The week of June 3, the White Wolf Game Director
came to Blizzard Diablo 3 for the 1.09 release. The significance of this event
to me and to this Blog is the relationship to Fantasy and Role Play. Hidden
within the missing years was my Gaming. I
started playing Diablo, a Role Playing Game (RPG) actively on Battle.net in
1997. That same year, I was
introduced to White Wolf Games, specifically Table Top Games. It was at a Table
Top Game with new Friends that I discovered LARP – Live Action Role Play.
Masquerade was based strictly on Table Top adapted to Live Action, and it was Costume Play.
I started LARPing in the Spring of 1997, playing
White Wolf Masquerade in Pasadena City Hall, Cal Tech and Lake Avenue. Within a
few months I had established a routine of playing Diablo in LAN Parties and on
Battle.net during the Weekdays, and LARPing on the Weekends.
We built complex story lines of intrigue based
within the parameters of the White Wolf Gaming Series, and acted them out, with
real fight scenes where the outcome was based on a 12-sided dice. Later, after we had lost more dice than we
cared to admit, we used Rock-Paper-Scissors.
The most significant part of the Game Play was that nothing could be
recorded or documented until the Scenario had played it’s course. Most of the
time, the Scenarios concluded during the Game, and we would spend an hour or
two documenting the Game Play in an effort to tee-up the next Weekend’s
Scenarios. Sometimes we would spend the time at the end of Game Play making for
a late night. Other times we would meet at a local coffee shop to document the
previous Weekend’s Scenarios. But quite
often we would run 2 or 3 Games before we could write out the Sequencing. This
inevitably resulted in 3 or 4 months of each Player secretly keeping track of
the Game without a single written word. As a result, mentally recording the
Strategies, the Players and the Outcome became paramount to successfully
Playing the Game.
When Don Stovner revealed his Strategy Change in
June 2009, despite the first attempt in January, my Gamer woke up. I remembered
the Hallway. And I quietly slipped into character, playing The Game. I created my Character, calculating the
appropriate responses and actions based on inputs from Don. It was definitely a challenge because I had
never created a Character “on the fly” and I had never given any of my
Characters the attributes of “victim”.
All of my Characters had been fairly Dominant, and in Control. This
character would not only be completely new to me, but she would also embody
characteristics which were foreign to my natural personality.
He sat across the table from me at lunch, and told
me all about CityCenter. He didn’t know
any of the same people I did from CityCenter. It was at those lunches that I
suspected he was the Engineer who filed a complaint against me. I didn’t
actually have confirmation that my suspicion was correct until September 2009 at
the San Genarro Feast. The Game was
definitely on.
Don Stovner spent 75 days hounding me at Clearwire.
When he brought CityCenter into the Game in July, I warned him off. I told him
if he knew what was good for him he would simply drop it and move on. But he
persisted. This man was not only inappropriate on the CityCenter Conference
Call, he was down right hostile. I had no idea when I was at The Wynn, that he
was the same Engineer. But listening to him at Lunch while we worked at
Clearwire, I began to piece together that the hostile CityCenter Vendor and the
hostile Wynn Network Engineer were one in the same. A consistent pattern of
vitriol and hostility specifically directed at me. He was so cock-sure that I was unaware of the
Strategy Change. This was classic Masquerade.
The Strategy of the “change up” was one the
Masquerade Game Masters and I had been at odds over in 1997. It was too obvious
and would require nearly every Player to incorporate an unreasonable
personality trait into their Game Characters – a naïveté that was not conducive
to the natural progression of the Character within the Scenario. It was a
dishonesty to the story line each Player was attempting to create.
For the first time since 1997, I understood what
the Game Masters were trying to accomplish in the Game. The scarey part was
that this was Real Life, not a Masquerade, and this man Don Stovner, was
creating Scenarios right out of the White Wolf Strategy Guides.
I sat across the table from Don Stovner and
listened to his stories. Every so often I could hear pieces of Patrick’s Game. A Real Life Game, with Real Life
consequences. But instead of an
Anonymous Guy, Don Stovner had chosen me to be his Target Player. I continued to make nice, I was friendly. I
went to lunch with him and I continued to listen. As long as I did not engage
or take any action, the Game would remain stagnant – nothing more than a
sketchy outline.
The letter from the State of Nevada came the last
week in July 2009. I told Don Stovner that it came and what it said. The
hostile Vendor from CityCenter, who was also the hostile Engineer from The
Wynn, badgered me for several weeks asking repeatedly if I was going to file a
Lawsuit. I decided then, the last week
of July 2009, that I would Play Don Stovner’s Game.
It was Late August 2009 when I realized Don Stovner was reading my blogs and tracking my online activity. I could not blog or document anything that was happening without his knowing. It was just like playing Masquerade. Just like Patrick’s Game.
During our time together in August, more often than
not, the conversations were interrupted by his lack of education. I was
constantly providing vocabulary definitions because he could not follow. I
discovered early on that innuendo and word play were completely lost on him. In
the long run, his lack of education and vocabulary would be to my benefit, but
I would have to find creative ways to keep track of his Strategy.
