What inspires you to create characters? Do you have partially-developed characters in mind for use when you get into a new campaign? Do you shop characters around, or do you come up with new characters when you get into a campaign? Why? If you GM, are you bothered by receiving a solicitation for a ?generic? character, or does it enthuse you to get a solid proposal even if it?s not closely tailored to your game?
It depends, really.
I've a few half-formed ideas of characters floating through the back of my mind. I've one that I could probably shop around, but that I haven't and probably won't, because she's waiting for a Changeling game and I haven't really looked for one. Most of my characters, though, are created for a specific campaign.
Inspiration for any of the above comes from books, music, images - and sometimes from shadowed recesses in the back of my brain. Pressure works well, too; I find I pull out a higher quantity of inventive ideas when I'm aiming for a deadline - real or imagined.
I think the pressure element is part of why I prefer the characters I create for specific campaigns. I'm a horrible procrastinator, and knowing that I have to have something I'm pleased with by the deadline (generally game start) activates that frantic creative state.
As a GM - well, to tell the truth, it hasn't come up. I've only GM'ed one game, and the players had some idea of the setting before we started. In theory... I'm actually not sure. I'm pretty easy-going, though, so I can't see that I'd have a problem. posted by sandrayln at 11:01:00 PM
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Thought I'd share some bits and pieces from the game I'm GM'ing for my boyfriend. I'm having way too much fun with Bleys...
"Baynard was this huge black stallion Dworkin sometimes rode," Bleys says, shifting to a more comfortable position. "Other times, we'd run into him in Arden or in Shadow. Sometimes it seem'd he traveled along a filmy black road. Sometimes it seem'd he traveled along nothing but a memory of where we thought he'd be." He smiles a bit, obviously thinking of something else for a moment before he picks up the thread of the story again.
Chetwin: "Sounds like quite a beast."
Bleys nods. "He was. Dworkin never would say much about Baynard's origins or how he came to be Dworkin's. He said once that the stallion was born in a static place - a bubble of order, I believe he said."
Bleys: "Yes, well, Father was never particularly forthcoming. Death has only exaggerated the problem, not created it."
Bleys: "Fi, did you really need to spend that long looking at a black elk's ass?"
Fiona glares at him.
Chet tries to resist laughing.
Fiona: "I was examining the rift, Bleys. As well you know. Please stop making ridiculous remarks; I'm trying to see if there's any sort of magical leakage, and you're distracting me."
Bleys is grinning again. "Yeah, it's deer ass. I wonder if we can carve some off for supper?"
Fiona: "Bleys, I'm not cooking it if you do."
Bleys: "Damn. I was never good with venison."
Chet can no longer control himsel. He bursts out laughing.
"You ever get sick of being right?" Chet kinda half-smiles.
Bleys: "Yeah, but I usually lie to cover it."
Chetwin: "Sounds like a plan. Along with always being right....do you ever get tired of having contingency plans coming out of your ears?"
Bleys grins. "Ask me that again when I don't have one."
Chetwin: "If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be standing here, on the worst camping spot in the whole of averick, watching a reality ripple give birth to a giant elk, I'd have told you to stop cleaning your crack pipe with paint thinner."
Fiona: "Well... The naval duty was optional for the boys, and we ladies, of course, got out of it." She thinks, then grins in a rather Bleys-like fashion. "Bleys did a stint in the navy, but that had more to do with the fact that Dad caught him pirating-"
Bleys: "Fi!"
Fiona replies sweetly, "Yes, dear brother?"
Bleys: "I wasn't pirating."
Fiona: "No? Then what would you call what you were doing?"
Chet's trying really really hard not to laugh.
Bleys replies innocently, "Privateering."
Chet starts laughing a lot.
Fiona gives a ladylike snort. "Privateers don't prey on merchants from their own sovereign kingdom, Bleys."
Bleys: "That was only once, and the little bastard asked for it!"
Fiona: "Mm-hmm. So you said."
I swear he's not that blithely funny all the time... He's just more quotable when he is. *wry grin* posted by sandrayln at 9:05:00 PM
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Friday, February 13, 2004
WISH 84: Five Games
What five games would you love to run/play if you had a willing group and a weekly time slot?
Paranoia - My boyfriend has been touting this one, and I'm curious now.
