How Not to Abuse the Rules as a GM

This is the image I use for Kiara, my Arcane Monk (meaning she is mostly Wizard with a few levels of Monk).  She and I (since she is really just an alter-ego that allows me to experience dangerous adventures in Paizo's setting of Golarion) had a rather unsatisfactory experience in her final time being played.  And I blame the GM who didn't know how to properly cheat.

     If there is anything I have learned about cheating at roleplaying games (RPGs) – and let's not assumed that I have, or that what I have learned is worthwhile – it is that it is best left to the person running the game (the Game Master, or GM).  And the only reason to engage in cheating is to make sure that everybody gets to have a good time.  One of my fundamental assumptions – repeatedly proven wrong over this past weekend – is that people want their player characters (PCs), their in-game alter-egos, to succeed after being significantly challenged.  I would prefer that the players have some vested interest in story, and in integrating their PCs into the world, but since the PC has to overcome challenges (not all of them all of the time), I know that successes matter.
     Now, the game I played and judged (was the GM of) this past weekend was Pathfinder.  It is, like it or not, the true heir to the legacy of Dungeons & Dragons that WoTC threw away when they introduced 4th Edition.  I have been playing RPGs – starting with the Basic Rules set of D&D – for almost 30 years; longer if I consider playing with no understanding of the rules.  But rules are actually important.  They shouldn't be paramount, because there are the concerns of story and character and player investment, but in an Organized Play (OP) environment, rules are damn near the top of the list.
     Not that everybody needs to know every rule.  Not that anybody need to know every rule.  There is a reason we carry the books around.  Actually, these days most of the referencing is done on tablets (for access of the pdfs of the rulebooks) or on smart phones (for the website that has almost all of the rules material).  We need access to those rules.  Some of us are gracious in our ignorance, and others are fat pieces of shit who I will sooner see die then ever realize that their partially informed opinions – the same way most of the rest of us formulate opinions – are not universal truths. 
     As a player, I know not to cheat.  Hell, I don't want to.  I do want to avoid having bad things happen to my characters.  I don't want them to be killed, or robbed, or imprisoned, or raped, or any of the other unsavory things that can happen to real people (and the chances for the aforementioned possible consequences drastically increase if the PCs are adventurers).  But I see the easiest way to put the odds in my PCs' favor is to minimize the risk as much as I can, and that is just play style.  I also try to make sure that my PCs have utility, that they can do several different things (though not as well as any character that chose to specialize in them).  It means that I don't spend a lot of time wondering when the fight is going to happen so I can finally do something.  I prefer the stuff that isn't combat.  Not everybody is like that.
     The aforementioned fat piece of shit (and I'm sure in about a week's time I'll regret repeatedly referring to him as a fat piece of shit, but at least I'm not calling him or her out by name as a fat piece of shit) decided that the adventure he was running for us, the players, was too easy.  Fine.  Those of us who GM in an OP setting have been there.  Lots of players want to crack their PCs out, usually for combat.  Hell, combat is the only true measure of success in OP, so those of us who don't so it are just harming ourselves (or looking for some degree of challenge to be left in the combat encounters).  But he increased the difficulties of the encounters to counteract the combat ability of two PCs in such a way that those PCs were the only ones who could meaningfully contribute to the battles.
     That is how to be a bad GM.  It is a prime example of how not to abuse the rules.  All GMs want to feel that what they are doing matters to the players.  Players want to think that the actions of their PCs matter (though this isn't all that likely in OP sessions).  Often, players aggravate the GMs by not paying attention and having silly table talk, bullshitting with each other until it is time to roll dice.  And we should feel bad about that.  But the GM doesn't just want attention because he or she is there.  The GM wants attention because the actions of the beings he controls (the NPCs and monsters and such) present some degree of risk and challenge to the PCs. 
     The FPoS decided that one encounter had to be against a monster with an AC 41, SR 27 (maybe...we never surpassed it to know for sure, but the mechanics of it would be right), over 300 HP (all of that is meaningful if you know the system; the short version is that the monster was tough).  Our party consisted of 10th and 11th level PCs.  To put this in perspective, none of the PCs had an AC over 40 (my Arcane Monk did get her's up to 38 for this combat), none of us had SR (spell resistance), and none of us had more than 120 HP.  The monster could deliver over 70 points of damage in a single hit, and since it was attacking with better than +30 to hit (meaning that it would hit my Arcane Monk with a 60% frequency and come close to killing her on the first attack, with five more to follow that same round).  The only PCs who could fight it were the ones who were making a joke of all the other combats – the giant Robot and the dainty Archer (with his suspect dice that consistently rolled in the 17-20 range all weekend). 
     Everyone else was fucked.  And we knew it.  It didn't make the combat more exciting (the chance of losing does that to some degree, but knowing there is nothing a PC can do means that there is less reason to pay attention....like politics in Chicago).  But FPoS sat in his chair chuckling like he had found the way to bring balance to the game.
     As someone who frequently cheats as a GM, I can assure him that he did it incorrectly.  When the PCs who are built to break the game are doing just that, the GM needs to introduce elements that slow down and hamper the (usually combat) successes of those PCs.  Someone's archer is killing everything on the battlefield?  What if all the bad guys could deflect those arrows (by ability or spell), at least for a short while?  The other PCs now get to step up and help out.  The raging barbarian/ultimate fighter/giant robot is killing every NPC with a single hit?  Why not have the bad guys steal his or her (or its) weapon (even if the bad guys normally wouldn't have a chance in hell of succeeding)?  The the battle beast of a PC has to come up with a new tactic and the rest of the party gets involved.
     Maybe it is just laziness, but I think it points to a fundamental misunderstanding of how to break the rules for the good of everyone.  I first encountered people doing it the wrong way when Carl Hewelt decided to make a Living Arcanis module more difficult for us because my Barbarian/Fighter was killing everything.  The end result was the only PC who could do anything meaningful in combat was my Barbarian/Fighter.  He pissed off the other players because he was trying to show me that my PC could be made less effective, and he didn't even do that.  I think that there has to be a misreading of the situation where these GMs think that since they have to increase the difficulty of the scenario, they should only let the PCs who made that necessary (?) succeed from that point forward.
     I don't know if the players I GM for know when I am cheating.  I think they have a notion, sometimes, but they often seem surprised by the fact afterwards.  With experiences like the one the FPoS put together, everyone at the table knew right away.  And I think we all would have been fine with it had the FPoS found a way to make it a more equitable experience.  But if you are too single minded to see anyone else's opinion on anything, I guess you are not likely to consider whether or not they see the general experience the same way as you.  And the FPoS is of the belief that he can make the most effective combat builds out there, so his attempts to frustrate those who are combat monsters may have been a qualified success, but it also shows how little he understands the game.

CodCon 2012

My convention badge.  I had to have it on me all weekend to deal with people who know me by sight.  Though I would wager most of them have no idea what my last name is when it is not right in front of them.

     It was that time of year, when I get to drive to and from the College of DuPage at what should be unreasonable hours (when taken together) in the ever elusive effort to enjoy myself with – though a small and largely known group of – random people.  Not so long ago, it was slightly different.  There was more of a known quantity as to whom with which I would be seated.  Hell, well before that it was an entirely known quantity – but that was before the days of playing in Organized Play campaigns, of attending local gaming conventions, or of not having a set of close friends where it was just assumed that we would get a home campaign of some kind of RPG going.

Mike Clarke modified one of the table tents I had put together to make this table tent.  I could have done the same thing for him.  Even printed it in color.  But he – very jokingly – asked to make the blog with it, so here it is.  I remain pro-table tent and think this is more than serviceable.

     CodCon was pretty good this year.  I agitated for Brad Ruby – he who is COWS conventions – to get Matt Flinn out to run Arcanis for some time, and Matt was there running people I had not seen since Living Arcanis took its last bow in 2009.  Matt gave of himself the whole weekend, making a much longer trip than I would do just to judge, and I'm glad that he has the passion and availability to do it.  Also there were Terry Doner (running Arcanis as well, but he had a much shorter commute...insanely close in distance as mine) and Benjamin Klahn (playing, it seemed, almost every type of RPG game offered in the room).  It was good to see those people again.  But I was, by my own design slotted for a weekend of Pathfinder Society play.

Most of the player characters (PCs) and baddies (NPCs) from an encounter in Realm of the Fellnight Queen.  Not much to challenge the PCs, but I also felt that one of the players was actively fighting the spirit of the adventure while another's preoccupation with winning the roleplaying game made my experience less fun.  Because I was the world and all things opposing the players and I didn't have a chance if I played by the rules.

      For what it was, I had a good enough time.  Not great.  Probably not bad enough to really piss me off.  There was the reminder that while I don't mind being wrong, I do – desperately – want to put an end to an absolutely unjustifiably arrogant smartass whose opinions of the rules and how to play the game are only by happenstance in accordance with the reality of the former and the consensus of the latter.  I had some issues on Sunday keeping a group of players focused, and that has to be my fault more so than anyone else's.

I do not get Cosplay.  Not at all.

