Be A Better Player 16 - Find the right group

GM – You watch as the Ork raiding party surrounds the Inn. Their red eyes gleaming in the darkness as they prepare to attack.

Player 1 – Okay if all doors are all braced I'm going to a second story window with my crossbow.

Player 2 – Walking up behind the other people here who are at the windows with bows. Giving them a firm pat on the back as a sign of reassurance... it's not much but it's all I can do.

Player 3 – I'm going to drop out of the second floor window onto the ground below.

Player 4 – I'm... um wait... what did you do?

Player 3 – Going to try and reason with them. See if we can reach some sort of agreement here.

GM – You do realize these are the Orks that have been raiding the countryside for the last few weeks. They've left almost a hundred people dead in their wake.

Player 3 – Still it's worth a shot right?

Player 4 – I would say it's suicide actually.

GM – The Orks eye you very carefully, grins spreading across their faces as several ready their bows.

Player 3 – I hold my hands open and to my side showing I'm unarmed and slowly approach them.

GM – And they let lose with their arrows. Let me make some rolls to see how many of them hit.

Player 3 – What? Don't I even get a chance to talk to them? Try to work something out?

GM – I think I made it pretty clear over the last couple of games that these Orcs are killing everything they come across without hesitation. Even the survivors you have found have repeated this.

Player 3 – Well you should at least let us try diplomacy. You should run this differently.

You see what's going on there? A clash of play styles is occurring. The way the GM and the rest of the group are going about the game is different than the way player 3 wants. Instead of the action and combat approach to this situation he wants the diplomatic approach. Now the thing is neither play style is wrong. But sometimes they just don't work all that well together. This is where the problems usually come in.

The normal way this becomes a problem is when a new person who is used to one playstyle joins a group that enjoys playing with a different playstyle. At this point there seems to come a clash where either the player wants the group to change to match him or the group expects the player to change. Sometimes this works but other times it results in a lot of bad feelings between the two.

Now a bit of sit down and talking with the people in the group before hand can tell you what kind of playstyle they are used to. This also gives you an idea of how well you will fit in even if your ideas don't match up with theirs. A little variety in a group is nice and having people who think differently helps create some interesting games. Communication is key of course, let the others know what you think and why but also be prepared to hear them out as well.

If this still doesn't work out then you need to something different. You need to find a group that fits the way you want to play. This may be as simple as finding an existing group that you can fall into or putting one together a person at a time. Otherwise you will either be unhappy fitting into a group where you don't belong or they will be unhappy as you try to change the way they do things. Both can lead to somebody not having fun and having that fun is precisely what gaming is all about. So be prepared to do some looking to find the right people. You may pass through two or three or even more gaming groups before you find that one where you belong.

I found what in my bag of holding? Part 2

My Bag of Holding had what inside? Part 2

 

The first batch of twenty random things seemed to get a few likes so I came up with a second list.  Hope you enjoy.

1 – A chess piece (Knight) carved out of black stone.

2 – Quiver of old warped arrows.

3 – A water damaged cookbook on how to prepare various dishes using snails.

4 – Ring with four skeleton keys on it.

5 – Pair of leather gloves made for somebody with six fingers.

6 – Box with four very old and dried cigars inside it.

7 – A pink handkerchief with lace trim that smells of perfume.

8 – Deck of cards but each card has a completely different back.

9 – Box with a bottle of dried ink and a writing quill.

10 – Empty vial labeled 'Unicorn Blood'.

11 – Two toy wooden swords.

12 – Leather pouch containing random mix of wooden beads.

13 – Bottle of wine, well aged and rather good. No label.

14 – Sectioned box, each section has a small jar filled with a different kind of sand in each one.

15 – A three foot section of leather strap.

16 – An ordinary broom.

17 – Common cookbook with burnt edges.

18 – Three vials of 'Fresh Breath' potion.

19 – A 20gp marker from a high class gambling hall.

20 – Shoe horn, made of wood and rather old.

Peter Cushing and his toy soldiers

Here's something you don't hear about every day.  Evidently Peter Cushing was a wargamer.  Specifically of Little Wars by HG Wells.  Here is video of him with some of this figures.

I found what in my bag of holding?

I've never seen a player use their bag of holding only for good stuff. They toss of every scrap and bit into there so it's out of the way. So why would the previous owner be any different? Here is a quick little chart to give a bit of variety to what they find inside. Roll a D20 and give them something to scratch their head over.

