Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by David Johansen

If they have time to do a huddle you're not putting enough pressure on them.

Well yes and no. I think the party might disagree with your assertion. We have been doing a lot of town and wilderness adventuring the last several months, and much of that has been interacting with friendly and nuetral locals in a remote part of Tekumel, while the party tries to figure where they are, and how to get home. A different kind of pressure is being generated, subtle, with long term ramifications, and not always of immediate urgency. My dungeons, such as they are these days, tend to be few and far in between. Basically, the party and I are more interested in exploring societal Tekumel now, and trying to figure out what's there.
We really haven't done a good old fashioned dungeon crawl in ages. Maybe it's time to throw one in and mix things up a bit. I can really make my dungeons quite wicked when I put my mind to it.

Shemek

I've been running Mutant Chronicles just lately and with its weirdo narrativist mechanics you really have to keep the pressure on or it becomes a cake walk because the PCs can bank successes in a group pool and use them later on so you really, really have to keep them moving or they get up to shenanagins.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I have indeed; my mantra is to let potential players set up their own game group, and schedule time with me. I run what I like, and I do let people know that up front - I suggest that they watch my videos, for example. To date, I've had one inquiry about a game over the past year, so I am following Gronan's advice of 'no gaming rather then bad gaming'. I find it's made for a much less stressful year, and I've had the time to do what interests me: my writing and my model-building.

Will I run games in the future? Maybe; that's up to potential players. I have neither the time or the energy to 'stomp the hustings' and do the marketing at local conventions and the various FLGS game rooms that is such a requirement of gaming here in the Twin Cities; people feel that they only gaming that they are willing to participate in happens at those locations, and this in turn is subject to the perfectly understandable need of the retail outlets to move product. I am not 'marketable', as I simply don't play anything currently on the shelves and have the additional handicap of a play style that is woefully obsolete.

Does this bother me? Not really. it's a whole lot less work for me, and a whole lot easier on me all around. Not to mention the vast reduction in repairs and lost items that went with public gaming.

That works, too, and if it makes for a less stressful life, it might be for the better!

Originally Posted by David Johansen

I've been running Mutant Chronicles just lately and with its weirdo narrativist mechanics you really have to keep the pressure on or it becomes a cake walk because the PCs can bank successes in a group pool and use them later on so you really, really have to keep them moving or they get up to shenanagins.

I don't know this particular rule set, but the one universal constant from a GM's perspective, regardless of the rules being employed, players, if given enough time, will always get up to shenanigans.

Shemek

Originally Posted by AsenRG

That works, too, and if it makes for a less stressful life, it might be for the better!

It's a pretty straightforward equation for me:

More stress = higher blood pressure = brain bleed = death

Is this kind of gaming style worth dying for? My gut feeling is no; my feeling is let people have the kind of fun that they like. If they want to enjoy the kind of fun that I like, then they're certainly welcome to drop by. Let us know and I'll put the kettle on, as my British friends like to say.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

It's a pretty straightforward equation for me:

More stress = higher blood pressure = brain bleed = death

Is this kind of gaming style worth dying for? My gut feeling is no; my feeling is let people have the kind of fun that they like. If they want to enjoy the kind of fun that I like, then they're certainly welcome to drop by. Let us know and I'll put the kettle on, as my British friends like to say.

From this point of view, Uncle, your decision is certainly the best!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

It's a pretty straightforward equation for me:

More stress = higher blood pressure = brain bleed = death

Is this kind of gaming style worth dying for? My gut feeling is no; my feeling is let people have the kind of fun that they like. If they want to enjoy the kind of fun that I like, then they're certainly welcome to drop by. Let us know and I'll put the kettle on, as my British friends like to say.

Agreed. I mean, the model railroad hobby would be pretty damn dull if everybody liked exactly the same things I liked, right? Why should any other hobby be different? As C.S. Lewis once said, "“Once you have realised that the Frenchmen like caf� complet just as we like bacon and eggs—why, good luck to them and let them have it. The last thing we want is to make everywhere else just like our own home. It would not be home unless it were different.”

When did we lose Vive le difference?

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Agreed. I mean, the model railroad hobby would be pretty damn dull if everybody liked exactly the same things I liked, right? Why should any other hobby be different? As C.S. Lewis once said, "“Once you have realised that the Frenchmen like caf� complet just as we like bacon and eggs—why, good luck to them and let them have it. The last thing we want is to make everywhere else just like our own home. It would not be home unless it were different.”

When did we lose Vive le difference?

Do you want to engage in cultural appropriation, or would you rather be a bigot that reminds people that they're different by excluding them and telling them they must be different?


OK, that was mostly a joke. Can we not turn this thread, too, into a debate about politics, please?

Originally Posted by Greentongue

What? Isn't most of what goes on in the Empire about politics.
Who will be the next emperor? Which clan has a heir and will they announce it?

Chirine, how often did you get involved in political maneuvering?
=

All the time. Pretty much everything that we were involved in, in and around the Five Empires, had a very political dimension with both 'external' and 'internal' politics coming into play. This goes back to Phil not really handing out XP, but rather posts, positions, titles, ranks, and decorations instead. All of that was based in more then a small part on 'who you know' and what favors they owed you and what favors you owed them. I got involved very, very early with Prince Mirusiya as one of my 'patrons', and it made for a lot of good stuff coming my way over the years.

Mostly, my alter ego was a careerist who wanted to rise through the ranks of the Imperial structure. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and did the right thing, like saving the newly-revealed Prince from certain death at the hand of an assassin (Grey Hand, to be precise), and it paid off in the long run.