Calvin Leslie's page

alexd1976 wrote:

As a GM, I had reached a point where I wanted to hammer my players into the shape I desired...

Then I realized my role.

I was there to create a fun time for them. I adopted their outlook, and the game got silly.

Then totally off the wall insane. They got shrunk down to three inches tall (this was in a futuristic/cyberpunk game) by a platinum dragon/god they had met.

They spent the next two sessions planning a heist. To break into a convenience store and steal a single chocolate bar.

It was the most fun we had had in months, and was in NO WAY related to my original storyline.

Cater to your players. Over time, they will learn to respect you as a GM and will become more compliant.

Running the story THEY want isn't a sign of weakness, it shows how flexible YOU can be as a GM.

Talk to them honestly about your wishes at the start of the campaign, tell them you want to play a gritty/realistic/horror/whatever kind of game and ask them nicely to cooperate.

Just try to have fun. Maybe put your current ideas for the campaign on the backburner, develop them in your own time and use them in a later game.

Taking a slightly contrasting view, you do significantly more work on these campaigns than they do and you have every right to enjoy the game as well. When a player sits down at a table he is implicitly agreeing, at the very least, to respect your efforts and your vision for the game. If they don't like the kind of games you run, they are under no obligation to play at your table. Conversely, if the group as a whole seems to prefer a style of play that isn't to your liking or doesn't represent fun for you, you are under no obligation to toil away solely for their amusement. I don't want to suggest you (or they) should be in conflict with each other or should play the hard-ass, merely saying that if you and they aren't on the same page, someone isn't going to have fun and if someone isn't having fun eventually no one will be. I have learned that there are...

Thank you for showing me the two different sides of this argument. Unfortunately, I kind of can't put any of my ideas on the back burner right now, but I will try to incorporate that type of thinking in the future. Also thank you for the other side where I have done alot of work on the campaign. I will try to use both sets of thinking in the future to try to appeal to my players while having fun myself.

I mean this is the most constructive way possible but I must say that if your game is as descriptive, engaging and responsive as your participation in this thread has been, I can totally see why you are having difficulties. You need to be far more forthcoming when answering questions if you would like our assistance or to run a successful RPG. You've given us next to nothing to work with in response to fairly specific questions. I suspect your players are likely bored out their minds and/or have no idea what is going on in the narrative due to your reticence so they are acting silly and recklessly out of frustration. That is unless there is a language barrier or something restricting you in this medium...if you are much more verbose at the table, I apologize for jumping to conclusions.

I am sorry I have not been able to check this in a bit, I have been extremely busy. If you have specific questions I will be happy to answer them when I can, but thank you for bringing this up. I want to thank everybody for the advice, and I am sorry for not being very active. I do try to be very verbal at the table, but sometimes I literally can't talk over them. I try to be specific and descriptive at the table, but maybe I can use work on that. Thank you for the feedback.

Sorry Calvin, but we're gonna need more of what is happening.

A: How are you running the game.
B: Personalities of your players.
C: Specifics on the Campaign.
D: Are you having fun? The Players?

I am currently running the game in a way where they should be able to have fun by diving into the narrative. They tend to be brash and always play general stereotypes. As for usual personalities, they are generally pretty brash and crash when it comes to these things. The players seem to enjoy themselves for the most part, but some of them really want the table to calm down. I was having fun but slowly the lackadaisical attitude toward the game has slowly worn me down.

Hi, I was wondering if the thousands of people out there could give me a few tips. In my game, several of the players aren't focusing on the game, and when they do they don't take it seriously. In the end I wan't the game to be fun for everybody but I also wan't people to take the game seriously. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I have a few more questions about this class. Sorry if I am offending anyone upfront, but the more I look at this class, the more questions I have. First, is there a limit to the amount of wild talents you can use per day/encounter? My friend was talking about something like that, and I think that is kind of off. Like composite blasts make sense, but not for the others. If someone could answer that and explain to me why that would be great. Another question is can you choose your wild talents? They are listed like a cleric bonus spells, but there seem to be more for each element than listed. Then just a question for character creation. Is there a race that gets bonus dex and con? Thank you for considering this post and answering these questions.

I don't know if I am missing something, or just being lazy not reading 4,000 pages of text, but I am confused on a few things. One, how do I get composite blasts? My first impression was that I got them at level 20, but I thought if I got them then, they were almost useless. Next, how do I not accept burn? It says option, but there are no actual augmentations listed. Are you planning on them in the final edition? This next one is a little bit of a suggestion. The burn makes absolutely no sense. I am sorry if that offends everyone, but think about that from this angle. You are a powerful fire bender, and you level up. Suddenly lighting people on fire makes you hurt a little bit to burning your flesh severely. Something you could do easily earlier gets harder to do as you level up. I suggest you change that around a little bit, even though I don't really have an idea of what it would be. Also, see if you can add in some sort of buffer, like you take free burn until the burn exceeds your con modifier. Thank you all for listening to me even if you already answered these concerns.