1 – An incomplete deck of playing cards.

2 – A D6 of torches that have burnt to a stump.

3 – A rat skull with runes painted on it.

4 – 3 shiny copper pieces.

5 – A scale from some sort of large reptile.

6 – An empty water skin.

7 – A blacksmiths hammer.

8 – Small block of wax.

9 – An empty wasp nest.

10 – Lock of long black human hair.

11 – Two feet of rusty chain.

12 – A small vial filled with Oregano.

13 – Handful of small bird feathers.

14 – Sewing needle and half a spool of thread.

15 – Nice black leather boot, the left foot and no sign of the right.

16 – Unused sheet of parchment.

17 – Scrap of paper with writing in an unknown language.

18 – Set of eyeglasses with one lens broken.

19 – Pair of worn riding gloves.

20 – Crumpled up map with no writing of an unknown land.

Corvus Corax - Ergo Bibamus

Ergo bibamus, ne sitiamus, vas repleamus!
qisque suorum posteriorum sive priorum
sit sine cura morte futura re peritura
ergo bibamus

Alas, let's drink, not thirst any longer, refill our mug
Every single one should be without worries about his future or past,
because of the coming death, all will perish.
Alas, let's drink.

Rant - What is really hurting the hobby.

Really?  Just.... really?

One thing I really can't stand in the hobby nowdays is the division between the various groups supporting different playstyles.  I understand there being differences, that the games one group likes the other doesn't.  What I don't understand is the unending amount of hate flung back and forth between the two.  The completely imaginary 'war' that some see (and fail to see just how stupid it looks to anybody on the outside of the 'battle lines'). 

The Ego's of some of these people... that is the real kicker here, the part that really sets my teeth on edge.  When people claim that they are the ones to set THE definition of what a RPG is and nobody else can claim otherwise.  When people claim others have suffered legitimate brain damage from playing a certain game.  The edition warriors who outright attack anybody who says anything negative about their favorite... or anything positive about the edition they don't like. 

Some of these outright assholes need to seriously GROW THE HELL UP.  All those riding along on their coat tails need to learn to stand on their own two feet.  Actually there needs to be a lot of growing up by several people.  Hell even I could benefit from doing a bit more of it.  But it's hard and to many people just don't want to do anything that requires effort.

In the end if the gaming hobby is at risk of tipping over dead or falling to pieces then this is the reason.  It will be killed from the inside by people like this.  By the division they create.

Gamers who hate other gamers... and what they write.

There is one little small sub group of gamers that I can't stand anymore. They are the ones who can't take anything as somebodies opinion and see it all as demands. The raving back at the person stating their opinion begins rather quickly and it all escalates to stupid levels. Afterwords they get smug and tell the person they should have stated clearly that it was just opinion and doesn't apply to everybody. Even if they did that they are told their tone was wrong or the way they worded it came across badly. Etc... etc... until you get sick of it when really the problem isn't with the person stating their opinion but with the jackasses taking everything so freaking personally.

Recently this has came up quite a bit over somebodies article on how to be a better roleplayer. Here is the link below for it:

11 Ways to be a better roleplayer.

This article got pretty popular among gaming circles pretty damn fast and ended up getting mentioned all over the place. It's a pretty decent article and it's about some of the same things that I've said before in my 'Be A Better Player' series. Although our tone of writing differs somewhat we make some of the same points. Of course there was discussion and disagreement over the points presented in this article and how they were presented. All of which is good as disagreement can lead to a lot of healthy conversation.

However at some places the disagreement turned into some pretty outright hate. As if the author is going to show up the next game they run and start holding a gun to their head to make them follow these 'rules'. No matter what anybody says (or how it's absolutely not going to affect them) they kept going on and on, over and over, bitching about the same points.

These people need to grow the hell up a bit. Nothing the author said in the article was wrong, nor was anything in there an absolutely right. It was an opinion/advice piece and nothing more. Not a rally cry to some imaginary war (we have enough of those in the hobby already) or a demand for all others to fall into lock step with the ideas presented. I agree with most of it, other parts I don't, I take what is helpful and discard the rest. So before people go on these weird tirades of anger over anothers opinion they should set back and think things over a bit. Will it the 'offending' opinion affect them in any way? Is it really worth arguing over in an aggressive tone? Will I be flying my dipshit flag high for all others to see if I get all bent out of shape over it?