Geek Girls Rule! #136 – PAX 2010

Yes, my dearest, darling ones, it’s that time of year again.  The time of year when a young geek’s heart turns towards thoughts of “Oh sweet Jesus, I need a flu shot!  PAX is this weekend!”

I, the Geek Girl What Rules, and Ogre, the Geek Husband What Rules, will both be running games at PAX.  In fact, GGR is sponsoring a day of female GMs  on Saturday at the gaming tables sponsored by the Dreaming.  We’ll be sharing the great big huge gaming space with Wizards of the Coast.  We’ll be at the back of the hall.

Gaming starts at 10 AM.  Melissa Kocher will be running the Mist-Robed Gate, Dawn Vogel will run a roller-derby girl hack of Best Friends, and if we can get her away from her Enforcer duties, Leslie McKeever will run Dogs in the Vineyard.   I’ll be around to run pick-up games as necessary, probably Little Fears, The Keep (Bridge System) or something else where char-gen takes little to no time, and there are minimal dice involved.  I’ll be around all day Saturday.

The Geek Husband What Rules will be running the Dresden Files rpg all weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  He’s got pre-gen-ed characters, and has built Seattle for the game.  His big complaint is that Seattle’s just too nice.  If our homeless people started to go missing, we’d notice.  Seriously, we noticed the Green River Killer real early on, even if we couldn’t catch him for a couple decades.

If I’m not completely overwhelmed by Saturday, I may come back on Sunday for awhile.  Alas, I have no buttons to hand out, the budget’s a little lean in the Household What Rules, maybe next year.

So, swing by the second Dreaming booth in the gaming hall, and look for the short, round redhead with the cats tattooed on her chest.

Uncharted Territory: Role playing in settings/groups that are new to you – Part 1 of 3

Last night I was so tired by the time I went to bed that my eyes were burning.  So, of course, as soon as I got into the horizontal position my brain popped with: “Hi!  I have a great idea for a 3 part series on making characters for and playing in settings that you are unfamiliar with and/or with joining established gaming groups!!”  To which I replied:  “That’s nice.  Can we talk about it in the morning, please?”  To which my brain responded:  “No, no, no!!  We have to talk about it NOW!!!!”

Some nights I hate my brain – or rather its timing.

At any rate, it was a good idea so here we go.  This will mostly be an introductory sort of post with some generalized tips.  The other two posts will be broken down into tips for making short term/one-off/NPC characters in new to you settings and making characters more interesting for longer campaigns.  From my experience, these tips should work equally well for either table top sorts of role playing games (RPGs) or live action role playing games (LARPs).

If you, like me, are a late blooming gamer who was deprived of comics and D&D in your youth – do not despair about making characters for universes you are not familiar with.  If you have good people and good storytellers/GM’s, then it will be fine.  Same applies if you’re not a late blooming gamer but are still new to gaming or the group you are gaming with.  For example, I’m having a great time in the Marvel Game I’m playing.  Most of what I know about Marvel characters come from cartoons or movies I watched growing up while most of the people I’m gaming with have read comics for years, known each other for years, and role played together for years.  It’s not an issue.  I don’t get all the in-jokes and references they make to each other but it’s not generally vital to my role play that I do.  If I’m not sure if it’s something I should know in character, I ask the GM.  If not, we just keep things rolling.  If so, then they give me a brief explanation of what it’s about and then I make notes if need be and we keep going.

The lesson here is that you don’t need to know every in joke or what every reference means to have a good time.  There are people I’ve been friends with for 10 years with whom I share mutual friends they’ve known much longer than me.  They flat out have more history to draw from and because of that they will have inside jokes that I wasn’t a part of – and that’s okay.  The same applies for every gaming group and game I’ve participated in.  It’s not about them trying to exclude people, it’s just a natural effect of a long term friendship/relationship.  Chances are, even if I asked them to explain every joke and reference that I wouldn’t find them as amusing as they did, at least some of the time, because for some things you just have to be there.  For example, I can look back at memories of road trips with friends where we were laughing hysterically at something on the radio but for the life of me I couldn’t explain why it was so hilarious.  If you join a long established game/campaign, you will likely find the same thing applies in character as well as out.  Try not to let it intimidate you and, if you can, try using it to enhance the role play.  You could mention that the characters seem to have some history together and ask them if they are willing to share the story behind the joke/reference (if it were made in character).

Don’t let the lack of experience or knowledge of a given setting hold you back from playing in a game.  Let the GM know you don’t have any prior experience but are interested in trying it out.  I did that for the Marvel game when I was invited and the GM was more than happy to spend time laying out the general setting and he gave me the option of playing a pre-generated character he made or making my own.  One of his characters caught my fancy so I went with her and have fleshed her out and made her my own as time went on.  Surprisingly (to me) I’ve been told he likes how I’m playing her.  I have used the interactions between other characters as a guide for how to fit mine into the group and we have since added another player that was just as unfamiliar with the setting.  We are both having a great time!

I also recommend talking to the storyteller/GM about possibly playing an NPC (non-playing character – or rather – a temporary character whose purpose is to move the plot along or otherwise get plot points out to the established regular players).  This gives you an opportunity to try out the setting, get an idea for how the storyteller/GM works, and see what the group dynamic is like.

