What drove me here, and where I'm going

[Rampage]

Hi everybody, I thought of writing a brief introductory post on why I ended up here for, maybe, your amusement. I'll withhold names of the guilty and really specific examples to avoid the chance of hurting someone whose only fault is, IMO, being spoiled from all those acquired bad habits through the years.

I minmaxed for about 7 years, hiccup of a decade, and playing again now for 2 or 3 months on a weekly basis. A friend is from the "old days" and now DMs, and there are other 4 newbies for a total of 6. We play BRP games (no xp for killing stuff, typical skill tables). So how are things going? I'll let you decide.

Starting to play again was an amusing experience; when creating the character, I was mildly annoyed at having to go to the shopping list thing, on which for some weird reason I had no interest. On the second session, the item / money management started to get really annoying, and at the same time I noticed the DM attempting to "economically erode" us as much as he could. I was expecting that at any moment he'd say that our shoes were worn off after all that walking, and that we must buy new ones. No, grabbing the shoes of fallen foes wouldn't be possible... a thunderbolt from the sky might fall on you.

I'm fairly sure his idea of "motivating" us to go through the adventure is that if we are poor we have to adventure. Given my character's abilities I can figure out dozens of ways to make money, but I know they are going to be automatically shot down ("The 100 elite troopers happened to be passing by" and so on), or there's always a NPC around to undercut my services. Fortunately my character isn't interested in money; even if it was, it'd get "eroded" away, so no point. And even if it didn't get eroded, so what. You can't use it to purchase the interesting stuff in the game because it doesn't fit the idea of the DM so he doesn't give you the opportunity. So no room on developing the character that way either. The other players just don't even try (or care) about this.

It was on the second or third session when I consciously realized I didn't give a flying fuck about the experience I got, and that the only reason I wanted it was so that I could play the character as I thought it should be played without being obstructed by those pesky percentages. And even then, I find myself rolling for things I've done a zillion times "just to see if you fail" (and no, if you fail, you never ever notice you did).

Another milestone was when I really got sick of the railroading, I think around the fifth session. No matter what you do, you always have to follow the written story. No other way of solving the situation than what the DM thinks should happen / would like to happen, even logic and common knowledge points to something else that could be done. For your information, humans can now prologedly breath through abundant smoke in closed rooms quite fine. You can force people with no water to fast march with full armor for 48h straight, but they won't suffer any penalties whatsoever in the following battle. And when you decide to kidnap a key figure to stop the evil guy plot, he suddenly stops going to the market. Because the adventure just didn't say anything about that and it would preclude the "final battle speech". "You gotta do what I think you should be doing or I will punish or ignore you".

More than once I've very vocally expressed my concerns about all this, as well as the "why am I here" / "doing this" questions for my character, given we usually don't even get any economic reward. The usual answer is that it is to gain experience. Very unsatisfactory. I did notice the same in one of the newbie players, but he doesn't argue.. just does silly things cause he doesn't give a shit about his character (and probably knows the DM won't kill anyone if they follow the adventure..).

So one of the newbies started to DM too, and while when we talked he agreed with me that he didn't like what I've posted above, he's doing exactly the same in his games, including the "follow my thoughts or be punished". To my frustration. Not to mention its D20, and hey, I suddenly realized XP accounting was quite worthless (after all, you can figure out how many encounters on average it'll take you to level), made games very arcadey (kill the bad guys, if there's some kind of dilema, kill the good guys too and loot them, and you win), and I think I spotted the intention of the experienced player. Since he plays to win, he must "best" the other players. Given XP is shared, the best he can do I remain alive while others die and start with lower XP than him.. so by careful playing he will facilitate the others dying.

In a way I do feel responsible for what the new guy is doing; after all he's had no other model to follow. I do think I'd do it better these days... I always liked the idea of creating some sort of what these last two days I've found was a r-map, and a basic template of events that would happen if the players don't interfer somehow, and let 'em drive. I'm quite wary of DMing, tho. By now you can imagine the chaos that the experienced player (or should I say powergaming munchkin) will wreak, and how everyone will just sit around thinking in what to slay because they are bored out of their skull (can you guess why?).

