So, the last few days I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather… not actually sick, but a bit tired, a bit dizzy and certainly not able to concentrate like I normally am. The usual stuff that doesn’t actually stop you, just makes everything ten times harder to do. Especially things that you have to keep a modicrum of attention on. Today, my drop was very noticible, mostly in gaming unfortunately.
Dungeons & Dragons (tabletop roleplaying) isn’t horribly confusing, but our game does have a lot of characters to remember, along with other world knowledge. I know that I need to read up on the world we’re in again, so that I can remember all of the small world bits (rulers, the name of my characters homeland, ect.), but today it would have been nice to just remember the small things. Like my mission… or what my mission means.
My character is a blunt-as-all-hell earth genasi (re: half human/half elemental). Female, of human stock, but she was raised among the dwarves by her human father. Long story short, she’s a hard woman to please and although she’s confident about her abilities, she is hopeless when people skills are required. Her sense of humor is macabre and can be confusing at times, and people tend to think she’s joking when she not, and serious when she’s joking. All this means that she tends to feel alienated from those around her, and she has serious issues with self-confidence.
Fun character, but last night was horrible. Her mission was to arrest this guy. The official orders were “We need to arrest him and then interrogate him on a few things…”. Okay well, what does he look like? (A half breed dwarf and answer only slightly more precise than saying ‘you know, the elf with the bow’). What are his skills? (We don’t know.) What are we arresting him for? (We need to question him/interrogate him on stuff) When did he arrive in the city? (sometime over the last few months and 3weeks). My character decides that the guys obviously want him brought in for questioning, since they obviously don’t have enough information to arrest him for anything, and they are actually hoping to get him to admit guilt while holding him. For a criminal, 24 hours of questioning is a pain, but easily do-able. Me and my captain find him in disguise but he escapes. Later, the coin I had tossed him to pay for a drink gets dropped at my feet. After work I head to the bar he told me to look for him in, and find him waiting for me. We chat, and the guy is intriguing. Interesting, Intelligent, not afraid of a fight, and seems to find my character attractive. We start talking, and I eventually convince him to turn himself in. Apparently I’m throwing this guy to the wolves, and my captain and sergeant don’t just want info, they want to really throw the book at him.
Now, I’m not going to complain… it’s roleplaying after all, and mis-communications happen in real life all the time. However, now my character is in a quandary. Considering that she finds herself attracted to him, she wouldn’t have convinced him to turn himself in had she realized that they wanted him for more than a 24 hr ‘Where were you the night of the thirteenth?’ line of questioning. I don’t think she’d even consider breaking him out of jail until every other option had been chased. Most likely she would try to convince her bosses on leniency (my character convinced him to turn himself in after all. She was off duty, so she may not be listed as the arresting officer. On the other hand, it looks better on the books if she was, since that explains why she was chasing it on her off-time.). My question is now all motivation. Would she care that much about a guy she just met? Even one who intrigued her? If she does, what level would she go to for him? Would she post bail and tell him to stay hidden while she pulls some strings and gets him out? Could she afford bail, even if she wanted to? How about begging leniency from the courts, bribing the proper officials and then waiting for him to get out and handing him her own club to beat her with? What about allowing him to tie her up and letting him do naughty things to her (hey, it’s been quite a while for the character… she can dream of ‘fun’ punishments, right?) Even if he was forgiving enough to date her afterward (unlikely for a criminal), how far would she be willing to take a ‘fun’ punishment with her self-confidence issues?
This, in a nutshell, is why I love playing role playing games! There is nothing else in the world that allows such a simple situation to be played in, experienced, and the human condition delved into in quite the same way. For example, my life is actually quite boring. The closest thing I’ve ever had to “criminal” boyfriend is the time an ex of mine got pulled in for questioning because he’d been seen with a guy known for petty theft. The idea of her being so shy is also a factor, and since I’m a more outgoing person normally, I have to stop and think about what a shyer person would do in the same situation. It’s an exercise in imaginative situations and character motivations, as well as helping with little things like dialog and character interactions. On the other hand, I do experience the guilt in this sort of situation… I mean, come on. A guy she’s attracted to is in jail because of her!
On the non-gaming front, I do have one bit of news worth talking about. Today I signed up for a literary convention here in Canada happening in October. The SiWC (Surrey International Writers Conference) is a literary convention, and should be a heck of a lot of fun. They didn’t seem to have any interviews available with people who specifically work in the Dark Fantasy genre, but I was able to set up a ten minute meeting with Susan Chang from Tor Books and a 15 minute meeting with CC (Chris) Humphreys to discuss my novel.
CC (Chris) Humphreys writes Dark Historial Fiction and the Blue Pencil event is 15 minutes where he will work with me on defining my promise, fixing up those three pages and working at least a bit on presentation. Speaking with editor Susan Chang will be brilliant as well, giving me the change to pimp my own story, and then to get information on how to improve my pitch, suggestions on who may be interested in my genres and (if she’s interested in my book) showing her my three pages to three chapters of work. It should be awesome and I can’t wait to go.
Happening in October, this literary conference has some incredible courses available, some incredible names as instructors and should really help me improve as a writer. I’d suggest anyone interested in improving as a writer should think about attending! I’ll definately let you all know my other thoughts after I’ve actually gone to it.
What do you guys think? About my game or my trip? Have a similar situation? I’d love to have you share a comment!
