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Aug. 19th, 2007 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethFinished reading 'California Voodoo Game'.
The backstabbing in the first book really gets out of control in this one.
Trying to beat the game: Good.
Trying to beat the other players: Not so good. Unless they've backstabbed you first.
It's got a whole consistent attitude going on.
Plus the players that come out of it doing good are the ones who treat it like a family fun thing, and there's that little speech at the end in case we missed the family=yaay thing.
But it's got a dark side to family too.
Lots of layers of stuff going on.
Also a thing still about rules. Because always when you give a gamer a set of rules they're trying to see how they can climb out of them.
And the old thing about magic - trying to get someone else to pay the price. Doesn't work for long. Because you run out of people on your side, and then the stabbing is on you.
There was one thing that bugged me again though, and that's the eroticising of women sending bugger-off signals. There's a woman in the second book who is trying not to be attractive and that makes her extra attractive, and there's a woman in this third book who is described in terms of her challenging and being inaccessible to men. Because she's a lesbian. So clearly that's about challenging men.
... that's just made of dumb.
But the description is repeated. It's really annoying.
Eyes full of challenge + preference of hands off = men wants her???
Also there was a throwaway line about waitress walk = sex appeal. I thought waitress walk = don't spill the food. But there's some really shudder inducing stats in one of my books somewhere about the percentage of waitresses who get sexually harrassed at work. Like, practically all of them. Because serving the food means making available??? Eeew.
Also the woman we wander around in her pov as is the one consciously using her sex appeal to try and get money and fame and power and suchlike. We don't get to be in the minds of the ones who be engineers or scouts or nuns or choose to keep wearing their clothes all the time. Thems get to be jokes. Except for also thems get to be survivors, so *shrugs*
Sometimes I poke at books and find stuff that strikes me as uncomfortable but I can't put it together enough to see if I'm being reasonable about that. And there's lots of good stuff going on in these books, lots of variety in characters and people doing stuff on purpose and being smart and strong and stuff, but... I don't know. Niggly notes of WTF intrude around the edges.
So now I has run out of those books, successfully become nocturnal in the one week in months I've got something to do in the daytimes, and got grumbly yet amused.
My other grumble about gaming as presented here is it's so much about the players skills that the characters skills don't seem to matter so much. I mean, there's no time when a player can do something and their character can't. Player knowledge is not only used but key and intended. Characters never have to roll for knowledge. And they call the game the Olympics of gaming, and they totally mean it - the physical challenge level means they're all athletes of all kinds. About the only thing that is run by computer is ranged weapon hits. Oh, and sometimes characters are stronger than players. But it's so emphasised that these players are gaining actual skills (because that's key to the bad guy being plausible) that the killing of characters doesn't seem to tragic, because they'll just do some tests and be just as strong and fast and stuff next time. And that's not how it's supposed to work. It makes for cool action sequences, but it means only people who actually could do all that stuff for real could play the games! What's the point of that?
... okay, characters can do magic and seeing things and stuff that players can't, but I still feel like they're waaaaaaay restricted compared to the nice character sheet stuff or computer games with controllers.
So it don't seem like as much fun to me. Be someone else for a weekend! As long as that someone else is physically fit and mentally agile and really knows how to pick locks...
kind of misses the point.
Or, possibly this is why I don't LARP. Too much actual movement and stuff.
... I don't RPG at all lately. Is vaguely depressing. Been being only-me for aaaaages.
Blah.
The backstabbing in the first book really gets out of control in this one.
Trying to beat the game: Good.
Trying to beat the other players: Not so good. Unless they've backstabbed you first.
It's got a whole consistent attitude going on.
Plus the players that come out of it doing good are the ones who treat it like a family fun thing, and there's that little speech at the end in case we missed the family=yaay thing.
But it's got a dark side to family too.
Lots of layers of stuff going on.
Also a thing still about rules. Because always when you give a gamer a set of rules they're trying to see how they can climb out of them.
And the old thing about magic - trying to get someone else to pay the price. Doesn't work for long. Because you run out of people on your side, and then the stabbing is on you.
There was one thing that bugged me again though, and that's the eroticising of women sending bugger-off signals. There's a woman in the second book who is trying not to be attractive and that makes her extra attractive, and there's a woman in this third book who is described in terms of her challenging and being inaccessible to men. Because she's a lesbian. So clearly that's about challenging men.
... that's just made of dumb.
But the description is repeated. It's really annoying.
Eyes full of challenge + preference of hands off = men wants her???
Also there was a throwaway line about waitress walk = sex appeal. I thought waitress walk = don't spill the food. But there's some really shudder inducing stats in one of my books somewhere about the percentage of waitresses who get sexually harrassed at work. Like, practically all of them. Because serving the food means making available??? Eeew.
Also the woman we wander around in her pov as is the one consciously using her sex appeal to try and get money and fame and power and suchlike. We don't get to be in the minds of the ones who be engineers or scouts or nuns or choose to keep wearing their clothes all the time. Thems get to be jokes. Except for also thems get to be survivors, so *shrugs*
Sometimes I poke at books and find stuff that strikes me as uncomfortable but I can't put it together enough to see if I'm being reasonable about that. And there's lots of good stuff going on in these books, lots of variety in characters and people doing stuff on purpose and being smart and strong and stuff, but... I don't know. Niggly notes of WTF intrude around the edges.
So now I has run out of those books, successfully become nocturnal in the one week in months I've got something to do in the daytimes, and got grumbly yet amused.
My other grumble about gaming as presented here is it's so much about the players skills that the characters skills don't seem to matter so much. I mean, there's no time when a player can do something and their character can't. Player knowledge is not only used but key and intended. Characters never have to roll for knowledge. And they call the game the Olympics of gaming, and they totally mean it - the physical challenge level means they're all athletes of all kinds. About the only thing that is run by computer is ranged weapon hits. Oh, and sometimes characters are stronger than players. But it's so emphasised that these players are gaining actual skills (because that's key to the bad guy being plausible) that the killing of characters doesn't seem to tragic, because they'll just do some tests and be just as strong and fast and stuff next time. And that's not how it's supposed to work. It makes for cool action sequences, but it means only people who actually could do all that stuff for real could play the games! What's the point of that?
... okay, characters can do magic and seeing things and stuff that players can't, but I still feel like they're waaaaaaay restricted compared to the nice character sheet stuff or computer games with controllers.
So it don't seem like as much fun to me. Be someone else for a weekend! As long as that someone else is physically fit and mentally agile and really knows how to pick locks...
kind of misses the point.
Or, possibly this is why I don't LARP. Too much actual movement and stuff.
... I don't RPG at all lately. Is vaguely depressing. Been being only-me for aaaaages.
Blah.