Misplaced
Most of this week, and a player.
The week zipped by in a blur of trying to catch up with myself, helped along by going straight from the suburban wilds to work on Monday without going home or unpacking first. (Most of the time between the post-game dinner mob and getting on the train I spent either asleep -- twelve much needed hours -- or in the shower.) My stuff only caught up with me this evening. (Sadly, it arrived without an opportunity for me to see the courier. This second shift thing has its bugs.) *Now* I feel like I'm home and can get settled back into reality (and charge the evil device, which has been without juice since Monday).
That was just disorienting. Losing a player was mortifying.
There it was, stupid o'clock in the morning after a nasty, disorganized multi-hour combat that didn't get started 'till midnight, and I'd scrubbed off my undead makeup (more or less -- I was in and out of undead make up all weekend and looked like I had two black eyes the rest of the time, I'm sure, though the round where I went from undead to nightmare to undead without leaving monster camp was extra-special) and found my thorn elf duds and even a pair of matching ears (note to self: get your own elf ears) and the rest of the NPCs were finally briefed and I could go find the players who were loopy enough to still be up for this council meeting. The players were even notified about this madness beforehand, so they were all either easy to find ("asleep on the tavern benches" was popular) or known to've gone to bed, and I found everyone on my list and a few extras besides (both "and friends" invitations and a couple with invitations of their own who were left off of my list), and I pointed out that's it was going to be bloody cold and we're going to be sitting around in the woods for a few hours pre-dawn and really, you want your cloaks, and the ones who aren't too macho (and boy did the macho boys look sad later) listened to me. Eventually people came back with cloaks and it looked like we were ready to go and I asked if everyone was there but totally failed to count noses. The missing person was even someone that both I and my character know by name and face, for whom this is a major plot, and not a soul made note of this until the meeting breaks up well after dawn (not even when we trundled back to town so that half the crew can swap out weapons), at which point someone said, "where's X?" and doom loomed over me and cackled wildly. The player had long since given up on this and was dead asleep, and plot staff patted me on the head and ran a catch-up private audience in the morning, and I apologized at length both in and out of game/character (on Saturday and post-game Sunday respectively) ... but wow, that sucked. Lesson learned: always count noses at the module door (or equivalent), coming and going. Even if the players know who's supposed to be there, asking a mob if it's all there is pointless.
That fiasco aside, I wish I'd done more this event. The character I was so psyched to play after Revels I never actually had a chance to coordinate with the staff member running that plot, so I was walking in unfamiliar with the things she needed to do, which lacked grace, and they were much lower key things than expected (having been thrown together at the last minute from the wrong list), which felt fairly pointless in the company of much bigger things going down. The thorn elf hasn't found her own voice or sat down to talk to people herself yet. The merchant needs context, and I need a better grasp of the game's economy. ("Buggy" doesn't cut it.) The morning fey was a mechanic (which was fine ... I wasn't up to a lot more at 10 after the past-dawn meeting and the drowned mouse incident), and the evening fey was in a panic (which she was totally supposed to be, but it doesn't promote character development). Meh.
Did I mention the ~50 NPCs Friday/Saturday and the mad scramble for bunks? Or that the PCs came within a hair of ending the game in a horrible massacre (of the PCs) on Saturday night? I have no idea what they would've done if a small group of pragmatic/amoral PCs hadn't done something dangerous, illegal, and in some cases suicidal to buy them more time, and I don't think they do, either. Staff was in a tizzy.
It's good to be home.
The week zipped by in a blur of trying to catch up with myself, helped along by going straight from the suburban wilds to work on Monday without going home or unpacking first. (Most of the time between the post-game dinner mob and getting on the train I spent either asleep -- twelve much needed hours -- or in the shower.) My stuff only caught up with me this evening. (Sadly, it arrived without an opportunity for me to see the courier. This second shift thing has its bugs.) *Now* I feel like I'm home and can get settled back into reality (and charge the evil device, which has been without juice since Monday).
That was just disorienting. Losing a player was mortifying.
There it was, stupid o'clock in the morning after a nasty, disorganized multi-hour combat that didn't get started 'till midnight, and I'd scrubbed off my undead makeup (more or less -- I was in and out of undead make up all weekend and looked like I had two black eyes the rest of the time, I'm sure, though the round where I went from undead to nightmare to undead without leaving monster camp was extra-special) and found my thorn elf duds and even a pair of matching ears (note to self: get your own elf ears) and the rest of the NPCs were finally briefed and I could go find the players who were loopy enough to still be up for this council meeting. The players were even notified about this madness beforehand, so they were all either easy to find ("asleep on the tavern benches" was popular) or known to've gone to bed, and I found everyone on my list and a few extras besides (both "and friends" invitations and a couple with invitations of their own who were left off of my list), and I pointed out that's it was going to be bloody cold and we're going to be sitting around in the woods for a few hours pre-dawn and really, you want your cloaks, and the ones who aren't too macho (and boy did the macho boys look sad later) listened to me. Eventually people came back with cloaks and it looked like we were ready to go and I asked if everyone was there but totally failed to count noses. The missing person was even someone that both I and my character know by name and face, for whom this is a major plot, and not a soul made note of this until the meeting breaks up well after dawn (not even when we trundled back to town so that half the crew can swap out weapons), at which point someone said, "where's X?" and doom loomed over me and cackled wildly. The player had long since given up on this and was dead asleep, and plot staff patted me on the head and ran a catch-up private audience in the morning, and I apologized at length both in and out of game/character (on Saturday and post-game Sunday respectively) ... but wow, that sucked. Lesson learned: always count noses at the module door (or equivalent), coming and going. Even if the players know who's supposed to be there, asking a mob if it's all there is pointless.
That fiasco aside, I wish I'd done more this event. The character I was so psyched to play after Revels I never actually had a chance to coordinate with the staff member running that plot, so I was walking in unfamiliar with the things she needed to do, which lacked grace, and they were much lower key things than expected (having been thrown together at the last minute from the wrong list), which felt fairly pointless in the company of much bigger things going down. The thorn elf hasn't found her own voice or sat down to talk to people herself yet. The merchant needs context, and I need a better grasp of the game's economy. ("Buggy" doesn't cut it.) The morning fey was a mechanic (which was fine ... I wasn't up to a lot more at 10 after the past-dawn meeting and the drowned mouse incident), and the evening fey was in a panic (which she was totally supposed to be, but it doesn't promote character development). Meh.
Did I mention the ~50 NPCs Friday/Saturday and the mad scramble for bunks? Or that the PCs came within a hair of ending the game in a horrible massacre (of the PCs) on Saturday night? I have no idea what they would've done if a small group of pragmatic/amoral PCs hadn't done something dangerous, illegal, and in some cases suicidal to buy them more time, and I don't think they do, either. Staff was in a tizzy.
It's good to be home.