Commentary thread for that “Describe your game in five words” thread.

[uzirath]

GM went missing: fell asleep!!!

I’m curious about this one. Did the GM fail to show up? Or, did they vanish mid-game? Like falling asleep during a virtual session?

 

[overgeeked]

“No rails? We’re totally lost.”

In my West Marches game one group seems to be filled with modern players who simply have not had enough opportunities to actually make meaningful choices in their gaming careers. They are simply at a loss that I’m not force feeding them “content” and making it blinking neon sign obvious where they should go next. Hint: it’s West Marches. You go and do what you want. That’s the point.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

In my West Marches game one group seems to be filled with modern players who simply have not had enough opportunities to actually make meaningful choices in their gaming careers. They are simply at a loss that I’m not force feeding them “content” and making it blinking neon sign obvious where they should go next. Hint: it’s West Marches. You go and do what you want. That’s the point.

It takes a while for sandbox play to really register. Some people don't know it's what they like until they're deep into it. And some people don't know it's what they don't want until they get into it, either.

 

[overgeeked]

It takes a while for sandbox play to really register. Some people don't know it's what they like until they're deep into it. And some people don't know it's what they don't want until they get into it, either.

To be fair, the game setup wasn’t a surprise. They knew it was West Marches when they signed up. I explained to them what it meant and that it was going to be a character-driven game. It’s not that they didn’t know what to expect, it’s that they’ve no experience (or no recent experience) with meaningful choices or choices having consequences in a game before. So they’re flailing kinda hard. It takes awhile for brand new gamers to register that they really can try anything. These are not new gamers. They’ve just played with railroading DMs so long they’ve forgotten how to play without a railroading DM.

 

[overgeeked]

Punji stick pit traps incoming.

I like to have different types of play in the games I run. If you want dungeons, there's dungeons. If you want domain and kingdom and politics, there's that, too. If you want Fantasy !@#$ing Vietnam, it's there. One of my West Marches groups is realizing they've accidentally stumbled into the FFV section of the world. "What's the Mekong Delta?" LOL.

 

[aramis erak]

Two died in character creation.

Sounds like Traveller... and in the old school mode.

 

[overgeeked]

Rage quit over XP awards.

Yep. So that happened. People need to relax and remember it's a game. Seriously. It's a game. Calm down. We're (mostly) adults sitting around a table or at our desks pretending to be elves and dwarfs and wizards. It's play pretend with dice. Take things down a notch or five.

 

[aramis erak]

Yep. So that happened. People need to relax and remember it's a game. Seriously. It's a game. Calm down. We're (mostly) adults sitting around a table or at our desks pretending to be elves and dwarfs and wizards. It's play pretend with dice. Take things down a notch or five.

If the players were expecting by-the-rules, and the GM totally ignored RAW without prior warning, that's worth getting a little annoyed with.

 

[overgeeked]

If the players were expecting by-the-rules, and the GM totally ignored RAW without prior warning, that's worth getting a little annoyed with.

“A little annoyed,” yes. Profanity-laced yelling rage quit mid game, no.

However, in this case, I was explicit up front how XP would be handled. They decided to wait more than two months into the game to freak out about it.

 

[aramis erak]

Wed T2K 4E:
Heliflopter fixed; escaped Poland. Barely.

They split the party... Part A went north, seeking out wrecs to strip. Part B went south, same goal.
Part C stayed at the helicopter.
A had radioactive fallout from being downwind of a tac-nuc. (Out of LOS due to terrain, but in the fallout.) Eli got radiation sickness...
B had a run in with an ambush... BTR70 + 3 × PCs troops... I used 2× PC's + ½×NPCs... and missed every shot. Both the HMGs broke. They managed to suppress most of the NPCs ... it was a Soviet Army Herofest... Many Soviet Heros that day...
Part C found some walkie talkies and a still sealed cup-of-noodles... (the things you find on the scrounging tables...)

They managed to get the sky King pieced into barely flyable shape... just before a random encounter resulted in a bunch of tanks rolling their way... they got hit, a PC died from an AP round from a 125mm tank cannon... as did severa NPCs... I took mercy upon them and let them roll to hold it together in the autorotation ... and they did... and they autorotated down to a safe not-quite-a-crash, got it fixed enough to fly, barely, and then they flew like demons to Ramstein AFB... and a ticket home on day 14 after last orders...

Campaign end by party agreement.
Net casualties of 6 PCs: 1 dead, 3 missing a limb each.
The Survivors:

• Lt Bernard LaRousse MD USN-MC - missing an arm at the shoulder
• 2Lt Eli Jensen USMC (Infantry), unmaimed.
• Capitan Helen Pascal, AdT SigInt. Missing an arm
• PFC Diega Diego, USMC. Missing a leg.
• CPL Jackie, USAR Inf.
• Cpt Amilé Dupan, USMC Intel. Arm blown off by a 125mm off a T80... while in an in-flight helicopter.

The chopper was in barely flyable shape...
They also managed to get 20-some NPCs out. A Sea King can carry 26 troops, so they were a bit overloaded space wise, but well under Max Tskr-Off weight limit. They abandoned all their loot, too... save the spares in case of needing repairs.

4 months of play, covering 14 days... and most of day 14 spent on a cargo plane heading for a badly fractured "Home"...
(Capitan Pascal is presumed to have gotten home via other means)