01-01-2010, 10:43 PM | #271 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: a crooked, creaky manse built on a blasted heath
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Is this a joke? Who actually calculates the income of cabbies for an RPG? How would this ever come up in play? This would matter if you were running some kind of taxi-cab driver campaign, but it seems like a 'window dressing' detail in most anything else.
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01-02-2010, 12:13 AM | #272 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Quote:
One is that it sounds as if you try to figure out your players' tastes, come up with a campaign premise that you think will suit them and that you like, and start running it. And then if it doesn't work you retrofit. What I do is describe the campaign in somewhat more detail than that, telling the players what to expect, and then ask them to pick from a list of from half a dozen to fifty different proposed campaigns. I pick out two or three popular proposals that a lot of people like, and put together player groups. So the players have already evaluated the premise and said that they want to play a game based on it. One is that you seem to me to be confusing substance with emphasis. I've had campaigns that turned into something different from what I expected to run. But I didn't deal with that by changing the world, or, usually, be redefining the rules. Rather, I did it by giving the players more of the stuff that already existed within the world that they seemed to be responding to. Remember, my worlds have a lot of pre-existent detail, some in the form of concrete things and some in the form of categories of things within which I can invent new concrete things. But most basically: In a certain sense, you could say that you view what you are doing as entertainment, whereas I view what I am doing as art. But that's an oversimplification, in that I think of art as entertaining. It's not something people are suffering through because it's good for them; it's something they enjoy more than they enjoy more casual entertainment. Now, that does take a somewhat unusual type of player. But I have a plentiful supply of such players. I don't have to put up with casual players who are just there for stress relief and don't want to deal with anything deep. I have as many players as I want who are prepared to deal with challenging stuff and find it fun. I don't view what I'm doing as "running games for my friends." On one hand, I have friends who don't game and don't want to try. On the other hand, I regularly invite new people into my games. My upcoming campaigns, for example, will have three people I've never run games for before. One is the wife of a former players who's coming back, and she and another player are also in a Call of Cthulhu campaign that I play in; the third is a member of the online SJ Games community who just moved to San Diego, and sat in on one of my sessions as an observer. These are people who value the activity, enough to fit it into fairly busy schedules, and who value the kind of content I can provide for the activity. If they don't, they don't have to sign up for my games. Many of those who do become friends, but that's not a requirement. What's a requirement is that they are ready to come to me for a demanding pleasure, one that they have to actively engage with. And really, that's the kind of thing that helps make me interested in having someone as a friend. In terms of the people I game with, the fact that they value the imaginative integrity of my game worlds, and that it contributes to their pleasure in gaming with me, helps establish them as the kind of people I want to have as friends. Presenting the kind of worlds that I find interesting and getting to know people who chose to play in them has helped me gain many of my current friends, and has given me and them many hours of entertainment. |
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01-02-2010, 12:22 AM | #273 |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Which, as I've said, I only do for recurring or "big bad" villains. for most adventures these days, I'm a minimalist.
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My blog:Gaming Ballistic, LLC My Store: Gaming Ballistic on Shopify My Patreon: Gaming Ballistic on Patreon |
01-02-2010, 07:40 AM | #274 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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01-02-2010, 09:55 AM | #275 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Quote:
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01-02-2010, 10:06 AM | #276 | |
Experimental Subject
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: saarbrücken, germany
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Quote:
You'd need a CP cost of the NPC if he was bought either way at character creation, of course.
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Like a mail order mogwai...but nerdier - Nymdok understanding is a three-edged sword
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01-02-2010, 10:19 AM | #277 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Well, if you're not doing CP totals for PCs either...
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01-02-2010, 10:31 AM | #278 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
After game start it becomes somewhat moot anyway.
In one adventure your PC loses a hand, gains a contact, gets a lot of money, the next adventure he gets a replacement hand, loses a contact, gains an ally, loses some money, gains an enemy. Adding or subtracting those point values gained in play to the PC's character sheet doesn't really do anything other than reminding you what happened in continuity, so for game balance purposes it's moot, meaningless. |
01-02-2010, 10:39 AM | #279 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Quote:
But "Orc"...that I'd probably stat up more fully, because there is an existing racial template I'd have to think about. But once I statted up the generic orc soldier, I'd just reuse him. |
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01-02-2010, 11:01 AM | #280 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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