Everyone has their own 'preferred' version of D&D, generally based on whatever they liked when they were twelve. What can make this difficult is when these viewpoints clash.
I was talking with my buddy Ryan, who was the initial catalyst in running a game of D&D. He's a complete tabletop RPG novice, but seems very eager to learn the whole process. On top of that, he's also the person who's in charge of gathering a group for the game. I haven't met any of these folks and didn't know if they had any previous gaming experience until last night when he asked me what edition we were running. I told him Basic, since I'm pretty sure he didn't really care about the concept of retro-clones or publishing rights.
What I got back from him was that his buddy wanted to play a Human Monk and cross-class into Psion.
I've got no animosity towards folks that play and enjoy 3.5, it's just not my bag. There's a ridiculous amount of prep involved and hundreds of pages of codified rules that can easily lead to super-not-fun arguments between player and GM. One of the reasons that I'm always looking for lighter and lighter rules sets is because of how much I hated spending countless hours prepping for super-complex games (3.5, GURPS, Shadowrun 2nd Edition, etc...)
But the more and more that I think about it, it's less about rules sets and more about players and expectations. Apparently this dude is a bit of an instigator and is willing to argue. Ryan described it as part of his charm, but it instantly raised my hackles. One of the things that I absolutely NEED in my gaming experiences is for everybody to be on the same page. We're getting together to play some elfgames and have some fun; I'm not out to screw anyone over to boost my ego or act out weird power fantasies. But by that same token, I need my players to trust my rulings and go along with what we're doing, especially if I'm house ruling and improvising as much as I plan to.
So what the hell do I do? I'm tempted to just scrap the idea of D&D all together and go with a non-D&D RPG, just to avoid the whole expectations situation. But ultimately, I am the guy who's running this thing and by the old RPGNet maxim, no gaming is better than bad gaming.
Showing posts with label dilemma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dilemma. Show all posts
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
My unfortunate realization
Talked with LeeAnn again today at work. Apparently, she had gotten some more complaints and disapproving comments about the D&D program from the religiously minded folks in the community at Homewood's local community fair. Once again, no one but Tai showed up. As much as I'd hate to admit it, I really don't think that the Homewood Library is really the place for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. The people I've met there have been wonderful and kind, but D&D hasn't really had a great track record with God's people over the past few decades. I can assume that the last time any of these folks have heard anything about D&D, it was coming from a pulpit in the mid 80s. I don't think any amount of earnest proselytizing on my part will ever convince them that there isn't something sinister about rolling dice and kicking imaginary monsters in the face.
In a way, I'm kind of glad that the game fell through. The increasing amount of work and reading that graduate school has been heaping on me has honestly felt overwhelming. I don't think I could have kept up school, work and a weekly campaign session without cracking. But the sheer outpouring of support and encouragement that I've received from local Children's and Youth librarians has been astounding. They've inspired me to continue working on the Motherlode campaign, despite my initial misgivings about the first session and tonight, I sent out an email to all of the folks who've encouraged me asking if they would like to like to start up an all-librarians game of Dresden Files.
Yeah, I know it's not D&D, but LeeAnn loves the Dresden Files and she said she'd go halfsies with me on the books. :)
In a way, I'm kind of glad that the game fell through. The increasing amount of work and reading that graduate school has been heaping on me has honestly felt overwhelming. I don't think I could have kept up school, work and a weekly campaign session without cracking. But the sheer outpouring of support and encouragement that I've received from local Children's and Youth librarians has been astounding. They've inspired me to continue working on the Motherlode campaign, despite my initial misgivings about the first session and tonight, I sent out an email to all of the folks who've encouraged me asking if they would like to like to start up an all-librarians game of Dresden Files.
Yeah, I know it's not D&D, but LeeAnn loves the Dresden Files and she said she'd go halfsies with me on the books. :)
Friday, September 10, 2010
So we played some Swords and Wizardry last weekend
And I'm still not really sure how it went.
