Assorted Natter from

General Natter

Comments to Simon Reeve

I didn't expect much to happen on the mock hunt, and that influenced how I played Justin. For an in-character explanation, I'd say that Justin figured that since this was one of his performance art pieces, the only weirdness would be weirdness he'd planned. Clearly, he was forgetting what had happened with Wait Until Dark. re:absinthe: The fact that Beth had some is no evidence of legality.

Comments to Eugene Reynolds

Justin replaced Jim's Laphroiag, as Jim donated it to ensure there would be parties and chaos to slow the hunt down. Jim encouraged folks to throw parties by offering the Laphroiag to whoever woke the most people on campus. Justin figured that since Jim donated it on his behalf, he should replace it.

re:Ken falling for Justin: Yes, as I said, that was something that evolved in play. Originally, Naomi and I both figured that Daniel was the obvious person for Justin to wind up with, but it just never happened. After we'd played through the beginning of Spring Quarter, Naomi said that Ken was busy trying not to fall in love with Justin and failing completely. It fit the patterns that had been established. Justin had developed the habit of showing up at GALA for scutwork whenever something was bothering him. Ken saw the train Justin made for the City of New Orleans, in all its weirdness, and he'd seen the first performance of Wait Until Dark. So, there was this combination of wonder and fanfare, and someone who obviously needed someone to take care of him. It made sense.

Justin, of course, knew none of this, since he was either dealing with a crisis by doing scutwork, or directing a play. Ken had decided Justin wasn't going to find out, since here was obviously an innocent who was confused about his sexuality, and the last thing he needed was Ken confusing him further. Since Justin is very good at missing what's right under his nose and Ken is a licensed counselor -- in OTE terms, that probably gives him 3 dice in stuff like hiding his feelings -- there matters would have stood indefinitely if the May hunt hadn't happened.

Comments to Michael Cule

You're starting from a false premise. I did not believe Justin was in "true danger" if by that you mean "the GM would kill the character" any more than I believe that, fr'ex, the Doctor is in "true danger" when I watch Doctor Who. This has much to do with the dynamics of the specific campaign: Naomi has said repeatedly that she kills off a character only at the player's request or in case of gross player stupidity, in which case, my understanding is that she will warn the player.

Gross PC stupidity is a subset of player's request. Another subset is to waive script immunity. This is not a request to kill the PC off, but a request that the GM let the chips or dice fall where they will, and if that results in PC death by luck or by the logic of events, so be it. Since I had not decided to kill Justin off, nor waived script immunity, and since Naomi at no time warned me that I was being stupid, I did not believe Justin would end up dead. This was reinforced when Naomi warned me that if Justin used his ability as a maker to cast Michael in his role hard enough to make him vulnerable to cold iron, it would count as use of magic and hence constitute a rules breach. The GM was formally warning me that a particular course of action held dangers that I had forgotten about. This increased my confidence that Justin would survive, and Naomi would have been within her rights to revoke script immunity if I'd had Justin proceed to cast Michael in his role.

Why, then, did I enjoy the hunt so much? As well ask why I enjoy Doctor Who. I know the main character will survive, no matter what. Even if he dies, nothing changes; he'll regenerate. Even if you insist that there is real loss when an incarnation of the Doctor dies, you won't have covered shows where that doesn't happen, nor will you have explained why I can enjoy watching an episode like Image of the Fendarhl or the Loch Ness monster episode for the second or fifth time, when I know exactly what will happen.

I enjoy a game where there is no "true danger" to my character under the same conditions where I enjoy a show or a book where there is no "true danger" to the protaqonist: I have to be able to believe what I know to be false. I must be able to convince myself that the Doctor is in true danger, even though I know he is not. Oddly, this is not difficult. Also, I must not have my intelligence insulted. What this means varies. In Matt's pulpgame I have no problem with the villain revealing his evil plan prematurely; it's a genre convention.

ee my ct. to Eugene Reynolds about Death: The Time of Your Life. This is a case where my intelligence was insulted because there were, effectively, no consequences, and the characters' lives were simplified. The May Hunt had many consequences, and it complicated everyone's lives. Among other things, it led to:

--Justin's friends discovering he was gay, which lead to some interesting tension between Michael and Ken, mostly on Ken's side, I think, that Justin only learned about when it had begun to subside

--trouble with the Econ Building

--a rules breach that I brought to Naomi's attention which led to all sorts of plot twists. I do not honestly know if I would have mentioned it if this were a game where the risk of PC death were a larger factor, though I like to think I would

--the October Hunt, which had all kinds of consequences of its own

--Sarah's decision to graduate, which led to further consequences

--Ken's life getting far more interesting than he had bargained for. Justin did warn him.

I guess what it boils down to are the differences in an art form whose creators and audience are the same. If a major character is killed on a tv show, I don't feel as if something I have put creativity into has been made unusable.

Am I getting too attached to my PCs? This certainly happens in gaming. I can't rule it out as a factor. But there are other factors. I don't want to worry about money when I game. I get enough of that in real life, and I don't believe it's getting too attached to a PC to desire not to worry about the cost of every single meal, unless I have freely chosen to make this a factor for the character. I do not wish to feel the character's worries. Justin certainly believed he might die. That was sufficient. I felt no need to share his fears.

This does not mean, I hasten to add, that there was no chance of anything bad happening on the hunt. Think of PC script immunity as a rule for a particular type of game, just as honor checks are part of most Pendragon games and SAN checks part of most CoC games. Or as four - or is it six? - commercial breaks are the rule for a 1 hour USA tv show, or 14 lines for a sonnet.

So, the Doctor can't really die. A Companion can, but rarely. I'd say Companions are PCs too, generally getting written out when their players leave, but this may be stretching the metaphor too far. Likeable non-Companions have no script immunity, and mass deaths are not uncommon. Justin had no chance of dying during the hunt, nor did Michael, Jim, or Diometra. Ken had no script immunity nor did Michael's girlfriend Beth, both of whom could have ended up dead if the dice had rolled differently. We didn't use dice all that much, but we used them in both cases where an important NPC's life was at stake. And, unlike Death: The Time of Your Life, the NPCs in question had been around for a while and meant something to the PCs and to the players-as-audience.

TFOS has a principle that players will have fun if their PCs do interesting things and PCs are much more likely to do interesting things if they're not dead. I know that in most cases, I cut loose as a player if I'm not balancing my desire to have my PCs do interesting things against a desire not to lose the PCs. I don't say that I would not take risks if there were more of a possibility of PC death, but I'd take fewer of them, even when the characters logically would take the risks, and I think that would impoverish the story.

What we had in this case was a group that knew what story we were telling and where it was going, and did our best to get it there in the most entertaining way we could. I enjoyed the hunt not because I believed Justin was in "true danger", but because it gave us the chance to tell a good story and to do lots of cool things. By and large, this is the sort of gaming I enjoy most, although I do enjoy variation, just as sometimes one wishes to read light comedy, and sometimes classical tragedy.

At least 2 different gamers have written in support of letting CoC PCs die whenever the dice say they do, to reflect the uncaring Lovecraftian universe. I would hate this. PC mortality is expected in CoC, and I waive PC script immunity when I play it, just as I waive script immunity for convention runs. But I don't want a pointless PC death. That's not what I look for in the game. Lovecraft himself did not toss in meaningless deaths. It would have been bad art, diminishing some tightly woven stories.

But that's just my opinion and my explanation of why I hold it. Rule number one of gaming is to have fun. If it is more fun for you to have a real risk of PC death every time, who am I to say you're wrong? All I ask is that you synchronize expectations with your players and GMs.

Altclair Section Natter

Altclair is Naomi's campaign, set at the college of Altclair, which is somewhere in Minnesota. Think Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, GURPS Illuminati IOU, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Other source material (that Naomi's not familiar with) might include Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon and most of Charles de Lint. Players are me (Justin Thorne), Josh (Michael Conaway), Manny (Jim Gaffney), and Beth (Diometra).

No write up this time, just assorted notes.

