Rest of me whining:
QUOTE
I've been a gamemaster for Legend of the Five Rings, Middle Earth, Earthdawn, and Shadowrun.
Most of this was in my Jr.High and early Highschool days. So mostly, all I did was have small fights.
In Legend o the Five Rings, it was so easy. Japanese style, a quiet world where people did not speak much, and one hell of a starting adventure provided in the Core Book. Still, after that amazing adventure (I love you L5R starter adventure!) all we ever did was fight off monsters, get ambushed by bandits, and fight in a war (all which were just lots of combat, and that's it.)
Earthdawn, I never got past character creation and getting out of the first town we started in. Our adventures consisted of "Bandits attack you!"
Here I am, 10 years later at age 23 and after many many years playing RPG's again. Shadowrun is the perfect world. I love modern fantasy, and the Sega game was one of the greatest games of all time. Ever since that game, I fell in love with the shadowrun world.
I wanted to start off small in shadowrun. Learn the basics, and slowly introduce one element of the game at a time. This made it easier for everyone to learn the rules. We started off with 1-2 of each stat and no skills as street children. This worked out great- for awhile. All we had planned was to get adopted by Stinky Pizzaman Luigi- who was a local pizza-rea owner. That was okay roleplaying, but then it ended. We ran around fighting gangers, and even had a vampire adventure. But there's just something lacking. It seems to just have went from "Bandits ambush you!" to "Gangers ambush you!" lol...
I play with my Nephew, and we are trying to give my best friend a third chance at running the shadows (He keeps on forcing me, the GM, to do everything for him. Make up his background story. Tell him where he came from. Why he is here. What his role is. Even what to say! This annoys me to no end and I ask myself "What is the difference between his character and me controlling an npc? Nothing. Time to kill off his character." not to mention half the time he will say he wants to play, and then will sit around with his computer playing PONG on ebaumsworld for 8 hours straight, ignoring us. I also have a huge problem- although I'm an extremely talkative and witty person, I am so very very drained right now. My imagination is not infinite, and it's just so hard to come up with conversation after conversation, and to come up with on-the-fly adventures- all for my own entertainment. GMing doesnt stress me- but it does become dull sometimes. The color, the roleplaying, the in-character quotes and movie-like plot are all but gone. Well... to be gone they'd have to be there, which they never really were.
My nephew and best friend are extremely quiet. They dont talk much. They are also both very passive people. They follow the leader in anything we do. Want to go somewhere? Sure tell us where. Want to play a game? Sure tell us what game. The bartender speaks up, "I havent seen you two round here, watcha buncha punks like you doin in a place like this? Wanna get ur face ripped off?" My best friend replies, "Uhhhhh.....MOIP MOIP MOIP!!!" and runs around in circles on the floor, three stooges style! Meanwhile... my nephew sits back, his arms crossed in silence behind the shadows (as he is a copy-personality of Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, and rarely speaks unless it's very serious.)
We kindof pool-in as GM's to run the npc's. To an epic fail. Neither my nephew or my best friend ever do, and if they do- it tends to be retarded or entirely out of character and out of the gritty shadowrun world.
For instance, once my best friend's dwarf assaults the Pizzarea's customers, hitting them in the head with a lead pipe after just walking in- the Owner gets a sticky-glue (non-lethal) shotgun and blasts them all to the walls. Pissed off that random 14 year olds are attacking innocent customers, he starts yelling at them in a gritty, sour, pissed off voice. My best friend intervenes "I thought Stinky was happier and liked children." which led me to force a Redmond Barrens pizza shop owner to go from pissed off to "....but that was kinda FUNNY! hahahaha, you kids are all right!" This made absolutely NO sense. No one would ever act like that except bipolar nutjobs, which Stinky was not. Unfortunately, it's a huge struggle to satisfy this player. I had to give him bonus dice because he thought it was unfair that as a 14 year old dwarf with a rusty pipe, he was being beaten by a 40 year old ex-mafia veteran with a shotgun, just so he would stop complaining and not sink into a depression that he couldnt do anything about it. (Basically, I allowed him to disarm the shotgun the moment it hit him, which incapacitated him as happens, but give him the pleasure of actually doing something. We tried to incorporate him again, and his character had no name, no history, was a 200 year old ancient elf (hanging around 16 year olds) and he complained he couldnt stand up after taking 4S damage and cast a spell in the same round. I explained to him three times that a round is 3 seconds, and a simple action is 1.5 seconds. So he threatened me that he could PROVE it takes only a free action to get up off the ground prone, despite the fact I am half his weight and wiry and it takes me longer than 1.5 seconds (Simple action) to get up, let alone a free action. So its easier to just say "Sure, Stinky thinks you're hilarious." than to disagree and have him get upset about how the pizza owner is pissed off that he's assaulting his customers.
