breakinglight11 | Entries tagged with goth

Had a second crack at my Crow makeup! I think I made a real stride forward.

This time I remembered to prime my skin first, the way I did for my Death makeup, and it made a big difference. I used Nivea Men's Post-Shave Balm, which is a great cheap primer for full-face makeup. I also made more of an effort to "pat" the greasepaint over my skin with the sponge rather than drag it. These combined to make a much more even white expanse, unlike the streaky, uneven version from last time.

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It had the effect of being kind of aging, emphasizing my eye bags, rather than the smooth, less patchy result I got this time. I also took the picture in better natural lighting this time, which likely helped.

That was the biggest difference. But I also used better products this time. I bought black and white eyeshadow, as well as an actual black lipstick. They're just Nyx brand, not super high quality, but okay. I attempted to highlight with the white, but it didn't make much difference, so I then switched to trying to use it as powder to set the greasepaint. I also contoured with a much lighter hand, and even though it doesn't blend with the greasepaint very well, I think I achieved more of a carving effect, rather than just making dark places on my white mask.

The last thing I did was take a little more care about my eyeshadow. I filled in the entire expanse from my lid to my brow bone-- which is not much, since I have Cara Delevigne-style heavy, low-set eyebrows --but with a careful angle from corner of my eye to end of my brow. I also didn't go too close to the insides of my eye, or too far below it, which I think makes things look neater and brighter.

It's certainly not perfect. My eye and mouth spikes are still a little sloppy and not as opaque as I'd like. I should probably just use liquid eyeliner for that rather than pencil. I also notice there's a spot in my hairline that's still noticeably pink. And I'm just so damn sloppy when it comes to applying lip color. But overall, I'm really happy with this improvement. Not only do I think it looks closer to the Brandon Lee original, I think I look prettier in it. Never going to get mad at that!

For a while now I've had a bee in my bonnet about putting together a costume, maybe even something that would could as a cosplay, for a gender-swapped version of the Crow. Being a good little goth deep in my soul, I've always been a fan of the Brandon Lee movie; I know it's not quite as sacred as others of my stripe and generation often see it, but I think it's good, and I've always liked the look. Though I don't goth it up very often anymore, I still have a fondness for it, and I thought maybe I could do a photoshoot or something with whatever I put together.

While I've got plenty of goth clothes still lying around-- and they still fit, because I'm in EVEN BETTER SHAPE NOW than I was in college, thank you very much --the biggest challenge was what to do about the makeup. So I decided to finally experiment with doing my own translation of the look from the film. Brandon Lee's version looks like this:

I don't think I want to replicate it exactly. Though back when I was doing my goth makeup, I basically did the plain white face, but I have soft features and now I think the plain white makes me look a little soft and moony. I wanted to contour a little bit, just to keep my cheekbones. I think the angular look suits the character and the style anyway. The trouble, as I discovered when I tried to do it when I dressed as Neil Gaiman's Death, is that it risks falling into corpsepaint territory pretty quick, and I'm not exactly going for the skull look. And I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to contouring even when trying to do it on my actual skin.

First I applied a layer of white greasepaint. Then I took black eyeshadow and tried to carve out my cheekbones, narrow my jawline, take down my forehead, and slim down my nose. I wanted to eliminate any softenness or broadness, as lean and narrow better suits my aesthetic of goth. I'd like to highlight, but I didn't currently have much in the way of product that could look lighter than the white greasepaint. I tried to use pale eyeshadow, but ended up just adding extra swipes of greasepaint between my eyebrows, down my nose, and on top of my cheekbones. Then I blacked out my eyes with shadow, liner, and mascara. I even mascaraed my eyebrows to make them darker. I don't currently have black lipstick, so I just used an eyeliner crayon. The signature lines on his mouth and eyes I struggled with. First I tried the crayon, but it wasn't very precise, so I went over it with a felt-tip eyeliner pen.

