Game: Star Wars D6 with modifications done by me.

Timeframe:1:30-3:00 {break} 6:00-11:00{Episode 1} 8:00-11:00(AM)

Characters: Vyroth Pthero (Human Slicer);Ray Wind (Near-Human friendly commander played by a newbie);Ron Wind (Near-Human content researcher-{Scratchware});Velona Mar (Human Jedi Knight)

GM: ME

Scenerio: In the old republic, near after Episode 2, the Sepertists are becoming a growing threat to the planet Aurora, a world that values it's independance from the galaxy at large. The adventure starts on one of it's space stations, Frost. The Friendly Commander is in charge of security and needs to protect the ambassidors from sepertists in 2 days. He's briefed and informed that the Republic is sending a Jedi Knight to assist him. She has extrodinary sense abilites and is very calm and serene. I messed up, big time, with Ron (the character), as I made him read books most of the time. The player chose his template, so I thought that he wouldn't mind. The slicer is hired to be the auxillary assistant camera maintenance provider. The security is almost impossibly well placed, and the Ambassidors arive, and are escorted to the diplomacy room. They are protected by 3 consecuative force-fields which can only be changed by computer, presumibly by security. The time comes and the room is flooded with poison gas, and they are trapped by what was designed to give them protection, the forcefields. I give the pary 15 rounds before the ambassidors die, with a minute to think about what they're going to do. Vyroth, the slicer decides to try to deactivate the force fields, but can't get all three. Securty is ausalted by a man with a vibroblade making it Ray's (the commander's) job to protect every one. The guy with the vibroblade has much more skill. The Jedi is trapped with the deligates and can't do much to protect them from the gas. The slicer finds it easier to deactivate all power in the space station and it works. The amabssidors are freed. The man with the vibroblade is thrown forward by a fragment grendade the commander uses. Similtaniously the gravity turns off. As the forcefields turn off, the Jedi thinks that the worst is over, but 5 seperatist infantry appear and fire at the Republic deligate and the Auroran deligate and the researcher is trapped in the library with thousands of floating books. The player had the hard desision of deciding which one to save. She saves the Auroran deligate. The body guards, assigned to protect the ambassidors kill off the seperatist soldiurs and the gravity turns back on. Ron (the character) was unable to save himself and dies. The Jedi confronts a Dark Jedi (the guy with the vibroblade) and he runs away again. Scratchware gets to use another template I made and get's the entire party into his ship (except Ron). They dodge fighters and crash land on the planet.

Now, how does this have ANYTHING to do with the title? Well several things.

First: Scratchware's character was killed by falling books when the gravity was turned back on. I found this humerous, because I caries a flare of poetic irony (researcher killed by books). I asked him, afterwards what he liked most about the session, and he said that he didn't like anything because his character died, and complained that I didn't carry over his experience.

Second: When they were crashlanding, Scratchware used some of his experience to save the ship. The jedi's player told him that he shouldn't have used experience to make his roll better because I, as the GM, wouldn't kill off the party, "because then his campaign would be ruined." This severelley ticked me off.

Third: The Jedi's player refused to answere some basic questions about how he felt that the session went. He is the GM, some of the time, and I asked him what experence he would most likelley retell or remember (as GM guidelines often times ask of you to do). He insisted that he would never post on the forge or anywhere else, "Why would I do that?". He has always insisted that "Fine. Kill off my character. It's just a game. It may be a game that I play for 14 hours but it is still a game." Yes. He IS correct but what kind of attitude is that?

Fourth: The player's threats to boycott my campaigns, that occasionally happen, usually when they don't like my decisions.

I'm sorry for making this so dissorganized, but it's hard to summerize something that took about 10 hours to make. Do your player ever have these kinds of reactions. Do they display any emotion whatsoever, besides humor? Mine don't. This was a reasonably researched and prepared campaign, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm doing something wrong. Thanks in advance.

Uh...wow...I don't know exactly where to start. I'll try here, but I'm actually a bit lost on things, so if my answer doesn't work for you, let me know...

Pyron wrote: First: Scratchware's character was killed by falling books when the gravity was turned back on. I found this humerous, because I caries a flare of poetic irony (researcher killed by books). I asked him, afterwards what he liked most about the session, and he said that he didn't like anything because his character died, and complained that I didn't carry over his experience.