Justin mentally ran through the list of people he figured he'd have to come out to. He'd already talked with his mother. Most of his friends found out on the eve of May Day. The Theater Department knew before Justin did (not entirely accurate, but that's what Justin thought. In fact, he thought, incorrectly, Jennifer and Delilah had known for a while, and wondered if he were the last to figure it out.). That left Annmarie.

Justin: Coming out to a ghost. This ought to be interesting.

Fortunately, Annmarie was alive when the in thing was to be cosmopolitan and understanding about such things. Michael's reaction was more complicated.

Michael: I didn't know you swung that way.

Justin: Neither did I.

Michael: Just a bit of advice. It sucks. (walks away)

Justin: What? Michael, if you're trying to confuse me - (realizes he's talking to the air) I didn't know -he- swung that way.

Whereupon Justin got back to his latest project, and figured that Michael had probably tried it, not liked it, and gone back to dating everything with two x chromosomes and no y chromosomes. Since Michael didn't raise the subject again, it was several months before Justin learned what was really going on.

This is one of those interesting cases of expanding a PC's background as the campaign progresses, not necessarily entirely seamlessly. Michael went to school in Britain because he wanted to get away from his parents for a while. Now, as I understand it, the British school system has institutionalized male homosexual rape among the students. After being a victim of this, Michael informed his aunt, Mary, that he wanted to go home. Mary suggested that, since Michael had been so eager to leave home, perhaps it would be sufficient to move him to a different school. Michael agreed, and that's where he met David and Jennifer and the plot hooks Josh thoughtfully set up.

But this was background that didn't exist at the beginning of the campaign. Just before everyone went to Mongolia, Michael tried to get Justin on a date with Helen, and he asked pointblank if Justin were gay when Justin was not instantly eager to date a woman he'd thought was dating someone else. And at that time, I hadn't considered Justin's sexual orientation; his response to Michael was, "I'm a double major! I don't have time for that." But that exchange would probably not have been as light if Josh had worked out more of Michael's background than he had at that time.

Michael, as everyone has commented, has had a terrible year. His infant daughter died, he was shot, and, most recently, his father died of a magically induced heart attack. Justin tried to be helpful with the last.

Justin: Should we get you drunk?

Michael: Is that your answer to everything?

Justin (a bit hurt -- he'd thought it was Michael's): No. But I don't think my methods will work for you.

Michael: Right, you make things.

Justin: Or I take pictures. I'll loan you the camera if you think it'll help.

Michael: Sure. The worst thing that'll happen is I'll take lots of pictures of thumbs.

Michael's mother wanted him to give up magic and Altclair, and go away from everything with her. Josh didn't want to lose the character, but he had to think about this. Finally, he decided that Michael would decide to stay, but that if Beth, his current girlfriend, had been killed in the May hunt, he would have left. He told Justin that giving up magic just wouldn't be natural, something Justin privately agreed with, but didn't feel he had any right to say to Michael.

---

Miranda was surprisingly calm when Justin told her about the hunt. This is because Daniel had called her first, and she'd had some time to get over her initial anger/fear/worry.

Justin is still convinced Michael had a bit more control at the end of the hunt than he's admitting to. Michael insisted that he did what he did not because he was at all capable of helping, but because it was dramatically appropriate. He did ask if Michael knew how the non-human hunters had fared, and Michael said that he didn't think there was a medical plan for them.

Justin talked to Daniel about the rules breach he had inadvertently committed, hitting one of the hunters with a pair of handcuffs that he had not realized was enchanted. Daniel got in touch with the person in question, Fergus. Fergus would have preferred to hold off on settling, but after some negotiations, settled for an agreement that Justin would attempt to make him a pair of 7 league boots and that sometime in the next 2 years, that Justin would make something else for him. Technically, Justin wasn't giving the items to Fergus, merely loaning them to him on a more or less permanent basis, since if Fergus owned them, he could copy them and that would drain Justin's creativity and probably do nasty things to his memory as well. Ownership reverts to Fergus on Justin's death, which Fergus is not allowed to hasten.

