Winds That Will Be — Vrin's Commentary
Vrin's
Comments on the Game
First off, I need to say thanks to Simone for letting me pick up a very important piece of the puzzle in taking over Gregory from Guy. I liked hanging out with them and listening to the progression of the game before I actually played in WTWB. I considered it an honor to be invited to play; little did I know…
Gregory's role was first introduced to me as the faithful steward of Julian's realm and troops. It seemed like a straightforward character at first, but as things progressed I began to feel that each of us was intended to make irrevocable commitments to, and choices about, the powers of the universe. We had to take a stand on big, meaningful things. We were needed as the agents of these deities. Gregory was not the stalwart agent that I might have hoped he would be. As I heard Simone describe the people close to Gregory, I felt that he would be torn constantly between his earthly responsibilities to these people and the obligations and the needs of what he understood to be a god. I knew this paradox would be a damning force in his life, almost from the beginning of my taking over.
Kudos to Simone for making the NPC's around Gregory charismatic enough to get loyalty almost instantly from Vrin. I liked, loved, or loved to hate them all.
I am not a fence sitter, so the idea of playing out the rest of the game being torn between responsibly to family and the demands of a god wore thin rather quickly. I decided at some point that the Avatars/powers/gods (specifically my GOD) was the most important thing that I would encounter in game. I was right about this fact but I was wrong about the god-and a great many other things.
Simone presented us with choices as to which 'god' we as players would endorse as the one true and binding force of the universe. In my time playing Gregory, I had a very limited scope of which gods I was exposed to. The Leviathan was the most powerful thing I had seen. It was the all consuming force of entropy (I felt), the was the counter-balance against the other matter and light belching forces of the multiverse. Supporting her represented a balance right? No, not really, I found out, but by then the die had been cast.
YES the Leviathan represented entropy, death, darkness too. And most notably a blood hunger for my family (my father specifically). But hey if that's what god needs, who I am I to tell him to take a hike? And with a god like the Leviathan, that's just asking to be eaten! In my defense of this choice, I hadn't been actively lobbied in the 3 or 4 preceding sessions by any of the other 'better' powers' Avatars. I wish now that I had been approached by someone, ANYONE else.
To my knowledge the only one who acknowledged this ability to make a choice between many, and sought out 'other' options as far as the powers were concerned was Aedan. Ironically he still made an imperfect choice he chose the goddess representing 'creativity, light and life' Sounds good, right? … wrong! To my knowledge, Aedan did more digging on the powers of the universe than any of the PC's. I think he met or had some exposure to them all, which is neat, but he still didn't make the 'right' choice (if there was one to be found). He chose the god of creativity, which sounded great by comparison to the Leviathan.
I wish I could have played Gregory from the beginning so that my recollection of Gregory's connections with these powers wouldn't have been incomplete. And it is also unfair of me to gripe about how different a choice I would have made had I been given more of a selection from the varied and quite neat cast of ultra powerful deities I now read Simone had come up with.
On the same note I need to mention it because… WELL… I ended up being one of the most evil characters in game because I made a choice based on what I had to choose from and stuck to it.
Anyone who knows me knows also I have no problem playing the "ultra bad guy." I just like knowing that a villain is what's needed. In hindsight, this game needed no villains; it needed Gregory to be thoughtful and analytical about ALL decisions that had to be made. I just made some emotional decisions because I didn't have the depth of the character's knowledge (and much to my dismay) that Gregory may have had about the world around him.
All that said, it was a good game and a very nice way to pass summer Sundays. And the players, They RAISED THE BAR on all future role-playing experiences for me. They got me to finally see the flaws galore in the D&D modus operandi of gaming. I still appreciate it. I now know that there is lots more that the RPG genre has to offer and I want more of it!
And my concept of GMing has been as altered as the playing aspect. Simone is a top notch GM. She is second to none in depth of roles she can don like coats! And she did a great job of making a great, if baffling at times, world. It's funny how real that made it. For me there wasn't a clear order, choices were hard and being wrong a lot was part of it.
Well done and well played all,
--Vrin 'the drawin' fiend' Thomas
Typos? Misspellings? Comments? Contact the Webmaster: Simone (at) wyrdrune (dot) com.
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