Sunday of my Life

The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés

This list is long, but good. So many of these hold true in so many different games, almost makes you feel like they’re all connected in some quasi-mystical way, like there’s this one clichéd world out there that is placed under threat of imminent take-over/destruction time after time after time. Almost makes you feel sorry for the little buggers. Memorable list items include:

20. Just Nod Your Head And Smile
And no matter how big that big-ass sword is, you won’t stand out in a crowd. Nobody ever crosses the street to avoid you or seems to be especially shocked or alarmed when a heavily armed gang bursts into their house during dinner, rummages through their posessions, and demands to know if they’ve seen a black-caped man. People can get used to anything, apparently.

13. The Higher The Hair, The Closer To God (Cloud Rule)
The more outrageous his hairstyle, the more important a male character is to the story.

86. Wait! That Was A Load-Bearing Boss!
Defeating a dungeon’s boss creature will frequently cause the dungeon to collapse, which is nonsensical but does make for thrilling escape scenes.

and

90. Guy in the Street Rule
No matter how fast you travel, rumors of world events always travel faster. When you get to anywhere, the people on the street are already talking about where you’ve been. The stories of your past experiences will spread even if no witnesses were around to see them.
91. Wherever You Go, There They Are
Wherever the characters go, the villains can always find them. Chances are they’re asking the guy in the street (see above). But don’t worry — despite being able to find the characters with ease anytime they want to, the bad guys never get rid of them by simply blowing up the tent or hotel they’re spending the night in. (Just think of it: the screen dims, the peaceful going-to-sleep-now music plays, then BOOM! Game Over!)

Enjoy!

When someone calls you a hero, sometimes it take a little bit to sink in…

At least, it did with me. Dorothea calls me a hero, and I could never quite fathom why. I hadn’t gone out there and saved lives, or averted disaster, or done any of those things one normally associated with the title ‘hero’. A day or two back we were roleplaying a small piece that we had been wondering about our two characters in the Dragonhunt, and such an issue came up, except the situation was reversed. Renate was being called a hero (and she had, in fact, done many actions that constitute the classical definition of a ‘Hero’), and she really couldn’t take it. She didn’t think she was a hero, and that all these people who called her one were wrong wrong wrong. She thought that becuase she didn’t have hope all the time, that becuase she didn’t always know what to do, that becuase she had faltered and failed in the past; that she was disqualified for the title of ‘Hero’. Rien pointed out to her that she was extremely wrong, and that she was more fit for the title of Hero than that world’s mythical equivilant of Hercules.

She was a Hero becuase she stood up against impossible odds and didn’t back down, becuase she would stand for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves; and, most importantly, even when everything seemed to be going to the dogs she’d carry on with her life and simply live it as well as she could. He pointed out to her that these actions were Heroic, and that Heroes are human too, and they falter on the bright path sometimes too. Heroism is all a matter of perspective. As Rien waxed lyrical on the subject I finally fully realised why Dorothea would call me a hero… because I was one.

As most of you may know, I have faced some tough obstacles this year. Dealing with my depression and my Panic Disorder, and other things cropping up, the deaths of friends so on and so forth. Dorothea would remind me that I was a hero throughout all of this, and I never quite got why until that moment. She meant precisely what Rien was saying, I was in a hole, and everything seemed huge around me, but despite that I tried to make the best of my life, and carried on, living one day at a time, doing what I had to do. I couldn’t see anything special in this at the time; I was doing what I had to do becuase, well, because I had to do it! But carrying on and doing what i had to do in the face of what seemed to be insurmountable problems is a heroic act. By that definition there everyone has a hero lurking inside them, just waiting for the right time and the right stimulus to come out and shine for the world. So, on that note, i’d like to leave you all with something that Rien said to Renate:

“We, each of us, harbour a hero inside. When that hero decides to rear their head and make themselves known who are we to deny them?”

We may never know, truly. However, this timeless (and frankly potentially not funny) joke aside slightly, there is a Lord of the Rings take on the whole thing:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pegkerr/313215.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/shirebound/207702.html

I don’t really have much to say on these, except that I love them and will be watching both of these livejournal streams from now on.

Tomorrow in the Dragonhunt: Reante is going off on a little side-quest after the shocking events of the last few days. Rien’s ‘cover’ as to the identity of his father has been well and truly blown and he’s currently hiding in a cave in the Black Forest playing ‘Fortress of Solitude’, and Aryk… well… I have no idea what Aryk is doing. Looks to be a good session tomorrow though. I’m looking forward to it.

Today in the Dragonhunt:

Our heroes visited Karlbotel, Renate’s home province, and went to meet her parents, the rulers of the region. Things got a bit tense for a moment when Renate dropped a bomb on Rien’s head. Turns out that Renate’s mother, Clara, has the same name as Rien’s long-lost love Klara. So when Rien was basically incapacitated with shock his other psyche — the one that does all the fighting for Rien — took over and get hi mthe hell outta there. It was tense becuase of his method of doing this. He pulls a sword out of nowhere and uses it to cut into another plane of reality. Drawing weapons in front of the Baron and Baorness, who have a Master-At-Arms who is well nigh unbeatable? Not a good idea. Good thing Rien got out of there before Aaron attacked him. When the others found him shortly afterwards he was up a peach tree in the orchard, scared. Once talked down he was given a home truth or two by Renate that basically amounted to ‘grow the fuck up’. So he did, a little. He wasn’t really given a choice.

Now, looking back over his past history, and considering that his relationship with Klara ended just over three years ago, one would think that Rien is being a little childish about it, and you know what? They’d be damn right. Rien is, technically, only ten or eleven years old, for all he’s got the body of a twenty-two year old. See, he woke up in his bedroom eleven years ago now with no memory of who he was or where he was. He’s had to relearn everything from that point, so he’s really on eleven years old. A bright eleven years old, but eleven nonetheless.

So Rien grew up a little, Renate struck a deal with him over something ans Aryk surprised us all by being all mature and wise. A good session all round. In the absence of Alan, Dorothea took over and GMed the session, and I think she did very well. As she puts it ‘it did not suck’.