Depressed DM not getting it right...(depressingly long, very long...)

[Samnell]

Geography geekery ahead.

I live in Malaysia, the state of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu city. I doubt any of you ever heard of it though.

Sabah is on the northernmost portion of the island of Borneo, generally to the northeast of Sarawak, the other Malaysian state that shares the island with Indonesia's Kalitmatan (which I just spelled wrong) and the Sultanate of Brunei. To the further northeast is the Philipines, with the island of Palawan being the major land body of the Philippines closest.

Sabah was formerly known as North Borneo and administered as a British Crown Colony prior to its becoming a part of Mayalsia. The Philippines maintains a claim to the state which is generally dormant and based on some political maneuvering on about three hundred years ago. Slightly more recently, Sabah had a slight chance at being an American colony when an American consul leased it from the Sultain of Brunei. Washington had other things on its mind in 1865 and the lease was sold.

But people tell me that I'm a lot more interested in geography than most.

 

[fnork de sporg]

You could try playing online. Either chat based or a forum based play-by-post such as they have in this very website.

 

[questing gm]

An insult? I'm insulted!

The answers to all your cowbell questions can be found here.

sorry ! my mistake

 

[questing gm]

Geography geekery ahead.



Sabah is on the northernmost portion of the island of Borneo, generally to the northeast of Sarawak, the other Malaysian state that shares the island with Indonesia's Kalitmatan (which I just spelled wrong) and the Sultanate of Brunei. To the further northeast is the Philipines, with the island of Palawan being the major land body of the Philippines closest.

Sabah was formerly known as North Borneo and administered as a British Crown Colony prior to its becoming a part of Mayalsia. The Philippines maintains a claim to the state which is generally dormant and based on some political maneuvering on about three hundred years ago. Slightly more recently, Sabah had a slight chance at being an American colony when an American consul leased it from the Sultain of Brunei. Washington had other things on its mind in 1865 and the lease was sold.

But people tell me that I'm a lot more interested in geography than most.

A thousand points and give the guy a cookie !

 

[questing gm]

So everyone thinks that i should get out and find a new group or should i stay and try to work things out with my players just by being less ambitious ?

I have tried webRPG before a long time ago, i have to say that it was a different gaming experience but i was using dial-up back then so it was pretty costly to run sessions that way. Now that i'm using unlimited broadband, i haven't really thought about going online since. I'm still pretty familiar with webRPG but i heard that it was scrapped. So what is the latest chat program they use these days ?

 

[Nyaricus]

hey Questing GM, I just wanted to say good luck. I have been in you position many-a-time and I know what this feels like - like no-one wants to participate in RPing, like they just want to make an uber-character, like no-one has a backstory other than "we met in a bar", and like a few of your other problems too. I also have been trying to play to give an example, but that DM/Player isn't paying anymore at the moment, so I am still stuck DMing.

What I try to do is to make the NPCs in the world real, living people, and to give them a good backstory the PCs can latch on to. NPCs are my players, in essence, so I (try to) lead by example.

In any case, good luck and good gaming man

 

[Samnell]

A thousand points and give the guy a cookie !

COOKIE!

 

[was]

I've dealt with min-maxers on occasion. Try this approach: assuming you're starting at first level, start them with an extra 250 xp for writing up a good background story (about 1 page in length). I've never seen the offer turned down. Then, every once in a while, use the background in planning adventures. It tends to draw them out of their smash and bash midsets a bit...just a thought..

 

[Parlan]

Malaysia? Then you probably don't get the cowbell joke!

I don't get the cowbell joke. Explanation for the culturally ignorant?


EDIT: nm, i found the wikipedia link

 

[KeithCrimson]

These led to frustrations and discouragement to me to try and change the players' attitude to making rich and developed characters with balanced scores (discouraging min/maxing) and active role-playing. It always seemed that i ended up on the rotten end of the stick when i tried to play the 'proper' characters in his campaign and it was seen as a 'losing' approach to the game as a whole.

I feel the same way everytime I game. I always feel like my character is the most underpowered of the group.