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Based on my posts the other day about roleplaying and player/GM interaction and collaborative efforts, I've been reading through some parts of The Forge to find ideas. One that I really like is the idea of "kickers" (a term coined by Ron Edwards). The standard definition of kicker doesn't really mean much to me, so I won't repeat it. The gist is that when you begin a story, your character should have just had something big happen to him/her.

One example used on The Forge is: "I just got home from the airport and when I opened my luggage, my stuff was gone and was replaced with ten kilos of cocaine." That's a paraphrase, but it's close enough. It drives characters into action from the get-go. It's a neat idea, and it goes above and beyond the idea of having a fleshed-out history for the character.

I think I'd like to try using this concept in the future -- maybe if and when I run that Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. ;)

I'm thinking sometime in 2006 I will pick up the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG and look into running a short campaign (read: one season). Of course, the last time my regular group thought I was leading them secretly into a BtVS game, I got flamed bad via email. I'll probably cobble together a group that is interested in such a thing. I do have some ideas for such a group, but I'm not quite sure about it yet.

Word is the 100th Monkey has closed up shop again. Grrr...

If you have my cell phone number stored somewhere, delete it. Delete it now, 'cause as of today, I'm cell phone-free.

Well, they did it. The federal opposition parties brought about a December election campaign.

Bastards.

Paranoia: The Mandatory Card Game is mine! It's mine, I tell you!

Okay, who wants to play? :D

After thinking about the D&D session where we wrote out Logan's paladin, I'm trying to think of some of my favourite gaming sessions over the years (sessions where everything just clicked). That was definitely one of them. Everyone was really on that night, and it didn't feel at all like I was struggling to pull it all together.

I'm not even sure why that one worked so well. Perhaps it was the preparation on everybody's part. Logan and Rawl both knew where they were starting the session from, and they both knew what the end result had to be. We had determined two things beforehand. One, Rawl's fighter would get angry at Logan's paladin for not helping him in the fight the way he expected (and possibly nearly getting Rawl's fighter killed). Two, an argument would break out and escalate to physical violence, which would end with Logan's paladin forsaking the group (leaving him free to bring in a new character).

I think it was the first time I'd ever planned out an in-game event to such a degree. Usually I don't tell the players anything beforehand. I'm sure that's a bit of a hold-over from the old days where GMs and players weren't participating in something together; they were trying to beat each other at the game. It's a terrible habit that makes for confrontational games, and those are really no fun anymore. The days of my proud display of the "dead PC pile" are long over with.

Another stellar gaming session that stands out was my very first session in Lawrence's V:tM Chicago By Night chronicle. The character interactions were very different than what I was used to. At times, the players seemed to be crafting the story almost as much as the GM. That level didn't stay, for whatever reason, but the mix was right in that first session (and also for the next couple of sessions) I attended of the Chicago By Night chronicle.

It gets difficult to discuss RPGs without discussing mechanics. Taking the mechanics out of the equation and going under the assumption that the game will be entirely freeform is perhaps a good way to work on these ideas of collaboration. Figuring out what a group wants out of a game would be the priority. Mechanics could be worked into the ideas once the more important aspects of the narrative structure are determined.

It's difficult to analyze what my players want. And I'm sure I'm way off. However...

From observing, Rich enjoys humour very much in a game. He likes an element of silliness (it's no wonder he's the one who wants to run a Red Dwarf game). He seems to enjoy the character interactions, and he seems perfectly happy constructing ideas in his head about his character and the environment.

Rawl seems to visualize certain elements of his character's actions and even will act out (to an extent) what his character is doing at the table. If his character peers around the corner, Rawl might act out peering around an imaginary corner (I've seen him do it). He also likes character interactions, and he doesn't care whether they're entirely spontaneous or whether they're set up beforehand.

In fact, one of the best sessions I've ever had was shortly before the D&D campaign fell through. We wanted to write Logan's paladin character out, so between sessions, Logan, Rawl and I set up the basics for an argument that would lead to a physical fight between Logan's paladin and Rawl's fighter. It worked like a charm, and I don't think anything was lost by setting elements of it up beforehand.

Rawl also likes a level of humour, but he can get bogged down pretty easily in Simpsons and Family Guy quotes. Maybe he wants to play in a sitcom RPG. ;)

Logan has always been very analytical. He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always got the feeling that intense roleplaying of character interactions creeps him out a bit. He likes to get to the meat of a problem and solve it. By nature, he seems to be a problem-solver. Unfortunately, this causes conflicts, as I'm not big on the problem-solving elements of RPGs. They too often rely on player information for characters to solve problems, which detracts from the immersion aspect of roleplaying (for me, that is).

