Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

re: Mysteries

 

I've got a GM'ing friend who likes myseries but sometimes falls into the GM traps outlined above - clues flying around like a cloud of bats, forgets players aren't as immersed and conversant with the game-world as their characters would be, or don't have the real-world skills their characters do.

 

To correct this a bit, after several disappointing sessions with one of his groups, he said he was going to make signs to hold up at various times in the game. Signs like "Flavor Text", "CLUE" and "Red Herring".

 

So, something like:

 

GM: (holds up Flavor Text sign) "The room is about twelve feet by 15 feet, has orange shag carpeting and decorated in frat-boy chic. Multiple pizza boxes litter the surfaces and a musty smell of mold and funk assaults your nostrils."

 

Player: "I look at the pizza boxes - same or different places?"

 

GM: (holds up Red Herring sign) "They're all from the same place, Prince's Pizza."

 

Player2: "I'll go over to where the body was found and look around."

 

GM: (holds up CLUE sign) "The body was found near the broken window, but there's little broken glass in the room, as though the window was broken from the inside."

[keithcurtis]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

There is another side to this. In most games' date=' the GM doesn't describe every minute detail. When a minute detail is described, the players commonly latch onto it in the belief (mistaken or otherwise) that the GM would not, for example, mention the ash tray holds 7 cigarette butts.[/quote']

Hugh! That's one of the most useful tools in my box!

 

Keith "You enter the city and notice a discarded bright red matchbook in the corner" Curtis

[Karmakaze]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

The Abrasive Loner (e.g. Wolverine) - the loner character who does not play well with others, does not like the other members of the team, and is generally abrasive and rude to everyone around him... and yet sticks around and goes on all the adventures anyway.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

The Abrasive Loner (e.g. Wolverine) - the loner character who does not play well with others' date=' does not like the other members of the team, and is generally abrasive and rude to everyone around him... and yet sticks around and goes on all the adventures anyway.[/quote']

 

...and the rest of the team lets him.

 

And if the comic is Batman and the Outsiders, he even gets to be team leader! Woot!

[Kristopher]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

...and the rest of the team lets him.

 

And if the comic is Batman and the Outsiders, he even gets to be team leader! Woot!

 

 

That sounds like several runs of Justice League.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

The Abrasive Loner (e.g. Wolverine) - the loner character who does not play well with others' date=' does not like the other members of the team, and is generally abrasive and rude to everyone around him... and yet sticks around and goes on all the adventures anyway.[/quote']

Amen! Even worse is the Genuine Loner who has to be arm-twisted or backflipped into joining every single adventure.

 

 

bigdamnhero

[megaplayboy]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

Abrasive Loner aka Black Sheep aka Loose Cannon Syndrome is fine in theory or even once in a while, but quite often I've found myself running or playing a game where half the team consisted of such types. Impossible to accomplish anything when the team is overrun by drama queens, misfits and misanthropes:thumbdown

 

It's one thing to have team bickering at the outset of a campaign, but 2-3 years later?

[CBikle]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

Frog-marching players through "The Story".

 

Characters in works of fiction will act in accordance with whatever leads to the specific end of the story; many players won't.

 

A GM has a scenario that follows an obvious and rigid "story" approach with each step following a "chapter" approach with a predetermined ending will often wind up butting heads with his players.

 

Nothing takes players out of the game faster than being railroaded into (or out of ) a course of action.

 

I say this as a GM and a player.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

Abrasive Loner aka Black Sheep aka Loose Cannon Syndrome is fine in theory or even once in a while, but quite often I've found myself running or playing a game where half the team consisted of such types. Impossible to accomplish anything when the team is overrun by drama queens, misfits and misanthropes:thumbdown

 

It's one thing to have team bickering at the outset of a campaign, but 2-3 years later?

 

Then somebody makes a snide remark about somebody else's katana, and the group disbands.

 

(or something like that - can't remember the exact line)

[CBikle]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

re: Mysteries

 

I've got a GM'ing friend who likes myseries but sometimes falls into the GM traps outlined above - clues flying around like a cloud of bats, forgets players aren't as immersed and conversant with the game-world as their characters would be, or don't have the real-world skills their characters do.

 

To correct this a bit, after several disappointing sessions with one of his groups, he said he was going to make signs to hold up at various times in the game. Signs like "Flavor Text", "CLUE" and "Red Herring".

 

So, something like:

 

GM: (holds up Flavor Text sign) "The room is about twelve feet by 15 feet, has orange shag carpeting and decorated in frat-boy chic. Multiple pizza boxes litter the surfaces and a musty smell of mold and funk assaults your nostrils."

 

Player: "I look at the pizza boxes - same or different places?"

 

GM: (holds up Red Herring sign) "They're all from the same place, Prince's Pizza."

 

Player2: "I'll go over to where the body was found and look around."

 

GM: (holds up CLUE sign) "The body was found near the broken window, but there's little broken glass in the room, as though the window was broken from the inside."

 

As a player, I'd hate that sign thing; it'd completely throw off my suspension of disbelief. However, that might work better in a convention game where time is limited.

 

In the above example, the Prince's Pizza box info could actually be a clue (although, in the example, there seems to be enough other and more obvious leads to follow). If one of the PCs wanted to talk to the delivery boy(s) who brought the pizza, I'd be open to that and would consider what the kid may have noticed (usually I randomly roll for stuff like that).

 

It might go something like: "The same guy always answered the door and paid for the pepperoni and marshmallow pizzas. Blonde guy, had a scar under his eye and always paid with those Susan B. Anthony dollars. Y'know, the ones that look like quarters".

[Old Man]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

Examples: Captain America, Hawkeye, Cyclops, etc. One thing to note is that in the comics, the leadership, athletic and hand-to-hand combat abilities of such characters get exaggerated over time, to account for them surviving so dang long. In effect they become (in Champs terms) high-PRE Martial Artists in addition to their schtick (or in Cap's case, he goes from martial artist to The Most Impressive And Effective Fighter There Has Ever Been). Which is one way to handle such characters in a game.

 

The only problem with One Trick Ponies in a game is that if they're not played well, they can grow boring. But y'know, the same is true for characters with complex power sets.

 

I was about to say that I don't see Cap, Hawkeye, Cyclops, etc as one trick ponies.

 

I see most of the OTPs in say, The X-Men as being NPCs that help carry the story. The others have more varied abilities.

[austenandrews]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

I woud have thought Cyclops was specifically one of the OTPs Kristopher was alluding to.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

As a player' date=' I'd hate that sign thing; it'd completely throw off my suspension of disbelief. However, that might work better in a convention game where time is limited. [/quote']

Yeah, I've mostly seen it in con games. One GM I played with had a "Move along, nothing to see here" wav file on his computer, which he would play when the players spent too long pursuing a dead end. It was a silly pulp game anyway, so it didn't exactly spoil the mood.

 

 

bigdamnhero

[austenandrews]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

As a player' date=' I'd hate that sign thing; it'd completely throw off my suspension of disbelief.[/quote']

For my part, I actively dislike intentional red herrings. Players are good enough at chasing down the wrong paths without the GM purposefully stringing them along. I prefer to reward players, not punish them, for correctly reading GM cues.

[CBikle]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

Yeah' date=' I've mostly seen it in con games. One GM I played with had a "Move along, nothing to see here" wav file on his computer, which he would play when the players spent too long pursuing a dead end. It was a silly pulp game anyway, so it didn't exactly spoil the mood. [/quote']

 

That's not bad, especially since pulp games are supposed to be fast-paced (unless they're based on Lovecraft).

 

In the old cliffhanger serials, the heroes would be investigating the scene of

the crime and just then, the villain's henchmen would stumble onto the scene

(presumably to cover their tracks and/or double check to make sure the McGuffin wasn't hidden somewhere) and there'd be a donnybrook.

 

The Mysterious Doctor Satan had a lot of this.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

Amen! Even worse is the Genuine Loner who has to be arm-twisted or backflipped into joining every single adventure.

 

Simple answer: let him go. The rest of the team plays the adventure, and the loner's player sits idle. Maybe next time, he'll build a character who actually wants to be part of the team.

 

[We had a player who continually dragged such characters in. Another player took his new character's "No thanks" as a "No thanks" and hired a town crier to advertise an adventuring party in search of a recruit.]

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

I woud have thought Cyclops was specifically one of the OTPs Kristopher was alluding to.

 

That's where I'd put him. All offense, no defense or movement, and even offense is limited to Energy Blast/KA variants

[Kristopher]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

That's where I'd put him. All offense' date=' no defense or movement, and even offense is limited to Energy Blast/KA variants[/quote']

 

Yep. That's Cyclops, the classic X-Men OTP.

[Equinox]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

The Mines of Moria When in a book or movie, the characters end up in some truly amazing and dangerous place, but they are just trying to make it through to get to their destination and so only see a small part of it.

