People, and that whole 'social' thing.
Nov. 5th, 2006 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo, next weekend I go to a convention.
This is good.
This is also the last convention I'm currently booked for.
I like Buffy & Angel and Highlander and Stargate SG-1 but NOT Atlantis... and saying I like Stargate when I have half of season 9 still unwatched on my computer might count as a bit of an exaggeration.
I'd pay money to meet Jensen Ackles but not other Supernatural people, unless they just happened to be Buffyverse people too, which can happen fairly easily.
I want a Torchwood convention. Like, serious want. I want to stand in a very long line just to attempt to grin at people who play all those characters and maybe attempt to mumble something complimentary about Captain Jack. I might even like to talk to the writers and suchlike, though I have more fun reading into things than being told what was meant to be there.
Beyond that... I like convention parties. Especially near the end when most of the people have gone away and finally I can manage to talk. Except for the part where there's a lot of very drunk people by then.
I should probably go to small conventions then, where the talking would work more of the time.
Thing is, right now, I'm not booked for any more at all. And the other thing is, they're only maybe 4 weekends a year, 6 if I spend savings and do nothing else.
There's a lot of other weekends.
There used to be other socialising to go in it.
RPG Sunday. I remember it well. Though I was kind of bad at it. Mostly I brought food and hoped nobody minded when my character went boom again. Er, the food wasn't a bribe, is just a good excuse to go eat a lot of food if there's other people around you can claim were eating significant portions of it.
Lately, no such game.
So I put all my RPG books on the shelf, and there's like two feet of them, and that's not counting the whole shelf of tie-in novels and choose-your-own-adventures.
All those books in a row look kind of cool.
Yet purposeless, for all I use them for lately is inspiration for fic, and that rarely.
What to do?
Obvious option - run RPG! Invite people! Use books, and be social, and friendly and such.
... Obvious problem. I know few people to invite, and they're all the people that already stopped playing once.
And if I find new people, I couldn't invite them to My House. I mean, maybe if they were outnumbered by people I know and were known to some of them. But not just random people. Because kind of dumb. I have all my shiny things here. And also me.
There could be meeting somewhere else. Which would require carrying the books there, but I did that before. Okay, when I had about six inches less books. But not the point.
... I actually need to buy more books if I'm going to play again. I've only got the basic set of GURPS 4e. There's tons more by now.
Also I want the In Nomine e-book about Ghosts.
Also... well, there's always more, is the point.
Starting up with RPG as an active hobby again is liable to be expensive.
On the plus side, having all my books in one place I no longer risk double orders.
And... I'm sure the whole talking to people thing has advantages.
So I need a Plan. Possibly a Grand Plan.
Of course there's the other thing, which is which specific bits of RPGs do I like and would I really get them from a particular group.
I like the character creation, the worldbuilding, the character interactions, the actual roleplaying parts.
I don't very much like stomping around dungeon maps looking for things to kill. I tend to have to add interest via roleplaying. Sometimes this leads to multiple character deaths. Which, you know, I can see could be annoying.
I like detective stories, but I can see how they're hard to run.
I don't much like running games due to being weak on the whole 'plot' aspect. I mean, I can make stuff up, but then I need to make up *more* stuff, and then I just sort of... run out. Which isn't so much fun.
Also, I'm not so good at leading players where I want them to go, or figuring knock on effects of on the spot decisions. So they wander off the edge of the plot and/or stand around in the middle thinking there's no way through.
Not so cool.
I only ever tried to run things, what, twice? So these are newbie problems. I just...
Okay, the other thing about these things is, I've been playing them at least since I was fifteen, and yet still I am Not Very Good.
Which is kind of annoying, you know?
Still.
The kind of games that look good in the sourcebooks (Mage, In Nomine) I have no idea how an actual game would work. I mean, there's lots of ways an actual game could work, but I've no idea how one that works the aspects I really like would work.
Also they updated Mage to be less fun, far as I can see.
And In Nomine is hard to play as Pagan characters because it is set up so heavily as Infernal vs Angelic.
Which is why I've got GURPS versions of both. And, okay, they have different basic mechanisms than basic GURPS, but I've got GURPS Spirits as well and there's nice customiseable magic rules and basically I feel there should be a way to design a GURPS game that plays with the metaphysics like Mage and In Nomine and even imports the rich factions that those systems have set out.
And that sounds cool.
I just... don't know what I'd do with them next.
