KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I especially agree with not hurting your fellow players even if it is in your motivation to hurt someone. Like, hold them at gun-point, strong arm them a little, but at the point you’re hurting the other player the group has broken down. Call it rail-roady, but you’re all there to co-operate and have a good time. Facilitate that, even if you gotta give the character side-eye and not trust him for a while.
I do not accept being malicious or overly dickish to other players with the excuse “I’m just playing my character” in my games. Then change the character. That shit will get you thrown out.
Our GM really did make more of an effort to learn what the dice actually do other than success & failure. He listened to our (mostly my) complaints from last session about actually using the rules and dice results to craft a story together. But he also he also spent a lot of time writing setup and background and fleshing out NPC's and a "home base". Also, he kept pushing his annoying NPC's on us that we did not want.
I don't want to get into too many details of the game itself, because this post would take far too long, but suffice to say that his efforts to accommodate us as players petered out once we rebelled against his introduction. Its EotE, yeah? So all of us are fringe/criminal characters. The long and convoluted and very, very railroady way he chose to introduce a new party member (a regular player who missed out on our first session) immediately put us into conflict. When we finally had our first scene together, he was trying to break into my characters ship to escape his situation. Being the scoundrel that I am playing, I shot him. Long story short, "discussions" were had on ignoring character motivations in favour of railroading us. Things got heated for a bit one of the other players and the player who missed the first sessions piled into him. So yay, it wasn't just me!
After a smoke break and time to cool down, things progressed a little better. It was a heist adventure. Sounds fun, right? And it really could have been. Except our GM over-wrote the adventure and planned everything for us. He even foisted two very annoying NPC's on us. Both droids with droid revolution complex's who wouldn't shut up about it. Both NPC's that were written in to take over our own roles in the party. ("Why to we need AA-B along with us?" "To slice the systems for you." "Yeah, but my character is a slicer, so why do we need him? OK, fine. Why do need BB-A then?" "He's going to be your face." "Dude, HIS character is the face of the party!") And yeah, we kinda took it to him again on that. But the motivation for his doing it came from the fact that he tried so hard to fix his mistakes from the first sessions, that he made a whole bunch of other mistakes for the second! He came up with both the problem and the solution, and the people needed to implement the solution and zero variability on how the solution was to be carried out. Our characters just kinda went along for the ride.
It was fun because we were together, shooting the shit and being friends. It was fun because GM's story time (despite being railroady and being done for us already) is usually never a bad thing. But It was in-fun because he was over-planned, and that planning was based on the NPC's he made for us (because he didn't take into account what our characters are actually good it?) and structured the adventure to trigger challenges based on us failing something. As in, we can't slice that terminal and the security drones activate. We can't charm our way past the secretary, our fake credentials get spoiled. That sort of thing. But with droids doubling our roles in the party we had boosts to everything and did not fail once. We waltzed into space Gringotts and waltzed right back out again with zero issues. Zero. He was really dissapointed in that fact. During another break between the (anti-)climax and the coda he was lamenting how that wasn't very Star Wars-y at all. And I mentioned that if you base all our challenges on us failing something...and then give us enough advantages to make sure we don't fail.... what did you think was going to happen?
He did learn some of the rules though. That was nice.
I dunno man, but reading through your post makes my "Social Contract" alarm bells in my head blare. I'm sure I'm projecting as I GM in 9 outta 10 of the games I play, but I'm having a hard time sympathizing. Player character introductions are almost always contrived because otherwise players react exactly how you did: by killing each other. I see your complaints with the redundant NPCs, but if your GMs primary worry is making sure you guys don't "rebel against his introduction" I can total understand why he thought they were necessary. That being said I can see that your GM is green, but hopefully he or she continues to learn from these mistakes and continues to put that level of effort into getting better. And while you're waiting for that to happen you might want to look inward to see what kind of gameplay you're really looking for, and maybe try your hand and GMing for your GM. At best you can show them the kinds of games you like and some new techniques. At worst you can get a good appriciation of what sort of challanges he or she has when GMing for your group. Either way it'll give them a nice break, and someone learns a valuable lesson.
But he introduced the PC in a contrived way that resulted in them trying to kill each other...
I didn't want to spell out and how's and why's per se because I'm not trying to drag my friend, but rather vent some frustration at not having the best IRL Star Wars gaming experiences. But the fact that you immediately jumped to him being green is interesting.
We're all 40 year olds (give or take) and have been gaming together since our 20's. We're not newbs. This dude just keeps playing RPG's like he's still in high school. This is one of my long time group (sorta... he took an almost 8 year break when he moved to Asia to teach and explore, and has rejoined us for the past 3 or 4 years now. Before he left, we were gaming together once or twice a week. After he came back, life had moved on and we're gaming only 3-4 times a year. He's still the same guy he was before he left.) Each of us take turns at GM duties. We are all new to EotE however (I have the most experience but only due to these forums), and since he's the one who brought the game to the group we encouraged him run the games. I mentioned on these forums before that during the first session he had no idea how the game worked, only that the dice has funny symbols on them and for every role made he adjudicated them according to whimsey. This session, he made quite a bit of effort to learn and use at least some of the rules. But, IMO, overplanned the heist and took it out of our hands entirely.
The railroading is not new. This is more of an M-O for him. He wants to tell a story, and doesn't really take into consideration what our characters are wont to do, just that he knows his friends will join him around a table and have fun. His stories that he wants to tell usually have nothing in common with the characters he has assembled for his games and does not take their needs/wants into consideration. I think he'd be completely happy running one shot after one shot after one shot whereas the rest of us want to find one or two campaigns and stick with them for a while rotating between GM's every few months. And while fun is usually had, its just frustrating. Example: He previously ran a short lived IKRPG campaign where the group decided on being a pirate crew! We had a small ship which we took great pains to stat out and flesh out with fluff and out session 0 was great. But then he was very confused when we didn't want to leave our ship behind in the south of Cygnar and travel overland into the north of Khador and save a damsel we had never heard of before.
