From:	Loki <loki@*******.com>
Subject:	Re: Screw the Players!
Date:	Sat, 21 Sep 1996 15:58:43 -0700

Faux Pas wrote:

> 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.

Agreed! And I hope I didn't come across in my earlier post as this
evil/killer GM.

I try for the most part to remain Neutral and function on an
action/reaction basis with my NPC's. If my players were to intelligently
argue their side as you did with powering up the suit sometime in the
course of maintenance or walking it into the RV, I'd had let them go on
it.

As for my preivous example of the group walking blindly into their
meeting with Kyle, they pointed out the error first and I thought it
only logical to let it happen because there are still things you as the
GM can't assume. <"We're professional shadowrunners you should assume
we'd always go back and pick up weapons in the two hours before a meet
like this.">
@>-,--'--- Loki

CLARKE'S THIRD LAW:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

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