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This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #20: What was the most memorable character death you’ve ever experienced? What makes it stick with you?
Only two of my characters have died. Both times the death seemed forced. Both times it involved the same person. Continue reading…
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #19: What’s the weirdest character you’ve ever played? How did you end up with him/her/it?
I haven’t really played any weird PCs. I like to play characters I can relate to… so they’re only a bit weird. As a GM I have played all manner of bizarre NPCs. Yesterday I played several three-foot tall slugs with many vestigial arms who worshipped the players in my hardcore sci-fi Wizard of Oz hack of Lady Blackbird that I made up over the last three days.
Before that I’ve played a shadow god who only spoke in lies and told the PCs that he was pleased to meet them and they could stay in his domain as long as they liked. I played a giant sandworm who spoke of “tremorssssss”. I played a forgetful old angel woman who kept forgetting Happy Days had finished. I played a rainbow roc who revived a PC with her tears, inducing a painterly dream in his mind. I’ve played as alternate universe doubles of the PCs from my Elemental Legends campaign, holding conversations with the real PCs. I also played the zealous undead NPC Paladin in that alternate universe.
I played an NPC reporter who was married to one of the PCs and in a flashback reminiscent of “The Hangover” he got pigeons and possums glued to his body, most dead but one pigeon was alive; after that he always kept it in his satchel bag and fed it. I’ve played as a dragon in human form who was obsessed with hats and was funding the end of the world. I’ve played a demon who wanted to be human and inhabited the PC for much of the game. I played as merchants who never spoke, but looked like pink dolphins standing upright with no tails or limbs, manipulating their wares with the black tendrils from the barnacles that covered their bodies.
I’ve played Stan who owned a tavern and comedy club called Stan’s Standup & Sit Down. I’ve played a possibly mad god who bathed in blood, trained an assassin and said “Hello, the panda!” for I can’t remember why. I’ve played a halfling who was addicted to the sense of near-death and so hired himself out as a poison tester in the slums. I’ve played sentient lobster messengers. I’ve played a time travelling stork mailman about to go postal. I’ve played a ravenous homunculus made from every bodily fluid and the severed private parts of murdered humans. Yeah… that’s the one. That was the weirdest one.
I had forgotten about him… *shudder* Being a GM I disturb even myself sometimes.
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #18: Have you ever “cheated” on a die roll/random chance outcome, or looked up a quest solution on a fan site? Why or why not? If yes, was it worth it?
Rarely, but yes. I don’t remember any particular instance, but they all had one thing in common: stuff was getting boring. I don’t think I’ve ever cheated on a diplomacy roll or acrobatics roll or something where it’s just a single roll. It’s been in long drawn out combats that just wouldn’t end. Strangely, I never just say a higher number, I always reroll it and if I don’t get a higher number then I just suck it up and bare it. Basically, I’ve only cheated when it was fun and the alternative was boring for me and everyone.
Some indie games talk about only rolling when the failure is as interesting as the success. In games such as D&D 3.5 the failure is often completely boring. In games where success/failure are equally fun there’s little to no advantage or even temptation to cheat: sometimes you want to fail (like in Lady Blackbird where failing a roll means getting more dice).
As a GM I’ve fudged rolls more than as a player. I’ve done this for the same reasons as above: the result was boring. Killing the main boss in one hit can be awesome but is more likely boring and unexpected; where’s the epic challenge? Dying on a fluke roll from a monster is certainly exciting, but having 2HP left gives more options for story and lets the character have one last chance.
Again, I like systems where I don’t feel inclined to do this. However, I also play some systems where I’m basically winging and improvising everything, so if I guessed that the monster should have 20HP and deal 3d6+5 damage with it’s attacks, maybe I realise after a round or two that I was off a bit and bump up the HP while knocking down the damage. Savage Worlds is a great system because there is no HP to worry about. Roll to hit, roll to overcome their toughness. If you do well enough, they die; if not, they’re shaken or fine. It makes these things a non-issue in many cases.
In closing: I rarely fudge or cheat and I don’t like doing it, but if it’s for the good of the game I don’t mind it so much. Though don’t *tell* me you’re doing it, and I won’t tell you.
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #17: What was the best reward you’ve ever gotten in a game? What made it so great? How much do you need tangible rewards (loot, leveling, etc.) to enjoy a game?
