Jinx’s Vacation
Breakfast Plans
Jim Vassilakos (jim.vassilakos@gmail.com)
It is some hours later that Jinx awakens from a nap, her
quarters the very chamber which Nybotha used to occupy.
Ashmnet is there as well, nudging her to consciousness.
“Looks like your drow friends just woke up. I don’t think I
need to tell you how my kind feel about drow.”
“Probably the same way they feel about you. If I were you,
I’d watch my step.”
Jinx gathers her sword and things and heads with Ashmnet
to the guest chamber where Sheetah, Malina, and Ilix were
quartered. The three of them immediately prostate themselves
upon the floor as Jinx enters, Ashmnet somewhat taken aback
by this degree of subservience.
“I’m still the same person you knew before,” Jinx quips.
“We know,” Sheetah replies. “We’re just setting protocol
for Ilix.” At this point both Sheetah and Malina get up,
leaving Ilix on the floor looking rather confused.
Jinx chuckles to herself, remembering the way that Ilix
conversed with her on their first encounter, before the drow
warrior discovered that it is was the granddaughter of Lolth
who she addressed. No doubt she feels like she’s walking on
thin ice, and indeed, the hesitant manner in which she extracts
herself from the floor betrays her fear.
“So how goes the war?” Jinx queries, taking a seat near the
food which the servants had brought.
“Well,” Sheetah responds, entering into a monologue on
what battles they’ve fought and how the githyanki Jinx sent
have contributed to their knowledge of the aboleth. There is
also some discussion of the “disruptors of the peace with the
surface-dwellers” and what Sheetah intends to personally do
with them once they are captured.
“No idea who they are?”
“A few ideas, but until we catch them in the act, we won’t
know for sure.”
As she continues talking, Jinx looks toward Malina and,
speaking mind-to-mind, says silently: “Lolth once told me
that she desires to spread her influence to the human
kingdoms. If ever a position of authority is to be held by one
of drow descent, trust must be held between the drow, half-
drow, and the humans.”
“Perhaps,” Sheetah continues, “they think the laws do not
apply to them.”
“Perhaps they only give the semblance of being drow,” Jinx
counters.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no shortage of humans and elves in the surface
lands who oppose the peace treaty.”
“There are pale elves in these parts?” Sheetah blinks.
“Of course. In fact…” Jinx glances over her shoulder to see
Ashmnet peeking from around the corner of the doorway,
“you may get to meet one rather soon.”
“Should be fun,” Sheetah says with an evil grin. “I hear
they’re good barbecued.”
“I wouldn’t know. The only barbecue I’ve had lately is
hobbit.”
IgTheme: Plot Hooks
In my comments to Lee in A&E #363, I talked a bit about
how I tend to run my games, putting the emphasis on “luck
rolls” to dish out a night of varied entertainment. The
upshot is that plot hooks are often generated on the fly as a
result of the creative interpretation of luck rolls as they
occur. The downside is that they often result in more loose
ends (unexplored threads) than most players would prefer.
Jinx’s player has complained to this effect, stating that
there were all sorts of directions he would have liked to
take Jinx, but unfortunately he had to pick and choose from
among many available options. He even kept a running “To
Do” list of things he wanted Jinx to accomplish, but, of
course, the list just kept growing and growing faster than he
could scratch items off it. Then, of course, once Jinx
entered Hell, she was faced with entirely new and greater
challenges, and instead of being a master of her own
destiny, she became a pawn in the games of others more
powerful than herself.
In both cases, of course, being a relatively unknown
planewalker and being the property of Hell…in both cases
she had options. Stories are always about the decisions that
the characters make. However, in the case of the former,
she had carte blanche to create her set her own goals,
whereas in the latter, she was more or less forced to choose
a path between the goals and aspirations of others and
thereby direct the outcome by these choices, often made at
great personal risk.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say, overall, is that at least
in my way of looking at the game, the best plot hooks are
those that evolve naturally from the events of the plot itself.
Comments on A&E #391:
Joshua Kronengold:
RYCT Louis La Mancusa, wherein you wrote, “Could your
zine be any more dull? Please spend more time on gaming
and less on political trivia. At least the joke was funny,
rather than, as usual, unfunny and offensive.”
Unfunny, offensive, dull…such fighting words, Joshua.
Whatever possessed you to write them?
I have to admit that when I first read your comment to
Louis, my jaw dropped perhaps an inch, and not in a good
way. What you wrote made me very angry, and if I exhibit
that anger now, in my reply to you, I apologize. I don’t
mean to be mad with you. It isn’t something I enjoy, but it
is something that I have no doubt that you caused.
I would have thought such personal insults to be beneath
you. In fact, I suppose that was my assumption, but this…
this venom that you have…it’s not acceptable. It’s insulting
to the point that I find it unfunny and offensive in the
extreme. That is not to say, bear in mind, that I usually find
you this way, but on this occasion, in this one brief
comment, what I read is not something that I can really,
ethically choose to ignore.