Justin pointed out that Fergus was taking a gamble on the boots, as he had no idea how well they'd work. As Justin expected, Fergus liked it being a gamble. Not wanting to have to worry about the 2 year time limit on the other item, Justin offered his cap of invisibility to Fergus, which he figured would also serve as a reminder that Justin's items don't always function exactly as planned. The cap makes whatever it covers invisible. Fergus was amused by it, and twirled it around his finger, which made his hand invisible.

As for the boots, Fergus wanted them made in human skin, specifically Justin's. He said that he'd take a square inch of skin and stretch it into the required dimensions. Justin has enough of a macabre streak that he was fascinated, rather than grossed out by this idea, and he also figured it was a rare opportunity to work in human skin, absolutely guilt free, as he knew precisely where it came from. (His arm.)

Justin asked Fergus if he could watch while Fergus stretched his skin. He did this for three reasons:

1. He was genuinely curious.
2. He wanted to keep Fergus amused and in a good mood.
3. He was trying to show he wasn't afraid.

Fergus was indeed amused. So amused that he stretched the skin while it was still attached to Justin. This hurt a lot, on top of which, Daniel discovered that, despite his best efforts to keep an eye on Fergus, Fergus had left his sigil on Justin's skin. He sent Justin to Matt to ask him to get it off. Matt said that it was basically impossible, so Justin needed someone new to magic who didn't know it was impossible. Justin went to Michael.

Michael moved the mark onto a sheet of paper. Justin would have thrown it out, but Michael pointed out that it might come in handy. Daniel was impressed, explaining that this was the equivalent of having someone's True Name. While Justin has no problem with this, he likes Fergus, despite his better judgement, for much the same reasons he likes Sarah Lacey. I told Naomi that if Sarah had left Altclair after graduating, Justin would breath a genuine, heartfelt sigh of relief, and then, he would miss her terribly. She said that Sarah would laugh and understand completely.

In case it isn't clear, Justin is not exactly a nice person. After the fallout from the May hunt started settling, one thought he had about Ken was, "Good -- at last, I've got someone in the Math department." He mentally kicked himself very hard for this thought, but he never once stopped thinking it. After all, he's got Jim in Classics, Michael in History, and Helen in Anthropology, and if he could only get someone in Economics...

---

Michael and Justin talked with Daniel about what would happen in October. Justin learned that Daniel had to call in favors not to have to be one of the hunters when Justin was the quarry. Justin wanted to make sure that Daniel wouldn't be a hunter in October either. He told Daniel everything he had learned to date about Sarah, and gave him copies of all the photographs he had and a sketch of the photograph of Sarah doing a disgusting thing with a disgusting thing, since Sarah had claimed the original and the negative of that. Then, he asked Daniel if all of the traditional rules he'd heard about bound Daniel and his people, because, if so, Daniel had just accepted a gift from Justin, to wit, what he knew about Sarah, and hence, owed him a favor. Daniel said that it wasn't as cut and dried, or as consistent as that, but that this would help. He added that it wasn't in Michael's best interest to have Daniel sit this one out. It would be better if Daniel could get the position of guide.

This suited Justin, who did have another card to play, but was just as happy not to have to find out if it would work. Since Daniel and his mother know each other, if Daniel had planned to join the hunters, Justin would have said something like, "You know you'll have to go through me to get to Michael. Now, I'm sure you can do that, but then, -you- explain my corpse to my mother."

Daniel also said that Matt would help.

Michael: I thought Matt didn't like me.

Daniel: He doesn't, but he figures he owes Thorne.

Justin: It was just - He's already - (realizes that this is a stupid argument to begin) Fine! Fine. All debts cleared.

Naomi: Matt hasn't forgotten that Justin took a blow for him which he at least partly deserved.

Lisa (who -had- forgotten): Justin has. (Both assumed that Daniel was referring to the loan of a cap which let him sleep without nightmares.) If asked, his thought on that matter is probably something like, "I told a man who is more than a hundred years older than I am to sit down because we weren't finished yelling at him."

Naomi: He did.