      There are things I can still do without.  I don't need the Cosplay stuff there (because I don't get it and find it creepy).  The person-I-pretend-to-be is a creation of my imagination (and a rule set), and it functions as a type of alter-ego.  I don't dress up and pretend to be something defined by someone else.  That's my prejudice.  I don't want to begrudge others of their good time; I just want it to happen away from mine.  Same thing with the asshole who shows up dressed as how he thinks I medieval minstrel would look and sings bad folkish songs about D&D.  But CodCon is, unfortunately, a shared convention.  And the people who aren't COWS Conventions think that I'm supposed to pay – like everyone else – to be able to game all weekend.  Like I'm not supposed to be able to do it for free (I actually pocketed $5 for the weekend on convention costs) and get free books, minis, and t-shirts.

Three of the miniatures I got for free.  I can't believe other people expect me to pay to get things like this.

Civ III Update – Dragonrealm

     This is mostly just pictures.  But I thought I would give an idea as to what the units that will be in the game will look like.  None are really based on Knaak's setting, but I think most will end up working.  Except for the horse they have for Darkhorse.  That just doesn't look right (but how could it?).
     I made NONE of these.  I downloaded all of them from Civfanatics.com.

The Skink Settler (Warhammer Fantasy...I think) serves as the Drake Settler.

The Skink Worker likewise stands in as the Minor Drake, which is Dragonrealm's replacement for the Worker.

Also stolen from Warhammer Frantasy, the Cold One Chariot stands in for the Drake Chariot, which replaces the Chariot.

Another Skink.  This one becomes the Drake Archer, replacing the Archer.  By this point you can tell that I am not particularly interested in original names.

Another Skink (they keep coming).  The Drake Spearman replaces the regular Spearman.  This is how it looks in Ancient Times.

After the Ancient Era, the Drake Spearman looks like this.

The above unit animated.  See him run, attack, attack again, fidget, roar in victory, and die.

This looks much better in game, but Dragonrealm can make a Dragonrider (if one can believe a dinosaur can stand-in for a dragon), and uses the Triceratops Rider unit.

Slightly more Dragonrider-y (though not an air unit in the game), the Dragonrider looks like this from the Medieval Era onward.

In the Ancient Era, the Drake Swordsman (actually a Sword Saurus) looks like this.

The Pike Saurus becomes the Drake Pikeman, which replaces Pikeman. 

 

The Red Duke replaces Medieval Infantry.

Maybe not as cool as the mace and chain wielding regular unit, but the Red Duke sells a little of the menace of a land dominated by magic-using dragons.

The Black Duke, if one ignores the gender inconsistency, makes a rather nasty Foot Knight for Dragonrealm.

The Rider from Zuu (a city-kingdom known for its excellent mounted warriors) replaces the regular Knight.  I used the Norman Knight for it.

A Skink on a dinosaur becomes the Dragon Knight.  There is a better unit to use, but it stands in for Cavalry.

A Skink with a musket (and a tiny skink) becomes the Drake Musketeer.

The Cold One Knight should have been the Dragon Knight, but it becomes the Drake Knight and replaces Cavalry.

The Blue Duke replaces the Marine.  Sure, charging up a beach against machinegun fire sure seems suicidal, but the Blue Dragon is the master of the Eastern Seas and his clan operates on both land and in the sea.

Sure, there is no Bone Dragon in the Dragonrealm, but the animation is just so cool.  The Bone Dragon is the Paratrooper for the Civ.

The Ghost Dragon serves as the animation for the Bone Dragon in the Modern Era.  It used to be used as something else, but then Tom2050 went and made more dragons available.

One of the newer dragons.  This Red Dragon is much better than the old  one (from the early 2000s).  It replaces the Tank.

This Black Dragon replaces the Main Battle Tank, the Cold War era Tank category that fills the void between the Tank and Modern Armor.  I wish he breathed poison gas, but I'm not going to argue with free.

Lord Ice, master of the Ice Dragon clan.  So, the Ice Dragon becomes the Modern Paratrooper.

The Gold Dragon will either be a King Unit (since the Dragonrealm is ruled by Emperor Gold) or their Special Forces unit.

The wholly unacceptable stand-in for Darkhorse.  But there isn't a lot of demand for the big, sleek, magical horse-like "demon" with blue eyes.  But it is a dark color and a horse, so it is the best I have.

Can't do the Dragonrealm without spellcasters.  This is the Mage, the weakest of the three stages of magic-users (equal to a Wizard).

This is used as The Lady of the Amber (Gwen Bedlam).  She becomes a class of spellcasters (the equivalent of the Archmage setting).

This Wheel of Time animation stands in for a Vraad, a race of all-powerful spellcasters.  Vraad are insanely powerful in the game; there is no range limitation on their bombardment and no other spellcasters match their might.  This is the best unit Dragonrealm receives, effectively making it their Unique Unit (UU).

Big Eyes, Small Mouth (1998 revised) & Big Robots, Cool Starships (1999)

     Once upon a time, roleplaying games didn't feel the need to define everything and use the rules to constrict ideas and possibilities.  It wasn't that long ago, actually.  But looking back at one of the better experiments in an 'open system' – one that lets the players and GM (gamerese for Game Master, or the person who adjudicates the rules and plays "the world" instead of one character) craft their tales of adventure, intrigue, and so on without the need for everything to be detailed in the game mechanics – that came out of the late 1990s, I was surprised at how much roleplaying games have seemed to change.  At least for me.
     Now, Big Eyes, Small Mouth (1998 revised printing) wasn't interested in setting up a system that would define anything; that was up to each individual group.  No, what Mark C. MacKinnon appears to have been after was just a simple set of rules to allow for some balancing of the imaginative playground for those who wanted to play anime or manga styled stories out as a roleplaying game.  At the time, he still hadn't dubbed it the Tri-Stat system (a move I'm convinced was motivated by concerns for marketing the licensed products that would later be published by Guardians of Order).
     The idea behind it is insanely simple.  The core mechanic is just rolling 2d6 (or two six-sided dice, for those who don't read gamerese fluently) and trying to get a low total.  That is somewhat counterintuitive, but it makes sense within the framework of the rules.  What there are that amount to rules, at any rate.
     There is a system for building a character, distributing points among the three stats – Body, Mind, and Spirit – and how some values derive from how those points are spent.  There are suggestions as to what the levels purchased might mean in a given setting or game, but nothing is hard and fast.   Because BESM was designed to be used in any conceivable setting, it doesn't have chapters on skills (instead, a character can do most things that they should  be able to do, and can make a check against the stat that best fits the situation.  Combat is handled slightly differently, invoking a couple of derived values and characters can vary widely in ability.  Again, because it is written to accommodate any setting or story, there are allowances for giant robots and spaceships as well as magic and strange mental powers.  That last one is the only part where the rules get somewhat concrete, as mental combat is handled differently than normal, physical combat.
     By itself, the BESM doesn't feel like an RPG rule book.  Instead, it seems like the guidelines to allow players to break free from the restrictive chains that lock characters into a game-defined type or class or O.C.C. (instead of an anime defined type, which players are somewhat encouraged to adopt as it should help them immerse themselves in a different style of play that still mimics their favorite source material) while still rolling dice and having a fair amount of random influence on the outcome of the story.  As far as that goes, it holds up quite well – in spirit.  I certainly wouldn't pay $13.95 for the same thin book now (how reckless was I with my RPG spending...I easily spent about 1/4 of my income on gaming shit over a three year period in the late '90s and I'd like to have most of that money back), but that also has something to do with how my experience with gaming has changed.
     More on that later.

     The only supplement I purchased for BESM was Big Robots, Cool Starships (1999).  It functions much like the original, giving ideas for how to build mecha (or giant robots), cyborgs, androids, spaceships, or even magical armor with the same level of vagueness.  BESM was focused on the idea that the players and GM could operate in a cooperative manner and agree upon how the rules should be interpreted.  Because of the level of sparsity in regards to all-around detail, I think it works.  There isn't much of a way to win at BESM (though the Extra Attacks attribute introduced in BESM becomes abusive when combined with Multiple Mecha Attacks in BRCS, because the amount of attacks multiply with each other...and that means that one character may have one attack action each round and another could have 20) because the game is clearly meant to focus on story.
     In that regard, neither MacKinnon nor David L. Pulver (author of BRCS) manage to create a sense that they have a launching pad to steer players and GMs in what they assume to be the right direction.  This may be because MacKinnon originally had no intention of getting in the way of the players' good time.  There is also the issue that Pulver's suggested adventure is too bare bones to help a new RPG player, but too scripted in its expected outcomes to make experienced GMs and players happy. 
     Still, I was pretty shocked that it has only been 14 years (almost 15) since MacKinnon first wrote BESM.  He wrote in a pre-3E D&D world, where game companies did not have the luxury of writing for an OGL (Open Game License) system and making your own system almost always meant having a distinctive setting.  Sure, Fudge showed up in 1995, but it required a lot of work in terms of figuring out how much of the rules were needed for a setting or story, and in my extremely limited experience, players and GM often had difficulty deciding on how to play with the less than concrete Fudge rules.  GURPs had been around much longer, debuting in 1986, but it relied on concrete rules that were specific in terms of what applied to what setting.  There was room for GM fiat in decided for exceptions, but the supplemental material became canon unto the type of setting people played (not always, of course, but far more often than I would have expected).
     There is a danger when it comes to mixing hard defined rules with whatever the group agrees upon.  Indeed, I never had a good experience running (GMing) or playing White Wolf's Mage: The Ascension (I played with groups that used the 1996 2nd Edition) because it did exactly this.  There is no easy way to define how magic is supposed to work unless one resorts to a set of spells, and Mage didn't want to do that.  The problem became that players would attempt to do insanely powerful things (like create a living creature out of the aether) while having very little power as defined by the game mechanics.  It invariably turned into an argument and at least one player would pout because they couldn't do whatever they wanted to do.  BESM seemingly overcomes this because everyone has to agree as to what the rules mean, because the book doesn't define them to any kind of absolute or concrete terms.  Everyone would know what the rules allow for because they are the people who set the limits, and that seems both audacious and inspired.  It should even work.
     However, if my past decade of gaming has taught me anything, it is that players seem to crave system.  Story has become much less important.  Maybe it is the MMO effect, where how one makes a character has more impact than the story for him or her.  D&D 3E was a huge offender in terms on needing to have everything fit the rule.  Gone was the simplicity of giving the baddies an AC (Armor Class, or what level of skill+luck is needed to hit the creature or character) and HP (Hit Points, gamerese for how much damage a creature or character can take before it dies) and running a combat on the fly.  Gone was giving certain creatures the abilities necessary for the scene to look and feel right.  Everything became defined, and people who played the d20 system (RPGs that ran under the OGL system) got sucked into this trap.  I know because I am one of them.
     I don't know if I could take people whose experience came from that d20 mindset and expect them to get the much more free-form BESM.  I am certain that there are old-school gamers who prefer the fits the rules mindset that has fallen upon us.  I miss the story being king.  I miss the rules always being made to fit the story, and not vice versa.  BESM requires a certain level of maturity that may be best suited for the RPG player who has learned how to play but not yet settled into a rut of comfortable systems.  I do know that it would be a disaster for an Organized Play campaign, and that is where I see most my RP action these days.  OP play is an entirely different animal from home play, the kind of RPG experience that used to be the norm.  It is as different as being friendly with the people with whom one plays and playing a game with well-established friends.  OP requires a commitment to the rules because that is the consistent element.  It is rules over story, even when the story is very good.

The in-book example of a BESM character.  Simple, at least by RPG standards.  It is clear the focus was not on tricky out the character as much as it was making one that would be fun to play.  That is what I miss in RPG systems.

     And that is sad, because MacKinnon was on to something.  He was effectively giving the gaming experience back to the players and freeing them up from having to be slaves to the on-going products and endless releases of crunch (gamerese for game mechanics and rules) that allow for better, faster, newer, etc., characters.  It was an anarchist-light idea that worked for a brief while.  I would have been curious to see what Guardians of Order would have done with George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire setting, since they had the rights before collapsing because of debt.  What could have been.

Learn the Rules

I think I am going to put this out as a table tent in front of me when I GM from now on.  As much as it may apply to me at times, I do make an effort.  And I know I don't avoid learning the rules in an effort to get away with things.

