Player's Tricks of the Trade
Hagan Heller - Sun BOS Software
interesting and would like to pose another question:
What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a
character), employ to make gaming more fun and more
interesting? This can range from doing things to help
out the GM (like keeping campaign notes or organizing
sessions) to social guidelines in play (such as not
telling other people how to manage their character)
to ... whatever you wish!
HagaN HelleR hagan....@east.sun.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It's the Devil's work. Piano's don't explode, just like that."
-- The old grandmother in "...Erendira" by Gabriel Garcias Marquez
antis...@st1.vuw.ac.nz
> What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a
> character), employ to make gaming more fun and more
> interesting? This can range from doing things to help
Well, I DO remember the game where we, playing (loosely) ourselves swept
into a inter-dimensional travelling situation (VERY loosely based on "Lords
of Creation", an otherwise forgettable system) were left with a prisoner to
interrogate at the end of a session. The prisoner was quite sure that we had
been picked up by accident, and the GM didn't think we had a show of getting
anything out of him (apart from the "take us home or we shoot you" scenario).
So when we met the next week, he was speechless when we started asking him
about whether his nation had learned of the Nova Roman Imperium, whether the
technology of his craft was based on <gibberish>, and referring to each other
as Centurion.
It ended up with us actually confusing him enough to take us elsewhere,
where we ended up teaching intelligent giant rabbits to shoot down aircars
with crossbows, but I digress. The key point was the look on our Ref's face
when we sprung something on him totally from the left field. He loved it, and
responded in kind.
Great game.
--
Tony Quirke c/o ANTISCHUTZ(Christian Grams), antis...@ST4.VUW.AC.NZ (or ST1)
"If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places"
"Be running up that road, be running up that hill, with no problems..." K Bush
Rodent of Unusual Size
> What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a
> character), employ to make gaming more fun and more
> interesting?
Making people laugh.
Much of my sense of humour concerns itself with literalism, so taking what
the DM or other players say literally has convulsed us a few times.
One thing I started doing recently (about 1986, I think ;-) is to keep a
logbook/diary of what happens. It means we have to stop play fairly often
so I can catch up, but everybody uses the time to take a bio break or
stretch or something, so it's not an utter loss. The logs have made
things more fun, in my opinion, since we go back and read them
occasionally - and, of course, fall into the trap of `Hey, I forgot about
that! What a gas!' and `Remember when Wizbhang knocked himself
unconscious attacking the dishes in the pantry?'
#ken :-)}
Co...@Nephi.Enet.DEC.Com | All opinions herein contained, stated or implied,
Co...@DECUS.Org | are solely those of the author. And he's fullovem.
Co...@Eisner.DECUS.Org | `... it was mine art, ... that made gape the pine
Massachusetts, USA | and let thee out.' - Prospero (_The Tempest_)
Darin McGrew
before creating it. Using the GURPS advantages and disadvantages
for inspiration helps, but you have to follow through after
you've chosen the ones you want to be a focal point of the
character.
For example, I wanted to create a character who had the Eidetic
Memory advantage (the full 60 point, remembers absolutely
everything version). This could either give him incredible
levels in a few mental skills, or reasonable levels in lots of
mental skills, and I chose the latter. Why would someone learn
lots of different skills, but learn none of them exceptionally
well? Perhaps they're easily bored. Why would such a person go
"adventuring"? Perhaps they want excitement. Where could one
learn lots of different skills while trying to find excitement at
the same time? Perhaps a circus. Perhaps they ran away to join
the circus, and now they're running away to find some Real
Adventure(tm). What skills did they learn before joining the
circus? What skills did they learn with the circus? What other
advantages/disadvantages make sense? Perhaps Youth and
Impulsiveness. And so on...
Somewhere in all this, you (and the GM) need to ask the question,
why is this character adventuring? That can create a lot of the
character's personality and background right there. Somewhat
related is the question, why would anyone else adventure with
this character? Either the character needs to pull his own
weight in sticky situations (you know, when the GM starts asking
each player individually what his character is doing that round),
or he has to be valuable enough to the other characters for them
to protect him instead.
Another thing that is kinda fun is to play a character, knowing
something that the character doesn't. Obviously, we all know
things that our characters don't, but making something explicit
helps me keep the character image crisp.
For example, I know that the skill this seasoned brawler uses to
hit people with table legs is the same skill he will likely use
later on to swing a broadsword, but he doesn't. And while he
isn't at all squeemish about good hearty brawling at times, he's
not so sure about combat with weapons and such, where people get
killed and maimed instead of just bruised and battered.
