Hello?
razoredge
Tim C K
there's something of particular interest.
--
Tim C Koppang <> http://www.uiuc.edu/~koppang
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
- e.e. cummings
razoredge <ceo...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:rneq7.75$OO1....@news2.news.adelphia.net...
> Anyone still use this?
>
>
Warren J. Dew
Yes, the newsgroup is still used. Traffic is down, and comes in spurts, but
people seem to check in occasionally. Certainly I do.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Mary K. Kuhner
a series of nasty flame wars a year or so ago finally pushed us below
the critical mass of stable posters to maintain a discussion.
Last week I got to play face-to-face with another rgfa regular,
Irina Rempt, in her ongoing game. It was an interesting experience.
I didn't feel up to trying to play my previous PC, twenty years
and a lot of water under the bridge later, so we created a new PC
on *very* short notice. I don't think I've ever had so little written
on my character sheet. (Name: profession: '12 points of psi skills
and we'll figure out what they are if we need them'. Full stop.)
The session was political, and my PC was someone from far away
just feeling her way into local politics, so it actually worked. She
was, maybe, more vocal than would have been quite realistic
for such an outsider, but not to the point of straining my suspension
of disbelief.
My main difficulty with the game was in understanding the NPC
names. The players graciously spoke English for me, except for
one brief spate of Dutch, but the NPC names were designed with a
Dutch ear for differentiable vowels. I couldn't hear them clearly
enough to fix them in my head, and spent the evening saying
"Your uncle" and "The Baroness" and "our new candidate" because
I didn't think I could retrieve their names.
It was fun. I'm sorry that we live on different continents; our gaming
styles dovetail pretty well.
Too many years of playing one-on-one games have left me uneasy
about the social division of spotlight: I'm never sure now, when
playing with a group, how much effort to put into getting other players
into the spotlight. One of Irina's other players was playing a PC
seven months pregnant and understandably housebound, and I
felt uneasy that I might be upstaging him. I think things were okay,
though. (I had enough culture shock problems in Europe that I
don't want to say with confidence that people were/were not
annoyed with me. I couldn't even reliably figure out how to stand in
queues or open doors, for heaven's sake.)
Anyway, that's my summer vacation report.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Dave
> Anyone still use this?
Still reading faithfully, but regrettably nothing interesting to say. Hoping
someone will soon break the silence.
-Dave
Irina Rempt
> I still check the group, but usually don't consider posting. I
> think a series of nasty flame wars a year or so ago finally pushed
> us below the critical mass of stable posters to maintain a
> discussion.
>
> Last week I got to play face-to-face with another rgfa regular,
> Irina Rempt, in her ongoing game.
Ex-regular, for much the same reasons. The few times I've posted in
the past year or so I've usually been either flamed or ignored.
> My main difficulty with the game was in understanding the NPC
> names. The players graciously spoke English for me, except for
> one brief spate of Dutch, but the NPC names were designed with a
> Dutch ear for differentiable vowels.
Never perceived that as a Dutch ear :-)
> I couldn't hear them clearly
> enough to fix them in my head, and spent the evening saying
> "Your uncle" and "The Baroness" and "our new candidate" because
> I didn't think I could retrieve their names.
Well, you know what the Baroness is called (this is Mary's previous
PC, and I'm very pleased that Mary still recognized her) and I'm sure
most of the other people at the meeting didn't know everybody's name
either. Boudewijn noticed that we used many more titles: we don't
usually call people "Lord" even if they are.
> One of Irina's other players was playing a PC
> seven months pregnant and understandably housebound, and I
> felt uneasy that I might be upstaging him. I think things were
> okay, though.
Perfectly okay; he can fend for himself, and the PC is usually a
rather quiet woman.
> (I had enough culture shock problems in Europe that I
> don't want to say with confidence that people were/were not
> annoyed with me. I couldn't even reliably figure out how to stand
> in queues or open doors, for heaven's sake.)
Somehow, small culture shocks usually seem to work out worse than
really major culture shock. More tricky to adjust to, anyway. And
we're so used to having people from everywhere around that *we*
hardly noticed.
Irina
--
ir...@valdyas.org
http://www.valdyas.org/irina/index.html (English)
http://www.valdyas.org/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)
Brian Gleichman
> Anyone still use this?
I check in every now and then. The place is almost as dead as r.g.f.mod,
basically killed off by a couple of trolls that too many of the regulars
couldn't ignore. First time in fact that I ever saw trolls succeed. First
time for everything.
If I get time, I may be posting one of my reviews this month and that may
produce a short discussion with the author.
--
Brian Gleichman
Age of Heroes: http://home.earthlink.net/~bgleichman/
Free RPG Reviews: http://home.earthlink.net/~bgleichman/Reviews.htm
Mary K. Kuhner
Brian Gleichman <bglei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I check in every now and then. The place is almost as dead as r.g.f.mod,
>basically killed off by a couple of trolls that too many of the regulars
>couldn't ignore. First time in fact that I ever saw trolls succeed. First
>time for everything.
I think the line between the regulars and the trolls got a little
blurry.
I'd be very happy to see another of your reviews. I've been wrestling
horribly with our Feng Shui derivatives lately and am almost ready
to contemplate using some other system instead. I can't seem to
predict difficulty levels of combats well enough to meet our game
contract.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Clifford A. Anderson
news:9og285$cik$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu...
> I'd be very happy to see another of your reviews. I've been wrestling
> horribly with our Feng Shui derivatives lately and am almost ready
> to contemplate using some other system instead. I can't seem to
> predict difficulty levels of combats well enough to meet our game
> contract.
I am new to this newsgroup, and am curious about your last statement
there. My group has had a hard time keeping everyone happy (of coz, any
group would) and we were thinking of a more collaborative effort toward
building our campaign. Is this anything like what you are talking about?
