[Middle Earth - home brew] 1st day in July 4 week of play.

[hanschristianandersen]

Jay,

Count me in as another interested thread-reader.

I'm wondering about the "PC-spits-in-a-dwarf's-face" moment.  You wrote that the GM said Without rolling or asking for a roll, the GM said "he splits you from top to bottom."  You then suggested that something could be done to avoid it; that the player could have worked within the structures of your group's play style to prevent it.

Did the DM's assertion that "he splits you from top to bottom" mean that that actually happened, no reactions, no take-backs?  Or did it mean "Unless you, the player, can react RIGHT NOW, this will actually happen"?

Could the player in question have responded "Of course, I knew that would make him angry, so I'm ready for this.  I deflect his axe with my shield"?  or maybe "Another of my characters (player waves a character sheet in the air) screams 'Noooo!!!' and dives between us as the axe descends"?  or even just "I was afraid of this; I'm going to dive out of the way, but I'm pretty sure I can't make it in time - his axe would hit my arm instead."

If not, how could the player have responded to this?

(IIRC, in the "Seizing the battle standard" anecdote, the process went something like p:"I'm going into the fray to hold the line" - g:"if you do that, you will get killed" - p:"I don't care, I'm not letting it fall" - g:"Don't even talk to me unless you roll a 20".  Thus it would seem that players can, in their own ways, call for rolls on the hopes that fate or fortune might see them through.)

Am I anywhere near on target?

[hanschristianandersen]

Another question I thought of right after I posted that -

If I were playing a stalwart, stubborn, fearsome-in-combat dwarf a la Gimli, Thorin, or Dain, and an NPC spat in my character's face... would I have free license to say "I split him from top to bottom", and have that be accepted at face value?  Or would the GM force a roll?

[Silmenume]

Hey Ron!

My verbosity is really taking its toll!

1. You play with the westerlings, right? Is Cary your regular GM? How often does this game meet, aside from great big grand cross-continental events?

Does Steve GM the easterlings currently? If so, has he done so since Cary moved west?

I am a westerling!  Cary is my regular GM.  The gaming schedule is extremely irregular.  The ideal is the first two Saturdays of a month.  We rarely reach that goal.  There are frequent one on one conversations about events in the "world" or things about our characters that we'd like to try to do.  Sometimes we'll discuss new character ideas or scenarios we'd like to play.  Sometimes I'll ask his opinion on how to do certain things (that can be both in game as well as on the social contract level.)  Sometimes we'll just discuss an in game people, or a new people and do some ground up creating.  There's always something burbling about the game going on.

Steve does currently GM the easterlings.  Steve actually brought roleplay to his group of war gaming friends which included Cary.  It was only when Steve threatened sanctions that he forced Cary into DMing.  Then there were two GM's for the same group of players.  At some point Cary switched his world to Middle Earth.  Steve did later, but set it in a different time period.  Also Cary created introduced a new "system."  Steve eventually adopted it, but slowly started changing to his needs.  Then Cary moved out west with his partner and fellow roleplayer (Chuck) to get into the movie biz.  So Steve was running Middle Earth before Cary came west.

2. I was a little confused about your answer regarding female players. The key variable as you see it is the female players' emotional experience under "hard leadership" situations, correct?

It seems that way.  If you have more probing questions I would be willing to examine them and try and give more in depth answers.  Near as I can tell female players tend to really take to heart the losses of PC's and NPC's as a result of their actions, more so than male players.  But that is merely anecdotal.  Also keep in mind that combats are incredibly intense and violent (not among the players physically – but what the players are saying and acting out with respect to the SIS).

One time a player was playing a Black Commando while his unit was assaulting a town.  The player burst into a building where he caught an NPC Ranger of Ithilien of guard and hit him with such ferocity that he sent the Ranger tumbling down and on to his back.  Understand we LOVE the Rangers of Ithilien so this is hard for the player.  The PC commando rushes up to finish off the prone Ranger with a knife when the Ranger (the GM) looks directly at the PC Commando, squarely in the (player's) eyes, while the player is pulling back to plunge his knife in and in a defeated voice says, "Ah... fuck."  You could see the player collapse internally but he had to play his character as a ruthless Commando.

Also, when you talk about 3% vs. 10%, are you talking about how well the in-game situation turned out? E.g., in terms of whether the leader's decision led to a non-tragic outcome? Or are you talking about how many new players tend to stick around (1 in 10 for men, 1 in ~30 for women)?

I am talking about how the female players fared after the game.  Male player usually don't walk away from the game too often.  They are too hepped up about their experience, but in the long run they usually don't make the cut.  This would be the vast majority of the male washout rate.

Female players tend to have a higher tendency to cut themselves/not stick around.  By the way my numbers are not rigorous by any means, they are at best estimates.  I think the numbers are skewed partly because it is so difficult to for us to find female players – or so it seems.

One time many years ago, while on a cross-country trip the DM ended up somewhere in Arizona and New Mexico.  One of the guys with them went to a strip bar and brought back a dancer there to where they were staying to play.  The next night she came back brought a bunch of her female co-workers and they played Amazons that night.  They took to it like fish to water.  They were absolutely smitten with the game.  So who knows?

3. Tell me if I'm getting a good picture with the following. It seems to me as if a prime survival trait to participate in this game is to out-shout and out-emote other players, in the strongest sense of character-identification possible, with the rewards being a combination of:
- getting the star ("best role-play")
- receiving Wisdom checks ("effective role-play")
- more frequently (constantly?) being able to draw the GM's attention to what one is doing in a sea of emotive input, which then leads to more skill checks and more combat opportunities

All of this seems to be embedded in a very challenging matrix of setting knowledge and overt commitment to the integrity of the source material's assumptions.

I was not very clear about the out-shouting thing.  Somewhere in a previous post I mentioned this but I will do my best to be clearer.  Everyone shouting "over" each other to get the camera is usually very limited.  This typically happens at the "breaking" when everyone is scrambling.  Once things are moving along most of the "shouting" is in the form of support the player who has the camera or just plain loud spectating.  The energy is just contagious.

For lack of a better descriptor there is this strange "dance" that develops between and among the players and the DM when things get hot and start moving fast.  There is a rhythm where the GM will cut from player to player or a player may make an attempt to "cut in", but there are "better" times to try and make that effort than others.  I don't know how to define it yet, but there is a unspoken protocol that is learned.  Its like jazz where maybe there is a band leader who usually indicates who is playing solo, but sometimes another band member will sort of start his own solo and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.  However if you try to "cut in" and the camera does not come to the player it is bad form to make another immediate attempt.  Sometimes you get, "you're busy right now", or "you're ahead of time", and other times you just aren't acknowledged.  None of this meant to be a rebuke to a player, it just means, not now.