Then I parted my hair down the middle and took some pictures. Here are the results:

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It's not bad; it's definitely in the ballpark. It's tough to contour on white face, as every little bit of black out of place shows up. I kept trying to take it down with more greasepaint and then build it back up. Blending was tough, so I'm not totally pleased with it. I also think I suffer from not having the best products. I am most unhappy with the eye and mouth lines. My eyeliner did not make a deeply pigmented black line, so it's smeary rather than sharp like his.

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I will have to iterate more. First thing I'll do next time is apply more than one layer of greasepaint. I think I can get it more opaque and plain white that way. Also I'll apply the contour more slowly, building up the darkness a little bit at a time. I might be able to make it seem more like shadow rather than just dark swipes across my face. I struggle with that in regular makeup contouring as well.

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I am definitely getting better products as well. I think that will help with the opacity of the lines. I NEED A GODDAMN BLACK LIPSTICK SINCE I DON'T SEEM TO HAVE ONE ANYMORE. And I could use some nice white eyeshadow, maybe to use as highlight. I may want to try at least once to do it without contour and see how it looks. Still afraid of looking like a big bland featureless moon that way, but I used to do it that way when I went goth and liked how it looked then. I don't know if the evolution of makeup has changed my tastes too much, though. We'll have to see.

And now, I'll give you the classic Crow stare:

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Last night I saw Alex Davis's original play, The Contractual Death of Jonathan G. Faustus, a reinterpretation of Christopher Marlowe's play. I was quite excited for it. The Marlowe play actually has a lot of significance in my life, due to my lifelong and typically Catholic fascination with hell. Plus the title character was Jared's first role in theater, which I encouraged him to try out for. More the fool I, as it gave him something to get a big head from and act like a dick over.

Alex's reimagining is very good. That kid is one of the best young actors I've seen, so I'm especially impressed that he can write too. I've been itching for years to direct him, so because I enjoy him and want to support him, I will see anything he's involved with. It was smart, thoughtful, well-researched, sophisticated in places, with a wit and humor that was very Alex. I could strongly hear his voice in it.

The lead playing Faustus did very well, even if he could stand to vary up the cadence of his delivery a little. I've seen him before, he has talent and great comic timing. It was pretty weird how much he made me think of Jared, though it didn't diminish my enjoyment. He even sat at the same desk Jared sat at when he played Cassander in To Think of Nothing.

And then the other guy playing Mephistopheles was even more fun. He was portrayed as a sardonic, witty, embittered, tall hot goth kid. I was surprised at how much that worked for me. These days my type is much more big, masculine guys with movie star good looks. I'd rather thought I'd outgrown the fascination with skinny painted goth boys in too much hair gel. But...

...apparently not.

He reminded me powerfully of Alain, at least aesthetically, whom if nothing else, had the pretty going on. This guy was even a bit broader and more substantial without losing that long lean line. Nothing wrong with that. But with that combination, It created the rather strange viewing experience for me of watching my two college exes snipe at each other for an hour and a half.

I helped run The Prince Comes of Age at WPI last night, a favorite of mine written by

morethings5,

lightgamer, and Bernie. I enjoyed helping out, and it's made me wistful for running larps again. On our way home, Bernie brought up Alice, if I'd want to rerun it. I hate to say it, but honestly these days I kind of wince to think of that game. Because as good a track record as it has, the truth is that it's not all that well-made a game.

It's well-known that a fun game isn't the same as a good game, and I often talk about the phenomenon of games that work as well as they do because the players bring whatever baggage to it that allows their imaginations to run with it. That is different than the game providing sufficient material with the quality of its writing and design. Now that I look at Alice with the knowledge of a more experienced larp writer, I fear I must place the game in the former category.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good in it. It plays quite well, most people who've played it have enjoyed it; I'd say at least twenty people out of every twenty-five-person cast. I wrote it during a dark time in my life, and a fairly compelling central story came out of my exorcising certain demons. It's one of only a few goth games in the local larp canon that isn't World of Darkness, and it's cleaner and more elegant than that.

But it was the first game I ever wrote, and I hadn't played all that many games when I started it. Those few games, not all of which were great, have too much of an influence on its design. It has a number of plots that are just plain weak larp writing-- kill plots, fetch quests, too many characters motivated by money. There are a few characters that are just too thin. Whenever I think of it, I wince. I've written eight games and played many times that since then, and I've grown enormously since then. All the flaws in Alice just glare at me. They're not irreparable, and since the game has good bones, I probably could fix it. But it would likely be a lot of work, and I have an odd tendency to build up curiously painful aversions in myself. I find myself with one to the thought of digging through my amateurish mistakes in that game.

I went and saw Richard III last night at the Huntington Theater in a lovely trip organized by

captainecchi-- so glad she suggested it! In fact, you can read her impressions of the show here, which match up very much with mine, so much so I was tempted to just let her speak for me and agree with everything she wrote! But for posterity I am recording my own thoughts, given this show impressed me as much as any show I've ever seen.

The show was given the aesthetic of a Victorian insane asylum, and I don't need to tell you how creepy that can be, with the men in white masks, the primitive steel medial instruments, and the constant presence of sterile plastic and black body bags. It even seemed that at the imprisonment of Clarence he was given a partial lobotomy! There are many gorey murders in this play, with tons of stage blood and every onstage death committed in the most gruesome way possible-- drilling into a man's eyes, guts torn out with a hook, and a chainsaw dismemberment behind a plastic curtain that was sprayed with blood. Despite the potential over-the-topness of it, I actually liked it and thought it worked with the stark brutality and sociopathy of their Richard III.

The cut of the script was excellent, keeping the length and frequent dryness of a Shakespearean history down to a minimum and maintaining an engaging pace. The storyline was easy enough to follow, though I had read it before, and despite a handful of confusion regarding people's relationships, it kept remarkable clarity. If I ever were to put on Richard III, I would try to emulate this cut.

Interestingly, this was an all-male Shakespeare troupe. The acting was phenomenal across the board-- Richard Clothier as Richard III in particular with his powerful voice. But as one fequently cross-cast myself, I am always interested in how it's done. I thought it was notable that while the men playing women were dressed in period female costume and affected feminine carriage, they did not much attempt feminine voice, and they all had their normal masculine hair. That disconnect was a little jarring, but their acting was excellent, if representative rather than emulative. It also pleases me to see men effectively to play women, when I am so much more used to the other way around.

The tech was excellent, particularly the sound design; the effects were organic and expertly timed, plus the singing! The entire troupe sang to punctuate the drama and over the transitions, usually psalms or Victorian-sounding caroles and folk tunes. Their voices were exquisite, and it was incredibly atmospheric. I particularly enjoyed when they sang something in contrast to what was happening, like a merry folk song over somebody's brutal murder. There was even a minute when they rendered "Bloody, bloody England" as a kind of rap set to an electric guitar! Out of left field, certainly, but I kind of liked it anyway. :-)

This may have been the best Shakespearean production I've ever seen. I enjoyed it immensely, and now I want to see the Comedy of Errors this troupe is also putting on. Alas, it may be out of my price range, but I will look into it anyway.t

Goodness me, wonderful weekend! Jared and I have been making the most of his visit, running around seeing friends and doing things. Saturday was mostly spent trying to hang out with people. We had a great lunch with a bunch of our undergrad friends in Usdan during the day, and a dinner with a different group at night. God, I wanted to invite everyone I knew to this dinner so they could hang with Jared, but sadly it's tough to host more than ten at a time at Elsinore. This is a primary reason I am endeavoring to have a rotating guest list. But being limited to ten was a real shame, especially because of how fantastic the dinner was.