I'm curious to hear how your group handles it.
Cheers!
Jason Corley
> I am new to this newsgroup, and am curious about your last statement
> there. My group has had a hard time keeping everyone happy (of coz, any
> group would) and we were thinking of a more collaborative effort toward
> building our campaign. Is this anything like what you are talking about?
> I'm curious to hear how your group handles it.
"Game contract", like most words and phrases, has a meaning on rgfa that
is different from the way people use it in the rest of the world.
Essentialy it is like the social contract - an imaginary agreement amongst
the players and between the players and GM as to certain salient points of
the game. Which points those are, and what the agreement is, varies from
game to game.
A game contract need not be collaborative. The players and GM may
(explicily or implicitly) cede essentially all power to the GM, including
things like forcing PCs to do something against their player's will if the
GM thinks it is appropriate.
--
***************************************************************************
"I was pleased to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't
know."----- Mark Twain, _Life on the Mississippi_
Jason Corley | le...@aeonsociety.org | ICQ 41199011
Robert Scott Clark
>Clifford A. Anderson <cliff.ba...@fix.it.yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I am new to this newsgroup, and am curious about your last statement
>> there. My group has had a hard time keeping everyone happy (of coz, any
>> group would) and we were thinking of a more collaborative effort toward
>> building our campaign. Is this anything like what you are talking about?
>> I'm curious to hear how your group handles it.
>
>"Game contract", like most words and phrases, has a meaning on rgfa that
>is different from the way people use it in the rest of the world.
>
>Essentialy it is like the social contract - an imaginary agreement amongst
>the players and between the players and GM as to certain salient points of
>the game. Which points those are, and what the agreement is, varies from
>game to game.
>
>A game contract need not be collaborative. The players and GM may
>(explicily or implicitly) cede essentially all power to the GM, including
>things like forcing PCs to do something against their player's will if the
>GM thinks it is appropriate.
And to further answer your question, the game contract isn't about
*directly* making the game more fun for all involved. It merely sets
the standards upfront, so no one is caught off-guard by incorrect
assumptions - and, hopefully, this makes the game more fun, or at
least less confrontational, in the longrun.
RSC (who is, also, still here, even though he thinks he is likely one
of the "group killing trolls")
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John S. Novak, III
> I am new to this newsgroup, and am curious about your last statement
> there. My group has had a hard time keeping everyone happy (of coz, any
> group would) and we were thinking of a more collaborative effort toward
> building our campaign. Is this anything like what you are talking about?
> I'm curious to hear how your group handles it.
I think you'll be more likely to find examples of gaming contracts in
this group than a hard and fast definition of what one is. I think
everyone uses theirs a little differently.
In my standard games, for instance (standard, for me, being something
typically fantasy, once in a while science fiction, on a largely drawn
background) is something along the following:
"The GM will create a setting in broad to middling strokes,
incorporating several areas of conflict in it. The GM will present
some detailed background information to the players. The players will
listen and ask questions, especially about the areas of conflict. The
players will discuss with themselves and the GM what area sounds
interesting to play in.
"At that time, with the GM's guidance, the players will create a
groupd of characters who, althogh they may not like each other, have
some basic reason to stick together (eg, all members or associates of
an extended family) and some loose but common goal regarding one of
the conflicted regions.
"The GM and players will also be clear on the expcted tone and
atmosphere of the game, whether it be lighthearted, four-color or
cinematic, or dark and gritty; action packed, political, or mystical.
"Finally, the GM will take the above input from the players and fill
in more background, especially in the area around which the players
wish to play, trying to work the characters and character hooks into
the setting."
Now, I don't give out a speech to that effect, much less of piece of
paper for people to sign, but I make it pretty clear that this is my
style and this is what I expect of my players. I do that because I
know what my strengths as a GM are, and what things immediately snap
me out of having fun as a GM.
Players are encouraged to bring up aspects of conduct that they want
to see covered as well, so that everyone knows what they're getting in
to.
For me, a gaming contract has nothing to do with collaborative world
creation, because I'm too much a control freak to allow anyone to
meddle with my creations. Advise, yes. Meddle freely, no. My worlds
are mine. Mine, mine, mine.
--
John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
The Humblest Man on the Net
Peter Knutsen
Brian Gleichman wrote:
> If I get time, I may be posting one of my reviews this month and that may
> produce a short discussion with the author.
With luck, FFRE v0.1 will be ready in a few months, giving you
something more to chew up. I'm aiming for a release date of
November 30th.
But as I've said before, I like your reviews, and I look forward
to reading more of them. Many of them have helped me when making
design decisions for FFRE.
There has been a new version of Quest FRP, a quietly released
v3.0, but almost nothing has been changed.
> --
> Brian Gleichman
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
"John S. Novak, III" wrote:
[contract]
> For me, a gaming contract has nothing to do with collaborative world
> creation, because I'm too much a control freak to allow anyone to
> meddle with my creations. Advise, yes. Meddle freely, no. My worlds
> are mine. Mine, mine, mine.
Sounds like a game contract I could use, with only a few trivial
modifications.
> --
> John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
> The Humblest Man on the Net
--
Peter Knutsen
Mary K. Kuhner
some fairly explicit discussions, especially after one or two
failed games with a given group....
Here are some points I think a group may want to address, unless
they already know they have consensus.
--Who is pushing the game? Is the GM responsible for finding something
for the PCs to do, or is that a player responsibility, or is it shared?
--Are we trying to make things work out to be dramatic, or specially
exciting, or to have a satisfying resolution? If so, whose job is
that?
--Are we trying to keep the PCs alive, and if so whose job is it, and
how far are they allowed to go? Are they allowed to fudge rolls?
Change situations? Break character or world consistency?