Or perhaps a character with a lot of psionic strength who doesn't
know about (or even believe in?) psionics. At some point, there
may be a crisis where something weird happens; say, he's being
mugged and the thief's dagger suddenly gets red hot. Or maybe
he's a good-hearted, compassionate (and low-tech) doctor with an
incredible reputation among the townfolk, largely due to his
unknowing use of his psionic healing skills to augment his
primitive medical skills.
Darin McGrew "The Beginning will make all things new,
mcg...@Eng.Sun.COM New Life belongs to Him.
Affiliation stated for He hands us each new moment saying,
identification purposes only. 'My child, begin again....
You're free to start again.'"
Larry Smith
>What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a GM).
I'm fond of carrying a pint-size crock full of marbles. Smash it down on a
hard surface in front of something that you really don't want to be upright.
Darned useful for retreating on hard surfaces. I can't take credit for this
idea, I swiped it from a Dungeon article.
--
Larry Smith
sm...@ctron.com
The usual disclaimer stuff...
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. -- Barry Goldwater
Keith Ammann
In article 67182 of rec.games.frp, hhe...@charlesriver.East.Sun.COM
(Hagan Heller - Sun BOS Software) inquires:
>What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a
>character), employ to make gaming more fun and more
>interesting?
It all starts with a good character. I'm of the opinion that although
characters do develop over time, it's best to start off with a character
that has already been developed to a significant degree.
When creating a character, I like to ask myself several questions about
it:
(1) How is this character different from other characters of its type?
I play mostly Shadowrun, which can very easily degenerate into a hack-
and-slash (or blast-and-blow) environment, the central character of which
is usually the Street Samurai. I haven't played a Street Sam yet, mainly
because I haven't come up with an idea of one that isn't just as one-
dimensional as all the others I've seen. When I come up with one, I'll
probably try it. Having the unique character trait is what makes the
game roleplaying rather than mechanical responses to problems.
(2) What motivates the character? I know, it sounds like method acting,
but a character's priorities and drives will determine how he or she
would react to a situation, and the better a grasp you have on your
character's motives, the more consistently you will behave. Eventually
it will become second nature.
(3) Will this character be able to compete? What is his or her "edge"?
Let's face it, a character that can't keep up with the pack isn't going
to be much fun to play, unless you are structuring the entire character
concept around weakness or cowardice. Unfortunately, Shadowrun, at least,
is a very hazardous environment, and such characters generally bite the
big morsel. It's better to stick with the edge.
However, ONE EDGE IS ENOUGH. You don't have to be a machine that can
do everything; that's why you have other characters beside you. Trying
to do everything yourself leads to resentment from other players and
from the GM (whose efforts to keep the other players happy are stymied).
(4) Will I be afraid to use this character to get the cheap laugh?
If so, dump it, because sometime during the game you'll see a humorous
opportunity, and if you can't stay in character and still seize the
initiative, you're going to either break character badly or sit there
frustrated. Neither one is much fun, so build in the fun beforehand.
(5) What is the character used to in his everyday life? Even in
fantasy games, players will run into things their characters have never
seen before, and should react accordingly. The average Shadowrun
character would go nuts over a plate of real food as opposed to his
usual soy by-products. A typical starting AD&D character would
probably never have held a gold coin or met a nobleman in his life.
Unless the character is a sophisticate of the highest degree, such
events should inspire awe.
(6) Busting stereotypes is an absolute blast, but can the character
justify it? In one game I played a dwarf rigger with a Winnebago.
It turned out to work just fine, but let's face it, it was SILLY.
It couldn't hold up in an extended campaign. A dwarf merc would have
accomplished the same things my rigger did, and made much more sense.
So, for that matter, would a straight human rigger out of the book.
On the other hand, playing the quiet ork merc who insists on the
highest degree of stealth and efficiency in an operation would not
be amiss.
Yours ob'tly,
Specter
--
* * * * * * * * KEITH AMMANN * * * YE OLDE BAGEL SLAYER * * * * * * * * o-o
* (I) amma...@dayton.bitnet (III) chairdog, Village Green (IV) _
* (II) assistant op of photo sig Preservation Society -> \/-\/
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * \_/
Gym Z. Quirk
>What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a
>character), employ to make gaming more fun and more
>interesting? This can range from doing things to help
>out the GM (like keeping campaign notes or organizing
>sessions) to social guidelines in play (such as not
>telling other people how to manage their character)
>to ... whatever you wish!
Hmmm...to help deliniate the character's personallity, I frequently
attempt to give him/her a disticntive accent (If I can do it justice,
of course ;-). Of course, this leads to two problems.
1) I can only do "BBC english" and "Mild germanic" with any
regularity. (I can, on good nights, do an excellend Russian, but
rarely with any consistancy. ;-)
2) It takes me upwards of an hour to "break out" of the accent after
the gaming session is over. (Once it took me 3 hours to drop a
British character's accent after the game wrapped up. Needless to
say, the other players and the GM were more than a little annoyed at
me when I ordered pizza--The cashier was only slightly confused. ;-)
>HagaN HelleR hagan....@east.sun.com
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) tko...@triton.unm.edu
Veteran of the "Grand reorganization" of July-August '91.
-= Insert witty quote here =-
Charles F Waterman
>I've found the GM tricks of the trade series to be very
>interesting and would like to pose another question:
>
>What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a
>character), employ to make gaming more fun
This may be simplistic, but frankly I roleplay even if noone else is! I make
each of my characters with a twist - one is violent but a good comrade and
loves to speak in rhymes, another has an Irish accent and would always prefer
to sneak up from behind his enemy and club 'im once over the noggin with his
shilleligh than kill him, another is a party dude, and simply wants to do what
everyone else wants to do as long as there's action involved! Etc., etc.
On the other hand, I don't ever play a character who secretly plots against
the party or is working against their main goals. As much fun as this can be,
it removes the sense of heroic cameraderie which I think is the oil that
soothes the frictions that inevitably pop up from time to time.
In addition, unless the DM has given me a complete character background,
I take the time to develop a home town, complete with family, friends,
enemies and other NPCs my character knows there! I roughly sketch out
the main buildings there, and when each part is finished I hand it to the
DM saying he can use it, and asking if we ever need help if we can go there
and see if any of the people there can help out! THIS GIVES MY CHARACTER
200% more stake in the game because now he really lives in this world, and
has a place he belongs to! And its fun showing the other characters around
"my home town" inbetween main adventures!
Well there's a couple ideas! looking forward to seeing other ones!
m anthony kapolka
>
> One thing I started doing recently (about 1986, I think ;-) is to keep a
> logbook/diary of what happens. It means we have to stop play fairly often
> so I can catch up, but everybody uses the time to take a bio break or
What I've recently started to do is to record the adventure on cheap (I mean
cheap) audio tape. Got a record, if we need it, can transcribe salient
points later, and it doesn't interfere with the game too much. If you shop
around, you can spend less on cassettes then you do on food for a session.
--
Anthony Kapolka ant...@cs.pitt.edu
Dennis Clark
>I've found the GM tricks of the trade series to be very
>interesting and would like to pose another question:
>
>What tricks / methods do you, as a player (NOT as a
>character), employ to make gaming more fun and more
>interesting? This can range from doing things to help
>out the GM (like keeping campaign notes or organizing
>sessions) to social guidelines in play (such as not
>telling other people how to manage their character)
>to ... whatever you wish!
Well, what my group tends to do is dress for the occasion. ROLE PLAY to
the max. Bring along props; my samurai in Champions used swords (naturally)
so I always had an oak Bokkon along to show the moves. Fore Twilight 2000 I
had one of those "blasters" for your car that made great combat sound effects.
You get the picture 8*)
>HagaN HelleR hagan....@east.sun.com
>----------
DLC
Laurie F. Alden
>In article <25...@shlump.lkg.dec.com> co...@Nephi.Enet.DEC.Com (Rodent of Unusual Size) writes:
>>
>> One thing I started doing recently (about 1986, I think ;-) is to keep a
>> logbook/diary of what happens.
>What I've recently started to do is to record the adventure on cheap (I mean
>cheap) audio tape.
I often find myself log-keeper - matter of fact, log-keeper and
treasurer are often party positions _among the characters as well as
players_ in a particular group of player friends. When the infamous
"Sunday Afternoon Campaign" (remember the what do you name your
adventures thread?) came to a close after nine months of real-world and
about six months of adventure, I (and my character) had a pretty
complete log. The next Christmas, I sent all the players wp'd copies
of the logbook - good for some great memories!
Laurie/ Thorn
PS. Make the theif treasurer, she'll wind up with it anyway.
--
Laurie F. Alden | A well-regulated militia,
l...@dartmouth.edu | being necessary to the security of a free State,
Dartmouth College | the right of the People to keep and bear arms,
Hanover, NH 03755 | shall not be infringed.
