A gaming conundrum

[assault]

1 hour ago, Opal said:

Typically "world with you in charge," seems like? 

Done poorly, yes.

Anything can be done poorly.

Edited April 11, 2023 by assault

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, Opal said:

Imagine an even worse world and scare everybody with It?

 

Please, no. That's being done right now, to scare people into running from a fictional world, straight into the arms of an even worse reality.

 

And I can't say more about that outside of the Politics thread. 🤐

[Cygnia]

Oh, if you wanna hear the hubby rant, there are two shows that get his blood boiling.  One is Battlestar Galactica, the other is The Sopranos.

 

 

[BarretWallace]

[zorch] (can't seem to just delete the post)

Edited April 11, 2023 by BarretWallace
No idea what I was thinking

[Old Man]

5 hours ago, Cygnia said:

Oh, if you wanna hear the hubby rant, there are two shows that get his blood boiling.  One is Battlestar Galactica, the other is The Sopranos.

 

 

 

I really liked the BSG reboot until it caught a bad case of Lost.  Logically, a series about the last survivors of the human race fleeing from the relentless robots trying to exterminate them really ought to be grimdark.  And I recall the original series being about as grimdark as a broadcast TV scifi series could have been in the late seventies.  To me, the main difference was that the original series externalized conflict to the various people and planets the mostly-united Galactica crew encountered, whereas in the reboot the conflict was internalized to the Galactica crew (everyone else having been slaughtered).  Otherwise the original series featured plenty of betrayal, backstabbing, and moral conflicts that seem to have been forgotten.

[Lord Liaden]

Oh, I didn't forget that. There were dark forces aplenty in the original series, and much tragedy and loss. Treachery was the reason they were in that situation. But the core characters were bonded by loyalty, trust, compassion, love, the willingness to fight and sacrifice for their people, and their hopeful quest for "a shining planet known as Earth." Those bonds gave them strength to win through their challenges, and demonstrated why they deserved to survive and prevail.

 

In the reboot series, no one trusted anyone. Betrayal could come from anywhere. The leaders deceived and manipulated their own people. Their desperate situation was of their own reprehensible making. It was so hard to root for them, or even care what happened to them. Every episode was bleak and angst-ridden, there was rarely any joy or humor. Trying to watch it, I felt like I was being worn down, until I finally had to stop.

[Cygnia]

So...

 

Hubby's (high school/college aged) niece & nephew want to get into D&D.  Not RPGs in general, D&D.  So, 5e.

 

...and they're coercing their respective SOs into playing...

 

...and their two cousins (who live next door, but are currently vacationing in Europe right now, but are also drop in-drop out sort of players)...

 

...and Hubby wants to play...

 

...so, guess who's GMing?

 

The 1st Session Zero was last week, because I want to make sure they know my table will be a safe place -- and that I don't like murderhobing/PVP.  That actions will have consequences and please, don't cross the line with Problematic Stuff.

 

Nephew's GF (who really isn't as enthused as Nephew):  Can I play EVIL?

 

Me (fighting down the throbbing vein that's just popped up on my temple) *stresses I prefer heroes and, since y'all are 1st lvl newbies anyways, ya gotta earn your spot into becoming a BBEG*

 

Talk about various classes et al begins (I'm only sticking with the PHB because I don't want to deal with excess bookkeeping).  Remember, there are still two players I'm waiting on...

 

1. Party so far...

   Hubby: Halfling Light cleric

   Niece: Wood Elf Rogue (eager for Arcane Trickster)

   Niece's BF: Mountain Dwarf Bard

   Nephew: Human Ranger

   Nephew's GF: I WANNA BE A PRINCESS~! (human sorceress)

Vein continues to throb, but I can potentially make it work.  Initially, she also wanted to be DaenerysplayaDragonborn, but Dragonborn aren't "pretty".  Thank Arneson for small miracles there.  Going with the "runaway princess doesn't wanna a forced marriage" trope here.  Still missing the two cousins, so tonight I just wanna focus on combat and mechanics, look over what's been made and answer any que--

 

Hubby, last night:  Oh, btw, ANOTHER cousin will be joining the group -- THEY ARE SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS~!

 

Me, sighing: ...how much did you oversell me...?

