(If you don’t get it: this systematization is used in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons to characterize attitude/ethics of a character)

(via Iggy’s Soup)

Being a roleplayer is a tough thing really. It requires extremely high intelligence, a lot of money, structured thinking, effort and iron will. You have to remember to bring your dices along (I always screw up this part, though), you have to spend a lot of money on stupid rulebooks full of errors, you have to color your hair and lips and cloths and whatever black all the time.
You somehow have to get your hands on goats in order to sacrifice them to the devil, you need a lugubrious and sound-proof, yet well-ventilated basement in order to fulfill these dark rituals, and last but not least manage not to get too fat whilst mainly feasting upon sweets and coke all day (read: night) long.

People always bug you to fix their computers, which is rather annoying, because they somehow firmly believe that you don’t have any friends and are very easily exploitable as long as offered a little tiny bit of social company as reward. The truth is: roleplayers don’t like people. So … screw you!
Except for when you’re female. No matter how you look, or what other skills you have. Bug me! Being a roleplayer, I shall always do your bidding.

People laugh at us. We’re not the most beautiful subgroup of the human species. As if we would care!
We don’t really fancy showering or brushing teeth. What’s the problem with that?

However, there is one horrible, abominable, detestable, gruesome et cetera (you get the idea) thing that comes automatically with being a roleplayer.
People ask you 5 times per day what roleplaying actually is.

Thank god there is an alternative to arduous explanations now: this summary (in English and German).

Worth living today: playing das schwarze Auge (English: the dark eye) – probably the most famous roleplaying game in Germany – again after a far too long time.

Hurray – after 2 years of reading, I finally managed to finish the 13 books of the Vampire the Masquerade Clan Novel series (VtM is a roleplay game). The problem was not the reading though, but getting my hands on all of the books. They are not sold anymore (although not being that old really, published 1999-2001 as far as I know), so you have to buy them secondhand on ebay or amazon, which can be quite a story really … I payed around 5 euros for most of the books, but for some rare copies (such as Malkavian or Brujah) I had to pay around 20.
Well, here’s a short review …

Content:
The 13 books cover around half a year of story, from very different angles and perspectives. The tale is rather epic, all in all, but many characters are just youngsters, having small problems in their small world. Then again, very old vampires get depicted in other parts of the story … a great and interesting mixture really.

Style:
Oh well, written by a lot of different authors, in very different styles. I didn’t like the 12th novel, Tremere, a lot, but I loved all novels written by Gherbod Fleming and some other authors (favourite books being Gangrel, Setite, Malkavian and Nosferatu).
Each book covers the story from ~ May 1999 till November 1999; each book tells parts of the “whole” story, but also sets a focus on a substory which sometimes contributes to the main plot, sometimes not. Around 30 of the main characters can be found in most of the books. Although the story is not really moving chronologically throughout the series (each book starting and ending at around the same time – give or take a month), the novels should be read in the right order, because the first stories cover main events and leave greater gaps, the following ones fill those gaps, put more sense and background to the whole story, and focus more and more on the ending of the series.
I can’t tell you if this novel series is good for people not playing the roleplaying game Vampire the Masquerade … I have the impression that everything is explained properly, and that you can get into it pretty easily even if you’re not familiar with the game. Especially if you’re interested in vampires, I guess.
For people familiar with the genre, I can highly recommend it. Smart plot, very creative and detailed characters, very … umm … well, you get a very close “feeling” to those characters (even if they’re some hundred or thousand years of age), great ideas… and the different books are written differently, for example the Brujah book is rather straightforward, chronological, direct (as the Brujah, the vampire clan of rockers, gangs, and tough guys), whereas for instance the novel Malkavian (the “crazy” vampires) is a mad labyrinth of plot, with a lot of jumps in the story, some lose ends, and many many riddles …

Rating:
1-2, depending on the book.

Reception Fades – Rise Against

It is, in the end, whatever the hell I want it to be;
and when I’m through with it it’s going
to blow a whole this wide straight through
the world’s idea of itself.
They’re throwing bottles at your house.
Come on, let’s go break their arms

you talk about the way things were
but I can’t hear what you’re saying
a time when life was not this hard
blessed by the innocence

is the best yet to come?
or did it pass by long ago?
are we holding on to a thread
of something already dead?
Read the rest of this entry »

My last posting was actually a poem about a dice, and I therefor want to continue with a pitcure about dice … you could name it:

“What open minded Shadowrun players think about d20″

* If WWII was an MMORPG

[ mit Dank an HJ ]

* A few weeks back it was suggested that big Russian companies like Gazprom and Transneft should be given the right to form special armed units – private armies. Main tasks would be to protect production facilities and transport infrastructure.
Reminds of Shadowrun, doesn’t it ?
[ source: barentsobserver.com ]

* Here you can find a movie about corporations in the modern times … go check it out, it’s very recommendable.

Thanks to Joe for the link to this quiz - what kind of roleplayer are you ?