Alternative player rewards to experience systems?
James O'Rance
Experience points serve at least two functions in most rpgs - they
enable characters to develop and improve their abilities; they also
reward the players.
The Rolemaster campaign that I'm currently playing in emphasises the
second function (it doesn't use standard RM experience rules).
Experience awards are given for initiating plotlines, understanding
and utilising mood, helping other players (not characters), bringing
food for the group (or Pepsi for the GM), that kind of thing.
It does work to encouraging certain types of behaviour and styles of
play. Sometimes it borders on bribery for experience, which the GM is
unapologetic about. I'd be very uncomfortable if I was in his
position, though, and I'm too proud to do anything that might appear
to be a bribe!
I don't like to use experience as a player reward. If I did then I
might as well be nepotistic and just give more XP to the players that
I personally favour, because there are certain people that I have
fondness for and others who I'm not as close to... to ensure that I am
fair, I avoid personal value judgements with experience awards when I
can.
However, I know players who *always* treat the amount of experience
points that they get as a measure of GM approval. If a game's rules
(such as the detailed XP rules in D&D) indicate a larger award to a
player who didn't make as much effort in the metagame, then they feel
slighted. If experience is kept confidential, they fret about whether
they are participating the approved way. If all characters
automatically receive the same award (eg, Marvel Saga), they get
grumpy.
Drives me nuts.
For these reasons I've considered eliminating "adventure completion"
type of experience awards in a Talislanta game that I have in mind.
Talislanta doesn't have levels (in the recent 4th edition). You can
actually gain 1 experience point to spend on a skill per week of
training or study, so there is still a way for characters to develop
and grow.
There's absolutely no GM evaluation here - train for a week, get one
point for that skill. Experience has a purely "development" function.
Will this remove the "reward" aspect of experience? What reward could
be used to replace it?
I'm not against player rewards per se; they're necessary. But
experience points are just *so* contentious with some of these people!
Alternative rewards might provoke less bitterness. What might work?
With a slightly different group this was a non-issue (I know lots of
gamers). They just weren't competitive about experience points, and
quite happy to receive a lump sum once per month rather than every
session. Obviously any system has to be tailored to the group.
james o'rance
I hope that makes sense
Jason Corley
> I'm not against player rewards per se; they're necessary. But
> experience points are just *so* contentious with some of these people!
> Alternative rewards might provoke less bitterness. What might work?
Although I have absolutely nothing helpful to contribute, let me say RIGHT
ON.
My particular XP fussiness comes in superhero games. In superhero comics
most heroes never actually get better at things except /very/ rarely. They
certainly don't get better at them after every issue, or plot arc, or
year. XP is one of the things that completely threw me out of genre in my
Gotham City games.
Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they stared at
me like I was from Mars.
--
***************************************************************************
"You turn off the light and turn on the dark, you turn off the dark and
turn on the light --- positively marvillainous!" ---Krazy Kat, 1921
Jason D. Corley | le...@aeonsociety.org | ICQ 41199011
Charles Frederick Goodin
Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>> I'm not against player rewards per se; they're necessary. But
>> experience points are just *so* contentious with some of these people!
>> Alternative rewards might provoke less bitterness. What might work?
>
>Although I have absolutely nothing helpful to contribute, let me say RIGHT
>ON.
>
>My particular XP fussiness comes in superhero games. In superhero comics
>most heroes never actually get better at things except /very/ rarely. They
>certainly don't get better at them after every issue, or plot arc, or
>year. XP is one of the things that completely threw me out of genre in my
>Gotham City games.
Dude, that is so wrong. I mean, look at Superman -- he started out able
to run really fast and jump, and now he's got heat vision, can fly
unprotected in space, and is way, way stronger than he started out. Other
heroes, too -- Star Brand developed a lot, and Firestorm also learned
about his powers as he went on.
>Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
>"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they stared at
>me like I was from Mars.
That's what I do in my Fudge Supers game. Characters are going to
develop, but they'll do it in game, like by training or maybe by modifying
their own powers (especially for the powered armour guy).
--
chuk
Bryant Durrell
Charles Frederick Goodin <cgo...@sfu.ca> wrote:
>
>Dude, that is so wrong. I mean, look at Superman -- he started out able
>to run really fast and jump, and now he's got heat vision, can fly
>unprotected in space, and is way, way stronger than he started out. Other
>heroes, too -- Star Brand developed a lot, and Firestorm also learned
>about his powers as he went on.
It's both wrong and right. When considered from the IC perspective,
superheros don't change much. If you ask Superman, "So, are you
more powerful now than you were when you first started wearing the
costume?" he'd say "Nah." But from the point of view of the reader,
sure, the powers have changed quite a bit.
The question is whether you're more interested in the reader's POV or
the superhero's POV, for campaign purposes. It would be kind of
interesting to run a superhero game in which every time the heros
gained experience, they got a different writer and the players could
make slight background changes. Or big background changes. But that
might be a little too meta for some.
--
Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
[----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
I think people tend to forget that trees are living creatures. They're sort
of like dogs. Huge, quiet, motionless dogs, with bark instead of fur.
Robert Scott Clark
> There's absolutely no GM evaluation here - train for a week, get one
> point for that skill. Experience has a purely "development" function.
> Will this remove the "reward" aspect of experience? What reward could
> be used to replace it?
"Hey, Tom, good job tonight. That thing with the herd of goats was
brilliant."
Robert Scott Clark
news:3d9c...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net:
> James O'Rance <dragon-...@geocities.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I'm not against player rewards per se; they're necessary. But
>> experience points are just *so* contentious with some of these
>> people! Alternative rewards might provoke less bitterness. What might
>> work?
>
> Although I have absolutely nothing helpful to contribute, let me say
> RIGHT ON.
>
> My particular XP fussiness comes in superhero games. In superhero
> comics most heroes never actually get better at things except /very/
> rarely. They certainly don't get better at them after every issue, or
> plot arc, or year.
Depends on the system. In a game where you pay points for contacts,
resources and equipment, there is a need for a steady influx of points.
Robert Scott Clark
> It's both wrong and right. When considered from the IC perspective,
> superheros don't change much. If you ask Superman, "So, are you
> more powerful now than you were when you first started wearing the
> costume?" he'd say "Nah." But from the point of view of the reader,
> sure, the powers have changed quite a bit.
>
> The question is whether you're more interested in the reader's POV or
> the superhero's POV, for campaign purposes. It would be kind of
> interesting to run a superhero game in which every time the heros
> gained experience, they got a different writer and the players could
> make slight background changes. Or big background changes. But that
> might be a little too meta for some.
>
You get 2 cookies. 1 for a good observation and 1 for a good campaign
idea.
Jason Corley
I was gonna do the same thing except for beer.
Beer and cookies all around!
Erol K. Bayburt
>It's both wrong and right. When considered from the IC perspective,
>superheros don't change much. If you ask Superman, "So, are you
>more powerful now than you were when you first started wearing the
>costume?" he'd say "Nah."
It depends on the character: A lot of superheroes would emphatically answer
"yes!" to that question. Batman might not claim to have more skill or ability
now than he did in at first - but he'll surely say he has more and better
equipment. Then there's the Fantastic Four, where at least a couple of times
plot points have turned on their being more powerful and capable than they were
in their early years.
To say nothing of the whole "mutant academy" thing.
There *are* characters who've "always been this powerful," as well as
characters who *think* they've "always been this powerful" even if they haven't
been. But not all characters are like that, not by a long shot.
--
Erol K. Bayburt
Ero...@aol.com
Bryant Durrell
>
>> You get 2 cookies. 1 for a good observation and 1 for a good campaign
>> idea.
>
>I was gonna do the same thing except for beer.
>
>Beer and cookies all around!
Mmm, beer and cookies! Thanks!
Ross Winn
ero...@aol.com (Erol K. Bayburt) wrote:
> There *are* characters who've "always been this powerful," as well as
> characters who *think* they've "always been this powerful" even if they
> haven't
> been. But not all characters are like that, not by a long shot.
There are also a lot of characters who may have always been that
powerful, but who didn't discover it until later experience taught them.
It can be argued that Dr. Manhattan (the Watchmen) could always do that,
he just had to realize it.
Ross Winn, Freelance Geek
ross...@mac.com
AIM winn2r
ICQ 19818264
"Not just another ugly face..."
James O'Rance
> "Hey, Tom, good job tonight. That thing with the herd of goats was
> brilliant."
Yes, simple feedback and praise (when deserved) is important. And
there are players in one of my groups who prefer that - I gave them
lump sums of XP less than once a month, so they weren't so Pavlovian
about it.
I'm not sure if I can repeat this with all members of the other group;
they're older gamers in general, and some of them are more willful.
james o'rance
Mr. M.J. Lush
>Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>>> I'm not against player rewards per se; they're necessary. But
>>> experience points are just *so* contentious with some of these people!
>>> Alternative rewards might provoke less bitterness. What might work?
>>
>>Although I have absolutely nothing helpful to contribute, let me say RIGHT
>>ON.
>>
>>My particular XP fussiness comes in superhero games. In superhero comics
>>most heroes never actually get better at things except /very/ rarely. They
>>certainly don't get better at them after every issue, or plot arc, or
>>year. XP is one of the things that completely threw me out of genre in my
>>Gotham City games.
>
>Dude, that is so wrong.
I'd read the above paragraph again. Jason Corley did not
say that supers never increased in power he said they did it
/very/ rarely.
> I mean, look at Superman -- he started out able
>to run really fast and jump, and now he's got heat vision, can fly
>unprotected in space, and is way, way stronger than he started out.
It has taken Superman some 50 years to get where he is today
(along with endless ups and downs in power) and much of his power derives
from his early 'munchkin powergaming' days. A phase that later
writers probably regretted as its very hard to challenge a total Superman.
> Other
>heroes, too -- Star Brand developed a lot, and Firestorm also learned
>about his powers as he went on.
Star Brand has been going for ~16 years, Firestorm has been going for ~24
Consider how powerful a D&D character would be after 16 years regular play
consider the relative increase in power over that time.
>>Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
>>"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they stared at
>>me like I was from Mars.
>
>That's what I do in my Fudge Supers game. Characters are going to
>develop, but they'll do it in game, like by training or maybe by modifying
>their own powers (especially for the powered armour guy).
I've run 'power discovery' campaigns (where the PC/players
don't know their powers and slowly discover what they can do)
even then there is a steep climb in power over the first 3 sessions
then the development becomes very slow as they devise and consolidate
power stunts.
This is one of the things I quite like about supers games
the stability, the game is not about increasing the characters power
its about improving the character.
--
Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NPC rights activist | Nameless Abominations are people too.
Erol K. Bayburt
>Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
>"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they stared at
>me like I was from Mars.
That's because you *were* from Mars. IME it's *extremely* rare for GMs to let
players start characters at the top of the food chain, and even rarer for GMs
to do so and not renege by throwing in "there's always a bigger fish" NPCs.
This sort of set-up also tilts things strongly toward DAS - so much so that
even normally DAS players may find it too DAS for their tastes.
Robert Scott Clark
news:180986e3.02100...@posting.google.com:
Then you should give them smoked snake.
(Now I'm wondering how many people will get that.)
>
>
> james o'rance
>
Robert Scott Clark
news:20021004094002...@mb-ct.aol.com:
Um... I thought I was up on all the jargon, but what's "DAS"?
Jason Corley
>>Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
>>"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they stared at
>>me like I was from Mars.
> That's because you *were* from Mars. IME it's *extremely* rare for GMs to let
> players start characters at the top of the food chain, and even rarer for GMs
> to do so and not renege by throwing in "there's always a bigger fish" NPCs.
Even the /incomplete/ versions of the characters were explicitly in no
true danger from most of the inhabitants of the game world.
Why is the presence of "bigger fish" NPCs important?
Say it was a Marvel superheroes game in which the characters are New
Mutants or power levels thereabouts. (Again, VERY few powerups across a
100-issue series, and almost never as the result of experience and
learning.) Does the presence of the Silver Surfer or the Avengers in the
setting make these characters unplayable?
> This sort of set-up also tilts things strongly toward DAS - so much so that
> even normally DAS players may find it too DAS for their tastes.
WTF is DAS?
Wayne Shaw
>In article <20021003210505...@mb-mb.aol.com>,
> ero...@aol.com (Erol K. Bayburt) wrote:
>> There *are* characters who've "always been this powerful," as well as
>> characters who *think* they've "always been this powerful" even if they
>> haven't
>> been. But not all characters are like that, not by a long shot.
>
>There are also a lot of characters who may have always been that
>powerful, but who didn't discover it until later experience taught them.
>
>It can be argued that Dr. Manhattan (the Watchmen) could always do that,
>he just had to realize it.
And that can be the rationale for experience expenditures, too.
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
> point for that skill. Experience has a purely "development"
> function. Will this remove the "reward" aspect of experience? What
> reward could be used to replace it?
>
> I'm not against player rewards per se; they're necessary. But
> experience points are just *so* contentious with some of these
> people! Alternative rewards might provoke less bitterness. What
> might work?
