breakinglight11 | Entries tagged with tabletop

For once I'm actually on top of getting my game together for Intercon ahead of time. I have most of the materials for Silver Lines ready to go at this point, and I still have over a week to put the finishing touches on it, and make some decisions about how much I want to use things like physical props.

I said that I'd planned to test this "conversion to larp" at SLAW this past November, but honestly that didn't really happen. I had made a number of modification to the running style and the player materials, but I ended up having a visually impaired player sign up for the run. Since most of my modifications were visual aids or involved rearranging furniture to represent a space, it seemed like that version at best wasn't going to add anything, and at worst would be actively less accessible. So I basically ended up just running the original tabletop version, which seemed to avoid those issues, as well as gave the players a perfectly good time-- even if in that form you probably can't call it a larp. But it does mean I'm going into this Intercon run with an untested version of the game.

I am reasonably confident it's going to work okay, even if it's not perfect. It's basically the same game content-wise, just with some changes to HOW it's presented and run. I know the story works, which is the most important part. But I hope the players bear with me a bit if there are any bumps in the execution.

offside7, the chair of the bid committee, just let me know that my bid for Intercon Q was accepted. That would be Silver Lines, my idea for an experiment in combining live action and tabletop RPG forms, based on the mod I wrote for

inwaterwrit's bachelorette party. I think some of the members of the bid committee are skeptical about the combination working, but I've pretty explicitly billed it as an experiment, so it's clear that players will have to bear with it a little. I am confident, however, that it's a solid mystery game-- I've gotten pretty good at writing mysteries --and I'm actually really excited to implement some of the ideas I've had about physicalizing some of the in-game events that in the pure tabletop version were simply talked through.

I have run it by myself pretty effectively, but for this it might be nice to have another GM to take on some of the NPC roles. And to set up other upcoming locations while one locations while one location is occupied. Ten people have played this game so far-- it's only a five-person party --so maybe I'll ask one of the former players. Or maybe Bernie would be able to be there. I'll have to make some plans.

The schedule for this year's SLAW, the mini larp con at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is up! It goes from Friady, November 21st to Sunday, November 23rd, and I will be running my larpy tabletop one-shot, The Bloom of May, on two occasions that weekend! There are only FIVE slots per run, and it will be going on 7PM on Friday and again at 2PM on Saturday.

Click here to view the schedule of games!

The blurb for my game:

"The year is 1934, and as Fairfield, CT comes out of the Great Depression the divide between the worlds of the rich and the poor has never been greater. Still, there is more going on in this quiet red brick town than meets the eye, and everyone, from the grandest society families to the humblest of their servants, has their secrets. In this roleplaying-heavy story-oriented one-shot, play as characters from all walks of life as these worlds collide as the desire to solve a decades-old mystery entangles them all.

"The Bloom of May" is a four-hour story-oriented blend of larp and tabletop game with pre-generated characters. The genre is dramatic mystery and it takes place in the real world. It is entirely mechanics-free, heavy on plot, and intended to be focused on interpersonal roleplaying and a collaborative telling and unraveling of the plot. Contested actions are decided by GM fiat. Characters come in the form of larp-style prose character sheets."

For fans of my work, or those interested in becoming fans, this story takes place shortly after the events of my screenplay The Tailor at Loring's End and includes some of the same characters.

I hope you'll come out to SLAW, and consider signing up!

Yesterday I put on the fourth run of my narrative tabletop game, The Bloom of May, for a wonderful group made up of inwaterwrit, john_in_boston, pezzonovante, and phoenix_rinna. It went very well, they were a great player group who represented their characters beautifully and did a great job of carrying the story along. This was also the first time I ever ran with four players; I decided to make Sprig Jameson an NPC, and that actually turned out just fine, though I definitely prefer her as a PC. The game is a bit too GM-intensive to fully embody a major character in addition to running, but it works fine as long as she's present when the other players want to talk to her, and injects her information at the appropriate points of the game. That's how I'll handle it in all future instances of only four players.

It is interesting to note, however, that she's the only PC who must be female. That may surprise you if you know the character, as she is really not a strongly gendered personality in any way, and she was written originally for niobien, who I think would have been equally fine playing a male character. But due to a very small but extremely important technical detail in the plot I can't think of any good way for her to be male. Of the other characters-- Alice the heiress, Lucy the actress, Matthew the carpenter, and John the cop --their flexibility is varied.

