State of the BB
So, what have I been doing recently? A few things.
1. Playing in a tabletop game run by gwyntar called "State of Mind", set in the Babylon 5 universe, along with a whole load of other CUTT people. Quite short campaign - four sessions - because it was in between university terms, but was a lot of fun. Entire PC group as telepaths on the run from Psi Corp. Plenty of moments involving gwyntar wearing black leather gloves and being scary Psi Cop - after two sessions, some of us would just start twitching when he put the gloves on. :)
2. Because of playing in "State of Mind" and enjoying it a lot, borrowing Babylon 5 DVDs from various friends and starting to watch it. I'm up to episode 16 of season 1 so far - I've been watching it in spare hours after work or at weekends.
I keep comparing it to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Babylon 5 comes out avourably in almost all of these comparisons, except for the ones where they end up even.
I like the episodes where there are two plots that appear totally independent and stay independent other than for some characters (such as the command staff) being involved in both.
I like the fact that Babylon 5 deals with issues that would just get mishandled or not even mentioned in DS9, such as the dock workers' strike.
I like the fact that sometimes a character has to choose between two things that both lead to a bad result, and there is no deus ex machina or magical plot wand to let them escape unscathed.
I like the fact that all the main cast seem to have some interesting history and secrets that get revealed as time goes on.
And I also like Psi Corps, and still have something of a soft spot for the telepath bits because of State of Mind. There was a wonderful bit with one telepath using the "don't think of a white elephant" strategy to find out information, and I love it when characters do cool things like that.
So, yeah. Babylon 5 is good. Watch it. I shall be watching more.
3. Helping to plan the end-of-year plot for CUTT, and this weekend running a linear related to it.
Planning the end-of-year plot involves coming up with plot, all sorts of strategies for what to do with the players that we'll probably have to totally rewrite when the PC actually start on it, and lots of booking of stuff and getting forms and money. I tend to deal with the last of these - the booking stuff - and check that the plot we have so far will work and is sane and not crazy.
Linears are basically long adventures run on Grantchester Meadows. There are three different ways of looking at them.
a) People playing their characters: Go out, do something cool and interesting, probably whack a few to a lot of monsters, find out more plot, have interesting stuff happen.
b) People playing monsters: Go out, do something cool and interesting, whack the character party a bit to a lot, get killed off, repeat with various different NPC roles and things to do, have interesting stuff happen.
c) People reffing: Go out, make sure monsters know what to do and are in the right place, keep track of where characters are, carry lots of spare kit and water around, have to decide at short notice whether to restat monsters and if so how, be amused by messages from the floating ref via walkie-talkie, monster the last encounter and get to see your players characters and monsters generally being awesome... and realise that it was all worth it.
Running a linear is hard work and, unless you're the character ref (playing an NPC going along with the party) or the floating ref (a ref in hi-vis jacket going along with the party) you don't get to see much of the roleplay, as you're permanently getting the next two or three encounters after the one they're on ready. But the bits you do see, often at the end - those make it all worth it when you can see how much fun everyone is having. :)
So, for today, thank you chess and dreamfracture for being awesome and writing the original linear plan, ahdok for reffing and providing walkie-talkies ("Daramin is being sordid" indeed :), and the monster crew for making it such a good linear.
I'm still a bit scared about doing another one. But it wasn't as scary as I thought. :)
1. Playing in a tabletop game run by gwyntar called "State of Mind", set in the Babylon 5 universe, along with a whole load of other CUTT people. Quite short campaign - four sessions - because it was in between university terms, but was a lot of fun. Entire PC group as telepaths on the run from Psi Corp. Plenty of moments involving gwyntar wearing black leather gloves and being scary Psi Cop - after two sessions, some of us would just start twitching when he put the gloves on. :)
2. Because of playing in "State of Mind" and enjoying it a lot, borrowing Babylon 5 DVDs from various friends and starting to watch it. I'm up to episode 16 of season 1 so far - I've been watching it in spare hours after work or at weekends.
I keep comparing it to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Babylon 5 comes out avourably in almost all of these comparisons, except for the ones where they end up even.
I like the episodes where there are two plots that appear totally independent and stay independent other than for some characters (such as the command staff) being involved in both.
I like the fact that Babylon 5 deals with issues that would just get mishandled or not even mentioned in DS9, such as the dock workers' strike.
I like the fact that sometimes a character has to choose between two things that both lead to a bad result, and there is no deus ex machina or magical plot wand to let them escape unscathed.
I like the fact that all the main cast seem to have some interesting history and secrets that get revealed as time goes on.
And I also like Psi Corps, and still have something of a soft spot for the telepath bits because of State of Mind. There was a wonderful bit with one telepath using the "don't think of a white elephant" strategy to find out information, and I love it when characters do cool things like that.
So, yeah. Babylon 5 is good. Watch it. I shall be watching more.
3. Helping to plan the end-of-year plot for CUTT, and this weekend running a linear related to it.
Planning the end-of-year plot involves coming up with plot, all sorts of strategies for what to do with the players that we'll probably have to totally rewrite when the PC actually start on it, and lots of booking of stuff and getting forms and money. I tend to deal with the last of these - the booking stuff - and check that the plot we have so far will work and is sane and not crazy.
Linears are basically long adventures run on Grantchester Meadows. There are three different ways of looking at them.
a) People playing their characters: Go out, do something cool and interesting, probably whack a few to a lot of monsters, find out more plot, have interesting stuff happen.
b) People playing monsters: Go out, do something cool and interesting, whack the character party a bit to a lot, get killed off, repeat with various different NPC roles and things to do, have interesting stuff happen.
c) People reffing: Go out, make sure monsters know what to do and are in the right place, keep track of where characters are, carry lots of spare kit and water around, have to decide at short notice whether to restat monsters and if so how, be amused by messages from the floating ref via walkie-talkie, monster the last encounter and get to see your players characters and monsters generally being awesome... and realise that it was all worth it.
Running a linear is hard work and, unless you're the character ref (playing an NPC going along with the party) or the floating ref (a ref in hi-vis jacket going along with the party) you don't get to see much of the roleplay, as you're permanently getting the next two or three encounters after the one they're on ready. But the bits you do see, often at the end - those make it all worth it when you can see how much fun everyone is having. :)
So, for today, thank you chess and dreamfracture for being awesome and writing the original linear plan, ahdok for reffing and providing walkie-talkies ("Daramin is being sordid" indeed :), and the monster crew for making it such a good linear.
I'm still a bit scared about doing another one. But it wasn't as scary as I thought. :)