Not Exactly a Blog

Spacefem.com's

What Kind of Evil Are You? quiz pegged me as "Maniacally Evil." Is anyone surprised by this? My own mother thinks I'm devious, and she doesn't know the half of it.

Just to let you all know, I'll be away from my computer over the holidays, so if I don't write again until Sunday, don't worry. I have a natural immunity to Thanksgiving Turkey-and-football comas. With any luck, I'll have quite a tale to tell upon my return. Possibly feature-film material. Stay tuned.

And to tide you over, here's a late entry for this week's Game Wish

What have pets and companions belonging to PCs and NPCs in campaigns you've GMed or played in added? What have their bad points been? How do they compare to sentient magic items in terms of their effect on play (good or bad)?

I don't remember any major campaigns that I've played in when I had a pet, companion or sentient magic item. However, other players did, so most of what I have to offer is from an observer's standpoint.

First, I must relate an incident that occurred during one of Doug's campaigns. WIthout going into too much detail, there was an NPC Paladin with a very intelligent horse. The PCs were on a mission that was unknown to, but support of, the paladin's. We were doing a pretty good job of keeping the secret under wraps, until Ditzy Druid spilled the beans--to the paladin's horse. The horse had figured out that something was up, and Ditzy Druid didn't even attempt to lie her way out of it. We ended up having to use a dominate scroll on the horse. (No, I was no playing the druid. I was the mission co-commander, and the druid is ever so lucky that my character never found out about it!) The same campaign featured an alligator--Ditzy Druid's companion animal--played by the GM. I loved the alligator, because the druid was convinced that the alligator was awakened, but it wasn't. She heard all kinds of things from that alligator that the rest of us didn't. (Have I mentioned that I love Doug's games?)

Getting back to the question, I think that the best pets, companions, and sentient magic items have complimentary but independent personal agendas. This requires that the player and the GM cooperate in running the character. I suppose the best example I can come up with offhand is Esperanza, in the Grand Ellipse. Esperanza is Margaret's traveling companion. The player, Alisa, gets to decide on such things as the route, method of transport, etc., and assume that Esperanza goes along with it. However, Esperanza certianly makes her own decisions and is not entirely under Alisa's control, as she will no doubt tell you if you ask. The same method can apply to sentient magic items, familiars, and pets; so long as the personal agenda of the player and the NPC/item coincide, no problem. However, if the player attempts to get the NPC/item to deviate from his/her/its agenda, there ought to be consequences, determined by the GM. The sentient item may refuse to do something, or demand compensation. A pet, familiar, or other person may decide "no way" and bolt.

I think that's all for now. See you next week.

You know, I never thought I'd use the phrase "best cat urine story ever", but life is full of surprises. If your sensibilites are delicate, or your taste more refined, have a look at Francie's new online store. She does fabulous work, and I'm a sucker for glass. Support your local artists, kids!

Some of you may have noticed that this week's update for the Grand Ellipse is late. Mea culpa. Chanukah is practically on top of Thanksgiving this year, and I'm trying to get everything in order for that before we head off for the annual family gathering. It'll be great to get to give my cousins their gifts in person--and I do enjoy the opportunity to celebrate two holidays in one trip--but there's a lot to do. (Not to mention the usual culprits of laundry, dishes, cooking, and housework.) So, I will do the update as soon as I can manage it, and it will be done before I leave. I promise. Dorothea and Alisa have great start on a novel--and some others (*cough* Vincent *cough, cough* Evan *cough*) are a wee bit behind on their updates. At least Wick has an excuse--even if it is a nasty flu.

In the mean time, go read something. Charles de Lint has some new and recent books out--Tapping the Dream Tree, Seven Wild Sisters, and Angel of Darkness. Or, try Terri Windling's Wood Wife, or anything by Robin McKinley, Paula Volsky, or Harry Turtledove/Eric Flint. (Speaking of--I am most of the way through Flint's 1633, which is the sequel to 1632. Good stuff.) If you get through all of that, go read S. M. Stirling's Lost Nantucket series. That ought to keep you busy.

