Meanwhile, back at the Hall...

So.... several weeks ago, after weeks of brain-numbing non-conversation on the Hall, the HMs got together and decided to go on hiatus for a while...

Well, in three weeks, we'll be off hiatus.

So the question, unfortunately, remains: Now what?

Wait. Stop... back up, rewind...

The Great Orc War plot ended in August just before Liz and Matt's daughter was born. Since then, Liz and Matt have found it difficult to play on the Hall at the same time... Penny being an active, adventursome sort of baby and not liking much to be set down for long periods of time while both parents stared raptly at a computer screen. Net result for Hall: Attendance down by one.

Rachel moved to Chicago in the end of August. Since then, she's found another group of friends who game real time. She often forgot about the time change between Chicago and here and would show up late, or be tired and leave early. Net result for Hall: Attendance down by one.

Jeff moved out to Kansas during the summer. He's since gotten himself a girlfriend, has a lot of work to do for his new job and has re-taken up fencing. Frequently he is online but not actually saying or doing anything. Net result for Hall: Person there, but not active.

Colleen started up a new plot, took Karen and Matt's characters off to the other side of the world and then promptly fell off the planet again. Net result for Hall: two characters absent.

I had a baby in October and not knowing how this would affect my Halling, decided not to make any Hall plots until I had a better handle on what baby-ness would be going on in my life. Net result for Hall: No new plots.

Given all those things, the Hall stagnated. We'd have transcripts of characters sitting around for two hours staring at the walls and making the sort of ennervated conversation that you might hear in a Dunkin' Doughnuts. "How are you?" LONG pause. "Huh? Were you talking to me? I'm sorry..." "Nevermind."

Frankly, it got boring. On the nights I'd HM I'd have to beat the conversation along with a whip and it still limped and stumbled around like a drunken cripple (only not as amusing to watch)

Conversations around the house Monday nights went like this:

"How's the Hall?"

"Boring as shit. Can I watch you play solitaire?"

"Anything happening on the Hall?"

"Jeff fell asleep, I think. Or he's grading a paper. Penny's eating her bib. Oh, you meant with the characters? I think they're decomposing."

The Hall has always been something I've loved and hated at the same time. I love the characters and the setting and I hate the intense emotion that sometimes pours out there, the frustration of plots and complaints... but for the most part, I've always considered the Hall a worthwhile expenditure of energy and rewarding.

When it started to stagnate, I grew frustrated and angry. Especially because the reaction of several people upon hearing the news that Liz and I were going to have babies was "well, there goes the Hall" and I didn't want that to be true. I still don't think it has to be true, but Matt and I can no longer carry the entire Hall by ourselves. He and I have generally organized most of the Hall plots - and to be perfectly frank, me more than him. I love Plotting and I consider myself to be a good GM. But it's a lot of work - as anyone will tell you who has tried - to get a plot to run and have people like it. Sometimes they just don't go...

Rachel tried to get one started once and it just didn't seem to ignite anyone's imagination... eventually it faded as if it had never happened. Jeff's run a few that had trouble because his background information is so detailed that without it, no one has any idea what's going on and with it everyone's eyes sort of glaze over with names and dates and places... Liz has done a few, but they're usually very small and involve as few people as she can manage without offending anyone (and sometimes she does anyway... offend people, that is)

It's a lot of work and nearly every single time I run one I end up saying "Never. Never ever again. I don't know why I put myself through this..." but I always come back to it. It's like a drug. Bad for you but addictive... expensive but much treasured.

I have too many characters and all of them are intense, colorful people who interact with other characters with frightening degrees of emotional attachment... which leads to the problem that I either have to play two, three or four characters at once (a real pain in the head for me) or someone inevitably feels slighted when their favorite character isn't getting enough playtime. Not to mention the fact that two of my characters have romantic relationships with Ashby's characters and Ashby abandoned the Hall long ago.

I'd like to cut some characters but honestly, I can't decide who. Nacheyla can't go... she's the HM character. Tyl might leave to go looking for her wayward husband (ashby's character who borrowed Zoya's spelljammer vessel some years ago and hasn't been seen since) and if she does, she'll only come back if (I no longer believe this will happen) Ashby returns to play. Loria and Diya can't leave because they're married to Kevil and Kevil is Liz's favorite character. Vallel can't go because he's married to Glossaria, who is Karen's secondary character. Ilarion I might be able to part with. He's got a romantic relationship with Jeff's character Temire, but Temire wants to be an adventuress and Ilarion thinks that's a stupid way to be miserable. If Temire wanders off to adventure again, she might just find that Ilarion's moved on with his life. Or there is a niggling little plot idea that I might run which has the possibility of having Ilarion end up somewhere else for a long, long time. Bastian might be able to go and only show up for occassional times when the Scum are needed... dunno... of all my characters, he's the one Karen is most attached to. And I admit, playing an assassin has its interestingly fascinating points.

(OK, have I mentioned that I think there might be something slightly wrong with the fact that I play more men than women?)

::back to the present::

Jeff asked recently if we could schedule the Hall for a new day - his fencing team meets Monday, Tuesday and Friday. (That seems a bit much to me and I know I wouldn't want to fence quite that much, but hey... it's not me, it's Jeff.) But we already know that that won't work. Karen works on Wednesday and has Choir on Thursdays. No one wants to commit to a weekend Hall time and that's a good thing, since weekends are often the only time people have to do social things...

I don't know if this means there will be no Jeff if we can't move the Hall - he's no longer stuck in South Carolina with no life but us and while I think that's a Very Good Thing (tm) it could be disasterous for the Hall. Liz and Matt are taking turns Halling and baby-wrangling and if that happens then the only time my characters will see Liz's characters is when I'm HMing - since I'll be HMing every other week if Jeff leaves.

I have a few vague plot ideas, but they're pretty localized - which is to say there's one of my characters involved and then his close friends will probably get involved... but it's not very sweeping and neither of them are designed for more than a few people.

I dunno... I've missed the Hall a lot, but I'm worried about what happens after the hiatus is up...

I'd almost rather give it a decent burial than watch it hack and wheeze itself to death until no one likes it anymore and is, frankly, relieved to see it go.

Posted by tisfan at December 15, 2003 06:44 PM