| From: | TopCat <topcat@******.net> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: gaming philosophies |
| Date: | Fri, 10 May 1996 23:57:23 -0500 |
>of a GMs campaign? Do you work with the GM? I
>ask this because I have never have a GM (or group
>of players for that matter) work on a character
>background. Those few backgrounds I have seen
>were totally incompatible with the campaign.
We write histories based on the campaign, so I guess I should start there...
We have many different campaigns since, as a group, we despise the thought
of improbably linked-up groups (we once had a group where everyone was of a
different nationality, that was the first, and last, of its kind). So we
decide what sort of campaign we want to play first.
Since a couple of the campaigns have just (within the past 24 hours) come to
a grinding halt, there is really only one currently active among our players
and that is my "detective" campaign. The players are private detectives
working out of Seattle and...there's really too much to go into, but here's
the basics: It's a dark game, low-power, where skills that are sometimes
overlooked become very important. The players actually have to do detective
work, which means actual thought instead of dice rolls. I also rarely award
karma, awarding skill points or stat points instead. There's always at
least one point of karma that the player can spend as he wishes but the rest
end up in campaign-related skills/stats. Dice are used only when absolutely
necessary.
All the characters have full backgrounds that lead to a certain point, the
forming of the detective agency. What they did before that will be
reflected in their skills, stats, and roleplaying.
Anyway, that an example of how we get games going. We start with the
campaign, make characters for the campaign, adjust the little details of the
campaign and the characters until they gel, and then we've got a game going.
It's a lot easier than it sounds and much more rewarding than "we're going
to play Shadowrun, make up a character".
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* Bob Ooton -- <topcat@******.net> *
* Golden Tiger Association -- Submission Fighting Team *
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* All you need to start up an insane asylum is *
* an empty room and the right kind of people *
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