Rollplaying defended, gender examined, REAL MEN ROLL PLAY! RAARRHHH! Options

[emo samurai]

There's always the question of realism, too. I don't think runners could get much more than street-level minigunning things and wailing on guitars. It's okay to be combat-oriented, as long as you take into account that life in SR4, unlike d&d, isn't a battlefield; your character isn't just a combat statistic, and he can't be if he wants to survive.

[SL James]

BTW, Jong's comment to that page is just so cute.

[Kyoto Kid]

[mfb]

sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. it depends on the players, the GM, and the alignment of the stars and planets. i remember spending three hours one night trying to get the players to figure out one tiny clue (i ended up having to have an NPC tell them). that same group, two weeks later, managed to bypass 3/5 of the dangerous elements of an adventure because of a minor detail i let slip in passing.

i, personally, enjoy figuring things out while i'm holding down the trigger.

[hyzmarca]

Has anyone ever had an experience with a text adventure game in which you couldn't figure out which obscure command was required to be used on which obscure object complete a specific task?

Has anyone ever had an experience with a graphical adventure game in which you couldn't figure out which obscure object was required to be used on which obscure pixel complete a specific task?

Yeah, this is why I avoid these types of adventure games now.

Sometimes, clues have to be so obvious as to be cliche in order to acually give the players a chance to puzzle them out in a reasonable span of time. Of course, even Sherlock Holmes misinterperated the evidence one in a while. Beating them over the head with it may not be enough at times, unless the GM and the players have very similar thought processes.

That is the trick there. The players have to think the same way that the GM thought and they must have the same experiences that the GM had to draw from. A subtle word pun may work perfectly on a native speaker but be completely lost on someone who is just learning the language, for example. Without shared experiences and shared logic a clue meant to point in one direction can easily point to another.

Incomplete pictures of the world don't help much either. Some puzzles rely on visual and auditory cues that are difficult to replicate in a role playing game. There are times when a player becomes frustrated because the GM didn't think of clues that should logically be available given the circumstances.

[nezumi]

That said, there's no reason not to drop clues which may help them predict the future, but which will become clear as the adventure progresses. This way they CAN follow up on clues, but don't have to, and either way eventually they'll say 'oh... Well that makes sense.'

[Wounded Ronin]

[Wounded Ronin]

[The-Mighty-Buddh...]

Ive had 2 female players that have done an excellent job of playing male and female characters alike (though one of their characters immediately jumped on her husbands character once the game started..bah)

The others ive had (a good half dozen) have been horrendous but then they have been girlfriends/friends who havent role played or have very limited role playing experience.

On a semi related note: Ever dealt with a GM who will bend over backwards just for female characters? Ones that the moment a female is introduced into the mix its like "ZOMG BOOBIE!!!111!!"?

One of my GMs no matter how many different ways we (the players) have shown our utter disdain for one of these horrible female players and her characters she is always inexplicably saved from the most certain of doom. Tried to steal from the Frenzied Berzerker (D&D) who promptly tries to take her head, so he goes a swinging rolling a critical and 3 other attacks with attack rolls well over 25. But then some how he misses all his strikes at the mage with a AC of 17....who then proceeds to take what magic items she wants from the pile. Her choices? +3 leather armor of shadow and bracers that give a strength of 25, why the mage needs these things, i shall never know.

But because of the afformentioned Boobies the GM spends the rest of the game in /tell with that player assuring her that her character is great and that shes an integral part of the group (integral to being a loot whore!).

Oh and another signifier of a Mary Sue. Any character that in the physical description also includes charisma, physical beuty, or whatever the stat is for your game (im so crap i cant even describe how sexy my character is).

[Kyoto Kid]

In the last session I just ran. female PCs outnumbered male PCs. Was a very interesting evening & the characters were handled pretty well for the most part.

[mfb]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

I like throwing around clues. Though my players don´t get them most of the time, it´s ever so exciting and fun, if they do. If they eventually don´t get them, I just let them suffer (or more acuratly, deny them the advantage, that the decrypted clue would have given them) and take another lane.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Wounded Ronin]

Man, that's funny. I seriously would *try* to set things up exactly like you two are describing. But then inevitably the players would simply miss each and every clue until my campaigns just evolved into giving everything away and spelling out all the conclusions in text.

[mfb]

no, what i mean is, if the players themselves can't figure it out, make them hack a system or break somebody's legs, and then tell them the answer.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Wounded Ronin]

[mfb]

you lay the clues because many players enjoy figuring things out; a campaign where they solved a mystery through roleplaying and thought is often as or more memorable than a campaign where they simply slogged through lots of enemies. if the players don't pick up on the clues, you give them a safety net so that the campaign doesn't bog down and become overly frustrating. the Matrix run or legbreaking is in addition to the rest of the run--they can avoid that part, if they think their way through successfully.

and if you're breaking your fixer's legs, you may be barking up the wrong tree anyway (or not, depending on the campaign).

[fistandantilus4....]

as far as clues, I've had some serious problems with htis before, usually when it's just a very minor detail. The worst was a Darksun campaign, they had to wake up a sorcerer-kings daughter who was in a temporal stasis spell (Maruaders of Nibenay pre-made game). All they had to do was say her name. Three hours. just sitting there. Pissed Off.

Had a similar problem in an SR game with a spectre that wouldn't die becuase they never broke the chain. TOld them it had a chain. Told them it would regen until the chain was destroyed. Had NPC's give hints to what the chain might be (they didn't know, but I was trying to help) . One player had the freaking chain in her pocket. It was a tooth that they picked up when they first came in to the place. I wanted to just have them kill it and move on. Ugh.

As far as male/female players, we have two female players, and 6 male players full time. Will be adding another female soon. We've had afew more girls come and go. I've never seen any real difference between the male and female players in the sense that one was "play my way" or conformed to any sort of stereotype. They have different characters, and they play those personalities. We've had females play lesbians, straight, tramps, practical saints, indifferent, interested but careful, pretty much every type. We've had very feminine, high charisma, extremely low charisma, smooth talkers, combat psychos, a voodoun that likes to cast agony, covert ops, gunbunnies. maybe we've just been lucky and had good players, but it's just been a non-issue with our group.

[SL James]

[mfb]

you ought to be breaking their legs anyw--uh, i mean, show them professional courtesy.

[Wounded Ronin]

Hey, look at it this way. If there's any ammunition in your character's possession when he or she dies and or retires that's Resources wasted that you could have use to get more skills or pump more attributes. Use it or lose it because you can't take it with you to the big GM in the sky. :P

[Kagetenshi]

Like the Prisoner's Dilemma, that depends on whether you're playing a single character or iterated characters. If iterated, if the rest of the team can retrieve your dead character's stuff, it may be better for you to leave more of it behind so your next character can use it.

~J