beccastareyes

I'll post something substancial later, but for my crafty friends -- figure out some use for the dozen Nintendo DS boxes I have lying around. They're like DVD cases, but smaller/different proportions. I already store the games in smaller cases because the games themselves are only slightly larger than a postage stamp. (Seriously, Nintendo, I'd rather you go back to the cardboard box that comes with a tiny hard plastic game case and an instruction book -- the original Game Boy/Game Boy Color method. Even if the DS boxes include storage space for a Game Boy Advance game as well.)

So, one of the few journal-games I'm in, kannagara_rpg is doing a Fourth-Wall Event over the weekend. The in-game presence is that for one IC day, the head god is away from his chair, and every other god is using it as the excuse to flood the world with people. The OOG idea is for original characters, characters from media (and alternate universe versions of same) and actual people* to play with the premise of the game.

In other words, a lot like CFUD does every day of the week -- though I suppose CFUD was limited to characters in game and actual people. No one's yet tried to flood that with Edward Elrics.

Since neither of my characters have a cast, I kind of want to promote this for fun. In hopes of luring people there. Which got me thinking about RPG casts.

( Tangent! Tangents are fun! )

(Debating about whether or not I can round up the sabra_la_tau & the_nexus_rpg folks. Downside is it means making/digging up old LJ games. OTOH, most of the Nexus folks moved from LJ and SLT is kind of a subset of CFUD players.)

--
* Hence 'fourth-wall'.
** Though part of that was that I have problems writing for Lafiel when she's not in space, and I didn't do enough work to get her out of the military officer stranded on an alien world mindset. I didn't have nearly as many problems with Harry Dresden, or when there was only Zelgadis and Xellos from Slayers.

So, I once explained how I view characters when writing fanfiction -- that when I read a source, I'd create projections of the characters and setting in my brain as I read, and use copies of those to write fanfiction.

Now, here's my problem. I do this with my own characters as well. So I can have three or four versions all floating around -- same background, but different events. Or... let me use a character as an example.

I played Zack in a tabletop game (0). After that, I moved him to an online cross-over game with a couple of friends (1). Several years later, a friend from the tabletop game and I started playing one-on-one online, and we revived our tabletop characters from Zack's game (2). I also created another version of him in a different universe for another private game (3).

So that's three characters -- four if I split Zack-0 from either possible continuation of him. All have the same name and backstory, but have become different versions of the same person. It doesn't bother me -- I can keep them straight. What gets troublesome is when I do things like MAX, where I give people my character bios and ask them to draw things for me. Now, for a portrait or some things, the version doesn't matter. Others... like character interaction pieces, it does matter.

Worst case comes when the versions have differences in design.

So, a way to communicate this clearly to people. Besides the old fandom standby of X!(Name).

(This does remind me I promised our RP crowd over on the_nexus_rpg a wiki, just to keep track of the regular characters. The question would be to host it on my own site, or use a commercial wiki host.)

(I need a gaming icon, besides my default.)

So, I finally preordered my copy of the Dresden Files RPG Sourcebook. Or books, since it ended up coming out as two, rather hefty, books. (Seriously, I probably got about the same size as my D&D 4th edition boxset -- and I might have to throw in my Eberron or FR Players' Guide -- and costs more.) The books themselves aren't out yet, but pre-orders get a special preview PDF that contains all of the content (minus a special story by Jim Butcher, and probably editing/layout.art stuff that's still being worked on). (Evil Hat, the company that does this, normally offers a deal where if you buy their books in print, you get the PDF for free, which I appreciate.)

( Probably should cut this )

I'm hoping this is just hormones, but I've felt on the edge of tears for the last couple of days. It's about the right time of month to be PMS, and that combined with the effing cold weather is not a happy combination. I need to dig out my DDR pad and get some exercise in.

It also killed my urge to write, which is a shame since I just got a reasonably long fic idea for 31_days -- if I finish it, I'll have to post it on Amnesty Day at the end of the month. Also killed my urge to roleplay, so if people wonder where my replies are, that's it.

That and my shoulder is starting to hurt again, which worries me since I stopped PT last week when it stopped hurting. It seems to me that when tendon pain stops, it's a good sign that stuff has healed. To have it start up again makes me think there might be deeper problems. I'll start doing the exercises my therapist assigned me again, and hope that helps bring the pain down.

I beat Twilight Princess yesterday. Oddly enough, the first stage of the boss (read: playing tennis with energy balls and swords -- that's got to be the most annoying boss tactic ever) took forever compared to the rest of the fight -- I used all the field health-refills and two Blue Potions, and didn't resort to my Bottled Fairies in the rest of the fight.

Also, Midna is awesomesauce, but you knew that.