Second: When they were crashlanding, Scratchware used some of his experience to save the ship. The jedi's player told him that he shouldn't have used experience to make his roll better because I, as the GM, wouldn't kill off the party, "because then his campaign would be ruined." This severelley ticked me off.

Third: The Jedi's player refused to answere some basic questions about how he felt that the session went. He is the GM, some of the time, and I asked him what experence he would most likelley retell or remember (as GM guidelines often times ask of you to do). He insisted that he would never post on the forge or anywhere else, "Why would I do that?". He has always insisted that "Fine. Kill off my character. It's just a game. It may be a game that I play for 14 hours but it is still a game." Yes. He IS correct but what kind of attitude is that?

Fourth: The player's threats to boycott my campaigns, that occasionally happen, usually when they don't like my decisions.

I'm sorry for making this so dissorganized, but it's hard to summerize something that took about 10 hours to make. Do your player ever have these kinds of reactions. Do they display any emotion whatsoever, besides humor? Mine don't. This was a reasonably researched and prepared campaign, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm doing something wrong. Thanks in advance.

Hi Eric,

Man, your post is serious stuff. I have no easy answers, but I'm familiar with a lot of what you're describing.

Tell me if the following situation is at all like yours.

A man and a woman are dating. One person tells the other, "I love you, and I trust you to meet my needs."

"Okay," the other replies. Some time goes by.

"Hey," says the first person, "you aren't meeting my needs! I'm miserable! How could you do this to me?"

"Wait a minute," says the second, "You never told me what your needs were."

The first person bursts into tears and says, "If you loved me, you'd know without having to ask!"

GMs and players often get into this trap together. Someone in the group is basically saying, "Entertain me, but I'm not going to tell you how. If you don't know how, then obviously you're a lousy GM/player."

This whole attitude is not fair, and even worse, it simply doesn't work. Some form of accord has to be reached about (a) why we are all doing this in the first place and (b) the way we'll do it.

Best,
Ron

Hey, Eric.

Wowie Kazowie! What a post. You asked what you're doing wrong and I hardly know where to start. So I'll roll randomly.

Pyron wrote: ...I messed up, big time, with Ron (the character), as I made him read books most of the time. The player chose his template, so I thought that he wouldn't mind.

Whoa! you made his character read books all the time? SO basically Scratchware sat there the entire envening doing nothing because his character was off reading?

(edit: others made better comment about character death above so I'll leave it to them)

Second: When they were crashlanding, Scratchware used some of his experience to save the ship. The jedi's player told him that he shouldn't have used experience to make his roll better because I, as the GM, wouldn't kill off the party, "because then his campaign would be ruined." This severelley ticked me off.

OK, we seem to still be on character death here. Maybe we need more clairification. WHy did this tick you off?

Third: The Jedi's player refused to answere some basic questions about how he felt that the session went. He is the GM, some of the time, and I asked him what experence he would most likelley retell or remember (as GM guidelines often times ask of you to do). He insisted that he would never post on the forge or anywhere else, "Why would I do that?". He has always insisted that "Fine. Kill off my character. It's just a game. It may be a game that I play for 14 hours but it is still a game." Yes. He IS correct but what kind of attitude is that?

Fourth: The player's threats to boycott my campaigns, that occasionally happen, usually when they don't like my decisions.

Clearly your players aren't enjoying themselves. This may be why they don't display any emotion. They have no emtion invested into the campaign.

Boy-o-boy. I'm not even sure where I was going with this post but I think your play group has much deeper problems than you kill their characters. I think your group is playing more out of habbit than out of any real desire to play anymore.

Wow.

OK, Eric. I hope you don't mind the critiques other people have handed you, because they're true. They don't mean you're evil or stupid or anything like that, but this looks like one of those groups that has probably played together a while, and has the fictional notion that there's "no one else to play with." I say this because "threatening a boycott" is the most asinine thing ever, and play groups that don't feel stuck with each other just don't do that. Boycotting a GM means nothing; a "boycott" is when consumers organize to ruin a producer's reputation (and possibly affect the bottom line) by publicly refusing to do business with that producer.

