|
One Track Mind Roleplaying from a
selfish perspective. A single-minded article by Mark Newbold – AKA Jan Lomona… It’s one thing that I’m almost certain of…no,
it’s one of thing I know that annoys GM’s more than almost anything is
when they have a team of players who just WON’T DO AS THEY’RE TOLD! And I admit, I
have some sympathy with that. After
all, if I was the omnipotent power in the universe and my minions
didn’t obey me then I’d throw the rattle out of the pram as well… In my very limited experience (more about
that later – or less as the case may be) most GM’s would like an easy
life. By that I mean they would like
all the countless hours, sitting on the loo with a notepad in one hand and whatever
in the other, to count for something more than just wasting time with their
pants down. Characters, situations,
locations, planets, plotlines, anything relevant to a scenario, it’s
usually pre-planned for the player to stroll through and experience. Because I think that most – say, seven out
of ten – GM’s want you to have a Vinny
Jones-style emotional experience. Pleasure, mixed with pain and a dose of irony, regret and
forehead slapping thrown in for good measure. BUT… There’s always one player who won’t
follow the plot. One who has to make a
stand and come out with annoying lines. Spoil the perfectly crafted scenario with
lines like: - “Well
my character’s a smuggler. Why would
he go on a salvage mission?” Or the equally annoying: - “I
really don’t think my character would do that.” Or the soul crushing final rebuke: - “Sod
it, I’m buying a new coat and getting a hair cut.” Even a player like me, who’s rarely GM’d, knows that when that particular line is rolled out
then the game has hit a brick wall without a crash helmet. And I’ve heard it more than once. (Ouch!) So, what would a GM have to do to correct
this? Let’s get one thing straight. I’m no expert on RPG. I’ve played Star Wars since
1988 with Jonathan Hicks, Paul Squire and some of
the Lichfield lads mentioned on the intro to the free Lazarus
RPG game. I’ve done a bit of D&D,
some Shadowrun, some Prime
Directive, Call of Cthulu and a few games
of Mech Warrior. Not much really. So for me to give my views you have to
understand that I speak from a forced and narrow perspective. RPG is Jonathan, Louis and
Paul’s area of expertise – my area of expertise is of no relevance to this
site whatsoever, but less about that. I digress.
To correct a session on a collision course with mediocrity the GM
might decide to run the game to the strengths of the players. Now, this brings about problems. I remember clearly in about 1991/92, when
we were running through the Setnin timeline for the second or
third time we (myself, Paul, Andrew Curtis, Darren
Houghton and Jason Brown) all decided that we would
play our characters as close to their true selves as possible. Serious RPG – no slipping
out of character, giggling in games, going up the road for a bag of Jelly
Babies. Roleplaying
to the max. And this must have
sounded like nirvana to our GM Mister Hicks.
But it proved to be a disaster. Whenever Jon tried to get us to do something
we would question it. When he wanted
us to salvage a space station we said “Why would I do that? I’m a smuggler/mercenary/bounty hunter, not
a scrap metal merchant?” And
whenever he wanted us to stick together we would bring up all the old
arguments that our characters indulged in and refuse to play as a group. To cut a long story very short – it didn’t
work. I remember Jonathan being perplexed. I mean it seemed like a great idea. Play up to the characters
instead of having the characters react to the storyline. But it didn’t work. Which proved one thing: - IT’S BLOODY HARD BEING A GM! I have nothing but respect for those of you
who lead us simple-minded players through the traps and pitfalls of the
regular gaming session. Setting up the stories and such. Throwing off-the-cuff
characters at us. Great stuff. But I
can also give you another example of what annoys GM’s: - SINGLE PLAYER CHARACTERS What do I mean by this? I’ll tell ya. People like me, who only ever play one
character. My particular alias is Jan
Lomona – he’s the A-desandian smuggler who’s peppered throughout the Fiction
section of this site. So in almost all
of those years of roleplaying I only played Jan Lomona. Jan, Jan, Jan, Jan, Jan. Which must have
frazzled Jonathan’s brain. It was cool initially. For Jon, Jan was a character that he knew
very well, from the audio stories we had done with NHP and the
books we were writing at the time. And
for me it was a great workout – iron out the kinks in the character, build up
more of a background for him. But as
time went on it must have become increasingly difficult for Jonathan, or
whoever was GMing at the time, to come up with new
situations for him. Jan was and is a
fairly static character. He’s the same
as a twenty year old as he is as a fifty year old. Apart from progressing through the ranks of
Glann Cipple’s organisation and finding out he has a daughter
he never knew he had and governing the capital city of his homeworld and… Well, quite a lot changed actually. But the point is,
much of it came through the Roleplaying games. Which was ace for me, but seeing the same
stat sheet for ten years must have slayed the GM. But that’s not my problem, is it? Why should I care? I was playing a character that I wanted to,
in a game that I love. And it’s up to
the GM to lead the game (from a players point of
view). So where could we correct
things? I DON’T KNOW… If I knew the answer to what makes a perfect
session then I’d publish it for free on the Internet. …….? No, actually, I’d sell it through the
Internet and make millions. Which
would sort of mess things up for every RPG publisher in the world. And every GM. Us players would have a
laugh though. |