I think the best reward I ever received in a game was a puzzle box. It had about five dials on it which each had six numbers. You couldn’t move them specifically, you had to shake the box and they would all move at different speeds. Basically, the simulate this we rolled five dice. We discovered that the box would open when the dice (the dials) all showed the same number. So while we were adventuring and travelling we’d pass the box to each other. Whoever wasn’t busy would sit there rolling a handful of dice over and over. It sounds tedious, but it was easy to do while talking and the excitement of first opening the box was awesome.
Another great thing about the box was that when we got it open the first time by rolling, say, all 3s, the magical box opened and we found what was inside. But when we got all 5s later on, it opened and something else was in there! I think it goes to show how interesting the box was because I don’t clearly remember any of the treasures inside. I think we found a mysterious note from someone and eventually encountered that person later, which made it even cooler. But the box itself and the mystery of what was inside, coupled with the decreasing odds of opening to a compartment we hadn’t seen before, all made it a cool reward.
As for the last question: I don’t really need many tangible rewards to enjoy roleplaying games. Having fun is rewarding enough, usually. I like ranks, connections, social standing and thanks of valued NPCs is more than gear. With gear, I like some of it to have story, like interesting unique magical items (not a +1 flaming sword, but a named sword with a backstory and specific powers). It can even just be that this is the magical ring the hated bad guy or the dead beloved NPC wore.
As you might be able to tell from my answers to these Reverb Gamers questions so far, if it’s got story, I’m there 
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #16: Who was the most memorable foe you’ve ever come up against in a game? How did you beat him/her/it? Or did you?
To be honest, I don’t remember most of the major foes I’ve come up against in the games of old. I remember Thanatos who owned the good pub in the bad part of town and seemed to be our ally or patron, then tricked us into leaving town just as he was about enact the dark ritual. I remember the slug-hinded alchemist living out in the forest sending leeches all over the country. I remember a giant worm we fought and a wizard who we pretended we’d help, then all killed him in a single round while facing the worm. He was there for the nut inside it, after all, and we needed that!
I have created some memorable foes in my time, my players tell me. Greyman was the first and one of the greatest. He was a grey-skinned man who the PCs knew was bad but had no idea how to tackle him; not after seeing him explode a lizardfolk village with a flick of his wrist (it was actually an explosive nut he had prepared, not a spell, but he scared them well and good).
I remember the scene where he was digging up a grave. The PCs came out and confronted him but he kept digging, looking for one of the many items they were all searching for. They didn’t dare fight him at that point. Greyman was great because he wasn’t lurking in the shadows or sitting in his castle. He was out there and talking to the PCs but they weren’t fighting him directly. It was a lot of fun. In the end the Elemental Legends (the PCs) all were sheathed in giant elementals and fought Greyman’s giant shadows over their hometown. They won in the end of that epic battle.
Oh, then there was the self-proclaimed Salt Lord who caught the PCs in a dead calm and if they showed any disrespect he glared at them and they took damage as he turned their internal waters into salt. He was one hell of a bastard. They got away after a ship came – by this point even the non-religious PCs had resorted to prayer – but I can’t remember how or if they defeated him.
I think, though, that Orson Crake is my favourite foe. I ran two time travel based games for my wife. Orson was a business man and, like Greyman, he was one you couldn’t just kill. He was confident, calm and scary. His had one power but it was a good one; he could move anything through the timestream by touching it. He could touch a door and move it to a point in time where it was unlocked, for example. Mostly, he touched stuff and aged it till it was dust. It worked on people too, and he could heal his own wounds this way and keep himself young.
Orson convinced my wife’s character to travel to a certain point in time, where she got stuck in a loop as he knew she would. She managed to change the loop a bit and spent the rest of her life there, met a man, built a family and these things continued but the year never changed. She eventually sacrificed herself to save her daughter and in doing so shot through the timestream, bursting through to another dimension.
In that dimension – my main homebrew world – we ran another game with her daughter (who had two sets of memories about growing up). She encountered a younger Orson under a different name and after things went to hell and she managed to finally pull things back and sort things out, he admitted that she was like her mother and mentioned some quality that he implied he admired. For my wife, this was a massive victory. She remembers it still. Breaking a tiny crack in his hard emotionless outer shell. For her, that was how she overcame him and it was sweeter than any death of his would have been.