I'll try to cover stuff I see that has not been mentioned already, though it has had mention previously on other topics:

1. You are not stuck with each other. Frankly, if I were a marriage counsellor, I'd say "um, yeah, time for as amicable a divorce as you can manage." What you describe is very dysfunctional. There are other players and GMs out there, and they can show up in unlikely places. I've met people I'm sure I could have gotten to try at least one game at my gym, and just last night at a meeting of the Co-op Housing Federation of British Columbia Delegate's Meeting. All I did was mention that I like RPGs, and people were curious about it, because I wasn't defensive of my hobby. (I did not launch into complaining about how there are "no players" in BC.)

Anyway. Take that for what it's worth. Maybe you were upset and things are not as bad as they seem. But just knowing that walking away is an option, and an honorable one, for you and anyone else in the group, sometimes takes a lot of the pressure off that is causing so much heartache.

2. For God's sake, play something else. Just Monopoly or whatever. If your group can't even do that and maintain some fun and peaceful problem resolution, that is definitely it. If you find that you get along well, then the problems may not be really low-level social ones, and you might then try re-building trust with your players. Play an RPG that gets its fun from something besides nail-bitingly horrible consequences for failure, especially consequences that make it so that a player can't continue play. InSpectres comes to mind, but there are plenty of free ones out there too.

I could keep going on here, but that's my most concrete suggestion.

--JB

The jedi's player told him that he shouldn't have used experience to make his roll better because I, as the GM, wouldn't kill off the party, "because then his campaign would be ruined." This severelley ticked me off.

You, Eric, are in the middle of power struggle with your players to rival the Middle East peace conflict. Each side is set in white-knuckled determination to deny the other what it wants and needs to be happy. They can ruin your game, and you know it. You can irrelevantize their characters, and/or make them look ridiculous, and they know it.

And believe me when I tell you, it won't end through escalation. It will only end when one side makes a substantial overture toward the other side. And because they can't possibly coherently make an overture to you, it has to be you. This is what that overture looks like:

When you prep for the next session, and at all times when you're running it, keep one thing in mind: my job is to do the things that cause the player characters emerge as significant. The player who chose to create a researcher didn't do so because he wanted the character to sit around reading books all the time. He did so because he wanted a character whose significance emerged from out of being a researcher. Your job is to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Strange books bound in jedi skin need to be translated...whatever. Look at each character. Think about each player, the character they created, and what they most enjoy in movies and books, and do whatever it takes when you're prepping and running the game so the things that are important to the player (not reading books or whatever that you think is important to the character) are things that occur and cause the character to emerge as significant.

Good luck,

Paul

Yark. Pyron, I don't exactly know where to start either. Sounds like it ended up as a horrible experience for everyone. I think you're asking the right questions, so hopefully our comments and feedback prove helpful. Warning -- It's your game, Pyron. As you read, please remember my ideas and comments are offered from a desire to help. If something I say pisses you off, take a deep breath, stick a pin in my URL, and e-mail me.

OK, I'll start with this: When you recount experiences in Actual Play, please-please-please don't give us the huge infodump of "and then, and then..." story. We're interested less in the details of the story or plot and more in what significant things happened during play, in terms of how the rules worked, the decisions the players made, what techiques seemed to work, etc. The blow-by-blow retelling of game events tends to get muddled and hard to parse in a hurry.

I say this because the meat of what you're concerned with had nothing to do with story and everything to do with group dynamics and in-play decisions of group members. Dunno about you, but when I hit a breathless whomp of a paragraph like your initial plot summary, my eyes glaze over, my mouth fills with stomach acid, and the keyboard makes a nice grid pattern on my face.

OK, having restated the obvious, I can breathe a bit easier.

Let me break out the elements of what I see: (a) a random, deprotagonizing death of a player character, (b) negative player attitudes, including what I'd call open baiting of the GM, (c) post hoc resentment of game events, (d) a character whose concept was at variance -- or even in opposition -- with the thrust of the game, (e) inter-player sniping, and (f) a mission-based plot that appeared to be on rails.

