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hyphz posted:This is fair, and I wasn't really intending to ask for personal advice as I know people are sick of it - I just got sidetracked onto it by people asking me questions about my experiences. There are plenty of games which decentralize GMing. That's the point of the entire Belonging Outside Belonging/No Dice No Masters family of games. These games will still generally have a facilitator role - someone who teaches the rules and maybe takes responsibility for keeping things moving if a scene drifts, and there are some variants like Good Society that use a more imbalanced approach by making one person more responsible for all incidental characters while everyone else plays a single protagonist with a more complex character. Now, granted, that does mean everybody who shows up at game night has to be willing to be creative and reactive on the spot, which is not why everybody shows up to game night.
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Jan 13, 2022 19:39
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ToxicFrog posted:N.b. I haven't played any of these, I've just heard about them (and in some cases read the sourcebooks). Polaris is legitimately one of my favorite games and I think everyone should give it a shot just to see how it plays. WTF sounds fascinating I've never seen that before.
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Jan 13, 2022 19:46
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Tulip posted:Polaris is legitimately one of my favorite games and I think everyone should give it a shot just to see how it plays. WTF sounds fascinating I've never seen that before. WTF is by Jenna Moran (Nobilis, Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine), and she released the draft version for free; as far as I know it has not seen any subsequent revisions. Note that it is very obviously a draft; parts are missing, and other parts are explained poorly if at all, and the overall organization is often counterintuitive. The basic idea, as I (poorly) understand it, is that it's basically a game about making games, with each class representing a different aspect of game design: - Wishers define what virtue is, both in and out of the game: "this is a game about petting raccoons. the player characters strive to pet as many raccoons as possible. the players should collaborate in their efforts to ensure no raccoon remains unpetted; it is a cooperative game" - Fatalists define the world the game takes place in: "you are in an endless maze of backyards. every yard contains exactly one raccoon. raccoons may be Friendly, Fearful, or Feral" - Theurgists define the game mechanics: "Friendly racoons can always be petted. Fearful or Feral raccoons require you to roll over 5 on (1d6 + amount of food you have) to pet them. If you fail the check and the raccoon is Feral, it steals one of your food." There are also metamechanics for resolving disagreements between players on these points. The goal of the game is to find the Jewel of All Desiring and feed one of the Wishers to it, at which point it turns the world of dreams the characters occupy into a "real" world that, retroactively, has always existed; in practice this means that the output of a successful WTF campaign is a complete set of rules and setting notes for a tabletop RPG that was defined by the characters and players in the course of playing the campaign, which you could presumably go off and play non-WTF games using. There's also the concept of "kindling"; anything that's implied by the rules and setting but not actually stated to exist is "unkindled" and considered a flaw in the world. So, for example, if you have a major city surrounded by rolling fields of grain, but no mention is made of the farmers working those fields or the farms they live on, the farmers are unKindled. I think. This is based partly on reading it, and partly on reading stuff by and talking to people who are more familiar with RPG design generally and Dr. Moran's work specifically, so I might have completely the wrong end of the stick. It's also just a fun read in its own right. Cast of Players posted:You Character Creation posted:Stage 3 — Are you the Weaver? Theurgist Rules: Dispute Resolution posted:What if We Still Can't Agree on How to Roll to Resolve a Rules Dispute?
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Jan 13, 2022 20:22
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I have read WTF, but I actually thought it was a parody of conflicting or exaggerated expectations. There are many reasons the PCs can’t find the Jewel Of All Desiring, and no methods by which they do find it.
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Jan 13, 2022 21:20
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Dr. Moran? Is she a doctor/has a doctorate? This is the first I’ve heard of it so I’m just curious if she’s a title-eschewer or no one acknowledges it or maybe you were joking or what.
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Jan 13, 2022 21:46
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Xiahou Dun posted:Dr. Moran? Is she a doctor/has a doctorate? This is the first I’ve heard of it so I’m just curious if she’s a title-eschewer or no one acknowledges it or maybe you were joking or what. She has a doctorate in Computer Science. I actually found her thesis a few months back. It doesn't have any of her distinctive quirky writing in it, which makes it a fair bit clearer than many doctoral theses in Comp Sci...
