The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => RPGs => : FrodoLlama May 16, 2010, 02:41:01 PM
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This is my first post on a thread, and I'd like to do a combination anecdote/cry for help involving my current gaming campaign. It is very long, but I feel that writing down all of this is for the best.
Imagine a beautiful, hand-crafted couple of towns that serve as the starting point for a huge campaign world. A world named Eska. I created this world, with it's strange governments and illogical creation, from scratch. It seemed like the perfect place for a campaign.
Until my two players created their characters.
One of the players created a decent character- A member of a race of angels known as the Khan created by a mad god. He named himself @*& (pronounced "Amphora Asterisk Ampersand") and I wrote his backstory because he couldn't think of one. He's the good player, the one who rolls with the punches, etc.
Then, there's the one who will go unnamed, who will call the Impulsively Suicidal Elf. The ISE (ISE ISE baby...) created a character who was not only the son of a god, but came from a world that didn't exist in my normal world, was a race that wasn't in my races at all, was more powerful than anything I could throw at him, and who killed himself every time anyone did something he didn't like, or I told him that he couldn't do something. I also contributed to his broken-ness when I applied an unrestricted magic-creation system and basically never got around to creating hit points for anything.
That was a good fraction of a year or so. I divide my game into fifteen to thirty minute sessions known as "episodes", and organized the episodes into seasons of 21. Anyway, moving on from that, we're on Season 4, Episode 19 or so, now.
I could go on forever on all of the stupid decisions my players (mostly ISE) have made, but in short, the good guy has now been killed by his own son while tricking his son into being killed (so has ISE, but death isn't too big of a deal in my campaign), while ISE has become a bloodthirsty, insane rapist.
Here are the first four episodes: Coliseum P1-P4, detailing the beginning of their journey as I can best remember it.
1. Lawless
We begin in a man-ruled city known as Fuclana (fyu-lah-nah), where a drunken man stumbled up to @ and asked for ale. @ gave him holy water. As can be imagined, it burned a bit. A government official ran in and asked @ to hand over his holy water, as he had just assaulted a commoner. @ handed it over, and somehow the official ended up drinking it, and once again, it burned. At this point, ISE and @ were accused of more and more ridiculous things, ad were eventually taken to the Coliseum, to fight for their freedom. When they killed basically everyone but themselves when pitted against one another, they were sent to their cell, where they heard their foe enter the arena...
2. Enter The Lion
@ and ISE entered the arena and had to fight a talking lion. @ tried to reason with the lion to get it to join their side, at which point a warning shot was fired at them from the stands. @ managed to fake-kill it in order to secure its freedom, and a medic was sent in. ISE walked off because of something, to go speak to some people about something or other.
3. Negotiations
ISE spent an entire episode doing nothing other than stating how above human law he was, giving a backstory to his race that made them gods, and admitting to a dozen or so crimes after spinning a web of deceit.
4. Decisive Battle
ISE killed a government official with his "magical blade of power" or whatever.
So Yeah.
I need help.
I only plan on there being one more season, but I want to cut down ISE a lot of notches before the final battle.
Can anyone tell me how to deal with:
1. The idea that his race are all immortal creators of everything good. (I've put up with him claiming his species invented the computer while he's looking at a computer that serves as a huge plot point because he doesn’t understand it.)
2. His impossibly powerful spells and use of magic to do anything he wants?
3. His desire to be better than anything I make and his creation of backstories for him and his species simply to make them better and to screw with my plot. (I'm planning on simply having him cursed so that every time he makes something up, people try to kill him or he starts beeping really loudly.)
4. His suicidal impulses (which he retcons frequently).
Please help.
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What the fuck? What game system are you using? There's no reason to try and untangle the Gordian Knot you and your players are hanging yourselves with: end this game right now. Start again and make chatacters who will actually play a game.
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Tell him "No!"
Seriously, if he does something you think it retarded and goes against the game, tell him No.
He created something that wasn't in your races at all, you should have told him he couldn't right then.
He's doing that because, you really aren't giving him any consequences to his actions, so he can get away with it.
Do something like "You open your eyes, to find out that you have been in a coma for the last ten years, and everything that happened was a dream, then you feel your heart burst open."
Maybe not that extreme, but you need to limit what he does.
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1. Wow, that was fast.
2. Thank you for responding.
3. I'm not really playing in any system. It's loosely based off of DnD, but with only 15-30 minutes a day or so to play, I don't really use miniatures, dridfs, maps, rulebooks... I basically implementd some ground rules and started the game.