So out-shouting is not a key trait per say, though energy does effect the interpretation of die rolls and (IIEE) drama actions.  Its not so much volume as intensity.  Its no so much attention getting as intensity.  The GM will cut to players who are quiet in the middle of the chaos and does so, routinely, as long as that player is doing something relevant to the proceedings.  Sometimes he might cross cut between the chaos and loud players to a quiet scene with another player as counter point.

The real key to gaining camera time effectively is being able to sense the emotional rhythm and pulse of the scene and then taking a stab.  The games are not always in a high state of visceral hysteria.  Much of the time is spent in baseline play.  There is some competition for camera time, but the GM is the final arbiter on that issue and there are protocols for that process.

During baseline play there usually isn't a whole lot of cause to emote or be loud.  In these quieter times there are lots of small issues that are being worked on as events progress forward.  The process builds and tensions build as the stakes build.

GM rewards could include
-   the star ("best role-play").
-   a good player rating ("effective role-play").
-   a special character.
-   checks ("effective role-play") which sometimes go towards secondary skills
-   more camera time.
-   bonuses to die rolls, both overt and covert.
-   letting certain elements play out without having to roll dice because player presentation or efforts make the notion of failure ludicrous. (Drama resolution?)

The players themselves also find their own rewards in the act of the game play itself.  All the rewards given by the GM are really carrots to try and encourage certain behaviors.  What the GM wants to do is create an experience as close to being in Middle Earth and sharing its struggles as possible.  The rewards are really ways of saying, "Good job!"  This idea of determining what we think Middle Earth is goes on out of game as well when we have long discussions about various elements of the books.

We love the Dunedain because what they do is thankless.  They stay behind when everyone else has fled.  They face things that would freeze the blood of ordinary men, etc.

While combat is exciting, it does get characters killed.  And losing a special character carries repercussions with in SIS as well as personal loss to the player.  It is plumb hard to get a special character and we don't just throw them away because we want to get into combat.  In a strange way, as exciting as combat is, it must be justified and in virtually all cases that means we usually don't have any other choice.  Or the other options available to us are too costly.  Like leaving Legolas to the orcs to suffer and die.  Always an option, but choosing that one would say something about the characters, how we as players feel about the world, as well as our own player attachments.  All these are juggled together in every decision we face – sometimes the costs are much higher than at other times.

4. I'm interested that way back when, Steve apparently said that running games in Middle Earth would sully the setting, yet he and Cary were already running games set in Narnia. I realize this is long ago and far away, but do you have any information or insight as to how that could have ... um, well, could have made any possible sense?

4. I'm interested that way back when, Steve apparently said that running games in Middle Earth would sully the setting, yet he and Cary were already running games set in Narnia. I realize this is long ago and far away, but do you have any information or insight as to how that could have ... um, well, could have made any possible sense?

lol!  Simply put both GM's idolized (mythologized!) Middle Earth while they merely enjoyed Narnia.  Steve felt that there was no way a GM could run a game and keep the level of the game up to the par of the books.  Steve didn't think it was possible to replicate the response he had to the Middle Earth books.  Playing "badly" would ruin his memories of the books.  (Like the movies.)  Cary saw otherwise.

And furthermore, when Steve switched to Middle Earth, why he might have decided either that the setting was not being sullied, or that the sullying was acceptable after all?

I think that after a few years and with pressure building from the players and I would guess that he was loosing his group and he saw that not only was it prudent to switch but that it was possible to play in the setting successfully (ala Cary's game).

Finally, as I understand it, both easterlings and westerlings now consider themselves to be playing the same uber-game. However, Steve and Cary were running games set in very different time periods. Is that time-period separation still hold? (I realize that many players have characters in both games)

Actually that is not really the case.  While the easterlings do have an interest in the events of the west coast game and what their characters are up to, the feeling does not really extend the other direction too much.  Cary has some interest because he doen't get to play out here, but his interest is mostly nostalgia.  I have one or two characters in the game easterling game, Steve ran for one day while here on the 4th of July week retreat, but I only played the character maybe 2 or 3 times in 6 years.  Without trying to sound like a jackass – Steve's game isn't very good, or I should say it is verry flat compared to what we have become accustomed to.  The pacing is extremely slow (compared to what we've grown used to), we are very tightly constrained by "class" and "vocation" absolutely limited by skills rather than norms.  I should say in Steve's defense that his game is very popular with his players and at the cons he runs at, so please take my assertions with a grain of salt.

Chuck used to rag on Steve's game all the time, but we all wrote that off as a bit of "snobbery."  Then steve ran for us one day and it was deathly to us westerlings.  We all were polite and put on our best game faces, but you could have read a book at the table and not missed anything.  I feel bad saying that, but I am trying to be honest and open so people can see some of my assumptions, preferences and prejudices.

I hope my responses have been useful.

[Silmenume]

Hey Ralph,

One thing that caught my attention was your description of Gap Reversal and the Legolas trap.  Was that a situation where:
1) The GM had planned all along that Legolas was not actually captured and that it was a trap, but made sure that all the evidence that he gave to you sold you on the idea that Legolas was a prisoner and needed to be free.
2) As number 1 but there were actually ample opportunities for you to have learned or at least gotten suspicious about it being a trap before going in and you just missed them for whatever reasons.
3) The GM had originally planned that Legolas was, in fact, captured but then decided that this would be a good dramatic spot for a reversal and came up with the vision and trap idea on the fly.

Do you as players ever really know for sure which of these such reversals actually are?

To be honest, we are never certain.  The story that we are led to believe would be version 2.  Given the after action game debriefs, the GM has demonstrated many times that he frequently does give clues about upcoming events.  Plus we as players have caught on a number of times the clues that he has dropped.  Does this mean that he does it all the time?  Who knows for certain?  One event was telling for me.  I ran a game once where I did employ version 3 in completely different scenario.  I reported the circumstances to my GM afterwards and he replied that said while a GM can do that, when a GM is in the top of their game, he doesn't have to do version 3 but should stick to what you described as version 2.  Best answer that I can give.  I think he works very hard to sell version 1, but then does drop some clues that indicate that something else is afoot (version 2).

The second thing that comes to mind is wondering how much Illusion the GM is weaving into the game.

That's a good question, one that I am certain I will never learn the real answer to.  My feeling is that GM Force is employed, but mostly for the purpose of increasing tension, not to determine play direction or outcome – if that makes any sense.  I think I had this very question in mind when I posted my open rumination thread on fudging die rolls as actually moving to a Drama resolution mechanic from a fortune mechanic.  I'm not looking to bring that up here for discussion, but I mention it only to demonstrate that I had been thinking about similar issues that you have brought up here.

