Foundry Log: Meet a Traditional Gamer

From AdamWiki

On September 21, 2006, I invited a half dozen traditional gamers to talk with me and other indie game designers on the Foundry. I recruited these gamers from FiranMUX, so all of them have MUSH role-playing experience. I asked each for bios, which I posted on Story Games. We discussed a variety of things.

Bios

Alex started gaming 14 years ago and has played RPGs nearly constantly for the last 9 years. Alex plays D&D and White Wolf games almost exclusively but has played in some LARPs, role-played on MUSHes, and played various console and PC RPGs.

Cypress has been gaming for 12 years, mostly as a player. She's played D&D, Mage, Vampire: TM, Call of Kathulu, Rifts, as well as role-played on several MUSHes. She plays and GMs Big Eyes, Small Mouth on OpenRPG and has played in Vampire LARPs a couple times.

"H" has been a gamer for ten years. He started with Shadowrun, moved to White Wolf games and Deadlands, and most recently played 7th Sea. He's GMed and played. H has done LARP and MUSH, too. His favorite system is Deadlands. H hasn't designed his own game but he writes house rules by frankensteining bits and doesn't see the point of writing a new game himself. "I think most games have aspects that rock and other aspects that suck and that a good game can be made dreadful by an awful GM and a dreadful system can be saved by a fantastic GM," he says.

Melissa started on the table-top with Star Wars (WEG) and GURPS 12 years ago and started on MUSHes 10 years ago. She plays or GMs twice weekly and plays online (MUSH) a few hours a day. She's also played Rifts, Star Trek, TMNT, and various World of Darkness stuff including LARPing. She says of her single Rifts experience, "The Gm made it so complicated it took me 5 hours to make my character and we never got to play. Never went back." Melissa and her husband have been toying at designing their own game rules for five years.

Rachael claims she's been role-playing all her life. "When I was 7, my best friend and I created Civil War heroines and had a long-running story we acted out with them. My first formal RP experience was at age 16, when I joined a Vampire LARP. That was 10 years ago." In the last 6-12 months, she's played in three long-term tabletop campaigns, two large-scale LARPs, and countless single-session games with many different systems (including a most twisted game of My Life with Master with me and others at GenCon this year). She's played a lot of D&D 2nd and 3rd Edition, D20 Modern, GURPS, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, TOON, Deadlands, the entire White Wolf gamut, Star Wars, My Life With Master, Primitive, and various unpublished systems. Rachael has played in a few LARPs and she role-plays on MUSHes. Of rules she says, "My favorite RP experiences were actually systems with minimal rules, or games in which we used D&D but played fast & loose with the rules. It's been my experience that the less rules there are, the more RP there tends to be."

Sam has been gaming for about 18 years. Recently, he games only occasionally, sometimes tabletop gaming online with some friends. He GMs as much as he plays and says he prefers to GM "story-driven sessions" and doesn't mind "hand holding my characters through a story... In recent years, I've always encouraged my players to make characters with goals and aspirations so they can set the pace of their own games. And I just provide the challenges that would be in the way. My most infamous example of this was a Champions game I ran where the players ended up deciding that they wanted to take over the world to save mankind from themselves, from their the emphasis shifted to managing their new world order and we had a lot of fun." Sam lists Shadowrun and Pendragon as his favorite systems of all time but mentions Mutants & Masterminds and Exalted as his current favorites. His worst gaming experience was a Talislanta game that derailed very badly. He says the game "completely spiraled out of control" and that, while he doesn't really like the system, the setting is his favorite of all time. His best gaming experience is his Pendragon adaptation of Castle Ravenloft. Sam lists playtesting Verge as "a close 2nd" (woot!).

Scott "Shayd" Roberts has gamed for 24 years, starting with D&D 1st edition, all the way through 3.5. He has played under the same DM in the same Forgotten Realms campaign since 1987. He's also played Champions all that time, too, and has also played Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Deadlands, and Serenity. He ran three Shadowrun MUXes for a while (Seattle, Detroit, and Denver) and used to be a paid employee of Skotos.net.

Log

Melissa usually does her TTing during the week.

Adam says "So, did anyone game this last weekend?"

Alex shakes her head. Just preparing characters for a new game we're gonna start.

H hasn't either.

Adam says "Did you game this week, Melissa?"

Sam shakes his head, "Sadly no... I did by lots of 'Pirates of the Spanish Main' packs for his co workers to celebrate International Talk LIke a Priate Day.

Melissa says "Yes I did."

Sarah got invited to a last minute D&D game on tuesday but I had an exam Wednesday so declined. very regretfully.

Adam says "What game, Melissa?"

Melissa says "We got new G.U.R.P.S characters ready for a new campaign I'm starting, and then went into RPing SW this week, we have a campaign the GM has been running for about a year now thats still going on."

Cypress has connected.

Cypress is back

Adam waves to Cypress. "I was just asking if anyone gamed this week. Tabletop."

Adam asks Melissa, "How many times a week do you play?"

Adam says "And how about the rest of you? How many times a week or month do you play?"

Cypress shakes her head, "Not table top. Lately the closest I got to table top is table top online. Through a program called OpenRPG." :-P

Melissa says "At present I play 3 times a week for on average about 5 hours a session on a normal evening."

Alex says "When the game is running, once a week. Up until two months ago, it was once a week for two and a half years. We took a break b/c the gm started a new job. We're starting again this month."

Cypress says "Well.. In the last few months? It was once a week last month but that's because we finished our game."

Adam says "Table top online counts in my mind!"

Melissa hasn't been able to find a decent TT online that isn't mushing ;)

Sam says "I used to play Bi-Weekly but over the past year that's fallen back to once a month.. I'm really intrigue by this OpenRPG program and Might try to do more with that in the near future"

Alex plays Firan every day just about. ;) Other then that, it's just my once a week game. I'd love to play multiple times a week.

Cypress says "Then it's 2 times a week for the past few years. Unless the other 2 games come back then it's 4 times a week. Right now I play Tuesday and Wednesday with 2 anytime games which is usually late at night."

Adam says "I'll note that Foundry MUSH is a chat server built to support certain kinds of tabletop RPGs, too, but it's not all pretty-graphics like OpenRPG and the like. But we do have some dice code and decks-of-cards code and some special code for certain indie games."

Adam says "A couple of you are pretty hard core. =)"

Melissa says "Oh yes I do play Firan every day at least for two hours a day if that counts :)."

Cypress says "Right now the 2 games I'm play are BESM based but that's because that way people that aren't familiar with dice we can still have them play. So in a way it's basically freeform."

Adam says "Firan isn't a tabletop, but it's interesting to know how much you play other kinds of games. Other than MUSHes like Firan, which I know you all play, do you play other kinds of games /often/? LARP, strategy games, etc. all count."

Cypress says "I play Seven Sea on Saturday when the GM is up to it and someone wants me to play Exalted. :-P Creating characters for Exalted is a headache and a half."

Adam says "Why, Cypress?"

Melissa says "my favorite is the computer mystery/stragegy/puzzle games. I'm a closet slueth of types so I have fun with those. Alot of my G.U.R.P.S. games have some sort of mystery in them. I haven't LARP'd in years, but mostly cause of location."

H plays two MMORPGs. I used to LARP as well but no more. And I'm really, really looking forward to my tabletop game starting up again. Mmm 7th Sea is great.

Sam says "I play the occasional strategy game. I'm going to be in an exalted game after the 1st of the year,and I'm currently working on Mutants and Masterminds game that's going to be 'play by email' over a Yahoo group."

Alex nods. White Wolf and D&D table top. I'm making a character for a MUSH based off Laurell K Hamilton's novels.

Alex grrs. I've gotta run for a minute. Hubby needs me to do something. I'll be back.

Adam nods to Alex.

Alex has disconnected.

Cypress says "Well with Seven Sea I can come up with a character easily. Swashbuckling is tons of fun but Exalted.. it's REALLY involved. Background plays a HUGE part in how much points the GM would give you to add on to your background. Then there's weapons, skills, society. It's a lot of work but once you get it all done.. the game is pretty fun."

Sarah doesn't get to play nearly as much as she'd like to.

Cypress says "There's a lot of variations of Exalted I've seen too."

Adam says "Has anyone here played in any 'indie' (independently published) games? From your bios, I know Sam played a bit of Verge and Rachael (who isn't here yet) has played a couple but mostly it looks like you guys play what we lovingly call 'traditional' RPGs. That is, they're generally written and published in the traditional model."

H never got into Exalted. I didn't enjoy chargen for it. I love 7th Sea chargen though especially with the help of the folder we have with all the info you need just there.

Cypress says "I'm not sure what you mean."

Melissa says "I still think out of all the games I have played GURPS is the most versatile I've seen. ... I've played a few independant ones. My husbands best friend has written more than a few games and he likes to use us for guinea pigs. Most of his however are purely combat oriented."

H's not. I've read Prose Descriptive Qualities and would love to run something using that system if I ever run a game. And I've been tempted by Troll Babe as well which looks rather different.

Cypress says "See I'm not sure what he means so I can't say I have. :-("

Adam says "Fair enough. =) There's a world of games out there, usually written and published by one person who controls all creative decisions, and they're a lot of fun."

Cypress says "Then I doubt I have. :-P"

Adam nods to H about PDQ.

Melissa says "PDQ is fun."

Adam says "Troll Babe looks fun, but I haven't played it."

Sarah is working up the courage to run Dogs here but haven't ever done such a thing so it's intimidating.

Sam has played some games that I wouldn't call 'indy' in terms of mechanics.... the usually used established systems that were eay for the players.. but I've played some very outside the games that were outside the box i terms of content.

H says "I love the PDQ system. It's exactly what I've been looking for in a system so no need to make my own."

Cypress says "Currently Mushing and what not. I play in 2 games based off Anita Blake Books. Loki's Hammer, Firan and... *looks around for the laughes* a harry potter game."

Adam says "How so, Sam?"

Adam says "I'm gonna ask each of you to talk a little about what jazzes you about certain games. Melissa, talk about GURPS. H, tell me why you love PDQ. Sam, talk about some of those 'out of the box' games and what you thought was cool. Sarah, why do you like Dogs so much that you'll take the 'leap' into GMing it? Cypress, which game is your favorite and why?"

Sarah clarifies, Dogs in the Vineyard. sorry. :)

Adam nodnods. "We have code here to support Dogs in the Vineyard, which is an indie game published by Vincent Baker."

Sam says "I've played in several games where we used Variants of the D20 system, or sometimes a bastardised version of the Chaosium system to play games about unique situations. The most memoreable was everyone playing inmates in an assylum none of whome knew how they got there. And we explored and gained access to the buliding a little bit at a time trying to figure out what we were all doing there."

Sarah got pages asking what I meant. ;)

Adam says "Who was the biggest bastardizer of the rules? The GM? The players? Can you give me an example of the most extreme or coolest rules modifications?"

H says "What I loved about PDQ was the open-endedness of the system and the fact you weren't limitted to a specific list of things you could have. I enjoy the simplicity of it too and the quickness of chargen. It's a system that's easy to teach even to newcomers to rp, you don't need to spend ages genning characters and it encourages you to think about the character you're creating as opposed to just dotting the best stats down on a bit of paper."

Melissa says "The main reason I like gurps is how versatile it is. I can take my old Starwards books and convert theri own pip system easily into the dice that Gurps uses and vice versa. I've used gurps that way for even a couple of indi games that I've experimented with. And with them coming out now with various books to cover almost any genre I find myself with only one real question when I'm working on starting up a new storyline, and thats where I want to start."

Sarah says "I like the setting as far as the Old West style thing. I also really like playing with the themes of morality and religion, and the definitions of good/evil, and within that, I like that the game gives you the leeway to decide whether the demons and other supernatural carryings-on are real-real or real only in the minds of the characters. And when I've played it (I think only once at this point) I didn't feel as stressed out by the dice and rules as with some other games. I am easily intimidated/stressed out by such things, admittedly, but it's still nice for it not to be the part of the game I dread."

Sam says "The GM mostly. I once had a GM who /loved/ the Personality Trait/Passion system from Chaosiums (latter Green Knights) Pendragon. He would adapt it for every game he ran. He really liked how it always encouraged his players to RP their characters, even if they thought they were just doing what they needed to to get some kind of bonus, they ended up having alot of fun with it."

H's tried playing GURPS and I found it's genericness was a big turnoff for me. I found the chargen far too number-crunchy and we spent two game sessions creating characters for it, of course it probably didn't help that we had a new GM and none of the players knew the rules for chargen and we had to share 2 books. To me it just lacks those neat littles touches and doses of personality that make games interesting. It's another reason why I don't like the D20 system either and how everything seems to be going D20, but I do love the original Deadlands rules.

Adam says "Melissa, you don't mind the 'genericness' of GURPS? How about the 'number-crunchiness'? Maybe a lot of that becomes more transparent with experienced players."

Cypress thinks a moment, "Well. I suppose that will have to be Rifts. While the character creation might be timely, the chance for so many different characters and with each world book, the chance for more is really cool. So many different worlds and variations of what you can do within those worlds just breeds more interesting ideas and adventures. I've played that game for 2 years straight and it never dulled. We're thinking about starting up a new one and this time I'd run it. :-)

Adam says "Sam, do you think a set of rules should reward people for role-playing a certain way?"

Adam says "I could never get into Rifts. It felt so schizophrenic to me. EVERYTHING is possible in that game. The thing that is coolest to you was the biggest problem to me."

Adam says "Sarah, you've played D&D, too. What do you think are the major differences between D&D and Dogs?"

Melissa says "Minmaxing is actually somethign that you can do with any system once you get to know it well enough. I usually put a cap on things such as disadvantages, as well as advantages. So that the 'minmaxing' and making god like characters right off the bat is'nt something thats usually all that available. Alot of it also is helped if you make /begining/ level characters and make them grow as they go. Instead of allowing middle level characters right off the bat. Thats where alot of challenges come in on keeping those caps."

Adam says "I've played games that you really can't minmax. ;)"

Melissa says "I haven't found one yet that Tony couldn't minmax in one way or another."

Melissa hated Rifts with a passion

Adam says "Waiting/Tea is a short little minigame for two players, and it has no stats. Minmax that."

Rachael has connected.

Adam says "Rachael!"

Melissa sticks out her tongue, "Minmaxing only works if you have stats :) Otherwise its an opengame :)

Rachael says "Sorry! I've been chatting with Bevin and lost track of time."

Cypress goes to sit in the corner and listen then. :-P

Adam says "I'm not criticizing you or your tastes, Cypress. Just mentioning my own. There is no absolute right or wrong here."

H nods. I had a guy who tried to minmax 7th Sea. I let him make his character up just the way he wanted to and then he discovered that all his combat abilities were pretty useless most of the time.

Adam says "How'd that game turn out, H?"

Sam says "I think Rules that reward role-playing a certain way can be fun. In our Pendragon game in particular it relaly helped. Everyone else in the group where the kind of playersthatalways wanted to play the 'Badass Loner' and with the benefits you got for keeping certain personality traits hight, they ended up playing t heir charaters in different ways than they normally would have. And after thegame had been running for about a year, everyone was amazed at howthey were all playig very interesting well rounded characters.. Charcters that would be interesting to read about in a novel or see in a movie."

Sam says "I think it really helped motivate people to play in ways they normally wouldn't."

Melissa says "Same here Cypress, my hatred comes off of how it was introduced and explained to me. I dont like games that seem to be focused on little rp and mostly battles and thats how it was introduced to me and uin any forum I saw it in. I'm probably wrong but it wasn't something I enjoyed."

Adam says "Melissa, you seem to divide all RPG time into role-play and battles. Don't those categories overlap? and are there other activities during a game that might fall into areas other than those?"

Sarah says "The way the sheets work in Dogs, with skills and such, make you think about the character more as what you want it to be and how you want to play the character. With D&D it always feels to me like you're trying to warp what's there to suit what you want. It's nice because you have very defined standards to go by, which sometimes can be good, but Dogs is more organic. Getting ready to play Dogs is more like what we used to do on the playground at school, where getting ready to play D&D takes a sliderule. And since I've never set eyes on a slide rule, that makes it difficult."

Melissa smiles, "The way i got around people who minmaxed was I made the game more RP based. They had to think. All their stats they'd had minmaxed ald he time didn't do them any good, usually for the ones who liked battles more than anything."

Melissa says "They do yes sometimes."

Melissa says "I've had times when long battles have taken threee hours cause of their complications. But I dont base my entire game around them."

Adam nods to Melissa, "Did the players who minmaxed /want/ a more RP-based game?"

H says "I ended up kicking him out of my 7th Sea game, but that was months afterwards and because we had a different style of gaming. He just didn't seem to understand that we were doing cooperative storytelling, there was no right way to do things, just ways to do things. He kept doing unheroic things and then claiming that he was being heroic. I gave out xp each session for doing various things, teamwork, and acting heroic were to of those points. He kept fighting people unprovoked and working on his own so I refused to give him xp for those points one week and so he said if he couldn't have his xp he was leaving and I told him to go. He just didn't get the concept of the type of game I was trying to run. But then when I'd run in his games he was very much a GM vs Players type of GM. He revelled in his total party kills."

Melissa says "They wanted to be the strongest and best at everything."

Melissa says "Their answer not mine ;)"

Adam says "Why do you think that is?"

Adam says "And if that's what they want, why can't they have it?"

Rachael says "Adam, you're right that it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be just combat or rp, but a lot of gamers only think of it as those two extremes"

Cypress shrugs, "While I understand both of what you're saying? I just think that whomever ran that game for you Melissa? Ruined it. Our RP was the best I've had in a long time. I wouldn't have stuck with it for 2 years till it ended if it was like those hack and slash games.

Adam says "H, same question to you: Why not think, 'I didn't ge the concept of the type of game he was trying to play'?"

