HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: FRP goals versus GMing
Date: 13 Aug 92 00:57:22 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <ROWE.92Aug12025259@soda.glorantha.berkeley.edu> rowe@soda.glorantha.berkeley.edu (Eric Rowe) writes:
>
>   I look at the two lists, notice how few of my FRP-related goals I get
>   out of GMing and wonder how to improve things.
>
>   How do other GMs handle it? 

Practice.  Once GMing becomes "second nature" like driving a car or
counting to ten, then you can enjoy roleplaying your NPC's without
having to worry too much about the subtleties of game mechanics or
or "plot" - all that stuff becomes pretty much instinctive after a
while.  

Of course, you have to be exceedingly familiar with the rules,
abilities, spells, monsters, characteristics, etc of the game before
this can work.  After 10+ years of DMing an AD&D campaign, I found
Palladium to be fun but very stressful, because I didn't know off the
top of my head what the powers of a 7th level Diabolist were, and I
couldn't just insert one into the campaign on a moment's notice - I'd
have to get out the books and look up all the info about him, read the
spell descriptions, etc...  and the only effective way to do that is
*in advance*.

In AD&D, I can just make up a character on the spot, and guesstimate
all the relevant info *as* I'm roleplaying him.

> What do you want to get out of roleplaying?

Fun.  It's also a good outlet for my normally frustrated creative energies.

>Best way, get someone else to help. The multiple storyguides in our Ars Magica
>saga make the whole thing better and easier.

How can you keep a consistent thread of "plot" running, when more than
one person is privy to all the "insider information"?  Or even harder,
if they're NOT privy to each other's plots and devices?  :-)

I prefer not to let anybody else mess with my campaign.  I don't tell
the players about the plots that I have brewing in the background, and
if one of them were to DM the campaign without knowing of those
things, then he would be likely to have events happen that are
contradictory to the way things should be according to the "scheme of
things" in the campaign.  

-- 
Steve Swann                 |    Speak to me in many voices; make
swann@acsu.buffalo.edu      |      them all sound like one...  -BOC
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Subject: Re: GMs: historical politics
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
X-Feet: bare
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 04:46:54 GMT

Loren Miller < millerl@wharton.upenn.edu> writes:
> lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin) writes:
>> My technique can also work with more detailed plots, but if you get into
>> historcal politics, whether Deryni-style or Luis-Nth-style, you'll have to
>> keep careful records of everything and do a lot of planning.
>
>Leaving aside the difference between Louis XVI and Deryni style of
>political play (like what IS the difference?),

Date.  Attitudes.  Location :-)  Complete lack of Magic as opposed to weak,
rare magic(k).  Place of religion.
See LeGuin/Language of the Night for a vituperative attack of Catherine Kurtz!

>how DO you plan and carry
>off a political style campaign?

I don't.  I don't like them :-)

Despite enjoying `GRASS', I don't like back-biting campaigns at all.
I've had players take things too personally, or let things get too intense,
and I know that I can't handle it, and even after over a decade of gaming
I try and avoid those situations.

In games where there are a lot of people, I use a card-index.
I know, I should take my SPARC home from the office and use that... :-)

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin, lee@sq.com, SoftQuad, Toronto, 416 239-4801; the barefoot programmer
  lq-text (Unix text retrieval package) mailing list: lq-text-request@sq.com
  latest released version: 1.10; ftp: ftp.cs.toronto.edu in directory: pub
  If Adultery is for Adults, is Juvenal for Juveniles?
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: sorflet@bnr.ca (Winston Sorfleet)
Subject: CP 2020: Novice GM question
Reply-To: sorflet@bnr.ca
Organization: Bell-Northern Research
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 13:53:52 GMT

I am planning on running a CyberPunk campaign in a few weeks (though not
in the CP2020 world or with their "classes".  I just bought the rules this
weekend....  Anyways, what I want to know are the flaws and problems that
experienced GMs and players have spotted in the system, and advice on how
to correct them.  I've spotted one potential problem already: It's much better
for the starting characters (read: more efficient) to specialize in a few
skills, rather than being well-rounded, because the skill improvement system
makes it _much_ cheaper to buy new skills at low level than improving
existing ones.  Therefore, everyone will want to buy as high "useful" skills
as I allow at start, rather than having some "roleplaying" skills mixed in.
Am I right about this?  What should I do to correct it?
Another problem that I noticed people mentioning is that Attributes way
out-perform Skills.

Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winston Sorfleet			|
Contributing Editor, Ianus Publications	| Bell-Northern Research, Dept. 7K34
wls@doe.carleton.ca			| sorflet@x400gate.bnr.ca

Opinions expressed are purely personal and do not represent Northern Telecom
or Bell-Northern Research in any way.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: emmanuel@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Bobby Emmanuel)
Subject: Re: Music & Roleplaying
Keywords: Roleplaying, music
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 14:58:33 GMT

In our Shadowrun campaigns, the most common music that is played is the
Best of the " Cure " CD (HI BRENDAN!!!).

For some reason, it seems to just filter into the background and sets
a cool futuristic type of atmosphere. Try it...It works.

    Tuul the Fearless
From: robert@isgtec.com (Robert Osborne)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 17 Aug 92 15:07:28 GMT

swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann) writes:
> In article <3095@isgtec.isgtec.com> robert@isgtec.com (Robert Osborne) writes:
> >and on the fly improve just doesn't cut it.
> 
> Oh, sure it does.  :-)

Okay, I should have said:  improve just doesn't cut it for me :-)

I think this is an important point.  My skill at improve is fairly
good,  just not good enough that I can get by without a fair
amount of prep.

Everybody should try a session or two without a lot of prep and see
what happens.

Rob.
--
Robert A. Osborne   ...!uunet.ca!isgtec!robert or robert@isgtec.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan)
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Organization: Xanadu Enterprises Inc.
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 03:47:47 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.033832.2516@mdcbbs.com> mikew@mdcbbs.com (Mike 'the Bard' Whitaker) writes:
|Hard one, this. I agree with your first sentence - allowing yourself to be
|completely led by the players is BAD - as I said in another post, my likely 
|response to the players suggesting that they are looking for item X in 
|location Y is probably not to let them find it there, think about whether 
|item X actually exists (if I haven't already), and if so where it might be, 

	The problem is that you should know wheter Item X exists BEFORE
starting.  Fine, you're not putting the clues in FRONT of them, you're
putting them off to the side a bit.  That's no better.

|As for not knowing the answer... Yes - frequently I don't - at least not at the
|start of the scenario. But I DO have the answer before the players do, and
|suficiently far before the players that they ARE solving a mystery with a known
|answer...

	It is catagorically impossible to write a satisfactory mystery if you
don't have the facts of the case nailed down cold before things get
underway.

|The only difference here (grin - this is a glib and slightly tongue in cheek
|remark with an underlying basis of truth - so please don't flame me) is that
|in the improvisational GM's case the questions get raised as the scenario goes
|along, some of them by the players themselves, and answers and the clues to 
|those answers get put in place during the scenario...

	...which sucks.  I raise all the questions myself when I'm writing the
scenario, so I have all the answers ready.

|
|This does require a good improv. GM to be able to parallel process, with both 
|ears and half a brain on communicating with the players and the other half
|running the background panic attack (grin)....

	There is absolutely no way that you could as good a job as if you'd sat
down and figured it all out before you started.


dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com   ...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis     GEnie: D.HEFFERNAN1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I don't understand why you make such a big deal out of everything...haven't
you learned; if it's not happenning to me it's not important?" -Murphy Brown
From: mosson@reseau.Berkeley.EDU (Groupe ELEVES)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Diceless or Senseless?
Date: 14 Aug 92 08:44:49 GMT
Reply-To: mosson@reseau.Berkeley.EDU (Groupe ELEVES)


  This is how I see it: good stuff gives the character opportunities if
he wants them -
and states them. They are his to use - for good or ill.

  Bad stuff tends to deny the character these opportunities, and give
the opponents the
break. The character must overcome a full load of very minor disagreements.

  But then again, it's mostly a question of perception... just have a
look at the book.

