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The RAW's my b*tch, and I will keep it that way. Pardon my French, but that's how I felt when I read this blog post.

That's why, to me, role playing games are most emphatically NOT movies, or stories. When you play a character at my game table, you are expected to experience the game as an actual fictional world through your character, in terms of actuality, not storylines or plot. It's "like the real world"...

I'm not avoiding TPKs, personally. They're part of the game, as they are the ultimate reward of complete failure. I usually give indications that the potential opposition ahead can be really tough if the PCs don't strategize appropriately. If the PCs ignore the clues, and just go in expecting...

Rolling up new characters, going back to the dungeon. The new characters could have known the old ones, or not. They would probably get to know about the old PCs at some point, with a chance ot pick up where they left (via NPCs, friends of the old PCs, enemies revealing their existence, so on...

It's not a bad thing, to me, or at least, it shouldn't be. Characters dying is part of the game. Whether it's because of strategic/tactical mistakes, hazards, or fighting the desperate fight, the constant possibility of death makes the game much more interesting for me to play, not less. The...

Hey, Hans! :) My advice: don't care about this. "Game (which really means "rules" here) balance" is a BS concept that belongs to 3rd ed and later. Game balance happens not because of the rules, but because of the people around the table and the synergy that takes place between them as they...

Keeping a character sheet for a player, upon request, for safe-keeping, I've done occasionally, though.

No. I'm not so hopelessly paranoid and devoid of imagination to think that'd be a way to keep players "under control" (not only that, but the player's characters are theirs. That's a big part of the fun to "own" your character, so I wouldn't rob you from this experience. That'd just be silly)...

Sorry: I must have missed the question the first time around! :blush: No. I am not Alexander Macris. My name's Ben. :)

Thing is, it's not an either/or type of situation, here. Building an argument to say "EITHER we use the shorthand, OR the game's going to Hell because the players' fun is spoiled!" looks like a strawman to me, because I never implied such a thing. As a matter of fact, I said exactly the reverse...

See my post just above yours, or this: "Why point this out? Because I think this notion can have a very nasty effect at some gaming tables, by either encouraging players to view the GM as "the entertainer", remaining passive, waiting for the GM to perform his tricks on them, and/or encouraging...

Such an absolute! :) Nobody's doing? You are telling me that nobody, at all, would ever take this statement to mean that, as players, they can just sit back and let the GM "do tricks" for them, and/or if anyone doesn't have fun during the game, then this must mean the GM is entirely at fault?

I agree with all this. I agree with the spirit that inspired the catch-phrase too! What I'm saying is that I feel repeating the shorthand "the GM must make sure that everyone has fun" as a sort of mantra, a catch-phrase, without any sort of development or caveats, is not a good thing, because...

You're calling "the GM makes sure everyone has fun" a shorthand on which the OP builds a strawman. I'm calling it a simplistic one-liner which invites clarification and nuance, and thus ultimately fails as a shorthand. Different takes, I guess.

I don't think so. If anything, I would consider the notion that the "GM should make sure everyone has fun" as a statement that looks profound, but really isn't. What you can do as a GM is create the environment in which people may have fun, but there is a responsibility of the players to...

RuneQuest II (Mongoose's) and RuneQuest 3 (Avalon Hill's) Stormbringer Hawkmoon Lejendary Adventures Dangerous Journeys In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas Nephilim 2nd edition Pendragon Cyberpunk 2020 Traveller (Classic and Mongoose's) The Savage World of Solomon Kane Das Schwarze Auge (the...

You're welcome, man. I thought you might get a kick out of it. :) The three-sheets of paper detail is hilarious. Probably why there are discrepencies between the players' map and Gary's, upon scrutiny. That's what I'm guessing anyway?

*raises thread* Discussing this game on the K&K Alehouse, Some pictures of Gary with the DM's map were posted by Philotomy: Original picture of Gary Detail of the map I then compared the players' map provided by Henry with this detail, and then sparsely keyed it for reference: Players' Map...

From Alexander Macris on the Escapist, in Check for Traps: Judging the Game: Agree? Disagree? :)

Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent (CCotSS) is an adventure "compatible with most traditional fantasy role-playing games (c. 1974 - 1999)", i.e. Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced up to 2nd edition, though it was designed with Jeff Talanian's upcoming role playing game in mind, Astonishing...