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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2012 5:29:48 GMT -8
So, last night's Traveller game went to shit.
First off, they managed to accidentally destroy an entire species of sentient life (okay, that part was a little funny).
They spent hours in surgery, fixing up some seriously wounded NPCs, only to crash two of their flyers while trying to escape from the invading army. One of those NPCs is now dead, and the other is more wounded than *before* the surgery.
The characters were largely ineffectual overall, and basically killed off most of the bad guys on *accident* (warning shots with turrets that accidentally hit, crashing flyers into bad guys, etc).
Now they're all holed up exactly where they were, only now more wounded, and with fewer options for escape.
On the surface, this can sound kinda cool. But it's really not. The whole session, they all seemed to feel they had few to no options, nothing worked right, and their characters have been so traumatized, that some players are saying their characters may refuse to travel with the others, once they reach civilization again. I feel like I really screwed this up, through a combination of not handling the Traveller system well, and poor "Yes-and"ing.
So, two questions:
1. How should I proceed? I'm thinking of giving them the option to sort of "fast forward" through the rest of this adventure... summarize what happens, get them back to their homebase, and start a new adventure. I'm also thinking of giving them the option of stopping the campaign, and switching to some other game, entirely. But I feel bad about that one, because we haven't gone too far in this campaign, and I've been pretty obvious about how much I'm eager to try out FATE.
2. Do you guys run into this? What do you do when you start to feel like you're a sucky GM? But no one else in your group will run anything, so you either keep GMing, or stop gaming for awhile.
--Pukka Tukka
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Post by ironnikki on Feb 17, 2012 11:52:59 GMT -8
Everyone has a bad night sometimes. It's entirely possible that the next session will go swimmingly, so don't lose hope yet!
The way I see it, if nobody else wants to step up and run a game, you get to decide what you want to do. Obviously, you want to provide a fun experience for your players, but you probably have a good idea about how they're feeling. I'm always hesitant to stop a campaign early, but sometimes, there's really just not a better option. See how they're feeling, and go from there. It could be that this is a learning experience, and the rest of the campaign goes swimmingly. If the players aren't feeling it, reach a good stopping point, hit the pause button, and jump into FATE (or another game of your choosing.)
Ultimately, so long as the group is having fun, you're doing it right. One bad game shouldn't completely change your group's feeling about the campaign, but if you'd rather be playing something else, do so.
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Post by clockworkmonk on Feb 17, 2012 12:03:03 GMT -8
Hm. I had a terrible session 1 of the campaign I'm currently running. It was primarily because I ran it in a system I didn't know very well as a GM (D&D 3.5e. I know, scold me all you want), but also because I couldn't effectively manage the personalities at the table. For all the "yes, and..." advice that should be followed, I've learned that there definitely are some players that you should use a, "no, but..." approach for instead.
The way I handled it was that I let the game sit for a little while. About a month or two went by before I started it back up again. We were lucky in that I wasn't the only GM in town, so we had other games to play in the meantime. I also changed the system to Savage Worlds, which I had a more intuitive grasp of and which I could improvise within much more fluidly. The players re-rolled their characters, and some rebooted their concepts entirely after seeing what transpired the first time around. I also rebooted the story entirely. Rather than having characters that didn't know each other, I established that they all had at least a passing familiarity with one another. We proceeded as if session 1 never happened.
One of the most important things I did, I think, is that I had conversations with everyone else about what I wanted to do. I admitted that I dropped the ball as a GM, got some words of advice and encouragement, and proceeded to reboot and start what's probablly the most fun and exciting campaign I've ever run. So yeah, definitely talk to your players and get a feeling for what they want to do, for how they think things have been going so far. A system change could be a good thing, if everyone else is on board with it. Would you be running it in the same setting or would you start an entirely new campaign instead?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2012 14:28:08 GMT -8
Have events around them go even more gonzo and let them kinda escape the shit by accident, playing up how bizarre things have been so far. Once they have gotten ahead of the mess let things settle down some and see where things go.
Its hard to say what exactly to do storywise based on what little you have their, but really I'd roll with it. Worst thing that can happen is that they all die in horrible and creative ways and you start a new game.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2012 19:00:37 GMT -8
Thanks for the advice, guys. Luckily, I have the best players in the world, and so none of them are as bothered as I am. We may still skip ahead, or switch games... not sure yet. But they all maintain that it wasn't as bad for them as I felt it was, so I'm hopeful for the future.
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Post by clockworkmonk on Feb 17, 2012 22:07:02 GMT -8
Hah. Yeah, that kinda happens a lot to me. The last session in one game I ran felt a little bit ... well, not the top of my game. I really didn't think people would want to continue with the game afterward, but it turns out that I was being a little self-defeatist. The last couple days they've been bugging me for the next session, so hey. Something went right!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2012 22:30:59 GMT -8
You could analyze what went wrong and why. Break down all the elements and decide what you had power over and what you could have done differently. What resulted from dice, what resulted from player choice, and what resulted from your choices?
