SLA Industries, 7th Seas, & the characters Sally plays
It's a sad fact that I am beginning to suspect that I may be stealthily enjoying SLA Industries.
This fact dawned on me last night when I realised I had accidentally let jez run a one on one scene for me, in which my gribbly little monster xeno character somehow wound up saving and rehabilitating a drug addict. I really don't think I'm a very competent SLA Industries character at all, and I still don't think the world is the kind of place where left to myself I would ever get involved, but somehow I've found myself increasingly involved with the game that pierot runs.
Playing SLA has also reminded me of my somewhat rare Sixth Character Type.
It might be worth noting here that in general I find that most of my characters can be broken down into one of about six rough character types. I don't think I've ever played something which wasn't one of these character types for any length of time or with any length of enjoyment. I've occasionally tried, but it has almost always gone wrong. Basically, what I play are the following:
The Bratling
Notable examples: Bridget O'Connor, Karli - my Crescent/Ussuran from 7th Seas, anything else called 'Bridget
If I'm being honest I suspect this might be my favourite character type. My bratlings are invariable fairly young - sixteen or so is the maximum age for a bratling at start up. They are somewhat lost in the world, slightly naive in some form and are usually combat death on legs.
This is where the 'brat' bit comes from. They aren't necessarily invariably bratty in outlook. What they are are little girls with the capacity to stamp their feet and then tear off heads.
What I'm basically playing here are young girls who don't understand the world very well. I've almost always started them up in new games, places I feel I don't know the world, the GM or the system very well, or with parties where I've felt that I'd be socially out of my depth. I quite like having something that I'm able to do, however, and so I tend to invest heavily in physical powers, which don't require me knowing much in order to be able to use them and be effective. Physical powers are, I've found, also incredibly liberating in some ways. They are used only in situations where you wouldn't be role playing anyway. They are the things that come out to play when everyone would be rolling dice/throwing symbols no matter what, at which point I'm usually quite happy when I do have numbers which work for me. And the rest of the time I can just role play without worrying that I'm not living up to the numbers on the bit of paper, and without being asked to make any tests at any time.
The Femme Fatale
Notable examples: Nikita Lyona, Misha Virezny (my first ever rp character), Ekaterina Decados
Ah! The Femme Fatale! Me going back to my roots!
My first ever rp character was one of these. I used to get teased for pretty much playing nothing else.
My femme fatales are pretty much what it says on the tin. They are those women who are mad, bad and dangerous to know. But my god, they look good in skin tight black! There's an element of wish fulfilment here, combined with a large dose of catharsis.
My femme fatales came into play at a time when I was pretty confused about my sexuality, about what it meant to me, what I was. I'd had an assortment of bad experiences, from being told I was ugly in school a lot, to some experiences abroad which came pretty close to sexual abuse in which I was told I was basically meant to be available because I was a westerner. I was this new girl at university, hanging about in an RPG society where suddenly I had men swarming all over me. I was messed up and insecure. Mum was still alive, but was on her last legs. I'd go home and see the lesions on her body, see her unable to walk anymore...
Anyway. It was all bad.
My femme fatales became this outlet for me. All of them were very badly damaged in some way. They had mostly been abused somehow, were full of anger they were barely bottling up, and they were dealing with it in all the unhealthy ways that I wanted to, but felt guilty about. They were the girls who could make every man suffer and abuse him because they had been abused. They were the girls who could take control of the situation and use their sexuality and not feel guilty about it for a moment. They were the girls who could become rampaging psycho bitches and not give a damn, but still have people afterwards waiting around for a good cuddling.
It was very cathartic on some days.
Over the years the need to have them around faded slightly. At the end of the day I don't think I'd necessarily want to play Misha again, but some of the appeal is still there. I do have a fondness for these psycho chicks, although I don't think they are as close to me as they once were anymore. On an intellectual level I still find playing the game kinda fascinating and these tend to be my PCs who do it.
