Ramble ramble ramble
Mar. 21st, 2009 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cybertrixxWell, haven't posted here for a while.
So..what's the topic today, kids? A-thinly veiled rant? No! A bitchfest? No! A whinefest? No! Surely it cannot be? This is the point of whinejournal, is it not?
Nah.
I've mainly used it for LRP-fic. Makes a great fic-community tool. There's something deliciously self-indulgent about writing fic. It's such a guilty pleasure...like one knows it is the pinnacle of geeky obsessiveness, yet one goes and writes it anyway. It's a great way to get into the head of a character and flesh out their background and personality (and, arguably, also a great way to get carried away and go into some major character derailment). The FOIP (woof!) barrier is always an issue, but one that is easily dealt with by flagging and being responsible.
I know several people in York don't feel the same way, which is fair enough. And, being involved in the running of a system means I should probably gently discourage players to fic about it on anything other than a superficial level anyway - since it'll involve an inevitable slow leach of information that should really remain where it is.
LRP
Hell yeah! It's been a great term. I've finally managed to settle into the game, finally started to actually see myself as a ref. It's very easy, as a newcomer, to feel like you're playing with someone else's toys - like you daren't touch anything in case you break it or are Doing It Wrong. This in turn makes one reluctant to make suggestions in case they're inappropriate and gives the impression that you don't 'get it'. Then when you realise that in truth, the entire point of these toys is for them to get thrown around and broken, and when you become confident enough to actually express ideas or *shock* opinions, it all comes together. The best plots are the ones which are literally built up sentence-by-sentence as a group, with each person adding some new layer or point of clarification as the last finishes. You end up with a plot-stack that's interesting and varied, and everyone gets to 'own' it. Yay!
Still suck at being confident around players, though. Will automatically defer on anything that's not superficial. When I'm in there, IC, it's fine - with the occasional stage fright notwithstanding - and of course I'm happy to chat to people; But the second it's an 'official' conversation, I balk. It doesn't help that I occasionally get the faint impression people are deliberately taking advantage of this - but that's a very small matter and probably more due to lingering 'Oh my GOD, responsibility, ARGH!' than anything else.
I do think that during the first term this year we might have let ourselves slip slightly. It was hard to notice at the time, but looking back we probably could have done more to keep things ticking over. Dropping Wednesdays was a real shame (but quite useful, overall, for our collective sanity) - and I think it might have harmed the system to have suddenly halved the number of sessions run, and hence the number of options for characters to arrange their own adventures. Of course, running Wednesdays-Sundays is basically a full-time job (or rather, a full-time-free-time job) but if the players get more out of it, then it's worth it.
We had considered a number of different options - one of them being just dropping the Bar nights entirely and concentrating on adventures. That would have effectively crucified the system, though - the whole point is that the characters get to decide, in-character, what they do and how the react to things. Saying 'mission for sunday, 5 slots, put your name in a hat' would be such a terrible shame that I don't think I could bear it.
So we're left with a choice. Do we run York-LRP as York-LRP arguably should be? Immersive, twice-weekly, with consequences and in-character decisions leading towards a good old fashioned monster bash (context-dependent) each Sunday? Or do we drop something? We chose, temporarily, to switch from twice-weekly to once a week, alternating between bar nights and adventures. This freed up our time on a ridiculous scale (Ref Meeting, Downtimes over the week, Sunday versus Ref Meeting - Downtimes - Wednesday - Ref Meeting - Sunday). Did our players enjoy it? When we changed it, we had a couple of loud voices saying 'No! Change it back!'. We changed it back, and apparently now some people would rather we left Wednesdays alone. I suppose the very nature of the beast is that nothing's going to be perfect for everyone. I'd love for York-LRP to continue the precedent of Wednesday-Sunday, personally, even if it means I basically don't do anything else during term time other than sit and mope at work.
If this looks like it's edging towards whine territory, that really isn't my intention. I'd actually rather appreciate player feedback on the matter.
This term has been great. Lots of things kicking off, the game world lumbering and churning into life in response to player actions, and some fabulous characters have come and gone. It's always shame about the deaths - character death is a thing we obviously try to avoid, but sometimes it's inevitable and if nothing else it does give people the chance to try something new. Many people are onto their second or even third or fourth characters now, and I think that being able to pick a part of the system one now understands and say 'I want to play this' can make a huge difference, conceptually.
I'll be interested to see where things are two years down the line. We've got an awesome bunch of characters and players and I can see much awesome ahead.
In short, LRP is good.
We've been helped, in no small part, by the very enthusiastic uptake of freshers this year round. The last two years almost certainly wouldn't have been anywhere near as fabulous without great players to make it all work. You guys are awesome!
We've an event lined up in five months' time (7-9 August 09), and I'm totally stoked about this (though utterly terrified in equal measure - how do you RUN AN EVENT?!?!).
Personal
Sometimes I think it's easy to forget that the point of life is to have fun. Over the winter, I allowed myself to slip into a pit of antisocial grumpiness, caring only about desperately squeezing the hours of free time from wherever I could so that I could spend them wishing I had more - and the hangover from that has only just cleared now. About halfway through this term it suddenly clicked - literally, like a lightbulb. A sudden light that wasn't there before. Life is GOOD. Life is fun. Life is full of great people - people it's worth talking to and getting to know. Good stuff.
