Listening: Dead Can Dance
Mentally Replaying: "Taxi Ride," Tori
I'd rather be: sleeping
Desiring: less work
Aches and Complaints: back, mostly
Enjoying: coffee

*yawn*stretch*crick*

There are some people's presence I that I don't enjoy and some people's who I do. A normal person would try to arrange to only be around the people they can get along with and avoid the people they don't like. Of course I'm not entirely on board with the whole "normal" thing and since I'm somewhat socially inept I haven't entirely figured out how to reliably do that when both sets of people are determined to attend the same events.

Well I've been gaming long enough to know I'm not the only one in this particular leaky boat. It gives me just a glimmer of satisfaction that some of the people who rub me the wrong way have the same reaction to me. It's not a great feeling but at least gives me hope for balance.

So I went camping for an extended game of Garou for the Camarilla. Since the Cam is inclusive I just can't tell some people to bugger off no matter how much I want to. And when I'm in the position of being but a player I can't really take steps to make a game unpleasant for others. At least not without a shitload of work - namely the sort of social hijinks that were popular in high school. Since I suck at social stuff like that and maintained a deep and abiding hate for high school from the time I was there I figured I'd just have to suck it up.

But camping is camping. I had a good time being away fro city stuff. Unfortunately the site was not very good. It was next to an RV park, bordered on one side by an off/on ramp to the 101, so the sound of traffic was constant, and on the other side were train tracks that regularly had trains going by - usually Amtraks. But the occasional freight train would go by and blow it's whistle. On the side where the RV park was we kept hearing the sounds small engines being revved up all day Saturday. We weren't sure what it was, our best guess was ATV races that didn't go anywhere. It was extremely obnoxious. All told, I would have preferred Angeles Crest or even Joshua Tree.

It was in Ventura, spitting distance from the Mission of San Buenaventura. The main streets (including Main St itself) were lined with very charming little stores and cafes. If I had any money I would have loved to spend an afternoon walking around, window shopping.

It was also a short walk from the beach, but I never took the opportunity to go look at it. Apparently it was quite rocky and I wanted to see how so and if there were tide pools. I like watching the little critters in tide pools like at Newport and the site and sound of waves crashing on rocks is extremely calming to me.

There were lots of smokers. I've gotten used to people smoking when I'm gaming, but there were lots of smokers. A contingent of people from Las Vegas came down and while it was extremely cool to meet and game with them, and while some of them didn't smoke, the ones that did were almost never without a cigarette. I could ignore it to an extent, but several of the local gamers really couldn't. }:/

The Vegas people brought a dog that was very cute and sweet. He was terrified of sudden action and noise but loved all the attention and luvvies he got. He was half terrier and half poodle which made for a very interesting coat. Apparently his previous owners had mistreated him terribly and one could tell this by how he investigated new ground by walking catiously with his tail tucked tightly between his legs. He loved get petted and scratched, and I complied happily. He would often see me and walk over and dig his head under my hand for some attention. Then he'd pop up his front paws on my lap or even my chest if it was close enough. I never once heard him bark or even yip and he never licked me. All in all I would say he was extremely well-trained, but I feel bad for how scared he was all the time. Also he lacked training in other areas and wasn't terribly bright. His name was Roy, but his nickname (which I didn't use) was "Ball of Stupid Covered in Fur."

For my purposes nothing much happened on Friday night. It was mildly annoying since we were invited to tell stories of current events. Since my character is a Galliard her entire reason for living is telling stories and recording the history of the PCs. But the coming together over a campfire to tell these stories never happened. People were constantly coming and going. Of course there was more coming since people kept arriving on Friday until 2am on Saturday morning.

My PC accepted it as the flightiness of the times and went on patrol before retiring. I headed to our tent and attempted to get some sleep. Unfortunately this was before the last few people arrived. This resulted in falling asleep in fits and starts and nearly having a fit when Molasses finally came to bed because there were still several people wandering around talking and/or putting up tents.

Before we had set out to go camping Molasses and I had done some shopping. He decided to buy new sleeping bags, and air mattress and an air pump. Thank goodness. Last year the site had been warmer but I still didn't sleep well due to the harness of the ground and how frickin cold I was. And though I didn't sleep all that well at least the cold hard ground wasn't a factor.