     Something happened on Monday that upset me.  Not a lot, but enough to tweak my enjoyment of judging a Pathfinder Society Scenario (read: being the Game Master for an roleplaying game, in this instance Paizo's organized campaign for Pathfinder).  And because I wasn't aware of the issue until we were about 40 minutes into the session, I didn't want to cause a scene and call the offending player out.
     Most of the players had 4th level characters (with one having a 5th level), so nobody was new to the campaign or the system.  In fact, I am nearly positive that all the players at the table had been to the Monday night games at Chicagoland Games before.  As such, I was not expecting any kind of problem.
     Now, I have gotten a little lazy in my attitude towards Pathfinder Society play.  I don't always update my records right away, I don't closely follow the ongoing story, and I don't dig through the rules to find all of the combinations the players are sure to want to abuse so they can play the most powerful version of their characters as possible.  But where I have truly gotten lazy is in how I handle the players before the session starts, probably because after eight years of judging organized play I have begun to think that experienced players should be responsible enough to play the game without cheating.  Or, if they feel the need to cheat, they will at least cheat on dice rolls and not the basics of the rules.
     Then there was the player with the 4th level Cleric.
     I had judged him before, a couple of months ago.  I remember him not really knowing the rules, which was okay at the time.  We are trying to get new players to show up – both because we want more people to help grow the campaign and because we want them to buy stuff from the store that lets us use the space – and that means that some people will start playing without really looking at the rulebook.  Fine.  He had problems with some of the core things about his character, but they were corrected as we played the scenario.  At the end, I very politely suggested that he go over the few areas about which he seemed to be completely unfamiliar.
     I didn't think that would necessarily solve the problem, but I thought it would be a step in the right direction.  Lo and behold, he shows up for the Monday session with the same character and proceeds to make even more egregious mistakes in regards to his character.  And I want to be clear I am not slamming somebody's play style.  Sure, it bothered me that he wanted no roleplaying, just roll playing (meaning that he just wanted to roll the dice for everything his character did), but because he seems to have come to Pathfinder through online play, I kind of expected that.  No, this player consistently misunderstood nearly every rule in regards to his character.
     He didn't want to memorize his character's spells ('I can just cast anything on my spell list, right?').  He wanted to add his character level to his channeling.  He wanted to roll the wrong dice for his channeling.  He would stop the action to look up a spell description on his phone (which does happen, but he waited until it was his turn to even start the search and that would stop the game dead for at least a minute), but he only did that a few times.  Not carrying around a rulebook (or a printed copy of his spells), he seems to have opted to keep his spellcasting to a minimum.  Again, that can be a fine play choice but he could have helped his fellow players by actually being familiar with what his character could do.
     And I don't mean as a 4th level Cleric.  I mean as any type of Cleric.  Or spellcaster in PFS. 
     I corrected him on his belief that he could spontaneously cast his spells (which I had done before), but he continued in his belief that he did not need to prepare his spells or make a spell list.  He got a little frustrated that he couldn't do whatever he wanted (I think this had as much to do with him wanting a more combat focused experience and I was trying to gives as much RP time as possible, so he may have had some legitimate frustration with my style).  But he has a 4th level character.  That means he must have played him – because I'm pretty sure he hasn't been judging – at least nine times.  To be fair, that is about five times too many to have any uncertainties on the basics of the rules, and at least three sessions too many to not know the basics of what his character can do (you know, by the actual rules).
      It pissed me off.  I was already in a bad mood because I forgot to pack a book for my train rides to and from the game (meaning I missed out on over two hours of reading I could have accomplished), but that anger was directed at myself.  I was hoping that the players would be able to give me as good an experience as I was planning on giving them.  I like to think at least three of the five players honestly enjoyed the session.  I enjoyed a lot of it.  But not the guy who shows up to play the game without any regards to playing by the rules.
     I can stand a small amount of cheating.  I don't view it as all that different from the people who try to min-max the hell out their PCs to get the best advantages they can find.  But cheating usually means having an understanding of the rules one wants to find a way to get around.  I respect that a whole hell of a lot more than showing up without knowing what one is doing in what is essentially a session not for beginners.  I see that as wasting my time and being discourteous to the other players.
     Just learn the rules, man.

Okay, I know it is in the Star Wars alphabet, but I think it conveys the thought just as well.

Gaming in Different Systems (to break up routine and keep the game fresh)

I came across this really cool picture and I just can't find the personality for the character to play him.  The rules about the character seem to be getting in the way.  When that happens, I usually know to spend some time with other game systems to break my focus on the crunch and get back to roleplaying the characters.

     I don't think I am going to write anything deep or intrinsically meaningful (nothing groundbreaking, that is for sure) on the topic of why roleplaying gamers tend to play multiple games using multiple systems.  I'll leave that to anyone who wants to dedicate more than a few minutes thought to the subject.  It is something that happens, however, and I do wonder why.  Why don't these gamers – of which I am one – stick with one system?
     As far as this applies to me, I guess that part of the reason is that I have no desire to master a system.  I am not, nor do I think have ever been, looking for a way to game the system.  I don't want to get bogged down in the minutiae of the rules, the deep crunch that some enclaves of gamers dive right into, looking for a way to win at character creation or power combinations.  I want to be able to play, and in most instances to be capable of running the game (if needed).  But I still think the second rule should be to enjoy myself (behind the first rule – don't ruin anyone else's good time – and slightly ahead of the third rule – don't cheat unless you are the GM), and I usually don't happily read more into the rules than what I need to accomplish that.
     There is a danger of sticking too long to a single system, though.  Eventually, those little facets of the rules that I could avoid start springing up.  Worse – and this is the situation in which I find myself – characters start to seem less like organic beings who grow and evolve over the course of play (yes, I am generally that reckless when it comes to anticipating character progression – a topic I have briefly covered before) and things to be optimized or trickerated (read: made to have many minor tricks that, in combination, amount to increased utility and abilities beyond standard or optimized builds).  The characters stop having personality and become little more than the information on the sheet.  And that is just boring to me.