Alice and Lucy turned out to be totally flexible, turning into Alexander and Luke, as long as I flipped the genders of some of the other NPCs. The story is intended to be set in the real world with as much historicity as still allows for dramatic action, so if something like homosexuality features it can't be incidental, it would have to be a plot point, and this story isn't really designed to accommodate that. Also I may want to include a storyline involving that in the future, so I don't just want it tossed off.

As for Matthew and John, they've never been played so far as anything but male. John as a police officer might be difficult to gender flip for the 1930s setting, I'm not sure a woman cop would really be possible. But maybe Matthew could be a female carpenter if she was seen as something eccentric. That might be able to work. Especially since, now that I think about it, Matthew's already something of an outsider to the community due to the fact that he's one of the few Jews in Fairfield.

Speaking of gender flipping, the genders of the relevant NPCs not only based on how many are flipped, but in what combination they are flipped. I discovered that if I'm playing with an Alexander and a Lucy, I have to add an extra NPC that I didn't originally plan for. I discovered this when bleemoo played Alexander, and I had to do it on the fly because I hadn't anticipated it before the run. If I have an Alice and a Luke, I have to flip an NPC and add a DIFFERENT extra one. If I have Alexander AND Luke, though, at least all I have to do is flip. That seems strange, but it becomes clear why once you see how the plot of the game works.

What I should probably do from here on out is say that, okay, BOTH the original NPC in this instance as well as the new one I've had to add exist in game, all the time. But, depending on the gender balance, one will perform the function of the original as written, and the other will either perform the half of the function they can't, or else just be a background character if they are not needed. Confusing, I know, but it's the only way to make the game work!

As you may know, this coming weekend is Gaming Weekend at WPI, where the SFS hosts three days of gaming of various types on campus. I've been in the mood to run my original one shot tabletop game, The Bloom of May, so when I heard Gaming Weekend was coming up,

bronzite kindly assisted me in getting it added to the schedule. Here is the blurb I sent in:

"The year is 1937, and as Fairfield, CT comes out of the Great Depression the divide between the worlds of the rich and the poor has never been greater. Still, there is more going on in this quiet red brick town than meets the eye, and everyone, from the grandest society families to the humblest of their servants, has their secrets. In this roleplaying-heavy story-oriented one-shot, play as characters from all walks of life as these worlds collide as the desire to solve a decades-old mystery entangles them all.

"The Bloom of May" is a five-hour story-oriented tabletop game with pre-generated characters. The genre is dramatic mystery and it takes place in the real world. It is entirely mechanics-free, heavy on plot, and intended to be focused on interpersonal roleplaying and a collaborative telling and unraveling of the plot. Contested actions are decided by GM fiat. Characters come in the form of larp-style prose character sheets. This is a game for five players-- two male, two female, one neutral."

I think a mechanics-free, roleplay-heavy game is not the usual sort of thing that runs at Gaming Weekend, but I think by being very clear about the style I will attract players who are interested in that. I don't yet know what time, but it will most likely run this Saturday in the student center at WPI. If you're interested in playing, just send me an email letting me know. Also, the gender balance is a little flexible, so be sure to mention whether you want to play a particular gender or if you're willing to be cross-cast. Once I exceed five interested players, I will add any subsequent people to the waitlist.

Hope to see you there!

So last night's run of the Fairfield tabletop game for the kiddies was a success. They all played very well, they seemed to get into their characters and came up with lots of interesting stuff to do to tell the story. I was proud of them and enjoyed running for them. I was also pretty happy with the story I came up with. It seemed sufficiently rich and complex, with a mystery that was neither too hard to too easy to solve. I am so happy with it, in fact, I'd like to schedule another run for anyone who would like to play.

In case you're interested, I need five people willing to play two women and two men plus one neutral character for a roleplay-heavy five-hour tabletop game with no system and no rules, just collaborative storytelling and GM fiat. It's set in the completely realistic setting of a small town in Connecticut in the 1930s, and it has ties to the story of The Tailor of Riddling Way. I think I will call the module "The Bloom of May." I will try to organize a run shortly!

