Gigs and gaming

[prunesquallormd]

This weekend has been pleasant but largely uneventful. The cold that hit on Thursday is still hanging on (just blocked up and headachey now, thankfully), and it's rendered me unwilling to do very much at all.
Of course, having arranged, on Wednesday, gaming on Friday, and not having the presence of mind to cancel, I had an evening of trying to be sociable whilst feeling generally grotty. Which wasn't at all helped by the fact that Lee had spent the last 3 hours or so in the pub, and, while he wasn't paralytic, he was far from sober. Now, while he's generally ok company, and is entertaining to game with, Lee isn't a particularly nice person when he *is* sober, and even his own wife describes him as a nasty drunk. But I survived, and I managed to get rid of people by midnight (having won my first ever game of Chez Dork (something of an improvement on the last 3 hours, which I'd spent with my Warhammer character being banged up for sedition, contracting the bloody flux, and generally being brutalised ...)).
And while we're on gaming, although my players are still something of a pain, 7th Sea seems to be going moderately well. I just need to find a way of making clear to Ade and Anna that being 'heroes' does not involve murdering innocent people for no good reason. I've always been a very soft-hearted GM, but that looks like changing some time very soon. So if anyone has any fun suggestions as to how I can make my players suffer, that would be good...
The Cruxshadows/Screaming Banshee Aircrew gig last Sunday was well worth the nightmare journey down south (8 hours to do 250 miles, courtesy of a crash that closed the M1. Joy). I'd agree with lareinemisere that:-
1) the sound guy for Screaming Banshee Aircrew really needed a slap (specifically, the vocals were so far down in the mix that, if you weren't familiar with the songs, there wasn't the faintest hope of following the lyrics). They were still hugely entertaining though, and I'd certainly check them out again (and they've been added to my ever growing list of bands to check out on CD). And Jo Violet is *extremely* cute.
And 2) the dance for Solus is, unquestionably, gratuitously pornographic (and this is probably Cruxshadows' most overtly religious song. Very strange). I'm still not sure what to make of the dancers. They're very good at what they do, and very appealing, but, as often as not, they're a distraction from the music. And they also make me feel like a perv, which isn't really a feeling I enjoy.
But still, these guys have a way of completely bypassing the cynical part of my brain and connecting directly with the the romantic idealist in me, so I spent the last half of the set with tears running down my face. It's probably fortunate that lareinemisere was elsewhere in the hall when Eye of the Storm finished, otherwise there may have been hugging. Fortunately the urge had passed by the time I hooked up with her again :).
As usual, the people-watching was pretty good but, annoyingly, the person who sticks most solidly in my mind is the Sin City refugee , who was dancing for all the world like she'd forgotten her pole. But she seemed to be well into the music, and she was certainly enjoying herself, so good for her, I suppose.
Assemblage 23 next week, which I'm very much looking forward to.

Good luck at Gen-Con, Andy and Angus. And enjoy yourselves :).

Comments

[corone.livejournal.com]

Have a good time at the weekend with my Girlfreind! Grrr! :-)

Some things to piss off your players, I've got a million of these!
How about:-

Take away their stuff. They love magic swords or glamorous frocks. Special items getting stolen or taken away by powerful NPCs really gets their goat. Maybe they get arrested (not hard to engineer a reason there) and the watch won't return their weapons untl they've proved they can behave.
If they don't have anything of value, give them some and take them away.

Kick their arses when they least expect it. the annoying dandy turns out to be an expert swordsman/shot (Louis-Claude De Sinjin) The humble peasant turns out to be brutally strong and the village enforcer. The lowly criminal turns out to have powerful freinds who he goes crying to.
Give them a spanking when they think they are the ones about to kick arse and they will not be happy.

Give them an annoying NPC they have to look after and cannot gag. If they have to look after Villanova's spoilt daughter (if he had one) thats what I'm thinking. An important courtier who has never left the house before is another. The npc should complain about every failing in the party and/or any hardship encountered. They should also need rescuing often, due to the beleif they can get along on their own.

Have them run into family members who are bigger, better, cleverer and more successful than they are. Even worse, make sure the family memeber is really good and humble. No one likes to meet their version of Ace Rimmer.

Set the next adventure somewhere really unpleasant. They have to guard a plague village to stop people leaving, or the queen has dropped her necklace in the sewers. However, to make matters worse the adventure is dangerous too. So they are up to their knees in shit and having to fight for their lives.

Enjoy! :-)

[prunesquallormd.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Lots of evil. Thanks ;)