Me and technology are natural enemies. I am the guy who created world of Neuroshima and invented evil Moloch. I am the guy who warns people against danger of technology.

Technology on the other hand is the one who turns off electricity in my village when I watch quarter finals of Champions League. Technology is the one who kills my router while I have very important Skype conference with ZMan Games. Technology is the one who kills battery in my Iphone when I am in the urgent need of using it.

Every single day technology tries to break me. My Ipad has breakdown the day I go to Essen, right after I downloaded 10 hours of podcasts to listen during trip. My car loses a wheel when I drive on the highway with speed 140 km/h and I have to survive with only 3 wheels and huge truck behind me…

This is war.

That is exactly why I had to ask my Merry important question when she bought flight tickets for our trip to France. The question was: 'Are you sure you wanna be on a one plane with me?’

As far as I know, there is a plenty of technology on the plane that can have a breakdown when I am there…

***

It was an hour before we leave. I wanted to check my phone bills, so I went to www.t-mobile.pl, which is my operator website. 'We have small problems. Please, visit us later’. Yeah, website was down. I showed it to Merry. And asked my question again. She smiled. 'We go’, she said.

I took our suitcase and went to car. Luggage got stuck. Can’t open it. Merry can’t open it too. We stay with suitcase next to our car. I look at Merry. I ask question. 'Shut up’ she says and tells me to put suitcase onto back seats.

We go to airport. We got departure. We are in the plane. I wonder what’s going to happen next. I don’t wait too long. Captains voice from speakers: 'There is a small problem with left wing. We have to wait for technical stuff. We suppose we will have about 30 or 40 minutes of delay. Please do not worry. Please, accept our apologizes.’

If you, by any chance don’t know it yet – yes, I am sitting right next to the left wing.

I look at Merry. I ask the question again. I think this time she is really considering not being on one plane with me…

***

Finally we reached Paris, then we got lost because our GPS didn’t see street where our hotel was but it was minor problem, I am used to such things. Next day we were on convention. It was great and I will write a post about it next week. 

Today we move couple of days forward. It is Sunday, last day of convention. We need to go back to Poland…

***

Flight to Poland is 8:15 PM.
Departure is at 6:00 PM
Trip from Etouvry to airport should take a little bit more than 3 hours.
Because I don’t trust GPS (it is technology device!) we decide to leave convention at 2 PM, 4 hours before departure.

And you already know it, right? This is beginning of 'a great adventure’.

Etouvry is the south of Paris. Our airport is the north Paris. And it turns out our GPS has never ever heard about bypassing cities. It, on the other hand, heard about sightseeing. So we drive into Paris. Into center of Paris. Into this very very middle of Paris with all those awesome monuments, with all those tourists and with this huge traffic jam. Biggest traffic jam I have ever seen in my life. We are stuck.

GPS is changing his statements. At the beginning it was telling us we will reach airport at 5 PM. Now it states we will reach it at 6 PM. Another hour in traffic. Now GPS states that we will reach airport at 7 PM. We are stuck. We are doomed. GPS changes its mind. Now it shows that we will reach airport at 7:30 PM.

This is a moment when I decide to stop be 'this cool guy from Poland’. It was Merry who drove. Now I take driving wheel. And I am gonna show Paris how I spent last couple of years with my Playstation.

Red lights? We had no time to stop and sightseeing Paris anymore…
Speed limit? If you take average speed by adding all those minutes we moved 0 km/h, I think I didn’t broke speed limits.
Being fair on road? I told you I had to stop be 'this cool guy from Poland’.

I literally broke all driving laws I knew. I probably broke a couple of other I have never heard of. It was crazy. And I proved that playing on Playstation may some day pay off.

***

Finally we reached airport. We run into departures section. 

DEPARTURES CLOSED AT 7:10 PM said the board on the wall.

I look at my mobile phone. It is 7:03 PM. It sounds unbelievable. It sounds like I made it up. But this is true. We reached airport 7 minutes before closing departures…

***

What can I say. If you find Robinson a difficult game, believe me, this is piece of cake when you compare it to my everyday adventures. 

And if you wonder how I came up with all this ideas for adventures… It just happen to me. I test them in real live, and then I implement them to my games…

So before we start, short introduction. Before I become blogger and before I become boardgames designer I was – to say the least – quite famous Role Playing author and Game Master in Poland.