Finally, I see sheer fatigue playing a part in all this, since ten to fourteen hours is IMO a (forgive me) fuckin' insane amount of time for a session. I mean *snort* yeah, OK, I'm not a young whippersnapper or a CON 18 RP monster like say, Mike Holmes or Valamir (see thread on 2 hour sessions), but Holy Mother of God in a boxcar full of chocolate jimmies, I'd have been a freakin' zombie by the end of that session, brain-scarfin' appetite, bad breath, the works.

Random player death. Scratchware's guy died in a meaningless, random, "failed to save" kinda way. There's been a lot of discussion on the Forge about how players can be empowered or disempowered during a game, and the general problem here is that Scratchware didn't die "heroically" as a result of a decision he made. Consequently, Scratchware's player is likely to feel cheated. Doesn't matter that you liked the irony. I submit character death should result as a consequence of player choice. Just doing the "save or die" routine is like telling someone they got crushed by a stone slab ten feet into the dungeon.

Negative player attitudes. If I have a player who says something like "don't bother with X, because the GM won't really do Y," that puts you in a helluva bad spot, doesn't it? Talk to the player who said that, and don't play with him anymore if he keeps up that sort of behavior.

Post-hoc resentment of in-game events. To be honest, I think Scratchware has some justification for feeling burned, given how his first character ended up. Saying it's just a game is a distancing reaction on his part. On the other hand, I read you saying you're pissed because you worked hard to set up the game and the players didn't appreciate it. Instead of roleplaying seriously, they joked around and didn't react to the cool stuff you set up for them. I suggest you all revisit why you're there playing in the first place, get your goals out on the table. Scratchware's player might like mystery-oriented games, for example, and others may hate them. If you come at the game like it's YOUR story, YOUR show, and expect the players to be grateful to run through it like good guinea pigs, you're going to encounter conflict. Mission-based games tend to be linear. If your style of play pushes linear plots and doesn't let players deviate to pursue their own choices, I think problems like the one you've described are going to come up, vitriol and all.

Overall, my hit here is that your guys act up because to them it just ain't that important to be emotionally invested, maybe because they don't feel they have much control over gameplay, maybe because they're not into Star Wars. Talk to them. Get their feedback. The fact that one or more (unclear from your post) of these guys threaten not to play with you because they're pissed at how you ran the last game -- dude, that's a signal if there ever was one that a persistent disconnect exists.

Apples and anvils. Worse, Scratchware's player built a character that just sounds wrong for the genre, let alone the specific gameplay you'd set up. I mean, who wants to play a non-action character in Star Wars? When you pushed him to read books, that's just shuffling him offstage, it seems to me, while other players got to do the interesting things. Again, some frank planning ahead of time might fix this. If it's Star Wars, you don't wanna play retiring bookworms. If it's Call of Cthulhu, you aren't going to play a superhero. Make sure characters are appropriate to the kind of game you're running.

Inter-player sniping. Personally, I'd hate it if a fellow player -- aka bizatch -- started second-guessing my character's decisions based on rules interpretations. Did you defend Scratchware's choice? One way to handle that might have been to tell the guy who quibbled with the force point expenditure to quiet down and then give Scratchware two force points at the end of the session.

Linear mission stuff. Generally speaking, if you've got a gauntlet in mind for the players to run through, a path they can't really leave, you're railroading. When folks are getting railroaded, their decisions don't have any impact beyond the tactical, and they become hamsters in the wheel. While a lot of people enjoy that style of play, your players may not, particularly if you're heavy-handed (don't know if you are, but as invested as you are in your plot, you may have come off harder than you realize).

This is tough stuff, to analyze what you're doing and try to adapt to make things better for yourself and your friends. Railroading is easy to do, unfortunately. You'll find a lot of help here about what to look out for and what you might do to avoid it.

So before I get off my horse here, I'll reiterate that everything that happened seems to stem from the following problems: (22) lack of agreement among players and GM about what expectations each individual brought to the gaming table, (67) a linear, likely railroading plot, and (9.23) random events deprotagonizing a character and disempowering/frustrating the character's player.

Thoughts? Pyron, you still breathing out there?