This morning I cleaned the house from top to bottom, flitting between the work and scribbling thoughts in my notebook for the one-shot tabletop game I'm running this weekend. I'm always surprised at how much this sort of life suits me. If only I didn't have to worry about that whole distasteful money issue. Anyone in the market for a housewife? I'm very on top of the chores, I'm an excellent cook, I can keep to a budget, and I won't let my figure go. Just keep me in ballet classes and larp costuming and you'll never go off to work without a thoughtfully packed lunch ever again.

The game I'm running is for Carolyn, Ryan, Sam, Aaron, and Gigi, most of whom are new to gaming and would like to get a taste of what theatrical roleplaying is like before they play in a real larp. The game is set in Fairfield, in the universe of the Tailor of Riddling Way, and explore many of the same important themes-- family history, class differences, terrible secrets. I'm writing pregen characters and setting it right after the conclusion of the Tailor story. I am evening including some of the original characters. So far I'm feeling pretty good about what I have, and I think it's going to turn out to be a good game. It's meant to be roleplay-heavy and completely mechanics free as an exercise in acting and storytelling. If it goes well, I'd be happy to run it again for anyone who cares to play.

The Burn Notice game went well last night. I felt especially good going into this one, partially because I was so excited to get back to this game, and partially because I was feeling very well-prepared. Jared and I had hammered out a particularly well-thought-out storyline this time around. While normally I do try to be very thorough, I usually have some gaps in what I've settled on that need to be filled in on the fly, but for this plot things were about as fleshed out as they possibly could be. I have Jared's help to thank for that.

Probably the thing I love best about this game is how the players play off of each other. The original three, Bernie, Matt, and Kindness, have established these awesome relationships between their characters that they roleplay so well together. And even better, before long Michael was clicking into it too, and I had an entire table to fun, funny, dynamic players who did interesting things, had fabulous interactions, and interspersed so much humor between the more serious plot moments of the game. Seeing as getting that going was my whole purpose in starting up the game, I am ridiculously pleased.

I still sometimes think I'm the world's lamest GM, given that I forget stuff like action dice and sometimes have to say, "Okay, GM break time," then go hide in the bathroom and rock back and forth muttering "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?" But of course, there is no scenario you can entirely plan out, because players always always do things you don't necessarily expect. Still, I think I did a good job of expanding the concepts I already had to give responses to the actions they took. The one thing I'm a little disappointed with myself over is how I handled the investigation of the red herring in the plot. They were supposed to look into it and figure out that it wasn't actually the solution to the mystery, but unfortunately I couldn't find a way to tie in any actually useful clue into that investigation. I guess that's not unrealistic, but I didn't want the players to feel as if they'd wasted all that time. Not sure they did, but I think I could have handled it a little more skillfully.

What I want to do from here is activate more of the personal and meta-plots for the characters. I planted a couple of seeds for future things here and there, but they need to start factoring in. That will require a lot more planning on my part, but it will make the story and world so much richer.

Well, yesterday was the first truly productive day for writing I've had in a while now. Jared helped me hammer out the final details of the new current plotline for the Burn Notice game, which makes me feel like I'm in pretty good shape for tonight. Jared and I have always been good at working together on this sort of thing, which for me is pretty rare and special since I'm usually a pain to collaborate creatively with, at least when the project is my brainchild. That's the reason I wanted to have him as my brainstorming partner and occasional NPC rather than as a player. All that really remains to do is today before the game I want to write out a rough outline of the events to consult during runtime and draw up some NPCs. I may also send out some back story info to the players for context during the session; since their characters are all pregens they don't always already know everything. Tonight's storyline will be Riker-centric, a notion I've had in my head for a while, and since this will be Michael's first session playing as Riker I thought it might make him a nice entree into the campaign.

I also made some real progress on a play. I was initially going for just a ten-minute piece (I have settled on trying to write a new one every two weeks to set an achievable goal) but my idea bloomed into what could easily be a real full-length. So, because of this, I am allowing scenes of larger works to count for the purposes of a piece-every-two-weeks. I made a lot of progress on two different scenes for this larger play, though sadly managed to finish neither of them. Still, I feel pretty good about what I have. I am hoping to complete at least one of them by the end of the week, and then post it here on LiveJournal. You are of course welcome to give whatever opinion you may have if you take the time to read.

