Preperation and Annoying Friends' Campaigns...

[Eric J.]

Just to add...

*Charly, I'm not one of your best friends?  );.

* One of the main reasons that I'm anylizing both sides is because I'm expecting GM vs. GM conflict with player needs.

* I've inadvertantly been misleading every one.  One aspect is that I've not allowed Cody to play in my campaign.  This is because of conflicting priorities in goals, and the fact that Cody has a seperate gaming group, something that none of my other group members has.  With all of the talk of friends don't have to roleplay together, I decided to try it out.  Cody wants to play, but the premise would destroy any hope of functional play.
Cody invited me to play in his campaign, but after seeing the linearity of character generation, and of the dissfunctional play in general I decided not to.  

*Charly, I don't think that Cody is insane!  Stop saying insane! You're making ME insane!  Cody doesn't harbor any dissalusions that what he is doing is functional, nor does he think himself more diserving of players.  The only criticicm that I place upon his attitude with GM-player relationships is that he minimilizes the importance of players.  (Much like how he treated your character when you decided to give up.)

[quozl]

O.K., I'm going to give advice and here's the disclaimer.  It may not be good advice or even close to accurately assessing the situation since I'm only reading what you wrote and guessing.  You did say you wanted to face the truth so here it is, bluntly:

I think you might be a control freak.

I think you might be so much of one that it isn't fun to be around you when you assume command.

I don't think your GMing is not as good as Cody's.  In fact, I think they might be settling for Cody while you take time to cool off.

Do it.  Cool off the control freak tendencies.  Mellow out.

Then tell them.  Tell them you might've been a little too controlling and you're willing to try something new.  Ask them what they want to do in a campaign and then give it to them.  

I really hope this doesn't sound too harsh.  I hope it helps.

[Alan]

Hi all,

Quozl: "Control Freak" only invites an angry response.  Can you be more specific?  I'm not sure there's enough evidence, because Pyron really hasn't given much detail about his own behavior.  Also, his report may be colored by the level of his feelings on the subject and not really reflect the outside situation.  

Pyron: I know you've posted some information (You can only play on Friday; you're keeping Cody out of your game) but key things seem to be missing - in particular, your own desires and objectives.  

I think the answers to Roy and Ron's questions would really help us help you.   Can you address them in a few sentences?  Maybe take some time to compose answers before posting?  

Roy2) What do you (Pyron and Scratchware) want out of your roleplaying sessions?   [What elements have to be present for you to have fun?]

Roy3) Have you asked the other players what they enjoy? What do they want out of your roleplaying sessions?   [What elements have to be present for others to have fun?]

Roy1) Why is it important that you play with Cody and the players that seem to be enjoying his style of play?  

Ron) Why does it matter whether [Cody]'s GMing at all, or how much people enjoy it?

[Sage of Shadowdale]

Hello, everyone. I'm Anthony, and supposedly a good role-player. Oy... where to start? This is going to be fairly difficult to explain, but I'll try.

First of all, Eric's campaigns are usually great. This last Friday, I GMed a Planescape session (my favorite campaign setting BTW, for many reasons, but I hate D&D overall,) because we weren't expecting one of our players (Jesse) to be around who was necessary for Eric's Star Wars campaign to continue. Later, he came, but we were already engaged in Planescape, so we stuck with it. For various reasons it took a while to get going, (character creation took until 1:00 A.M.) but we played until 5:00. This does have a point, which I will get to, though I would like advice from my players for my Planescaping. (Not on the Forge, though, as it wouldn't be relevant to be posted here.) The point of that paragraph is that I do like and want to play Eric's campaigns, but usually something interferes.

Eric, I will attempt to explain my reasoning for still continuing MechWarrior with Cody. First of all, it's fun. While not as much of a role-playing challenge, it provides more action than your campaigns usually do. Not necessarily combat (though it is a major part, being BattleTech,) but activity and action. My character is the leader of a mercenary group, and I find it to be a rather interesting role. Jesse is learning the universe through the books, so he wants to try it in an interactive format, and Avery plays for the same reason he plays D&D, it's simply the style of role-playing he likes. We do have a great deal of control over our actions, Eric, but at the end of this session it appears we are in deep trouble. Big deal, it happens all the time. We'll either get out of it or we won't. The Clans have a very interesting culture.

BTW, "stravag" is actually Russian, I believe, and means "free birth," used by the Clans as a great insult. Ask Cody for more info. The Country music works for the setting, so I accept it, but the occasional Rap Cody uses for battles is quickly complained against.

Cody can be disruptive to campaigns of Eric's style, but that does have a lot to do with the conflict between the styles themselves, and not necessarily any intentional behavior upon Cody's part.