								Redwing
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Astral Adepts-
From: ward1@husc8.harvard.edu (Lester Ward)
Date: 20 Aug 92 18:54:28 GMT
 inter.coe.northeastern.edu><ward1.714319815@husc8> <RATINOX.92Aug20123759@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu>

ratinox@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Richard Pieri/Stainless Steel Rat) writes:

>>>>>> "LW" == Lester Ward <ward1@husc8.harvard.edu> writes:

>Then why allow astrally projecting Physical Adepts to study Sorcery--Astral
>Combat only? Their Armed and Unarmed Combat skills should be significantly
>better than any Sorcery skill they'd pick up.

Exactly.  Why do it?

Although I've seen Phys Ads who had nothing to do with Combat, so the stereo-
type isn't exactly true.

>--Rat

BTW, from SRII (and I'm pretty sure SRI as well):
"Actual attacks are like melee combat.  If armed with an active Weapon Focus,
the magician may attack using Armed Combat skill.  If not, he uses Unarmed
Combat Skill, or, alternatively, Sorcery Skill in place of either of the
two."

later, on attacking spells
"...the magician rolls appropriate attack dice (Armed or Unarmed Combat or
Sorcery Skill) against..."

Using conjuring against Spirits is not mentioned except in the section
on spirits, and there it applies only to attacking spirits in the meatworld;
it is mentioned only in the sence that Conjuring can be used by magicians
instead of Will or Bod when attack by spirits on the mundane plane.

Also, I mistated myself in another post, the "assencing adept's" base initiative
roll would be 41, which is enough to give him an extra action (action
decriment is 20 instead of 7).

Wordman
From: harp@netcom.com (Gregory O. Harp)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 19 Aug 92 14:44:17 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan) writes:

>In article <4773@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
>|If I don't know that answer, it may be that there isn't one, or that I haven'
>|made one up and need more feedback about what the players are planning.  The
>|solution may not be all that useful.

>	Then the players are writing the adventure -- and that's YOUR job.

Says you.  Let him run his world the way he likes, ok?  I don't always
plan a game down the tiniest details.  In fact, I almost never do.  If 
you want to spend the time do it, do it.  I don't.  You may find that
players tend to move past your details so quickly that you wish you
hadn't spent the time.  

Besides, sometimes the ideas one gets on the fly are much better than
the ones that were planned ahead.  Perhaps the players hit upon
something that changes the whole previously planned outcome.  Perhaps
simply being "there" gives you an idea you would never have had whilst
designing the world.

>	A properly written mystery has one and only one possible solution.  It
>must be impossible for any other solution to be valid -- the facts of the
>case must be such that only the intended solution is correct.

Why?  

I mean, how can you _absolutely_ determine that the facts you give
your party can point to one and only one solution?  No one is
infallable.

>	If I found out that my GM changed reality so that my "answer" was
>correct, I'd slit his throat and take away his dice.

Look, man, it's a *game*!

>dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com   ...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis     
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>"I don't understand why you make such a big deal out of everything...haven't
>you learned; if it's not happenning to me it's not important?" -Murphy Brown

Maybe you've been watching Murphy too much. ;)
-- 
-----------------Greg-Harp----------------harp@netcom.com------------------
  Love me, love my ferrets.               "Break out of the mold before
  Or at least love my ferrets. ;)          the mold sets in" -- B52's
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: dqk412@kepler.unh.edu (David Q Kennard)
Subject: Re: Diceless or Senseless?
Organization: University of New Hampshire  -  Durham, NH
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 17:14:28 GMT

In article <BsusBD.Eys@news.cso.uiuc.edu> dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Axly) writes:
>goodwin@orionsci (Ben Goodwin) writes:
>
>>In article <Bsu2xL.71K@news.cso.uiuc.edu> dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Axly) writes:
>>>
>>> [Axly and Ben exchange discussion of Corwin fighting Benedict]
>
> Instead, Zelazny has him blunder into the trap. Why? Plot considerations
>are the reason.  If Benedict stops, assesses (sp?) the situation,
>and then waits for Corwin to come to him since Corwin can't
>get away from him without coming away from whatever sort of trap 
>there is (and yes, there are a great number of traps one might stand
>next to that Benedict would be aware of..caltrops for one), then Corwin
>dies. End of series. Not too satisfying to our average SciFi reader.
>

I'll have to agree with Axly (again :)) that the Corwin/Benedict fight
should not have gone as described by Zelazny. *I* would not have been
caught so easily as Benedict. But, as pointed out, plot considerations
required that Corwin live, so Benedict boned up. I reread the book a
couple of weeks ago, and I found that scene very unsatisfying. I like
Zelazny, but sometimes he writes himself into a corner and can't get out
gracefully. From a gaming point of view (as Benedict is described both
by Zelazny and Wucjik) Zelazny was being a bad GM. Axly is right: Benedict
should have (even if murderously raging) accounted for Corwin's actions.
The book description even has Corwin making a funny hop backward to avoid
the trapping grass. Maybe Benedict has never seen this particular stuff
before, but he should have made a *real good* guess of the sort of thing
that he was being set up for. 

And none of this diminishes the possibilities for good diceless roleplaying
(I wouldn't play with Zelazny, though).

Dave Kennard
DAVE@UNH.EDU
From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 21 Aug 92 21:09:57 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Aug20.065737.28163@tronsbox.xei.com>, dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan) writes:

in response to:
>|if, in order to follow the the adventure the way you wrote it, they
>|have to talk to the gate guard to get a particular hint - and they
>|just kill him instead?  Or that the tunnel that leads to the "real

>	They're screwed.  They fail.  It happens.

This is, forgive me, just bad GM'ing.  Do you understand the concept of
"single-point failure"?  If any system - usually electronic or mechanical,
but the idea applies to any system - has a part that can make the entire
system fail if just that one part breaks, then that failure mode is called
a "single-point failure".  It is considered very bad engineering, since
single parts fail pretty often.  Most of the time, systems are required
to keep working even if one part fails - sometimes if more than one fails.

A game is a system.  The purpose of that system is to let people have fun.
If you put in a single part whose failure ends the game or renders the
remainder pointless then you have designed a bad system for fun.  A bad
game.  I don't care if that sort of thing is common in "real life".  Real
life is meant to be fun, and nature is rife with single part failure modes
(your heart, for one).  It's still rotten engineering.

>	Generally speaking, I'm not sadistic enough to put a must-have bit of
>info in only one place, especially one the PC's might miss somehow.  Or, if
>I'd decided that they HAD to talk to that guard (say, because it wouldn't
>make sense for anyone else to know what he knows), then I'd have clues in
>other places WARNING them that they had to talk to him.  Of course, if a
>particular scenario is intended to be difficult, all bets are off...and so
>are the kid gloves.

Difficult is one thing.  Bad design is something else.  Do not excuse the
one with the other.

>	The _storyline_ can go anywhere.  The _environment_ is a constant.  In
>a mystery, clues are part of the latter, not the former.

Classic error.  The _players_ cannot tell the storyline from the environment
in a well-designed and well-played scenario, it should be a seamless present-
ation.  It does not matter if the "mystery" was decided or not when you start
out if the final result, which is fixed in the memory of all the players,
including the GM, leaves behind the appropriate feeling of a mystery solved.
Only the GM may realize that it wasn't that way when it started.  That does
not matter.  The players found a mystery, and solved it, or not.  Known
history is fixed.  The future is unknown, only the present and the unknown
history is subject to change.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com)  No, I don't speak for Cabletron.  Need you ask?
-
How about we all do something reasonable?  I bet that'll confuse 'em!
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Shadowrun: Astral Adepts
From: ward1@husc8.harvard.edu (Lester Ward)
Date: 18 Aug 92 20:45:51 GMT

Seems like SR is a game where you become really great at one particular
thing.  With that in mind...

                            The Astral Adept

PRIORITY: B (3 in SR I)
SORCERY: No. (Not even for astral combat.)
CONJURING: No.
ENCHANTING: No.
ASTRAL PERCEPTION: Yes.
ASTRAL PROJECTION: Yes.
FOCI: Weapon Foci only.
INITIATION: Yes, but may only use Masking.
ABILITEIS:
Add Magic Rating to astral reaction.
Add Grade/3 (round down) in dice to astral reaction.
Add 2 dice to any Aura Reading tests.
Generally 'shine brighter' than other entities in Astral Space, marking them
  somewhat and giving watchers -1 to T# to find them. Tends to be attacked
  first by spirits in astral when the spirit has a choice of targets.

Wordman

"Oh yeah? Clap."
   -- Buffy

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: batemanc@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Mad Chris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Music & Roleplaying
Date: 13 Aug 92 16:16:11 GMT

philipd@cs.kuleuven.ac.be (Philip Dutre) writes:

>Has anyone tried to use music and/or sounds during a roleplaying session?
>Did it enhance the atmosphere of the game, or was it just annoying when the GM
>was busy trying to locate the correct sound on a tape?

>What kind of music did you use? The "Campaign & Catacombs Guide" gives some
>titles of classical music (Wagner etc...). Anyone tried these out?

My one and only use of music was in 'The High Programmer of Oz Sector', a
'Paranoia' adventure. I had the soundtrack from the Wizard of Oz, which I
used every now and then. The munchkins were infra-red citizens, and I will 
never forget the expression on the players faces when they shot the Rogue
Troubleshooter of the west. I'd dubbed the tape so it came out:

"Then this is a day of independence, for all the munchkins and their 
 decendents!
 Let the joyous news be spread [blatent edit] the Rogue Troubleshooter
 at last is dead!"

Before launching into a rendition of 'Ding dong, the Witch is Dead', which
had the players ( and me ) in stitches. Incidentally, singing was obviously
a sign of communist tendancies, so almost all of the munchkins ( and many
of the players! ) got toasted for singing along.

Great fun.

Mad Chris.
From: u9035281@cs.uow.edu.au (Paul John Davis)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Appleseed for GURPS...
Date: 20 Aug 92 04:41:38 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Wollongong University, Australia

yo Rat,
	Try Maximum Metal for CP.

	Coming Soon.

-- 
   	Paul Davis, [RENEGADE]	u9035281@wraith.cs.uow.edu.au
	University of Wollongong Simulation Games Secretary
	"Of course I'm Psycho - I'm a SOLO"
From: mkkuhner@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Speaking of ambushes (where we?)...
Date: 15 Aug 92 20:48:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug15.204803.6446
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

steiner@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (jason "Think!" steiner) writes:

>"horror films wouldn't be half as much fun if the characters had
> played role playing games before. how many roleplayers do you know
> who, while wandering through a dark, misty forest at midnight while a
> supernatural killer is on the loose, spies a group of ghostly
> children singing in the distance and says to himself, 'y'know, maybe
> i should follow them?'"

I don't know about that.  My husband and I, walking in the Berkeley
Hills at night, once encountered Gregorian Chant coming out of a sewer.
We were so intensely curious that we spent considerable time trying to
figure out how to get down there--despite the fact that it sounded very
much like a sinister occult ritual, despite the presence in Berkeley
that year of at least one kidnap-and-possibly-murder scare, despite all
our roleplaying experience....

(It *was* Gregorian Chant coming out of a sewer, or rather a storm
drain.  We met the people involved later, and they explained that they
were amateur cavers and enjoyed the acoustics.  Went down there later
myself, and they were right--it was the spookiest place to sing I have
*ever* been in.)

Curiosity can really overwhelm common sense sometimes.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan)
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Organization: Xanadu Enterprises Inc.
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 04:57:21 GMT

In article <4803@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
|Familiar, yes.  Mannerisms and likes and dislikes, sure.  What about about
|new players?  What about players who try to be unpredictable, or genuinely

	I feed new players a few simple, straightforward scenarios at first,
with largely unimportant consequences.  That way I have time to get a handle
on them.  People who are only interested in being unpredictable won't enjoy
my campaigns and will leave of their own accord.

|try and perhaps succeed in playing their characters unlike themselves???

	Obviously, you have to have a handle on the CHARACTER, too.


dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com   ...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis     GEnie: D.HEFFERNAN1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I don't understand why you make such a big deal out of everything...haven't
you learned; if it's not happenning to me it's not important?" -Murphy Brown
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc