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Post by malifer on Sept 23, 2012 13:13:35 GMT -8
Aloha, Josh in Orlando here. I get the Topic! To Stork: You are correct most people in Orlando do not use the phrase Aloha. I could start calling myself Josh from Hawaii, but that's sounds strange to me like I'm a Duke or something. To Stu: Canon means fuck all to my game. It's a starting point. In my Star Wars game you can kill Darth Vader. What happens next might be neat. Now there is a NPC in the world that thought he would save the world by killing his Dad, then you went and did it first. There's a Smuggler who was going to redeem himself and become a hero, but you blew up the Death Star first. So now maybe he just continues down a criminal path and becomes the new villain. Stork said it best "you're playing in the universe not the movies." When CADave started rambling about the all the damn Star Wars books, I felt sick to my stomach. I have read 3 Star War novels I really don't how I finished them. Stu mentioned he hadn't played/run in any IP. But what about Ghostbusters that's an IP with cartoons, comic books, novels, video games. And that game was a blast! In the end I think it was the Fandom. That's fine. I like comic books I've been reading them since before I could actually read. I would say I am a comic book nerd and can rattle off stupid trivia off the top of my head. But I dislike to talk to the fanatics who want to argue about who would win in a fight Thor or The Hulk. I just want to tell them you are not helping the stereotype. Fandom hurts IP more than the IP itself.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Sept 23, 2012 14:00:52 GMT -8
Comment to the eMailer about his dual wielding min-maxing wanker:
Make sure those two PCs die horrible deaths in the story, in a manner of matter meeting anti-matter with everything imploding and disappearing leaving only two pebbles: one green and the other red. Keep these two ballsy stones for future ideas.
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SirGuido
Supporter
Drizztmas Santa
Ask me about the Drizztmas Exchange!
Posts: 2,127
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, Traveller, Fate Accelerated, Masks
Currently Playing: Nothing.
Currently Running: Nothing.
Favorite Species of Monkey: Anything in a Cage.
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Post by SirGuido on Sept 24, 2012 17:26:16 GMT -8
IP games? I love them. More than anything else I have played many many years of Legend of the Five Rings in all of its iterations. The game has been going on, with a growing storyline, for over 15 years. In that 15 years there has been an insane amount of information printed about the canon storyline. I always play in that canon storyline when I run games in that system. I do one of two things when I do it. 1. I run a "background" game where the players hear about these world altering, heart stopping events from afar and then deal with them. 2. I run where the players are directly integrated in the actual storyline and can affect it however they see fit. For example, my favorite timeline is that of the time "pre-coup". In the story there is a big even that happens called the Scorpion Clan Coup. During this coup the leader of the Scorpion Clan(thinking he is acting in good faith), kills the Emperor and declares himself the heir to the throne. Other things happen thereafter. I have run that timeline up to and through that event multiple times.
Once when I ran it through method one, we had a group of PCs playing magistrates in a far flung city that was nowhere near where this event transpired. We happened to have an Imperial and a Scorpion in that group. The Imperial, upon hearing of what had happened, immediately attacked the Scorpion calling him a murderer, etc. Up to the point where the real heir was restored to the throne and the Scorpion were thrown out of the Empire, we had several interesting rp sessions dealing with how no one trusted the Scorpion anymore and people were feeling weird about the Crab player as well (other parts of the story I won't go into now).
Later I ran a coup game where the players were IN the palace at the moment that the Scorpion attacked. Hoping to show the others his glory and get their immediate support, the Scorpion daimyo had all the notables(including the PCs) drug into the Throne Room where he recited the prophecy that he thought was calling for him to commit this atrocity and then drew his sword. The party reacted as one and rushed the daimyo. They were weaponless, unarmored, and surrounded by 30 armed and armored Scorpion. So yeah, TPK. Now, we roleplayed it out. Because if you know anything about L5R you know that anything can happen in that system with the exploding dice. So I let them try. If they had succeeded they would have prevented the coup and changed the storyline for the purposes of our game forever.
I think both methods are completely viable for dealing with IPs.
There is a third that I have participated in, but haven't tried myself. I was in a Battlestar Galactica game where we played members of a science exploration space station. After the attacks on Caprica and such we jumped away and started attempting to do exactly what the Galactica did on the show. As we were arriving at certain places we quickly realized there was another group that had survived because we were behind them. We discovered Kobol after they'd left, we made it to New Caprica after they had gone, etc. We were in the same timeline as the show, but just a little off from their timeline by just a bit. Now our GM did change canon a bit and made some of the players into the final 5 instead of the ones on the show. I am glad to say I am a toaster from the tips of my power cord to the top of my chrome plated body.
