Sunday, December 9, 2012

Allow me to reintroduce myself...

After a month away whilst doing NaNoWriMo, I have returned to you my faithful few.

Be grateful, I could have been sleeping.

So there are a few things that have happened this month that I'd like to talk on that is Cam or LARP related. Since I'm starting to warm back up, let me go through them.

First things first. NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month. The annual event where writer's write a whole draft of a novel in the 30 days of November. Last year I had written a diesel-punk (think steampunk, but set in the 20's-40's), this year I decided to do something less originally. I wrote about my Mage character. It was an experience, because at the time, I had never heard of a New World of Darkness novel, or anything this level that wasn't part of the corebooks. I thought it would be a good challenge.

It was.

One of the most challenging things was translating game mechanics into story mechanics. Mage has a lot of mechanical considerations, the Arcana, the Imago, the Rotes and Improvised Spells, the Paradox. A game is all about mechanics and chance, a story is all about drama and theme. I needed to make the magic mean something more than "I'm going to use this spell to do this". Having a character who was a literal Master of Time also was a problem because many of his abilities are cheats in a dramatic sense. He can remove himself or his enemies from Time. He has a spell that can rewind himself back in time. For a player in a game, that is a wonderful spell to have

For a protagonist in a story, that's a pain in the balls.

So I wrote the book in three Acts. The first Act is how magic works well for Rhys. The second Act is that going to shit. The third Act is the aftermath.

Hopefully, it worked.

So that was the long project. Let's get into this month's games.

Friday was Changeling. Now, I've said it before and will continue saying it again, Changeling is probably the tightest game in the City. By this I mean that it has a fully fleshed out world complete with NPCs and territories.

Unfortunately, I am not a big fan of my character. He got shoe horned into plot but has since ended. So I opted to NPC. The NPC I was given was Hamilton Halloway, the king of the Sun Court. The Sun, or Day Court are one of the side courts in game. They are focused around traditions, laws, and doing the right thing and their trademark emotion is Shame. Hamilton is an Gargantuan Ogre, meaning he is the size of a mach truck and twice as strong. His Shame comes from him not being able to do anything without destroying it. He serves mostly as a supporting figure, guiding others.

He walked around and dropped some plot, and dealt with his Moon/Night Court counterpart, Marty. Night Court uses disgust, and basically lives up to that. Considering he's a walking Rat, yeah. It was interesting, because while the other Courts have their niche's, the Day Court has an opposite but equal number. My acting was improved because I was riffing off of Marty's player's actions. The more disgusting Marty was, the more amenable Hamilton became. It gave me new respect for the both Courts.

Because of Plot, my character got called in to be used. Declan is a Wizened Author, which grants him bonus' in translating any written text. His Entitlement (an order one can belong to) grants him perfect memory. So he had to remember and translate and entire Japanese ledger. So yes, I had to not come to game as my character for my character to be useful.

Near the end, I played a mortal NPC. The game was set in a Marketplace that bordered the normal realm and the Changeling's Goblin Market. He made a deal to find his son, lost during the Hurricane (more on THAT later). Making a deal with Faeries, even their runaway slaves, is a bad-bad idea.

It was fun playing all of those roles, and made me appreciate NPC play even more. NPCs help flesh out the world of the game more, as it gives  you information that doesn't come from the players and gives it in the context of the world around you. This is why I've opted to do NPC shifts at Dystopia Rising, this way I can better understand the world and the way the game is played.

Saturday morning was Mage. This was the first game where I felt comfortable going in. It was a smaller game, a more sedate game, but a good one. Chris St. Louis, one of the best players I've ever met, came in to play an NPC from way back at the beginning of Mage's inception in the City. The first hour or two was pure Roleplay, followed by introductions to a new NPC. His name, or at least the one that the players know him by is Sellers. He basically laid out the goal of the 'antagonists' and basically gave it to them swift, but also laid out that these aren't antagonists. He also brought in two interesting points to game. Despite the fact that the PCs have dubbed themselves the heroes and protectors of the City, what have they done to help the City?

The other question, the one that lead to an interesting discussion that ended the game, was what would  happen if the Abyss, that sprawling source of Anti Reality and Magic that keeps the normals from understanding Magic and the Mages from becoming literal Gods. In the end, people came to a disturbing conclusion: The Abyss may in fact severed a regulatory function that helped make sure that the world was ripped apart by nigh-omnipotent Mages.

To finish off the weekend was Vampire. The game was tense, with a lot of work for me. Let me explain. My PC, Taglia, is the Priscus (think Senator) for the Mekhet Clan of vampires. Mekhet are known for being highly intelligent, yet wholly eccentric. Boy howdy. Three of them have been investigating a strange obelisk underneath the City, and are now being haunted by the Vampire-cum-demigod who resided in it. Another one is engaged in a war of words with the Prince's Harpy (court-reporter) which almost became a full war. Another was nearly killed in a plot involving his Sire-surrogate, who is also a Mekhet.

In short, I had to be a responsible adult. Which sucks, but I think I managed. Now next month is the Mekhet gathering, which brings with it a lot of potential interesting things. More importantly, I have to plan for it.

In the end, one of my busiest, and most fulfilling games. However, I've been noticing it in a lot of players and just in general a sense of ennui and lack of enthusiasm. A lot of it I think comes from the fact that we know the game will end in May. The end is nigh, what is the point? The rest I think is just years of drama in a global club coming to a head. It's still fun, but it's clear people are looking forward to the new games.






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