There are so many things I need to get working on.

I want to get started with my schoolwork. The natural starting place seems to be to do the reading, but my teacher hasn't yet sent along the packet of ten-minute plays that I must respond to for my first assignment. I guess I can read the craft book I need to review; just ordered a copy of it now.

I need to finish planning the revival session of my Burn Notice game for this coming Tuesday. We will be joined by the fabulous Mr. Michael Hyde, who has graciously agreed to take on the role of Riker, the nerdy hacker who remade himself into the ultimate cool guy (or so he thinks.) He will be coming over for dinner tonight to discuss the particulars of the campaign and how best to fit into it. Hopefully it will inspire me a little. I like the sessions to be extensively planned out so there's a lot of detail and possibility, which requires a lot of forethought. I also like to emulate the way the show incorporate personal hooks for the characters into an otherwise caper-of-the-week plot structure, but that can be tough. No wonder I can't manage to run this as a weekly campaign; I could never churn out that level of work in that short a period.

I do, however, want to get serious about writing a ten-minute play a week. I think it would be beneficial to my development as a dramatist. The problem is right now I am totally stuck for an idea. I've always had this problem. When I have an idea, I've no trouble coming up with the project to match it, but when I know the project I need to do, I really suck a coming up with a fitting idea. I might have to cut it down to a ten-minute play every two weeks if it's going to be this tough to come up with something to write about. Suggestions welcome, I suppose.

I need to finish the final edit of Merely Players. The show is so close to being finalized it's painful, I just need to buckle down and make it work. I am endeavoring to add back in the stage manager character I had to cut for a lack of lines, but now I think I can include him if I make him a pantomime character who is totally silent for comedic effect. Also, I want to have an initial blocking plan made up to go into the process with. The show is supposed to be really funny, which the blocking must support, and is also intended to work outside the conventions of traditional theater. It has a cabaret sort of atmosphere, so the fourth wall is a lot less firm, for example, and the "actor's space" is not confined to a separate area understood to be the "stage." The blocking must take full advantage of that freedom, and be sufficiently unusual to create the proper effect.

I want to find a good beginner's sewing reference. I will be FINALLY getting my sewing machine at the end of the month, as that's when I will be next visiting home and my parents discovered the thing would be exorbitantly expensive to ship. In the meantime, I would like to cut out pattern pieces and study up to be ready for the machine. There's a lot about technique and terminology I am completely in the dark about, so might as well use the time before I can actually start sewing to read up on the matter and be prepared.

Sadly, I think I should probably be putting my new larp idea on hold. The Roman Empire game, which I am thinking I'm going to call Imperium, is very exciting to me right now, but sadly I think I need to be prioritizing dramatic writing and more immediately relevant writing instead. Of course, knowing me, I'll be struck by ideas for it anyway, which of course I will be obliged to record lest I forget them even if I'm not actively working on the project. Nice as it would be to have something new to debut at next Festival, I need to balance my love for larp writing with writing I can make greater use of in a career as a writer. I hate saying that, but my current portfolio is kind of unbalanced and that needs to be corrected.

So those are my major concerns right now. Looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me. Let's see what I can do. *cracks knuckles*

Lise once described to me the condition she refers to as being "haunted by ideas," her brain filled up ideas for all the cool things she could do and make. I think that's a perfect way to describe it, and upon reflection I think I often feel that way myself. Here are some of the things currently haunting my brain.

I want to restart my Burn Notice campaign. I want to keep it an intermittent thing, maybe around once a month at the most, but it hasn't happened in quite some time now and I miss running it. I like my player group a lot (no surprise given it's made up of some of my favorite roleplayers/people) and since it's the dead season for larps right now, a chance to roleplay would be very welcome right now. Taking steps now to see if I can get things organized.

I have an idea for another larp, this one set in ancient Rome. I've always loved that period, and always thought that my favorite book I, Claudius would provide an excellent setting for a game. I wouldn't actually want to make a Claudius larp, though, as history and the book itself would make it thoroughly spoilered. So I find myself dreaming up original Romans in the style of the characters in the novel with new family drama and politics and conflicts and secrets to populate the story. I think it could be a lot of fun. Not sure if it's what I should be concentrating on right now, but this is definitely an idea I'll pursue at some point. It might be nice to have a new thing to debut at next year's Festival.