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #15: People often talk about the divide between what happens “in game” and “in real life.” Do you maintain that divide in your own play, or do you tend to take what happens to your character personally? Why?
I mainly GM, but when I play (and even as some of my NPCs) I can sometimes take things personally. I think it’s because you’re sitting there with real people and real-seeming emotions going back and forth (as opposed to selecting dialogue options in a computer game and/or quick-loading if you do something you’re not happy with).
I know that if someone hates my character they don’t hate me – and in fact, it could be seen as a complement that I’m playing my character in such a way that they can make that strong a connection with them. However, if the character you’re playing is like you or does something that you thought you would do if it were you, the player, in that situation, reactions from NPCs or PCs can feel more personal.
I also tend to connect a lot with my character and get into their personality. So even if I, the player, don’t take something personally, I might react as if I do – through my character – because my character certainly takes it personally. I think it’s good to drop out of character sometimes after a tense conversation and reconnect as players who enjoy the company of one another.
Roleplaying aside, my main gripe with this sort of thing is when something I feel is unfair happens in game. I take that to heart in real-life. If I felt that something bad happened to my character that I had no control over (and should have had control over; should have been given a roll to check if I saw that assassin coming, for example) then I can take that personally. This is mostly because it hurts my enjoyment of the game and I am a strong advocate for realistically representing what the characters can see, feel, sense and so on in the game. I also don’t like control being taken away from characters, unless it is clearly appropriate. It is a game, after all. We’re here to have fun
All that said, I can obviously tell what’s in-game and what’s real-life and that is one of the joys of roleplaying. Getting to tap into a side of yourself that you don’t normally show, or experimenting with a personality that just is not you at all. As GM I love it when characters clash with each other or my NPCs because it means real roleplaying is bound to happen.
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #14: What kinds of adventures do you enjoy most? Dungeon crawls, mysteries, freeform roleplaying, or something else? What do you think that says about you?
I like freeform roleplaying as part of every adventure, whether that be during combat or investigating mysteries. I don’t consider freeform roleplaying a separate type of adventure, though there have been sessions that are just characters and NPCs talking. I like that, but I wouldn’t want the whole game to just be conversations. I suppose I like mysteries the most, but what I like about them is that they are really a mix of things.
I like something to investigate that leads me into a situation where I can use diplomacy or smarts to avoid combat (or I could just get into the combat, instead!). Mysteries often have a heavy roleplaying element and it feels good to see your views of the situation turned on their head with the revelation of a new clue until you finally sort things out, hopefully in some tense final confrontation.
I think dungeon crawls are my least favourite of the mentioned types as I prefer there to be story woven through the adventure and some resolution at the end. Dungeons can have this, but I prefer the focus to be on the story, not the dungeon crawl.
So, I like adventures where I have to think, need to investigate some goings-on and get to the bottom of things. Combat, intrigue, trudging through sewers and of course freeform roleplaying can all be part of this. What this says about me is that I’m into story, roleplaying, conversations, using my brain, and prefer having all aspects of the game (such as combat) include roleplaying and be meaningful to the story (rather than unconnected random encounters). For me, it’s all about story, characters and roleplaying.
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #13: Who’s the best GM/storyteller/party leader you’ve ever had? What made him/her so great?
I’ve only had one long-term GM and five different GMs for shorter games (as in, one or two sessions at most) with another GM running a few several-session games. It is the long-term GM that is my favourite.
He had his faults, sure: he sometimes stomped down ideas that he didn’t agree with even if we thought they were cool, and he would not always accurately describe the world accurately (as in, stuff our characters would obviously know was sometimes withheld for us, the players; even basic sensory things sometimes), and he often didn’t know and/or forgot important rules.
Those were the downsides; they were far outweighed by all his other skills and the incredible amounts of fun we had playing his games. Every session was exciting and had something new and interesting, even when we were just shopping or planning.
We planned a war in one session using an elven crystal mediation chamber where we could create dream worlds and try out our plans in that safe environment. It was also fun for my druid to just make forests and run through them with dream animals. I also got to flip through a “Monster Manual” I conjured up in the dream world and each page I turned the monster appeared in the dream and I could try to learn about it to summon it later for battle.
This GM played fast and loose with the rules (D&D 3.0) which I liked most of the time. As I was just learning the rules and reading up on them myself he often let me help out in combat, moving monsters etc. and I was able to check and correct any important rules he missed, which helped us both.
