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Message no. 1
From: MR KENNETH J GREGORIE <QPXS82C@*******.COM>
Subject: Role playing too closely
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 01:47:07 EDT
-- [ From: Kenneth Gregorie * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --

To those GM s who are having problems with players not being serious
with the game/run. I personally think that quirks is good and
definetely interesting but if they start to turn your run into chaos
please kill the characters off and then when you have your players
attention explain to them that quirks are good but not when they
totally disrupt the run. If they want to play out funny roleplaying I
suggest getting the rules for the game Toon. It's a cartoon scream.

Kenneth
Message no. 2
From: "S.F. Eley" <gt6877c@*****.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 02:37:54 -0400
> -- [ From: Kenneth Gregorie * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --
>
> To those GM s who are having problems with players not being serious
> with the game/run. I personally think that quirks is good and
> definetely interesting but if they start to turn your run into chaos
> please kill the characters off and then when you have your players
> attention explain to them that quirks are good but not when they
> totally disrupt the run.

Ummm. Yeah.

BAM, BAM, BAM!!!
ALL: "What'd you do THAT for??"
GM: "Sorry. You annoyed me."

I think I get what you're trying to say, and it's valid, but I don't think
you said it the right way. Killing characters offhandedly is NOT the best
way to get players' attention -- often, it's simply the best way to lose
players. If I took that approach ("I didn't like that, your character
bites it") then Associate Professor Amburgey would be RIGHT in his comments
about win/lose GM's. And, if nothing else, I refuse to give him that
privilege. >8->

On the other hand, having the real world slap 'em in the face when they
ignore it IS a good way to get the adrenaline pumping. Which I think is
what you meant to imply in your message. Also.. Dustin: I liked your
comments and appreciate them. Thanks to both of you.


Blessings,

_TNX._

--
Stephen F. Eley (-) gt6877c@*****.gatech.edu )-( Student Pagan Community
http://wc62.residence.gatech.edu| "There are two parties -- a right wing
My opinions are my opinions. | party, and a very right wing party."
Please don't blame anyone else. | - S. Arrowsmith
Message no. 3
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 10:49:11 +0200
>To those GM s who are having problems with players not being serious
>with the game/run. I personally think that quirks is good and
>definetely interesting but if they start to turn your run into chaos
>please kill the characters off and then when you have your players
>attention explain to them that quirks are good but not when they
>totally disrupt the run. If they want to play out funny roleplaying I
>suggest getting the rules for the game Toon. It's a cartoon scream.

Remind me never to let you GM a game I play in...


[Yes, I know I added just one line to the bottom of the message. I didn't
see where I could cut out bits...]

--
Gurth@******.nl - Gurth@***.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
And a sense of adventure
-> Unofficial Shadowrun Guru & NERPS Project Leader <-
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version 3.1:
GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+ PE Y PGP-
t(+) 5 X R+++>$ tv+(++) b+@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(--) y?
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Message no. 4
From: Eve Forward <lutra@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 07:43:16 -0700
Yeah, most of the quirky characters I've been and seen have their
"personal" life and "professional" life delineated; When they are on
a job, they try very hard to maintain a professional attitude. Sometimes
the quirks slip through, but they don't dominate the game. This actually
in itself makes for good roleplaying.... if your character hates Elves
more than just about anything else, and yet HAS to be polite to this
ELven Johnson because otherwise he's not going to get the nuyen to make
his payments, and so he's gritting his teeth trying to be nice; that's
fun roleplaying. IMHO.