So I was looking around shaking my head at all the games I saw around (my, we are D20-infested), and found The Forge and Sorcerer, which I'm going to probably try. From what I've read I think it'll resist pretty well the powergaming, as well as explicitly giving everyone a starting voice (kickers) without having some player barking orders to the rest, and hopefully drive them to do wild things beyond rolling dice and getting confused at the skill tables in their character sheets (yes, they get lost in the usual 20-30 items); I'm not sure how I'll handle 5 players, tho, as it seems that there'd be plenty of waiting from one player to another. I haven't received the rules yet, tho, so we'll see.

[Ricky Donato]

Hi, Rampage, let me begin by welcoming you to the Forge. Do you have a real name that we can address you by? It's standard etiquette here.

Let me ask you: what is your goal in posting this? Did you just want to vent, or do you have a more specific goal?

[Rampage]

Hi Ricky, thank you for the welcome. I merely posted this as an introduction. As well, I suspect I will be posting/asking about our Sorcerer future game and how to carry it successfully, so it's always good to give people some background.

[Callan S.]

Hi Rampage (makes me think of the decepticon transformer!), welcome to the forge!

I've got a question - an introduction to it first: If you sat down to a session of Diablo, you'd be sitting down to a session of killing monsters, taking loot which gives you the edge on killing bigger monsters (who have bigger loot). You can see the reward cycle repeating and sure enough, it's addictive.

In terms of you being unsatisfied as a player, could you describe a reward cycle in a table top game that would satisfy you? Some sequence of activities (doesn't even have to involve killing or physical combat) that repeats. I can see your frustration, but at the same time do you have any particular play pattern/reward cycle in mind when you come to play? Certainly in my own gaming career, I think in almost all games I've played I've turned up with no real pattern in mind.

[Rampage]

In terms of you being unsatisfied as a player, could you describe a reward cycle in a table top game that would satisfy you? Some sequence of activities (doesn't even have to involve killing or physical combat) that repeats. I can see your frustration, but at the same time do you have any particular play pattern/reward cycle in mind when you come to play? Certainly in my own gaming career, I think in almost all games I've played I've turned up with no real pattern in mind.

I'm not really sure what type of games you are referring to as table top games...

As far as I'm able to discern in general I have no longer have any reward cycle in mind. Or maybe I have a distaste for rewards, because I think that it makes people focus on the reward and the underlying mechanisms that maximize it, and not the game or the gaming experience. The more I think about experience points and similar abstractions, the more I think either they are seriously broken, or I haven't been conscious of what their real purpose is (transforming a non-zero sum game into a zero sum one):

Lets take, say, something Diabloish. As you level, the world around you rises so challenge is stays more or less constant. So why would you want to level? And if you want the cool stuff, why not just start at level 25? The world around you is leveled accordingly so it won't make a difference you being level 1 or 25. Perhaps levels should come in negatives (-20, -19...) and once you get to 0 you can grab the GM by the lapels and claim victory over him. No wonder why GMs get defensive over the most ridiculous things.

So to answer your question, it would be one where the game wouldn't be subverted by its existence, and that it would somehow reward separately the character and the player.

BTW, Diablo? Omega! :)

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Rampage,

Could you describe a few game session where you did have a good time?

Name the game you were playing. Mention any changes to the rules you made to make it right for your group. Talk about what the social situation was like between you and your fellow players. Talk about what happened to make you go, "Yes! I like RPGs!"

Thanks,

Christopher

[Rampage]

What made me like RPGs, Christopher? Here are some points of time:

I found an information coupon that looked intriguing on some magazine, mailed it, got back some FASA brochures, went to the shop, bought the Traveller guide, read it and thought I liked this game thing.. So I convinced a classmate to try, and man, we were hooked. I remember the excitement we both had when the game was over, he couldn't wait to show the game to another friend. I liked those days, they were days without expectations, blind leading the blind, where it was easy to just engage a bit of your imagination through casual play.. being able to do things you saw on movies, create cool stories and stuff like that.

