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 Throwing GMs for a Loop, "Dang it, stop destroying evidence!" |
 Mar 31 2006, 05:30 PM
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#26
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Running Target  Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581  |
Heh. Yeah. I tend not to plan much when GMing, but I always have a contingency plan for, "The party burns down/blows up the tavern/inn/bar/hotel." Because that's what we always did. |
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Mar 31 2006, 09:07 PM
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#27
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,088 Joined: 8-October 04 From: Dallas, TX Member No.: 6,734 |
Heh I'm learning quick myself. Now I've adopted the "create a situation and see where it goes" plan normally - but I wanted to run Brainscan, so that limits my options substantially.
Altho my players have already thrown me a loop for the Hong Kong liberation of Aneki... I dare not say anymore until the run happens...about a month from now. (RL conflicts) Any other modules that have gotten blown up spectacularly other than Mercurial and Dreamchipper? These are fun stories. |
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Apr 1 2006, 06:08 AM
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#28
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Free Spirit Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,928 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Bloomington, IN UCAS Member No.: 1,920 |
My current group makes a habit of taking prisoners. Dead men tell no tales, but prisoners can be down right talkative. So in Mercurial, they captured the yak mage controlling the assassins, learned the stupid plan, pointed out the stupidity of the plan to Morgan and turned over the info he wanted. In Dreamchipper, a bound free spirit possessed Junior and told them the story. They sided with Junior and got him back his part of the company while destroying the chips. In DNA/DOA, they absolutely hate Bronston's, the head of the ork underground, guts. They keep making plans to go mess with him when they get a chance, so I have been trying to keep them busy. In the interspersed Harlequin, they were going along pretty bloodlessly, really for all the adventures, until the Hates and the APN. Something about seeing the murders the APN was responsible for, and doing legwork to verify, made most of the group snap (3/4 metahuman). It was a bloodbath at the APN. No one even attempted taking a prisoner, no one worried about not destroying potential loot. They didn't even take the bodies for organlegging. Just left a smoking hole in the ground where the APN used to be. This is the last thing I ran for them and it will be interesting to see if they have really changed, or this was an aberration. |
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Apr 1 2006, 06:51 AM
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#29
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,174 Joined: 13-May 04 From: UCAS Member No.: 6,327 |
Oh gawd, well, I can't wait to see what my group will do because... [ Spoiler ]
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Apr 3 2006, 01:11 AM
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#30
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,088 Joined: 8-October 04 From: Dallas, TX Member No.: 6,734 |
Bah...*chuckle*
Working for that group can be pretty ugly...but I tricked my players into owing the TAMANOUS (sp?) a favor. I haven't cashed in yet, but I will, just at the right time. |
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Apr 3 2006, 01:34 AM
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#31
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 |
Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle was a classic. Number two was the best. But number one gets brownie points for the crime boss of the city having a trapdoor that drops you back in time. Maybe the crime boss is actually a SR dragon since he owns a temporal trap door. But, this has just given me an idea. I can write a SR3 module that is basically Streets of Rage. The characters get assaulted by an endless stream of flourescent punks, ninjas, generic anime tough guys with elbow drops, and dominatrixes. And all the while MIDI techno blares in the background, maddening and incomprehensible. I could take a bus map of, say, New York City, and calculate how long it would take to walk from, say, the Bronx to Coney Island, like in The Warriors. Maybe the storyline could be a Warriors ripoff; why else are the PCs fighting an endless stream of ninjas? That would work well for SR since The Warriors combines late 70s/early 80s New York City with anime-shtick gangers and endless waves. Just add ninjas and you've covered all your bases. So the PCs have to make this walk and they think they're all cool because they just shoot everyone at first. But with hundreds of assailants everywhere they eventually run out of ammunition and the mages, little by little, will either start accumulating drain or using up their karma pool. You could have this total phantasmagorical urban endurance brawl. Cue the MIDI techno! Dook dook dook dook. |
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 Apr 3 2006, 08:39 AM
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#32
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,000 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Halifax, Canada Member No.: 7,975 |
What is it with this compulsion to mix SR with anime that people have!? Life is not a surrealistic violent cartoon.....
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Apr 3 2006, 09:15 AM
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#33
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,066 Joined: 5-February 03 Member No.: 4,017 |
What is it with this compulsion to oppose anyone else's enjoyment of a product? |
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Apr 3 2006, 11:25 AM
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#34
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 16,898 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Bullshit. Which is not to mention that you've confused video games for anime… ~J |
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Apr 27 2006, 03:01 AM
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#35
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 |
Heh, I thought that surge made SR anime.
Another on-topic thought: I've been a longtime player of both table top and computer RPGs. I see computer RPG engines as being a kind of "iron GM". In Morrowind or Fallout it's okay if the PC goes and Pol Pots a whole village. It's statistically difficult to kill that many enemies but it can be done. It dosen't disrupt the campaign really and the rest of the world is still there to be interacted with. Ideally, that's what I'd like to be able to do as an in-the-flesh GM. Maybe the players destroyed some NPCs who say important clues but the key events are still occuring independent of the PCs. Ideally I'd have unlimited cognitive ability and I'd be GMing normally with the PCs while doing dice rolls for all the plot related events that they're unaware of. The PCs could stumble on the plot later or they might not, but ideally it would be the ultimate form of letting the dice fall where they may. In my experience flesh and blood GMs, even the very best ones who can handle a lot of numbers at once (i.e. physics students and engineers) still have a breaking point. They can handle larger combats than most GMs but if you push them with too much complexity even they eventually have difficulty handling it. I think that perhaps the thing that would really allow an in the flesh GM to transcend all the problems surrounding what a PC is "supposed" to do would be to create a computer shell for GMs. I wish there was a computer program that could instantly generate random terrain maps. I wish you could statistically define certain things like STANDARD_ROADMASTER or RENRAKU_RED_SAMURAI and place these things on a given map. The PCs could go and do whatever they wanted but there would never be a problem because you'd be having computer assistance to handle the glut of details and all that would be left for you and the players would be the pure experience of tactics, consequences, and role playing. That's my dream anyway, and my statement of the basic problem: the limited ability of a GM to handle many NPCs at once. EDIT: And, yeah, seriously, when I decide to go and play Fallout again I think, "Time to play with the iron GM." |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 12th April 2022 - 02:41 PM |
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