-E
..
Message no. 5
From: Bryan Linn Schuler <schu1545@****.GMI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 18:37:40 -0400
>
> > -- [ From: Kenneth Gregorie * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --
> >
> > To those GM s who are having problems with players not being serious
> > with the game/run. I personally think that quirks is good and
> > definetely interesting but if they start to turn your run into chaos
> > please kill the characters off and then when you have your players
> > attention explain to them that quirks are good but not when they
> > totally disrupt the run.
>
> Ummm. Yeah.
>
> BAM, BAM, BAM!!!
> ALL: "What'd you do THAT for??"
> GM: "Sorry. You annoyed me."
>
> I think I get what you're trying to say, and it's valid, but I don't think
> you said it the right way. Killing characters offhandedly is NOT the best
> way to get players' attention -- often, it's simply the best way to lose
> players. If I took that approach ("I didn't like that, your character
> bites it") then Associate Professor Amburgey would be RIGHT in his comments
> about win/lose GM's. And, if nothing else, I refuse to give him that
> privilege. >8->
>
> On the other hand, having the real world slap 'em in the face when they
> ignore it IS a good way to get the adrenaline pumping. Which I think is
> what you meant to imply in your message. Also.. Dustin: I liked your
> comments and appreciate them. Thanks to both of you.


I have had to kill off players that were being too loony. The problem
usually comes when one player steps overboard and continuously ruins the
game for the rest of the group. One player I killed off recently was a thief
in an **&* campaign. He would steal things, get discovered, chased, and just
barely escape with his life. And after that, he would immediatly (and I mean
IMMEDIATLY, not more than 2 seconds later) do it again. He started seriously
disrupting the game when every 10 seconds the group was getting in trouble
for every failed pick-pockets roll and when the group failed to kill him, I
brought out an NPC that did.

Another time was a player in a Beyond the Supernatural campaign that worked
for the FBI. He got pissed in a bar and the bouncers threw him out, so he
took the spycar and blew up the bar with a rocket. Needless to say, upon
returning to HQ, the base commander unloaded a clip of ammo into his face.

Sometimes it's necessary.
Message no. 6
From: "S.F. Eley" <gt6877c@*****.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 21:23:13 -0400
> I have had to kill off players that were being too loony. The problem
> usually comes when one player steps overboard and continuously ruins the
> game for the rest of the group. One player I killed off recently was a thief
> in an **&* campaign. He would steal things, get discovered, chased, and just
> barely escape with his life. And after that, he would immediatly (and I mean
> IMMEDIATLY, not more than 2 seconds later) do it again. He started seriously
> disrupting the game when every 10 seconds the group was getting in trouble
> for every failed pick-pockets roll and when the group failed to kill him, I
> brought out an NPC that did.

Yeah, well. That was pretty much a natural consequence of the character's
actions. The NPC was acting as may have been natural for that NPC.. I'm
talking about going out of one's way to kill PC's without real plot
justification, just because they were giving _players_ grief.



> Another time was a player in a Beyond the Supernatural campaign that worked
> for the FBI. He got pissed in a bar and the bouncers threw him out, so he
> took the spycar and blew up the bar with a rocket. Needless to say, upon
> returning to HQ, the base commander unloaded a clip of ammo into his face.

This is an example. "Needless to say?" The FBI doesn't HAVE to perform
summary executions of their agents for stupidity.. You could just have
easily have locked the character up for trial and a life sentence, and
gotten him out of the way without killing him. (And if the other PC's try
to spring him, well.. That makes for trouble and/or a really good run.)
>8->



Blessings,

_TNX._

--
Stephen F. Eley (-) gt6877c@*****.gatech.edu )-( Student Pagan Community
http://wc62.residence.gatech.edu|
My opinions are my opinions. | "Somewhere, just out of sight, the
Please don't blame anyone else. | unicorns are gathering."
Message no. 7
From: Bryan Linn Schuler <schu1545@****.GMI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 21:33:20 -0400
>> Another time was a player in a Beyond the Supernatural campaign that worked
>> for the FBI. He got pissed in a bar and the bouncers threw him out, so he
>> took the spycar and blew up the bar with a rocket. Needless to say, upon
>> returning to HQ, the base commander unloaded a clip of ammo into his face.
>
>This is an example. "Needless to say?" The FBI doesn't HAVE to perform
>summary executions of their agents for stupidity.. You could just have
>easily have locked the character up for trial and a life sentence, and
>gotten him out of the way without killing him. (And if the other PC's try
>to spring him, well.. That makes for trouble and/or a really good run.)
>>8->

