The Not-As-Angry Pinball

[JamesDJIII]

This is a response to the last post in:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5962&highlight=

Ron:

I would have to say that the pain experience in "not" versus "bad" is a personal one, and that for myself, it's like sex. And "bad" is by far better than "none."

Your mileage may vary.

The game I mentioned in that thread ground to a halt. No one did anything rash.

No. That's a sort of a lie.

Let me explain.

<flashback visual SFX>

On the last night we played, a new player had just joined our group (this was his second time with us). Another player was not there, and so, when it came time for us to play, I offered to play his PC according to some guidelines that he mentioned earlier. I also felt comfortable that what I was about to do was certainly in line with his wishes, and he is reading this, he is nodding his head right now.

I hope.

Anyways, the new player, let's call him Kris, and myself proceed to throw all caution to the wind. We confront an important NPC and about 10 seconds into his self-important monologue we attack. I tried my best to kill this NPC but only managed a hideous, nigh-mortal wounding. Stuff starts to burn. Guests panic. A monastary is in ashes. And so is the GM's carefully prepared notes, I'm sure.

I didn't feel bad about this until later. I think these actions helped Kris get booted from the game group (that's a whole 'nother thread). But what I couldn't work out was why the GM didn't just go with it an make the players deal with the consequences of this bloody rampage?

As I said, the game is on hiatus. I think we pushed the GM into realizing that something was wrong, and that the implicit reason was that we were just "tired" of it and it need a break and it'd be all better.

I still haven't  figured out if I like my original PC enough to continue with it and that game. It's not a terrible game - it has it's highlight for sure. The GM is a good friend of mine. One day I'll need to st down and discuss my changing tastes in RPG priorities and see where that goes.

Thanks, and good night.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi James,

I'm glad you followed up on this, although now that I think about it, I'd like to know more about the system being used and a bit more about the in-game content.

I'm not sure, given your post, whether you want this continue this discussion at all, so let me know. For now, I'll assume yes, and present a not-very-organized set of free associations. Make of'em what you will.

1. Dav told me that in playing Obsidian with a GM whose "NPC hires you and then betrays you after you survive the mission" plots were way past the point of Grindingly Obvious, his character would simply shoot the key NPC on sight as soon as he showed up. Always. Usually in the first ten minutes of play.

2. "We're separating for a little while to see how the relationship goes ..." "I'm taking off a couple of semesters, you know, to see how I feel about my major ..." "I don't know, maybe a few days off will help ..."

Phrases like these almost always have one outcome, or rather, they're symptomatic of a process that almost always has one outcome. Going with the Silly Putty theory of human relationships, I'm kind of a "snap it off clean" type rather than a "long stringy clingy strands" type. A mileage issue, certainly.

3. James, you didn't really answer my question in last post of the thread you linked to. I don't want to pressure you to answer if you don't want to, but if you do want to, then I'm interested.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

I was in the original thread--so I'll follow up here:

I see you've only posted in Actual Play. Have you read the GNS articles and essays? Do you read the other fora here?

-Marco

[JamesDJIII]

Ron: did you mean about a reason to play?
Marco: No, I'm only interested in Actual Play.

No, I take that back. There was one post about "Art Deco Melodrama" that I came across. In Adept Press I think. Fan-tas-tic. Amazing.

What I want most of all is a big, stupendous book with as many of those sort of thread crammed into to, over and over, for as many RPG styles and games and genre's. I loved seeing "under the hood." It was like watching a chef make a dish you love but could never figure out how to beat the eggs or just when to add the salt.

Sure, I make my own pancakes, but I learn a lot when I can observe and question the methods for mixing a cake batter.

The rest of the forums are so much rhetoric. "I say X." "X is wrong." "No it isn't." "Yes it is." Zzzzzzz.

No offense to the forum hosts,  but I pretty much draw my own conclusions about things - but what I don't have is the knowledge and experience and methods from other GMs. I want and desire the grist of their processes, to sift through, digest, and then make into my own.

[JamesDJIII]

Ron (from yon distant past): Give me a role-playing, obby-enjoyment, actual-play-experience reason that leads you to continue to play with this group.

Game: Champions
Time: About a year and a half ago.
Situation: I told the GM (Lt. Rules-Lawyer, btw) I wanted to play a PC that was a bad guy. But the sort of bad guy that is acting like a good guy. He talks the talk. He smiles, he talks to the media. He speaks about Democracy and Applie Pie and the importance of eating your vegatables. That was Captain Talent, a sort of beefed-up Rambo with disturbed wiring.

If it's permitted and people are interested I'll post the glorious history of the evil Captain. But, the GM of this game sort of misread my intentions and forced my evil shannigans to the front in about 4 games. When the other PC's realized what I had done (or was planning to do) one of them leaned over and said "We're going to kill you."

I said, "Ha! Captain Talent is America's HERO! You can't kill him!"

The other player laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. "No! I said we're going to kill YOU!"

So I did it! I engineered a non-"BobbyG" moment! AS A PLAYER! YES! I entertained my friends!  MUWAHAHAHA!

Now, just to be clear I told the GM that as I understood it, Champions being a comic-book genre, I expected Captain Talent to be caught. I gave the GM a detailed backstory, full of hooks and clues and evidence that was "almost" too buried. Almost. I figured someone was going to be good enough to stumble acroos some of it and eventually put 2 and 2 together and then the Captain would start to hustle to complete his fiendish plans (become a US Senator ).

That was it. That was the best moment. I guess I've tried to get back to that high ever since.  I've run games for this group too. Some of it was old-school GURPS, some of it Sorcerer and a lot fo stuff in betweeen (like "Tribes" by SJG). I'm not sure where my preferences are now, but I think they lie somewhere in Narrativism, but I'm not sure. Maybe one day someone can watch me GM and they can sort it all out.

James

[JamesDJIII]

Ron,

Ok one more thing.

The game that was the backdrop for the previous thread was for a HERO game set in Middle Earth.

Amusingly, the GM kept pumping out proopoganda about these evil elves who were "not truly evil," even though said elves liked to construct barrier walls of living tissue from their own guardsmen and plot assasinations...