 

[Doc Democracy]

So.  Are you pleased this is going to be D&D, with some fairly hefty restrictions on what folk can do?  Or would you prefer they were content to play Fantasy HERO?

[Cygnia]

Honestly, I'd rather run 1st ed. 7th Sea.  Until I'm a LOT more familiar with the rules & mechanics, I do NOT feel comfortable running HERO (playing in a PBP for 6e Champions right now, so slowly but surely, I'm getting there).

 

Thankfully, looks like tonight is cancelled due to player unavailability.  Which is good, 'cause I can now snag a (hopefully discounted) extra copy of the PHB at Origins this week from any vendor looking to unload 5e stuff as well as as extra dice for the party (which I can also use for miniatures in a pinch).  That way, we've got a table copy for the group AND a copy for the GM.

 

This is only gonna be for the summer until the kids go back to college.  I'm using the Essentials Kit with a little of my own world building behind the scenes, so I'm not flying too blind.  And, this week at Origins, I can talk to one of my friends about advice for GMing for large groups.  Before the pandemic, he'd be running for 8-10 players at the table during the con.

[Hugh Neilson]

A Princess should fit in the 5e PHB - there's a Noble background.

[Cygnia]

There is.  But there's this nagging feeling in the back of my head that she's looking to be In Charge right at the start.  I hope I'm wrong there.

[Lord Liaden]

The player at the table mostly because their girlfriend/boyfriend wants to be is often problematic. Hopefully you can find and draw out another type of genuine player inside her.

[Cygnia]

One of the things I wanted to stress last week was "Please, don't feel obligated to play if you don't want to."

[Lord Liaden]

When a player is fixated on a certain type of character or role that you think may be problematic, sometimes it's helpful to ask them why they want to be so-and-so? What do they see about it that's appealing? What are they looking to get from the experience? The player may not have even thought about it that way before. Ask them to help you understand how you can make the best play experience for them. Sometimes if you can together figure out what the player really wants, you may find a way to help them get it in a context more appropriate to your kind of game.

 

IME if you scratch the surface of a problem player, especially before the problems get serious, it's not uncommon to find a better player hiding underneath.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Cygnia]

6 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Play a character with a heroic personality in a game of heroic fantasy?  That's just crazy talk!

 

--->This post over in Funny Pics got me thinking in how much I need right now to be a hero in gaming.  That I'm just so tired of grimdark upon wangst upon Nothing You Do Matters.

 

The D&D game I was GMing is on break right now due to the kids going back to college -- and that was actually going well, so there's that.  The 7th Sea game I was co-GMing with the hubby...well, that sort of crashed and burned.  Even despite asking the players to be invested in the story, they seemed content to be on the sidelines and be passive as all get out.  I concede that hubby's plot (which he was REALLY excited about) might not have been the best for roleplaying, but regardless it felt like a joke.  Even after trying to give them plot hooks to bite and asking if there was something he should be doing better, they stubbornly treated this like they were watching "Upstairs, Downstairs" or "Downton Abbey".

 

And yet, this wasn't out of malice or disrespect -- it just didn't work. So, he's scrapped this campaign and is doing a new one.  One I get to be a player in for a change -- and he knows I want to be Heroic.  Come hell or highwater, it's gonna happen.

[Lord Liaden]

I really hope you get the kind of gaming experience you're looking for. 🙏

 

Your remarks about your 7th Sea game are interesting to me, though. If you don't mind my asking, what was the age range and previous gaming experience of the other players? For my part it seems to me that there's a trend among younger people to become increasingly passive consumers of entertainment, rather than active participants. Certainly there are exceptions, but it looks like an overall drift in that direction. Even among new fans of tabletop and video games, more and more of them seem to be drawn to watching other people play them in lieu of playing them themselves.

[Cygnia]

Late 40's to late 50's, actually -- and we've been gaming with these folks for at least over a decade (at least at cons -- we've been gaming regularly over Discord/Zoom/Google for a couple years).

 

One is our main GM at Origins. 

[Cygnia]

Hubby: Nephew will be back in December, you can start up the D&D campaign again!

Me: Oh, I'm sure they've got plenty on their plate.  Niece too...no need to for--

Niece & Nephew: WE'VE BEEN WATCHING SO MANY D&D BUILD STUFF ON YOUTUBE AND PODCASTS AND...

Hubby: I've already got them their own miniatures for Christmas!

 

(Cygnia's eyelid twitches)

 

It shouldn't be that bad overall.  And Princess broke up with Nephew during the hiatus, so that's one less headache on the horizon....

 

[Rich McGee]

29 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

Niece & Nephew: WE'VE BEEN WATCHING SO MANY D&D BUILD STUFF ON YOUTUBE AND PODCASTS AND...

Oh dear.  You have my sympathies.

 

Although putting it in perspective, I think I might actually prefer the "modern" (dating back to 3.0 or 4e) trend of getting character builds online to the old TSR days.  Remember when people would show up with PCs they'd made at home and miraculously wound up with two or three 18s on straight 3d6 rolls?  Or ones from another GM's campaign with enough magical gear and special abilities to embarrass Monty Haul Himself, always notarized by their old GM that I'd never heard of before.  "Honest, I killed a bunch of orcs for that artifact."    

[Duke Bushido]

6 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

Oh dear.  You have my sympathies.

 

Although putting it in perspective, I think I might actually prefer the "modern" (dating back to 3.0 or 4e) trend of getting character builds online to the old TSR days.  Remember when people would show up with PCs they'd made at home and miraculously wound up with two or three 18s on straight 3d6 rolls?  Or ones from another GM's campaign with enough magical gear and special abilities to embarrass Monty Haul Himself, always notarized by their old GM that I'd never heard of before.  "Honest, I killed a bunch of orcs for that artifact."    

 

 

You remind me of an event was back in the 8ps at the Rec Center on Fort Stewart: eleven of us were rollinf,up me,characters in front of the GM (GM insisted, and as a fan or Is no Array, I was only too happy to oblige).  He _did_ allow players to either accept it as is, or to swap their highest result with the lowest result (onlt guy I have ever seen offer that).

 

We,all,watched with great amusement as one od 4he military guys presenr rolled six straight 12s dor his characteristics.  Something else I have never seen since. 

 

 

[Rich McGee]

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

We,all,watched with great amusement as one od 4he military guys presenr rolled six straight 12s dor his characteristics.  Something else I have never seen since. 

I think there's a .0000024% chance of that happening, assuming straight 3d6 rolls.  Seems like it might well be a once in a lifetime event.

 

At least they didn't have to worry about what order the rolls were assigned to stats. 

[Cygnia]

I had them build with Standard Array.  Didn't want to deal with the headaches of random rolling for stats.

 

I do know that I'm not gonna just jump back in.  Gonna have a Session Zero Two Point Oh to refresh and answer questions/see what to tweak (when last we left, they just turned lvl 3).

[Scott Ruggels]

Good luck!!

[Khymeria]

If you have six players let them each roll one ability and the combined abilities are the abilities, put them where you like is a pretty decent method to get everybody involved if you are compelled to roll dice for primary statistics. Other than that though, rolling pretty much sucks because somebody is always sad. 

[Rich McGee]

13 hours ago, Khymeria said:

If you have six players let them each roll one ability and the combined abilities are the abilities, put them where you like is a pretty decent method to get everybody involved if you are compelled to roll dice for primary statistics. Other than that though, rolling pretty much sucks because somebody is always sad. 

I've often thought about cribbing and modding some ideas from Amber Diceless for D&D-ish character generation.  Give everyone in the group (say) 100 currency points/quatloos/gamebucks/whatever for a budget, then put one stat at a time up for auction, each with a number of values (running intermittently from maybe 6 to 18) equal to the number of players and auction each value off.  Do that one attribute at a time in whatever order amuses you.  Highest final bid takes the highest attribute value on offer, and so on down the spread.

 

For extra spice don't offer the same value spread for each attribute - maybe there's no 18 at all for one attribute, or nothing below a 12 for another - but don't let anyone know what spread is available in advance.  Offer some other perks (an innate spell, noble heritage, extra HPs, etc.) at the end of the stat auction for people who have some leftover points, but don't let them know what they are or how many there are until each comes up to auction - just that there will be something else to spend on beyond stats at the end.

 

Not quite as evil as Amber, but watching the psychology of bidding is a game unto itself.  Way more fun than set arrays.  Be sure to emphasize that whatever's currently on auction is the MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN BID ON regardless of what it is.     

Edited November 20, 2023 by Rich McGee