I'm doing the same thing by doing exactly the opposite in my latest
campaign.
My big idea for /Leftover Dudes/ is to try and run a game that's
-always- interesting and challenging. That is, I'm deliberately trying
to aggressively manage the pacing of the game to push the amount of
"dead time" during play to zero. So my goal is to make sure that every
single scene I run both has an interesting conflict in it, and lets
the players learn something, do something or make a choice. I'm trying
to see what happens when I take the idea "if it's not fun RIGHT NOW,
don't do it" as seriously as possible.
Anyway, in /Leftover Dudes/, experience points are purely a player
device: there is no sense in which they are "real" to the characters.
Spending xps permits a player to redefine the central conflict of a
scene, or lets them add new conflicts into the game. Essentially, they
let players briefly take over the scenario design function of the GM
to create the most interesting possible conflict for their PCs. By
spending xps, a player can create new NPCs, change existing NPCs'
motivations, alter geography, and whatever other retcons are necessary
to create the conflict they want to play out.
As a result, this means that I have to be a lot more transparent and
formal about how I do scenario design, to make it easier for the
players to hook into and take over from my work. This synergizes
really well with my goal of trying to run a fast, constantly-involving
game, because the explicitness is letting me dredge up all my hidden
assumptions and expose them to sunlight.
Actually getting the experience points is a mechanistic affair,
though. You get a point for showing up, another point for being right
on time, and so on. I try to make all the behavioral incentives in the
XP rules glaringly obvious, and listed on the table. If you don't,
there's a risk that people will misjudge what you are trying to
encourage and pick up the wrong conditioning. :)
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
Bryant Durrell
Design At Start (vs. Design In Play). I.e., do you like to figure
everything about your character out before play begins, or do you
like to define your character as you go along? DIP mechanics include
the ever-popular "hold back a few points to spend on skills in the
first couple of sessions," or "it's OK to redesign your PC a bit
after the first session or two."
I actually don't see how Jason's proposal was too DAS-ish. It doesn't
prevent him from allowing players to redesign a bit in the early going,
and it doesn't prevent players from defining the psychology of the PCs
as they go, quite.
--
Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
[----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
"It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions
makes it impossible to earn a living." -- Bertrand Russell
Robert Scott Clark
news:uprh0kk...@news.supernews.com:
> In article <QLOcnWTmAoh...@News.GigaNews.Com>,
> Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>ero...@aol.com (Erol K. Bayburt) wrote in
>>news:20021004094002...@mb-ct.aol.com:
>>> Jason Corley cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net wrote:
>>>
>>>>Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
>>>>"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they
>>>>stared at me like I was from Mars.
>>>
>>> That's because you *were* from Mars. IME it's *extremely* rare for
>>> GMs to let players start characters at the top of the food chain,
>>> and even rarer for GMs to do so and not renege by throwing in
>>> "there's always a bigger fish" NPCs.
>>>
>>> This sort of set-up also tilts things strongly toward DAS - so much
>>> so that even normally DAS players may find it too DAS for their
>>> tastes.
>>
>>Um... I thought I was up on all the jargon, but what's "DAS"?
>
> Design At Start (vs. Design In Play).
Got it.
Wierd though, I always considered those terms to apply more to character
personality instead of character ability.
I mean, I thought I was pretty far out on the "in-play" side, but this
wouldn't bother me much at all.
In reality, advancement during the game seems less important than being
able to just *change* small things from the DIP standpoint. The changes
that I seem to like for DIP aren't the types of thnigs you change by
spending XP to increase things.
> I.e., do you like to figure
> everything about your character out before play begins, or do you
> like to define your character as you go along? DIP mechanics include
> the ever-popular "hold back a few points to spend on skills in the
> first couple of sessions," or "it's OK to redesign your PC a bit
> after the first session or two."
>
> I actually don't see how Jason's proposal was too DAS-ish.
OK, so it wasn't just me.
> It doesn't
> prevent him from allowing players to redesign a bit in the early
> going, and it doesn't prevent players from defining the psychology of
> the PCs as they go, quite.
>
OK, so I am on the same page as someone else here.
Robert Scott Clark
> Erol K. Bayburt <ero...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Jason Corley cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net wrote:
>
>>>Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
>>>"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they
>>>stared at me like I was from Mars.
>
>> That's because you *were* from Mars. IME it's *extremely* rare for
>> GMs to let players start characters at the top of the food chain, and
>> even rarer for GMs to do so and not renege by throwing in "there's
>> always a bigger fish" NPCs.
>
> Even the /incomplete/ versions of the characters were explicitly in no
> true danger from most of the inhabitants of the game world.
>
> Why is the presence of "bigger fish" NPCs important?
>
> Say it was a Marvel superheroes game in which the characters are New
> Mutants or power levels thereabouts. (Again, VERY few powerups across
> a 100-issue series, and almost never as the result of experience and
> learning.) Does the presence of the Silver Surfer or the Avengers in
> the setting make these characters unplayable?
How often do those character actually run into SS or the avengers? I
think the "bigger fish" problem is more about NPCs they actually
interract with regularly. In a game where power levels increase on a
regular basis, having someone (adversary or not) that is much more
powerful than you is easier to accept, because eventually you can
overcome them. If the power level is set, then more powerful characters
appearing on a regular basis will seem to overshadow the characters.
Anytime an adversary is more powerful it will feel like railroading and
anytime a "good guy" is more powerful it will feel like one of those
uncomfortable situations where the GM is abusing the priveledge of having
a GMPC.
Erol K. Bayburt
>Say it was a Marvel superheroes game in which the characters are New
>Mutants or power levels thereabouts. (Again, VERY few powerups across a
>100-issue series, and almost never as the result of experience and
>learning.)
Huh???!!!
The characters in the New Mutants series *I* remember had significant
experience increases - not so much in terms of raw power increases, but in
terms of improving skills, combat ability, and buying off limitations on their
powers. E.g. at the start Cannonball could blast once a day, with minimum
ability to maneuver, while by the end he had significant endurance and
maneuverability with his power. And this was essentially *all* due to
experience and learning, rather than any sort of "radiation accident"
>Does the presence of the Silver Surfer or the Avengers in the
>setting make these characters unplayable?
If the Avengers or the Silver Surfer are active NPCs who regularly cross the
paths of those characters, then *I'd* find them unplayable.
I won't speak for all players though - there are some players who would enjoy
playing non-powered DNPCs in a supers game. They're severe maschoists, IMO, but
they do exist.
>WTF is DAS?
Design At Start - as opposed to Design In Play (DIP).
Erol K. Bayburt
>>>Um... I thought I was up on all the jargon, but what's "DAS"?
>>
>> Design At Start (vs. Design In Play).
>
>
>Got it.
>
>Wierd though, I always considered those terms to apply more to character
>personality instead of character ability.
I don't really separate the two. "Who I am" is initimitely tied up with "What I
can do" in real life, for me, and in my style of gaming it's even more so.
Warren J. Dew
Design At Start (vs. Design In Play)
Actually, vs. Develop In Play. I feel that the difference between 'Design' and
'Develop' is at least as important as the difference between 'At Start' and 'In
Play'.
I actually don't see how Jason's proposal was too DAS-ish.
It doesn't prevent him from allowing players to redesign a
bit in the early going ...
And here's why.
The whole point of developing a character in play is that you don't have to
define the character at the start of play - you can leave many aspects
undefined until such a time as you discover them.
Designing a character at the start of play, then redesigning it later on, is
still 'Design At Start'.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Warren J. Dew
However, I know players who *always* treat the amount of
experience points that they get as a measure of GM
approval....
Drives me nuts.
It would me too. I've always awarded experience purely on the basis of what
the characters do; the players are expected to be considerate to each other
just from the fact they are playing together.
I do use a concept jokingly called 'gamesmaster favor points' with regard to my
campaign; these are what allows a player to do something unusual, like perhaps
play a character in the royal family, or of a race that's not normally
available as player characters. They aren't actually tracked or anything; it's
mostly a figure of speech that refers to factors like whether the player is
likely to do a good job roleplaying an unusual race, or whether he's suffered
some undeserved bad luck such as losing a major character to a bad die roll, or
how good a mood the gamesmaster is in that day, or whatever.
I think the biggest problems occur when the same rewards, such as experience
points, are used for both character achievement and player behavior. This can
be very confusing to the players - or for that matter to the characters as well
if they think about it.
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
> It doesn't prevent him from allowing players to redesign a
> bit in the early going ...
>
> And here's why.
>
> The whole point of developing a character in play is that you don't
> have to define the character at the start of play - you can leave
> many aspects undefined until such a time as you discover them.
> Designing a character at the start of play, then redesigning it
> later on, is still 'Design At Start'.
That depends on the complexity of the sytem you're using. With a
simple system there isn't any practical difference between redesigning
a character and filling it in as you go along. This is the case with
the system for my current campaign (though it's still more complex
than I would like).
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
Robert Scott Clark
I can see that for most normal abilities and learned skills (to a degree
- I still think there is a large degree of looseness there), but I see
much less of a connection for superheros (which is what the example was
about). I really don't see much of a connection between shooting lasers
from your ass and any particular personality traits.
Robert Scott Clark
news:20021004193744...@mb-mu.aol.com:
But this is still kind of off from the original example. The example was
of a character that was not given XP for advancement and one that was,
and to draw a parallel to your statement - a character that is designed
at the start and later has his abilities increased in play was still
designed at the start.
Whether or not the character/player gets XP seem to have little relation
to the XP, or lack thereof, given out.
(now, theoretically, one could spend all experience gained to broaden
ability and define "new" areas where it was never before revealed that
the character had experience. But I find that less than useful for 2
reasons - 1. because I really don't seew that as being the common way to
expend XP and 2. because it seems the exact same effect could be better
accomplished by either allowing the player to move points or by just
saving some of the initial points and spending them during the game.
Gained points seem no more suited to DIP than either of those ideas, and
intuitively seem to represent something different.)
Joseph Teller
<cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>My particular XP fussiness comes in superhero games. In superhero comics
>most heroes never actually get better at things except /very/ rarely. They
>certainly don't get better at them after every issue, or plot arc, or
>year. XP is one of the things that completely threw me out of genre in my
>Gotham City games.
>
>Yet when (at the postmortem) I suggested a game where they made the
>"complete" version of the heroes and XP was never awarded, they stared at
>me like I was from Mars.
That's because there is no such thing as a 'complete' character, and
certainly not at the point levels that most games work for character
construction (which are specifically designed for beginner characters
in many cases).
Character development, to many people, is the entire reason for the
game. It's the Campbell concept of the Heros Journey, a combination of
physical, mental, social and spiritual advancement thru their life
story. Remove the context of the journey and you have stagnation.
Now, you could have a situation where you want everyone to create a
"peak" version of the character, where they have reached their peak in
one or two the four categories, and limit advancement to the other
categories only....
So for example, a Physical and Mental peak, but with gowth in
Spiritual and Social matters, so that they can be learning lessons and
gaining social connections, but during which physical powers or new
skills are not being tallyed.
Again you'd need to do this not with game settings at the 'beginner'
level that many people focus on, but a truly advanced character point
in their life at say middle age.
In the superhero genre the characters do change and grow, and you'd
need to read a character for a decade or more to realize this.
Ex: Original Marvel Girl aka Phoenix. She starts as a low level TK
with some minor telepathy and eventually becomes one of the most
powerful Telepaths and Stronger Tks on the planet, with forcefield
projection and other abilities (before the Phoenix events).
Usually power development comes from lots of training, an Epiphany
moment in the character's life, getting a new gadget, exposure to some
weird power or event or external intervention.
Go pick up a long running superhero title, read a decade or two of
stories, and you'll see how these things work.
Joe
--------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Teller joet...@mindspring.com
www.fantasylibrary.com
Warren J. Dew
Designing a character at the start of play, then redesigning
it later on, is still 'Design At Start'.
Neel K. posts, in part:
That depends on the complexity of the sytem you're using. With
a simple system there isn't any practical difference between
redesigning a character and filling it in as you go along.
It isn't the effort and work in redesign that constitutes 'design at start',
it's the fact that there is are preexisting attributes to be changed, rather
than blank space to be filled in.
As for the complexity of the system, it strikes me that the simpler the system,
the less one can leave blank to be filled in later.
Erol K. Bayburt
>But this is still kind of off from the original example. The example was
>of a character that was not given XP for advancement and one that was,
>and to draw a parallel to your statement - a character that is designed
>at the start and later has his abilities increased in play was still
>designed at the start.
We may be talking at cross-purposes, here. I'm thinking in terms of, e.g., a
"beginning" 250 pt Champions character who earns experience to rise to 350-400
pts. vs a "complete" version of the character built with 350-400 pts from the
start.
In HERO and GURPS, at least, it's a very common experience to find that
characters built directly at a higher point total "feel" different (and often
*are* different) from similar characters who gain that same high point total
via play.