That said, Logan gave me the shock of my gaming life with how well he got into the paladin/fighter fight when we were writing his character out of the D&D game. And I also remember him once crafting one of the coolest Vampire: The Masquerade characters I'd ever seen. His Ravnos (which sadly never got played) was very cool.

As Jay isn't playing with us any longer and Jacquie is unlikely to play with us again, I'll stop the analysis there. I've touched on abstract elements that my regular players like, but I know I'm missing some important bits. What I really need to do is break it down a bit more -- into genre, story element and style preferences.

I've used some phrases and words interchangeably in my previous post, which probably caused some confusion. Not to mention that I kind of tied two separate ideas into one.

Consider the idea of the collaborative effort of constructing the campaign as my take on moving towards a different style of roleplaying. I'll point to The Forge, where some of the crazy ideas I get come from these days. I try to avoid using Forge-isms, as I don't want to take on the pretentious tone that often comes out of discussions by some of the people who participate in that site's forums.

My theory goes like this: GMs don't necessarily need to do all of the work to get a game off the ground, build the campaign and make all the decisions on what everybody else will find fun. Let's face it. Such assumptions often result in failure. When I assume what others will find fun (often based on my own ideas of what is fun and what I believe others find fun), I am often wrong. I'm not a mind-reader -- and in many cases, I end up basing some of my decisions on incorrect information about players (for instance, it can get very easy to think that certain players only want to do the powergamer thing, even if they haven't really exhibited such traits in many years).

There are actually some RPGs out there now (games by very small press publishers) that take away many of the GM's powers within a game. Universalis, which I have read a little bit about, appears to give all participants an equal level of power. Capes essentially takes the GM away; instead, it makes everybody an equal participant so that everyone is guiding the story and the characters' actions. From I know of Capes, it's probably one of the most untraditional RPGs out there.

And then there's my beloved Wushu, which puts more narrative power on the shoulders of the players. The GM still guides events, but when it comes to narrating what's going on, the players are often making decisions, and the GM works with those decisions (or occasionally vetoes something because it doesn't fit with what is going on).

It's a dull day, and I'm rambling. Hopefully by the time I'm done regurgitating bullshit onto my blog, there will be something of interest here that I can work with at a later date. :)

I've been playing RPGs for nearly twenty years, and in that time, I've almost always been the GM for my group (which I define as the group that has evolved from that first session sitting in my parents' garage with my bro and two friends named Tim M. and Sean S. -- right or wrong, I think of my group today as coming out of that first group). In that time, I've generally had a very tyrannical approach when it comes to choosing what games to run, how to run them and what campaign style and structure we're using.

Also in that time, most of the games I've run have used the traditional D&D campaign structure -- "a group of adventurers seeking fame and fortune." On occasion, players in my group (I say "my group," although "our group" would be more accurate) have taken up the GM's mantle, but it usually doesn't last long. My brother Sean often tried to run AD&D 2E and Marvel Superheroes, but they never lasted long. Logan tried running Rifts and Shadowrun, but they usually fell apart after a couple of sessions. Jay ran one session of Hong Kong Action Theatre a few years back, and then that stopped.

Even from those examples, though, most of the campaigns/one-shots used the "group of adventurers seeking fame and fortune" formula -- yes, even with Marvel. Whenever we tried to break out of that formula, things went poorly. My attempt to run GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade during those couple of years I was obsessed with GURPS failed outright. All of us were so used to the traditional D&D formula that we had no idea what to do with V:tM. The player characters ran around doing stupid vampire shit, and it turned into a series of random events (mostly sparked by the players). It wasn't until I started gaming with Lawrence that I finally learned how to properly run V:tM. Of course, now none of my players will agree to let me run it.

So the tyrannical approach to gaming is what I used for a long time. I was the GM. I was doing most of the work. The players were just along for the ride. So they fucking well played what I told them to play. In hindsight, it's a shitty method of choosing a game to play. However, I can't take all of the blame. On several occasions in the past, I've tried to get the players to take a more active role in guiding the campaign structure, but questions like "what type of game do you want to play?" and "what types of adventures would you like to see in this campaign?" have been met with "whatever you want to do."