--Whose job is it to keep the PCs together, and how should they
do it? Careful PC design? "PC glow" manuvers after design?
Forcing scenarios?
--Who controls the game-world? Do the players have any say in it,
or is it purely the GM's turf? If they hae a say in it, what's
their area of control? How is it limited?
--Is someone supposed to be looking after player/player fairness,
and if so who, and how?
--How hard are the challenges in the game supposed to be, and who
is responsible for setting the challenge level? How are they
allowed to do so? How much information are the players guaranteed
about challenges?
--Is the game trying to model a particular genre or work of fiction,
and how important is it that it succeeds, if so? What is the group
willing to do to keep to the model?
The campaign in which I'm currently playing is a mix of player-
and GM-driven; there are periods when all of the action is being
guided by PC plans, and there are periods when the GM contributes
a forcing line of events. Probably it's more player- than
GM-driven, in that the player can always refuse a line of
action if that's physically possible, whereas the GM doesn't have
much freedom to say "I'm not willing to go there." (He can,
if he really feels he can't run a certain continuation--it's
happened once or twice.)
There's some effort on both sides to get to good conclusions,
particularly to avoid tragedies. We're inclined to use drastic
tools like pretending a given session didn't happen, rather than
more subtle ones like having the GM change an NPC's behavior
repeatedly to keep something from happening.
The game has script immunity. The player is supposed to take
reasonable precautions, but the GM has final responsibility for
either keeping the PCs alive or making it clear that he
can't. ("If you do that I will have to withdraw script
immunity."--has happened once so far.) Our experience is that
we need script immunity to prevent the player from "turtling"--
becoming so cautious that nothing interesting happens.
(With a less pessimistic player we'd play differently. One-on-
one has a problem that if the single player loses morale, there
is no one to pick up the slack.)
There is no obligation to keep the PCs together. This is
easier in a one-on-one game where it doesn't risk sidelining
a player.
The player can design parts of the gameworld, such as her
PCs' homeworlds, but the GM always has final say. The player
has final say only over her PCs and their actions. (In
practice I do quite a lot of world design, and name many
of the NPCs. But it's always subject to veto.)
There's not really any player/player fairness issue with one
player. I've complained once that an NPC was unfairly
superior to a PC in her area of expertese, but it really doesn't
come up much. This would be a *much* bigger issue with
more players.
The game contract is that the PCs should be able to find
tractable challenges, and if the GM forces them into a situation,
it should be one they can handle. The gameworld can have
insoluble situations, but the GM is supposed to provide some
information hinting that this is the case, and try to avoid
having the PCs tackle a problem they can't possibly solve,
especially one where failure is lethal or very harmful.
This is the campaign's perpetual stress point, the thing that
makes it likely to fall apart, because the GM's view of
a tractable challenge is very different from mine. We
also have a problem with escalation, where an initially
reasonable problem tends to get bigger and bigger as it's
explored.
Finally, we're not trying to stick to any genre or particular
source material: it matters if something is true to the
world, but not really if it's true to genre, so neither party
has to work on that.
I'm not putting this forward as a general-purpose game contract,
since it would suit a lot of people very badly; the script
immunity, particularly, is a response to our specific needs
for this game. It's just an example of what a worked-out
agreement might look like. After seven years of play we
have worked this one out fairly thoroughly, though the
"challenge" part is still, always, a problem.
What kinds of problems was the original poster encountering?
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
John S. Novak, III
> Here are some points I think a group may want to address, unless
> they already know they have consensus.
Even if a group thinks they have a consensus, it's useful to have the
discussion.
> --Who is pushing the game? Is the GM responsible for finding something
> for the PCs to do, or is that a player responsibility, or is it shared?
Yes, I knew I was forgetting at least one point, and this is it.
In my general campaigns, I usually prefer to have pro-active players,
but I can usually deal with it if I don't. In other games, such as
Amber, I find it essential to have pro-active players, and I try to
state that outright.
> --Are we trying to make things work out to be dramatic, or specially
> exciting, or to have a satisfying resolution? If so, whose job is
> that?
This is a little harder for me to work out with players.
It's been my experience (although I don't do as much gamaing as I used
to) that most players know what they want, but aren't very good at
articulating what they want if they're new to the idea of talking
about that sort of thing.
I have to admit, I haven't been very good about asking for those
details, either.
I'd be interested to see how people home in on the desires of players,
in this area, especially when they're GMing for new players. (Note,
this specifically includes players who are well known to them, but
with whom they've never gamed or never GM'd before.)
I've had some success in PBEM campaigns running flashbacks or solitary
set-pieces, because some of my players are very good about saying,
fairly up front, "Wait, that breaks my character concept," or "Wait,
that really bugs me."
Even then, some of the players seemed to think they were being weird
or too picky, and I've had to emphasize to more than one player that,
regardless of what my preferences as a player would be in the same
circumstance, it is my job as GM to gauge their tolerance for, say,
short-span retcons, extemporization of background details, or
whatever.
> --Are we trying to keep the PCs alive, and if so whose job is it, and
> how far are they allowed to go? Are they allowed to fudge rolls?
> Change situations? Break character or world consistency?
Some of this is already dependent on the genre (Amber games, in my
experience, have a pretty strong assumption that few if any players
are *really* going to get killed-- look at how hard Eric tried to keep
his hated enemy Corwin alive.)
If it's not, yes, this needs to be brought up.
> --Whose job is it to keep the PCs together, and how should they
> do it? Careful PC design? "PC glow" manuvers after design?
> Forcing scenarios?
My contract focusses on this one, because groups that don't work
together (and especially, groups who try to kill each other) are a
main peeve of mine in general.
What is "PC glow?"
> --Who controls the game-world? Do the players have any say in it,
> or is it purely the GM's turf? If they hae a say in it, what's
> their area of control? How is it limited?