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Jan 13, 2022 21:54
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O nice. Learn something every day. Not shocked she can write clearly when she wants to, while the minority of her stuff I’ve read can be confusing it never struck me as confused and always seemed deliberate. “Dr. Moran” it is until or unless I learn she prefers not to use the title.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:11
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Xiahou Dun posted:O nice. Learn something every day. I mean, she doesn't present herself that way in the RPG space. It's not in her Twitter handle or on her website. It's not like she's the only person that acts that way. People don't normally talk about Dr. Edwards in his capacity as game designer, critic, and rear end in a top hat, although I imagine in some cases you would do so if he ever went back to biology (although in academia you also normally don't address people as Dr. So and So other than in formal occasions, anyway).
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Jan 13, 2022 22:19
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WTF isn't laid out or anything, but it's complete and there are no "missing" parts. Or at least, if anything is missing, that's a problem for a wisher, a theurge, or a fatalist.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:20
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I mean, she doesn't present herself that way in the RPG space. It's not in her Twitter handle or on her website. Yeah, I know. I’m an academic and I generally use the title as a default courtesy unless I specifically know that the individual prefers not to use it for whatever reason (which is common, as you say, I know tons of people who rarely use it). Especially women in a male dominated field like comp sci, I’ve found it to be a good middle ground. Appreciate the information, but I literally grew up in a linked mathematics and computer science department, so I didn’t start doing this out of ignorance about the academy.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:29
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Farg posted:there was an entire discord made to give hyphz normal people to talk about ttrpgs with and to play games with so he could see that it is possible to play an rpg and it ended with hyphz getting banned from the discord made for him If this isn't a perfect encapsulation of Trad Games, then I don't know what is.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:37
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SkyeAuroline posted:And if you're incredibly bad at improv, like me, ans also have a failing short- and long-term memory, like me, that means you can't remember any source material to call on in the heat of the moment for inspiration or straight-up stealing? (yes, it stems from a diagnosed medical issue) In that case, my advice would be to prep, and prep extensively. I tend to follow Kevin Crawford's advice, which is "prep until you stop enjoying it" and that's served me pretty well. As a starting point for session prep, I can point to Jason Cordova's 7-3-1 Technique which I've used for my medium-crunch games when I know I won't be able to spend a lot of time in the middle of a session coming up with stuff. I will say, don't worry about the 1 table affect thing if you're not good at that stuff. Ask any of my players, I'm not good at accents and all my NPCs tend to just end up sounding kinda like my redneck rear end. This is something I gotta work on. But if you think you can pull off things like a different speech pattern or fun verbal tic, it can be a lot of fun. When running a high-crunch game I tend to maximize my prep by asking the players "So what do you want to do next session?" at the end of each session so I know what to make for next time. Right now I'm running Lancer and I tend to go ahead and sketch out the entire mission ahead of time, thinking up each combat and coming up with how they'll flow into each other. I've run sessions of D&D 4E where I had written everything up beforehand like an actual published module (just with tons more shorthand), because I needed that stuff in the moment. I have even done this for rules-light games. When I ran a couple 24XX one-shots a while back I ran one particular one where the players were to explore a ruined apocalypse vault, and I spent time beforehand writing out descriptions of every new room and even wrote down automated messages that would be read aloud for the players, kinda like audio logs in video games. I felt like this added a lot to the game, way more thought out than my usual off-the-cuff ramblings and I've tried to do more of it. Also, if you're bad at improv, never underestimate the power of random tables and generators. There are tons and tons of these out there and I love them. I've got huge tables I've written of NPC names, for instance, because I'm bad at coming up with them in the moment. Some of the most fun I've had at the table has been rolling for a random result and trying to spin that into the narrative. And don't be afraid to involve the players! If you can't think of something, tell the players what you rolled and see if they have any ideas. I find that even if players don't want the full pressure of being a GM, they will sometimes feel more comfortable just coming up with little things like this, which you can then use. If you're ever in a session and you can't think of what happens next or you need time to stall to look up a rule or something and you don't want to interrupt the flow of the game by saying "please give me a minute" you can ask the players questions about their characters. Or have them describe what they just did in more detail. Players usually love to embellish stuff, and it gives you more time to think and you can even seize onto details they come up with and use them yourself.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:39
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You can't hyphz in here, this is the Wargaming Room
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Jan 13, 2022 22:40
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Libertad! posted:If this isn't a perfect encapsulation of Trad Games, then I don't know what is. To be more exact, what happened is that the discord was first made for a group which invited me and I had some very good games with, then it opened up more widely and became the general Indie Gaming discord and the moderation was handed over while due to unfortunate RL circumstances the group I had been in fell apart. This led to me getting frustrated and making a very bad judgment call (which was not to do with RPGs or politics) which got me banned. It wasn't to do with gaming in particular and I enjoyed the games I played there. And in the occasions where I couldn't even start something, it was usually because I couldn't think of a general adventure at all that wasn't either cliche or at odds with the setting.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:48
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hyphz posted:To be more exact, what happened is that the discord was first made for a group which invited me and I had some very good games with, then it opened up more widely and became the general Indie Gaming discord and the moderation was handed over while due to unfortunate RL circumstances the group I had been in fell apart. This led to me getting frustrated and making a very bad judgment call (which was not to do with RPGs or politics) which got me banned. It wasn't to do with gaming in particular and I enjoyed the games I played there. I made it specifically for you. It was originally called like The Play AW for hyphz Zone or whatever dumb name I made up.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:50
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No good deed goes unbanned.
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Jan 13, 2022 22:51
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hyphz posted:I have read WTF, but I actually thought it was a parody of conflicting or exaggerated expectations. There are many reasons the PCs can’t find the Jewel Of All Desiring, and no methods by which they do find it. I suspect (but cannot prove) that it is at least in part a parody of both the indie RPG design process, and the stereotypical kind of game that process produces. But it is also a (theoretically) playable game that emits other games as a result of playing it. Rand Brittain posted:WTF isn't laid out or anything, but it's complete and there are no "missing" parts. There's definitely at least some stuff missing; off the top of my head, planets and stars are mentioned in a bunch of places but actual information about them is relegated to "the first supplement to WTF", which, as far as I know, does not exist. Of course, this may well be intentional; perhaps the first supplement is something wished into being along with the rest of the world, and thus, something that each group experiences differently, but no less truly. To the extent that WTF is confusing or incomplete (which is definitely more than "none"), I'm not sure how much of that is parodic, how much is part of getting the reader in the correct headspace for WTF, and how much is just because it's basically a 100-page-long shitpost and thus hasn't seen as much revision or editing as her more formally published work. Absurd Alhazred posted:I mean, she doesn't present herself that way in the RPG space. It's not in her Twitter handle or on her website. Her degree isn't really relevant to her work on RPGs, yeah, but my time in academia drilled into me that if someone has a doctorate you refer to them as "Dr. Lastname" unless you know they prefer not to use the title or you're being intentionally disrespectful Also "Dr. Moran" is faster to type than "Jenna Moran" 
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Jan 13, 2022 22:56
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ToxicFrog posted:Her degree isn't really relevant to her work on RPGs, yeah, but my time in academia drilled into me that if someone has a doctorate you refer to them as "Dr. Lastname" unless you know they prefer not to use the title or you're being intentionally disrespectful You talk TO strangers in Academia as "Dr. X" or "Professor Y". You talk ABOUT them as "X" or "Y", for the most part. Now if I wanted to be disrespectful, and there are a few people I know in academia that I would be happy to be so, I would call them AND talk about them as "Professor Y" even though we know each other very well.
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Jan 13, 2022 23:05
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hyphz posted:And in the occasions where I couldn't even start something, it was usually because I couldn't think of a general adventure at all that wasn't either cliche or at odds with the setting. Don't be worried about a cliche start to an adventure! Cliches are cliches because they're effective and easy to get into. When I started my Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign we began in a tavern and it turned into a shootout. If all you can think of is a cliche, go for it anyways.
