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Productive weekend, this time. Saturday was a flurry of stuff which, while basically boring, was full of stuff I really needed to do. New bank account, moving a whole host of things from my dads to my apartment, ect. It was good to get it taken care of, but I still haven't been able to figure out how to assemble my futon. Seriously, it shouldn't be so difficult, but I wasn't the only one stymied; at one point, myself and three of my friends were staring at it, trying to figure out just what we were supposed to bolt where. No such luck. Over two days, I was never able to reassemble it.
Other then that, I'm not feeling especially great this morning. A trip to the Chicago-style burger joint down the road for lunch will probably solve that problem.
Last Thursday was our latest Abyssal game, and I learned afterwards that it was supposed to be horror themed. Horror, as I've noticed, is especially difficult for rpgs, and Abyssals doubly so, since we're supposed to be the monsters in the first place. The normal things I'd expect to go wrong, then, did so - difficulty communicating created a misinterpretation of events between the ST and the assistant ST we brought in and the AST came down hard on the wrong side of the enabled/helpless line. The last is the razor thin margin of agency and helplessness that you need to be able to straddle to run that genre. I guess the best example is when we were asked to roll for mental defense, and I burned a willpower to succeed versus an uncertain enemy.
When the next round came, I was asked to do so again, and as I picked up the dice, the AST said something like "This scene really isn't important, and you'll just keep defending until the effect generates 9 successes against you, so do you want to just skip the rolls?" My response to that was admittedly pissy, but that's easily the thing that makes me the most unhappy in a game. The rest of the game was actually pretty solid, but if you want to run, there's an example of what not to do.
Anyway, it was a bit of a bummer. One of our players refused to be placated, and our ST was visibly deflated after the game. It's hard to put a lot of effort into something and then feel like you failed. I'm sure the next game will be a lot more solid, since this one would have been just fine without that lapse in communication between the ST and the AST, but that's one of the problems with bringing in a seperate person to run scenes in a game.
Other then that, I'm not feeling especially great this morning. A trip to the Chicago-style burger joint down the road for lunch will probably solve that problem.
Last Thursday was our latest Abyssal game, and I learned afterwards that it was supposed to be horror themed. Horror, as I've noticed, is especially difficult for rpgs, and Abyssals doubly so, since we're supposed to be the monsters in the first place. The normal things I'd expect to go wrong, then, did so - difficulty communicating created a misinterpretation of events between the ST and the assistant ST we brought in and the AST came down hard on the wrong side of the enabled/helpless line. The last is the razor thin margin of agency and helplessness that you need to be able to straddle to run that genre. I guess the best example is when we were asked to roll for mental defense, and I burned a willpower to succeed versus an uncertain enemy.
When the next round came, I was asked to do so again, and as I picked up the dice, the AST said something like "This scene really isn't important, and you'll just keep defending until the effect generates 9 successes against you, so do you want to just skip the rolls?" My response to that was admittedly pissy, but that's easily the thing that makes me the most unhappy in a game. The rest of the game was actually pretty solid, but if you want to run, there's an example of what not to do.
Anyway, it was a bit of a bummer. One of our players refused to be placated, and our ST was visibly deflated after the game. It's hard to put a lot of effort into something and then feel like you failed. I'm sure the next game will be a lot more solid, since this one would have been just fine without that lapse in communication between the ST and the AST, but that's one of the problems with bringing in a seperate person to run scenes in a game.
