Turmoil in Purgatory
It's quite sad that I couldn't use the original title that came to me here, "Trouble in Paradise". What's even sadder is the reason I couldn't was because I play in a live game called Paradise, and it could get confusing. Leave me alone it's been a long day.
So everything I'm going to talk about is old news already in my circles, but please bear with me as I've been out of the loop.
Firstly, and much less serious is the fact that Purgatory had to be postponed because someone very important to the story couldn't make it. I was completely fine with that, and I quickly realized that there was no way the organizers were going to move the game to the week before. It had been my preference because Shani and I were thinking about heading out for some camping on the fifth of August. Oh well the majority spoke, and I knew the 22nd wasn't at all feasible.
On an unrelated note has anyone noticed as an adult how few weekends there seems to be in summer.
Anyways a few other people voice their concerns about the postponement on the Purgatory forums, and what they said completely crystallized the argument for me. On one hand you have the importance of plot where the game revolves around the story, and the character's place within it. So if someone who is absolutely necessary to the story can't make it to the game you have no game. This is common sense except for the fact that it brings out vividly the negatives of the story driven game. Obviously not everyone can take main stage so some people are going to be the bit players in a game with a lot of people.
Now I realize there is a million factors here especially in a game like Vampire where everyone has different abilities giving them different ways they can affect the story. There's the question of character, of your access to the story, and so on.
The other approach is the game where there is no real story, or one that only lasts for a single game. The players here would be in charge of their own amusement generally, and making their own stories. With this kind of approach no one is indispensible, and you could certainly run a game even with a lot of people missing.
Now that I've babbled I'd have to say that I prefer the story way. To me it's much more familiar to my tabletop roots. Every gamemaster has had to cancel a game at one point or another because a player that the current plot revovled around couldn't make it. Of course with a big live game it must be incredibly difficult to balance this. After all you have dozens of players with a very limited number of sessions to tell all the stories. It really requires people to take joy in watching other people's stories, and even though I like to have my finger in every pie I must say this is a big part of my enjoyment of Purgatory. Of course I hate not knowing everyone's secrets, and I'm dying for the game to end so I can hear what everyone was up to.
The second thing I will discuss very briefly as I really don't want to dredge up bad feelings on this again. A little over a week ago some anonymous person made a blog, and filled it up with personal information about people in my circle. Most of the stuff he had gotten from their blogs, but some of it had to come from other sources. I mustv'e been tired that night, but when I read it it really didn't spark a reaction. I think for a while I even thought that it was a genuine effort at research. Of course it wasn't, and many of my friends reacted negatively as they should have. A few of them contemplated removing their blogs after this invasion of their privacy.
Part of me at the time said; Whats the big deal? These people put their information on the internet already. If they didn't want it there they shouldn't have blogged. I think the big problem though is it how it could affect someone's job. I'm sure everyone has heard stories of people being fired for stuff on their blogs, and it's terrifying to think about how easy it would be for someone at your work to do a search on the company name and have your blog come up with stuff that could be looked at negatively.
The other big thing was the motivation behind this. Why would someone do this? For a joke? To teach everyone a lesson? They had too much time on their hands? I might be a little naive, but I tend to only see the good in people. My thought was that it was maybe a little joke on the people, and the person responsible didn't realize the full implications.
The badness continued though as people naturally talked about their suspicions about who this mysterious person was. Obviously it had to be someone who knew his. This made things worse, and there was from what I hear a small witch hunt for the perpetrator.
It's done now, and over. If there was a lesson there it was definitely learned by the people involved. Like I said earlier I don't want to bring this up again. Just needed to talk this out with myself as I haven't been to Thursday night Boston Pizza in a couple of weeks (possibly a new record for me since the first Purgatory chronicle started). Sadly the odds don't look good for me going tonight either. Not good news as I have a million things to do with all of the assorted games that I play, and I do miss just chatting with the people.
So everything I'm going to talk about is old news already in my circles, but please bear with me as I've been out of the loop.
Firstly, and much less serious is the fact that Purgatory had to be postponed because someone very important to the story couldn't make it. I was completely fine with that, and I quickly realized that there was no way the organizers were going to move the game to the week before. It had been my preference because Shani and I were thinking about heading out for some camping on the fifth of August. Oh well the majority spoke, and I knew the 22nd wasn't at all feasible.
On an unrelated note has anyone noticed as an adult how few weekends there seems to be in summer.
