Gaming Musings
          I've been giving some thought to trying out this every-other-Sunday vampire larp that Dave, James, Chris and Jenny-Lynn are playing in. From what I hear, it's serious brain candy and the GM is pretty liberal regarding character concepts. I got a sense that maybe a couple of those mutual friends would prefer I didn't join the group - sometimes friends like to have time with some friends but not all of them - but they claim it's okay with them, so now I've got to think about a concept.
          Given that it's being played up as a light-and-fluffy Vampire game, I'm thinking of trying to resurrect one of my retired characters - albeit with chunks retconned to undo little things like, oh, character death. At the top of the list are Patricia and Rachel but I don't know if I could play them as neonates again. Usually, stats don't matter to me but I've gotten awfully used to those two kicking ass as needed...
          In fact, I'm thinking about Diana - maybe take her out of Aragon and put her into this Sunday game, if I think it's going to work for me. Given that a lot of Diana's variety comes with the changing moon, a more frequent game would give me more of a chance to play her up. Contraiwise, I really like the other characters in Aragon that she has encountered, which makes me reluctant to remove her. I hate playing a character in two different games simultaneously, so that's not an option...
          Well, maybe I'll come up with an original idea - gasp!

          Thinking of hackneyed darlings that won't die, I caved in to the mewlings of three of my little brats - Trish and the Mantle boys - and wrote up the vignette that's been banging around inside my head. On the positive side, I'm having a lot of fun playing with the two themes that have come up: voyeurism/exhibitionism/aspects of gaze (big stuff if you're an ex-film student) and the jealousy that dear ol' Trisha is dealing with. I'm trying very hard to take my time with describing a key moment in the scene, without going too far into the Land Of The Verbose. It's a toughie, I tell ya.
          And, of course, the scene has nowhere to go. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to end - I hate writing as I go along, as it's a habit I'm trying to break - nor does the piece have a story to reside within. I suppose that if I put enough work into this piece it might stand alone, but right now, I'm not sure it will. It's a shame because it's a hell of a scene as it is at the moment - it's just devalued by standing alone. If it was a part of something bigger, I think it would be a lot stronger - providing it doesn't overpower it's supporting framework, I guess. Ack. Writing was a lot easier when I didn't think about it.

          Oh, what the hell...
          Addendum to Johanna's List of Songs for Vampire Players & Characters (oh alright, just characters)
          Boys and Girls - Blur. Kim Petersen
          I Don't Know What You Want... - Pet Shop Boys Patricia DeMontfort
          American Psycho - Treble Charger Patricia DeMontfort
          Low Red Moon - Belly. Diana Worthington
          Mother - The Police. Diana Worthington

          Random observation: Is everyone but me taking bellydancing lessons?

          Alex is still jobless - one temp position didn't come through, although he's interviewing for another. Meanwhile, he's kinda hoping that some of the resumes he sent out for regular jobs will come through for him. So am I! The PG&E bill came in last week and it's a lulu! Three times what it normally is - and the bulk of the cost was gas, as that's what we use for heat... Oy. Cold - or at least short - showers are the order of the day from now on. Meanwhile, I'm glad we've stuck to the TV Dinner Diet for the past couple of weeks, as that saved us a few bucks - even if it is all being snatched up by the utility company...

          Random quote from yesterday: "We'll be slaughtered the minute we mince up that hill..." - Blackadder Back And Forth...

          Random relationship tip from Johanna: When you have thought up a hilarious nickname for your husband's penis, do not share it with him, as he might not find it quite so funny. Fortunately, I escaped death only to be tickled within an inch of my life. No, I'm not sharing the nickname. I'll just admit that I chose a deeply inappropriate moment to share my inspiration. I had to, Alex was wondering why I was giggling so much...

          Gaming Sewing Musings
          I'm being honest... 
          I've been tangling with the Simplicity pattern I picked up for use as an Earth Alliance uniform for Steincorp Station. Conclusion: there has to be a better pattern out there... In a pinch, I can make this one work for me, but the problems are aggravating - the sleeves are too wide, the shoulder attachment was apparently designed by hunchbacked aliens from Neptune, etc. About the only advantage it has had was designing the new collar was pretty easy - although I've since realized that it wasn't that tough in the first place. I'm going to keep working on the prototype, just so I can use it as a warning - uh, example - for others. In the meantime, I'm going to look for a decent pattern for an Ike jacket. That would work just fine. The trick is finding the pattern!
          Meanwhile, I just ordered me some chainmail links, as I can't resist the idea of adding chainmail frippery to the Narn garment I've been working on. The idea I've got is entirely too ambitious but, what the hell, I've got time. If it works, it'll look great!

