Current events
This page is for discussion of stuff related to the game coming up this week, no matter when that actually is. For instance, we can all assume Nate isnt coming for some lame reason and that Ed is sick of pizza and is bringing teriyaki or some other crap. They can post something here if that happens to be untrue.
Contents
Location
Date...........game.........Location
1/5/07......PA............BEN'S
1/12/07......WHFRP............Jason's
1/19/07......WHFRP............Bens
1/26/07......WHFRP..........Jason's (heather is post call, so my place is out)
2/2/07.......Jin Dynasty......Ben's
2/9/07.......Jin Dynasty......Gabe's Bungalow
2/16/07......Jin Dynasty.........Jason's
2/23/07......Nephron One Shot..........ben's
3/2/07.......Toonball and random shit......Ben's
3/9/07.......Jin Dynasty......Gabe's Bungalow
3/16/07......Jin Dynasty......Gabe's house of gaming
3/23/07......Jin Dynasty......Matt's House of Tyranny
3/30/07......Exemplars........Gabe's
4/6/07.......Gemini Character Creation...Ben's Condo
4/13/07......?????????........???????
4/20/07......Exemplars/one shot...?????
Attendance and Food preference
04/06/07
--BenofZongo 13:57, 1 April 2007 (MST)Present. My sister will also be here. Both of us will be having pizza. The pizza will be "on the house" this week: ie I will pay for it. If no one objects, I think I'll get it from Pudge Bros.
--Dieter the Bold 01:47, 2 April 2007 (MST) I'll be there. And I love frakking Pudge Bros. Please count me in.
--Edmiao 08:09, 2 April 2007 (MST) I'll be there and it would be rude to turn down free pizza..... And I'd hate to be rude. .... So I won't be rude....... Which means I'll eat the pizza.
Cleaned this up, since it was totally me misunderstanind what was being said!
Other random comments to the group
--Edmiao 02:20, 31 March 2007 (MST)I have made up my mind, i propose we vote. I expound upon this in:Votin' fer the new game
--BenofZongo 02:49, 31 March 2007 (MST)After a discussion with Dieter, I'd like to broach the subject of recruiting a new player. I've got a particular recruit in mind, although I don't think he has time/desire enough to become a permanent fixture in our group: of course, if other people had specific people they'd like to recruit, I'm happy for us to collectively decide if we want another and if so, who would be a good addition. My main motivation for this is that I'd like to make sure we can average 4 players a session for Gemini. The main consideration outside of this as far as I'm concerned is whether or not Jason can accomodate another player in the Exemplars game.
--BenofZongo 02:59, 31 March 2007 (MST)Also, just so it's up here, I will be gone 4/20/07. No, I will not be smokin' the dooby.
--Gdaze 13:04, 31 March 2007 (MST) Also, next time we play could we please cut back on playing other games during the actual RP? It was very distracting and resulted in nobody following the story really.
--BenofZongo 13:32, 31 March 2007 (MST)Yeah, sorry about that, guilty as charged. It's definitely something we need to limit.
--BenofZongo 13:56, 1 April 2007 (MST)Everyone can post potential character concepts, as many as they like, on the gemini characters if they feel like it. Also, if you have an opinion about what sort of missions you want to see the crew engage in, post that to the appropriate talk page as well. If there are secret details you'd like to ask about, you can email them to me.
--Jason 12:18, 2 April 2007 (MST)The other games thing is one reason why there is no way we can have more players in Exemplars. Even without that we constantly have someone reading a book, playing on their laptop or just not paying any kind of attention. If my game isnt interesting enough for everyone to keep them involved Im not going to run it. So if this turns out to be a problem, the game will end.
--Edmiao 12:22, 2 April 2007 (MST) somebody needed to kick me in the face when I was playing cards with ben and matt. hard.
--BenofZongo 12:28, 2 April 2007 (MST)well...it was bad that we were playing cards, but it was for like 15 minutes: by our standards of distraction (your mom jokes, comics, the office, etc.) it was pretty mild.
--Edmiao 12:32, 2 April 2007 (MST) True. I was just wondering whether poker was worse than going off on tangents. we should all just chill in all respects. <boot to the head> AAAHHHH!
--Jason 12:33, 2 April 2007 (MST)It was actually probably the worst distraction in the years I have been playing with you guys. When we do your mom jokes etc, as soon as someone gets back on game track, the jokes subside. I found myself trying over and over to interrupt and interject game stuff, but it was impossible. The games persevered. What that indicates is that session was poorly constructed, and thats my fault. If I continue to do that I dont see any point in continuing the game anymore.
--Edmiao 12:35, 2 April 2007 (MST) (PS. matt, gabe and jason just double wiki-bloked me, a little karmic pay back) And I think we've done much much worse than that before, like everyone sitting around reading comics.and we will strive to minimize it in the future; by "we", I mean "I" as there's no way in hell to stop Deiter from surfing porn while we game.
--Jason 12:48, 2 April 2007 (MST)Maybe not, but I wont participate anymore if it happens. One instance is allowable. But if there is a second instance, be it in the same session or 4 months later, Im done. Its everyones choice whether they come to gaming to actually game or to do other things, but even though I have become as abusive in this area as anyone else (and I hate that so much), its not something I want to do. I miss when I thought about gaming all week and daydreamed about my character and situations and the fun stuff that happened. That hasnt happened for me in years. I think a big reason for that is gaming for me (recently) is just a way to see my friends rather than for the love of gaming. It became painfully obvious when we were discussing what we want and I saw the things you guys wrote that we just arent on the same page. I feel obligated to run Exemplars because you guys have all put so much into it. But its almost certainly my last game with this group. I love you guys, but I just dont love our games.
--Edmiao 13:11, 2 April 2007 (MST) Let's put aside the card playing incident and talk about the realities here. I don't think anyone wants you to run a game that you aren't interested in. You should not feel obligated to run Exemplars for a year or more if you don't want to do it. I for one love gaming and i daydream about characters and stuff all the time; I actually had a dream about the prologue for gemini last night, I was going on and on about my character (god what a dork!). Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, I recently found that being a GM is a lot of work and you shouldn't do that work if you are not having fun. As an alternative to RPG, anyone interested in rotating a board game night in? I have a lot of great ones, as does Gabe's dad.
--BenofZongo 13:14, 2 April 2007 (MST)Ditto, I agree completely with everything Ed said, although I'd say I'm less interested in board games than gaming (although I'm not at all averse to trying it, especially when we have "one shot" slots open...or even more regularly if people wanted).
--Matts 13:16, 2 April 2007 (MST)As for our group, we're diverse, but by no means does that mean we're not compatible. Certain gaming styles (DitV) will have a harder time flying than others, but I've been hugely entertained in the past in this group, and expect to continue to enjoy my friday nights. I'll admit I was frustrated and deflated when the Nephon one-shot went badly, but ultimately the rest of the group doesn't think like me, and that's a huge plus. My ideas get tossed up and ground down, but what comes out is something ultimately more appealing.
Also, as regards distractions: It's not humanly possible to keep everyone involved unless everyone is concurrently involved in the same thing. Our group routinely scatters from "go", and that means people are going to be twiddling their thumbs. I'm way to close to ADD to be able to sit and wait for my turn; I'm convinced there's a way we can get everyone involved all the time; a lot of my Nephon ideas came from that thought process.
--Gdaze 14:07, 2 April 2007 (MST) Board game night? Yeah that'd be sweet. Maybe not every week though, I gotta have some time away from gaming. I know my brother would be down for that, but becareful, he is very good at board games.
While we are on the subject, I don't find it too bad if people read stuff when they aren't up, even more so if they aren't going to be up for awhile. Just so long as when it comes down to game time, they put it down and get on with it. I do this to keep myself from interrupting too much and to keep myself from meta-gaming.
But when the distractions are ALL the time and the distractions enter game play, such as Dieter giving us various facts on metals and golds, then it needs to really stop. Sorry Dieter, I found this to be so funny when you did that I had to bring it up haha. I know I'm quite a interruption as well, and will work to stop that.
On the same note blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
(Didn't Jason purchase this wiki? If your gonna drop outta gaming what should we do?)