Chances are, there are story games conventions in your area or near by.  There is often gaming at sci-fi conventions.  For some of these there are likely pre-generated characters that you can use if you want to join in.  For some, that may be the only option (this sometimes works best in settings where it’s a one-off game at a gaming event).  There is always room to add your own touches to a character.  My experience these days is that gamers are very welcoming to new players – they love to have new players and will be happy to help you get into a game and have fun.  Visiting your local gaming and comic shops is a good way to find out about the events in your area and about local gaming groups.  Ask your friends too.  Maybe some of them, like you, are interested in RPG’s but are not sure where to start or who they might know that shares that interest.  You could start your own small game in a setting you agree on or join an established gaming group together.  A number of the folks I have played table top games with in the past several years have not only known each other for some time, but have more experience in many the settings we’ve played in.  I’ve still had a great time.  In the Girl Game (on hiatus for the summer due to much schedule craziness on all our parts), we have even made up our own settings a couple times.  No one is going to stand over you being a character/setting accuracy Nazi.  If they do – punch them in the junk* and find a better group to play in because gaming is something we do to have fun.

*Okay, maybe visualizing punching them in the junk would be better as there will not be an assault charge involved.  ;-P

Remember when LARPing was Fun??

Twelve years ago, when I started playing in a Vampire LARP, it was run by a non-profit fan club.  Life was simpler then.  One could make a basic character without having to thrash through multiple books AS WELL AS one or more on-line addendum.  The focus was on having fun.  Oh sure – there were clan books and other supplements you could use as well but that will always be the case.  Still, basic character creation was fairly easy.

I’ve generally been very content with the local games and the occasional convention games here and there.  Then there came the big schism between White Wolf (WW) and the non-profit fan club called the Camarilla.  Faced with the might of a large gaming industry who could afford lawyers – the non-profit organization folded.  Was it a perfect organization – oh hell no!  I think it was much better to have a non-profit running and organizing the local games than a gaming company though.  I eventually signed up under the new WW version of the club because I did want to keep gaming with the folks I knew and loved and it became apparent this was the only way it was going to really happen.  Since White Wolf (WW) took over more of the focus has been on making profits.  These two things aren’t mutually exclusive when you have a good balance.  However, there currently isn’t one in my opinion.

Gaming companies should focus on creating good games and game supplements that people will enjoy.  I actually think it’s pretty asinine to expect people to not only purchase your book but then pay you for the privilege of playing your game.  That certainly isn’t the case for any other role playing game I’ve played.  That said, I have been willing to continue to put forth my $20 a year so that those of my friends who enjoy this game and the “global game” aspect of it can continue to do so.  I’ve tried getting into the global game in the past and I just don’t care for it.  This is mostly done via IRC, email lists, and attending various conventions (most of them Camarilla only conventions these days).  This doesn’t work for me for several reasons:

1. I don’t have as much time as I used to for email or IRC (I think I still have MIRC on one of my computers but I’m not positive).
2. I’m not as interested in email or IRC role play as I am in LARP or Table Top role play.  I prefer personal interactions.
3. Invariably there is mostly just a lot of in character screaming at each other and otherwise overly dramatic role play in these forums in my experience – though, to be honest, subtltey seems to be lost on most at in person games as well.
4. I only play twice a month so don’t even get out to other games in this area or state – much less across the nation.   I have too many other interests that draw on my time, money, and attention.

Eight years have passed.  Despite all the promises to the contrary, the gaming club is no better now than it was under the non-profit and some things are far worse in my opinion.  The rules changes and addendum are way out of hand!  At this point it takes me no less than 2 books and going through 2 on-line addendum to make a single basic character for a single venue.  After WW took over I ended up doing yearly re-writes of any Ghoul characters in play (Ghouls for crying out loud!  Not exactly a powerful  kind of character that would imbalance the game) because of rules changes.  There has been a venue change and a re-set of that venue in the last 4-5 years.  My current character in the Requiem Vampire venue has been re-written 4 times since the venue change.  There was the original character creation, then a re-write because of rules changes for Ghouls (which also required me to submit an application for a special approval for her), then the re-write when she was embraced, then the re-write because they made a change in Member Class (MC — where points are given for volunteering in the club which translate to in character goodies which are increased as ones MC level increases over time) awards, and then a re-write because of the partial re-set of the setting.  Hmm… there may have been one more re-write I’m forgetting but you get the idea.  There has been yet another MC based change that I’m supposed to figure into my character sheet but it’s confusing and I just haven’t had the time or patience to sit down and figure it out.