Love that continental climate; the temperature appears to have peaked some time this morning. Not to mention occasional snow, and wind that hasn't stopped for a break since the Yukon. Seriously, I do like it; everything that makes me sneeze is dead, and I won't need to use the word "swelter" for months. Some parts of Central Indiana got about an inch of snow last night; Jennifer, who lives up in Anderson, tells me that it was "perfect snowball snow". none on the ground at my house this morning, but there are plenty of flakes blowing around.

I didn't realized how foggy it was in Central Indiana today until I heard the school closing report on the radio. "If your prom queen has ever ridden on a tractor, your school is on a two-hour delay today..."

Some people over at Turn of a Friendly Die are curious about the Curious Incidents. I don't want to post anything until the game is over. However, once the Grand Ellipse concludes, I will happily make the game interaction available to the reading public. At this point, my plan is to organize it by character.

As for Grand Ellipse II--which will be the Lunar Ellipse--I'm not even going to start planning it until Grand Ellipse I concludes and the material from it is edited. Don't expect anything before late spring of next year at the earliest! (I say that now, of course...) Rest assured that as soon as I am ready to take characters for that, I will post an announcement. Until then, sit tight and enjoy the ride.

In the mean time, I have to work on this week's Grand Ellipse update--Shirley and Margaret's Meeting in Alexandria alone is 14 pages long--and put in some time on a one-shot game I'm running for my cousins over Thanksgiving.

Whatever else happens in the Grand Ellipse, I'm glad I finally got Dorothea and Alisa writing to each other. I had a feeling that they were friends who hadn't met yet.

It seems to be Mars week, at least as far as my literary pursuits are concerned. I finished Ian Douglas's Semper Mars last night, and I'm over halfway through Eric Idle's The Road to Mars. I also acquired GURPS Mars, in preparation for the next Grand Ellipse game. (How's that for a teaser!)

And speaking of the Grand Ellipse, I've got players teaming up on me now. Alisa and Dorothea are in the process of trying to "untangle Li's totally twisted mind." All I can say to that is that many have tried...

In a complete non-sequitir, is it me or did Thanksgiving sneak up on us this year? I feel as though I've somehow fast-forwarded through half of November. I'm glad that I don't have to do anything but travel this year, as I am utterly unprepared to do otherwise.

Looks like we're going to have a Homeland Security department. I'm reminded of Benjamin Franklin's comment--"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Dorothea is responsible for this week’s Game WISH, which is The typical party of PCs appears to be composed of equals. They may have Nodwickian henchlings or distant authority figures, but in most of the games I've played, the PCs are equal with respect to each other.

Is this generalization true for you as well? What other group dynamics have showed up in campaigns you have played? What other group dynamics might be workable? What isn't workable, and why?

I would say that in most cases, the generalization is true. Notable exceptions include cases in which players join an established game late with lower-level characters, or situations in which the GM lets game balance get all out of whack.

What I really want to write about on this point--and I suspect Dorothea may have had this in mind when she posed the question--is the Grand Ellipse. The novel thing about the game is that there isn't a party; all the players are competing against each other. As I'm the one running the game, (when the inmates occasionally relinquish control of the asylum) I can safely say that this was not only deliberate, but the point of the game.

Here's my reasoning; in a play-by-email campiagn, getting a group to work together is quite a challenge. In this case, many of the players haven't met each other in person. Heck, I haven't seen the Salos live and in person since my wedding four years ago. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that running anything that required trust and mutual respect on the part of the players--let alone the characters--was going to be a challenge I didn't know if a group could handle. Hence the competition. The fact that the players don't know each other and don't habitually game together becomes an advantage. Of course, there are some exceptions; I've got two married couples in the game; Evan, Vincent, and I were in one of Rob's games together; Evan and Alisa are in my current Teenagers From Outer Space game together; Cathy and Evan have been gaming together on and off for who-knows-how-long. In these cases, players are aware of each other's habits and quirks, and can put that knowledge to devious use.

