Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

I have just been rooting through some old files on my computer’s P:\¹ drive looking for aged information that has suddenly become relevant again after many years’ disuse. Many of the files haven’t been opened in many a long year and a whole wad of them are in very old WordPerfect format, which luckily can still be opened by the version or Word we are required to use here in the office.

One of the things I found was a crib list of items that might need to be investigated by one Severus ex Guernicus, Keeper of Records, the character I played at Machiavelli Games’ Grand Tribunal years before I ever got involved in writing free forms with that group’s successor, NWO Games. The file was last edited and saved on 19 October 1996 about a month before the game was played.

I find it hard to believe that that weekend was just short of ten years ago, now. Much of it is still fresh in my memory, including the trip up in colonel_maxim’s rickety old second-hand caravanette which broke down outside Earl’s Court before we’d even left London and his careful dodging around outside to keep himself between the friendly and sympathetic traffic warden and the long expired tax disc in the front windscreen. The fact that we had to keep the engine running on the way back from Ilum on the Monday morning, even when we stopped off on the Motorway for a loo and food break, because we couldn’t be sure of ever starting the blasted thing again. I recall the long journey up with Ser Taylor (sans LJ) and a couple of other people who reside in my memory now only as faceless shadows (though I have a feeling from later memories that lucyas may well have been one of them) had us arriving on site as the masked ball was already underway, and feeling extremely out of place while wandering through in work a day clothes until I found somewhere to change into costume.

Highlights that still sit well in the mind include the explosive death of Vancasitum, his funeral orchestrated by Vector Tempestratum which involved real fireworks and a circle burnt into the drive way much to the horror and bemusement of the staff, the revelation of Tremere, the appearance of the Diedne, the transformation of the Lych and Vector’s show-stopping speech.

And we should never forget that "Ka is your friend"...

Ah yes, and trying to keep a straight face when reporting back to ysharros (whose character name now evades me) concerning a dispute over respect due to 'familiars', one of which was a potted plant.

Good times.

That was what got me interested in the hobby in the first place. And all this nostalgia has got me sentimental for it; I must stop and think of other things.

But mainly I was impressed by the fact that it is almost exactly ten years ago, now. I mean, I knew that already, but the file date reminder sparked it all off again and suddenly I feel a little bit old.

This nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, you know.



¹Held on a server elsewhere in case this machine goes *poing* as it and its predecessors have on a number of occasions in the past.

Four more to go on my original list and then I suppose, time permitting, it'll be time to take up the slack for missed deadlines and broken promises.

I have just finished writing my sixth character sheet for NWO: Grand Tribunal, and finally I am finding the character voice I need to get it done. I am not writing any more today, but I will have to launch into another tomorrow as we need to pick up the pace. The expanded writing team is functioning only partly as hoped and I can see that somewhere down the line the rest of us are going to have to redouble our efforts if we are to meet even our revised target.

The writing is hard this time, harder than for previous events. It's not the amount we have to get through, it's the need to tie off plot lines satisfactorily and tie up loose ends where we have left them dangling in previous events. I am also finding it hard to make time for character sheets; we are busy at work and frankly, the last thing I want to do when I get home of an evening is sit down in front of the PC again and start writing.

That's not really the point though, is it? Having said well back when there was time to spare, that I'd finish my story arcs, I can hardly give up now and drop my team mates in it. That wouldn't be fair and I wouldn't be able to look them in the face next time I met them.

Besides, I want to know how it all finishes; I've invested too much sweat and sleepless nights in this project over the past few years to let it slide now. One final push and it's finished and we can all put our feet up and move on to other things.

Like pax_draconis, had I not already said that this is the last event I am going to be involved in, I would be saying it now. It is too much effort for too long, with too little reward and too much ingratitude to hold my attention and creativity past May. We have people complaining about the price, and their ability to afford it.

Drivel.

£120 for three nights' bed and board in a stately home in the Staffordshire Moorlands National Park with a game thrown in on top? Why is this poor value for money? Yesterday we calculated what it would cost if the team charged for its time, not just for the hire of the premises. When I say time, I mean output, because we looked at rates per word produced as if we were writing for a magazine or a paper and trying to make a living from it. We figured that simply providing the briefs for each player, plus general background electronically and then adding in the cost of the premises and food, we would need to raise £38,000 to stage the event. That equates to between £400-£422 per player for the weekend. We're doing it for less than a third of that, and it's still too much, even though we have given people over twelve months to raise the money for a game they told us they wanted.

Happily for the ingrates who think we over charge or are too expensive, we work largely for the love of it. Hah.

I am sick and tired of it all; there is simply not enough payback when it all goes to plan, and the goodwill is eroded almost to nothing by people who complain from a position of indolence and ignorance.

I'm in until we finish this one, and then I walk away with no regrets and no longing glances over the shoulder.