Not going to feel guilty

Aside from my Tuesday piece, I have not written anything this week.  Nothing.  I haven't edited, I haven't prepped for my game on Saturday, I haven't done a thing.

And I'm okay with that.

I read a post today by a guest blogger on the Variety Pages, and realized that it's okay.  Just because there's not a story in my head now, it doesn't mean that there won't be later.  I've been stressed.  REALLY stressed.  It doesn't surprise me that the voices have stopped.  My brain is just crazy with other stuff, so there's not room for much else.

And so I'm reading.  I'm reading like crazy, because that's what I need to do.  It's like my writing brain is taking a break, resetting itself.  I'm learning from what I'm reading, but I'm not worrying yet about putting this all into practice.  I'm re-learning what I like to read, and figuring out why I like to read it.  I'm listening to audiobooks and figuring out the difference between what I like to listen to and what I like to read.

So I will not feel guilty for not writing.

Although I may feel guilty about not preparing for the game come Saturday... I'll probably have to work on that!

Vampires

I'm not necessarily a huge fan of vampire fiction.  Honestly, with the exception of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (LOVE Mel Brooks!) I've had very little exposure to vampires.  I think I watched part of Interview with the Vampire, but I don't remember much of it.  I've never read Dracula, or any other major vampire books until recently.

However, I do have a very well-defined idea of what a vampire is and is not.  

I think that's the big reason that I didn't like Twilight when I read it, and why I have no desire to go see the movie (although I don't think it's in theatres any more).  She took the vampire rules, and mostly threw them out the window.  Sure, she tried to explain how the classic vampire myths are just myths and "this is how they really live," but it really didn't sit well with me.

I've started reading a new book, called Dhampir, and although it is not entirely true to the classic vampire definitions, it doesn't throw everything out.  In the mythology of this book (and I suppose the rest of the series, though I'm only on the first book), vampires exist, and they follow the classic rules: can't be out in the sun, can only be killed by a stake or beheading (although there seems to be an exception for a magical weapon?  I'm not far enough in to know yet!), don't like garlic, drink blood, etc.  The difference is that they are one of the Noble Dead, which are made up of several types of undead things.  There is a breed of half-vampires called dhampir, which are bred to hunt vampires.  I like the idea of a special critter made to kill vampires, but I'm not sure I buy into the 'half-vampire' thing... again, not far enough into the story yet to know how those are created (aren't vampires sterile?).  

I think it helps that I've played some D&D with vampires in the stories... D&D vampires are somewhat different than traditional vampires, but again, the main traits tend to be similar.  There are different breeds of vampire, and each is susceptible to a different type of damage, but at least it's from the traditional sources.

In any case, I've discovered that I can enjoy non-traditional vampire stories as long as a) they incorporate most of the vampire traits and b) are well written!

I've also discovered that I have far too many opinions on vampires...

Story idea

The details aren't worked out, but this is a story that I think I need to write...

We were out at dinner tonight, talking about a D20 modern/Cthullu campaign that Shane is running, and how one of the players really wants to be armed, but that in that setting, weapons are really not going to do you a lot of good.  Then we started talking about how people should react if the sort of stuff that you see in D&D started showing up in real life.

I'm going to write a story about a group of gamers who end up having D&D-type stuff start showing up in real life!  I think it will start with the group gaming around a table, and suddenly, a fireball goes off outside.  The initial assumption will be that there's been a gas leak/explosion, or arson, or a small plane crash, or something equally odd but plausible.  Then other things will start to happen - someone will quote something Latin, and a spell will go off.  I'm not sure what else yet... I'll have to go through some books.

But I think that the D&D players have a better chance of surviving that sort of supernatural crap (once they realize that it's really happening) than non-gamers.  And I think it would be kind of cool.  So I'm going to go sleep on this idea, and maybe have a better outline of it in the morning.  Yay for fun ideas!

Some gates should stay closed.

Sometimes, you make a bad decision.  Things like walking through a gate that magically opens as you approach.  These are lessons that are often learned the hard way...

We had a simple mission - find a guy.  His wife was worried that he hadn't come home, and all she wanted was for us to either bring him, or proof of his death, back to her.  Piece of cake, right?  Right....

There were four of us, and we were a decent crew... except for the bard.  He was irritating, and pompous, and well, none of the rest of us really felt too bad when we had to cut off his head.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The four of us - Merrick, the bard, the ranger, and myself - were headed down the road towards the town.  As we got closer, the fog started.  At first, it wasn't bad, but soon, it got so thick, we could barely see the trees on either side of the road.  We tried to be careful.  Well, most of us tried.  The ranger headed up ahead of us, hiding along the side of the road, to see if there was any danger.  The bard, on the other hand, simply rode up.  Luckily, the big dark thing in the road wasn't the monster that it appeared to be - it was a fallen tree.  However, that gives you an idea of how cautious our friend the bard is not.