TMNT & Other Strangeness is one of my favorite RPGs – though also one that demands an adolescent mindset and indulgence in comic book sensibilities – but also one that lends itself to wholesale abuse of the system to make the best character one can make to win the game through combat.

     This is a problem I first encountered when playing Palladium games in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  I was much more into TMNT & Other Strangeness (1985) and Heroes Unlimited (Revised) (1987) than Rifts (1990) or The Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game (1984).  On of the commonalities between TMNT and HU is that powers and abilities were things to be added to the base character.  Eventually rolling up characters on the random chart becomes less interesting than figuring out which combinations could yield the best payoff (often in combat).  There were animals (for TMNT) and power categories (for HU) that just weren't worth it when looked at in terms of what's best?, and when I realized I had reached that point, I started playing different systems again.

For some reason, 2nd Edition felt more mature and demanded more focus be on the characters than on the game mechanics and monsters to be defeated than 1st Edition.  (Ironically, the campaigns I played using the Basic/Expert editions were always more strongly focused on roleplaying and interaction than on combat.)

     I got back into AD&D (which had a 2nd Edition by that point).  I played the occasional game of GURPS.  I broke up the RPG sessions with Car Wars (the 1985 Deluxe Edition and then 1989's Third Edition) and BattleTech (1984).  Sure, BattleTech lent itself to trying to make the perfect combat 'Mech, but before the Clans and 3050 tech was introduced the game really relied on sound strategy and executed tactical maneuvers.  AD&D 2nd Ed. demanded – or so we thought – a more serious approach to the game world and to the character (seriously, check out the difference in how much text is dedicated to Alignment in the 1st Edition and 2nd Edition PHBs.  This worked out rather well until TSR introduced the Complete Handbooks and my group quickly devolved into figuring out the best way to make a character.  It was time for a new system.
     I kicked around the MechWarrior RPG 2nd Edition (1991) and some GURPs (1986). I tried Fudge (1992) but found it too abstract for my purposes.  My cousin tried to get me interested in RoleMaster but I prefer the rules-light, setting specific Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game (1984) and gave it a few months of play.  Eventually I fell back into AD&D 2nd Ed., but that was short lived as we – as a group – came to discover Vampire: The Masquerade (2nd Edition) (1992).  Vampire led to the other White Wolf games and it wasn't a little more than two years before the entire enterprise was back to looking like a bunch of dots on the page.  The characters who started these campaigns – Demius Bloodclaw in the Dragonlance AD&D campaign and Richard Talisman in the Vampire chronicle, both run by Jeff Bergman – shone so much brighter as beings with whom I shared time and gave voice than those toward the end.

God bless the two gentlemen who ran HârnMaster at the conventions where I played it.  There commitment to the game allowed me to play about 20 sessions without ever having to buy a book for it (though I did have some of the supplements by the end).  I think my time with this game cost me (all cost factored in) about $3 per session, and that seemed expensive at the time.  HârnMaster had the kind of customization that AD&D had lacked, but since D&D 3E allowed it...goodbye HârnMaster.

     I had a brief flirtation with HârnMaster 2nd Edition (1996) and played Star Wars d6 2nd Edition Revised and Expanded (1996) as ways to stay active with RPGs.  I ran Vampire and Werewolf: The Apocalypse 2nd Edition (1994) as needed but was losing interest in them.  Then Dungeons & Dragons 3E (2000) came out and I was all excited about playing D&D again.  The game had been made new, but it was familiar enough to allow me to dive right back in.  The break from it allowed me to be excited about the characters and stories all over again.
     However, I find myself playing only Pathfinder these days (and only the Organized Play scenarios and modules).  I have six character that I have played – Daenaris, Hymibi Jymbo, Kiara, Bellarius D'Nassi, Jenissa Halvarek, and Hedda Gørsyn – and one yet to be played (Aeoki Hyrushi, the character who is supposed to go with the picture at the beginning of the post).  I find myself having a hard time being invested when a character may only be played two or three times a year, but it is even worse when the rules seem to take over the experience. 
     I don't feel any strong need to get involved in different games, but I know that throwing different systems into the mix helps break up the desire to look at the roleplaying experience as something that can be won by making a better, more powerful, more resource-laden character.  In previous experiences, one of the things that changing systems did was expose me to new and different people.  I already get a steady stream – perhaps too much – of that with PFS. 
     I know people who purposely plan short campaigns as a way to keep things fresh.  One of the things this allows is to let the duties of GMing be shared (OP accomplishes this much differently), but it also means that the players will likely move on to a new game before anyone has felt the need to figure out how to make the best character they can.  It keeps the focus on the roleplaying and the characters have to be found and defined quickly because they won't be around forever [Talisman was played for almost three years, Mistocles Sardis (Living Arcanis) was played for six years, and Daenaris was first played on 11/27/09].  I don't think that is what I want to do, but changing things up with different systems – on occasion – is usually a good idea.

