Lost and Found: Annex |
|
|
Amber related, life related, you name it, we've got it. Welcome to the Lost and Found.
Archives
|
Friday, May 30, 2003
WISH 49: WinningIs there a way to win or lose in a roleplaying game? Are you in competition with other players, NPCs, or the GM? What are the rewards for winning or the penalties for losing? Do you feel like your characters have to “win” to enjoy a game? It's all in how you define your victories. I have never thought that there has to be a big, overarching victory for a single player when it comes to role playing games. If you want one of those, go play Monopoly or Risk or something. I mean, it's a role playing game - to my mind, you "win" if you successfully play your role. And that's a personal satisfaction victory, not something that the GM, other players, or anyone else can hand out (although compliments are always nice, they're not really a good way to indicate victory). Okay, let me be up front and say that I'm going to go waaaaay off on what appears to be a tangent. It's germane. Trust me. I rode a horse today, and I count my ride as a pretty decent one. Now, some people will tell you that a good horse ride is a trail ride; I haven't been on a trail in probably 4 years. Some people will say it's placing above 6th in a show in the discipline of their choice; I haven't been in a show for 9 years, and a show in my discipline of choice (dressage) in 10 years. Some people will say it's when you and your horse are just clicking; HA! Yeah, that wasn't my day, since the little bitch of a mare I was riding was being a pain in the butt. Today's definition of a decent ride? I rode around the arena. I made some circles. I cantered once (or loped, or whatever name you wish to apply to it), I trotted a lot, and I walked. And I changed direction - a lot. I fought for every last turn for half an hour in 97-degree heat. But you know what? Four years ago, I couldn't stand to actually ride a horse. One year ago, I was only walking and trotting. Five months ago I fell off and picked up two huge bruises, one of which looked like someone'd squashed a rotten avacado on my thigh. I didn't fall off today. I rode a horse I only rarely ride and I didn't freak out. I cantered, after a spell of close to eight years where I wasn't cantering at all and only sometimes trotting successfully. I count it as a personal victory, despite the heat and the problems with turning. I count it a personal victory that I'm 22 years old and have yet to break a bone in my body (well, aside from a hairline fracture in my ankle, because hairline fractures just don't count... I mean, I didn't even have a real cast for that one). Hell, some days I count it as a personal victory when I can walk around all day and not run into anything. The point is, I'm not worried about winning in any way other than as a personal victory when I play an RPG - I'm worried about playing. The reward is the warm fuzzy feeling from playing well; the penalty is the vague irritation when I don't play well. I'm not there to compete. If I'm trying to compete with the GM - well, that's pretty much a losing proposition. NPCs can be "defeated" with the GM's permission - so that's just another name for competing with the GM. The other players? I'm not even sure what you could gain from doing that, since it's more usual (to my mind) to work with other players; and, again, if I want to win against other people, we can go play Monopoly. *grins* I guess I'm just not competitive unless there's death or injury on the line, or the game is clearly set up for one winner... I'm not playing RPGs to win, lose, or draw. I'm there for the game. Friday, May 23, 2003
*laughing* I got to drag my bf up to see me for a couple of days. This has lots and lots of good points. It also has a huge handful of silly points. Take, for instance, the fact that we came up with an artifact for D&D at 5 am: the Quilt of Putrifying Flesh. Yes, it's as disgusting as it sounds. Trust me. Ye gods, I didn't realize I was capable of making up something that disturbing (I knew Dust was)... It was fun. *grinning* Tuesday, May 20, 2003
BAH! This is driving me nuts - I have another Oriana diary entry ready to go (Seven pages, covering 2 days? Sheesh.), but it needs a title. I can't seem to find a good one. It'll come... eventually... [Edit] And as soon as I get this posted, the archives updated, and go to do something else, a title pops into my head and lodges firmly. Why did I not expect this? Friday, May 16, 2003