4. There's a couple problems with restarting it at this point. One is that I've worked on this (even with constant influence by ISE) for about 84 episodes, and don't want to redo everything. Another is that we're nearing the endgame already.
5. I'd make him wake up and die, etc. once again, if I wasn't approaching the end of the campaign. I would have done that originally, but I was more lenient than I should have been. However, if he tries that in the gnext game I do, I am DEFINITELY doing that, and the No seems like a plan that I may have overlooked...
6. My biggest goal isn't to destroy him or restart the game at this point- it's more to take his character down enough to make him strong enough to win the endgame and weak enough to knock off his constant killing of everything I make and his claims that his race invented the laser-sighted scope or that his god's sister-in-law invented the blueberry muffin, etc. Any suggestions on taking down his snobbery and power without killing him?
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Well advise #1 is to use a system because it has rules which prevent "impossibly powerful spells".
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Well, yes, it would. But a system costs money, a system takes time, paper, dice, work, maps, scenarios (all of the preceding are good things to implement into an rpg, but, as I said, time constraints tend to mess with that)... I've considered Wushu, but that would only be more ridiculous, and the only system I've ever created is for horror games.
Care to suggest a system (preferably a Creative Commons'd or otherwise free one)?
Or give an example of a rule that stops ridiculously powerful magic?
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Risus is free and good http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm
FATE is free http://www.faterpg.com/
hell retroclone D&D games like OSRIC could work http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/
This sounds like a high school game. Is this a high school game?
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IS IT?
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Yes, yes it is! It's also the first campaign I've ever run.
Thank you!
Any other suggestions/comments, o people I have attracted the attention of?
Now, I'm off to check out those systems...
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Is this a high school game?
Jesus, just because you're a "pro" game designer doesn't mean everyone is. :-*
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Risus sounds like the best option. Thanks again. And while game-design isn't my forte, I am an unpublished novelist.
Now that I've got a system, and possibly a means of destroying his deus ex machina powers, I just have to deal with his boasting and general game-mastering his character's past.
On a completely unrealated note,
Things I've Tried To Do To Mess With ISE:
1. Creating an ethereal scarab that was cursed to fall in love with him, which was invulnerable, didn't speak his language, and couldn't take a hint.
His Response: He eventually transported the curse and gave it to @.
2. Hving a board nailed to his leg by angels, which gave him a conscience. Something happened to the conscience. Not sure what, though...
His Response: He said that he would destroy the entire city, including the Blessed Ancient Tree that the board was made out of, with his team of mages and Hellfire Wyrm. (He never got either.)
3. Having him unleash a demented AI-gone-wrong children's toy from his genius acestors. ("I LEARNED A SONG. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR IT? A B C D E F G..."
His Response: This was recent, but hes' basically hurt himself trying to kill it. (It's made of Unobtanium and is the size of a fly.)
...What kind of penalty should he recieve?
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Um... death. Permanent death. Tell him to make a new character, and limit what he does with it.
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...Once again, permanent death doesn't work. We're at the point of Two Heroes Vs. Mastermind With Extradimensional Warriors. I COULD implement a new character, but this late, it seems like a big stretch...
Although...
"I kill myself."
"Yes, you do. Roll a new character."
"Wait, what?"
"I use wind to lift myself out of the pit-"
"No you don't."
"Yes I do!"
"No, you don't. You don't have that spell. And you already surpassed *include value here*."
"What do you mean? My people created that spell! I wrote the tome when I was four-thousand years old! I-"
"You get shot in the head. Roll a new character."
It does have a nice ring to it...
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Things I've Tried To Do To Mess With ISE:
1. Creating an ethereal scarab that was cursed to fall in love with him, which was invulnerable, didn't speak his language, and couldn't take a hint.
His Response: He eventually transported the curse and gave it to @.
2. Hving a board nailed to his leg by angels, which gave him a conscience. Something happened to the conscience. Not sure what, though...
His Response: He said that he would destroy the entire city, including the Blessed Ancient Tree that the board was made out of, with his team of mages and Hellfire Wyrm. (He never got either.)
3. Having him unleash a demented AI-gone-wrong children's toy from his genius acestors. ("I LEARNED A SONG. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR IT? A B C D E F G..."
His Response: This was recent, but hes' basically hurt himself trying to kill it. (It's made of Unobtanium and is the size of a fly.)
...What kind of penalty should he recieve?
None of that makes any fucking sense! If you didn't have such bizzare situations you might not have a player making up equally bizzare solutions.
"I kill myself."
"What do you mean? My people created that spell! I wrote the tome when I was four-thousand years old! I-"
My advise to you is to stop playing with this individual.
