| From: | Faux Pas <fauxpas@******.net> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Screw the Players! |
| Date: | Sat, 21 Sep 1996 16:41:47 -0500 |
>Some of you here may remember me posting a little trick I'd played on
>one of my players, concerning a Medical ACPA he had purchased (I play
>Shadowrun and liking the ACPA's converted them over - sorry), anyway,
>he bought the unit for a small fortune, but was unaware that the power
>pack was an optional extra (I seem to recall I got some boohs and hisses
>for that one from you guys).
>
>The light dawns, the player looked at me and asked about the power unit,
>should he have had it on charge..... <evil grin> "What power unit" I
>asked in as mild a tone as I could manage.
>
>Players screams, hurls abuse, bounces up and down in seat, produces
>copious quantities of steam from various orifices, and questions my
>natural habits and parentage (can't understand why :-)
>
>Other players follow a combination of slapping foreheads and "Burn -
>damn you" glares at me.
>
>All in all, the run netted them 12,000 each, and cost them in excess of
>75,000 - 100,000 each to replace vehicles and equipment. I was quite
>pleased with the result, but for some strange reason I've been getting
>hate mail ever since.
>
>Anyone got any ideas why????
Let's see, the guy has an armored suit that you've implyed was the love of
his life, he spends time and money on it, keeping it clean and ready and you
screw him over.
In all the time he had the suit, you don't think he'd power it up - even
once - to see how the thing felt, to see how the machine moved? For
preventive maintanence - seeing if the arm hadn't rusted in position? You
don't think he'd check the charge on the suit - just once - to see if he's
ready anytime he had to use it? How the hell did he get it in the RV? A
crane? Why not just walk it into the RV? And all he did was just yell at you?
And in the end, the runners have a loss of 63,000 to 88,000 nuyen and you're
pleased with the result? I'm surprised that your gamers still let you GM.
What is it? You have all the books? Nobody else wants to learn all the
rules to GM? They can't find another group?
To everyone else, I suppose this attitude of "Screw the Players over" comes
from the ol' Wish spell in AD&D. (Has anyone ever had one of these cast
without any adverse effects? "I wish I could fly." "Okay, large gas bags
about two feet in diameter form under your arms that allow you to fly. You
expell gas out through gills in the sacs.")
I personally feel that gaming is a shared experience where the GM acts not
as the player's opponent, but something like the director in an improv
theater with the players as actors. The GM shows the scene the characters
inhabit, and plays the part of everyone the characters meet. The GM designs
a plot for an adventure - this includes rewards for the characters as well
as antagonists and other NPCs, some helpful, some not.
Other people, I don't know. For some reason, some GMs take pleasure in
finding ways to kill off the Player's characters or making the character's
lives sheer hell. But all that gets you is Players leaving the table and
never coming back.
The Game Master is several things: Referee, Arbiter, Storyteller, Set
Designer, Actor, and Neutral. It's not a case of the Game Master against
the Players. A GM's character (NPC) could be against a Player's character
(PC), but it's never the Game Master himself against the Players.
Besides, you - the Game Master - don't need to screw the Player's characters
over. Usually the PCs will take care of that themselves. :)
-Thomas Deeny
the Cartoonist at large is on the web at www2.cy-net.net/~fauxpas
Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die.
