h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*takes the from G, only to put it back on a nearby table*



Erm, all right!

*takes Marvie's arm*

*waltz waltz*

You know, h2g2 needs a dancing smiley...

*hides a at the sixe disparity by sipping her *

G7

GL, these concerns are all about the game mechanics. This is what I do worst of all aspects of gaming (I'm a character creator first, a plotter second, and a rules designer last of all) The published version won't have my rules or mechanics at all - it's all being converted to the Rules To Live By system. I know this addresses most of your concerns, I'm not sure if it fixes all of them (I'm still learning how the run RTLB, and I should work harder at it if I expect to start writing in this system).

The explanation of Truesight and Richardson's scanner weren't mechanics, though, but they were relatively minor points.

That's odd, Lil. I felt that Uli became the centerpiece. At least from McLellan's perspective Uli was the one person that could clearly be trusted and showed any interest at stopping the Raven. She had that nasty habit of using willow-bark powder, though. Really spoiled the party.

And GL, the addition of the Who's Where thread helped tremendously. That should be included in any h2g2 version of other games, maybe with the rules fleshed out a bit as to how to what is OK to put there. Like was it really OK for me as a ghost to delete my location while I was eavesdropping? Should I have put "Hiding" instead?

And you might be able to extend that idea - add a "What is where" thread. There could have even been a thread for each of the sea chests, listing the items that were still in them, so when someone looked into Gillings' chest they could just look at that thread.

I agree with the What's Where idea, though that should be something GL keeps as almost everything on the list would be something hidden.

Where was Lorenzen hiding Hitler's Brain, by the way? I really wanted to drain that thing.

Oh, I had meant to say back when people were saying how great the casting was, I can think of one exception. All things being equal, and there being a choice in the matter, Richardson is the last character I would have played.

Firstly, I don't do well with what are called among LARPers "angst puppies." Richardson spends most of the game agonising over his goal (which he ultimately always abandons, I guess I wrote the poor guy too noble to kidnap Sarah and Lizzie). I ended up crying my heart out to Sarah - I wonder if any other Richardsons have done that, it's the sort of action that happens out of sight of the GM.

Second, I hate skeptic characters in fantastic settings because they always end up looking like idiots. It had never occured to me that I'd written such a character myself!

Last, on character submission forms I always request NO ROMANCE PLOTS. If you read the private posts between Richardson and Amelia you can tell when I took over; you'll note he's a lot less self assured and does a lot more clearing his throat and adjusting his tie.
Jade and Gwen kinda had to carry me through this plot.

For all of this I was surprised how well I did, it helps to be the author.

I can't fault anything at all with the writing or the mastering! And it was great fun being Inuit and researching what was involved in being a shaman. What needs to be clarified is how to move ahead in the absence of participants. And this isn't to fault fellow researchers who can't log on 100% of the time. That is, I don't want Arl or Babel-17 to feel that I'm annoyed with them because they had real life things to do.

But, for example, I spent a lot of time trying to find the cook. And then events seem to have moved very quickly elsewhere in the ship while I was trying to have a private conversation with Amelia.

I guess what I'm thinking is, in virtual reality there must be some way to align the timelines of the various characters. It's not important how long an event takes (like, several days to fight the kraken is about right). But it is important to be there for your fellow cast members or else, if you can't be, try to let it be known in advance. If I knew that Cook couldn't be around for interaction, I would have looked for someone else to talk with. But I was taken up with the idea of the finned people and thought they were someone Uli could relate to and help.

This is why the Who's Where thread became an important tool for me!

While we're handing out praise, I have to say I loved the way all the Johans seemed to interact so well. Marv's Dorset accented tar was terrific, and one of my favourite moments was Richardson losing his temper.

Who's Where definitely was useful. It made things alot smoother from a continuity point of view.

And, Mac, I think that you did just fine as Richardson.

*sips *

G7

*doesn't change out of his sailors uniform just yet but smiles at the really cool viking sword*

You like my temper tantrum? Uli certainly didn't seem impressed! In RL I got a great laugh out of her reaction (as did Mrs. Mac, from the next room hearing my plaintive cry "Wow, she certainly let the wind out my sails!") but poor Richardson went into a crying jag.

I agree with Lil about the difficulties finding people. It was a really tough adjustment for me as it's so unlike a real-time run (though, truth be told, even in a small live-action set it can actually be tough to find the player you need to talk to). This is the part of playing in this format that needs fixing the most, though a fix would have to repect people's RL concerns or it';s worse than no fix.

It was beautiful, Mac! I was very much amused. And by Uli's response too.

Actually, finding people was a bit of a pain. However, I don't know how we could make that work any better here. After all, we have to accomodate people around the world...

G7

aye, I agree to that. Ever since some got caught in comp sci doing, shall we say "interesting", stuff on the network, my ability to log on from school has been greatly cut down, so now I have to wait all day, untill I get home to check on the action. (I was doing it too but see I didn't get caught, gotta love school eh?)

I always felt bad when things happened over the weekends, because I can't easily log on from home. Lucky for me I can do all of this from work.

*sips *

G7

the mornings on the weekends where the perfect time for me, I'd get up, be working on my projects for school and watch for any activity on the hot spots here on h2. How much work the project was determined the amount of time spent on during the day. As for the nights, I'm off galavanting around the countryside, rarley do I get to sign on between the hours of 7 and 1 at night. ahh well

*gets a new glass of and a shallow bowl of water for the teeny toads*

Oh, here's a good one, anyone care to guess what Jade's Zapper actually does? Her dance was correct, the gun does create a time warp. But where and when do you think it sends the target?