Strange New Worlds
It's Sunday afternoon. I've just been catching up on LJ after spending Saturday early afternoon through this morning with D and J, my gaming buddies. No game this week, but we discussed creation of a Pax Draconis team (I'm going to play a Bounty Hunter whose temperment and physique are modeled on Zoe from "Firefly"), had some wide-ranging conversation, dined at the Outback, and then watched "The Ring."
I do not like horror movies, and I would never have watched this if J hadn't brought it along specifically for the purpose of using it as a Game Theory exhibit. If you like being scared by movies, I recommend it. It's well-made. If you don't like being scared by movies, avoid it!
(For the gamers in the audience: we've been having difficulties in some of our campaigns with mysteries. Our players are not good at investigating and finding clues, or interviewing people to get more info. "The Ring" demonstrates a good way information can be provided to protagonists that neither simply gives everything away nor makes them scrounge for every scrap of information. The puzzles builds slowly, in response to hero action, but there is some friendly synchronicity involved to help the story along.)
This morning, our conversation was about building our own game world. We discussed different genre conventions we enjoy, what we want to avoid, and etc. It's all still very preliminary, but by the end of 90 minutes or so, we each had a culture and a deity to flesh out as "homework." J is (essentially) Bacchus: God of Partying. He's also in charge of creating a world based on samurai culture. D is the God of War, and will be building a more chivalric/swashbuckling culture. I am the Goddess of Wisdom and I get to create Paradise Island/Shangri-la/Brigadoon. Our fourth member, who was not present, is a licensed massage therapist. He has been designated the God of Love and Healing, and if he wants to create a land, he can. There will also be a dystopia/evil empire, probably Steam-punk genre.
Mostly its a creative exercise. We don't know how it will work out, but we're all having fun with the idea, which is what's important. I know that after the conversation I was feeling more creative energy flowing than I have in more than a year.
Creating the deities will be fun. We each need to describe our deity's powers and interests and behaviors in a way that will allow any of us to run the gods as GM, since it really wouldn't work for us to be acting as PC's and deities during a campaign.
My one disappointment for the weekend was that neither of my two best male friends were willing to go see "Troy". It may have been my comments about manly men in leather skirts that put them off. ;-) (Although one of them wore a great kilt regularly when we were active in the SCA. . . )
So, since The Little Princess is deeply engaged in helping her daddy do home improvement work today, I am planning to head over to the neighborhood theater and enjoy watching manly men in leather skirts all by myself!
I do not like horror movies, and I would never have watched this if J hadn't brought it along specifically for the purpose of using it as a Game Theory exhibit. If you like being scared by movies, I recommend it. It's well-made. If you don't like being scared by movies, avoid it!
(For the gamers in the audience: we've been having difficulties in some of our campaigns with mysteries. Our players are not good at investigating and finding clues, or interviewing people to get more info. "The Ring" demonstrates a good way information can be provided to protagonists that neither simply gives everything away nor makes them scrounge for every scrap of information. The puzzles builds slowly, in response to hero action, but there is some friendly synchronicity involved to help the story along.)
This morning, our conversation was about building our own game world. We discussed different genre conventions we enjoy, what we want to avoid, and etc. It's all still very preliminary, but by the end of 90 minutes or so, we each had a culture and a deity to flesh out as "homework." J is (essentially) Bacchus: God of Partying. He's also in charge of creating a world based on samurai culture. D is the God of War, and will be building a more chivalric/swashbuckling culture. I am the Goddess of Wisdom and I get to create Paradise Island/Shangri-la/Brigadoon. Our fourth member, who was not present, is a licensed massage therapist. He has been designated the God of Love and Healing, and if he wants to create a land, he can. There will also be a dystopia/evil empire, probably Steam-punk genre.
Mostly its a creative exercise. We don't know how it will work out, but we're all having fun with the idea, which is what's important. I know that after the conversation I was feeling more creative energy flowing than I have in more than a year.
Creating the deities will be fun. We each need to describe our deity's powers and interests and behaviors in a way that will allow any of us to run the gods as GM, since it really wouldn't work for us to be acting as PC's and deities during a campaign.
My one disappointment for the weekend was that neither of my two best male friends were willing to go see "Troy". It may have been my comments about manly men in leather skirts that put them off. ;-) (Although one of them wore a great kilt regularly when we were active in the SCA. . . )
So, since The Little Princess is deeply engaged in helping her daddy do home improvement work today, I am planning to head over to the neighborhood theater and enjoy watching manly men in leather skirts all by myself!
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