Heh.
I can't imagine anyone in one of my general games being at all
confused on that point.... I'm known as a tight-ass when it comes to
world development. (Unless it's a game specifically run around
someone else's world, like an Amber game, or a hypothetical Wheel of
Time game.)
> --Is someone supposed to be looking after player/player fairness,
> and if so who, and how?
Again, my game contract puts that on the line, because it's a huge
peeve of mine. In the process of giving my expectations, I make that
clearer (if I need to) than it may have been in what I wrote down.
> --How hard are the challenges in the game supposed to be, and who
> is responsible for setting the challenge level? How are they
> allowed to do so? How much information are the players guaranteed
> about challenges?
As a tangent, there's also, "What does the GM do if the players are
missing something obvious?"
(I had to ask that outright, recently, and damn if I didn't get a
different answer from each player. Oh, the sacrifices we GMs make for
our gaming groups....)
Wayne Shaw
Usually (and I expect this is the context in which Mary was using it)
"game contract" is used in the same sense "social contract" is; the
set of shared expectations people have of what the GM and the players
are to expect out of the game. Of course, conflicts in perception of
what that contract is are not only possible, but fairly common.
Wayne Shaw
>for the PCs to do, or is that a player responsibility, or is it shared?
I had an Alternity game die a slow death not too long ago specifically
because of conflicts between the way I and my players saw this one.
>--Is someone supposed to be looking after player/player fairness,
>and if so who, and how?
One of the areas most likely to be murky in how different people
percieve it in a game, in my observation. Often because it simply
doesn't come up often.
>--Is the game trying to model a particular genre or work of fiction,
>and how important is it that it succeeds, if so? What is the group
>willing to do to keep to the model?
And to what degree is the genre considered to be directly portable to
the medium of a game. I've long argued that some problems occur
specifically because people don't recognize that genre isn't identical
from medium to medium.
>This is the campaign's perpetual stress point, the thing that
>makes it likely to fall apart, because the GM's view of
>a tractable challenge is very different from mine. We
I run into chronic problems with my available players in this area,
also.
>also have a problem with escalation, where an initially
>reasonable problem tends to get bigger and bigger as it's
>explored.
Though I usually don't have this one.
Peter Knutsen
"John S. Novak, III" wrote:
>
> In article <9oi0ea$fuo$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>, Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
> > --Whose job is it to keep the PCs together, and how should they
> > do it? Careful PC design? "PC glow" manuvers after design?
> > Forcing scenarios?
>
> My contract focusses on this one, because groups that don't work
> together (and especially, groups who try to kill each other) are a
> main peeve of mine in general.
>
> What is "PC glow?"
I'm not sure, but maybe the PCs have a mystical ability to
sense who among the people around them are also PCs. For
instance in the first session, one PC enters a bar, and
among the three dozen people at the bar, he is somehow
attracted to a group of three sitting at a booth. These
turn out to be the other PCs.
> --
> John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
> The Humblest Man on the Net
--
Peter Knutsen
Robert Scott Clark
>
>
>"John S. Novak, III" wrote:
>>
>> In article <9oi0ea$fuo$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>, Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
>
>> > --Whose job is it to keep the PCs together, and how should they
>> > do it? Careful PC design? "PC glow" manuvers after design?
>> > Forcing scenarios?
>>
>> My contract focusses on this one, because groups that don't work
>> together (and especially, groups who try to kill each other) are a
>> main peeve of mine in general.
>>
>> What is "PC glow?"
>
>I'm not sure, but maybe the PCs have a mystical ability to
>sense who among the people around them are also PCs.
Yes, but not limited to PC to PC contact, it's also the aspect of PCs
that makes the mysterious old man pick THEM over everyone else in the
bar to protect his daughter/treasure/kingdom/whatever instead of any
of the other indistinguishable groups in the bar.
> For
>instance in the first session, one PC enters a bar, and
>among the three dozen people at the bar, he is somehow
>attracted to a group of three sitting at a booth. These
>turn out to be the other PCs.
>
>> --
>> John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
>> The Humblest Man on the Net
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
>In article <9oi0ea$fuo$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>, Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
>>
>> --Whose job is it to keep the PCs together, and how should they
>> do it? Careful PC design? "PC glow" manuvers after design?
>> Forcing scenarios?
>
In the groups I play in, PC glow represents the willingness of players
to accept new PCs into the group even though it might strain consistency
and probability.
For instance, if the game is a paranoid conspiracy game, then it could
really badly strain credibility for the PCs to accept a new PC who has
no past with the group into their inner councils. However, since all
the players want to accept the new player, they will agree to take one
for the team and accept the new guy, trusting that after a few
sessions the break in the game-reality will be forgotten.
Neel
Lance Dyas
>
> I'd be very happy to see another of your reviews. I've been wrestling
> horribly with our Feng Shui derivatives lately and am almost ready
> to contemplate using some other system instead.
I was considering using Feng Shui as a basis... because its dice method
corresponded somewhat close to my YinYang dice. How far derived has your
play been and what kind of results did you get?
*****************************************************************
Dragonlord Garthans - Decision Driven Gaming - Role Play center
http://www.dyasdesigns.com/roleplay/
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*****************************************************************
Ingeborg Denner
>
>
> And to further answer your question, the game contract isn't about
> *directly* making the game more fun for all involved. It merely sets
> the standards upfront, so no one is caught off-guard by incorrect
> assumptions - and, hopefully, this makes the game more fun, or at
> least less confrontational, in the longrun.
It also helps on a different level by its existence alone, because as
soon as you think about what consists your GC, you know that there *are*
certain assumptions and meta-rules in every gaming group, and that a
clash of different assumptions and expectations will most likely cause
problems. Which is a lot better than searching for the 'guilty' party
when a gaming group doesn't work out OK.
inge
--
"A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular."
- Adlai Stevenson
===
<http://home.foni.net/~lyorn> -- Stories, RPG & stuff.
Ingeborg Denner
>
> Here are some points I think a group may want to address, unless
> they already know they have consensus.
Good list!
Mary K. Kuhner
Lance Dyas <lanc...@inetnebr.com> wrote:
>I was considering using Feng Shui as a basis... because its dice method
>corresponded somewhat close to my YinYang dice. How far derived has your
>play been and what kind of results did you get?
We dropped the idea of mooks, which required us to rewrite some
shticks; other than that we're still pretty close to the original.
One major problem is that many Feng Shui shticks call for a test of
AV versus a stat. This *may* be okay at beginning PC level. It is
seriously not okay later on; all such attacks become automatic successes,
since AV goes up quite a bit faster, on the whole, than stats (you have
only one or two core AVs, and quite a few stats).
They are disasterous right at the start if the stat in question is Chi,
since many book archetypes have little or no Chi.
My biggest problem, though, is just being able to predict the outcome
of combats among "named characters". I was running a game with
martial arts tournaments. The PCs understandably wanted to know the
scuttlebutt on who would beat whom, but I found that I had no
idea. The shticks interact in too-complex ways, and also an extra point
or two in an apparently unimportant stat can be devastating under
certain circumstances. One begins to see why there is no character
design system in Feng Shui.
Just as an example, some shticks vary wildly in power depending on
your Initiative score, because you need several attacks after you use
them in order for them to pay off. Other shticks actually prosper in
situations that reduce everyone's Initiative. So if you stage a fight on
a rolling log, the outcome may be totally different than if you stage
it on flat ground.
I killed off the PCs several times in the previous game, always in
situations where that had not at all been the design intention.
It's a quick and versatile system for small combats. Contrary to the book,
I find it tedious and awkward for large ones. It's one of the few
RPGs I know where one-on-one duels are (sometimes) exciting,
though you have to watch out for characters whose powers are dominated
by others (gun bunny versus monkey or turtle fu, for example, is just
drastically unfortunate for the gun bunny).
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
John Mack
>"Razoredge" asks if anyone still uses this newsgroup.
>
>Yes, the newsgroup is still used. Traffic is down, and comes in spurts, but
>people seem to check in occasionally. Certainly I do.
I hailed the group shortly after the WTC bombing; most regulars have
checked in, or else I've seen them post elsewhere. I guess the rest
_probably_ have other things on their mind than responding to Usenet
(touch wood).
John Mack
Role-Playing Games: Theory and Practice
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~tarim/rpg/rpgpage.htm
"I didn't play Dungeons and Dragons for all those years without learning something about courage".
John Mack
wrote:
>Ex-regular, for much the same reasons. The few times I've posted in
>the past year or so I've usually been either flamed or ignored.
A lack of response doesn't necessarily mean you're being ignored.
People may be refraining from "me too" posts, and may simply agree
with you so thoroughly that they have nothing to add.
John Mack
<bglei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I check in every now and then. The place is almost as dead as r.g.f.mod,
>basically killed off by a couple of trolls that too many of the regulars
>couldn't ignore. First time in fact that I ever saw trolls succeed. First
>time for everything.
There were no trolls. There were just voluble people on all sides with
sincerely held views, and those views just happened to be
incompatible.
That's the way of the world; two weeks ago today, we saw another
result of intractably clashing world views. However on Usenet, unlike
real life, it's always possible to just walk away.
Irina Rempt
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2001 09:24:45 +0200, Irina Rempt <ir...@valdyas.org>
> wrote:
>
>>Ex-regular, for much the same reasons. The few times I've posted in
>>the past year or so I've usually been either flamed or ignored.
>
> A lack of response doesn't necessarily mean you're being ignored.
> People may be refraining from "me too" posts, and may simply agree
> with you so thoroughly that they have nothing to add.
I'm not so conceited that I think I express such superior views that
nobody has anything to add; I hope I haven't become so fearful of
flames that I only say things nobody can disagree with.
I used to be in a lot of vehement discussions, but I gave up trying
to express disagreement politely because I was being flamed anyway
(and I couldn't afford the energy all the anger was taking out of
me), so the latter may be the case. On the other hand, someone mailed
me privately to say that he usually agrees with me when I do post
something (but this is someone I used to agree with when we were both
active earlier).
Clifford A. Anderson
news:9ohekq$cna30$5...@ID-100778.news.dfncis.de...
> For me, a gaming contract has nothing to do with collaborative world
> creation, because I'm too much a control freak to allow anyone to
> meddle with my creations. Advise, yes. Meddle freely, no. My worlds
> are mine. Mine, mine, mine.
Thank you, that was a very good example. We haven't actually decided to
do the collaborative thing yet, it's just that we're having problems with
meeting everyone's expectations and I was hoping that might help.
Clifford A. Anderson
> > --Who is pushing the game? Is the GM responsible for finding something
> > for the PCs to do, or is that a player responsibility, or is it shared?
>
> Yes, I knew I was forgetting at least one point, and this is it.
> In my general campaigns, I usually prefer to have pro-active players,
> but I can usually deal with it if I don't. In other games, such as
> Amber, I find it essential to have pro-active players, and I try to
> state that outright.
This is certainly one area where I have difficulty... my players, I
swear, actually WANT to be rail-roaded. Well, maybe not quite... only one
of them (who is currently in the Gulf) will come up with any activites of
his own. Everbody else expects me to come up with everything, which while I
can accept this... anytime I put something in front of them they will then
turn 180 degrees and go the opposite direction. If they had SOMEWHERE they
were going, it would be cool, but they don't. They're just NOT pursuing any
of my plot ties. It's a tough group who I'm beginning to think derive their
enjoyment from torturing ME.
