Season 07 Episode 04
Feb 5, 2012 9:46:32 GMT -8
Post by HyveMynd on Feb 5, 2012 9:46:32 GMT -8
Ooph. What a time to be away for the weekend and miss the live stream. That was simultaneously one of the funniest and most horrible episodes I can remember. Every time one of the hosts said something inappropriately funny I would laugh for like a split second, catch myself, and go "Oh no. Tyler's going to say it again, isn't he?" It was like being in the audience of a stand-up show, laughing at the jokes, and then having the comedian suddenly point to you and say "What are you laughing at, chucklehead?" and rip into you. I totally deserved it though. Tyler, I'm surprised you didn't use your line when everyone was talking about melee fighters getting ganged up on in Savage Worlds. You totally missed an opportunity there.
As far as the Min/Maxer thing goes, I'm with Stu; it's the player's job to make their character's skills relevant. There are no useless skills, the way I see it.
That being said, there are some skills that are hard to make use of without the GM's help. Swimming in Savage Worlds comes to mind as one example. If there isn't any water in the scene, then you're just not going to be able to use that skill. Especially if you're playing in a more traditional game where the GM sets the scene and the players don't have much say in things outside of their characters. It's not as if the player can say "Oh yeah, there's a river over there now" unless you're playing a very free form game that allows that kind of narrative freedom.
There's also the fear of messing up the GM's plot somewhat. Now this won't happen in a sandbox style game where the GM is just sort of reacting to the player's actions, mind you. But some GMs have a very specific type of story they want to tell and certain skills or abilities will be more or less useful in those types of games. Also, the GMs who have a definite story to tell are usually the ones who'll say "no" when a player takes the initiative to make a useless seeming skill useful.
Case in point, in the Savage Words fantasy game I played in last year, I told the GM that I wanted to try playing a non-combat character. I sunk points into Charisma-based Edges, social skills, and skills related to medicine and healing (both magical and non). My character got the green light from the GM, though he did ask me to have at least a d4 in fighting so that my Parry would be 4. By the second session though, it was painfully clear that the GM was running a globe spanning action-filled game where people were expected to swing their swords first and ask questions later or not at all. I felt my character's social skills were nerfed due to the non-intelligent nature of our foes, and the fact that almost all non-combat encounters were simply people telling us to "Go see someone else." which would lead to another combat encounter along the way. The game was very linear (by the GM's own admission) and I found it almost impossible to use my character's skills. After the second session I told the GM I was changing my character, and made a more combat-orientated PC. Then the game died after the third session.
When you can see the way the story is supposed to go, you don't really want to be "that guy". You know, the one who goes off in another direction because "it's what my character would do". If the other players in the group are following along just fine, you kids of look like a dick when you throw things off the rails. After that experience I strongly feel that a) the GM should clearly communicate what kind of game they are running and what kind of characters would be appropriate, b) players should build their characters as a group or at least know each other's concepts, and c) the GM should look at each character before the game and point out any potential problems.
As far as the Min/Maxer thing goes, I'm with Stu; it's the player's job to make their character's skills relevant. There are no useless skills, the way I see it.
That being said, there are some skills that are hard to make use of without the GM's help. Swimming in Savage Worlds comes to mind as one example. If there isn't any water in the scene, then you're just not going to be able to use that skill. Especially if you're playing in a more traditional game where the GM sets the scene and the players don't have much say in things outside of their characters. It's not as if the player can say "Oh yeah, there's a river over there now" unless you're playing a very free form game that allows that kind of narrative freedom.
There's also the fear of messing up the GM's plot somewhat. Now this won't happen in a sandbox style game where the GM is just sort of reacting to the player's actions, mind you. But some GMs have a very specific type of story they want to tell and certain skills or abilities will be more or less useful in those types of games. Also, the GMs who have a definite story to tell are usually the ones who'll say "no" when a player takes the initiative to make a useless seeming skill useful.
Case in point, in the Savage Words fantasy game I played in last year, I told the GM that I wanted to try playing a non-combat character. I sunk points into Charisma-based Edges, social skills, and skills related to medicine and healing (both magical and non). My character got the green light from the GM, though he did ask me to have at least a d4 in fighting so that my Parry would be 4. By the second session though, it was painfully clear that the GM was running a globe spanning action-filled game where people were expected to swing their swords first and ask questions later or not at all. I felt my character's social skills were nerfed due to the non-intelligent nature of our foes, and the fact that almost all non-combat encounters were simply people telling us to "Go see someone else." which would lead to another combat encounter along the way. The game was very linear (by the GM's own admission) and I found it almost impossible to use my character's skills. After the second session I told the GM I was changing my character, and made a more combat-orientated PC. Then the game died after the third session.
When you can see the way the story is supposed to go, you don't really want to be "that guy". You know, the one who goes off in another direction because "it's what my character would do". If the other players in the group are following along just fine, you kids of look like a dick when you throw things off the rails. After that experience I strongly feel that a) the GM should clearly communicate what kind of game they are running and what kind of characters would be appropriate, b) players should build their characters as a group or at least know each other's concepts, and c) the GM should look at each character before the game and point out any potential problems.