And of course, school starts in three days. Excited for that, but also nervous. That means that soon I will have to begin playwrighting in earnest. I have, as I've mentioned, several ideas, and I wonder which to begin with. Maybe I should start setting aside time in my weekly schedule as "play writing time" and get in the habit of making serious progress.

Played in Leash this past Saturday. I must say, though I had my reservations, I ended up really enjoying it. My character had a strong BDSM element to it, and while I was not bothered by that fact, I knew it was going to take some boldness on my part to be able to act like that toward other people in public without feeling totally embarrassed. But I relished the acting challenge of contrasting that part of the character with her normal quiet, more goody-goody personality, so I figured there was no point in doing it if I didn't do it all the way. Jared helped me make a costume that would be easily hidden under my big old rust-colored suede blazer (really need to get that thing tailored), and I decided that it would be best if I arranged with someone who I was comfortable with and vice versa to have a little scene. I settled on morethings5 as a personal who fit that bill, and would make the scene interesting. So, though I had a wee bit of trepidation, in the end I just went for it.

Looks like I got over my reservations, I guess. :-) And Jonathan was an excellent scene partner. Thank you, dear, for rolling with me! I also ended up going off on

bleemoo, with whom I did NOT confer beforehand, but I think that turned out okay as well! Again, thanks for being such a good sport!

Beyond that, the game is good overall, with good plot and lots of reasons for characters to interact. I like how the powers and mechanics were just very flowy, and yet did not interfere too much with each other. I liked it very much and would recommend it, provided you're comfortable with dark and mature themes. There was more intense stuff than just my character's, and a lot of it was kind of twisted, but I enjoy that stuff so it didn't bother me. So my compliments,

hazliya and

elenuial! I am suddenly now particularly interested in Better Off Dead when it runs at Festival, but I doubt I will have time for it with all my other committments. :-(

Also, on Sunday I played in Lise's FantasyCraft game. The mystery is really starting to emerge, and I think the plot she designed is really very clever. I love being Ophelia and getting to say inappropriate things. I also am really happy about the company being who it is, which makes the game even better. Jared tagged along to the game this time and then we all went out to dinner afterward, which was lovely. All in all, this was a fantastic weekend full of lovely lovely gaming.

Jared is going to be in town this weekend! He has an interview at a nonprofit in Springfield, which is sadly a bit of a drive away, but at this point I will just be happy to have him within driving distance. He'll be closer and more accessible than he was in Chicago at least, and for that alone I am happy and optimistic. But after the interview Thursday he'll be coming into Waltham to spend the weekend.

I also got a silly little writing gig on a website called Examiner.com, where you write a few short little articles a week on a topic you're interested in, and depending on a lot of factors including pageviews, you get paid something for it. My first two articles have just been old LiveJournal entries I've adapted to fit their guidelines, which I did because I should be busy this weekend and I wanted to make sure I got in at least two before the end of the week. I don't expect a lot to come of it-- I think I've made twenty-nine cents so far --but who knows, I guess it's worth a try. This is my profile if you'd care to toss a click to two my way. Much obliged.

Even before Jared was coming, my weekend promised to be busy. Saturday will be Like Putting a Leash on a Rocket Launcher in which I have a pretty out-there character that will require some pretty, uh, uninhibited behavior. Heh. Ah, well, it will be an interesting challenge, and we'll see how it goes. I'm playing one of the E-phos and as such have a dual personality. I'm wondering if there's an easy way to represent that with costuming. At the moment I'm thinking I'll wear my black leggings and tall boots, but not sure about what to go with on top. Maybe I'll wear two layers of top such that the inner layer represents the alternate personality and can be revealed whenever I switch. And then there is the next session of

captainecchi's tabletop game on Sunday. Must check on where we will be meeting for that.

All in all, it should be a very fun, active weekend. Also, it will mark the last weekend in the "I am totally booked up" series, and I will finally have some free time on Saturday and Sunday again. Knowing me, I will immediately fill it all with activities.

Okay, so I didn't really follow my plan (such as it was) when it came to signing up for stuff at SLAW last night. I ended up going with Martha Stewart on Friday, The Sound of Drums and Clarence on Saturday, and In the Jungle on Sunday. I blame

natbudin,

captainecchi, and

electric_d_monk as bad influences, since I did my signing up while I was at the Fantasycraft game with them last night. I went with Sound of Drums because I'd never played a game in that sort of setting before, though I am very sad to miss Two Hours in London. Costumed Henchman was full (surprisingly one of the first to do become so) so Nat suggested I sign up for Clarence, since, as he pointed out, if I hated it, storming out because I thought it sucked would not only be acceptable but totally in character. So I figured, what the hell, why not? And Lise and I made pacts to sign up for games we weren't sure we would enjoy together, because then at least we'd have a buddy with us, and maybe we could find some way to make them fun for each other in spite of everything. Like, we're not sure we're going to enjoy In The Jungle, as we both tend not to like extremely freeform games, but we figured that we could at least get some fun out of being hobos together. :-) And I am curious how many more romance plots I will be in with Matt, as this tends to be a recurring theme. So this SLAW looks to be an interesting one!

The game last night was fun as well. I really enjoy being Ophelia, yammering on about nothing in particular and making really inappropriate observations about everything like a small child. Ophelia's exploits last night include picking the pocket of an unconscious stoner, fending off the advances of a pervy pech-fancier, pegging a fleeing assasin with my throwing dagger "like a fish in a barrel" and thereafter referring to him as "Fish," getting courted for a covert op by an elf who apparently has species-dysmorphia, and telling and retelling an acnedote involving a stolen greatsword and a barrel of pickled herring. Lise, I like this game you've got going on here. :-)

After work I will be hanging out with my family. Today will probably loosely scheduled, but I really hope we nail down what we're doing tomorrow. My parents are normally rather firm and decisive planners, but they want to spend time with my brother as well and he hasn't really gotten back to them about his availability, so they're afraid of making any plan that he wouldn't be able to go along with. :-P Hopefully we'll do something fun. I just wish we could figure out what the hell it is already.

Parents will be coming into town today. The timing is good, as they will be claiming the majority of my time from now until Sunday evening, so I will be busy during the same period Jared is busy in Albany visiting Sharone. That means I will have less time to call him at the same time as he has less time to call me. He should be busy doing fun special things like one does on vacation, rather than sitting around on the phone with one's girlfriend like one does at home. I just need to confer with Mom and Dad to figure out what our plans will be. Two possibilities include visiting Salem and my taking them to Kind Richard's Faire, neither of which we are settled on. Tonight, however, I will be going to the next session of captainecchi's Fantastycraft game, which I committed to a long time before they told me they were coming up. They tend to prefer I clear my schedule when they visit, since they see me so rarely these days, so I can't tell whether or not they're annoyed with me. Ah, well. Tonight should be fun. I will enjoy getting to be Ophelia again, and must make certain to think of lots and lots of fun inappropriate things to say.

Again a lovely weekend with Jared comes to a close, and again I try to dwell on the positive-- that I'm seeing him on a regular basis, that he may be back for good soon, that we are doing well despite the distance and every time we do see each other is great. Again, I try to be happy that our time together was so nice rather than sad that now he's gone. It feels good to be doing everyday things with him like dinners and seeing friends and watching movies. Positivity and hopefulness are not natural to me, but I'm beginning to see that in this situation they may be truly necessary.

I have decided I will be attending the "open dress" night of the Boston Babydolls "Wrathskeller" performance on Tuesday, October 26th, and I hope some of you will be willing to come that night with me. Tickets to this open dress are limited, but only five dollars a pop, so if you'd care to join me I encourage you to buy early. I saw last year's version of the show and really enjoyed it, so I am excited to go again this year. I like them as a group, and they speak to the shameless showoff inside me as well. I recently bought a coupon to take one of their classes on LivingSocial, so I'll have to figure out a time to attend. One of these days I'll work up the courage to audition, especially since

laurion has assured me that not everyone has formal dance training.