Clifford A. Anderson
news:3bacf3be...@news.newsfeeds.com...
> Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
> >"John S. Novak, III" wrote:
> >> What is "PC glow?"
> >
> >I'm not sure, but maybe the PCs have a mystical ability to
> >sense who among the people around them are also PCs.
>
> Yes, but not limited to PC to PC contact, it's also the aspect of PCs
> that makes the mysterious old man pick THEM over everyone else in the
> bar to protect his daughter/treasure/kingdom/whatever instead of any
> of the other indistinguishable groups in the bar.
A very interesting concept, but it does fit in with a LOT of fiction...
I'll hafta remember that one.
Peter Mork
The players will quite quickly learn to follow the plot ties.
Peter Mork
"Clifford A. Anderson" <cliff.ba...@fix.it.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:tqv7b2c...@corp.supernews.com...
Robert Scott Clark
It's just that with fiction they slap some lame disclaimer on it.
"Look, at this mole, the young one has the mark..."
"There's just something about his eyes, I know we can trust him..."
Brian Gleichman
news:3baf6292...@news.ozemail.com.au...
> There were no trolls.
Oh yes there were. And there are trolls in the real world too. In both
causes they seek out others who think differently purely order to attack. In
this, they justify their existence.
People who just have sincerely held views find other ways of managing
things.
--
Brian Gleichman
Age of Heroes: http://home.earthlink.net/~bgleichman/
Free RPG Reviews: http://home.earthlink.net/~bgleichman/Reviews.htm
Mary K. Kuhner
Clifford A. Anderson <cliff.ba...@fix.it.yahoo.com> wrote:
> This is certainly one area where I have difficulty... my players, I
>swear, actually WANT to be rail-roaded. Well, maybe not quite... only one
>of them (who is currently in the Gulf) will come up with any activites of
>his own. Everbody else expects me to come up with everything, which while I
>can accept this... anytime I put something in front of them they will then
>turn 180 degrees and go the opposite direction. If they had SOMEWHERE they
>were going, it would be cool, but they don't. They're just NOT pursuing any
>of my plot ties. It's a tough group who I'm beginning to think derive their
>enjoyment from torturing ME.
Ouch.
I've seen this too, more than once, and it's terribly frustrating. I think it's
related to the Tigger Syndrome (you ask your players what they want to
do, they say "Anything you want", but they don't like what you actually do....
There's a nice essay on this at RPGNet.)
I don't have a good solution. I've never been able to make a group like
this work for any length of time.
One possibility would be to keep asking them "So, what are you going to
do next session?" Wave off any replies of "Hey, that's up to you." Keep
on asking them. Eventually they may provide an answer; then you
prepare for that, and if they walk away from your prep complain long
and loud that THEY LIED TO YOU. Call the session early on the grounds
that they didn't tell you the truth. And keep asking them what they're going
to do next session. Maybe eventually they will realize that if they want a
good game, they have to do something about it.
Players who learned to roleplay when they were young teenagers (not
a very cooperative age in our society) sometimes have this esthetic that
the GM is really a bad guy and you shouldn't cooperate with him.
This makes the GM's job very hard indeed, especially outside of a
narrow structure such as a dungeon crawl. The only thing I have seen
fix this attitude successfully is playing in a group of players who don't
hold to it; this usually seems to get the point across. I don't know what you
do with a whole group that plays like this.
If they are, in fact, deriving their enjoyment from "beating" you...this is
not a game I would be personally willing to play. GMing is hard enough
without being treated as a bad guy. Maybe suggest they switch to
MtG or something else more naturally competitive.... Or ask one of
them to GM for a while, and concentrate your own efforts on being a
role model as a player.
If that's not an option, try running games in extremely narrow settings:
a sailing ship in the open ocean, a snowed-in ski lodge, a classical
dungeon. Don't roleplay through the process that gets the PCs there
(as that will give the players a chance to go elsewhere): just start there.
The "PCs meet in a bar" stuff is totally dispensible, and can often be
omitted to good advantage.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> spake:
> Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
>>"John S. Novak, III" wrote:
>>> What is "PC glow?"
>>I'm not sure, but maybe the PCs have a mystical ability to
>>sense who among the people around them are also PCs.
> Yes, but not limited to PC to PC contact, it's also the aspect of PCs
> that makes the mysterious old man pick THEM over everyone else in the
> bar to protect his daughter/treasure/kingdom/whatever instead of any
> of the other indistinguishable groups in the bar.
There are a few solutions to this that actually make sense, all based
on the PCs being rare or unique in the game world:
In _SLA Industries_, the PCs are Operatives on the same team.
Assigning them a new partner can be done from "on high".
_Paranoia_'s the same - not surprising, since SLA is in many ways just
a serious version of _Paranoia_ (1st Edition tone, and then some).
In _Purgatory_, the PCs are all Penitents, who can identify each other
by symbols on their foreheads. Admittedly, there's a lot of other
Penitents, but it cuts it down to a small fraction.
In _Exalted_, the PCs are Solar Exalted, and probably the most
important of them, and can identify each other by symbols on their
foreheads (damn, that sounds familiar...)
I've had to use a lot of "touched by the gods"/"something weird about
this guy" stuff to give players an in-character reason to band together.
If you don't, the hardcore always-in-character types often end up
murdering each other. <sigh>
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"You have grown old in the fine art of bastardy. My compliments."
-Suresh Ramasubramanian
Mary K. Kuhner
Brian Gleichman <bglei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>"John Mack" <tarim.SP...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
>news:3baf6292...@news.ozemail.com.au...
>> There were no trolls.
>Oh yes there were. And there are trolls in the real world too. In both
>causes they seek out others who think differently purely order to attack. In
>this, they justify their existence.
>People who just have sincerely held views find other ways of managing
>things.