WISH 47: Learning Your LessonName one lesson you learned in gaming that you will (hopefully) never have to learn again. Okay, this one is pretty obvious and has a corrollary... but the main lesson first: If you find a person annoying more than 30% of the time, don't game with them. I have two people in mind that drove this one home. One of them, unfortunately, I was stuck with both as someone I hung out with most of the time and as a member of the regular gaming group. The other - well, I wasn't impressed, he wasn't part of my regular group, and I haven't played with him again. Neither of them would have been quite as bad if I'd been in a larger group; in fact, the second wasn't too bad because there were other people to calm him down. But I stand by it anyway. And here's the corrollary: If they're annoying, you have doubts about their social skills, and you think calling them 'scatterbrained' is the most horrendous understatement you've ever heard, it's probably not a good idea to let them GM. Heh. Yes, that's from experience; we let the specific person I have in mind for the corrollary GM 3 times. Twice he completely changed background stories on our characters without our permission, and the other time we were 'gifted' with his impersonation of a wild boar, which was, quite frankly, both the most worthwhile part of the session and the most frightening thing I saw for months. It wasn't pretty. We didn't let him GM again after the second time he changed backgrounds on us... The thing is, he didn't mean any harm - he was just clueless. It didn't seem to occur to him that we'd mind that he'd changed our background stories to match his plot... Some thoughts on fertility in Lost and FoundYeah, I know, I've got huge numbers of younger-generation Amberites in my campaign, of which only a few are actually PCs. So, a metric ton of kids. And I've seen comments on how large numbers of children seem to violate the idea that the Elders are somewhat infertile. Okay, fine, I can take that. (Anyway, in all honesty, it gets a little hairy presenting all of them in the same room sometimes. Next time, fewer Amberites.) But I do have all of these kids. And I can apply a little logic as to why. What if. What if the Elders are infertile most of the time, but have occasional periods of, say, 30-50 Amber years where they're fertile. And suppose these phases happen at irregular and unpredictable intervals. (Well, not that most Amberites would test this...) I'm specifying Amber years because the whole things only works relative to Amber; in terms of Shadow-time, it would depend on the Shadow. It makes sense if you examine Oberon's pattern - some children with Cymnea, then a break, then Faiella's children, then a break, then Clarissa's and Llewella, a break, then (at a guess, since it's never really hinted at) Julian and Gerard (and Caine, if you wish), then a break, then Delwin and Sand, another break, then Random. Others like Coral and Dalt came during later periods, with no delimiting factors. That, essentially, is how I've worked it. Let me go for an example... Umm... Benedict. His two known fertile cycles resulted in (first cycle) Dara's grandmother, and (second cycle) Kessalia and Jessica. The length of the first cycle is unknown, as are its beginning and ending; the second cycle, on the other hand, is much clearer. Kessalia is approximately 50 years older than Jessica, given that two of Benedict's absences from Amber seem to have resulted in his return with a child. That means the last gap between his fertile periods was around 60 years (the chronicle is set about 130 years after Merlin's chronicles; Jessica is only about 20 in Amber years). How about another one - Random. Again, two phases: Martin, and then three with Vialle, who were all born within 15 years of each other. The eldest of those three, Kurt, was born approximately at the same time as Kessalia; that makes him around 70. Martin is older (by Amber) than Dara's grandmother - let's say 50 (time since Brand had asked after him) plus 10ish (Merlin's time in Amber itself and on Shadow Earth, plus his chronicles) plus the age of majority (I'm lazy - call it around 20 years) plus some unknown time between when he walked the Pattern and Brand spoke to Llewella about him (call it 10 to 20 years). That makes Random's last non-fertile interval 140 to 150 years; his last fertile period seems to have been a short one, 30 years or less. Flora has a very clear fertile period, but her infertile times are less clearly defined. Chetwin was conceived approximately 90 years before chronicle-start; Remora was conceived some time shortly after Chetwin's birth. Flora returned to Amber with the teenaged Remora and the toddler Bastion around 20 years after Chetwin was born, so her last fertile period ended 60 to 70 years before the chronicle began. Of course, I admit there are weird ones. Bleys, for instance, had the misfortune to have a fertile period coincide with finding an absurdly fertile female - resulting in triplets. Delwin apparently had two fertile periods occur fairly close together; he managed 3 children over the course of 90 years. There isn't a particular age at which these periods begin; in the youngest known cases of Amberites having children, the parents were 63, 25, and 40. (I'm not counting Merlin and Coral's child, since the conception was probably "encouraged" by the Pattern.) This leads, of course, to the speculation of what happened to any children from earlier fertile periods... Dustin: Have you ever managed to figure out what they [Oriana's family] smuggled? Me: umm... not really. Caine mentioned some stuff... don't recall offhand... Dustin: Probably some sort of illicit plant, animal, or mineral. Me: mineral or plant, i suspect. animals are somewhat harder to hide... they do things like make noise... Dustin: Yeah...and slaves have a habit of complaining. Me: LOL yup Dustin: oooooooooo Slave traders who specialize in deaf-mutes? Me: ROTFL duuuuuuust Dustin: Hey! And if you specialized in deaf-mute-amputees, then you'd also save on cargo space! Dustin: oooooooo AND I'll bet the factory incident produced quite a few of those... Me: umm... not really... they all kinda died, except for the ones she got loose... Dustin: Oh. Nuts. Dustin: That's what happens when you don't harvest them quickly enough. *nods* Does this even really need commentary? Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Sunday, May 11, 2003