Through the fog, we eventually saw the gates.  They were rather tall, not the kind you could easily climb, but there was no wall.  Two large statues, without heads, stood at either end of it.  It was closed, but as I approached, the gate opened.  Cautiously, we made our way through.  Looking back, I suppose we should have simply turned around.  Once we were through, the gate closed again, and would not open.  The chill I felt then was not simply from the cold, damp fog surrounding us.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming

After a two-week hiatus, I once again spent Saturday playing D&D. I'm a geek, what can I say? It was nice to be hanging out again, and I even managed to convince two friends to join in - one had played once before, and the other was a D&D virgin (although he admitted to playing Magic in high school). Unfortunately, the first had to leave early, and I couldn't tell if the second one actually enjoyed himself or not... and since he doesn't leave comments on my blog, I won't ever know (BIG OLD NOT SUBTLE HINT RIGHT HERE!).

I have spent the majority of my [short] D&D career as a player. I've been gaming for less than a year, so it makes sense. Tonight, I was the Dungeon Master (or DM, for those of you in the know) for the first time. Well, technically it was my second time, but the first time was on a weeknight with only two players, so it doesn't really count, especially since we abandoned it after one night. This time, I had five different players, and we played for about 10 hours (including character creation and a dinner break). It was a pre-fab adventure, which does put some limits on the DM, but it went pretty well. I recorded the first hour or so of it, and I'm planning to go back and listen to it later. Why? To see how much I suck as a DM... to see where I lose control of the game, to see where I give more information than I should, to see where I take too much time to set up things... just to see where, as a player, I would get bored and lose interest. And then I'll delete it.

All in all, it was a pretty good session, although I'm not sure if I like being the DM... There's definitely less waiting for someone else to be ready, but I don't really like that other people are waiting for me to get ready. The pre-fab adventure is fairly restrictive, and I think that's bothering me a bit. I definitely didn't get to be very creative with this one. I think it might be better if I was writing my own adventure - I love how Shane's campaigns just flow with the players. I guess everyone has to start somewhere, though, and most of the DM's I know (but I only know 4) started by running pre-fab adventures, or at least running in pre-fab worlds. It's not a bad way to get a feeling for how to run, I suppose, and it's keeping my players in line a bit more... kind of... although it's driving me nuts that Artemis keeps controlling every undead creature they come across! The party had a zombie and two skeletons following them around for a while, and almost had an ogre zombie (I'm soooo glad that check failed!).

Hope you enjoyed reading all this geekiness... I'll bet it's as foreign to some of you as football stats are to me!

Poetry is hard

As you may have noticed, I play D&D. The biggest, longest running campaign I'm involved in is referred to as the Bloodwars game. There are a lot of things going on in the game, but one of the major bits is that there's a battle going on between Hell and the Abyss, and it's started to break through onto Prime (the plane that our characters live in). This is Bad News, because you really don't want devils and demons fighting in your world. It makes a big mess.

Anyways, in Bloodwars, I play a bard, Noori. I really like the character, and I've been told that she's one of the most unique bards that my DM has run into. I'm kind of proud of that. In any case, as a bard, I like to think that Noori is recording all of the party's adventures and writing great epic poems about them.

In our last session, our party killed 33 red dragons. For those of you who don't play, that's a lot. We got a metric crapload of treasure, and lots of dragonhide. I'm really feeling the need to write an epic (or pseudo-epic) poem about this. There's just one problem.

I suck at writing poetry.

I think I'm going to have to pick up the Iliad or the Odyssey again, and see what I can learn, so that I can do justice to the Battle of the Red Dragons. Does anyone out there write poetry? Can you offer any pointers?

Gamers are odd...

The Bloodwars group met again tonight, and had a grand time slaying red dragons. Of course, the session included much chitchat and far too many bad puns. As everyone was clearing out, I was handed a folder and told to look over it, because it was a set of rules that I had never seen.

It was "The Complete Guide to Unlawful Carnal Knowledge." Yes, it was the guide on how to use sex and porn in a d20 game.

Gamers are weird.

Gamers are odd

This is what happened tonight. We were going to play D&D. Instead of playing out a normal session, we spent the evening leveling our characters and purchasing new items with all the loot we picked up in our last adventure. Then we sat around talking for hours. Late into the night, Matt came up with this...

I don't really know how it started. But it made several people fall over laughing the first time. And one person turned purple because she was laughing so much she could barely breathe. It was beautiful.

So many posts!

I'm at 62 consecutive posts with tonight's blog! And I started this blog on April 13, so I've made it for two full months! Hurray! I'm getting to be very impressed with myself. I wonder what I should do to celebrate when I hit 100...

...

...

It would seem that I should start planning this now, as I appear to have a case of writer's block tonight. Is it okay if I blame my sister for this? She liked the picnic story, and told me that my next post needed to be just as good - the pressure!

Except that I usually write better under pressure...