          Thinking of new ways to waste money, Alex and I finally visited the most amazing vintage clothing shop that is right in our backyard. "The Stage Shop" is tucked behind the local Burger King, carries well-priced men and women's clothing from the 40's, onwards and is closing in June... Aiyee! Janice, the owner, has decided she would rather sell items online you see... I had a lovely chat with her and have promised myself that Alex and I will, at least, be buying our outfits for the Chuckling Cthulhu event Thirteen Days of Terror before she closes shop. Fortunately, she'll still be offering pieces for rent for the foreseeable future, so of course Alex and I are considering contracting her out to outfit any historical events of ours that fall within her purview... Whee!

***

          Bah, my hoped-for distraction won't be arriving in the mail any time soon. No, I didn't order a clone-your-favorite-moviestar DIY kit (oooh, marketing idea!) but I did order some chain-mail links - only to find out that the guy I'm ordering from has a backlog of 3 - 4 weeks. Argh! If money was a bit looser, I would just place a rush order with another supplier I have since stumbled across, just so I can get started - I'm impatient like that. But that's not feasible, so I'm left with pouting quietly at home and wrestling with that dratted EA tunic. The tunic is almost done, but enough of a pain in the ass that I'm really dragging my feet with it.

          Tattoo alert! Don't you think this would make a nifty tattoo? I think so! Unfortunately, it's the symbol of the Time Lords of Gallifrey - created by the BBC - and I feel that puts it one step away from tattooing a Nike swoosh on one's skin. Still, I've put it in the 'think about' file and I'll see how I feel about it six or twelve months from now. If only I could find a henna stencil for that design - that would be keen. 

          Gaming Musings
          I'm creating an MET version of Rebecca for the DVC game, although I'm not sure if I'm going to attend the game this Sunday or not. The night before is DJ & Rob's combined b-day party and I suspect I might feel a little delicate come Sunday morning. I'm also thinking that I might just rather stay home and fiddle about with sewing things - I had this idea for a sorta-quilted sleeve thing, y'see...
          Anyways, the game is being taken very unseriously by my friends who are currently in the group - Dave, Chris, Jenny-Lynn and James - so this isn't going to be one of those chronicles whereby I break out in hives if I miss an installment. The frivolity factor is the primary reason why I'm recycling an old character, rather than creating a new one with a fresh history - what's the point?

          Ideas for Steincorp Station continue flowing. At this point, I'm creating characters and connecting the ideas we currently have - and that's a lot of fun! I think we're going to need another 'big' plot idea, just to ensure that everyone has something to interest them. Little ideas are easy and are usually created while I'm crafting a character's history, but those things are unessential and often ignored by the players.
          I'm starting to suffer some doubts about attendance. I know we can definately count on five players, but we need another ten to insure the event will happen. Oh, sure, I know about twenty people who have voiced an interest, but only the aforementioned five show any willingness to pay their dues - which is about as firm an indication of commitment as one can hope for. I want to get sewing for these chaps, darnit! But I don't want to purchase a single yard of fabric without being reasonably sure that they're going to show up to the game... Ah well, such is the lot of a GM...

***

          Saturday night was DJ's birthday party and, despite Alex's well-justified worry about whether or not the car could make it to Union City, I stomped my little foot and pointed out that if we flaked on another birthday down there, our name was going to be Mud. So we went - and I'm glad we did. Jennifer, Rob, Lisa, Christina, DJ, Eric and Rory were all there - several of 'em I haven't seen for quite a well. Rory brought his Playstation 2 along and managed to have Alex drooling on the carpet in short order - the graphics are quite kickass, I must admit. After a few rounds of drinks (which I would only mildly regret on Sunday) Rob pulled out a fun party game - "Act One". It's a 'name that movie' type-thing, with teams trying to guess a film title based upon quotes from that movie. I thought it would be a bit of a bomb, but it was really quite fun. Alex wants to buy it for the house, of course.
          We slogged off about eleven PM, mostly because I could sense that if I stayed any longer, I was going to cross the line from 'happily tiddly' to 'just plain drunk' - I'm starting to understand my limits a lot better, y'see... Besides, Alex's trick of being able to fall asleep behind the wheel gives me gray hairs, so why tempt fate, etc. It was a good thing we left when we did as, come 4:30AM, I was really regretting those two kamikazes... Any more would have made things quite unpleasant *hic*

