Amber related, life related, you name it, we've got it. Welcome to the Lost and Found.

 
On July 1, I intend to renew my commitment to post gaming related information on this blog.

That's my intention, anyway.
posted by sandrayln at 12:21:00 AM ( )

 
It's been close to a year since I last posted here. I'm not sure at this time whether I'm going to continue my commitment to this blog, or let it lapse. We'll see.
posted by sandrayln at 7:23:00 PM ( )

 

WISH 98: What’s New?

What are three games or settings that you’ve bought or seen recently (in stores or previews) that you’d really like to try? What interests you about them and why?

Short and sweet today:

Nobilis - Don't have, but I'm curious what the system's like.

Paranoia XP - Because I'm determined to get my boyfriend to run it for me after all the tales he's told me of Paranoia games.

Adventure! - Just bought it, and I'm working my way through the book. I've been dying to play a pulp game, but I'd settle for running it, too. *grins*

Perusing other answers, I see things that look interesting, like the Blue Rose thing... Hmm...
posted by sandrayln at 9:31:00 PM ( )

 

WISH 97: Bitch Bitch Bitch

What’s your take on player bitching/venting: complaints intended to relieve player stress and not to actually change things in the game? When and where and to whom is it appropriate? How should players and GMs handle it?

Okay, I've spent several days trying to puzzle out my answer to this. I'm not going to deny that I've been watching the thread on SoA from the beginning, and that my answer is being affected by said thread.

The effect of this is that I'm feeling rather testy about the whole thing.

The internet - particularly mass communication fora like bulletin boards, LiveJournal, and blogs - seems to breed a certain kind of behavior in any situation where emotion is invested. Anybody else watched an LJ trainwreck? How about a bulletin board one?

Yes, complaining about something is bound to set someone off. Venting will eventually make someone upset. Simple facts of life here, people.

But the thing that marks the difference between that train moving along, albeit roughly, and the wreck where something blows out the struts on that bridge the train's headed towards is reaction and overreaction.

A reaction is, "Player Z has said something about a game that might apply to my game. I don't like what they've said. I hope that's not my game; why don't I ask them about it?"

An overreaction is, "Player Z has said something about a game that might apply to my game. I don't like what they've said. Player Z is a stupid-head and I'm going to bitch them out now."

A reaction is, "Player Q has said something that is clearly about my game - since they named the game/their character/me. I don't care much for it, but I'm not sure if this is an actual complaint. Why don't I ask?"

An overreaction is, "Player Q has said something that is clearly about my game - since they named the game/their character/me. I don't care much for it. Player Q is an idiot and needs to be bitched out about it."

What I'm saying here is that I expect GMs to have a certain level of maturity about venting and critical comments - deserved or not. This particularly applies to non-specific comments made by players in more than one game! (Players who make non-specific comments about games and are only in one - well, those are probably best reconsidered...)

This is not to say, of course, that there aren't certain things a Player ought to do.

Things like making sure that complaints that you don't intend seriously don't sound serious.

Things like making sure that if you don't want a GM to read that complaint, make sure they can't read it. That includes if you think they're likely to take offense, whether you're serious or not! If you're on LJ, friends-lock and filter that puppy. If you're not - well, I'd rethink posting there. If you're on IM, you probably don't want to be saying it to the GM's spouse, best friend, or the game's tattle-tale player.

Oh, and maybe you ought to reconsider the non-specific comments if you're letting your GM(s) see the post.

Getting back to the GMs for a moment here - in the case of specific comments, if you think the player might not be serious, ask. If you don't know the player well and can't tell - ask. What's the worst that can happen? You might find out that it's an actual complaint?

Bloody hell, people, do I really need to be listing out things that really ought to be common sense?

Moving on.

To answer the question in the strictest method possible:

In the case of a player complaining to complain and/or relieve stress and not to change anything - let 'em. There's more harm in stifling that than there is in letting it happen, potential ego bruising aside. Bruises to the ego will heal; oppression feeds discontent.