All in all, things are good. Damn good.
Ramble over.
So..what's the topic today, kids? A-thinly veiled rant? No! A bitchfest? No! A whinefest? No! Surely it cannot be? This is the point of whinejournal, is it not?
Nah.
I've mainly used it for LRP-fic. Makes a great fic-community tool. There's something deliciously self-indulgent about writing fic. It's such a guilty pleasure...like one knows it is the pinnacle of geeky obsessiveness, yet one goes and writes it anyway. It's a great way to get into the head of a character and flesh out their background and personality (and, arguably, also a great way to get carried away and go into some major character derailment). The FOIP (woof!) barrier is always an issue, but one that is easily dealt with by flagging and being responsible.
I know several people in York don't feel the same way, which is fair enough. And, being involved in the running of a system means I should probably gently discourage players to fic about it on anything other than a superficial level anyway - since it'll involve an inevitable slow leach of information that should really remain where it is.
LRP
Hell yeah! It's been a great term. I've finally managed to settle into the game, finally started to actually see myself as a ref. It's very easy, as a newcomer, to feel like you're playing with someone else's toys - like you daren't touch anything in case you break it or are Doing It Wrong. This in turn makes one reluctant to make suggestions in case they're inappropriate and gives the impression that you don't 'get it'. Then when you realise that in truth, the entire point of these toys is for them to get thrown around and broken, and when you become confident enough to actually express ideas or *shock* opinions, it all comes together. The best plots are the ones which are literally built up sentence-by-sentence as a group, with each person adding some new layer or point of clarification as the last finishes. You end up with a plot-stack that's interesting and varied, and everyone gets to 'own' it. Yay!
Still suck at being confident around players, though. Will automatically defer on anything that's not superficial. When I'm in there, IC, it's fine - with the occasional stage fright notwithstanding - and of course I'm happy to chat to people; But the second it's an 'official' conversation, I balk. It doesn't help that I occasionally get the faint impression people are deliberately taking advantage of this - but that's a very small matter and probably more due to lingering 'Oh my GOD, responsibility, ARGH!' than anything else.
I do think that during the first term this year we might have let ourselves slip slightly. It was hard to notice at the time, but looking back we probably could have done more to keep things ticking over. Dropping Wednesdays was a real shame (but quite useful, overall, for our collective sanity) - and I think it might have harmed the system to have suddenly halved the number of sessions run, and hence the number of options for characters to arrange their own adventures. Of course, running Wednesdays-Sundays is basically a full-time job (or rather, a full-time-free-time job) but if the players get more out of it, then it's worth it.
We had considered a number of different options - one of them being just dropping the Bar nights entirely and concentrating on adventures. That would have effectively crucified the system, though - the whole point is that the characters get to decide, in-character, what they do and how the react to things. Saying 'mission for sunday, 5 slots, put your name in a hat' would be such a terrible shame that I don't think I could bear it.
So we're left with a choice. Do we run York-LRP as York-LRP arguably should be? Immersive, twice-weekly, with consequences and in-character decisions leading towards a good old fashioned monster bash (context-dependent) each Sunday? Or do we drop something? We chose, temporarily, to switch from twice-weekly to once a week, alternating between bar nights and adventures. This freed up our time on a ridiculous scale (Ref Meeting, Downtimes over the week, Sunday versus Ref Meeting - Downtimes - Wednesday - Ref Meeting - Sunday). Did our players enjoy it? When we changed it, we had a couple of loud voices saying 'No! Change it back!'. We changed it back, and apparently now some people would rather we left Wednesdays alone. I suppose the very nature of the beast is that nothing's going to be perfect for everyone. I'd love for York-LRP to continue the precedent of Wednesday-Sunday, personally, even if it means I basically don't do anything else during term time other than sit and mope at work.
If this looks like it's edging towards whine territory, that really isn't my intention. I'd actually rather appreciate player feedback on the matter.
This term has been great. Lots of things kicking off, the game world lumbering and churning into life in response to player actions, and some fabulous characters have come and gone. It's always shame about the deaths - character death is a thing we obviously try to avoid, but sometimes it's inevitable and if nothing else it does give people the chance to try something new. Many people are onto their second or even third or fourth characters now, and I think that being able to pick a part of the system one now understands and say 'I want to play this' can make a huge difference, conceptually.
I'll be interested to see where things are two years down the line. We've got an awesome bunch of characters and players and I can see much awesome ahead.
In short, LRP is good.
We've been helped, in no small part, by the very enthusiastic uptake of freshers this year round. The last two years almost certainly wouldn't have been anywhere near as fabulous without great players to make it all work. You guys are awesome!
We've an event lined up in five months' time (7-9 August 09), and I'm totally stoked about this (though utterly terrified in equal measure - how do you RUN AN EVENT?!?!).
Personal
Sometimes I think it's easy to forget that the point of life is to have fun. Over the winter, I allowed myself to slip into a pit of antisocial grumpiness, caring only about desperately squeezing the hours of free time from wherever I could so that I could spend them wishing I had more - and the hangover from that has only just cleared now. About halfway through this term it suddenly clicked - literally, like a lightbulb. A sudden light that wasn't there before. Life is GOOD. Life is fun. Life is full of great people - people it's worth talking to and getting to know. Good stuff.
All in all, things are good. Damn good.
Ramble over.