          Alex is still job hunting and I'm still fretting. If the interview he's got tomorrow doesn't come through, he's agreed to take on a slog-job over at Barnes & Noble (he's buddies with the assistant manager) just to get some money into the house before the first - otherwise we won't make rent, let alone anything else. Depending upon how much he can squeeze out of retail hell, I might suggest that he keep the job for a few months and take some evening classes in the meantime. It would be tough - no more comic-book sprees or fabric binges or any frivolity, for that matter - but I think we could make it. A few up-to-date classes in Win NT and the like might really help Alex's job-hunt in the long run...

          Gaming Musings
          Alex and I went to the DVC game, yesterday. I'm playing a retread of Rebecca and Alex is doing something similar with Christian DeMedici. Given that we went in with very low standards - we had been advised to treat it as a no-brain game - we had a really good time. There were about 30 players, roaming throughout the Art Annex building at DVC - which was a good choice for a location, actually, as three levels of balconies give the gang a lot of room to spread out and lurk over their fellows. The other characters were fairly typical - mostly because the majority of the players were in their early 20's, tops. The Malkavians were kooky, the Brujah were belligerent, the Ventrue had a colletive stick up their asses, etc. 
          Oh yeah, we - Alex, me, Dave, James, Chris, Jenny-Lynn - are gonna own this game... 
          By the end of the day, Christian was Keeper of Elysium, which was his big goal for the day. I think Alex was a little surprised that he obtained it so quickly. Meanwhile, I obtained a level of clan status, and engineered the disgrace of another Tremere and spanked the chantry-leader's brood right in front of him - and won his approval for doing so. Ahh, that's what Vampire is all about - climbing over your fellow kindred to get ahead. This version of Rebecca has turned out far more ambitious and callous than the last go-around, but the other Tremere (with the exception of James, who is the chantry leader) are a pretty sad lot - ranging from ineffective to simply insane - so it's not like I could keep Rebecca her usual, follow-orders self. There was just too much potential for fun and advancement - and even Rebecca is ambitious. :)
          I must admit, though, that if I had to change characters - and the possibility of James' brood rising up and rubbing me out is not beyond the realm of doubt - I would want to play a Malkavian in that group. Why? Because all of the other Malks are overtly kooky/looneytoons - even the relatively restrained character, Anonymous, tries a little too hard... The urge to walk in there wearing normal clothes, with a normal friendly demeanor and a bag that I won't let anyone touch is far too tempting... Show 'em how much fun - and how creepy - subtlety can be... Ah well, it's on the list...

         God help us all, Dave is thinking about running a 7th Sea LARP - a big one - at next year's DunDraCon. And he says I could play my darling Elena - the Vodacce fate witch. Costuming wackiness, ho! Annoyingly enough, Italian/Venetian patterns from the 17th and 18th centuries are much thinner on the ground than their Northern European counterparts. I'm following one suggestion from a website and looking at bridal gowns - of all things. Just imagine 'em in black lace and red taffeta... Heh.
          Alas, I won't be sewing anything too fancy for a while - guess who blew the timing on her sewing machine again? Fortunately, I have Joanne's machine to fall back on, so I can still work on the simple stuff until I have the $50 to get the other machine fixed. But I'm going to have to save up for a heavy-duty machine, I think as I'm obviously just asking too much of my little bottom-of-the-line model...

***

          Alex is still looking for work - there's a chance of a temporary contract on the horizon, but nothing firm yet. I promised myself I wouldn't start hyperventilating until the end of the week, but it's a hard promise to keep. 

          Pretty masks! And the non-gala items are quite reasonably priced... I particularly liked the 'freeform polymetal' masks, meself.

          Oh yea, the heat is still out at the house, darnit! Thank heavens we have a little room-heater for the bedroom! Poor Tigger is hating life, waiting for the magickal butt-warmer (aka, the furnace) to turn back on...

