@SG said in How do you like things GMed?:
I disagree, in my opinion, the outcome of the endboss fight is the outcome
If the entire story was about the endboss fight, sure. But I'm also not likely to play with a GM/ST/whatever that does that. So we're both right.
@SG said in How do you like things GMed?:
If a GM has an outcome that has to happen
I mean. Every story has an outcome that's planned. The result of that outcome (ugh, words) might not be what the GM expects, but every story has a rough beginning, middle, and end. That's not railroading, that's story design.
Your big badass end boss got one shotted, sure. But you had a big badass end boss for them to face. That's the outcome.
If a story (and by extension a game) doesn't have a goal in mind at the start (goals can be changed, but there really must be a goal) then it's going to go nowhere.
When you get spam emails with "My dear" as the subject line, causing your inner Invictus to flinch.
@2mspris said in How do you like things GMed?:
Players don't seem to welcome the "random things happens" as widely as they once did
These days, if there are people in a public space they're probably already RPing and don't want that interrupted on someone else's whim. That used to happen often, and it always annoyed me.
@2mspris said in How do you like things GMed?:
I adore any kind of "group" over a dozen "lone wolf" concepts apping into a game
I do as well, but that's not the point. If you gather half a dozen random people for an event, it's not guaranteed that those six people are going to be from the same group unless you specifically run something for that group.
@2mspris said in How do you like things GMed?:
to me that is the point of running something for players
I agree and disagree with this.
To me, at least, the point of running something for players is for them to accomplish something. If they don't get to do something, and have a chance at succeeding, then they may as well have just read about the event in the newspaper. If I were the 'call 911 and leave' person, I'd probably think the scene was a waste of my time.
@2mspris said in How do you like things GMed?:
You're gonna have players who do that. I had a player who did that when I ran the aforementioned scene and exploded the Starbucks. 1 player called 911 and planned to leave. Another player whipped out a phone and proceeded to video as much as they could get. 2 other players jumped in to try to help.
Sounds like perfectly reasonable responses to me. If you want them to investigate the exploded Starbucks, give them a reason to care. Give them a reason to violate their sense of self-preservation.
Sure, sometimes players just don't get it, but other times it's that they're not being given enough impetus to go down the rabbit hole.
Communication is key. Most of the time it seems that we plan an event (or whatever you're calling a scene/plot/shindig) first, and gather players to that.
I think we also need to try and focus on the opposite: Get a group of people, and then do a thing. Not to imply that this isn't already done, but it definitely needs to be more prominent in our organisational minds. You need to find out what kinds of stories the players are interested in, and how best to accommodate each of their specialnesses in order to best bring their character to the fore at various points.
With this in mind, railroading to such an annoying degree as in @faraday's quoted example won't need to happen, as you'll already know what the players want to do, and will have constructed your story (or whatever) accordingly. They don't want to fight bandits, but want to investigate x, y, and z? If they successfully evade the bandits, they get to investigate a crime scene, or whatever. If they don't, then they can connive a way out of combat.
Construct a story in a way that the players will want to follow your breadcrumbs, and give plenty of ways for them to gather those breadcrumbs, and you won't need to worry about railroading or fighting ogres or anything else.
The problem with having things too open-ended is that the goal isn't always reached, thus there isn't always a 'point' to a scene or plot. Obviously one doesn't want to be lead by the nose, but at the same time in a situation that's too open-ended one also faces the problem of being able to do anything so nothing of worth gets done.
@Arkandel Yeah, the log in page redirects to that url.
@Ghost Got drunk and delivered a dramatic reading of about half of that to an enraptured Skype audience once. Don't know how Skype managed to stay stable though that but whenever I want to talk to my children... ugh.
@Ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
And here I thought that academic writing was about free, accurate thought.
Not if you want to get published. </satire>
@Ganymede Irrelevant. If you want to pass the course, you do as you're told.
ETA: You're going to be given a lot of weird and seemingly unimportant instructions in academic writing. It's 90% bullshit, but you don't want to miss out on the 10% important stuff.
@Derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
which are irrelevant
They aren't if the professor wants them.
@Derp Always cite your sources accurately.
@surreality said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Being so upset I go on a cleaning binge.
By 'upset' you clearly mean 'high on coke'.
Compared to other things, this is only a minor irk. But if you have a video service (or even just a video player) I want to see how far along it is in its buffering.
Occasionally, given I have crappy Australian internet that decides "fuck you, dial up speeds from the 80s now" without warning, I have to buffer my videos before I watch them. So please, for the love of all that is sacred, show me the buffering.
@mietze said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I love my four year old.
Said nobody else in the history of ever.
@surreality It's no surprise. Though even with the state of modern dentistry being the best we've ever had... I still prefer painkillers and bourbon to actually going in to get things done most of the time.
