Its been a while since I've been to an actual gaming store. The irony is that when we relocated, a Comic Book/Game store was right down the road, and owned by friends of ours no less. It was one of the things that had me so excited about our new location. Sadly, events played out that lead to that store closing and they tried to give it another go at a new (and equally close) location but that went belly up also. So basically, I've been reduced to whatever gaming resources I can find at Barnes & Noble and downloading pdfs online.
Last Wednesday, we found a Games Workshop location about ten minutes away from where we live. After some interesting escapades trying to pin down the exact location - because apparently building addresses on major roads no longer adhere to logic - we got a chance to look around and shop. I picked up two new miniatures while talking to the owner of the store, who was quite nice and genuinely seemed to enjoy the conversation. Needless to say, I saw a lot of things there I would have liked to be able to take home and hopefully some of them will be in amongst Christmas gifts.
This all leads me to my main point of topic though; painting. I'm trying to get back into it, since its been quite a while since I last painted a miniature. The Games Workshop location is scheduled to have a painting contest this coming Saturday, September 29 and I'm toying with entering it. The projects I chose are - hopefully - within my level of skill to complete to the imagery I have in mind. I plan on taking some photos of them, as well as snapping a few shots of the other models entered into the contest. Here's hoping I'm not overreaching here.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Let the Games commence!
You wait your whole life for a single moment and then suddenly it's tomorrow.
That's an appropriate quote for this evening. Allow me to explain:
It starts on Sunday, which is the day I make my usual call to my parents just to catch up. After a few minutes, the topic of conversation turned to whether or not we were still having our "big Monday game" as its come to be known. This was somewhat of a surprise, since initially my mother was against the idea of role playing games completely. Eventually, that difference was resolved and now I think she's genuinely impressed by the fact that a game can draw upwards of 30 interested players. To be fair, it impresses me too.
As we were talking, I began to illuminate how running a LARP is a rather interesting "job". People who've never done one before usually assume that its no different than running a tabletop role playing game, but that's not the case. Running a LARP is a combination of the following:
- Being a Storyteller (or Game Master depending on the system).
- Being a book keeper since player characters need to be tracked for a variety of reasons.
- Being a stage manager, since you're responsible for most of the essential "background" stuff like non-player characters and setting.
- Being a mediator, since sometimes disagreements happen.
- Being a "chaperone" since game is such a creative medium that sometimes you need someone there to set boundaries.
- And last, but certainly not least, having creativity and patience. More on these below.
We took a while away from the weekly chronicles due to a schism within the troupe itself. Initially, I was somewhat depressed by this but in hindsight its given me a chance to recharge both my creativity and my patience when it comes to dealing with people in a gaming environment. To give you an idea, at the start of the previous game, the first one after the schism, I really had no idea for plots and non-player characters. I was as tapped out of creativity as I've ever been. Also, the events surrounding the schism and the fall out afterwards left me with little patience for dealing with people, meaning that I was less than forgiving/lenient when it came to things related to game.
A friend (and the person I'll be running the game with) approached me in March of this year with an idea for a game. At that point, I told him I'd be happy to offer feedback and ideas but I was still feeling the pressure of a waning game so I was doubtful that I'd be able to help run it or even want to. Once that previous game went under, I gave more of my time to the idea of the new chronicle and we started making a lot of headway. One of the best decisions we made was to set a starting date several months into the future so that we had plenty of time to develop the setting, plots and non-player characters. It gave us the opportunity to really explore a lot of territory and it gave me, in particular, time to recharge. I started having little creative sparks occasionally, which changed into full blown ideas and concepts. Once more, I was experiencing the joy of helping create a game.
Fast forward to tonight, Tuesday July 31st. Our biggest obstacle was a place to hold the game but we're heading down to ECC (Elgin Community College) tonight to pitch the chronicle to the gaming club there. While this chronicle has been in its planning phase, word has got out and there's already a lot of interest and enthusiasm from prospective players. Enough that, presuming everything goes well with the "sale pitch" we're looking at down a Q and A sessions and character creation tonight (for those people who attend). Since its somewhat spur of the moment, I expect that we won't get the attendance we've been expecting, but word of mouth will spread quickly.
Now I return to my starting quote:
You wait your whole life for a single moment and then suddenly it's tomorrow.Game beckons once more.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Gaming and the World of Darkness
I started gaming when I was 13 years old, and to give you some frame of reference, I just celebrated my 34th birthday recently. At first it was pretty standard stuff; Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Marvel Superheroes. In 1994, when I was 16 years old, I was introduced to a game called Vampire the Masquerade. The idea of being able to portray, through a role playing game, a mythological monster such as a vampire or a werewolf was a novel and intriguing one to me. Until that time, such things had been consigned to the list of enemies my characters might fight and best. What made it even more appealing (to myself and many others) was that the setting of the games, the backdrop if you will, was the modern world. These characters would stalk larger than life not through some fantastical and mythological world but on the streets of cities we all knew. What we saw outside our windows or on television during the news was the World of Darkness; granted it was a darker, more gothic version but all the elements were there.
So tonight, I downloaded a supplemental book in preparation for helping to run another chronicle. Since my teenage years, my gaming has undergone a number of changes. None have been as integral as my reemergence into the Mind's Eye Theater (or MET for short), which is the Live Action version of the World of Darkness. For those unfamiliar with this concept, a variety of games have made the transition from your standard forum of players around a table with character sheets, dice and pencils (known as tabletop) to Live Action Role Playing (or LARP for short). Most people have seen some of the videos posted around the internet of various versions of live action games and all I can tell you is this; no matter how goofy they might seem watching them on your monitor, most are a lot more engaging and fulfilling than you might realize. Like their table top counterparts, they promote imagination and socialization; only now its to a different degree. Settings are no longer the landscape of imagination only, but are often treated like sets in a play. People are encouraged to dress and act like their characters, much as an actor portraying a character in a film or play. While the dialogue is all impromptu, its usually very reminiscent of dialogue you'll find in any script or screen play. Taking away the aspect of rolling dice for everything and relegating most action to narrative description and off-stage events changes the focus though; you learn to react in a purely social environment and this can be an amazing experience.
I realize I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but some explanation was needed. To get back to my thoughts, as I was reading this book I made what I believe is a rather inspirational insight; these games, and in particular those published for the World of Darkness, encourage healthy catharsis and the acceptance of the duality of human nature. One has only to look through our history to find bastions of humanity and goodness as well as agents of darkness and pain. What unifies all of these figures is that they made a choice at one point of another. For humanitarian figures it was the desire to suppress and distance themselves from all the pain, anger and violence within and carry a message of love, acceptance and understanding to the world. The others, whom we (rightly) name as monsters often chose their darker paths out of a desire to preserve some goodness or light. In both cases, the defining characteristic is that each individual realized the capacity for both within themselves. How many dictators and tyrants started out only seeking to preserve civilization, order and social tenets, but wound up going astray? By that same token, how many paragons of light began by only wishing to separate themselves from that within that they deemed dark, evil or wrong?
Our love for humanitarians (of any name, be it saint or teacher or what have you) and our dislike of those we deem "bad" or "evil" would seem to suggest that our history would be very different. Yet we can read accounts of both readily and easily. Dictators and killers have biographies on shelves not far from saints and guardians. Its all there for us to read. There are likely a variety of reasons, and many of them could be discussed at length. Really though, doesn't it all boil down to the same thing? The realization and acceptance that we have the capacity to be both within us. We make a conscious choice, each day, but that doesn't erase the existence of our duality. If it did, we wouldn't be plagued by negative thoughts like frustration over traffic, anxiety about money or anger at the noisy kids outside. That we choose to embrace out better natures does not absolve us of our darker legacy.
Games in the World of Darkness provide something few others can; a chance to experience a catharsis of those darker aspects in a safe, controlled environment. I'm sure a lot of people could argue that no such experience exists and that any indulgence of those things is "bad". For myself, I choose to see it as something that's as natural as breathing or sleeping. I realize the duality of my existence, and the catharsis of those darker emotions does not somehow invalidate my choice to be a decent person. If anything, it helps to accentuate and underscore that choice by showing me what a world in which that darkness is either embraced by all or ignored until it comes crashing through the door would be like. It allows me to vent frustrations, anger, even jealousy in an environment where they can do no harm to anyone, not even me. We were all told while we were growing up that bottling up emotions is never a good thing, and for the darker emotions this is doubly true. However, how many things in life offer you a chance to rid yourself of this kind of baggage safely? I honestly can't think of many.
So tonight, I downloaded a supplemental book in preparation for helping to run another chronicle. Since my teenage years, my gaming has undergone a number of changes. None have been as integral as my reemergence into the Mind's Eye Theater (or MET for short), which is the Live Action version of the World of Darkness. For those unfamiliar with this concept, a variety of games have made the transition from your standard forum of players around a table with character sheets, dice and pencils (known as tabletop) to Live Action Role Playing (or LARP for short). Most people have seen some of the videos posted around the internet of various versions of live action games and all I can tell you is this; no matter how goofy they might seem watching them on your monitor, most are a lot more engaging and fulfilling than you might realize. Like their table top counterparts, they promote imagination and socialization; only now its to a different degree. Settings are no longer the landscape of imagination only, but are often treated like sets in a play. People are encouraged to dress and act like their characters, much as an actor portraying a character in a film or play. While the dialogue is all impromptu, its usually very reminiscent of dialogue you'll find in any script or screen play. Taking away the aspect of rolling dice for everything and relegating most action to narrative description and off-stage events changes the focus though; you learn to react in a purely social environment and this can be an amazing experience.
I realize I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but some explanation was needed. To get back to my thoughts, as I was reading this book I made what I believe is a rather inspirational insight; these games, and in particular those published for the World of Darkness, encourage healthy catharsis and the acceptance of the duality of human nature. One has only to look through our history to find bastions of humanity and goodness as well as agents of darkness and pain. What unifies all of these figures is that they made a choice at one point of another. For humanitarian figures it was the desire to suppress and distance themselves from all the pain, anger and violence within and carry a message of love, acceptance and understanding to the world. The others, whom we (rightly) name as monsters often chose their darker paths out of a desire to preserve some goodness or light. In both cases, the defining characteristic is that each individual realized the capacity for both within themselves. How many dictators and tyrants started out only seeking to preserve civilization, order and social tenets, but wound up going astray? By that same token, how many paragons of light began by only wishing to separate themselves from that within that they deemed dark, evil or wrong?
Our love for humanitarians (of any name, be it saint or teacher or what have you) and our dislike of those we deem "bad" or "evil" would seem to suggest that our history would be very different. Yet we can read accounts of both readily and easily. Dictators and killers have biographies on shelves not far from saints and guardians. Its all there for us to read. There are likely a variety of reasons, and many of them could be discussed at length. Really though, doesn't it all boil down to the same thing? The realization and acceptance that we have the capacity to be both within us. We make a conscious choice, each day, but that doesn't erase the existence of our duality. If it did, we wouldn't be plagued by negative thoughts like frustration over traffic, anxiety about money or anger at the noisy kids outside. That we choose to embrace out better natures does not absolve us of our darker legacy.
Games in the World of Darkness provide something few others can; a chance to experience a catharsis of those darker aspects in a safe, controlled environment. I'm sure a lot of people could argue that no such experience exists and that any indulgence of those things is "bad". For myself, I choose to see it as something that's as natural as breathing or sleeping. I realize the duality of my existence, and the catharsis of those darker emotions does not somehow invalidate my choice to be a decent person. If anything, it helps to accentuate and underscore that choice by showing me what a world in which that darkness is either embraced by all or ignored until it comes crashing through the door would be like. It allows me to vent frustrations, anger, even jealousy in an environment where they can do no harm to anyone, not even me. We were all told while we were growing up that bottling up emotions is never a good thing, and for the darker emotions this is doubly true. However, how many things in life offer you a chance to rid yourself of this kind of baggage safely? I honestly can't think of many.
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