What's a player in an RPG? This seems like a pointless question to ask but I think it is worth exploring. What are you when you're a player in a role-playing game? Are you an actor playing a role? Are you yourself - or some part of yourself - thrown into these situations? Are you like a chess player, only with a single piece, are you the controller of something 'other'? Why are you playing? How do you play? What are you playing for?

Different players have different motivations for playing, some people like to step into the shoes of someone unlike themselves, some people like to win against overwhelming odds, some love tweaking statistics or creating 'optimal builds', some play the system, some play the game, some play make believe.

The only thing all players really have in common that they're participants in the game. In an ideal world all the players have similar playing ideals and goals that compliment each other and the Games Master, but the world is rarely perfect and diversity can have a beauty all of its own. Players are all there at the sufferance of the Games Master and each other though and an awareness of that, of some basis of social etiquette and that - like the GM - each player is there to facilitate each other's fun, and the Games Masters. This is something that I feel's being lost, particularly in the CRPGs and MMORPGs where singular play and internet anonymity makes a lot of players very selfish and focussed entirely on their own fun, that attitude can - unfortunately - carry over into TTRPGs.

Tabletop RPGs are a filthy, commie, pinko, liberal pasttime. They require an awareness of other people, of 'society' to work really well together and the players, as the game's 'proletariat' are essential to the Glorious People's Republic of Gaming! Long live the revolution!

So yesterday I watched Neverwhere again, with the commentary on, listening to Neil Gaiman 'bibbling on' about it. Most of which seemed to consist of him bitching about the BBC in various ways and complaining about scenes that were cut and that they insisted on lighting for film but shooting for video.

Dude, chill, it's an excellent and beloved book and series and even if the locations - despite being real - ended up looking 'fake' it only added to the dream-like surreality of the series and, in my opinion for what it's worth, added to the overall feel of the series.

Amongst other details I hadn't necessarily been aware of before:

• The Velvets sleep together, hanging upside, in a hall somewhere and emerge at night, mysteriously, as though from out of nowhere, just like the real beautiful Goth Girls of London! (apart from the sleeping upside down in a hall bit).
• There's a whole Wizard of Oz theme going through it that I somehow completely missed - probably due to not being much of an Oz fan. Can I use this?
• The Black Friars names are all something to do with the colour black.
• The Ordeal was meant to end with a tube train full of dead bodies/ghosts of the previous failures - this DOES appear in the Graphic Novel.
• Islington was intended to be androgynous - again, this does happen in the Graphic Novel.
• Stockton is meant to be - 'Rupert Murdoch, only worse.'
• The Great Beast of London is meant to be the Great Boar of London, based on a real story - which I think is in Stephen Inwood's 'A History of London' - which is a fine book. I know I've read the real story somewhere.
• Hunter was meant to be more seductive, hidden strength, hidden power, that's why Richard mistakes her for a hooker. She was never meant to be so blatant.
• Iliaster - The homeless man who helps Richard to the Ratspeakers, was a noble, perhaps even a king, long ago.
• The Ratspeakers are meant to have much more rat-like traits, more like Anaesthesia confronting Ruislip, less like a Royal Shakespeare performance.
• They used The Clink a lot - worth looking into even though it's not actually mentioned.
• The Marquis de Carabas was meant to be bald and the character was written pretty much as Neil's take on Doctor Who would be. Patterson Joseph was definately robbed of the role!
• Neverwhere was almost entirely shot on location.

Please take the time to fill out this poll and I'll give you the cost breakdown tomorrow. The PDF sells for $7.50 incidentally, so one might normally reckon on hardcopy selling for $11-15 on that basis.

How much would you pay for a professionally printed and boxed Cthentacle set?
	$8-10 (5-7quid)
	$10-12 (7-8 quid)
	$12-14 (8-9 quid)
	$14-16 (9-11 quid)
	$16-18 (11-12 quid)
	$19-20 (12-15 quid or so)
	More
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