Wow. What started out as a provisional, possibly very temporary character in what was meant to be a brief, transitional RPG campaign has finally reached his appointed ending over two years later.
I've written before (here, here, and here) about Eddie Mendoza, Freelance Reporter, Seeker of the Strange. And while I don't want to rehash everything I wrote in those three posts, I do want to go briefly back over the entire evolution, just to get it summarized in words in one place and get my feelings down now that it's over.
As I said before, Eddie was supposed to be temporary, a placeholder. I have been meeting at least once a week with the same gaming group for, fuck, over eight years now. Two years ago, our previous game campaign had kind of blown up over some personal drama at about the same time that I had been getting very burned out with my character and the campaign. So I had enjoyed having those evenings free during the several week hiatus that followed the ending of that campaign.When Sargon mentioned that he was going to start a new, kind of temporary campaign about monster hunters with a piece of the former gaming group, I was reluctant to commit to it.
But I decided to create a provisional character anyway. Sargon mentioned that the game would be taking place in Wraithport, a haunted city in Washington State (like Seattle, but not). Thinking of Seattle and monster hunters reminded me of a TV movie from the 1970's called The Night Strangler. A sequel to the previous The Night Stalker, the movie was about newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak on the trail of a mysterious monster that was strangling women and draining some of their blood. The two TV movies inspired a follow-up TV series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (like The Thin Man or The Pink Panther, somehow the original title referring to something else entirely had grafted itself onto the main character), that leaned a little too hard on the Monster of the Week formula and turned silly by the end, but is still fondly remembered by fans, including me.
So I decided to create a Kolchak-type character, which got a dubious look from Sargon, who said that everyone else would be playing high-powered spell casters. A reporter would not really be able to hold his own in that group. But I argued, a) I can give him some wicked weapon skills and a couple of magical artifacts he'd collected on his earlier adventures, and b) I don't know how long I'll be playing him anyway, so who cares? If he's too weak to be fun, we can just write him out and I get my evenings free again.
And so came Eddie Mendoza to Wraithport, where he hooked up with a group of people (ish) that he didn't particularly like or trust, but he stuck with them to get a really big scoop of a story. But especially in those early days, he made sure to remind everyone as often as possible that he was just there temporarily and might be leaving at any time.
And something weird happened. Eddie started to like this group of weirdos that he had hooked up with, and even more, he started to feel needed. In those earliest days, because of his news gathering skills, he assumed a kind of leadership role in the group, pointing them in the ways they needed to go to get this puzzle solved. And also, very improbably, thanks to some smart use of the special combat perks that had been introduced for this game, Eddie got a reputation as the badass in the group.
And I started to get really invested in the character, taking him to heart as perhaps the most personal character I had ever played. Eddie dealt with crises of conscience (working with demons and giving up his journalism career once he realized he had gone from reporting the truth to serving as a spin doctor covering up the group's adventures). Eddie dealt with crises of faith (working with demons and pledging to serve not one, but two different magical beings not named Jesus). Eddie dealt with PTSD from fighting some incredibly powerful and scary beings. And Eddie began to develop a belief in destiny, thanks to some prophetic dreams and a trip to a storybook land where things worked by storybook rules.
Eddie found himself trapped between two conflicting certainties: that he had met the woman he was destined to fall in love with, and that he was going to die in the very near future, making a relationship with that woman impossible in his eyes, or at the very least, unacceptably cruel. So Eddie the Loner, who had suddenly found what seemed to be a new family, forced himself to remain Eddie the Loner as much as possible, to spare everyone's feelings. There are people who think that the whole unrequited love thing is a ridiculous trope, that no one would willingly put themselves through that. But Eddie and I are romantics with immense esteem issues, and we did exactly that, and I kind of loved it. Eddie Mendoza, the Tragically Romantic Monster-Head Blower-Offer.
By the end of the game, of course, Sargon's predictions of Eddie's inferiority proved true enough, but it wasn't too bad, and it was a blast getting there. And even though Eddie the Loner kind of disappeared into the background of the game for long stretches, he did get his big final moment, riding off into the sunset for a new destiny with the promise of a fresh start with his new family when he finally returned. A clean fate slate.
And now we're looking to begin a new game next week, in a milieu that I originally wasn't very keen on (pirates), but I am excited about my new character, Shem the Mouse (which is repetitive - Shem means "mouse" in the game tongue--I was originally going to have it mean "rat" but I think that's a little too aggressive for my character's personality), and about the many ways I plan to abuse the new rules system we're trying out (I have over a page of notes of strategies I want to try).
