Remembering Games Past
Dec. 10th, 2005 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthWow I'm sleepy. I'm so ridiculously happy that I won't have any 9 AM classes next semester, and I hope to avoid having one on Friday ever ever again, at least while I'm in Bloomington. Cause here's what happens...my normal schedule is 10AM - 2AM, generally speaking. I have trouble going to bed more than a half hour before 2. So on Thurs night, I would go to bed at about 2AM. Then, because my body would freak out about missing the alarm in the morning, I'd generally wake up between 7 and 7:30, instead of at 7:50 - not much of a difference, but enough. So I'd get up, go to class, etc. This was only a problem on days with interludes - so pretty much, I've gone to every interlude on 5 or so hours of sleep, and generally stay up till 3 or 4 AM. Needless to say, this usually leaves me a bit groggy on Saturday. :)
Anyway, the interlude was...interesting. I had fun, I'd say, but not in "hehe that was great way!" No, I'd say I'd have fun in a, "damn, it's fun to see my character get screwed with way." I'm not saying that what happened to Kathryn was all that bad - it really, really, really wasn't, it was so much better than anything I'd cooked up in my head - but of course most of the interlude I didn't know what would happen, so I got to roleplay "terrified," which was kind of fun...and she feels terrible for failing to keep Amelie from getting badly hurt - she was prepared to take a great deal of extra punishment if it meant that Amelie got off more lightly. But ah well. It's also amusing to be playing cute silly romantic stuff at the same time. ;)
So I noticed after the Samhain weekend stuff that I really was looking forward to the next Changeling game AND to the next Hogwarts game - I've been having very emotional responses to each (a sure sign I'm really into it - I feel strongly what my character feels even out of game, I look forward to the next game, etc.) and I found myself thinking back to other games I have anticipated that strongly. I think a lot of people assume that table top games can't elicit the same level of sympathetic emotion, but that's not really true at all, I've felt that way for table top games...
There are probably more than this, but these are the ones I can think of at the moment...these are rambling and long, and are more for my edification than for anyone to actually read them. ;) I'm writing them cause I feel that some day I'll look back at the old entries in my journal, and I'll be happy if they help me remember stuff I might have otherwise forgotten as the years have passed. (dates are by school semester, not reality, so Fall = Sept. - Dec, Spring = Jan - May, and Summer = June - August - in general, I've noticed, the starts and deaths of games coincide with semesters)
Kevin's D&D Game - this was the first serious table top game I played. We started about a week after I became an undergrad, when I didn't really know any one yet and was just getting settled in. My friends and I had sort of screwed around with roleplaying in HS, but it never got serious. This was a *real game* though, which met every week. I just had so much FUN. I thought about the puzzles in the game all week, me and my friend Eugenia trying to put all the pieces in place and figure out what the heck was going on. At the time, it was also my only game, and I just loved it to death. It's also still one of the only campaigns I played that actually reached an end point.
My favorite thing about this first game of mine was simply playing it. I was not a gamer before that, so I wasn't jaded yet, and I wasn't cynical yet, and I was easily enchanted. I feel in love with this game and with gaming. Looking back, this game lacks the things that have made me love many subsequent games, but back then I didn't know better, and it was great for what it was, and it made me happy. I wouldn't enjoy this game now, I expect, but it was the right game at the right time.
Kevin's Marvel Super Heroes Game - only the third game I ever played, it was new to me very much cause I played a character who was not necessarily a "hero" and indeed was pretty likely to decide she didn't care enough to get involved. It was fun - in retrospect, it was probably very annoying to the other players - but it was fun. ;) This was also the game where I met Jason. Unforunately, this game met an early demise only a few months later when Jason and his girl friend of the time broke up. It was the first campaign I was in that dissolved unexpectedly, and at the time I didn't really realize just how often that happens. ;)
My favorite thing about the Marvel game was talking to Eugenia's character in character. She was a punk and I was a goth (we were HS students) but out characters we best friends, and my character would literally go ballistic if (when, since Eugenia was a thrillseeker with immortality) something happened to her. It's still the most I've ever spoken IC to someone else, I think.