Saturday was fairly bright and sunny. There were lots of clouds looming heavily over the mountains, but we got tons of sun as evidenced by a myriad of sunburns and farmer's tans. My own nose is a lot more red than usual. I lent my hat to Molases who is rather melanin-challenged so he got a bit pink, but didn't burn.

For most PCs the day was marked a series of tournament battles. As expected, the larger packs, filled with high-ranking garou took most of the prizes. I was fine with taking the individual medal for my rank in fighting, both in character and out. Though out of character I wonder how it must have looked to those who were at the tournament last year and every one of the individuals I fought last year had advanced to the next rank. As with most things, I've shown I'm not nearly as ambitious about gaining power over others as those around me are.

But it does bug me that most individuals thinks that my PC is a walking engine of destruction. Certainly any non-garou should think that, but even garou of higher rank think that. It disturbs me because 1) compared to them it simply isn't true and 2) walking engine of desctruction is NOT what my character does or is. She's been extremely effective in battle, but so have they. Her actual role is one of a tale singer and lorekeeper. But I guess their attention is so limited they just focus on the gore. I just wonder what I can really do to redirect that focus. Oh well....

Things tend to be disorganized with this particular group that I was playing with. And I do my best to be kinda zen about it since there seems to be shit all I can do about it. But - and I wholly blame Molasses for this, he's clearly a bad influence - I've really started losing my patience with inefficiency and being forced to do things in an illogical order. I did a little better this weekend, especially on Saturday because large games, when there are more than, say, a dozen players, are going to be chaotic. This weekend had approximately three dozen players.

But when there are specific events that are supposed to be judged in character, arbitrated in character *AND* judged and adjudicated out of character the logistics quickly become unweildy no matter the size of the participating group. For me this was borne out when I kept trying to keep track of some of events to keep up or ahead of other participants (scavenger hunt, pranking contest) and the time constraint was pushed from one hour to sixteen hours to 26 hours. Since my garou PC wasn't really out to win she didn't really mind. However I had another character on the sidelines that was trying to play and the time thing completely screwed her over.

Things totally fell apart around dinner time. It was supposed to be organized and meant to include bardic tales and songs. It was also supposed to be the cross-over game with changelings. But that was when a lot people took a break from the game to fix their individual footstuff (it was supposed to be almost a formal dinner where people were served) and dropped character. Some people wandered out to do private things with their PCs and dinner was never officially called. So again my primary character didn't get a chance to tell her stories. Also because of a snafu with the main storyteller I didn't have a previously ordained place to sit. Most individuals had placards at their seats so they could sit with their packs or closely allied friends, in the case of the Changelings. I had to scavenge for a seat and plate and plasticware so my character was forced to look on it as a veiled insult (she's very used to them, and even if it wasn't she will still assume it was since no one even bothered to address the issue with her).

I was waiting for some moment when I could tell a story when someone, anyone, was paying attention, but events transpired in an odd order and I had to go pick up my other PC and play her for the rest of the night. That was rather fun, but I was getting a bit tired and cranky so it was quite a bit of work.

Lucia is a fairly exuberant individual and she was surrounded by fae who did all they could to screw with her. Sadly, none of them wanted to screw her. *smirk* But there was a coyote Pooka that really appealed to her and he had a silver surfboard that could fly. How friggin cool is that? A Sidhe had offered to pick her up and use his wings to fly them around. She was about to take him up on his offer when the surfboard showed up. A lot of screaming and shouting from the thrill later and I'm pretty sure that PC was full to the brim with glamour. OOC I had to keep stopping to cough, but IC I think the changelings loved me. }:> Except for the Sluagh named Grim. He kept playing tricks on me including stealing my watch and giving me a tremendous wedgie that sent me flying across the dinner site. Of course what he didn't expect was that I'd come back laughing and play a few tricks of my own.

