Red... glowy... shiny... button... must... not...
*Kzach picks up the gauntlet and slaps himself with it*
Sorry, couldn't resist
That article could be said to be jumping the shark though...
When Your Group Jumps the Shark
Red... glowy... shiny... button... must... not...
*Kzach picks up the gauntlet and slaps himself with it*
Sorry, couldn't resist
That article could be said to be jumping the shark though...
the Jester
Legend
Well, they misused the term 'jump the shark'... and I disagree with almost everything in the piece. However, I think that is a playstyle issue. It isn't that he's wrong, it is that he is wrong for me.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
Ah the article was OK. Yes the author has misunderstood the title phrase he's(?) used. Bad journalism that. The advice offered: perfectly fine. It's one way to handle the situation. I've done it a few times. I'll do it again in the future. Is the advice a bit RPG 101? Yeah. But there's new players and GMs out there who can benefit from some RPG 101.
tmatk
Explorer
FireLance
Legend
Yup, looks like it's going to be another one of those multi-page spanning, playstyle differences threads.
Before I go any further, I'm going to address a concept that I call the "reset button". Almost all games have a reset button. After a game of chess, regardless of who won or who lost, the game returns to its original state before a new game begins. Similarly with basketball, or soccer, or football, or tennis, the score is reset between the time that one game ends and another game begins.
RPGs also have reset buttons, but the normal assumption is that they will never be used short of a TPK or a deliberate decision to re-start the campaign. In this manner, the successes and failures of one session will influence all subsequent sessions. Nonetheless, certain events in an ongoing RPG can function similar to reset buttons. A DM who puts extra treasure in an adventure to replace equipment that was destroyed by a rust monster is performing a reset of sorts. A player who brings in a new character after his previous character died has also had a pseudo-reset. In addition, many CRPGs have "save points" which allow a player to reset a game but start at a save point instead of from the beginning.
It's obvious from the posts so far that there are several players who like a playstyle in which the reset button is hardly ever used, and when it is used, requires a restart from the beginning instead of from a "save point". They like that their decisions have in-game consequences.
However, it is possible to play RPGs differently, with frequent, progressive resets. By this, I mean that in between sessions, the characters recover from anything that happened to them at the end of the last session (up to and including death), gain a level, and their wealth resets to some baseline value based on their new level. Under this playstyle, a party can fail, sometimes quite miserably, but they recover from their failures before the next session begins. It's a playstyle that is not for everyone, and is probably suited to more "casual" players, but it's much more forgiving of when the players are having an off day.
Before I go any further, I'm going to address a concept that I call the "reset button". Almost all games have a reset button. After a game of chess, regardless of who won or who lost, the game returns to its original state before a new game begins. Similarly with basketball, or soccer, or football, or tennis, the score is reset between the time that one game ends and another game begins.
RPGs also have reset buttons, but the normal assumption is that they will never be used short of a TPK or a deliberate decision to re-start the campaign. In this manner, the successes and failures of one session will influence all subsequent sessions. Nonetheless, certain events in an ongoing RPG can function similar to reset buttons. A DM who puts extra treasure in an adventure to replace equipment that was destroyed by a rust monster is performing a reset of sorts. A player who brings in a new character after his previous character died has also had a pseudo-reset. In addition, many CRPGs have "save points" which allow a player to reset a game but start at a save point instead of from the beginning.
It's obvious from the posts so far that there are several players who like a playstyle in which the reset button is hardly ever used, and when it is used, requires a restart from the beginning instead of from a "save point". They like that their decisions have in-game consequences.
However, it is possible to play RPGs differently, with frequent, progressive resets. By this, I mean that in between sessions, the characters recover from anything that happened to them at the end of the last session (up to and including death), gain a level, and their wealth resets to some baseline value based on their new level. Under this playstyle, a party can fail, sometimes quite miserably, but they recover from their failures before the next session begins. It's a playstyle that is not for everyone, and is probably suited to more "casual" players, but it's much more forgiving of when the players are having an off day.
ProfessorPain
First Post
meh. I wasn't too impressed with the article, and as others have observed that isn't really what "jump the shark" means. Also, it sounds like he was upset at his players for not meta-gaming. I am all for tactics, but you are also playing characters, who aren't averaging potential damage in their heads as they decide to charge or not. I don't know what the circumstances were in this group. But I don't know if a single episode of sloppy tactics is worthy of an editorial.
Relique du Madde
Adventurer
Umbran... sorry but you're wrong.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDthMGtZKa4]YouTube - Fonzie Jumps the Shark[/ame]
But yeah, having a day full of fail != jumping the shark. However, attempting to jumping the shark to gain interest in a game is full of fail. A RPG example of Jumping the shark would be I don't know... dropping your characters into Ravenloft because the current quest to save the world has become trivial as a result of your game having a series of uneventful monte hull dungeon delves where the players killed everything within three rounds.
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ProfessorPain
First Post
He wasn't that wrong. It was an underwater net or cage instead of a tank. And water skis instead of motor bike. Easy enough mistake to make. And it doesn't change the overall point of the remark.
FireLance
Legend
Actually, I think it was more the motorcycle vs waterski issue.
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