While I'm on the subject of gaming, I thought I'd talk about the game I ran and the game I want to run.
Not too long ago our Thursday night game's current campaign needed to take an extended hiatus and I decided to step in with a game of my own. Entitled "Go West" it was a fantasy western setting with a quasi-custom rule-set based off of the Star Wars: Saga Edition rules. In my opinion, it was a massive failure.
We only did half of the test adventure I wrote, but that was enough to expose enough flaws in the setting, the rules, and my own ability to GM that I declined to finish it. The players, by all reports, had fun but I did not. And I know exactly why: I'm too inexperienced.
The rules were custom and thus riddled with problems, I was stumbling over myself trying to keep everything straight, I didn't prep for the game very well, and I didn't know what to do when players came up with unexpected actions. That last one was the killing blow.
So I decided that I needed more experience as a GM, but Go West wasn't the direction I needed to go. I needed to step way the fuck back and run something somebody had already written for an established set of rules. I needed a campaign composed of adventure modules. And I have one.
A while back I grabbed a bunch of adventure modules that I like plus a mini-campaign that I've always wanted to play and linked them together. The campaign is called "A Mage's Request" and uses the D&D 3.5 rules but can be easily played with Pathfinder. The Thursday night crew however, was burnt out on fantasy, and I couldn't blame them. With the exception of my fiancee and myself, they all had two other games going and both were fantasy games, and so had been all the recently finished games.
So, "A Mage's Request" got turned down, but I still wanted to play it. Where could I find players, though? Well, why not use my highschool buddies and play online? They seemed keen on the idea, I had all the software needed plus a couple of local players (that I have never played with) to round out the group. My Sunday night game was ready to go!
And then it got left at the altar. My two highschool gaming buddies couldn't find the time, despite telling me that they had the time. So I was left with an internet game and only two local players. And thus the death of "A Mage's Request". I still hope to someday run it so that I can gain some experience as a GM, but I really don't know when that will happen. For now I will continue as the player, a role I love and enjoy, and leave the behind the scenes action to those with the experience and knowledge.
Showing posts with label rpgs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rpgs. Show all posts
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Not Wanting to BASH! My Head In
A couple of friends posted analyses of our Thursday night BASH! game and these got me thinking about gaming so I figured I'd toss in my two cents.
Mic is running a 50's style sci-fi adventure with a dark bent that he's basing off of a graphic novel he digs. I'm not sure what the campaign is called (or if it even has a name) so I'll just refer to it as Mic's Game. This is our second BASH! game (or 3rd if you count the one-shot Ryan ran for Wendy and I one night) and I'm starting to get used to the mechanics.
BASH! isn't exactly rocket science (or AD&D 2nd Ed., for which you require mathematics degree to play) but the rules are different enough that I'm still working out what we can do with them. And unlike most games I've played, it encourages loose interpretation and experimentation of the rules. Want to do something cool? I can almost guarantee there's no direct rule for it, you just have to pick the one that fits best and run with it.
This is both awesome and frustrating to me. Awesome in the fact that I can do pretty much whatever the hell I want and not be restricted by "oh well, there's no rule for that, so you can't" and frustrating in that I can't just point to a rule and say "I want to do that." Coming up with creative uses for powers during a game session is difficult for me, I hate losing track of what's happening in the game but I also don't want to take five minutes figuring out what I want to do when it's my turn. When I get more accustomed to the rules this should get easier, but for now it's an issue.
As for Mic's Game I'm playing a psychic named Bob Jones, a former soldier on the run from the government because he didn't want them playing inside his head when they found out he had powers. His real name is Rupert Allen something (don't look at me like that, I can't be expected to remember everything). Bob's powers include telekinesis, mental armor, danger sense, and invisibility. Haven't had a chance to play with his invis yet, but I expect it will come in handy.
There's another psychic in the party, (played by Ben) but he has a different power set and a backstory that should make for some compelling roleplaying later. A master of mind control, Fred is a member of the very government agency Bob is hiding from.
Providing the heavy for the party is Ryan with his power-armored soldier. Concern has been expressed by Ryan about the extreme combat effectiveness of his character, worrying that he might steal all the glory. I trust that Mic has a solution for this, and either way I'm not that worried about it. The very fact that Ryan knows his character is powerful and is concerned about it means that it won't be an issue.
The final member of the party is Buffy the Alien Hunter, played by my dear fiancee, Wendy. What the character lacks in originality Wendy makes up for in enthusiasm. However, the character straight from the book didn't fit Wendy's play style well so we made some mid-game readjustments and made her a bit more combat effective.
So far I'm liking the game and having a lot of fun with it. I think that my character has a lot more potential than the character I played in our previous BASH game, but that probably has more to do with my play style than any defect of the character build. Overall, I continue to be happy with the Thursday night game and hope I get invited to play in other games in the future.
Mic is running a 50's style sci-fi adventure with a dark bent that he's basing off of a graphic novel he digs. I'm not sure what the campaign is called (or if it even has a name) so I'll just refer to it as Mic's Game. This is our second BASH! game (or 3rd if you count the one-shot Ryan ran for Wendy and I one night) and I'm starting to get used to the mechanics.
BASH! isn't exactly rocket science (or AD&D 2nd Ed., for which you require mathematics degree to play) but the rules are different enough that I'm still working out what we can do with them. And unlike most games I've played, it encourages loose interpretation and experimentation of the rules. Want to do something cool? I can almost guarantee there's no direct rule for it, you just have to pick the one that fits best and run with it.
This is both awesome and frustrating to me. Awesome in the fact that I can do pretty much whatever the hell I want and not be restricted by "oh well, there's no rule for that, so you can't" and frustrating in that I can't just point to a rule and say "I want to do that." Coming up with creative uses for powers during a game session is difficult for me, I hate losing track of what's happening in the game but I also don't want to take five minutes figuring out what I want to do when it's my turn. When I get more accustomed to the rules this should get easier, but for now it's an issue.
As for Mic's Game I'm playing a psychic named Bob Jones, a former soldier on the run from the government because he didn't want them playing inside his head when they found out he had powers. His real name is Rupert Allen something (don't look at me like that, I can't be expected to remember everything). Bob's powers include telekinesis, mental armor, danger sense, and invisibility. Haven't had a chance to play with his invis yet, but I expect it will come in handy.
There's another psychic in the party, (played by Ben) but he has a different power set and a backstory that should make for some compelling roleplaying later. A master of mind control, Fred is a member of the very government agency Bob is hiding from.
Providing the heavy for the party is Ryan with his power-armored soldier. Concern has been expressed by Ryan about the extreme combat effectiveness of his character, worrying that he might steal all the glory. I trust that Mic has a solution for this, and either way I'm not that worried about it. The very fact that Ryan knows his character is powerful and is concerned about it means that it won't be an issue.
The final member of the party is Buffy the Alien Hunter, played by my dear fiancee, Wendy. What the character lacks in originality Wendy makes up for in enthusiasm. However, the character straight from the book didn't fit Wendy's play style well so we made some mid-game readjustments and made her a bit more combat effective.
So far I'm liking the game and having a lot of fun with it. I think that my character has a lot more potential than the character I played in our previous BASH game, but that probably has more to do with my play style than any defect of the character build. Overall, I continue to be happy with the Thursday night game and hope I get invited to play in other games in the future.
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