juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 6, 2013 12:38:37 GMT -8
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 5, 2013 12:19:36 GMT -8
That's a very good point in separating out "Dramatic Motivation" because that's just what it feels like when she gets going. Now my captain player definitely agrees that her starting in was "the straw that broke the camels back", but denies that it was solely her that caused him to react the way he did.
I think most days we have a decent balance and she generally follows the parties lead. She gets to have her moments and until the next time she waxes motivational we all have a good time. I'm learning different ways that I can address her issues without going through a long conversation during gameplay and all in all I have a good time too.
We'll continue the game in a couple weeks, where the Threnody will come under scrutiny of some rather big players in the Aramis system. Maybe some subtle inquiries by entities unknown in relation to Gvoudzen to give them a tip off. I have to decide what plot hooks I'll scatter in their paths like so many pennies.
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 4, 2013 20:31:52 GMT -8
Goddamn - I never knew!
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 4, 2013 4:09:40 GMT -8
Thank you very much everyone for your thoughts. You guys all rock. The introspective player just seems to really enjoy picking apart the motivation. She always goes along with the group decision but she really just derails the game for up to 30 minutes when she starts. I've been able to keep this in check in the past by crafting my own adventures. My adventures tend to have plot hooks that the players/characters more easily identify with I guess. I think my issue was trying to run a published adventure with an established group that isn't used to me presenting hooks quite like this. I was trying to use the hook that the published adventure presented when I should have been finding something more suitable to my players characters interests. My bad. I spoke with the player of the Captain yesterday and it actually wasn't my introspectioners fault. Essentially he had plot hooks he was interested in, he was trying to find a way to pursue them while still allowing the other players some agency (rather than just ordering them around as the captain). - His chief engineer insisted that they should return the wallet immediately - while the Captain felt it was important to wait and see who came looking. This was a rather heated discussion. Also she found the character of Gvoudzen a rather distasteful person. She can't stand a person who would steal from their employer.
- The captain asked the Aslan Psion if he could the thoughts of Gvoudzen and the curator to try and get a better handle on what was actually going on. The Aslan politely declined citing a personal code invading another persons mind without just cause.
Finally, the doctor started her motivational examination as he was trying to figure out how he might make use of the information she uncovered. When she mentioned "I don't get why we don't just send him on his way." the captains player decided that he was no longer interested in any of this plot.
From the captains perspective, it was causing way too much strife among his crew. From the players perspective he felt like all the other players were roadblocking him. Add to that the fact it was after midnight his time and he has to work the next day it led to the decision to just "dump the plot". As a GM in his own right - he apologized to me - but as a player he felt he made the right decision. So really it comes down to a GM fail LOL. (as it most often does) I have spoken with each player individually on multiple occasions. They are all personal friends to me as individuals as well as a group. I am always asking for feedback, and I am always open to adjusting my game (hence why I'm not strictly sandboxing anymore). None of the players are dissatisfied with the game in general I just think this plot hook may have been a wrong fit for my group, and I should have seen it.
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 3, 2013 17:18:22 GMT -8
If you're looking for a good published adventure check out "Aramis: The Traveller Adventure" from DriveThruRPG. It's more of a minicampaign but it's a good place to start.
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 3, 2013 16:52:50 GMT -8
So this is sort of a Shadowrun specific question but I want to get more than just the SR communities opinion.
I had a couple Meatspace friends ask if I would be willing to GM SR4 for them, since I've recently been playing again. I thought about it and I've had an itch to GM but am not ready to GM more than a couple people.
I'm thinking about using a campaign idea I got from a Youtube video shown on a G+ community I think. It was called Duplication, duality, or something like that (I can no longer find the video) and involved time travel.
In a city there is a new cop in town, the city itself. The city is in the first stages of implementing something called "The Grid". This is a system of sensors, and security systems tied into a massive AI and monitored by an agency. Anyone not registered with The Grid is rounded up, registered, and then either set loose - or if they are an "undesirable"; they are incarcerated for rehabilitation - or disposed of.
The clip goes through a chase and then an interrogation where an officer is questioning a woman from the future and she finally slips up revealing she is the one from the future and not the other one they hauled in. They haul her away and then another "Duplicate" is detected on the "Grid". Turns out this duplicate is the police officer that just questioned the woman.