Sunday I played in Lise's FantasyCraft game, which was a lot of fun and some very nice company. I am electing to continue with the sort of character I played in the sample mod, a halfling assasin-burglar-type sneak-thief whose current defining character trait is her complete lack of a mental filter, leading her to say exactly whatever weird, inappropriate thing is on her mind at the moment. Her name is Ophelia Dunning, and I think she will be very fun if the rest of the party doesn't resort to stabbing her to get her to stop talking. She doesn't have much of a backstory yet, but we've got a while before the next session, so I should be able to come up with something sufficiently quaint and amusing in that time.

Might anyone be interested in taking a size eight teal long-sleeved button-up blouse from Banana Republic off my hands? It's really nice and I like the color so I've been trying to make it work, but it's just too big and it looks weird on me because of it. It's in good condition and free to a good home.

So the Burn Notice game will not be running tomorrow. I heard from Marissa that it turns out she has a conflict she'd forgotten about on Saturday night, and since the plan was for the episode to be Riker-centric, I really don't feel like coming up with a different plotline OR cutting her out of another game. So the group is just going to have dinner together instead, which will be easier on my brain and we'll still get to enjoy each other's company. I'm not sure when the next session will be, given that I'm going out of town next weekend, but maybe we'll be able to get together on a weeknight sometime, since we'll all be in Waltham for the month of July.

Made some small progress on line memorization; I got through one and a half scenes yesterday. If I can keep that rate up, I should definitely be off-book by the deadline. I have the next three days off, so I'd better use them. Tomorrow I'm going to a much-anticipated Fourth of July party, and I want to make some dish or other to bring. Maybe a nice side dish I can make easily in large quantities.

Also, captainecchi recently approached me with a really cool idea. I'm not going to say anything about it yet before I've got anything substantial, but look for it soon...

Feeling very behind on things right now. I have a lot of deadlines in the near future, the two currently most pressing being the off-book deadline for Love's Labor's Lost and being ready with a new storyline for this Saturday's session of Burn Notice. There was a question of whether that would be happening because Bernie didn't know if he'd have to go out of town or not, but he's decided on staying so barring anything unexpected we're on. I've finally finished what dangling threads still remained, so now I have to generate an entirely new caper. That's going to be a lot of work, but if I use the next few days effectively, I'll bet I can come up with something satisfying. I also have to cram a lot of line-learning into that time. I'll just have to work hard to maintain focus.

As a side note, I was briefly mentioned in the Brandeis University LouieNew: "Brandeis alumni direct, produce, star in "Love's Labour's Lost" - The Gazebo Players presents "Love's Labour's Lost," directed by Shelby Bleiweis '04, produced by Amy Klesert '09 and featuring Phoebe Roberts '09 and Debbi Finkelstein '04. Performances will be at the Gazebo in Medfield, Mass., July 24, 25, 31 and Aug 1 at 5:00 p.m. and Aug 1, 7, and 8 at Walpole's Footlighter's Theater at 5:00 p.m. All performances are free."

Those, incidentally, are all the necessary details should you like to attend my play.

The tabletop games of this past weekend all went well to varying degrees. I enjoyed the prewritten World War I Call of Cthulhu mod, but the pre-generated characters were a bit too bland. I like pre-gens as a concept-- in fact, I may actively prefer them, since I think the GM tends to be able to integrate them better into the world --but these didn't have much to sink your teeth into. Also, it ran very late, and the more tired I get, the less and less I can stay in character and roleplay.

I was very pleased with my Burn Notice game. We resumed quite smoothly, given that the last time we played was back in January. I am glad to report that we finished the episode, which included a "boss battle" of sorts that I ran a lot better than I was afraid I would. Combats are still tough for me. Also, fellow tabletop GMs out there, do you ever find the PCs latching on to an NPC that you didn't particularly expect them to develop any attachment to? The most recent adventure involved an underground boxing ring, and there was a cut man named Archie Judd who was designed to be able to be turned over to their cause. They ended up really liking him and asking if he'll ever appear again. That surprised me; I didn't expect them to find him as cool as they did. So it might be worth it to find some way to have him recur if they enjoy him that much.