--
Laurie F. Alden | A well-regulated militia,
l...@dartmouth.edu | being necessary to the security of a free State,
Dartmouth College | the right of the People to keep and bear arms,
Hanover, NH 03755 | shall not be infringed.
Dave Lewis
>> character), employ to make gaming more fun and more
>> interesting?
>
>
> logbook/diary of what happens.
>Co...@Nephi.Enet.DEC.Com | All opinions herein contained, stated or implied,
I started taking notes during games and between sessions I'd turn the notes
into a comprehensive write-up of what took place, but I found that I couldn't
shift gears fast enough to both take notes and to play in character. My
solution to this was to tape sessions and do the write-up later. This works
really well except that it takes a lot of time to plow through 5 or 6 hours
of tape and god help you if you get behind because you'll never get caught
up again! One thing I discovered was that write-ups of combat are boring to
read (or maybe I'm just no good at writing them), but some of the best stuff
happens during combats, so I'd just gloss over the combat stuff and put in
the other good stuff. The people in the groups I've done this in have mostly
had a positive attitude toward the write-ups, except for the munchkins, but I
can't get a clear answer as to why they feel this way, maybe it's just a
munchkin thing and therefore opaque to the rest of us, like the rest of their
behavior.
Does anybody else tape sessions?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Lewis
Computers, Martial Arts, and RPGs are better than Sex, Drugs, and Rock n'Roll!
Well ... Maybe not better than Sex!
uucp: ...{ucbvax | gatech}!unmvax!sandia!dlewis
InterNet: unmvax.unm.edu!sandia!dlewis or sandia!dle...@unmvax.unm.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald Daybell
>into a comprehensive write-up of what took place, but I found that I couldn't
>shift gears fast enough to both take notes and to play in character. My
>solution to this was to tape sessions and do the write-up later. This works
My solution is to allow my memory to do the selecting of what is or is not
important enough to make it into my memoirs. I wait until some time has
passed, traditionally over the summer when we go on hiatus, and then sit
down and write about my character's adventures. This way I naturally tend
to touch only upon the highlights, as seen from my character's point of view,
and can filter out all the extraenous stuff.
Of course this does produce a somewhat skewed history, but it seems to me
to be much more "realistic" and helps me play in character.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bumper sticker seen on stealth bomber:
"IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THEN WE WASTED 50 BILLION BUCKS."
Donald Daybell day...@usc.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liam R. E. Quin
> [...] I frequently attempt to give him/her a disticntive accent [...]
> 2) It takes me upwards of an hour to "break out" of the accent after
> the gaming session is over. (Once it took me 3 hours to drop a
> British character's accent after the game wrapped up. Needless to
> say, the other players and the GM were more than a little annoyed at
> me when I ordered pizza--The cashier was only slightly confused. ;-)
The funniest NPC accent I ever heard was a squeaky British Aristocrat with
a lithp :-) . He spoke in a high falsetto that was so unlike the player
that we were all surprised at him.
I used a similar accent recently as a player, for fun; although people
over here (North America) often have understandable difficulty in
distinguishing the various regional accents, this one was easy! For my
part, I am learning to distinguish between accents from Toronto, New York,
California and North Carolina, but I don't always remember which is which
yet. And I wouldn't give a character a Bronx accent, since for me that
has entirely modern (and unwelcome) connotations.
I do find that I sometimes confuse people, and I walked out of one Pizza
Estabishment because of a total failure of communication. I don't know if
the person serving spoke any English at all; I think she had been trained
(as a recent immigrant) to recognise certain sequences of sounds, none of
which I was capable of emitting!
Lee
--
Liam Quin, l...@sq.com, SoftQuad, Toronto, 416 239-4801; the barefoot programmer
`Jacob sod pottage' [King James Bible]
Michael A. Davis
>has entirely modern (and unwelcome) connotations.
>
Reminds me of Vinnie and Lorenzo, "da Brooklyn dwahves. Youse got a problem
wit dat?"
Vinnie carried a +1 tire iron.
Obviously a very silly campaign.
--
Michael A Davis m...@wolfy.clearpoint.com
Tre
view. It makes for some interesting reading sometimes. For example:
7/1- Today during our travels we met up with a dozen or so orcs.
Luckily for our party, I was on hand to single handedly wipe out
all of the nasty ol' orcs. In a blaze of magic, I killed them
all and didn't even dirty my fingers.