I want to run my two runners as partners who have come back in time together after seeing what the future holds. So they join whatever resistance cell is active in sending people back in time and come to the past to try and change things. This will obviously be somewhat on rails but as far as HOW to disrupt "The Grid" I will leave those plans up to the players. One of my players wants to play a decker style character and I think this would be especially useful in keeping "under the radar" when it comes to the Grid.
I want to start off the players in the past as their "younger" selves in a sort of railroady "prelude" episode. They work for the Agency that is in charge of the Grid Implementation. It's still under development and is being installed into it's first major city. Suddenly and alarm goes off and the runners are assigned to track down a "Duplicate" person. Using the decker (hacker) synced up with the grid they would eventually track down the intruder and capture them. Perhaps roleplay even a little into the interrogation and then "fade" the scenario away. Give the players a rundown on what has happened in the last 5 years or so to make them join the resistance.
Their younger selves would be devoted to the Agency and not inclined to offer their traitorous future selves any assistance. The future selves would certainly understand this and avoid contact with their past selves but I won't completely rule it out. The Agency would probably not let the younger copies become aware of their duplicates if it can avoid it.
So what I need is some thoughts along the following lines:
1: Do you think it works for the SR universe? I prefer systems that are thematically aligned to the game I want to run.
2: What city would most likely be the best to use in this scenario? I want to try and avoid SR cities with heavy canon influence.
3: Does this sound like a fun game to play in?
4: What would be a good incentive for the runners to turn coat? I am thinking some sort of disaster brought on by the Grid. Perhaps the Grid started euthanizing entire blocks of population to control the encroachment of resistance. I am totally open to other ideas.
Thoughts?
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 3, 2013 7:45:27 GMT -8
LOL - I think I'll save number 4 for my personal use. I'll pass along the others though
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 3, 2013 5:31:46 GMT -8
Hahahaha - Yeah players are bitches that way.
I know it will sort itself out. I plan on speaking to the Captain player today to see what's up. I need to see whether this is salvageable.
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 3, 2013 5:04:10 GMT -8
When I was 8 (back in 1980) my mom's boyfriends son (he was 14 or so) managed to get his hands on the redbox. They lived on a farm out in VERY rural Oregon and I visited in the summers. We played a couple times and I was very interested until his dad found out and tossed the books because SATAN! (Which is hilarious looking back since he and my mom were meth addicts at the time.)
But that was my only exposure until 3 years later (at the age of 11) in 7th grade. I was a year younger than all my classmates and ended up making friends with a kid named Tim. He only lived a few miles away with his grandparents. We started hanging out at each others houses. We were friends for about a year and then his uncle started coming around more. His uncle was very into 1st Edition AD&D and he actually let us younger kids play in a few games. A few months after that he gave his old worn out AD&D books to Tim and we started playing weekly.
About 6 months after we started living and breathing AD&D Tim got new books for some holiday or other and I managed to convince him to trade me his old books (PHB, DMG, and MM) as well as a set of dice for my entire Transformers collection.
It was the best trade I ever made and I will never regret it.
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 3, 2013 4:39:27 GMT -8
I'm waiting on my printed copy with baited breath. Very eager to read through this.
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on Aug 3, 2013 4:30:50 GMT -8
Hey everyone - it's been awhile since I posted.
As some might remember I am running a Traveller game in the Firefly universe. We don't get a helluva lot of playtime. Once every two weeks with a session of 2-3 hours max. Two of my players are east coast time-zoned and one of them has to work the next morning. We play from 9:30PM to 12:00AM Eastern. My players consist of two married couples, one local to me is my best friend of 20+ years and his wife. The other is my close friends from when I worked on the easy coast.
I was using Firefly (a setting my players were all comfortable with) to introduce my players to Traveller before I "opened up" the game universe to them. We had our bi weekly game last night and things went somewhat poorly.
I love all my players but one of them (the wife of my best friend no less) has this habit of becoming very analytical in a metagamey way. She's playing a retired scientist in the role of the ships doc and cargo broker. At some point in every session she will start asking questions about "why" they were doing these things. She will side-rail a combat session to pontificate whether the party is justified in their actions. She attends combats through a couple remote drones.
