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So, yeah, two big days. And I need to finish some more moving soon, so let's see how quickly I can tell you all about this.
When I got home from work, I started preparing for Nobilis. I can say very soundly that this is the strange RPG I've ever seen. This is enhanced by having one of the strangest GMs ever. Here's how one mission was introduced by the GM, through an NPC:
Vona exclaims, "clearly what this place needs is a giant!"
And that was pretty much it. Off the PCs went to find a giant.
So at 10:30, I settled down with my demigod, created a new character on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ifmud and got ready to play.
There's another group playing a separate, but related game. They've been playing for a bit longer than we have. My group is just getting started, so it was a bit rocky. The first hour was spent with some final mechanic bits. We had to create an idea for our "chancel," our small mystical kingdom where we live and have lots of crazy powers. Then we had to create our "imperator" the more powerful being that created all of us.
This turned out to be very hard, for two reasons. One, there were several very different players with very different characters trying to come to an agreement. Two, none of them had a larger idea of what to be creating. For example, we had all decided that our imperator should have a handicap, but none of us could think of a good one. Finally we asked the GM for help, and he suggested that the handicap should be something related to the imperator's personality. Suddenly, the problem became clear: none of us had any idea what that personality was. When the GM gave us a suggestion, it was immediately accepted. The lesson I think can be learned here is that the GM should take a more active role in chancel and imperator creation, especially when creative deadlocks start to happen. The GM has a better idea of what the imperator or chancel may need to be for the game, while the characters are kind of lost on those issues.
When the game finally started, we got our first assignment. Locate a sunken ship off the coast of Florida and replace a map without being noticed. I'd say we got off to a rocky start, arguing about how to find the ship, how to get there, how to approach it, but as the game continued, we started getting into the swing of working as a team. The strange thing about having PCs with near godlike powers is that the GM can just set up really difficult tasks and wait for the PCs to come up with a way to solve them. For example, in order to sneak into a room, one of the characters changed into a beam of light and bounced into the window.
I have high hopes for the next session. We've located the ship and now only need to get down to the ocean floor. And locate a locked safe. And open it. Then get it closed again. And make it look like nobody's been there. Ah, the difficult lives of the gods.
Transcripts are available, if you feel like reliving our exploits.
If you read the Nobilis transcripts, you'll notice I left early, that was to get things coordinated for furniture moving. My uncle is getting married this weekend, and since his betrothed generally has the nicer stuff, he's getting rid of a bunch of his things. Since I'm going to be furnishing my own apartment in the near future, I thought I'd grab a bunch of his stuff before it went away to charity and keep it in storage until I can use it.
The plans had been made. I had storage space reserved. I had a U-haul reserved. I had my dad and my friend, D, and his brother coming to help move things. Everything was set to go. Then I called U-haul.
See, I had made my U-haul reservation online. When I did, they I had said that I was moving in the city of Los Angeles. But the Los Angeles U-haul dispatching center is different from the San Fernando Valley Uhaul dispatching center. When the LA people called me to find out where I should pick up my truck, they found out that I was in the Valley. "OK, someone should call you back in a little bit." That was the sound of my reservation supposedly being transferred to the Valley center. Supposedly.
So at one p.m., still unclear where I could get a truck, I called up the Uhaul number I'd been given when I made my reservation. They didn't have it. But they saw that I'd been transferred to the Valley office. "Call them." I did. At the Valley office, they said that they didn't have my reservation either. The LA office had it. Not only that, but there were no available trucks anywhere in the Valley until 4:30.
Now, I had to get the stuff moved into the storage place by seven p.m. Four thirty was not going to cut it. Sensing an angry customer with a valid reservation that had been screwed up, the operator tried desperately to find a truck. She called every place she could think of, even the centers that she knew from earlier calls didn't have any available trucks. It's a good thing she did, since one office got a truck, exactly the size I needed, returned early and had it available. I was off.
Dad went to my uncle's place, while I grabbed the truck and picked up D. When we got to the west side, my father was watching tv and relaxing. Shortly afterward, D's brother showed up to help. It was two thirty. We were back on track.