Our GM really did make more of an effort to learn what the dice actually do other than success & failure. He listened to our (mostly my) complaints from last session about actually using the rules and dice results to craft a story together. But he also he also spent a lot of time writing setup and background and fleshing out NPC's and a "home base". Also, he kept pushing his annoying NPC's on us that we did not want.
I don't want to get into too many details of the game itself, because this post would take far too long, but suffice to say that his efforts to accommodate us as players petered out once we rebelled against his introduction. Its EotE, yeah? So all of us are fringe/criminal characters. The long and convoluted and very, very railroady way he chose to introduce a new party member (a regular player who missed out on our first session) immediately put us into conflict. When we finally had our first scene together, he was trying to break into my characters ship to escape his situation. Being the scoundrel that I am playing, I shot him. Long story short, "discussions" were had on ignoring character motivations in favour of railroading us. Things got heated for a bit one of the other players and the player who missed the first sessions piled into him. So yay, it wasn't just me!
After a smoke break and time to cool down, things progressed a little better. It was a heist adventure. Sounds fun, right? And it really could have been. Except our GM over-wrote the adventure and planned everything for us. He even foisted two very annoying NPC's on us. Both droids with droid revolution complex's who wouldn't shut up about it. Both NPC's that were written in to take over our own roles in the party. ("Why to we need AA-B along with us?" "To slice the systems for you." "Yeah, but my character is a slicer, so why do we need him? OK, fine. Why do need BB-A then?" "He's going to be your face." "Dude, HIS character is the face of the party!") And yeah, we kinda took it to him again on that. But the motivation for his doing it came from the fact that he tried so hard to fix his mistakes from the first sessions, that he made a whole bunch of other mistakes for the second! He came up with both the problem and the solution, and the people needed to implement the solution and zero variability on how the solution was to be carried out. Our characters just kinda went along for the ride.
It was fun because we were together, shooting the shit and being friends. It was fun because GM's story time (despite being railroady and being done for us already) is usually never a bad thing. But It was in-fun because he was over-planned, and that planning was based on the NPC's he made for us (because he didn't take into account what our characters are actually good it?) and structured the adventure to trigger challenges based on us failing something. As in, we can't slice that terminal and the security drones activate. We can't charm our way past the secretary, our fake credentials get spoiled. That sort of thing. But with droids doubling our roles in the party we had boosts to everything and did not fail once. We waltzed into space Gringotts and waltzed right back out again with zero issues. Zero. He was really dissapointed in that fact. During another break between the (anti-)climax and the coda he was lamenting how that wasn't very Star Wars-y at all. And I mentioned that if you base all our challenges on us failing something...and then give us enough advantages to make sure we don't fail.... what did you think was going to happen?
He did learn some of the rules though. That was nice.
I dunno man, but reading through your post makes my "Social Contract" alarm bells in my head blare. I'm sure I'm projecting as I GM in 9 outta 10 of the games I play, but I'm having a hard time sympathizing. Player character introductions are almost always contrived because otherwise players react exactly how you did: by killing each other. I see your complaints with the redundant NPCs, but if your GMs primary worry is making sure you guys don't "rebel against his introduction" I can total understand why he thought they were necessary. That being said I can see that your GM is green, but hopefully he or she continues to learn from these mistakes and continues to put that level of effort into getting better. And while you're waiting for that to happen you might want to look inward to see what kind of gameplay you're really looking for, and maybe try your hand and GMing for your GM. At best you can show them the kinds of games you like and some new techniques. At worst you can get a good appriciation of what sort of challanges he or she has when GMing for your group. Either way it'll give them a nice break, and someone learns a valuable lesson.
But he introduced the PC in a contrived way that resulted in them trying to kill each other...
This was our point when we talked to him about it. The way the scenario went down, there was no other way avoid conflict. I tried. It wasn't as if I yelled yahoo! before shooting him. I asked three times if there was another ship new guy could have stolen, only to be denied. The GM wanted some kind of fringer meet-cute when all he had to do was have quest giver guy say, "Here, I have a specialists who can help you..."
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Our GM really did make more of an effort to learn what the dice actually do other than success & failure. He listened to our (mostly my) complaints from last session about actually using the rules and dice results to craft a story together. But he also he also spent a lot of time writing setup and background and fleshing out NPC's and a "home base". Also, he kept pushing his annoying NPC's on us that we did not want.
I don't want to get into too many details of the game itself, because this post would take far too long, but suffice to say that his efforts to accommodate us as players petered out once we rebelled against his introduction. Its EotE, yeah? So all of us are fringe/criminal characters. The long and convoluted and very, very railroady way he chose to introduce a new party member (a regular player who missed out on our first session) immediately put us into conflict. When we finally had our first scene together, he was trying to break into my characters ship to escape his situation. Being the scoundrel that I am playing, I shot him. Long story short, "discussions" were had on ignoring character motivations in favour of railroading us. Things got heated for a bit one of the other players and the player who missed the first sessions piled into him. So yay, it wasn't just me!
After a smoke break and time to cool down, things progressed a little better. It was a heist adventure. Sounds fun, right? And it really could have been. Except our GM over-wrote the adventure and planned everything for us. He even foisted two very annoying NPC's on us. Both droids with droid revolution complex's who wouldn't shut up about it. Both NPC's that were written in to take over our own roles in the party. ("Why to we need AA-B along with us?" "To slice the systems for you." "Yeah, but my character is a slicer, so why do we need him? OK, fine. Why do need BB-A then?" "He's going to be your face." "Dude, HIS character is the face of the party!") And yeah, we kinda took it to him again on that. But the motivation for his doing it came from the fact that he tried so hard to fix his mistakes from the first sessions, that he made a whole bunch of other mistakes for the second! He came up with both the problem and the solution, and the people needed to implement the solution and zero variability on how the solution was to be carried out. Our characters just kinda went along for the ride.
It was fun because we were together, shooting the shit and being friends. It was fun because GM's story time (despite being railroady and being done for us already) is usually never a bad thing. But It was in-fun because he was over-planned, and that planning was based on the NPC's he made for us (because he didn't take into account what our characters are actually good it?) and structured the adventure to trigger challenges based on us failing something. As in, we can't slice that terminal and the security drones activate. We can't charm our way past the secretary, our fake credentials get spoiled. That sort of thing. But with droids doubling our roles in the party we had boosts to everything and did not fail once. We waltzed into space Gringotts and waltzed right back out again with zero issues. Zero. He was really dissapointed in that fact. During another break between the (anti-)climax and the coda he was lamenting how that wasn't very Star Wars-y at all. And I mentioned that if you base all our challenges on us failing something...and then give us enough advantages to make sure we don't fail.... what did you think was going to happen?
He did learn some of the rules though. That was nice.
I dunno man, but reading through your post makes my "Social Contract" alarm bells in my head blare. I'm sure I'm projecting as I GM in 9 outta 10 of the games I play, but I'm having a hard time sympathizing. Player character introductions are almost always contrived because otherwise players react exactly how you did: by killing each other. I see your complaints with the redundant NPCs, but if your GMs primary worry is making sure you guys don't "rebel against his introduction" I can total understand why he thought they were necessary. That being said I can see that your GM is green, but hopefully he or she continues to learn from these mistakes and continues to put that level of effort into getting better. And while you're waiting for that to happen you might want to look inward to see what kind of gameplay you're really looking for, and maybe try your hand and GMing for your GM. At best you can show them the kinds of games you like and some new techniques. At worst you can get a good appriciation of what sort of challanges he or she has when GMing for your group. Either way it'll give them a nice break, and someone learns a valuable lesson.
But he introduced the PC in a contrived way that resulted in them trying to kill each other...
This was our point when we talked to him about it. The way the scenario went down, there was no other way avoid conflict. The GM wanted some kind of fringer meet-cute when all he had to do was have quest giver guy say, "Here, I have a specialists who can help you..."
Right. And I think you can actually do stuff like that, but you need to talk out-of-character about how it's going to play out and the reason your character's already have to get along. Dramatic irony first, then in-character action. Expecting it to just work out is the expectation of a railroader.
Yeah, that makes it a bit more clear. I assumed he was green because of the way you talked about him. That being said engineering fun for a group of people is still a learned skill, and some people either learn slower or simply plateau. It's still kinda hard for me to think of a scenario where you've got no other option but to kill another player character because of how they were introduced, but I'll take your word on it. Especially if that other player was having issues with it too. Sorry for laying into you when you just wanted to vent.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
That's true, and I do think the caveat to all this is that... you kind of know what this guy brings to the table, and either haven't done anything to address that (talked to him directly) or have and been utterly ignored, but continued to play. Which means at a certain point you are, for lack of a better term, consenting to his style of play and should be trying to make the most of it rather than fight against it. Him giving you a railroaded PC introduction does not preclude you from having a metagame discussion to decide why your characters would get along and group up*. Which does bring us back to what @italianranma was saying about the social contract.
*and if he does actually prevent you from doing that I would just tell you to stop, stop even trying to play with him.
That's true, and I do think the caveat to all this is that... you kind of know what this guy brings to the table, and either haven't done anything to address that (talked to him directly) or have and been utterly ignored, but continued to play. Which means at a certain point you are, for lack of a better term, consenting to his style of play and should be trying to make the most of it rather than fight against it. Him giving you a railroaded PC introduction does not preclude you from having a metagame discussion to decide why your characters would get along and group up*. Which does bring us back to what @italianranma was saying about the social contract.
*and if he does actually prevent you from doing that I would just tell you to stop, stop even trying to play with him.
I see this advice a lot. And we do discuss it. But its always easier said than done to change the dynamic of a group or walk away from it. We are friends, and we already play together so rarely. Its not always this bad, and sucking it up for one weekend session a year and then bitching online about it is a small price to pay for group harmony, I think.
i think due to the time involved in between sessions it's probably high time for you boys to have a Hard Conversation about where you are as people and like, you know, communicate your desires explicitly
i know you say you've had these discussions, but you hinted that your friend at best is letting those discussions go in one ear and out the other
people grow and change over time--most of us are not the same people we were 10, 5, or even two years ago, and tastes change with us
if you're willing to put up with this being a drag occasionally, then that's on you, but if you blast it out to the greater internet people are going to reflexively offer ways to help (just like me).
a gaming relationship is like any other relationship! you either work the differences out or become embittered and resigned to the "reality" of the situation because it's comfortable and easy. but to me, if it gets to that point... what are you gaming for?
my own gaming report: ran a game on Friday in 5th edition. very pleased with the turnout--I ended up using a lot of techniques I stoleborrowed from our lord Matt Mercer and they seemed to go over well.
brief summary: the session was a "session .5" prologue deal where everyone essentially has the "peasant" template, and throughout the session I presented them (collectively and individually) with choices that would influence their starting class (with their permission; I got buy-in from 3 of 4 players, the 4th who was set on playing a ranger and I had no problem with that; he served as a neat foil to the rest of the group)
the story opened in the most mundane way possible: they all described and had a brief scene with their families/friends at breakfast and did some daily chores, after which they all found themselves at the inn (by various circumstances) and overhead that one of the larger farmers lost one of his sheep to a predator (likely a bear). they poke their nose in, find out some more details, and get offered a job the evening after to watch the flock and maybe take down this troublesome varmint. they accept the terms and head out to investigate. they locate what remains of the sheep; a desiccated, rotting mess. alongside the remains they find a protective charm on a piece of parchment crafted by the village's priestess of Melora (who happens to be one of the characters' mother)
they head back, reveal some of their findings to the priestess who says stay away (and is very concerned), have some more interactions with their families before resigning to bed. this is where i started the mindfuckery and presented three of them with various dreams and visions where they made the choices that more or less determined their final outcome. highlights include:
one character being caught in a dream loop with his heirloom rapier shifting from a rapier to a flute to a dagger and back again accompanied by a near-skeletal figure in black quietly saying "you must choose" along with runes in celestial moving up and down the blade (which he can read, he decided to know celestial as a roleplaying hook). this character is a half-elf born to the seamstress who has a deadbeat dad who ran out and left said rapier. curiously his mother has no real memories of him (aside from him being pretty awesome. lots of alcohol you see)
spoiler because one of my players reads this, don't peek:
the player thinks his dad is the source of the celestial shit--he thinks he's half-elf/half something. well, his mother is human soooo... i'm planning to reveal at some point that his dad is indeed a really badass bard/elf but the celestial shit is coming from his mother who is literally a minor angel in exile who basically traded away her divinity to become human and have their child, and has stored said essence in the item
another character being led to a stone (previously hinted at by interactions with younger siblings) in the forest, being called forward by stone. essentially lovecraft on steroids. he ended up waking up on the outskirt of the very same grove; he began conversing with the stone and got a tentacle in the ear for his trouble and an intelligence boost for being so bold. he is now a warlock
there are more, but the tldr is that they are all now in their heroic classes as the first adventurers of their village as the "shadows darken over Oakvale". cue blood moon, cue things getting weirder and more eviler and the only ones capable of stopping it are my scoobies. we're picking up with the first "real" session on Saturday and i am so excited
i think due to the time involved in between sessions it's probably high time for you boys to have a Hard Conversation about where you are as people and like, you know, communicate your desires explicitly
i know you say you've had these discussions, but you hinted that your friend at best is letting those discussions go in one ear and out the other
people grow and change over time--most of us are not the same people we were 10, 5, or even two years ago, and tastes change with us
if you're willing to put up with this being a drag occasionally, then that's on you, but if you blast it out to the greater internet people are going to reflexively offer ways to help (just like me).
a gaming relationship is like any other relationship! you either work the differences out or become embittered and resigned to the "reality" of the situation because it's comfortable and easy. but to me, if it gets to that point... what are you gaming for?
You are not wrong. Especially about people changing and growing over time. Bless his heart, this guy has not changed a bit since his 20's. It's almost embarrassing, but I remind myself that he's happy being who he is and therefore who am I judge?
And most discussions are of the "Dude! WTF was that?" variety and not of the "Listen, John...We need to talk about something..." variety. I will admit that the forced jocularity probably does not help the lesson to sink in.
I will ponder on having a more...robust conversation about this. Thanks Internet!
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
So after our short Masks jaunt, we're probably going to do Blades in the Dark which I will run. It's a pretty neat system that I'm liking a lot and I'm currently reading through the skills description where it gives some examples. One is puzzling me a little from a GM perspective. Basically on a Prowl (stealthy attacks and movement) check, the example is the player sneaks up behind the guy and beats them over the head with a blackjack. Their example for a reduced effect on a partial/mixed success (4-5) is "His knees buckle for a moment, but he doesn’t go down. He curses and staggers sideways and reaches out to support himself against the wall. What do you do?"
Is it just me or is this kind of pointless? My first thought as a player in that situation would be "Uh I just beat the shit out of him again and finish the job?" The player is coming at it from a controlled position so they should just totally succeed in knocking him out. I could see something like "He goes down but not before crying out in surprise alerting his friend."
I'm just wondering if I'm missing some reason to do this that's more interesting.
As the GM, you never pick the move. You only set the position. So, on a 4-5, the next roll's position is definitely moving from Controlled -> Risky as a default. If the player picks prowl again to try to be sneaky around someone who is now aware of their presence, that sounds like a "Desperate, Little Effect" action.
Additionally, a lot of the time in blades, you don't even want to deal with these kinds of rolls unless there is a defined, definite set of consequences for failure. On top of which, remember that the engagement roll skips ahead through the "get through the mooks on guard" step of adventures. Remember that the default action in Blades is "Risky, Standard", and that the players start out as Tier 0 nobodies. If they're attacking a Tier 1 or Tier 2 crew, they should basically never get to the controlled position unless a lot of things go well for them.
The biggest thing I had to get through to DM BITD was to be *way* more obvious about what the potential risks of failure are. Once I started doing a better job of that (which was mostly thinking through the potential consequences before allowing the roll to happen), often times I could just ask a player "Well, you succeed at X, but what do you think went wrong here?" and they would often feel empowered enough to narrate some pretty interesting consequences.