Robert Scott Clark
> Responding to me:
>
> Designing a character at the start of play, then redesigning
> it later on, is still 'Design At Start'.
>
> Neel K. posts, in part:
>
> That depends on the complexity of the sytem you're using. With
> a simple system there isn't any practical difference between
> redesigning a character and filling it in as you go along.
>
> It isn't the effort and work in redesign that constitutes 'design at
> start', it's the fact that there is are preexisting attributes to be
> changed, rather than blank space to be filled in.
In terms of the discussion, what is the practical difference between
changing a value and setting an empty value other than the initial effort
of settign the values?
To ask another way, why do you consider the distinction you are making
useful? Can anyone who considers themselves DIP state why one is
preferable to the other?
I only ask because, as I stated before, I thought i was pretty DIP, but I
see no importance in the distinction you are making. I don't see any
reason why being able to change values in play would be any less
effective at accomplishing the DIP goals than leaving the values empty
would be.
I see your point semantically, but I don't see it practically.
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
>
> Designing a character at the start of play, then redesigning
> it later on, is still 'Design At Start'.
>
> Neel K. posts, in part:
>
> That depends on the complexity of the sytem you're using. With
> a simple system there isn't any practical difference between
> redesigning a character and filling it in as you go along.
>
> It isn't the effort and work in redesign that constitutes 'design
> at start', it's the fact that there is are preexisting attributes
> to be changed, rather than blank space to be filled in.
Can you expand on the psychology involved for you?
When I redo a character because of play, as often as not skills get
eliminated or reduced, in addition to new skills being added. Eg, I
might play a character and realize that he really wouldn't have had
enough experience to have some skills.
> As for the complexity of the system, it strikes me that the simpler
> the system, the less one can leave blank to be filled in later.
Yes. My goal with /Leftover Dudes/ is to have a system simple enough
that I can write up a full NPC on the fly during play, without having
to either stop the game or create an illegal charater writeup.
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
James O'Rance
Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> How often do those character actually run into SS or the avengers? I
> think the "bigger fish" problem is more about NPCs they actually
> interract with regularly.
I'm playing Rolemaster's Shadow World right now. I'm pretty happy
because I think I've just got enough xp to hit third level.
Last session I was calling the bluff of the silver dragonlord, Vorrig
Kye.
Most of the NPCs that we meet are more powerful than us, and we pretty
much expect that to continue being the case. Half of them are hundreds
of years old.
However, NPCs in this campaign aren't opponents to defeat, or even
competitors. If they were, there'd be no point in trying, we'd just
lose. Instead they are more like hazards to navigate around. The
repercussions of our interactions tend to affect the *world* much more
than they affect *us*.
(and to players with a sense of responsibility, like myself, this is
often worse)
> Anytime an adversary is more powerful it will feel like railroading and
> anytime a "good guy" is more powerful it will feel like one of those
> uncomfortable situations where the GM is abusing the priveledge of having
> a GMPC.
I haven't seen clear-cut cases of white hats and black hats - everyone
has their own agenda. Some NPCs are simply more dangerous to meet than
others. The archmages at the magic college can deliver withering
criticisms, but don't tend to launch attacks.
OTOH blackmailing a dragonlord with his True Name was very risky, as
there was the chance that he'd figure out which of the PCs actually
knew it and slaughter the rest out of irritation (only one of us knew,
and I wouldn't tell him who). But the dragonlord wasn't an adversary
to overcome. Meeting him (and mnaging to escape) actually solved some
problems.
Obviously this would be different in a campaign that focused on
slaying foes. However as our RM GM is a real-life pacifist and
dislikes running "pointless" combat scenarios (read: PC power trips),
combat is far less common.
james o'rance
Robert Scott Clark
> Somewhat off-topic...
I used "good guy" as a term for those helping the PCs at any given time,
for lack of a better term.
> Some NPCs are simply more dangerous to meet than
> others. The archmages at the magic college can deliver withering
> criticisms, but don't tend to launch attacks.
> OTOH blackmailing a dragonlord with his True Name was very risky, as
> there was the chance that he'd figure out which of the PCs actually
> knew it and slaughter the rest out of irritation (only one of us knew,
> and I wouldn't tell him who). But the dragonlord wasn't an adversary
> to overcome. Meeting him (and mnaging to escape) actually solved some
> problems.
>
> Obviously this would be different in a campaign that focused on
> slaying foes. However as our RM GM is a real-life pacifist and
> dislikes running "pointless" combat scenarios (read: PC power trips),
> combat is far less common.
>
But from all appearances, these NPCs do look like opponents to defeat.
All confrontations are not physical violence. You have essentially
sidestepped the situation of having NPCs that are more "powerful" by
limiting interractions with them to situations where they are not that
much more powerful.
A game of coporate politics where the PCs were mailroom employees and all
the major NPCs ranged from vice-presidents to board members would have
the same feelings of player impotence even if the PCs were theoretically
capable of taking a big stick and beating the crap out of the CEO.
Your example is one that doesn't deal with violent confrontation, but
from your description, I see no indication that it is in any way a
counter-example to my point.
Joseph Teller
Durrell) wrote:
>In article <3d9c...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net>,
>Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>>Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You get 2 cookies. 1 for a good observation and 1 for a good campaign
>>> idea.
>>
>>I was gonna do the same thing except for beer.
>>
>>Beer and cookies all around!
>
>Mmm, beer and cookies! Thanks!
Beer, or any intoxicant or mood altering drug, is a BAAAAAAD IDEA when
it comes to gaming. Limit folks to Caffeine and Chocolate if you want
to keep things enjoyable....
Remember that if you HOST the game, then you are responsible for the
results if one of your players wraps their car around a lamppost on
the way home or gets picked up by the cops and can, in most states, be
sued, even if they brought the alcohol.
Joseph Teller
M.J. Lush) wrote:
>
>> I mean, look at Superman -- he started out able
>>to run really fast and jump, and now he's got heat vision, can fly
>>unprotected in space, and is way, way stronger than he started out.
>
> It has taken Superman some 50 years to get where he is today
>(along with endless ups and downs in power) and much of his power derives
>from his early 'munchkin powergaming' days. A phase that later
>writers probably regretted as its very hard to challenge a total Superman.
>Star Brand has been going for ~16 years, Firestorm has been going for ~24
>Consider how powerful a D&D character would be after 16 years regular play
>consider the relative increase in power over that time.
Nope, bad analogy. Comic book time is even slower than game time in
most cases. Your average roleplaying character gets from 1-5 days of
activity done in many games over the period of 4 sessions (say a month
of real time sessions, presuming 1 a week, or some 50 sessions a
year). Your average comic book character gets that done in about 3
issues (out of a possible 12 a year). Thus time moves MUCH SLOWER in a
comic book than it does in a roleplaying game most of the time, about
a 3rd of the speed... or even less since some of the characters being
referenced didn't have their own book.
Superman is NOT 50 years old by the way, the Superman of now is not
the Superman of the 30s, 40s and 50s,. they were different worlds and
different characters. The switch from the Golden Age to the Silver Age
was part of this transition for DC.... and I believe that Superman has
since died and been replaced again, so the current superman is only
about 15 or 20 years of usage (or between 5 and 7 years of Game Time).
Recycling titles and character names is a constant in the comic book
business to retain trademark controls.
Robert Scott Clark
news:vhptpu4vcdea2addd...@4ax.com:
> On Fri, 04 Oct 2002 01:35:42 -0000, dur...@innocence.com (Bryant
> Durrell) wrote:
>
>>In article <3d9c...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net>,
>>Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>>>Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> You get 2 cookies. 1 for a good observation and 1 for a good
>>>> campaign idea.
>>>
>>>I was gonna do the same thing except for beer.
>>>
>>>Beer and cookies all around!
>>
>>Mmm, beer and cookies! Thanks!
>
>
> Beer, or any intoxicant or mood altering drug, is a BAAAAAAD IDEA when
> it comes to gaming. Limit folks to Caffeine and Chocolate if you want
> to keep things enjoyable....
That's one of those statements I would have a hard time disagreeing more
with.
James Wallis
<fantas...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Beer, or any intoxicant or mood altering drug, is a BAAAAAAD IDEA when
>it comes to gaming. Limit folks to Caffeine and Chocolate if you want
>to keep things enjoyable....
[SFX: The entire British gaming community look up in blank disbelief
for a few seconds at the statement above and then, as one, tap the
side of their heads with their right index fingers.]
British gaming community: These Americans are crazy.
--
James Wallis
Director of Hogshead Publishing Ltd (www.hogshead.demon.co.uk)
Posting this from his home address (ja...@erstwhile.demon.co.uk)
James O'Rance
> I used "good guy" as a term for those helping the PCs at any given time,
> for lack of a better term.
Fair enough. It's something very subject to change, though - the
dragonlord might do something that we wanted (at some unspecified
time) but there's no guarantee that he won't kill any of us in future.
> But from all appearances, these NPCs do look like opponents to defeat.
> All confrontations are not physical violence. You have essentially
> sidestepped the situation of having NPCs that are more "powerful" by
> limiting interractions with them to situations where they are not that
> much more powerful.
You have a point - but in general the characters are not socially
powerful at all. We have a disgraced, penniless prince; a weird
arachnid monk; a druid who was born in the wagon of a travelling show;
a minotaur; a bunch of elven kids.
These characters have no power in society beyond what we can bluff and
bluster our way through. We commonly talk to archmages and
loremasters, even a Navigator. Fortunately these NPCs tend not to have
any reason to kill us (disdainfully using us is different) although
the dragonlord was a risk.
If there is anything that the PCs have as power that most NPCs do not,
it is that we can take chances (not that much to lose) and be
generally unpredictable. This *is* a good edge.
The GM has given a little bit of script immunity via an artifact that
can return the dead to life (with permission from the Lords of
Essence), but that staff has limited charges. It is being wasted, and
once the power is gone then that's it.
And he doesn't pull his punches in combat. If you attack something, it
will probably kill you.
However, our worst enemies have been each other.
> A game of coporate politics where the PCs were mailroom employees and all
> the major NPCs ranged from vice-presidents to board members would have
> the same feelings of player impotence even if the PCs were theoretically
> capable of taking a big stick and beating the crap out of the CEO.
The campaign is about attempting to restore the crowns, swords, and
pendants of Jaiman (all powerful artifacts). It's more like the PCs
are people off the street who walk into the boardroom and try to take
over.
> Your example is one that doesn't deal with violent confrontation, but
> from your description, I see no indication that it is in any way a
> counter-example to my point.
The dragonlord encounter could have easily turned violent, but I'm
pretty good with blackmail and the GM doesn't like using NPCs over a
certain level, so I had a psychological edge. That's a metagame
consideration, though - "Are the players clever enough to outwit the
GM when dealing with vastly more intelligent foes?"
james o'rance
Robert Scott Clark
Mr. M.J. Lush
Joseph Teller <joet...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 4 Oct 2002 12:42:44 +0000 (UTC), ml...@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Mr.
>M.J. Lush) wrote:
>>> I mean, look at Superman -- he started out able
>>>to run really fast and jump, and now he's got heat vision, can fly
>>>unprotected in space, and is way, way stronger than he started out.
>>
>> It has taken Superman some 50 years to get where he is today
>>(along with endless ups and downs in power) and much of his power derives
>>from his early 'munchkin powergaming' days. A phase that later
>>writers probably regretted as its very hard to challenge a total Superman.
>
>>Star Brand has been going for ~16 years, Firestorm has been going for ~24
>>Consider how powerful a D&D character would be after 16 years regular play
>>consider the relative increase in power over that time.
>
>Nope, bad analogy. Comic book time is even slower than game time in
>most cases. Your average roleplaying character gets from 1-5 days of
>activity done in many games over the period of 4 sessions (say a month
>of real time sessions, presuming 1 a week, or some 50 sessions a
>year). Your average comic book character gets that done in about 3
>issues (out of a possible 12 a year). Thus time moves MUCH SLOWER in a
>comic book than it does in a roleplaying game most of the time, about
>a 3rd of the speed... or even less since some of the characters being
>referenced didn't have their own book.
Lets put things on an even keel You say 1-5 days in 4 RPG
sessions and 1-5 days in 3 comic books. To a first approximation
1 comic book is about equal to 1 RPG session in terms of activity
Lets also have the groups meeting at the same rate of once a month
(the hero doesn't have a Wolverine range of extra titles crossovers etc :-).
The DMG says that the underlying assumption of the XP system is that the
characters gain 1 level every 13.33 encounters (p169). Assuming 1.1
encounters per session, thats one level per year of play so the D&D
character has gone from 1st level to 16+th level. Personally I'd guess
it would be more like 1-2 encounters per session putting the character
just into epic levels (~21st level 1.5 encounters per session).
Which takes us back to the original assertion heros advance /very/
slowly. Has Star Brand exhibited a similar increase in power over his
192+ comic books?
