Re: [DL] Dealing With Wind

[Jeffrey Miller <jeffmill@amazon.com>]

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Ross Coburn wrote:

> jeffmill@amazon.com wrote:
>  
> > Funny, I find that when I let players run rampant over the game's story
> > and excitement because of a few lucky die rolls the game loses its edge..
> > oh well, YMMV and all that.
> 
> Yeah, I disagree with that statement about as strongly as is possible, but
> your style must differ fairly heavily from mine.

Oh, I don't know about style differences.. it's probably more a matter of
symantics, and if we were chit-chatting over pizza and coke we'd figure it
out *g*

> 
>  
> > ...but what I think you're missing is the point that you don't fudge
> > things to save the characters - you fudge them to protect the story.
> 
> I'm not sure I can agree here; you're implying that the story is set in
> stone, and that the characters are merely wandering through it, wondering at
> it's perfection.
>
> I prefer to think of a story as a work in progress, one in which the
> characters are an integral part of, not merely spectators, or expected to
> fill particular roles so that my masterpiece unfolds as I desire.

Mmm, definately what you said is how I tend to run things.. I mean more
like, if its more interesting to the story plot for the bad guy to show
up, laugh and smirk, and toss some dynamite at the characters and then
escape... I'm not going to let the players blow all their chips and get
lucky with a snap-shot at the bad guy and drop him like a rock right then
and there.  Yes, I'd let them take the shot, yes, I'd let them burn the
chips, and YES, they would get a benefit in some fashion, but to me, its
better to twist the results of that super-critical from a "oh, you give
the bad guy some extra holes.. game over.. what's on TV?" into a "Your
shot strikes the dynamite in his hand, detonating it in a fiery blast!  As
the smoke clears, all that's there is the bad guys hat, drifting slowly to
the smoking ground..."

Now, is the bad guy dead?  Maybe.. well, okay, no, he's not.. did the
playerers get a benefit that they deserved given their investment of chips
and their luck?  You betcha.  Will the bad guy now have even MORE reason
to go after the character now that he's lost a hand (and possibly an arm)
to their marksmenship?  Oh, MOST definately..
 
> Sometimes the most interesting or memorable plot twists come about as the
> result of an unexpected roll.  IMHO, a good Marshal can react quickly and
> appropriately to these surprises, and integrate them into a seamless whole,
> preferably without the players ever suspecting that they nearly caused
> Marshal heart failure.

Yup!  That's one of the things I like about the legendary chips (and the
black Busted! chips I saw guidelines for somewhere on the web..)  It
challenges me as GM to weave in threads from previous exploits (and
debacles) to make it that much more interesting (and cinematic!)

> > I guess... but Deadlands uses so many dice rolls to begin with, that
> > you're essentially always going to be "letting 'em fall where they may"  I
> > would think that a skilled GM could handle both without resorting to
> > saving the players bacon /and/ giving them a good story.
> 
> My take on it is that a skilled Marshal should be able to arrange things
> such that few outcomes absolutely depend on a single successful/unsuccessful
> die roll.

Yeah, I agree, and that's what I'm saying.  I was getting the impression
from what you'd written bemoaning a dice roll taking out bad guys in one
toss of the bones that you were in situations where that was taking place.
I guess I was wrong... right?

> In eighteen years, I've never had a single complaint on that score.

Oh, are we going to start comparing the size of our... gaming resumes now?
*grin*

-jeffrey-