I'll blame it on D&D! We ran a Bloodwars session tonight after working all day... five hours of game is awesome, but leaves me exhausted, especially after a full day of work. There will be more game tomorrow, but first, there will be much sleep. Mmmm... Sleep...

The Wounded Boar's Nuts

Ha! I see I caught your attention with this snazzy title! And I didn't even make it up myself... it was the name of a tavern that a group of us ran into tonight while playing a pick-up game of D&D. It was an interesting game, to say the least. There are some people that I don't think I'll game with on a regular basis, simply because I prefer to co-operative group dynamic that the Bloodwars campaign has. Okay, enough D&D geeking.

Time for crafting/novelling geekiness! I've got a pattern in my head, and I think I can totally make it work. However, I've though this before, and it's been a horrible mess. I'm getting better at crochet, but I can't always picture how something will be affected by a particular type of increase or decrease, so if I'm not working with a pattern, I'm completely flying by the seat of my pants. I think that I've figured out how to make a plot ninja. For those of you who don't know what plot ninjas are, try visiting NaNoWriMo. If you're too lazy to go there and search, I'll explain. Plot ninjas are those weird little things that you throw into a book/story because there's nothing else to do. During NaNoWriMo, you are actually encouraged to randomly throw ninjas into your story when you hit a block, because it forces your characters to do something. Or get killed by the ninjas. Either way, the ninjas will get removed in the second draft, because by then, you'll have figured out a way to get from point A to point B without ninjas (or you'll have abandoned the whole book entirely). Last year, I made some plot bunnies (cute fuzzy things that pop up in your story and make it more interesting), and gave them to some fellow WriMos. This year, I'm planning to make several more plot bunnies and plot ninjas, and sell them through Etsy to finance the NaNoWriMo goody bags (thanks for pointing out the site, Jonathan!).

So the moral of today's post? There isn't one. Don't look for it. But watch out for the ninjas.

More addictions

I started playing Final Fantasy XII yesterday. I played again today. I've spent about six hours playing it. I've died several times. I can't stop playing. I tried, but I can't. I'm afraid I'm going to spend hours again tomorrow... and I don't have hours to play during the week! But I love this game! It's kinda like watching a movie, with a bit of video game in between. I'm actually only playing so I can get from one cut scene to the next. I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying this, given that I'm not really a video game kind of gal. I'll play SingStar and the Sims 2, but that's about all I've really played in the past year. Apparently, it's all about the kind of game you choose.

On a related note, I joined another D&D campaign today. It wasn't really what I'm used to - the group sort of broke up randomly over the course of the game to go take care of kids or eat dinner. It was odd and disjointed, but still fun. I think I'll go back again.

On a completely unrelated note, my computer has been wonky lately. Today, I had to restart it (twice), but this last time, the green light on my webcam came on, and has not gone off yet. I don't have anything running that would make it work. Maybe someone is watching me... not that I'm doing anything interesting! I'm fully clothed and blogging. And sneezing. They're definitely not getting a show... maybe it's Mordthor... he may have found a new way to keep track of my movements!

Gaming provides such fodder!

Some of my favourite quotes have come out of D&D sessions. For those of you who aren't cool enough to know what D&D is, I shake my head. It is Dungeons & Dragons, an awesome role-playing game. It's often thought of as a very geeky past time, but it's actually really cool. Think of those 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books that you read back in elementary school - it's kinda like that, only live.

I play in a couple of different campaigns - Bloodwars runs mostly on Saturdays, but not every week because a few of our players come in from out of town. Poor Bastards is relatively new, and was started because not everyone from Bloodwars can come in every week. I've only played in Hemlock Creek once, because it's almost impossible to get everyone there together. Tonight, we started a new campaign, but it doesn't have a name yet. Wait for it, though, because we'll figure it out soon!

In any case, D&D generates awesome quotes. Here are some of my favourites:

"Buy me a drink, I'll kill you tomorrow!" (said cheerfully)

"Torture is like the Diet Coke of evil." (while trying to defend the use of torture to get information from a captive)

"It's crack in a can!" (describing 2nd edition D&D, which is totally inaccurate - 3.5 is the way to go!)

"You're not sliding down the slope towards evil. You're wearing skis and a jet pack!"

See? Lots of fun reasons to play D&D!

Question:

From http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/prompts.html: What would you do if you found a magic wand?

If I found a magic wand, I would be very careful with it. After all, you don't want to go randomly waving around magic wands or tapping things with it. Mycroft found a magic wand and she didn't know what it was for. She didn't do anything with it until she and her friends found themselves walking on this squishy face thing. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time... she tapped the mouth bit with her wand, and suddenly, it was huge! What had been a somewhat intimidating mouth in the floor was now a huge and terrifying mouth in the floor. Luckily, they managed to get away, but they learned their lesson! When you find a magic wand, carefully put it away until you can show your wizard friend and get him to identify it, because you never know when you'll end up with a wand of bigness!