I restatted a character a few sessions in, with the GM’s permission, and carried on like nothing had happened. Not everyone would do that. I had a few chances to mini-GM during his games too, and lots of chances to talk with my party members in character. I really valued these times.
This GM also let us do cool things that made our characters shine or added to the story, even if the rules didn’t strictly allow it. He had interesting stories and so much of the game was about our characters. It really ended up as a story that nobody else could have had. It was personalised and that made it great.
He was also great with voices and characterisation of monsters and people. I still remember the facial expressions of the little yellow guys peeing in the sewer who popped into goop when we poked them. He was the GM of the game in which I played as my favourite character ever, Trent Hawkins, and he made me feel like my character was famous and respected. In the two year-long campaigns I had four characters, and other than the short-lived rogue (less than a session), I felt that he helped bring my characters to life.
Actually, even the rogue carried on, his only-works-extremely-rarely cloak of invisibility was kept by the party for the rest of the adventure and once activated while we were using it to cover our faces from the noxious fumes in some wizard’s lab. It was that sort of brilliance – we had mostly forgotten about the cloak – and just the energy he ran games with that made it so fun. He was excited about our characters and for the game and the world and that was infectious.
Now as I type this I know that I’m still learning from him even though it’s been 8+ years since I’ve played with him. I try to keep those games in mind and use my creativity to surprise and delight players, while being fans of the characters and bringing infectious excitement to the table.
If you know a good GM let the world hear about it on Hell Yeah, Gamemasters. Looks like the site’s been inactive for a while I’ve enjoyed reading the stories there. It could use some more submissions.
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #12: Do you prefer collaborative or competitive games? What do you think that says about you?
I like collaborative games with a hint of conflict. I enjoy working with others and making a cool plan or setting up an attack for another player to follow through on. I like talking within the party. I like a good party working together. But some tension and conflict can add some good spice to this arrangement.
I like a party working together for a common goal. But even better, sometimes, is a party working together for a common goal for entirely different reasons. Three people trying to track down an item, one to return it to her church, the other to destroy it, another to claim it as their own. That can be very entertaining.
Scenarios like The Sword with a situation like that described above, or games like Shadows Over Camelot where there may be a traitor, but accusing them isn’t a simple matter, games like Paranoia, games like Fiasco. These are fun situations.
What I think this says about me is that I like working with others, like a good group dynamic, but like some action too. Also, I like games where everyone’s a winner or you’re working together to build to something, rather than tearing down the ideas of others. I know not all competitive games are like that, but collaboration encourages building on each others’ ideas. I also think I like collaborative games because they keep the group together while also stimulating roleplaying in some exciting ways that may not otherwise come up.
This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #11: Have you ever played a character that was morally gray, or actually evil? Why or why not? If yes, did you enjoy it?
I once played a rogue who was planning a big heist. He was promptly killed by the party’s mecury-poisioned dwarf fighter. The bard had liked the rogue so advocated that he be resurrected with the party’s one available use. Instead they brought the dwarf back and killed him again within seconds as he went mad on them. So, no, I did not enjoy playing this character.
I didn’t have much time to play as that rogue and he was a bit rough in demeanour so others didn’t warm to him much. Mostly, they were prejudiced against him for their own reasons. I think if I were to play a morally grey character again it would be a more subtle one. One who didn’t appear morally grey to look at or even talk to but acted that way at times. One who had reasons for acting that way in certain circumstances.
I prefer morally grey characters to evil characters. Evil characters in a good party either need to be too secretive or die quickly, in my experience. Morally grey characters – or evil characters with a soft spot for good – tend to get more mileage. I’ve run several games with some morally grey characters and they were lots of fun. I think it’s the ability to not be the upstanding hero. The ability to smack that BBEG in the face at the fancy party. The ability to kill someone in their sleep rather than face them on the battlefield of honour. Grey can be seen to mean more flexible and thus more options.
It’s not always the case, but the people who have played grey or evil characters that I know of have done so for the flexibility and options or for one other reason: fall or redemption. Grey characters falling to evil or evil characters rising to good. These are some classic tales and when it’s your character that this happens to it can be a pretty exciting ride. I’ve run games with both these types of characters (only one grey/evil character in each campaign) and they have added a spark and some potential conflict and drama that was otherwise absent. I very much enjoyed these sessions.