I have to agree with Brian here. It's gracious to assume that someone
really wants to communicate until proven otherwise, but it's naive to
suppose that everyone always does. And after a point continuing to pretend
that the person wants to communicate is just unfair to those who really do--
people of good will are drowned out or driven away, which is what seems to
have happened here on rgfa.
I have, in my own life offline, occasionally broken something just for the
sheer pleasure of destruction. I don't see any reason to suppose that
that same unholy joy can't be found on the Net now and then, and if a
poster says flatly "I don't care about the discussion, I just wanted to yank
your chain" I think it's reasonable to believe him/her.
I would personally be a lot happier about participating in this group
if, when someone saw fit to respond to my postings about gaming with
irrelevant filth about my sexual practices, the newsgroup community did
*not* treat this as "reasonable expression of a different opinion". I would
very much prefer that when someone stops dealing with us in a reasonable
manner, we'd stop dealing with him/her. This has been effective in the
past, but the last time around, for some reason, it didn't happen; and I
firmly believe that the current near-silence (hopefully we're recovering
now, but it's been grim) comes from this misjudgement on the part of the
community.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Clifford A. Anderson
First, let me say thanks much for a great reply...
> MtG or something else more naturally competitive.... Or ask one of
> them to GM for a while, and concentrate your own efforts on being a
> role model as a player.
It's funny, but we are almost 50% GMs! I am starting up a new game in
which my players will either create their own detiny, or they will die of
boredom. If it doesn't work, oh well, but I gotta try to teach them to get
more into character I think.
Sometimes I feel like Wick, but that's OK - I like his stuff. ?D-)
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
<mkku...@kingman.genetics.washington.edu> wrote:
>In article <3BAEABDE...@inetnebr.com>,
>Lance Dyas <lanc...@inetnebr.com> wrote:
>
>>I was considering using Feng Shui as a basis... because its dice method
>>corresponded somewhat close to my YinYang dice. How far derived has your
>>play been and what kind of results did you get?
>
> AV versus a stat. This *may* be okay at beginning PC level. It is
> seriously not okay later on; all such attacks become automatic
> successes, since AV goes up quite a bit faster, on the whole, than
> stats (you have only one or two core AVs, and quite a few stats).
Yes. The hack that I like is that stat vs. stat and skill vs. skill
checks work as usual, but that for skill vs. stat checks the stat is
doubled. Intimidating someone with a Will of 5 is then diff 10, at 7
is 14 and at 10 requires an action result of 20.
> It's a quick and versatile system for small combats. Contrary to
> the book, I find it tedious and awkward for large ones.
I don't think the system could handle a large fight if you threw out
the mook rules -- each named character is too complicated. However,
even with mooks there's a lot of extraneous dice rolling.
The rules I use to streamline mooks is to bunch them into squads.
Mooks have a base AV as before, and for each additional mook in a
squad, they get a +1 to their attack rolls. So a squad of 6 mooks with
an AV of 7 would get a single attack at AV 7+5=12, rather than 6
attacks at AV 7. Their defense remains at AV 7, and each mook downed
in a squad will lower the squads attack rating. So if a grenade blew
up three of the mooks in that squad, their attack would fall to 7+2=9.
This can reduce the die-rolling in an attack of 20 extras by a factor
of 4 or 5, easily.
> It's one of the few RPGs I know where one-on-one duels are
> (sometimes) exciting, though you have to watch out for characters
> whose powers are dominated by others (gun bunny versus monkey or
> turtle fu, for example, is just drastically unfortunate for the gun
> bunny).
In the long term, the most unbalanced characters are transformed
animals, since they have a high Chi and access to special animal kung
fu in addition to the regular fu shticks. Their supposed weakness is
also unusable -- it's an all-or-nothing mechanism that will kill the
PC, or not.
Neel
John S. Novak, III
>> What is "PC glow?"
> I'm not sure, but maybe the PCs have a mystical ability to
> sense who among the people around them are also PCs. For
> instance in the first session, one PC enters a bar, and
> among the three dozen people at the bar, he is somehow
> attracted to a group of three sitting at a booth. These
> turn out to be the other PCs.
Well, that's why I have my game contract default the way I do-- I
never had a name for that concept, but never liked it much.
John S. Novak, III
>> Yes, I knew I was forgetting at least one point, and this is it.
>> In my general campaigns, I usually prefer to have pro-active players,
>> but I can usually deal with it if I don't. In other games, such as
>> Amber, I find it essential to have pro-active players, and I try to
>> state that outright.
> This is certainly one area where I have difficulty... my players, I
> swear, actually WANT to be rail-roaded. Well, maybe not quite... only one
> of them (who is currently in the Gulf) will come up with any activites of
> his own.
Well, I think there's a spectrum between railroaded players and
completely pro-active players. I can put together a campaign with a
definite sort of a plotline without railroading players.
Railroading, in my vernacular, doesn't mean "stringing the characters
along a little bit," it means, "making sure that no matter what the
players do, they experience what I want them to experience."
> Everbody else expects me to come up with everything, which while I
> can accept this... anytime I put something in front of them they will then
> turn 180 degrees and go the opposite direction.
And this doesn't seem to follow on any level.
Can you explain in more detail?
Irina Rempt
> Try converting the Dragonlance modules to whatever game you are
> running. The players will quite quickly learn to follow the plot
> ties.
I played almost a whole Dragonlance campaign some years ago, with a
GM who *wanted* to follow the plot, but couldn't keep his inventive
players on track. When the hobgoblins or the draconians, I forget
which, had locked the PCs in a cage, two of us actually managed to
bend the bars and get out; he was at a complete loss.
It became very frustrating as it dawned on us, in the course of the
campaign, that there really wasn't any world outside the plotline,
and that we weren't to beat the major villains until the very end.