But I'm finding it hard to leave Eddie completely behind. Like Dougal Smeaton, I have played Eddie for so long that he has become a part of me, and I can't just give him up cold turkey. And I don't really have to. I still have his journal unfinished that I plan to get back into at some point. I've even thought about writing a separate story, maybe a novella, but it feels weird, like some kind of super esoteric fanfic for an audience of me.
Oh well, it's time to give Eddie some well-deserved rest and start a new adventure. Onward.
Showing posts with label Eddie Mendoza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eddie Mendoza. Show all posts
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Powers Be Creepin'
I've talked a couple of times (here and here) about the table-top RPG I'm currently playing, where I play a reporter-turned-demon-hunter named Eddie Mendoza. And I mentioned my abuse of some experimental new rules that turned Eddie into a terror with a pistol, but I didn't go very far into the odd effect that has had on the game.
First, some history: the game is loosely based on the Chaosium Basic Rules, with lots of modifications thrown in from not only specific Chaosium games like Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer, but also other role-playing games like D&D and Champions,
Sargon the GM had played one-on-one with Naamah for years before inviting other people (including me) to join the game. During that time, they had evolved a complicated and very high-powered magic system for the game. My first exposure to the magic system was in the second campaign I was in, our Atlantis game (which I've written about several times on this blog, more than I care to list ATM).
At that time, an issue revealed itself in regard to the magic system: it was way overpowered compared to the rest of the game. This had never been a problem for Sargon and Naamah. As long as the game only had one player; there was no party balance to disrupt. But as events progressed in Atlantis, combats often became a matter of trying not to die while waiting for the mage to have her turn and wipe out the opposition. The enemies kept getting more and more ridiculously overpowered to challenge the mages while us humans progressed more slowly, occasionally running across magic items to give us a little more oomph.
The next two campaigns avoided magic altogether in favor of a new psionic power system and superpowers. But then along came the Wraithport game, which would obviously involve magic. How to solve the game imbalance issues, then?
Well, as it turned out, in a couple of ways. Number one, by having everybody in the party (with one exception named Mendoza) be magic-users (one character was part-demon who, while not knowing spells per se, had many spell-like powers that behaved pretty much like de facto magic spells). If all of the players are using magic, it doesn't matter how powerful magic is compared to other weapons and skills.
Sargon also adopted a new, slower advancement system for learning new (and higher-powered) spells to keep players from getting the really ridiculous high-level spells too soon.
And third, by adopting a set of optional combat talents to allow weapons combat to be more potent and flexible. It was by clever use of this third option that I was able to make Eddie Mendoza, who at first glance seemed destined to be totally outclassed and useless in combat, to be a useful contributing member of the party (thanks in large part to a magic pistol with some truly potent bonuses that the combat talents were able to amplify to ludicrous levels).
And somewhere along the way, something strange happened. Eddie Mendoza, the mundane character who was supposed to have been the weakest of the group, came to be seen as the "big gun" (pun intended). The same magic system that had seemed so overpowered in Atlantis now seemed strangely underpowered. That slowed-down magic advancement system now seemed too slow.
So new systems were introduced to make magic more potent. Magic talents were introduced to give magic some of the extra flexibility and impact that Eddie had enjoyed with the combat talents. And a new magic casting system was introduced to let magic do the same kind of absurd damage that Eddie could do when the dice smiled on him.
That shifted the balance back to magic again. Eddie in the last few game sessions has been relatively useless compared to the mages, and in the next session will be starting without the array of magic items that make him even marginally useful compared to them. But his skills and talents continue to develop, so at some point, he may pass a crucial break point that will make him bad-ass again. We'll see.
First, some history: the game is loosely based on the Chaosium Basic Rules, with lots of modifications thrown in from not only specific Chaosium games like Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer, but also other role-playing games like D&D and Champions,
Sargon the GM had played one-on-one with Naamah for years before inviting other people (including me) to join the game. During that time, they had evolved a complicated and very high-powered magic system for the game. My first exposure to the magic system was in the second campaign I was in, our Atlantis game (which I've written about several times on this blog, more than I care to list ATM).
At that time, an issue revealed itself in regard to the magic system: it was way overpowered compared to the rest of the game. This had never been a problem for Sargon and Naamah. As long as the game only had one player; there was no party balance to disrupt. But as events progressed in Atlantis, combats often became a matter of trying not to die while waiting for the mage to have her turn and wipe out the opposition. The enemies kept getting more and more ridiculously overpowered to challenge the mages while us humans progressed more slowly, occasionally running across magic items to give us a little more oomph.
The next two campaigns avoided magic altogether in favor of a new psionic power system and superpowers. But then along came the Wraithport game, which would obviously involve magic. How to solve the game imbalance issues, then?
Well, as it turned out, in a couple of ways. Number one, by having everybody in the party (with one exception named Mendoza) be magic-users (one character was part-demon who, while not knowing spells per se, had many spell-like powers that behaved pretty much like de facto magic spells). If all of the players are using magic, it doesn't matter how powerful magic is compared to other weapons and skills.
Sargon also adopted a new, slower advancement system for learning new (and higher-powered) spells to keep players from getting the really ridiculous high-level spells too soon.
And third, by adopting a set of optional combat talents to allow weapons combat to be more potent and flexible. It was by clever use of this third option that I was able to make Eddie Mendoza, who at first glance seemed destined to be totally outclassed and useless in combat, to be a useful contributing member of the party (thanks in large part to a magic pistol with some truly potent bonuses that the combat talents were able to amplify to ludicrous levels).
And somewhere along the way, something strange happened. Eddie Mendoza, the mundane character who was supposed to have been the weakest of the group, came to be seen as the "big gun" (pun intended). The same magic system that had seemed so overpowered in Atlantis now seemed strangely underpowered. That slowed-down magic advancement system now seemed too slow.
So new systems were introduced to make magic more potent. Magic talents were introduced to give magic some of the extra flexibility and impact that Eddie had enjoyed with the combat talents. And a new magic casting system was introduced to let magic do the same kind of absurd damage that Eddie could do when the dice smiled on him.
That shifted the balance back to magic again. Eddie in the last few game sessions has been relatively useless compared to the mages, and in the next session will be starting without the array of magic items that make him even marginally useful compared to them. But his skills and talents continue to develop, so at some point, he may pass a crucial break point that will make him bad-ass again. We'll see.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The Long, Dark Night of Eddie Mendoza
So I mentioned over a year ago that I was playing a "new" character in our current tabletop game, a journalist named Eddie Mendoza. And I'm having a tremendous blast playing him, although it apparently doesn't look that way from the perspective of some of the other players in the game. Which sounds like something interesting to explore in a post.
As I mentioned in that previous post, Eddie started out as a provisional character. I wasn't sure if I was really ready to commit to another long-term game, but the premise sounded intriguing, so I came up with the concept for Eddie. The game master Sargon was dubious about Eddie, because everyone else was playing high-powered magic-using characters of one stripe or another, while Eddie was a mundane human journalist.
But with a strategically discovered magic pistol and a set of experimental new rules I was encouraged tobreak abuse use to my advantage, Eddie is able to hold his own in combat, and his nose for news has proven the launching point for many adventures. So I'm really happy with how Eddie has developed.
But here's the thing: Eddie's not happy. In fact, I don't think Eddie's capable of being happy, at least not yet. Eddie doesn't trust happiness, because happiness is what you feel before the rug is yanked out from under you. Eddie has spent years feeling guilty for something that happened over a decade earlier, although not in a mopey emo way. In a very-careful-to-guard-his-feelings-and-not-get-close-to-other-people way. And even though recent events in the game have shown him that the events he feels guilty about were more complicated than he thought, so that some of his guilt is misplaced, it's not something he can just give up.
The worst kind of character you can play in a tabletop RPG (and yet one that you encounter so often) is the Loner, because by nature, the game is about teamwork, and a Loner doesn't work well on a team. Eddie is a loner who doesn't necessarily want to be a loner, but learning how to change is not always easy.
I've been keeping a journal in Eddie's voice that the other players have access to on a cloud drive. Part of it is to say, "This is what happened." But Naamah, another player in the game, also keeps a similar in-character journal that is better at detailing events (I totally copied/stole her idea-not even going to lie).
But there was another reason. Because Naamah's journal tells events from her character's point-of-view, events are often characterized in a certain way that lines up with her character's attitudes. Eddie perceives things in a different way, and I wanted to represent that point-of-view. Also because Eddie's actions were often baffling to the game master and other players and I wanted to give a little insight into his thought process.