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Jan 14, 2022 00:13
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Absurd Alhazred posted:You talk TO strangers in Academia as "Dr. X" or "Professor Y". You talk ABOUT them as "X" or "Y", for the most part. Huh. We go in different circles. I hear much more 3rd person use of titles, and 2nd person is reliably maybe one time with a title and then it’s all first names. Like if I’m talking about my department chair to someone outside the program it’s “Dr. Lastname”, but if I’m addressing her it’s firmly “What’s up, [Shortform of First Name]?” and she’d think it’s weird otherwise. Like if I’m in some weird formal scenario I might call my father “Dr. Xiahou”, but wouldn’t otherwise for obvious reasons. I’ve seen you post in other threads so I know we’re not massively in different fields or locations. Didn’t know there was that kind of variation. Regardless, we’re both trying to be respectful and polite in our own systems and experience so I’m not gonna tell you what to do or nothing.
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Jan 14, 2022 00:15
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There's always been Professor M.A.R. Barker in this hobby.
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Jan 14, 2022 00:19
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Xiahou Dun posted:Huh. We go in different circles. I hear much more 3rd person use of titles, and 2nd person is reliably maybe one time with a title and then it’s all first names. Like if I’m talking about my department chair to someone outside the program it’s “Dr. Lastname”, but if I’m addressing her it’s firmly “What’s up, [Shortform of First Name]?” and she’d think it’s weird otherwise. Generally speaking. Except for a couple of people I have no respect for. Which I can express either passive-aggressively with inappropriate over-formality or aggressively by just using swears. Humbug Scoolbus posted:There's always been Professor M.A.R. Barker in this hobby. Oh, you mean the cryptonazi? (Seriously, he wrote a pro-SS novel under an assumed name, see discussion starting around here in the retroclone thread)
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Jan 14, 2022 00:20
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hyphz posted:To be more exact, what happened is that the discord was first made for a group which invited me and I had some very good games with, then it opened up more widely and became the general Indie Gaming discord and the moderation was handed over while due to unfortunate RL circumstances the group I had been in fell apart. This led to me getting frustrated and making a very bad judgment call (which was not to do with RPGs or politics) which got me banned. It wasn't to do with gaming in particular and I enjoyed the games I played there. My post wasn't meant to be indicative of you (given I don't know all the details) so much as a commentary on some of the excessive reactions I've seen from people interacting with your approach to game design. Apologies if my vaguepost was read the wrong way.
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Jan 14, 2022 00:21
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There is not a single "academic standard" for this. A PhD professor of microbiology specifically asked me not to call her doctor because she didn't want to be confused with the MDs. Meanwhile, a new fellow got cross with me for identifying him as "Dr. Bob Smith, MD" and not "Dr. Bob Smith, MD, PhD" in an email. (This is why I asked for a copy of your CV.) In another department, a bunch of professors insist on being on a first-name basis with the students. (This is most common among older white men, and least common among younger women of colour who need Bentley Dadsintern the 3rd to take them seriously.)
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Jan 14, 2022 00:30
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Halloween Jack posted:There is not a single "academic standard" for this. A PhD professor of microbiology specifically asked me not to call her doctor because she didn't want to be confused with the MDs. Meanwhile, a new fellow got cross with me for identifying him as "Dr. Bob Smith, MD" and not "Dr. Bob Smith, MD, PhD" in an email. (This is why I asked for a copy of your CV.) In another department, a bunch of professors insist on being on a first-name basis with the students. (This is most common among older white men, and least common among younger women of colour who need Bentley Dadsintern the 3rd to take them seriously.) Yup. And there’s lots of factors that go into this. Like I absolutely refuse all titles cause I just naturally come off as aggressive and I want students to chill out and realize I just have a loud voice and I’m chill. My ex is a teeny woman who sometimes got confused as being an undergrad so she uses every title and is more formal to fight for the kind of treatment I get just by being me. This is despite us having taught literally the same class, as in we were co-lecturers on one.
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Jan 14, 2022 01:01
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ToxicFrog posted:There's definitely at least some stuff missing; off the top of my head, planets and stars are mentioned in a bunch of places but actual information about them is relegated to "the first supplement to WTF", which, as far as I know, does not exist. The supplement is That Languidly Dreamt Raif, aka TL;DR. I don't think the planet stuff you're looking for is there, though, just an extra rules toy, but nevertheless, it's intentional that the only thing in the game that works and is complete is the rules for solving disputes about the incomplete rules and setting.
