The Responsibility to Game.

I play World of Warcraft.

I've played for awhile--I've really lost track, but probably around four years. It launched in November of 2004, and while I know I didn't jump on that particular wagon right away (I was playing City of Heroes at the time, and still update my account occaisionally), it wasn't long before a friend of mine got me to try the game. Last December, I became the guild leader of the guild I've been a part of for awhile--the Order of the Ebon Circle.

We're on an "RP" server, Earthen Ring--which means that Player vs. Player action isn't the rule, and in-character naming conventions can be enforced (usually if there are complaints about a particular name), and that there is actually in-character role-playing going on somewhere on the server, sometimes. That isn't the rule, but it happens here and there, and is nice to see and to butt into.

So, we have RP events sometimes, but mostly we just talk in character when we happen to be running content together (or with other players who seem RP-friendly). We're small, but we've got help getting into end-game dungeons and content that sometimes requires 10 to 25 people to play through. People log on nightly, and I'm their leader.

So I try to log on nightly. I'm sometimes a little selfish with my time on WoW, and as much as I'd like to make people think I got my guilt-gland removed and the tender age of five, I feel bad that sometimes I can't help.

With the last expansion pack for the game, I started a new character--and after I began playing him, I decided to make him a "tank"--a type of character that can take gigs of damage, and keep the enemies off the rest of the team. I like playing and making tanks in City of Heroes, and I thought this would be a good way to help serve the rest of the guild--play a role that most people don't want to play, literally taking one for the team. That character has been doing that well enough, I think, but I still feel bad--particularly for my girlfriend, who after joining the game and the guild, began playing a healer. And now she's frequently talked into healing for our dungeon runs even though she's way too cool to actually get anything out of those dungeons anymore.

So, now my priority is my healer. He's a calm, temperate sort whose life is about service--an interesting divergence from my normal character personality. I'm learning to heal in dungeons, how to work with different party make-ups, and hopefully soon I'll have something to help the guild at end-game content again.

So I need to log on nightly. People need to see me around. They need me to take one...two for the team.

Good thing I really like the game. And the characters. And the guild.

~j

Break.

Yeah, that's probably enough of one.

I'm not precisely sure what made me totally neglect the write-something-every-day thing, but in the interests of laziness and avoiding too much introspection, let's just call it...laziness. I've found I like doing this--but, it's setting aside the time every day--time that could be used to sate my addiction to World of Warcraft, time that could be used sleeping, or time that could be used watching TV the way of the future. Yeah, by finding some website that's streaming it.

Not that I sleep too much. But the other two, they're a big problem.

Nobilis tomorrow night. We have a new player--who doesn't have a new character yet, but that's cool, it's a work in progress. And our old new player is a great addition to the game--her character's needing to go to the other characters for advice or help actually keeps other people involved. Now if only I could learn to do that myself...

I have been informed by my weather guru that the current bout of mild mildness will continue until...Our Independence Day. I'm a little bemused by the fact that I have a weather guru--a sweet older lady who comes in to Friday's every Monday. I also like the idea of only referring to the upcoming holiday as...Our Independence Day. You go, Bill Pullman.

That's enough ranting randomly for this evening. Tune in next time. And that reminds me of the Muppets.

~j

If I Were Super.

I've played this game with a lot of people over the years. Feel free to respond.

If you could have a super-power, what would it be?

Flight. The more I live, biking through the city, catching the bus or rides with friends, the more I walk alongside everyone else living in what can be a horribly banal world, my answer becomes more and more firm--I want to fly. Sometimes when the weather is nice (it happens if you're not paying attention, I swear) I look up into the fair-weather sky--you know the kind, with nothing but wisps of clouds--and I realize just how BIG the sky is. I think about shooting through all that bigness, wind trying to catch me, trying to say, "Hey! Wait! You're not supposed to..." and then I'm gone. I imagine looking down at everything that's familiar and mundane, but from up there it would look magical, somehow--and for the people looking back up at me, it'd be the same. Only one thing changed, one man hanging there in the middle of the sky, but it makes all the difference.

It used to be teleportation. I'm enough of a comic book fan to even take a limit to it, that I could only teleport to places I can think of, visualize in my mind. I'd never have to get up early to get anywhere. I could see anything I wanted, I could make money moving things around, or steal what I needed or wanted. I would be unstoppable.

But, for the sheer wonder of it, flight wins. There's a reason a popular movie used the motto, "You'll Believe a Man Can Fly!"

~j

Dungeons.

I like D&D 3.5. I have some friends currently running games in completely different styles, and that's fine. D&D can be an excellent system to RP in-character in, and it's pretty good for busting in and killing things, too.

Now you get to hear about my characters, lucky you.

In one corner, weighing in at...a lot, is Arcanist Nils Gaup, a 4th level wizard. In a fine tradition of picking celebrities or actors to use as a description of my characters, Nils is portrayed by David Ogden Stiers. Not your adventurer type, he's career wizard--an astrologer with a wife, and two girls that he hopes will follow in his footsteps. His most distinctive feature may be his familiar, Lars--an albino rat that's been with him for the last 25 years, drinks from a thimble Nils carries around, gathers things in little spoons, and spends a great deal of time hiding in Nils' voluminous clothing. Nils is a conjurer, and likes to solve various problems with Summon Monster spells. He's from conquered racial stock, but has bought into the dominant race's society and values. He's True Neutral.