The short story I will recall today takes place some about 2004 in Gliwice. I am few months after publishing Neuroshima RPG and we are testing our new game called Monastery RPG. This is dark fantasy game, to explain it in two words – it is some kind of crossover between Aleksandr Dumas novels and H.P. Lovecraft legacy. World of the game looks more or less like France 1660 with huge amount of dark magic, occults etc.

Players take roles of noble heroes.

So we play. Players play nobles, so they role play all etiquette forms, and use all good manners in dialogues and honorifics…

Minute after minute I put more tension into game, I reveal first plot signals, I put on the table first problems. Emotions of players slowly get higher and higher. And I am putting new elements to the picture of the problem that players will have to face during this game. They talk. 'My dear sister, I am so glad that we meet here in our ancestors palace’, 'My beloved brother, your invitation was most kind letter I read for weeks.’

Crap. Boring. Etiquette and honorifics.

So I put new details of story. I put new elements. I raise the temperature.

’Dear sister, I am sad to say that we need to bla bla bla’

’My beloved brother, you know you can ask me for any favor. I’d be glad if I can help you, bla bla bla…’

Yeah, role playing this nobles is quite boring. Again I raise the temperature by giving leak of upcoming events to 'brother player’.

He finally gets what’s going to happen soon. He says:

’My dear sister, I will have to ask you to do me a favor. It will be very difficult for you and you will not like it.’

’My beloved brother, you know you can ask me for anything” she says.

Yhm, yeah, listen him now, darling, I think and I wait for 'brother player’ to say what he has to say…

’My dear sister, I need to ask you to leave military school tomorrow, before you take your final exam.’

’You must be fucking kidding me. No fucking way!’ she replays.

Yeah, she may forgot about role playing etiquette at this very moment. No doubt that now the temperature is just right.

She doesn’t give a shit about roleplaying her character anymore. She is so pissed off now, that she doesn’t care about such a crap like honorifics. Emotions took control over the player.

That was my job as a Game Master when running Role Playing games. Provide emotions. And I think I was kind a good at this.

***

I mention this little story because providing emotions is part of my job these days too and when I was in Modena I had a few amazing moments with players and their emotions.

For most demos of Robinson Crusoe I did during convention in Modena players were very kind for me. I was assisting them for most part of the game and they talked in English with each other even if it was hard for them. They could talk Italian between themselves – it would be much easier for them – but they felt it may be rude and tried to talk in English.

That was very kind, that I was able to listen to their plans and discussion and their doubts what to do next.

But…

But during every single game of Robinson, at some point of the game amount of important decisions they had to make, level of pressure the game build, number of doubts and questions about future got to the point where they ceased to pay attention to me. They didn’t give a shit about me not understanding a single word. They didn’t care about being rude or not and about speaking in front of me in a language I don’t understand.

They just tried to survive. They were living the board. They were arguing. They were waving their hands. They were moving action pawns from one space to another back and forth. And they didn’t notice me anymore.

At one game situation got just ridiculous level. At some point they had this adventure and suddenly one of players turns to me and speaks to me in Italian.

’Man, I don’t speak Italian’, I say.

’Oh, sorry’ he says and raises his hand in apology 'I was asking if we really have to discard food’

’I have no idea what adventure card you have. You read this card in Italian! You took the card and read it translating it in real time. I have no idea what adventure you had’ I say to him.

’Oh, yeah, sorry.’ he passes me card.

I read it.

’Yes, you have to. I am sorry.’

He shouts something in Italian to the rest of players, then he turns back to me, says something to me – in Italian! – and then again shouts something to other players. He is there, back again. Back on the Island. Trying to survive. Not realizing I am sitting next to him, not realizing we are in Modena, not realizing we are on convention. He is there, on the Island.

***

Playing with Italian players was an amazing adventure for me. I was there sitting with them not understanding a single word, and watching pure emotions. Seeing them waving hands, speaking very quickly, looking to ceiling with expression on face shouting: 'God, why?!’

With every turn the temperature was higher, they were struggling harder and harder. I didn’t understand what were they saying, I felt what was going on. I felt this pure adventure they had. I was there sitting at the table, watching people having a great time with my game. I didn’t understand words, but I saw pure emotions.

And I have to say, for all those hours I was sitting there, I was the happiest men on the planet.