kingandy | Random update

The weekend was fun. Watched so many movies - Sinbad, Love Actually (as mentioned), Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers Special Extended Edition With Extra Bits In Space Oh My God It's Behind You, then The Specials for like the five hundredth time. Also there was much geek.

LotR:TTTSEE(WEBISOMGIBY) was entertaining; I didn't have much interest in seeing the cinematic release again (seen it twice already), but the new bits were well worth sitting through the old bits again. Plus, during the old bits we were able to heckle and pretend they were all gay. "OMG he wants the ring!" Dirty hobbit-fanciers.

ASH also insisted that he was not gay, despite blatantly lusting after Orlando Bloom. "Ohh, I really don't see how anyone can like Aragorn over Legolas. Just look at him!"

On a related note, I managed to worry

bacony with my drunken ramblings and post-it notes. Suffice to say, it's nothing she (and a lot of other people) don't know about already, I just occasionally get a bit reticent, and reluctant to splatter what are essentially private things all over the intarweb. Sometimes I think I should just tell everyone and be done with it, and then other times I think that it is really nobody's concern but my own.

I've always liked to think that I don't care what other people think of me but this is transparently not so. I get happy when people love me and sad when they do not. Oh well, apparently I am superior, so maybe I should worry less about it.

Did I talk about Orpheus? If I did not, it was good. The main problem with the group so far is that it has been divided into Sleepers (those who project ghosts by going into a cryogenic suspension) and Skimmers (who do it by meditation). We've had to coordinate the five-hour freezing time with having research left to do, with the result that the Sleeper players sit around waiting for their characters to freeze while the Skimmer players run around talking to people and looking things up. Friday's session involved less investigation and more ass-kicking, so we were able to skim over most of that five hours (pun intended). The Skimmers went to the movies instead of getting extra roleplay.

My Orpheus character needs a more efficient way of kicking ass. Currently he's screaming at enemies, which drains his vitality very quickly. Maybe if I had a larger Manipulation+Empathy pool I could explode people more reliably, but as it is I have a small number of dice. The number of vitality spent determines the difficulty number for the target's soak roll so I'm spending vitality like water in order to be sure of damaging them. Ghosts are really hard to kill (damaging them drains vitality, so they just tap Spite and regain vitality until they become a Spectre; then, and only then, can you finally destroy them). So I need a better attack. Or maybe I could be a buff; amping the other team-members' powers is a lot cheaper, though I'm not quite sure how that works yet. Maybe there's a way to use Wail to distract the enemy, too. I know you can make them scared. Hum.

D&D last night was fun too. Half of it was character interaction and then we slipped into full combat mode as we assaulted the city watch tower (for good). Helzig slew three soldiers with one blow using her Cleavage, and I got in a couple of critical hits that killed people with a single arrow (each). I think the difference between us that she can reliably do it again; I have to wait for a natural 20...

Also in the mix was a nice ethical quandary, which we have put to one side while we fight the good fight, but we will have to deal with at some point. Woodrun (my character) would essentially be in favour of a People's Revolution ... except this is actually a coup, with the intention of putting other people in charge. Woodrun does not believe the Clack criminal cartel would be any better for the city than the current leadership; while the nobles may be greedy and selfish, they are at least not cruel. And he believes that people should be free to do as they will without people telling them what to do, which of course includes himself, so he's vaguely against meddling in how the city is run. Besides which he doesn't really understand this city stuff, it's much too complicated. He'd be happier if we all lived in the wilderness, in tune with nature and the seasons etc. Right now, though, so that he doesn't have to think about it, he's concentrating on the fact that people (the current establishment) have been kidnapped, which is wrong, no matter who they are. He wants to rescue them and then let somebody else sort it out.

And apparently this city-wide revolt and bloody coup is only a sub-plot.