Masamichi45 fails a willpower roll.

Shairthewm: Does that mean you cover my back as I proceed to explode and kill everyone east of here?

Masamichi45: No.

Masamichi45: But it does mean I play in Rez's game.

Shairthewm: Cool. I'll be happy once I retain the ability to feel an emotion other than just simmering annoyance. =)

Masamichi45: Very well.

Masamichi45 me uses mind three and correspondence two to visualize the perfect world, containing all elements of everything that would ever be needed to have a good time, and then uses that as a blueprint for an actual world, which is assembled via spirit two, prime three, matter three, and forces two, with entropy one thrown in for good measure.

Masamichi45: Now we've got a world that's perfect in concept, function, and form.

Masamichi45: With mind two correspondence two, we can basically use a connection between the two of us to actually even plan it out better before hand, which I will do with two amazing rolls.

Masamichi45: One of which is my charisma + performance roll, to GM an awesome game, and one of which is my manipulation + high rituals roll, to make the act of gaming actually BE the spell described above.

Masamichi45: We can toss in a manipulation + subtrefuge roll to make any non- awakened players in the game Acolytes, which inadvertantly lower the difficulty of all such rolls.

Masamichi45: Which will use my die pool of manipulation three and subtrefuge three in addition to your die pool of manipuation two and subtrefuge two (divided by two) to get eight dice to pull this off, AND stack any extra successes in the following High Ritual roll.

Masamichi45: :)

Shairthewm: It also gets a +1 from leaving me dizzy yet still able to follow all the major dice rolls.

Masamichi45: That means I just turned you into an Acolyte.

Masamichi45: So any normally vulgar effects from me are coincidental around you.

Masamichi45: But NOT around other typed of mages.

Masamichi45: Though, since I'm a dual tradition Cultist of Extacy/Verbena, you'll have all of the most friendly mages on your side, as well as the most frightening and willing to become inhuman.

Masamichi45: When you awaken, if you take me as your mentor, you get to enjoy not one, but TWO Tradition Specialty spheres.

Masamichi45: Time and Life.

Masamichi45: Which, if you have both at three, will allow you to get your head cut off at the begining of a fight, but stay alive and able to fight until the scene ends.

Shairthewm: Oooh. Time control!~

Masamichi45: At which point you will die unless some nearby ally reattaches your head and undoes the damage REALLY FAST.

Masamichi45: Note: Doing things REALLY FAST with time two, prime three (which I have!) is surprisingly trivial.

Masamichi45: I can literally create time, giving myself as many extra actions in a given round as I roll successes on my arete.

Masamichi45: Assuming I prepare this in advance, and make an extended roll, I can cut my successes in half to have their effects last the entire scene.

Masamichi45: IE., with ten successes (assuming I risk a good six, seven rolls), I can act six times every round, with no penalty on any action, unless I split my die-pool.

Masamichi45: With mind one, time one, I can ALSO add the effect of 'multitask', which means that if I am physically capable of it, I can perform as many actions as a SINGLE action as my Wits stat.

Shairthewm: Wow, that's some nifty extra action.

Masamichi45: With a wits of three, this means I can move, shoot someone, AND begin the effects of a High Ritual. At the end of one round, I will have driven off the enemy, and set up the field for my next spell. Since you can only really use one magical effect at a time, that means I've shot six people, kicked six more, and then carved six sigils on my own arm AND the arms of my allies that bind us all together, so that with time two, prime two, mind one and correspondence of one, I then bind all of the actions of myself and my allies together.

Masamichi45: This means that in the next round of combat, assuming I get a single success on my effect roll (and I act first, BTW), all of my allies get as many actions as I do every round.

Shairthewm: We then tear down the empire state building.

Shairthewm: With our bare hands.

Shairthewm: and throw it at the enemy.

Masamichi45: Not yet!

Masamichi45: Then we've got someone ELSE use mind two, cor one, entropy three, so that all of us percieve EVERYTHING around us, but not only are we aware of it, we know EXACTLY what to do to perfectly optimize any action we take, lowering our difficulties for all actions by as many successes as that person rolls (hint: Spend a willpower on this one).

Masamichi45: You may want to add time to the above to make it even more powerful and last the entire scene.

Masamichi45: With this done, you and four friends can probably take apart an entire army of any living thing.

Masamichi45: You can add forces, life, and matter to make everyone able to soak agg damage, add automatic successes in force to any attacks them make, and regenerate throughout the combat.

Masamichi45: With that kind of power, though, you're getting something like a hundred actions each every minute. There's no way you can have that much power and keep it coincidental.

Masamichi45: But that's okay!

Masamichi45: We have the final mage whip out a spirit three, entropy two, prime three rote which (while expensive) causes the entire area, which is becoming innundated with paradox to break out of reality, and into the umbra, where all paradox is mitigated outside of supremely extreme circumstances.

Masamichi45: So your enemies have now been ripped out of reality and are descended on by a pack of time enhanced mages, who have all ALSO been buffed beyond human comprehension in terms of power (they have physical stats which would cause paradox outside of the umbra, not to mention metal skin, and any attack they make automatically generates fire, lightning, and gouts of primal soul-tearing energy impact whoever they hit AND they're perfectly able to know what the exact best way to accomplish their task is).

Masamichi45: This is when you pick up the entire world and beat your enemies with it.

Masamichi45: Granted, you need a week of preperation going into this, and the aftereffects are going to get you BANISHED into the umbra for a month before your paradox is down to managable levels, but, hey.

Masamichi45: You can do anything.

Masamichi45: Or, I guess, you could use entropy and time one to see it coming and just turn left at the intersection.

Masamichi45: But where's the fun in that?

Shairthewm me returns from another delightful call.

Masamichi45: Hmm? What happened?

Masamichi45: Cor one, spirit one, mind one to share feeligns of good will. Forces one to make it work across the internet!

Shairthewm: Oh. Translated phonecall: "I'd just like to let you know that I chewed you out earlier just for the fun of it. I'm now calling so that you can apologize to me for me chewing you out and to make sure you learn a LESSON from this. Yeah, and No, I still haven't handled the deal yet."

Masamichi45: Okay.

Masamichi45: We go back to the high ritual plan.

Masamichi45: Get swords and axes ready. Only bother with guns if you've got several thousand rounds of ammo. We're going to be moving REALLY fast.

Shairthewm: hugs masamaichi for being a good friend I approve of any plan that involves stabbing things with swords and axes.

Masamichi45: Well.

Masamichi45: We'll see how you feel about things when we're stuck in the umbra for a month whoring out quintessense to bribe spirits to take paradox from us.

Shairthewm: =D

Update.

My online game has been canceled. While I was posting to here. Hooray.

I just need to finish the Apocylpse campaign, now.

Yey.

I'm depressed.

But I don't know why.

It's odd. My job is actually getting better (or I'm going to be fired, either of which works for me). I did okay in the Demon: the Fallen campaign last night (my character didn't really do too much, but he didn't screw anything up, either).

But I did achieve a few revelations about gaming, both good and bad.

The good revelations are....

...well, okay. I lied. There's only bad revelations. But some of them are personally relevant, and some of them are generally relevant.

Generally speaking, I don't like failing. I don't like botching. I don't like it when my character should be able to do something, but can't, for whatever reason. Case in point, my Verbena manages to botch his roll for his life rote. I'm sure it should be possible, but it seems like over-reliance on dice on the first roll. Realistically, on an extended roll, with a proper focus, extra time, in my mage's paradigm, in his (and his Tradition's) prime sphere (life), with a knowledge backing it up (medicine), botching in a non-stressful and non-rushed (or, strictly speaking, even plot critical) situation when it does not add to the story should not be possible. It doesn't add to the story. Obviously, saying that something beneficial is without risk is stupid. But in reality, relying on the dice to say that even though it's what you're best at, you fucked up ... pisses me off. I thing something should be done to mitigate the situation, there. Such as, you can't botch on your first roll -- you can only fail. After that point, there's already invested power in the effect, and it can easily go haywire.

All of my demon's botches were for intensely relevant things, and things in stressful situations where making a bad roll and screwing up is not only possible, but likely sucks, but hey, them's the breaks.

I think the major (specific) issue I have with this situation, though, is that the GM wants the world of darkness to be a painful and unhappy experience for the characters, because it's the world of darkness.

Which makes me think ... since my own life is already less than steller, why do I want to play a simulated or artificial or otherwise pretend me to get more screwed over? Winning, having your character able to achieve success in a game, when I can't in reality is cool -- that at least gives you the fun of (for a time) escaping your limitations. Getting fucked over in every possible way doesn't really make for a fun game, and instead mostly just ... well ... makes the experience suck.

I respect that the GM wants failure to be a (constant) aspect of the game. But it's just not fun for me. I don't want it to be impossible for me to lose, or get hurt, or make mistakes, but I don't think the other players actually paid attention -- I counted. I botched -- not failed, BOTCHED -- sixteen consecutive critical rolls between the Mage and Demon games when I was still allowed to play in both, over the course of three weeks.

When a situation occurs that goes, "You, the master of Life, a Verbena (who is, not, BTW, as cool as the Walkurai), botch, take four levels of damage, and enjoy a -2 dice pool penalty to all actions until your damage heals," I ALSO think it's really unreasonable of the GM (and other players) to think that I should not only take this in stride, but have fun with it. Especially when the other players have all achieved sixteen successes at whatever, and have managed to create an army of spirits, a flaming sword of holy energy, massive quantities of explosive munitions, and horrible, horrible, horrible COINCIDENTAL wonders like skin-to-agg-soaking-armor.

The more I think about it, the more it feels like Sterling never wanted me in his Mage campaign. And now, even though I'm rolling better, it seems a lot like he doesn't want me in his Demon campaign, either.

After I left the Mage campaign, I explained to Sterling WHY I was unhappy with my character, and he said I could play a Sorcerer (human hedge-mage) instead of a fully awakened Mage. Sez I, "Great!" After a while (a few weeks of discussions with him, off and on), I finally say that I think it's unfair of me to make him do all this so I can game with everyone else, and I should really just suck it up and play the Mage character.

He said that this was awesome, and that he wanted (ideally) one of each Tradition to be represented.

And then last Thursday, when we were talking about his online Mage character, I start realizing all kinds of cool things that my Mage character can at least TRY to do. I mention one of them to Sterling, to get an idea of how feasible it is, and then he immediately goes off on this speech about how I can't come back to the game -- he's cool with it, but I'd have to clear it with the other players, first. And then he complains about the time I walked away from the game, and sulked (hello, lucky botch #15, in the DEMON campaign, NOT the Mage campaign), and said that it made the other players uncomfortable.

So I dropped it right there.

Now, in the game I run, Sterling really takes over my role as the GM -- a lot. He basically talks over other people and says, "as soon as this happens, I...." and then goes on this tirade about what his character does. I think this is actually kind of fun, since his character tends to do really neat stuff.

I tried doing it in today's campaign, with him, and it only pissed him off.

So.

I've considered things, and then looked back at ... pretty much every campaign I've ever played in.

I've come to the realization that I just suck as a player. I can't pull off the fun and cool shit, my character designs are abysmal, and don't have sufficient dice pools to do ANYTHING, and I'm waaaaay too self-centered to actually work with other players in a team. Add to that the fact that I bitch, constantly, and make the experience less fun for everyone else....

...and then I realized that the whole thing Sterling was telling me in the car on the trip to San Francisco on Thursday about this player online who was horrible and ruined the game for everyone else (though, he personally didn't ever complain to her). He may not have meant it that way -- but it was an analogy for my attitude in ... every game I've ever played in.

In conclusion, I have to assume that everything is my fault. The reason for this is actually pretty logical. I can't change other people. (Well, actually, I can. But it's not my place to do so.) I can change myself.

Therefore, any flaw in interaction has to be something I need to change about myself.

But until I can figure it out, I think I need to stop gaming. Completely. I'll try and finish up the two campaigns I'm currently running, and drop out of everything I'm playing in. While the experience has been educational, I can't torture my friends by trying to make them game with me until I can fix my attitude.