Also, at that point I'll have unified at least half my sourcebooks, and I get a terrible urge to keep going. Because once you've stuck Mage and In Nomine together you've got a great set of TPTB, in warring factions and all. So then you need a layer of everyday people, and that could be kind of like Buffyverse. I don't actually have the Buffy RPG books so of course I'd have to dig through the GURPS books making a sort of worky pseudo-Buffyverse. Only set it post-Chosen, because everyone wants to play a Slayer, and why not?
But if it is post-Chosen *and* post-LA then you might be talking post-Apocalyptic, except that gets kind of annoying and samey. So what if the LA event was more like ripping open a huge great Hellmouth in LA but it is still all up in the air what happens to the things that come out of it? And what if it made a kind of mana storm?
Then you get something a bit like the Technomancer sourcebook, only in very early stages so industrialised magic is still not very well known.
And the Mage paradigms and the In Nomine Words and all would have to be struggling to incorporate this massive change that one particular faction would have to be behind, and...
Well, see, this is the direction I go when I make stuff up for games.
I worldbuild instead of scenario build. I make up settings instead of plots. Is fun for me, but probably not very playable.
I do have some plots, actually. A whole campaign, if I want to structure it that way. The LA event I posit in my Ripper fanfic leaves a setting a bit like the seven circles of Hell but mapped onto physical Los Angeles. And in the early days the problem is all about getting humans out, and in the middle about keeping demons in, and near the end about getting a small commando style raid of Slayers and similar specialists in to get the new Hellmouth closed. And then there's a bit that logically has to happen next where stranded demons and humans who never left have to deal with humans who now want their expensive real estate back, whatever's left of it, and everyone would want to rebuild the city in their own image.
... Which would be the warring factions and paradigms bit that I so like from all the other games. And on a slightly smaller scale, because there's still a world outside California that just refuses to deal with it. But that also makes it fun because there's a theoretical possibility of getting out of the game and a lot of NPCs would choose to run. Or a lot of PCs could choose that as starter characters and then maybe rethink if they make it out of LA in one piece.
I'd need a map. A vague sort of map. With Wolfram & Hart and the Hyperion on it, as two different Gates to Hells. Or at least Gates to Somewheres. And then radiating patterns of influence that would correspond to different mana levels, among other things. And then... er, about a bazillion different demon species? Which, fun to invent, but... Hmmm.
Maybe I could buy a Buffy sourcebook or three...
*sigh*
And then maybe I could find some players. Always the hard parts!
Anyway. That's my thoughts for the day. Now back to reading about Ibsen. Which is fun, but kind of specialised fun.
This is good.
This is also the last convention I'm currently booked for.
I like Buffy & Angel and Highlander and Stargate SG-1 but NOT Atlantis... and saying I like Stargate when I have half of season 9 still unwatched on my computer might count as a bit of an exaggeration.
I'd pay money to meet Jensen Ackles but not other Supernatural people, unless they just happened to be Buffyverse people too, which can happen fairly easily.
I want a Torchwood convention. Like, serious want. I want to stand in a very long line just to attempt to grin at people who play all those characters and maybe attempt to mumble something complimentary about Captain Jack. I might even like to talk to the writers and suchlike, though I have more fun reading into things than being told what was meant to be there.
Beyond that... I like convention parties. Especially near the end when most of the people have gone away and finally I can manage to talk. Except for the part where there's a lot of very drunk people by then.
I should probably go to small conventions then, where the talking would work more of the time.
Thing is, right now, I'm not booked for any more at all. And the other thing is, they're only maybe 4 weekends a year, 6 if I spend savings and do nothing else.
There's a lot of other weekends.
There used to be other socialising to go in it.
RPG Sunday. I remember it well. Though I was kind of bad at it. Mostly I brought food and hoped nobody minded when my character went boom again. Er, the food wasn't a bribe, is just a good excuse to go eat a lot of food if there's other people around you can claim were eating significant portions of it.
Lately, no such game.
So I put all my RPG books on the shelf, and there's like two feet of them, and that's not counting the whole shelf of tie-in novels and choose-your-own-adventures.
All those books in a row look kind of cool.
Yet purposeless, for all I use them for lately is inspiration for fic, and that rarely.
What to do?
Obvious option - run RPG! Invite people! Use books, and be social, and friendly and such.
... Obvious problem. I know few people to invite, and they're all the people that already stopped playing once.
And if I find new people, I couldn't invite them to My House. I mean, maybe if they were outnumbered by people I know and were known to some of them. But not just random people. Because kind of dumb. I have all my shiny things here. And also me.
There could be meeting somewhere else. Which would require carrying the books there, but I did that before. Okay, when I had about six inches less books. But not the point.
... I actually need to buy more books if I'm going to play again. I've only got the basic set of GURPS 4e. There's tons more by now.
Also I want the In Nomine e-book about Ghosts.