In addition to all that, I have local storytellers who want me to submit game reports (they mostly never read), down-time actions (they mostly never do anything with), haven write-ups (they have never put into a database and even though they are planning to now they want different information so more editing was needed anyway) that may or may not ever be used in game to do anything actually entertaining for the players.  There are Excel spreadsheets created to help one keep all the math straight.  Problem is that when there is a new change and/or a new supplemental book released, a new Excel sheet has to be created and there isn’t a way to import your old data into the new sheet so you have to re-write it again.  Then they want you to put your character information into an on-line database which, of course, won’t import the information from the Excel spreadsheet (though the newest versions now have added a tab that translates the information into a text only format that you can copy and paste into the database – which is an improvement).  Oh and they’d like you to also put some of your character information in a non-user friendly Wiki format for which there is little or no actual helpful user guide.  There is a separate form that you use to record and track your MC points.  They made a standard “National Format” for it some years back that they now want everyone to use.  Despite conforming to this format you can still expect to lose a significant amount of MC points every time you have to get it reviewed for going up to the next level.  The MC points are referred to as “Prestige.”  On my latest review – they removed most of my less than 50 National Prestige (which I hardly have the opportunity to get for a variety of reasons I won’t get into here and now) because back when I started, twelve years ago, there was not as much documentation being recorded in on-line forums, much less in databases.  Sometimes only the various officers would ever see or get the documentation and if they didn’t happen to keep the email — you are screwed.

When there is a challenge (currently done using 10 cards or 1 D10 dice), we sometimes have to consult a book (or two) and/or a storyteller to determine the result – because it’s hard to say what with all the supplemental books and addendum.

What does this all add up to?

A hell of a lot of administrative thrash on top of the yearly membership fee I pay to PLAY A GAME BASED ON THE GAMING BOOKS THAT WHITE WOLF PUBLISHES THAT I BUY!!!

There is nothing practical in this.  It makes no sense.  People wonder why we can’t get more people to play.  Name one other gaming company who does this.  Seriously.  I can’t think of any and I can’t think of why you would.  I can understand game company’s that run MMO games charging a subscription fee because there are servers to pay for and such.  Beyond paying a fee to play, though, did you note how much administrative thrash I mentioned above?  That’s not including the regular logging and spending of experience points one does.  Most of what I mentioned is extra arbitrary administrative crap that has to be done because of constant rules changes that are made because, instead of focusing on the business of writing good games and rule books or dealing with the players who abuse rules (because they will ALWAYS find a loophole – just the same as there will ALWAYS be bugs in a new computer program written), they make the rest of us suffer through a constant amount of thrash with the threat of de-sanctioning your character always looming over your head as the price of non-compliance.  We also just got a call to help our current storyteller put together a time-line for all the major events that happened in our gave over the last 4+ years because now it’s suddenly required by the upper level storytellers for some reason.

Just remember – we do this for fun…??

I feel like this game is run by OCD control freaks who have no other social life what-so-ever.

By comparison, I have two table top games I play in once a month currently.  In the Girl Game our character creation is pretty swift because we only deal with a handful of traits, generally one disadvantageous trait, a general description and maybe some character history.  We play with 2 D6 dice.  I’m also in a (mostly) weekly Marvel based table top game for which I’m playing a pre-generated character (my choice since I only recently started reading comics), where the GM has to sometimes prod me to accept gifts and determine if I believe my character is able to do something not specifically noted on the character sheet but within the realm of possibility given her skill set.  We use 2 D10 dice for the game.  There is a sheet the GM consults that helps determine a result based on our role + the level we have for a certain skill.  He ultimately decides what the result is based on what is best for the game.  If someone is being a problem player or otherwise not meshing with the group they are asked to leave the gaming group – because we do this for fun.

In a recent conversation with a fellow Camarilla friend of mine, said she stopped using the Excel sheets and now just keeps her character information in the on-line database.  The problem with that is that the database isn’t always available and functioning.  It is primarily run and maintained by volunteers who have other jobs and can only really deal with any issues that come up after work during their spare time.  The database where they keep the “Ordeals” tests (Ordeals are club and storytelling rules knowledge tests one can do to gain more MC points) and test results just had a catastrophic crash where a bunch of data was lost.  This does not inspire a lot of confidence in me and I would not want to rely on it.  I appreciate that the volunteers are doing the best they can with it but, really, WW should have had their own servers and their own dedicated (read paid) staff running these things if they wanted to be in charge of all this.

At the last International Camarilla Convention, late last year, WW said they were going to give the club back to the players.  I guess they figured out they were never going to make a lot of money running the club.  Great.  Thanks, I guess.  We still have to pay $20 a year to play, of course.  They also have recently brought back the Old World of Darkness (OWoD) games (which will run in addition to the current games) no doubt hoping to win back players who stopped playing when that setting was retired.  Great.  I’ve long since sold most of those books due to space limitations.

Many local players have been excited by both the addition of a new game called Geist (sin eaters – generally replacing what used to be the Wraith game in the OWoD), as well as bringing back the OWoD vampire settings.  There was a local Camarilla convention here in April.  I’ve been unemployed for a year so didn’t really have to money to go to the convention.  I considered day tripping but then I realized there was another issue – I didn’t really have any interest.  I’ve spent some considerable time thinking about this and contemplating where my apathy is coming from.  It boils down to the fact that I have a lot more things going on in my life now than I did 12 years ago – more things drawing on my time and attention.  I have drifted away from some of the LARPing friends I had and others have drifted away from the Camarilla or moved away, etc.  Add to that, I’m only playing 1 Requiem and 1 Lost game a month which means that often I don’t make the games that the folks I’m close to do.  I’ve tried thinking about what I can do to make my current characters more interesting to play and I’m not having a lot of success there either.  One idea that a friend and I hatched up, for example, was dependent on us both being at the same game – which hasn’t been happening much lately.  In fact, though she plays the sire of my character, last year most of the year went by without us managing to be at the same game at the same time.