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Don't be too hard on him. High school games never make sense.
here is something else that makes no sense
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XylFSAVTu8
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Okay, your right Ross. I apologise. That did not make sense.
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Well, they make more sense in-context.
And also, there's a lot of backstory, development, etc. that I'm cutting out for the sake of saving time. The real story of all of this would take thirty hours, as that's how long I've run it. Also, some of it makes no sense. But I think I've achieved a good balance. (And yes, that video does make no sense.)
The scarab was a gift from an ethereal doppleganger and it was basically a practical joke on his part.
The angels gave him a conscience and cleared his name because he was on the run from the law.
The children's toy was unleashed because he mixed up the ANCIENT TOMES OF MAGIC and the CHILDREN'S BOOK ABOUT TOTALLY-GOOD-NOT-CRAZY-AT-ALL AI.
He makes a lot less sense, by the way. Like the time he jumped down a *not created by me* bottomless well. After telling him that he would've died of forward momentum by splatting against one of the sides, I retconned it into being a really dark well that he didn't notice he'd landing in.
Although, I do admit, I enjoy injecting humor into the game.
My biggest problem is a lack of people to play with. @'s player and ISE are the only two who can/will play willingly and often.
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My biggest problem is a lack of people to play with. @'s player and ISE are the only two who can/will play willingly and often.
It's like Ross says: No gaming is better than bad gaming.
I know it's a high school game, your first time around, all that stuff. Please, take my word for it: no, none of that stuff "makes sense" in context. Just because something is explained in the game's story doesn't mean it makes sense.
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It's okay. It's high school gaming. All is forgiven.
this makes sense in context
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxlGzpd056A
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Don't be too hard on him. High school games never make sense.
here is something else that makes no sense
I forgot how bizarre that movie is.
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in backwards order
1. Okay, I agree with that. Not much in DnD makes sense, then, if you use it in that context.
2. A reason for me to make Bad Gaming into Good gaming.
3. In all seriousness, I just have to say this: "Gee whiz, Ross Payton acknowledged my existance on my third post. Thank you, Ross Payton!"
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Now, I'm off to contact ISE, get him annoyed to the point that he kills himself, and make him create a new character!
Wish me luck!
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Okay, mission accomplished.
The main villain showed up, delivered his character out of the afterlife, and I made them fight REALISTICALLY. Then he was deemed wimpy and the villain left him alone. He was then teleported (by this point I was desperate to annoy him) into a city of females (where the board had been nailed).
Long story short, his magic failed, the main villain appeared, insinuated that he had hemorrhages in his brain, and let the character's basic insanity deal with his own backstory and such.
He killed himself.
At that point, I told him that I wanted that to happen becase he was so broken that the game required rules. He walked away while I told him that he would be making a new character by MY rules this time.
I have to say, that was pretty unfair, and made zero sense, and I have a feeling that I've upset ISE, but at least I can get the game under control...
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It's pretty sad that I've just posted four times in a row, but anyway-
Any more suggestions for keeping game balance/ dealing with ISE, etc?
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I've got to saw.... What in the hell was that video?
Really, you need to set limits. The game isn't just for the players, it's for you too.
You might want to have a game that makes all of them happy, but you want them to play by your story too.
Just set up limits this time, you should do fine.
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I've got to saw.... What in the hell was that video?
It was awesome is what it was. I want a pair of asian guys to solve my life problems! No fair, Obama has all the coolest stuff.
My final advise is to try and be as mature as you are capable at whatever age you happen to be at the time. If your five, play like your five. If your fifteen, play like your fifteen. And if your over twenty, than play however you want and be judged accordingly. It's all just for fun.
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Thank you.
You've helped me realize that I've been taking this way too seriously.
Gaming's about fun!!
(I realize that I now probably sound as stupid as I did when I beat Portal for the nth time, listened to the end song, and realized "Wait... SHE'S STILL ALIVE?!?!")
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Just use a simple system, hell you could of gotten your players to make what they believe there character is within the rules themselves.
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Alternative comedy solution: World of Synnibar or Rifts.
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In Synnibar that character would be considered quite mild.
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I'm only well acquainted with (e.g. read a book or pdf involving) Wushu, Risus, TIMELORD, DnD, my unnamed horror system, and now Geiger Counter, mostly because all but one are free.
Although, I do admit that Synibarr sounds like a good thing to buy...
Also, on a completely unrelated note, I'm thinking of trying to start an RPG club/extracurricular-activity in my school...
Anyway, ISE has refused to make a new character and has claimed that I have "lost a friend" because of my actions. I referred him to "No Gaming's Better Than Bad Gaming".