The Great Quest

I'm getting ready to write the big novel next month and beginning the process of plotting and outlining. This is slow going for me. Every part of my brain is telling me to not use broad strokes and to begin defining everything. These are the things that will always kill me: titles, names and details. Bah. Working on trying to ignore the little things and paint with a broad brush at the moment.

Current overview of the novel goes something like this.

The protagonist, a man of modest means working for a well to do merchant, is aboard ship and sailing. In a dangerous part of the ocean his ship is struck by a disaster most unnatural. The island he eventually washes ashore on is home to men who appear to have hostile intentions. After carefully avoiding these men for several days the protagonist eventually finds them to be completely missing. Drawn by smoke to the island's interior he finds only a single survivor of an attack. The survivor is nearly mute but fiercly clutches a book. The two men take to finding a way off the island and back home. The protagonist finds himself in building trouble as he reads through the survivor's book and more and more dangerous obstacles threaten to eliminate both of them.

Obviously, it's getting fuzzy there toward the end. Even if this is just trash at the end of the day, the experience itself is going to be well worth it.

Odd thing is I got into gaming all those years ago, buying Vampire: the Masquerade and getting into LARPing just so that I could exercise my creative muscles. I tried everything I could to get what I wanted out of roleplaying but I never really found it there. Going back to writing may give me a little of that back.

I think I'll finally give up my chase for the perfect ruleset. That has only led me to frustration and spending money and time on things that just add new frustrations. Plus no one is interested in playing them anyway.

Well, today was going to be my big day to work on NaNoWriMo prep work but I haven't really gotten around to it. I need a bit more energy than what I have today but I'm hoping that a little more time and I'll get into it. I'm working on a response to a third writing prompt that has a really promising start and now I just need to hammer something out for the end. Hopefully I can get that done tonight or tomorrow evening and I can really begin outlining.

Last night was my weekly Battlestar Galactica night. I absolutely adore this show. Even from the very beginning the show oozed drama. I love shows like BSG that focus on character drama. I feel that I really know characters like the Adamas, Kara Thrace and Laura Roslin. The show's writers do an excellent job of making 3-dimensional characters that really interact and respond to the world around them.

I'm also deep into my House M.D. marathon. I tend to watch a show every other day or so. As of late TV has really been my escapist media of choice. It used to be reading but with some of the high quality TV out there. I never thought that House would be such a character show. It's a lot more transparent and in your face than BSG but I still love it. All the medical jargon and diagnosis make my inner geek squee.

The smell was intoxicating. The distinctive cinnamon sugar aroma of French toast had permeated Jon's home. Yet there was not the smallest crumb to be had. The fridge possessed its own unique aroma but no food. The cupboards were as hollow and empty as their owner's stomach. Jon's gut growled loudly, not in the least quelled by his distracted shushing and gentle pat.

( More story behind the cut )

It was another one of those weeks. The boss was riding my ass over some ridiculous client and their crazy demands. Reports had to be out by noon and Jill in receiving still hadn't gotten my materials so that I could even begin my work. Guess who gets the blame?

Today was hump day but I swear that every god damned day around here is a mountain until the weekend hits. My little ray of sunshine was when Ellen asked me at lunch if I was going to O'Malley's for St. Patty's this evening. Here was a way to enjoy the real American pastime; swilling cheap beer until I can't even remember my problems. Who says I'm not patriotic?
( Vignette for writing prompt behind this cut )

November is National Novel Writing Month also known as NaNoWriMo. I've seen people attempt this monumental feat many times now. This year it is going to be my turn. I have no idea if I can turn out 50,000 words in a single month but I do know I am going to try with everything I have.

From now until November I hope to limber up my creative juices and kill my inner editor and perfectionist by churning out many, many first draft vignettes, short stories and flash fiction.

Expect the first to come down the pipe sometime today.

My gaming has been split between three different games, two of which use the same system.

( The thing I am running is a game of Burning Wheel. )

( Otherwise I've been playing in two different D&D games. )

Well, I thought I wouldn't include anything really personal here in this journal any more. I have a real journal for that but I guess an update would be good. I'm a home owner! Which is exciting as I'm getting my garden ready trying to make the place homey and also looking to find a new roommate. I'm single now too which is really fun. I've been doing a lot of new things and trying to do as much as I can. There will be kayaking and camping this summer. Hopefully a trip or two also. I have friends on the Gulf and the West coast that both have offered places to stay.

This was the first session with me at the GM wheel for 4E. We've been playing since some time this summer under Nick which has been fun and really gotten me jonesing for running my own game. Monday I got it started.

I declared that the PCs would know each other. One of my optional rules is that PCs could establish color background with skill checks to get bonuses, no takers yet. My group consists of me and two couples. The couples each established combined backstory, conveniently enough. Here's the cast of characters.

Raisa and Baran These two are the female fighter and male cleric, respectively. Raisa and Baran grew up together in a smallish town. While Baran was following his father's path and becoming a cleric Raisa took work as a caravan guard. When she returned to town, inspired by her adventures in the greater world, she convinced Baran to leave the town and adventure with her.

Enkavar and Ember The male rogue and female warlock, respectively. Ember is a small town girl who was asked to leave town after one too many firey disasters (her schtick being fire). Enkavar is a big city rogue, scrapping by with a bit of theft and good deed. Enkavar's player can't resist being a do gooder. I imagine a robin hood with a bit of a paladin complex. Ember came to the big city of Nexus and quickly was taken under the wing of Enkavar.
( Session Report )

So this Friday I was at an event dubbed Josh Con I, celebrating the birthday of the eponymous Josh. I had met Josh at the last Wushu game I played at Dan Bayn's and we talked a bit and then he invited me over to Josh Con.

