RPG ramble - really, really long
Jul. 24th, 2006 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhienellethI'm sorry, this is going to be really long, and of interest to maybe 2% of you, MAYBE. If you don't play RPG's, definitely skip, and if you do...well, it still may not prove interesting reading. I had a doozy of a game yesterday, in which I failed so many rolls - or really, really made ones I didn't really want to make that well - it has to be a record. L was running, and she went through every D20 in her collection in an effort to find one that would roll something in my character's favor. Didn't work.
Oh, man. I don't think I have ever, in the looooooooooong history of my roleplay experience, ever had a character roll so unluckily. Yes, I could have used the word badly, but it just didn't seem to fit. This was like...like Fate stepping in and giving her a sharp jab to the solar plexus.
See, my friend L is getting fed up with the shenanigans of V's roleplaying. Or decided lack thereof. V could care less about story, or adventure, or character development, unless that story, adventure, or character development has to do with romance. And yes, when I play with 'the girls' vs. the regular RPG group, we do tend to have a lot more romance in the game. Duh, we're girls. But that's all V games for. Not me, and not L. It's gotten so bad in her (L's) gameworld that she cannot create a new male NPC without V creating a new female character to try and, well, land said male NPC. And the more unattainable, the harder she tries. And she's really, really, really bad at it. I guess because she's unable to create a three dimensional character herself these days, she fails to see the various nuances of personality in the NPCs which would allow her to actually roleplay effectively to get the guy, so to speak. Instead, she invariably ends up pissing off the guy, and then getting her feelings hurt when he inevitably rebuffs her character - or, depending on personality, callously using her for sex. After all, not all these NPCs are nice guys. In fact, most of them aren't. L and I both like playing villains and darker characters.
So, L was venting to me (again) about V, and saying how she wished we hung out more so she could do some background stuff for NPCs with me, since she knows I actually roleplay and create fully fleshed out characters, and I said "well, why don't we?" So, we did.
Um, L has her own gameworld, loosely based in the D20 system, sort of D&D, but instead of elves and dwarves and stuff, she has gypsies and werewolves and vampires...but it's nothing like Ravenloft, either. It's her own creation she started gaming in a decade ago, when she created her gypsy race and their unique classes (Acrobat, Dancer, Juggler, Fortuneteller, etc - they're all thieves, they're gypsies!) She added Slayers ie BtVS to the world a couple of years back, when the vampire race had pretty much taken over the world and hunted the gypsies to near extinction. I played the Slayer that overthrew the worst of the vampires. See? Story. Sure, there was romance. But my characters tend to get irritated if the romance gets in the way of their goals to be Big Damn Heroes, if you get my drift. Anyway, L has since expanded her world to include a God realm, and her next game, which she has run preliminary things with, will be us playing Gods. Well, newbie Gods. Really young Gods. We have to go to a school for Gods while we learn to control our powers. (There's the God of Bad Luck, Felix....he can't control his power at all, poor guy. He's always broken or being eaten by the nearest dragon, which is often, since there happens to be one working in the stables...anyway, I digress.) So, since V has characters mucking about in the God section already, I suggested to L that we run the next generation in the gypsy clans. My Slayer by this time is long married with kids grown, and so are all the NPCs of that generation. She's done very little with that section of her world, except what she's had to do for the two NPCs who will be in the God school even though they aren't Gods, because they're too damn dangerous to be anywhere else. A gypsy/demon and I forget who else. The gypsy/demon, Samus, is a male NPC. So of course V has already thrown two or three female characters at him, to no avail.
Well, so I create my Slayer's daughter to play. Eliana is also a Slayer, and I decided, a Dancer. (I've never played one before. Like Bards, they can use their dance to enrapture a crowd, effect emotions, etc.) We started with her birthday celebration for her 16th birthday - for gypsies, it means she's an adult, officially, so it's a really big deal. I'm not going to go into all the details here, but my poor character! A paladin for the Goddess of Lust happened to be in attendance. He works for Eliana's father's worst enemy - whom we had to invite for political reasons. And the dice were sooooooo against me. Let's just say Eliana narrowly escaped having her first sexual experience become a threesome - no, scratch that, an orgy! I was like "No way is this happening, I don't care if I'm failing my rolls and so is everyone else! All the older, more powerful NPCs are here - one of them has to notice what this jerk is doing and intervene!" Yeah. Everyone failed their rolls. Everyone. The werwolves were having a sports contest that captured everyone's attention. Only Samus made his rolls (she had to do 2 - one to see if he noticed, and another to see if he cared enough to do anything about it), and he got sucked in as soon as he came over to try and stop stuff. Fortunately, he did manage to prevent the dreaded orgy, but my character still got seduced by the paladin, which I reeeeeeally didn't want, but chalked up to "background fodder". Hey, at least her first time wasn't horribly traumatic. Paladin of lust, yo - he knows what he's doing.
Oh, I should back up a bit and say the whole birthday celebration started going downhill when Eliana accidentally consumed some werewolf spirits called "dragonfire". You veterans of D&D can imagine from the name alone. Since I made my Con check to stay standing and coherent, the stuff made me feel INVINCIBLE. Which led to a series of bad decisions for my character. She's a Dancer, so she's performing that night in front of roughly 300 people, including her family. Under the influence of dragonfire, she chooses the most difficult dance she knows, one that's only been successfully danced a handful of times in the history of the gypsies, created by the most powerful of the gypsy Queens. (Kings and Queens have special gifts.) It also happens to be a dance of seduction - dude, her parents are there! Like she would ever in her right mind choose that dance. But...she did. And when the dragonfire finally wore off, I made a roll to see if she would realize what a bad choice this was, and....nope. Failed utterly. So, she went ahead with it. (The dragonfire figured heavily into the almost-orgy rolls of earlier in the night as well.) I rolled to see how well she danced. Natural freaking 20. She held all 300 people enraptured. And many of them had to make saving throws against their more...er...base urges. Fortunately for me, there was a werewolf God in attendance to keep the wolves in line, or I'd've been doomed. (He wasn't always a God, and he and Eliana's Mom were adventuring buddies once upon a time.) Anyway, Samus failed his roll. In addition to being half demon, his grandmother was one of the the Gypsy Queens to successfully dance the same dance Eliana used. And he's also a Dancer. Once the party really started, of course he asked her to dance. What do you think they - both characters, now - rolled on their dancing skill together? Yes, that would be natural 20's, both of them! There is this very, very rare dance that has occurred only twice before in L's game, once with NPCs and once with someone else's PC character, years ago. The Lover's Dance. Basically, if you believe in soulmates, there you go. It also creates a pretty much unbreakable bond.
V is going to be so very pissed when she finds out. She had designs on him, designs that won't mean diddly, now.
I didn't want Eliana hooking up with anyone so soon, and her father isn't exactly thrilled by this. He'd as soon kill Samus and save his daughter from this half-demon who is soooooo unworthy of her, but Samus was smart enough to follow all the gypsy laws and not follow his instincts (he made that roll), so Parr can't quite find the excuse he needs to remove him. They're going for a long courtship - during which time I can have Eliana off adventuring and being a Big Damn Hero without worrying about anymore Paladins of Lust, since no one will be able to effect the bond she now shares with Samus.
But V is going to be so pissed. And I so DID NOT have designs on Samus, even though he's a really cool character.
See, my friend L is getting fed up with the shenanigans of V's roleplaying. Or decided lack thereof. V could care less about story, or adventure, or character development, unless that story, adventure, or character development has to do with romance. And yes, when I play with 'the girls' vs. the regular RPG group, we do tend to have a lot more romance in the game. Duh, we're girls. But that's all V games for. Not me, and not L. It's gotten so bad in her (L's) gameworld that she cannot create a new male NPC without V creating a new female character to try and, well, land said male NPC. And the more unattainable, the harder she tries. And she's really, really, really bad at it. I guess because she's unable to create a three dimensional character herself these days, she fails to see the various nuances of personality in the NPCs which would allow her to actually roleplay effectively to get the guy, so to speak. Instead, she invariably ends up pissing off the guy, and then getting her feelings hurt when he inevitably rebuffs her character - or, depending on personality, callously using her for sex. After all, not all these NPCs are nice guys. In fact, most of them aren't. L and I both like playing villains and darker characters.
So, L was venting to me (again) about V, and saying how she wished we hung out more so she could do some background stuff for NPCs with me, since she knows I actually roleplay and create fully fleshed out characters, and I said "well, why don't we?" So, we did.
Um, L has her own gameworld, loosely based in the D20 system, sort of D&D, but instead of elves and dwarves and stuff, she has gypsies and werewolves and vampires...but it's nothing like Ravenloft, either. It's her own creation she started gaming in a decade ago, when she created her gypsy race and their unique classes (Acrobat, Dancer, Juggler, Fortuneteller, etc - they're all thieves, they're gypsies!) She added Slayers ie BtVS to the world a couple of years back, when the vampire race had pretty much taken over the world and hunted the gypsies to near extinction. I played the Slayer that overthrew the worst of the vampires. See? Story. Sure, there was romance. But my characters tend to get irritated if the romance gets in the way of their goals to be Big Damn Heroes, if you get my drift. Anyway, L has since expanded her world to include a God realm, and her next game, which she has run preliminary things with, will be us playing Gods. Well, newbie Gods. Really young Gods. We have to go to a school for Gods while we learn to control our powers. (There's the God of Bad Luck, Felix....he can't control his power at all, poor guy. He's always broken or being eaten by the nearest dragon, which is often, since there happens to be one working in the stables...anyway, I digress.) So, since V has characters mucking about in the God section already, I suggested to L that we run the next generation in the gypsy clans. My Slayer by this time is long married with kids grown, and so are all the NPCs of that generation. She's done very little with that section of her world, except what she's had to do for the two NPCs who will be in the God school even though they aren't Gods, because they're too damn dangerous to be anywhere else. A gypsy/demon and I forget who else. The gypsy/demon, Samus, is a male NPC. So of course V has already thrown two or three female characters at him, to no avail.
Well, so I create my Slayer's daughter to play. Eliana is also a Slayer, and I decided, a Dancer. (I've never played one before. Like Bards, they can use their dance to enrapture a crowd, effect emotions, etc.) We started with her birthday celebration for her 16th birthday - for gypsies, it means she's an adult, officially, so it's a really big deal. I'm not going to go into all the details here, but my poor character! A paladin for the Goddess of Lust happened to be in attendance. He works for Eliana's father's worst enemy - whom we had to invite for political reasons. And the dice were sooooooo against me. Let's just say Eliana narrowly escaped having her first sexual experience become a threesome - no, scratch that, an orgy! I was like "No way is this happening, I don't care if I'm failing my rolls and so is everyone else! All the older, more powerful NPCs are here - one of them has to notice what this jerk is doing and intervene!" Yeah. Everyone failed their rolls. Everyone. The werwolves were having a sports contest that captured everyone's attention. Only Samus made his rolls (she had to do 2 - one to see if he noticed, and another to see if he cared enough to do anything about it), and he got sucked in as soon as he came over to try and stop stuff. Fortunately, he did manage to prevent the dreaded orgy, but my character still got seduced by the paladin, which I reeeeeeally didn't want, but chalked up to "background fodder". Hey, at least her first time wasn't horribly traumatic. Paladin of lust, yo - he knows what he's doing.
Oh, I should back up a bit and say the whole birthday celebration started going downhill when Eliana accidentally consumed some werewolf spirits called "dragonfire". You veterans of D&D can imagine from the name alone. Since I made my Con check to stay standing and coherent, the stuff made me feel INVINCIBLE. Which led to a series of bad decisions for my character. She's a Dancer, so she's performing that night in front of roughly 300 people, including her family. Under the influence of dragonfire, she chooses the most difficult dance she knows, one that's only been successfully danced a handful of times in the history of the gypsies, created by the most powerful of the gypsy Queens. (Kings and Queens have special gifts.) It also happens to be a dance of seduction - dude, her parents are there! Like she would ever in her right mind choose that dance. But...she did. And when the dragonfire finally wore off, I made a roll to see if she would realize what a bad choice this was, and....nope. Failed utterly. So, she went ahead with it. (The dragonfire figured heavily into the almost-orgy rolls of earlier in the night as well.) I rolled to see how well she danced. Natural freaking 20. She held all 300 people enraptured. And many of them had to make saving throws against their more...er...base urges. Fortunately for me, there was a werewolf God in attendance to keep the wolves in line, or I'd've been doomed. (He wasn't always a God, and he and Eliana's Mom were adventuring buddies once upon a time.) Anyway, Samus failed his roll. In addition to being half demon, his grandmother was one of the the Gypsy Queens to successfully dance the same dance Eliana used. And he's also a Dancer. Once the party really started, of course he asked her to dance. What do you think they - both characters, now - rolled on their dancing skill together? Yes, that would be natural 20's, both of them! There is this very, very rare dance that has occurred only twice before in L's game, once with NPCs and once with someone else's PC character, years ago. The Lover's Dance. Basically, if you believe in soulmates, there you go. It also creates a pretty much unbreakable bond.
