Endorsement

This morning the choice was either a) shave or b) lube my bike chain. Since removing the negligible weight of my facial hair doesn't give me peace of mind on the roads, I decided to omit the razor in favour of the automobile maintenance.

I now endorse Silkaline chain lube. I've been using WD-40 and the like before now, borrowing off Richard or Adam, or using chain wax instead of just lubrication. This Silkaline stuff really made a difference. The ride into work was very, very smooth. The only parts of my bike that are still really suffering from the bad weather are the tyres (urgh, not much I can do other than replace them - and right now, financially, that's not an option), and the clutch which has gotten progressively tougher; but then, that's to be expected and after it's next service it should get a little lighter.

Yesterday's Dark Heresy went pretty well. It was a short session because I didn't want to go into overtime. I put the players into the boots of some pre-rolled characters who would, in any other circumstances, be NPCs. About half the session was a drawn-out combat in which the two new characters were ambushed by a pair of unidentified gun-toting hired killers. There was a fully-automatic firefight cut short only by an autogun jamming when Nick tried to unleash a full-auto burst on one of the mysterious assailants; there was a long chase down a fire escape stairwell; some melee combat in which a healthy amount of critical damage was dealt out; and even a pursuit through and over a speeding monorail subway train.

At the encounter climax, I turned the tables and revealed that the mysterious assailants were Sam and Nick's characters. The new characters Sam and Nick had been playing became NPCs (one of them was actually dead by now, thanks to several volleys of shotgun shells), and the players took their original roles back.

I think both of them enjoyed the switcheroo. Sam said it was an eye-opener seeing the world through an NPC's eyes (especially being on the other side of combat with the acolytes). The guys got some experience points and some nice gear from the combat. The rest of the session was role playing and storytelling.

Again, I have to think of a way to follow a session like that. I'm striving to make every session memorable. You can't make each one as exciting as the last, or as important as the climactic ending, but I don't want there to be any filler. No travelogues, no sessions composed of GM-wall-of-text or NPCs talking to one another with the players just sitting around listening in.