Re: [DL] The Scart Table

["Holger Niederschulte" <holger@niederschulte.de>]

Hi everybody,



If I get it right, your players are not investing in Guts and/or Spirit and
keep complaining that they want to stand up and fight every horror there is
with a smile on their face.

Some of my players have accumulated quite some phobias and one nearly died
because of a heart attack. But they are compensating, learning and what is
more important, improving their guts and spirit stats. Their characters are
developing from the average townspeople to some hardened veterans.

So, what are your players thinking? Don't they have to roll some dice to hit
that fleeing hombre? Sure they have. And because they know that, they have
probably high stats in shooting or whatever is their favourite aptitude. Why
aren't they willing to pay for the possibility to stand and fight that foul
abomination, either by increasing the stats or using chips?



What I want to say is, you shouldn't stick to your stats like a slave, but
the stats are what make your character tick. They give you skeleton to build
your character around. So if you build a week spirited one, don't expect him
to be the number one in line to stop the monster without shitting his pants.



Someone suggested it is best to creep the hell out of the players. I don't
know. I prefer it, if the players play out their characters because that's
what a "role-playing"-game is about in my opinion. If i can scare the
players in the process, its a nice bonus.



Now You can shoot me,

Yours sincerely,

Holger (lurking out of the shadows for the first time)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Burzelic" <zombi_bobb@yahoo.com>
To: <deadlands@gamerz.net>
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 10:32 PM
Subject: RE: [DL] The Scart Table


> My problem doesn't have anything to do with how I describe the scene,
> in fact the game would go alot smoother if the players didn't rely so
> much on character sheets and statistics. It is a matter of me imagining
> the game like CoC, and them imagining it like Fung Shui.
>
> Jim
>
> --- "Cyvas, Andrew J PR2 (VFA115)" <vfa115.cyvas.a@lincoln.navy.mil>
> wrote:
> > I can identify with this problem. It ia actually a challenge that
> > most
> > Marshalls have to deal with. It is up to YOU to paint the picture of
> > the
> > scene in a fashion of macabre horror. With the case of zimbies, try
> > describing how thwt look and what they are doing (ie: feasting on the
> > corpses of children, worms crawling out of their eye sockets, have
> > them moan
> > the names of the posse members). Having them simply roll on the scrt
> > table
> > always feels arificial and will make your posse feel ripped off. As
> > the
> > marshall, you are taking the rol of the reckoners. If you can
> > genuinely put
> > fear into the hearts of your players (I never said it was easy), I
> > think
> > your games will be much more rewarding for both you and your players.
> > You
> > probably will also find you don't hate your posse as much. One more
> > thing.
> > Deadlands is also a game of dark comedy. I often use this to throw my
> > posse's guard down before a big scare. I hope this helps. If it
> > doesn't,
> > maybe you need to take your game in a new direction. Deadlands can
> > still be
> > action adventure.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo
> http://search.yahoo.com
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to esquire@gamerz.net with
> unsubscribe deadlands@gamerz.net
> as the BODY of the message.  The SUBJECT is ignored.
>
>