Last week sometime, you see, I was struck with an idea of culinary genius. I would make a meal consisting entirely of different toppings for crostini. I would toast a big old basket of bread, and make three different kinds of spread to eat on top of it in whatever combination the guests pleased. I roasted eggplants for eggplant caviar with carmelized onion and toasted walnuts, I chopped up tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese for a caprese, and sauteed mushrooms, leeks, and shallots in marsala wine for duxelles. I was particularly proud of the last one, because I changed the recipe I was using to include the marsala reduction, which I think improved it vastly, as well as pureeing it at the end. It's only recently that I've felt confident enough in my culinary knowledge to alter recipes, so I'm really pleased. Also, I tried a slightly experimental service option. I gathered up my rather large collection of ramekins (recently joined in the cabinet by a couple brought my Charlotte) and divided the various toppings between them, and had them placed one each of them at various intervals across the table. This made it so all the guests had easy access to a small amount of each spread, and everyone had knives and spoons with which to spread the deliciousness. The lovely guests brought amazing spreads as well-- garden-fresh-tomato puttanesca and roasted garlic and white bean from captainecchi and electric_d_monk, hummus from morethings5, tapenade from in_water_writ, and sweet potato-carrot from lightgamer, all unique, all delicious. I am going to give this experimental dinner style a big thumbs up, and I will certainly be doing it again soon.

Sunday Jared and I went with April to acousticshadow2's new larp, Nepenthe a Surcease of Sorrow. It ran at WPI, and EB lent me a wedding dress for my costume. I painted my face with white greasepaint and wandered around with the air of a broken little girl whose sanity has gone just a little over the edge. The larp reminded me in many ways of Alice, a gothic game with strong literary roots-- as a big Poe fan, I was pleased by many of the references --but a lot of the darkness in it was kind of over-the-top, which gave the game much more of a "pulp" and "melodrama" feel as opposed to that of "tragedy." Given the connection with Poe, tonally that is fitting. We all had fun, and I encouraged EB to bid it for Festival this year.

Jared will be leaving this afternoon, leaving Boston and leaving me bereft. I am always so sorry to see the end of his visits, but as always I must just look forward to the next one. It's been wonderful having him here again, so I will try to let that carry my spirits.

So I read a style sometimes blog called Already Pretty, which I like for it's theoretical style advice and applaud for its positive body image outlook (even if I don't always necessarily agree with its approach on that front.) The writer has issued an interesting personal challenge to herself-- could she not wear any black clothing at all for two entire summer months and rely solely on more vibrant colors to create interesting, seasonally-appropriate looks? She calls it her "Summer Black-Out 2010 Challenge," and exhorted her readers to give it a try as well, not for the entirety of June and July, but just for the week of Monday, June 7th to Monday, June 14th.

Now I love my neutrals, especially black. Black looks good against my pale skin, and being a goth deep down in the depths of my tormented soul, it is a color that suits my tastes. But I depend an awful lot on it as a standby when I can't think of anything else, so it might be a fun challenge to cut it out entirely as an option. I certainly couldn't go two whole months without it, but a week could be interesting. So I thought what the hell, I'll give it a try. From the 7th to the 14th, expect to see me trying to creatively work around including any black in my outfits.

We could all use a little more color in our lives. :-)

And until then, I will be wearing ALL MY BLACK.

( Image behind the cut. )

I like its kind of gothy aesthetic. Certainly suits my tastes. Charlotte is one talented young lady.

I just found out I have Columbus Day off. Cool. Brandeis and it's ultra-PC "Columbus is responsible for the destruction of native lives and culture" stance on not celebrating the holiday has made me forget that normal people don't have to work that day.

Now that I have given myself a reason to dress up, I need to figure out a Halloween costume for this year. The last time I wore anything was two years ago when I was directing Hamlet, and since we had to have rehearsal that evening, I had people come dressed up. I wore the costume Frances would be wearing in the show, so I was basically her Hamlet for Halloween. :-) This year I'm not sure what to do, though. The easiest thing to do would be to just goth it up and dress slutty, but that's gotten to be kind of my standby and I don't want to become boring and predictable. I may still do that if I can't figure out anything else, but I'm going to try to be a little more original. It occurred to me that I could be Alice, but Christ, that's not exactly a separation from the goth thing, and talk about the laziest costuming ever. So, no. It might amuse me if someone else was Alice, heh, but not me. Any suggestions are welcome.

