Things I'm doing: Role playing games (1)
Jun. 17th, 2023 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyornI think the continuous form in the subject line is wrong.
Anyway:
The state of the cat
Tully the Tabby is well again (I hope). He behaves normally, which means, he wants to be fed, and to cuddle, and to be entertained, and for his human to sit quietly on the sofa with nothing in their hands so they can pet him.
The short-lived state of the sofa
He had his chance today: We had scheduled a role playing game, some World of Darkness crossover, that we are pretty much playing "second generation" now (about 25 years after the original campaign, both in real time and in play time)[1]. Unfortunately it had to be completely online today (GM not in shape to have people over) and that is Not My Thing. But I'm doing my best, so I sat with my laptop on my knees, cables all around me, a cushion with the mouse on it to my right, seven kilos of books to my left, mobile to my right, cat lying next to me purring, and a glass of water somewhere in reach. Getting out took some planning and gymnastics.
Turned out, however, none of us was up to playing. We talked for a while and then called it a day.
Playing, but not often enough
I am currently playing in this group, and in another one, both GMed by flederkatz.
The other group tries to meet in person. We managed two or three weekends a year in 2015 to 2019, then nothing at all during the pandemic, and now maybe once a year. We have pretty much lost the ability to play together as a group -- to read each other's cues, to keep the ball rolling, to know when the GM is pressuring for action and when she's throwing around possible story hooks and free interaction. Sometimes we get back into good play, but really, role playing games are a team sport, and the team has to practise.
So I'm not playing as much as I'd like, although I love the characters I play.
A cat girl and a vampire
In our MilSF RobotWars group (used to be "not-Professor-X's-school for gifted youngsters", but then the robots attacked), I play a young mutant cat person who can teleport. The other members of the group are two more mutants, and our three bodyguards/nannies/best friends/backup, and we fight a guerrilla against giant mad killer robots that have conquered our planet right as we were supposed to graduate.
The other campaign is World of Darkness, titled "New San Francisco Chronicles" because clever names are overestimated. We are playing crossover again, with a Mage, a Werewolf and a Vampire. Diversity is strength in that system. The "first generation" campaign* created collaboration between the supers in the area, now we are building on that. Flederkatz had looked at the world and said, "I want to make a nice hopeful campaign where the bad guys have butts that can be kicked and souls that can be damned (or sent back to hell from whence they came)", and that's what she did.
My character is a catholic high-humanity vampire fascinated by the sea. He sees his undeath as a second chance at salvation (at a higher difficulty level) after he had seriously messed up his mortal life. So, the group is not fighting for survival, or for justice, or against evil, but mostly tries to do good. OK, and banish the occasional demon or capture mad necromancers, before we go back to planting trees, feeding the hungry, and rescuing dogs out of cars.
--
GMing
I am also GMing two games, and my players wish that I'd do a third. I told them I'll do it when I win the lottery. More about that (not the lottery, probably) later.
--------
[*] I still have three stories about one NPC in that game on my webpage. Now if I only know where I last saw that webpage. Maybe I should upload them to AO3?
--------
2023-07-10: Brought descriptions more in-line with what I had written in earlier postings. No need to have two names for the same rabbit.
Anyway:
The state of the cat
Tully the Tabby is well again (I hope). He behaves normally, which means, he wants to be fed, and to cuddle, and to be entertained, and for his human to sit quietly on the sofa with nothing in their hands so they can pet him.
The short-lived state of the sofa
He had his chance today: We had scheduled a role playing game, some World of Darkness crossover, that we are pretty much playing "second generation" now (about 25 years after the original campaign, both in real time and in play time)[1]. Unfortunately it had to be completely online today (GM not in shape to have people over) and that is Not My Thing. But I'm doing my best, so I sat with my laptop on my knees, cables all around me, a cushion with the mouse on it to my right, seven kilos of books to my left, mobile to my right, cat lying next to me purring, and a glass of water somewhere in reach. Getting out took some planning and gymnastics.
Turned out, however, none of us was up to playing. We talked for a while and then called it a day.
Playing, but not often enough
I am currently playing in this group, and in another one, both GMed by flederkatz.
The other group tries to meet in person. We managed two or three weekends a year in 2015 to 2019, then nothing at all during the pandemic, and now maybe once a year. We have pretty much lost the ability to play together as a group -- to read each other's cues, to keep the ball rolling, to know when the GM is pressuring for action and when she's throwing around possible story hooks and free interaction. Sometimes we get back into good play, but really, role playing games are a team sport, and the team has to practise.
So I'm not playing as much as I'd like, although I love the characters I play.
A cat girl and a vampire
In our MilSF RobotWars group (used to be "not-Professor-X's-school for gifted youngsters", but then the robots attacked), I play a young mutant cat person who can teleport. The other members of the group are two more mutants, and our three bodyguards/nannies/best friends/backup, and we fight a guerrilla against giant mad killer robots that have conquered our planet right as we were supposed to graduate.
The other campaign is World of Darkness, titled "New San Francisco Chronicles" because clever names are overestimated. We are playing crossover again, with a Mage, a Werewolf and a Vampire. Diversity is strength in that system. The "first generation" campaign* created collaboration between the supers in the area, now we are building on that. Flederkatz had looked at the world and said, "I want to make a nice hopeful campaign where the bad guys have butts that can be kicked and souls that can be damned (or sent back to hell from whence they came)", and that's what she did.
My character is a catholic high-humanity vampire fascinated by the sea. He sees his undeath as a second chance at salvation (at a higher difficulty level) after he had seriously messed up his mortal life. So, the group is not fighting for survival, or for justice, or against evil, but mostly tries to do good. OK, and banish the occasional demon or capture mad necromancers, before we go back to planting trees, feeding the hungry, and rescuing dogs out of cars.
--
GMing
I am also GMing two games, and my players wish that I'd do a third. I told them I'll do it when I win the lottery. More about that (not the lottery, probably) later.
--------
[*] I still have three stories about one NPC in that game on my webpage. Now if I only know where I last saw that webpage. Maybe I should upload them to AO3?
--------
2023-07-10: Brought descriptions more in-line with what I had written in earlier postings. No need to have two names for the same rabbit.
