About GM Watery Soup
My Social Contract
I am pro-fun, and want to play with people who are pro-fun. I consider playing to be a privilege, and everything else to be secondary to the enjoyment of playing. I try to maximize the amount of time playing; and minimize paperwork, rules lawyering, and other banality. Three specific things:
1. I dislike GMing for CHA-dumped characters. Too often, I find the CHA-dumped character is just an excuse to play half the game and take a proverbial (and in one case in a F2F game, literal) nap for the other half. If you insist, I want to see three things: (a) you as a player are going to be as engaged and as engaging as a normal player, (b) your character has to be willing to contribute in non-combat portions of the scenario, and (c) your character has to have at least one in-character aspect that distinguishes it from a random collection of optimized combat feats stitched together into a Frankensteined murderhobo.
2. I dislike botting characters. You don't have to post, you get to post. If you have an emergency or a planned absence that comes up, I'm happy to hold the game for you.
3. I prefer characters that run counter to stereotypes. Your character is an emotionally detached, womanizing fighter; or a dwarf who loves alcohol? Cool, but honestly, I can watch The Witcher or The Lord of the Rings and watch it done with better special effects. I want to see a character whose story only you can tell.
I plan ahead, and want to play with people who plan ahead. Random things happen, but fewer random things happen if I plan well. Two specific things:
4. I dislike recruiting first come first served, especially the "land rush" mentality, where people feel the need to immediately post to claim a spot, because if they wait, the game will be full in 45 minutes. For my games, I have selected scenarios for a reason, and I expect that people thoughtfully apply with characters appropriate for the mission. I like open recruiting for 2-4 IRL days so people can notice it's a water-heavy scenario and look up the rules on aquatic combat to decide if they want to play it at all, or decide which character to bring.
5. I aim to post once per day / once per weekend, and expect the same of players. I usually check the thread multiple times per day, so I can go to 1.5 posts/day or so, but around 2 posts/day, I find it's not as fun, so I don't sustain that pace. This usually leads to games that are 5-7 weeks in length, with a low of 3 and a high of 12. If I anticipate the game running through or finishing before significant events - holidays, major conventions - I'll be as clear as I can be up front. I won't cut content at the end to rush a game before an event, and won't significantly accelerate the pace just to get it done.
I am quirky. Or, a churlish killjoy. Take your pick. Either way, don't be surprised. Random stuff that has come up:
6. Unless otherwise stated, I run my publicly recruited games kid-friendly. In a nutshell, if I have to look up what the rule is, the answer is no. That it may technically be allowed by Society rules is not a counterargument I accept.
7. That being said, if you have a brilliant idea that's not kid-friendly, I'm willing to consider running a separate game for it, it'll just be private recruitment. I note this with some wry amusement: every time I've offered to run an all-"my character is a jerk, not me" scenario where characters have full creative control to be their jerky selves, unfettered by my shrill nannying, nobody's ever taken me up on it.
8. I don't want to GM your sexual fantasies. I used to have a paragraph about it, but decided to Louis Armstrong it: "Man, if you have to ask, you'll never know."
9. I don't report PFS1 games through OSP.
