of Orion Page to help new players obtain the game, install it, and learn how to play. I already have a tutorial written to walk through a game and show how things are done as well as touch on opening strategy. There are also several game reports available to help you learn more about the game.

However, I cannot anticipate all possibilities, so if you have any questions about getting MOO to run, about the tournament rules, or anything else that might cause you to hesitate or give you a problem, here is a good place to ask questions. Any question goes. I will do my best to answer. We are also open to suggestions or concerns, if you have any.

We would also appreciate statements from interested players declaring their intent to play. This is not required, there are no signups for our tournment events, with occasional exceptions for special scenarios. You are under no obligation to play or report if you do claim interest, and you may play, with or without a report, without speaking up. A healthy show of participation may help generate more interest, though.

Thanks for tuning in.


- Sirian

Hi,

Griselda started a thread about online Bridge in the old RBD forum. In it she gave the reference to some online Bridge software at Bridge Base Online.

As a result of that, some of us have been playing Bridge on Friday afternoon/evenings. We've gotten together, usually, about 8:30 PM Pacific Standard.

I thought I'd make the continuation of the thread here because the old one was on the second page, but mostly because I like this forum *much* better (and the calender is a nice touch.

Topics for discussion? Well, arranging games is pretty obvious. Bidding conventions and what groups to join (if any) are also very appropriate.

--Pete

I have not played MOO2 recently, and was warned off MOO3 in time not to invest in it, but is there room in this forum for discussions of the other MOO games? I wouldn't want to violate any protocol if those discussions are not welcome here.

As the inaugural post on this forum, I would like to acknowledge the incredible imagination and humor, not to mention slight insanity, that induces people to arrive in the mindset necessary to be a card carrying "Variant Scum."

Diablo acted as an incredible catalyst for a peculiar set of individuals who like RP as well as the KISS principle of Diablo, one of the finer PC games, even 6/7 years into its life.

For those interested, a short comment on "how I became a variant scum" might be a nice bit of posterity to savor.

Hi, I'm Occhi the Rogue, and I am Variant Scum. :blink:

I was a late comer to Diablo, indeed to PC games at all, and stumbled upon the Variant way via pointers from many at the DSF, may it rest in peace. It was from the Lurker Lounge that I drifted into the Variant way, inspired mostly by Charis' brilliance and good humor, Lemming's outright insanity, and the 3@30 and BNM Variants that had amused me in Diablo.

Without caffeine, life itself would not be possible for certain rogues.

Realms Beyond Orion is ready to open for business. Special thanks to Griselda for standing up the framework so quickly.

We've built it. Will you come?

Realms Beyond Orion, home of the RBO Imperial tournament.


- Sirian

Hi all,

Nice new surroundings.

I've been reading O'Brian's Aubry-Maturin series. Just finished the 6th - "The Fortune of War". ("Master and Commander" was the first, and I think "Far Side of the World" is the eleventh or so.) It's 1812, and America has declared war. The climactic ship-to-ship action is the Chesapeake vs. the Shannon. I went to look it up on google and the first two references read a bit differently to me:

From http://www.multied.com/1812/chesapeake.html (first reference on google):

On June 1, 1813, the USS "Chesapeake" is attacked and captured by the HMS "Shannon." The "Shannon," which was a 52-gun frigate, clearly outclasses the "Chesapeake"; but Captain Lawrence, the commander of the "Chesapeake," is goaded into going to battle with the "Shannon." Lawrence is killed in the fight.

From http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/...sea/ches-sn.htm :

Shannon and Chesapeake were of virtually identical strength, though the American ship's crew was rather larger, and a duel between the two was attractive to both captains. Broke even issued a formal challenge, though it did not reach Lawrence, whose previous experience with British warships had convinced him that they were not likely to be formidable opponents.

I think I'll trust the historians of the US Navy on this one. The photos section of navy.mil seems more of a hyperlinked history book. I think it's pretty spiffy, anyway.

Also, I highly recommend O'Brian's books. So far, every single volume of them has had at least one neat little gem that the film makers had to steal for the M&C movie. And O'Brian has a wickedly subtle sense of humour at times. I'm pretty egotistical, but I have to admit there were several things I didn't get on the first reading.

-- CH

In "Desolation Island", Maturin and Aubry are discussing a young man who has just joined the crew:

"Jack, have you ever known any gentlemen on the lower deck?"

"Yes, a few."

"And how did you like it yourself, when you were a midshipman and your captain turned you before the mast for incompetence?"

"It was not for incompetence."

"I distinctly remember that he termed you a lubber."

"Yes, but a lecherous lubber: I kept a girl in the cable-tiers. It was a reflection upon my morals, not my seamanship."

"You astonish me: but tell how did you like it?"

I just wanted to say hi to all the other fellow MoO heads out there in Realms Beyond land. MoO (and Mariocart - the SNES version) is about the only game I get time to play these days. I can't wait for the new tourney!

-Smegged

I've just been sitting here at the keyboard for the past hour doing something I've never experienced before. :unsure: I'm transcribing a series of letters written during WWII by my late grandfather to his oldest sister back here in Auckland. Sadly, the surviving letters are only a mere fragment of what once existed. My mother recounts a sizeable stack, that she had read at some point many years after the war, which have unfortunately disappeared decades ago. Even still, I'm learning a lot from these ten 'survivors', at least enough to warrant commiting them to digital copy for future reference.

It's a weird sensation to be honest. Here in my hands are pieces of paper that he was holding some 60 years ago and writing on. I can almost see him was sitting there on a motor gunboat in the English channel dipping a fountain pen (I think) into an inkwell and recording fragments of his experiences and and more importantly, his thinking. In one of them he is actually describing sitting next to a radiator to keep warm in -10° C temperatures that is running off a cable rigged up to the local grid while the boat is moored. In another he is describing where on a warf in picture postcard he is sitting whilst putting pen to paper. Details of his surroundings, questions about the happenings back home, little quips and wisecracks about a newborn niece whom he dearly loved, yet never actually saw until she was 4 years old.

Selfnote: And here I thought my facetious bastard nature came handed to in spades from my Dad. Looks like I inherited a recessive smartarse gene through Mum too! :D

*ahem*

Anyway, this sudden spurt of archival activity on my part has been nagging at me to get started for more than a month now since I learned of the existence of these letters. Part of the 'kick in the 'pants for me at this point is the imminent arrival of ANZAC Day (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) on April 25, which is basically the local equivalent of VE Day. There's also just the ever present inquisitiveness I hold towards the guy, simply because a stroke slashed his ability to talk to me when I was seven and seeing his words in print like this gives me a much clearer insight into his thinking than his pained communication efforts of recent years ever could. *silently gives thanks to whoever and however these pieces of paper came to be preserved*

He died in August 2001. I'll remember fondly. I'll try to capture his poor grammar and black humour faithfully. There are also some medals in a little box behind me that I've been meaning to clean up and maybe see about getting new ribbons for . . . hmmm maybe later. Right now I have some words from the past to archive for posterity. ^_^

Wehat better way to play with a new forum than with a forum game? Add onto my sentence, ending with something that the next person can build from.

For example, if I posted "This game is about..." the next person might say "a sentence, a really long one with..." This could continue indefinitely. Make sense? Let's start!


When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to see...

Please post thoughts, suggestions, or other ideas here. Thanks for stopping by! :war:

-Griselda