*Sigh* There's XMortis tonight, and at least one fun person I know is going, but I'm missing Jared kind of keenly right now and the idea of going without hm just kind of kills the mood for me. Haven't spoken to him since Tuesday, and he won't be back until Sunday yet.

Heh. It occurs to me I'm too sad to go to a goth club. :-)

Been kind of stressed out lately, between missing Jared, looking for a job, and the various other unpleasantries in my life. I am resolved to try and be more mellow about it today; yesterday I was kind of a grouch about everything. It was relieved in large part by a very nice dinner with

witticaster, who ate pork chops with me-- I never had to really make an endeavor to hang out with her when she lived with me, but now that she's not just the next bedroom over, I am resolved to actually PLAN to see now and again. Then I went to the first full session with the new group on Kindness's game, and it was a lot of fun. I'm still trying to find Arien as a character, but I'm enjoying the process very much. Good group, good DM.

Need to be less of a grouch. Today I'll try to do that.

Had a really great evening last night. Had a goth night out with Bernie and Marissa, and not only did I enjoy going out and playing pool, the company was incredibly nice. Getting to wear a hot gothy costume and have good conversation is basically my ideal evening. I wonder if that's not something worth getting together more often. It also doesn't hurt when random strangers walk over to tell you you're gorgeous. I know, I'm pathetic. But I like it. :-)

Today, not quite so nice. Threw up twice today. Not sure why, but then, when am I ever? So I'm feeling kind of gross. If I seem unusually blase about this, it's because, having what seems to be the world's most delicate stomach, I throw up fairly easily and probably more often than most. Still, usually not more than once in a day. :-P

So I tried the new hairdresser and I am very pleased. I got this girl named Kristen who was a lot of fun. I liked the look of her 'cause she was just a little bit punked out, and she was wearing the most awesome red goth boots. I said to her, "Nice goth boots, where'd you manage to find red ones?" She was delighted by the compliment, told me about this place in New Hope, and then said, "Oh, my God, you're a weekend goth, aren't you?" I laughed and said yes, and she was like, "Me too!" Although to be honest she wasn't really all that weekend, she had lots of piercings, spiked red-streaked hair, and of course the boots. And she asked me what kind I was, then said, "No, wait, don't tell me-- you're a lily, aren't you?" I'd never heard that term before. She said lily goths are the pale, delicate ones who dress more on the pretty side and show a lot of skin. And I was like, "Oh, you mean gloomcookie," which, yeah, that's totally me. She, interestingly, is a red goth-- she dresses in the punk goth style, but everything's always in red, including her hair, eyeliner, everything. She showed me a picture of her and her heavily tattooed boyfriend in her getup. I'd never actually seen a red goth before; I liked it. We got into a fun conversation about different kinds of goths and the various combinations thereof. I'm a pretty/perkygoth, while she's a perky/punky/redgoth.

And on top of it all, she did a great job with my hair. She touched up the layers and styled it really nicely. I'm very pleased, and I love finding fun people in unexpected places.

I'm wearing pink pearls today. And people think I'm a goth. Seriously. ;-)

So the Latin midterm is taken at last, and I think I did pretty well. Glad that's out of the way, that was a ton of studying. Got to write some bullshit for my internship now that I really should have taken care of this weekend, but other stuff was more pressing to get done, and it kind of slipped my mind.

In slightly more interesting news, I have finally done some significant work on a new larp idea. As I'm sure you all know, I'm a big fan of taking classic stories and retelling them with a new spin. Much as I did with Alice in Wonderland, my current idea is to adapt the Wizard of Oz. I'm thinking of making it sci-fi, and I've actually made a bit of decent progress on the story.

I want it to be appreciably different from Alice. As proud as I am of that game, I think it's a bit typical of how I work-- it's dark and moody, and most of the story comes from the examination of what people do when they're in pain. And of course I made it goth, which I'm sure you all have come to closely associate with me. I want Oz to be less buried in angst, with a complex, engaging story that facilitate the inter-character interaction.