Sometimes even that isn't enough, because I think we sometimes approach gaming from completely different perspectives. It's like the difference between literary genres. Superhero and romance stories are largely about wish fulfillment. Horror stories are about confronting and working through fears and anxieties. I think the other players approached this game more as a superhero/romance, while I've approached it more like horror.
One of the players is an anime fan/devoted reader whose character is a magical girl fairy princess who is also a librarian. One of the players facing job anxiety has a character who is super-rich with a magical house that can travel anywhere at a moment's notice and also provides unlimited food and clothing. Literally any material possession she wants is available with a snap of the fingers. One of the players with RL family issues has a character with a close, loving, happy family.
And although some of the characters have tragedy in their pasts, none of them were at fault (or feel as if they were at fault) in any of them. Their characters are generally happy with themselves, happy with the way their lives were going before the game started, and not looking to change in any fundamental way. And they have had no problems falling into friendships (and beds) with each other.
Eddie was and is different. Eddie is not some wish-fulfillment fantasy. Eddie is much more a horror story character, a guy who may appear smart and cool and brave on the outside, but who is broken inside, and whose struggles mirror some of my own issues.
Eddie is more me than probably any other character I've played in my life. He's got my old job (journalist). He's got a lot of my attitudes. He's got a secret that he has never confessed to anyone in his life, and I have the exact same secret, something that absolutely no one knows about me, not family, not friends (and it's not evil or shameful, just sort of lame and embarrassing).
He has few friends, and what friends he has, he feels like an outsider among. He keeps his distance and has unrequited crushes (there was this one preacher's daughter; everybody knew how I felt, but I never copped to it, so we never actually dated). He tries to keep his head up, but he feels the guilt of a lifetime of bad choices that seemed right at the time. He even has my name, the name my parents originally meant for me to have before life laughed at their plans.
So Eddie is maybe a way for me to work though some of my own anxieties. He's also sort of opposite to everyone else in the game. But I think it works well for the game dynamic. A little sour to go with the sweet. That little hint of salt in the chocolate-covered pretzels.
It doesn't hurt that he is also an absolute terror with a pistol. And he is slowly trying to change his ways. Sometimes he has to do some logical contortions to find an excuse to change, but he is changing.
He's not happy, and he may never be truly happy, but I'm having a great time.
As I mentioned in that previous post, Eddie started out as a provisional character. I wasn't sure if I was really ready to commit to another long-term game, but the premise sounded intriguing, so I came up with the concept for Eddie. The game master Sargon was dubious about Eddie, because everyone else was playing high-powered magic-using characters of one stripe or another, while Eddie was a mundane human journalist.
But with a strategically discovered magic pistol and a set of experimental new rules I was encouraged to
But here's the thing: Eddie's not happy. In fact, I don't think Eddie's capable of being happy, at least not yet. Eddie doesn't trust happiness, because happiness is what you feel before the rug is yanked out from under you. Eddie has spent years feeling guilty for something that happened over a decade earlier, although not in a mopey emo way. In a very-careful-to-guard-his-feelings-and-not-get-close-to-other-people way. And even though recent events in the game have shown him that the events he feels guilty about were more complicated than he thought, so that some of his guilt is misplaced, it's not something he can just give up.
The worst kind of character you can play in a tabletop RPG (and yet one that you encounter so often) is the Loner, because by nature, the game is about teamwork, and a Loner doesn't work well on a team. Eddie is a loner who doesn't necessarily want to be a loner, but learning how to change is not always easy.
I've been keeping a journal in Eddie's voice that the other players have access to on a cloud drive. Part of it is to say, "This is what happened." But Naamah, another player in the game, also keeps a similar in-character journal that is better at detailing events (I totally copied/stole her idea-not even going to lie).
But there was another reason. Because Naamah's journal tells events from her character's point-of-view, events are often characterized in a certain way that lines up with her character's attitudes. Eddie perceives things in a different way, and I wanted to represent that point-of-view. Also because Eddie's actions were often baffling to the game master and other players and I wanted to give a little insight into his thought process.
Sometimes even that isn't enough, because I think we sometimes approach gaming from completely different perspectives. It's like the difference between literary genres. Superhero and romance stories are largely about wish fulfillment. Horror stories are about confronting and working through fears and anxieties. I think the other players approached this game more as a superhero/romance, while I've approached it more like horror.
One of the players is an anime fan/devoted reader whose character is a magical girl fairy princess who is also a librarian. One of the players facing job anxiety has a character who is super-rich with a magical house that can travel anywhere at a moment's notice and also provides unlimited food and clothing. Literally any material possession she wants is available with a snap of the fingers. One of the players with RL family issues has a character with a close, loving, happy family.