Stuffed COWS '11

     I find it hard to motivate myself to write a full post about anything in the wake of spending 34 hours running and playing Pathfinder Society Organized Play at Stuffed COWS – a local gaming convention hosted at the College of DuPage for (I believe) 13 years now.  That is much longer than my involvement with it, but I have been a regular for a few years now.  I started as a die-hard Arcanis player, but when that world changed rules systems, I was more interested in sticking with something similar to v3.5 than the (mostly) well developed world of Onara.
     So I am just posting this as a kind of filler.  It also seemed to make sense to write about this as soon as possible – The Descendants (2011) can wait a day or two.  Sorry if anyone was expecting something insightful today.
     I had a good time at the convention.  Two players told me that I ran the best table at which they played – at least up to the point they told me – and I felt good because I went out of my way to make sure I could manage the challenge for the PCs without risking it being a death trap.  None of the players who blitzed through an earlier scenario (under two and a half hours) seemed upset about having a lot of extra time on their hands; I did everything I could to make the experience memorable because of what they had their characters choose to do to overcome minor obstacles.  Yes, I felt very self-conscious running a scenario with a player who had already run it for me (he knows where I'm changing the mod or breaking rules on-the-fly), but I think the table enjoyed it and nobody told me I was doing it wrong.

I can across this picture and had to make a character for it.  The end result is Hedda Gørsyn, an Andoren Magus (Kensai)/Bard (Arcane Duelist) who is – at present – all utility, no AC, and little HP.   I just had a better sense of character for her than I did for the Tian Oracle, so it was another female character (and now they outnumber the males).

     I only was able to play three scenarios – this the curse of going up to Wisconsin to do Pathfinder at DCV (see The RPG Table Tent at Work and Play and The Problem Player at the Con posts).  My weredragon got to assert that she is the Sewer Dragon of Absalom.  I got to play a sadistic, but not unintelligent, goblin sneak-thief.  And I got to break out a new character – and had to choose a faction at the table – who was so far out of her element that it was scary.  Actually, that table didn't sit particularly well with me.  There was a teenager who brought real immaturity to the table (not the adult immaturity to which I have become accustomed), and I really don't care for that.  There was a revisit of the theme of a player demanding that all of the spotlight falls on him and not playing well with others (still not me), and of leaving my underpowered PC to fend for herself.

This is a modified piece by Adam Majka with the Pathfinder logo under it.  I used a different version in one of the table tents I brought for players.  I like how this image came out so much, but I wasn't going to drain the ink on the color printer to print it out.

     I got to see some of the table tents I designed in use with other players.  I got to take some pictures of other tents in use.  I was told I won over one player to the use of the table tent, and another commented on how he had shared my laments with a certain bad player with some friends.  I was just really stoked to know that they had ever read anything on the blog.
     I actually didn't hear much in the way of complaining this year.  But the attendance was well beneath where I would have liked to see it.  I think the high water mark was running 10 tables in a slot.  Four years ago it would have been around 18, which means another 40-50 players.  It worked out for making it easier to organize, but I missed the bustle a little.  I did get to see people I have not seen in quite some time (including a pair of brothers who I just assumed weren't gaming any more), and that was cool.
      Here are some pictures I took.  I know that nothing about them conveys the fun or the action we experience while playing PFS.  Sorry about that.

Timothy Bailey's tent for Dr. Wogglebug.  I saw him in action multiple times.

Timothy Bailey's tent for Huang-Fu Zheng.  I did not see him in action.

Hawthorne Candlewood, Jenissa Halvarek (the weredragon), and Dr. Wogglebug after defeating an opponent in Sewer Dragons of Absalom.  Tim Tjarks did an awesome job judging us.

Two witches, a barbarian/oracle, and my magus/bard escorting some goblins (the Snapple lid represents the cage that one of the goblins was put in). 

The table tent and character sheet I used for Hedda's first time being played.  I completely forgot that she would be 2nd level before she actually saw action.  But a second level (no BAB) character like her should not have been thrown to the wolves in a 4-5 tier.  I blame the witches.