Posts made by Ghost

@Misadventure I remember on some game back in the day, can't remember which one, I was roleplaying a character who was naive to a plot/danger. I was allowing the threat to expose itself to force a reaction, but with nothing in-scene suggesting my character should be alarmed in any way, I just roleplayed ignorant to the threat. Someone actually paged me to ask "Why are you doing that to yourself? Are you trying to get your character killed on purpose?"

Some people game for xp/winning, some people game for sex, and some people game for story. I have my preference, but when you mix GM and players with different preferences, it gets awkward. My own tabletop group has said many times that they game to relax, to have fun, and to feel good, so they don't like losing, and so I have a lot of issues where nearly every d20 roll comes up 17+

@Arkandel said:

Ah, @Misadventure, you are just the person I wanted here for this. I have two problems with the existence of systems in scenes where I'd really like to evoke interesting reactions from characters.

1. Systematizing the challenge makes it relatable, understandable. It's a clear solution, an obvious approach; you encounter something that's truly horrific and instead of having to figure out a proper reaction to it, you have a very easy way out.

"Let's roll +init!"

There have been many times when I was the ST when I wish players - rather than characters - didn't always have that option. For starters even one player doing it seals the deal; everyone rolls. It's all broken down neatly into numbers and specific actions from there, an old song and dance.

2. Players who front-load the dice. And then roll constantly, going through their goddamn list of powers one at a time, best to worst, trying to solve the encounter rather than participate in it. It's one of the worst things in scenes, particularly because this kind of player spends so little posing and so much of it trying to throw bags of dice at the problem until it goes away.

"So you walk into the room and here he stands, a cloaked figure who..."

"I roll detect magic!"

"There are elemental energies around him! So he lifts a skeletal hands and says..."

"I roll read thoughts!"

"Its thoughts are alien, you glimpse at flickering images and concepts instead of words and sentences, like dipping your hand in dirty oil. So the figure points a finger at you and says..."

"I roll flame shield!"

"Alright, done. So he says, 'Did you bring me what I seek, interlopers? For I...'"

"I roll wits+occult. Do I know anything about skeletal figures?"

"@^&^&*@#@#^&$"

I have a lot of trouble with this as a GM, even in a tabletop setting. I kind of have issues with this wherever I go that ends in "...gaming"

I want to ask "Why would your character immediately suspect the NPC is lying? Just because you know what kind of creature it may be doesn't mean your character knows." You spend hours thinking of a plot, a scenario, or a good long term bad guy and 10 minutes into the first meeting it's GobbleGobbleGobbleBURP or you have to ask yourself if you need to pull the dreaded ST fiat.

@Ghost said:

I might get stoned to death for saying this...

@Roz I know, I know, and I knew the risks when I typed it.

@Arkandel said:

Speaking as a Storyteller, not as a player.

I always wanted PCs who are overwhelmed or afraid for their lives. IC speaking there are many brave people around, many stupid people around and many weird people around but few who actually let the plot get to them; who will take a long wide-eyed look at the insanity of a situation and allow it to make them go 'nope, nope, shit, I'm outta here' instead of ... well, instead of treating it like a TV show where it doesn't really matter what happens because everything will turn out okay in the end.

It's rare to see it as a Storyteller. I bring in NPCs the characters have every reason to fear but they don't show it. They'll give lip, stand defiant, try to negotiate... but they won't ever lose their composure, back down or be intimidated. Sometimes I'd like that as well, to see the hopelessness sink in. Everyone conquers their fears, it seems.

This reminds me of a Jedi character I played for one scene maybe? It was a Squib with an emphasis on healing/Consular, who was just being collected for becoming a padawan. The Squib are little rodent people, but I wasn't going for the cute-trope, but instead the little person in a large world trope.

Anyway, I digress.

In the scene, he came across Sith. SITH. Sith who were, unfortunately, posing cutting down innocent people in mid-air and riding them to the ground like a surfboard, mind you. It was a little...eh, but I got a lot of props for the way I roleplayed the character, because he was terrified.

Terrified as in crawling backwards on his hands to get away, scrambling to get away, and running up to that shut cage partition between businesses, grabbing it, and tugging at it hard while calling for help.

I might get stoned to death for saying this, but I would have more interest if the era was the JJ Abrams rebooted Quasi-TOS setting. I like the look, the feel, and the Firefly-type chutzpah.

Sexy aliens and gunfights.

@Lithium said:

@Ghost

Back in the glory days of CrackMUX I lost characters pretty reliably. I'd get some power, get some sheet, and then get taken out by a group of other people who were at odds with me... or because I killed the leader of the BSD hive in an elevator using dragonbreath rounds and a shotgun for a million dollars...

God, I love character death so much. An ACTUAL Player-Character death. NPCs need not apply. I'm not a PKer by any means, but I think that the Red Shirt trope applies to a story. You see it in TV. Every now and then a character, an important character, has to die to keep the dangerous feel of the story relevant.

Just ask the cast of The Walking Dead. Shit, just ask the cast of The Walking Dead after this next half of this season is done. If my instincts are right, at least 2 characters that have been on the show for years won't make it to next season, and my money's on one of them being Glenn.