(Actual occurence: My character was trying desperately to get
a spell going, by the time the spell was to go off, the rest of
the party had taken care of them. All that was left to do was
to pop my spell like a soap bubble. =) )
And you wonder how some people get to be heroes in bard's tales... =)
After all, when all is said and done, and we are gone, only written
records will remain, and perhaps a song or two...
-Tre
JJJ...@psuvm.psu.edu
a decision, they ask themselves, "How would my charcter act in this
situtation?"
I think a better method is ask to yourself, "How would I act in this situtation
if I had 18/90 strength, chain mail +3, etc. ?"
It's easy to look at your 50 hit points and decide that an important combat
that should leave you with 30-40 hit points is worthwhile.
I look at my stomach and image how painful a dagger wound would be,
and might decide otherwise.
Just my $0.02 -- comments welcome
Jim J. (also know as jjj...@psuvm.psu.edu)
Darin McGrew
>One thing I noticed, is when a lot player's characters are faced with
>a decision, they ask themselves, "How would my charcter act in this
>situtation?"
>
>I think a better method is ask to yourself, "How would I act in this situtation
>if I had 18/90 strength, chain mail +3, etc. ?"
Actually, I think the these are equivalent, if you take
*everything* about the character into account. It's more than
the character's attribute's and posessions; it's the character's
background, beliefs, fears, desires, etc. How would I act in
this situation if--
I were committed to never refusing a request for aid?
I avoided combat ever since [something happened]?
I just wanted to get enough money to buy a farm and settle down?
I were passionately in love with the person kidnapped?
I didn't know the person kidnapped?
I hated the person kidnapped ever since [something happened]?
I were overconfident?
I were uncertain of my abilities?
I feared death?
I accepted death as a normal part of life?
I were a loner?
I had a large family to support?
If I were someone else, how would I act?
vale...@zeus.unomaha.edu
> tko...@triton.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk) writes:
>
> The funniest NPC accent I ever heard was a squeaky British Aristocrat with
> a lithp :-) . He spoke in a high falsetto that was so unlike the player
> that we were all surprised at him.
>
>
> --
> Liam Quin, l...@sq.com, SoftQuad, Toronto, 416 239-4801; the barefoot programmer
> `Jacob sod pottage' [King James Bible]
I surprised everyone in my regular CHampions group by playing a shy, introverted
Japanese character (I'm a 6'4" person of Nordic extraction [big, blonde, and
blue eyed] :-). I hammed up the accent, ferociously, spoke in an atonal fashion
like the bad kung-fu movies, and basically had a good time. It goes without
saying that it was and is likely to be offensive to any one of real Japanese
ancestry. But he was memoriable...
..his name was Sanyo Mitsubishi :-) METEOR was the character. An attempt
to duplicate the accent follows:
"Herro! I have come to shave da day!" Hmm, doesn't work via keyboard...
..the point? The other players still remember and comment about him to
this day...
--
_ _ _
| |_| |_| |
\ / Name: Chris Olson (aka Lord Valentine)
| _ | Internet: vale...@zeus.unomaha.edu
| | | | Bitnet: valentine@unoma1
_|_|_|_|__________
Steven King
>I surprised everyone in my regular CHampions group by playing a shy, introverted
>Japanese character (I'm a 6'4" person of Nordic extraction [big, blonde, and
>blue eyed] :-). I hammed up the accent, ferociously, spoke in an atonal fashion
>like the bad kung-fu movies, and basically had a good time. It goes without
>saying that it was and is likely to be offensive to any one of real Japanese
>ancestry. But he was memoriable...
My Armored Man character "aquired" a Japanese sidekick on one mission. The
poor kid had seen one too many bad movies and was convinced that I was
Inframan... His name was Saki, and the GM had almost Mel Blanc's genius for
character voices. He got in the way (a LOT!) but it was a blast.
Armored Man himself started as a joke but became a lot of fun to play. The
character was a mediocre actor playing the title character in the short-lived
"Armored Man" TV series. After the show bombed in ratings the producer told
him, "You couldn't play a superhero if your life depended on it!" The actor
took his life savings and built himself a supersuit, just like his
character's. Even had a built-in cassette deck which CONSTANTLY played the
Armored Man Theme Music. His van, an old Ford Econoline, had to be modified
to accomodate the Rocketeer-style jet pack, and had a big Blues Brothers
speaker on top tied into the supersuit's cassette player. You ALWAYS knew
when Armored Man had arrived on the scene!
--
---------------------------------------------------+---------------------------
You don't know how much you don't know until | Steven King
you know a lot. | Motorola Cellular
(Nick Holland) | ...uunet!motcid!king