I also loved Nikita. Nikita wasn't catharsis for me, really. By the time I came round to playing Niki it was because I'd watched so many girls play the slapper card in vampire and it was really annoying me. Vampires aren't meant to be human. So why were there so many girls out there in the pretty frocks fluttering their eyelashes and trying to offer sex as part of the deal? Why did that always work?
I wanted to play a vampiric seductress. I wanted to try and become the real femme fatale, the one who isn't offering sex, and show that seduction was nothing about 'come to bed' and everything about seeming to give while taking everything. I wanted to play a femme fatale without ever wearing a revealing dress.
And I think it worked.
These days I'm not sure I feel the need to play the femme fatale nearly so much. OK, so I've still got a massive fondness for Niki, and for Kat - my Decados - who I'll keep around as an NPC in my Fading Suns game for as long as the players want her. But that's because she's a real person, in some ways, to me now. I know her. I'm fond of her. I don't want her to go away until I've kinda fixed her and let her grown up.
But I'm not sure I feel the need to gen a new femme fatale any time soon.
The Fate Witch
Notable examples: Alys Clifford, Ariadne - my 7th Sea Fate Witch, Sophie - my new Requiem char
*coos happily*
Beautiful fate. Beautiful destiny. Beautiful all seeing, all knowing seers, who sit in shadows, wrapped up, with this balance of absolute power and terrible fragillity. Most wondrous things ever.
OK. So I still like Fate Witches. The category is pretty much what it says upon the tin. I read the 7th Sea source books. I found the Fate Witches. I fell in love with them.
Not with sorte. Sorte is a very very cool magical power, and very effective, but that isn't it. It isn't nearly as cool when every girl and her dog has it - I've got a rant about bloody courtesans who 'are also secretly a runaway fate witch'. The thing that I love about Fate Witches is the imagery. The contrast between power and between the horrible restrictions that power places on you, the terribly fragility of these agrophobic, chained up little girls who know so much but can do so little.
The girl in a big dark room staring up at a patch of sky. The woman screaming and trying to pluck out her eyes, torn apart by visions. The doll, set on a shelf so carefully because the owner knows that one day the doll will break him.
Those are the images I adore.
I suppose a part of this is that Fate Witches are the only way that I, a horrible power gamer, am happy playing something that is mostly submissive and powerless. Being the doll, the thing, being used and controlled I fear may only be fun when you also have something to do, something that actually gives you a place and purpose. And I've always adored seer characters. I think they are amazing creatures.
I do sometimes worry that I can get frustrated after a while. I found Alys very hard eventually, although that was mostly due to everyone dying around her. Ariadne I loved and adored until she was kidnapped and taken away to Montaigne. I think we'll see with Sophie if I can play this long term.
Corax
Notable examples: Cloud, Wolf1803 - my SLA Industries PC
Gotta know everything...gotta know everything...
OK. I might have a problem here. But corax do just rock! I read the Breedbook Corax in Toronto when I was 19. I read it and I laughed out loud, because suddenly the World of Darkness made sense. There were these creatures who saw the world exactly as I saw it. They said everything I'd ever thought.
From that minute on I was lost.
Corax, to my mind, and corax-like characters, are characterised by two things. A problem with not saying things, and an obssessive need to know. The obssessive need to know is something which tends to manifest most often in my other characters. Apparently it's quite easy to see when some perfectly innocent other character has manifested into a corax. The minute I lose the ability to sit still for more than 12 seconds, am bouncing around the place like a mad thing, and worrying at the plot info like a terrier on speed, then I'm playing a corax.
It's an easy thing for me to fall into.
Paladins
Notable examples: Keelin Winter de Gwydion, T'Venn - my Dathomir Witch
These may, or may not be grown up bratlings. I tend to think there is a difference.
My paladins are also always pure combat characters. If left to myself all I will add is more and more combat nonsense.
They are characterised by a rant which goes as follows.
"No. We're not going down this line. There are no shades of grey. There are no complicated situations.