First of all, as for Louis’ jokes, I personally like them, but
then I suppose that my sense of humor is somewhat warped
by my many years as an occasionally evil-GM. In fact, to
be perfectly honest with you, I don’t think it would be
reaching to say that my sense of humor might just be a little
perverse and demented. That is to say, I may not be quite
right in the head.
So if I regularly turn to Louis’ joke of the month
immediately following a reading of Ty’s political
comments, I hope you’ll forgive me.1 I hope also that you
will forgive me any offense that you might feel the right to
take as a result of this comment. I do not mean to offend,
just as I suppose you might say that you didn’t really mean
to offend Louis (that you were just speaking your mind). I
just want you to recognize that the road you chose, however
momentarily, was…it was wrong. In my perhaps not so
humble opinion, Louis deserves better than that, and so,
honestly, do you.
Secondly, as for political trivia, as far as I can recall
there’s still a two-page rule, and as far as I can tell, Louis is
staying within it. He’s not running on ad nauseam for eight
or ten pages at a time (as I seem to recall myself doing once
upon a time…I must have had way too much time on my
hands back then). True, his zines are probably more politics
than gaming much of the time, but he’s not exactly striking
out into uncharted territory. Spike often stuffs a fair amount
of politics into his zines. Paul Mason, of course, used to
excel in this regard. And I enjoyed reading them both.
Is the problem you have with Louis’ inclusion of politics
simply that you disagree with his political philosophy?
Because if you’d like to chop it down to a one-page rule,
maybe you could suggest that to Lee. Personally, I’ve
1
Indeed, I would be interested to see you toss out a joke of the
month in your zine. What precisely a person finds funny tells us
something about them, and in the case of Louis, what it told me is
that his and my senses of humor happen to coincide, at least to
some degree. If your sense of humor, however, is so vastly
superior, please grace us with some examples of what you find
funny. I have no doubt that this effort on your part would probably
amuse me, albeit perhaps not always in the way that you might
have originally intended. And I say this to you only partly in jest,
not because I find there to be something unfunny about your sense
of humor, but because I want you to feel, for a moment, what it is
to have one’s sense of humor essentially being called unfunny. I
mean, I suppose if Louis were writing a book of jokes, and they all
sucked, and you were the book reviewer…then I think you’d be
justified. But that’s not really the case, is it? You’re opinion is one
guy’s opinion. Granted, you have every right to it. But for you to
denigrate another member of this APA…I’m sorry…I should
contain myself. I’m just trying to get you to understand what it is
that, in my opinion, is the line that I feel you crossed. You have no
right to spit on people in the way that I feel you did in that
comment of yours to Louis. It’s unacceptable. I’m sorry, but I just
can’t let it pass. It was not necessary, and if it was, to you,
necessary…then at the risk of drawing Louis into a conversation
that I’m sure he’d rather not be a part of, please explain to me
why. Please explain this so that my opinion of you might be lifted
to where it was before I read what you chose to write to Louis.
Either that, or do the right thing and apologize to him, however
much pain this might cause you.
sometimes liked and sometimes disliked the political
discussions in A&E (some grab me and others don’t), but I
also see the point of view that this is, ostensibly, a gaming
APA, although I’ll admit that sometimes I do suspect it of
being a political APA is disguise, even with the two-page
rule. But if that’s your real point, that there’s far too much
politics regardless of political persuasion, then I think it
would really be more fair-minded to simply petition Lee or
the readership for such a change, rather than directing your
objection toward a single participant of the political
discussions that we’ve been witnessing.
Having said all of this, I have to add that I appreciated
what you expressed on my blog, where you said that talking
politics in A&E for the sake of talking politics is off-topic,
however, talking politics as it intersects with one’s personal
life or talking politics as it intersects with gaming is on-
topic.2 I think this is an intelligent distinction that you
made, and if Lee and the membership would be in favor of
adopting it, I would certainly be willing to adhere to it.
However, in some ways I think it would diminish the
APA as it would limit, to some degree, what sort of ideas
we can express. Hence, I’m not 100% in favor of this
notion that all off-topic politics should be banned, but
neither would I oppose it if Lee and the membership were
to adopt such a rule. What I really think would be the best
solution would be for somebody to start an APA solely for
the discussion of politics. That way, the people who want to
talk politics could talk politics, and the people who don’t
want to be bothered with it, wouldn’t be. But, once again,
what we’re talking about here is a fundamental change in
the rules, and so if it’s the rules you want changed, have at
it and suggest some changes, but please don’t attack
individual members who are obeying the rules as they are
currently written.
Okay…I think I’ve said everything I have to say.
Tolerance & Forgiveness, my friend. I am sincerely
disappointed in you right now, but I do hope and believe
that you will remedy this, as I have faith that you are better
than these comments that you directed toward Louis.
Louis La Mancusa:
Good joke, as usual. Please keep ‘em coming. I liked the
whole zine, in fact…politics and all.
Lisa Padol:
Regarding the Jinx Campaign:
You write: “I notice that Jinx always seems to be able to
get what she wants by being very powerful. Is that
accurate?”