I had told my friends at college that I wanted to run a really informal pick-up D&D game for anyone who wanted to play. Last Saturday, I drove up to Oberlin for Labor Day weekend with a bag full of dice, the Deck of Stuff that I'd put together and a half-finished, randomly-generated dungeon map. The following day, I was able to get a nice chunk of folks together for the game, including my girlfriend Jamie, who's been incredibly supportive of this whole D&D kick since I started this summer, my good friends Mike, Ethan and Joe (who all worked with me on the noir radio drama that we did at college) and a new freshman named Daniel who I'd never met before.
Character creation was where we first started having problems. I'd gone for the 3d6 for each stat, can switch scores around method and as a result, a couple of my players were incredibly unsatisfied with their characters (nothing above a 12 and a 6 at the lowest.) I tried the lines of reasoning that I'd heard over this: that stats weren't as important in old-school D&D and that they're not what defines your character, but it still chafed them to feel like their characters were somehow behind the curve. Both of their characters were behind that Raggi Curve (more penalties than bonuses), so I let them reroll to much better results.
However, the resulting characters were hilarious. A fighter with a Constitution of 6 carrying a bizarre assortment of cheap weapons and a mule. An ogre fighter who ended up spending all of his money on a set of ring mail. A 250 lb. Half-Elven magic user (who pulled the 'Wedge of very stinky cheese' from the Deck of Stuff). A dwarven cleric of Granitenose, who entreats his believers to keep what is theirs and acquire more. A goblin thief who was probably the best prepared character I've ever seen in terms of random equipment. We started out in a tavern called the Irish Deer in the mining town of Motherlode, a rough and tumble place filled with what looked like Aragorn stunt doubles. There, the PCs bought a map to the ancient ruins of Myrmidia from a slightly dodgy Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler type and ventured out into the wilderness to find the caves, complete with a passel of 6 henchmen hired by the Magic-User, courtesy of the Meatshields! hireling generator.
Turns out that the only thing the map led to was an ambush courtesy of a group of bandits that the swindler was in cahoots with. In the combat that ensued, one of the Magic-User's men at arms was killed and the dwarven cleric nearly got it with a well-aimed crossbow bolt. However, the party managed to pull one of the bandits off of the cliff by his foot, hurl a warhammer across a chasm into a crossbowman's face and utterly dismember the rest of the bandits, thanks to the ogre's stick full of nails (and ridiculous damage bonuses) and the surviving goblin man at arms, who must have taken a level in badass at some point, because he ended up killing three guys and taking 1 hp's worth of damage in the process.
Naturally, everyone wanted revenge, so they returned to Motherlode in search of Holsten, the snake-oil salesman, eventually chasing him to Looter's Row. The fighter kicked down the door to the house, only to be hit with a crossbow trap that fortunately didn't take much out of him. The group entered the house cautiously It was then that the bugbears came out of hiding, wielding crossbows and doing the standard thug threatening. Once again, combat ensued, with another hireling falling to their death at the bugbear's hands and the Magic-User flinging his Sleep spell over all but one of the goons, who decided that discretion was the better part of valor and fled. The party entered Holsten's basement, where the sneaky little bastard escaped into a hatch in the floor.
The room search went well and it didn't go well. Our ogre fighter smashed open the locked chest next to our forger's workstation and got hit with a poison dart trap. Even with a bonus against poison, he failed his save and started taking damage. He was incredibly upset by this turn of events and particularly at me for putting it there. I honestly didn't know how to react. As the cleric carried him off to the local Church of Antra to help slow the poison, the rest of the team continued the search much more carefully.
Once all of value could be looted from the workroom, everyone made their way down into the hatch, torchbearers first. What they found was the corpse of their erstwhile swindler surrounded by spiders, who attacked first and poisoned the cleric. I don't know why I chose the spiders, given the negative reaction I had just gotten from the poison issue, but it happened anyway. Once the spiders were dealt with, the PCs brought the cleric to the Church of Antra again, where the priestess was decidedly less than happy that two poisoned folks had been brought before her within five minutes and charged them accordingly. And with that, the game was over for the night.
I'll try and post more later tonight on my reactions, but it's been a little difficult dredging up this stuff and I'd like to take a little time to think.