( Babble About Zelda )

So, I got the Spirit of the Century RPG book, which uses the FATE system. (Interesting, and I might do a post on things like it that get away from some of the 'things we think we know about tabletop games'). Anyway, SotC models 'pulp' action stories -- weird science, a bit of mysticism, and a lot of action. One thing of note is that it has three combat skills -- Fists (Unarmed), (Melee/Thrown) Weapons and Guns (also used for bows and other ranged weapons). The game writer notes that all three have their advantages -- fists can't be taken away, melee weapons can be thrown or have extended reach, and guns have great range. They also have their disadvantages -- fists are limited range, guns and weapons can be taken away, and Guns cannot be used as a defensive skill. But things like damage are set by the skill roles, not by the weapon. Which works for settings where swords really do beat guns if you are awesome enough. (There are optional rules online for making Guns more deadly. You can also take stunts to make a character more of a bad-ass martial artist/brawler/weaponsmaster/gun bunny/etc. or to give them Future!Tech or a Legendary weapon or whatever, but again, those are character-specific things)

Which got me thinking about adapting SotC to handle a higher-magic setting than the default one -- Evil Hat has the rights to the Dresden Files RPG, and there are fanmade magic systems. Which got me thinking about the fantasy worlds I favor, like Avatar or Slayers, where the non-magic cast are just as bad-ass as the magic cast. Some of it in Slayers is that Gourry carried a magic sword, but against 'normal' opponents, he didn't especially need it -- the magic mostly seems to counter creatures not harmed by physical weaponry. (TRY did a bad job of handling this, but Revolution showed this well. Even when Gourry is captured, and his normal sword is removed, it took him only one 'grab for sword he didn't have' to get into 'defend Lina though unarmed stuff' and only ran into problems when a deadly swordswoman and magic-using assassin showed up. For that matter, he was able to hold his own in a swordfight against a foe with superior armor with an improvised weapon Lina made for him out of stone.) And in Avatar, characters like Mai, Ty Lee, Sokka and Suki (or, for that matter, Pian Dao) are all shown to lend their own skills to fights and hold their own against normal opponents, even benders.)

It's not quite about power, unless you consider different types of power. Pretty much, the old Justice League debate. Characters like Superman has a lot of innate superpowers. Batman has a lot of resources and contacts, and is at the high end of human ability in both smarts and brawn -- all of it is 'mundane', just exceptional -- so he can use planning plus 'stuff' to hold his own in an organization of Supers. One doesn't feel like Batman is a token member of any group of Supers he's in, or exists only to fund the group -- he gets his chances to be awesome, even if he can't punch through safes or fly.

I guess it's a fondness for a world where magic is Cool, but there are many ways to be Cool. You can be an amazing swordsman, or a deadly knife-thrower, or a martial artist able to disable with a single blow.

(For that matter, one of the Dresden File RPG development blog posts points out that Murphy might be a normal mortal, but she's got her own resources and skills that make her just as important to the plot as, say, Michael (a holy knight) or Molly (an apprentice wizard) or Thomas (an incubus) or the Alphas (weres).)

I forgot the best part of summer -- that I can walk everywhere. No more am I limited to the bus system or rides from friends for my means of transport -- well, more likely, I'll take the bus then walk.

But, anyway, yesterday Dave was having a barbecue for Zach, a friend of ours doing a postdoc in Canada, but back in town for this weekend. Dave doesn't live on a bus route (that I know of), but I was able to catch the bus to campus, then walk to his place -- discovering Google Maps now has a walking route feature. Downside was I stayed so late that I ended up both missing anime club and sunset, meaning I had to bum a ride off of another person to get home.

But, the party was fun -- we had hamburgers and played Rock Band and board games. Dave also said he would restart the D&D game we had last summer, but the problem was that last time we were playing a pre-generated adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell). The next adventure in the series is Thunderspire Labyrinth, but Dave thought it was a bit boring in its combat -- he said 'drugar* and more drugar'. So he wants to write up something original and interesting, except work is killing him dead. I wonder if I should offer to run something so he can sit at the other side of the screen for a bit. I'm not that innovative in combat, though.

* What Drow are to Elves, Drugar are to Dwarves. Except they get less flavor text, because they aren't Pretty.

I'm regretting walking today, as man am I sore. I guess I need to start walking to work again, to get back into shape -- it's about a half hour walk, with some mild hills. Yesterday, I had to head down the slope from the University to downtown-level (about 200 feet vertically, IIRC -- it used to be the shore of a lakefront). If I had walked back, I would have probably headed south to downtown for the bus, rather than climbing the hill to west campus (and another hill to central campus for Anime Club). Every map of Ithaca should include contours in my opinion.

And today is my cleaning day. *Sigh*

I got some writing done this week, but not much -- about 300 words on the Firefly story, which is shaping up to be The Women of Firefly Do Stuff*. What I need to do is edit, but I've been feeling blah.

* Okay, I think Inara isn't in it, but it's looking like this is going to be Zoe, River and Kaylee's adventure, post BDM.

Other than that, the diet maintains, though my attempts to exercise were thwarted by the fact that I can find every CD, DVD, Playstation and Game Cube disk that I own except for the Dance Dance Revolution one.

My internet connection is also flaky, in that I cannot stay logged into an Instant Messenger for more than five minutes.

I continue to play games, except my rate of progression has slowed to a crawl as it takes me five attempts to beat any given boss. Currently I'm in the Dwarf Kingdom in FFIV and trying to smack Golbez. Even though I know the moron will just run off instead of letting me dead, if I know anything about game bosses. I could switch back to Chrono Trigger and the pre-Lavos sidequests, I suppose.

I got The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass for Christmas. Surprisingly, I do not suck as badly as I normally do at Zelda games (I love them, but boy do I stink at them.) I think it's because I can play this one with just the stylus, so I don't even have to flail about with buttons.

I have still fallen into lava, got burned in the fire temple and drowned a couple of times. (What the heck? Can't Link swim?)

Also have Chrono Trigger, but I'm taking a break, since Magus kicked my ass.