Anyways a few other people voice their concerns about the postponement on the Purgatory forums, and what they said completely crystallized the argument for me. On one hand you have the importance of plot where the game revolves around the story, and the character's place within it. So if someone who is absolutely necessary to the story can't make it to the game you have no game. This is common sense except for the fact that it brings out vividly the negatives of the story driven game. Obviously not everyone can take main stage so some people are going to be the bit players in a game with a lot of people.
Now I realize there is a million factors here especially in a game like Vampire where everyone has different abilities giving them different ways they can affect the story. There's the question of character, of your access to the story, and so on.
The other approach is the game where there is no real story, or one that only lasts for a single game. The players here would be in charge of their own amusement generally, and making their own stories. With this kind of approach no one is indispensible, and you could certainly run a game even with a lot of people missing.
Now that I've babbled I'd have to say that I prefer the story way. To me it's much more familiar to my tabletop roots. Every gamemaster has had to cancel a game at one point or another because a player that the current plot revovled around couldn't make it. Of course with a big live game it must be incredibly difficult to balance this. After all you have dozens of players with a very limited number of sessions to tell all the stories. It really requires people to take joy in watching other people's stories, and even though I like to have my finger in every pie I must say this is a big part of my enjoyment of Purgatory. Of course I hate not knowing everyone's secrets, and I'm dying for the game to end so I can hear what everyone was up to.
The second thing I will discuss very briefly as I really don't want to dredge up bad feelings on this again. A little over a week ago some anonymous person made a blog, and filled it up with personal information about people in my circle. Most of the stuff he had gotten from their blogs, but some of it had to come from other sources. I mustv'e been tired that night, but when I read it it really didn't spark a reaction. I think for a while I even thought that it was a genuine effort at research. Of course it wasn't, and many of my friends reacted negatively as they should have. A few of them contemplated removing their blogs after this invasion of their privacy.
Part of me at the time said; Whats the big deal? These people put their information on the internet already. If they didn't want it there they shouldn't have blogged. I think the big problem though is it how it could affect someone's job. I'm sure everyone has heard stories of people being fired for stuff on their blogs, and it's terrifying to think about how easy it would be for someone at your work to do a search on the company name and have your blog come up with stuff that could be looked at negatively.
The other big thing was the motivation behind this. Why would someone do this? For a joke? To teach everyone a lesson? They had too much time on their hands? I might be a little naive, but I tend to only see the good in people. My thought was that it was maybe a little joke on the people, and the person responsible didn't realize the full implications.
The badness continued though as people naturally talked about their suspicions about who this mysterious person was. Obviously it had to be someone who knew his. This made things worse, and there was from what I hear a small witch hunt for the perpetrator.
It's done now, and over. If there was a lesson there it was definitely learned by the people involved. Like I said earlier I don't want to bring this up again. Just needed to talk this out with myself as I haven't been to Thursday night Boston Pizza in a couple of weeks (possibly a new record for me since the first Purgatory chronicle started). Sadly the odds don't look good for me going tonight either. Not good news as I have a million things to do with all of the assorted games that I play, and I do miss just chatting with the people.
posted by Eman at 12:21 AM
5 Comments:
Sorry to hear that your circle had a bad internet trip. That's the magic (and curse) of the online community - anonymity can be used for good or bad. Though I'm sure you've probably already checked her out, Heather Armstrong (dooce.com) has an excellent blog that resulted in her being fired.
Emmett - I wasn't trying to come down on Purgatory. I was basically just saying that the postponement put ideas in people's heads. I would disagree as I've personally seen the mutability of the story. And of course you couldn't kill Jeremy off.
Shani - I think though that there were a few differences in your situations. You were not playing your own character first of all, and secondly hadn't you moved to Red Deer at the time. Plus your character wasn't completely central.
cty - Thanks for the comment. I have checked out Dooce's blog. What happened to her was very sucky as it hit her no doubt out of left field.
I feel like I should get a lawn chair with a beer and some popcorn. You, Eman are far mor resonable that many when it comes the many issues of Purgatory. IN short, I play because there is no caliber of game otherwise. Yes, I have bitched about plot and man handling, no, it's hasn't altered my fundamental enjoyment of the game and most of all the people are what count and who, ultimatly I game with. Clarisse will RULE THE WORLD!! mwahahahah... *blin* ahem.
So that's who Rodicon is. I thought so.
You say that like its a bad thing... *raised eyebrow* I figured I make enough of a nuisance on everyone's blog that I might as well get a handle
Post a Comment
<< Home