[PS2: Mercenaries] Choice

[Callan S.]

Okay, this isn't a roleplay session log, but I recorded it because it so much reflects early, fun gamist RP I did with friends, which seems to have slipped away from us now (regretably). I was certain there was material to draw from here to help me, and a place like the forge could help me dissect that.

9:34 - Start near a fortified camp. Started running towards another spot out of curiosity for it.

9:35 - Nothing much there. Noticed I had a in game e-mail on a target to capture. Read it and considering. Looked at my map. Decided to explore a red road (These are dirt roads, often leading to enemy encampments).

9.37 - After grabbing a vehicle and some troops to man it, to go exploring I run across an interesting cash challenge.

9:43 - Tried the challenge a couple of times: Tricky. Formulated some plans on how to tackle it, but low on resources after last attempt. Might go explore.

9.45 - Decided to air drop supplies to replenish resources, and try challenge again with troops in jeep.

9:54 - Good run of enemy jeeps show up in challenge and I win the challenge. Now off to explore, a different road from before though.

9:56 - Run across a weird, fake town (buildings are just props). Huh? Will go further in.

9:57 - Locate a spy device here. Shoot it for the bounty on it once destroyed. Explosion must have bothered the troops in my jeep, since they start firing on me (note: Latter I find out all spy devices are set by the south Koreans. The troops I picked up were south Korean.). Forced to run off, as killing them will make the south Korean faction dislike me.

9:59 - Use a Russian air drop (nice and cheap) of supplies to clean up after that. Also get some C4 dropped for me.

10:01 - I wonder if those troops are now friendly (since I ran off some distance). I run back to check. Sort of. All troops gone except one officer, who I get to man the gun of the jeep and drive off.

10:03 - Right after getting the jeep back, I'm wondering if the off road driving will loose me the jeep by flipping it.

10:05 - Ah, just noted from map info this is the propaganda village.

10:06 - Out front of this fake village I see a camera man with a cash mission symbol. Curious if mission is about this propaganda village and will let me explore its purpose further.

10:09 - No it doesn't, it's just a racing mission. I take it anyway (it'll get me somewhere).

10:11 - I just missed the race missions time and as I cross the finish line late, I find that finish line is surrounded by a fire fight. I decide to C4 the enemy bunker here and destroy all foes (foes being the north Koreans, who were fighting Allied Nations troops). I use the momentum of racing to drive up a nearby hill, then I stop and get out, leaving my gunner with a good support fire position.

10:15 - C4 just isn't working so well. I call in an air drop for some more, but end up using an Allied Nations recoilless rifle fixed behind sandbags here, to finish off the bunker.

10:19 - I continue on, also gaining AN (Allied nations) favour as I help them in the fight. I grab a emplaced SK (South Korean) machine gun to help me in my work and save my ammo.
10:24 - It takes a bit of back and forth with checking for safe opportunities (ie, when the NK forces were properly distracted by AN forces) to grenade & C4 another bunker to bits.

10:27 - A guy with a rocket launcher has noticed me and there is still one bunker left.

10:28 - Got him by making him run from a grenade, then shooting off the hip with my sniper rifle. Then I demolished the other bunker. But another rocket guy turns up out of the wood work, I'm really hurt and the AN guys are dead so they are no distraction.

10:32 - Stun grenade and another hip shot. Then a Russian supply drop to recover health and ammo.

10: 33 - Feeling much better now I start searching for gear and notice one last NK guy, his back to me since he was watching where he'd heard me last (and I'd done a wide circle around since then). Felt like a fitting end to finish him off, after being laid so low and now showing I'm back on track. Wait! I get him and then head over to some vehicles and suddenly notice a damn rocket guy is right on the other side...lethal! If I run off he'll rocket me...here, he might rocket me and as well as the blast damage, the exploding vehicles would lay in damage too. Tense circling as I keep myself on the opposite side to him, figuring out what to do. Then he jumps onto the mounted gun of a jeep...stupid move. I run up to snipe him, but he thinks better of it and gets off the jeep. But since I'm waiting there, I club him and then as he's stunned, hand cuff him. THERE, now the bloody area IS secured!