The truth is that I like both styles. I was a computer adventure gamer from age six, so the analytical style appeals to me, but Cody's more... "active" style also is simply great fun. My choice simply depends on the situation with everyone else. I will play anything put in front of me with few exceptions, and I will play to fit the setting. Also, Eric knows little about our MechWarriors' more recent adventures, and even through telling him is not the same as experiencing all of the session by being there. I am also probably the most "neutral good" person you could ever find, so I also like to include people in some manner, so I play everything.

I hope that explains something, and for Eric and Charly, please give me your ideas about Planescape, I do know some of my problems, but they are for a different topic entirely. If anyone needs further information, please ask.

[Roy]

Hey, Anthony!  Thanks for your response.  I was just about to give up on the thread!

The more I read on this, the more I believe it's a case of GMs with differing styles that are competing for the same group of players.

I would suggest that Cody and Eric just take turns running games on alternating weeks so the players aren't forced to choose GMs.

Eric, if you feel Cody is disrupting your group, take him out for a bite to eat and talk about it.

Good luck with your gaming.  And if there's something more specific we can do to help, let us know.

Roy

[Eric J.]

Well, I've put off making a response to this thread long enough.  Anthony, you actually posted on the Forge.  Good job, and I'm sorry you were that board :).  (Sorry it's an inside thing.)  

Well, you say that Cody's campaigns are more "active."  I can accept this, but cannot understand it.  This is exactly the thing that I want you to tell me when I ask you how the session went.  I just want to know how so.   It seems to me that more conflict happened in my session than in any of the sessions that you described with Cody.  The first session you went through a pre-aranged combat encounter, and another one was almost entirelley dominated by a single "beer brawl."  I'm not arguing against you.  I'm simply trying to illistrate how my view and your view could potentially differenciate.

Jesse's response to the last questions was "I don't know." BTW.  I would be interesting to your response, Anthony, and your response Charly.  Please post again.

[Sage of Shadowdale]

Note: This post was written with an evolving concept in mind through its course of writing. Please follow it through.

The "activity" of Cody's sessions is difficult to describe, it has something to do with Cody's style of play. I would really like to be able to describe it, but you really do have to experience one of the sessions to see what I mean. I may try to explain it again in a later post, if I can figure it out.

We have done a great deal in our sessions beyond what Eric knows, especially in our last session. It's MechWarrior and we're mercenaries. Wow. Of course our missions are going to have to be pre-designed in some manner. We have contracts. We do the job and get paid. That's how it works. I have nothing wrong with the mssion style, because we do have a choice over what we take. Cody has several missions available for us to try. It is us players that do make the final decision, and Cody can use any one of them he wants, since he doesn't know what we are going to pick. (I hope that makes sone kind of sense.) If something out there (like the Clans) is specifically concerned about us, then they'll find us anyway.

However, in our last mission we inadvertently picked on the Clans, so they decide to retaliate. Our characters may be in deep trouble, yes, but we still have a path to proceed in. In this case, some would consider it a fate worse than death to be captured by the Clans, but I'm going to play out the scenario. In the session Eric refers to as a "beer brawl," our mercenary company was established (a complicated procedure,) as well as hiring of staff and other important issues to our characters. The fight came up as a result of the feelings of another mercenary group who lost a contract because of an employers choice of us over them. The aforementioned group did not like the loss very much, and decided to take out their frustrations on our mercenary company. The fight had a reason and we were the defenders. In the first session, we reinacted a battle that took place as canon in the BattleTech universe and had a specific outcome, yes, but is that any different than a Civil War battle reinactment?

Eric and Charly have both attempted to play MechWarrior with us, but have failed to like it. Eric has a different style of play than Cody and I'm really not sure about Charly. (Please post again.) His character (a Technician) did have little to do in the beginning, but neither did I. At this point in the campaign, a Tech would have been *very* useful, and Cody worked around that problem by providing an NPC Clanner (who we captured) to fill in that gap. A MechWarrior is probably more exciting to play as, but the Technician was Charly's choice. (The MW life paths are specific, but you do have a decent amount of choice over what your character is.)

A new idea has just arisen... Cody's style of play is very dynamic and interesting, and there are actually similarities between it and Eric's. The "missions" (I use the term loosely) Eric and Cody create many similar elements, such as in many cases, sending us through compounds and facilities, which one might say is similar to running through a dungeon in D&D, but in a sci-fi setting. (That is only one example, and there are also differences as well.) Eric encourages more role-playing overall, but there are many times in which Cody demands we dynamically role-play a situation as well. I am starting to think that Eric and Cody really are doing the same thing, but with a slightly different approach to it. Cody has been influenced by (A)D&D and Eric by Star Wars. All GMs are essentially trying to do the same thing (play a role-playing game,) and Eric and Cody's styles may actually be much more similar than either of them realize. (Eric, Charly, please don't use combat as a difference, because it really isn't between the campaigns. Cody's takes place in a warring universe. Star Wars in the Rebellion period would be a very similar environment, though Eric's does take place in a not-so-warring time.)