The PCs crashed two fliers, killing one NPC and injuring another. Ok. Were the PCs attempting a difficult maneuver, and if so was it one they chose, or did their situation force them into it, like they had to escape from something? Did you set any circumstance penalties or bonuses on their piloting checks? Was the challenge reasonable or do you feel you set the target number too high? Basically, were they fucked by the dice, their choice of action, or your expecatations?
Penalties for failure: how do you decide what they crash into? How do decide how to penalize the failure? You can roll a bunch of dice for a crash, but why? Did you think it would help the story or make things more real for them to leave the circumstance of the crash up to some damage dice? Do you penalize random chance with more random chance? It seems like a very common GM approach, but that doesn't make it fair as a game or good storytelling. If a roll could go really really badly for the group, first think if the worst result would make a better story or if it would kill any momentum. If the worst possible roll is too bad to deal with, remove that option or remove random chance altogether and narrate in a way to push the story along and get past those ugly events.
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Post by gandalftheplaid on Feb 19, 2012 11:39:49 GMT -8
... Penalties for failure: how do you decide what they crash into? How do decide how to penalize the failure? ... I'm reminded of Tappy's game where all the party were in a vehicle chasing a train when the pilot/driver Storked the roll. Instead of crashing in the forest which could have been a very reasonable outcome, he decided they spooked a herd of animals and created a big mess as they were run over by the train and vehicle. I've done similar with a trap in a room where it wasn't going to really help the story to do a bunch of damage to a player. (DnD btw.) They were in an elevated room where energy was being siphoned off from the elemental chaos through a sort of portal. I decided there would be a "trap" to eject any loose elementals from the room and when my player tripped it, he found himself quickly ejected from the room and down a small cliff. Some damage was applied, but in an interesting way. Later a player had fun with the same trap by using it as an escape option after they sabotaged the portal with explosive results. Basically... sometimes failure can still be success.
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Post by jazzisblues on Feb 19, 2012 20:29:44 GMT -8
Sometimes you can do everything right and the game falls on its ass. Sometimes you can do everything wrong and the game just works. Go figure.
1. It's a game. Keep that thought firmly in mind.
2. Some nights are magic, some are not. Just keep playing.
If you and your friends are having fun with it, keep rocking right along. If you're not fiddle with it until you are.
It is rarely a bad idea to sit down and have a candid conversation with your playing group. They're your friends, or at the very least you're on friendly terms. They want the game to succeed as much as you do. If one of them does not then you have a problem of a whole different kind.
"It's like a good stew all the pieces have to come together to make it taste right."
Cheers,
JiB
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2012 23:14:57 GMT -8
I think your being too hard on yourself. Sometimes it's good to let the players fail spectacularly. I bet in a few months you'll be out drinking and someone will bring up the time they accidentally destroyed an alien civilization and much cheer will be had.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2012 9:05:31 GMT -8
Actually, the accidental genocide was kind of awesome.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2012 5:16:41 GMT -8
Just to give you a final update on this. We finally had our session last night, in which we talked a little about the direction of the game, and then proceeded to resolve the remaining adventure out of character, so we could move to a new starting place. It went *really* well. I kind of turned it into a game, where I gave them all 15 tokens, and whenever we had a point in the narrative that could go different ways, the players bid on which direction they wanted to take it. And I gave them bonuses for coming up with new directions I hadn't thought of. It really got their creative juices flowing, and I think we're all on board now. One player character, because of all the shit that went down last time, has gone off on his own, and that player will make a new character for now... but it was done really well, and in a way that we can bring the PC back if we ever want to. Anyway, just wanted to give you all closure on the story. Also, the guy who accidentally committed genocide is dedicating himself to figuring out how to bring the species back. --Pukka Tukka
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Post by jazzisblues on Mar 7, 2012 7:15:06 GMT -8
Just to give you a final update on this. We finally had our session last night, in which we talked a little about the direction of the game, and then proceeded to resolve the remaining adventure out of character, so we could move to a new starting place. It went *really* well. I kind of turned it into a game, where I gave them all 15 tokens, and whenever we had a point in the narrative that could go different ways, the players bid on which direction they wanted to take it. And I gave them bonuses for coming up with new directions I hadn't thought of. It really got their creative juices flowing, and I think we're all on board now. One player character, because of all the shit that went down last time, has gone off on his own, and that player will make a new character for now... but it was done really well, and in a way that we can bring the PC back if we ever want to. Anyway, just wanted to give you all closure on the story. Also, the guy who accidentally committed genocide is dedicating himself to figuring out how to bring the species back. --Pukka Tukka You may have just invented a whole new game mechanic and created the basis for a whole new rpg. Might want to explore that idea. JiB
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