The last thing about BITD that I had to wrap my head around - do not be afraid to be absolutely BRUTAL at handing out harm. Unlike other games, if the players don't want to deal with harm, they can always opt to resist it. And a key point of tension in the game is the balance between stress, trauma, and their vice. Make them regret pushing themselves early in the adventure. Make them agonize over whether they should help teammates. Make them wonder if they should resist.
So I got to try shadowrun with my group a little while back and all told things went pretty well, especially considering how half the party had no expierience with it, though we did have a little bump. Well three actually. Specifically civilians that went under the tire's of our ares roadmaster as we tried to wreck some corporate security cars and goons.
Which leads into the question of "How concerned should we be long term about civilian casualties?"
So I got to try shadowrun with my group a little while back and all told things went pretty well, especially considering how half the party had no expierience with it, though we did have a little bump. Well three actually. Specifically civilians that went under the tire's of our ares roadmaster as we tried to wreck some corporate security cars and goons.
Which leads into the question of "How concerned should we be long term about civilian casualties?"
Given normal shadowrunner shenanigans vs corporations a few random civilians probably don't add to the danger much. Given even the "law" such as it is basically is a for profit corporation bribe the right people and nobody who matters will care.
So I got to try shadowrun with my group a little while back and all told things went pretty well, especially considering how half the party had no expierience with it, though we did have a little bump. Well three actually. Specifically civilians that went under the tire's of our ares roadmaster as we tried to wreck some corporate security cars and goons.
Which leads into the question of "How concerned should we be long term about civilian casualties?"
Given the setting I think that depends on who cares about them.
I'm working on an infamy mechanic that for my EotE game that I hope to bring to Shadowrun and other games as well. It's basically a running tally of every time the PCs do something that could have some long-term consequences to including killing (civilians or otherwise), destroying valuable property, manipulating someone powerful, bad press, and other similar things. The idea being that as infamy accumulates the response to their illicit activities becomes stronger, and they may have a tougher time making new friends or convincing nuetral parties to trust them. As it is right now everything is worth 1 point and I use a d100 with a consequence if I roll under their rating. I'm going to eventually add some break points that frame the group in certain lights and when armed responses become stronger and deadlier.
I'm working on an infamy mechanic that for my EotE game that I hope to bring to Shadowrun and other games as well. It's basically a running tally of every time the PCs do something that could have some long-term consequences to including killing (civilians or otherwise), destroying valuable property, manipulating someone powerful, bad press, and other similar things. The idea being that as infamy accumulates the response to their illicit activities becomes stronger, and they may have a tougher time making new friends or convincing nuetral parties to trust them. As it is right now everything is worth 1 point and I use a d100 with a consequence if I roll under their rating. I'm going to eventually add some break points that frame the group in certain lights and when armed responses become stronger and deadlier.
Was notoriety dropped in the most recent shadowrun version?
I'm pretty sure that system was in Shadowrun 4, or at least 3. Not exactly but you had a stat representing how infamous you were.
To be completely honest I like the idea of Shadrowrun but I've never completely read through the rules, so I don't know. When I do eventually play it I'll do so with my own d6 dice pool system.
The real purpose of infamy is to determine when the game ends, which is when I get to 100. By that point they should have already had some really well developed characters and have bought all their toys, so rather than have their heists just become too easy and let them retire I'll have their final game be where they fall victum to the ultimate set up. The John Marston ending if you will.
The real purpose of infamy is to determine when the game ends, which is when I get to 100. By that point they should have already had some really well developed characters and have bought all their toys, so rather than have their heists just become too easy and let them retire I'll have their final game be where they fall victum to the ultimate set up. The John Marston ending if you will.
Thanks! I got the idea from Breath of Fire: Dragon Quartet. It's got a mechanic where you can use your best abilities to trivialize fights, even boss fights, but doing so rapidly counts down the doomsday clock (read: game over). Even walking around counts down the clock, albiet at a very slow rate. With infamy what I want to do is eliminate the idea of killing, stealing, and cheating as a convience. Instead those acts have a price that will be paid, just not immidiately as the infamy counter never goes down. It also adds a little bit of black and white morality to games that are about living in the grey area, and some gravitas to their actions. The best thing is that as they become more infamous it becomes harder and harder for them to come clean as the armed responses to their crimes become more aggressive and reputable NPCs are less willing to deal with them.
Shadowrun has a Street Rep/Notoriety system. It’s Bare bones, but it’s there. I’d caution against adding more moving parts to a game with a TON of moving parts. Just give them a Karma bonus for having a clean run or a small social penalty if you care enough to add it in. Since you are just starting playing the game, I actually would not worry about it much. The default setting of Shadowrun protagonists is “amoral criminals”, so...
I'm not playing Shadowrun by the book though; I'm about to start EotE game, but with a few tweaks. I've been working on my own rule set for a few years now (if anyone's interested send me a PM I'll share it with you on drop box or whatever). The core of the system is a d6 dice pool with a floating target number for successes. Each round (in or out of combat) there's a player turn and an NPC turn with each character getting two actions. Usually the target number is really high, like "6" unless they take a prepitory action to lower that number. These prepitory actions are usually 'stances' which last until the character does something to break it. For example "Aiming" lowers the TN for ranged attacks to "5", but you break that stance if you move. So in a fire fight you might Aim and Attack, but then you're out in the open for retalitory fire. It may be safer to Move to Cover and Aim, and then shoot twice next round, but then the enemy might be in a position to Flank and Aim... I picked up Coriolis: The Third Horizon last year at GenCon and I was surprised at how similar their system is, though there are plenty of differences (and I've got timestamped emails with my drafts... not that I'm ever planning on selling this system, but you never know).
Along with that resolution mechanic and action economy I've also been thinking of what additional systems I want to add to the game. Wealth (as an abstracted resource), Escalation (as a limiting factor on individual play sessions/adventures), and Infamy (as described) were the subsystems I started working on.
Anyway with this EotE game I'm going to try to modify the basic rules to use my action economy system, and to test out the Wealth, Escalation, and Infamy mechanics, but using the FFG dice system. We'll see what happens but if worst comes to worst I can always default to the base game.
I'm not playing Shadowrun by the book though; I'm about to start EotE game, but with a few tweaks. I've been working on my own rule set for a few years now (if anyone's interested send me a PM I'll share it with you on drop box or whatever). The core of the system is a d6 dice pool with a floating target number for successes. Each round (in or out of combat) there's a player turn and an NPC turn with each character getting two actions. Usually the target number is really high, like "6" unless they take a prepitory action to lower that number. These prepitory actions are usually 'stances' which last until the character does something to break it. For example "Aiming" lowers the TN for ranged attacks to "5", but you break that stance if you move. So in a fire fight you might Aim and Attack, but then you're out in the open for retalitory fire. It may be safer to Move to Cover and Aim, and then shoot twice next round, but then the enemy might be in a position to Flank and Aim... I picked up Coriolis: The Third Horizon last year at GenCon and I was surprised at how similar their system is, though there are plenty of differences (and I've got timestamped emails with my drafts... not that I'm ever planning on selling this system, but you never know).
Along with that resolution mechanic and action economy I've also been thinking of what additional systems I want to add to the game. Wealth (as an abstracted resource), Escalation (as a limiting factor on individual play sessions/adventures), and Infamy (as described) were the subsystems I started working on.
Anyway with this EotE game I'm going to try to modify the basic rules to use my action economy system, and to test out the Wealth, Escalation, and Infamy mechanics, but using the FFG dice system. We'll see what happens but if worst comes to worst I can always default to the base game.
My post was in response to Gaddez (who’s playing vanilla SR, I assume?), not you, sorry. Do whatever the heck that you want for your home brew, you crazy diamond.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
After some infustigation getting the full group together, the newer group and older group have in-character planted themselves in a bar and they're telling war-stories to each other.
I feel good that they have some. This all gives me a warm feeling.
So I got to try shadowrun with my group a little while back and all told things went pretty well, especially considering how half the party had no expierience with it, though we did have a little bump. Well three actually. Specifically civilians that went under the tire's of our ares roadmaster as we tried to wreck some corporate security cars and goons.
Which leads into the question of "How concerned should we be long term about civilian casualties?"
That depends on a lot of factors. For the average runner team that is practicing great OPSEC, it shouldn't be a concern at all. Mr. Johnsons don't care in general. If the police don't know who you are, they can't really do much about it.
But if you begin to develop a reputation for collateral damage your team will only get offered certain kinds of contracts and most police will know who they are, regardless of how good your OPSEC is.
If you're killing corporate citizens inside of their campuses, however, that corp at least is going to take notice. First of all they need to maintain security to keep prized employees happy, and secondly you've embarrassed them.
If your GM should react at all, it should be to find a way to let you know you shouldn't make a habit of collateral damage.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I had the newer players meet a man-hound the vet players picked up in the Underhive. It's a dog mutated to stand and act as a bodyguard. I had her do dog things as she inspected the new players. To the tough arbitrator of the group, she held her paw out like the beginning of Predator as kind of a fun thing. The player apparently did not understand this and held his character's arm out and just let it fall down as she grabbed. She gave a smug smile, stole his drink, and left the room.
One of the vet players started laughing, "you just got made the beta.”
Also the introduction the new players had to the new players’ characters was one of them drunkenly accusing their handler of being a Krieger clone and getting into a shouting match. In my head canon, the different planets with IG regiments that resemble historical armies have accents and culture similar to those places. The handler is from Armageddon, whose regiments dress like the Falschirmjager from WW2. They would be the equivalent of Space Austria, while Krieg would be Space Germany with their WW1 gear, or space Holstein vs Bavaria wutevs. The point is the different German states and regions all have kind of rivalries. I made this a thing. I have also been unsatisfied with the last three names I have given the handler and have changed his name over the course of two years. The player made this an in-universe thing and said the reason why the names have been changing is because he is actually a clone who has been replaced every time they do under the excuse of inquisitorial secrecy. He resented being called a Krieger, got into the shouting match, stood up, took a swing, and passed out on the floor.
Has anyone checked out Rolegate.com? It's basically a site designed for pbp games. It's fairly barebones right now but the creator is making lots of changes and is active on the Discord. I started playing in a SWN game recently on there and it's working well. I think the format encourages people to post smaller and more often which seems to be working well.
As an excuse to try the GMing tools and learn some Call of Cthulhu 7e I was thinking about trying a game using the freely available quickstart rules and a oneshot scenario if people over here would be interested. No precious knowledge of Rolegate or Call of Cthulhu would be expected. Any interest?
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Ok, I'll put together a character sheet and post here when it's ready. Probably I'll make a separate thread but I'll ping you guys.
If by how do you mean how does rolegate work it's kind of like a discord or something, but with more specific tools. The GM can create NPCs and you can speak and narrate your actions, similar to a forum. The advantages compared to pbp are that it has more available tools, the website works pretty well on phones, and I think the format encourages smaller, more frequent posts that are more like how an in person game flows.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Depending on the time frame, can I be an estranged Sinn Fein/IRA thug type protecting one of the nerdier people as a hired bodyguard? Or are all of us professors and such?
I feel like I understand the periphery of CoC, the insanity, lethality, and shock bits but have never played it.