Time-Travel - the first campaign that Jason ran that I was in, this game was started to replace the deceased Marvel game. (it's especially interesting to me that the majority of these games that I loved took place in the first year I was a serious gamer chick) This game was at first IMMENSELY enjoyable because I could only actually speak with one character. All the characters were from different times and places and dimensions and worlds, so my character who was from Japan and could only speak Japanese and Chinese at first could only communicate with the character who spoke Chinese. Fortunately, some well timed crit successes to learn English helped alleviate this problem. After that, I had a lot of fun with other stuff, particularly an NPC named Brian, and also the fact that my character was totally brave and completely badass but ultimately just a normal person who was good with a sword and who didn't wear armor, so when we fought the supers we generally went up against she would get her ass completely beat. This game also died due to out of game forces, though, these related to Jason and I getting together. Additionally, this game marked another change that would make it harder for me to enjoy characters in the future, for Kevin (the GM of above), I discovered, generally played characters who were complete assholes, which was very little fun for those around him.
My favorite moment in Time Travel is actually images, two of them. In later continuity (much after the original game ended) I liked my character, Ishikawa Hanabiko, so much that I got Jason to give me some wrap up, and I got to play her from time to time in other games cause, well, she's cut loose in the time stream, it's reasonable for her to just appear places. Brian, who she was in love with, dies. It's necessary to note that Brian was 7 feet tall, covered in scars, carried around an 8 foot sword, and had powers derived from a botched contract he had made with the devil (or the devil's tax collector, long story). When he died, his powers, and, accidently, his contract, got passed to me. This had some perks - my character gained super strength, immortality, and a giant sword - and some disadvantages (satan and his tax collector want to KILL ME). The image is that of her, Ishikawa, who is a 4'8" Japanese samurai, not particularly attractive, about 30 years old, in traditional samurai gear rather like Kenshin's, with the 8 foot strapped to her back. The image is in sillouette (sp...sigh), with her ready to "draw" the sword...(she drew the sword by kicking the point of it with the back of her boot (steel plated appropriately) and then catching it)...which is to say with one foot, toe on the ground, heel touching the point of the sword. This image has been with me for 4 years, and I've yet to find anyone who is willing to draw it for me. Maybe I'll pay some one at Gencon...
Golden Age - I played Golden Age for 4 and a half years (the game was 8+ years old when I started), until the game ended two days before Jason and I moved. A supers game set in WWII, it had it's ups and it's downs, but, especially for the first 6 months, it was wonderful. At first, I enjoyed it due to the GM's influence, and though my liking for Kevin as a GM waned in time, but the time it did wane I had PC interaction to replace it. I spent two years of real time flirting mercilessly with the Scout, including the incredibly memorable exchange that went...(setting: it's about 4 AM, Scout and Enigma are in a car driving from Texas to NY. In the back seat, asleep, is a boy we rescued from an abusive family who is a powerful dreamer - long story, but Enigma was one also - and we've been stuck in this car, driving non-stop, for like 20 hours. It's also worth noting that my character had the appearance of a movie star - this is a supers game, after all ;) )
Scout: "Well, I haven't really been with a girl in like 2 years. I hadn't even thought about it that way, but I suppose it's the truth."
Enigma: "...so do you want to?"
Scout: "Huh?"
Enigma: "Be with a girl?" (smiles suggestively) "I'm willing."
Scout: "Huh?" (looks shocked) "No, I'm not really interested in things like that right now."
...let's just say once I got the jerk to marry me, I didn't let him forget this one...;)
I can ramble lots about Golden Age - Everyone who has played Changeling for years knows how many stories you can build up in 4+ years, but I'll end with just one other anecdote other...
My favorite moment in the entire game was also almost very, very bad. Scout and I were holding a party for a bunch of other supers (mostly PC's) at our home in NYC when we attacked by Jinx, a villain with reality manipulation problems. While everyone got up and fought, cause she'd brought like 20 goons, I sat in my chair trying to do something telepathically - don't remember what exactly - to help the situation. While I sat there, one of the goons took aim and shot me right in the chest...and I died - failed my roll by one. At this point, Scout and I had been married a few months, and we had forged a telepathic bond that meant that we were constantly aware of each other and in constant telepathic communication (it had a range of about 1000 miles) ...well, when it shut of in his mind, he went totally ballistic, in an ice cold kind of way, drew his pistol and shot the guy who'd done it right through the head, with a critical success no less - he did like 80 points of damage with a single bullet, which is a LOT in GURPs at that technology level. Fortunately, an exceptionally well timed crit by Cyclone (Jason's character) saved me from an early demise, but if the mind link hadn't turned back on Scout would have probably hunted down ever person there...as it was, later in that session he went to one of the big villain "hang outs" and basically told them that if they ever cross this line again he'll hunt down every one of them...well, it's hard to communicate, but it was all totally awesome, at least to me. ;)
lol, I wrote way too much about Golden Age.
