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niall_shaperoI was told, once upon a time, that I was too inexperienced a referee to be permitted to run a game for a particular group that had multiple referees and campaigns ("You don't have enough experience with OTHER SUNS to run a game for us" was what I was told, as I recall). Really quite interesting, you see, because I ruddy well WROTE the OTHER SUNS rules, and had (at the time) been running an OTHER SUNS campaign for some several years. [sarcasm mode on] There couldn't have been anything political involved, could there have been? [sarcasm mode off]. The responsible party for the "experience" comment had been running an OS campaign for a while that I had run in, and it was experiencing roughly a 1 in 3 casualty rate. This was nothing unusual for the person in question's campaigns - very "old school D&D" in the death rates. To be fair, the death rate (or rate of permanent disablement) was fairly consistent across his campaigns (he ran more than one type game).
Now, in my OTHER SUNS campaign, over the 31 years that it has been running, there have only been a handful of character deaths. Since character creation can take as much as half an hour, and combat and weaponry in OTHER SUNS are quick and deadly, and deadly respectively, I have always tended to keep the quantity and quality of combat down, for metagaming reasons. This was, I will freely admit, quite a sea change from my old D&D Campaign, where I regularly wiped out whole parties of characters (since characters in 1st edition D&D took perhaps 30-60 seconds to roll up and equip, worst case).
Why bring this up? Because I recently ran across someone's blog who had run (briefly) in my OTHER SUNS campaign and who claimed that what he hated about the game was that ~"combats always took at least 45 minutes per melee round"~. An interesting bit of memory-trick on his part since, going back over my notes from the part of the campaign that he participated in, I never had any combat at all. Where came the notes, you ask? Well, as a bit of an anal retentive type, I formed a habit some years back of bringing my laptop to sessions (before then, I had a set of notebooks for the campaign) and I took voluminous notes covering all the actions taken and by whom in the session (I still have a reel-to-reel tape recording of one game session played over twenty-six years ago). These notes have permitted me to keep my campaign organized and more importantly CONSISTENT over the years. So I know that the individual in question who complained was "misremembering" events (to be charitable - it was at least some ten years ago, and I rather doubt that he has as good a memory as the pen, writing at the time, and "immortalized" on paper and stored in a three ring binder).
Some incidents in a recent campaign that I was trying to join (trying is the operative term, here, I think) made me think back to these incidents and to group dynamics in role playing gaming and in small groups in general. I was about to write an essay on the subject, when I remembered that my wife had already done so - and done a far better job than I could do right now. Her essay can be found at: http://kayshapero.net/hobby.htm.
Now, in my OTHER SUNS campaign, over the 31 years that it has been running, there have only been a handful of character deaths. Since character creation can take as much as half an hour, and combat and weaponry in OTHER SUNS are quick and deadly, and deadly respectively, I have always tended to keep the quantity and quality of combat down, for metagaming reasons. This was, I will freely admit, quite a sea change from my old D&D Campaign, where I regularly wiped out whole parties of characters (since characters in 1st edition D&D took perhaps 30-60 seconds to roll up and equip, worst case).
Why bring this up? Because I recently ran across someone's blog who had run (briefly) in my OTHER SUNS campaign and who claimed that what he hated about the game was that ~"combats always took at least 45 minutes per melee round"~. An interesting bit of memory-trick on his part since, going back over my notes from the part of the campaign that he participated in, I never had any combat at all. Where came the notes, you ask? Well, as a bit of an anal retentive type, I formed a habit some years back of bringing my laptop to sessions (before then, I had a set of notebooks for the campaign) and I took voluminous notes covering all the actions taken and by whom in the session (I still have a reel-to-reel tape recording of one game session played over twenty-six years ago). These notes have permitted me to keep my campaign organized and more importantly CONSISTENT over the years. So I know that the individual in question who complained was "misremembering" events (to be charitable - it was at least some ten years ago, and I rather doubt that he has as good a memory as the pen, writing at the time, and "immortalized" on paper and stored in a three ring binder).
Some incidents in a recent campaign that I was trying to join (trying is the operative term, here, I think) made me think back to these incidents and to group dynamics in role playing gaming and in small groups in general. I was about to write an essay on the subject, when I remembered that my wife had already done so - and done a far better job than I could do right now. Her essay can be found at: http://kayshapero.net/hobby.htm.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 03:10 am (UTC)Yes, we still laugh like 12 year olds at that.
Of course, now, I can't remember if that was your game or Lisa's.
It was my campaign...
Date: 2010-12-22 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 03:28 am (UTC)However, the sketch of the Ursoid type in OS is, basically, a picture of a Thovian from my "Demons of the Past" trilogy that I'm currently working on.
The group dynamics in RPG groups seem to me to mirror those in other small groupings. Right down to power politics once they get large enough to have factions, alas.
Well...
Date: 2010-12-22 04:41 am (UTC)My OTHER SUNS campaign has more than one player who started back in the playtest days of 1979-1980. After thirty years of play (yes, that's 30 "real world" years) they (the characters) are pretty damn scary.
==============
So, the Bjora look like Thovians (or is that the other way round? :-)). Ursinoids are hardly new with me (the Dilbians in a book or two by Gordon Dickson springs to mind immediately).
Re: Well...
Date: 2010-12-22 01:18 pm (UTC)Just out of curiosity...
Date: 2010-12-22 04:50 am (UTC)Re: Just out of curiosity...