Essentially she becomes the actor that waits until she's on stage to ask "What's my motivation for this scene?" and then wants to discuss everyone elses motivations for that scene as well. It leads to very long conversations that soon turn into heated "discussions" about the situation and why the other characters want to get involved in whatever the plot is. Imagine Deanna Troi from STNG mixed with a very aggressive player personality almost forcing other players to justify their interest in a plot hook.
I can tell it gets to the other players and I try to keep her in check but I also don't want to stifle her creativity too much.
Last night it came to something of a head.
A few weeks ago; a derelict ship, an Aslan player joining the crew of The Threnody, a shiny "new to them" Jump Drive, and high tension with the Alliance all lent to the decision to take their first strokes in a new, bigger pond. I knew where the PCs were going and I had a great idea. I was now going to run them through a classic game, Aramis: The Traveller Adventure.
Summary: An NPC steals a brooch that contains the secrets of a powerful man and his arrangements with a band of Vargr corsairs. The NPC had the brooch "stolen" from him by a pawn shop/museum and the players are enticed to help him recover it after rescuing the NPC.
The players made it to Aramis and landed on the planet. The first two sessions of this arc went great. They rescued Gvoudzen (the NPC) and got his story. They saw a cool plot hook, grabbed it, and were pulling it deep under the waters. They were discussing ways in which to help him recover his property and had gotten to the point of casing the museum (the doctor was involved all through this). The doctor/scientist had even broken into the message database of the museum and cracked a very suspicious encrypted message from a third party corporation asking for return of a brooch matching the description of the brooch that Gvoudzen had lost.
Then "that player" stepped up her game. She stopped game play at the 11th hour of the session and started asking "why". The characters were engaged, there was a mystery here and the crew of The Threnody were there to crack it. Even the doc had helped uncover part of the mystery. But WHY are we investigating this mystery?! To her credit - she does it mostly "in character" and she doesn't use information her character does not have. She's just very persistent.
I think after 15 minutes "discussing" the motivations through the characters my captain player cracked. His character took the lost wallet they had found with the clue of the larger picture and essentially dropped it in the mail (rather than returning it in person as he had planned). He then gathered up all the information that the party had gathered. He posted it in an anonymous message to the local police and then booted Gvoudzen out the airlock with 50 credits and instructions that he was "on his own". Effectively I think he was telling the other player "Fine, you don't want an adventure? Great! Go find me a cargo and let's get back to just running some new trade routes!"
A couple game days later Gvoudzen's name showed up in the local papers obituary (the captain was specifically watching local news feeds). He was brutally beaten, and stabbed to death. There is little in the way of police investigation.
Now - I know what's going to happen next - assuming we have a game in two weeks. Gvoudzen had no reason not to name the Threnody as the crew who rescued him the first time. He will have also told his interrogators about the fact that he had spilled all the beans about the brooch to the crew of the Threnody (the fact that Gvoudzen suspected the brooch was used to carry secret messages). The characters are now under the scrutiny of both a powerful man in a megacorp and the Vargr corsairs he was doing business with illegally. Tons of things I can do here to harass the players or possibly even get them back into the adventure.
My concern is that this player behavior is going to break my game. Even I as the GM am getting a little frustrated with the constant introspection being forced on other players by the one player. It's one thing to look for motivation to grab a plot hook, it's another to constantly review motivations around that plot hook.
I know I need to sit down and talk with this player. She's a great friend to me and my best friends wife but she's sucking the fun out of my game for the rest of her players, including her husband. She just tends to not take criticisms very well and I am concerned that half of my group is about to pull out. Which half depends on how I handle this I think.
*sigh* I'm just commiserating on my woes and GM frustrations. Anyway, if you read - thanks for reading. If you want to reply, or have any good advice - feel free.
Jerry in Oregon - out
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on May 29, 2013 9:15:00 GMT -8
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on May 26, 2013 5:44:57 GMT -8
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on May 16, 2013 6:31:44 GMT -8
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juberberry
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 132
Preferred Game Systems: Traveller, VANGUARD, Shadowrun 4, CP2020
Currently Playing: Traveller - rarely
Currently Running: Traveller, Shadowrun 4, VANGUARD
Favorite Species of Monkey: Ressus
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Post by juberberry on May 14, 2013 2:25:36 GMT -8
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