WISH 46: Plot, Plot, PlotHow do you define the word "plot" in a roleplaying game? What is plot and how does it come about? What is the GM's role in developing plot? What is the players' role? Are the answers different for different genres? I think I'd have to define plot in a very simple way: what happens. Okay, let me expand that a little, since it's simpler than I'd intended. A plot always has at least one pre-made beginning and at least one pre-made end, but (especially the way I GM) it may or may not have a pre-made middle. By pre-made, I mean that some of the potential results (or outline of events) were decided on prior to that session of the game. I don't mean the point-A-to-point-B-to-point-C type thing; I mean something more along the lines of, "here are points A, B, and C; ideally, they can go to all three, but only B is really essential to what they're trying to do. Point D, over here, might be interesting, too, but it's not really all that important. And what about E...?" Or, if it's the beginning of a plot, "Well, they can find out about it from A, B, C, or D. E will point them back to C; F won't." Plot is both retroactive - what happened - and current - what is happening - and future - what will happen. Retroactive plots are... well, gaming stories. "How we uncovered the fact that we'd pissed off some lord in the countryside and found a way to not end up in his dungeon or dead," for example. Current plots are the ones you're in the middle of - to run with the previous example, "we know we've made someone mad enough to send adventurers after us, probably because we burned down one of these towns, but who and where are they? And how can we end up not dead?" Future plots are the ones just uncovered, or the ones only the GM knows about. "You know, you've just burned down a town... That's probably going to make this lord unhappy..." or "Hey, someone sent a party of adventurers to kill us!" To my mind, the GM has two roles in plots: first, to create some plots, especially the (sometimes mythical) 'The Plot' that overarches all other plots; and second, to steer the existing plots (be they player- or GM-created). The steering of plots involves the creation of appropriate NPCs and the running of such, and the providing of sufficient information or opportunity to complete the plot to the satisfaction of those involved (or at least as many of those involved as possible). This includes - has to include - the plots created by the breaking of the GM's plots by the players (preferrably with a measure of good sport on the part of the GM, since it is, after all, a game). The players' role in plots are: first, to follow plots their characters are interested in; second, to create new plots that interest their characters; third, to respect other players' plots; and fourth, to "play nicely" with the GM's plots. The fourth one, again, I should explain; I don't mean to slavishly follow the GM's plots - I mean, hell, I've been guilty of breaking a plot or two myself - but to respect the fact that the GM has plots, ones they'd love if you followed, and not ignore every last plot set before you by said GM in favor of your own plots. It also means not breaking the GM's plots out of malice, but simply out of curiousity or determination or ingenuity (if you hate the GM's plots enough to break out of them with forethought and malice, why are you playing in their game?). I don't see why that would be any different for other genres - even dungeon crawls have plots (of a sort)... Thursday, May 08, 2003
Nyagh!! I've got a theory... played some more Oriana stuff... and there's this circle of candles and reddish-brown runic markings that have appeared in the remains of the formerly Black Road-ed factory... and she's been dreaming of low ominious chanting and the howling of dogs, with an occasional scream and images of candles and blood... Oh, and that circle of candles? It feels less... umm... clean than it did (the cleaning agent in this case being the liberal application of Pattern the place was dosed with). Teenagers are disappearing... and now the niece of one of her hockey buddies is one of the ones that has vanished. At least one of these teens has reappeared as a dog- or wolf-mauled corpse. I have this nasty suspicion. Oriana does not. My nasty suspicion is that the Huntsmaster she was warned of is using this circle of candles. Specifically, he's feeding the teens to his canines to make them stronger. Or else the teens are the Hounds somehow, and the one found mauled was one that wasn't completely under his sway that had to be slaughtered. Grrrrrrrrrrrr... Sunday, May 04, 2003
Played more Oriana stuff last night... So the part of my theory concerning Blade is wrong...
