20 May 2002

Oh, lovely. I have no network connection. Whether it's me or the whole office, I'm not sure. So there's no telling when I'll be back up and running. You might think this would increase my productivity, but I only have about an hour's worth of work to do before I need to start moving files around on the network to test them.

Yay, Monday!

The weekend was, as they all seem to be, too short. At least this one was fairly nice and relaxing.

We had a Hall combat on Friday, involving giant crayfish. Matt amused me by making pincers of his hands and giving me a "popeye" stare while waving his "claws" around. I'm not entirely sure why I found this so amusing, but I did.

Alas, between power outages and storms, we didn't have time to actually finish that session, so we re-scheduled it for Sunday.

I slept in late Saturday, then went over to K.T. and Kevin's for dinner. I took along my special edition DVD of Monty Python's The Holy Grail, and we watched it with the "Subtitles For People Who Didn't Like The Film, From Richard IV by William Shakespeare." That was really funny - K.T. and I were both practically rolling on the floor with laughter.

After Kevin went to bed, K.T. and I went for a walk, then just sat around for a while talking about nothing in particular. I finally went home around two in the morning.

We started the Hall session back up around four on Sunday, and it ran until a little after one in the morning with only about an hour break in the middle. Wow. I confess, as fun as this particular plot is, I'll be glad when it's over. These marathon sessions really kick my ass when it comes to sleep.

We had what was either a minor blowup or the beginnings of getting things straight this weekend. And then we had a definite minor blowup.

The politics on the Hall are starting to bother me just a little. It's supposed to be fun. Social interaction in a fantasy setting. We try to keep it rules-light - the idea since its inception has been that we don't use stats or dice or anything like that; what happens to your character is whatever you decide is dramatically appropriate.

Now the social part of it has gotten a little tainted. Several people have complained that they're not being included in plots. K.T., as one of the most prolific plotters, has been taking a lot of heat for this.

BEGIN RANT

Prepare to be offended: She isn't obliged to include anyone she doesn't want to include. Setting up and running plots is something she does because it's fun for her, not because it's part of her duties as a Hallmaster. Wait, I'll back up and say it again for those of you who weren't paying attention: Fun. For. Her. It seems only natural to me that these plots would primarily revolve around her own characters, or other characters that interest her. If she doesn't like your character, she doesn't have to interact with them. If she doesn't think you'll enjoy her plot, or appreciate it, or if she thinks you'll mess up the story she's trying to tell, that's your problem, not hers.

I know this is going to get sneered at, because I'm currently part of K.T.'s "plot clique" - but I feel the same way about anyone else's plots, too. I didn't get offended and hurt when no one specifically sought out my characters for Colleen's Underdark adventure. I didn't get upset that Rachel and Ross ran a whole plot out of town with her Gypsy characters that no one else could even think about participating in.

It's your business what plots you run, and it's your business what plots you participate in. Plots that don't include you aren't there just to spite you, damn it!

END RANT

But K.T. sent out an e-mail over the weekend that explained all this, only much nicer, and she even was kind enough to list the plots she's got brewing, along with suggestions for openings. And I thought it might spark a blow-up, but so far it hasn't. So far several people have responded with similar mails, detailing their own upcoming adventues.

I hope this is a good thing, that helps us grow as a group.

The rules part has gotten stretched a little lately. K.T. instituted a turn-based system for combat with Loria's Quest, originally because we were looking at one combat where there was no way I was going to be able to keep up with all the bad guys, even being as fast a typist as I am, because I was playing all the good guys.

That system worked out so well, K.T. has been using it for the rest of the combat for this plot, and will probably continue to use it for her plots in the future. And rather than just randomly have bad guys expire, she's been using the rules and tracking hit points and such for them. I started using the canon spells and tracking spell lists for most of my mages - not because I had to, but because it actually made it easier for me to plan. (Zoya, I will point out, continues to just throw spell energy around at random, having whatever effect I deem suitable to the occasion.)

So, the bit of blow up that happened was because Jeff's character Temire wasn't taking much damage, even though she was facing opponents who were far superior to her. (To be fair, he'd allowed her hand to get sliced up during the combat immediately prior so it was unuseable - but then the fact that it was unuseable wasn't slowing her down at all.) Now, technically that's perfectly legal. We don't roll dice, and we don't do things to each other's characters without permission, and if Jeff wanted Temire to go through this whole plot without so much as getting a stubbed toe, that would be his perogative.

But it reads a little odd, that the other characters (some of them far more experienced) were bleeding and screaming in pain and passing out and being stymied by magical effects, and she wasn't. It created a strange eddy in the flow of the drama.

I don't want to have to institute play rules, with dice and stats and the like. I much prefer the "dramatically necessary" rule of play, where you know right off the bat that the good guys are going to win, and if anyone winds up dead it'll have been planned that way from the beginning. I like knowing that the cleric will have just enough magic left over after the battle to heal everyone - unless it's dramatically appropriate for them to remain wounded.

I don't have much of a rant for this. Technically, yes, what Jeff did was perfectly reasonable. But - and I'm going to be offensive again here - it's that kind of behavior that leads to people not being included in plots. I don't want untouchable munchkins in my plots! I don't want to have my own characters - who are central to my plots - upstaged by someone who's supposed to be support troops!

And now you know what happens to me if my network connection gets taken away. Let's hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon.

--Liz