So the scenario I'm planning on using is a fairly generic one, the PCs are all traveling between in rural Massachusetts when a bad storm forces then to sell shelter for the night. The default takes place in the 1920s, but I don't know enough Irish history to know where that would place the IRA.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I'm debating a modern horror/fantasy where massive dungeon complexes bleed into urban environments. Basically turning them into hidden night mare realms the PC's explore and try to figure out...or a Powered Armor Post-Apok recovery/rescue team adventure where the PC's are a strike force that gather resources and brings in survivors to a questionable high-tech patron.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited June 2018
Hey I already said that.
Also I’m going to get half a degree of Jojo for the CoC character’s name. I am James Michael “Big Jim” Dwyer, ex-IRA, aka the “Coward of Falls Road”. After fighting for the republican side of the fledgling North Ireland insurgency (The Troubles won’t start for a while) after the Republic of Ireland was made free from British Rule, Big Jim was the last survivor of an MP crackdown in Belfast. Seeing his friends dead and his time surely up, James hid on the first boat to Boston. Before this, looking for some revenge, he cornered a policeman, beat him, and took his Webley (along with his 12 bullets?). He was looking for some work, and heard about someone who needed a man with a knack in New York. He was on his way, when he got caught in a storm (or met someone who could have used a thug).
The name is from the Pogues song, “Body of an American”.
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I do not accept being malicious or overly dickish to other players with the excuse “I’m just playing my character” in my games. Then change the character. That shit will get you thrown out.
With the typical caveat for games with magic that if you're charmed or whatever that's a bit different.
But he introduced the PC in a contrived way that resulted in them trying to kill each other...
We're all 40 year olds (give or take) and have been gaming together since our 20's. We're not newbs. This dude just keeps playing RPG's like he's still in high school. This is one of my long time group (sorta... he took an almost 8 year break when he moved to Asia to teach and explore, and has rejoined us for the past 3 or 4 years now. Before he left, we were gaming together once or twice a week. After he came back, life had moved on and we're gaming only 3-4 times a year. He's still the same guy he was before he left.) Each of us take turns at GM duties. We are all new to EotE however (I have the most experience but only due to these forums), and since he's the one who brought the game to the group we encouraged him run the games. I mentioned on these forums before that during the first session he had no idea how the game worked, only that the dice has funny symbols on them and for every role made he adjudicated them according to whimsey. This session, he made quite a bit of effort to learn and use at least some of the rules. But, IMO, overplanned the heist and took it out of our hands entirely.
The railroading is not new. This is more of an M-O for him. He wants to tell a story, and doesn't really take into consideration what our characters are wont to do, just that he knows his friends will join him around a table and have fun. His stories that he wants to tell usually have nothing in common with the characters he has assembled for his games and does not take their needs/wants into consideration. I think he'd be completely happy running one shot after one shot after one shot whereas the rest of us want to find one or two campaigns and stick with them for a while rotating between GM's every few months. And while fun is usually had, its just frustrating. Example: He previously ran a short lived IKRPG campaign where the group decided on being a pirate crew! We had a small ship which we took great pains to stat out and flesh out with fluff and out session 0 was great. But then he was very confused when we didn't want to leave our ship behind in the south of Cygnar and travel overland into the north of Khador and save a damsel we had never heard of before.
This was our point when we talked to him about it. The way the scenario went down, there was no other way avoid conflict. I tried. It wasn't as if I yelled yahoo! before shooting him. I asked three times if there was another ship new guy could have stolen, only to be denied. The GM wanted some kind of fringer meet-cute when all he had to do was have quest giver guy say, "Here, I have a specialists who can help you..."
Right. And I think you can actually do stuff like that, but you need to talk out-of-character about how it's going to play out and the reason your character's already have to get along. Dramatic irony first, then in-character action. Expecting it to just work out is the expectation of a railroader.
*and if he does actually prevent you from doing that I would just tell you to stop, stop even trying to play with him.
I see this advice a lot. And we do discuss it. But its always easier said than done to change the dynamic of a group or walk away from it. We are friends, and we already play together so rarely. Its not always this bad, and sucking it up for one weekend session a year and then bitching online about it is a small price to pay for group harmony, I think.
i know you say you've had these discussions, but you hinted that your friend at best is letting those discussions go in one ear and out the other
people grow and change over time--most of us are not the same people we were 10, 5, or even two years ago, and tastes change with us
if you're willing to put up with this being a drag occasionally, then that's on you, but if you blast it out to the greater internet people are going to reflexively offer ways to help (just like me).
a gaming relationship is like any other relationship! you either work the differences out or become embittered and resigned to the "reality" of the situation because it's comfortable and easy. but to me, if it gets to that point... what are you gaming for?
