Killer Shrike's page

Setting things up, I'm a pretty extreme, type-A guy; some kind of conflict is pretty much a given at some point in any group setting over a long enough period of time. I'm not prone to sitting around doing nothing, and I'm not prone to backing down. So, admittedly, I'm often part of the problem.

Having said that, I've learned to try to avoid scenarios that will bring me into conflict with the GM or other players. I've learned to not challenge the GM overly much even though I almost always have a better understanding of the rules. I've learned to not short circuit the adventure unduly even though I can usually see thru the plot and see a way to "skip to the end" or bypass inessentials.

I didn't learn these things by contemplating my navel. I learned them the hard way.

I've left several groups. I've been the reason other players have left groups. I've hijacked groups to my own ends. I've let out of game crap break up good groups. I've let DMPC's run rampant. I've had heated arguments over the GM's screen. I've lost my s*+~e and gone on diatribes. I've shown players the door mid-session. I've been unnecessarily hard on players. I've railroaded, and I've sandboxed, I've meddled in character designs, and I've tweaked probabilities; I've even employed a Deus Ex Machina or two.

In short, I've made my share of mistakes over the years. Fortunately I can say that I've trended in the right direction, and after 26 years of gaming I can look back on the ups and downs and all arounds and see that it's both the things I did right as well as the things I did wrong that made me the gamer I am today, and thankfully most of my mistakes were made from age 10 thru 25, and the last 11 years have been smoother sailing.

What I started doing was reflecting on what I wanted a session to accomplish (in broad strokes) before hand, and a lessons learned after each session to identify any mistakes I made or things that could have gone better, and how satisfied I was with the session overall. Takes 10, 15 minutes. By applying this method I became much more aware of things that worked (and thus should be retained) and things that did not (and thus should be avoided), and capitalized on opportunities to improve. I do this both as a player and as a GM.

My gaming enjoyment improved significantly thereafter.

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So, about 12.5 years ago, I was between groups. I had recently gotten out of the military and was at loose ends. Most of my old compadres had gotten out and gone home and the rest were on deployment.

I had started a new job as a shiny new civilian and it was going ok but I worked a lot of hours and traveled a lot. Thus I didn't have time to GM.

So, I went down to the local gaming store which was all in all a good place, and got into a AD&D 2e game, which was not my favorite system to be sure, but it was familiar and it was set in Greyhawk which was my setting of choice back then.

The group was largish, 7 players and a DM, and they played in the store which meant there was a lot of external distractions. All surmountable. The GM was good people and there were a few members of the group that were alright. Then there were the four dregs, the game store vegypygmies. Classic basement dwelling arrested development types. You would think that people whose entire existence revolved around gaming would be good at it, but alas and alack.

The campaign was in progress and the PC's were in the Principality of Ulek, and basically I'm not sure what the over all goal was as I didn't really get briefed. My character, a half-elven FMT who was a follower of Tritherion and was basically a Robin Hood CG sort of character, was passing thru town. An orc raid from the Pomarj was the catalyst for me and another new player to join up with the group. The raid was repulsed pretty quickly, but the orcs kidnapped some kids and women, who all happened to be human.

The Principality of Ulek is a Dwarven-run kingdom, though humans also live there. So, the town guard, all dwarves, opts not to pursue the orcs into the Pomarj to rescue the victims.

This was a problem for my character, being a devout follower of Trithereon. Surprisingly, the rest of the PC's don't seem concerned either and also don't intend to pursue, including the Paladin of Heironeous (god of honor and bravery and so forth).

Now, 1) I'm assuming this is the hook for the session, and 2) it pretty clearly caters specifically to my character's background as described to the GM prior to play (history of fighting against the Slavers of the Wild Coast, freeing the oppressed, fighting tyranny and so forth).

So, I do my duty and step up to the plate. I grandstand and inveigh the townspeople, the dwarven guard, and the PC's to gather supplies and form up a posse to run the orcs down and save the kidnapped populace (the townfolks wives, daughters, and children mind you).

Not really getting anywhere with it. The townsfolk are apathetic; basically their attitude is "this happens all the time". The dwarven captain of the guard says its impossible and everyone will die, so don't bother. The other PC's are mostly lumps. So I try a different tact; first I attempt to rile up the human populace pointing out that if a single Dwarven child had been kidnapped, the dwarven guard would have been halfway to the Pomarj already. That went nowhere.

So then I try to rile up the Paladin, pointing out how this is exactly the sort of thing that a paragon of Heironeous should be all over and quickly came to the realization that the player didn't actually know anything about Heironeous...including possibly how to say it; it was just a name on his character sheet.

Keep in mind, I'm doing this 100% in-character. A couple of the other players would switch in and out, and the GM rose to occasion and tried to do it before giving up and reverting back to "the townspeople say no way".

So, I'm frustrated. This is clearly not going to work out. The rest of the PC's, including the new guy who hasn't really been introduced yet or formally incorporated into the group, decide they are going to get their gear and go to the next town.

I opt to gather my books and head to the next game. The GM was surprised. He says to me "but you're so into the game!", to which I replied "yeah, but it's lonely in here all by myself". I tried to recruit away the one player who was decent, but he was old pals with the GM and invested. So, basically, a waste of an afternoon.