There’s more to it than that.

I’m having more fun with the other groups I game with and playing the other games I play.  I’m having less time, energy, motivation, and inspiration for the WW games.  I’m not really interested in OWoD Vampire, even though it would allow me to bring back a character I never really got to explore and put a lot of work into creating, because I feel very much like I’ve been there and done that.  There’s that saying about you can’t go home again and I wonder if people are really going to be into it in a few months when the shiny has worn off and the realize that walking on their old stomping grounds isn’t actually going to bring back their “glory days.”  The only OWoD setting that I might have interest in is Sabbat but I just haven’t got any enthusiasm for it.

I decided it might be best to step away from LARP gaming for a few months.  I like to LARP in general.  I like to create costumes and go be someone else for awhile.  In LARP one can sink into the character one is playing more than in Table Top games but it is also more time consuming and draining for me.  I’m hoping a little distance will help me get my enthusiasm and inspiration back.  I’ve considered that maybe depression from long term unemployment and the looming fact that I will soon run out of benefits is a factor.  More than that, though, is that this “game” is more work than I think it should or needs to be.  I can easily spend half a day or more thrashing with character sheets and prestige logs.  A month ago I was just trying to find which Lost supplements gave more info on the Goblin Markets so that I could better create an NPC market stall for our local game (as requested by the new storyteller).  The lack of indexes in the (5 or so) supplement books I skimmed made this way harder than it needed to be.  I finally just gave up and just wrote up my idea anyway.

When gaming companies and organizations make it so complicated to play in the game that one has to plan to devote hours to doing out of game maintenance, they are shooting themselves in the foot.  There are way too many other options out there now.  While I will miss the people I game with in the Camarilla when I’m taking my break, I also feel the need to break out of the tunnel vision that they are the only LARP option.  I’ve been surprised at how many RPG books and settings exist when I go to my friend’s comic shop, The Dreaming, and look on his shelves.  Since I’m not really into the “Global Game” aspect of the LARP I’ve been participating, perhaps I would be better off looking for a local troupe game or another table top game in another setting I’m interested in.  What I don’t want is a game that feels like a job and causes more stress and that’s how the Camarilla games feel to me these days.

Geek Girls Rule! #125 – Sometimes Simpler is Better*

I catch a fair amount of crap for my love of “rules light” systems.  “Oooh, how typically ‘girl’ of you!”  Blah Blah Blah… Whatever.   Now, in my defense it isn’t that I can’t handle crunchy, rules heavy systems, I can.  I played, and ran, GURPS for years.  For heaven’s sake, I’ve played Rolemaster! 

I just don’t want to.  If I have to dive for the book more than twice a game session, it starts to feel less like fun for me, and more like work.  If every combat involves pouring over charts, consulting three different damage indices and special rules sections, I start to lose interest.    

This is not to say that for those people who think that sort of thing is fun, that they’re wrong.  They are no more wrong than I am.  We just have different ideas of fun, and that’s ok.  I’m not a big fan of leaping out of perfectly good airplanes or off of bridges with rubber bands tied to my ankles for entertainment, either.  And I’m sure most of those folks would be bored to tears by the thought of spending an entire evening reading an academic treatise on the psychology of sex and gender, and taking notes… for fun. 

Different strokes for different folks, right? 

So, I don’t think the hardcore “rules” gamers are any more wrong or bad than am I and my constant hand-waving. 

That big, pissy, whiney kettle of fish dumped over…

Wizards of the Coast has put out a “lite” version of the 4th ed rules for playing D&D with children, for a module called “Monster Slayers:  Heroes of Hesiod.” 

I think this, much like Mouseguard**, is brilliant.  It’s not that I don’t think 8 year olds of either gender can’t wrap their heads around the rules of basic D&D, it’s that not all of them are going to want to.  Some of them are just going to want to tell the stories that D&D and other role-playing systems are useful tools for inspiring.   And I don’t see any reason why they should have to master a rules heavy system to have the sort of fun that can be adjudicated, if everyone is amenable by, “Ok, you rolled a 7, you win,” instead of factoring in Armor Class, Hit Points and all that fun stuff. 

Now, some 8 year olds are going to play the “lite” version and want to explore the harder, more crunchy, full version.  Some will be content with the “lite” version, and some of them will be bored to tears by the entire endeavor and ask if it isn’t recess time yet.  That’s all ok. 

If you must, think of Monster Slayers as the gateway drug to gaming.  Me, I think it’s awesome the way it is, and might even entice me into playing or running D&D again some time in the near future. 

*Better being a relative term, a matter of opinion and not a statement of fact.

**Ok, guys, why the hell can’t I find a simple, straight forward page for the RPG that I can just point people to anymore?  Luke used to have one on the Burning Wheel site, but all mention of it appears to be gone. 

Geek Girls Rule! #123 – Gamestorm 2010 Rocked!

We got back from Gamestorm 2010 an hour or so ago.  A good time was had by all.  Well, all of us.