And although some of the characters have tragedy in their pasts, none of them were at fault (or feel as if they were at fault) in any of them. Their characters are generally happy with themselves, happy with the way their lives were going before the game started, and not looking to change in any fundamental way. And they have had no problems falling into friendships (and beds) with each other.
Eddie was and is different. Eddie is not some wish-fulfillment fantasy. Eddie is much more a horror story character, a guy who may appear smart and cool and brave on the outside, but who is broken inside, and whose struggles mirror some of my own issues.
Eddie is more me than probably any other character I've played in my life. He's got my old job (journalist). He's got a lot of my attitudes. He's got a secret that he has never confessed to anyone in his life, and I have the exact same secret, something that absolutely no one knows about me, not family, not friends (and it's not evil or shameful, just sort of lame and embarrassing).
He has few friends, and what friends he has, he feels like an outsider among. He keeps his distance and has unrequited crushes (there was this one preacher's daughter; everybody knew how I felt, but I never copped to it, so we never actually dated). He tries to keep his head up, but he feels the guilt of a lifetime of bad choices that seemed right at the time. He even has my name, the name my parents originally meant for me to have before life laughed at their plans.
So Eddie is maybe a way for me to work though some of my own anxieties. He's also sort of opposite to everyone else in the game. But I think it works well for the game dynamic. A little sour to go with the sweet. That little hint of salt in the chocolate-covered pretzels.
It doesn't hurt that he is also an absolute terror with a pistol. And he is slowly trying to change his ways. Sometimes he has to do some logical contortions to find an excuse to change, but he is changing.
He's not happy, and he may never be truly happy, but I'm having a great time.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
Gaming Update: From Orion Dusk to Eddie Mendoza
I haven't posted any game-related content here for over a year, so here's the rundown.
I mentioned in a post way back in January 2013 that we were starting up a new role-playing campaign involving superheroes. I had just finished playing for over a year as Sunder, a paranoid, sometimes-insane scavenger on a post-apocalyptic alien world, and I wanted to play someone radically different. Someone happy and fun.
And so I came up with Orion Dusk, who turned out not to be happy and fun. In creating his backstory, I gave him some tragedy and trauma, which was (of course) certain to come up in the game. But what happened was that, not only did the entire game revolve around the conspiracy behind his tragedy and trauma (as well as the other members of the group), but one of the other characters in the group was the daughter of the man Orion blamed for the tragedy in his life. In addition, I somehow decided that making Orion a fugitive living under an assumed name would be a good idea. That decision added tension to several of his moments in the game, but it didn't contribute to making his character "happy and fun."
So Orion ended up being dark (and I don't just mean his skin) as well as being a bit of an asshole. And then there was the other problem.
He was kind of superfluous in the game. I had originally decided to make him a classic tank--super-strong and physically very tough--with the twist that he absorbed heat to power up. So when he powers up, there's this wave of cold that explodes out from him, and then he's super-strong and glowing and also able to release heat as a blast of energy. Sounds really cool.
Only there was another hero in the group who could change her density. When she got really dense, she was stronger and WAY tougher than Orion, so his tankness wasn't so very tanky. On the other hand, his energy blast abilities, being kind of secondary powers, weren't nearly the match of the other blasters in the group. So I decided to concentrate on some other aspects of his backstory--he had been an accountant who followed a money trail to the big conspiracy--and let him be more of an investigator.
Only there was another character in the group who was a super-miraculous hacker who did most of the actual investigating. And hell, even the other tank had for some reason bought a higher accounting skill than my character WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANT!
Every character needs a niche, and Orion's niche was being worse than somebody else in the group at absolutely everything. He got some moments to shine, based on some spectacular die rolls, but he was never a go-to guy for anything. He was just there, being an asshole.
The game lasted for over a year, and as it seemed as if it was approaching the climax, some personal shit happened and the game broke up. And I wasn't particularly heartbroken about it, as I had been getting kind of burned out on Orion. So much so that I wasn't sure I really wanted to get in on the new game that Sargon was starting, a closer-to-our-time-period game of monster hunters set in the West Coast city of Wraithport. I had kind of been enjoying the break and having my Tuesday evenings free.