Best,

Blake

(Edited to clean up some slop in my text.)
(Edited a second time to say I agree that the core issue is power.)

I'd like to elaborate on a point made earlier:

When you prep for the next session, and at all times when you're running it, keep one thing in mind: my job is to do the things that cause the player characters emerge as significant.

WOW.......................................
WOW...............................................
{sigh} {brethe slowly}...
My gosh... That makes PERFECT sense. All of it does. I tried railroading because of bad campaigns in the past. I will sumerize what I think most of you are saying.

1: Your players are in a gripe for power.
I say: Now that I think about it DAMN RIGHT.

2: You should try playing other games, and try a little less. Play games that are more balanced.
I say: We take regular breaks at the right intervals. A fact is that we played Magic: The gathering at the session durring breaks. I started playing a month ago (with less than 100 cards total), and with a deck with only 1 Rare, I can beat Scratchware over 95% of the time (who has been playing for over 2 years and has 1000 cards). He actually has started modelling his deck after mine and is now trading rares for some of my commons in an attempt to get better. Yeah... We actually tried playing Risk and Risk 2210 awhile ago and I mastered each and we stopped playing... I don't think that this helps the problems.

3: I should boot the Jedi (some of you).
I say: His only fault is being unresponsive to my questions. I should have given him more controll.

4: I should try to communicate better with my players.
I say: I've tried. They've been unresponsive, but I'll try harder.

6: You feel that my session was a complete dissaster.
I say: I tend to exagerate. One player called what I did a "Damned cool scenerio." The slicer liked his role, but didn't like how I de-protagonized him. I think that this is a response to the different playing styles.

7: I don't want to re-read everyone's post, but I know that someone said something like, "You sound like you've been a group for a while. You need to know that you can find more people."
I say: You can either read minds, or you're some kind of a genius. The problem is that, as much as I've gone throughout my entire clique( what they call a group of friends in Nebraska) teaching about RPGs; they are all newbies and can't usually come over. I have most of the people who can come on a regular basis. There is a hobby store that regurally plays RPGs but I haven't tried that yet.

8:You viewed Scratchware's role (life and death) as negative.
I say: He did die senselessly, but I didn't roll a single die. His job was to research. I forced him, as that was his job, but it was ultimitelley his choice. This was my fault. I hadn't made him a major part of the conflict so I decided to give him a challenge. Excape from a library with no equipment and no light. He failed to survive. Oh, and technically I didn't deactivate the gravity. That was the slicer... You also must understand that at this point I was motivated by the power struggle that DEFINITELLEY exists. I wanted to make an example of what can happen if you fail. I'm not justifying my motives.

Now for a few points to ponder:

1. I tried this style, as other ones had fallen flat in the past.

2. I thought that the adventure went well.

3. You are all very empathetic and I thank you.

4. I am wondering what movivated you to make so many (long) posts in such a short time. Is this problem common to many newer gaming groups?

5. I am seriously thinking of disbanding my RPG group.

6. Thanks.

7. I will try, in the future, to be more of a protagonizing bunny

Hi Eric,

"Protagonizing bunny ..." I love it. A goal we can all aspire to.

I think that nearly everyone who's role-played for any length of time is familiar with many of the details you provided. The empathy is sincere and based on personal experience. So yes, your situation is common. (I'm curious about your thoughts regarding the last section of my GNS essay, actually.)

In the interests of full disclosure, after reading your first post, I private messaged a few people (just some that happened to be logged on at the time) and asked them to help. It struck me that despite our various tastes in role-playing, we all agree that a functional social contract, and what I like to call Balance of Power (although Fang thinks that's too negative) really matters. Therefore I decided that getting as many different angles expressed was a good idea.

Best,
Ron

4. I am wondering what movivated you to make so many (long) posts in such a short time. Is this problem common to many newer gaming groups?