>Superman is NOT 50 years old by the way, the Superman of now is not
>the Superman of the 30s, 40s and 50s,. they were different worlds and
>different characters. The switch from the Golden Age to the Silver Age
>was part of this transition for DC.... and I believe that Superman has
>since died and been replaced again, so the current superman is only
>about 15 or 20 years of usage (or between 5 and 7 years of Game Time).
Well I did say 'endless ups and downs in power'... Anyway this gets
us gets back to the point. Has the current superman exhibited any noticible
overall increase in power since he showed up?
>Recycling titles and character names is a constant in the comic book
>business to retain trademark controls.
and recycling characters is a constant with players who can't be
bothered to come up with new ideas :-) :-) :-)
--
Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NPC rights activist | Nameless Abominations are people too.
Robert Scott Clark
news:anpt48$q46$1...@niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk:
> play so the D&D character has gone from 1st level to 16+th level.
> Personally I'd guess it would be more like 1-2 encounters per session
> putting the character just into epic levels (~21st level 1.5
> encounters per session).
>
> Which takes us back to the original assertion heros advance
> /very/
> slowly. Has Star Brand exhibited a similar increase in power over his
> 192+ comic books?
Well, I wasn't aware we were talking about D&D. Now using GURPS for
instance, a Supers character starting at 250+ points and getting 5-9
character points per session probably is pretty comperable to many of the
previously mentioned characters.
Mr. M.J. Lush
After 16 years play 12 sessions a year that would make
'Captain GURPS' a 250+(7*192) about a 1600 point character.
~ 6 fold increace in power...
I can think of one example of a hero slowly developing in a
RPG esq manner (ie a constant ongoing increace in power) and thats
Swamp Thing, it is certainally not the norm.
Charles Frederick Goodin
Mr. M.J. Lush <ml...@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Other
>>heroes, too -- Star Brand developed a lot, and Firestorm also learned
>>about his powers as he went on.
>
>Star Brand has been going for ~16 years, Firestorm has been going for ~24
>Consider how powerful a D&D character would be after 16 years regular play
>consider the relative increase in power over that time.
I think we must be talking about a different Star Brand -- the one I mean
was in Marvel's New Universe and only lasted for (IIRC) less than five
years.
[snip]
> I've run 'power discovery' campaigns (where the PC/players
>don't know their powers and slowly discover what they can do)
>even then there is a steep climb in power over the first 3 sessions
>then the development becomes very slow as they devise and consolidate
>power stunts.
> This is one of the things I quite like about supers games
>the stability, the game is not about increasing the characters power
>its about improving the character.
I love 'power discovery' games, and yeah, they don't increase the way a
D&D character would, but there is usually some change.
--
chuk
Charles Frederick Goodin
Bryant Durrell <dur...@innocence.com> wrote:
>In article <anhvdh$5md$1...@morgoth.sfu.ca>,
>Charles Frederick Goodin <cgo...@sfu.ca> wrote:
>>
>>Dude, that is so wrong. I mean, look at Superman -- he started out able
>>about his powers as he went on.
>
>superheros don't change much. If you ask Superman, "So, are you
>more powerful now than you were when you first started wearing the
>costume?" he'd say "Nah." But from the point of view of the reader,
>sure, the powers have changed quite a bit.
That holds for Superman (or did before they had Blue energy Superman and
whatever the other Supermen were at that time), but not characters like
e.g. the New Mutants or Star Brand, or even Spiderman.
>The question is whether you're more interested in the reader's POV or
>the superhero's POV, for campaign purposes. It would be kind of
>interesting to run a superhero game in which every time the heros
>gained experience, they got a different writer and the players could
>make slight background changes. Or big background changes. But that
>might be a little too meta for some.
I think so, at least for me. We do have some comic tropes in the Fudge
Supers game I'm running, but I think that'd be going to far.
--
chuk
Bryant Durrell
Charles Frederick Goodin <cgo...@sfu.ca> wrote:
>In article <upp19pi...@news.supernews.com>,
>Bryant Durrell <dur...@innocence.com> wrote:
>
>>It's both wrong and right. When considered from the IC perspective,
>>superheros don't change much. If you ask Superman, "So, are you
>>more powerful now than you were when you first started wearing the
>>costume?" he'd say "Nah." But from the point of view of the reader,
>>sure, the powers have changed quite a bit.
>
>That holds for Superman (or did before they had Blue energy Superman and
>whatever the other Supermen were at that time), but not characters like
>e.g. the New Mutants or Star Brand, or even Spiderman.
I'd say that the subgenre of teen heros is the biggest exception to the
assertion. Not sure you can say Spiderman's gotten more powerful in
the course of a single writer's run, though -- but I'm not really that
familiar with the comic book(s), so I could be wrong there.
--
Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
[----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
"When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself
as public property." -- Thomas Jefferson
Charles Frederick Goodin
Bryant Durrell <dur...@innocence.com> wrote:
>>>It's both wrong and right. When considered from the IC perspective,
>>>superheros don't change much. If you ask Superman, "So, are you
>>>more powerful now than you were when you first started wearing the
>>>costume?" he'd say "Nah." But from the point of view of the reader,
>>>sure, the powers have changed quite a bit.
>>
>>That holds for Superman (or did before they had Blue energy Superman and
>>whatever the other Supermen were at that time), but not characters like
>>e.g. the New Mutants or Star Brand, or even Spiderman.
>
>I'd say that the subgenre of teen heros is the biggest exception to the
>assertion. Not sure you can say Spiderman's gotten more powerful in
>the course of a single writer's run, though -- but I'm not really that
>familiar with the comic book(s), so I could be wrong there.
Yeah. It might just seem more wrong to me 'cuz I read a lot of teen hero
books. Anyway, advancement is certainly less in-genre for supers games
than it is for most other games, especially D&D type of games.
--
chuk
Arne Jamtgaard
> >It's both wrong and right. When considered from the IC
> >perspective, superheros don't change much. If you ask
> >Superman, "So, are you more powerful now than you were
> >when you first started wearing the costume?" he'd say
> >"Nah." But from the point of view of the reader, sure,
> >the powers have changed quite a bit.
As far as player needs, couldn't a choice be offered? Either
create a (for example) 300-pt character, with subsequent
points dribbling in at .5 or 1 per session (if that), or
start a 150-pt "potential" character, and play out their
development by awarding 5-10 pts per session. You could
have the X-Men and the New Mutants in the same game!
Just my $.00002,
Arne
Bryant Durrell
Yeah, I like the teen hero books too. Partially because there's so
much character development...
Hey, here's a related question. When advancing characters in a supers
game, do you treat it IC as getting new powers, or as getting better
with the powers they already have?
John Kim
>As far as player needs, couldn't a choice be offered? Either create a
>(for example) 300-pt character, with subsequent points dribbling in at
>.5 or 1 per session (if that), or start a 150-pt "potential" character,
>and play out their development by awarding 5-10 pts per session. You
>could have the X-Men and the New Mutants in the same game!
I am somewhat doubtful of this, at least by itself. At the
start of the campaign, the weaker characters will tend to be
overshadowed. Later they will surpass the others and the "complete"
characters will be overshadowed. A less extreme version of this was
non-human races in AD&D1 and AD&D2, who had added powers but an
experience penalty. Many people found this unsatisfying, however.
I find the Buffy RPG model intriguing as a way to have major
and minor characters in the same game. However, I have yet to see
how well it works in actual play.
Robert Scott Clark
> I find the Buffy RPG model intriguing as a way to have major
> and minor characters in the same game. However, I have yet to see
> how well it works in actual play.
I've been fighting buying that, so I'm gonna ask the mooch question - how
do they handle that? (it's obviously something really important for the
source material)
Robert Scott Clark
> Hey, here's a related question. When advancing characters in a supers
> game, do you treat it IC as getting new powers, or as getting better
> with the powers they already have?
>
I guess that would depend on what the new and old powers were. Both are in
genre.
James O'Rance
> British gaming community: These Americans are crazy.
Don't forget that they may well be drinking *American* beer. That
would reduce the enjoyment of many activities. :)
There can be no general rule because of circumstances like this. It's
a *terrible* idea for me to eat chocolate while gaming, which some
people might consider strange. They possibly have never seen what
happens to diabetics when they become hyperglycaemic...
james o'rance
John Kim
They have Drama Points which can be used to reduce damage
(halve all damage taken thus far), attempt heroic feats (+10 to
any roll, once per turn), cause plot twists, or come back from
the dead (for 1, 5, or 10 points depending on how soon you
want to return).
"Hero" PCs get 10 Drama Points as opposed to "White Hat" PCs,
and they also have to pay double to buy Drama Points with experience.
Also, Hero PCs can be subject to emotional crises during which they
cannot spend Drama Points, and require the White Hat's aid to break out
of. I have a more extensive review on my slowly growing Buffy page at
http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/buffy/
Joseph Teller
<ja...@erstwhile.blockspam.vcisp.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 05 Oct 2002 15:29:49 -0400, Joseph Teller
><fantas...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>Beer, or any intoxicant or mood altering drug, is a BAAAAAAD IDEA when
>>it comes to gaming. Limit folks to Caffeine and Chocolate if you want
>>to keep things enjoyable....
>
>[SFX: The entire British gaming community look up in blank disbelief
>for a few seconds at the statement above and then, as one, tap the
>side of their heads with their right index fingers.]
>
>British gaming community: These Americans are crazy.
In America, as I stated, the host of a party is responsible for the
drinking of their guests in most states, and if you let someone drive
home who is 'under the influence' who then is arrested, commits
vehicular homocide or drives their car into a lampost or telephone
poll, then you can be sued for your actions. This has been the facts
in American law for the past decade.
The same is true if you operate a drinking establishment or are a
bartender working for one. I have a friend who is a bartender and this
is now one the major things they cover when you go to get your
certification for such in most states.
A game gathering, as far as the law is concerned, is a party and the
host has the same responsibilities, whether they provide the alcohol
or the guest brings their own or another guest brings such.
I don't know about you, but I like to avoid having too many run ins
with the police (and considering I live within 5 blocks of the police
station on my street this means I tread carefully).
Joseph Teller
M.J. Lush) wrote:
> Lets also have the groups meeting at the same rate of once a month
>(the hero doesn't have a Wolverine range of extra titles crossovers etc :-).
>The DMG says that the underlying assumption of the XP system is that the
>characters gain 1 level every 13.33 encounters (p169). Assuming 1.1
>encounters per session, thats one level per year of play so the D&D
>character has gone from 1st level to 16+th level. Personally I'd guess
>it would be more like 1-2 encounters per session putting the character
>just into epic levels (~21st level 1.5 encounters per session).
You had my interest until you brought in the very skewed and
non-pertinet D&D system into this discussion. We're talking about
Superhero comics, not D&D "high fantasy" charcters. Different Genres,
different rules on how things work. You want to talk about superhero
games pick up Silver Age Sentinals or Hero v5 as a reference. (GURPS
superhero is too broken to count).
D&D has no connection to the genre. It has no connection to reality. I
have zero tolerance for D&D and D20 based anything.
>
> Which takes us back to the original assertion heros advance /very/
>slowly. Has Star Brand exhibited a similar increase in power over his
>192+ comic books?
Who is Star Brand? We were discussing DC & Marvel comic titles that
are commonly known (Xmen, Superman, Firestorm, etc.) The only
superhero titles I've read anything of in recent years has been JSA,
the now defunct Starman, and a few odd issues of Xmen. My experience
with comics is mostly from the 80s period, the expansive period for
superhero comics, not the current retracting market.
Bryant Durrell
Joseph Teller <joet...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>A game gathering, as far as the law is concerned, is a party and the
>host has the same responsibilities, whether they provide the alcohol
>or the guest brings their own or another guest brings such.
So what you're really saying is that it's a bad idea to have any sort
of a party with alcohol present?
--
Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
[----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
"God is dead, but fifty thousand social workers have risen
to take his place." -- J. D. McCoughey
Robert Scott Clark
@news.supernews.com:
> In article <ls53qugosr79s5khs...@4ax.com>,
> Joseph Teller <joet...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>A game gathering, as far as the law is concerned, is a party and the
>>host has the same responsibilities, whether they provide the alcohol
>>or the guest brings their own or another guest brings such.
>
> So what you're really saying is that it's a bad idea to have any sort
> of a party with alcohol present?
>
Or more intelligently, don't invite the kind of asshole who blames others
for their own mistakes.
Wayne Shaw
Durrell) wrote:
>Hey, here's a related question. When advancing characters in a supers
>game, do you treat it IC as getting new powers, or as getting better
>with the powers they already have?
Both or neither. Some advancement, after all, is in skills and other
abilities, just as in other games; some can be advancement of extent
powers; some learning to do new things with current powers; and some
with eruption of powers previously not seen.
Wayne Shaw
wrote:
> I am somewhat doubtful of this, at least by itself. At the
>start of the campaign, the weaker characters will tend to be
>overshadowed. Later they will surpass the others and the "complete"
At least one version of Mekton tried this approach, since it's a
common genre trope; you could take an experienced "veteran" hero, who
started with better stats and skills, but had a slower experience
progression, or a neophyte who was considerably worse but had an
accellerated experience cycle. I never saw it in play, but the game
seemed to _expect_ what you describe above.
