Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

we first encountered The One Other in person, the being was down a long, dark, tunnel; we simply spoke up, not wanting to see what was at the other end of the tunnel.

How many of the gods did you guys meet? Funniest/most comical meet and greet? Scariest, not including the Goddess of the Pale Bone?

I assume the run in with the One Other and any others will be in your book.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Funny you should mention that; When we first encountered The One Other in person, the being was down a long, dark, tunnel; we simply spoke up, not wanting to see what was at the other end of the tunnel.

A Target store, maybe?

Makes total sense!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Agreed. I've got over 123,000 words done, another 177, 000 to go, and I've barely scratched the surface. And I've got lots of other stuff on tap; lovely day here, with +77F and a nice breeze, and I got to cut stock for several projects - including my greatest and very bestest game, which will surpass anything I have ever done. Period.

I love my table saw.

You know we'll ask for pictures from said game, right?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Getting people to show up on time for games, though...

I know that feeling. In general, I tell everybody we're starting one hour earlier than I want them to arrive.

Originally Posted by Zirunel

my gaming period was 1978-1984. Later than some, earlier than most. And I was a teenaged boy playing in what, despite the participation of some girls, was basically teenaged boy culture. We were all wargamers previously, and yeah it was pretty competitive. After the first 3 years or so we were playing the domain game, so a campaign in the Tony Bath sense. The DM was no longer even the antagonist really, we were fighting each other (through proxy allies and armies, not actually swinging swords at each other) and he just managed the chaos. Sure, we could do some brutal stuff, "all in good fun" of course. But I am pretty confident that using the "game" to play out overt, ongoing sexual aggression, if it had ever happened (which it didn't) would have been uncomfortable for everyone. First awkward, second uncool, third go away you are creeping everyone out. Even if the sexual aggression were directed against NPCs it would be awkward. But directed against the girl (or boy) sitting next to you at the table? I honestly cannot imagine that. Not even in that ancient time, not even at our immature age. Never mind the times or the age of the participants, something went very very wrong there in the TNG. Gronan, I think your first gut reaction was the right one.

Well, I think you're all forgetting something. We know Phil allowed it to stand, which is admittedly a mistake, but an understandable one.
But what should we say about the player that executed that plan? Seriously?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Ships, carts, aircars, spacecraft, palanquins. It was all the same to Phil; "Roll percentile dice, please..."

And people wondered why I preferred to walk...:hmm:

Wasn't that what he was doing with fights, too? And with negotiations?

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

Nowadays there's much more of a GM being a 'fan of the players' and a 'social contract to make a story together' vibe. I've got no issue with that but when you take a modern player and their expectations and put them into the same situation we faced in 1974 things go south very quickly.

"Fan of the characters". The distinction is really important: being a fan of the characters, the referee pushes them in a meatgrinder to see how they'd get out (and if). Being a fan of the players...well, then we get the modern abomination of a playstyle players that expect to win in the end!

I recently ran a game based on OD&D but set in the Elizabethan period and when his character died in the first fight the 15 yo player didn't want to play any more. In the past we would have either negotiated from a position of weakness as low level characters or rolled another character and learnt the lesson.

You mean "Backswords and Bucklers"? I ran it for my group, couple of years ago. I think only one player didn't go through a couple of characters...
Nobody complained, although nobody at the table has been born in the 70ies. In fact, some had missed the 80ies as well.

The Dungeon Crawl Classics game style of level-0 funnel where everyone gets 4 level 0 characters and runs them through an adventure with a level 1 PC coming out the end or getting all the characters killed is going to be a bit of a shock if you aren't fully in the picture and your expectations managed.

Or you know, you might just tell them "don't worry, you're unlikely to end up with more than one character, if that much".

Games where chargen takes a long time or where it takes a long time to get a character to a position where they can participate fully in the game tend to have a lot of in-game 'armour' for PC's (e.g. huge stacks of hit points, multiple ways to cheat death with long periods of 'bleeding out') purely so the player can continue to play and not have to generate another character.

Well, yes, you don't want to spend a couple hours generating a character that might get killed in a single swing. Those games that have long chargen and lethal combat actually see the players being even more cautious than some players in fast-chargen scenarios, IME!

These players are far less cautious in dealing with the unexpected because they fully expect either the GM to not play too hard or to survive any traps or ambushes.

Not in my experience, unless the system features "long chargen and not particularly gritty combat". It's a combination I personally find almost useless.

Players have conditioned to expect the 'zero to hero' play progression with added plot armour for PC's whereas we entered the dungeon with a dozen PC's and henchmen each and came out with a lot less but unfazed by the result.

I tend to explain that plot armour is something I abstain from before we start a campaign. If anyone is surprised after that, they get to be reminded of what I said.

The look on a players face recently when his carefully crafted elf who always stood at the back and shot arrows got leapt on and badly chewed by the Werewolf of Mirkwood, putting him down to zero Endurance in a single attack, was a thing of beauty. The look of shock and horror brought back some great memories of gaming in years past.

Indeed. Let me tell you about the time when I cut off the hand of a martial artist in a wuxia game!
He was fighting students of the guy who was fighting the whole group in another location. One of them scored a lucky hit in a hand and almost got killed. Then both of them realised they're no match for him, and the guy that was hurt started trying to intercept all his attacks. The other one focused on getting a targetted shot in the wounded but not yet disabled hand.
Two rounds later, the NPC managed it. The player failed the roll and lost consciousness.
He never saw how the NPC ally who had remained behind got him and the hand out of this, and was later surprised to learn that said NPC has studied martial arts under the same teacher as the teacher of those two. (I think he never realised that this is why the NPC remained behind).

That's me running a game in the vein of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", BTW. High power used stupidly and irresponsibly gets you in the deepest...problems.

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

Interesting speculation last night about play styles. The expectations of players now seems to be very different to those we had back in the Seventies. Like many others from the time I came from wargaming (since '68) but the role playing environment didn't have any sort of competitive interaction between the players (the GM and the players most certainly) except once one got a high enough level that one was running a fief. I don't remember any examples of inter-player fighting unless due to possession etc.

Add to this, though, the fact that Phil was a big fan of Dying Earth (Our Motto: EVERYBODY is an asshole) and also consciously trying to make Tekumel not a "nice" place.

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

I've got no issue with that but when you take a modern player and their expectations and put them into the same situation we faced in 1974 things go south very quickly.

For me the most frustrating part for both me and the players is my notion that "the players must go find adventure." Even when I SAY that, players don't seem to grasp what I mean, or how to do it. I actually had one person (the young man I mentioned before) say "I have no idea what you mean when you say that."

Part of it I blame on the "Gather Information" skill roll. I've seen PLENTY of players roll dice and say "I got a (whatever,) what do I learn." The notion that when I say "you have to visit bars and taverns and buy drinks and ask for rumors" they actually have to DO so, and listen, and sort things out themselves, doesn't even occur to them.

Nor, it seems, does simple logic: "Look, there's a waterfront, with ships, and warehouses. Therefore, goods are being shipped by water. Therefore, there ARE pirates. And smugglers. Do we want to fight them or join them?"

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

For me the most frustrating part for both me and the players is my notion that "the players must go find adventure." Even when I SAY that, players don't seem to grasp what I mean, or how to do it. I actually had one person (the young man I mentioned before) say "I have no idea what you mean when you say that."

Part of it I blame on the "Gather Information" skill roll. I've seen PLENTY of players roll dice and say "I got a (whatever,) what do I learn." The notion that when I say "you have to visit bars and taverns and buy drinks and ask for rumors" they actually have to DO so, and listen, and sort things out themselves, doesn't even occur to them.

Nor, it seems, does simple logic: "Look, there's a waterfront, with ships, and warehouses. Therefore, goods are being shipped by water. Therefore, there ARE pirates. And smugglers. Do we want to fight them or join them?"

Some people's kids
I run into this all the time when I play " Papers & Paychecks".
I think this is something that is endemic with people of a certain age demographic. I'm sure that it's a societal thing. Although, everyone I regularly adventure with is 40+,and they know rumours/information is kind of like gold in a river; it needs to be panned if you want it.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by d(sqrt(-1))

Oooo, sorry but I have to ask - what tape would that be? I'd love to hear some of the original games going on.

Back in the late 1980s, we did a series of interviews with Phil about various subjects that interested people. We have a pile of tape on Malchairan, Thraya, the Temple of Belkhanu, the Kolumeljalim, stuff like that. All background / source materials, but with a few references to the situation in the meta-game.

We also have a lot of hours of game sessions; these are, I have to say, deadly dull and boring. We did a lot of socializing over the game table, and there are literally hours where there is no gaming going on whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

How many of the gods did you guys meet? Funniest/most comical meet and greet? Scariest, not including the Goddess of the Pale Bone?

I assume the run in with the One Other and any others will be in your book.

All o them, at one time or another. None of them were 'funny'; they didn't have much of a sense of humor, at all.

Scariest, hands down, was The One Who Is. Totally alien, and we had nothing in common with him/her/it.

Yes, of course!

From AsenRG:
You know we'll ask for pictures from said game, right?

And you'll get them. This is going to be good.

Wasn't that what he was doing with fights, too? And with negotiations?

Yep. That was his standard way of doing things.

Very good points about game play, too.