A better GM would either have called it off at that point (or never
started it in the first place) or found a way to bend the tracks. As
it was, we plodded on until we were allowed to kill at least one big
villain, then it just gradually dissolved, IIRC (and I don't recall
very clearly, it was that muddled near the end).
John Mack
(Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
>In article <3KOr7.11614$W83.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>Brian Gleichman <bglei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>"John Mack" <tarim.SP...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
>>news:3baf6292...@news.ozemail.com.au...
>
>>> There were no trolls.
>
>>Oh yes there were.[...]
>
>I have to agree with Brian here.[...]
Just to clarify before I post any further: I've assumed we were
talking about the personality mechanics flamewar in July last year,
under the heading "Abstract vs. specific task resolution", where
Brian, Justin, and Scott were the main combatants. However, I while I
vaguely remember the "I'm here to yank your chain" guy you refer to, I
don't recall him in connection with that or any other lengthy
flamewar, and I didn't see any sexual aspersions at all.
Is everyone else referring to something more recent? If I'm on
completely the wrong page (which is entirely possible - my newsfeed
sucks), then I will withdraw.
Peter Knutsen
"John S. Novak, III" wrote:
>
> In article <3BACDF02...@knutsen.dk>, Peter Knutsen wrote:
>
> >> What is "PC glow?"
>
> > I'm not sure, but maybe the PCs have a mystical ability to
> > sense who among the people around them are also PCs. For
> > instance in the first session, one PC enters a bar, and
> > among the three dozen people at the bar, he is somehow
> > attracted to a group of three sitting at a booth. These
> > turn out to be the other PCs.
>
> Ah, I see.
> Well, that's why I have my game contract default the way I do-- I
> never had a name for that concept, but never liked it much.
I've thought of an alternative to "PC glow".
FFRE suggests that each player is given 100 Goodie Points to build
a character on. But an optional rule is that each player gets only
95 GPs (or #-5) and then he can earn extra points during character
creation, by doing various things.
Connecting his character to one other PC gives 1 GP. If he can
find good explanations, he can connect his character to all the
other PCs and earn several extra GPs.
Connecting his character to one other PC in a strong way gives
2 GPs. A strong way could be to say that they are blood brothers,
or in love or in lust with each other (or the attraction could
be one-way only) or closely related (siblings, parent and off-
spring).
Writing a 100+ word backstory gives 1 GP, writing a 600+ word
backstory gives 2 GPs.
Building an "Individuality" worth 2-3 or 9+ IPs gives 1 GP,
building one worth 4-8 IPs gives 2 GPs. The player is not
obliged to stick to the Individuality for the entire game,
but can request permission to change it if he sees problems
or potentials later on.
Drawing a family tree with 6-12 people on it gives 1 GP, drawing
one with 13-24 people on it gives 2 GPs, drawing one with 25+
people on it gives 3 GPs. This is cumulative with the
"connections" mentioned above.
Inventing a famous ancestor (at least a great-grandparent or
of similar temporal distance) gives 1 GP. Cannot be taken
more than once.
There may be a few other options, but I can't think of any. It's
a way to encourage the players to think about their characters
and tie them to each other and to the world.
Let's see how many GPs an enterprising player can scrape up,
starting at 95. He connects himself strongly to one other
PC and less strongly to another. That's 95+3=98.
Writing a 750 word backstory is +2 GPs, up to 100. (This is
the default if not using this system).
Building an Individuality worth 6 IPS gives +2, at 102 GP now.
He draws a family tree with 19 people on it, gaining 2 GPs, at
104 now. Then he invents a famous ancestor, a great-grandparent,
and gets 1 GP more for this. He actually invents a second
famous ancestor just for the hell of it, but gains no bonus for
this.
So he lands at 105 GPs. Mean while a player less into DAS and
world-based play ends up only getting 1-3 bonus GPs, so his
character is at 96 to 98 GPs. Might not sound like a lot, but
due to the exponential nature of point purchase, it means
quite a lot.
Perhaps I should halve all bonus points? That way the example
player would only get 100 GPs, and the second example player
would get 95 to 96 GPs...
> --
> John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
> The Humblest Man on the Net
--
Peter Knutsen
Robert Scott Clark
>On 24 Sep 2001 23:31:12 GMT, mkku...@kingman.genetics.washington.edu
>(Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
>
>>In article <3KOr7.11614$W83.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>>Brian Gleichman <bglei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>>"John Mack" <tarim.SP...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
>>>news:3baf6292...@news.ozemail.com.au...
>>
>>>> There were no trolls.
>>
>>>Oh yes there were.[...]
>>
>>I have to agree with Brian here.[...]
>
>Just to clarify before I post any further: I've assumed we were
>talking about the personality mechanics flamewar in July last year,
>under the heading "Abstract vs. specific task resolution",
Hey, that was my post. (and I love how it had nothing to do with PMs,
yet turned into that anyway)
> where
>Brian, Justin, and Scott were the main combatants.
That is also what I assumed until the "sexual aspersions" comment.
.. except for the part about both Brian and me being major combatants.
Brian KFed me after my second post to the group, so I have never been
a "main cambatant" against him. I have made many more post *about*
Brian than to him.
>However, I while I
>vaguely remember the "I'm here to yank your chain" guy you refer to, I
>don't recall him in connection with that or any other lengthy
>flamewar, and I didn't see any sexual aspersions at all.
>
>Is everyone else referring to something more recent? If I'm on
>completely the wrong page (which is entirely possible - my newsfeed
>sucks), then I will withdraw.
>
>John Mack
>Role-Playing Games: Theory and Practice
>http://www.ozemail.com.au/~tarim/rpg/rpgpage.htm
>
>"I didn't play Dungeons and Dragons for all those years without learning something about courage".
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