Well, needless to say, it wasn't the first time and this special branch of the
FBI "shouldn't exist". Not only that but we made a backup character for him,
a mutant 5'7" white bunny rabbit from TMNT who was involved in a secret genetics
experiment and now worked for the French Forign Legion. Matt, my player, was
speachless and said "I'm not playing that stupid rabbit!". So we let him make
a new character (this one was an infinatly better one, thank the gods!) and I
introduced the rabbit (Pierre "Barney the Bunny" Greenway) as an NPC. The
rabbit and him got into a fight and the rabbit kicked his butt, bunny-booted
him out a 5th story window into a pool, hotwired his car and wrecked it into a
tree. Matt and I were having a blast pulling (sometimes very nasty) practical
jokes on each other. He never made another "annoy the PC's" character again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Bryan Schuler <schu1545@****.gmi.edu>
-Frobozz of Gridpoint (http://apollo.gmi.edu/~schu1545/shadowrun.html)
-Frobozz of TimeWarp MUD (telnet quark.gmi.edu 5150)
Message no. 8
From: Andre' Selmer <031SEA@******.WITS.AC.ZA>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 08:57:21 +0200
}Yeah, well. That was pretty much a natural consequence of the character's
}actions. The NPC was acting as may have been natural for that NPC.. I'm
}talking about going out of one's way to kill PC's without real plot
}justification, just because they were giving _players_ grief.

Another thing, is that one must be careful that the constant
disruptions aren't an effect of the dice rolls. Because the worse the
rolls, more likely the more zany the idea to counter or get around a
problem. As a side point, this occured in a game of ED last night.
Between 4 players we rolled 27 fumbles. The ideas that we where using
to get out of the situations left us laughing more time than we spent
playing... Back the point..

}
}> Another time was a player in a Beyond the Supernatural campaign that worked
}
}> for the FBI. He got pissed in a bar and the bouncers threw him out, so he
}> took the spycar and blew up the bar with a rocket. Needless to say, upon
}> returning to HQ, the base commander unloaded a clip of ammo into his face.
}
}This is an example. "Needless to say?" The FBI doesn't HAVE to perform
}summary executions of their agents for stupidity.. You could just have
}easily have locked the character up for trial and a life sentence, and
}gotten him out of the way without killing him. (And if the other PC's try
}to spring him, well.. That makes for trouble and/or a really good run.)
}>8->
}
How about sent the agent in for 're-programming'. Indoctrination
and mental tomfoolery is a *very* powerful tool, the problem being
that it is difficult to Role-play.

Andre'

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|It has been said that the they who stay in the shadows have|
|no soul, no depth, no moral conviction. But how can one |
|say this when, it is they who have lost themselves in the |
|search utopia. We are the realists, we work from the |
|unseen corners of society, we do what no another has the |
|strength to do, with our cybered bodies and magic extreme |
|we prevent the corruption from spreading and destroying |
|your dreams, not through power, but bullets, sweat, tears |
|and blood. All of this we do for your sake, and few nuyen. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

-
|_|_
/ \ \ /~\/~~~~
| | | - \_/ + THUMP...Thump..thump = Boom ?
| | |
\___/
Message no. 9
From: "Gary L. Kelley" <gkelley@*****.NET>
Subject: Re: Role playing too closely
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 00:01:13 -0500
>> Another time was a player in a Beyond the Supernatural campaign that worked
>> for the FBI. He got pissed in a bar and the bouncers threw him out, so he
>> took the spycar and blew up the bar with a rocket. Needless to say, upon
>> returning to HQ, the base commander unloaded a clip of ammo into his face.
>
>This is an example. "Needless to say?" The FBI doesn't HAVE to perform
>summary executions of their agents for stupidity.. You could just have
>easily have locked the character up for trial and a life sentence, and
>gotten him out of the way without killing him. (And if the other PC's try
>to spring him, well.. That makes for trouble and/or a really good run.)
>>8->
Don`t forget that if this FBI agent has been acting like an ass hole would
they be willing to risk their skin for him. My player would`t(`course hes
pretty mercenary :)

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