I should probably get some work done. There are more games than what I wrote about, but cause I wrote too much about some of them, I need to go...maybe I'll do more later/tomorrow/etc.
Anyway, the interlude was...interesting. I had fun, I'd say, but not in "hehe that was great way!" No, I'd say I'd have fun in a, "damn, it's fun to see my character get screwed with way." I'm not saying that what happened to Kathryn was all that bad - it really, really, really wasn't, it was so much better than anything I'd cooked up in my head - but of course most of the interlude I didn't know what would happen, so I got to roleplay "terrified," which was kind of fun...and she feels terrible for failing to keep Amelie from getting badly hurt - she was prepared to take a great deal of extra punishment if it meant that Amelie got off more lightly. But ah well. It's also amusing to be playing cute silly romantic stuff at the same time. ;)
So I noticed after the Samhain weekend stuff that I really was looking forward to the next Changeling game AND to the next Hogwarts game - I've been having very emotional responses to each (a sure sign I'm really into it - I feel strongly what my character feels even out of game, I look forward to the next game, etc.) and I found myself thinking back to other games I have anticipated that strongly. I think a lot of people assume that table top games can't elicit the same level of sympathetic emotion, but that's not really true at all, I've felt that way for table top games...
There are probably more than this, but these are the ones I can think of at the moment...these are rambling and long, and are more for my edification than for anyone to actually read them. ;) I'm writing them cause I feel that some day I'll look back at the old entries in my journal, and I'll be happy if they help me remember stuff I might have otherwise forgotten as the years have passed. (dates are by school semester, not reality, so Fall = Sept. - Dec, Spring = Jan - May, and Summer = June - August - in general, I've noticed, the starts and deaths of games coincide with semesters)
Kevin's D&D Game - this was the first serious table top game I played. We started about a week after I became an undergrad, when I didn't really know any one yet and was just getting settled in. My friends and I had sort of screwed around with roleplaying in HS, but it never got serious. This was a *real game* though, which met every week. I just had so much FUN. I thought about the puzzles in the game all week, me and my friend Eugenia trying to put all the pieces in place and figure out what the heck was going on. At the time, it was also my only game, and I just loved it to death. It's also still one of the only campaigns I played that actually reached an end point.
My favorite thing about this first game of mine was simply playing it. I was not a gamer before that, so I wasn't jaded yet, and I wasn't cynical yet, and I was easily enchanted. I feel in love with this game and with gaming. Looking back, this game lacks the things that have made me love many subsequent games, but back then I didn't know better, and it was great for what it was, and it made me happy. I wouldn't enjoy this game now, I expect, but it was the right game at the right time.
Kevin's Marvel Super Heroes Game - only the third game I ever played, it was new to me very much cause I played a character who was not necessarily a "hero" and indeed was pretty likely to decide she didn't care enough to get involved. It was fun - in retrospect, it was probably very annoying to the other players - but it was fun. ;) This was also the game where I met Jason. Unforunately, this game met an early demise only a few months later when Jason and his girl friend of the time broke up. It was the first campaign I was in that dissolved unexpectedly, and at the time I didn't really realize just how often that happens. ;)
My favorite thing about the Marvel game was talking to Eugenia's character in character. She was a punk and I was a goth (we were HS students) but out characters we best friends, and my character would literally go ballistic if (when, since Eugenia was a thrillseeker with immortality) something happened to her. It's still the most I've ever spoken IC to someone else, I think.
Time-Travel - the first campaign that Jason ran that I was in, this game was started to replace the deceased Marvel game. (it's especially interesting to me that the majority of these games that I loved took place in the first year I was a serious gamer chick) This game was at first IMMENSELY enjoyable because I could only actually speak with one character. All the characters were from different times and places and dimensions and worlds, so my character who was from Japan and could only speak Japanese and Chinese at first could only communicate with the character who spoke Chinese. Fortunately, some well timed crit successes to learn English helped alleviate this problem. After that, I had a lot of fun with other stuff, particularly an NPC named Brian, and also the fact that my character was totally brave and completely badass but ultimately just a normal person who was good with a sword and who didn't wear armor, so when we fought the supers we generally went up against she would get her ass completely beat. This game also died due to out of game forces, though, these related to Jason and I getting together. Additionally, this game marked another change that would make it harder for me to enjoy characters in the future, for Kevin (the GM of above), I discovered, generally played characters who were complete assholes, which was very little fun for those around him.
My favorite moment in Time Travel is actually images, two of them. In later continuity (much after the original game ended) I liked my character, Ishikawa Hanabiko, so much that I got Jason to give me some wrap up, and I got to play her from time to time in other games cause, well, she's cut loose in the time stream, it's reasonable for her to just appear places. Brian, who she was in love with, dies. It's necessary to note that Brian was 7 feet tall, covered in scars, carried around an 8 foot sword, and had powers derived from a botched contract he had made with the devil (or the devil's tax collector, long story). When he died, his powers, and, accidently, his contract, got passed to me. This had some perks - my character gained super strength, immortality, and a giant sword - and some disadvantages (satan and his tax collector want to KILL ME). The image is that of her, Ishikawa, who is a 4'8" Japanese samurai, not particularly attractive, about 30 years old, in traditional samurai gear rather like Kenshin's, with the 8 foot strapped to her back. The image is in sillouette (sp...sigh), with her ready to "draw" the sword...(she drew the sword by kicking the point of it with the back of her boot (steel plated appropriately) and then catching it)...which is to say with one foot, toe on the ground, heel touching the point of the sword. This image has been with me for 4 years, and I've yet to find anyone who is willing to draw it for me. Maybe I'll pay some one at Gencon...
Golden Age - I played Golden Age for 4 and a half years (the game was 8+ years old when I started), until the game ended two days before Jason and I moved. A supers game set in WWII, it had it's ups and it's downs, but, especially for the first 6 months, it was wonderful. At first, I enjoyed it due to the GM's influence, and though my liking for Kevin as a GM waned in time, but the time it did wane I had PC interaction to replace it. I spent two years of real time flirting mercilessly with the Scout, including the incredibly memorable exchange that went...(setting: it's about 4 AM, Scout and Enigma are in a car driving from Texas to NY. In the back seat, asleep, is a boy we rescued from an abusive family who is a powerful dreamer - long story, but Enigma was one also - and we've been stuck in this car, driving non-stop, for like 20 hours. It's also worth noting that my character had the appearance of a movie star - this is a supers game, after all ;) )
Scout: "Well, I haven't really been with a girl in like 2 years. I hadn't even thought about it that way, but I suppose it's the truth."
Enigma: "...so do you want to?"
Scout: "Huh?"
Enigma: "Be with a girl?" (smiles suggestively) "I'm willing."
Scout: "Huh?" (looks shocked) "No, I'm not really interested in things like that right now."
...let's just say once I got the jerk to marry me, I didn't let him forget this one...;)
I can ramble lots about Golden Age - Everyone who has played Changeling for years knows how many stories you can build up in 4+ years, but I'll end with just one other anecdote other...
My favorite moment in the entire game was also almost very, very bad. Scout and I were holding a party for a bunch of other supers (mostly PC's) at our home in NYC when we attacked by Jinx, a villain with reality manipulation problems. While everyone got up and fought, cause she'd brought like 20 goons, I sat in my chair trying to do something telepathically - don't remember what exactly - to help the situation. While I sat there, one of the goons took aim and shot me right in the chest...and I died - failed my roll by one. At this point, Scout and I had been married a few months, and we had forged a telepathic bond that meant that we were constantly aware of each other and in constant telepathic communication (it had a range of about 1000 miles) ...well, when it shut of in his mind, he went totally ballistic, in an ice cold kind of way, drew his pistol and shot the guy who'd done it right through the head, with a critical success no less - he did like 80 points of damage with a single bullet, which is a LOT in GURPs at that technology level. Fortunately, an exceptionally well timed crit by Cyclone (Jason's character) saved me from an early demise, but if the mind link hadn't turned back on Scout would have probably hunted down ever person there...as it was, later in that session he went to one of the big villain "hang outs" and basically told them that if they ever cross this line again he'll hunt down every one of them...well, it's hard to communicate, but it was all totally awesome, at least to me. ;)
lol, I wrote way too much about Golden Age.
I should probably get some work done. There are more games than what I wrote about, but cause I wrote too much about some of them, I need to go...maybe I'll do more later/tomorrow/etc.
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Date: 2005-12-10 08:13 pm (UTC)