In the other corner, wearing slightly darker trunks, is Tala, daughter of the chieftan of the Rovers of the Barrens, a 3rd level druid. She escaped from slavery after her tribe was raided by followers of Iuz--she was forced to watch as her father, the best shot in the tribe, had his hands slowly broken to teach him and his people a lesson about how serious his captors were. Though relatively wise, she's reckless, hates anything that seems like slavery or imprisonment, and she doesn't even really get along with animals that well. She fights like a barbarian...and one day, her understanding of the cruelty of nature will gift her with the ability to take the forms of deadly predators--if she lives that long. She runs fast, defends herself with bravery and ferocity, and will probably die while the rest of her party blinks after her.

Tala is in the hack-n-slash game, Nils in the RP game--not that we don't pause for a bit of IC banter in the hack-n-slash game, or get into interesting fights in the RP one. If I could change things, I'd have a nice talk with a few players in the hack-n-slasher, asking them to please, for the love of Wee Jas, respect that other players may have their own interests, and that the game isn't about them, with the rest of us as supporting cast. I'd ask that people bother with some of the RPing, because it could be cool. I'd ask that we move things along otherwise, that being more ready to start closer to start time is probably simply polite to the others, that constant OOC tangents during play are funny and interesting, but not why we got together during that particular block of time.

I'm probably guilty of most of the above to a slight degree, and I would never ask it if I weren't willing to pay more attention to my own actions.

What I think really helps is having non-gaming time set aside before gaming time, in order to feed and fraternize, so that we get some of it out of the way and we can concentrate on killing things that are different than us, and taking said things' stuff. It's worked in a number of games I'm played and GM'd. I should mention this idea first, and then criticize other players if it doesn't help enough. Yeah.

~j

Digital Memories.

When I was a lot younger, I wanted a camera. My dad had a series of the things, big, clunky black cameras with straps, and he took pictures (and home videos) all the time. I got a little 35mm camera of my own one Christmas.

I think I used 3 rolls of film, total.

Now, I was sorting through some randoms photos and images on my computer, and I noticed the startling changes in my niece from since she was 3--she's 6, now. And I thought, "I want to have a picture of her for every year, just to remember what she was like when she didn't like me and she was X years old." And I was looking at pictures of my girlfriend when we started dating. And I thought, "I want to have a picture of her--and of us--every so often, to show how well we age." And...lots of things.

Until now, I just wasn't excited about pictures. But looking back, I realize how many friends I've seen move away, how many relatives I almost never see, and how many people I don't like have grown twisted and horrid looking. I'm getting older...ish...and now I see how great pictures are. I wish I had kept taking pictures when I was a kid, no matter how much a pain in the ass actual film is. So, I'm going to find a cheap little digital camera, and I'm going to start before I lose anything else that should rightfully be immortalized on my hard drive.

Say cheese!

~j

Topic.

Because I missed last night, and Friday night, and I need to keep my momentum up.

Sometimes, I paint myself into a corner with stories. Tonight, I managed to have a rather significant number of powerful NPCs show up in game. I tried to set things up so that they weren't dominating the dialogue, but by their very nature they draw attention. The PCs kept deferring, in some cases the players didn't think they could really do anything significant in scenes with so many major players. I ended up narrating. And talking to myself. Argh.

This from someone who is trying to be very careful about these sorts of game sessions. I complain about them all the time, and then they sneak up on me and I can't seem to do much about it. I suppose it should make me more forgiving of other GMs, but it just makes me more determined to stop it from happening.

The issue with Nobilis and this particular problem is Imperators. The gods of the game, they give the PCs their power and usually send them out to do things. But they have their own relationships. They're big, they're powerful, they're forces of nature. And they make the PCs feel small. Even though they should do something in the world, they should often do those things off-screen, away from the PCs.

For my Nobilis game, I want to have big, cataclysmic stuff happen to the PCs and their home and their boss, so we can take a step back to look at the game. I want this so that we can decide what we want next. Are the stories we've played the sorts we want to continue playing? If not, how do we want things to change? Imperators showing up and being impressive is one way to do this--but definitely not the best. I'll remember this for the next time I want to shake things up.

Play and learn.

~j

I Wish May Wasn't So Needy.

Seriously.

Parts of the state are experiencing rather heavy flooding already. We had a wet winter, and a wet fall before that. I'm rather tired of the rain. April should come up with a better way to bring May flowers.

I want to try not to post about meteorological phenomena more that once a week, but it's really getting to me. I mentioned how positively sunshine affects my moods. Rain just pisses me off. I don't think I believe in a nice, refreshing rain. Showers are refreshing--I control the temperature. Rain is a discomfort. I don't choose to get wet, it just happens to me.

And, most likely, the sun isn't shining if it's raining. Especially if it's been raining for two days.

The farmers can't claim we need the moisture. I'm sure that some crops are starting to get into trouble with flooding.

And, as previously mentioned, my method of transportation is riding my bike. So I have to cross streets with grumpy motorists. I think we have a way of forgetting that other drivers are real people--this goes double for pedestrians and cyclists that may slow things down on the road. So, I get wet and grumpy, and I get to deal with grumpy motorists--who aren't even wet, and will get to their destinations way before I get to mine.

I think rain is designed to set up murders.

~j