The Geek Husband What Rules, Lesley and I headed down yesterday morning.  Once we got to the hotel we ran into Matt and Shannon from the Seattle Geekly podcast.  Chatted with them for a bit, and then ran  upstairs to harass Ben Lehmann and my evil twin, Karrin.  There were munchies and some drinking.  Got to see and hug Carl Rigney, my favorite Don’t Rest Your Head GM.  We saw lots of folks, played a few games of Hot Guys Making Out, Ben Lehmann’s new game based on Yaoi.  Since this was, more or less, a playtest, it isn’t available yet, but when it is I strongly encourage you to buy it.  It’s fun, can be played in about half an hour and can be as sweet and innocent or as raunchy and porntastic as you want.

I’ll let you guess which way most of our games went.

I played with Brendan, Pol and Ben.  We had a great time but didn’t quite make it to out and out porn.  Later that night, the Husband What Rules, Pol, Karrin (my evil twin), and I played another game of HGMO, and Ogre and Karrin took it straight to porn in the first round.  And it just… got… worse.  We had a crowd of people watching as the two of them tried to outdo each other with the pornaliciousness, and then celebrated with high fives and fist bumps as the crowd roared with laughter.

Now, I don’t ordinarily game much at gaming conventions.  We game a lot in our everyday life, and going to these conventions means I get to see people I don’t ordinarily get to see.  My Evil Twin lives in Eugene, which is a good five hour drive from Seattle.  So, we only see each other two to four times a year.  Which means, I generally play one or two games, and then spend the rest of the convention either recording things for podcasts,* or drinking and laughing my ass off.

Right now, the Husband What Rules and I have a Marvel FASERIP game on Mondays, a Spirit of the Century game on Thursdays.  I have the Girl Game once a month.  We have Girl Genius Spirit of the Century one to three times a month.  He has a group who play every other Saturday, and a group who are playtesting a new version of Bulldogs! by Brennan Taylor, once or twice a month.

We game a lot.

Now, HE games a lot at conventions.  But unless I’m playtesting something, I generally don’t.

Ok, now that I’ve blathered at you long enough, I’m going to bed.

Oh, the GHWR did get to meet Vincent Baker, but I never actually did.  I did see him across the room a couple of times, but didn’t want to intrude.  The GHWR says Vincent’s awesome and cool, and made of rainbows and ponies…  Not really.  He did say Vincent was a really cool, nice guy.

Bed time.  I’m fading fast.

*It’s coming, I swear.

Geek Girls Rule! #121 – Gentler Sex My Ass.

Ok, so Friday night was the monthly Girl Game.  Currently, we’re using the Bridge System (the artist formerly known as the Two-Die System)*, created by the Husband What Rules, Jordan and Chris, to play a Shadowrun-esque sort of game. 

The characters in this game are Betty (the dwarven baker and creator of bread golems – Loree), Elliott Mephistopheles (Cat-Shaman and omnisexual – Ariel), Nikki “Rock” Short (8 ft Troll and fortune-teller – Tammy), Switch (gremlin tech-geek – Julz), Brian (anti-social human, tech geek – Stax), and Mac (Corporate-assassin/Necromancer – Leslie).   The first game saw them chasing the theif who had stolen the ink required to write the name of God (which God I have not asked) on parchment to animate bread golems, who turned out to be a houngoun, and when a “doorway” in the basement opened, they called down a laserstrike from orbit on the house. 

The second game involved torturing said houngoun to death in the bathroom of Betty’s coffeeshop/bakery, and the acquiring of Mac, the assassin.  The torturing really wasn’t for information so much as for revenge.

The third game (this Friday) included trying to close the doorway, sacrificing one person, fucking that sacrifice up, and having to find another victim, a necromantically animated fog machine, a zombie chicken, and the realization that our Corporate Assassin and the Troll are the only ones with even a vestigial conscience.   This was evidenced by the fact that they were the only ones bothered by the plan to obtain sacrificial victims by ordering pizza.

Yes, my delicate prairie flowers were all for ordering pizza and sacrificing the delivery boy.  I believe the argument between Elliot and Mac about the ethics of sacrificing the pizza boy was what made me lay my head down on the table and laugh until I cried.  We are big into the dark humor in the Girl Game. 

These women are probably the most bloodthirsty gamers with which I have ever played.  Ever.  Boy-gamers, even the Grognard-iest, got nothing on my girls.  Last month we played a Steam-punky sort of game, again with Necromancers (because what fun is killing things if you can’t get them to do your bidding?), which involved discussing the killing and re-animating of someone in front of them while they were conscious, and the debate about whether or not effectively pithing them would give the Necromancer the same amount of control or if they really had to completely die… 

Yeah, gentler sex…

*One of the reason we use the Bridge System so much is that it cuts WAY down on the rules lawyering.   Really, it’s to save my sanity more than anything else.

