Since Wednesday...
Nov. 6th, 2005 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firstfrostWednesday: A Number at the Lyric. Pretty good. The actors were very convincing, though the Cockney accent never quite sounded right to me. I got rather creeped out by the dad as it went on, which made me enjoy it a little less, but that was probably the point, so I can't claim it was a flaw. The writing was interesting - quick choppy back-and-forth (which I've heard before) with a lot of leaving off the ends of sentences (which I don't recall having heard before). The latter amused me a lot, because I talk that way myself.
Thursday: Comet run. We made one foolish mistake (it's the sort of mistake that I often fail to take advantage of as a GM - the bad guys will change their plans if you give them information!), but didn't go too disastrously. An amusing side effect: the party will generally not run home for help in the middle of a run, despite it usually being very easy to do so. However, we will run home for help if hurt badly enough, which then makes us even more powerful than we were to start with. It's an odd balance thing.
Friday: Went to Grill 23 with Errol's birthday mob. Like all high-end steak houses, very tasty but expensive. Beef is one of the things that seems to really vary quality by price - I've had very good fish for not much money, but I've only had very good steak when paying a moderate premium for it. The room was painfully loud, though. I usually write off "can't hear the other end of the table" as an accepted failure mode of restaurants, but "can't hear anyone but the two people across from you" is a bit more pesky. I'd go back, but probably only with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
harrock or a small group.
Saturday: Oath run. People seemed to enjoy "running with the turbs". Failure in mechanic-balancing by me, partially countered by not-very-justifiable rulings by me, but it was a board game, so I don't think anyone minded that part. For the second time in a row, Dr. Kye got to be unduly put upon, which is a new trend (though for the record, he ended up winning the first disagreement through stealth and guile, and lost the second). Still, it's a trend that I worry a little about, since both times, there's been not much willingness by the other side to resolve the disagreement before rolling dice to resolve it. On the other hand, Kye's frequently gone his own way before, sometimes to the detriment of party goals, without talking it over either. Perhaps I worry more now because while the loner cannot really marginalize the rest of the party, the rest of the party can easily marginalize the loner (though the loner can betray the rest of the party, but that's a larger step and not one Kye tries to take). It's a tricky general question of how much you can play with party dissent that is probably too long to fit in the margin of a what-did-I-do-this-week posting.
As a counterexample, Kye was outvoted fair and square when the party decided to madly leap into the "Lost in space!" end condition instead of staying in civilization like we expected. Mostly due totirinian's powers of persuasion. This sort of thing is why scheduling more than a run in advance is so difficult.
Sunday: Saw Chi, a performance by the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, with anilhander mob. Wow. Just wow. I nearly think some of them were cheating and using TK. People can't really hold their entire bodies out sideways at arms' length from a vertical pole, can they? Each act would start out very skilled, and then just ramp up the difficulty. "You're balancing a set of glasses on a plate on a long stick balanced on a short stick that you're holding in your teeth. Give me ten successes on a Dex roll, rolling for sevens." "Okay." "All right, now do it while balancing on one leg and putting the other leg above your head. Roll for tens." "Okay." "Well, now see if you can do it while swinging back and forth on a trapeze. Roll for twelves." "Sure thing." "Um... how about dangling by your ankles from the trapeze? Roll for sixteens." "No problem." "No problem? Really? You got ten sixteens?" "I've got a lot of skill. What else was I going to spend my points on?" Their GM must be so frustrated.
Thursday: Comet run. We made one foolish mistake (it's the sort of mistake that I often fail to take advantage of as a GM - the bad guys will change their plans if you give them information!), but didn't go too disastrously. An amusing side effect: the party will generally not run home for help in the middle of a run, despite it usually being very easy to do so. However, we will run home for help if hurt badly enough, which then makes us even more powerful than we were to start with. It's an odd balance thing.
Friday: Went to Grill 23 with Errol's birthday mob. Like all high-end steak houses, very tasty but expensive. Beef is one of the things that seems to really vary quality by price - I've had very good fish for not much money, but I've only had very good steak when paying a moderate premium for it. The room was painfully loud, though. I usually write off "can't hear the other end of the table" as an accepted failure mode of restaurants, but "can't hear anyone but the two people across from you" is a bit more pesky. I'd go back, but probably only with
harrock or a small group.Saturday: Oath run. People seemed to enjoy "running with the turbs". Failure in mechanic-balancing by me, partially countered by not-very-justifiable rulings by me, but it was a board game, so I don't think anyone minded that part. For the second time in a row, Dr. Kye got to be unduly put upon, which is a new trend (though for the record, he ended up winning the first disagreement through stealth and guile, and lost the second). Still, it's a trend that I worry a little about, since both times, there's been not much willingness by the other side to resolve the disagreement before rolling dice to resolve it. On the other hand, Kye's frequently gone his own way before, sometimes to the detriment of party goals, without talking it over either. Perhaps I worry more now because while the loner cannot really marginalize the rest of the party, the rest of the party can easily marginalize the loner (though the loner can betray the rest of the party, but that's a larger step and not one Kye tries to take). It's a tricky general question of how much you can play with party dissent that is probably too long to fit in the margin of a what-did-I-do-this-week posting.
As a counterexample, Kye was outvoted fair and square when the party decided to madly leap into the "Lost in space!" end condition instead of staying in civilization like we expected. Mostly due to
tirinian's powers of persuasion. This sort of thing is why scheduling more than a run in advance is so difficult.Sunday: Saw Chi, a performance by the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, with an
ilhander mob. Wow. Just wow. I nearly think some of them were cheating and using TK. People can't really hold their entire bodies out sideways at arms' length from a vertical pole, can they? Each act would start out very skilled, and then just ramp up the difficulty. "You're balancing a set of glasses on a plate on a long stick balanced on a short stick that you're holding in your teeth. Give me ten successes on a Dex roll, rolling for sevens." "Okay." "All right, now do it while balancing on one leg and putting the other leg above your head. Roll for tens." "Okay." "Well, now see if you can do it while swinging back and forth on a trapeze. Roll for twelves." "Sure thing." "Um... how about dangling by your ankles from the trapeze? Roll for sixteens." "No problem." "No problem? Really? You got ten sixteens?" "I've got a lot of skill. What else was I going to spend my points on?" Their GM must be so frustrated.
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Date: 2005-11-07 03:47 am (UTC)Ditto.
And I really liked the use of the phrase "a number" in the first scene, I hoped (in vain) it would reappear throughout.