(I once again ask for advice on Planescape from Eric and Charly, just so they don't forget.)

I hope this made enough sense to help explain further in some manner the situation. I may be totally wrong here, but I do think it may be a case of similarity instead of difference. Cody started playing RPGs because the rest of us play, and who GMed most of Cody's early playing experiences? Eric. Much of this post is designed to help Eric understand our BattleTech scenarios, but if anyone knows of a similar situation in their RPGing, (in the way of the styles,) please post. We may actually be getting somewhere.

[Eric J.]

Aha!  This is a very special post for me, for it is my first post with... CABLE INTERNET!  My dream for over a seventh of my life...

Anyway-

Anthony, would you please give more specific examples with your depiction that our play styles are similar.  This intrigues me, but I have little evidence to draw upon.

[Roy]

I'm very glad to see you guys are talking about it.  Just remember to keep an open mind and really think about it without getting defensive.  And let us know if there's anything you need help with.

Roy

[Sage of Shadowdale]

The similarities are there, but I can't give direct examples, because it's much more in the way things are done than what is done, and I'm not really sure how to explain it.

I have a few questions for Eric and my own opinions on them that may help me develop this further:

-Why did you find the MW character creation linear?

While it goes from path to path, you do have a decent choice. Are you sure that that character simply wasn't a fluke of the system? My character, as well as Jesse's and Avery's turned out well and how we wanted them to. The dice rolls control events you have no control over.

-How was our MW play dysfunctional?

I'm not sure how you consider it to be so, and any information on this would help. It is true that the way we play (not necessarily Cody's style, though... it's hard to explain,) is very different, but does different make dysfunctional? When has Cody said what we were doing was dysfunctional? We may not have expected it to get to this point, and played "just for fun," but it has worked and it's going somewhere.

-How does Cody cut power from our characters?

Cody did the only thing he knew how to do when a player left. He cut him out of the campaign. What are you supposed to do? To my knowledge, you have had players not be able to come for a session, but never totally quit all together. What do you do, Eric? As I have stated, our characters have the power we feel they need.

Those are the questions I still need answered.

To be frank, on occasion, you do seem to get a bit controlling of the campaigns and the situations. MechWarrior started to work around your schedule, and now they interfere, since we can only play on Fridays and the conditions of your schedule have changed again. The problem is that we like playing MW, and so exists the conflict.

You do (in my opinion) railroad too much, (caused by a need for some kind of control over what's going on in the situation?) such as your almost "Hitchhiker-y" (the Infocom game) forcing of us into the bar. It all goes back to the situation of the Star Wars D6 Intro Set and the bounty hunter's ship. (For those who don't know it, it involves the players doing the exact opposite of what the GM intended and getting away with it.) There are several times in the past where it has felt that our characters in your campaigns have had no power at all, and not just when in the influence of some greater force, etc.

On a side note, I think that you should let other people GM a little more. Charly has a campaign available, and while he has GMed little, he won't get better if he doesn't try. Also, I don't GM as much as I used to, and it seems I only get to as a last resort anymore. I like GMing, especially Planescape, and I can't improve either if I don't GM and don't get advice from my players. Most of the time we just go to bed after ending one of my sessions. Like you ask for advice, I could really use it, too. You may also be placing too much control on the "GMship."

I will eventually be able to figure this out, I hope, but I need Eric's response, (and Charly's, and anyone else's) on this post. Thank you for your time.

[Eric J.]

Now, I may come off as a little defensive.  This is because I am being defensive.  Thank you for tollerating it in advanced.

-Why did you find the MW character creation linear?

Well, it takes what you want to make your character and restricts it to a very very small list.  Afterwords it randomly determines most of my attributes and can lead to very unbalanced characters whithin a party.   Since you go through and it randomly determines most of your character's attributes then determines what kind of background you can have after you start, it becomes liniear.

-How was our MW play dysfunctional?

Mabee it isn't dysfuncional.  My definiton of dysfunctional is when something ceaces to function.  Certain aspects of it don't funcition in a nature that one of the original players could enjoy (Charly) and in a way that one of the inducted players could enjoy(me).  Besides that, there are many aspects that very few players could prefer.  I will give examples:

 The system is unsatisfactory. Cody has little experience as a player, almost no experience as a Game Master and absolutelley no experience as a system creator.  As a universal rule: merging two systems together doesn't work if you, and consequently your players, have no idea on how the system works in many situations.  There is a problem with conflicting character (and thereby player) power.  Also, the premise of the system is not being met.  I could go on, but I thinkt that I've made my point.

