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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Heard" data-source="post: 1407856" data-attributes="member: 7280">Gee, I think I've played in some alternate history version of most of these games - and ran a few too at one time or another.I think my favorite are the games that aren't all that bad, but are awful for certain players. If the entire game is rotten I usually just walk away immediately, I've seen enough bad games that the only thing that might occassionally get me to stay through a truly loathesome one is a pizza or friends among the players that I would risk offending otherwise.I like the players who die before they ever enter the game. During my monolithic extreme sport-gaming spectacular Cyberpunk game in the early 90s (At one time I had something like 30 players in a single session, that's when I found out that even I have limits) I was running a two or three location concurrent game with a another GM. As always when we were just beginning the night we had a bunch of newish players and characters, who were supposed to be listening to the recaps and trying to figure out where everyone should be going into which group and whatever. So we had a player who'd played before and he'd decided to switch groups, thinking to gain an advantage with this I guess. The Cyberpunk game was like a James Bond movie sometimes though, so we were always cycling through interesting locations and a lot of the 'NPC activity' that the players were chasing all the time was actually PCs doing 'outside jobs' and then not telling everyone (or not showing up) after the session. So this guy thinks he's going to piece things together, but he picks the night when we'd already planned for the groups to come together anyways so it's no big deal. The other GM and I have fumbled together a scene where one group (already mostly played through) is in Tokyo running a diversion, another group is trampling through the jungle looking for a contact that's been kidnapped, and the last group is parachuting into the same jungle like freaking special forces to steal the contents of a hidden bioweapons lab. Except the only people that know anything about the two groups going to the same place won't find out till 'tomorrow' in game time and they're sitting in the kitchen like giddy schoolgirls drinking booze waiting for the inevitable. So the guy that's switched, he's 'not-looking' for a secret weapons lab while I'm running the other group in another room as they come in like gangbusters and take out the perimeter guards and establish a perimeter of their own. The one guy knows a little better than the rest of the group his hunch on where they should be looking for hostages in the middle of a jungle though, so he takes Point and they let him lead them towards the lab. At some point my co-GM and I take some time out to discuss the timetable on things and conclude that we're still ok because the paratroopers got there a long time ago. We sort of assume that everything will work out. But then my group decides that they're getting nervous, so they start suiting up like secret weapons labs guards while their computer guys get what they came for and wait for their ride. When the other group comes up on the lab they see it's been blown to crap, but there are still guards out there. My co-GM says he was going to give them some hints immediately at that, but the guy who switched doesn't have much respect for the players he switched from so he immediately starts firing at the other group. Now, did I mention that one group was there to pick up hostages and the other was rigged out for an assault? The guy wounds one of my players, assuming that he's going to go down like a goon. Big stop in the game. I describe the snipe from the brush, trying to play up the idea that it probably wasn't lab guards or some vicious sniping ninja plot that I've inserted to make their life interesting. No luck, they react in force. Where their actual assault was sort of an anticlimax in how silently and carefully they orchestrated their fire, since the 'jig is up' now they let loose all the heavy machinery that they've brought with them more or less in a slash n' burn philosophy that probably would have looked like a scene from Predator. I've got the other guy's sheet, double check everything, and finally have to figure out how much damage the assault team does to the rest of the other group from laying down 'covering fire' and from their overlapping fields of fire. Yes, since you asked, we DO train the Army Rangers just down the road from here. Now, Cyberpunk is a pretty lethal game, but this was way over the top. More maxed out and crazy than anything I'd actually throw at the players as a GM and one of the other players notes that pretty quickly and then another chimes in with some rather astute remarks on what sort of hardware would have to be used to generate that damage. Oops they go. But not the switcher, he's incensed. His second character dead in two sessions! He didn't get to DO anything! We didn't give enough clues or information! We've shown favoritism, because the other group didn't take any casualties while the hostage group is about half gone now and needing mommies and ambulances besides! Worst, I think, we're laughing our butts off. I mean literally crying, it was the most absolutely priceless moment I've ever had even if somewhere in the part of me that cares I was feeling for the guy and everyone else who'd died basically just from showing up on the wrong side of the wall of lead and doom. Some of the other players aren't too happy about it, especially those who'd managed to survive a year or more of previous sessions without harm beyond the occassional ICU visit. That guy though, he wouldn't play with us ever again until one of the other players started up an 2E game. Held a grudge against me for years, retelling the story at odd times as an illustration of what an awful game I ran and how I screwed over the players.The most notable thing about the 2E game I recall for that guy though? He played a cavalier....and insisted on bringing his lance into the dungeon with him. My sympathy faded.Anyways, all the truly dismal games I've been a part of were poorly run LARPS. Which weren't that bad either, the worse the game was at the LARP the better my game seemed when I wooed the goth kids away from the dark side and into the Light.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

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