10:40 - I decide to look for more trouble up the hill. Oh, must supply drop first (so I have supplies to run back to, if things go wrong).

10:43 - Manage to rush a turreted APC up the hill, that sat amidst jeeps. Don't take much damage at all before managing to hi jack it. Now have the major upper hand, as the jeeps machine guns don't hurt this tank. I blow up lots of jeeps here, as they come out of a bunker, for the bounty on each jeep.

10:46 - The jeeps begin to slow in their spawning from the nearby bunker (I think because its full of jeep wreckage), so I tire of waiting and fire on the bunker until it collapses. Easy win!

10:48 - I leave, just following the road as I enjoy the feeling of winning.

10:50 - I notice a turn off on the road where I've only ever been before to catch a card (a war criminal), before.

10:52 - It's empty of all the stuff it had before. I wonder if it was because I blew it up, as I've noticed another bunker I kept blowing up has dissapeared.

10:53 - Gunna check out a broken red road (note: Still not the one from the start)

10:55 - I flip my car after casually side swipping an NK jeep. Oh well, on foot it lets me slow and smell the roses/appreciate the country side (ie, it's a positive).

10:57 - I poke along all around the road I'm exploring, looking behind rocks and such for the hidden stuff they strewn around the landscape.

11:00 - I look around here, noting how I've already been here on a previous mission and noting what wreckage I'd left behind. I wonder if I can steal a heli from here, once the base gets rebuilt.

11:08 - Explored an outpost to see if it was NK or SK. NK, so I assaulted and raided it for supplies.

11:10 - A miss understanding: An SK jeep shoots rockets at an NK jeep near me, so I reflexively shoot back.

11:15 - Get hammered by a huey and a bastard NK who jumped on the rocket launcher of my jeep, which I abandoned when the SK's were firing back in anger at my mistake.

11:19 - A card (war criminal) suddenly shows up on the radar, as I've stumbled over his position. But that's another story...the log ends here.

After play and looking at this, I really noticed how I kept changing my mind. Over and over. On reflection I can remember that it felt good each time I did it...but that feeling wasn't just why I did it. I felt I was probing, to find out how much my will/choice mattered here...pushing it, to see how much in this rich reward rich environment I actually was in the pilots seat. Having changed my mind several times, when I did settle on something, it was most definitely something of my choosing and I had assured myself that I had, by changing my mind several times (by being able to, without suffering for it or being blocked) avoided being funnelled toward doing this and I really am in charge of what I was doing. I don't know if this is an RPG hang over because of railroading, or what I would have done without any RPG experience. In the latter case, would I still try to dodge being 'funnelled' into an activity and instead keep changing my mind until I comfortably felt I was doing my own thing ...and if so, what does that mean?

Another point, the lack of immersion required means character movement could be used for directorial purposes. So I'd be getting into dangerous fights because I loved the challenge of them. Indeed, I'd end up making 'stupid mistakes', because those mistakes are rewarding, because if I didn't make those mistakes I'd never end up in nasty situations. The sort of situations which are actually interesting. All of this clashes with immersion and 'what the character would really do', but damn, it's a lot more fun. And typically I'd slip into something more along the lines of in character thought once in those situations (typically discarding director stance once it had served its purpose). I think that's one of the reasons this sort of fun has actually slipped away from our group as we've grown up. We've impressed on each other (peer pressure), a need to be in character, which killed the intuitive version of directors stance we would otherwise use to get in crap loads of fun trouble.

Is that something a lot of young gaming groups suffer? Adopting more 'grown up' or intellectual sounding techniques (like 'proper' immersion). And if things go downhill after that, guilt makes them think they must be doing it wrong, rather than thinking perhaps these techniques are inappropriate? I'm reminded of the RPG.net phrase 'Badwrongfun'. In that it's about techniques which are supposed to be bad, and wrong. But are actually a clear path to fun.