From a GM perspective, I'll point out that having a group of characters that rarely or never interact requires a lot of work from the NPCs. Some players are more interested in others when it comes to conversations or interaction, but they all interact with NPCs more than each other. Fortunately, we're beginning to see some interaction between characters. Lord Percy and Lady Anastasia had a brief but interesting encounter in Malta; Shirley and Margaret are having dinner in Alexandria, and Ian and Deoraj may hook up to cross Asia. (That will be fun to watch, if it happens.)

I think I'm waaaay off topic, so I'll stop now.

Wow. Miss a day and I'm front page news.

Now, as we all know, there are always at least to sides to every story. Long ago and not-so-far away, I did indeed threaten Dorothea's kneecaps. It's true. But probably not for the reasons she thought at the time. It's also true that I adore David; I have practically since the moment I met him. However, I was primarily interested in his mind, whereas Dorothea was interested in the entire package. (David is a fascinating guy, and if you're ever in need of heavy-duty intellectual stimulation, I highly recommend his company. Dorothea's as well; don't listen to her when she claims she's not worth the time. The two of them in the same room are a mental supernova, I assure you.)

When I met David, (also through the BBS at IU) he'd recently met Dorothea. He was grad student, but a twenty-one-year-old grad student to Dorothea's eighteen-year-old freshman. I may well have been the only person (at the time) who thought that a three-year age difference was not a big deal. Understandably, he was spending a lot of his time with other graduate students, who were older (some of them considerably older), and giving him a lot of bad advice and nonsense about the mere possibility of dating an undergrad, let alone a freshman. (For those who have never been to graduate school--a lot of grad students tend to develop a certain contempt for undergraduates. I suspect part of it has to do with teaching them for ridiculously low wages, and part of it has to do with the Ivory Tower perception that anyone who isn't at least working on a Master's degree isn't serious about learning.)

Anyway, the entire situation was causing David rather a lot of distress, as he was obviously quite taken with Dorothea. (Nobody else would have had a chance, I suspect.) I seem to remember telling him that he ought to blow off whatever those obviously insensitive, superficial, and potentially jealous classmates of his were telling him, and ask the girl out, or I'd feel the need to do it for him. It was that important to him, so, as his friend, it became that important to me. Plus, embarassment can be a great motivator. Tact has very little to do with kindness, sometimes, and I've been evil for a looooong time. Ask around; it's true.

Which is why I ended up telling Dorothea that her kneecaps were on the line. David's heart was on the line, and I didn't want to have to help him pick up the pieces. And I did tell her that I thought it wasn't necessary, at the time. Fortunately, it turned out very well, and once and for all, I assure Dorothea (in public, with witnesses and everything) that her kneecaps are safe from me.

As for Jimmy Pilkington's connection to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, I figured that Dorothea was the player most likely to get the joke, given her interest in theater. So there.

Dorothea needs a bio …and content-provider that I am, here’s my best shot.

Dorothea Salo is a recovering graduate student best known for her abundant common sense, unflinching self-criticism, and rapier wit. After a failed attempt at curing a University department of severe, chronic, rectal-cranial inversion, Ms. Salo went on to plumb the depths of electronic document markup and advocacy for content preservation. Her current project is maintaining her sanity while awaiting acceptance to a graduate library science program.

Ms. Salo lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, David Salo, and two adorable Goth kitties. Her hobbies include blogging, scavenging, role-playing games, and the occasional duckling rescue.

And you thought I was only evil in-game…

This week’s slightly delayed Game WISH asks Does GMing improve an individual's playing? Does playing improve a GM's GMing? In what ways? Why? If not, why not?

I would say that the thing I’ve gotten from being both a player and a GM is a deep appreciation for good plot, even if it’s bad for my character. It’s very frustrating when your character gets caught up in the less pleasant consequences of his/her actions. Not that this shouldn’t happen; in a good game, it should. As player, though, it can be even worse to be caught up in the consequences of someone else’s (PC or NPC) actions. In the Grand Ellipse, for example, Mr. Shirley Addam is having a rough time of it. (Fortunately, the player assures me that a good time is indeed being had.) As the GM, I am having a blast with it, as what originally appeared (to the player) to be a throwaway incident is actually driving part of the plot.