Riiiiight outta the water. Damn. And it was such a tidy little theory, too... And then there's the issue of the mysterious Trump call... when there aren't supposed to be Trumps of her... Blade commented, "They can reach you at any time and place... they have your Image." Her Image? Riiiiight. And he wouldn't answer the question about whether the person that hired him was Family or not... So either someone other than the one that wore green and carried her out of the factory knows about her, has seen her, and has made a Trump of her... or there is now a Chaos-related Trump of her. Let's not forget the skate sabotage Blade tipped her off to, with pointers that the perpetrator is her major hockey rival... Or the revelation that there's a contract out on her head, and if some mysterious 'others' fail, the contract becomes Blade's... Or the mysterious warning to "avoid the hounds and kill their Huntsmaster." Or the fact that someone replaced the original note from Blade with an ornate, single-piece, perfectly-balanced, iron dagger... in the safe under her bed... while she was asleep in said bed... Whee... I think the first part of the theory - that the person in green was Oberon - stands. The second part needs some revision - Blade is obviously working for someone else... and since he claimed to know nothing about who was carrying her, that pretty much indicates that he's probably not Hunter. Sounds kind of like he's not working for the ones immediately responsible for Black Road manifestations, since he's warning that 'they' can reach her any time... Which means that he's working for some third party that wants to kill her, obviously, and since she's generally good-natured, the likelihood that it's someone she's met and pissed off isn't huge - although i won't discount it as a possibility. Which means they're probably after either Caine or the entire Family... Heh. And it strikes me that she'd be more upset by the former than the latter... She likes her Father... Friday, May 02, 2003
Speaking of L&F (which I was... sort of...)... Last night's partial session was pretty good... The best moment? Dylana went to the docks after these two street urchins left her daggers while she ate - the first was emerald-studded and looked just like the ones she's seen in pictures of Caine, and the second was identical except for being amethysts instead of emeralds. She found a third urchin next to her brother's ship, along with another emerald dagger. She walked into the captain's cabin to be confronted by the head of the thieves' guild and his bodyguard - the same people she had to talk to before Digit could run around through Shadow with her. And the guy was flipping another emerald dagger... And suddenly Darcie (the player) says: "oh holy shit. he's caine spawn." *still laughing* Last week she saw Digit playing with an identical dagger in pretty much the same way this guy was... and Digit admitted that the dagger was Caine's, and that he'd been given it by his uncle, who apparently got it from the man himself... And now she figures out that Uncle Caine had at least one kid? *chuckles* Heh. I already used this one... but I thought I'd drop it here. The bones of the Hellhounds are some form of organic crystal that makes a distinctive sound when tapped. I'm going to write more on this later... Thursday, May 01, 2003
Played some more with Rob-GM last night... *shakes head* Ah, the joys of having to explain to one of your character's friends that she really wants to keep around why you didn't actually die when a Black Road manifestation blew up around you... and why it was there in the first place... and why you were able to rescue him... and... eeeeeerg, that was hard... And it culminated in Oriana pulling a Merlin of sorts - *grins* she drug him off into another Shadow or two, mostly because she couldn't figure out how to talk him into believing her and she got exasperated. Ah well, at least she doesn't have to 'fess up later on about what she did... seeing as how she mostly explained it during the trip... Now she has to figure out why someone tried to Trump her when there's not supposed to be Trumps of her... |