Thanks, every one. I can relate to your scenerio, contracycle. They were arguing on how to move in zero-g. They said that you could blow air through your mouth and that newton's third law would take care of the rest. I said that the mass to do so would be so insignificant that it wouldn't matter. They argued with me. Oh, and there are problems that you're addressing that I don't see there. I made it my mission to stop at the correct dramatic moments last adventure. Times: When the gas was flooding the room. When the Jedi revealed himself with. "Before you is the man with the golden blade." Response: "Vibroblade right?" I walk downstairs. I felt that the campaign was quick and punchy. I even set a time limit on their actions and gave them 15 rounds. You could say that we don't play long sessions. We play many sessions that are close together. I'm going to start ANOTHER campaign next week, and I swear that "Damnit! I'm eventually going to get this right!" I think that I have the situation handelled for now, and will post when we have our next session. Thanks again.

Okay, what we need here is some player feedback for them to hear. Here I go..

First of all, I had a lot of fun playing as the researcher until I died. Sure, I didn't get to do a lot of stuff but I got to roleplay about 5 sentences and eat waffles with my twin brother, the commander. I was thinking that I could have become some sort of important person like a philosopher (seeing is how I had 5D+1 in philosophy). I thought that it would be fun for a change because I usually don't play with non-combat oriented characters. And it was... Until I was killed by some freaking books. How pathetic is that?

Second of all, Doug (the slicer), was constantly bickering and interrupting gameplay, insulting me and saying "Shut up! Let me talk!" when the camera was not on him. He has an arrogant attitude towards me even though he is 3 years younger and is a worse roleplayer than me. Exampe: Back when we played D&D, he punched his commanding officer and got him jailed. He escaped and was jailed 6 more times before the campaign was scratched. He just annoys the living daylights out of me..

Third of all, we only had enough for 1 Pepsi a piece and that was during our break when we watch Star Wars episode 1. That is just not enough. And we needed more pizza...

A point I need to make is that we ALL love Star Wars. It's just we have arguements and things go wrong and we don't know what to do so we just leave..

Hopefully we can get this fixed.

Third of all, we only had enough for 1 Pepsi a piece and that was during our break when we watch Star Wars episode 1. That is just not enough.

I was also particularly struck by the 1 Pepsi limitation. It really does sound like a recipe for disaster.

Paul

Now see, that's just very odd to me. Most groups I've gamed with regularly in my life (i.e. all but 1) had a strict rule forbidding snacks and beverages at the table at all, on the grounds of "less time crunching and slurping, more time paying attention and playing".

The 1 group that violated this tenant tended to play many hours straight with little being accomplished and had virtually no depth to either plot or characterization. My conclusion was: allow in 1 distraction and it just snowballs from there.

Walt and Paul...were you being tongue in cheek, or are beverages really that instrumental in your games?

Most groups I've gamed with regularly in my life (i.e. all but 1) had a strict rule forbidding snacks and beverages at the table at all...

I hear this is how it is when Jeremy Irons runs sessions of CoC...he won't have it otherwise.

That may be the case for people who can't pay attention. But we can't concentrate unless we have snacks. First of all, we don't slurp! Who can eat and drink like that? It is so sick! We just have some pizza and if we are lucky, we get some pepsi. I don't see how this can be disrupting gameplay. The times we don't have food, in fact, the complaining that we don't have food disrupts more than if we do.

A few things:

Pepsi dehydrates you, not the inverse.

We had 3 freaking pizza's!

There were 5 people + my 7-year old brother and sister.

There were only 4 pepsis so I forewent one.

The pepsi belonged to our Peruian only spanish-speaking housekeeper,
who gives without any hesitation and won't accept any money.

I didn't want to give out pepsi, but you kind of forced me.

I am still looking for a way to pay her back.

We had other things to drink.

My house is the spot for RPGs almost every week. We have 9 pizzas for the month. If we eat 4, then we only have enough for one more session. If we eat 3, we have enough for 2 more sessions. I cannot supply infinite pop, and do not expect Scratchare to do so.

Scratchware; my brother probably thinks the same thing about you. You are the one who, as a cleric-mage (second lowest possible HP using the basic classes), charged 3 hobgoblins without using spells. No, Doug did talk out of turn. Now we can get into disscusion about the aspect of Ron's essay dealing with personal problems...

I'm sorry, but this hits a personal issue that I won't discuss here. I have no money. I try to resolve them fairly, without favoring any one, but this only reinforces the suggestion to get another group... This brings up a concept that I must start another tread on. I try not to make judgement based upon personal problems. In fact, I gave the newbie the most experience this session.