...gives the GM the ability to almost determine pass or fail as he desires simply by manipulating the TN and bonuses. ...

I cannot account for what goes on in his mind, but I have done some running using his game as the model.  My take is not some much <>desire<> for a specific resolution, but a desire for more intense player reactions.  This may seem a silly distinction, but the guiding principles are completely different.  Its not that I the GM want resolutions to turn out this specific way (to suit my needs or to wow the players with my skill), but I the GM want the players to remain fully engaged for as long and as intensely as possible.  This also means you must allow successes happen where momentum dictates and failures where momentum dictates.  

In one recounted scenario that was before my time, fairly early in the night's adventure a player who was playing a dwarf spotted the evil druid (the BBEG of this particular scenario) on top of a hill a fair distance away.  In an instant before the GM could get much more than the description of the druid out, the player reached to his belt, pulled out his imaginary throwing axe and hucked it at the GM calling out, "I throw my axe!"  Now this dwarf had strength that went beyond human maximum, so he was strong, but still this was pretty extreme.

GM – "Roll a twen-"
Player – "20!!"
GM – shaking his head for a moment.  "There's no possible way.  You need another 20."
Player – "20!"  Other players at the table start shouting encouragement!
GM – "Unless you hit him in the head..."
Player – rolls percentile dice – "96!"  (89-100 is a head shot)  Table is growing crazy!
GM – "You're not killing him unless you roll over half on your damage die."
Player – rolls a d6.  "5!"  Everyone starts high fiving and congratulating each other.

The GM just had the meat of that night's scenario taken out in moments.  In this case the target numbers were all out in the open with the successes clearly defined.  Lots of times the GM will have players reroll numbers saying beat that (the previous die roll's number).  Other times its "beat an 18, 19, or 20", or "don't roll a 1, 2, 3, or 4."  I understand what you are getting at Ralph, but I think which method is employed (force, clearly open numbers, or something in-between) depends on the drama of the moment and which method will likely create the greatest drama, not which will allow the events turn out the way the GM wants them to.

I'm not sure how to say this, but everything seems to be on a sliding scale, even which techniques are employed – if that makes any sense.

As much as we players don't know if our actions will be successful, which keeps us interested, I think the GM creates open-ended scenarios to keep himself interested.  In talks I've had with him he says that he likes to mix characters and situation together to see what we will do.  Then he weaves in the rest of the world into the basic idea so it all has relevance.  An example he gave once was having two bitter enemies, a Dunedain and a Black Commando, trapped together in a cave being pursued by orcs.  The GM probably suspects that they will cooperate for their mutual survival, and will certainly create events which encourage such a choice, but that choice is never pre-determined.  The GM will probably play up on the characters (rightful) distrust of each other, but give each one an important task that each cannot afford to leave incomplete.  So now stakes are high, each has a crucial task, they are both sworn as well as bitter personal enemies, and you put them is a situation where their greatest (but no only – who knows what they will come up with) chance of survival is to work together.  The GM has no idea how it will turn out, nor does have a particular vested goal how it turns out other than to facilitate everyone having a good time as they try to sort it all out.  Just to make things even more interesting the GM makes sure he chooses the two players who personally have suffered losses from each other's side.

In other words, almost turning the Fortune mechanic into a Drama mechanic where the real success/fail determination is based on the GMs judgement on the dramatic suitability of your characters actions more than on the actual randomness of the dice rolls.

Does that sound reasonable or is my speculation way off base there.

I think you are reasonably close in your speculation.  Fortune is a Drama mechanic, but it still retains power to determine events.  It's a shifting scale.  Not all successes are altered, nor are all failures altered.  I believe that we as players do have more input into the outcome than is suggested in your speculation.

4th of July weekend 2003.  We are playing the Black Commandos heading out of Aria to strike the head off of Gondor.  One of the player characters is made as a spy, Bereth, and he takes off.  Several commandos are dispatched to capture him, but between incredible thinking and some good rolls he killed them both, though not without taking serious injury.  The leader of this expedition (a PC) has to decide how to handle this because time is crucial but warning would put this entire plan into jeopardy.  Another PC commando captain, Bodruth, says he will stay behind and clean up the problem.  The rest of the company takes off.  Bodruth is a Dunedain who has gone dark.  He grew bitter at what he saw as the weakness of his people.  He saw that they were nearly wiped out at Tharbad and didn't do one single thing in vengeance.  So he went rogue and joined those whom he at least saw a capable of making hard decisions and following in hard tasks.  Bereth too is a Dunedain.  So now we have Dunedain hunting Dunedain.  That the spy was outed was probably planned (or at least hints of presence were dropped that the players did in this case pick up on), but how it worked out was not.  After the company left Bodruth called out with his mind to his brethren Bereth who was hiding in the distance.  They go back and forth and eventually Bereth comes back.  (It should be noted that Bereth was badly wounded, so if they were to go toe to toe, he would be at a severe disadvantage.)

Bodruth goes on about how he hates weakness and all the pain that comes from it.  Bodruth drops hints that he is tired (he doesn't want to go on living - is my take), and that if Bereth wishes, he can come and "take him" (kill Bodruth).  Bereth comes to within inches of Bodruth trying to counsel him to be a good man again.  Bereth seems to suffer a spasm and falls to his knees in front of Bodruth the Dunedain Commando.  I think the player of Bereth was trying to play on Bodruth's sympathies and tried to awaken some long dead compassion.  The player Bereth was literally on his hands and knees infront of the player of Bodruth.  The player of Bodruth, Steve (yes east coast Steve), waited a beat, grabbed pen and dragged it across the player of Bereth's throat (Dave) stating flatly, "I cut his throat."

The table went silent for 5 or so seconds as everyone was shocked into stunned silence.  As Dave was too stunned to respond, and given the relative positions of the characters, and that Bodruth was a trained and disciplined killer, no die roll was needed.  As Dave was too stunned to respond, the GM took that to mean Bereth was too stunned to do anything either.  A 10th level, 10 year old plus, player character was murdered without a single roll.  The GM was not pushing any goal here at all.  He was a flat assed as much as anyone else by all this.  Bodruth then said I peel off his face and then I bury him.  This was important for the GM was going let Bodruth believe he had succeeded if he didn't check his work.  IOW if Bodruth left quickly afterward the GM was going to allow the possibility that something could happen whereby maybe the character might survive.  (He is found and tended to – unlikely but possible – he would have given the player a roll at least).  However as Bodruth flayed Bereth's face off and then buried him, there was no room for the GM to open possible doors.  It was done and over with to irrevocable finality.

That was a very big bomb that went off in the GM's shorts (that was not a conceived possible outcome).  For the rest of us it was quite staggering, but it wasn't a showstopper like the deaths of Elrohir and Elladan the following year.

So I would not say that fortune is solely in the employ of dramatics, not would I say the game does not go anywhere without the GM's consent.  

Who knows?  Maybe I've so bought into his Illusionism that I can't see it.  But I think matters are more of a mix, from what I can gather from his mentoring my GMing skills.  He views his job to frame events and keep things exciting, it's our job to try and drive events to our wills.  Where things will eventually end up is anybody's guess.

Hey Ron,

Those game references you made went straight over my head.  I've never heard of them before.

I'd be very interested to see what kinds of IIEE techniques accompany most dice rolls, in terms of how much "action" gets established simply through announcement alone, and how much is resolved by the roll itself, and how much is retconned from the result.

I don't know what the true percentages are, but I can tell all are employed to various degrees.  What I mean is that the percentage of one (announcement) might swell for a while then the percentage of another (roll resolution) might swell for a while.  I may just record a session and look at afterwards just to see what is really going on.

To focus on the 1 and 20 alone for a minute, it's worth pointing out that with ten players, if everyone's rolling a lot, that the chances of someone getting a 1 or a 20 leap up dramatically. Since 1's and 20's seem (as far as I can tell) to have effects on the scene rather than simply one character's action, there is apparently a shared-dice-pool effect occurring when a whole bunch of people are rolling.

One time we were playing with something like 15 players and sometime into the game the GM made a comment about how many 1's were coming up.  We told him that with 15 people rolling you are almost guaranteed that a 1 was going to come up with each roll.

Perhaps I could talk a little bit more about the nature of 1's and 20's.  Because most of the characters are woven into a larger web of world relationships, the effects of 1's and 20's seem have a larger effect than they normally would.  However there are times when the roll in and of itself is intended for a wider or narrower scope.  Finally 1's and 20's are also regarded as "fate" numbers.  The important thing to remember is that context has a huge bearing on the scope of the effects of the 1's or 20's.  Sometimes their effects are fairly trivial in that they are no more than a good solid personal success or a moderately spectacular failure i.e., bow string breaks, arrow fletching falls off and arrow goes wild, you misinterpret the tracks you are following, someone lies to you or gives you misinformation, or your perceptions are wrong, etc.  But if what you are doing is important then the effect of that 1 or 20 becomes much more magnified.  Thus if you fighting a desperate fight in the fall of the Dunedain at Tharbad, the effects of such strings of rolls are going to be much more profound than if you were sitting in your Hobbit hole talking to the Gaffer Gamgee.

However, 1's and 20's nearly always explode.  So if you start rolling a string of them then their effects start to widen out in scope to possibly include the party or the situation directly.  Again because of the web of relationships of the characters, rarely does a character do something whose effects don't ripple into the rest of the world in some way.

I don't know if I am making any sense or have only repeated what you had meant by your reference to Story Engine (I've never heard of that game before either.)

[Silmenume]

Hey Ralph,

One thing that caught my attention was your description of Gap Reversal and the Legolas trap.  Was that a situation where:
1) The GM had planned all along that Legolas was not actually captured and that it was a trap, but made sure that all the evidence that he gave to you sold you on the idea that Legolas was a prisoner and needed to be free.
2) As number 1 but there were actually ample opportunities for you to have learned or at least gotten suspicious about it being a trap before going in and you just missed them for whatever reasons.
3) The GM had originally planned that Legolas was, in fact, captured but then decided that this would be a good dramatic spot for a reversal and came up with the vision and trap idea on the fly.

Do you as players ever really know for sure which of these such reversals actually are?

To be honest, we are never certain.  The story that we are led to believe would be version 2.  Given the after action game debriefs, the GM has demonstrated many times that he frequently does give clues about upcoming events.  Plus we as players have caught on a number of times the clues that he has dropped.  Does this mean that he does it all the time?  Who knows for certain?  One event was telling for me.  I ran a game once where I did employ version 3 in completely different scenario.  I reported the circumstances to my GM afterwards and he replied that said while a GM can do that, when a GM is in the top of their game, he doesn't have to do version 3 but should stick to what you described as version 2.  Best answer that I can give.  I think he works very hard to sell version 1, but then does drop some clues that indicate that something else is afoot (version 2).

The second thing that comes to mind is wondering how much Illusion the GM is weaving into the game.

That's a good question, one that I am certain I will never learn the real answer to.  My feeling is that GM Force is employed, but mostly for the purpose of increasing tension, not to determine play direction or outcome – if that makes any sense.  I think I had this very question in mind when I posted my open rumination thread on fudging die rolls as actually moving to a Drama resolution mechanic from a fortune mechanic.  I'm not looking to bring that up here for discussion, but I mention it only to demonstrate that I had been thinking about similar issues that you have brought up here.

...gives the GM the ability to almost determine pass or fail as he desires simply by manipulating the TN and bonuses. ...

I cannot account for what goes on in his mind, but I have done some running using his game as the model.  My take is not some much <>desire<> for a specific resolution, but a desire for more intense player reactions.  This may seem a silly distinction, but the guiding principles are completely different.  Its not that I the GM want resolutions to turn out this specific way (to suit my needs or to wow the players with my skill), but I the GM want the players to remain fully engaged for as long and as intensely as possible.  This also means you must allow successes happen where momentum dictates and failures where momentum dictates.  

In one recounted scenario that was before my time, fairly early in the night's adventure a player who was playing a dwarf spotted the evil druid (the BBEG of this particular scenario) on top of a hill a fair distance away.  In an instant before the GM could get much more than the description of the druid out, the player reached to his belt, pulled out his imaginary throwing axe and hucked it at the GM calling out, "I throw my axe!"  Now this dwarf had strength that went beyond human maximum, so he was strong, but still this was pretty extreme.

GM – "Roll a twen-"
Player – "20!!"
GM – shaking his head for a moment.  "There's no possible way.  You need another 20."
Player – "20!"  Other players at the table start shouting encouragement!
GM – "Unless you hit him in the head..."
Player – rolls percentile dice – "96!"  (89-100 is a head shot)  Table is growing crazy!
GM – "You're not killing him unless you roll over half on your damage die."
Player – rolls a d6.  "5!"  Everyone starts high fiving and congratulating each other.

The GM just had the meat of that night's scenario taken out in moments.  In this case the target numbers were all out in the open with the successes clearly defined.  Lots of times the GM will have players reroll numbers saying beat that (the previous die roll's number).  Other times its "beat an 18, 19, or 20", or "don't roll a 1, 2, 3, or 4."  I understand what you are getting at Ralph, but I think which method is employed (force, clearly open numbers, or something in-between) depends on the drama of the moment and which method will likely create the greatest drama, not which will allow the events turn out the way the GM wants them to.

I'm not sure how to say this, but everything seems to be on a sliding scale, even which techniques are employed – if that makes any sense.