Date: 2010-12-22 01:15 pm (UTC)The most common system we use in my group is essentially AMBER, modified for whatever we're doing (which means we add dice for deciding near-thing contests, and add powers/change abilities for whatever the setting is). After that, it's D&D 3.x, which was what I was basing the campaign I was running on LJ on (I really need to get that running again but Life keeps interfering; when I have time, I'm too tired to think...). In the past 10 years I've used several other systems, including Feng Shui, Space Opera, Villains and Vigilantes, TFOS, and a couple others.
Currently I'm running:
1) a Harry Potter-based campaign in which the PCs include Hermione, Rowen Ravenclaw (last direct descendant), Jade Chan (Jackie Chan Adventures), Wednesday Addams, and Gyojo Black (a previously-unknown Black relative whose father did something so hideous in the service of the Dark Lord that the BLACKS disowned him; the character's based on a young version of Sha Gyojo from Gensomaden Saiyuki).
2) a Star Wars based campaign which takes place right after the Battle of Endor (it started within a week or two of that event; we're something close to a year after that now). PCs include Taelin Ardan Mel'Tasne (yes, a version of the character seen in "Demons of the Past", played by the guy who invented him), Alen Pastseeker (think "Jedi Indiana Jones"), Starhopper Flywart (Intelligent Toad Han Solo), and Shakaira of the Kastrokh (basically the Predator, with a religion that explains the hunting tradition).
My wife Kathy's running me in a Fullmetal Alchemist-based campaign, and my friend Eric's been doing an off-again, on-again Avatar-based game; I'm not sure how that one's going to work out. Kathy's also got a large and complex Torchwood campaign that's on hiatus.
Re: Just out of curiosity...
Date: 2010-12-22 07:41 pm (UTC)Re: Just out of curiosity...
Date: 2010-12-23 12:27 am (UTC)My writing time is dependent on (A) having a lot of time in a row available (3 hours minimum, preferably more), and (B) Kathy being willing to give me the time. This generally means Sunday afternoon, with some additional time during the week if I have a paying contract.
My wife's sanity depends on my giving her some adult time during the evening, so I have limited writing time, especially since my books do not yet earn me enough to start cutting down "Real Work" time.
Oddly, if I count up all the money it's brought in directly and indirectly, gaming is ALMOST equal to my writing; it's brought in roughly $30,000 overall. Most of that of course comes from WotC in one form or another.
Re: Just out of curiosity...
Date: 2010-12-23 02:15 am (UTC)Course, if I get off my duff and finish the rewrites on the second edition of OTHER SUNS, I may be able to add just a FEW dollars to my total...
Re: Just out of curiosity...
Date: 2010-12-23 02:28 am (UTC)That company was Wizards of the Coast.
Re: Just out of curiosity...
Date: 2010-12-23 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 04:55 am (UTC)I wrote that article based on observation of Star Trek fandom, gaming, and FIDOnet iirc; in later years it's only become more relevant as I get involved in more small groups. Or big ones for that matter. Sigh...
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-23 12:26 am (UTC)My mental image now is more like Dilbians or Bjora, especially as drawn by Ken Sample. Really big cool bear-people. (And if I'd had more control when I got sucked into the OS game I think I'd'a been a Bjoran instead of an Altani. Be nice to be BIGGER than everything in my vicinity for a change.)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 04:36 am (UTC)My experience
Date: 2010-12-22 04:47 am (UTC)My experiences with combat in OTHER SUNS were that, after the guns cooled off and the blood mist precipitated out of the air, the survivors (if any) would check for missing body parts (not easily replaceable).
These, of course, were experiences in actual face-to-face games. (Let us also not think about ship-to-ship actions in OTHER SUNS where life tended to be nasty, brutish and short, emphasis on short).
Of course, the EXAMPLE in the OTHER SUNS rules (Mikhail) was using relatively speaking primitive weaponry, and ended up facing a Judge who gave him a choice, IIRC, "you can join the service, or go to jail". Some might say that he got the dirty end of the stick by going into the service...
Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-22 04:53 am (UTC)Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-22 01:20 pm (UTC)Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-22 04:35 pm (UTC)Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-22 07:39 pm (UTC)The "solution" that the players in my campaign developed was to try and avoid gunplay if at all practical. Just like if their own lives were at stake (how many of your friends would START the discussion by pulling out an Uzi and letting fly? Not many, I'd bet, if it was really happening).
Of course, that didn't stop people from being quite devious (and when you have lots of clever players, if they cooperate, they can ALWAYS outhink the referee who is, after all, only one person with less "compute power" available). And now, with at least one character with over 100% (WELL over 100%) in martial-arts/evade, there have been some knock-down-drag-out fights (with this martial artist super-expert). Being able to dance around the blaster bolt makes the use of such weapons ... something more of an option. (And yes, I acknowledge that dodging blaster/laser fire, just like dodging bullets is highly unrealistic ... but FUN!)
Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-22 08:07 pm (UTC)Over in fantasy-land, there was an amusing back-stab I heard about, involving delayed blast fireballs and a conniving mage who planned lead his allies to their deaths and sit out the holocaust in a cube of force. There was a miscommunication between the mage and the ambushers and all of the fireballs went off inside the cube. The mage was remembered as that guy who gave his life to save his buddies.
Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-22 11:43 pm (UTC)Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-23 12:28 am (UTC)Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-23 12:29 am (UTC)Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-23 02:16 am (UTC)Corollary: "Don't stand NEXT to people throwing rocks at people with guns".
:-)
Re: My experience
Date: 2010-12-23 12:28 am (UTC)