Eric, Jesse is extremely intelligent. He is by far the best "newbie" we have ever had in our group. His whitty comments come from no-where and blow us away... I don't know how he does it.

Criminy. Are we really discussing soda at the gaming table?

To bring this (slightly) back to topic, the whole soda discussion (which baffles me) is a good representation of the lack of any kind of social contract. Players and GMs should all know before a game what's expected of them, and go so far as to put it down in writing if they have to. When thinking about this, the following questions are useful:

Gameplay questions
Who is responsible for running the game? Is it the same person every week?
Does that person decide the game to play, or does the group as a whole, or do we decide a different way?
Do we want long campaigns, or short ones, or single-session games, or does it matter?

Participation questions
Do we want games where the majority of decision making power is in the hands of the GM, or in the hands of everyone?
What should each player bring to the game each week?

Metagame questions
Do we eat at the game? If so, do we eat during, before, or after the game, or do we take a break in the middle?
Who is responsible for food? Does everyone chip in, or is one person responsible for it?
Same question, but for drinks.
How much out-of-game chit-chat is allowed? Do we set aside time before the game, or can people can during the game, and if so, how much?

There's tons more questions that can obviously be asked, but there's a start. It might not be a bad idea for Pyron's group to sit down and go through these.

As a last note, and a side one, I think the idea that the host for the game (the person whose house you're playing at) has to provide drinks and food is fucking reprehensible - especially when you're in high school and broke. Chip in, people, or in an ideal world, buy your host some drinks and food, especially if they're also the GM - they're doing a lot of work.

They try. I've provided 3 pepsis in many sessions in the past. However, you are right. I am a strong disbeliever in "implied rules" as I veiw that as an oxy-moron. I will, next session create a document for a social contract, stating your ideas and others. (That is, if we have another session.) Oh, and Scratchware is right (he basically quoted me). One of Jessie's sayings: "Life is like a bowl of peaches. It's yellow and slimey, and goes bad if you leave it on the counter too long."

Pyron wrote: Pepsi dehydrates you, not the inverse.

Um.. HAHA! It is the freaking carbonation. Not the caffiene.

Earlier, I was very calm. Now, as a moderator, I ask you one more time to cease any discussion of the merits of soda.

Most groups I've gamed with regularly in my life (i.e. all but 1) had a strict rule forbidding snacks and beverages at the table at all, on the grounds of "less time crunching and slurping, more time paying attention and playing".

There is another problem. I have a friend who we've tried playing RPGs with. Unfortinitelley, he is a super-gamist. I know that you shouldn't label people using GNS, but if you knew this person, you would make an exception. The problem is that he is not just a gamist; he is well... Evil. He enjoys killing things as well as having, what he would call competition, with the other players. He brags about his equipment before we play (I enjoy relieving it every time I'm a fellow player with him). I am seriously thinking about excluding him. I guess I can be his friend without role-playing with him. Can't I?

Edit: And yes Scratchware, this isn't you. This is Cody.

Hey,

"I guess I can be his friend without role-playing with him. Can't I?"

Bam! There it is. THERE it is. I knew if we just talked things over, and chatted, and all that, that sooner or later it would appear.

Yes, you can. Friendships that only exist so that the role-playing can occur are not friendships at all; they are all sorts of other things, none of them good.

In other words: "You have to play like I want you to or I won't be your friend any more." Or, "You have to treat me like a friend or I won't be in your group." Both of these are blackmail, and neither leads to a functional social situation for the actual play. In order to play, one is accepting shitty and fun-less play.

Now, I'm not saying you are in this situation. But I'm describing it in its worst form so that you can see where even a glimmer of "friend?" "fellow role-player?" ambiguity can go, if left unresolved.

Basically - be friends with people you like and trust. Role-play with the people you enjoy role-playing with. You won't be role-playing with all your friends. Some of the people you role-play with won't be your very best friends. But do not, not let anyone use uncertainty about friendship be a lever in a game-play power struggle, or use cooperation/rebellion in a role-playing situation be a lever in a friendship.

