Deadline whooshing past
Sat, Mar. 19th, 2011 10:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jarissaI'm late!
One of the adventuring campaigns we play in our tabletop RPG group is a science fiction setting, full of Star Wars and Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan setting and Frank Herbert's Dune novels and a touch of Firefly for depth. We don't play on a regular schedule, it's mostly when that particular GM happens to have a worthwhile adventure plotted out for the PCs who happen to be available.
Also, sometimes it's run as a birthday present.
There's a big adventure coming up, scheduled for Saturday the 26th, in celebration of two birthdays in our group. The opening hook requires the resolution of a long-running joke for my character: she and a colleague have been trying to figure out whether there's anything to their mutual attraction, specifically by trying to have a date, for ... more than a year, now. The date keeps getting irrevocably interrupted. Vanya and Davish have tried traditional "let's go out to a meal" dates (and been attacked by pirates, or the space station fire alarm went off, or work called one of them back to duty early); they have tried going dancing (an assassination attempt on a nobleman at a holiday ball, how extraordinarily gauche); they have tried just going for a long walk someplace scenic (who expects attack of the crazy robots when you're strolling around a nice meadow?!); they have tried picnics in the most remote places they could find (bad guys tried to assassinate someone else, and a stray shot went right into their picnic).
Side note: Would you believe that TVTropes.org has no entry for the trope "a date gets interrupted by PLOT"? I wouldn't, either, but I certainly cannot FIND it! I've searched the Love Tropes section, I've scoured the examples and references on Chandler's Law and Finagle's Law and Unspoken Plan Guarantee, but nothing quite fits. Yet it's definitely part of the Rule of Drama: outside straightforward romantic fiction, a pleasant date is very seldom an interesting story, so romantic dates in fiction either get summarized (via montage, maybe, or by cutting to the conclusion), shown only piecemeal to let the characters establish character via pure dialogue, or utterly fouled up by some sort of interruption.
Eventually, Vanya and Davish have one date where nothing goes wrong. No friends call with an urgent request to be bailed out of jail. No shifty-eyed types saunter up and insist on passing a secret message. No bar brawls break out. No heists ensue. They get all the way to the planned conclusion of the date, look around for the missing interruption, kiss each other good night, and happily start messaging each other with ideas for their next date now that the unpleasant streak has ended.
I'm trying to average one date story finished, functional, and posted per day in the leadup to the next adventure, but thanks to the Insomnia Fairy I'm behind for yesterday's segment. Some of the bits are outlined, some are little more than blurbs, and at least one is partially written out ... but I can't tell what of my writing is crap right now and what's okay-with-edits.
I need some sleep, dammit.
(Remember to set yourself a one hour alarm if you click any of the TVTropes links, and a note as to what it was you were doing before you clicked! TVTropes will not cure insomnia.)
One of the adventuring campaigns we play in our tabletop RPG group is a science fiction setting, full of Star Wars and Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan setting and Frank Herbert's Dune novels and a touch of Firefly for depth. We don't play on a regular schedule, it's mostly when that particular GM happens to have a worthwhile adventure plotted out for the PCs who happen to be available.
Also, sometimes it's run as a birthday present.
There's a big adventure coming up, scheduled for Saturday the 26th, in celebration of two birthdays in our group. The opening hook requires the resolution of a long-running joke for my character: she and a colleague have been trying to figure out whether there's anything to their mutual attraction, specifically by trying to have a date, for ... more than a year, now. The date keeps getting irrevocably interrupted. Vanya and Davish have tried traditional "let's go out to a meal" dates (and been attacked by pirates, or the space station fire alarm went off, or work called one of them back to duty early); they have tried going dancing (an assassination attempt on a nobleman at a holiday ball, how extraordinarily gauche); they have tried just going for a long walk someplace scenic (who expects attack of the crazy robots when you're strolling around a nice meadow?!); they have tried picnics in the most remote places they could find (bad guys tried to assassinate someone else, and a stray shot went right into their picnic).
Side note: Would you believe that TVTropes.org has no entry for the trope "a date gets interrupted by PLOT"? I wouldn't, either, but I certainly cannot FIND it! I've searched the Love Tropes section, I've scoured the examples and references on Chandler's Law and Finagle's Law and Unspoken Plan Guarantee, but nothing quite fits. Yet it's definitely part of the Rule of Drama: outside straightforward romantic fiction, a pleasant date is very seldom an interesting story, so romantic dates in fiction either get summarized (via montage, maybe, or by cutting to the conclusion), shown only piecemeal to let the characters establish character via pure dialogue, or utterly fouled up by some sort of interruption.
Eventually, Vanya and Davish have one date where nothing goes wrong. No friends call with an urgent request to be bailed out of jail. No shifty-eyed types saunter up and insist on passing a secret message. No bar brawls break out. No heists ensue. They get all the way to the planned conclusion of the date, look around for the missing interruption, kiss each other good night, and happily start messaging each other with ideas for their next date now that the unpleasant streak has ended.
I'm trying to average one date story finished, functional, and posted per day in the leadup to the next adventure, but thanks to the Insomnia Fairy I'm behind for yesterday's segment. Some of the bits are outlined, some are little more than blurbs, and at least one is partially written out ... but I can't tell what of my writing is crap right now and what's okay-with-edits.
I need some sleep, dammit.
(Remember to set yourself a one hour alarm if you click any of the TVTropes links, and a note as to what it was you were doing before you clicked! TVTropes will not cure insomnia.)
