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"In het verleden behaalde resultaten bieden geen garanties voor de toekomst"
About this blog

These are the ramblings of Matthijs Kooijman, concerning the software he hacks on, hobbies he has and occasionally his personal life.

Most content on this site is licensed under the WTFPL, version 2 (details).

Questions? Praise? Blame? Feel free to contact me.

My old blog (pre-2006) is also still available.

See also my Mastodon page.

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Symbols 3: Calm? Yeah, right

(Disclaimer: This post is about a game. It is all fiction.)

I originally wrote this post a few days after Symbols 3, but I never got around to fully finishing it. So, don't mind the wrong date references ;-)

Last weekend was the third Symbols event, which I attended with as nightkin character Rallin. Before I delve into everything what happened exactly last night, which I expect to be quite lengthy, I will first touch the highlights and main story thread. Further on, I will give a longer somewhat chronologicalish description of this event.

Getting around to stuff

Symbols 3 can be summarized for me as "I didn't get around to it". I have been talking (at length with Ailiva and Taima), tracking (some big creature and a murderer), woodworking (gardening tools for Hallistrad), mourning (for our Sicheii and his apprentice), partying (for the lives they lived), comforting (my little sister Pakuna), getting my ass kicked (multiple times) and dipping (being out of character when you're supposed to be in character).

Dips on Saturday

Especially the last one is rather uncommon. There are always a few moments during the weekend where you just sit around being out of character for lack of things to do or lack of play offers, but Saturday night, just about everybody sat around dipping. I missed the first part of this due to sitting around Varaashi's sick bed. I spent there with a few other people being IC (but barely) and playing the domino game Ailiva brought.

After that, I tried pulling the Nocona (the group I play with) back IC, but that didn't really work out. The Nocona group is one that tends to generate a lot of play by itself, so does not tend to dip a lot. Still, it happened anyway. Later on, we were gonna do our funeral rites for Rallin's grandfather and his apprentice, so this would get people back in character. Just around the same time, a few friendly mist creatures came by, drawing the attention of just about everybody ("Why are all these people in our camp? We just wanna give the last honor to our dead! Oh wait, those mist creatures are here..."). I'm not sure if this lasted, since I haven't left our camp thereafter.

Anyway, I have been thinking about what has caused this massive dip. Main cause seems to be the weather Saturday afternoon. There was a little rain, but mainly very hard winds. A few of the tents that served as healers guild, library, etc. got broken, so nearly all tents were brought down as a preemptive measure. On one hand this thwarted a number of plots prepared by the SLs, that depended on having those actual IC locations. On the other hand (together with the cold), this caused people to sit together in large groups at the campfire or the inn, since there wasn't really anywhere else to go. In general, I think, large groups of players have a large tendency to fall out of character quickly and are pretty hard to get back into character once they do. In the end, I think all this worked out pretty nicely, since people got back into character eventually and did seem to enjoy their time dipping as well.

Stuff to do

About the "not getting around to it" part, I had a lot of stuff to do. I did some of those things, but a lot of them got postponed because I didn't get around to them or couldn't put myself to do them. One thing in particular I regret, is not having a decent conversation with Seth, the changeling death cultist that walked into Runewall. I exchanged a few words with him walking into the tavern, but didn't get around to asking him a thing or two. I think he died in the battle on Saturday, though he is rumored to have died before and returned from that (typical for a death cultist, I would say).

Another thing I regret is not asking Ailiva to teach me some healing. I wasn't really sure what or how I wanted that really at first and there wasn't any good opportunity later on. I'll have to ask her at the forum now, or perhaps on the next event. We'll see. Rallin did manage to learn a few unofficial lessons about nerves and diseases, from Ailiva reading from the new books she received and her teaching Hallistrad. If anything, this just made Rallin more interested.

Another thing Rallin should get around to, is how to properly wield his dagger, maybe something bigger than that. Thinking back about all the Symbols events, I think Rallin only managed to inflict a handful of wounds on his enemies, while receiving a multitude of that back from them. Perhaps he should ask Vaj to help him with this.

Anyone, let's get over to what actually happened.

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4 comments -:- permalink -:- 21:56
First Symbols special: My head is spinning!

(Disclaimer: This post is about a game. It is all fiction.)

Last weekend was the first special of the Symbols LARP. I'm playing in a very nice group of Nightkin there, a race of moon-worshipping nomad like vegetarians. Our pack is called the Nocona and we're hanging out in an eventful and mysterious town called Runewall.

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1 comment -:- permalink -:- 02:57
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