Charles Frederick Goodin
Bryant Durrell <dur...@innocence.com> wrote:
>Hey, here's a related question. When advancing characters in a supers
>game, do you treat it IC as getting new powers, or as getting better
>with the powers they already have?
I'd say both, depending on the character. For example, a powered armour
type might invent a new gadget that gives him a new power, or an energy
projector might learn to detect the energy he emits. A martial artist
would probably be more likely to just get better with his skills.
There's examples from comics, of course -- Danielle Moonstar in the New
Mutants went from being able to make people see either their greatest
desire or their greatest fear, to being able to create an actual object.
(I'd say that's different powers). Cannonball just got better at
controlling his flight (and IIRC he even learned to do it silently
eventually).
--
chuk
Wayne Shaw
Primarily in that Heroes (Buffy, Angel and the like) don't get as many
and can't as cheaply buy Drama Points; the other characters get a lot
more of them, so in practice they can still get stuff done when they
really need to (and in some ways can sometimes do so better than the
mains) but they can't do so as regularly or easily.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> In article <ank2c4$j9d$1...@niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk>,
> Mr. M.J. Lush <ml...@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>heroes, too -- Star Brand developed a lot, and Firestorm also learned
>>>about his powers as he went on.
>>Star Brand has been going for ~16 years, Firestorm has been going for ~24
>>Consider how powerful a D&D character would be after 16 years regular play
>>consider the relative increase in power over that time.
> I think we must be talking about a different Star Brand -- the one I mean
> was in Marvel's New Universe and only lasted for (IIRC) less than five
> years.
One year, before he blew himself up and took Pittsburgh out with him.
I don't think it lasted even another year with his mutant baby before
they killed the line.
And in that time he went from total newbie to "not-quite-Superman".
I often think that RPG experience is too fast, though. Traveller's
was perhaps the most realistic - it takes just as long to improve your
skills with gaming experience as it did to get them during your terms of
service. Unfortunately, one of the supplements introduced a "Teaching"
skill that completely threw the learning curve...
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"No one is safe. We will print no letters to the editor. We will give no
space to opposing points of view. They are wrong. The Underground Grammarian
is at war and will give the enemy nothing but battle." -TUG, v1n1
James Wallis
<fantas...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>A game gathering, as far as the law is concerned, is a party and the
>host has the same responsibilities, whether they provide the alcohol
>or the guest brings their own or another guest brings such.
>
>I don't know about you, but I like to avoid having too many run ins
>with the police (and considering I live within 5 blocks of the police
>station on my street this means I tread carefully).
It's a cultural thing. Beer is a major part of British gaming culture.
Almost every convention has a bar; and almost every table at almost
every convention will have several pints-in-progress on it. Where
Americans drink diet cola or Mountain Dew, the British drink beer, and
in the same quantities.
Britain is a less car-centric culture than the USA. Our public
transport network is better, for one thing. I don't know if we're more
disposed towards giving each other lifts, or happier to leave our cars
behind and find other ways of getting home if we've been drinking, but
I've never heard of anyone being stopped by the police and
breathalysed after a gaming session, much less getting into an
accident because they were pissed.
(Five blocks from a police station? There's a nick two minutes' walk
down the road from my flat. But there's a bus stop outside it, a
night-bus route another two minutes away, and a tube station a couple
of hundred yards further on. And three minicab companies within five
minutes.)
--
James Wallis
Director of Hogshead Publishing Ltd (www.hogshead.demon.co.uk)
Posting this from his home address (ja...@erstwhile.demon.co.uk)
Warren J. Dew
So what you're really saying is that it's a bad idea to have
any sort of a party with alcohol present?
Robert Scott Clark posts:
Or more intelligently, don't invite the kind of asshole who
blames others for their own mistakes.
Unfortunately, that's not enough. Even if your guest doesn't mention you, the
lawyer of the person he hits while drunk can investigate and decide whom to
sue. If you've got more money than your guest, you're a better target for a
lawsuit.
James Wallis:
Where Americans drink diet cola or Mountain Dew, the British
drink beer, and in the same quantities.
which is to say, much smaller quantities than Americans generally use when they
drink beer ('ale' to the Brits).
Basically, there are responsible beer drinkers in Britain, while in the U.S.,
the standard way to drink beer is to keep doing it until you pass out.
Responsible alcohol consumers in the U.S. tend to drink wine instead.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Warren J. Dew
of developing a character in play (DIP).
For me, developing a character in play means starting with an undeveloped
character that I know little about, and gradually discovering more and more
about the character. Generally these discoveries occur as I observe the
character interacting with his or her environment; bit by bit, I find out more
about the how the character reacts to things, what the character can do about
things, and why the character behaves as it does. Only after I've played the
character for months or years do I have a good idea of the character's
personality, skills, and background.
The whole point of this approach is to avoid having to determine these things
about the character at the beginning - for at the beginning, I've never seen
the character in a real situation, so I have no basis for determining anything
about the character. If I'm forced to do so, I'm more than likely to decide
things that later turn out to be untrue about the character, resulting in all
sorts of consistency problems down the line.
For me, it is acceptable if some of the broad outlines of the character are
determined for me at the beginning, as long as I don't have to do it myself.
Rolling six attributes in Dungeons and Dragons was fine - I could take 10
seconds of design at the beginning, as long as the dice took care of it for me.
Too much detail - say, the amount in Chivalry and Sorcery - is a problem,
though, because it's too much for me to digest at once. And having to make
design decisions is a real problem.
Regarding Robert's specific questions:
In terms of the discussion, what is the practical difference
between changing a value and setting an empty value other
than the initial effort of settign the values?
Well, the initial effort of setting the value - and more importantly, the
possibility that I may do it wrong, incorrectly, coming up with the wrong value
- is the big problem for me.
To ask another way, why do you consider the distinction you
are making useful?
I think part of it is that designing a character involves making conscious
decisions about what the character is like. For me as a player, this involves
way too much interference with the character and its world for my tastes - I'm
just not up to the task of creating a real character from scratch.
Developing a character, on the other hand, involves a lot of interaction with
the game world and with the character itself. The character can grow without
conscious interference from me.
Can anyone who considers themselves DIP state why one is
preferable to the other?
Hopefully the above explains it for me. Perhaps others will have different
answers.
All that said, I'm a lot less hard line on these issues than I used to be. As
a gamesmaster, my job involves creating characters from scratch all the time,
and a gamesmaster is less likely to be wrong than a player. Even as a player,
I now occasionally have or can come up with specific character concepts that
I'd like to explore, which allows me to do a minimum of design work at the
start of a campaign.
I'd still say that I generally prefer developing characters during play,
though.
John Kim
>James Wallis wrote:
>> Where Americans drink diet cola or Mountain Dew, the British
>> drink beer, and in the same quantities.
>
>which is to say, much smaller quantities than Americans generally use
>when they drink beer ('ale' to the Brits). Basically, there are
>responsible beer drinkers in Britain, while in the U.S., the standard
>way to drink beer is to keep doing it until you pass out. Responsible
>alcohol consumers in the U.S. tend to drink wine instead.
Hm. According to the World Health Organization report on alcohol,
the total level of beer consumption in the U.K. and the U.S. are nearly
iddentical. The U.S. has a higher total alcohol consumption rate
(10.5 vs 9.5 per capita), but the difference is in spirits rather
than beer or wine. cf.
http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/pubs_alcohol.htm
On the other hand, it is possible that the U.S. has more
binge drinking for the same level. The U.S. report does have statistics
on a seemingly high level of binge drinking (5+ drinks at a given
occaision), but there are no comparable statistics for the U.K. in
the report.
John Kim
>are determined for me at the beginning, as long as I don't have to do
>it myself. Rolling six attributes in Dungeons and Dragons was fine -
>I could take 10 seconds of design at the beginning, as long as the dice
>took care of it for me. Too much detail - say, the amount in Chivalry
>and Sorcery - is a problem, though, because it's too much for me to
>digest at once. And having to make design decisions is a real problem.
Presumably you chose a class in D&D as well, correct? This
is again a broad, quick choice.
How do you feel about using a template like those in
_Star Wars_ (d6) or _Deadlands_? These are similar in that you
just pick a simple option. However, at a later time you might tweak
the numbers to reflect the character as it has developed (i.e.
diverging from the template to point-specified).
Mary K. Kuhner
>As far as player needs, couldn't a choice be offered? Either
>create a (for example) 300-pt character, with subsequent
>points dribbling in at .5 or 1 per session (if that), or
>start a 150-pt "potential" character, and play out their
>development by awarding 5-10 pts per session. You could
>have the X-Men and the New Mutants in the same game!
It's really hard to GM for two groups of PCs at grossly different
power levels. I've seen it tried several times; I think I've
only seen one success, and that was an atypical single-player
game.
In a Warhammer game we had two Dwarf and three non-Dwarf PCs.
(It's a point of pride in Warhammer that the races are hopelessly
imbalanced.) The GM tried to arrange for two sorts of
opponents, but with distressing frequency a non-Dwarf would
accidentally get in the way of the Dwarf's opponent and die.
I really hated this as a player; I didn't mind playing a weak
character, but I didn't want to be wiped out by Dwarf-level
opponents, nor did I like being able to see the GM pulling strings
to avoid this.
You can say that major opponents scorn to fight minor PCs, but
this tends to make the minor PCs feel like spare wheels.
You can push hard for the minor PCs to have special powers the
major ones can't duplicate. I think this is the best approach.
But you can't just assign one group 150 points and the other
300 and expect this to happen; it takes coordinated character
design. Some groups will do it; some resent it bitterly. And
in the scenario described above, you run the risk that when
the power levels eventually reverse (if you play that long) it
is unlikely that the original 300-point characters will have
unique powers that will hold up against their developed 400-point
brethren.
I am a strongly develop-in-play player; I don't mind starting
with 300 points but I'd like some slack to reassign them after
a few sessions. But I'd rather play strict design-at-start
than wrestle with a mixed group as described.
(Incidentally, I don't think design-at-start/develop-in-play
necessarily maps to starting with beginners versus starting
with experienced characters. I rather like starting with
experienced characters, as long as I get a good-length period
of feeling out the character during which I'm allowed to make
changes. What I can't do is write out a character's powers
and personality and then play him that way; I end up with
cardboard if I try.)
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Mary K. Kuhner
> Presumably you chose a class in D&D as well, correct? This
>is again a broad, quick choice.
> How do you feel about using a template like those in
>_Star Wars_ (d6) or _Deadlands_? These are similar in that you
>just pick a simple option. However, at a later time you might tweak
>the numbers to reflect the character as it has developed (i.e.
>diverging from the template to point-specified).
I have similar preferences to Warren's, though like Warren I've
gotten a little better at DAS with experience.
Templates work, as long as they (a) make sense and (b) don't give too
many options to twiddle with. The Feng Shui templates are not well
suited to my style; too many of them give large numbers of twiddle
points or say helpful things like "any four skills". This is not
restrictive enough to allow a snap decision like D&D classes.
For our Feng Shui "Masks of Nyarlathotep" I think I either gritted
my teeth and wrote down hasty numbers, or got the GM to do them;
I forget which. We then did redesign after a few sessions and got
functional characters.
In recent games I've used two different character generation
methods. In D&D 3rd I do "snap" character designs with little
pre-game refinement or personality design, and play classical
DIP. In the homebrew I have long semi-roleplaying talks with the
GM during which we hash out the character, so that he is
relatively well defined by the start of play (though there are
still a lot of surprises).
I'm currently, as a learning exercise, trying to do up characters
from the homebrew in Hero. I have to say, I would have little or
no chance to successfully design a character from scratch in this
system. I'm trying to replicate someone I've been playing for eight
years, and the design process is *still* messing with my intuitive
grasp on him. A fragile newly conceived character would be toast.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Mary K. Kuhner
> Too much detail - say, the amount in Chivalry and Sorcery - is a problem,
>though, because it's too much for me to digest at once. And having to make
>design decisions is a real problem.
Yes. I think decisionmaking is particularly the killer, because the
process of deciding things about the character as a designer and the
process of learning them about him as an interior observer are not
very compatible. I can do a fair bit of number crunching if there are
no decisions to speak of (though I don't like it) but I think it's
unwise for me to make more than a handful of decisions outside of play
or play-like discussion.
>Regarding Robert's specific questions:
> In terms of the discussion, what is the practical difference
> between changing a value and setting an empty value other
> than the initial effort of settign the values?
>Well, the initial effort of setting the value - and more importantly, the
>possibility that I may do it wrong, incorrectly, coming up with the wrong value
>- is the big problem for me.
I think it's like trying to draw on an already-marked-up piece of
paper. You may erase the earlier markings, but they are likely to be
distracting. Artists with strong initial visions of their work
won't mind, but those whose mental image develops as the drawing
progresses should probably start with clean paper.