As much as we players don't know if our actions will be successful, which keeps us interested, I think the GM creates open-ended scenarios to keep himself interested.  In talks I've had with him he says that he likes to mix characters and situation together to see what we will do.  Then he weaves in the rest of the world into the basic idea so it all has relevance.  An example he gave once was having two bitter enemies, a Dunedain and a Black Commando, trapped together in a cave being pursued by orcs.  The GM probably suspects that they will cooperate for their mutual survival, and will certainly create events which encourage such a choice, but that choice is never pre-determined.  The GM will probably play up on the characters (rightful) distrust of each other, but give each one an important task that each cannot afford to leave incomplete.  So now stakes are high, each has a crucial task, they are both sworn as well as bitter personal enemies, and you put them is a situation where their greatest (but no only – who knows what they will come up with) chance of survival is to work together.  The GM has no idea how it will turn out, nor does have a particular vested goal how it turns out other than to facilitate everyone having a good time as they try to sort it all out.  Just to make things even more interesting the GM makes sure he chooses the two players who personally have suffered losses from each other's side.

In other words, almost turning the Fortune mechanic into a Drama mechanic where the real success/fail determination is based on the GMs judgement on the dramatic suitability of your characters actions more than on the actual randomness of the dice rolls.

Does that sound reasonable or is my speculation way off base there.

I think you are reasonably close in your speculation.  Fortune is a Drama mechanic, but it still retains power to determine events.  It's a shifting scale.  Not all successes are altered, nor are all failures altered.  I believe that we as players do have more input into the outcome than is suggested in your speculation.

4th of July weekend 2003.  We are playing the Black Commandos heading out of Aria to strike the head off of Gondor.  One of the player characters is made as a spy, Bereth, and he takes off.  Several commandos are dispatched to capture him, but between incredible thinking and some good rolls he killed them both, though not without taking serious injury.  The leader of this expedition (a PC) has to decide how to handle this because time is crucial but warning would put this entire plan into jeopardy.  Another PC commando captain, Bodruth, says he will stay behind and clean up the problem.  The rest of the company takes off.  Bodruth is a Dunedain who has gone dark.  He grew bitter at what he saw as the weakness of his people.  He saw that they were nearly wiped out at Tharbad and didn't do one single thing in vengeance.  So he went rogue and joined those whom he at least saw a capable of making hard decisions and following in hard tasks.  Bereth too is a Dunedain.  So now we have Dunedain hunting Dunedain.  That the spy was outed was probably planned (or at least hints of presence were dropped that the players did in this case pick up on), but how it worked out was not.  After the company left Bodruth called out with his mind to his brethren Bereth who was hiding in the distance.  They go back and forth and eventually Bereth comes back.  (It should be noted that Bereth was badly wounded, so if they were to go toe to toe, he would be at a severe disadvantage.)

Bodruth goes on about how he hates weakness and all the pain that comes from it.  Bodruth drops hints that he is tired (he doesn't want to go on living - is my take), and that if Bereth wishes, he can come and "take him" (kill Bodruth).  Bereth comes to within inches of Bodruth trying to counsel him to be a good man again.  Bereth seems to suffer a spasm and falls to his knees in front of Bodruth the Dunedain Commando.  I think the player of Bereth was trying to play on Bodruth's sympathies and tried to awaken some long dead compassion.  The player Bereth was literally on his hands and knees infront of the player of Bodruth.  The player of Bodruth, Steve (yes east coast Steve), waited a beat, grabbed pen and dragged it across the player of Bereth's throat (Dave) stating flatly, "I cut his throat."

The table went silent for 5 or so seconds as everyone was shocked into stunned silence.  As Dave was too stunned to respond, and given the relative positions of the characters, and that Bodruth was a trained and disciplined killer, no die roll was needed.  As Dave was too stunned to respond, the GM took that to mean Bereth was too stunned to do anything either.  A 10th level, 10 year old plus, player character was murdered without a single roll.  The GM was not pushing any goal here at all.  He was a flat assed as much as anyone else by all this.  Bodruth then said I peel off his face and then I bury him.  This was important for the GM was going let Bodruth believe he had succeeded if he didn't check his work.  IOW if Bodruth left quickly afterward the GM was going to allow the possibility that something could happen whereby maybe the character might survive.  (He is found and tended to – unlikely but possible – he would have given the player a roll at least).  However as Bodruth flayed Bereth's face off and then buried him, there was no room for the GM to open possible doors.  It was done and over with to irrevocable finality.

That was a very big bomb that went off in the GM's shorts (that was not a conceived possible outcome).  For the rest of us it was quite staggering, but it wasn't a showstopper like the deaths of Elrohir and Elladan the following year.

So I would not say that fortune is solely in the employ of dramatics, not would I say the game does not go anywhere without the GM's consent.  

Who knows?  Maybe I've so bought into his Illusionism that I can't see it.  But I think matters are more of a mix, from what I can gather from his mentoring my GMing skills.  He views his job to frame events and keep things exciting, it's our job to try and drive events to our wills.  Where things will eventually end up is anybody's guess.

Hey Ron,

Those game references you made went straight over my head.  I've never heard of them before.

I'd be very interested to see what kinds of IIEE techniques accompany most dice rolls, in terms of how much "action" gets established simply through announcement alone, and how much is resolved by the roll itself, and how much is retconned from the result.

I don't know what the true percentages are, but I can tell all are employed to various degrees.  What I mean is that the percentage of one (announcement) might swell for a while then the percentage of another (roll resolution) might swell for a while.  I may just record a session and look at afterwards just to see what is really going on.

To focus on the 1 and 20 alone for a minute, it's worth pointing out that with ten players, if everyone's rolling a lot, that the chances of someone getting a 1 or a 20 leap up dramatically. Since 1's and 20's seem (as far as I can tell) to have effects on the scene rather than simply one character's action, there is apparently a shared-dice-pool effect occurring when a whole bunch of people are rolling.

One time we were playing with something like 15 players and sometime into the game the GM made a comment about how many 1's were coming up.  We told him that with 15 people rolling you are almost guaranteed that a 1 was going to come up with each roll.

Perhaps I could talk a little bit more about the nature of 1's and 20's.  Because most of the characters are woven into a larger web of world relationships, the effects of 1's and 20's seem have a larger effect than they normally would.  However there are times when the roll in and of itself is intended for a wider or narrower scope.  Finally 1's and 20's are also regarded as "fate" numbers.  The important thing to remember is that context has a huge bearing on the scope of the effects of the 1's or 20's.  Sometimes their effects are fairly trivial in that they are no more than a good solid personal success or a moderately spectacular failure i.e., bow string breaks, arrow fletching falls off and arrow goes wild, you misinterpret the tracks you are following, someone lies to you or gives you misinformation, or your perceptions are wrong, etc.  But if what you are doing is important then the effect of that 1 or 20 becomes much more magnified.  Thus if you fighting a desperate fight in the fall of the Dunedain at Tharbad, the effects of such strings of rolls are going to be much more profound than if you were sitting in your Hobbit hole talking to the Gaffer Gamgee.

However, 1's and 20's nearly always explode.  So if you start rolling a string of them then their effects start to widen out in scope to possibly include the party or the situation directly.  Again because of the web of relationships of the characters, rarely does a character do something whose effects don't ripple into the rest of the world in some way.

I don't know if I am making any sense or have only repeated what you had meant by your reference to Story Engine (I've never heard of that game before either.)

[Silmenume]

Hey Walt,

You're welcome!

I did notice that you'd mentioned two nazgul having been killed. But I also recalled Gandalf saying something about nazgul never being fully destroyed as long as the One Ring existed. So I wasn't sure if that was a real West-favoring change to the pre-LoTR timeline or not, which is why I asked the more general question about such changes. (Which you've now answered more than adequately.)

Fair enough.  I think the that the other Nazgul could be slain was drawn from the prophecy regarding the Witch King.  In his proclamation he stated that he could not be slain by any man.  That was interpreted, in my guess, to mean that prophecy was limited to just the one Nazgul as he did not say "we."  This was then taken to mean the other could be slain, but that did not mean it would be easy or likely.  The two Nazgul that were "killed" we killed by Turandir with Gurthang, the most powerful sword ever forged in Middle Earth.  That explains why Sauron had such a stiffy for Turandir.  Because of the nature of the sword, and the nature of the prophecy, it made the possibility plausible.

Also, I did know what you meant when you said "drama affects die rolls." I was deliberately twisting those words in an ironic way. But I have, in fact, occasionally been in groups where the principle of "drama affects die rolls" in the way I twisted it to (that is, dramatic significance provides license for the roller to unilaterally and secretly overrule the actual roll) was accepted. (With players on the same Abashed Nar page agenda-wise, this can be a completely functional drama mechanism, since in most systems the player rolling is already the one with the most credibility to make the drama decision.)

Thanks for the clarification!  I think I have already explained our reasons and procedures in an earlier post, so I'll just continue on.

I'm beginning to see the outline here of a GM skillfully wielding a lot of Illusionist technique, including a lot of improvisation not (obviously) of setting but of situation (as in the Legolas rescue) and (NPC) character. For instance, I see minor NPCs turning out to be Black Commandos in disguise, and I think, what a useful tool to be able to pull out of your bag when improvising dramatic tension on the fly (as long as you don't overuse it) -- since there's no need to decide whether someone's a Black Commando in disguise or not until an opportune dramatic moment to attack arises.

I don't deny that he probably does use Illusionist techniques, but I don't think it is quite as frequent as is being suggested.  For example the Commando in disguise (I am assuming you mean the Fall of the Dunedain scenario) is entirely plausible given the circumstances and the way Commandos do operate (they are extremely cunning and very resourceful).  That is the key to remember, plausibility.  If player actions remove that plausibility then employing such actions is Force.  If plausibility remains open, then yes anything that is within that realm of that plausibility is possible.  And you are right that one does not wish to overuse that card.  For example one would not have a Nazgul disguised as an innocuous NPC for a number of reasons.  Its not really plausible given their nature.  Second their effects on those and the environment around them would be a quick, and no pun intended, dead give away.

However, I have taken a gander or two at his scenario prep sheets after games to see what goes on in that head of his.  Frequently it's nothing more than a list of the PC's, NPC's and wandering encounters (which can include NPC's, monsters and interesting or important environmental things) in the nearby area.  In his tutoring to me, he has indicated that it is important to motivate every important NPC in the area.  That means those in the scenario and those who are in the area.  It's not important that they are supposed to do X when the PC's bump into them, but rather that they do have goals and have them react to how they perceive the PC's impacting their goals and interests.  He does spend a fair amount of time prepping his scene framing and making sure that he isn't omitting details that we as players ought to have an opportunity to discover.

Let's go back to the Commando in disguise example.  It's not important that the GM plot out all their actions in advance, but that the GM think like how a Commando would think under the circumstances and react to the events accordingly.  In this case it was simply to continue his mission.  What appears to be labeled as Illusion is really just exploiting plausible possibilities.  Don't forget that he frequently does lay out clues to what is out there, so its not just sneaking something in under the radar.  He gives us chances to know that whatever we might face is "really" out there and not just "teleporting in".  Yes he is fluid and very, very quick on thinking feet, but everything must be plausible.

You're right though, I don't want this to degrade into "is not/is to Illusionism" either!

Hello Hans!

I'm wondering about the "PC-spits-in-a-dwarf's-face" moment.  You wrote that the GM said Without rolling or asking for a roll, the GM said "he splits you from top to bottom."  You then suggested that something could be done to avoid it; that the player could have worked within the structures of your group's play style to prevent it.

Did the DM's assertion that "he splits you from top to bottom" mean that that actually happened, no reactions, no take-backs?  Or did it mean "Unless you, the player, can react RIGHT NOW, this will actually happen"?

He meant the latter of the two.

Could the player in question have responded "Of course, I knew that would make him angry, so I'm ready for this.  I deflect his axe with my shield"?  or maybe "Another of my characters (player waves a character sheet in the air) screams 'Noooo!!!' and dives between us as the axe descends"?  or even just "I was afraid of this; I'm going to dive out of the way, but I'm pretty sure I can't make it in time - his axe would hit my arm instead."

In short, yes.  The answer would probably have been, "I dive out of the way!"  Your middle example probably would not fly unless that other character you pulled out was stated (or that it was plausible) to be in the area.  But then you would have to justify why this character would throw his life away for a complete stranger.  Such pulling-in-another-character-to-save-my-hide is typically a very poor choice.  Your best bet is to react quickly and if you are going to use something it is best to use something that is already stated to be around you.  You have a much greater chance of success.

(IIRC, in the "Seizing the battle standard" anecdote, the process went something like p:"I'm going into the fray to hold the line" - g:"if you do that, you will get killed" - p:"I don't care, I'm not letting it fall" - g:"Don't even talk to me unless you roll a 20".  Thus it would seem that players can, in their own ways, call for rolls on the hopes that fate or fortune might see them through.)

Am I anywhere near on target?

Absolutely.  Sometimes we'll petition (read – beg!) the GM for a die roll directly!

Woo Hoo!  I'm all caught up!  I'm gonna collapse now and put my hands and forearms into bowls of hot water!  Thanks everyone for your participation.  See you tomorrow!

[Valamir]

I understand what you are getting at Ralph, but I think which method is employed (force, clearly open numbers, or something in-between) depends on the drama of the moment and which method will likely create the greatest drama, not which will allow the events turn out the way the GM wants them to.

I don't see those as being different.  What the GM wants is[/is] what will create the greatest drama.  

It should be noted, however, that that is the GM's interpretation of the greatest drama; which fortuneately for you matches the players own interpretation.

Which is almost certainly why you you have such a low rate of new players sticking around.  Only those whose personal vision of what is dramatic and what is in the best interest of them as players to realize that drama would be able to hang with this style of play.

For myself, while some of your described moments seem very exciting to me, the reliance on GM fiat to decide when to roll, when a roll isn't necessary and when to make a player reroll when the GM doesn't like the first result (as in the Druid example) wouldn't sit well with me at all.  It strikes me as only being a couple steps away from making things up as he goes along, and even though he is obviously quite skilled at that, there's no way I'd be comfortable leaving those decisions in the hands of one person, no matter how skilled.

[Ben Lehman]

Hey, so I have a question.

Let's take the dwarf example.  The GM calls for the roll of a 20.  Afterwards, he calls for a 20 again.  The player makes it both times.  There have been several stories like this coming out.

Probability would have it that for every time this happens, 19 times the player rolls a 20, the GM demands another 20, and the player failes.  (actually, there are certain rolling methods that reduce this, and further most 20-sided dice are weighted, but that's neither here nor there.)

When this does happen (a twenty followed by a non-twenty), is there a sense of player entitlement?  In other words, are people upset at the wasted 20?  Is there pressure for the GM to provide some sort of compromise because "hey, he still rolled a twenty?"

I mean, I know that if I were at the table, there would be.

yrs--
--Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hi folks,

Hey, everyone, let's give Jay a rest, shall we? Posting and responding was an extraordinary amount of effort and, if I'm correct, quite a mental and emotional stretch on his part.

The reward really shouldn't be in number of posts to reply to, especially if Jay gets hit by trenchant questions by six people every time he logs in. I think it lies more in all of us taking a little time to reflect back on earlier Silmenume postings.

Jay, I strongly suggest that you will benefit greatly not only by enjoying this thread, but from branching out and taking a look at the Actual Play discussions going on simultaneously or recently. Perhaps what they are doing will strike you as socially or creatively interesting, at least for purposes of comparison, as your stuff has been for a number of others. Actual Play threads have a strong tendency to overlap and refer to one another in a highly productive way - even without posting being involved, although of course the more the better.

It also might be valuable to do a little reconaissance. It is fairly astonishing that you've been posting at this site for months and not be familiar with, say, The Pool. Another suggestion is to check out one of the most striking discussions we had during The Infamous Five, called Social Context. I'd be very interested in your answers to the basic questions I posed in the initial post of this thread. However, not now, but later, after the whole Actual Play concept (and the diversity we see in it) is more familiar to you.

I'm definitely not closing this thread, by the way. But it might be good to consider that it currently represents a pretty hard-core drain on Jay's time, and I certainly stand as responsible as anyone for slingin' a barrage of interrogation. Maybe some posts which aren't interrogations would do.

Best,
Ron

[ErrathofKosh]

Well, I have no questions for Jay.  What I would like to say is:  you've been holding out on us!  I'm starting a new campaign because of this thread.  I love Middle-Earth, the Silmarillion, and LOTR and I'm saturated with knowledge about the setting.  But, up til now, I'd never considered running a game in any other age save the Fourth Age.  I pretty much moved all the campaigns to the East a little ways and allowed a few elves into the campaign.  Why have I never put a campaign during the First or Second Ages? Or even the early Third?  Why?  

I'm sure that my GM style leans much more toward Nar and I certainly don't have my players have more than one or two characters, but the ideas you've presented have inspired new ideas.  The one similarity I see is that the system I use is derived from Rolemaster - in lieu of the d20, I'm using a basic percentile system.  Thank-you.  Thank-you.

Cheers
Jonathan

[Silmenume]

Hey Ron,

I just want to tie up some loose ends real quick, then I am going to back off a bit, relax, do some reading here, and in time answer the questions you posed in that thread from the days of yore!  Excellent advice!

Hey Hans,

I forgot to answer your second post.  Sorry.  I was starting to get a little punchy.

Another question I thought of right after I posted that -

If I were playing a stalwart, stubborn, fearsome-in-combat dwarf a la Gimli, Thorin, or Dain, and an NPC spat in my character's face... would I have free license to say "I split him from top to bottom", and have that be accepted at face value?  Or would the GM force a roll?

I think I answered this question without realizing in a post where I gave an example of a PC Black Commando killing a PC Dunedain with a single roll.  The best answer I can give you directly is, it all depends.  It is highly likely that the GM would call for a roll, but it is by no means certain.  Actually it is not uncommon during the play a given game where a number of conflicts may be resolved without a single roll.  Usually an attack sequence goes along the line of – [list=1][*]Roll d20 and add personal weapon skill bonus.  Add any other bonuses that might be in overt operation.  (Known magic weapon bonus, flanking or rear attack bonus, standing bonus due to some sort of blessing or roleplay (a player is so on fire the GM says add +1 to all your dice rolls for the remainder of the night))  DM at this point accounts for his own adjustments.[*]If a hit is indicated then the player is told to roll a percentile for location.
Finally damage is rolled and other bonuses and multipliers are added.[*]Effect of attack is related.[/list:o]Depending on circumstances steps 2 then 3 and then even 1 can be eliminated.

One player in the group constantly expounds on eliminating as many die rolls as possible by "physicalizing" his opening attacks as much as possible.

Generally speaking, the more descriptive, the more in character, the more of the elements of the world we bring into an act the less likely it will require a roll.  One time I was trying to hide from an NPC who was stalking the area, so I literally hid myself somewhere in the room.  The GM lost sight of me and after a while kinda forgot where I was.  Eventually I showed myself again and it was allowed that I had successfully avoided being seen.  IOW my hiding was effective and it didn't require a roll to establish that fact.  (I effectively petitioned NOT to roll!)  Most of the time it is unavoidable.  But that's what makes not having to roll so cool!  Not having the roll is not random, but usually based in part upon how effectively we can convince the GM of the effectiveness of our action (intention?).

Hey Ralph,

Which is almost certainly why you you have such a low rate of new players sticking around.

I should clarify.  Its not that new players don't stick around, it's that we feel that the vast majority don't have what it takes and we don't invite them back again.  The big problem we have is that we have players calling us all the time to find out when the next game and we are in that extremely awkward position of telling them no.