I began using Twitter to mark significant
revelations he made about his knowledge of my life. The actual words were not important. The crux
of the Tweets were the Date/Time Stamp.
Every major revelation he made, every action his family took, were
documented behind word play.
You stole more than Paradise from me.
You stole
time from me.
You stole time after I beat the unbeatable Game Scenario three
separate times. And you come at me, a married man on camera at the Wynn, in my
space at Clearwire.
Within a few days of engaging Don Stovner in his
Game, I learned he had access to the IRS Database through his mother, Carole
Stovner Krieg. She was an IRS Tax Consultant, making her a Third Party Vendor
with access to the IRS Third Party Database, which gave her and anyone who had
her login Credentials unfettered access to anyone who had ever filed a Tax
Return.
September 10, 2009 I knew Don Stovner had accessed my Military File and had accessed specific details which were only available after 2005, or later. By then he had revealed CityCenter, Randy Foudray, Mexico, and data points which are not on my Public Record, but rather a part of my personal Family History.
It wasn’t until Summer 2010 that I found out how he
gained access to my Military File. It was July 2010 that through Don, I became
acquainted with Sandra Daggett and confirmed she was married to Steve Daggett, a
Chief Petty Officer in the US Navy. That was when my Goal of Turning the Tables
on my Stalker underwent a Strategy Change.
By the nature his job in the Navy, Don Stovner’s
Brother-in-Law had access to my Military Records and he had access to my
Military Medical Records. The fact that not even my World Renowned Oncologist
at Cedars Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center could retrieve my Military Records
sent me into a rage that I still have not overcome. My Medical Treatment was
done by hypothesis due to the inability of any of my Civilian Doctors obtaining
my complete Medical History. Yet this
man, Steve Daggett, not only accessed my Military Medical Records, he gave the
information to Don Stovner.
In fact, not even the Long Beach VA could access or
retrieve my Military Medical Records. But Steve Daggett had them. He had them
and he was sharing them with non-Medical Professionals. He gave them to my
Stalker.
Yes, you read that correctly. Let me repeat it so
you fully grasp the enormity of the situation:
Steve Daggett accessed Military Medical Records
that not even the legendary Ocnologist Ronald Leuchter could obtain and gave
them to my Stalker.
Spring
1998 – Patrick’s Game
The Game
Master quietly slipped into the passenger seat of my Convertible Mustang.
“I need
your help”, he said, “but you aren’t going to like it.”
“We
aren’t using my house as a staging area”, I replied.
“No”, he
said, “this is a little bit different. It’s not exactly Game related.”
“Ok”, I replied,
“is it illegal?”
“I’m not
sure if it is or not”, he said. “There might be elements that might be illegal,
but nothing too serious.”
“Alright,”
I said, “what is it?”
He looked
at me from beneath his lavender spectacles. He had an affectation for dressing
like the Anne Rice character Lestate, all black and velvet.
“Well,” he said slowly, “Consider the Ultimate
Game. What if we created a scenario
which put a guy in a vulnerable position, which required him to survive?”
“How would you do that?” I asked. “Assuming
the guy is a Gamer, and assuming he is a good player, he will recognize the
Scenario and simply counter the Play or withdraw all together. Either way, the
Scenario will back fire on you.”
“No,” he
said. “This is Real Life, not LARP. There are no characters only ourselves.”
“I don’t
understand.” I said.
“Ok,” he
started to get excited and his words came faster, less measured. “We spend
hours making up unbelievable crap in a Game that is complete fiction. What if we created a Game that is completely
Real? We tell the guy that we are going to a Party. We get three or four of us
to take him down to Tijuana for a night of drinking. We get him drunk, take his
wallet so that he has no money and no ID. We take his shoes and shirt and leave
him with his pants. We dump him on a street corner and we leave. If he makes it back alive he can talk all the
shit he wants about being The Best Gamer.”
“Uh,” I
hesitated. “I think your Scenario needs more work. It’s not feasible the way
you just outlined.”
He sat up
straight and became indignant.
“What!”
he argued, “It’s a fantastic outline. Of course it will work!”
“Wait a
minute Patrick,” I said. “You are talking about affecting a person’s life.
First, even if he doesn’t get picked up by the Mexican Police, the odds of
making it out of Tijuana alive are very low. Then he has to cross the border
without ID, or shoes, or transportation. You are talking about destroying a man
for no other reason than bragging rights. And what about you getting caught?
Have you thought about the consequences of the guy actually making it home?”
We had
arrived at his house and I pulled into the driveway. I put the car in park and
sat back to look at him.
“You are
outlining a strategy where you are assuming you maintain control. The moment
you dump this guy on the street corner, you relinquish all control and Real
Life variables come into play. If he dies, Law Enforcement will absolutely
trace him back to you. This little hypothetical situation is simply not
feasible.”
“Never
mind.” He grumbled as he opened the passenger side door. “I’ll find someone
else to work the Strategy.”
“Ok,” I
said. “Good Luck”
He got
out of the car, then bent down to peer at me once again from behind his
lavender lenses.
“Don’t
tell anyone about this. You’ll ruin my Game.”
“I
promise, Patrick. This will be our little secret.”
This is
the first time in 16 years I have written about Patrick’s Game.
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