I had been worried about whether or not everything would fit, but the gods of disassembleable furniture smiled on us. The queen size bed turned out to be a minuscule frame holding a box spring and a mattress, and the dining room table had legs that soon yielded themselves to the might of D's tools. Everything turned out to be relatively light as well, and the work went by casually and easily. Once the furniture was packed into the truck, we got to ransack the house for odds and ends. I got a fantastic dinnerware set and a large silverware set to boot. I also got some towels and a matching set of linens, pillows and comforter to put on the bed. And a Barry Manilow LP. No, there was no good reason.
We were complete a little after five. My dad and D's brother went home, and D and I drove the U-haul back over the hill to the storage place. Once there, my reservation seemed to have been lost again, but thankfully, the space was still available and for the same price as I had arranged it. All was good. And the 5'x12' space held everything admirable, with some room to spare. (I'm going to leave in a moment to drop off some of the boxes of books I've been keeping here.)
It was too late by then to return the U-haul, so I drove D back to his car in the U-haul. We stopped in to say hi to his sister, then got some food at In-N-Out. After eating, he shuttled me back to the truck, and I drove home.
Once home I put in the Recorded version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I saw it at D's place and had heard from many people that the performance of Jim Dale is fantastic. It was the first one that I saw, so I picked it up. (D collects electronic media of all sorts rather compulsively, so I borrow something almost every time I visit.)
So far, I'm enjoying it. It's interesting how British it is. Obviously, the books have always been set in England, but, especially during this first few chapters which are character studies of two families, Dale's performance brings out certain perspectives on the Dursleys and the Weasleys that are very different from the American assumption of those same dynamics.
Of course, there are other things that are a joy to read. The amount of relish that Dale puts into merely reading Harry's reading list is incredible and hilarious.
The next morning, I got ready to return the Uhaul, I realized that I didn't have my driver's license with me. I had taken it out of my wallet when I signed in for my storage space, I knew I'd left it either there or in D's car. I left a message D asking if he'd seen it in his car, and returned the truck. When I got home, I went to sleep for a bit longer. Upon awakening, I had a phone call from the Storage place letting me know that they'd found my license. I drove over and picked it up and felt complete again.
After getting my license, I realized that I was in Sherman Oaks at about four p.m. So I thought, "Hey! I'll go see a movie!" All that was playing at the Galleria that I wanted to see was Lilo and Stitch. I had some time to kill, so I stopped by Tower Records and bought some Tom Lehrer cds.
The movie was great. The character design was surprisingly realistic, and the emotions were more grounded than any other Disney movie I can think of.
It's pretty clear from the
In her very first scene, Lilo, our heroine, launches a vicious and unprovoked attack on one of the girls in her dance class. It was shocking to see it in a Disney movie, to see a hero who was so troubled, even if troubled in a cute Disney way.
I have a cousin who sees the world in a similarly jaundiced way as Lilo, and school has been trying for him. He was practically thrown out of his school, something for which the teacher later apologized. It turned out that my cousin wasn't as much of a hellion as any of the other students in his class, he was just very inept at avoiding blame, something that his classmates took great advantage of.
The plot was somewhat awkward, but I already cared so much about the Lilo that it didn't matter. Every word that came out of her mouth was real.
After the movie, I walked (yep, walked) over to my aunt and uncle's to look at the garage that will soon be the spiffy new place which will hold all of the furniture. I got to talk to my uncle, this time, and he said he plans to be done on August 1st. My aunt and I both think this is likely to be an optimistic estimate.
Right now, they're waiting to finalize a plumber to lay pipes for the bathroom and kitchen. (I did get a chance to look at what will soon be my toilet. Eventually, it will not be in the middle of the driveway.) They want to get started on that by the end of the week. The rest of the work is mostly taking walls down and putting them back up, which shouldn't take my uncle and his friends all that long. After that, there're cosmetic issues. At some point, I need to tell him what colors to paint the walls, and he needs to redo the landscaping in the backyard. But we've agreed that by August 15th, I will, at the very least, be able to move my furniture, etc. into the house, even if it's still too loud to sleep there during the day.
It looks so very cool.
So now I've got to load up my Dad's jeep with boxes and boxes of books and assorted other stuffs. Then I need to sleep. Mmm... Sleep.
When I got home from work, I started preparing for Nobilis. I can say very soundly that this is the strange RPG I've ever seen. This is enhanced by having one of the strangest GMs ever. Here's how one mission was introduced by the GM, through an NPC:
Vona exclaims, "clearly what this place needs is a giant!"
And that was pretty much it. Off the PCs went to find a giant.
So at 10:30, I settled down with my demigod, created a new character on
ifmud and got ready to play.There's another group playing a separate, but related game. They've been playing for a bit longer than we have. My group is just getting started, so it was a bit rocky. The first hour was spent with some final mechanic bits. We had to create an idea for our "chancel," our small mystical kingdom where we live and have lots of crazy powers. Then we had to create our "imperator" the more powerful being that created all of us.
This turned out to be very hard, for two reasons. One, there were several very different players with very different characters trying to come to an agreement. Two, none of them had a larger idea of what to be creating. For example, we had all decided that our imperator should have a handicap, but none of us could think of a good one. Finally we asked the GM for help, and he suggested that the handicap should be something related to the imperator's personality. Suddenly, the problem became clear: none of us had any idea what that personality was. When the GM gave us a suggestion, it was immediately accepted. The lesson I think can be learned here is that the GM should take a more active role in chancel and imperator creation, especially when creative deadlocks start to happen. The GM has a better idea of what the imperator or chancel may need to be for the game, while the characters are kind of lost on those issues.
When the game finally started, we got our first assignment. Locate a sunken ship off the coast of Florida and replace a map without being noticed. I'd say we got off to a rocky start, arguing about how to find the ship, how to get there, how to approach it, but as the game continued, we started getting into the swing of working as a team. The strange thing about having PCs with near godlike powers is that the GM can just set up really difficult tasks and wait for the PCs to come up with a way to solve them. For example, in order to sneak into a room, one of the characters changed into a beam of light and bounced into the window.
I have high hopes for the next session. We've located the ship and now only need to get down to the ocean floor. And locate a locked safe. And open it. Then get it closed again. And make it look like nobody's been there. Ah, the difficult lives of the gods.
Transcripts are available, if you feel like reliving our exploits.
If you read the Nobilis transcripts, you'll notice I left early, that was to get things coordinated for furniture moving. My uncle is getting married this weekend, and since his betrothed generally has the nicer stuff, he's getting rid of a bunch of his things. Since I'm going to be furnishing my own apartment in the near future, I thought I'd grab a bunch of his stuff before it went away to charity and keep it in storage until I can use it.
The plans had been made. I had storage space reserved. I had a U-haul reserved. I had my dad and my friend, D, and his brother coming to help move things. Everything was set to go. Then I called U-haul.
See, I had made my U-haul reservation online. When I did, they I had said that I was moving in the city of Los Angeles. But the Los Angeles U-haul dispatching center is different from the San Fernando Valley Uhaul dispatching center. When the LA people called me to find out where I should pick up my truck, they found out that I was in the Valley. "OK, someone should call you back in a little bit." That was the sound of my reservation supposedly being transferred to the Valley center. Supposedly.
So at one p.m., still unclear where I could get a truck, I called up the Uhaul number I'd been given when I made my reservation. They didn't have it. But they saw that I'd been transferred to the Valley office. "Call them." I did. At the Valley office, they said that they didn't have my reservation either. The LA office had it. Not only that, but there were no available trucks anywhere in the Valley until 4:30.
Now, I had to get the stuff moved into the storage place by seven p.m. Four thirty was not going to cut it. Sensing an angry customer with a valid reservation that had been screwed up, the operator tried desperately to find a truck. She called every place she could think of, even the centers that she knew from earlier calls didn't have any available trucks. It's a good thing she did, since one office got a truck, exactly the size I needed, returned early and had it available. I was off.
Dad went to my uncle's place, while I grabbed the truck and picked up D. When we got to the west side, my father was watching tv and relaxing. Shortly afterward, D's brother showed up to help. It was two thirty. We were back on track.
I had been worried about whether or not everything would fit, but the gods of disassembleable furniture smiled on us. The queen size bed turned out to be a minuscule frame holding a box spring and a mattress, and the dining room table had legs that soon yielded themselves to the might of D's tools. Everything turned out to be relatively light as well, and the work went by casually and easily. Once the furniture was packed into the truck, we got to ransack the house for odds and ends. I got a fantastic dinnerware set and a large silverware set to boot. I also got some towels and a matching set of linens, pillows and comforter to put on the bed. And a Barry Manilow LP. No, there was no good reason.
We were complete a little after five. My dad and D's brother went home, and D and I drove the U-haul back over the hill to the storage place. Once there, my reservation seemed to have been lost again, but thankfully, the space was still available and for the same price as I had arranged it. All was good. And the 5'x12' space held everything admirable, with some room to spare. (I'm going to leave in a moment to drop off some of the boxes of books I've been keeping here.)
It was too late by then to return the U-haul, so I drove D back to his car in the U-haul. We stopped in to say hi to his sister, then got some food at In-N-Out. After eating, he shuttled me back to the truck, and I drove home.
Once home I put in the Recorded version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I saw it at D's place and had heard from many people that the performance of Jim Dale is fantastic. It was the first one that I saw, so I picked it up. (D collects electronic media of all sorts rather compulsively, so I borrow something almost every time I visit.)
So far, I'm enjoying it. It's interesting how British it is. Obviously, the books have always been set in England, but, especially during this first few chapters which are character studies of two families, Dale's performance brings out certain perspectives on the Dursleys and the Weasleys that are very different from the American assumption of those same dynamics.
Of course, there are other things that are a joy to read. The amount of relish that Dale puts into merely reading Harry's reading list is incredible and hilarious.
The next morning, I got ready to return the Uhaul, I realized that I didn't have my driver's license with me. I had taken it out of my wallet when I signed in for my storage space, I knew I'd left it either there or in D's car. I left a message D asking if he'd seen it in his car, and returned the truck. When I got home, I went to sleep for a bit longer. Upon awakening, I had a phone call from the Storage place letting me know that they'd found my license. I drove over and picked it up and felt complete again.
After getting my license, I realized that I was in Sherman Oaks at about four p.m. So I thought, "Hey! I'll go see a movie!" All that was playing at the Galleria that I wanted to see was Lilo and Stitch. I had some time to kill, so I stopped by Tower Records and bought some Tom Lehrer cds.
The movie was great. The character design was surprisingly realistic, and the emotions were more grounded than any other Disney movie I can think of.
It's pretty clear from the
In her very first scene, Lilo, our heroine, launches a vicious and unprovoked attack on one of the girls in her dance class. It was shocking to see it in a Disney movie, to see a hero who was so troubled, even if troubled in a cute Disney way.
I have a cousin who sees the world in a similarly jaundiced way as Lilo, and school has been trying for him. He was practically thrown out of his school, something for which the teacher later apologized. It turned out that my cousin wasn't as much of a hellion as any of the other students in his class, he was just very inept at avoiding blame, something that his classmates took great advantage of.
The plot was somewhat awkward, but I already cared so much about the Lilo that it didn't matter. Every word that came out of her mouth was real.
After the movie, I walked (yep, walked) over to my aunt and uncle's to look at the garage that will soon be the spiffy new place which will hold all of the furniture. I got to talk to my uncle, this time, and he said he plans to be done on August 1st. My aunt and I both think this is likely to be an optimistic estimate.
Right now, they're waiting to finalize a plumber to lay pipes for the bathroom and kitchen. (I did get a chance to look at what will soon be my toilet. Eventually, it will not be in the middle of the driveway.) They want to get started on that by the end of the week. The rest of the work is mostly taking walls down and putting them back up, which shouldn't take my uncle and his friends all that long. After that, there're cosmetic issues. At some point, I need to tell him what colors to paint the walls, and he needs to redo the landscaping in the backyard. But we've agreed that by August 15th, I will, at the very least, be able to move my furniture, etc. into the house, even if it's still too loud to sleep there during the day.
It looks so very cool.
So now I've got to load up my Dad's jeep with boxes and boxes of books and assorted other stuffs. Then I need to sleep. Mmm... Sleep.