So although I really need and want EVERYONE to GM- my quiet nephew sits there waiting for me to tell the story, and my best friend's npcs run around in circles saying weird words like the three stooges, finding everything hilarious (but they arent always extremely high on Kamikaze or Deepweed, so it doesnt make sense in a gritty and serious world.)
So how should I handle this? Should I become GM solely and not ask or allow the other two to become NPC's? How do I do this without losing my mind? Being a GM I have to come up with an adventure, npc's, attitudes for the npc's, conversations for the npc's, and so much more- while handling all the other characters in our gang. To add on to this, we arent 400bp players, but closer to 300bp street gangers with nothing more advanced than an UZI or Shock Gloves. No vehicles, no matrix, no magic, but our characters are uneducated street fighters. Melee, pistols, uzi's. Too poor for vehicles, technology, or heavy firepower. We live in the Redmond Barrens- where gangs rule the neighborhoods, Corp presence is isolated, gangers, rapers, and ghouls run amuck, while government and police are non-existent. This severely limits the number of adventures. Even in combat, I'm having trouble adding in terrain and places to fight. My nephew confronts everyone he can face-to-face. The fights end up in the open street with little to nothing to duck behind, and fights ending extremely fast without any cover for the rain of ammo. This isn't bad, but is very mundane and simplified, and seems to just be about dice and not strategy. But even if I were to be the only GM, it doesnt help that my two players are very quiet and weird individuals in real life, let alone in game.
My imagination, adventure ideas- total BURNOUT! gamemaster experience? Little to none. No one to look up to or learn from either. I have no idea how ANYONE runs their games, Ive never had a GM. Ive taught myself everything, and I suck at GM. Help!
Most of this was in my Jr.High and early Highschool days. So mostly, all I did was have small fights.
In Legend o the Five Rings, it was so easy. Japanese style, a quiet world where people did not speak much, and one hell of a starting adventure provided in the Core Book. Still, after that amazing adventure (I love you L5R starter adventure!) all we ever did was fight off monsters, get ambushed by bandits, and fight in a war (all which were just lots of combat, and that's it.)
Earthdawn, I never got past character creation and getting out of the first town we started in. Our adventures consisted of "Bandits attack you!"
Here I am, 10 years later at age 23 and after many many years playing RPG's again. Shadowrun is the perfect world. I love modern fantasy, and the Sega game was one of the greatest games of all time. Ever since that game, I fell in love with the shadowrun world.
I wanted to start off small in shadowrun. Learn the basics, and slowly introduce one element of the game at a time. This made it easier for everyone to learn the rules. We started off with 1-2 of each stat and no skills as street children. This worked out great- for awhile. All we had planned was to get adopted by Stinky Pizzaman Luigi- who was a local pizza-rea owner. That was okay roleplaying, but then it ended. We ran around fighting gangers, and even had a vampire adventure. But there's just something lacking. It seems to just have went from "Bandits ambush you!" to "Gangers ambush you!" lol...
I play with my Nephew, and we are trying to give my best friend a third chance at running the shadows (He keeps on forcing me, the GM, to do everything for him. Make up his background story. Tell him where he came from. Why he is here. What his role is. Even what to say! This annoys me to no end and I ask myself "What is the difference between his character and me controlling an npc? Nothing. Time to kill off his character." not to mention half the time he will say he wants to play, and then will sit around with his computer playing PONG on ebaumsworld for 8 hours straight, ignoring us. I also have a huge problem- although I'm an extremely talkative and witty person, I am so very very drained right now. My imagination is not infinite, and it's just so hard to come up with conversation after conversation, and to come up with on-the-fly adventures- all for my own entertainment. GMing doesnt stress me- but it does become dull sometimes. The color, the roleplaying, the in-character quotes and movie-like plot are all but gone. Well... to be gone they'd have to be there, which they never really were.
My nephew and best friend are extremely quiet. They dont talk much. They are also both very passive people. They follow the leader in anything we do. Want to go somewhere? Sure tell us where. Want to play a game? Sure tell us what game. The bartender speaks up, "I havent seen you two round here, watcha buncha punks like you doin in a place like this? Wanna get ur face ripped off?" My best friend replies, "Uhhhhh.....MOIP MOIP MOIP!!!" and runs around in circles on the floor, three stooges style! Meanwhile... my nephew sits back, his arms crossed in silence behind the shadows (as he is a copy-personality of Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, and rarely speaks unless it's very serious.)
We kindof pool-in as GM's to run the npc's. To an epic fail. Neither my nephew or my best friend ever do, and if they do- it tends to be retarded or entirely out of character and out of the gritty shadowrun world.
For instance, once my best friend's dwarf assaults the Pizzarea's customers, hitting them in the head with a lead pipe after just walking in- the Owner gets a sticky-glue (non-lethal) shotgun and blasts them all to the walls. Pissed off that random 14 year olds are attacking innocent customers, he starts yelling at them in a gritty, sour, pissed off voice. My best friend intervenes "I thought Stinky was happier and liked children." which led me to force a Redmond Barrens pizza shop owner to go from pissed off to "....but that was kinda FUNNY! hahahaha, you kids are all right!" This made absolutely NO sense. No one would ever act like that except bipolar nutjobs, which Stinky was not. Unfortunately, it's a huge struggle to satisfy this player. I had to give him bonus dice because he thought it was unfair that as a 14 year old dwarf with a rusty pipe, he was being beaten by a 40 year old ex-mafia veteran with a shotgun, just so he would stop complaining and not sink into a depression that he couldnt do anything about it. (Basically, I allowed him to disarm the shotgun the moment it hit him, which incapacitated him as happens, but give him the pleasure of actually doing something. We tried to incorporate him again, and his character had no name, no history, was a 200 year old ancient elf (hanging around 16 year olds) and he complained he couldnt stand up after taking 4S damage and cast a spell in the same round. I explained to him three times that a round is 3 seconds, and a simple action is 1.5 seconds. So he threatened me that he could PROVE it takes only a free action to get up off the ground prone, despite the fact I am half his weight and wiry and it takes me longer than 1.5 seconds (Simple action) to get up, let alone a free action. So its easier to just say "Sure, Stinky thinks you're hilarious." than to disagree and have him get upset about how the pizza owner is pissed off that he's assaulting his customers.
So although I really need and want EVERYONE to GM- my quiet nephew sits there waiting for me to tell the story, and my best friend's npcs run around in circles saying weird words like the three stooges, finding everything hilarious (but they arent always extremely high on Kamikaze or Deepweed, so it doesnt make sense in a gritty and serious world.)
So how should I handle this? Should I become GM solely and not ask or allow the other two to become NPC's? How do I do this without losing my mind? Being a GM I have to come up with an adventure, npc's, attitudes for the npc's, conversations for the npc's, and so much more- while handling all the other characters in our gang. To add on to this, we arent 400bp players, but closer to 300bp street gangers with nothing more advanced than an UZI or Shock Gloves. No vehicles, no matrix, no magic, but our characters are uneducated street fighters. Melee, pistols, uzi's. Too poor for vehicles, technology, or heavy firepower. We live in the Redmond Barrens- where gangs rule the neighborhoods, Corp presence is isolated, gangers, rapers, and ghouls run amuck, while government and police are non-existent. This severely limits the number of adventures. Even in combat, I'm having trouble adding in terrain and places to fight. My nephew confronts everyone he can face-to-face. The fights end up in the open street with little to nothing to duck behind, and fights ending extremely fast without any cover for the rain of ammo. This isn't bad, but is very mundane and simplified, and seems to just be about dice and not strategy. But even if I were to be the only GM, it doesnt help that my two players are very quiet and weird individuals in real life, let alone in game.
My imagination, adventure ideas- total BURNOUT! gamemaster experience? Little to none. No one to look up to or learn from either. I have no idea how ANYONE runs their games, Ive never had a GM. Ive taught myself everything, and I suck at GM. Help!