"There is right. There is wrong. There is black. There is white. There is you. There is me. There is my sword and your head..."
*cue combat explosion*
The story at the beginning of the Gwydion book is a story I fell in love with when I first read it. The noble and straightforward knight, for who his word is his bond. He will always keep his word. He will always do the right thing. He won't lie, very well. He is that honourable and straightforward. There are no hidden depths.
Yet that is what makes him the scary creature he is. That is why by the end the very subtle and clever Ailil bad guy is more scared of him than anyone else. Because he has said that if he senses any more evildoing then he will come for the bad guy. And he will. He will come in a straight line and none of the forces of hell will stop him.
That kind of bloody purity, the avenging angel...oh...it's just wonderful. It's what I always default to if I'm going to play straight Good Guys.
Evil Muppets
Notable examples: Ravi, Wolf1803
This is the character type which will be recognised by few, mostly because I never play it in larp. I'm fairly vain, you see, and have problems in some ways actively chosing to identify with something ugly. My ugly little monsters, the asexual and inhuman things, are creatures which I only every play in tabletop, where I am told I have tendancies to make them gribbly, with comedy accents, and where they often come across as creatures which should be appearing in a Jim Henson movie.
I think I've had two of these gribbly things. One was my kobold in AD&D. She was great.
"Ravi is verrrrry important slave! Ravi was chief assistant torturer to the under torturer. So niiiice master be kind to Ravi...no?"
All said with rolled Rs and drawn out sibilant hissing.
The other is my xeno in SLA, who I am told is 9ft tall and a combat machine. I can't help but think of Wolf as being about 3 ft tall. And muppet like.
I get very fond of my little gribblies. They are like cuddly toys in my head. Want to take them home and love them, even as they cause chaos in my wake.
And those are my characters. There is occasionally cross over between the different types. Wolf, for example, is a corax/evil muppet crossbreed, and hence is given as an example of both types. There are occasionally one off other characters, but they either fade away due to not being fun, or tend to become one of the main types mentioned.
Are there any characters of mine which don't fit into those types? Are there any of the types which don't seem quite right?
Commentary?
This fact dawned on me last night when I realised I had accidentally let jez run a one on one scene for me, in which my gribbly little monster xeno character somehow wound up saving and rehabilitating a drug addict. I really don't think I'm a very competent SLA Industries character at all, and I still don't think the world is the kind of place where left to myself I would ever get involved, but somehow I've found myself increasingly involved with the game that pierot runs.
Playing SLA has also reminded me of my somewhat rare Sixth Character Type.
It might be worth noting here that in general I find that most of my characters can be broken down into one of about six rough character types. I don't think I've ever played something which wasn't one of these character types for any length of time or with any length of enjoyment. I've occasionally tried, but it has almost always gone wrong. Basically, what I play are the following:
The Bratling
Notable examples: Bridget O'Connor, Karli - my Crescent/Ussuran from 7th Seas, anything else called 'Bridget
If I'm being honest I suspect this might be my favourite character type. My bratlings are invariable fairly young - sixteen or so is the maximum age for a bratling at start up. They are somewhat lost in the world, slightly naive in some form and are usually combat death on legs.
This is where the 'brat' bit comes from. They aren't necessarily invariably bratty in outlook. What they are are little girls with the capacity to stamp their feet and then tear off heads.
What I'm basically playing here are young girls who don't understand the world very well. I've almost always started them up in new games, places I feel I don't know the world, the GM or the system very well, or with parties where I've felt that I'd be socially out of my depth. I quite like having something that I'm able to do, however, and so I tend to invest heavily in physical powers, which don't require me knowing much in order to be able to use them and be effective. Physical powers are, I've found, also incredibly liberating in some ways. They are used only in situations where you wouldn't be role playing anyway. They are the things that come out to play when everyone would be rolling dice/throwing symbols no matter what, at which point I'm usually quite happy when I do have numbers which work for me. And the rest of the time I can just role play without worrying that I'm not living up to the numbers on the bit of paper, and without being asked to make any tests at any time.
