![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I felt like ranting after some of the gaming stuff I've been through this past week... not that I'm unhappy or upset, just that I'm reminded of a pet peeve of mine and wanted to let it out.
First, an anecdote.
I didn't write my own plot for my very first SR4 game; I used an adventure that someone else had written. I was still learning the system, I'd never run a game before, and I wanted to practice the system before worrying too much about plot, at first. So I ran it, mostly as written, with maybe one or few tweaks that had to be made thanks to the actions of the characters, who were surprisingly determined to avoid combat.
My players only ended up going through a little less than half of the adventure before it ended. They had found the object that they were supposed to retrieve at that point; that was the way the adventure was written. The rest of the adventure hinged on whether or not the players chose to do more digging into the history behind the item, rather than delivering it to Mr. Johnson immediately. My players did the latter; they did the meet, they got the item, and they called Johnson and gave it up for their pay. They had not, at that point, found out what it was, or who Johnson was and who he worked for. (The team's hacker was the sort who thought that trying to do research on one's employer was a major breach of etiquette for a shadowrunner, and the rest of the team followed his lead. I tried to make them pay for that later, when they were hired to place a briefcase in the middle of an elven ghetto. You have three guesses as to what was in that suitcase. Fortunately, they did their homework that time.)
Now, this isn't really a criticism of that particular adventure, since I'm sure it's not hard to guess what I'm referring to. I actually managed to use a lot of that backstory to drive later games, even using it to introduce a character when I had a new player join the group a few sessions later. But the fact that the characters had to do something that a LOT of teams would've considered irrational (dig around into the history behind an item when they could just give it up and get paid) to drive the plot... that bugged me. The one good thing about it was that it was optional, not required.
It's a pet peeve of mine, probably not a legitimate complaint, but it continues to bother me to this day. If the only way to advance the game's plot is by doing something totally and utterly irrational, something that most normal, sane people simply would not do, then don't be angry if the plot isn't going the way that you expect it to because people are doing reasonable things. There are ways around it, after all, ways to prompt people to do these ridiculous things without forcing them to do it... especially in the kinds of games which involve magical powers or strange twists of fate or both as a matter of course.
I guess that part of the reason I don't care for it is my knee-jerk negative reaction to railroading. I don't like being told what my character HAS to do to advance the plot without being given a damn good reason or prompt for it, especially when that action is contrary to logic and reason or requires my character to suspend her survival instinct. (Unfortunately, my personality bleeds through when I'm gaming, even when I try to suspend it. And I'm very cautious, probably over-cautious, about taking risks. This sometimes makes things difficult.)
A large part of it relates to the game's tone, too, along with its expected duration. If I'm playing a light-hearted game, I'm more willing to be light-hearted and do things that might seem ridiculous; if it's horror or drama, I'll take it more seriously and react like a real person who wants to survive, even if it doesn't always mean doing the heroic thing. If it's a short-term thing, like that CoC one-shot that I played a couple of weeks ago, I'll take more chances and not worry as much about staying alive or sane than I would if I was playing a campaign. And, you know, certain systems imply certain expectations. If I'm playing a game using, say, nWoD rules, I expect some sort of horror unless I'm told otherwise up-front, and I behave accordingly. If I find out that I'm not going to get horror a few games in, I'll roll with it, but don't be shocked if I'm boggled at first, because it takes me a while to switch gears and alter those preconceived notions about the game.
I need to be more flexible. That overcautious streak has hurt me a few times. Sometimes I need to remember that there's a story in this, and that sometimes people have to do crazy things in stories that they aren't necessarily going to do in real life.
Anyway. I'm feeling better now, so I guess the rant's over. I'm off to exchange some pants, then get some work done.
Project for the rest of the evening: Finish transcribing the pages that I've written recently, some of them as far back as June, and get a word count for July, since I don't think I'll get anything done tomorrow. It'll be somewhat better than the three-digit word count I had for June...
First, an anecdote.
I didn't write my own plot for my very first SR4 game; I used an adventure that someone else had written. I was still learning the system, I'd never run a game before, and I wanted to practice the system before worrying too much about plot, at first. So I ran it, mostly as written, with maybe one or few tweaks that had to be made thanks to the actions of the characters, who were surprisingly determined to avoid combat.
My players only ended up going through a little less than half of the adventure before it ended. They had found the object that they were supposed to retrieve at that point; that was the way the adventure was written. The rest of the adventure hinged on whether or not the players chose to do more digging into the history behind the item, rather than delivering it to Mr. Johnson immediately. My players did the latter; they did the meet, they got the item, and they called Johnson and gave it up for their pay. They had not, at that point, found out what it was, or who Johnson was and who he worked for. (The team's hacker was the sort who thought that trying to do research on one's employer was a major breach of etiquette for a shadowrunner, and the rest of the team followed his lead. I tried to make them pay for that later, when they were hired to place a briefcase in the middle of an elven ghetto. You have three guesses as to what was in that suitcase. Fortunately, they did their homework that time.)
Now, this isn't really a criticism of that particular adventure, since I'm sure it's not hard to guess what I'm referring to. I actually managed to use a lot of that backstory to drive later games, even using it to introduce a character when I had a new player join the group a few sessions later. But the fact that the characters had to do something that a LOT of teams would've considered irrational (dig around into the history behind an item when they could just give it up and get paid) to drive the plot... that bugged me. The one good thing about it was that it was optional, not required.
It's a pet peeve of mine, probably not a legitimate complaint, but it continues to bother me to this day. If the only way to advance the game's plot is by doing something totally and utterly irrational, something that most normal, sane people simply would not do, then don't be angry if the plot isn't going the way that you expect it to because people are doing reasonable things. There are ways around it, after all, ways to prompt people to do these ridiculous things without forcing them to do it... especially in the kinds of games which involve magical powers or strange twists of fate or both as a matter of course.
I guess that part of the reason I don't care for it is my knee-jerk negative reaction to railroading. I don't like being told what my character HAS to do to advance the plot without being given a damn good reason or prompt for it, especially when that action is contrary to logic and reason or requires my character to suspend her survival instinct. (Unfortunately, my personality bleeds through when I'm gaming, even when I try to suspend it. And I'm very cautious, probably over-cautious, about taking risks. This sometimes makes things difficult.)
A large part of it relates to the game's tone, too, along with its expected duration. If I'm playing a light-hearted game, I'm more willing to be light-hearted and do things that might seem ridiculous; if it's horror or drama, I'll take it more seriously and react like a real person who wants to survive, even if it doesn't always mean doing the heroic thing. If it's a short-term thing, like that CoC one-shot that I played a couple of weeks ago, I'll take more chances and not worry as much about staying alive or sane than I would if I was playing a campaign. And, you know, certain systems imply certain expectations. If I'm playing a game using, say, nWoD rules, I expect some sort of horror unless I'm told otherwise up-front, and I behave accordingly. If I find out that I'm not going to get horror a few games in, I'll roll with it, but don't be shocked if I'm boggled at first, because it takes me a while to switch gears and alter those preconceived notions about the game.
I need to be more flexible. That overcautious streak has hurt me a few times. Sometimes I need to remember that there's a story in this, and that sometimes people have to do crazy things in stories that they aren't necessarily going to do in real life.
Anyway. I'm feeling better now, so I guess the rant's over. I'm off to exchange some pants, then get some work done.
Project for the rest of the evening: Finish transcribing the pages that I've written recently, some of them as far back as June, and get a word count for July, since I don't think I'll get anything done tomorrow. It'll be somewhat better than the three-digit word count I had for June...
