Bitching thread.

[reapersaurus]

I am SO sick of people who don't realize how ridiculously magic-drenched the 3E system is.

I can't stand it when people are given the best replies to their posts that could ever be expected and they just piss away the clarity offered and go on blissfully in their delusion.

It makes me heartsick to see so many people talk about gaming, and want to participate in PBP adventures with others on this great board, and then just not do anything, or actively contribute to the killing of RPG'ing. (this can be extended to tabletop gaming, as well)

I hate it when a major part of the DM's enjoyment in gaming is simply to deny you most of what you try to get and accomplish in-game.

It irks me that RPG's make the enjoyment of the gaming experience to be so dominated by the quality and skill of the DM.
It should be easier for the burden of work to be distributed amongst the participants in the game.

that's just what's on the top of my head the majority of gaming time...

 

[Zappo]

It should be easier for the burden of work to be distributed amongst the participants in the game.

Hey... you know, that's an interesting concept. Do you have any idea on how it might be implemented?

 

[Eye Tyrant]

Hey... you know, that's an interesting concept. Do you have any idea on how it might be implemented?

I do!! Let players do some of the paperwork. I used to play in a M.E.R.P. game way back when (circa 1991)... and the DM would have a few of us players track different things. One would track PC HPs, another would track Rounds (by that meaning a running log of whatever happened in a given round). We also had a "Precedence" book, whenever the DM was unsure or unclear on something we would log whatever the decision was in said book in case it came up again , kinda like House Rules I guess. The Rounds log proved especially useful for everyone, we never lost track of how when a spell started or ended, and we always knew exactly how much someone had bled out... and of course someone always tracked Treasure.

Anyway, it takes some of the burden off of the DM and helps keep things in perspective. The only draw back is that you have to be able to trust those that are doing the paperwork. But then again if you can't, perhaps you should find another group.

 

[Zappo]

I do!! Let players do some of the paperwork. I used to play in a M.E.R.P. game way back when (circa 1991)... and the DM would have a few of us players track different things. One would track PC HPs, another would track Rounds (by that meaning a running log of whatever happened in a given round). We also had a "Precedence" book, whenever the DM was unsure or unclear on something we would log whatever the decision was in said book in case it came up again , kinda like House Rules I guess. The Rounds log proved especially useful for everyone, we never lost track of how when a spell started or ended, and we always knew exactly how much someone had bled out... and of course someone always tracked Treasure.

Anyway, it takes some of the burden off of the DM and helps keep things in perspective. The only draw back is that you have to be able to trust those that are doing the paperwork. But then again if you can't, perhaps you should find another group.

That's good, but not really what I was thinking about. That's just paperwork, a computer could do it. The game is still 90% determined by the skill of the DM.

No, I was thinking at a higher level. Suppose the DM can't make a good plot, or won't play the NPCs well, or will just plainly suck. Could a system be conceived that gives players the power to improve a bad game, without giving them the power to ruin a good game?

 

[reapersaurus]

I have tried with my DM to be more involved with the effort involved in a campaign, and the only way it rolls out is his reluctant listening to me about rules.
Only after he sees it in the books for himself.

I don't see a way a player can have any greater of role with RPG'ing than he does now.
I CAN see 2 people sharing DM duties. (one handling combat and such while the other does story, etc)

But in my experience, DM's are just too possessive of their babies (the campaign) to give up one iota of control over it.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I'm with Hong.

Merciful Christ those D4's hurt when you step on them

 

[Eye Tyrant]

Well, on that note... In past games I've been in we have all collectively tried to help the DM determine a new course of action between adventures. I still don't think that is what you are looking for. The thought of "Action Dice" from Spycraft comes to mind, wherein PCs use their action dice to possibly thwart the DMs NPCs, but again I think this is off mark.

You could possibly have a type of "Round Robin" session and let each person that wants to take a particular portion of an adventure. It would be difficult for everyone to not know what is going on, but if those involved have a very generic overview of the adventure beforehand they can each be assigned part of it. This way no single DM has to worry about the entire adventure, and if he/she sucks or whatever, the pain of the experience is shortlived...

Example: Everyone knows the generic plot of the story, the main NPCs or whatever.

One person does all the intro DMing "You hear about Mr. Evil and his plot and decide what must be done"

Then another fills in the next part "You travel through the Black Swamp to Mr. Evil's hideout"

Etcetra and so on.... of course with much more detail and RPing involved...

I think it could work on some level....

Pesky typos!!

 

[Jay_Kinnear]

Yeah those suckers are modern day Caltrops. At one point my Rogue would buy them by the five bagfull, one of the other players it was funny, and asked why I wasted hard earned money on them, he shut up when I asked him if he'd everystepped on a D4.

 

[Agback]

It irks me that RPG's make the enjoyment of the gaming experience to be so dominated by the quality and skill of the DM.
It should be easier for the burden of work to be distributed amongst the participants in the game.

There you are right in the middle of one of my longest-running obsessions.

A few times, just a few times, I have persuaded character-players to take a part in steering the adventure by making plot offers to me as a GM-player usually does. Just a few times I have persuaded them to take responsibility for designing the PC party and maintaining the links that hold it together. My best and most memorable campaigns have resulted from the character-players taking a more-than-usually proactive role, taking over part of the traditional responsibility of the GM-player. But when I start a new campaign, will they get together and discuss what the party might be and how their characters might fit together? No. They sit like logs until I acknowledge failure at getting the discussion started. Then if I leave them alone they go off by themselves and design a set of characters that no GM could weld into a party with an oxy torch, which means that I have to work constantly through the whole campaign at keeping the party together. Or if I lay down the party concept, they either all try to build characters with very similar concepts, or design characters that only technically fit into the specs I have laid down.

Take for example my latest new campaign. The players agreed that it should be set in or connected with some fresh, unfamiliar part or aspect of my setting, so that it would have the interest of novelty. After a discussion that was, from my point of view, like trying to push rope we settled on the idea that it would be set in House Azure, which is a sort of huge informal university in Thekla, the great city. The character players all said they had no character ideas and couldn't discuss character concepts at that time. And when we met again a week later they had all designed the characters they wanted to play: independently. I didn't end up with a single student, researcher, or teacher. I got:

1) A gangster who is in hiding at House Azure, pretending to be a scribe.

2) A healer.

3) A sensitive and shaman who never sticks at anything.

4) "A toff".

If they didn't want to play academics, why didn't they say so and let me run something they did want to play? If they didn't want to collaborate on making a party, couldn't each of them have given me some sort of grommet on his or her character that I could attach them by? It isn't like they didn't know that that's what I want: I've been droning on about this for fifteen years.

This time I am leaving it to them. I serve up plot offers, they are going to have to do the work of roping one another's characters in. It'll probably be a miserable campaign with at least one charcter left out of most adventures, but with any luck that will serve as a object lesson to those pig-headed character-players!

Grrr!


Agback

 

[Eye Tyrant]

I know this thread started as a place to vent, but it then turned into a discussion on DM duties... I just wanted to bump it up to see if Reapersaurus and Zappo were still interested in this idea/discussion and if so what their thoughts are...

If the interest is still there, perhaps we should start a seperate thread.