Another "I like RPGs" moment was in CoC with a bunch of friends (6, 7?). I was playing, and I remember something along "You all arrive to the manor at night. It's an old victoriain building." and that we proceeded to go inside. But somehow I blocked the GM and general chatter ("i go for a listen roll", "I take out my arcane symbol"), and all I could do was imagine at my character standing in front of the house, a very vivid picture of everything around in my head, and the character slowly rising his gaze and going Ooooh. Moon, fog and everything. ;)

I always liked the "color" that you can get in CoC.. the world, ambience.. I would had liked that the rules (or the GM maybe) weren't so hellbent on "use magic and you go lala/get devoured, except bad invokers", and would have had more a tradeoffish nature, maybe in a way that affected more the, say, concept of the character than the stats of the character. Unfortunately, if you have something like sacrificing a family member as a prerequisite for some invocation, I know my fellow players... I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to start the "family house" where family members were invited to come (and to forcefully reside thereafter) and you can guess what would happen there... "Cool! So if we have 3 females we can do at least 3 invocations every 9 months!". In fact something similar happened. Yes, I realize that hey, maybe some NPCs could now be the good guys trying to figure out what was going in that house... but at that point all you would get would be "family houses" and evil PCs... just not what I wanted to promote.

Another nice moment I specially liked was when playing Stormbringer with more or less the same group as above. Our party was quite chaos oriented, some of us having made alliances with some chaos deity. In the game eventually we found ourselves following some kind of law or balance agent that was guiding us through a dangerous plane, from which there was only one exit and only one safe path to that exit. My character, quite pretty well skilled at that point, was very cranky about having to follow this guy. So we were going through the path in some kind of ridge.. and suddenly a pair of semi-translucent winged creatures flew out of nowhere, grabbed a (I presume) cannon fodder NPC and threw him down to the sharp rocks below. As the agent pointed to a group of creatures closing fast to us, he prompted us to pray/invoke help from his deity as it was the only hope we had. I'm not really sure if we had already invoked the help of our diety already, or it wasn't effectual.. at any rate, we couldn't. At any rate, we had like a 10% of success each for the agent's deity, so given we had sort of been railroaded to this situation, it was pretty much obvious it would somehow succeed. And it did, as the others prayed to the deity and got transported out of the ridge. However my character thought, fuck, I'm not using the help of that stinking deity even if it means death! "You are crazy, you are going to die!", "GM: You know thats automatic death, right? Come on, try the deity roll" and similar all around the table. My character ended up impaled on the rocks, everyone got silent for a moment, and I was just happy. I've done something similar other two times. I'm not sure if what satisfies me is the dramatic beauty of the end of the character, or that I'm happy of playing the character to its ultimate consequences instead of just playing survival, but the deaths were far more satisfying than anything else.

As for changing rules, we usually didn't change them (we did ignore AD&Ds armor vs weapon type table) and, nowadays, I stick to the rules in any game by the letter and actively promote doing so. I don't like how people start to casually change one rule so, "hey, look, it benefits you and everyone and besides its stupid", and then they proceed to take that as a precedent for further bending which, then, uniquely benefits them.

... hope yer still awake :)

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Rampage,

First, still awake. I really liked the posts.

Second, I just want to say that the bit from the Elric! game was rich in pure awesomeness.

I think you're going to really like Sorcerer. I know I do.

And may I direct your attention to a veritable host of links for Sorcerer Actual Play over on the Adept Press site. http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com/brochure.php/actualplay.html

And if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll find a series of four threads where Ron goes through a sample prep phase for a Sorcerer with several members at this site. Since you'll be thinking about that that soon, it might be of interest.

Glad you're here. I think you're going to like it.

Christopher

[Callan S.]

Good actual play account, Rampage! Thanks. :)

I think trying sorcerer will be fruitful. But I'd like to ask about your minmaxing for seven years. You sound pretty derogitory about what you did...could you give some AP examples of it? I'll lead things a bit and say I'll be looking to see if the 'minmaxed' rules involved any rules for interacting with other players, rather than, say, just collect stuff, collect stuff, collect stuff.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Ok, I must ask.

However my character thought, fuck, I'm not using the help of that stinking deity even if it means death! "You are crazy, you are going to die!", "GM: You know thats automatic death, right? Come on, try the deity roll" and similar all around the table. My character ended up impaled on the rocks, everyone got silent for a moment, and I was just happy.

Is it possible it gave you satisfaction not as much because of the consequences or the drama, but because you simply stood against the railroady GM and made your point?

I for example often had some "suicidal urges" in such heavily railroaded sessions, and I did push things past "the ultimate threat" of character's death at least two times (although it would have more sense to simply leave the game, probably). Also, I remember my friend's account from a D&D campaign that I left due to heavy railroading - he openly admitted to trying to kill his character in frustration, only to get out of it (and got unwillingly saved by Deus ex Machina).

[Rampage]

I think trying sorcerer will be fruitful. But I'd like to ask about your minmaxing for seven years. You sound pretty derogitory about what you did...could you give some AP examples of it? I'll lead things a bit and say I'll be looking to see if the 'minmaxed' rules involved any rules for interacting with other players, rather than, say, just collect stuff, collect stuff, collect stuff.

No derogatory meaning implied and no clear instance springs to mind, maybe because it was just a "way of life".

Besides the usual collecting of stuff and balancing stats and skills, I pretty knew the rules to the letter... so that meant carrying the apparently most useless items just in case this particular creature appeared, or so that they could combined in this way to create this exit route if needed, etc. I never acted on the offensive against other players. On the occasions I got attacked by them (Somehow people get annoyed if you decide that going through really narrow straight long tunnel leading to an awaken dragon lair is suicidal, they go on, and then die in two rounds) I'd begin "pulling out" modifiers from the rules book that I normally wouldn't employ because its a pain in the ass to check in the books that the modifier does exist. I'd sneak out of combat and then burn their castle or sink their merchant fleet or something similar.

[Rampage]

Is it possible it gave you satisfaction not as much because of the consequences or the drama, but because you simply stood against the railroady GM and made your point?

Hrm. Hadn't though of it that way. I'd say that this was not the case. The characters had been quite fanatical in whatever aspect was involved in their deaths for a substantial amount of time, and I have only started to resent railroading recently. I guess that railroading to me meant that hey, we are in the Good Path, and there's experience and goodies to be found at the end of it. Hard to be frustrated at it when it gives you a fast route to exactly what you want.

[Callan S.]

No derogatory meaning implied and no clear instance springs to mind, maybe because it was just a "way of life".

Besides the usual collecting of stuff and balancing stats and skills, I pretty knew the rules to the letter... so that meant carrying the apparently most useless items just in case this particular creature appeared, or so that they could combined in this way to create this exit route if needed, etc. I never acted on the offensive against other players. On the occasions I got attacked by them (Somehow people get annoyed if you decide that going through really narrow straight long tunnel leading to an awaken dragon lair is suicidal, they go on, and then die in two rounds) I'd begin "pulling out" modifiers from the rules book that I normally wouldn't employ because its a pain in the ass to check in the books that the modifier does exist. I'd sneak out of combat and then burn their castle or sink their merchant fleet or something similar.

Ahh, I think that answers my question. I was looking for where the rules meant you engaged other players, and I didn't just mean in a head to head way. For example, a clerics healing spells in D&D are a very simple way of interacting with other players. In a more complex game, one character might have a 'hope' score, another in 'find a way' and you could have a very min maxy system that lets them combine statistically. I think you haven't really experienced that sort of player interaction through hard stat use and will be losing the opportunity when you throw min maxing out the window and go freeform. Well, I've said my bit on that, thanks for listening! :)