Also, I think that running a game gives a very strong grasp of the mechanics, which those who play exclusively may not have. Not that there aren’t plenty of players-only who are rules-lawyers, but in my experience, the best (or worst) rules lawyers tend to be players who GM a lot. On the other hand, when you know exactly what you can do and how it works, the game runs much more smoothly, which is good for everyone.

I love it when my players think I'm evil. I like to take it as a sign of a job well done.

Good news today, which is that Ed's co-worker--who shall henceforth be known as "Typhoid Randy"--came into work today and announced that his skin test for TB was negative. Ed had his skin test today, and given the news, it will probably be negatve as well.

Wish I were doing so well. We had some severe storms yesterday, which gave me the worst migraine I've had in months. I feel like I've been steamrollered.

And while you're surfing the web anyway, check out Ilana's fabulously fictional History of the Essay. Thanks for the much-needed laughs!

I love it when a game really starts to come together. The Grand Ellipse is well underway, and practically running itself. Dorothea seems to think she's going to knock me for a loop. We'll see. Meanwhile, this game is going well enough that I think I'll probably run a second Grand Ellipse when this one finishes (after an appropriate break for research and recuperation.) I'm also working up a one-shot campaign to run for some of my cousins at the Thanksgiving weekend family get-together. (As the family is Jewish, T-day is our annual winter get-together instead of Christmas. Quite a relief, actually; flying into upstate New York weather at the end of November is more than enough. I wouldn't even want to try the end of December.)

No interesting dreams last night, just endless hours of HTML coding scrolling past my face. I hate it when I dream in code.

Dorothea is being ever so kind about the Grand Ellipse that I feel I must 'fess up to having an unindicted co-conspirator who wishes to remain anonymous. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate Dorothea as a player, and say that if you ever have a chance to game with her, do it. Shirley's been ever so much fun!

TB or Not TB...

I got the kind of phone call that nobody ever wants. Ed called me from work to tell me that one of his co-workers had been exposed to active tuberculosis. Ed's going in for a skin test on Monday, and it's highly unlikely that he's caught TB. In the unlikely event that he did, it's extremely treatable this early. It took me three phone calls to get through to the county health department to find that out, but at least it was good news. However, the Teenagers from Outer Space game is off for Saturday, as one player is recovering from heart surgery, one is trying to get pregnant, and one is severely asthmatic. As disappointed as I am, I refuse to take even the smallest chance, under the circumstances. We'll reschedule. I also cancelled T.'s sewing today, and the more I talked to her, the worse I felt about it. She asked a boy out and he said no. It was apparently a polite no, but no nonetheless, and she sounded so unhappy that my heart was ready to break for her. Been there, done that, don't want the T-shirt.

I was watching the election returns last night, and more than once, I heard the newsfaces comment that the Libertarian party candidates were "taking away" votes from the Democrats. This kind of comment really burns my toast. The Libertarian candidates are on the ballot. They aren't "taking away" votes from the Democrats any more than the Republicans are. It's simply a third choice, and the whole point of a democracy is to have multiple candidates to choose from. If one party or candidate is losing votes, it's because the voters don't like what the party or candidate is doing. Need I say "duh?"

Another strange dream night before last--this was apparently the second in a series, which I didn't remember until I had the second one. In the first dream, I was sitting in an off-off-Broadway theater, to which I had season tickets. The season-ticket holder in the seat to my left was Matthew Broderick, and I ended up telling him about my Ted Kennedy theory. (The short version is that the reason so many Kennedys have died young while Ted seems to go on forever desite his best efforts is that Ted is draining the life force of his relatives.) The second dream took place in the same setting and circumstances. This time, Matthew Broderick and I were trying to figure out why people who are cleaning out the fridge will smell something that's green and slimy, make a face, say "that's awful" and then insist that whoever is nearby smell the green slimy stuff as well, and why the other person, more often than not, will do so. (I've never been able to figure this one out. If anyone ever says to me "Smell this, it's awful" or "Taste this , it's disgusting," my answer is alwaysan emphatic no.)

11/4/02

11/1/02