 

A group of gamers would have explored those caverns from top to bottom. Ensuring the tardiness of the Ring and therefore guaranteeing the destruction of middle earth...

[Kristopher]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

The Mines of Moria When in a book or movie, the characters end up in some truly amazing and dangerous place, but they are just trying to make it through to get to their destination and so only see a small part of it.

 

A group of gamers would have explored those caverns from top to bottom. Ensuring the tardiness of the Ring and therefore guaranteeing the destruction of middle earth...

 

Actually, our current group is pretty good about not doing that kind of thing.

[CBikle]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

For my part' date=' I actively dislike intentional red herrings. Players are good enough at chasing down the wrong paths without the GM purposefully stringing them along. I prefer to reward players, not punish them, for correctly reading GM cues.[/quote']

 

I agree with you except for the part about "GM cues".

 

The (exaggerated) example I gave wasn't intended as a red herring, but rather a way of illustrating how you can convey relevant info to PCs through their methods of investigating.

 

In a real game, unusual details like the blonde guy, the marshmallow pizzas and the Susan B. Anthony dollars would have some sort of significance.

 

I don't think "GM cues" are really necessary or welcome; there's never been a game I've been in where all the PCs fixate on flavor-text whilst ignoring the more obvious clues. At least one PC will say something like: "Everybody done here ? good. Lets hit the streets."

[stmichaeldet]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

Here's a pet peeve of mine that I haven't seen addressed yet - Open-Ended Powers. For instance, the guy who can change into any animal, or who possesses the Power Cosmic, allowing them to do Whatever the Writer Wants. In comics, you just tell the artist, draw this effect here. In the game, you can kinda do this with VPPs, Transforms, and such, but in practice it seems you either have to pre-gen a bunch of useful-seeming power sets (making the power less open-ended and more like a really big multipower), or you end with a player who has to do a whole lot of in-play bookkeeping, slowing the game to a crawl. (And doesn't it always seem like the players with the least rules-savvy are the ones who want the most flexible powers?)

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

The Street Level Guy Who Runs with Epic Heroes -- classic example is Batman, who became The Batgod so he could hang with the Justice League, and yet still has trouble with the street-level foes of his classic rogues gallery.

 

This is quite do-able. In fact, my longest running an most experienced Champs character started as a street level vigilante and wound up as the leader of an Avengers level PRIMUS sanctioned superteam.

The main thing that is needed to make this work is an INTIMATE, if not fanatical, understanding of the system. Lots and lots of tatical flexibility. It helps if, like my character Blackjack or Batman, you've built up from a lower point level with LOTS of experiece, so the character grows organically and learns how to handle situations in non-standard ways.

A really big gadget pool helps too. By my superteam days, Blackjack was up to a 100 pt VPP, and around 30 points in science skills. A big part of scaling to the appropriate scenario involves "appropriate" allocation of the VPP. When on his own, investigating and dealing with normal criminals, he didn't need the uber-powerful prototype anti-meta weaponry he usually carried with the team. And without the backup from the rest of his team, it took up a LOT more of his VPP to have the flexibility he didn't always need when supported with another 3-5 supers.

So this convention can be modeled fairly well.

[pinecone]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

This is quite do-able. In fact, my longest running an most experienced Champs character started as a street level vigilante and wound up as the leader of an Avengers level PRIMUS sanctioned superteam.

The main thing that is needed to make this work is an INTIMATE, if not fanatical, understanding of the system. Lots and lots of tatical flexibility. It helps if, like my character Blackjack or Batman, you've built up from a lower point level with LOTS of experiece, so the character grows organically and learns how to handle situations in non-standard ways.

A really big gadget pool helps too. By my superteam days, Blackjack was up to a 100 pt VPP, and around 30 points in science skills. A big part of scaling to the appropriate scenario involves "appropriate" allocation of the VPP. When on his own, investigating and dealing with normal criminals, he didn't need the uber-powerful prototype anti-meta weaponry he usually carried with the team. And without the backup from the rest of his team, it took up a LOT more of his VPP to have the flexibility he didn't always need when supported with another 3-5 supers.

So this convention can be modeled fairly well.

Yes and the Other way to do this is a fairly scary amount of Find weakness, FW is almost useless vs mooks and thugs, but a serious power boost vs supers...my "Batclone" went that way, and does just fine...yet still can be almost killed by a street gang.....

[Kristopher]

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game

 

I don't know...it seems to me that if the same Batman who appears in the JL titles most of the time were to appear in the actual Batman titles, they'd be very boring and short.

 

It's almost like two different characters with the same schtick and personality and costume.