labcats | More Polaris, PBEM fun

We had another session of Polaris today. Much doomladen fun. I had two useful realizations.

1. With Polaris, each session, we are better at using the rules to increase the fun. With Sorcerer, what happened was that we got better at figuring out what parts of the rules didn't seem to work for us.

2. All rants aside, this is no shame to Sorcerer. As Ron Edwards has said, Sorcerer was conceived and written before a lot of ideas that are now regularly used, borrowed, and taken for granted had become part of the indie landscape. Indeed, the fact that Polaris is so much easier for us to play is an indication that Ron, Ben, and other indie designers are learning and applying what they have learned. This is good.

Meanwhile, the Cthulhupunk Play by Email, which has its own wiki, is progressing. Classes have actually begun at Myouna Gakuen Kokusai Keikaku. And, I had a lovely conversation with Chris Murray, where we discovered that, in some things, at least, we were on exactly the same wavelength:

Me: Okay, so we have NPC bullies. They should --

Chris: Bully someone --

Me: Yes, exactly! But, not a PC --

Chris: No, that never works --

Me: So, I was thinking NPC X --

Chris: I was just about to email you suggesting NPC X!

[Edited to remove link to wiki, as we keep getting spammed there and wound up changing it for that and other reasons.]