emirikol's page

Things that piss me off:
* people that are on their phones during gaming
* dice that are hard to see so they get picked up
* convention GMs that feel the need to drag us through all 4 hours of play even though the adventure 3 hours
* being stuck with the same character and being punished for their death or the desire to switch even though the theme of the character no longer fits into the campaign
* when the GM doesnt have a house rulebook detailing how back up characters work.
* therapy instead of gaming at the game table
* slooooooooow commmmmmmmbats
* 7 player tables!
* players who are intolerant of opinions when no opinion was given or feedback (or offense) was even requested
* Games with more combat rounds than skill checks
* races as just another list of stats to abuse having nothing to do with the versimiltude of a campaign
* when players forget to thank their GM.

..

I think my 5 year old is a natural GM. He's already drawn and populated his own dungeon with goblins, orcs, more goblins, a manticore and a dragon.

Of course the dragon has an ac of 15 and only has 12 hps..and the manticore, he decided, only has 8 hp and an AC of 10. He didn't want HIS character to die.

Ah, game balance..it's taught at such an early age these days :)

Go the kids the painted mini's this morning and got a great big "YEA!!!" from all of them [the kids that is..the mini's just collectively groaned about at least being thankful to not be misfit toys]

jh

Another interesting game. We played Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh today and I ran it as a bit of a Scooby Doo adventure where the Illusionist at the end "would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids." I've kept the kids at 1st level for several games now (as well as for an adaptation of the WFRP3 scenario, "False Pretenses"), but I feel it's time to level them up. They've also attained a bunch of gold so I may give them 2-3 optional items to purchase in town.

Another thing is that I'm taking the "non-human" approach to bad guys. I have the bad guys run off more than get killed and have lots of surrenders where the players get to bring the baddies to town for jail. Seems to work well.

jh

Here is a very good free online dungeon painter (superbly easy to use):
Online Dungeon Painter

If any of you make some maps, please link them up!

jh

Something that we parents quickly discover playing with the kids: When do things with our kids, they love us more, we love them more, and we understand them more.

On a related note, my 10 year old daughter said to me, "Dad, you're really good at playing this game. How come you know so much about it?"

I told her, "Because I was practicing a whole bunch of years so I could be good when I finally got to play with you kids."

:)

jh

SPOILERS

My daughter just had her character feed 25 gp to the gold elemental and tell it to leave. (online download scenario). I had the elemental leave.

It's amazing how kids can think outside the "just kill it" box ;)

They were both captured by the giant black widow and spun into webs..I did a dramatic pause and a fade to black. I went and got a drink of water.

.."BUT DAD!"

..and then I had them wake up in town, having been rescued by the dwarf miner that they were nice to earlier.

I ran the demo/solo from the Hero's guide for my 10 and 5 year old (my 8 year old watched). Both of them just came home from school today wanting to play again. I think we're going to head in the mine from the supplemental before doing the main scenario.

Note: I had the goblins get 'wounded' and run off rather than the usual murder-n-take-their-stuff approach ;) We did kill off the skeleton king

I'm also cutting out the magic items from the print outs and handing them to them so they don't have to write down and reference.

Jay Hafner
Lakewood, CO

I find it amusing that you're so adamantly against slavery even being represented in a fantasy context, but still use the word "retarded" to reflect something as being negative. Bizarre.

Yes, the word is a negative and it describes what I think of the whole issue. I know we're not demeaning my terminology in order to make a point, whereas I'm trying to bring up the issue that we GM's are now faced with.

I consider slavery to be an evil act that doesn't belong in the game and that it cannot be justified because we "kill evil monsters and take their stuff, hence all other evil actions are thus justified."

The problem I have of course is not about slavery or evil PC's. It's about what situation a GM is suddenly thrust into. As a GM, I'm told that player characters cannot be evil..but suddenly slavery (rape and kidapping and all the other things that go with slavery) and murder of innocents could suddenly officially sanctioned by Paizo and Pathfinder Society by players and the GM's can't do a dang thing about it.

I can't tell you how much I'm really looking forwards to my first table here in Denver with African American players and "impressionable players" at the table and slavery is suddenly flung to the forefront. Thankfully, most of my black friends play WFRP I guess. I've already noted that it's seen as an issue about our local who gets off on this stuff. Officially, I can be banned as a judge for not allowing it? What the heck?

Where does this end and how much leeway as a GM do I have to disallow evil actions? What happened to the "no evil characters rule?" Or is that just lip-service?

Anyways, I moved to an off-forum area to discuss this touchy issue as a whole (since this is probably getting off topic): http://forum.rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?f=89

Joshua, in a sense, what we just need as GM's is clarification. If you're going to open that can of worms and say that Paizo officially sanctions slavery as a non-evil act in Open Play gaming, then this issue needs to be dealt with in a bit better fashion than "..They're legal. You just can't use them in combat.." Hush hush doesn't work. I've been GMing convention games far too long to expect that out of open play/Living gamers.

Thanks,

Jay Hafner
Lakewood, Colorado

If, for example, a GM responded a PC in such a way when they were playing through a common scenario that takes place in one of the many areas not antagonistic toward slave owners. I would really try hard to get that GM banned from running tables. Responding to a PC with a slave by destroying a table is not appropriate.

Of course it's not. But neither is getting your role-playing kicks off on slavery.

..and we wonder why there's a perpetual shortage of GM's...

jh

Slave are available for purchase in PFS. I would caution anyone who plans on buying a slave or slaves to think carefully about how they intend to use their purchase at the game table. Please keep in mind that your fun should not come at the expense of other players' enjoyment.

Are slaves /really/ necessary for purchase in PFS? Do we really need to go there?

I'm just thinking about how much not-fun this is going to be to have to deal with this at my tables. I'll probably just spend 3 hours having the PC being chased by angry townsfolk and the table will be cancelled..you want zero xp and zero gold? Bring slaves to the table!

We've got a guy in our region, its rumored already, who gets-off a little too much on owning slaves. I think it's pretty sick.

This is retarded imo and should be removed from the game before it becomes a major issue.

jh