Cypress says "Other then that.. I'm not sure what to talk about. Hence me sitting and listening. :-P"

Melissa says "I honestly dont know. I tried to make things pretty fair for everyone in the beginning. Most of the time I just gave up trying to ;guide' a storyline and made sure I had options available depending on where their actions took them. Part of the reason we have had a game going for over a year now is because of where our characters took the story line. I honestly dont mind people who can not twink out and still get to the top of the ladder in just about everyting. Thats fine. If its what they want to do. My biggest thing is trying to round it out so that it isn't just one or the other too much. I add alot of story, and a lot of fun into my games. I have some nights where its just one on one gaming for the smaller storylines. It all depends on what game is being run on where Im focusing my energies most. Whether its trying to see how much damage I can do or how many hairs I can get Carrie to pull out"

Adam says "Cypress, feel free to give me your answers for questions that you feel apply to you. I'm trying to coordinate six different conversations and hoping to tie them together to make my life easier. ;)"

Adam says "Melissa, if there were cool rules for social combat with the same kind of back-and-forth mechanics that combat has, would you have minded being in that kind of 'combat' for hours?"

Melissa says "I tihnk I"d need an example to be able to answer that."

Rachael says "Mind if I stick an answer in for that one?"

Adam says "Anyone can answer any question. =)"

Melissa grins, "Go for it."

Adam says "I just get the feeling, Melissa, that you want your games to focus on verbal and social interactions between characters and that the fighty stuff gets dull for you after a while when it doesn't mean anything socially or emotionally. Am I putting words in your mouth?"

H says "Because I'd 4 other players to cater for. I did throw in more combat to the game for him and I gave him places where he could shine. I included a lot of his background in the game for his character to pursue but he was never happy to let one of the other players take the limelight. His style of rp just didn't mesh with the rest of the group. I did do my best to cater for him but ultimately it didn't work out. I know I can't run the type of game he wanted, but I watched one player, who barely spoke up whilst playing in his games positively blossom in mine. I accept that not everyone likes the same style of game though and I don't think you can cater for everyone."

Sam is a big believer in game mechanics that 'abstract' much of what's going on in the background and simplify the action to a few rolls..... The trick is as GM it takes a little more work to get your players to use their imagination and imagin their character's doing these great deeds instead of thinking of the action as two guys with swords standing their taking turns swinging at each other. (for example)

Melissa says "If there is fighting involved in my games which usually the players take it there at some point or other. I still try and make it fu. But yes after a while for me constant battles do get dull. The interactions and getting into character is what is most enjoyable for me. Or when I'm running, getting into several NPC's."

Rachael says "Good-o. I can see that going really well, or really badly. If the players RP the "social combat", that would be good, but I can see it devolving to "I attempt to make a good point. What's your logic class? *roll die* Okay, I beat it." "I parry with a counterargument using my encyclopedia of knowledge +2.""

Rachael says "Which, to me, makes it NO different from standard combat. I can have LOTS of fun with combat situations if we're RPing the fight in addition to rolling dice."

H says "Ewww. I used to play Shadowrun and we'd have combat that lasted for sessions which I found was rather dull. On the other hand I love 7th Sea combat because you describe what you're doing and even if you fail it's lots of fun. With Shadowrun it always just used to seem to be abotu the dice and roll roll roll. I think the game mechanics should be there to aid the game, the rolling of dice shouldn't be the game."

Melissa chuckles, "I dont allow that. I used to before I learned what the heck I was doing. I make them rp it out. If there's no reason to roll then they dont roll. They may have the stats but they nine times out of ten and this is probably just my group,.. they just rp it out...

Cypress dies laughing at Rachael's point

Melissa grins at Rachel, "I'm not letting them bring rapiers to gaming ;)"

Adam says "What don't you allow, Melissa?"

Cypress says "Well all the games I've played are RP and Dice Roll. There's even been a case where the GM gave an extra +1 to someone's dice roll for good logic/rp. So..."

Adam says "How important to the RPG experience is talking in the voice of your character or 'being' your character? The alternative being, 'I talk him out of it with my heightened Fast-Talk skill,' or 'Bob the Ranger cries right there, in front of the king.'"

Melissa says "If someone says, /I'm going to try and say this to this person/ And they reach for dice I usually just look at them and ask them why they aren't doing it then. If its somethign social, and the person is there or the NPC in my case is there. They dont have to pick up the dice. They can say it as the character. As silly as it sounds I tossed out the 'Bribe the GM and get more points'... My GM who taught me loved that rule and within a couple of months we'd go from beginning to god level chara's.. drove me up the wall ;)"

PaulTevis chuckles.

Adam says "Paul, if you have questions, go for it. This is an open forum."

PaulTevis says "You're doing fine so far, Adam."

Adam nods. "I am!" ;)

PaulTevis says "But I've also had to break my players of the "I'm going to tell him. . ." habit."

PaulTevis says "This week, it was even in reference to another PC."

Melissa says "Well there are going to be times when you just as a player may not be able to totally do what you're chara can. I mean if its something normal... then say it.. you're the character. But if yo'ure naturally not a very fast talking person when it comes to going for something you want but your chara has a high stat in it. Yeah I'd let that go with a roll."

Adam says "Do these games have social stats or social skills, Melissa?"

Adam nods. "That's what I was getting at."

H doesn't consider talking in the voice of your character that important. Not all of us are actors and I let my players make social rolls as long as they at least attempt to back it up. I had one player who had a female character and wanted to seduce one of the guards. I wouldn't let him do it by saying "I seduce him" but if he thought up a chatup line to use, even a cheesy one, I'd let him roll.

Adam notes that his 'talking in the voice' question was to everyone.

Melissa says "I'm not mean about it. If your character has a high stat and you know you can't rp it out. I'll let it go with a roll and pick up rp where you get to where youre wanting things :) The talking in voice though.. well... **giggles** I let the players decide that one... the day the studdering menace was made on my TT game ... oi"

Adam says "Melissa, didn't you just say that you stare at players who don't talk in character?"

Melissa says "No .. I said if they look at me and do the thing of, "I say this to this person".. I make them do it.. unless its something I know they just can't do"

Rachael says "Okay, I agree that sometimes your char is just more charismatic than you, or better at telling lies, or whatever. But in my experience, when the players all make an effort to speak in the voice of their character, once they get over the initial discomfort, it heightens the RP."

Melissa says "Big difference."

Adam says "Why is it important that they talk in character?"

Adam nods to Rachael.

Sarah goes in and out of character, but I like it better when it's talking in character. it seems a lot less stilted.

Melissa points to rachel's answer

Melissa says "That says it all"

Rachael says "Because speaking in character lets you put on your character's skin. As long as you have a distance between you and your character, who actually CARES what goes on in the game besides dice rolls?"

Adam says "And you just drop out of character when you want your character to do something you're not capable of as a player?"

Adam says "Whoa, Rachael. What do you mean about caring? Are you saying that players won't be invested without first-person role-playing?"

Cypress says "Well... the taking on the voice? It's somewhat important. Like take me for instance. I was part of a ren faire for several summers. Now I was playing a character and it was easy to slip into character voice-wise. At first the other charactes switched between laughter and amazement. Several weeks later everyone had ironed out their voices and it was not only hilarious but it was a lot of fun."

Melissa isn't sure she understands Rachel's last statement.

Adam says "Are you talking about doing it in tabletop or just at the ren faire?"

Cypress says "I used my voice from Ren Faire for my character during Role Playing the game."

H says "In LARP games I expect everyone to be IC most of the time. In MUSHing I get my fair share of roleplaying/pretending to be someone. In tabletop though there's more than just the playing of a character, there's puzzles to solve, investigations to be done, plots to be planned, and I find we all get pretty much invested in that regardless of whether we're using our character's voice or not."

Sarah says "Me? I think I revert to M**-type RP. Like I want to speak in the first person and narrate in the third. so if it's something I can't do I'd rather talk about it. I think."

Adam says "Because I think a ren faire is a totally different animal than a tabletop game. Everyone at a ren faire who is in character is /expected/ to 'be' the character. At a tabletop game, the 'fiction,' if you will, is in your heads, not in the real world like at a faire."

Melissa grins, "Touche H."

Rachael says "Okay, let me see if I can state that better."

Adam says "I think you can read a book written in third person and get plenty invested, too. Or see a movie shot from third person."

H can't do accents. I gaze at people who do do voices and accents enviously. I'm incapable so maybe that's one of the reasons for my own prejudice.

PaulTevis says "Or play a board game."

Melissa cackles.

Rachael says "I like games that are mostly RP. Generally I find that the more we roll dice, the less we tend to RP."

Sarah nods. "And I tend to view things in third person anyway, so it's less jarring in general."

Cypress blinks, "Well the whole point was the type of game we were playing at the time. On top of that.. I was playing a character that disguised herself. So I changed my voice to fit what my character was doing at the time. Some might call that LARP but unless the other players took on costumes and the like.. it wasn't considered LARP in my mind. Not when you were still rolling dice and things.

PaulTevis says "Rachael: Why is that?"

Sarah noddles to Rachael, too. The more rolling the less RP seems to be true.

Adam says "For me, I find that I do have more fun if everyone speaks in character at least part of the time, but it doesn't have to be all the time. Third person narration or 'I do X' is fine for a lot of stuff. I can imagine the fantasy that way just as well as I can imagine that Sarah is actually a barbarian princess. ;)"

Cypress snickers

Melissa says "See normally I would agree Rachel, but every once in a while you just gotta roll those dice to see if you actually think you can get across what you think you should be able to. Its like you know your character should know to put the water in the pan for cooking the pasta. But their so caught up in talking and being distracted... do they remember the water? Or do we all get someting to laugh at when the house fills with smoke from burning pasta? ... Normally I'm All for rp.. but sometimes.. I mean if a playwer wants to do it just to see if any fun can be addded in.. the go for it."

Adam says "No snickering or smirking without backing it up with a reason. ;)"

Sarah makes a very good barbarian princess thank you very much. ;)

Melissa stays out of this one as she makes a sucky barbarian anything ;)

Rachael says "And in a game where people refuse to "step into" their character, it's less like roleplaying and more like playing a video game. You still want to play and win, but you have less invested in your character, you interact less with the other characters... and so on."

Cypress says "I remember the first time I was at a LARP of Vampire: TM. I spent half the night with my hand to my chest to signal I was out od character just so I could laugh my head off. I couldn't get past how funny it was at first. Hell half the time I was laughing at my own character I was playing."

Adam says "There's this divide between 'I have to always be in character!' and 'My character isn't mechanically good enough to do what I can do as a player!' How do you resolve that? Do you roll before you role-play or after? How do you work that out?"

Sarah says "Every once in a while is fine, that's not something that's going to lead to constant dice interruptions."

Adam says "What's to win, Rachael?"

H says "The 7th Sea game I play in we roll for fun. We roll for fashion rolls to see how well dressed we are, and to see how well we picnic and we have a lot of running jokes about the useless dicerolls we make and I feel it actually enhances the game and the fun we have and the roleplay too. Failing social rolls is fun, as is succeeding spectacularly. I think it depends on the system though and the other players."

Rachael says "Win a combat, succeed at a mission, rescue the princess and save the kingdom"

Rachael says "Whatever you choose as your definition of "win" at a given time"

Adam says "Sarah, in Dogs, I contend that you're constantly rolling the dice. Are those interruptions for you?"

Sam says "they way I find the balance is that I just ask my players to narrate what there character is doing if they don't feel comfortable talking in that characters 'voice'"

Melissa says "I usually actually have it rp'd out with starting out to /try/ and make something happen. Then the roll then they rp out if they failed or in some cases gobs of green goo blowing up in their faces when they botch... my favorite line to scare them with is 'Just sign here'...."

PaulTevis says "Can we back up for a minute? I want know more about Rachael's impression that more rolling means less RP."

Adam says "So winning isn't tons of fun? =)"

Rachael nods at Melissa's statement.

PaulTevis says "And I totally want to bring Dogs into it."

Adam says "I think only Sarah has played Dogs. =)"

Rachael hasn't gotten to play Dogs yet, though I've heard the premise.

Cypress says "Yeah but it's sounding more interesting. :-)"

H's really curious about Dogs. I've only heard what I've heard here about it though.

Adam says "Let's pause and talk about 'rolling means less RP.' Agree or disagree? Why?"

Melissa says "I disagree"

Adam thinks his question to Sarah was spot-on for that, so I await her answer.

Melissa waits :)

Rachael says "Look, I'm not going to state that rolling dice makes RP impossible. But I've played a lot of games with a lot of different groups, and I'm pretty sure I have enough empirical data to make a correlation here."

Adam says "But, Melissa, earlier you said that all that combat for hours distracted from the RP. Why aren't you RPing while you roll and fight?"

Melissa says "We do."

Melissa says "The verbal stuff :)"

Adam says "Rachael, we're not accusing you of anything. We just want to understand what that means to you."

Melissa says "I dont let rapiers being brought into my home"

Melissa smiles sweetly

PaulTevis says "Adam's right. I don't mean to put anyone on the defensive."

Cypress says "I disagree somewhat. I have 2 games that I play right now that are all about the RP and the rolling adds to what might happen. Where as another game I play in.. it's a lot of rolling but that only helps us to have more RP of just what we want to do or others to react to in my mind."

Rachael smiles. "I know, I'm just seeing examples come up of situations where it didn't happen, and I'm not disputing that. But I do believe it's a fair generalization.

Sarah says "I don't recall the dice being bothersome in Dogs. I hardly remember them much at all, actually."

Adam says "Rachael, I'd love to hear a short story example of a game where the dice rolling killed the RP."

Adam nods to Sarah. "They clatter endlessly in Dogs."

Melissa says "See the SW game I'm playing right now is alot the same way. Its alot of RP, but its alot of combat too. (As we can tell I'm not Gming it)... but the nice thing about the combat is that there's verbal contact... alot of dice rolling.. I mean alot of it.. but there's still rp in there. And dependant on the dice rolls depends on what we do or react to... or in some instances how silly we get."

PaulTevis says "Has anyone experienced a situation where die rolling inspired RP? If so, what was different about those situations?"

Adam to Sarah: "The use of each die also tends to support characterization and drive each player's agenda /home/, though, so it's moving in a useful way. It's role-playing to roll dice because the roll (which trait do I use and how?) was a meaningful choice."

Adam says "Star Wars old-school, not the D20 monstrosity, right?"

Sarah says "I think in Dogs the dice, because of the way the characters are set up (or something like that), the dice aren't so much acting as a "did it work" as much as a "here's how I can help, here's my contribution" type of thing."

Rachael thinks. "Hmm. I'm not sure if I can say that the dice rolling is what kills RP. I've seen a correlation, but I'm not sure I can state that it's necessarily a causal correlation."

H says "Constantly in the Deadlands game I played in we'd be rping and the GM would make us stop so we could make dicerolls instead and that'd derail the rolling as we all counted up what we got, then counted up the guy who couldn't count's dice, then got our individual results from the GM. But I claim that as a GM error. Shadowrun too all we had was dicerolling and not much RP but that was the style of game it was. I hate it when we're told to all be quiet during combat and not speak to eachother and just wait our turn."

Sarah hadn't thought much about it before now, sorry if it's vague.

Adam says "Wow, H, I wouldn't want to play like that! All quiet during combat? I want to be screaming from the sidelines: 'Wow! Great roll! Kick his ass!'"

Adam says "Especially in Shadowrun."

Melissa says "My best experience with die rolling adding to the experience was about six or so months ago in the middle of an illuminati game that we'd set up back in the 1750's. One of my co-leaders was in the middle of finding a very important discovery, he'd had the die rolls from hell all night, to be able to find its location, get it out of its hiding place without destroying it as well as even categorizing it properly. But the moment he went to roll to see if he forgot anything before he went and began to experiment, he botched. So.. being it was a box, he just oened it without thinking and out sprayed the red goo that turned his face into looking like it was melted rubber. His nickname was drooling man for the next six weeks. (And yes Star Wars Old school)"

Cypress raises her hand and speaks, "Well. As I just said we have games that are mostly RP. So when we roll dice... Ok take this for example. 6 girls in a race. We all have to roll. It might seem boring but once the rolling inspired us to show what our character might DO to win the game not just running but it might have inspired us to trip the character and things of that sort. Say someone's in the lead? And you're only a few steps behind. Do you trip them or do you try to win the race by just running it down?

H grins. Indeed

Cypress says "They give people options."

Sam says "Well once I was playing a Talislanta game, We all had to make a bluff check to get into this enemy camp.. and my character as the only on that failed.. so I had to do some fast talking to work my way out of it, and that snow-balled into us stealing an Airship and starting our own mercenary city-state in the middle of nowhere."

Adam says "Didn't you have those options before you rolled?"

Melissa was gonna ask that.

Melissa says "Wouldn't that be dependant on your character personality?"

Adam says "Talislanta! No elves. But lots of poo."

PaulTevis says "Adam is brilliant, as usual."

Melissa says "Isn't he though?"

Sarah says "i think in D&D, a lot of the decisions are actually made before you roll, before y ou get to the dice, and you have to stop things to get the dice squared away to go on. Either it's going to work or it's not, either the guard is fooled or he's not... it's like, RP up to this point, stop, figure out what you're going to roll, then go from where the dice go. In Dogs it's RP as you dice. kindof."

Melissa oooo's and wants to find Talislanta.

PaulTevis says "Sarah: You are correct."

Rachael says "Okay, two different games, two different DM styles. Both Dungeons & Dragons, but DM A tended to play fast & loose with the rules, whereas DM B was very exacting, making sure every rule was strictly obeyed. In Game A, combat went quickly enough to keep the RP rolling (no pun intended). In Game B, combat turns typically took 2 minutes PER PLAYER."

Adam says "Sarah, you just nailed what took a bunch of very smart game designers a couple years to suss out. ;)"

Adam says "We call it Fortune at the End vs. Fortune in the Middle. ;)"

Cypress shakes her head, "Nope. The GM makes it so you have a free reign over this situation. If you want to roll to trip the person that's your option. Or taking yourself out because... oh there's a cute boy. *SMASH* You fall. It's all under your control. If you want to trip someone.. just ask the GM that's up to you.

Sarah laughs. Oh.

Sam nods "There used to be a a game store in my area that still had the 4th Eidition book, if they still have it Melissa I'd be happy ship it to you.

Adam says "What version of D&D, Rachael?"

Rachael says "Game A was 3.0, Game B was 3.5."

Melissa says "Can you get me a price on that Sam? I'd LOVE to have it... they dont have it anymore in any shps here."

Adam nodnods to Cypress. "So you have all those options. What did the dice contribute?"

Adam says "That .5 difference slowed /everything/ down. ;) (Kidding!)"

Melissa giggles.

Adam says "In slow Game B, were some of the players really getting into the tactical options? Were they grooving on that stuff?"

Adam says "H, in your Deadlands game, how would you have preferred the GM to handle things?"

Cypress says "It contributes a conclusion to what you might attempt and the reaction the other person might have to it. Kinda like ICA=ICC"

Adam says "I would think, Cypress, that dice resolutions /narrow/ options." Adam says "For precisely the reason you list."

Adam says "Classic example: In D&D, you roll your Reflex saving throw vs. a nasty trap and fail and take fatal damage. Options?"

Cypress says "Not really. If they roll and it IS a possiblity to happen.. then doesn't the person being attacked or something.. have a chance to react?"

Adam says "Any other questions about this, Paul?"

PaulTevis says "No, my brilliance has turned off."

Cypress says "Gives them a chance to RP."

Adam says "If they're dead, they're not gonna RP."

Adam says "Before the dice roll, anything was possible. After the dice roll, dead."

Adam says "In-character consequences (ICC)."

H says "We did end up talking to him. We had different ideas of what roleplaying games consisted of and we all managed to come to a compromise. Playing his games was very much like playing a computer game where you had set actiosn to do and where talking in combat could be counted as cheating by telling the others what to do. He did relax though when we explained things to him and we did try to be more understanding of the way he liked to run his games. He was a great GM for set adventures, very by the book."

Rachael says "Come to think of it, Adam, yes, they were. A lot of time was spent working out tactical options."

H likes fatechips or dramadice, or karma, or systems which have a way for you to avoid fatal damage and your character dying. I don't like character death unless it's in some way important to the story.

Adam nods to Rachael. "So that's the kind of game they wanted to play. How many players were bored by it?"

Rachael says "I'd say 2 out of 4"

AgentFresh has connected.

DaveC sets his status: here.

Adam says "Sounds like the four players should have been playing in different games. They wanted different things."

Adam says "Hey, we have designers. =)"

DaveC says "I've been lurking for a little while now"

Adam says "Lurkers suck."

DaveC shrugs

AgentFresh had forgot about this here thing and thanks Dave C for the reminder.

Adam says "I'm curious what each of your /worst/ gaming experiences were and why."

DaveC bows

Cypress says "Can it be a MUSH?"

Adam says "Sure."

Melissa says "OK... worst? Worst I'd have to say woudl be the night I played an NPC for a GM in a paladium game"

Melissa says "To me the entire system seemed incredibly haywire."

Adam says "I can see the trainwreck already. Can you explain why it sucked?"

Rachael chuckles. "Worst gaming experience ever was the time I played a module with this guy who obviously didn't bother to prepare beforehand, lead us through the module by the nose, and when asked questions about the surroundings (such as "what are the walls made of?") couldn't be bothered to put even a shred of imagination into the experience. I walked out a couple hours into the game.

Adam nods. "Convention game?"

Melissa says "Well, to me it didn't seem as well organized as alot of the other systems. It seemed more based on the smallest details and didn't give room for personal character growth when it came to just funny details you may want to have in. /EVERYTHING/ had a stat."

Cypress says "Firan? I was playing a whore on there and there was a lot of OOC BS that went on. Ok.. so everything was basically OOC in the situation as far as I could tell. My character at the time was a level 4 but because she was a level 4 everything about the situation was pushed aside as far as I could tell. No investigations or anything. I worked hard on that character and it totally bummed me out."

Cypress says "I think when people bring their OOC world IC? It totally ruins the fun."

Adam notes for posterity that 'whore' is the term of endearment we use there, with no irony or disrespect intended. <=)

Cypress says "I know"

AgentFresh says "My friends and I used to joke about a mythical "Dump Chart" a Palladium character would have to roll to go to the bathroom."

Cypress says "I just think how it was all handled ruined the posibility of RP."

H says "My worst gaming experiences have usually involved me sitting down and the GM ignoring everything I've had to say. Like one Werewolf game I played in where I created up a doctor character, took healing powers, sat around unable to do much until an NPC runs in, bleeding to death. I asked the GM if I could heal him and was told no. Then one of the other players pulled out a magic item they'd just happened to have and fixed the NPC right up. Or well the GURPS game I played in where we spent 2 game sessions making up characters and during the first game session, one player's character was turned into an animal so they couldn't use any of their abilities, my character was given a couple of magic powers I'd specifically not chosen to take, and the GMs girlfriend kept shouting from a nearby table telling him how to run the game, and his friend kept criticising everything he was doing and telling him he was doing it all wrong."

Melissa snickers at AF

Melissa says "Thank you!"

Adam asks Cypress, "So it was all player problems and not actual problems with the game system or the characters. It's the equivalent of getting into arguments in your tabletop game about stuff barely related to the game, right?"

Adam says "Like 'Betsy is mad at me for wearing the same skirt as her so she's making her character mean to my character.'"

H says "Oh you want problems with game systems? Not player problems?"

Cypress nods slightly, "Sort of. It's the OOC-ness that people somehow out of the blue worked IC that ruined it."

Adam says "We're game designers, not psychologists. ;)"

H says "Okay! Heee! Should have been more specific. ;)"

Cypress blinks, "Yes but with all the rules you have about the game there should be some of how to handle that. Right?"

Adam says "You'd think."

Adam says "If the rules in D&D said, 'No getting pissed at each other for shit outside the game,' do you think it would matter?"

Sarah thinks she will plead the 5th on the worst gaming experience. :)

Adam laughs. "Pretend I wasn't GMing."

Sarah coughs.

Adam says "I won't take it personally."

Rachael says "Ooh! I have another one."

H says "Most bad gaming experiences I've had are due to the people I've rped with being totally and utterly socially inept. Hmm game systems I didn't like, I played in a A-State pre-written adventure with a pre-genned character and there was absolutely nothing my character could do. I dislike that. I don't like useless characters in pre-genned adventures."

AgentFresh says "I mean if you have to be told "Don't be a jerk to the folks you're hanging out with" nothing in a set of RPG rules is gonna help you."

Adam says "Go for it, Rachael."

Cypress says "The more involved the process there is to making a character, the longer it takes to make one. The more bored people get, the more annoyed they get and ultimately they're not as enthused with the game right?"

H says "Or games where I have to spend days and a calculator making up characters. That's bad gaming experience. Shadowrun with the sessions of endless combat and dicerolling was bad."

Adam says "H, I think your 'GM ignoring' problem can be solved by some game designs. What if the rules gave the players the power to narrate stuff about the world and make it happen, without the GM's permission?"

Melissa says "Not necessarily cypress.. i was just telling Sam that I've been trying to remember the name of one game I had a long time ago. A total spoof on the role playing world but we had more fun taking a day and just making up weird characters than we did playing them."

Rachael says "I was in a playtest for a system these guys were working on, where they basically wanted to roll out the Big Nasties of their world. They had these creatures called Dragaerans or Draconiums or Dra-somethings, which were basically walking He-Men with high-level wizard powers and fantastic magical resistance. They pitted a team of five of those things against five standard humans. Guess who won?"

Sarah says "Well. It was a really early test of Verge last year, and I was completely and utterly overwhelmed by the dice and the whole... thing. I couldn't figure out what the deal was with the dice for some reason (I was probably being an idiot), I didn't really 'get' the game in general I don't think, and got very overwhelmed and frustrated and it was just bad."

Adam says "Sometimes making characters is more fun than role-playing them. Depends on the game system."

H says "Then I think that creates its own problems too. But yes GMs being unable to pay attention to all the players, especially in large groups, can be a problem."

Rachael says "And afterward, every last one of us, including the ones who played the Big Nasties, tried to tell them that the Nasties were overpowered, and they refused to listen."

Adam nods to Sarah about the frustration.

Cypress says "Example is the part were I was making a werewolf. The background was spot on. They needed werewolves but there was the staff that held me back. Why? Because I wanted to an alpha. It didn't help my cause because people that had them didn't log them on but they wouldn't even budge."