But it sounded intriguing, so I made up a provisional character, a Kolchak-type reporter specializing in news of the weird--Eddie Mendoza, Freelance Seeker of the Strange. I sat in on the first session, kind of halfway thinking that Eddie could be a guest star in the pilot episode, get his one story and be on his way.
That was six months ago, and now I'm having a blast. The game is fun, the group character dynamic is way different, and Eddie has his niche. He is the only character in the group without magical powers, but he is a crack shot with a magic pistol he picked up off the dead body of a demon hunter and he uses his journalistic know-how to investigate leads on new monsters to battle while trying to track down an even larger menace lurking in the background.
Inspired by Naamah (who did it first), I've even been writing a journal in Eddie's voice, keeping track of our adventures. It's almost up to 50 pages now. I'm kind of embarrassed to say it's the only real creative writing I've been doing for over a year now (the big project I hinted at last time is building more slowly than I'd like, though I still work on it; the long percolation time will be good for it, though, I think).
And I'm gearing up to run another one-shot Fate adventure next week, over a year after my last attempt. We'll see how that goes.
I mentioned in a post way back in January 2013 that we were starting up a new role-playing campaign involving superheroes. I had just finished playing for over a year as Sunder, a paranoid, sometimes-insane scavenger on a post-apocalyptic alien world, and I wanted to play someone radically different. Someone happy and fun.
And so I came up with Orion Dusk, who turned out not to be happy and fun. In creating his backstory, I gave him some tragedy and trauma, which was (of course) certain to come up in the game. But what happened was that, not only did the entire game revolve around the conspiracy behind his tragedy and trauma (as well as the other members of the group), but one of the other characters in the group was the daughter of the man Orion blamed for the tragedy in his life. In addition, I somehow decided that making Orion a fugitive living under an assumed name would be a good idea. That decision added tension to several of his moments in the game, but it didn't contribute to making his character "happy and fun."
So Orion ended up being dark (and I don't just mean his skin) as well as being a bit of an asshole. And then there was the other problem.
He was kind of superfluous in the game. I had originally decided to make him a classic tank--super-strong and physically very tough--with the twist that he absorbed heat to power up. So when he powers up, there's this wave of cold that explodes out from him, and then he's super-strong and glowing and also able to release heat as a blast of energy. Sounds really cool.
Only there was another hero in the group who could change her density. When she got really dense, she was stronger and WAY tougher than Orion, so his tankness wasn't so very tanky. On the other hand, his energy blast abilities, being kind of secondary powers, weren't nearly the match of the other blasters in the group. So I decided to concentrate on some other aspects of his backstory--he had been an accountant who followed a money trail to the big conspiracy--and let him be more of an investigator.
Only there was another character in the group who was a super-miraculous hacker who did most of the actual investigating. And hell, even the other tank had for some reason bought a higher accounting skill than my character WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANT!
Every character needs a niche, and Orion's niche was being worse than somebody else in the group at absolutely everything. He got some moments to shine, based on some spectacular die rolls, but he was never a go-to guy for anything. He was just there, being an asshole.
The game lasted for over a year, and as it seemed as if it was approaching the climax, some personal shit happened and the game broke up. And I wasn't particularly heartbroken about it, as I had been getting kind of burned out on Orion. So much so that I wasn't sure I really wanted to get in on the new game that Sargon was starting, a closer-to-our-time-period game of monster hunters set in the West Coast city of Wraithport. I had kind of been enjoying the break and having my Tuesday evenings free.
But it sounded intriguing, so I made up a provisional character, a Kolchak-type reporter specializing in news of the weird--Eddie Mendoza, Freelance Seeker of the Strange. I sat in on the first session, kind of halfway thinking that Eddie could be a guest star in the pilot episode, get his one story and be on his way.
That was six months ago, and now I'm having a blast. The game is fun, the group character dynamic is way different, and Eddie has his niche. He is the only character in the group without magical powers, but he is a crack shot with a magic pistol he picked up off the dead body of a demon hunter and he uses his journalistic know-how to investigate leads on new monsters to battle while trying to track down an even larger menace lurking in the background.
Inspired by Naamah (who did it first), I've even been writing a journal in Eddie's voice, keeping track of our adventures. It's almost up to 50 pages now. I'm kind of embarrassed to say it's the only real creative writing I've been doing for over a year now (the big project I hinted at last time is building more slowly than I'd like, though I still work on it; the long percolation time will be good for it, though, I think).
And I'm gearing up to run another one-shot Fate adventure next week, over a year after my last attempt. We'll see how that goes.
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