My impression of strong DAS players is that their image of the character
solidifies during the design process, becoming stronger and more real
with each design iteration. Mine are the opposite, becoming weaker
and more unreal, so I want to do as little design beforehand as I
reasonably can. (If the characters must fit together, as most of our
games require, some design can't be avoided. But I lived for years
with the uneasy feeling that Chernoi's crew wouldn't actually have
formed the way we said it had.)
If I decide, "One-Eye is a scarred witch-hunter who gave up one eye
to be able to see magic, and who is Ilene's 'loyal opposition'" then
I can play that--it's so sparse that it won't be internally
contradictory. A more complex description usually turns out in
practice to describe a character that doesn't exist for me.
The best convention PC description I was ever handed said something
like, "Molly saw her children torn apart by demons, and gouged
out her own eyes. Now she sees with eyes in the palms of her hands."
And a short list of skills and powers. That turned out to be
*exactly* what I needed to know, and no more. I still remember
Molly's inhuman body language after all these years, though I only
played her the once.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Warren J. Dew
Presumably you chose a class in D&D as well, correct? This
is again a broad, quick choice.
Yes, and yes. A quick three way choice was okay for me, though Runequest was
problematic because of having to choose one of a score or so cults.
How do you feel about using a template like those in
_Star Wars_ (d6) or _Deadlands_? These are similar in that
you just pick a simple option. However, at a later time you
might tweak the numbers to reflect the character as it has
developed (i.e. diverging from the template to
point-specified).
I'm not familiar with those specific games and haven't actually used templates,
but they might be okay if they are sufficiently generic. However, I think I
would regard the numbers on the template as actual numbers for the character -
similar to the die rolls in D&D - and feel obligated not to tweak the numbers
subsequently, other than as a result of character visible progression such as
through experience gain. If the templates were as detailed as C&S starting
characters, I'd probably have a problem with them, as I wouldn't be able to
internalize them all quickly enough to keep the character concept consistent.
Thinking about it more, abilities that could be dropped might not be a problem
- if I noticed them, I could use them, if they didn't figure into the character
concept at all for a while, I could drop them. I would have a real problem
with trading off decreases in some abilities for increases in other abilities,
though - that's an explicit authorial decision, which is what I'm trying to
avoid.
The Traveller character generation system did help increase the level of detail
I could handle at the beginning, since the manner in which the details were
generated helped with my internalizing them.
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
> Warren J. Dew <psych...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > Well, the initial effort of setting the value - and more
> > importantly, the possibility that I may do it wrong, incorrectly,
> > coming up with the wrong value - is the big problem for me.
>
> I think it's like trying to draw on an already-marked-up piece of
> paper. You may erase the earlier markings, but they are likely to
> be distracting. Artists with strong initial visions of their work
> won't mind, but those whose mental image develops as the drawing
> progresses should probably start with clean paper.
When I play, I expect that large chunks of my initial character
conception are going to be just plain wrong, so I don't have any
problems with changing things rather than just adding to them.
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
James Wallis
>which is to say, much smaller quantities than Americans generally use when they
>drink beer ('ale' to the Brits).
In your dreams. Do remember that if an American drinks five pints and
a Briton drinks four pints, they have consumed the same amount.
Robert Scott Clark
news:ao0a1c$1a0g$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu:
> Arne Jamtgaard <ajam...@cisco.com> wrote:
>
>>As far as player needs, couldn't a choice be offered? Either
>>create a (for example) 300-pt character, with subsequent
>>points dribbling in at .5 or 1 per session (if that), or
>>start a 150-pt "potential" character, and play out their
>>development by awarding 5-10 pts per session. You could
>>have the X-Men and the New Mutants in the same game!
>
> It's really hard to GM for two groups of PCs at grossly different
> power levels. I've seen it tried several times; I think I've
> only seen one success, and that was an atypical single-player
> game.
"Atypical" bacause it was a single player game, "atypical" and a single
player game, or "atypical" for a single player game but not necessarily for
a multiplayer one?
Robert Scott Clark
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
s...@visi.com
> necessarily maps to starting with beginners versus starting
> with experienced characters. I rather like starting with
> experienced characters, as long as I get a good-length period
> of feeling out the character during which I'm allowed to make
> changes. What I can't do is write out a character's powers
> and personality and then play him that way; I end up with
> cardboard if I try.)
I agree with most all of this, though for me it's the personality
more than the powers that need to be flexible. I can create a character
with a set of skills and powers, and play that character, but I have no
idea what the character is like or how they think. That I only learn
through experience with the character. If I try to create the
character's personality before I've played them, I'm invariably wrong,
and if I try to stick with what I wrote down, I end up with a caricature
of a person, a marionette. This means that I would have a hard time
playing a game where you can `buy' personality-based advantages or
disadvantages, because the character (after it develops) may not have
those particular ads or disads and need to adjust the points.
Scott
James O'Rance
> In your dreams. Do remember that if an American drinks five pints and
> a Briton drinks four pints, they have consumed the same amount.
I've seen pint glasses in a pub in Bondi (very popular area for
British backpackers). Those things are bloody huge.
I don't remember the last time that I saw someone drinking when they
intended to drive, as random breath-testing is so common in this
country. I'm sure that it happens, but the penalties aren't pleasant.
I'm a bit taken aback by this litigation thing. Another reason why I'm
glad not to live in the US (no offence to anyone who does intended).
Fortunately there's been a bit of public backlash against excessive
litigation here, as insurance costs were making it impossible for
community or charity organisation to cover themselves. The government
has had to step in, to try to rectify the problem.
james o'rance
James O'Rance
character I'm rarely able to fill in one of those background-sheets
that some GMs love. I just don't have that detail available to me
before the character has been played.
Playing Vivian in all of Cthulhu, all I knew originally was that she
was a flapper, liked to hang out with fast people, and had a strong
but fragile personality. The details of her emotional state and
history didn't develop until the game was well underway.
But whatever details I'm forced to assign at start are always
consistent with what develops. I basically extrapolate or create new
detail in such a way that other players might suspect that's what I'd
always intended.
(this is also very useful for game mastering, I've found)
Once the character begins to develop, it happens very quickly. For
weeks I've had no strong idea of what to do with my spider-centaur in
Rolemaster (my fault for being weird). Then Saja finally began to
develop, and I have a firm grasp of him/her now.
mkku...@kingman.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> The best convention PC description I was ever handed said something
> like, "Molly saw her children torn apart by demons, and gouged
> out her own eyes. Now she sees with eyes in the palms of her hands."
> And a short list of skills and powers. That turned out to be
> *exactly* what I needed to know, and no more. I still remember
> Molly's inhuman body language after all these years, though I only
> played her the once.
That is *such* a creepy image. What game was it for?
Body language is easy for me to visualise and remember; it's important
to my concept of the character (possibly because I find live action
games so natural).
james o'rance
Bryant Durrell
James O'Rance <dragon-...@geocities.com> wrote:
>
>I'm a bit taken aback by this litigation thing. Another reason why I'm
>glad not to live in the US (no offence to anyone who does intended).
>Fortunately there's been a bit of public backlash against excessive
>litigation here, as insurance costs were making it impossible for
>community or charity organisation to cover themselves. The government
>has had to step in, to try to rectify the problem.
Allow me to beg of you not to take one guy's statement as indicative
of how all Americans live our lives. For the last nine months or
so before I moved back east, one of my gaming groups in San Francisco
merrily drunk beer (and sometimes martinis) during our weekly sessions.
--
Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
[----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
"Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there."
-- Oscar Wilde
Mary K. Kuhner
>But whatever details I'm forced to assign at start are always
>consistent with what develops. I basically extrapolate or create new
>detail in such a way that other players might suspect that's what I'd
>always intended.
That's what I aim for, but if I had to design very much at start,
usually I'll find that at least one of the details was flatly wrong.
If I try to keep them, a year or two into the campaign they sound
painfully naive.
>mkku...@kingman.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
>> The best convention PC description I was ever handed said something
>> like, "Molly saw her children torn apart by demons, and gouged
>> out her own eyes. Now she sees with eyes in the palms of her hands."
>That is *such* a creepy image. What game was it for?
Whispering Vault. I've only played it once; the game was excellent,
but I'm not at all attracted to the system.
>Body language is easy for me to visualise and remember; it's important
>to my concept of the character (possibly because I find live action
>games so natural).
That's interesting. I don't play live action at all, but I need to know
about body language too, especially if it's unusual. My fox-person
spends a lot of time wrapping her tail around her, or putting her ears
back, or slinking under chairs. If I didn't do this I think she'd come
across as too human.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
James O'Rance
> Whispering Vault. I've only played it once; the game was excellent,
> but I'm not at all attracted to the system.
Aha! I might have known; TWv is a great rpg for one-off horror games.
I ran it for a few months at the University of New South Wales last
year. :)
> >Body language is easy for me to visualise and remember; it's important
> >to my concept of the character (possibly because I find live action
> >games so natural).
>
> That's interesting. I don't play live action at all, but I need to know
> about body language too, especially if it's unusual.
Do you physically roleplay at all during table-top games? I tend to
use my upper body at least a little unless playing a character that's
not differentiated from myself.
(which non-human characters, female characters, or characters with
very different personalities always are)
Being a spider-person is hard; how do you move a human torso in a
spider-like fashion? I sometimes find my fingers moving in a manner
reminiscent of spiderlegs.
> My fox-person
> spends a lot of time wrapping her tail around her, or putting her ears
> back, or slinking under chairs. If I didn't do this I think she'd come
> across as too human.
Oh, definitely. That sounds like a lot of fun.
It's actually harder for me to play non-human characters in live
action games, because I move in ways that I'm not used to. I was some
kind of bird-creature in a Harn freeform; I'd watched a documentary on
hawks and then spent hours perching on things, walking in a bird-like
fashion, and occasionally making little jumps; by the end of it I was
exhausted.
Simpler when you can just incline your shoulders *so* to create a
non-human effect.
Without some idea of body language then the psychology of a character
isn't real, which makes it impossible to extrapolate her ideas,
feelings, and history.
(in my personal experience)
james o'rance
Mary K. Kuhner
>> Whispering Vault. I've only played it once; the game was excellent,
>> but I'm not at all attracted to the system.
>Aha! I might have known; TWv is a great rpg for one-off horror games.
>I ran it for a few months at the University of New South Wales last
>year. :)
Did you find that it had any potential for continuing games? In
our convention game, first time with the system for anyone but the
GM, we were already finding the 'adventure script' qualities
somewhat troublesome. Julie explained to us how TWv adventures
are supposed to go, and then had to abstract all the bookend
material because, having heard it explained, the players showed
little interest in playing through it.
>Do you physically roleplay at all during table-top games? I tend to
>use my upper body at least a little unless playing a character that's
>not differentiated from myself.
It varies a lot from character to character. Molly definitely talked
with her hands (and I know the other players noticed; it gave them
the creeps). If I'm on my feet, several of my current PCs have
noticable body language. Others, though, like the fox, it's all
verbal. Some of it gets described for the GM's benefit, but most of
it is actually for mine, as a helper for visualizing her clearly.
>Being a spider-person is hard; how do you move a human torso in a
>spider-like fashion? I sometimes find my fingers moving in a manner
>reminiscent of spiderlegs.
This I think I'd be doing verbally, and maybe, as you say, with fingers.
There's a distinctive tap-tap to see if a thread is solidly set or
a surface is safe.... Hm. The completely non-human body plan would
take a lot of getting used to.
>It's actually harder for me to play non-human characters in live
>action games, because I move in ways that I'm not used to. I was some
>kind of bird-creature in a Harn freeform; I'd watched a documentary on
>hawks and then spent hours perching on things, walking in a bird-like
>fashion, and occasionally making little jumps; by the end of it I was
>exhausted.
Very cool!
We often sit where the player(s) and GM can't readily see one another,
so verbal "body language" has more communicative power than the real
thing. Though I do recall looking up to see Linnick's player sulkily
licking his paw--a nice character moment, since Linnick was physically
human but spiritually a lynx.
>Without some idea of body language then the psychology of a character
>isn't real, which makes it impossible to extrapolate her ideas,
>feelings, and history.
>(in my personal experience)
I've had characters for whom that was true, and others for whom it
wasn't. I don't know what the dividing line is, except that if the
character is physically non-human, I had better know or I'll never
get them right even on basic things. (Can I climb this? Can I fit
in there? Can I pick that up? Before I got the fox's body language
down, I'd sometimes have her climb down ladders or get things out of
cabinets in ways I'm now sure are impossible.)
Of the current group, I could probably differentiate most of them
(to the GM's eyes) by body language alone, but not Christine or
Valentine: they are distinctive to me mainly for voice and thought
processes.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
> >
> > Being a spider-person is hard; how do you move a human torso in a
> > spider-like fashion? I sometimes find my fingers moving in a
> > manner reminiscent of spiderlegs.