Sarah thinks it was mostly my issue though. Like I said, I get confused by dice very easily.

DaveC says "Playtests can also be rough"

Adam says "Do you have a different example, Sarah, when the rules didn't work for you or the game wasn't fun because of the game system or something a player or GM did?"

Melissa remembers her 24 foot giantess whowas afraid of heights, lived on strawberry mountain and was allergic to strawberry blossoms... it was fun

Cypress says "Even then you look at the statistics of where my character is in the whole game and worked hard at it to find out that I'm the 5th strongest character in the game. Yet I'm not an alpha so I can't rule. Those things annoy me. When you know your character could rule.. they can't because of some stupid rule."

DaveC says "so it may not have been just you"

Adam says "Playtests are brutal. That one was the worst."

H says "OH! Another thing that's boring is when the GM wanders off into a corner with another player and they spend hours there whilst the rest of the players yawn. Most common in Shadowrun when you've got a Decker, or in any game with a loner thief character sneaking around. I think games should discourage that sort of behaviour and give incentives towards team work, or at least letting the other players listen in to what's happening"

Cypress says "Doesn't that annoy some people? When you work hard on something but one person says no and your whole character concept is shot to hell?"

Adam says "Only one player's character can rule, though, right, Cypress? And it sounds like it was a MUSH so there were probably dozens of players who wanted that position. Right?"

H says "If it's a tabletop game then no, the GM has the right to refuse any character."

Adam says "Does he?"

Adam says "Or she? =)"

DaveC says "H there are games that encourage all the players to be present at all times"

Cypress says "Sort of. There's factions. The pack.. one rules yes. But currently? There's no leader because that person quit the game. I can't just name myself leader without a fight which I totally understand BUT.. I can't name myself leader of the pack because I'm not an alpha."

Rachael says "Absolutely. Are there GMs who will abuse the power? Of course. But ultimately they still are the ones who have to work with the character."

DaveC says "I've had that same frustration"

Sarah tries to think.

Adam says "Why do you think the GM absolutely has power to control what characters come into the game?"

AgentFresh Reminds Sarah to NOT think about dice.

H hmms. Actually that's a good point Adam. In the games I play in the GM is in charge, and runs the sort of game they want to, the players making characters to fit that game. I suppose it's just as possible the players create the characters they want to play and the GM runs the type of game they want.

Adam says "Is this in the rules? Is this an unwritten Law of gaming? =)"

Cypress says "All the other alpha's aren't even bothering for the position. Half of the alpha's haven't logged on in months. So the frustration lies with that one GM that says I can't be an alpha."

Adam bets Melissa has strong feelings about this issue. =)

Adam says "H, which do you think is more likely to be a rocking game?"

Adam leads the question. ;)

Melissa says "Which question?"

Melissa grins at Adam.

Sarah says "i think there have definitely been games where one player or another has been so out of synch with the other players that it just threw off the session in weird ways. Nothing really catastrophically bad, or at least not more than leaving me with another player later talking about how if that keeps up we're going to have to do something about it. And generally, it doesn't keep up, somebody's just having a bad night for whatever reason."

Adam says "Melissa, does the GM have absolute power over what characters come into the game?"

Rachael says "I'd call it an unwritten law of gaming."

Melissa Pfts

Shayd has connected.

Adam says "Shayd. You didn't give me a bio, you dork."

Shayd says "whoops. sorry I'm late, I was busy discovering I was in love with someone."

Melissa says "There's no such thing as absolute in TTing... unless yo'ure handing them a script and saying DO NOT DEVIATE. DO NOT HAVE YOUR OWN OPINION. Then all you can do is make an outline and pray that none of them find a loop hole you didn't thikn of"

H hmms. You know I never thought of that. In the last game I ran, a 7th Sea game I gave each of my players one thing they couldn't play and said you can create anything else. I did that because one player always played Spies and I wanted him to do something different, and another was awful at female characters, so I didn't want him to do that, but in turn I told them they could each tell me one thing I had to include in the game for them. It was actually the player I hadn't put any limits on that caused the most problems. I think if you have a mature group of players then you don't need limits. If you're rping with a bunch of guys from the local gaming club then you need some limitations to stop the game going completely chaotic.

Melissa says "I like that idea H"

Melissa writes that one down

Adam says "I think you can have rocking games if the GM controls the character mix OR if the players do and the GM tailors to them, but your game will probably not rock if the GM does her thing and the players do their thing and they don't talk about it or meet in the middle."

Sarah says "I don't know that i've ever played a game (erm, other than aforementioned playtest) that I was so aggravated by or bored by that I wanted to quit mid-way through. That I can remember anyway. Some have resulted in indifference."

Adam says "And knitting. ;)"

Sarah always knits. :P

DaveC has been known to knit :-)

Melissa says "Thats where the outline and guiding comes in. There's some things when I write a story that i wanrt to come out somewhere.. but how long the players take to get there and by what route... they may decide to take four weeks to get across the street instead of just walking across the street the first day."

Rachael says "I agree, Adam. And I have, in fact, started crocheting mid-game a few times...."

Melissa grins andf has done that.

Sarah knits in lectures, for goodness sake, and I usually try to make sure that nobody at the table is offended by it.

Adam peers at the designers. "Shall we tackle The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast?

H says "Or... one of the first Shadorun games I played in the GM went "you can play anything you want" so we all played unplayable things, really hyper-powered super-beings and I don't think it added anything to the game at all. We were too busy showing off our cool powers and we jsut walked through everything. There was no challenge. All games tend to naturally come with some sort of limits to what you can play. That said in the online sandpit I'm playing in at the moment we can play anything we want to and it's working out marvellously because they're all mature players and we each take turns to GM things."

DaveC says "it's your show Adam"

Adam says "No, it's not a show. It's a discussion. =)"

Rachael says "Honestly, I think my favorite characters have always been the ones with at least one major defect I had to work with and around."

Shayd says "I don't mean to interrupt. Hi. My name is Scott "Shayd" Roberts and I'm 36 years old and I've played games since I was 12 with D&D 1st edition, all the way through 3.5. I've been in the same D&D campaign as a player with the same DM (in several different groups set in the Forgotten Realms world) since 1987. I've played Champions for that long too. I have some experience with Call of Cthulu, Shadowrun, and Deadlands tabletop as well as Serenity. That's all the tabletop stuff. I'm also a big online gamer type or I have been but this isn't about that except to say that I did a lot of Shadowrun MUXing and wrote some columns and other crap. Hi."

Rachael runs to the bathroom, will be right back.

H laughs at Melissa's comment. Oh I know that well. I created a campaign I thought would last 6 weeks. A year later they were still playing and hadn't even gotten to the last part. But I let the players do their own thing and tried not to railroad them so they did a lot of rping and getting sidetracked.

Shayd says "Oh I used to work for Skotos and they paid me to do the wild thing. That is, run text-based online games for money and stuff. I ran Shadowrun MUXI (Seattle Detroit and Denver) from 94-01 or so and played on Firan from 99-05 and just restarted there."

Adam says "It's 10:00 so we're technically wrapping up but I don't mind continuing a bit more."

Melissa grins at H, "Thats half the fun though.. all you can do is try and keep them somwhat in the same galaxy and then keep giving them things to hopefully steer them in the right track."

Melissa smiles and shushs :)

Adam says "Anyone need to leave?"

Adam says "Or want to? ;)"

Cypress squirms, "Ummm... I'm ok."

Adam says "Bathroom is down the hall to the right."

AgentFresh says "I came in late, so I'm not sure what's been covered..."

Adam says "Because we think a lot about game design, we make up all kinds of crazy moon language to describe certain concepts. One of these is called The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast. It refers to the belief that the GM can author the story and players direct the actions of the protagonists. It's considered a big myth, hence the Impossible part. If you're curious, there's crazy moon language on http://random.average-bear.com/TheoryTopics/ImpossibleThingBeforeBreakfast but I can direct it with some questions."

H nods. Yep. It is. I was just surprised how long it took them but it was fun. I've no idea how people manage to run short games.

Adam says "There are plenty of people who totally disagree that it's a myth, too."

Adam says "Can the GM have 'The Story' and still leave room for the players to truly direct their characters as protagonists?"

Shayd is lost and is also not entirely sure why he's here. :)

Adam says "You're here because you're a player with gaming experience. If you're lost, focus on the last question I asked. ;)"

Shayd says "'course he can, Adam. He just has to be willing to adapt the Story to their actions in ways that are mutually entertaining for all involved."

H says "Okay I don't quite get what it's about"

Sarah says "So, people who disagree that it's a myth are the people who can balance the ideas of fate/Godly control and free will, right? because it sounds like the same argument to me."

H says "Yeah story and players aren't mutually exclusive."

Adam says "Well, if the GM adapts to the players, then the GM doesn't control it, right?"

Shayd says "It's not one or the other, they're not mutually exclusive."