Frustrating? You betcha.

I'm no longer interested in the completely tyrannical approach. When I start running more games in the new year, I want the players to take a more active role in determining the style, the atmosphere, the focus and the structure of the campaigns (granted, they'll likely be short campaigns) that I'll run. One-shots will still likely be semi-tyrannical, in that there are a lot of games I want to run as one-shots -- and I'll just look for appropriate players rather than try to force my regular group to play games they really don't want to play.

I'm curious about my chances of getting more feedback from my players. Past attempts have proved disappointing. I get the feeling they really don't give a shit what they play. :-/

It's Thanksgiving in the U.S., so the next two days are likely to be a bit quiet on the work front.

Apparently the 100th Monkey has re-opened. Woo hoo!

The Paranoia game that was supposed to happen tonight didn't. An unforeseen event left us with too few players, so those of us who were around end up playing a couple of rounds of Munchkin instead.

I'm hoping to reschedule Paranoia for later in December or sometime in January.

I've been having good luck with correspondence chess at SchemingMind.com, and now I've joined a correspondence Diplomacy site called Bounced. My first game just started. Woo hoo!

There. All caught up on my reading of the Conan monthly comic. I have the second issue of the Conan and the Demons of Khitai mini-series, although I haven't found the first one yet. I'll have to try to track it down soon. I don't want to get behind on my Conan reading anymore.

I've finally filled the holes in my collection of the monthly Dark Horse Conan series. Now I can catch up on my reading.

Clipping counters is such a pain in the ass. I've spent several hours over the last few days getting Fortress Berlin into a playable state. It's well over four hundred counters, and the die-cutting wasn't exactly spectacular. You ever used a pair of nail clippers to trim off excess cardboard from a war game's counters? Neither had I until a couple of days ago.

Yeah, I'm a freak.

I swear if the Conservative and NDP parties bring about a December election campaign, I'm voting Liberal out of spite. Fucking assholes.

Even though we've had Loki for about a year, he only got his first real haircut on Monday. Jacquie has been trimming him a bit here and there, but his matting was getting really bad. She took him to a groomer, who then shaved him right down. He doesn't even look like our dog anymore. :)

I've been dying (heheh) to give All Flesh Must Be Eaten a try since I picked it up at the tail end of last year, and now I'm finally getting a chance. I got into a PbP game on RPG.net. According to the GM, it's going to be a campaign, but who knows? You can find the IC thread here.

Last night at the TABS game night at the Two Headed Dragon, two of us (Chris K. and myself) played MMP's Target Arnhem: Across 6 Bridges. As the Germans, I had poor tactics and a really bad string of die rolls. In the end, Operation Market Garden turned out to be a total success for the Allies, which is quite the opposite of what happened historically.

In World War II, this was the last real German victory in the war, but in the game last night, the Allies captured Arnhem quickly and held it. Additionally, they took the entire Hell's Highway six days into the operation. There was nothing the Germans could do but try to re-capture some parts of the road, but things didn't go so well. I had waited far too long to give up on Arnhem and focus on re-taking a portion of the road.

What a good game, though. I had a lot of fun, and I think it only took us about two hours to play the entire operation. I seriously need to play hex-and-counter war games more often.

The 100th Monkey has gone belly-up. Pickering is café-less again.

I played my first game of Starship Troopers Miniatures last night. Xavier and I set it up at his place and played a small skirmish. It seems like it's a good game, although there are a few things that need to be clarified in the rules (and which probably are in errata). I also need to read the book a bit more thoroughly.

Thanks to Xavier, who is a pillar of efficiency, I got all my Arachnids put together for the Starship Troopers Miniatures game. Today, I set the legs in place and glued them, fixed up a couple of jaw pieces that were coming loose and then primed the Arachnids and the Mobile Infantry units, as well as my Blood Bowl orc team.

I still have my Necromunda minis waiting to be primed, but I think they can wait a few days. My fingers are covered in paint, and I've been trying to get at least some of the paint off. Next time I prime minis, I'm going to get a pair of cheap, crappy tongs or something to hold the minis out while I spray their undersides.

Jacquie has been sick at home the last few days, so to give her something to watch today, I went out and bought a copy of Revenge of the Sith last night.

Yeah, I should be ashamed for giving George Lucas more money, but oh well.

On the plus side, I found a copy of the third disc of Gunslinger Girl while I was picking up ROTS. Now I can finally see how the series ends.