--Jason 14:10, 2 April 2007 (MST)The problem with DiTV is that its an extremely rigid system that only works in a very narrow band of gaming. And thats a perfect analog for what Im talking about here. Matt likes the idea behind DiTV but is completely unwilling to do any sort of tweaking that would be necessary to make it viable outside its miniscule scope. It has some good ideas, but its implementation is poor. DiTV forces us as players to try and fit a wide range of interactions into a single type of menchanic that lacks any flexibility. I know Ben is well meaning even when he says he wants to run things like a Roman dictator, yet the end result leads to Gabe saying that we need to have a consistent understanding of what to expect from the world; which is 100% right. Yes, sometimes the rules need to be pitched, but that should be so rare that it doesnt need to be mentioned AND most importantly, it must be absolutely meaningful. Our characters should be shocked about what has happened and it should be a driving force in the plot.
Yet, that isnt how things actually work out. Balance isnt important? You cant break my story? Nothing breaks a story more quickly and with more regularity than lack of balance (a distant second is overly powerful, untouchable NPCs, especially friendly ones). The only way this isnt true is when the players have no free will; when the GM will force actions to happen no matter what the players do. An overpowered PC makes underpowered ones superfluous or leads to one trick pony PCs. Both of those work fine in literature, but in roleplaying they lead to laptops, card games, comics and novels. Our problem with focus is caused by these kinds of ideas.
After coming full circle the realization stands. None of these things bother any of you, yet for me they are irreconcilable. No matter how many times we run into the same issues, we as a group refuse to learn. We never make any progress towards removing the aspects that hold us back.
--Jason 14:45, 2 April 2007 (MST)One last thing. For someone with such a good grasp of the language Im a terrible communicator. I write with a style that often sounds angry or combative, yet thats rarely the case. Im not angry, a more accurate term would be despondent. I have tried to think through this so many times it drives me nuts. Sometimes I cant even sleep at night because I think about this. I really dont know what to do. As is often the case, I find a quote from Clueless to be the best way to describe my situation:
I felt impotent and out of control, which I really hate.
--BenofZongo 15:03, 2 April 2007 (MST)Our by-far longest running and, in my opinion, tied for most successful long term game (tied with Space Opera, which I thought ran probably better but only half as long), my Champions game, lacked any attempt at balance.
--Jason 15:16, 2 April 2007 (MST)Yes. And that lack of balance was a glaring weakness. I never felt challenged. We succeeded at stuff by having more dice. When we got too stuck the all powerful NPC showed up and pointed us in the right direction. A band of children were more important individually than all of us collectively, and they would show us up in our characters big thing. I almost always felt directed. Often things were (or seemed) arbitrary just to provide conflict. Its exactly what Im talking about. Our perceptions about what is good in these games dont match at all.
--Gdaze 15:21, 2 April 2007 (MST) I was really enjoying Space Opera too... and was unsure of why we quit it. I also really liked PA but that got canned kinda fast too. I actually like attempts at balancing. Earlyer on Senju was like 100 points less then the other characters. This resulted in Glass Jaw Senju, which was okie by me at first till I learned why the other characters weren't getting knocked out in a second. The problem is with game balance that it can cause jealousy and stuff. We all want our characters to be good at stuff, but if there is someone in the group who is good at everything, it can make others feel like their character is useless.
Heck in Matt's Warhammer game everyone got to do a way better version of that one person's mercy then me due to me not being there the day characters were made, I was kinda pissed, but I still took the hit and had learned not to complain by then. However, because I know character balance isn't going to be a big thing going into our new game it makes it much easier to deal with, I think so anyway.
The Next Step in Exemplars
The Next Step in Gemini
--Dieter the Bold 01:59, 2 April 2007 (MST) Alright gents, since we're going with Gemini, how do we want this Friday to run? Gabe will make it for the Prologue, but can't stay later due to Sakura-con. So, how many times do we want to run the Prologue? Running it at least twice means we can see what everyone is thinking in terms of group set-up and let's us customize the second round. Do we also want to make the ship at the same time and run a quick adventure (rescue the ship)? Anyhoo, just wanted to get some paperwork out of the way.
--Gdaze 14:10, 2 April 2007 (MST) I would perfer we run it once, we have all done it at least once already ya know? So yeah that is my vote. Besides since we get random cards each time, I'd rather not risk loosing a high end card. (Or do we get to keep our character card?)
