Gaming Notes

[atolnon]

I've got a single day off, followed by work until Saturday again, which is kind of a strange day to have off at a place called Weekends Only, but I've got at least one friend that only works weekends due to school (to make up his hours, he works 2 doubles and one regular day from Friday to Sunday), so shit like that probably accounts for it. I'm spending part of the day catching up on LJ entries (so thanks for writing things to entertain me), drinking warm beverages, tidying, and writing odds and ends. Tidying is critical, because I've discovered that it's really difficult to write anything or change my focus quickly because I'm not able to get my references and notes together easily. 

I've got a Pathfinder game coming up. I went to the meeting at the beginning to see who I'd be playing with and if I'd be able to deal with the players. Going in, I had only known one of them, and not as any kind of gamer, so I felt like if I started carting my ass out to Alton and this thing sucked, I'd be miserable and forced to deal with getting out of it, somehow. It's an adventure track, so I really feel like this is gonna be a game on rails and talking about making characters was a real game of '1-2-3 Not It' on who had to be a healer. I tossed out a few character ideas and kind of watched the DM's face to see how he reacted. Cleric Lots of nods, lots of ideas Alchemist? Solid nods Bard Whoops, back to ideas for Alchemists, healing-based Paladins, and Clerics. Druid Close enough to Cleric. Okay, looks like we've our bearings.

I like to look on the dull side of things a bit, but that's the bad news. The good news is that I've played games on rails before, and as long as I'm actually provided with the plot bunny and things aren't egregiously dumb, I'll chase it. Fine, you know? Not everything has to be a sandbox. Complexity and character development are things I love (so I like to hear about writer_lynn's game, for example), but I figure that nobody is gonna get that into it in these games. The good news is that Alchemist was on the table and they throw bombs, so that's good enough. It's also a game about possible violent revolution of an Lawful Evil state, and I feel that throwing bombs has been a time-honored way of getting into that since bombs were invented. Since we're level one, a paper-thin reason to be playing is really all we can develop (because anything more than that pretty much requires some degree of experience), and we're off. I'll throw a single plot hook to riff on for the DM in case he's into that kind of thing, and we've even got a cherry on top. 

Honestly, I'd normally pass, by my gaming recently has been so shallow that a longer campaign can provide depth over time even accidently. The 4-5 shots and 1-3 shots I've been playing are fun, but they're only really providing framework for extended hangouts with one time characters (usually in Exalted, which is possible because of an existing world where other campaigns have already taken place). Kay and I are doing another one of these pretty soon, and it looks like it'll be as much fun as it usually is. (And the short series games are, in fact, pretty fun.) So the characters don't go entirely to waste, I usually re-write a little of the background on them to make them generically useful to other games and take their stats down on a text file. By this time, I've got a ton of them.

I haven't run a nWoD game in forever, again, which is a huge pain. The start and go is killing me. Prioritization is a real pain in my ass. 

Comments

[drbuzzkill.livejournal.com]

And what will you name said bomb-tossing anarchist alchemist? Sacco Venzetti? ;)

[atolnon.livejournal.com]

That's not bad, actually. It'd be interesting to see if anyone snickered.

[drbuzzkill.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good litmus test to see who was paying attention in US History.

[writer-lynn.livejournal.com]

Well I appreciate the thoughts :)

I myself have a really hard time getting into short-run games, but it's still nice to be around people so occasionally I can see a reason to do so.

[atolnon.livejournal.com]

The games tend to be pretty good, and even though they're pretty close to one-shot characters, it's the same world we've already played extensively in, so I still feel a sense of buy-in.

After all these mini and regular campaigns, it's starting to get pretty populated.