measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keeping real-life feuds out of imaginary worlds... I just entered this into my gaming diary, but it fits here, too. Or... how to keep those real-life feuds practical so that it doesn't destroy the gaming session for everyone else (including yourself). Such is the way of life in a gaming party. And I'm part of such a little feud, which I try like hell to keep out of the game, but the bitch involved on the other end refuses to back off from. So instead, I've found a logical way to drive her crazy--I ignore her. It pisses her off to no end, because the worst thing to her is to be treated as if she doesn't exist. The problem here is that this girl (I won't give her the distinction of being an adult, because she certainly doesn't act like one unless her ass is getting kissed) is dating my ex-roommate/lover/somewhat significant other named LGM... yes, the other DM of our group. Since LGM moved to NYC and comes up only occasionally, she has made a point of hogging all of his time with her, convincing him somehow that the rest of the group of friends are beneath him, and so he never hangs out with any of us without her in tow. No one likes this girl. She's whiny, she's melodramatic, and she's just annoying as hell. I crossed paths with her last autumn when stupid me thought that she was someone to be trusted with in confiding to about pains and frustrations, many of which involved... you guessed it, LGM. She listened to the very personal pains I shared with her in good faith, and then twisted them around to just gut me, absolutely destroying my faith in confiding to ANYONE at all. She's also since then called me just about every name in the book, including saying that I live in a fantasy that is so dark that I wouldn't see reality even if I tried. Gotta love that kind of crap. Anyway, needless to say, I despise this girl. However, for the sake of the gaming, I tolerate her. I basically ignore her. She's not worth my time, and her characters aren't, either... she plays characters that are either poorly executed or annoying (a necromancer--mage who likes to play around with the dead/undead--who acts like Marsha Brady on sugar pills). My characters are down to earth. One, Tanya, is a cleric of the dead, worshipping the god Kelemvor, who essentially plays the same role as Hades or Osiris in Earth mythology. He judges and rules over the realm of the dead. As a cleric of Kelemvor, my religious mission is to assist the dying to meet Kelemvor in a dignified way, and to destroy undead (zombies, vampires, etc), who are an abomination according to my faith. Meanwhile, Grace is playing a pseudo-paladin. For the unititiated, paladins are holy warriors--charging into battle in the name of their god (think the Crusades). I have yet to hear Grace do this with her paladin. She's god-awful at it, and spends more time stepping on Tanya and the other cleric in the party's toes than actually being a paladin. In fact, our DM has told me that Tanya is more of a paladin than Grace's character, named Helia, is. The kicker is that I actually have an out with Tanya to be very disagreeable with Helia in game. Helia is a human character, Tanya is her half-elven cousin (this happened through how LGM originally created HIS character, Tyrel, who is my cousin and also a worshipper of Kelemvor by my side hunting and fighting undead. The next gaming session, Grace created Helia as Tyrel's sister). Half-elves are looked down upon as the half-breeds that they are. Never fully human, never fully elf, they are outcasts in both societies. Tanya has a huge mental block with this BIG TIME and feels incredibly inferior to her two human cousins. So whenever Helia has tried to muscle Tanya around (and she does... ironically trying to make Tanya follow paladin rules that Helia herself doesn't follow), Tanya lashes out as the half-breed angry-at-the-world cousin. Tonight I managed to make her squirm so much for trying to put me in my place that I upset her enough to leave the room. Not because I chewed her out, but because Tyrel died in a fight with a red dragon. Apparently at some point in the past, Tyrel had told Helia that if he died, he did not want to be resurrected, but he had NOT told Tanya that (and she is by his side as his healer and mentor). We wound up at a temple, and because of past deeds that we had done, they offered to resurrect Tyrel. Helia kept being a royal pain about not doing ANYTHING with the body, leaving it out in the woods (which I refused to do... he would be buried in a church graveyard if nothing else), and then refusing to allow it to be resurrected. Instead, I asked the high priest of the temple to ASK Tyrel's spirit if he wanted to come back. That way, I would hear it from him directly, and not my pseudo-paladin cousin. LGM, playing Tyrel, goes into the other room to talk with JT, our DM, who was playing Kelemvor at the time. Meanwhile, Grace is scowling at me the whole time because I'm not backing down to her. After a few minutes, they come back in the room. JT then assumes the role of the high priest, who raises Tyrel's spirit to ask him if he wants to be brought back, and Tyrel says "Yes." Once alive, he explains why--Kelemvor has judged that his work in this life is not done, and will not be until we fight an old foe that we encountered, but were not yet experienced enough to face in battle. I'm pretty sure that completely humilated Grace--because Helia didn't say a damn word to Tanya the rest of the night. Although she did make the comment when I switched seating with someone halfway through the night that I "didn't have to sit next to LGM to play my character along with his." Considering that the two of them are in bed probably fucking at this very moment (and I knew that when I was switching seats), I ignored her. Didn't say a word. I know that pissed her off to no end. I'd been sitting on a hard wood floor for five hours with no padding, and my back hurt like hell. I wasn't going to grace her comment with a response. Tan (JT's fiance) offered to switch with me for the last two hours. I gratefully accepted. (Grace sits on a couch every time she plays... I usually sit on the floor in order to stretch out). In our other game, the Sideport adventure, I don't even deal with her. In fact, I've never even introduced my character to her. Which is fine. No problem. But I have to admit to loving the way I can have an out to fuck with her a bit. A little vendetta never hurt anyone, right? --Mel. 2:16 a.m. - 27 May 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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