          Sewing Musings
          So, Joanne's has a sale on patterns right now - $2 apiece, half-off, etc. So I picked up a couple - just for future reference, you understand. Alex's eagle-eyes spotted a chef's jacket pattern that will work for the Earth Alliance jacket for Steincorp Station, I hope. Of course, this morning, I get an e-mail from a costumer in the mid-west who has not only built a very nice EA jacket herself (with the unspoken hint being she might be willing to make more for the right price) but she also costumed all of her friends as the cast of Babylon 5 for a convention - and in less than two months, too! She sent me some pictures and they looked fabulous! I tell you, it's enough to make me eat my liver...
          But, fortunately, I have a new shiny thing to distract me from liver-eating. See, Dave mentioned running a 7th Sea LARP and I immediately started thinking about ideas for a fate witch outfit. So what if the event - if it even happens - is nearly a year away? This is a new 'shiny thing' for me to think about. So, I pulled out the pattern books and got to work. I bought McCall's 2242 - very pretty, although not terribly "Vodacce" - whatever that might be. But I'm thinking maybe with enough lace here and there, it could work. The only other pattern I saw that really caught my eye was a fiendishly complicated Alicyn wedding dress pattern - lots of lining, buttons and ruching and the like. Whereas the costume pattern only requires some patience around the bodice and a lot of elastic. Guess which one I'm going with? I've got plenty of time to keep looking around - and I've made a promise to myself to not pick up any fabric until August at the earliest. But I keep finding ever-so-reasonably priced bolts of fabric at my favorite online retailer and it's so hard to resist temptation... After all, how do I know it'll be available in six month's time. Fortunately, the fact that I realize I might find a much better - and different! - pattern should stay my hand. For a while. Maybe.
          Meanwhile, I'm rebuilding the sleeves for the Minbari garment that I made a few weeks ago. I'm doing something utterly complicated that would probably be a lot easier if I had the faintest idea of what I was doing. Essentially, I'm appliquéing some nifty fabric strips in an over-and-under pattern onto a new sleeve for the tunic. If I knew anything quilting, it would probably be getting done about twice as fast, but I've never let ignorance stop me before! Still, so far, so good.

          Gaming Musings
          Oh boy oh boy, the Inspiration Pixie walloped Alex and I with her Sledgehammer O'Inspiration late last week. We were watching a documentary on the History Channel and got some great ideas for the new direction of Valley of The Kings. I swear, we get so many ideas from that channel, we should be paying them royalties or something. I can't say what the documentary was about, because that'll blow the plot to the potential players who read this journal but, trust me, it's keen!
          So, of course, Alex and I are hip deep in ideas for building a damn-near 1:1 scale pharonic burial tomb in the backyard using styrofoam insulation and PVC bracing. Bless their hearts, the dudes on the Cthulhu Live discussion list are full of suggestions - including how to make the structure fireproof enough to pass as safety inspection, etc. These guys are even crazier than I am!
          Last night, though, Alex and I hit a snag. No, not the wall decorations, or the layout or even the cost (c'mon, we're planning over a year in advance with this). We hit a snag over accessibility.
          The current plan calls for several 'rooms' connected by tunnels which the players have to crawl through to go between the chambers - the walls have partially collapsed in the connecting tunnels, you see, and there's going to be the dust of millennia thick on the ground, etc. All very atmospheric - we hope! Lash a few moving-boxes together with duct tape and we're set, right? Wrongo. We've got at least one player who has arthritis and, we have belatedly realized, crawling through a tunnel is not going to be feasible for her. Damn. So the question is, what to do? Do we alter the entire plan to accommodate one player? Or do we build 'back doors' into the tomb chambers and let only her (and the GMs) use them? Or do we just tell her 'sorry', cross her off the list, and warn the other players that full mobility (and a non-claustrophobic personality) are required for this event? The player in question is a good friend, so I really don't want to exclude her, if there's any way around it.
          It's a toughie. Alex and I had discussed 'emergency exits' in the tomb chambers - areas that are just covered paper, rather than 2-inch Styrofoam - just in case something bad happens (player claustrophobia, medical emergency, etc). But those areas were of the 'only tear open if needed, because then you're going to have a bloody great hole in your wall' type arrangements. Now we're wondering if maybe we could 'hinge' some of the Styrofoam flats to create makeshift doors, and then we could hustle the limited mobility player (and ourselves) through the 'back door' as needed. I don't like that latter, as it would ruin the game-experience for that player, and strain suspension-of-disbelief for the other players who have just crawled through fifteen feet of muck and cobwebs to get to the underground lair...
          Hm, decisions, decisions. Still, we've got a lot of time to decide - and I'm glad we're thinking about it now rather than at the last minute. This kinda thing is best dealt with as early as possible. The ideas we've got are very ambitious, but, boyoboy, the players would be so impressed (and immersed into the plot!) if we pull it off. I'm wondering if I can hack painting reasonably-good-looking tomb decorations on what is rapidly shaping up to be about 300 square feet of wall...