The Femme Fatale
Notable examples: Nikita Lyona, Misha Virezny (my first ever rp character), Ekaterina Decados
Ah! The Femme Fatale! Me going back to my roots!
My first ever rp character was one of these. I used to get teased for pretty much playing nothing else.
My femme fatales are pretty much what it says on the tin. They are those women who are mad, bad and dangerous to know. But my god, they look good in skin tight black! There's an element of wish fulfilment here, combined with a large dose of catharsis.
My femme fatales came into play at a time when I was pretty confused about my sexuality, about what it meant to me, what I was. I'd had an assortment of bad experiences, from being told I was ugly in school a lot, to some experiences abroad which came pretty close to sexual abuse in which I was told I was basically meant to be available because I was a westerner. I was this new girl at university, hanging about in an RPG society where suddenly I had men swarming all over me. I was messed up and insecure. Mum was still alive, but was on her last legs. I'd go home and see the lesions on her body, see her unable to walk anymore...
Anyway. It was all bad.
My femme fatales became this outlet for me. All of them were very badly damaged in some way. They had mostly been abused somehow, were full of anger they were barely bottling up, and they were dealing with it in all the unhealthy ways that I wanted to, but felt guilty about. They were the girls who could make every man suffer and abuse him because they had been abused. They were the girls who could take control of the situation and use their sexuality and not feel guilty about it for a moment. They were the girls who could become rampaging psycho bitches and not give a damn, but still have people afterwards waiting around for a good cuddling.
It was very cathartic on some days.
Over the years the need to have them around faded slightly. At the end of the day I don't think I'd necessarily want to play Misha again, but some of the appeal is still there. I do have a fondness for these psycho chicks, although I don't think they are as close to me as they once were anymore. On an intellectual level I still find playing the game kinda fascinating and these tend to be my PCs who do it.
I also loved Nikita. Nikita wasn't catharsis for me, really. By the time I came round to playing Niki it was because I'd watched so many girls play the slapper card in vampire and it was really annoying me. Vampires aren't meant to be human. So why were there so many girls out there in the pretty frocks fluttering their eyelashes and trying to offer sex as part of the deal? Why did that always work?
I wanted to play a vampiric seductress. I wanted to try and become the real femme fatale, the one who isn't offering sex, and show that seduction was nothing about 'come to bed' and everything about seeming to give while taking everything. I wanted to play a femme fatale without ever wearing a revealing dress.
And I think it worked.
These days I'm not sure I feel the need to play the femme fatale nearly so much. OK, so I've still got a massive fondness for Niki, and for Kat - my Decados - who I'll keep around as an NPC in my Fading Suns game for as long as the players want her. But that's because she's a real person, in some ways, to me now. I know her. I'm fond of her. I don't want her to go away until I've kinda fixed her and let her grown up.
But I'm not sure I feel the need to gen a new femme fatale any time soon.
The Fate Witch
Notable examples: Alys Clifford, Ariadne - my 7th Sea Fate Witch, Sophie - my new Requiem char
*coos happily*
Beautiful fate. Beautiful destiny. Beautiful all seeing, all knowing seers, who sit in shadows, wrapped up, with this balance of absolute power and terrible fragillity. Most wondrous things ever.
OK. So I still like Fate Witches. The category is pretty much what it says upon the tin. I read the 7th Sea source books. I found the Fate Witches. I fell in love with them.
Not with sorte. Sorte is a very very cool magical power, and very effective, but that isn't it. It isn't nearly as cool when every girl and her dog has it - I've got a rant about bloody courtesans who 'are also secretly a runaway fate witch'. The thing that I love about Fate Witches is the imagery. The contrast between power and between the horrible restrictions that power places on you, the terribly fragility of these agrophobic, chained up little girls who know so much but can do so little.
The girl in a big dark room staring up at a patch of sky. The woman screaming and trying to pluck out her eyes, torn apart by visions. The doll, set on a shelf so carefully because the owner knows that one day the doll will break him.