We also arranged for the next session, which is a good idea as I'd like to play on a semi-regular basis. Not this Sunday but next Sunday we'll get together for it again. Two separate storylines have been going simultaneously, and now that the boxing one is concluded we can work toward finishing the one regarding Gwen being framed for acts of terrorism. Marissa will be rejoining the group in the role of Riker; it'll be good to have her back. I don't think Riker had much involvement in the current caper thus far, so she should be able to come in fresh on it. I think I like the idea of a once-every-two-weeks schedule. It gives me time to plan the adventures to my liking, something I don't think I could do if I only have one week in between sessions.

Then I played in the rules test for Bernie and Joe's proposed Eternal Darkness-style larp project. It was a tight, short mod with a great player goup that I liked very much, set in Egypt during the period of the big tomb excavations. Joe is a good DM; he makes good plots and handles players very skillfully. I got a slightly problematic character in that she had a really cool, fun personality but given her circumstances as a young woman in the late 1800's did not have a great entre into the adventure and was somewhat prevented from being as active as I would have liked. A fixable issue with careful design, however, and I liked her enough to use her as a role. As for the rules, by and large I thought they worked well, though they were clearly devised by people much more used to tabletopping than larping. Still, i think they could be cleaned up to high larp functionality.

Tonight is cooking preparation and packet stuffing for The Labor Wars. We are nearing the moment of truth where we actually have the run. I feel so proud of us for doing this. I can't get the thought out of my head that I participated in the writing of a new weekend-long game. As far as I know, there hasn't been a new weekend-long game written in the last ten years. And weekend-longs people regard differently; they're kind of a big deal. So I can't tell you how much I want to get the heck out of work today and get down to the prep. God, I am so excited for this game.

The next week and a half promises to be jam-packed with gaming for me. It will be of both the tabletop and larp varieties, and I will be participating in the capacities of both player and GM.

This Friday night, Joe will will be running a prewritten Call of Cthlulhu game set in World War I. I've played in his Lovecraft games before and really enjoyed them, and he says this is a particularly fun mod, so I expect it to be good. My only concern is that we won't be able to get started until late, and I have a tough time staying up past midnight these days, even on the weekends.

Saturday will be the off-day. With much of the desired player pool depleted by Rage Across the Cape, no other games will be scheduled for this day. I don't mind, it's probably good to have a break in there somewhere, and I want to have nothing conflicting with the birthday party I am looking forward to attending in the evening.

Either Sunday afternoon or Monday evening will have my Burn Notice game. I really want to finish the adventure they're currently on, and I am certain it can be done by the end of this session. We haven't played since January; after the last session my play started up, like, immediately and there was never any time. Over the next few days I must buckle down and plan the thing. I know the gist of it, where I'd like it to go and all, but it's been long enough since we played that I must rethink some things, and just try to prepare for the eventualities. I am excited for the conclusion of this job; the climax of I expect shall be well-received. I like to think it's quite a kicker. :-)

Monday or Tuesday night will be a mod designed to test some of the rules devised by Bernie and Joe with the intention of being used in larp projects. I am not certain I'm the best person to be involved in such a playtest, but I have been told my aversion to rules, particularly complicated ones, will give me a perspective useful in determining what will be too unweildy and byzantine for larpers who think like me.

Wow. That's a lot of tabletopping, especially for me. And then, with Thursday comes the day we prepare for The Labor Wars the following weekend. We have cooking to get started with, and of course stuffing the game. And then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday shall be spent watching things unfold. I can't say enough how very, very excited I am. It occurs to me that we GMs once discussed assuming the roles of house servants to add to the verisimilitude during the run; I should ask if we're actually doing that, and figure out some appropriate costuming.

Ah, so much to do. I am at once daunted by the work and anticipating the fun. Yay!

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All Eyes on Me

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

Entries tagged with tabletop

Preparing Silver Lines for Intercon Q

Silver Lines accepted at Intercon Q

Play The Bloom of May at SLAW 2014!

I love running The Bloom of May

Running "The Bloom of May" tabletop game at WPI Gaming Weekend!

Fairfield tabletop a success

Tabletop game in the "Tailor of Riddling Way" universe

"We did acrobatic interpretations of Russian novels. I spent 7 hours on a trapeze in a overcoat."

Writing productively

My long important project list

Things in my head right now

Domm'd

Finally the last packed weekend

"It's like I speared you-- like a fish!"

Weekend of parents

Several things

Getting stuff done

Feeling behind

Slightly delayed gaming report

So much gaming coming up!