Best,
Ron

Sorry I missed out on some of this, but to bring back some important points:

4: I should try to communicate better with my players.
I say: I've tried. They've been unresponsive, but I'll try harder.

He has an arrogant attitude towards me even though he is 3 years younger and is a worse roleplayer than me.

I must laugh at this, just a little. It is that you missuderstand Scratchware. In our world, 3 years is quite much, and their are other aspects. He's my little brother. I can't get a learner's permit, but in less than a month, Scratchware will be able to drive a car by himself. Scratchware is shorter than my little brother. My little brother is empathetic but competetive, especially with Scratchware. Scratchware tends to take this as hostillity. I bang my head on the desk, as this only proved that Ron's right (is he ever not?) and that I better look for a new gaming group...

When we play at a mates place, he always cooks. We work toward a midpoint break in a 4-6 hour session and he tootles off into the kitchen. I like this a lot - partly because the break is very convenient for me to get my shit together again, partly becuase it is a proper break, partly because we get fed. Take this opportunity and learn to cook :) - it will be useful later, you'll all be healthier and its cheaper. And your folks will probably love you for it.

contracycle wrote: When we play at a mates place, he always cooks. We work toward a midpoint break in a 4-6 hour session and he tootles off into the kitchen. I like this a lot - partly because the break is very convenient for me to get my shit together again, partly becuase it is a proper break, partly because we get fed. Take this opportunity and learn to cook :) - it will be useful later, you'll all be healthier and its cheaper. And your folks will probably love you for it.

Pyron wrote: I have a friend who we've tried playing RPGs with. Unfortinitelley, he is a super-gamist. I know that you shouldn't label people using GNS, but if you knew this person, you would make an exception. The problem is that he is not just a gamist; he is well... Evil. He enjoys killing things as well as having, what he would call competition, with the other players. He brags about his equipment before we play (I enjoy relieving it every time I'm a fellow player with him).

I've heard of munchkin. In the forums where I'm form it's the only term they seem to be able to use. I could probably change his playing style, but then he wouldn't be having fun and, to me, that's just as bad. It's not just his gamist tendencies, either. He's almost evil, in his playing habbits. Even with his lack of experience, he seems to be unable to grasp the concept of playing a character that doesn't cuss (curse). I'd also make a clarification of Cody vs. Powergamer. Powergamer anticipates what skills he'll accumulate as he advances in levels. Cody, whose character is without knowledge of the purchose, insists that he'll find my R2 unit and destroy it... I'll just not game with him. Oh, and I've not looked at Rune. Would you describe it for me please?

Pyron wrote: I could probably change his playing style, but then he wouldn't be having fun and, to me, that's just as bad.

It's not just his gamist tendencies, either. He's almost evil, in his playing habbits. Even with his lack of experience, he seems to be unable to grasp the concept of playing a character that doesn't cuss (curse).

I'd also make a clarification of Cody vs. Powergamer. Powergamer anticipates what skills he'll accumulate as he advances in levels. Cody, whose character is without knowledge of the purchose, insists that he'll find my R2 unit and destroy it... I'll just not game with him.

Oh, and I've not looked at Rune. Would you describe it for me please?

I have talked to him about it in the past, and he promised to role-play better. Unfortinitelly, he doesn't adapt well to other gaming styles. He remakes the same character over and over again. I'm not insulting him (exept about bragging about his equipment). I'm just trying to enforce the fact that he's just not congruent with our group.

Well, if you've made all of the overtures you're prepared to make and it still isn't working, there's nothing wrong with applying the boot. Just do it in such a way as you don't burn any bridges. He'll either find another group better suited to his style to play with or he won't. Periodically, you may want to invite him to game something with you, and maybe you'll want to invite him back full time, and maybe you won't. And maybe he won't want to. But there is no rule that says you have to keep playing with someone whose play you can't stand. If he can't handle that...well, sometimes life is harsh.

Pyron wrote: Thanks, every one. I can relate to your scenerio, contracycle. They were arguing on how to move in zero-g. They said that you could blow air through your mouth and that newton's third law would take care of the rest. I said that the mass to do so would be so insignificant that it wouldn't matter. They argued with me.

Pyron wrote: Oh, and I've not looked at Rune. Would you describe it for me please?