Character Concepts I’m Tired of Seeing at LARP Games

First let me start with the clarifications and disclaimers that the more hysterical reactionary readers will likely ignore anyway but I’m giving it a shot regardless:

The following game concepts generally have one thing in common that make them bad: a complete lack of any research or background. I give new players a few months to fill in the blanks – particularly if they are new to gaming in general and/or were throwing together a character to try out the local game, play at a convention, etc. I expect more from more experienced players. That doesn’t mean you, the player, needs to be an expert on everything your character is (this is for FUN after all), but you should at least do enough research to be able to make some interesting conversation at a game. For instance, I made a character that was skilled at various forms of fortune telling. I read about these forms, had the fortune telling “equipment” (if you will) on me, but was not skilled at fortune telling. The main thing was to be able to talk the talk enough to be interesting and to not make those who are skilled sprain their eyeballs rolling them.

Keep in mind:  I’ve played some of these concepts and I’ve seen some played well, but the vast majority of these characters I’ve interacted with were poorly researched and thought out and about as interesting to role play with as a stump. Think of this more as guidelines for how not to role play these character concepts.

Geisha (usually played by Daeva or Toreador if playing in the Old World of Darkness – OWoD – setting)

Hi, I have this neat Geisha outfit that I bought/made/had made and so I’m playing a Geisha character. I haven’t done any research though so, really, I’m just playing dress up and hoping you’ll be so impressed with my outfit that you’ll overlook the fact that I haven’t read so much as ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, much less done any actual research about them.

Tips: Read at least one non-fiction book about Geishas that has good reviews. Know what time period your character needed to be living in to be trained as a Geisha and what skills/talents they would be expected to know at that time. Think about when they were turned as a vampire and why they continue to dress as/be a Geisha. What mannerisms would Geishas exhibit. What kinds of things can you find out to tell people that they might not know about Geishas from bad movies/fiction books? You know, things you can talk about at a game.

Vampire Whore/Madam/Pimp (played by same as above)

Same as the Geisha in that no actual research has been done – beyond bad stereotypes found in equally bad movies (and maybe not even that). Basically the player is dressing in their idea of vampire sexy or like Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch(Google it). They have not thought out how their character feeds, keeps a client base, keep from being arrested, dealing with their workers being picked up (in the case of being a Madam/Pimp), thought about how they deal with their workers during the day – much less during the summer when it does not get dark out until 10pm. They haven’t put much or any thought into why they are a sex worker or when they started being a sex worker and why. Really, they are just dressing slutty and hoping that their fellow gamers will be too transfixed by their cleavage to notice their character is a one dimensional stereotype. Sadly, this strategy works more often that you would think.

Tips: At the very least you need to think out when/why you became a sex worker and why you continue to be a sex worker. Here’s a hint: if your character kills all or even most of your clients you are doing it wrong. The occasional abusive bastard – sure – but it would be noticeably odd for you to not have many/any repeat customers. Here’s hint #2: Everyone wants to be a “high priced” hooker/madam but it is more worthwhile for the tabloids or a police sting operation to go after you than one of the average street walkers. Look how long the Green River Killer went on before being caught…

Side Note: The first character concept I created on my own was a vampire whore.  There was a history for how she came to be a street walker (as a human), why she was embraced, why her sire was not in the picture and why she had come to the city.  I could tell you her reasoning for being a common street walker.  I could tell you how she survived without a haven until she had one.  I could tell you how she stayed out of trouble.  She was young by vampire standards but not many knew that and she was a powerful person in her domain because she had “more influence than God” via the game mechanics.  I’m sure some members of my family would be alarmed and horrified to see the number of books I have on Prostitution & Sex work on my book shelves – along with various other odd titles I have for character research which include books on making booby traps, disguising oneself, changing identities, various fortune telling books, books on Goddess religions and etc).

Biker Brujah (OWoD)

He’s loud. He’s obnoxious. HE ONLY SPEAKS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!!!ELEVINTY!!!!!111 He smells (because you know, real men don’t wash or some shit like that). He has a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle. He’s about a subtle as a bulldozer over eggshells. That’s right he’s the Brujah biker – party of one… *sigh*

Tips: Know more about what motorcycle your character plays other than “Harley”. There are lots of different models of Harley Davidson motorcycles and they’ve been around for a lot of years now. When did you get it? What does it look like? Do you fix it or do you have someone else fix it? If someone else – who? Where? Are parts hard to get for that model? When did you join the gang? Where’s the rest of your gang? Either have a good story about what happened to them or consider getting other local players to make biker game characters to play with you.

Grunge Wearing Gangrel

All I’m asking is that you have more to your character concept besides the fact they wear flannel or camo shirts.

Tips: Back story – get some.

The Corner Brooder

This is a character that sits in the corner or leaned up against a post or something and looks angry. That’s it. This is often played by someone who then complains that no one interacted with them at the game.  I’ve got news for you:   If my character doesn’t know you and no one introduces her to you, she’s not going to approach you if you look cranky unless she has a job that makes it her business to know who everyone is, because your character might well be stronger and kick my character’s ass for bothering you.

Tips: Make sure there is someone at the game who knows your character and who he might be interested in talking to. Otherwise, when you get bored of standing there looking pissy, please feel free to put on a neutral look and come join in some conversation happening in game or something.

The Terminally Shy

If you look like it makes you really uncomfortable to talk to people, they usually either avoid you or they will decide to mess with your character by getting up close and in their space. You do not get to whine about being ignored or getting picked on if you play this concept in a room full of predator characters.