V is going to be so very pissed when she finds out. She had designs on him, designs that won't mean diddly, now.
I didn't want Eliana hooking up with anyone so soon, and her father isn't exactly thrilled by this. He'd as soon kill Samus and save his daughter from this half-demon who is soooooo unworthy of her, but Samus was smart enough to follow all the gypsy laws and not follow his instincts (he made that roll), so Parr can't quite find the excuse he needs to remove him. They're going for a long courtship - during which time I can have Eliana off adventuring and being a Big Damn Hero without worrying about anymore Paladins of Lust, since no one will be able to effect the bond she now shares with Samus.
But V is going to be so pissed. And I so DID NOT have designs on Samus, even though he's a really cool character.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-25 06:00 am (UTC)I think you should shoot V.
Loves
PS - Too hot for real words...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-25 02:56 pm (UTC)I had enough, I am done, this is the behavior of a freaking 3-year-old throwing a tantrum. I thought having her character in my game die for similar stupidity would have taught her something - nope. She's too damn selfish and dense for that. So I laid it all out last night, and I'm afraid I wasn't very nice about it. This is ridiculous - it's a fucking GAME. Get over it, or don't play. She's backed off, apologized, but insists she wasn't acting out of character (a flat out lie). L has talked to her also, and basically V is now on gaming probation. If she flips out in any game with any character again, we will no longer be gaming with her, which will probably result in the end of whatever is left of our friendship with her.
She's in counseling. Obviously not enough, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-25 04:56 pm (UTC)Just cut the losses and run. Bleagh. I hate this kind of thing - I've spent much time in exactly this kind of crap, mostly in the super immature Cam days.
It's not good when the only self-esteem is found in a character, and not an actual life.
Wishing you luck!
Loves
(Counseling, not enough line - hilarious, by the way. Excellent tag line.)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-25 05:11 pm (UTC)It's not good when the only self-esteem is found in a character, and not an actual life.
You're telling me. It's been an obvious problem for some time now - since the divorce, really. We have each of us spoken to her about it several times, hoping to change this behavior of gaming for self-esteem. We've tried finding her other hobbies to invest time in. Evidently all for naught. Because this? Takes the cake for bad behavior.
It would be so much easier to completely cut ties and move on if L didn't work with her every day. The obvious answer of 'find a new job' is a not acceptible for a couple of reasons - L is good at her job, V is only mediocre. L is up for promotion - unfortunately to become V's supervisor. L was there first, and finding another job that pays the same w/the same benefits won't be easy.
(Counseling, not enough line - hilarious, by the way. Excellent tag line.)
Reading it now, you're right. It is rather funny. :) At the time, my mental tone was more bitter and cynical. LOL. And thank-you for saying that and making me laugh, because that has really made me relax my jaw and feel so much better!
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 02:56 am (UTC)I've been through it a lot, and it never gets any easier. Since I don't know her and am not tangled in the social scene, I can totally let you melt down and hopefully make you laugh.
If you need anything email, call or whatever. You need a good ssupport for this shit, and I'm here for you.
Loves -
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 02:24 pm (UTC)I'm actually feeling remarkably better today, probably because I didn't see her at all yesterday. L and I had lunch together and hashed over how to get her to go to the doctor and maybe get on something for depression. We came up with very little. We're going to bring it up to her, but we both think she's going to be resistant, like she has been with the counseling. But it's either do something, or lose what few friends she has left.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 09:50 pm (UTC)And yes, I like my cable phone. I have it through Comcast, and it's worked great for me. I know people who have been very pleased with Vonage, but I also know people who are not. I think phone/cable/satellite really is a personal luck thing - companies either work for you or they don't.
So I like my Comcast, it's only had a couple of 'issues' that were all self resolving.
I'll send you an email from home tonight with the home phone.
Loves