I was thinking today about scenes I've always wanted to have, but either due to being a self-admitted genre whore, or because I could never make them organically happen, they've never come up. Are there any scenes you hoped to have but haven't gotten there yet? I'll share.

• The hilariously bungled crime job or super intense crime job. One is like the bank heist and street gunfight from Heat with DeNiro. The other is the opposite, people yelling and slapping at each other version.
• The unsexy lap dance: I've seen plenty of players play strippers, but I never did get that horrible lapdance scene where the girl was holding a fifth of vodka and slurring the words to Bad Company
  
• Character death. I have never had a character, be it a power base character or a toadie (like a Ghoul/Kinfolk) get waxed for failing or reaching too far. Risk is vital to me in the rp experience. If there's no risk, it feels like Sim-Vampire, so I always hoped for a bullet to the dome every once in a while.

EDIT/SIDENOTE: By character death, I mean a charDeath I didn't plan. Saying goodbye to a character in a planned scene, while artistic, isn't the same as the thrill of racing for pink slips and the loser loses their car. That's just very thrilling to me and I never wanted to come across as a predatory player, so I never urged roleplay in that direction. Perhaps I should have.

40 degree weather in Phoenix, Arizona. It was 35 degrees when I woke up.

What. The. Effing. Fuck?

I am currently looking at a pond with a cracked layer of ice on it right next to a fucking palm tree.

We're all going to die. That's all that can come from this.

@tragedyjones I play a mean Deadpool and Spider-Man

EDIT/EXTRAPOLATION: As Deadpool, I once introduced my character to a female PC with Deadpool running down a street yelling "GO GO GO". He had two gold-plated Desert Eagle .50s with La Raza inscribed on them and was being chased by a street gang and their pitbulls. The guns were sweet and he stole them fair and square, but his teleportation belt was malfunctioning. Once they escaped to rooftop, something complimentary she said was taken as flirtation, so he arranged a date to Kentucky Fried Chicken with her. She said she'd go, then OOCly laughed and told me her char would be sticking him up.

...which resulted in a news post about a sudden holdup/terrorist threat in downtown NYC at a KFC as an man armed with AK-47s and a mask walked in and attempted to purchase a bucket of chicken.

Marvel Superheroic Roleplay and the new Firefly RPG system.

Okay, sue me. I'm the guy that is fine with playing as an established Marvel character, and MSHRP wasn't very good about making your own chars and the license died out. HOWEVER, I have always felt the wealth of canon material and the RP/STORY focused dice system leads to some of the most rewarding team-based play I have ever seen. Firefly uses the same dice system and I love it so so so so hard.

WHAAAAT?!? You mean I can roll for a success JUST to add dice to the next PCs roll? FASTBALL SPECIAL MOTHERFUCKER!!!!! AAAAAUURRRGGH!!!

Anyone remember this story? Conservative Christian would-be Congressman by day, blood-sucking coke of whores asses badass vampire by night?
http://www.businessinsider.com/floridas-vampire-candidate-future-of-american-politics-2014-4

@Cobaltasaurus for the record, in WoD LARP lingo, this was not a CamFanclub game but an unaffiliated offshoot of OWbN players in the Phoenix area.

Your story, ugh, for lack of a better term, sometimes people just need to be cool. That must've been a pain in the ass.

@Groth I totally LOLd. Can't fuck a caitiff. I knew girls like that back in the day who took it way too seriously.

True Story: I LARPed one night in New Orleans with a number of people who claimed (whether it was true or not) to have been friends with the infamous "Vampire Clan" killer, Roderick Ferrell (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Ferrell). From what i understand, he was down in NoLa a lot while i was down there. I might have met him and not remembered. That summer of 96 was the absolute prime of Gothic-Punk WoD taking LARP too seriously, and New Orleans was kind of an epicenter of it. I met at least 20-30 people walking around claiming to be Tzimisce, Brujah, etc. There were so many and a good number of times I had no idea whether or not a LARP was going on, or if they were for that taking it too far type.

Great time to be in NoLa, though. Trent Reznor's club was amazing and with Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite, it was vampire stuff and goth people with capped fangs everywhere.

@Arkandel said:

As for that teenager, didn't she have parents or someone with custody who could intervene? That's pretty disturbing because at least the others were adults and could make their own choices.

The teenager is kind of an epic all in her own. The basic is that her father lived in a LARPHOUSE with her. Picture a crack house with stinky, unwashed people and a kitchen with stacked dirty dishes. People sleep 2-3 to a room and people pay rent on couch space. Dad moved daughter into the LARP house, and since he wanted to LARP, he got the LARPERS to allow her to LARP. Since daughter was 16-17, skinny, quasi-attractive, this led to a lot of overweight nerds referring to her as their little sister, trying to steer her into what they knew best, and her sitting on their laps while roleplaying vampires. THIS I saw first-hand, and Dad did nothing about it because he didn't want to rock the boat with his roommates and risk getting kicked out of the LARP that took place at his flophouse.

Eventually, daughter started sleeping with some 22 year old LARPer who lived at the flophouse. Dad got mad but didn't pursue charges. The people who owned the house sided with the 22 year old, supported the daughter for emancipation. After the teenager was emancipated, Dad was kicked out of the house, and the girl bonked uglies with that 22 year old for a while.

Fucked. Up. People.