Tips: If you want to play a shy character then team up with a more outgoing character. Have at least one topic that your character is excited about and will bring her out of her shell. For bonus points – have your character be well able to kick ass and take names if people harass her too much. It’s not that you are helpless – you just don’t like crowds maybe…

I’m an Expert/Important Figure in (insert religion of choice or profession of choice here)

I know fuck-all about this religion/profession but I’m an industry leader all the same. Hell, I don’t even know any jargon or terms that are common with it but – hey – my sheet here says I have 4 dots in it so just work with me on this – okay?

Tips: It’s LARP – Live Action Role Play. 99% of the game is TALKING to other players. Please have something interesting/informative to say about your character, how they got into their religion/profession, and how they got to whatever position they obtained, etc. The higher up the ladder the more you should know. At least know enough to fake it (because, really, I’ve worked for CEO’s who couldn’t find their fucking email application after they minimized it so how hard can it be??).

Ravnos/Gypsy/Rom

Please do the world a favor and don’t use the OWoD books or ‘Bury Me Standing’ as a guide to how to play a Gypsy/Rom. There are a fair bit of more reliable and respected (by actual Romany) resources out there – most of which can be checked out from the library. If you just can’t stand reading non-fiction, at least read ‘Mulengro’ by Charles DeLint. Know how they are thought of and treated in Europe. Consider that you might pretend that you are not of that clan. Consider playing the character with some subtlety (Google it).

Last (for now) but certainly not least:  I’m a Teddy Bear Carrying Malkavian/Crazy Person

I’m a complete idiot AND batshit insane. I’m too fucked up to really be able to function on my own and have not put any thought to how I live and get by – much less how I manage to not be institutionalized and a walking breach of the Masquerade. The other predators in the room don’t exercise Darwin’s Law on me why?

Tips: It’s far more interesting and terrifying to find out someone you thought really had their shit together is actually completely insane. That would be the subtlety thing again. If you must insist on playing a character with “Multiple Personality Disorder” at the very least take the time to Google that and learn what that designation has been changed to. Also, people with multiple personalities not only go to great lengths to hide the fact they have them from others, I have yet to meet someone with this condition that was not aware of the other personalities. For the love of humanity – do some research and stop regurgitating bad Made for TV stereotypes into the game!

Side Note: I am responsible for a vampire Brownie troupe showing up at a game at Norwescon some years back.  We made these as one-off characters because we had come up with Brownie outfits and thought it would be fun.  The player that ended up portraying their “father” had the hardest time and I owed him BIG after that.  We had an explanation for how this happened (that would be background), why each character had the quirks they had, why we were at the convention (everyone would just think we were in costume!), and we had made merit badges based on the vampire laws – in child speak.  We were offered safe passage and asylum by the Prince of Bellingham at the time – because we were clearly able to function in vampire society despite the fact that we were children.  One of us was played by a man over 6ft tall with goatee.  I have the pictures to prove it.  Yes I did know I’m twisted and wrong, why do you ask?

Do you see a pattern here?  Most of the issues with these character concepts stem from a lack of thought, research and depth.  The biggest difference between table top and Live Action games is that in LARP most of what goes on in a given game is character driven.  More specifically, character conversation driven.  There are plot seeds dropped here and there but we spend a far greater portion of the game sitting or standing around socializing in character.  You don’t need to be a scholar or be a great speaker to make the game enjoyable but you should know about your character and at least something about what they are supposed to be good at.  It doesn’t have to take a lot of time and energy either.  In the internet age many things can be found with a bit of browsing. 

One of the most amusing characters I interacted with in the past was a woman playing a super model with 4 or 5 dots in the Sexy trait and a fair amount of fame.  On the surface this might have made me roll my eyes but she was connected to another character who introduced her around and she did things like create mock portfolios to show people her “latest work” – so she had something to talk about at game.  You’d be amazed how much little things like that can add to the enjoyment of the game and role play in general.   Give it a try.  The results might surprise you.

Editorial comment from the Geek Girl What Rules:  Word.

Too old to start gaming?

One of the reason’s the Geek Girl What Rules asked me to blog here is that she’s had a number of people ask her if they were too old to start gaming.  The short answer is:  No.

I was a late blooming gamer for a number of reasons.  When I was younger there were the occasional games of Cribbage and fairly common board/dice games (Yahtzee, Uno, Risk, etc) but nothing on a regular basis and no role playing games at all.  As I mentioned in my first post, I started doing Live Action Role Play (LARP)  just a few months shy of my 31st birthday (12 years ago).  There’s at least one woman in Oregon, I know of, who started LARPing in her late 40′s.  My partner, Ambrose, would LARP with me at local conventions as a way to spend more time with me; he was in his 50′s at the time and had otherwise not done role play.  It’s not something he’s continued to do but no one even batted an eye about him being there or his age.  I know a number of other people in their 40′s and beyond who roleplay of one sort of the other be it Tabletop, LARP, SCA, etc.

Gaming is about having fun and using your imagination.  It really doesn’t matter how old you are.  If you think about it, role playing is just another form of acting.  No one thinks it’s strange for older actors and actresses playing roles Broadway productions, and gaming is another, more accessible, way to play a role for awhile.

