Headspace

…seems to be too hard for many men. Even and especially when they would have something to gain from that understanding. On 18th August, Burgeri helped those who try to understand women in gaming. Somehow I don’t think these guys would get it, even if they read his brilliant entry on the subject, but hoping that at least somebody might here’s a pointer.

Unfortunately, I don’t at the moment have more time to write about the subject, read Burgeri and extrapolate as necessary and plausible. I return to this subject at a later time to pass my wisdon and bore you with my rant.

Janka and Orava both commented something that happened to them recently. Not that I’d like to appear very interblogist, but big, warm congratulations from afar and all the best to your (continued) life together.

We spent the past weekend in Hämeenlinna attending the medieval fair, M organising our part in that (SCA, Humalasalo’s own spot, craft-demos and the worky stuff that needed to be done). I taking care of her, filling in on the ticket-sales when needed and heralding for our dance-performances and tourney (on saturday only, lost my voice and had to find replacements for sunday). Prior to the weekend I really disliked the idea alltogether. The idea of the things to come didn’t feel good and I would have much rather stayed home for some R and R. Good things to look forward was meeting special people, whose company I really appreciate.

The scheduled departure from home was 7.40 saturday-morning, picking up people 8.00 from the Tampere railwaystation. We were late from that, but not too badly. Not so surprising was the thing that I ended up sleeping only 5 hours before leaving, due to my own sleep-cycle. Needless to say this didn’t particularily improve my mood. The saturday was hectic, but… my mood improved and on saturday evening, when we got ourselves to Aurora’s and Mika’s place I felt good. They whipped up a pizza that was gorgeous, showed us Lilo and Stitch which was good and generally treated us to an evening of quiet nice that was just the thing the doctor ordered.

So on sunday it seemed very nice, especially after it came obvious that my voice was gone there were good alternative heralds for both fighting and dance (my thanks to Vesa and Halla for this, note to anyone looking for a good field-herald, pick Vesa he is good). We bought jewelry for both of us (M got herself a nice chain and as an early b-day present irish-love-earrings) I got myself a ren-styled cross.

Looking back to the actual fair after some much needed rest and with an uplifted mood some things came out rather strongly.

1. Our display was better this year
   • Raconzay’s sign was very good
   • Display tables were laid out nicely and we had showy and fitting things for sale
   • Craftshows that Johanna and Tofa did on our display worked extremely well and captured a lot of intrest. It really pays of having the craft-shows with the rest of the display
2. Our little tourney was a darn good one. This yar we had an actual tourney, with lady protector, introductions of the fighters, nicely laid out field… The fights were for the most part (note: I watched through the thing only on saturday) showy and we managed to create some feeling in the audience as well. (For the showiness, extra thanks to Mikael Karhu, the axe thingy really worked). For a minute I pondered if the audience actually knew sir Edmund that big was the cheer when I introduced Thorstein as the said knight’s squire
3. Our dancing shows were truly magnificent. Adrian had managed to herd out ten dancers, who performed courtly dances from all across the Europe from the the courts of England and France through Italy all the way to the far Island of Rhodos. They gathered a lot of audience and obviously were able to suitably impress the gathered commoners. My congratulations go out for them all
4. Besides all the spectacle and showing off, we also had the braves of Humalasalo, who took the most thankless, but no less important (could even say that the most important if I was thinking only financially) task of doing ticket-sales on the northern gate to the castle, which we as a local society had agreed to handle. This is a rather thankless job, but the organisers had finally made it a bit easier by posting permanent security staff on the gate to check tickets. I filled in on couple of shifts and my heart goes out for anyone who did it more.
5. The value of the coffee-tickets granted to us had increased from last year significantly. Now we had the choise of taking coffee/tea/grandi with a sandwich(big and good)/sausage/flapjack with jam, where last year this was coffee/tea with a small pastry or sweetbun(the latter was dried and tastless). This was a thing to be really happy about. The actuall food on both days was something I didn’t like, but then again I’m rather picky when it comes to food

There were other things too. I know we had an archery show, I saw it gathered audience and that the target was a very qute bambi. I didn’t see the show, but it must have been good, right?

In the end the best part was seeing and spending time with friends, even if shortly. What I’m most grateful was the lodgings and care gotten from very good friends. Thanks guys, because of you, I consider attendance next year as well. Hugs to all, who like that and pat to back for those happier with that.

(To be edited)

Not a surprising result I have to admit. Being something of a sucker for silly web-quizes I felt dumb when M asked if I had already done this. Now that it is done, I have to admit the bloody thing was pretty aqurate, storyteller/method-actor fits rather smartly my gming style.

You see I don’t play, I just GM. Most of the times I’ve tried to play It has ended up rather miserably. My player-characters tend to end up as idiots, powermongers, wannabes or just simply very illfitting for the particular chronicles/epics/campaigns they appear in.

Cajun-Jack’s demise in Juhana’s V:tM chronicle made me rather happy. He was a total misfit for the campaing and the best that the bastard could do for the group was to die in a good way, he did and for that I’m still gratefull for Juhana, a fitting end for that character. Jack’s successor in that campaing, Paul ended to be probably the very best (player-) character I’ve ever played. Paul had a psychology of his own, deep emotions and as I had recently returned for my illfated and prematurely terminated military tour of duty, some rather intresting problems through which I had the possibility to process my own state. (Sounds like a typical rpg-character to you?) Only problem was that he didn’t fit the chronicle and not only other character’s but also gm pretty much hated him and his precense. These kind of stories happen repeatedly every time I try to play in the campaigns. There is hope that I manage something better in either the 7:th sea or the new Mage, we’ve tried with M.

My NPCs when GMing seem to be a rather different. They appear while the story proceeds, if they are not characters enough to develop personality and remain they go away, but those that do remain have usually intresting personalities, quirks, afflictions they truly have character.
Uncle-Andropovich in the Sabbat chronicle, Milaric, Roman, the fool and giant in FS campaings… first come to mind from recent games. When we play solo / 1 on 1 with M these NPCs offer me a chanse to play a character for a while. Even if this approach is a dangerous one, it gives me something special that I don’t get to experience to often. The trick is not to get too attached to these characters since as a gm I have the responsibility to dump/kill them the very instant that the story it demands. Judging from the campaing with Anni, the approach also seems to work in group-campaigns.

That was a long preface to the results from the gamingstyle-quiz. Found it via Sanojen valtakunta.

You scored as Method Actor. You think that gaming is a form of creative expression. You may view rules as, at best, a necessary evil, preferring sessions where the dice never come out of the bag. You enjoy situations that test or deepen your character’s personality traits. Storyteller 83% Method Actor 83% Specialist 75% Tactician 58% Power Gamer 50% Butt-Kicker 8% Casual Gamer 0%

Law's Game Style
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