Jinx is very powerful, but bear in mind that in these recent
installments of her story, she’s on vacation…slumming, as
it were, among mortal beings. Hence, in comparison to
these humans and elves, she might as well be a god, for to a
being as powerful as Jinx, the mortal realms are but a
playground. This is being allowed not merely so that she
may de-stress, nor merely as a reward for a successful
2
http://jim-vassilakos.livejournal.com/1124.html
mission, but rather so that she may be examined, her
personality and proclivities appraised by the powers that be
in Hell, and also so that they may come to know who she
associates with, which mortals she most favors, her
personal ambitions as pertaining to the mortal realms, and
thereby how she may be controlled beyond the usual
mechanisms normally used to control planewalkers. Of
course, Jinx does not yet realize this, but she soon will.
You write: “Does the player spend a lot of time listening to
you talk to yourself, as when Leothan and Ashmet talk to
each other?”
Gaming in the Written Format
Modes of Play:
1. Delayed Correspondence (email)
2. Immediate Correspondence (internet
chat/instant messenger)
3. In Person (direct document editing)
When playing in a written format, we generally
communicate in one of three modes: (1) Email, (2) AIM (or
some other instant messaging software), or (3) in person
while editing an MS-Word document. In the first mode, I
am free to take as long as I want for any extraneous details,
such as NPCs conversing with one another.3 In the second
mode, even if Jinx’s player is waiting for me to finish my
part, he can be doing other things on his computer, and
vice-versa. In the third mode, we’ll often be playing chess
while taking turns at the computer (while one of us is
writing, the other is pondering his next move at the
chessboard). An advantage of the third mode is that we can
each peek over the other’s shoulder to suggest minor edits
or to discuss various details pertaining to the wording or
what might or might not come up in the dialogue or
description.
All-in-all, it works out, but I think that if the game
included more players, playing in a written format using the
third mode would probably be fairly difficult (not
impossible, but difficult). As for the first mode (play by
email or PBeM), that has been proven to work with large
groups. However, multiplayer PBeMs involve their own set
of issues, and I’ve talked with you about these before.4
These games can be a lot of fun, but they’re difficult to run
for various reasons that don’t really pertain to your
question, except insofar as players on the outskirts of the
action may feel marginalized [this, of course, is also true in
the spoken (traditional) format of RPGs]. As for using the
second mode for running written format games for large
groups, I’m to understand that some folks play by group-
chat, such as on IRC5, and that this can work for some
groups, and I’d imagine it might work particularly well for
3
This, of course, is not to say that every strand of NPC dialogue is
actually worth writing. Some things are better summarized, and
the campaign excerpt included in this issue shows an example of
how I’ll often do this.
4
See my comments to you in A&E #353.
5 opinion about these, I’d be interested in hearing from you.
Inter-relay chat, the most common program for accessing this
network being mIRC available at www.mirc.com.
groups where the participants already know each other face-
to-face. There are also various other software packages 6,
some of which include mapping functions and so forth.
However, I haven’t personally tried any of these, nor have I
even run a multiplayer game using group chat, so I can’t
really comment from personal experience.
Speaking for myself, I tend to prefer single-player gaming
(particularly for this format). I just think you can get a
better story from it, partly due to the continuity of action
and also because there’s no conflict over which character is
the ultimate protagonist. However, the one trick, I think, is
that you absolutely must have a really good player,
somebody who is top notch both in terms of their writing
ability as well as in terms of their playing ability. And, as
your question correctly points out, they also need to have a
degree of patience, as the written format of roleplaying is
always a great deal slower than traditional face-to-face play
where everything is just spoken.
Bear in mind that I’m not saying that there is a one
preferred format (spoken, written, etc.) or one preferred
mode of gaming or even that some format or mode is
inherently superior to another. Each has its own pros and
cons, and ultimately it’s up to the participants to decide
which is right for them.
Brian Rogers:
I liked your thoughts on Battle Scenes, particularly Rule 2,
which now gives me a conscious rationale for why I always
hated the old D&D rules which had players rolling for
initiative every single turn, not to mention all the various
mumbo-jumbo of figuring out exactly which segment
something happens. In the campaigns that I ran, I went to
great lengths to avoid all of this and to streamline combat as
much as possible.
Jerry Stratton:
Wow…somebody who remembers me from Usenet. Now,
that’s going back a ways. I think I was probably most well-
known back then for my participation in the TSR/Copyright
debate of 1994-96 or thereabouts.7
Tales out of school sounds fun. Personally, I’d be down
for any campaign that involves chasing down a demonic,
15-year-old girl’s corpse into the fantasy equivalent of Las
Vegas. 
For those few who might care…
My past A&E submissions are at:
http://www.esnips.com/web/Alarums
And my general/political blog is at:
http://jim-vassilakos.livejournal.com/
6
See www.kloogeinc.com, www.fantasygrounds.com, and
www.openrpg.com. And if anyone knows of others or has an
7
See A&E #300.