>
> This I think I'd be doing verbally, and maybe, as you say, with
> fingers. There's a distinctive tap-tap to see if a thread is
> solidly set or a surface is safe.... Hm. The completely non-human
> body plan would take a lot of getting used to.
Sometimes it can be really easy to imagine. That was one of the things
I liked best about my PC Atraxa, in the Aberrant game I played in. Her
physical description:
Atraxa has the basic body type of a medium height human
woman. However, she doesn't have ordinary skin -- instead, her skin
appears to be an exoskeleton made of kind of black glass or
chitin. In indoor light, she is solid black, but in bright light
(eg, sunlight), light shines through her skin and lets people see
the outlines of her internal organs. Even her internal skin (like on
her tongue or the inside of her mouth) is black. In addition to
this, her eyes are no longer human eyes: they are compound insectile
eyes that glow with a dim red light. Her teeth are long and
pointed, like a shark or a cat. Her hair remains nearly human -- it
comes down below her shoulders, but is white, like it was bleached.
But really, the first thing people will notice when they look at
Atraxa are her tentacles. A dozen of what appear to be black, spiky
chains poke out of various points of her body and extend out for
several meters. They are almost always swinging and weaving in
disturbing patterns, and when examined closely they are not chains at
all. Instead, the links resemble nothing so much as miniature human
vertabrae. At the end of each tentacle is a three pointed claw, that
can fold back to reveal a human hand the size of a baby's, colored
solid black, and in the palm of each hand is another compound eye.
Moreover, she does not usually stand on her legs. Instead, she is
supported by her tentacles, which grab onto any convenient surface,
and she orients her body in any convenient direction. (For example,
she will often pivot her whole body so that her head is above her feet
rather than bend down to look at something on the floor.)
It was really easy to get a kinaesthetic sense for how she moved: I
just held my own body rigid and imagined that all my movements were
carried out by vertabrae/tentacles that reached out and grabbed onto
things. Since she had an absolutely ludicrous strength/mass ratio (she
could casually lift on the order of 200 times her body mass), I could
extend this image by letting her skitter up walls and ceilings as if
gravity was not a serious obstacle to her movement,
Communicating how she moved to the other players was the hardest part
of roleplaying her, actually. She didn't move like a human at all, and
since couldn't be hurt by anything short of an oxyacetylene torch, she
didn't have to situate herself in a room to respect ordinary status or
dominance conventions. She couldn't be made to flinch, and her
tentacles meant that she could hang upside down from the ceiling or
occupy a lot of space. I intended for her to lose a lot, socially, by
*not* respecting these conventions, but it's really hard for others to
remember it (since they are busy with their own PCs).
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
James O'Rance
> Did you find that it had any potential for continuing games?
I could run it for about two months; but it doesn't entirely suit a
campaign game. It's a deliberately formulaic game. Nystul gives some
advice for how you might break the formula for a campaign, but it's
just not as flexible as other horror rpgs that I like (I followed TWV
with over fourteen months of Wraith).
I still think that The Whispering Vault is a great game. though.
> In our convention game, first time with the system for anyone but the
> GM, we were already finding the 'adventure script' qualities
> somewhat troublesome.
Would you care to expand on this? I'm interested.
> It varies a lot from character to character. Molly definitely talked
> with her hands (and I know the other players noticed; it gave them
> the creeps). If I'm on my feet, several of my current PCs have
> noticable body language. Others, though, like the fox, it's all
> verbal.
Okay; we always speak in the first person as players, it's unusual for
anyone bu the GM to actually *describe* what a character says/does.
> Some of it gets described for the GM's benefit, but most of
> it is actually for mine, as a helper for visualizing her clearly.
Does it help to verbalise stuff to give a character reality? I know
people who have to do this; if they haven't spoken something in a
game, then it almost doesn't exist yet.
I had a strong disagreement with Philippa once, in a conversation
about Call of Cthulhu characters. I mentioned that Vivian never knew
her mother, and Philippa responded that as I'd never mentioned this in
the game, it was obvious unimportant and might as well not have been
true. I felt differently; so much of Vivian's character was internal,
but every obvious action was influenced by it.
> We often sit where the player(s) and GM can't readily see one another,
> so verbal "body language" has more communicative power than the real
> thing.
Ah, I see.
There's one benefit to this that I can see... it's easier to describe
losing your temper or being angry without others mistaking it for
reality. I've seen that happen, it's not pretty.
> Though I do recall looking up to see Linnick's player sulkily
> licking his paw--a nice character moment, since Linnick was physically
> human but spiritually a lynx.
Nice.
> I've had characters for whom that was true, and others for whom it
> wasn't. I don't know what the dividing line is, except that if the
> character is physically non-human, I had better know or I'll never
> get them right even on basic things. (Can I climb this? Can I fit
> in there? Can I pick that up? Before I got the fox's body language
> down, I'd sometimes have her climb down ladders or get things out of
> cabinets in ways I'm now sure are impossible.)
Do you often play non-human characters? I think that this is something
that would come more easily with time. I've played an arachnid before
(a scorpion), so the effects of eight legs were obvious to me from the
beginning. Someone who plays winged thingers a lot probably knows lots
of tricks with flight. And so on.
> Of the current group, I could probably differentiate most of them
> (to the GM's eyes) by body language alone, but not Christine or
> Valentine: they are distinctive to me mainly for voice and thought
> processes.
That's an achievement. I couldn't differentiate characters in our RM
game by body language; I think that I put more thought into that than
some of the others. *shrug* They have more clearly defined character
goals, though; not many people know what the heck my spider-centaur
actually wants.
The body language of *players*, however, I know pretty well. If you GM
a group it's essential to learn it, I think.
cheers, james o'rance
James O'Rance
> Moreover, she does not usually stand on her legs. Instead, she is
> supported by her tentacles, which grab onto any convenient surface,
> and she orients her body in any convenient direction. (For example,
> she will often pivot her whole body so that her head is above her feet
> rather than bend down to look at something on the floor.)
Oooh. That's nice.
I can see that other players might not like it, though... I guess in
Aberrant you have licence to be weird if you want, but did anybody
express disgust at the image of this character?
I'm very fortunate that my RM GM likes spiders... not all of the
players do. When I described baby spider-centaurs ("cobblies") as
cat-sized hunters with human heads, and hands instead of chelicerae, I
could *see* the revulsion on someone's face. I thought they sounded
cute.
> occupy a lot of space. I intended for her to lose a lot, socially, by
> *not* respecting these conventions, but it's really hard for others to
> remember it (since they are busy with their own PCs).
That's interesting.
What kinds of cues did you use? I can imagine tilting my upper body
kind of rigidly when the character pulls herself up a wall... if you
don't go overboard then a consistent physical or verbal cue seems to
remind people.
It's like shorthand - if you explain once that you've tilted because
your character is kind of dangling sideways from the wall, then the
next time you tilt then others don't need an explanation, they'll just
remember.
In Rolemaster I always speak my character's name as though it is an
exclamation - "Saja!" That simple thing, used consistently, has served
to differentiate Saja from the humans and elves in the party.
james o'rance
Mary K. Kuhner
[Whispering Vault]
>> In our convention game, first time with the system for anyone but the
>> GM, we were already finding the 'adventure script' qualities
>> somewhat troublesome.
>Would you care to expand on this? I'm interested.
Julie explained what happens at the start and end of scenarios, and
got two kinds of balky reaction. People who felt their PCs hadn't
done this before were caught between using the explanation (and
being out of character) and not using it (and possibly causing
the game to get derailed before reaching the 'real' scenario).
People who felt their PCs had done this before didn't really want to
spend play time on it. We ended up omitting the closing bookend
completely, and giving little weight to the opening one.
The general attitude seemed to be "If you can say what is going to
happen, why are we playing it out?"
>> If I'm on my feet, several of my current PCs have
>> noticable body language. Others, though, like the fox, it's all
>> verbal.
>Okay; we always speak in the first person as players, it's unusual for
>anyone bu the GM to actually *describe* what a character says/does.
This is definitely a place where group conventions differ a lot.
Sarah Kahn's group invariably played in third person, as I recall,
with a huge amount of player description. The campaign that served
as the prototype for _Puppetland_ must have been at the other extreme;
at least, the system as written forbids player description of actions.
Everything has to be dialog.
We tend to play one-player/multiple-PCs. Having more than one PC
be "I" in a given conversation is very confusing, so the game tends
to slide between first and third person depending on whether it is
focused on one PC or several at the moment. We also do some weird
stuff where the GM will temporarily suggest dialog for one PC, to
mitigate the problem of PC/PC dialog when they have the same player.
The amount of described body language varies a lot among our games;
in the combat-centric 3rd Ed we're currently doing there's essentially
almost none unless someone really needs to make a point (say, that
an NPC is a monster in disguise), whereas in the very slow-paced
homebrew campaign there's a ton of it.
>> Some of it gets described for the GM's benefit, but most of
>> it is actually for mine, as a helper for visualizing her clearly.
>Does it help to verbalise stuff to give a character reality? I know
>people who have to do this; if they haven't spoken something in a
>game, then it almost doesn't exist yet.
I definitely don't share the "undescribed == not real" convention,
but talking about things does help me flesh them out. With five or
six PCs we often resort to 'check-ins' where the player goes through
the PCs one by one and says something about what they're doing,
thinking, feeling or planning, so that the characters will be a bit
more solid.
(We once tried a game with a lot more PCs than that--I shudder to say
how many--and the 'check-in' method turned into the dominant way of
doing *anything*. I had the PCs on index cards, and we'd go through
the deck, possibly sorting them into camps based on their opinions.)
>I had a strong disagreement with Philippa once, in a conversation
>about Call of Cthulhu characters. I mentioned that Vivian never knew
>her mother, and Philippa responded that as I'd never mentioned this in
>the game, it was obvious unimportant and might as well not have been
>true. I felt differently; so much of Vivian's character was internal,
>but every obvious action was influenced by it.
I'd be with you on that. I am sure I know things about my PCs that
the GM doesn't, and they're still real. But if too many events get
abstracted too quickly, I can come to feel that those events weren't
real--I deal really poorly with long time skips in play. I don't need
the GM or other players to hear the PC reactions, but I do need to hear
them myself, and sometimes that requires playing things out.
>There's one benefit to this that I can see... it's easier to describe
>losing your temper or being angry without others mistaking it for
>reality. I've seen that happen, it's not pretty.
I think Sarah listed that as one reason for her group's strict
third-person convention.
>Do you often play non-human characters? I think that this is something
>that would come more easily with time. I've played an arachnid before
>(a scorpion), so the effects of eight legs were obvious to me from the
>beginning.
I haven't had broad experience with this. Two centaurs, one hoarfox,
an incorporeal computer person, a man in a wheelchair, and otherwise
pretty normal humanoids.
Our fear was always that the stranger PCs would get left behind too
often--the centaurs had problems with stairs, for example. How do
you handle that? Or has it not been a problem?
I gave the hoarfox small amounts of TK because I was sure, a priori,
that otherwise having no hands would be a disaster. I was wrong,
though. She hardly ever uses the TK and doesn't seem to mind. She
can cast occult wards and sense occult events, she is sneaky and
has an interesting point of view, and to my surprise, that seems to
be plenty. (If a character doesn't have anything to do in the
scenarios we play, they tend to get overshadowed by other PCs and
vanish from sight; but the hoarfox doesn't.)
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
>
> > Moreover, she does not usually stand on her legs. Instead, she is
> > supported by her tentacles, which grab onto any convenient surface,
> > and she orients her body in any convenient direction. (For example,
> > she will often pivot her whole body so that her head is above her feet
> > rather than bend down to look at something on the floor.)
>
> Aberrant you have licence to be weird if you want, but did anybody
> express disgust at the image of this character?
Yes, and that made me happy. :)
> I'm very fortunate that my RM GM likes spiders... not all of the
> players do. When I described baby spider-centaurs ("cobblies") as
> cat-sized hunters with human heads, and hands instead of chelicerae, I
> could *see* the revulsion on someone's face. I thought they sounded
> cute.
I don't know that they're cute, but they're certainly not hideous
sounding. I am assuming they aren't likely to paralyze and eat me in a
spirit of playful, childish fun, though....though I guess they might
worry that the big scary apes will smash them with rocks.
> > occupy a lot of space. I intended for her to lose a lot, socially,
> > by *not* respecting these conventions, but it's really hard for
> > others to remember it (since they are busy with their own PCs).
>
> That's interesting.
>
> What kinds of cues did you use? I can imagine tilting my upper body
> kind of rigidly when the character pulls herself up a wall... if you
> don't go overboard then a consistent physical or verbal cue seems to
> remind people.
That was the problem. I had to pull my arms in so that I could
visualize her tentacles more clearly, but I think that made the others
forget how much space she took up. You win some, you lose some.
> It's like shorthand - if you explain once that you've tilted because
> your character is kind of dangling sideways from the wall, then the
> next time you tilt then others don't need an explanation, they'll just
> remember.
