saturday, september 15, 2001
tiring

what a day. my loan money finally made a showing and i went through all except $200 of it in 3 hours, maybe a bit longer. considering the amount of money we're talking here, that's just crazy. but bills, school supplies, school books...when you have 6 people in (advanced placement) junior high through college and a summer full of past dues, what can you expect? i am just glad it showed, even if it was two days late. even happier it showed this week and not next, we were bottom barrel on school stuff for most everybody. i mean..people were sharing the last bits of paper here, something that just doesn't work at the moment. my daughter alone is bringing in enough homework to choke a college student!

so i suppose spending over 2 hours looking for what i needed (even if in the same store), and being utterly exhausted when done really set the stage for the day.

i have to go through the early chapters of my first novel once more, which is frustrating as all get out. but my world is clarifying and there are things that need to be noted earlier in the work. world builder i am not, i don't know astronomy, geology or geography, but somehow i have to make those things work for the story. then there's architect. i have been struggling with the redraft of chapter 5..and i finally figured out part of the reason: the architecture of the building they are in is all wrong. basically, these poor characters will end up walking out on thin air two stories up if i am not careful. so now i need to sit down and create a floorplan of some kind to work with. there's no way to advance on this chapter unless i do. and it is aggravating. very aggravating. the good news is that i think i can continue with chapter 5 if i make a reasonable floorplan without fixing the earlier chapters. at least i hope so. i am sure my reviewers are just about as sick of the first 4 chapters as i am.

unfortunately, i couldn't really sit down and figure out the changes that need to be made or even work on the floorplan today. tonight was a game night. it should have been next week, but a couple of people wanted nights switched, i asked and had only one objections, so we played to night and will once again start alternating fridays from here. (tonight being friday night/saturday 2:30 a.m., although we ended at around 11p.m. - far later than we should have.)

but the game aggravated me tonight too. the npc is this pathetic 18-year-old (not that all are mind you, but she is), who every one expects to become a leader when she's never had any experience or training in it. she's been deferring to others for the most part, but tonight i had her get frustrated and 'try' to do what everyone wanted her to do. only..not everyone listened and a fight ensued and she's just about convinced that in no way can she do this leadership thing.

actually, that isn't a major problem.

what is the problem for me is i see this game going a certain way and it just won't happen, particularly with the group composition we currently have. they spend more time fighting than anything. not critters either, each other. we have one particular character who just isn't a team player, he's very individual and very full of himself. and driving most of the group nuts. then we have the easily offended religious knight with the stick up his butt. so, we have one who is fairly easy to offend and another who doesn't listen to anybody. the rest of the group could get along wonderfully and these two would manage to get them all crazy in a heartbeat.

now, i have been a game master for a long time. i know games do not come out the way you imagine them because, well, let's face it..if you could control the characters, why have players? each player, and each character the player has, will add it's own mix into it. whatever a game becomes, it is the creation of the gm and the players together. and the point with all this is this: i should know better than to hold specific ideas on how i want the game to be. it won't happen. period. the best thing for me to do is to let the ideal go and roll with what is happening at the time, even if it is a bunch of argumentativeness.

tonight the npc was being stupid. tonight a player was being stupid. right in the middle of a combative situation. the tanks (er, the big hitters in the group who are the most combat worthy, for those who don't play) took over and won the day. i have a psycho character who is not a party player, a character that may as well not be there at all, and an uptight knight. i definitely won't get the game and the scenarios i imagine for the future of this game with this combination. time to let it all go. let the game be what it's going to be.

i honestly don't know if this will help me step in the right direction or not for the game. but at least i got rid of that damn magic carpet...at last! the gm won at least one round! ;)