Llamafodder

From Li

I had lunch with Narrative Guy (whom some of you may remember from a previous Lunchtime Poll) a few days ago, and he posed the question “Why are people who are role-playing for the creativity of it not writing novels instead?” Good question, I thought.

I’m going agree with many of the previous commenters- there are two major reasons. First, a novel takes a huge investment of time upfront and may never see the light of day. A game on the other hand is immediate– the adventure you’re musing on today could be Friday’s game– must be Friday’s game if you’re GMing, people will be showing up, and nothing else is coming to mind. You never have to come up with everything (doing so is a recipe for disaster)– either you’ll have opportunities and obstacles thought out (as GM), or you’ll just have your character’s mindset (as a player). When they interact, you get a whole game, from less individual investment.

The second big reason is interaction. I could probably come up with a more satisfying story that the group as a whole does– it’d have one character you could identify with, an actual plot, etc. Unfortunately, writing it wouldn’t involve hanging out with my friends; board gaming might be able to fill the void, but I’d rather hang out more often and do both.

(from Blog, Jvstin Style)

Our fourth IRE, is a slightly obscure, but important anniversary in history.

On December 14th, 1287, the Zuider Zee sea wall in what is now the Netherlands collapsed. killing 50,000 people. It is the most massive such flood in the history of Holland; the Zuider Zee is one of the most massive projects in the history of engineering.

Thus, this disaster is the theme of this week’s IRE.

I like keeping the components man-made and semi-natural. After reading a thread on the Forge about using DitV for a Valedemar series, I’m quite interested in combining them.

Underneath the palace is (essentially) a heartstone, a device that ties Valedemar together magically. (Think of it as an artificial node, formed by dragging ley lines to the palace). It concentrates power, feeds the vrondi, and does other nifty magical stuff.

Set around the time of the Arrows trilogy, mages have been absent for hundreds of years. The power in the heartstone is building up and going unstable. The PCs are the first new generation of mages, and have to decide what to do. Dismantle the system that powers truth spells? Try some kind of an emergency hearthstone creation/transfer? Repair it? Import an expert on heartstones? If they delay, energy discharges in remote nodes, strange spikes of power interfering in their magics, and a shuddering palace will focus them on the problem.

What’s your favorite take on Atlantis as it pertains to gaming—Aliens? Mer-people? Exceptionally ancient Greeks?

I liked the ideas in Randall Garrett’s Gandalara Cycle. A quick gloss is that there’s a civilization of near-humans that live in a desert… at the bottom of the future Mediterranean Sea. They’re adapted to the thicker atmosphere (since they’re below sea level) and they can’t (easily) get out & take over Africa and Europe. He created a pretty good analogue culture– close enough to human to be very identifiable, with a few sci-fi/fantasy elements. Their culture wasn’t much stranger than most foreign cultures appear today- easy enough for most role-players to adapt to.

This week Li asks:

This question comes out of an absolutely fascinating discussion between longtime GMs and gamers. It was fun to watch.

Narrative Guy says, “Some of the best games I’ve ever played didn’t involve a single die roll; we decided what our characters could do and the GM took us through a story.” System Mechanic says, “That’s not gaming. If you don’t have a mechanic, then the characters are subject to the capricious whims of the GM. And how can you make sure everyone is on the same page? Also, you lack the random element.” So…what do you think? Make your case!

I’m not going to agree with either directly. In either case, everyone has to agree (at least largely) about character competence and system results or you’ll have frustration. If an Amber Diceless game has characters wandering around on simplistic quests and failing constantly like first level D&D characters, you’re suffering from the whims of a capricious GM. But that’d be true whether you rolled dice or not- it’s the style of adventure, the way the GM has statted the opposition and such considerations that make the adventure futile. The same thing can happen (easily) when a hostile or incompetent GM railroads the characters through a diced plot.

The random element is handy at times; I like the extra suggestions that they make- often they’ll twist an adventure in a way that planning wouldn’t. They can be frustrating though- once people have dice, DM’s will have them roll them, even for critical plot elements… then poorly shoehorn the required results in, no matter the dice result.

Summary: Diceless gaming is still gaming, but I prefer the added “impartiality” of dice, handled reasonably. When dice are thrown around to cover for lack of plot, etc., you’re much worse off than not picking the dice up to begin with.

Li asks:

How do you cope with the absence of a player, either in a single session or repeated absences?

In one word: poorly.

Much as Ginger related, characters of missing players will often develop Etherealness, or just fade into the wallpaper. What’s done often depends on the size of the group and the style of game played.