We saw Inkheart last week. Meh.
The hero was what they call a “Silvertongue” a person who when he reads about a character in a story, that character comes to life. Cool power, and totally wasted on the hero who fumbles his way from one encounter to another. If I was in his place the first thing I would do is hit a used bookstore and pick up a few copies of …
I took the car in for scheduled maintenance today. The dealership said an hour and a half. It was more like two hours. Luckily they had a Used bookstore within walking distance. Have a look at some of the treasures I unearthed amongst the musty stacks-
And in a miscellaneous bin was a real blast from the past.
I had this tape. I loved this tape. The live version of “There's never been any reason” is one of the greatest driving songs ever performed.
I don't even have an 8-track player anymore, but for .25 cents I couldn't resist.
That girl on the cover has got to be in her sixties now…
The other day at Target I picked up season one of the classic TV show “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.” It’s a great show to steal ideas for Mission:Adventure!
As I was watching the episodes I came across one where the crew begins acting strangely, it turns out that saboteurs have introduced a hallucinogenic gas into the submarines air supply. I was thinking of the viability of using this plot device in an adventure. The only problem is that the players need to put their trust in the GM.
Now I’ve found from personal experience that getting players to trust the GM is easier said than done. Maybe its flashbacks from adolescence when a sadistic DM killed their 9th level Elven Ranger with a trap from the Tomb of Horrors module or some such silliness, but I've found that players will rarely give up even a smidgen of their characters fate without a fight. and while that's come to be expected in most RPG’s I find it an extremely tough issue to get around in Pulp gaming.
Pulps almost always invariably have the hero cornered in an impossible situation where their death is all but guaranteed, only to have fate, amazing luck, or wild coincidence save them at the absolute last minute. Now for that type of situation to happen in an RPG setting the player MUST trust the GM. The player needs to go along with the GM (with a wink and a nudge) for the good of the adventure and the ultimate enjoyment of everyone at the table.
In my case I believe my failure was that I didn't adequately explain this to my players (in my defense I will say that this was a play-test session using pregenerated characters, so I wasn't expecting quite the level of commitment to the characters as compared to a character that's been nurtured through years of constant play). As a result, Half my players went one one way,the rest went the other, and the game folded with uncomfortable silence all around.
The next day I beefed up the section in LoS on trusting your GM and letting your character get captured once in a while, so I guess something good came out of that awkward and embarrassing experience.
So the moral of the story:
Communicate with your players, let them know the tone of your game and remember that they look to you to provide the canvas.
And players trust your GM. Remember that your character is one cog in a large engine that is the campaign. There may be reasons for what is happening that is beyond your knowledge or understanding- and that's OK. You don't need to know everything right away.
Just to let you all know that I have been hard at work on not only the ZeFRS version of Legends of Steel but also on Lost World of Hador. This explains my lack of posting and presence on some of the message boards I usually frequent. I can easily blow half a day just reading blogs and looking at funny pictures.
So if the posting is sparse, it’s because I’m actually trying to be productive.
Legends of Steel is at layout. I heard from James via email this weekend and we went over a couple of design things. It is being worked on and will come out as soon as It possibly can.
Lulu is starting to look like a viable option for those who want a printed copy in their hands (I know I want one at least). So I’m tackling that.
Hador is coming along nicely, Ryan is making good progress on the map, Joffrey is coloring the cover art, and I’m getting all my thoughts onto paper.
Check out the new banner ad at RPGNow.
This reminds me of the big push by
WOTC to sell 2nd edition stuff right
before 3.0 came out.
Now if they are going for the
subliminal thing they should have
let me design their campaign…
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