Friday, June 27th, 2008

Oh my gosh... So, even though I stayed up late the night before (as we always seem to do during the con... I think I usualy average about three to five hours of sleep MAX), I knew that Friday was gonna be a huge day for us, so we both got up bright and early.

 We got up around 8, got ready and grabbed a bite to eat from good ole FAME'S DINER.  (sigh... :) )

On this day, I was very very very apprehensive.  It would either be an awesome day, or a really jacked up day, because I was trying new games that I had never played before.  Hubby talks to me about games all the time that he is very interested in, and when he describes them, they seem like they would be awesome to play.  But we never get to actually play them at home due to our lack of a regular gaming group, so the only possibility of playing them are at Origins. 

Our 10:00am game was Nobilis.  Soo... here is the description of this game:

In Nobilis, players take on the roles of the Sovereign Powers, each the personification of one single aspect of reality: night, roads, ecstasy, chains, time, water - whatever the players can conceive of. Once human, each character has been forever changed, imbued with awesome power and terrible responsibility. Heaven and Hell, angels and devils, the Giants and the Old Gods - in Nobilis, all are united in the Great War against the Excrucians, whose goal is to destroy all Creation - but all are divided by their own plots and ancient rivalries, as well. 

Yeah... a really high-concept game, that is diceless, and sounds completely awesome, yet complicated, to play.

I was so intimidated and over-whelmed by the time we got to the room we'd be playing in, my palms were sweaty and my forehead had gotten a nice sheen to it.  Hubby kept trying to calm me down and explain the background to me, from the hotel room to the game room, but I could not be comforted.  

Little did I know that this would prove to be one of the most terrific and eye-opening experiences of my gaming life!  Jessica and Chris are a young couple who co-GM'ed the game (WAY COOL concept, they were both great actors who were ultra-excited to describe the scenario and super-encouraging when I would ask questions), and we had the pleasure of playing with several terrific gamers at that table as well.  The gentleman who played Ryu in our game played his character PERFECTLY, and I loved Abby, who played Goldie in our game:
  <-----Abby

  I was Malena, the Power of Indulgence (sex/happiness), represented by a gorgeous woman who wears a slinkie fashionable dress and heels.  She is quite literally, irresistable.  Abby's character, Goldie, is the Power of Luck, and she is a Las Vegas Showgirl.  'Nuff said.  We hated each other's guts. lol Fought like alley cats all throughout the game. I remember saying to Goldie at one point, " Why don't you just bend over and pick it up, then?  I'm sure you're used to that - bending over, that is!"

Abby and I played off each other really well.  Tons of fun.  

I thought everyone played their roles really well, and I can't say enough about Jessica and Chris.  Aside from both of them being HOT LIKE FY'UH...  (oops, did I say that?)  they are the most awesome GM's.  They are so dedicated to bringing Nobilis to the masses and making the game unintimidating for those scaredy-cats like me out there.  They live in New York, and I swear, hubby and I considered moving - if only for a few indulgent seconds - just to be near them and their regular gaming crew (which includes Abby and Amy, who actually created the character Goldie, and who I would meet later).  

I dunno though...  I gotta sneaking suspicion that I could get in a lotta trouble up there with that group.  ;)

So, needless to say, I was absolutely stoked about having tried the game out, overcoming my fears about the unknown, and getting to meet such awesome people.  (I know I use the word "awesome" way too much, but I can't think of another fitting word to describe most of my experiences at Origins! lol)

Jessica was nice enough to invite me to their Nobilis LARP, and when Abby mentioned that she would be there, along with aforementioned Amy, who created the Goldie character, I was like, "Whoa... Hon... we HAVE TO go..." lol 

Clarence isn't much for LARP's, so  I had to buy the ticket on my own, but after conquering one fear, I figured what the heck?  The LARP was Saturday evening at 8pm, and I didn't have anything planned at that time!  Awesome.

So, I was on a high after that game, and we had to go straight to our next one, another game Clarence loved to tell me about, but that I had never played, and that seemed really difficult:  

  Here is the description for EXALTED:

Exalted is a game of epic fantasy set during the Second Age of Man, a time before our own. It is an age of magic and adventure, when heroes of legend are reborn into a time of woe.

At the dawn of the First Age, the gods gave power to men that they might slay the gods' Primordial enemies. Anointed by the gods, these beings were thereafter known as the Exalted.

The greatest of the Exalted were the Solars, the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, the mightiest of the gods. So great was their power that, when a Solar died, his power was quickly made manifest in a new individual - a reincarnation of sorts, but into a mature adult rather than a newborn.

The Exalted triumphed over the enemies of the gods, and in reward, the gods gave the Exalted dominion over the Earth. For a timeless age, the Exalted ruled justly over Creation, and their kingdom was invincible.

But the enemies of the gods had pronounced a terrible curse against the Exalted. This dark magic ate away at the hearts of the Chosen. The benevolence of the Solars turned to tyranny, and peace turned to civil war. It was prophesied that the madness of the Solars would bring about the destruction of the world. Seeing no other alternative, the lowliest of Exalted, the Dragon-Blooded, murdered the decadent Solar Exalted and locked their souls away.

And so, a Second Age descended upon Creation.

The greatest of the gods' servants no longer walked the earth, and the Realm of the Dragon-Blooded was but a shadow of the lost old Realm. Solar Exalted whose power escaped to be reborn were slain by Dragon-Blooded inquisitors known as the Wyld Hunt, and the Realm claimed dominion over Creation. For more than a thousand years the Solar Exalted remained imprisoned and defeated - until now.

The Scarlet Empress, the Dragon-Blooded ruler of the Realm and controller of the Wyld Hunt, vanished five years ago. Without her might to enforce order in the Realm, the Great Houses of her Scarlet Dynasty have fallen to squabbling over the reins of power. And in this time of crisis, the Solar Exalted have returned. It is as if a gate was opened and the heroes of old rushed through it and returned to the world.
Your character is among those individuals who have become Solar Exalted. You are a being of legend, as mighty as a demigod and as cunning as an asp. Will you be the savior of Creation or one of the terrible menaces that beset your world? 

Yeah.  Sound difficult?  Well, it was. lol The game master was great, and he really tried to make the rules easy for me, being a beginner.  He was also really good about explaining the history and background setting of the game to our group, which was interesting. 

It just seems to me that this game has a terrific concept, and a great background setting, and it has all of the potential to be a really amazing game... but it all gets lost for me in a sea of dice.  There was a moment in the game when my character (who, I will remind you, is an Abyssal EXALTED... I am super strong and powerful, right?) comes into contact with a couple of mortal guards at a monastery.  SIMPLE.  I ready my bow and start firing away, figuring I will kill them, no problem.

Then the dice rolling began.  I literally ended up grabbing HANDFULS of dice and rolling them, not once, not twice, but maybe three times, was asked to add this to that subtract this to my whatchamacallit, multiply it by my shoe size, half that by my blood type, and the end result was that I hit only one of them, and did 1 pt of damage.  WHAT?!?!?!

Yeah.  Not my kind of game.  But, I was better having played it.  Because I now know how it plays, it's no longer an enigma for me, my hubby got a chance to play it, and it was an experience that allowed me to appreciate my other games even more.  It was no fault at all of the players (they were great), or the GM (who was very accomodating to me as a newbie).  It's just not my style.  I like to ROLEplay... not ROLLplay.  ;)

That night was the Club Carcosa Cthulhu LARP, put on every year by the AMAZING crew over at Rogue Cthulhu, headed by Marx Stead.

<------------Marx as the DJ at Club Carcosa



It's the last night on earth, and you decide to spend it at a club.  I was "Britney", a famous pop singer, and I was accompanied by my body guard, Kent.  

Guess who ended up palying Kent, on a lark, without knowing we'd be paired together?!

<----  My good friend, Nate, AKA Kent the bodyguard (sorry for cutting your head off, Nate!)

I was so thrilled that I got to play with him again!  He was the awesome player from the Victims Ball game, who played the fashions designer.  We played off each other so well, and because we were so comfortable with one another already, it was great, because we pretty much had to be inseperable all night (until he got killed, and dragged away from me, of course).  We did such a good job.  I got to sing to the crowd ("I'm Too Sexxxy" by Right Said Fred, and YES, I DID REALLY SING... I was told that of all the years that Club Carcosa has been run, I was the first one to actually have the guts to sing Britney's song! Yay!!! Go me!), and Kent did an incredible job of keeping the public out of my face and keeping that crazy stalker of mine away from me (eeew.... Kirk!! lol Shout outs to the player who played Kirk... man, you had me spooked.  I totally bought the stalker thing from you, dude. lol  AWESOME!).
<--- me as Britney
<---- Britney with Cthulhu lol

So many great things happened in this game, like when Nate finally got killed and turned into a zombie, and I went to go hide by the mens bathroom near the Cthulhu room, in a little niche in the wall where I figured no one would find me.  Brian Martin, one of the GM's from the Shoggoth.net room, who hubby and I played in one of his games last year, walks past me and stops. lol I was standing there praying with my hands together that no one would find me.  He was playing Nyarlethotep, who just so happened to own the club! lol

Man... Brian Martin is a cutie too.  Whew.  I think I have already established that gamer guys give me a woody, right? lol Sigh...

Anyway, I got to hang with Nate a lot that night - hubby was no where to be found, once again, as I've said before he does not do LARP's.  I just came to realize how much a love that guy.  Nate is not only a terrific gamer, who really gets into his characters completely, but he is just a nice guy overall.  Not to mention being mucho hotto as well! ;)

Go NATE!  You just don't meet good people like that these days. Hubby and I just clicked so well with him.  He is a software program consultant, and he and hubby have a lot in common regarding their jobs, etc. so it is just neat to meet someone that we can both talk to one that "other level", ya know?  Yeah, I know, I'm going on and on, but I already told you that he wins the vote for my Origins 2008 Gamer Crush, right?  So expect more of the same, because....

We agreed that we would meet up Sunday and try to hang out... maybe catch a movie or something.  I was stoked!!! :)

I ended up going to bed around... oh... 6:30am in the morning, after staying up all night talking to hubby and our good ole buddy, Matt Wiseman AKA Trollboy:

<--- Matt is the exceedingly TALL one (7'1") whose head can't even fit in this picture! lol

We stood outside and talked about everything and anything with Matt and also Tom Arnott of the Rogue Cthulhu group.  It was a lot of fun, once again, just to hang with cool people. 

So once we got back to the room and I went to sleep at 6:30am, I ended up flaking out on our 9:00am game of World of Darkness, Innocents Lost (which SUCKED because I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to play that game, damnit!)... We ended up just sleeping in and going to the 1:00am game of Waverly Hills in the Shoggoth.net Cthulhu room instead.  More on that next time!! Whew... I never thought I would get through with Friday... lol

Nay