DR Memories.
I was cleaning my bedroom and stumbled across a small tan spiral notebook. I opened it up, and on the first page I see… my scribblings as I tried to come up with my GM name. It’s my very first GM notebook from 1997, in which I kept notes for my classes.
Here’s a note on how to become invisible. Here’s a note on how to go to where GM Loki is. Here’s a note questioning why a riolur leaf weighs so much (boy, the more things change, eh?)
Further on, notes on how to create items, how to modify the TAP and LOOK, and how to put things into the treasure feeders.
Here’s notes from “room creation” with a big note saying my homework is due on Wednesday. It starts to get more advanced, telling how to add various settings to the room, how to make portals. How to create neverending food.
Here’s a note reminding me that on May 14th, we test the Volcano Quest. And some cryptic notes: “(rp award) Teeklah?)” “house next to open air fish market to Zai by Fri” “strifeweed” “pillywiggins” Some of these, I can remember, but I had to look up ‘pillywiggins’ just now to figure out what that was.
Here are brainstorming ideas – “beanbag doll? juggling beanbag?” “braidable hair?” I’m gratified that most of these – with zero help from me – made it into the game. I made a few rooms that are still in storage, though, I think.
Then I apparently started actively contributing. I have notes on wilderness rooms, with thornberries and a chasm and a mill. That was fun to do – and we had to slam it out pretty quickly, me and Alnilam and Helikian and… someone else? I can’t remember now. It was a tight turnaround, but it was for Zoha, and I was always willing to push my hardest for him. He’s a great guy.
One of my player characters was a trader, and someone wanted more stuff for the Trader guild shop. Trevellyn’s was just about to open, so that needed things too. So there’s “a pair of red coral earrings in the shape of leaping flames” which, as far as I know, is still sold. Here’s “a broad gold choker shot through with a thin line of platinum” and “a silver earring in the shape of a shield embazoned with a heart” with a read of “you are ever my shield,” also still sold. There are pages of notes for items which still exist. It’s neat to think that these things are around after eight years. Here’s a page from that section, which is also pretty much the only page that doesn’t have ‘classified material’ on it.
I see notes on my very first wedding: “Rhyll & Kathrynn get started by 9p.” I didn’t sign up for weddings, you know, it’s just that Chandra needed someone to stand in for her that night, as she couldn’t be there. I had no idea what that would start. The notes continue: “Chiro wedding July 11th” and on and on.
The notes start small, staying within the lines, very orderly. By the end of the book, I was flying and any notes I kept were scrawled over at least two lines each with insane scribbles through sets of numbers and big boxes drawn around notes like “script to jump from branch to branch (classified numbers)”
It was really neat to remember the old times. It makes me look forward to the future all the more.
I still have pages of very similar notes too. Along with a page of what to look for in applications, my thoughts on a couple dozen interviews, and a database of complaints from new GMs to see if any of it could be fixed by training differently.
I assisted last night. My potion was broke! BROKE, I tell you!!!!
I still have pages of very similar notes too. Along with a page of what to look for in applications, my thoughts on a couple dozen interviews, and a database of complaints from new GMs to see if any of it could be fixed by training differently.
I assisted last night. My potion was broke! BROKE, I tell you!!!!
GMing and not GMing
When I left, I destroyed everything! I deleted every file on my computer. I logged on my PC bodies and gave away just about everything I ever had. I deleted the wizard and all the pfile information therein.
I wanted to make sure that if anyone ever hacked my computer, they wouldn’t easily find anything that would compromise the relationship I had with Simu.
A few months later, I found all the maps I’d printed off as a player, along with my first notebook as Ysabeau. I’ve got lists of verbs that could be used with my house pet… a “dance routine” based on what verbs to use with various fluff items… telescope commands!
There are songs I wrote.. Ysa always did wish she’d been a bardess! A poem she recited one year when Praise led the springtime parade… little love poems to her IC husband.. little scraps of Gamgweth.. some descriptions of things I wanted altered, once I’d finally figured out what an alteration was. (Can you imagine me not even knowing alterations existed??)
The things that make me catch my breath even now, though, are the places where I wrote people’s names down.. the first friends I ever made in DR… and the 2 people who ever hit my “no heal” list! (I’ll leave both lists my own secret.)
I think maybe I will always miss DR.
GMing and not GMing
When I left, I destroyed everything! I deleted every file on my computer. I logged on my PC bodies and gave away just about everything I ever had. I deleted the wizard and all the pfile information therein.
I wanted to make sure that if anyone ever hacked my computer, they wouldn’t easily find anything that would compromise the relationship I had with Simu.
A few months later, I found all the maps I’d printed off as a player, along with my first notebook as Ysabeau. I’ve got lists of verbs that could be used with my house pet… a “dance routine” based on what verbs to use with various fluff items… telescope commands!
There are songs I wrote.. Ysa always did wish she’d been a bardess! A poem she recited one year when Praise led the springtime parade… little love poems to her IC husband.. little scraps of Gamgweth.. some descriptions of things I wanted altered, once I’d finally figured out what an alteration was. (Can you imagine me not even knowing alterations existed??)
The things that make me catch my breath even now, though, are the places where I wrote people’s names down.. the first friends I ever made in DR… and the 2 people who ever hit my “no heal” list! (I’ll leave both lists my own secret.)
I think maybe I will always miss DR.
Oh wow! I removed everything from my computer after I was no longer a GM, but I have my notebook of ideas and descriptions that I always wanted time to build. I also have my player book, and it is filled with names and memories that bring tears to my eyes.
Unfortunately life is filled with to little time to truly make the most of the experiences that in the end turn out to have brought us both the most joy and the most pain. I guess there is both a curse and a blessing in that fact.
Oh wow! I removed everything from my computer after I was no longer a GM, but I have my notebook of ideas and descriptions that I always wanted time to build. I also have my player book, and it is filled with names and memories that bring tears to my eyes.
Unfortunately life is filled with to little time to truly make the most of the experiences that in the end turn out to have brought us both the most joy and the most pain. I guess there is both a curse and a blessing in that fact.
Ah Memory Lane…
Not too old a player, but I still get a chuckle reading about my early playing days.
When I look through a few old logs that I saved of my current main character, I see things I’m embarrassed to recall. I was so crotchety at one point that today I can’t imagine why my character acted the way she did then.
But I still find a few old DR things that Andy saved for me from my US computer harddrive that give me chuckles often. I had such a lousy grasp of alteration design back then.
Have an old log (copied and pasted into a text file) of me being proposed to by my first character’s first love. Still remember being so excited by a simple ring from the Jewelry shop.
Little text documents of random fly away thoughts about the game, verbs and procedures I had to remember because I couldn’t POSSIBLY remember all the correct string of commands to attack creatures properly….
…Oh wait, that last bit hasn’t changed. *GRIN*
Things that made me sniffle are old documents of the first order I tried to get involved in but it dissolved when all the in-fighting occurred. It scarred me from joining orders ever again until I found a true home in Fyearikloa’i Rensh’a.
But the good thing about that failed ranger order is that I met someone there who became one of my closest and best DR friends ever who I got to meet just before I returned to Malaysia. He’s long gone from DR, but I’ll always miss him. 🙁
Hee!
Ah Memory Lane…
Not too old a player, but I still get a chuckle reading about my early playing days.
When I look through a few old logs that I saved of my current main character, I see things I’m embarrassed to recall. I was so crotchety at one point that today I can’t imagine why my character acted the way she did then.
But I still find a few old DR things that Andy saved for me from my US computer harddrive that give me chuckles often. I had such a lousy grasp of alteration design back then.
Have an old log (copied and pasted into a text file) of me being proposed to by my first character’s first love. Still remember being so excited by a simple ring from the Jewelry shop.
Little text documents of random fly away thoughts about the game, verbs and procedures I had to remember because I couldn’t POSSIBLY remember all the correct string of commands to attack creatures properly….
…Oh wait, that last bit hasn’t changed. *GRIN*
Things that made me sniffle are old documents of the first order I tried to get involved in but it dissolved when all the in-fighting occurred. It scarred me from joining orders ever again until I found a true home in Fyearikloa’i Rensh’a.
But the good thing about that failed ranger order is that I met someone there who became one of my closest and best DR friends ever who I got to meet just before I returned to Malaysia. He’s long gone from DR, but I’ll always miss him. 🙁
Hee!
I still have my notebook handy and it got scribbled updates when I came back and retrained a little. I’d be lost without that thing. Every once in a while I forget something insanely easy, like, how do I build a room again? Where does that comma go?
‘niffle…
I still have my notebook handy and it got scribbled updates when I came back and retrained a little. I’d be lost without that thing. Every once in a while I forget something insanely easy, like, how do I build a room again? Where does that comma go?
‘niffle…
Ah yes, the good ole days of merchant class and different types of … wood. Some memories are best kept secret. There were some wonderful times. I will truly miss those. But at least I got to do a wedding! :hugs:
Ah yes, the good ole days of merchant class and different types of … wood. Some memories are best kept secret. There were some wonderful times. I will truly miss those. But at least I got to do a wedding! :hugs:
Hee hee! Just the other day I was thinking about the… wood. Ahem.
And I just know, deep down inside, there was a wedding GM struggling to get out.
Hee hee! Just the other day I was thinking about the… wood. Ahem.
And I just know, deep down inside, there was a wedding GM struggling to get out.