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Jan 14, 2022 05:03
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Glazius posted:Now, granted, that does mean everybody who shows up at game night has to be willing to be creative and reactive on the spot, which is not why everybody shows up to game night. I’m aware that there are many games which decentralise GMing by sharing it with the players. But I was wondering if there is any game that does not do that bit. Where the players are just players, and the GMs are just GMs but there is more than one of them.
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Jan 14, 2022 06:46
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My absolute favorite piece of writing in WTF, and possibly in any RPG sourcebook ever, is as follows:W, T, F posted:Strong Mechanical Support. A Gift with "strong" mechanical support, on the
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Jan 14, 2022 06:49
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I would like you all to address and refer to me as Doctor X from this point on
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Jan 14, 2022 10:16
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My Lovely Horse posted:I would like you all to address and refer to me as Doctor X from this point on sitting or standing
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Jan 14, 2022 10:23
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My Lovely Horse posted:I would like you all to address and refer to me as Doctor X from this point on Only if you're going to build a creature for the late-night double feature picture show. 
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Jan 14, 2022 10:23
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Arivia posted:sitting or standing Dr. X. Standing might be my next rpg character
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Jan 14, 2022 10:31
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SkyeAuroline posted:And if you're incredibly bad at improv, like me, ans also have a failing short- and long-term memory, like me, that means you can't remember any source material to call on in the heat of the moment for inspiration or straight-up stealing? (yes, it stems from a diagnosed medical issue) There are a couple things I've found helpful. First up is Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters from Engine Publishing. It's a set of 23 essays with different techniques and pieces of advice for improving your improv skills. Among those 23 articles there's bound to be something helpful to you. While I'm at it, I also found their trilogy of general campaign advice to be very helpful. The other thing that I've found helpful is to just do the thing. GMing, running a session or a campaign, improv ... like any other skill the best way to get better is to just do the thing. I've found most players are patient with GMs who are working on their skills, especially if the GM says so up front. Those who aren't are generally dicks. If you don't want to subject a whole group to your learning experiences, I've had a lot of great sessions that were just me and one other player. You could also try running a PbP game. PbP has its own set of challenges, but on the plus side you have some time to consider your responses as a GM.
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Jan 14, 2022 12:08
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hyphz posted:I’m aware that there are many games which decentralise GMing by sharing it with the players. But I was wondering if there is any game that does not do that bit. Where the players are just players, and the GMs are just GMs but there is more than one of them. Serious question: what benefit do you want this system to have over taking a conventionally structured game and just having two co-GMs through the ancient art of cooperation?
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Jan 14, 2022 14:46
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Serf posted:Don't be worried about a cliche start to an adventure! Cliches are cliches because they're effective and easy to get into. When I started my Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign we began in a tavern and it turned into a shootout. If all you can think of is a cliche, go for it anyways. One of my favorite sidebars in Warhams is 'You may well have met in a tavern because they're social hubs people go to meet people.'
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Jan 14, 2022 15:02
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Cliches are great because the other players will know them and know what to expect and how their character might react. Had a player playing "basically Solid Snake" in one of my campaigns and that worked out great and facilitated a ton of fun gameplay.
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Jan 14, 2022 15:15
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You have all met on adventr
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Jan 14, 2022 15:24
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Gort posted:Cliches are great because the other players will know them and know what to expect and how their character might react. I played in an episodic campaign (usually with different players at the table each week) once where the characters all either worked for a shadowy government agency, or were recruited from the bar across the street from Shadowy Government Agency HQ by agents drinking there while off duty. Worked great.
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Jan 14, 2022 15:50
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Glazius posted:Serious question: what benefit do you want this system to have over taking a conventionally structured game and just having two co-GMs through the ancient art of cooperation? The biggest benefit I can think of is more clear segregation of the duties of the GMs, and rules that facilitate this by reducing overlap, to minimise the amount of discussion time that's needed to keep things consistent.
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Jan 14, 2022 15:57
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The correct form of address for any full-time professor, assistant or not, is "gently caress you, [lastname]." Adjuncts get the first name and the occasional pitying look. Graduate students are not addressed unless you are also in the habit of talking to furniture or plants.
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