brief summary: the session was a "session .5" prologue deal where everyone essentially has the "peasant" template, and throughout the session I presented them (collectively and individually) with choices that would influence their starting class (with their permission; I got buy-in from 3 of 4 players, the 4th who was set on playing a ranger and I had no problem with that; he served as a neat foil to the rest of the group)
the story opened in the most mundane way possible: they all described and had a brief scene with their families/friends at breakfast and did some daily chores, after which they all found themselves at the inn (by various circumstances) and overhead that one of the larger farmers lost one of his sheep to a predator (likely a bear). they poke their nose in, find out some more details, and get offered a job the evening after to watch the flock and maybe take down this troublesome varmint. they accept the terms and head out to investigate. they locate what remains of the sheep; a desiccated, rotting mess. alongside the remains they find a protective charm on a piece of parchment crafted by the village's priestess of Melora (who happens to be one of the characters' mother)
they head back, reveal some of their findings to the priestess who says stay away (and is very concerned), have some more interactions with their families before resigning to bed. this is where i started the mindfuckery and presented three of them with various dreams and visions where they made the choices that more or less determined their final outcome. highlights include:
one character being caught in a dream loop with his heirloom rapier shifting from a rapier to a flute to a dagger and back again accompanied by a near-skeletal figure in black quietly saying "you must choose" along with runes in celestial moving up and down the blade (which he can read, he decided to know celestial as a roleplaying hook). this character is a half-elf born to the seamstress who has a deadbeat dad who ran out and left said rapier. curiously his mother has no real memories of him (aside from him being pretty awesome. lots of alcohol you see)
spoiler because one of my players reads this, don't peek:
another character being led to a stone (previously hinted at by interactions with younger siblings) in the forest, being called forward by stone. essentially lovecraft on steroids. he ended up waking up on the outskirt of the very same grove; he began conversing with the stone and got a tentacle in the ear for his trouble and an intelligence boost for being so bold. he is now a warlock
there are more, but the tldr is that they are all now in their heroic classes as the first adventurers of their village as the "shadows darken over Oakvale". cue blood moon, cue things getting weirder and more eviler and the only ones capable of stopping it are my scoobies. we're picking up with the first "real" session on Saturday and i am so excited
You are not wrong. Especially about people changing and growing over time. Bless his heart, this guy has not changed a bit since his 20's. It's almost embarrassing, but I remind myself that he's happy being who he is and therefore who am I judge?
And most discussions are of the "Dude! WTF was that?" variety and not of the "Listen, John...We need to talk about something..." variety. I will admit that the forced jocularity probably does not help the lesson to sink in.
I will ponder on having a more...robust conversation about this. Thanks Internet!
Thanks for this, this is super helpful!
Which leads into the question of "How concerned should we be long term about civilian casualties?"
Given normal shadowrunner shenanigans vs corporations a few random civilians probably don't add to the danger much. Given even the "law" such as it is basically is a for profit corporation bribe the right people and nobody who matters will care.
Given the setting I think that depends on who cares about them.
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Was notoriety dropped in the most recent shadowrun version?
I'm pretty sure that system was in Shadowrun 4, or at least 3. Not exactly but you had a stat representing how infamous you were.
I guess I could see the rationale for tracking it separately.
That sounds very awesome
Along with that resolution mechanic and action economy I've also been thinking of what additional systems I want to add to the game. Wealth (as an abstracted resource), Escalation (as a limiting factor on individual play sessions/adventures), and Infamy (as described) were the subsystems I started working on.
Anyway with this EotE game I'm going to try to modify the basic rules to use my action economy system, and to test out the Wealth, Escalation, and Infamy mechanics, but using the FFG dice system. We'll see what happens but if worst comes to worst I can always default to the base game.
I feel good that they have some. This all gives me a warm feeling.
But if you begin to develop a reputation for collateral damage your team will only get offered certain kinds of contracts and most police will know who they are, regardless of how good your OPSEC is.
If you're killing corporate citizens inside of their campuses, however, that corp at least is going to take notice. First of all they need to maintain security to keep prized employees happy, and secondly you've embarrassed them.
If your GM should react at all, it should be to find a way to let you know you shouldn't make a habit of collateral damage.
One of the vet players started laughing, "you just got made the beta.”
Also the introduction the new players had to the new players’ characters was one of them drunkenly accusing their handler of being a Krieger clone and getting into a shouting match. In my head canon, the different planets with IG regiments that resemble historical armies have accents and culture similar to those places. The handler is from Armageddon, whose regiments dress like the Falschirmjager from WW2. They would be the equivalent of Space Austria, while Krieg would be Space Germany with their WW1 gear, or space Holstein vs Bavaria wutevs. The point is the different German states and regions all have kind of rivalries. I made this a thing. I have also been unsatisfied with the last three names I have given the handler and have changed his name over the course of two years. The player made this an in-universe thing and said the reason why the names have been changing is because he is actually a clone who has been replaced every time they do under the excuse of inquisitorial secrecy. He resented being called a Krieger, got into the shouting match, stood up, took a swing, and passed out on the floor.
As an excuse to try the GMing tools and learn some Call of Cthulhu 7e I was thinking about trying a game using the freely available quickstart rules and a oneshot scenario if people over here would be interested. No precious knowledge of Rolegate or Call of Cthulhu would be expected. Any interest?
It would be asynchronous so that shouldn't matter.
Edit: how do?
If by how do you mean how does rolegate work it's kind of like a discord or something, but with more specific tools. The GM can create NPCs and you can speak and narrate your actions, similar to a forum. The advantages compared to pbp are that it has more available tools, the website works pretty well on phones, and I think the format encourages smaller, more frequent posts that are more like how an in person game flows.
I feel like I understand the periphery of CoC, the insanity, lethality, and shock bits but have never played it.
So.... Megumi Tensei or Persona?
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Also I’m going to get half a degree of Jojo for the CoC character’s name. I am James Michael “Big Jim” Dwyer, ex-IRA, aka the “Coward of Falls Road”. After fighting for the republican side of the fledgling North Ireland insurgency (The Troubles won’t start for a while) after the Republic of Ireland was made free from British Rule, Big Jim was the last survivor of an MP crackdown in Belfast. Seeing his friends dead and his time surely up, James hid on the first boat to Boston. Before this, looking for some revenge, he cornered a policeman, beat him, and took his Webley (along with his 12 bullets?). He was looking for some work, and heard about someone who needed a man with a knack in New York. He was on his way, when he got caught in a storm (or met someone who could have used a thug).
The name is from the Pogues song, “Body of an American”.