We started the evening with the Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen. This was a really fun game. We played it without the drinking elements, but that is just fine. The basic gist of this game is that you are a bunch of well traveled noblemen sitting around and telling tales of your fabulous adventures. The person to your left starts the story off. They'll say something like (Dear Baron, tell us the story of how you single-handedly dueled and entire regiment of Prussian hussars?) You then proceed to tell the story and the other people at the table have six coins they can offer to force you to incorporate a complication (My good sir, but wasn't she, in fact, a succubus?). You can give them back a coin to reject their complication and bidding can go on for a while. Duels can be started to kill the other player, remove their story from the end vote and receive more end game points.

I think we had a few problems with the coin sliding/obstacle mechanic at first. This works best if you actually add a roadblock to the story (what about the valley of fire? I do believe that the pope wasn't in Vienna then.) Which may seem obvious, but didn't work out that way in play. I had a very hard time with my story at first but once a few people through complications at me things really got into a good swing. I am still very impressed by the story of the running of the bulls in Barcelona (not Pamplona, that's where tourists go) and their guns on their horns.

The Wushu game we played after that was amazing. It was everything I thought Wushu would be and went much better than the last game. We played a mixture of Wanted and Kung Fu Hustle in the Dust Bowl Americas. It was freaking awesome. The characters were my parkour brawler who was quick on his feet and musically oriented. Josh played a Wanted style gunfighter, Kurt played a road shaman whose car was connected to him and bound to fate, and Eric played the laconic, quiet, drunken fighter.

There was a lot of high action hijinks including gun fights, shooting bullets out of the air, parkour style wall climbing and leaping. We then had a showdown with an evil road shaman and his tow truck and a band of destructive musicians a la Kung Fu Hustle. It was frickin' epic. We only barely managed to make it away. Kurt's character had a hotel collapse on his car (but took the Valkyrie out with him) and my character ended up unconscious in a pile of kindling that used to be a living room. Only Josh endured and eliminated the last band member to walk into the sunset.

On Friday I got to play in my first Wushu game which was pretty awesome. I played with Dan Bayn, the game's creator. Wushu is a really cool, slick, fast and over the top game. Now that I've actually played a game I think I have a much better grasp than when I went in on Friday.

The game we played was a "Skidoo" no prep session for one of Dan's articles. We played modern day humans that are hearing voices. These voices are actually telepathic messages from our descendants who are existing in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They are hideous mutants and their lives are suffering. Their is a second group who are the Utopians and they are from the time after the apocalypse where the mutations lead the way into the construction of the perfect society. The Utopians are trying to maintain the timeline while the "Apocalyptos" are trying to avoid the apocalypse.

There was a lot of fun moments in this game. When everything you say in the game actually happens and the only thing the dice do is add pacing you can get some really interesting results. I think the game suffered a bit from being unfocused. What we had was cool but it wasn't really strung together as well as I hoped. This may be more my fault for not being able to get into character as quick as I'd liked. The scenario didn't quite spark my imagination as much as I would have hoped. That's more my failing.

This game really did psyche me up for Wushu. I had it on my brain for most of the weekend. It even seemed to influence my dreams oddly enough. It was an added bonus that Dan, Mark and Josh were all really cool people. Josh seems to want to set up an Indie Gaming group, which would be pretty awesome. Hopefully that will somewhat come through.

D&D - Besides the fact that a snow storm and the associated traffic held up the start of the game, this went quite well. We had a nice pair of encounters with Kruthik, bug/wolf things. It went over well as it had some interesting terrain and a neat combination of monsters. It actually went a bit too quickly and fell a bit too swiftly, but there are worse things that could happen. This was a night that I was satisfied with completely.

Note for my future D&D game? Extended conditions are frickin' hot. I'm slotting that stuff right in.

Burning Wheel - Met again with the new group. This time I felt myself meshing a lot easier. Less references I didn't get and more role-playing talk that I do understand. We decided on basic setting this time. There are four main kingdoms in the human world, unfortunately only two have names currently and I came up with mine on the way home. The nation states are, Tholia, Etholis, Ben's and Garret's.

Tholia - This nation is known for its craftsmanship. They are expert builders and engineers. They are a sturdy people; large framed and hail. They are wary of magic users as they have just resurfaced from a civil war that was spawned by sorcerers fighting over the regency. They are also a stubborn people.
Traits: Sturdy, Wary of Magic, Stubborn

Etholis - A mixture of religion and feudalism is the basis for this place. Etholis is ruled by a hereditary king and a high priestess that is chosen by a group of pontifexes, the churches's highest members. Religion plays a heavy role in the lives of the citizens. The nobility often has to acquiesce to the church because of the power it holds, but the nobility have the military power and a great deal of wealth. There is a lot of power play between the two, some jealousy and a little rivalry. Due to coaching by the church the people of Etholis range from afraid to hateful of outsider, especially the other races.
Traits: Pious, Righteous, Xenophobic

Ben's - A guild based society where those who are without a guild are pariah. There are guilds for all walks of life and all services and there is a great deal of power play between them. Guilds are absorbed and separated and constantly moving.
Traits: Rigid Castes, I know a guy..., Unimaginative

Garett - A coastal or sea faring country. The people of this nation tend to be passionate but flighty.
Traits: Magpie, Magical Blood, No Social Grace