In fact, I tend to describe LARP to those who don’t game as being like improvisational theater.  I find it’s easier for them to understand it that way.  I play in Vampire and Changeling LARPs.  I’ve had people ask, in regards to Vampire, if we stand around biting each other or what?  When I explain that it’s more like improv theater and that we explore how we image such a character would interact and survive if they existed – like an alternate reality.  Most of what goes on is player driven – the interactions between different characters with different interests and agendas.  There’s plot added here and there to keep things moving and interesting – more as a catalyst for those interactions and character growth than determining all the action – at least in LARP.  The recent resurgence in popularity of the vampire genre has made the whole thing easier to explain so that others understand – but I digress.

About a year and a half ago, or so, I was invited to join an all girl RPG gaming group.  We play once a month – or at least endeavor to.  We range in age from late 20′s to early 40′s.  We sometimes run months long games and sometimes do one-off games as the mood suits us.  It’s been fun for me to explore other types of RPG games and I find tabletop gaming quite as enjoyable as LARP.

Other friends hold monthly “games day” events where board games of various sorts are played.  The games days I’ve been to have had people from ages 8 to 60 attend them.  I’ve recently been introduced to ‘Animal Crossing’ on the Wii by my roommates.  I’m completely addicted.  I’ve already had to replace the batteries in the Wii controller in less than a week.  *blush*  My family didn’t have the money for video games when I was growing up and no one else in the family was really interested in them (my sisters are 7, 9, and 12 years older than me so there’s a bit of a generation gap when it comes to computers and computer games).  I’ve found that the Animal Crossing game is a nice diversion from the banality and evil that is job hunting in our current economy.  I’ve also had a bad cold, complete with coughing up a lung, and a hurt shoulder so it’s been something I could do while resting.

Yeah, that’s it.

Bottom line – if you want to role play then find folks to role play with and don’t worry about your age.  It’s a creative endeavor and it’s fun and that’s really all that matters.  If your friends give you grief about it, that says more about them than you.  As for family – they may think it strange but they will need to deal.  If it makes you happy and it doesn’t hurt anyone, they can learn to accept it even if they don’t understand it.  Call it a lesson in tolerance of differences if you must.  ;-P

AmberCon NW!

Ok, so I just posted, but I’m so excited!!! 

For years, because of a conversation between Deborah Donoghue and Ogre, we’ve been joking about running Amber Family Therapy. 

This year, I’m doing it!  And I just got my player list.  This is going to be amazing!!!  I have so many excellent gamers involved!!!  Holy crap, there are not enough exclamation points in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’ll be refereeing as the therapist.  This should be a blast.  I’m thinking of advocating booze during. 

The Harry Potter game, in it’s forth year, also looks incredibly promising.  That game’s always fun, but this year we’re full with about a 50/50 spread of new and old players.  I’m pretty excited. 

My first game, Attack of the B-movies, is a little smaller than I’d intended, but I may well just give everyone a fist full of characters and start slaughtering them with horror tropes as quickly as I possibly can. 

Amber Family Therapy, though.  I could not ask for a better bunch of players for that game.  I hope it lives up to and exceeds expectations.

Geek Girls Rule! #89 – Miscellaneous crap and symptoms of the mid-30s hormone rush…

I know it’s been awhile.  I kind of blew my wad with the Joe Quesada drinking game et al., and I’ve been blogging on geeky topics over at the California NOW blog.  Topics include the LA Times’ “Girls’ Guide to Comicon” (the resulting aneurysm wiped out 3rd grade), the Today show segment on the fact that Gosh, Golly and Don’t You Just Know It!,* girls play videogames!!!  And how they managed to interview the founder of the Frag Dolls without once mentioning what Frag means and what game they’re most famous for playing (HALO) I’ll never fucking know.  The most recent blog post there is about why my hobbies courting “normal” girls pisses me off so damn much. 

That’s not all I’ve been up to.  Tonight is the kickoff for Go Play NW!  The Geek Husband What Rules and I will be at the kickoff feast, and then gaming.  I have no idea what I’ll be playing.  I never sign up for anything ahead of time.  Instead I usually see who needs a player, or barring that, see who else is leftover and we’ll form a game in a lobby or something.  I’m so moody about my gaming, as in I need to be in the mood for something to really dig on it, that signing up ahead of time really doesn’t work out that well for me. 

Now, as relates to hormones…  As much as I adore Nightcrawler of the X-men (eXcalibur, etc…), is it wrong that every time they come up with a “bad” or, let’s just say, less moral version of him in another timeline (gotta love the multiverse), that I develop a mad crush on that version as well.  Maybe a fiercer crush…  A friend just gave me a copy of the orignal miniseries with Ilyana Rasputin, where she’s taken by Belasco and… Nightcrawler in a loincloth… sigh… 

Yeah, I’m a walking mass of libido, which to be honest has not changed since adolescence.  It’s one of the many reasons the Mister married me. 

The Geek Husband What Rules will be at DragonFlight this year, I might be there for a day.  My partner in crime over at Geek Sisterhood, Sophie, will also be up for Dragonflight!! 

I’ve also got a podcast I’m editing for here.  An interview with my friend Karnythia about her new publishing house, Verb Noire. 

*Why yes, I am originally from the Midwest.  How’d you guess?