Anyhow, Naomi went back to her own quarters and got really really drunk. Arkham probably doesn’t know much about the actual gist of the argument, but he’d probably know that one occurred, and he’d certainly know about Naomi getting drunk.

That’s part one of my “filling you in.” There’s more, but I don’t have time to write at this point.

In reply to:
1. Again, a report on these sessions would be good. Obviously, even with that Arnold told me, there was a lot left out.
I don’t know that Kale sees Lady B as foppish, but he does subscribe to the noble stereotype. I think Kale has encountered Lady B before (I hinted at that when we had the meeting flashback and he recognized her immediately the moment she took off her hood), and that’s why he’s always so nervous around her, and I think Kale may know a thing or two about her past. We’ll see.

2. I think it’s okay if we let the flag I put out with Briaria go; I’m far more interested in the store with Lady B than with elf-girl (and this is fully understanding that to Naomi/Mick, it is a different story).
As for the Torres thing, the way I see it, I have two VERY conflicting Keys, that of Brotherhood with Vance, and that of The Mission. By the time this game is over, I will have crossed one of them out of my sheet. We’ll see which.

3. Nothing to add here, except I’m looking forward to next week.

This is some interesting stuff. some of my thoughts as I read through your banter.

1. The scenes in particular where Lady Blackbird is revealed to have a bit of an edge that Daniel missed would be the flashback to when Naomi was first “hired” by Lady Blackbird. This established Lady B’s strength of character and also established Count Carlowe. It did not involve Arkam and would not have influenced his future conversations. The second one would have been when she used her stormblood magic to bring a huge storm cloud down on the Red Scourge when The Owl was escaping, something she bragged about to the crew. Since Lady B was more proud of herself for contributing, I’d say that didn’t make her seem too dark. Honestly, I could see how Arkam would still think of Lady B as a bit foppish, which is how I’ve portrayed her at times. I think Arkam laying down a hint that Lady B isn’t all Naomi thinks she is is a fair statement. Now, would Daniel have made that statement with the player knowledge of scenes missed, maybe… maybe not. That’s hard to say.

2. I would say that in the last game session, we saw a side of Arkam we hadn’t before. Honestly, I did not catch the tone of familiarity that Arkam hinted at with Briarea in his AP and I feel stupid for missing it. I was trying so hard to set that scene up well I think I went into NPC tunnel vision. But I did enjoy the Arkam-Torres reveal. I like how Daniel was pushing hard to explain why Arkam had a goal of getting Lady B to the Pirate King, this is fitting for a game coming nearing completion.

3. Could there be some play with player knowledge instead of canon established character knowledge going on? Maybe. Probably. I dunno if that is a bad thing, since in my mind, some of the character relationships have been touched on, but would have been there during scenes we didn’t play. Is Arkam a know-it-all? n the last scene, he played it a bit that way. Is Naomi a hyper violent chick with lots of paranoia? Definitely. Is anyone playing wrong? Not at all.

I’m still having a bunch of fun.
.-= Rich´s last blog… [MtB] friggin woot =-.

I think we’re in good shape on that count. So stick to your intent, I’ll stick to mine, and we’ll let things play out as they will. We just need to make sure Rich is aware of all this in case he wants to account for it in the endgame.

It’s just one game of many, so no biggie. We’ll see what comes out of it all and try to have the most fun in the meantime.

As Mick the player, I assure you that the only basis for Naomi’s distrust and distaste of Arkham comes from what you’ve portrayed in-game and what you’ve written in Arkham’s voice. None of it comes from Arnold’s brief portrayal or Rich’s occasional use of Arkham in NPC mode.

On the other hand, do some of Naomi’s attitudes stem from moments of your portrayal that I heard as a player but Naomi did not experience as a character? Yes, probably. But not in any way that I think is over the line or inappropriate. We agreed that Naomi heard the secretive conversation between Arkham and Torres about Torres not telling what he knows and leading the pirates on a false trail, for example. Other moments have occurred where it seems to Naomi that Arkham knows – or thinks he knows – more than he’s letting on. Yelling at Briarea with authoritative recognition on the hull of the ship, for example. Successfully pointing a gun at her without getting your throat ripped out. Stuff like that.