Also... well, there's always more, is the point.
Starting up with RPG as an active hobby again is liable to be expensive.
On the plus side, having all my books in one place I no longer risk double orders.
And... I'm sure the whole talking to people thing has advantages.
So I need a Plan. Possibly a Grand Plan.
Of course there's the other thing, which is which specific bits of RPGs do I like and would I really get them from a particular group.
I like the character creation, the worldbuilding, the character interactions, the actual roleplaying parts.
I don't very much like stomping around dungeon maps looking for things to kill. I tend to have to add interest via roleplaying. Sometimes this leads to multiple character deaths. Which, you know, I can see could be annoying.
I like detective stories, but I can see how they're hard to run.
I don't much like running games due to being weak on the whole 'plot' aspect. I mean, I can make stuff up, but then I need to make up *more* stuff, and then I just sort of... run out. Which isn't so much fun.
Also, I'm not so good at leading players where I want them to go, or figuring knock on effects of on the spot decisions. So they wander off the edge of the plot and/or stand around in the middle thinking there's no way through.
Not so cool.
I only ever tried to run things, what, twice? So these are newbie problems. I just...
Okay, the other thing about these things is, I've been playing them at least since I was fifteen, and yet still I am Not Very Good.
Which is kind of annoying, you know?
Still.
The kind of games that look good in the sourcebooks (Mage, In Nomine) I have no idea how an actual game would work. I mean, there's lots of ways an actual game could work, but I've no idea how one that works the aspects I really like would work.
Also they updated Mage to be less fun, far as I can see.
And In Nomine is hard to play as Pagan characters because it is set up so heavily as Infernal vs Angelic.
Which is why I've got GURPS versions of both. And, okay, they have different basic mechanisms than basic GURPS, but I've got GURPS Spirits as well and there's nice customiseable magic rules and basically I feel there should be a way to design a GURPS game that plays with the metaphysics like Mage and In Nomine and even imports the rich factions that those systems have set out.
And that sounds cool.
I just... don't know what I'd do with them next.
Also, at that point I'll have unified at least half my sourcebooks, and I get a terrible urge to keep going. Because once you've stuck Mage and In Nomine together you've got a great set of TPTB, in warring factions and all. So then you need a layer of everyday people, and that could be kind of like Buffyverse. I don't actually have the Buffy RPG books so of course I'd have to dig through the GURPS books making a sort of worky pseudo-Buffyverse. Only set it post-Chosen, because everyone wants to play a Slayer, and why not?
But if it is post-Chosen *and* post-LA then you might be talking post-Apocalyptic, except that gets kind of annoying and samey. So what if the LA event was more like ripping open a huge great Hellmouth in LA but it is still all up in the air what happens to the things that come out of it? And what if it made a kind of mana storm?
Then you get something a bit like the Technomancer sourcebook, only in very early stages so industrialised magic is still not very well known.
And the Mage paradigms and the In Nomine Words and all would have to be struggling to incorporate this massive change that one particular faction would have to be behind, and...
Well, see, this is the direction I go when I make stuff up for games.
I worldbuild instead of scenario build. I make up settings instead of plots. Is fun for me, but probably not very playable.
I do have some plots, actually. A whole campaign, if I want to structure it that way. The LA event I posit in my Ripper fanfic leaves a setting a bit like the seven circles of Hell but mapped onto physical Los Angeles. And in the early days the problem is all about getting humans out, and in the middle about keeping demons in, and near the end about getting a small commando style raid of Slayers and similar specialists in to get the new Hellmouth closed. And then there's a bit that logically has to happen next where stranded demons and humans who never left have to deal with humans who now want their expensive real estate back, whatever's left of it, and everyone would want to rebuild the city in their own image.
... Which would be the warring factions and paradigms bit that I so like from all the other games. And on a slightly smaller scale, because there's still a world outside California that just refuses to deal with it. But that also makes it fun because there's a theoretical possibility of getting out of the game and a lot of NPCs would choose to run. Or a lot of PCs could choose that as starter characters and then maybe rethink if they make it out of LA in one piece.
I'd need a map. A vague sort of map. With Wolfram & Hart and the Hyperion on it, as two different Gates to Hells. Or at least Gates to Somewheres. And then radiating patterns of influence that would correspond to different mana levels, among other things. And then... er, about a bazillion different demon species? Which, fun to invent, but... Hmmm.
Maybe I could buy a Buffy sourcebook or three...
*sigh*
And then maybe I could find some players. Always the hard parts!
Anyway. That's my thoughts for the day. Now back to reading about Ibsen. Which is fun, but kind of specialised fun.