Rachael says "I've experienced both, and both can be good, IMO"

Melissa says "Not true Adam. A person can adapt, but still be in control. It all depends on the borders and perameters you want on your game. There's always a way to make something happen to 'guide' the players back to what you want. without taking away from their ability to make thier oen decisions."

Rachael says "Actually, my favorite campiagn ever had a pretty clear overarching story we were supposed to follow, but we were free to pursue the end goal in whatever manner we wished."

Adam says "In my mind, 'The GM authors the story' means that the players don't control any aspect of where they story goes. If the players do exert control over that, then the GM doesn't have absolute control."

Rachael says "On the other hand, I also really enjoyed a game in which the GM gave us free reign to invent a character background and goals out of whole cloth, and managed to weave all our individual goals into one plot"

Adam says "Did you as players, Rachael, know what the overarching story was in advance?"

Shayd says "Then you might as well toss out the dice and the character sheets and just let the GM tell the story."

Adam nods to Shayd.

Sarah says "The GM can have plot points. Like, they have to get a car into the river. And then no matter what choices they make, engineer it such that it is leading them towards the car going into the river. Whether it's because they stash the body in the car and push it in the river, or have the body in the car, evade the police, and end up driving off an embankment into the river, or whether they shoot the guy while he's driving and the car goes in the river, or maybe the assassination fails and they drive off a bridge while fleeing the scene.... the car's in the river, so if that's the most important thing, the GM has controlled it."

Adam says "And how have the players contributed in that example, Sarah?"

Sarah says "They've determined how the car got there in the first place, and the story leading up to it."

Rachael says "Basically, yes. We all started as residents of a small, remote town in a kingdom that was invaded by a neighboring country. We had various reasons for wanting to reclaim the kingdom, and from there we were totally free to pursue it however we wanted."

Adam to Rachael: "So the players had a lot of control. They just consciously consented some of it away to the GM."

Rachael says "And it was not manifest destiny. A couple characters did die (one through extreme stupidity), and it was not necessarily a certain thing that we would ultimately take back the kingdome."

Rachael nods.

Sarah says "it's still a story about the car going in the river, which is what the GM wanted, but it's how the players got it there."

DaveC says "what if a player doesn't want it there?"

DaveC says "what if none of the players want it there"

Rachael says "If none of the players wanted it there, we wouldn't have played that game."

Rachael says "If one player didn't want it there, he could have (correction: he DID) secretly work against the party"

DaveC says "well what if it's one piece of the GM's puzzle"

Rachael says "Meaning"

DaveC says "the crucial event that has to happen for the entire story to fall into place"

Rachael says "?"

AgentFresh hopes you all have a great evening.

AgentFresh has disconnected.

Rachael says "In the case of our game, we didn't have anything like that"

DaveC says "I'm discussing the car example. Are you talking about the kingdom"

Sarah says "that feels more like a setting thing to me, Rachael? Can you explain why it's plot?"

DaveC says "I get confused easily :-)"

H doesn't like games where the A B and C stuff you have to do is obvious and if you try and do Z instead the GM won't let you because you broke his game.

H says "Like our GM who always ran prewritten adventures. There was a certain agreement that we'd participate in said prewritten adventures but we also expected him to find the hook to get our characters involved and for them to have an interest in it."

Adam says "Ever DMed a D&D game or something similar where you have this huge setup and the players think of something clever or have the right spell or device and just /walk right through/ your adventure, no challenge?"

Rachael says "It gave us a plot to pursue. The goal was "Take back the kingdom," and so that becomes the plot of the story in 5 words or less. It would take me all night to tell you the plot of everything that happened in between."

Rachael says "Even if I gave you the Cliff Notes version. :)"

Shayd says "Once we had a situation where the GM had led us to this fight with a dragon."

Melissa hates those kinds of games H&Adam... "Thats not a story.. thats taking a walk through the concept how to make a character and the brief run through of what a game is like."

Shayd says "The conjurer cast hold monster on the dragon, first action, first round. The dragon rolled a 1 on his saving throw."

Shayd says "Dead dragon. :)"

Sarah says "Oh. I doubt anyone wants to drive a car off a bridge. Assuming the Gm has some good reason for needing the car in the river, in order to get to whatever the next breadcrumb, though, then the car's going in the river regardless. *nods to H* car off a bridge is maybe a bad example, but I think it's a thing between the GM and the players, that if the GM thinks that something HAS to happen, it's for a reason, and he'll do what he can to make sure that he's as flexible with how it comes about to happen, and that it makes sense with what your chaaracters do."

Shayd says "Sometimes, life works that way. A good GM knows how to roll with it. A GREAT GM knows how to take it and make the story even better."

H says "And er just because I want to moan about this now. There was an evil haunted house in his game and so instead of doing what we were supposed to do, whatever that was, we built a big pink fence around it using holy paint so the NPCs couldn't get into the house and the GM just couldn't deal with us doing this because somehow it thwarted his plans and everything he threw at us we thwarted but rather than let us win he messed us up."

Sarah says "So, was it his setting and your plot at that point, Rachael?"

Melissa says "pink... holy... paint"

Melissa giggles.

H grins. Yes. We were in a silly mood. We got tins of paint then had the priest bless them.

Adam says "In D&D games -- especially at high character levels -- it's hard to just roll with it. Games take tons of prep so if the adventure dissolves due to a spell, there's often not a lot to do. And sometimes the players think, 'This sucked!' and sometimes they go, 'Wow! We /trashed/ that dragon without losing a hit point! We RULE!'"

Rachael says "I guess so, but I still say that giving us an end goal set up a large scale plot."

H says "I think you should let the players just walk through it. Reward their ingenuity. I hate it when the GM uses your ingenuity against you and makes it fail just because he's the GM>"

Melissa says "I think the best example of a great GM going along with a group messing up his plans was the game that Tony did. It was one of his self made games and he had wanted to run a kinda sorta Evild ead thing... but no one would open the stupid book.. we tried burning it... everything.. we didn't like the smell or the whole teeth in the front thing... we threw the book in the top of the volcano... the gm go so angry he brougt in a demon to give us our 'fondest wishes' ... its the day we instituted that anything in any futrue game that used the words 'Just Sign Here' was to be shot on sight."

Adam says "That's awesome H. So the GM totally nerfed your idea?"

Sarah says "So I think what you're saying is that the end goal was one big version of the car-in-river?"

Shayd says "You might be surprised. But then again I am in a very different gaming scenario than most people are. My DM has about 8 different groups of characters in his shared world. Some players play in various different groups. If one scenario goes awry then the overall experience doesn't suck. In a singular game, that would blow."

Rachael says "But yeah, it was TOTALLY open as to how we got there. We started out by taking a boat up the river and visiting the dwarves, but we could have started out by going through a mountain pass and into a neighboring kingdom, or fleeing through the woods to the ocean... completely wide open."

Adam says "All roads lead to Rome. =)"

Adam nods to Shayd. "I suspect he was just really good at improv play and could roll with it, plus he'd 'prepped' for a decade in that shared fantasy world so he usually had something else for players to do."

Adam wonders if someone is typing up a response or if this thread has ended on its own?

Melissa put in her responce already :)

Rachael did too. :P

Sarah says "That, to me, seems more like, having built a big cool world to play in, MUX style. there's an overarching story and goal, but then it's all over the place within that shared space. GM's world and player's story. as opposed to something where, GM is telling a story and the players are embelishing. maybe."

Sarah is slow and hushes. sorry.

DaveC says "I have a question, then provided it wasn't covered all ready"

Adam says "It's all good. =)"

Adam says "Ask away."

DaveC says "What do you feel makes the game fun for the GM?"

Cypress hates family and comes back to the discussion.

H says "Yes. Nerfed. We built our holy pink fence but it didn't work and just because he didn't want it to work. But we were known for being weird and outlandish. The first adventure we were in we saw the cult of the living flame dancing around a bonfire doing big sacrifices, so my character levitated a gigantic snowball and dropped it onto the bonfire to thwart them since it made perfectly logical sense to me and it kinda ruined the whole end of scenario fight since their power went out with the bonfire. In our 7th Sea game though, when we did weird and wonderful things though we were rewarded instead of penalised."

Rachael says "Okay, I'm being dragged away for a food planning meeting."

Adam waves. "Thanks for participating!"

Rachael says "My pleasure"

Rachael waves.

Rachael has disconnected.

Melissa says "Goodness... for me. If the players are having a good time then usually I am to. Since I'm much more into the intrigue I know I've done good when my players get into the mystery as much as I did making it. its harder to get into some themes, since so little is usually done with them, so when I have the group laughing at their own stupid dice, and yet theyrestill wanting to know what the answer to that blasteed riddle tattooed on the forhead of so and so means... I know I've done a good job..."

Sarah has never done it outside of M* so I haven't the foggiest. :)

Sam has disconnected.

DaveC says "well as a player, what do you see as the reward that your GM is getting?"

