Dammit, I had a topic in mind for today. What was it? Well, I can't seem to remember, so while I'm thinking about it, you get a diet update. I went to Weight Watchers and lost about a pound and a half, which was good, and I got my 25-pound bookmark, which was great. This week is going to be rough, though. Matt's good friend Tristan is getting married this weekend, so Friday night will be the rehearsal dinner (at a very nice restaurant) and the bachelor party (girls allowed - we're going bowling), and Saturday the wedding itself and the reception, and if we're not too tired we might go to a birthday party Saturday night. I'll have to save a lot of points up and build up a lot of willpower before the weekend hits.
Well, since I can't remember the topic I was thinking of when I was brushing my teeth this morning, I'll talk about gaming, because my brain has been completely occupied with writing a history for my latest Werewolf character lately.
My first introduction to gaming was in high school, when I played in an AD&D game (I trust I don't have to spell out that particular acronym for anyone?) for a few months. To be honest, I don't remember anymore what kind of character I played, though I recall quite clearly that my GM's girlfriend played an elf with "Leaf"-something as part of her name. I remember that because it suited her quite well. Some time that year, I wrote a short story about a group of seven people that was loosely based on the personalities of the seven of us in that group. When my GM read it, he liked it so much that he prodded me to expand it to a novel, and even helped me with it. (I'm pretty sure he never got the mapping of people to names exactly right, since he mapped himself onto the character whose name was similar to his.) Ahem. Back on topic.
After that game broke up, I didn't play any more for a while. After I started college, my boyfriend, P., brought me with him to his gaming group. By this time the second edition of AD&D had been released, and I watched for a few games, uncertain of the new rules. But after a while, to keep me from being bored, they gave me an NPC (non-player character - giving her to me turned her into a PC, of course) to play. I consider her to be my first character, since I can't remember the real first one. This was Brighteyes, and she had a history, which I promptly embellished, and I made her my own. Our gaming group rotated a lot, and the current campaign changed on a near-monthly basis. I played a lot of different characters. Most of my favorites had well-thought-out pasts. I still have character sheets and disks of fiction about Brighteyes, Xi'inith, and S'ayad'i. (I was really into apostrophes for a while; I don't know why.)
My senior year at William and Mary, I was introduced to White Wolf's game, Vampire: The Masquerade. I played Gina, a gypsy girl who had been seduced by a vampire. I wrote up her background story, too, and for a while, tried to write the events of the game as a story as well. (That didn't work as well.) I also flirted with a game or two of Shadowrun, but found it entirely too mercenary for my tastes.
The summer after my senior year, K.T. ran a Palladium Heroes game for Matt and me. I played Danielle, who could become insubstantial and invisible and was a crack shot with a rifle. Even after I left Williamsburg to go to grad school, K.T. continued the Heroes game, and Danielle eventually became the often spoken of but seldom seen leader of the rebellion against the game's arch-villian.
There was a long dry spell while I was at graduate school - I only gamed occasionally when I came back to Williamsburg to visit. Then, about the time I was coming back, Colleen started a Vampire game in which I was going to play a street punk vampire whose best friend was a werewolf. (In the White Wolf gaming system, vampires and werewolves are enemies. Because they're both dark games, tragedies like a werewolf's best friend being turned into a vampire play well.) Matt was playing the werewolf. Our imaginations were so caught up by this couple (were they lovers? No, but the potential was there, if only they could get past worrying that it would screw up their friendship. How did they meet? What did they do for fun? What made them such close friends?) that we wrote a story that eventually expanded into enough written material to fill two novels. (And the story was never finished. Matt got stuck, and we haven't worked on it in years.) In fact, the story continued long after the game itself had stopped.
About a year after Matt and I started dating, we got into a new gaming group, playing the old standby AD&D. With breaks to try Champions and Call of Cthulu, that game ran for two years, though none of my characters took me by force.
Recently, we've been playing Alternity with K.T. as the GM, and we're getting ready to switch to a Werewolf game, and my Werewolf character, Crazy Jenny, has really grabbed my imagination.
I think that's why I play. I love it when a character worms her way (I tried playing a male character once, but everyone kept forgetting.) into my brain and won't get out until I put her story down somewhere. I love to wonder what drove this character to a life of adventure; what personality traits led them to the path they chose. And I love the games, because I'm a terribly competitive person (I quit playing Magic: The Gathering card game because I couldn't stand losing, and I was just terrible at it) and role-playing games are cooperative. It's also a fascinating peek into the minds of your fellow players, especially if you play with them over several games. (Though you have to be careful with your interpretations - some are obvious, and some are not. One friend, M., always always always played drop-dead gorgeous characters, and that was pretty easy to explain, because she was a moderately plain-looking person. But another friend always plays thieves, and I don't think it's because she's got a hidden larcenous streak - it's because in most games, if you have a great deal of dexterity and grace, then thievery is what you're good for. And this friend is a klutz. At least, the dexterity and grace thing is why I play so many thieves. That, and the carefree attitude.)
Another side-track. ::grin:: It's easy to do. Anyway, that's gaming in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment