Gaming of Multiple Varieties
So I spent all of last night playing Kingdom Hearts II. Overall I like it a lot better than the first game. The controls are smoother for the most part (except the freaking impossible camera oh my God) and I really like that the reaction commands and special stuff are with triangle instead of having to jump around the menu. I'm really enjoying the fact that the worlds are far smaller this time around, and that I can get through them a bit faster. I do hate the gummi levels, though. Argh.
So anyway, last night I did the Beast's Castle, the little interlude in Hollow Bastion, and then the Coliseum level. Demyx! Demyx is so ungodly cute. I want to squish him. SO CUTE. Also Auron! AURON!!!!! But his voice is not nearly so cool now. I sulks.
Another thing I did last night was have a long talk with herod_the_nut and a_leprechaun that ended up turning to the matter of Exalted. John gave me some really good feedback, and it's gone into the little compartment in my head where I'm batting around the notion of what I really want to do with my Exalted game.
And it basically boils down to this.
When I was first planning my Exalted game, I had basically read all of first-ed Exalted in the space of about three months, so my brain was exploding with complete awesome and shiny. And the kind of game I planned was kind of a world-travelling type of game (I deliberately gave the PC's a magic device that let them cross vast distances in minutes, because of this.) Ultimately my idea was, y'know, Vanilla Exalted: restore the Deliberative, blah blah blah. And at the time I was planning all of this, and figuring out what was happening in all the five Poles of Creation, pooka_madness made a point that I vaguely considered at the time but ultimately discarded in favour of what I wanted to do. His point was something to the effect of "See, I could run a game for years in An-Teng and never get bored. You don't NEED the whole wide world of Creation, just your own little corner."
And in retrospect, I think I agree with him. I am getting more and more tempted to shift the game's focus solely back to Chiaroscuro once matters are resolved in Vane, Paragon, and various and sundry other areas, just because I put a fair bit of effort into developing the stuff that happens in the city, and I'm wasting it. Also, the players aren't really invested in what's happening elsewhere, and that's definitely a big bad on my part. I blame it on the fact that I'd only run oneshots of Exalted previously, which is vastly different from trying to run a chronicle. And it's been a learning experience. I'm just kind of sad that my players had to deal with it while I was figuring out what the hell I'm doing.
But that brings me to another point, which is that I'm not entirely sure I even want to run this game anymore. Emily suggested a "reboot" when we re-start all in Chiaroscuro, and that's not a bad idea, but I'm feeling kind of burned out on gaming generally (for a while there, I was in four semi-consistent games, and oh my God. Ow. The lack of free time hurts a lot more now than it did when I was in college.) John and I were talking about the type of Exalted game he wants to play and the type of game I want to run, and what I realized is that really, I want the type of game I had when I was running Demon: the Fallen. That game was probably my favourite of all the ones I've run. My players sat and argued in character all the time, and there were whole sessions when nobody touched their dice. It made me really, really happy and I want that kind of game again.
So I don't know what I want to do with my Exalted game. I still like a lot of the threads I have going with a lot of the characters, but I'm not sure I want to run the game anymore, which is kind of annoying and sad. Grrrr. If I do decide to end it, though, I'm going to take a few weeks' break at least before trying to come up with some other kind of game.
And on that note, I think it's time to go work on gen_challenge.
So anyway, last night I did the Beast's Castle, the little interlude in Hollow Bastion, and then the Coliseum level. Demyx! Demyx is so ungodly cute. I want to squish him. SO CUTE. Also Auron! AURON!!!!! But his voice is not nearly so cool now. I sulks.
Another thing I did last night was have a long talk with herod_the_nut and a_leprechaun that ended up turning to the matter of Exalted. John gave me some really good feedback, and it's gone into the little compartment in my head where I'm batting around the notion of what I really want to do with my Exalted game.
And it basically boils down to this.
When I was first planning my Exalted game, I had basically read all of first-ed Exalted in the space of about three months, so my brain was exploding with complete awesome and shiny. And the kind of game I planned was kind of a world-travelling type of game (I deliberately gave the PC's a magic device that let them cross vast distances in minutes, because of this.) Ultimately my idea was, y'know, Vanilla Exalted: restore the Deliberative, blah blah blah. And at the time I was planning all of this, and figuring out what was happening in all the five Poles of Creation, pooka_madness made a point that I vaguely considered at the time but ultimately discarded in favour of what I wanted to do. His point was something to the effect of "See, I could run a game for years in An-Teng and never get bored. You don't NEED the whole wide world of Creation, just your own little corner."
And in retrospect, I think I agree with him. I am getting more and more tempted to shift the game's focus solely back to Chiaroscuro once matters are resolved in Vane, Paragon, and various and sundry other areas, just because I put a fair bit of effort into developing the stuff that happens in the city, and I'm wasting it. Also, the players aren't really invested in what's happening elsewhere, and that's definitely a big bad on my part. I blame it on the fact that I'd only run oneshots of Exalted previously, which is vastly different from trying to run a chronicle. And it's been a learning experience. I'm just kind of sad that my players had to deal with it while I was figuring out what the hell I'm doing.
But that brings me to another point, which is that I'm not entirely sure I even want to run this game anymore. Emily suggested a "reboot" when we re-start all in Chiaroscuro, and that's not a bad idea, but I'm feeling kind of burned out on gaming generally (for a while there, I was in four semi-consistent games, and oh my God. Ow. The lack of free time hurts a lot more now than it did when I was in college.) John and I were talking about the type of Exalted game he wants to play and the type of game I want to run, and what I realized is that really, I want the type of game I had when I was running Demon: the Fallen. That game was probably my favourite of all the ones I've run. My players sat and argued in character all the time, and there were whole sessions when nobody touched their dice. It made me really, really happy and I want that kind of game again.
So I don't know what I want to do with my Exalted game. I still like a lot of the threads I have going with a lot of the characters, but I'm not sure I want to run the game anymore, which is kind of annoying and sad. Grrrr. If I do decide to end it, though, I'm going to take a few weeks' break at least before trying to come up with some other kind of game.
And on that note, I think it's time to go work on gen_challenge.