Star Wars - I had fun the one time I played SW d20, and I'm curious about the non-d20 version, too.
Changeling - I really miss the Changeling game I was in; I would dearly love to play in another one.
Something film noir - I don't actually know what's out there, but I had a taste of the genre in another game, and ended up reading some Mikey Spillane books, and... yeah. It might be interesting. I'm not sure I have the knowledge base to GM something like this (although I could always surprise myself), so I'd rather play in it.
Film noir reminds me of the 1930s, and that makes me think that it might be fun to play something in the style of the Doc Savage books. I'm not sure how one would do such a thing, but it'd be fascinating. I can't help but imagine it would be fun to both GM and play.
I'm slowly working up a system of sorcery for Amber. Very slowly.
I've got some basic concepts worked out, and I also got distracted working out grimoire notation (if one's tastes run towards grimoires...). This is just a basic, sketchy preview. (Comments definitely welcome!)
The basic elements the sorcery is based on are sky, sea, and stone (*grin* And yes, I owe a debt of inspiration to MaBarry there...).
Sky is the element of the air and of fire, of things of mystery and things hidden, and of sounds.
Sea is the element of water (of course), of transportation, and patterns and cycles. Possibly other things, too - I'm still working on this.
Stone is the element of the earth and nature, but also of bindings and anchors. Still working on this one, too.
Defensive spells are Stone, offensive are Sea, and dual offensive/defensive spells are Sky. Healing spells, depending on the situation, are either Sea or Stone.
Illusion and deception are Sky spells. Summonings and unsummonings, as well as transportation spells, are of Sky and Sea.
The grimoire notation has evolved into a rather complex system. Sky is a triangle, point up; Sea is a squiggle evocative of water, and Stone is a simple circle. Notations of elements in a spell includes each element overlaid - a Sky and Stone spell would be a triangle inside a circle, with the vertices of the triangle touching (I've got a pic, but I haven't uploaded it anywhere yet), and a Stone and Sea spell would be a circle with the squiggle overlaid and crossing into and out of the circle.
Along with the simple elemental component notation, spells that are specific to a place or power can have a rebus-like symbol representing the appropriate place or power. Placement above or below in these symbols usually indicates that an element is above or below the other element; elements or entire glyphs completely enclosed in another elemental symbol (or crossing, in special cases relating to Sea) indicate that the interior portion is tied to the exterior element. For example, the glyph for Rebma is a circle below a squiggle - literally, Stone below Sea - and the glyph for Faiella-Bionin is the glyph for Rebma inside a circle - Rebma tied to stone. Only glyphs relating to Chaos or the Pattern are not made up entirely of elemental glyphs; the Abyss is marked by an inverted triangle that appears again inside a non-inverted triangle in the Primal Pattern glyph, for instance.
There's a metric ton of other glyph things, but I think I'm probably getting carried away, and it's hard to follow without images.
There are two reasons I decided fire fell under Sky: first, the sky holds not only air, but the sun and other stars, and second, fire itself is heat and light, not anything more substantial - in effect, it's burning air.
Fire as used in a spell isn't that complex - a simple conjuration of flame that burns nothing is Sky, and a spell that starts something burning is Sky for the flame and Stone to anchor the flame to the object it's destined to burn.
To wind back down to game mechanics, I'm thinking of putting in an option to buy spell hanging for powers like Pattern and Logrus. I can't imagine basic Pattern ability allowing the hanging of spells, but simply knowing how to hang a spell on the sigil of choice doesn't seem completely worth the cost of the entire advanced power - nor would one necessarily know how to hang a spell on the design with the advanced power version. After all, it's Advanced, not Omniscient. I don't particularly care for most partial power systems, but I may end up changing my mind and going with this one...
Additional to that, learning to hang spells on the Pattern will cost more than learning to do so on the Logrus, I think. Pattern, as an Ordered thing, would mean one has to adapt the spell to fit the sigil, whereas the mutable Logrus would allow the spell to stay static while the sign changes.
That's all I have so far, barring the full notebook page worth of glyphs... :)
[Edited a week later to add:] Most of what I have right now are parts of the philosophical underpinnings of the sorcery system. Game mechanics is something I'm still leaving to brew in the back of my mind until the philosophy is done... posted by sandrayln at 12:28:00 AM
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