Fuck.

This all seems right to me. But at the same time, it also seems stupid. Like I may be blaming myself a bit too much. And then I have to wonder how accurate my assumptions actually are.... ....and how much of it is just whiny attention whoring.

Anyway. Last Thursday I went up to the city with Sterling to pick up some medication (whee, long trip. :/). That was actually kind of fun. Friday, I went to the Winchester Mystery House with Wally (for his birthday, which was ALSO Sterling's birthday).

I did something on Saturday. I think I hung out at Wally and Cheri's, and we played games and such. My memories are less than perfectly clear.

On Sunday I was feeling horrible again (I can't lose this cough) so I stayed home. Some time towards the evening, I was dragged out to see Aliens vs. Predator, which was kind of cool, but really deserved to be better.

On Monday I ... was at work. On Tuesday, I attended a meeting with the new department manager, who (though, not in so many words) told me I was either transfering out or being fired. And on Wednesday I had a gaming session whereupon I learned that now that my Demon character has enjoyed a small measure of success, it can only go downhill for him, and if I play him further, the GM will destroy him. Because it's the World of Darkness. And, hey. If you don't botch every roll (it's drama! Botching a roll that makes it so you can never interact with a given NPC AND getting said NPC and his companions to hunt you to the death without even trying to speak about it), er, I mean, have the POSSIBILITY of botching every roll, then it's not the WoD.

But hey. I hated non WoD games, too, so I'm relatively certain it's my fault.

Re: I can change myself, etc.

Bleah. I'll have more free time if I don't game. I could probably work out and lose weight, or something.

Something to think on.

After serious thought (and equally serious lack of potent drugs) I have come to the following conclusion:

I can't handle customer service anymore.

So. Stress at work has been building, and getting to me, slowly but surely. The long and short of it is that I don't enjoy CS. But before that, the department where I work is exceedingly poorly handled ... the management is trying, but the technical issues and the lack of training means pretty much everyone in level one tech support (in CS, basically), can't do anything but apologize and promise vaguely that a real technican will call them back. Maybe.

I'm tired. I want to handle documentation. I don't have any prospects. I'm moving at the end of the next month, and will need a lot of money for the first month of rent, and the deposit. So I'm going to be casting my lot as a temp. Whee~!

Before I go, I'm drawing up a massive list of things that could be done to improve the department, and make it more workable. I know a few other techs that are there are unhappy ... but many have a higher tolerance for stress than I do, so maybe I can at least help make it more manageable for them before I go.

That's pretty much it.

The story of the three hour march to light rail just doesn't seem important anymore.

So.

Hmm.

Just to clarify, any mailing list I'm on is already part of my friends list. So don't worry about that.

I don't have as much to say as I hoped.

Anyway. I'm really enjoying the Demon: the Fallen campaign, now that I've replaced my evil suck dice. Going to see how Mage works with the power of new dice, and new ideas. I'm still really annoyed by a number of things, though.

Sterling and Jim both put a lot of stock into the World of Darkness, and I think the main problem the both of them have is that they can't eye the WoD as anything less than a unified front. They can't look at one thing in it (say, for example, Werewolves) without also imagining how it works with some other thing (like, oh, Demons).

Except that everyone knows that White Wolf did not balance them for one- another, so it's pretty much not going to work.

Knowing that, both Sterling and Jim act like the WoD works with all facets of itself entirely, even though it really doesn't.... Which results in some interesting details. Anyway.

I'm also in an Exalted campaign, playing a Lunar in a Solar circle. I feel kind of like a power-gamer, except that my character is probably one of the least combat-capable characters there. It's fun, either way, though.

I'm contemplating building a Sixth Age Exalted/WoD game, where after the WoD ends in the Apocylpse campaign, the Exalted return. Details on this will, of course, require seeing how the PCs usher in the Sixth Age. They could preserve the world. They could iredeemably change it.

Should be fun to see.

Hmm. Come to think of it ... I've found that running a shorter campaign is actually kind of fun ... seems to work better than my sprawlingly epic designs of little content. Hmm.