Maybe this isn’t your intent and my impression is WAY off, but I think you’re actually doing a brilliant job of portraying a guy whose true loyalties, motives, and agenda are very murky. And that is FUN! I’ve really had a great time playing off that and it was so cool how it came to a head in the last scene last week. So it actually surprises me that you’re wondering why Naomi doesn’t trust you.

Ultimately, though, 90% of the “manipulative loudmouth prick know-it-all” labeling comes from the direct encounter our characters had in the final scene the other night. Other bits of it come from the encounter on the hull with Briarea. And all other nebbishy or subdued behavior behavior prior to those scenes by Arkham are now colored by what you did last week, which to me makes all the nebbishy subdued stuff feel like an act – like Arkham is hiding something.

For clarity’s sake, for the rest of this comment I’ll be speaking AS Naomi and saying “you” in regard to Arkham, okay? That’s the clearest way for me to express it.

You spoke with authority and foreknowledge to Briarea, as though you know her and can control her – Big red flag. You told me I have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into. You told me you could have easily neutralized or killed me any time you wanted to. You implied you know things about Lady Blackbird that would rock my world into rubble. You said all those things with a confidence and casualness that seem to be meant to make me feel small, stupid, and clueless.

For these reasons I labeled you a prick who thinks he knows better than everyone. Because you are asserting that you know a whole bunch of things that I don’t know – and I infer that Vance doesn’t know, either – and you’re doing it in an extremely prickish way. Either that or you are batshit crazy – but even then you’re still being prickish.

In an attempt to assert your superior will over my clueless barbarity, you gave me a series of orders and then attempted to demand that I reply to them with a yes or no answer, as if you have the authority to demand anything of me, or even the cohones to back it up.

You threatened my life by asserting that you could easily dispatch me any time you decided you wanted to. But even more than that, you threatened Lady Blackbird’s life by either trusting a pirate with dangerous information OR being in league with said pirate, I don’t know which. Either way, you’re putting my Lady in danger.

I am a bred-and-trained pit-fighter who grew up in slavery. I’ve been trained to thoughtlessly destroy any threat to my survival or to anyone under my sworn protection. I despise the empire and most other authority figures – except in cases where a person has clearly proven their worth in wielding such authority. My Lady has. Vance is well on his way. They can get away with a great deal of things with me because they possess the gravitas to back it up. You … not even a little bit.

So you’ve told me what to do, told me you know more than I do, told me that my loyalty to the Lady is foolish, and tried to force me to cower to your superiority. Oh, and you claim to have the power to easily kill me.

You are trying to manipulate me, you are acting like you’re better than me, and that you have both more knowledge and more power than I do.

You are a manipulative prick know-it-all.

But you’re right, I ought to apologize for calling you a loudmouth.

Okay, back to Mick-voice now. Daniel, does any of this really surprise you? Are you attempting to portray your character differently than I’ve described?

I actually hope not, because I really kinda like it. But if Arkham is not supposed to be coming off as manipulative, prickish, or know-it-allish, then I’m really misreading the tea-leaves.

a manipulative loudmouth prick who thinks he knows more than everyone else in the Blue

This doesn’t make any sense. Kale and Naomi have barely exchanged any words during this whole game. When they have, Kale has been a very subdued, nebbish person, especially if Lady B was around. I have never played Kale as a know-it-all except when with Vance as that’s part of their back-n-forth, and at no point have I tried to manipulate anything or anyone, except if anything now with Torres because he’s helping me complete the mission of delivering Lady B to Flint (which is the only thing I can concede that Naomi could interpret that way). Overall, Kale has been very much the Chewie type of first-mate.

So it kinda raised an alarm during the game (though I decided to keep going along with it) and especially as I read your couple of comments from the other side, that Naomi would feel this way about Kale. How?

I believe Arnold mentioned to me that he played Kale in some of the sessions I didn’t make it to, and if that is the case, and during his portrayal of Kale he ran afoul of Naomi, I wasn’t made aware so I could take that into account. If nothing happened, then in simple words, WTF?!