Its all in how you handle it. And a good GM will make it work if you don't know anything of the established world.
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Post by greatwyrm on Sept 24, 2012 19:46:54 GMT -8
Yooper - (YOO-pur) a person from Michigan's upper peninsula (the "U.P.").
Think of Jeff Foxworthy's entire act with extra snow. That's pretty much it.
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Post by rickno7 on Sept 25, 2012 5:27:50 GMT -8
As a GM, I would prefer to use my own worlds. I would love to create a world that my players can get involved with and get very excited about from day one. Thing is, they have to learn about the world, and it takes time for things to grow on them. It takes time to learn politics and religions and all sorts of stuff that a history buff would love to learn, but the average player probably does not. It is a lot to ask players to trust that the GM can create great worlds to play in, and if you start new campaigns with mostly new players, you never know what you're going to get; and neither do they.
I have done a few worlds that my players HAVE loved, mind you. I've also had a couple of duds. My games can tend to run into political drama, and if the players just want to find some ruins and loot them, that can be a problem.
Then I have also played a Star Wars setting. I have never seen my players "become" their characters faster than when I ran Star Wars. They instantly knew what the world was, and how to act in it. There was no real adjustment time, they were instantly "on".
The point I was trying to make in chat during this podcast was that to the players, a GM created world and an existing IP pretty much are the same thing: someone else's world. So GM vs IP is more a GM thing. The main advantage to an existing IP is that players might already be invested in the fiction.
Stu's Ghostbuster game is a great example. Stu did not have to give out a pamphlet on the history of Ghostbusters, or how the NPC's act, no background was needed to learn Peter or Egon, or even the appropriate way the characters should act in situations. There are a million different ways that the characters could have reacted to ghosts. But Stu said, "this is Ghostbusters" and everyone at the table knew how to react. They knew how to play their characters.
Using a GM created world is wonderful for giving the GM power to do and create things as they see fit. There is no chance of "Egon would have never done that" or "wait, that's not how Proton Packs work!". But existing IP does have some rather nice advantages too. I think the key may be exactly what Stu did. Don't place the story into the actual storyline of the movie/book/comic. His Ghostbusters happens after the movies. When I play Star Wars, I do things in the Old Republic era well before the movies.
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Post by jazzisblues on Sept 25, 2012 6:34:32 GMT -8
I have run games in published worlds. I ran my D&D games for years in the Forgotten Realms. That said, it might as well have been my own world because all of the canon that was going on in the books and in the various other published works existed it just didn't bear on my game.
I use canon as backdrop and flavor for the story that we're trying to tell. This is mainly for two reasons. First is that this is the pc's story. It does not belong to me, or to the canon, or to the npc's. Second is that the story int he canon has already been told, it doesn't need me to add onto it.
Suggestions have been made about the way the Star Wars universe could have changed if, for example, the pc's killed Darth Vader. Well, ok cool if that's what makes the game fun go for it. I personally am going to leave that part of the universe alone and put our game somewhere else doing something else that might end up being just as important, but not really touching on the canon and vice versa.
Cheers,
JiB
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tomes
Supporter
Hello madness
Posts: 1,438
Currently Running: Dungeon World, hippie games, Fallout Shelter RPG hack
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Post by tomes on Sept 25, 2012 8:04:59 GMT -8
In other news regarding Hirelings: The Ascent:
Project Update #15: $20K!!! Posted by Prolific Games And Tomer G is the backer that pushed us over the $20,000... We made it!!!! Thank you all for your contributions and support. We couldn't have done it without you. You're now definitely going to get a game, so if you've been holding off please pledge. Don't forget to tell your friends that this is the time to get your FREE fireball die. Who doesn't need more dice?!?!?!??! Thank you all again! John Harris Head Grateful Guy (Entire Universe Division) Prolific Games
You guys can thank me later. I take beers and fireball dice.
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Post by Kainguru on Sept 25, 2012 9:53:53 GMT -8
Published settings - I gladly use the venerable GreyHawk setting pre - GreyHawk Wars . . . I'd use the GH Wars but only from the outcome resulting from the game as played by the players NOT the canon resolution which was printed in the companion booklet (which never struck me a either logical or right). So canon setting upto the point where I and my players would put our little cloven hooves in to the muddied waters and start stirring around a bit.