I do worry that I'm a much stronger creator of compelling story and characters that are motivated by pain. Also, something that Bernie pointed out to me recently also makes me think-- part of the reason why Alice was so strong and why it meant so much to me is because of how much of myself I poured into it. While complete fiction, I drew upon a lot of my own feelings to try and get inside the head of the NPC that drove the story. It was powerful because it came from somewhere deep. I worry that without that deep personal connection, the end result will not be as powerful. I will just have to work particularly hard to operate outside my comfort zone and make the story not rely on my old crutches.

Looking forward to a conversation with

lightgamer this afternoon before I have to go to my internship. I think it might do me some good.

The substance of the banner ads LiveJournal shows me has changed considerably since I introduced a "goth" tag to my entries. Huh.

Clearly, LJ thinks I am Teh Gloomcookie.

Finally finished my damn paper for my short story class and e-mailed it to Professor Flesch last night. His response amused me-- "First paper I've ever received in all my years at Brandeis with 'Fuckhead' in the title." Heh. The main character in the stories I was analyzing is a drug addict with no other name than Fuckhead, and you have no idea how weird it was trying to write a scholarly piece with 'Fuckhead' riddled through it. Ah, well. At least it's finished. One less thing on my enormous to do list.

So tonight I will most likely be going to a goth club with Alex. I'm actually not really feeling like it-- I've been going a mile a minute lately with work and activities, so I feel in need of some downtime --but he proposed the idea after hearing that we'd gone to Dead Pool and I should have just said no, but he really wanted to do it and God, I'm becoming such a doormat. Ah, well. It'll probably be fun when I get there, I guess. I'm just tired at the thought. Anyone else want to come and keep us company? It's the event for August 8th you can see on http://xmortis.com/ and I'm sorry it's short notice, but this really wasn't on my radar what with all the other stress I've had lately.

I hereby declare our venture to Dead Pool a success, and I am very glad to have done it. And now, because you all already know that I am more ego than woman at this point, I will detail my costume for those of you not fortunate enough to see it. :-) After much deliberation, the look I chose for the evening was hot perkygoth with just a little punk edge. I wore my red plaid schoolgirl skirt and black bra with my black spiderweb mesh over it, leaving my legs and midriff bare, with chunky black heels and spiky collar and bracelet. My hair was in messy, piecey pigtails for an adorable waiflike, just-rolled-out-of-bed look, and I don't mean first thing in the morning. ;-) Makeup was fairly simple, heavy eyeliner, purple shadow, and dark lipstick for that perfect washing-out effect. The event and location was not exactly clublike, more like a bar with an activity going on there. I was disappointed to see that there was no dance floor, which was the primary reason I'd be so excited to go, but I got over that quickly and just decided that if I wanted to dance, I was going to dance, damn it. The music they played there was good, not too excessively loud, and very danceable. And it was nice to have an activity like pool as a social lubricant, so to speak. I am by no means a good pool player but I do enjoy the game, so I had fun hanging around the pool table, showing off my costume if accomplishing nothing else. Over all, I deeply enjoyed the company, and thanks to everyone who came along with me.

We'll have to have Goth Night again. Very soon, I think.

Went to the Natick Mall last night with a big group, all of Elsinore plus a few others, so that people could look at possible goth clothing options in preparation for Sunday. I love the Natick Mall, it's so big and upscale that it's so much fun to wander around in. As for myself on the goth outfit front, I am a little unsure of what to wear. I by no means lack options, but I'm not settled on the proper combination yet. When I tried to figure things out last night, I discovered I could neither find my long mesh top or my black sports bra. It was very frustrating, as there are only a few places they could have been, and I can't seem to find them anywhere. The mesh shirt might very well be at home altogether, but I'm certain I had the bra up here. There's one or two things I'm thinking of picking up before Sunday, if I have the chance, to see if I can salvage any of my wardrobe plans.

