I know I'm having a bad day when the OSR-style approach of "you're going to start with 1d4 HP and YOU'RE GOING TO LIKE IT!" starts to sound appealing to me... -_-
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This is almost a conspiracy theory, but... there is just something that makes me suspicious about the way the Warhammer 40,000 line of games all feel like they are almost great games that just fall short in a few critical ways. Especially since they were published by Games Workshop, who are if nothing else scary-good at making money.
Aarrgghh, gamer ADD has me bad. I'm running three games right now, and I am itching to run at least three more, but I don't have enough time and energy as it is. :/
Two of my Hunter: the Reckoning players ended up wrestling with a burning zombie until it finally expired, walking away with severe burns. I'm not sure if it quite fits the intended feel of realistic heroics, but I'm at least satisfied that they'll remember this campaign.
A friend of mine recently called me "so indie that it hurts [my] teeth to even say the words 'Dungeons & Dragons.'"
I am not sure whether to be flattered, insulted, or just confused...
So help me, I'm going to GURPS every WoD game I run from now on! The Storyteller System has officially gotten on my last nerve!
I am reading some Fatal & Friends posts.
You know, I have complained repeatedly against tastelessly applied edgelording in games. But I'm sort of bemused at the F&F writers' apparent conviction that roleplaying should only ever be a safely bland exercise in wholesome monster-slaying and anyone who puts anything other than that in their game is a SICK PERVERT.
Far from complaining about railroading, my players keep whining that they don't want to make choices, they just want to know which way to go to get to the next cutscene.
I'm choosing to believe that that's because I'm really good at writing cutscenes and not because I'm really bad at providing interesting choices...
The wonderful thing about WFRP? In normal high fantasy games, when the players exploit every opportunity, take every cheap shot, and just generally act like horrible little power-hungry munchkins, it's annoying.
In WFRP, that's precisely what they should be doing. The Warhammer World hates you and wants you to suffer. Your job is to outsmart it!
I just managed to improvise a game of Blue Rose in under five minutes from some very vague initial ideas. I feel weirdly good about that. Especially considering that my usual idea of preparation is six months of in-depth research, meditating on flavour and statting out endless characters...
Okay, I've read one 400-page book. Now I just need to read another three books averaging about 200 pages, and I'm ready to play a game!
...
... does anyone else sometimes feel like this is a very strange hobby?
Annoying habits in rules writing # 41: thinking that a single adjective fully explains a relative level of difficulty. No, really, tell me how I'm supposed to know how common something that's "Scarce" is, either on its own or in comparison to something that is "Rare"! Is a certain task "Tough" or "Difficult"? Who knows! :p
It occurs to me that Warhammer Fantasy might appeal to me much better than Warhammer 40,000 because the former is all about keeping it simple and trying to secure some creature comforts, while the latter is all about how totall rad it is that everything is cluttered up and uncomfortable...
Sometimes I remember why I put so much time and effort into this hobby.
It's because if you put up with enough terrible campaigns with GMs who don't have a clue and other players who don't give a shit, sometimes, from time to time...
... you get to swing from lianas in the depths of the jungle to escape from giant carnivorous dinosaurs.
And that just makes it all worthwhile.
Idea for a game: anti-willworking. An elite breed of spellcasters have elaborate philosophies of how the world works on a deep, metaphysical level... and the world, because it hates to be pigeonholed, goes out of its way to prove them wrong at every turn.
I swear Werewolf: the Apocalypse has an unhealthy grip on me. I read the sourcebooks, I get furious at the sheer misanthropic idiocy of it all, I throw them down... and then I pick them back up so I can read on and get more furious. I think I need help... :/
I just had one of those moments when the players are talking about what they think your plans are, and one of them comes up with a theory that's like 3000% cooler than what you were actually planning.
Now, to steal or not to steal...? :p
One day the players in one of my campaigns may overcome their apathy enough to remember what dice they are supposed to roll without me having to remind them. Alas, that day is not today.
Note with great sadness that the filthy players have not posted. POST, FILTHY PLAYERS!!! POOOOOST!!!! OR SO HELP ME!!!!!
Ahem.
I just had a player *roll to hurt the bad guy's feelings.*
I feel oddly okay with this.
And WE ARE POSTING, lazy players! And ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and MOVE YOUR TUCCUS three and four...
Having made my GM posts for the day, I shall now commence staring angrily at the screen and willing my lazy players to post their responses already.
I have started a proper full-group WFRP campaign for the first time in my life. I very much look forward making the players roll Toughness to avoid getting the runs if they forget to boil the water.
Interesting post:
Arthurian problems
I have been reading Malory's 'Le Morte D'Arthur' and thinking about 'Arthurian' style D&D. I think a lot of things about this. It goes aro...falsemachine.blogspot.com
Especially:
"if we could [see things from the perspective of Malory's female characters], men would appear as strange spirits too. Violent, dangerous, clad in iron, appearing out of the mists, dealing out death and strange troubles, focuses of obsession and desire for power, greatly wanted, greatly feared."
Reading some oWoD books. As always, getting the very strong feeling that the people writing them either didn't know or didn't care how their rule system actually worked.
Aaaarggghhh, I'm trying to write a let's-read, but I just end up making personal attacks against the author. That's not at all what I want to be like. But he's just so damn ATTACKABLE! :p
Waiting for mythweavers to come back online so I can try to start my game. In the meantime, coming up with ways for the medical establishment in the World of Darkness to really suck.
Prepping Hunter: the Reckoning. Must make antagonists Tragically Cool while also deconstructing the whole concept of Tragic Coolness. Because that's not too complicated or anything... :p
Reading through the Hunter: the Reckoning rules again reminds me of two things: one, I really love the oWoD style and ambience. Two, I have really gotten completely spoiled by rule systems that actually... y'know... work.
Say what you will of Exalted, and I usually do. But there's no other game that gives you the same "this is gonna be SO AWESOME!!!" feeling when creating a character.
Okay, so... my geometry-warping hyperspatial maze essentialy has three interesting things inside of it. Now to figure out how the PCs might stumble across them...
All right, I'm running two pbp games, I'm playing in three more, got another two that might or might not start... I think I'm getting back into the swing of things.
Feels good to be running a pbp campaign again. Now if I could just convince the players to get out of the car...
I'm aaaaaalmost getting back into the swing of things. One Wraith: the Oblivion session, planned. One Eldritch Skies game, starting to come together.
Trying to come up with dungeon crawl. Brain won't work. Am disgrace to good GMs everywhere. D<
Last night's Wraith: the Oblivion session ended with one player stuck in the Tempest and one player, on the advice of her Shadow, betraying another player to be captured by the Hierarchy. I feel that we're finally starting to play the game properly!
Writing a roleplaying game...
Should it worry me that a considerable portion of my wordcount is rants about how the players should sit down, shut up and listen to the DM?
God help me, I am THIS close to starting to rant about entitled Millenial roleplayers...
Should I be proud or disturbed by the fact that my players beat my Big Bad Evil Guy easily, then were almost killed by his vengeful minions?
Should learn all the districts in Prague for upcoming campaign. Will probably go to sleep the moment I get home instead. -
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