***

          I've got an invite to a St. Patrick's Day party tomorrow, courtesy of a couple of gamer lads who I met through running games for Serious Moonlight. They're nice enough, in themselves, but I'm wondering if it I want to be crammed into an apartment with 20 of their buddies and a lot of drinking. And let's not discuss the joys of being English  - or refusing to wear green - on St. Paddy's day... What I don't get is why I'm getting teased by people who are even less Irish/Celtic than I am... Ah well, my attendance depends on two things: if Bob runs his game tomorrow (which Alex will be attending, thus leaving me at a loose end) and if I'm even in the mood for human company after sewing all day. We'll see, I guess.

          Oh, I must go see Enemy At The Gates. I can sympathize with one reviewer who lamented the film's greatest flaw being the sheer beauty/handsomeness of the cast. You can smear the likes of Joseph Fiennes with as much dirt as you like, he's still gonna be gorgeous. And it's got Ed Harris in uniform - even if it is a yucky one - and I'll go pretty far to see Harris in such things. Wistful sigh. Where was I? Oh yeah... and it's a history wonk movie - although rather far removed from reality - so I gotta go see it. I'm thinking of a matinee, this weekend... Heaven knows I can't afford regular movie admission right now.
          Speaking of heaven knowing... I watched Bedazzled last night - the original Peter Cook/Dudley Moore version that it. I utterly loved it - it's been a long time since I've seen it, let alone all the way through - and I think I might have to pick it up on video for the house collection. That and I've got to find an MP3 of the title 'song' or, better yet, I bet some gothic/industrial band with a sense of humor has covered it. It's just begging for such a treatment. If you haven't heard the song, I can't even begin to explain it...
          But go watch the movie!
          And am I the only one thinking that the chaps who wrote Batman: The Long Halloween took their cues for Holiday from Peter Cook's ensemble at the beginning of the film? The glasses, the hair, the general demeanor... Maybe I'm overreaching...

          It's definately springtime! The squirrels have come out of hibernation and are pulling faces at Tigger and Sandy through the window - in between pulling up our yard, that is. And in the city, all the boy-pigeons are puffing up their chests and strutting up and down for the lady-pigeons. Maybe I'm just a little too silly at times, but I think they all look so cute when their doing their mating displays. And my college biology teacher was right - one of the only things I remember from that class is 'bowing and cooing'...

          Alex is still looking for a job. But there are a couple of prospects that are looking pretty bright - and they're promising to move quickly. We'll see, I guess. I spend most of my time trying not to think about it, right now.

          Sewing Musings
          Y'know, it's ironic that I'm agonizing over an outfit I may never wear. The latest in the saga of the Vodacce fate-witch pattern. I've got this costume pattern, which has the advantage of being quite simple - beside some boning in the bodice, and relatively comfortable to wear. But it's not quite right - even with a lot of lace on the overskirt and sleeves, it's not terribly Italian/Venetian. Then I looked at this wedding dress pattern and thought Ooooh!  
          It's derived from mid-Renaissance design - as far as I can tell - and you gotta admit that, in the black, it looks very imposing and courtly. But it's a wedding pattern, requiring nearly 13 yards of fabric (oy!) and god-knows-what kind of patience. And - let's be honest here, kids - I'm a short, busty broad... As my mother would put it, I would look very matronly in that sort of dress... 'Short and fat' would be another way of putting it...
          Given that it's not very likely that I'm even going to be at DunDraCon next year, all this agonizing is rather silly. Still, given the work that Dave plans to put into it, maybe he'll re-run it at a convention later in the year. Yeah, maybe he will...