I had told my friends at college that I wanted to run a really informal pick-up D&D game for anyone who wanted to play. Last Saturday, I drove up to Oberlin for Labor Day weekend with a bag full of dice, the Deck of Stuff that I'd put together and a half-finished, randomly-generated dungeon map. The following day, I was able to get a nice chunk of folks together for the game, including my girlfriend Jamie, who's been incredibly supportive of this whole D&D kick since I started this summer, my good friends Mike, Ethan and Joe (who all worked with me on the noir radio drama that we did at college) and a new freshman named Daniel who I'd never met before.
Character creation was where we first started having problems. I'd gone for the 3d6 for each stat, can switch scores around method and as a result, a couple of my players were incredibly unsatisfied with their characters (nothing above a 12 and a 6 at the lowest.) I tried the lines of reasoning that I'd heard over this: that stats weren't as important in old-school D&D and that they're not what defines your character, but it still chafed them to feel like their characters were somehow behind the curve. Both of their characters were behind that Raggi Curve (more penalties than bonuses), so I let them reroll to much better results.
However, the resulting characters were hilarious. A fighter with a Constitution of 6 carrying a bizarre assortment of cheap weapons and a mule. An ogre fighter who ended up spending all of his money on a set of ring mail. A 250 lb. Half-Elven magic user (who pulled the 'Wedge of very stinky cheese' from the Deck of Stuff). A dwarven cleric of Granitenose, who entreats his believers to keep what is theirs and acquire more. A goblin thief who was probably the best prepared character I've ever seen in terms of random equipment. We started out in a tavern called the Irish Deer in the mining town of Motherlode, a rough and tumble place filled with what looked like Aragorn stunt doubles. There, the PCs bought a map to the ancient ruins of Myrmidia from a slightly dodgy Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler type and ventured out into the wilderness to find the caves, complete with a passel of 6 henchmen hired by the Magic-User, courtesy of the Meatshields! hireling generator.
Turns out that the only thing the map led to was an ambush courtesy of a group of bandits that the swindler was in cahoots with. In the combat that ensued, one of the Magic-User's men at arms was killed and the dwarven cleric nearly got it with a well-aimed crossbow bolt. However, the party managed to pull one of the bandits off of the cliff by his foot, hurl a warhammer across a chasm into a crossbowman's face and utterly dismember the rest of the bandits, thanks to the ogre's stick full of nails (and ridiculous damage bonuses) and the surviving goblin man at arms, who must have taken a level in badass at some point, because he ended up killing three guys and taking 1 hp's worth of damage in the process.
Naturally, everyone wanted revenge, so they returned to Motherlode in search of Holsten, the snake-oil salesman, eventually chasing him to Looter's Row. The fighter kicked down the door to the house, only to be hit with a crossbow trap that fortunately didn't take much out of him. The group entered the house cautiously It was then that the bugbears came out of hiding, wielding crossbows and doing the standard thug threatening. Once again, combat ensued, with another hireling falling to their death at the bugbear's hands and the Magic-User flinging his Sleep spell over all but one of the goons, who decided that discretion was the better part of valor and fled. The party entered Holsten's basement, where the sneaky little bastard escaped into a hatch in the floor.
The room search went well and it didn't go well. Our ogre fighter smashed open the locked chest next to our forger's workstation and got hit with a poison dart trap. Even with a bonus against poison, he failed his save and started taking damage. He was incredibly upset by this turn of events and particularly at me for putting it there. I honestly didn't know how to react. As the cleric carried him off to the local Church of Antra to help slow the poison, the rest of the team continued the search much more carefully.
Once all of value could be looted from the workroom, everyone made their way down into the hatch, torchbearers first. What they found was the corpse of their erstwhile swindler surrounded by spiders, who attacked first and poisoned the cleric. I don't know why I chose the spiders, given the negative reaction I had just gotten from the poison issue, but it happened anyway. Once the spiders were dealt with, the PCs brought the cleric to the Church of Antra again, where the priestess was decidedly less than happy that two poisoned folks had been brought before her within five minutes and charged them accordingly. And with that, the game was over for the night.
I'll try and post more later tonight on my reactions, but it's been a little difficult dredging up this stuff and I'd like to take a little time to think.
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