DunDraCon

For some time now I have been playing, off an on, on Witch Storm, an online role playing site and it has occurred to me that text rpgs of this sort have an odd relationship with fiction writing. I describe the site to non-role players as a "cooperative fiction writing forum" where we write stories by taking turns narrating from the viewpoints of different characters in the story. Often those who come in emphasizing the "game" aspect of role playing game face difficulties, as this is not the sort of game where you are trying to "win." Gaining power and wielding it, fulfilling your characters agendas, all these should be very much secondary to ensuring there is good drama overall. And usually drama is better when your viewpoint characters are having a very hard time rather than when everything is going their way.

This weekend I attended DunDraCon and, for various reasons, my normal ratio of RPGs to LARPs was inverted and I played in LARPs most of the weekend. I thus had time to reflect that LARPs had a somewhat parallel relationship with acting that online text rpgs did with creative writing. Later, to my amusement, the GM of the best LARP I played in commented on much the same thing and challenged us to act our characters rather than play them.

Whether I am playing a table top game, an online text game or a LARP, story and character growth interest me most. That is probably why I am less interested in computer games or even board games and card games where winning and strategy are paramount.

This DunDraCon was an epic one for LARPs. There was a three part game that spanned the whole history of a tiny world from creation to destruction. I got to play in the first and second game and my second game character appeared in the last one as well, having been one of four characters to gain god-like powers in game two. Not that that had been her intention...in fact it was somewhat inconvenient at the time! I also played in a WoD LARP at long last, and that was fun and dramatic, playing a Changeling (someone stolen by faeries and then escaped back to the real world forever altered) consumed by anger and a determination to see justice done and to protect humans from suffering a like fate. I got to plot and scheme but also pace angrily and pull at my hair and claw at the furniture in frustration.

But the most epic game by far in terms of drama, was an Elizabethan Steampunk fantasy game called "Ship of Fools." It was phenomenal. So detailed. At last I played a faction leader...well, co-leader. But everything seemed to go unrelentingly wrong for her from the word go. It was gut wrenching. She wanted so badly to do the right thing, an idealist to the core, and with loved ones along to protect and a whole way of life back home to guard...and yet she had the rug pulled out from under her feet and her world, had to trust people she'd been taught were inherently untrustworthy, learn compromise, and relearn the value of trusting her own instincts. In the end, she saved her party and helped prevent a war by, in fact, trusting the right person and not backing down from that decision. Wow, heavy stuff. I'm really quite shocked she survived it all. It was very touch and go for a while there. She even told someone to kill her if necessary.

I can't wait for the sequel next year.

The New IT Department

So I was talking with tech support yesterday on chat. After she had fixed my latest problem—I’d been on about five times already that day, setting up this new network at work, I asked her one last thing (so I wouldn't have to contact someone again 5 minute later):

Me: Ok. Any other pitfalls for those of us who aren't computer geeks?

Tech Support: The future :P

I guess I asked for that one! I was just about on the floor laughing. Gotta love snarky tech support!

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In further news, I've been "promoted". In addition to my regular duties, I am now the IT department. Yes, that's right, I'm a department. And the IT department at that. Given the quote above, that should frighten you.

I want to sit down with someone who actually speaks computerese for about an hour and get some comp-speak to English translations, and perhaps some helpful diagrams on a white board. I'm puzzling through it all bit by bit (get it?) but I feeling I should be zipping right through a lot of this. (Ok, I'll stop now, I promise.)

In fact, I feel a little like being a college student again, with more than a full load, except almost all my classes are independent study or private tutorials with busy profs or TAs. There's my civil law class, my crash course in medicine & physiology, and of course my independent study in computer technologies, and then there is driver's ed (private lessons) and my actual taught course in ASL (wow, one at an honest to goodness college). And then there is trying to finish my thesis project in Creative Writing, in which I write a novel. Oh, yes, and there is some sort of weird applied art survey course I signed up for--I'm in the wire work unit right now.

It's a lot of different directions for my brain to stretch in at once, but in many ways I can't be sorry for it. I have missed all the energy that comes from regular intensive learning. So even though it's quite the "course load," I'm glad. I just hope I "pass" everything!!