Talk:Exemplars
--Jason 11:04, 8 October 2007 (MST)Exemplars primer: Everyone is always allowed to read any page that doesnt say secret in the name or specifically address individual characters or players. More world events and history is yet to come, I hope to have a good world for you all soon. Pages with a player's name in them are specific to that player and therefore secret.
Be prepared for storytelling devices. In other words, we may, in the middle of a session, switch to a flashback and hand out new characters for everyone. Or we might start a session this way. This might not always be mentioned ahead of time.
For Nate: Feel free to come whenever you want. I can always find a good NPC for you to play. Some will have secrets, however, and in these cases you will need to be discreet about that. Only tell players things if it makes good sense.
ED: in exemplars, i think it would have been fine if we had just ridden with it for a while, and i'm still sad that we dropped it. (that said, no way we are going to revive Exemplars). IMHO the only plot flaw was making the Deiter archetype the hook that would draw a group together, not gonna happen. probably should discuss this on the exemplars page.
JASON: I wouldnt say its the only plot flaw, but certainly a major one. How was I to know that a character chosen to protect the earth and carry on a 5,000 year legacy would be more interested in carousing and finding who his sister is than actually saving the earth when finally called? Um, yeah, I should have known.
As for if it would have worked had we soldiered on...maybe. I think Matt got frustrated a bit too quickly (as did I, but he was more insistent on keeping true to the plot), but the big one was we had it all set to have Dieter pass on the torch to Gabe, and keep everything on course, but Dieter insisted it wasnt necessary. What this illustrates is that the players were not on the same page. I am sure he had some sound reasoning for what he did, yet it could not be reconciled in the continuum. I believe had we gone one more session (I think there was a cancellation for some reason) it could have been salvaged, though it may have ended in the same place as Gemini.
The biggest problem I saw with this game plotwise is probably something that you guys as players miss (forest/trees argument): the players didnt create superhero genre characters; instead they looked at Hero and thought 'I get a lot of points, how can I kick ass?'. To make a good superhero game requires people to cater to the genre. Superheroes think big and act big. Even supra-geniuses like Dr Doom and Mr Fantastic get caught in obvious traps because they arent plotting and planning every detail, they dont have time for that, the world is at stake! Take risks, nobody ever dies (for long) in comic books. Learn by doing. These stories are about themes. And also, VERY important, superheroes fail MUCH MORE than normal characters do. Conan doesnt fail at shit; he probably has superhero point levels, but he is no superhero. If he were to fail, his head would end up on someones pike. When Iron Man screws something up, its only temporary. He just has to figure out a new way to solve this puzzle.
You could try being ultra-realistic and gritty, but this will never work well with high powered characters. Its fine for Batman, and even though he is tough as nails he is a gnat to Superman. When the power level goes up, so must the abstraction. If this is ignored, it gets childish and ridiculous. The most pervasive theme in comics everywhere, and what should absolutely be present, is that superheroes overcome failure, and for this to happen, there must be failure.
--Jason 20:32, 5 May 2008 (MST)One more thing. This game jumped the shark from the very first word. What many of you may not realize is that the semi-scripted argument that was to begin that game never occurred. My lack of clarity got the two main characters arguing about the Huskies football team rather than the end of the universe. The cues were->Dieter: The world is coming to an end; Ben-> You have heard this all before. Both: You begin the game arguing. When the argument was never about this particular facet, the scene was never set for anyone. I thought maybe the conversation would turn to the end of the world, like he was reluctant to mention it, but alas, it never came.
The end of this game is 85% my fault. Once this happened, I was on the defensive and upset from the very beginning. All I could think of was how was that not clear? It was impossible for me to move on from this. Matt kept trying to talk with me and get me to help him make villains and such, and my heart was just not in it. He came up here 5 or 6 times asking me to do those things, and I pretty much put it off until the last minute. Then the final sign from the heavens was when Gabe did not show up for the 2nd session. Had he been there, I can almost guarantee this game would have gone on, in fact it might even have righted itself and found its way.
This was important to me. It was personal and something I had spent a lot of energy on. It was torture watching it burn in front of me. It caused me a lot of anguish and heartache.
Someday I will try this again when the stars are properly aligned. I am stubborn and dumb as hell.
GABE: Shiiiit, if I had known that it all rested on me attending I would have come that day! But those were trying times for me and gaming takes a back seat to any personal issues. Too bad too as I really enjoyed it. I actually liked the way I made my character because I thought out my powers first, then made him. I thought the game was fun for what little I did play it, but I think we had too much free reign in character creation.
--Edmiao 08:27, 6 May 2008 (MST)personally, the disconnect between myself and Jason was that jason wanted superheroes, and i created an emerging hero. Viho was Tony stark before he made the suit, while jason expected tony stark after he made the suit, ie iron man. we should have planned the emergence into the prequil, then viho would have been a super on day one. it all depended on where you start, either place is fine but we were on different pages. I only gm'd 6 sessions, but i learned that whenever you pin a nights gaming on one persons attendance that person will be absent, murphy's law of gaming.
I think i've said this before, but will redub. the vast majority of games I have played with the group, dare I say all the games, have the theme that if you screw up then really really bad things happen. we had just come off gemini, where little strategic errors (like letting out the secret that we had a jump ship) pretty much started the snowball to jumping the shark. Thus it is hard as a player, but certainly not impossible, to switch to a dive in first ask questions later mentality. Certainly more explicit genre definitions could have helped. And GM suggestions in game could have helped as well GM: "by the way, you really think that you should just dive in to that iraqi warehouse, you have a vigillante license, that's what it's for." in time we would have adjusted to the genre, i think.
GABE: Or apperntly in my case, the entire game rested on me attending ONE game, kekekeke~!
You guys have failed in Werewolf a lot. Of course bad things happen, but your all still okay... for the most part.
--Edmiao 09:14, 6 May 2008 (MST)very true!
JASON: I dont think I made myself clear here. The game did not hinge on Gabe's attendance. At the time I had no idea that it was super important, though I knew it was a big deal.
Also, and dont take this the wrong way, you may have envisioned Viho as early Iron Man, but you didnt play him that way at all. Tony Stark never would have considered calling the cops on someone who just saved his life. And also, when he didnt have the armor, and he needed it, he made it. No plans, nothing even in the works. He needed action, so he found a way to provide it. Viho had his armor already made and with him, and instead of acting chose to sit back in the truck and say he isnt a superhero.
I didnt ask for superheroes (this is probably the most important point), I asked for characters in a superhero story. Characters in a superhero story act like they are in the genre. They think big and act big.
My final point is that I cant agree on the punishment aspect at all. I know I didnt play Gemini, so with that aside, I cant think of a single time characters were punished appropriately for screwups. In fact, I can think of very few screwups. Losing a combat here and there isnt a screwup, especially when they are supposed to lose it. Our perceptions are obviously different on this, but I bet if you think of all the situations from a perspective outside the characters you would see that the GM almost universally gives the players the benefit of the doubt and treats them less harshly. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Yet, sometimes it needs to be different, and I cant think of a single time it was.
GABE: I know Jason, I was just being a dick. Kekeke. Hmm good point about the asking for super heroes. I have to say though I think Brandon did a great job then at being a superhero. Werewolf is a bit different cause of constantly being watched.
--Edmiao 10:35, 6 May 2008 (MST) yeah, i've said my bad on the cop calling. nuf said.
--Dieter the Bold 15:56, 6 May 2008 (MST) I totally didn't spend enough time thinking about my character and actually working things out outside my head and with all the other principles. I also was completely the wrong person to take on the specific role Jason wanted and knew it. I apologize for that and should have turned you down straight-up, and then taken over Ben's position as protector, since I could have been less of a prime mover and more of a reactor. I'm afraid I did my best to shoot down the whole game by being the lynchpin who was totally uninterested in actually leveraging anything into happening. So, sincere apologies Jason.
JASON: No need to apologize. As previously stated, it was 85% my fault. So, to quote Ed (and Stan Lee): 'Nuff Said!
--Brandon 16:44, 6 May 2008 (MST) Thanks for the shoutout, Gabe. To be fair, I didn't design the character; it was Jason's concept. But, it was fun, and ridiculous!
