Re: [DL] "Mundane" Death

[Jim Burzelic <zombi_bobb@yahoo.com>]

--- mightygecko@juno.com wrote:
> 
> >So basically, the players don't really have to try
> >at this "game" until they get to a place where they deem the action
> >"important". 
> 
> but you don't need to let them know. still gotta kep 'em scared.
> it'sm ore a marshals tactic.

Oh, I fully understand the tactic, I used it to its fullest. The
unfortunate thing is that most players are either GMs of other games
that know the tactic and rely on it or players that have played enough
to understand that this tactic is common. The only players I come
across that don't know this are new players who are still getting a
feel for how these games work, so GMs are almost obligated to be gentle
or lose a potential gamer.

I apologize this is more of a pet peeve that's bothered me for a while.
I sort of ranted in my last message. I meant what I said but it was a
little ranty. It all stems from the fact that I witness time and again
players making assumptions about how a game flows. The metaplot, while
a wonderful tool and something I love and think is an excellent
mutation in the evolution of gaming, has caused players to become lazy.
Players more and more seem to need clues almost handed to them and
dragged through plot developement, to get to the combats that they know
they will live through so the GM can tell a complete tale. This, for
the GM, makes gaming little more than writing your own fiction with
characters suggested by friends and writing all the action yourself.
With some imaginations out there, you are most assuredly better off.
(This bitter comment is birthed out of the discovery that guns in PC
hands tends to make them unimaginative with their actions even in the
most "cinematic" games and unscarable in horror games.)

My other qualm is that the only game that seems to have easy death of
characters as acceptable by all involved parties is Call of Cthulhu.
Nobody raises a stink when their investigator is ripped in two by Deep
Ones but when their fresh-out-of-the-gates gunslinger steps toe-to-toe
with a Wendigo and they come out lunch, all manner of complaints are
voiced.
Sorry, I ranted again.

Perhaps my cross-section is some horridly stagnant and bizarre group of
people and no where near the truth but I have run many different games
across the eastern half of Wisconsin and even the best groups had some
doofus that ruined a wonderful posse.

Jim

(BTW Dave, I would have taken a slip from your flyer and called to join
your posse but summer scheduling wouldn't afford me the time.)

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