Those are the images I adore.
I suppose a part of this is that Fate Witches are the only way that I, a horrible power gamer, am happy playing something that is mostly submissive and powerless. Being the doll, the thing, being used and controlled I fear may only be fun when you also have something to do, something that actually gives you a place and purpose. And I've always adored seer characters. I think they are amazing creatures.
I do sometimes worry that I can get frustrated after a while. I found Alys very hard eventually, although that was mostly due to everyone dying around her. Ariadne I loved and adored until she was kidnapped and taken away to Montaigne. I think we'll see with Sophie if I can play this long term.
Corax
Notable examples: Cloud, Wolf1803 - my SLA Industries PC
Gotta know everything...gotta know everything...
OK. I might have a problem here. But corax do just rock! I read the Breedbook Corax in Toronto when I was 19. I read it and I laughed out loud, because suddenly the World of Darkness made sense. There were these creatures who saw the world exactly as I saw it. They said everything I'd ever thought.
From that minute on I was lost.
Corax, to my mind, and corax-like characters, are characterised by two things. A problem with not saying things, and an obssessive need to know. The obssessive need to know is something which tends to manifest most often in my other characters. Apparently it's quite easy to see when some perfectly innocent other character has manifested into a corax. The minute I lose the ability to sit still for more than 12 seconds, am bouncing around the place like a mad thing, and worrying at the plot info like a terrier on speed, then I'm playing a corax.
It's an easy thing for me to fall into.
Paladins
Notable examples: Keelin Winter de Gwydion, T'Venn - my Dathomir Witch
These may, or may not be grown up bratlings. I tend to think there is a difference.
My paladins are also always pure combat characters. If left to myself all I will add is more and more combat nonsense.
They are characterised by a rant which goes as follows.
"No. We're not going down this line. There are no shades of grey. There are no complicated situations.
"There is right. There is wrong. There is black. There is white. There is you. There is me. There is my sword and your head..."
*cue combat explosion*
The story at the beginning of the Gwydion book is a story I fell in love with when I first read it. The noble and straightforward knight, for who his word is his bond. He will always keep his word. He will always do the right thing. He won't lie, very well. He is that honourable and straightforward. There are no hidden depths.
Yet that is what makes him the scary creature he is. That is why by the end the very subtle and clever Ailil bad guy is more scared of him than anyone else. Because he has said that if he senses any more evildoing then he will come for the bad guy. And he will. He will come in a straight line and none of the forces of hell will stop him.
That kind of bloody purity, the avenging angel...oh...it's just wonderful. It's what I always default to if I'm going to play straight Good Guys.
Evil Muppets
Notable examples: Ravi, Wolf1803
This is the character type which will be recognised by few, mostly because I never play it in larp. I'm fairly vain, you see, and have problems in some ways actively chosing to identify with something ugly. My ugly little monsters, the asexual and inhuman things, are creatures which I only every play in tabletop, where I am told I have tendancies to make them gribbly, with comedy accents, and where they often come across as creatures which should be appearing in a Jim Henson movie.
I think I've had two of these gribbly things. One was my kobold in AD&D. She was great.
"Ravi is verrrrry important slave! Ravi was chief assistant torturer to the under torturer. So niiiice master be kind to Ravi...no?"
All said with rolled Rs and drawn out sibilant hissing.
The other is my xeno in SLA, who I am told is 9ft tall and a combat machine. I can't help but think of Wolf as being about 3 ft tall. And muppet like.
I get very fond of my little gribblies. They are like cuddly toys in my head. Want to take them home and love them, even as they cause chaos in my wake.
And those are my characters. There is occasionally cross over between the different types. Wolf, for example, is a corax/evil muppet crossbreed, and hence is given as an example of both types. There are occasionally one off other characters, but they either fade away due to not being fun, or tend to become one of the main types mentioned.
Are there any characters of mine which don't fit into those types? Are there any of the types which don't seem quite right?
Commentary?