Also at the mall I wandered my way into the Lush store, which I shouldn't have done for my credit card's sake, but I just ran out of shampoo and I figured there was no harm in looking. I told the slightly fey-sounding but knowledgeable guy at the counter that I needed something that volumized, and he guided me to Big, which is a dissolving crystalline type of shampoo, with Veganese conditioner to complement it. I tried them this morning, an I think I like them. I also left with a pretty pink bath bomb that smells like roses, can't remember the name. I haven't tried that yet, but I very much look forward to it. :-) Ah, skin sweeties. I like my comfy stuff.

A plan has been made: this Sunday, July 27th, we will all release our inner creatures of the night and convene at Dead Pool, the XMortis-sponsored pool/goth night at a place called Flat Top Johnny's in Kendall Square. The invitation is open to anyone who would like to come, and feel free to bring guests; the more, the merrier. The website is www.xmortis.com/deadpool for information about location, times, and dress codes. The event is in fact 18+, so that shouldn't be a problem for anyone.

Not exactly sure when we're getting there, but I'll keep you posted. Come and goth it up with me!

Now, all I have to do now is decide what to wear...

This is a bit late, but yesterday I was kind of mentally decompressing on the subject and wasn't really up to thinking about it again yet. But now that Woodsmen has officially run for the first time,

I will preface this by saying I am not in love with the World of Darkness universe. My personal interpretation of vampires (and, indeed, my way of "doing angst" in storytelling) is very different than White Wolf's. I like its gothiness, but believe it or not, it isn't exactly my kind of gothiness. So I have troubles with lots of the establishments of the setting, but I was content to accept them as the setting for this idea I had for a mod. So my attachment was ancillary at best. And let me say now, overall things went well. There was nothing majorly broken, nor was there much unexpected that I couldn't bullshit my way through. I was pleased with the story I made. Moreover, more importantly, the players seemed to have a good time.

But there were a number of things that could have gone better. One thing I hadn't taken into consideration that tends to be an issue in World of Darkness games is the likelihood of inter-party conflict. As often happens in games where the characters are inherently kind of evil, they have lots of in-character reasons to fight and not to work together. And I didn't really have much of an in-game reason for them not to. I was terrified player-vs-player combat was going to break out at times, which I really was not prepared to adjudicate, but fortunately things didn't go that far. Also, as Jared pointed out to me when I related the details to him, one must either tailor the mod to the players or the players to the mod. I wrote the mod before I knew who would be playing what in it, and I could have done a better job helping some of them (particularly Sheena, I think) choose characters that would make sure they'd have enough to do. It was a very mystery-solving-heavy mod, with some social interaction and one large instance of combat, and I think next time I will make more of an effort to guide players building characters to slightly more specific things.

But mostly it went well. I had times when I wasn't so good at rolling with things as a GM should, but I will learn better. The mystery aspect of things worked well, as more or less did the story, and the final combat, after much testing and adjusting, turned out pretty much as I hoped it would. So by and large, success, though I think I'll be going over it to change and edit things. Not right away, though, when I run a project, I need a bit of a break from it afterward. It's the reason Alice didn't get edited until the second run forced me to get things done. :-)

But anyway, thank you, players, for agreeing to take part. It meant so much to me that you were willing to play.

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All Eyes on Me

"Do you know why heroes boast? Because it makes them brave."

Entries tagged with goth

Girlcrow, mark 2

Girlcrow, mark 1

Saw "The Contractual Death of Jonathan G. Faustus" by Alex Davis

Looking back at Alice with more experienced eyes

Propeller troupe's Richard III at the Huntington Theater

Lovely weekend with Jared

Style Challenge: Summer Black-Out 2010

The design Charlotte painted on my back

Halloween this year

Too sad for a goth club

Good goth night

Redgoth hairstylist

So not Teh Gloomcookie

Work on Oz

LJ: "Phoebe, you're so goth." Phoebe: "Huh?"

Need a break already...

After Dead Pool

Gothwear and Lush

Goth Night!

Woodsmen report