Adam says "H, I had a similar experience with a new, young DM. We basically used spells to crunch right through the walls of this huge fortress, skipping all the traps and wear-down monster guards and right to the bad guy. Our combination of skills and powers were going to wipe out the Boss too fast for the DM's pride to swallow, so he created this magical sphere that protected him against all spells and he could somehow keep it going indefinitely so we couldn't in to kill him, despite our promises to just camp there till he came out. He got all pissy at us for doing what we were supposed to. And we had a blast till he got pissy."

H hmms. Same reason the players have fun I think but from a different angle. I dunno, I just never thought the game might not be fun for the GM. he fun of outsmarting your players, or telling a story, or just... I dunno. I like gming. It's fun with a good group of players, different from playing but still fun.

Melissa says "As a player? I tihnk the biggest thing is if I can keep things from reachig a level where people are taking things too seriuosly then its all good. That even if the GM didn't get a blasted thing done he wanted alld ay long but is still leaving laughing then I did a god job :)"

H nods at Adam. It's best to just roll with it sometimes. That's what good gms learn to do. It takes experience.

Adam says "I think a lot of GMs want their games to read like good fantasy novels, yet the players don't tend to do things that make the stories turn out that way."

Adam says "Worse, I think a lot of players expect GMs to run games that create stories like good fantasy novels. =)"

Sarah says "I don't really know. I suppose I've assumed that they have a story they want to tell and are enjoying the process of telling it with us (the players)."

Shayd says "I think the biggest problems most GMs have are 1) not knowing the types of players they have and what the players want, and 2) being too attached to their own world or vision to allow the players to alter it out of what the GM wants/sharing ownership of their world with the players."

Cypress smirks, "Hey. The few GMs that run the BESM games that I play in.. COULD turn them into Novels."

Adam says "Fair enough, Cypress."

Melissa says "I learned never to expect anything"

H says "As a GM I really appreciated it when my players told me they enjoyed the game. I loved hearing them talk about the game afterwards and seeing what they though. I enjoy them enjoying it. Actually one of the things I liked most was this one player I had. He's not all that socially adept, not that smart, when he joined my game he rollplayed not roleplayed. He never took the initiative or anything. I made a point of sitting him down next to me though and I'd listen to him and encourage him and he slowly got the hang of things. He started rping. He started describing what he was doing. He actually took the initiative and on some things he was extremely inventive and that felt great because my game had brought out something in him that the games he'd been in before hadn't. He'd always just been the guy who mumbled in the corner and rolled his combat dice."

Sarah says "When I was growing up we used to turn the garage into an elaborate haunted house every halloween for the neighborhood kids. It was fun to put the work into building it and then see people having fun, and coming up with the surprises that they didn't expect. I guess I would think that GMing was sortof the same way."

Cypress says "To be honest there's a game that just ended called Between Heaven and Earth. None of the players wanted it to end so she worked the game ending so that it could be picked up from a few years later. Like say in 5 years the characters are needed again sort of thing."

Sarah says "Sometimes things have to end though. Like series of books that you really wish would go on, but the more they go on, the more they start to suck."

Adam says "In a haunted house, though, the people who come through it contribute /nothing/ creative to the process, other than, perhaps, screaming but that's more a visceral reaction than a creative outlet."

Cypress says "Mind you she had over 8 players and it was really cool."

Adam says "Maybe I'm stretching your analogy too thin. If I am, I apologize. =)"

Sarah says "So it's not a perfect analogy, it's just the best I've got atm. ;)"

Adam nods. =)

H says "Anyways from a player perspective I think it depends on the GM. Some GMS seem to get off on the whole control thing, being in charge, beating and outsmarting the players and proving that they're better. They seem to find that fun."

DaveC noddy nod nods to everyone

Adam says "I like to think about a conductor and an orchestra. One game designer talks about the GM being a bass player in a jazz improv band."

Adam says "I think some games encourage that, H. Doesn't D&D 3E, /as written/, do that?"

H says "I've no idea. I haven't read it. ;)"

H says "That's not the style of game I enjoy though. I like the cooperative not competitive aspects of roleplaying."

Adam says "Basically it says, 'Here are the DM's rules for creating fair encounters. Now go use those monsters to the best of your abilities. Sometimes characters die but that's not your fault.'"

Shayd says "I call 'em 'adversarial GMs'. The types that go beyond mediator and get too into 'opponent'."

Adam says "There's a thread on a gaming message board about competition /requiring/ cooperation."

Adam says "Shayd, there are some rulesets that encourage the GM to play as hard as he can to make the game the best it can be. Too bad Rachael left or she could talk about her experience in the My Life with Master game I ran for her and others at GenCon."

DaveC says "is that the 'disturbing' one Adam"

Adam nods to Dave.

DaveC says "?"

DaveC says "Now I'm not sure about having you up to run it here :-)"

H nods. Some people like that sort of game. I've recognised that I don't and so don't tend to play in them. It's one of the reasons I've not been back to the local gaming club.

Adam says "Dogs in the Vineyard also tends to be a lot better when the GM doesn't pull his punches. Because the rules give the player the power to choose whether that terrible thing happens or some other bad thing."

Adam nods to H. "Different players like different things and probably shouldn't /try/ to play games they don't enjoy."

H nods. It just ruins it for everyone else.

Adam says "And you. =)"

Adam says "Do you guys think the rules and the house rules and the unwritten procedures you use matter much? Or is it all about the players and the GM? Or something in between?"

Melissa says "Something in between. I mean there are unwritten rules like courtesy. No one wants to rp with someone who is being a prick OOCly while everyone else is tryin gto keep in character. But no game is the same and some rules that apply to one may not apply to another"

Adam says "Is there a GM so good that it doesn't matter if the rules suck?"

Adam says "That the play experience will be just as good because the GM is so good?"

Sarah says "A GM who is willing to break the rules, at which point it's not the same game anyway, maybe?"

Adam says "Well, I included unwritten procedures above."

Adam says "I guess that's a wide catch-all though. Maybe too wide."

Shayd says "there is one invaluable resource, I think, that every gamer and DM should know about or read. I don't know if it's been reprinted or not in the newer editions but it comes from Hero Games' 4th Edition version of Champions and a modified version of it can be found that I did for online MU* players at http://www.skotos.net/articles/Mummers03.shtml"

Shayd says "It is basically a categorization of different player types and drives. Most people show different aspects of each one but if you can find out who is in what categories in your groups, you can provide a better game if you keep that in mind."

Adam says "Robin Laws has something similar."

H doesn't consider the rules that important but then I do prefer rules-lite games. They're there to provide a framework and guideline to make things fun, if they're not fun then they should be bent and broken. I think it's mostly about the players and the GM. If you have a fantastic group then you don't need the rules but they add some fun. If you have a sucky group it doesn't matter how wonderful the rules are the game's still going to suck. Hmm even if you have a wonderful GM though if the rules suck, then it can bog things down.

Adam says "If the rules aren't important, why do you have a 'lite' preference? =)"

H hmms. I play diceless. I play on a pretty much ruleless sandbox online and have a fantastic time there. Rules can sometimes add fun and flavour though and structure. I don't think they're important in the same way as having a good group is important, or an interesting setting, or a fun story, but they're the tools that can add to the fun of the experience.

H says "The minute they start bogging things down then I think they can be thrown out of the window, but if they're there to enhance the experience then good on them. And most people seem to like having rules, it stops roleplaying being about games of the imagination like we used to play as kids and turns it into a more acceptable adult hobby. Or well I don't know."

Adam says "Dogs has a rule that /explicitly/ says to the GM regarding conflict situations: 'Roll the dice or say yes.' That's a formalized version of your 'thrown out the window' comment."

H nods. Hmm I suppose rules are important as in it allows everyone to know where they stand with eachother and to help prevent disagreements.

Adam thinks we're losing people fast, so I'm gonna thank everyone for taking part and let everyone know that they're welcome to stay here as long as they like, hang out, maybe talk someone into running a game of Dogs or Capes or something else some evening, and so on. Also, I'll eventually post a log off my home page, which is easily discovered via Google and is also in my 'finger' here.

Melissa smiles, "Sorry I'm trying :)... "

Melissa is sans food and i can't concentrate

Melissa says "Thank you for allowing me to come though adam I had a great time."

KarlM has connected.

DaveC drools "Capes!!!!"

Adam says "Thank /you/ for being so patient with all my questions! You guys were great!"

Adam says "Dave will run Capes for you. Anyone like superhero games?"

Sarah says "There was one time that my bard/spymaster character was trying to do something like charmy-sing her way into a house, so I wrote a set of lyrics on the spot and then didn't have to roll about. Which is the "thrown out the window" thing I guess."

DaveC says "maybe not tonight"

Melissa loves superhero games.

Sarah does?

Adam says "Not tonight, no, Dave. =)"

DaveC says "I'm tired :-)"

Adam says "Capes is awesome. You can do /anything/ to another character by just saying so."

Sarah says "Oh my."

H doesn't like number-crunchy super-hero games which is the only type i seem to encounter

DaveC says "is this the Sarah that I met at AdamCon?"

DaveC says "H this isn't number crunchy"

Sarah says "Yes. :)"

Adam closes the log.