-How does Cody cut power from our characters?
The last time that I played with him as the GM, my character was a paladin who worked as a blacksmith crafting weapons (I was the only one with a background BTW).  Therefore, without my consent, I started shoveling the stables.  It obviously didn't matter to him that it was a small smithing shop within the city.  After that I was given a notice to work for what was shown as an omnipotent cleric who wanted me to go on a quest for him.  This cleric was depicted as sitting on his chair lazily, and watching us do his work.  This, compounded with the fact that he forced me to drastically altered my character in MW when I created him, have lead me to the believe that he draws power so that he can DM/GM easier.

The rest of your post is mostly criticism.  I'd say that half of it is with a foundation, and half of it is your reaction to my criticism with Cody.  I will respond to the only point with an example.

You do (in my opinion) railroad too much, (caused by a need for some kind of control over what's going on in the situation?) such as your almost "Hitchhiker-y" (the Infocom game) forcing of us into the bar.

I would agree with you on the point, and the situation with the bar is a good example.  However, the reason was that it was about 4 AM and in truth, I didn't force you to go into it.

On a side note, I think that you should let other people GM a little more. Charly has a campaign available, and while he has GMed little, he won't get better if he doesn't try. Also, I don't GM as much as I used to, and it seems I only get to as a last resort anymore. I like GMing, especially Planescape, and I can't improve either if I don't GM and don't get advice from my players. Most of the time we just go to bed after ending one of my sessions. Like you ask for advice, I could really use it, too. You may also be placing too much control on the "GMship."

Well, my response is that I really don't excercise control on who runs campaigns beyond the use of my house, which I've never refused to give.  Charly can speak on his own behalf, for the reasons for him to not run a campaign may be for other ones than you imply.  As for my restriction on what you run:  I have run a single session in the time that Cody has run four and yourself run two.  I am partially confused.

As for planescape:  I would recomend that you start a seperate thread for that.

[IG_Kahn_Storm]

hello my name is cody who you have been hearing so much about. i just learned the adress for this forum today at lunch im one of the almost constant arguments with eric(pyron) i really dont get why you seem to hate my MW campain, we only started because you were not able to play one friday and i saw a supplement to the mechwarrior RPG at hobby town and saw that i might be able to convert it into D6 starwars. and so far it has worked pretty well ( for my second try at DMing) we have gone longer than most of your campains go for. dont get me wrong i like playing in your campaigns but there is only one problem i have with them and i say it almost everyday YOU ARE TOO DAMN SERIOUS ABOUT IT GAMES ARE MEANT TO BE PLAYED NOT ENDURED AND SOME OF THE TIME YOU COULDENT SHOVE A GREASESD BEEBEE UP YOUR ASS what im trying to say is that you should loosen up a little i like all the things you do with the system with few exceptions your just too up tight and i think thats why the other s let me GM thay need some unrestricted fun one and a while and that its good to blow shit up once and a while.

i dont want to compete with you for players if the jesse anthony avery and charlay want to play your campain and scrap mine im fine with it i dont care about comeptition i just want to have fun playing at things i like.
_________________
That whitch does not kill me had better be able to run damned fast.

When reason fails, Force prevails

[Eric J.]

Hello IF_Kahn_Storm and welcome to the Forge!

I don't want to tear apart your post to dissagree with sectiobns, but it would seem the best way to respond in this case.

i really dont get why you seem to hate my MW campain

I'm sorry if you think that I hate your campaign, as I've never said that.  I simply don't agree with some of your metheds of role-playing.  I have given countless reasons why I dissagree with your metheds on previous posts.

we have gone longer than most of your campains go for

This is entirelley incorrect BTW.

Anyway-  My overall response to your post is that I don't see why you need to come onto the internet and quasi-flame me, when you can do that over the phone.  This is a place for detailed posts.  The great thing about posts is that you can discuss parts of subjects as well as longer ones.  I'm not saying that you should be banned.  I'm saying that it would really be helpfull if you adapted to the Forge atmosphere before starting flame wars.  And don't think about starting stupid topics about classes versus reality.  But, thanks for posting.  I hope that it gives other forge members more insight.

[IG_Kahn_Storm]

eric, ill fight wit h you tommow at school and i am NOT trying to start a war with you. WE ARE AT WAR and its not about rpg's most of the time you argue about EVERYTHING and every one of us hates it. so if you would plz stop dorping sugestions about banning me  this is only my 2nd post

[Ron Edwards]

Hello gentlemen,

Fascinating as all this is, I'm sure you can both see that the Forge isn't the place for it.

I look forward to future threads and posts. But this one, I'm afraid, is now closed.

Eric, earlier in the thread, Alan posed some useful questions for you which you didn't answer. Please feel free to consider them and to answer them in a later thread.

Best,
Ron