Given the extreme difficulty of finding female players, our data set is, I think too small to significant.  Typically, a guy is much more likely to go to a game full of strangers all by himself than a woman.  Then there is ratio of female to male players being so low.  But from what I have seen, the emotional impact of PC and NPC death is usually taken a bit more to heart than it is with male players.  This is not to say that male players are unaffected by the contents of the game, like I've said before we've had male players totally flat line in the game.  Its not that they get bored and look for other things to fill their interest, but rather they kinda disconnect.

Finally there have been cases where new players were a bit frustrated.  After coming the Forge I can look back and see that they were operating under a different Creative Agenda.  I can see with much clarity how our DFK resolution methods could be absolute anathema to the other CA's!

All that being said, I don't know if I recall new players commenting about how unhappy they were about the DFK resolution methods.  This does not mean it has not happened, but it does indicate if it did happen that the incidence was fairly low.  I would also like to say that I agree that how we hand DFK resolution could be a problem for people, such as yourself, and we sort of handle that in the blanket social contract announcement section of the game – "This game may not be for you.  Don't worry about it."  IOW if you are not enjoying yourself because of how we play our game, you are not hurting our feelings and we understand this is not your cup of tea.  There are no hard feelings because you don't enjoy what we like to do.  System does matter and not all systems are for all people.  It's all good!

Hey Ben!

Let's take the dwarf example.  The GM calls for the roll of a 20.  Afterwards, he calls for a 20 again.  The player makes it both times.  There have been several stories like this coming out.

Probability would have it that for every time this happens, 19 times the player rolls a 20, the GM demands another 20, and the player failes.  (actually, there are certain rolling methods that reduce this, and further most 20-sided dice are weighted, but that's neither here nor there.)

When this does happen (a twenty followed by a non-twenty), is there a sense of player entitlement?  In other words, are people upset at the wasted 20?  Is there pressure for the GM to provide some sort of compromise because "hey, he still rolled a twenty?"

Is there a sense of player entitlement after a twenty is followed by a non- twenty?  That's a very tricky question.  In nearly all circumstances where a second roll is called for, it is pretty much clear up front that what the player is attempting is virtually impossible or super, super difficult.  So the rolling of the first 20 signifies that the player created an opportunity where "none" existed before.  The player still needs to succeed now that he has a hope.

Is there pressure for the GM to provide some sort of compromise because "hey, he still rolled a twenty?"  I don't know if there is pressure, but the player might feel disappointed at having a momentous opportunity slip away.  However, while this is going on, all the rest of us are usually cheering on this player because such a success usually means that events are going to lighten up for all of us!  So there is a huge amount of social reward irrespective of the success of the second roll because that player opened up that tantalizing, exciting possibility.  Disappointment is as much a part of the game as success.  You can't have success without failure as a contrast.  Nevertheless the player typically is compensated in some way, because 20's are always good.  Frex – he might get checks in his secondary skill, Throwing Objects.  Maybe the Druid, had the player rolled a follow up 19 instead of a 20, would have beat a hasty retreat because, "You know... having an axe go whistling by your ear is not something I want to experience again anytime soon."

I don't know if I answered your question in an effective manner or not.  I can only hope that I have.

Hey Jonathan!

I am both flattered and excited about your future game possibilities!

I know that you are busy, but we are both in Southern California and if you wish to join us sometime please let me know.

Hey Ron,

I am about to sign off here, but I did want to bring something up here real quick that I didn't really get a chance to go over that is fairly important.  I just wanted to add it to the mix before the rest of the thread continues.

For all the excitement and tension that is enjoyed and seeing the NPC's of the world come to life, one of the many things that draws up to the game is that we as players face similar types of questions that the explored in the book.  While we have made additions to the canon of the Lord of the Rings, many of the types of conundrums that were faced by the characters in the books are the very same ones we face in the game.  Making vital decisions quickly on imperfect information.  Aragorn deciding to rescue the Hobbits rather than going after Frodo and Sam.  Gandalf deciding which way to go in Moria, or deciding that letting Gollum live would be important.  Or the riders of Rohan deciding to aid Aragorn by giving him horse and passage when they didn't know who he was and that doing so under those circumstances was very risky.  Faramir letting Frodo and Sam and Gollum go despite his orders to the contrary.  Eowyn standing over her fallen family the King of Rohan, facing certain death from the Nazgul, with no hope of surviving but standing her ground nonetheless out of sheer love and loyalty.  Merry out of his mind with terror and hopeless despair (from the effects of the Nazgul) who would have rather fled in blind terror if he could, instead out of love (of friend) and loyalty to Eowyn went against every desire in his body and instead tried to bring her aid in her hopeless stand.  The last desperate stand at Helm's deep.  Etc.

These are all part of the process as much as anything else we do.  This is how Middle Earth is made real to us.  We walk a mile, as it were, in the shoes of the characters in the books by facing the same types (though different in the particulars) of difficult moments as the characters in the book face.

Thank you everyone.  I have had a wonderful time reading and answering your questions!

edited to add a close quote and an apostrophe.

[Ben Lehman]

I don't know if I answered your question in an effective manner or not. I can only hope that I have.

BL>  Crystal clear.  When telling these stories, I know how easy it is the get hung up on the "hugely unlikely success" stories.  You gave me a good idea of what things are like when that doesn't happen.  Which is what I was fishing for, I think.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  Tangentially, I'm now extra-interested in what you think of the Polaris draft I sent you.  I have this feeling that it won't be the game for you, but I have no clue what you'll think of which parts.

[LordSmerf]

I am not really presenting a question here, but i do have a comment that i think is quite relevant.  The most interesting thing to me is that this game reached some "critical mass" (or something) of players such that they were able to turn away new players without kililing the game.  Additionally, and this is the key i believe, they had the wisdom to do it.

My own, more limited, experience with this sort of thing (especially in light of this thread) leads me to believe that without a rigorous screening process the game will wither and die.  I am coming to believe that i am responsible for that happening locally.  The group i am with currently started out as a small group who played pretty much every week.  They played a homebrewed system in a homebrewed setting for about eight or nine years prior to my arrival.  In that time they had (as far as i can determine) few additions to the group.  I was introduced, and after that i do not believe we got more than two or three sessions with the same characters before things just fell apart.

Since then two of the key players have moved on from Role Playing in general, pursuing other interests (more power to them), and the remaining players have been drawn rather strongly to Narrativist play.  I am not sure, but i suspect that if i had not been introduced to the dynamics that play would continue to this day.

One other thing i wanted to comment on, mainly because it is so alien to my own personal experience, is that Jay mentioned that the average play session lasts around 12 hours.  I was somewhat taken aback at the idea...  What kind of experience do other people have with such "marathon" play?

Thomas

[ffilz]

What kind of experience do other people have with such "marathon" play?

I'm going to start a new thread for this.

Frank