I never thought to do that -- I tried to explain it verbally, but
couldn't do it consistently without slowing the pace too much.
> In Rolemaster I always speak my character's name as though it is an
> exclamation - "Saja!" That simple thing, used consistently, has
> served to differentiate Saja from the humans and elves in the
> party.
With Atraxa I tried to always spoke slowly and in complete sentences,
to make her seem more thoughtful.
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
Ian Sturrock
<fantas...@mindspring.com> gibbers
>Beer, or any intoxicant or mood altering drug, is a BAAAAAAD IDEA when
>it comes to gaming. Limit folks to Caffeine and Chocolate if you want
>to keep things enjoyable....
You mean you've never played an all-night vodka-and-amphetamine-fuelled
game of Cyberpunk 2020? You don't know what you've been missing! :)
--
"Such a day, rum all out - Our company somewhat sober - A damn`d confusion
among us! - Rogues a-plotting - Great talk of separation - so I looked sharp
for a prize - Such a day took one, with a great deal of liquor on board, so
kept the company hot, damned hot; then all things went well again." (Teach)
Ian Sturrock
O'Rance <dragon-...@geocities.com> gibbers
>However, I know players who *always* treat the amount of experience
>points that they get as a measure of GM approval. If a game's rules
>(such as the detailed XP rules in D&D) indicate a larger award to a
>player who didn't make as much effort in the metagame, then they feel
>slighted. If experience is kept confidential, they fret about whether
>they are participating the approved way. If all characters
>automatically receive the same award (eg, Marvel Saga), they get
>grumpy.
Most of the games I've run or designed in the last few years have been
for live-roleplay (although that is rapidly changing, and within a few
months tabletop will oust them), which means players are well used to
the idea that they all get the same number of EPs or whatever per
session. I tried to persuade my main group, who play 18th century style
pirates, that there was no real need for character advancement, and got
an uproar in response.
"It's LRP," I said, "We don't need character advancement; we do this
because we enjoy it, not because we want our characters to get tougher
and tougher all the time. Character advancement is just a hangover from
early D&D games, where you needed to reward the PCs because the games
weren't all that good otherwise. . ."
They yelled at me a lot. They were all painfully aware of all the
problems that character advancement causes -- mostly to do with campaign
escalation, characters that can do anything, and extreme power
imbalances when new players came along. But they wanted me to sort that
out -- somehow -- and still give them their character advancement each
adventure.
One thing I tried was to persuade them that yes, maybe their characters
did get tougher over time; but, being pirates, they also lost limbs,
acquired higher prices on their heads, annoyed entire states, and that
any advancement points had to be paid for with disadvantages.
This didn't wash either; "We've earned those advancement points; we
don't want a load of arbitrary disadvantages too."
I gave up, and let them have their character advancement.
I have applied some of those ideas to the upcoming (plug, plug) Skull &
Bones pirate d20 setting though. Don't want to say too much more about
it as yet, but suffice it to say that characters wear out eventually!
Wayne Shaw
O'Rance) wrote:
>> It varies a lot from character to character. Molly definitely talked
>> with her hands (and I know the other players noticed; it gave them
>> the creeps). If I'm on my feet, several of my current PCs have
>> noticable body language. Others, though, like the fox, it's all
>> verbal.
>
>Okay; we always speak in the first person as players, it's unusual for
>anyone bu the GM to actually *describe* what a character says/does.
This seems to be one of those things that varies heavily from group to
group; I'd find that very stifling, as I'd be limited by my own acting
abilities to properly convey what the character was projecting, and I
don't have sufficient trust in them not to want a narrative option.
>There's one benefit to this that I can see... it's easier to describe
>losing your temper or being angry without others mistaking it for
>reality. I've seen that happen, it's not pretty.
It's also much easier to convey subtleties that might get past the
player, but not the character viewing it. There are some inherent
limitations to the fact you only have one real physical presence and
voice to play with, and the flexibility of these varies quite a bit.
Russell Wallace
>Unfortunately, that's not enough. Even if your guest doesn't mention you, the
>lawyer of the person he hits while drunk can investigate and decide whom to
>sue. If you've got more money than your guest, you're a better target for a
>lawsuit.
It seems the only general solution to that sort of problem is to not
live in America, unfortunately. However, on the specific issue of
someone driving home drunk, I wouldn't solve that by forbidding
alcohol, I'd solve it by kicking the bastard out of the game.
>Basically, there are responsible beer drinkers in Britain, while in the U.S.,
>the standard way to drink beer is to keep doing it until you pass out.
Umm... it's possible to pass out on American beer? :)
--
"Mercy to the guilty is treachery to the innocent."
Remove killer rodent from address to reply.
http://www.esatclear.ie/~rwallace
Russell Wallace
O'Rance) wrote:
>I'm very fortunate that my RM GM likes spiders... not all of the
>players do. When I described baby spider-centaurs ("cobblies") as
>cat-sized hunters with human heads, and hands instead of chelicerae, I
>could *see* the revulsion on someone's face. I thought they sounded
>cute.
I find it a hideous image, not because it's spiderlike, but because
it's partly human. I don't bat an eyelid at completely nonhuman things
(such as actual spider forms, however magnified).
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
> On 11 Oct 2002 22:19:16 -0700, dragon-...@geocities.com (James
> O'Rance) wrote:
> >
> > I'm very fortunate that my RM GM likes spiders... not all of the
> > players do. When I described baby spider-centaurs ("cobblies") as
> > cat-sized hunters with human heads, and hands instead of
> > chelicerae, I could *see* the revulsion on someone's face. I
> > thought they sounded cute.
>
> I find it a hideous image, not because it's spiderlike, but because
> it's partly human. I don't bat an eyelid at completely nonhuman
> things (such as actual spider forms, however magnified).
the poor things after some psycho smashed them, with their cute little
heads lying in puddles of spider-gore, feebly twitching from autonomic
responses that can't quite comprehend the presence of death. That
just makes me want to cuddle them and tell them no one will hurt
them.
I doubt I'd have nearly the same reaction to a creature that didn't
have big baby eyes.
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
James O'Rance
> Julie explained what happens at the start and end of scenarios, and
> got two kinds of balky reaction.
Now I understand.
The transition from realm of Essence to realm of Flesh in The
Whispering Vault is supposed to be ritualised, but rituals are
pointless if they have no meaning for the participants.
I had some difficulty with this part of TWV the first time I run it
for a group of people - players feel that they should be familiar with
the rituals but don't know what is expected of them (unless I just
explain everything, which makes it a bit pointless). In subsequent
games it's less of a problem, and you can do interetsing things.
Perhaps the introductory session of TWV should skip all of this and
begin with the PCs appearing in the realm of Flesh. It would be
simpler, and more detail can be explained in that group plays again.
I often try to use the Clive Barker film Hellraiser as an example of a
possible TWV game (fruitlessly, most people apparently haven't seen
it). You only see the hell of the Cenobites in the second film; in the
firast they just show up.
Thanks, this has been useful. :)
> The general attitude seemed to be "If you can say what is going to
> happen, why are we playing it out?"
It's a ritual.
> >Okay; we always speak in the first person as players, it's unusual for
> >anyone bu the GM to actually *describe* what a character says/does.
>
> This is definitely a place where group conventions differ a lot.
Oh, definitely.
Last weekend our group was playing Claire Seldon's "Inside", a short
sharp shock at Necronomicon. The game began as a therapy group in a
discussion room, with the PCs sitting in a circle. We barely spoke to
the GM, and never left the room as a group (occasionally a character
went outside to take a phone call or just get some space).
Apparently other groups went looking for a missing girl in the city's
red light district; it simply never *occurred* to me (as a player)
that the focus of this scenario would ever leave the discussion room.
> Sarah Kahn's group invariably played in third person, as I recall,
> with a huge amount of player description. The campaign that served
> as the prototype for _Puppetland_ must have been at the other extreme;
> at least, the system as written forbids player description of actions.
> Everything has to be dialog.
Last year I ran a convention scenario where everything was dialogue as
a basic assumption; it was not *possible* to break out of dialogue
without breaking the reality of the game.
One point of this game (Shock*Therapy) was to blur the distinction
between player and character; when description of a character's
actions become an integral part of the character's dialogue, the
player was supposed to disappear.
This worked because everything that the character did was imaginary;
the characters were effectively playing their own roleplaying game.
> We also do some weird
> stuff where the GM will temporarily suggest dialog for one PC, to
> mitigate the problem of PC/PC dialog when they have the same player.
How does this work? Do you think this might help those (horrible to
GM) situations of NPC talking to NPC?
> >Do you often play non-human characters? I think that this is something
> >that would come more easily with time. I've played an arachnid before
> >(a scorpion), so the effects of eight legs were obvious to me from the
> >beginning.
>
> I haven't had broad experience with this. Two centaurs, one hoarfox,
> an incorporeal computer person, a man in a wheelchair, and otherwise
> pretty normal humanoids.
>
> Our fear was always that the stranger PCs would get left behind too
> often--the centaurs had problems with stairs, for example. How do
> you handle that? Or has it not been a problem?
Stairs haven't been an issue. I've seen the question of whether
centaurs can go into dungeons before (when they became a PC race in
Dragonlance) and I really don't know how valid it is. Do horses have
problems with stairs? I don't know.
However, spiders don't have big problems climbing stuff. Saja has run
up and down stairs without anybody having a problem visualising it.
The sipder-centaur is actually *shorter* (at 5'8") than most PCs in
the party (many of whom are over six feet tall).
There was the question of fitting a spidery abdomen through spaces -
what was reasonable? I was asked to stand and demonstrate the
approximate physical dimensions of Saja around my own body. It was
very illustrative - Saja can squeeze through some small spaces, but
needs lots of space to walk comfortably. It would be easy to trip on
his/her legs walking past Saja in a corridor.
Next time someone plays a halfling or similar character, I might ask
that they stand and demonstrate exactly how tall the PC is. Similar
for extremely tall characters like minotaurs.
>
> I gave the hoarfox small amounts of TK because I was sure, a priori,
> that otherwise having no hands would be a disaster. I was wrong,
> though. She hardly ever uses the TK and doesn't seem to mind.
Hmmmm.
I'm thinking of running Talislanta next week; one of the PC archetypes
is basically an inquisitive, scholarly mollusc. It has no hands... but
no magic either. So basically I'd need to ensure that there were
plenty of activities that interested that player and didn't require
equipment or magic toys?
> (If a character doesn't have anything to do in the
> scenarios we play, they tend to get overshadowed by other PCs and
> vanish from sight; but the hoarfox doesn't.)
With multiple PCs per player, I can see how that would occur.
james o'rance
James O'Rance
> >Okay; we always speak in the first person as players, it's unusual for
> >anyone bu the GM to actually *describe* what a character says/does.
>
> This seems to be one of those things that varies heavily from group to
> group; I'd find that very stifling, as I'd be limited by my own acting
> abilities to properly convey what the character was projecting, and I
> don't have sufficient trust in them not to want a narrative option.
I personally find that narration is less satisfying for me as a GM or
as a player; if a player in my game says "I scream," then I want her
to scream.
Shy players sometimes need to be drawn out a bit to do this, but one
of my goals is to be trusted as a GM. This trust is important if I
want to draw real emotion out of the characters' situations later.
> It's also much easier to convey subtleties that might get past the
> player, but not the character viewing it. There are some inherent
> limitations to the fact you only have one real physical presence and
> voice to play with, and the flexibility of these varies quite a bit.
Agreed; that's the most significant benefit, perhaps. Not everyone is
a subtle actor.
james o'rance
Irina Rempt
> One point of this game (Shock*Therapy) was to blur the distinction
> between player and character; when description of a character's
> actions become an integral part of the character's dialogue, the
> player was supposed to disappear.
That wouldn't blur the distinction between player and character for me,
quite the contrary; when the character is so much present that the
player disappears, it's full immersion and the player just isn't
*there* any more. That's not quite as distinct as having only the
player present, because the character has to use the player's body and
voice and brain, but distinct enough for me.
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
Russell Wallace
<ne...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>It's the part-humanity that actually flips my sympathy bit. I imagined
>the poor things after some psycho smashed them, with their cute little
>heads lying in puddles of spider-gore, feebly twitching from autonomic
>responses that can't quite comprehend the presence of death. That
>just makes me want to cuddle them and tell them no one will hurt
>them.
My visceral reaction is to splat them, then shovel the remains into an
incinerator. With a bucket to hand and hoping I hadn't eaten breakfast
yet - irrespective of what it was, it would inevitably look like diced
carrots.
If they were sentient, I could restrain that reaction - but it would
be a conscious restraint.
Introduce me to a 10 foot tall sentient spider that _doesn't_ have
twisted mockeries of human heads growing out of it [1], though, and
I'll be "wow, I'm meeting a sentient spider, cool!"
Different strokes, and all :)
[1] See, I can't even paraphrase the description in neutral terms :)