The appropriateness of the venting depends on the situation. In purely public situations where entries and commentaries cannot be filtered, caution is probably best. Where things can be filtered, non-specificity is bad if the player will be letting their GMs (assuming participation in more than one game) see it. It should be clear whether the vent is intended to change the GM's behavior or not.

And, one more time: Players and GMs should handle the situation with maturity.

Now, a final disclaimer here - I've GMed, but the only thing resembling a complaint I've ever had was from someone who had a few issues with how I ran combat for him, and his issues coincided with mine. I'm mainly a player right now.

I do understand that having someone complain about something you're doing, no matter how trivial the complaint, can hurt. I do not, on the other hand, think that such injury should preclude making sure that the barb is aimed at you in the first place. And then, if it is (whether or not you had to ask to find out), being hurt shouldn't preclude finding out if it's a serious complaint or just blowing off steam for one reason or another. And finally, if it's blowing off steam and you're still hurt - y'know, your player probably wants to know that, so it can't hurt to politely and respectfully let them know that you didn't appreciate reading it.

It's up to a player to respect that. Players probably ought to try to know which GM will get upset at venting and which won't and should filter things accordingly. That means either asking or figuring out who's touchy and who isn't, and who's reactionary and who isn't.

The trend of commentary on the subject of this WISH has been to blame the player almost exclusively - and that sits very poorly with me. If a player chooses to vent and the GM chooses to blow up, that's two parties that share the blame for the resulting situation, not one. There are too many variables involved - unless I go into specific situations - to apportion that chunk of blame. My point, however, is that it's still shared.
posted by sandrayln at 2:21:00 AM ( )

 

Combat Thoughts

This is kind of a ramble, so bear with me if you want to read.

I was thinking earlier about my various non-D&D characters and how they're similar and different.

The main similarity between many of them is a distaste for combat.
My first character, Callisto (VtM, Toreador), cowered in a phone booth rather than fight - and when she finally had to fight, had no weapon and ended up using the phone cord and receiver to defend herself.
Faline (CtD, Pooka) only fought when she was defending someone she liked - and then she wasn't vicious. To be completely honest, the only reason she ever did any damage is that the ST couldn't make a good soak roll to save his - or, indeed, in most cases, the NPC's - life.
Oriana (Amber) was a fighter - often when she should probably have turned tail or called for help. Stubborn, independent, impetuous, brawler - those all applied to her. She didn't go out of her way for a fight, but if she was provoked, she didn't step out of the way of one, either.
Sophia (Amber) - well, it didn't come up before the game went belly-up... but I'm pretty sure she'd only fight if it was necessary and/or unavoidable. She was extremely patient, so she wouldn't be one to be provoked easily - but I can see her being efficient to the best of her abilities in battle.
Maggie (Amber) seems to be of the school of, "I carry a weapon, and I know how to use it. Don't provoke me into using it on a human being, please. I don't want to deal with those complications."
And then there's Diana (Amber), who got me started on this track. Diana much prefers to avoid fights like the plague. She can fight - she's not that great at it, but she can do it - she just feels that escaping is a much simpler solution.

At some point I'd like to play another combat-oriented character, because that really was entertaining. I just run into the problem of needing to trust the GM's combat-running skills.

See, I don't know a lot of stuff about fighting. And when I get in a situation with someone that does - I get in over my head very quickly, because knowledge of basic foil fencing and some random pro wrestling move names and what they look like really doesn't help much if someone knows what they're talking about. I had one player tell me he was doing something like a half-Nelson on someone - and he then had to explain to me what the bloody hell he was trying to do. And that was a player I was GMing.

I just don't have an interest in the technical details of fighting, so I haven't learned them. I really don't want to have to learn them, but if I'm in a very slow-posting situation, I probably will. It's fast posting and face to face where I'm going to run into trouble.

So... those are my concerns about combat...
posted by sandrayln at 6:31:00 PM ( )

 
I just finished cleaning up this blog somewhat.

The next set of goals are to update my links into active characters, inactive characters, and other links, and to catch up on Game WISHes some time before Friday.
posted by sandrayln at 12:42:00 AM ( )