Later that night a few people were around so I grabbed them and told them I'd tell them a story if they just sit down and listen (this was as Lucia). Then I told them the story about how Coyote got his cunning. They liked it pretty well and laughed at the silly bits. Then I was pretty much done and helped out a little by shoving most of the food and used plates that were left out and unattended. A lot of people were heading to bed and left a ton of uneaten food on the tables and benches. I figured we wouldn't want to fight birds and racoons and any other critters the next day so we could clean up, but I couldn't even fit all of the garbage into one Hefty bag. After four tables I gave up went to bed. This time I had a hell of a time with it because my nose was stuffed for some reason. I dreaded the onset of a(nother) cold and whimpered and snorted myself to sleep.

I woke up a couple of time to the sound of heavy rain on the tent but stayed toasty warm and dry in the nice big sleeping bag Molasses bought. I even saw occasional flashes of light and heard some distant thunder. I knew a lot of people had left a LOT of stuff out from the dinner so I imagined some of it would get rained on. The next morning I found that I had forgotten a shirt and a purse out there and so they were soaked through (but at least they were still there). Other people were not nearly so lucky. A couple of tents leaked and the owners found that the ground they had picked was somewhat lower than other bits of ground. They learned this when they woke up in two-inch-deep, tent-sized lakes.

When we got up very few people were up. We decided to head into town and get a real breakfast. We searched high and low but couldn't dig up an IHOP, Denny's or any other such chain (later when we were leaving for LA we saw a Carrow's) and kept driving around, looking for anything that might serve breakfast. We found a place that was slightly out of the way. It was a cute cafe, the name of which escapes me. It obviously was once a house, but its design and decor was very charming. I had French toast with homemade maple syrup and it was REALLY freaking good. By homemade, I mean the owner of the restaurant made it himself.

When we headed back many more people were up and were moving rain flys and a couple of pavillions over the tables with food and game props. A lot of the junk from the night before had already been thrown away and most people were making a valiant effort to cook up some breakfast, consisting mostly of sausages and chili. It wasn't exactly raining. There were a few drops of water here and there that had escaped the clouds but trying to deal with wet tables and firewood wasn't much fun. Molasses and I decided to pack everything up before checking up on the current events. I was desiring very much to escape any further rain. I'm aware that rain won't likely kill me but I really don't want another cold.

No sooner had we put everything away and joined the others than a little bit of a squall hit and everything that wasn't well within the rain flys got soaked. Again. It was pitched battle so we decided to pack it up and regroup at Marianne's apartment in LA.

Molasses and I stopped by my apartment first to drop off my things, change out of wet clothes and take a shower. We also took a short nap and then headed out.

There I had to face one last battle. This time my team was outnumbered and out ranked. I was hoping we could just find some sort of shortened way to figure it all out since I pretty much knew how it was going to turn out. But we either had to do the long form version - duke it out and throw every last r/p/s - simply concede. My PC doesn't really relish going into battle, and being a fatalist she pretty much figures she's always going to be outclassed. But she was tired of fighting people who were otherwise on the same side as she, and really just tired of fighting for no clear gain on the True Enemy. But she also thought that it would be dishonorable to concede after having seen it through this long and went along with it.

1) I never thought I'd see the day when I could take on an elder and win.

2) Clearly Dolores' Achilles' Heel is disarming challenges. I can't help but lose them.

3) Totems are very good things.

4) I really like it when the moon is waxing gibbous.

The first thing was getting disquietted so I couldn't regain my rage. Even if I could have it wouldn't have really changed the battle much, only some of my tactics. But I'm happy that I was the last person standing in my pack.

Then we went back to rejoin the main group and continue with some of the challenges. I had made up my mind that Lucia wouldn't be around on Sunday so some of the stuff that she was supposed to go in on (pranking, hiding) she couldn't do. Out of character I don't know if they would have let her play in the hiding game and due the time-flubs my prank got screwed up anyway. But IC at least the hiding game would have been fun. }:>

There was joking, riddling, the scavenger hunt took an additional two and a half hours to tally (I still don't know who won) all throughout the Moot. Then there was storytelling, the judging of which left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth, thoroughly pissed me off, depressed me and left my PC contemplating Harano.

Around 1130pm Molasses and I extricated ourselves and meandered home. We had meant to spend the night at his place but he was too tired to drive all the way. The game was supposed to end at 5pm. Of course, as I said large games are expected to be mildly chaotic, but it was verging on rediculous.

But now it's done. Thank God Almighty, it's done.