          Gaming Musings
         I...am a genius. Okay, maybe not. But I am getting better at picking up on flashes of the blindingly obvious in a timely manner. As I was riding in on the train this morning, a partial solution to the construction/accessibility problem for Valley of the Kings came to me. We've got a covered patio just off our back door, with a waist high railing all around it. We can use that area - the house-walls, the railing, the slatted overhead covering - as a framework for the main burial chamber - hanging the styrofoam walls like stage flats and covering the 'roof' with some sand-bagged cardboard. The kitchen wall - and the door therein - can be covered by an sheet that has been dyed a reasonably ersatz sandstone color. That kitchen door would provide an 'emergency exit/GM access/limited mobility' entrance, without us having to muck about with putting hinges on slabs of styrofoam... Yay!
          Now, that just leaves us the problem of the second area of the tomb, and it will be tricker. There's going to be no way to access it but the tunnel. I may just have to ask the limited-mobility player in question to accept a character who would only go so far in their explorations. After all, the party has more than its fair share of dilletantes and poseurs... Hmmm....

          Alex is running Star Wars tonight, yay! Let's see how we're gonna follow up last episode's "Feeling the Force" fest... I wonder if Dave is going to stick with that security droid he's playing. I've got some trepidation about that, but maybe I'm not cutting Dave enough slack. Still, his retiring Rand was a good idea. Dave just couldn't find his feet with that character. One moment he was a camped-up version of Buzz Lightyear, then he was dark-n-broody... It stinks when a character just doesn't turn out right - as I know from my abortive time with Dora.

          And the 'no-brainer' Sunday Vampire game is showing every sign of sucking up far too much time... I think it's just 'new game enthusiasm', so I'm trying to sit on most of my urges to go nuts building nifty props or stirring up things in court. After all, it won't be any fun if I burn out after the fourth game...

***

          Sewing Musings
         Been taking a break, actually. Still working on appliqueing the new Minbari sleeves together, and have been casually thinking about cutting up the brocade I bought for a dress into a pair of capri pants, instead. Yeah, I'm falling victim to a trend... But I would be a lot more likely to wear the pants...

          Gaming Musings
         Steincorp Station is being left fallow for a couple of weeks - I think it's a good idea to switch the focus of brainstorming sessions every now and then, so one doesn't get burned out during preproduction. Alex and I are coming up with lots of ideas for Valley of the Kings. I really think our backyard is feasible for the 'tomb complex' and a recent discussion on the Cthulhu Live list concerning how to age fabrics has got me thinking about the mummy that will inevitably be present on the scene. Rather than masking tape - as I was planning - I could probably wrap this poor nameless pharaoh up in linen strips and have him look reasonably old and ucky - what fun! Furthermore, Alex has revealed that he owns a projector, so we can just project images from my many Egyptian reference books onto our 'walls' and trace them from there - which will be a huge time saver in pre-production. 
          The plot? Oh yeah, we've got that all stitched up, almost - all we've got to do is tie up a couple of loose ends and make the characters... If  only we could be assured of a mild autumn, we could run this game in the fall, instead of Fear Stalks Whitechapel or Thirteen Days of Terror, but I've learned that autumn in the Bay Area is much like spring in New England - unpredictable.

          It's going to be a busy-gaming weekend. Aragon is on Saturday, and I'm looking forward to a sober game. No, really! Diana is a pretty demanding character, in terms of skill to play - she's not my usual egomaniacal social-lioness character - so I think I'm going to have to keep my head clear for her. The tough part is playing a character is somewhat unworldly and very naive, but not childish. Fortunately, I think the dynamite dress I picked up on e-bay (it was a bargain, it fit and I couldn't resist) will go a long way to help. We've  had too many waifs/naifs in schoolgirl outfits in the past couple of years - time to break that trend, I think. A shame I'm going to be spending the money I had put aside for a haircut on fixing my nails. With two nails broken, a third cracking and the polish coming off all of them, my nails need the fixing far more than my hair does!
          Given that Diana is supposed to be a very quiet character - generally only spoken if spoken to, etc - as well as rather modest and unassuming, I understand there's a betting pool going on for precisely when my head is going to explode. I'm putting my dollar down for 8:15, Saturday night...

          Then Sunday is the bi-monthly DVC game, which is showing signs of warming up very well. Some of the most recently recruited players are good role-players, and some of the new-to-larping players are showing more potential than I initially gave them credit for. If they could all learn how to spell when posting on the in-game BBS, I would be even happier! As it is, James and I are cooking up things for our fellow Tremere to do - things that will hopefully interest them as players, as well as in character terms - whilst simultaneously spinning it all so that our (mine and James') characters come out of it looking like the utterly wonderful, resourceful and loyal kindred that we all know the Tremere are. My big goal for the day will be gaining an appointment as a 'deputy' to the Sheriff and trying to weasel a bit of court status out of the Prince.... Heh. This incarnation of Rebecca is far more ambitious - and ruthless - than her last go-around. The process of discovery has been quite enjoyable.

          On other matters, the darlings are starting to pace around in their cages again. I've got a rough idea for the next Paul/Yvette story, but I need to learn a bit more about the city of Berlin, first - particularly the universities, the general layout of the city and the criminal activity therein. I tell ya, it's easy enough to find touristy web sites for a town, but just try asking Jeeves "Where are the slums of Berlin?" and it all goes to hell. Information Superhighway, my ass.

          I also sat down and re-read the vignette I wrote for Patricia and the twins a couple of weeks ago. To my surprise, it's aged quite well. The middle of the scene needs fleshing out, but that's quite fixable. What really surprised me is the the scene is going somewhere important, dammit, I can feel it - but I'm not sure where. Elliot managed to pull out a couple of surprising observations (my characters surprise me all the damn time) and they really smacked Patricia on the nose. The trick is figuring out how she can react to this situation without 1) having a tantrum, 2) running away or 3) coming across as a whiny selfish bitch. Ahh, I love this stuff...

***

          Gaming Musings
         I was a gamin' fool last weekend. Saturday night was Aragon and Sunday was the DVC game, yow. Hands up who isn't surprised that I got drunk on Saturday night? I think I've got it pegged, I'm just way too used to having a glass in my hand - and too much soda gives me an upset stomach (and I hate water, yeah, yeah, flimsy argument). So, next game, I'm gonna take a big bottle of Martinelli's and a fluted glass with me and pretend it's champagne. That should satisfy my nagging little oral fixation. (Oh yeah, like that's a surprise to those who know me)
         Anyways, the games... Aragon was alright. Diana is has a mental age of about five-going-on-sixteen right now. I'm looking forward to having her firmly in the throes of teenage rebellion at the next game - as she's realized that, hey, her Sire being dead means she doesn't have to do what her Sire always told her she should be doing... A Malkavian on the rebound, so to speak. Surprisingly enough, Diana wasn't handed her spleen by either the Gangrel or the Tremere - I was pretty much tattling on both of those clans - to each other - pretty hard. But Diana doesn't see it as tattling, of course. She thinks she's acting from the very best of motives. Meanwhile, apparently the Prince thinks Diana is bloody hilarious. Oh boy!
         The next game is going to be on the half-moon, which should be interesting. It means I can pull her out of the childish behavior-pattern and make her a little more rational - and less nosey. My god, I don't think I've ever asked so many characters so many questions in a single game, before... Not even when I was playing the deeply-curious Mattie...

         The Sunday game was amusing. The two Tremere that Rebecca was looking forward to kicking into shape failed to show up, which deflated that goal - but probably enhanced Rebecca's chance of survival somewhat, as the aforementioned characters did not appreciate being spanked the last time. But she did manage to claw her way into a court position and some status, yay. She's also the clan whip, now, which gives her a modicum more ability to shove her way into conversations with the Primogen. As commented before, this incarnation of Rebecca is much more ambitious than her previous go-round.
         The only thing that worries me is that the overall plot - which Mike the GM assures me is happening - doesn't seem to be percolating downwards to the general playership. Well, if it is, I've not really seen much of it. Part of the problem is the with the players themselves. A lot of them are new to larping and haven't quite got the knack of pursuing things in downtime, or of the fact that you sometimes have to make your own fun in court. And I think the other fault is probably the usual GM hiccup of "But it's perfectly obvious to me what's going on, why can't you see it, too?". Every GM has had that problem - it's a hard-to-avoid side-effect of the job.
         Meanwhile, the players are getting bored and, according to Chris, who has seen this chronicle self-destruct before, it's only a matter of time before the courtiers start screwing each other over out of boredom - rather than out of valid character reasoning... Ah well, this game isn't a big part of my emotional picture, so if it starts to blow up, I'll quit.

February '01        Index        April '01