Subject:
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Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Thu, 6 Jun 2002 06:02:01 GMT
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Viewed:
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3772 times
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"J.D. Forinash" wrote:
>
> In article <3CFD1621.A7B42E9A@mindspring.com>,
> Frank Filz <ffilz@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > This sounds to me like a scenario which isn't designed correctly for the
> > tone of the campaign the GM wants to run. I also question the bit: "but
> > you do have to be flexible to get the story where it needs to go." To me
> > that sounds like you're forcing the story in a particular direction.
> > Why?
>
> Because I'd like my players to be happy. I could instead, decide about how
> long it takes for a saboteur to blow up the ship, and then after
> fifteen minutes of game time have passed, say, "The walls of the ship
> glow white-hot and then you don't see anything else. Ever.
>
> If I lived through that, I wouldn't get many people in my next game.
>
> > Some thoughts on how to better set up this scenario:
>
> Take a few months and think of everything you can. A half hour into the
> game one of the players is going to think of something you didn't-- that's
> what they do. You _have to be flexible_. You may have to fudge things.
> "Uh... that doesn't work" only covers it so long. And the doubly annoying
> thing is I don't have months to set up a game...
>
> I'm all for stupidity being terminal. I'm not so big on letting people be
> dead because they bit on my red herring.
I'm curious, was this an example of a real scenario, and I'm just
missing things because there's no way you can compress a game session
into a posting or two, or is this a constructed example? If the latter,
it sounds like a poorly constructed example. While I agree players can
take very unexpected turns, I have never had them take a wrong turn
which was disastrous which I really felt the results were my fault (the
only valid reason in my book for doing anything other than a minor fudge
[a minor fudge might be justified to correct a players minor mistake]).
Or maybe my style is just a little more hard-nosed (1).
Generally, the times when a player has taken an unexpected turn and got
trashed, most of the other players have agreed that the player deserved
what they got (hmm, I was also reminded of the player I had once who was
constantly cheating [he'd make a roll, then start a diversionary
conversation, and when that was finished, gee, the roll was different
from what I remembered], I think he eventually left after having several
characters killed because I declined to give him the minor fudges I did
feel the need to make occasionally).
I was just thinking of some other examples of disastrous PC actions:
- In an SF campaign, the PCs visited a planet which had been a prison
colony before the fall of the empire. Now it was a very mean place. It
was basically all underground, and people often drove around the tunnels
in armored vehicles. There was a "man hunt" game, which the PCs decided
to join. There were plenty of warnings about how violent it was. One of
the contestants had powered armor (pretty rare in that campaign), and
was armed with a fusion weapon (think flame-thrower with range). Well,
one or two PCs got toasted. I think even the toasted players agreed that
they had stepped in it. Now on the plus side, I think the PCs did gain
some respect out of this, and I remember future harrowing but much less
deadly visits to the planet.
- In a fantasy campaign, the PCs were coming into town. A bunch of
beggar kids started throwing rocks at them (I forget exactly why I
tossed this in - actually, I think may have been in part that one of the
PCs was almost a demon [of a friendly sort] - it certainly was pretty
stupid of the kids to provoke the PCs). Most of the PCs attempted to
subdue the kids. One PC started casting magic which many people consider
black magic. Eventually the town guard showed up, and the kids accused
the PC of using black magic. The PC was arrested. The reaction was
perhaps a bit harsh, and perhaps it was an unfair provocation, but I
think it's important that the PCs understand that law and order is
trying to exist, even though it may be rather imperfect.
This whole thing does highlight that I prefer systems which have some
built in forgiveness. If there aren't generally ways to annihilate the
PCs en masse, then much less fudging is necessary (for example, the SF
game Space Opera had rules which allowed PCs to survive the destruction
of their ship, while that is more forgiving than I like, having those
rules in there means you don't have to edge the PCs to successfully
stopping the saboteur, let it happen, and let them survive, and learn
their lesson - while I might not like Space Opera's specific rules, I
would generally allow the PCs possibilities to escape exploding ships).
Frank
(1) But I'm not as hard-nosed as one solo D&D module I remember where
you would get trapped in a room with a bunch of giant rats. The module
then asked if you were a druid. If the answer was yes, you would die
because a druid wouldn't kill an animal, even if it was killing him (and
the darned module actually laughed about it). I've never seen anyone
run druids like this, and this is actually a real good example of the
types of rules that I hate, ones which create a totally unbelievable
world. I am willing to suspend disbelieve in certain circumstances (like
to allow magic and hyperdrives to work), but in other areas, I expect
the rules to try and survive the test of reality - this is why I think
something's wrong if the PCs wouldn't share the cloak which adds to
charisma so the Paladin can heal just because that would somehow destroy
the "balance" or "mood" of the game, don't create such situations in
your game, or make sure that the restriction is logically part of the
"rules" (for example, perhaps the code of paladinhood wouldn't allow
such uses of magic - but make sure your code is self consistent).
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) It was just a quick example off the top of my head-- certainly, any such example will have piles of nits one can pick, and that's sort of my point-- anything's gonna have those sorts of problems, and finding those problems is exactly what PCs (...) (22 years ago, 6-Jun-02, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) Because I'd like my players to be happy. I could instead, decide about how long it takes for a saboteur to blow up the ship, and then after fifteen minutes of game time have passed, say, "The walls of the ship glow white-hot and then you don't (...) (22 years ago, 6-Jun-02, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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