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Post by malifer on Sept 25, 2012 10:32:07 GMT -8
I have run games in published worlds. I ran my D&D games for years in the Forgotten Realms. That said, it might as well have been my own world because all of the canon that was going on in the books and in the various other published works existed it just didn't bear on my game. I use canon as backdrop and flavor for the story that we're trying to tell. This is mainly for two reasons. First is that this is the pc's story. It does not belong to me, or to the canon, or to the npc's. Second is that the story int he canon has already been told, it doesn't need me to add onto it. Suggestions have been made about the way the Star Wars universe could have changed if, for example, the pc's killed Darth Vader. Well, ok cool if that's what makes the game fun go for it. I personally am going to leave that part of the universe alone and put our game somewhere else doing something else that might end up being just as important, but not really touching on the canon and vice versa. Cheers, JiB I agree 100 percent. My killing Darth Vader bit was really in response to Stu's questioning if you limit what your players can do. I "Yes and" all the way, but generally if I am going to run a published setting I have an idea of what kind of story hooks I'm going to bring and they rarely ever involve the canon. It's not about re-creating the movies storyline, but just using the toolbox of the setting. No different then grabbing Drow or Cthulhu and using them for a game. For me the focus is to try bring something new to something familiar.
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Post by jazzisblues on Sept 25, 2012 10:56:36 GMT -8
I have run games in published worlds. I ran my D&D games for years in the Forgotten Realms. That said, it might as well have been my own world because all of the canon that was going on in the books and in the various other published works existed it just didn't bear on my game. I use canon as backdrop and flavor for the story that we're trying to tell. This is mainly for two reasons. First is that this is the pc's story. It does not belong to me, or to the canon, or to the npc's. Second is that the story int he canon has already been told, it doesn't need me to add onto it. Suggestions have been made about the way the Star Wars universe could have changed if, for example, the pc's killed Darth Vader. Well, ok cool if that's what makes the game fun go for it. I personally am going to leave that part of the universe alone and put our game somewhere else doing something else that might end up being just as important, but not really touching on the canon and vice versa. Cheers, JiB I agree 100 percent. My killing Darth Vader bit was really in response to Stu's questioning if you limit what your players can do. I "Yes and" all the way, but generally if I am going to run a published setting I have an idea of what kind of story hooks I'm going to bring and they rarely ever involve the canon. It's not about re-creating the movies storyline, but just using the toolbox of the setting. No different then grabbing Drow or Cthulhu and using them for a game. For me the focus is to try bring something new to something familiar. Exactly
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RobMITC
Apprentice Douchebag
Posts: 67
Favorite Species of Monkey: Podcast
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Post by RobMITC on Sept 25, 2012 10:58:42 GMT -8
The point I was trying to make in chat during this podcast was that to the players, a GM created world and an existing IP pretty much are the same thing: someone else's world. So GM vs IP is more a GM thing. The main advantage to an existing IP is that players might already be invested in the fiction. I love this point and I'm a little sad I had never thought of it this way before. That honestly changes the way I think about existing settings and canon. While I will never run a game with an IP that my players know way more than I do, I can see how running something they already know and I could feasibly expand on could be a lot of fun. If I were to create a game based on Walking Dead, but set in California, my players would all know exactly what the world is like and what to expect before I said a word. -Robert
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Post by bloodsparrow on Sept 25, 2012 12:24:21 GMT -8
I love how Stu, the guy who has written and run TWO awesome Ghostbusters games, is against playing within established cannon.
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Post by Kainguru on Sept 25, 2012 12:28:48 GMT -8
I love how Stu, the guy who has written and run TWO awesome Ghostbusters games, is against playing within established cannon. Beer makes one forget . . . Blame the beer
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Post by Kainguru on Sept 25, 2012 12:44:23 GMT -8
Oh and CADave . . . I've read loads of 'those' novels too. They're a good fun read in a lunch hour at work, I mean everyone (including myself) is happy to open read Harry Potter so why the hell not. Some are better than others . . . Some are aimed at different audiences (older and younger) . . . The only problem I had was the sheer fucking volume regularly released. Eventually you've got to give up if you want to read other books as well. Here's a conundrum for IP: Jame Barclay writes The Raven Novels drawn directly from his gaming experiences playing DragonQuest in the 80's. Now his novels are an IP in their own right with a pending TV/Movie deal in the wings . . . A game run in the world of the novels using DQ rules(freely available for download on DQ fansites) would be canonical for system/source but not for events that players instigate. If the TV/Movie deal comes off there might be a game . . . But if it doesn't honour some DQ tropes then ?? . . .
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Post by malifer on Sept 25, 2012 19:49:33 GMT -8
Oh and CADave . . . I've read loads of 'those' novels too. They're a good fun read in a lunch hour at work, I mean everyone (including myself) is happy to open read Harry Potter so why the hell not. Oh thanks for reminding me. *cough cough* Ahem. Harry Potter is terrible.
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