Jan. 9th, 2019 11:16 am
Well-oiled
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muckefuckReally good gaming session last night. We completed the first arc of The Watch, and it ended up being unexpectedly intense. One character died, another was captured, and the remaining two had a major falling out and were on the brink of separating but will have to work together to save the third. I realised shortly before gametime that I was about to roleplay a genderqueer character fighting to save their world from toxic masculinity at precisely the time when one of the most toxic men in power was slated to perform his latest propaganda stunt and that only enhanced the experience.
JB gave me a ride back to my place and on the way I reminded him just what a low ebb we were at a year ago. I'm surprised to look back and see that I didn't complain about it here, but in short the ongoing conflict between me and Jigglypuff came to a head when he was refereeing a game and when I looked to JB for support, he just tore into me. I considered giving up on the group but decided that the weekly meetings were too valuable to my mental health so instead I ended up facilitating a reconciliation.
I also used the insight JB gave me about Jiggly to start manipulating him. He made the point that Jiggly felt very insecure about most areas of his life except sex. I'd been deliberately frustrating his overtures out of a sense of...pride? Pure contrariness? In any case, once I started feigning interest, the whole dynamic changed. His complaints about my pedantry and pettiness don't have the same sting any more and our characters are almost never at odds any more.
The other big improvement has been in Hairy Pixie's playing. He stunned all of us by deciding to play the squad leader in this campaign. Mercifully, the mechanics of the game don't actually require any strategic thinking on the part of the players; that's all dealt with via a few die rolls. The real focus is on role-playing the consequences which makes his terribleness more entertaining than anything. But he's making a real effort to play a coherent character rather than a grab bag of baffling "dramatic" choices, and it's paying off.
There's still too much "pissing on the exposition" (to useprinceofcairo's phrase) and I wish we were less leisurely about getting started given that there's actually a fixed formula for each game session, but I like the character I'm playing and their arc and the world is gradually getting better fleshed-out with play. Big Red seems happy enough (even though he's the one who chose to kill off his character in order to play a new one), though I hope I can eventually follow through on my promise to run something crunchier that's a bit more to both of our tastes.
JB gave me a ride back to my place and on the way I reminded him just what a low ebb we were at a year ago. I'm surprised to look back and see that I didn't complain about it here, but in short the ongoing conflict between me and Jigglypuff came to a head when he was refereeing a game and when I looked to JB for support, he just tore into me. I considered giving up on the group but decided that the weekly meetings were too valuable to my mental health so instead I ended up facilitating a reconciliation.
I also used the insight JB gave me about Jiggly to start manipulating him. He made the point that Jiggly felt very insecure about most areas of his life except sex. I'd been deliberately frustrating his overtures out of a sense of...pride? Pure contrariness? In any case, once I started feigning interest, the whole dynamic changed. His complaints about my pedantry and pettiness don't have the same sting any more and our characters are almost never at odds any more.
The other big improvement has been in Hairy Pixie's playing. He stunned all of us by deciding to play the squad leader in this campaign. Mercifully, the mechanics of the game don't actually require any strategic thinking on the part of the players; that's all dealt with via a few die rolls. The real focus is on role-playing the consequences which makes his terribleness more entertaining than anything. But he's making a real effort to play a coherent character rather than a grab bag of baffling "dramatic" choices, and it's paying off.
There's still too much "pissing on the exposition" (to use
princeofcairo's phrase) and I wish we were less leisurely about getting started given that there's actually a fixed formula for each game session, but I like the character I'm playing and their arc and the world is gradually getting better fleshed-out with play. Big Red seems happy enough (even though he's the one who chose to kill off his character in order to play a new one), though I hope I can eventually follow through on my promise to run something crunchier that's a bit more to both of our tastes.Tags: