Four Runs

[firstfrost]

Last night's Kids run was one of the most ridiculously silly things I've been in, in a long time. We were captured by a supervillain on Friday, and our school wouldn't be able to rescue us until Monday morning. So we had to stay in the villain's deathtrap for two and a half days, keeping breaking out just long enough that he had to reset it and start the eight-hour countdown again. Over, and over, and over. The poor villain was growing ever more frustrated, and less interested in our role as Bait and more intense about the fact that we were going to DIE DIE DIE... in eight hours. Of course, after about a day of this there were aspects he hadn't originally considered, as we whined that we had to go to the BATHROOM, and we were HUNGRY... so we ended up in a deathtrap with a stolen port-a-potty in it.

The night before that was Comet. Orcs don't scare us now, so we got kinda cocky in the middle. But the Leviathan was definitely scary and creepy (okay, maybe especially so for me, because I find submarines and pool cleaners scary and creepy). Turning the water into blood. Ew.

The night before that was Auria - we're off in Misly trying to kick some religious politics into not being stupid, most likely through the covert application of sharp pointy things. Misly, like the southern City States, is one of the places that we can't just romp around with impunity, and that always gives a different feel to the run. I also find that with Henri (who I mostly thought of as the party leader) having retired, I have to pay more attention. Probably good for me, even if I miss Henri.

Skipping a day for the Vatican meeting, the day before that was the first of the Oath reveries. Basically, we brought in a guest star to torment them for three hours, which he did a great job at. Ironically, the log (essentially just a transcription) is pretty much the Most Boring Log Ever. Now, logs of runs which are mostly combat tend to be pretty dry, but this is the first example of a run that was way over on the non-combat side of the spectrum being even more dry.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Re Oath: I think combat's easier to summarize than talking. "Biff, sock, pow!" translates pretty easily; intellectual or emotional intricacy doesn't summarize, because the power and interest are in the details. The most interesting logs are the ones that are all punchlines and flow of information, because those both have key nuggets of interest and the getting-there can be omitted without lost of comprehensibility. (But I want to see the run log anyway! :) )

Re Kids: I have to admit, my initial response walking out the door was "That's what the world needs: more runs with players-coming-up-with-clever-ideas as their central mechanic!" Actually, that's not true: I didn't think of it as a mechanic until I typed the words just now, but it totally was. The one structural issue with that run that one would want to avoid in the general case is that the goal really was "just hold out until the clock runs out," which can work occasionally, but is a bit low on actions having consequences, or maybe I mean risk, or maybe I mean interaction. It was a game of move and counter move, but...hm, the goal was not to win (by accomplishing something, e.g. escape), it was to not-lose (by preventing the thing that would happen if we took no action).

(It was totally a fun evening's entertainment, I'm not criticizing the run itself, I'm just thinking about how to do that *kind* of run in other contexts, where pure child-goofiness might not be there to carry the evening. :) Though I suppose there's a place in any run for an episode whose structure is "mostly play with whatever the interesting thing about this universe/genre/set of characters is, with some goal motivating the play." (I imagine this week's Oath run about actors shooting the TV show will be a bit like that, actually.)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Combat is easy to summarize, but I find it less interesting to read. "Akito hits the head of the mooks. Jim shoots a couple of mooks. One runs." It's clear, but I don't find it very compelling. Punchlines and information flow is probably a good way to describe the good readable logs, yeah. :)

(The logs for this set will all go up at the end).

[ilhander.livejournal.com]

>(The logs for this set will all go up at the end).

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Well, I could show you *your* log... :)

[desireearmfeldt]

Ah, the bittersweet pain of having been in the first of the reruns. I remember it well. :)