Three
Nevermind
(Doing Therapy)
Dice are discussed in the chapter entitled Introduction. You'll do best if you have three ten-siders at least one of which is clearly distinguishable from the other two for rolling percentages, two twenty-siders, and one thirty-sider.
You can get away with one of each, but then you have to roll multiple times.
You can also use a twenty-sider as a ten-sider by treating the 11 to 20 as 1 to 10 repeated.
Thirty-siders are not always available. If you can't find one, you can use a six-sider and a ten-sider, using the six-sider as 1&2=1 to 10, 3&4=11 to 20, 5&6=21 to 30, with the ten-sider giving you the ones. Most ten-siders are numbered 0 through 9, some are numbered 00 through 90, rarely will there be a "10" on one.
Or you can use a stopwatch.
--M. J. Young
My response to John or anyone else taking over for my game, I see MJ at Ubercon every year, and it's one of the games I make time for. Last year between a lack of games and always too many people at the table, I got not a lot of time to play, but I intend to play this fall, and having someone else run me, takes that out of mix. As for starting a new character, I already started a new character on rpol, but do to issues, and changing gms, stopped playing that one, and not interested in doing it again.
Adam
I'll see John.
Jhiaxus, I remember the pretty cool world inspired by 1920's SF with Iron Fusion, or was it Fission Engines, and Purple Jovian Giants aka the Purple Men of Jupiter. That was fun. But I felt like I lost the thread a bit after that world. But good times.
John,
One question I like to do to figure out my players is have them list their five favorite movies and/or books. So....I'll put together a list of some of my faves.
Movies:
1. Iron Man--the best movie of the summer I said even before the rest of the summer came along.
2. Toy Story--just watched TS3, and it was quite nice. Had my two tykes laughing quite a bit.
3. Back to the Future--I love me some time travel stories (even if I'm not good at mysteries).
4. Groundhog Day--One of my faves even though I'd be horrible at playing it.
5. Howard the Duck--I'm not sure this is one of my faves, but I enjoyed quite a bit of it, and everyone else says its one of the worst movies ever made.
6. Die Hard--YEAH!
7. Roger Rabbit--really great.
8. Matrix--sure its cheesy, but its great.
9. LOTR--because otherwise I'd lose my fantasy cred.
10. X-men 1 (2 was pretty good, and 3 okay)
Worst Movie Ever: Waterworld
Books:
1. Marooned in Real Time by Vinge (most everything by Vinge except his latest)
2. Falling Free by Lois McMasters Bujold (and pretty much all her Vorkosigan stuff although not really her fantasy stuff which I've only read one of, and thus haven't gone on too another even tho' thats probably unfair.)
3. Pretty much all of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (not great, but fun and absorbing)
4. Oath of Swords by David Weber. (He doesn't usually write fantasy, but this was very good. The next two books declined in quality.)
5. Deed of Paksennarrion by Elizabeth Moon. (Pretty much the best fantasy series since Tolkien, I guess.)
Worst book ever. Let me be kind and not list the authoress' name. Let's just say that she could be an inspiration for a Multiverser feminist-feminine world because the men tended to fit into a few categories. I'll name two. 1)Quite cute, but useless. 2)Diabolic geniuses with serious issues. I think I'll make that world.
I'm gonna see if I can get a stopwatch. I'd lose dice. You're going to have to kind of talk me through this a little. Tell me where in the book to look for the answer. Don't give me the answer.
Did we ever stat the zombies? Perhaps Scott or someone could check that out? I'm gonna have to reread the Daywalkers thread too. I wrote most of that having a psychotic episode.
For what it's worth, you're either going to meet The Survivalists, The Garbageman, or The Amish Farmer first. I don't understand the Mormon missionary, and I can't think of a plausible way to bring in the fishing boat captain the way I want.
(Dextroland)
Two
I said on the other page that the scenario felt to me as if it "should" have gone like that. I lost the bet that I made. I would never warn Pearl Harbor. I did. My gay neighbor lost his bet. He bet that he would never show prejudice. Wow, yeah MJ, it was "supposed" to go like that. Any other way, you wouldn't have found out that I wasn't committed to non-involvement. God had a hand in this, I'm certain.
(Dextroland)
I enjoyed playing that version of me, I meant I didn't feel like creating another version of me now and starting again. If you ever wanted to pick up on that character, would love to continue.
Adam
If I did it, it would be here. And I'd need some time to re-read the games after looking at the very helpful index Oak created. And I'd need some time to think it over. I'll try to give you an answer if you like (I'll assume you will as default) in about two weeks.
Eric, I agree with you pretty much on the movies. Let me get a stopwatch, then we can get started.
Cool works for me.
Hey MJ, I've had this turning in my head for a few days, and I thought you would be interested.
You assumed that, because I had an interest in Final Countdown that I also had an interest in Pearl Harbor, and that I knew far more than I did. You thought 2@1, I'm not even 1@2.
You had mentioned going backpacking, and I assumed that you probably weren't as experienced as you are, and knew far less than you do. I thought 1@2, you're probably closer to 2@1, if not much, much higher.
I think your attitude shows optimism, mine shows pessimism. I believe Ben Franklin said (paraphrasing) "It is better to be a pessimist than an optimist. The optimist looks for the best, and when it doesn't happen, is constantly disappointed. The pessimist looks for the worst, and when it doesn't happen, is constantly relieved."
(Doing Therapy)
I believe Ben Franklin said (paraphrasing) "It is better to be a pessimist than an optimist. The optimist looks for the best, and when it doesn't happen, is constantly disappointed. The pessimist looks for the worst, and when it doesn't happen, is constantly relieved."
I don't know about Ben Franklin, but Jay Fedigan said that to me when I was about twelve or thirteen, and I repeated it to my father, and my father had the answer.
When things go badly, the optimist knows that they could have been much worse and expects that they are going to be better.
When things go well, the pessimist believes that all this seeming good is an illusion and it's all going to fall apart soon when we'll see how bad it really is.
So the optimist enjoys things even when the go badly, and the pessimist never enjoys anything even when it is good.
I think, though, that your attitude is not pessimism but cynicism. You believed I was probably overstating my abilities. I very rarely overstate my abilities; I usually understate them. That's because I've been ostracized for bragging when I was stating what I perceived as facts and acting accordingly (can I help it if I was a better musical director than the guy who was unofficially running the group?). I thus tend to expect that others are understating their own abilities when they are really good at something, out of supposed modesty, and to underestimate themselves when they are average (the tendency is always to compare ourselves against the people who are really good, and thus when we are average we see ourselves as deficient by contrast). You apparently think that most people are bragging beyond their worth. I've had people think that about me, and I don't like it. The result is that I understate my own strengths and overvalue those of others--which usually gets them to be more honest about their abilities ("Oh, no, I'm not that good") than the reverse ("Are you trying to say I'm no good?").
--M. J. Young
You're in a depressive funk, aren't you MJ? You seem to think I'm deliberately insulting you.
I think, though, that your attitude is not pessimism but cynicism. You believed I was probably overstating my abilities.
No, I don't believe so. Reason being, I had read you say things about going backpacking. I never read a word about how much experience you had. The way it sounded to me was a vacation you took, not something you did regularly, or had any experience in.
You apparently think that most people are bragging beyond their worth.
Once again, no. You stated that you had gone backpacking. I didn't automatically assume that you were an expert in the field. Please do not forget that when I met you, you had extreme difficultly breathing. A strenuous activity like backpacking and hiking would be the last thing I would expect from someone with such problems. I think believing you to be not so experienced was a reasonable assumption.
I think though that you missed the entire point I was making. You assumed, based on your information, that I was an expert. I assumed, based on my information, that you were an amateur. Both of us were wrong. Both of us had a comparable amount of information. It's a different way of thinking.
(Doing Therapy)
You believed I was probably overstating my abilities. I very rarely overstate my abilities; I usually understate them. That's because I've been ostracized for bragging when I was stating what I perceived as facts and acting accordingly. I thus tend to expect that others are understating their own abilities when they are really good at something, out of supposed modesty, and to underestimate themselves when they are average (the tendency is always to compare ourselves against the people who are really good, and thus when we are average we see ourselves as deficient by contrast). You apparently think that most people are bragging beyond their worth. I've had people think that about me, and I don't like it. The result is that I understate my own strengths and overvalue those of others--which usually gets them to be more honest about their abilities ("Oh, no, I'm not that good") than the reverse ("Are you trying to say I'm no good?").
You and me have a lot in common, MJ. I do this too, all the time.
Mistake
So, pessimism or optimism?
"Run!!! He's got an ISM!!!!!"
(That sounds funnier to me than it does to you, I'm certain)
(Doing Therapy)
Not sure--maybe engineerism.
You know, the optimist says the glass is half full; the pessimist says the glass is half empty; the engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
--M. J. Young
And the one with alcoholism just drinks whatever is in the glass.
Of course, that could also be practicalism. Never refuse free food. You never know. It might be the last chance you have to eat for quite a while.
(Doing Therapy)
I try to define my abilities accurately, at least some of them. The idea of deliberately overestimating my abilities is something of a thing I doubt I would do. For one, because I'd be expecting to be caught out, and its more embarrassing to be revealed as a liar than as someone who can't do something.
That said, if I say I can do something, it doesn't mean I can. It means I think I have a good chance at doing it if I try hard and keep at it.
I have a number of largely useless skills (if fun for me) that are exceptional, and I have made that point of the greatness, but I also try to keep in mind the exceptional qualities of others. I suspect I have a viewpoint on this that is somewhat different than others. I'd like people to say 'yes, I am really good at X' and then prove it, and then have others pitch in with their parts that they are really good at. Sounds pretty communist, but its a voluntary thing. I want people to see that cooperation, and understanding of how parts fits together offers greatness.
I recently read R. Emmett Tyrell (who is very smart, and cultured, and conservative, adn kinda strange) and he talked about one problem the conservative movement had at a specific time. Everyone was trying to be jack of all trades, idea man, writer, fundraiser, and on and on so that the money and influence got trickled out too way too many one man shops to be useful. He's a very talented and sarcastic writer and he had people come to him to volunteer to write his columns for pay. As he explained, they didn't understand that someone would prefer as first choice to just be a writer. So there was an infrastructure being created, of ghost writers at least, but it was a dishonest one, and it hindered the development of original voices and genuine followings (plus the really talented don't generally like to be boxed in that way).
I would like the opposite of Tyrell's indictment, perhaps.
Eric, I went out and got a stopwatch last night so I could run your game, and the damn thing doesn't work. I'm gonna have to take it back. Sucks too, cuz I finally decided on the opening.
Ya know though, I have to wonder if a great deal of rookie gamers with my level of experience would have stuck around after running through a world the way I did. I didn't run away, you gotta give me that.
(Doing Therapy)
MJ, you were saying that there was debate about whether RPGs could be dangerous for some people. I'd say certainly yes. However, I also think that it was a 30 roll, even for someone with my problems. If you had sent me to any other world, that wouldn't have happened. If that world had gone any other way, it wouldn't have happened. Of course, if it had gone any other way, you'd probably think I was seriously committed to non-involvement. It was a 30 roll, even for me, I think. I still think they're safe.
There's a one in one thousand chance that it could drive a paranoid psychotic completely batshit crazy. So, two 30 rolls in a row. Yeah, these games are still safe.
If a victim of the supposed problem says that something is safe in spite of the dangers, that's quite an endorsement, I'd say. That was a 30 roll even for me.
(Doing Therapy)
I see. If you're committed to something, you would be willing to suffer for it. I wasn't, even though I felt I should stay out of it. For some reason, it feels like it was "supposed" to happen that way. That was the only way that world could have shown you that I wasn't committed to non-involvement.
(Doing Therapy)
Yeah, I know there's a lot in a row, but please note that most of them are several days apart. That said, I was running back through some things that MJ said. That, the only way to get to know someone is to find similar feelings inside yourself. MJ, you were thinking like "John will have to be committed to non-involvement to not get involved in this." I was thinking more like "Anyone who would get involved in this should be committed to an insane asylum." Certainly MJ knows the historical significance of this event, that it was the catalyst for WW2, and that if it doesn't happen the end result could be that Germany wins the war. MJ certainly knows that. He put me here to see if I would be stupid enough to ruin the United States. Well, I'm not that stupid. (It sounds really funny spoken.)
That's how I thought you were thinking. Finding similar feelings inside yourself.... Doesn't always work.
I saw a documentary about Pearl Harbor a looooong time ago. The only detail that I recall from it was that it was the catalyst for WW2. Because of that, we ultimately came out of The Great Depression, and became one of the most powerful countries in the world. Better to leave well enough alone.
I think this quote from Q (ST-TNG) sums it up:
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed."
Pearl Harbor was a bloody nose on our way to becoming a great nation.
(Doing Therapy)
This is more to ask about refereeing styles. I'll try to keep it cool, but I'm just wondering.
The only referees I had for any length of time are MJ and Adam. Using the jeep crash as an example, MJ's list would be 10 or so botches, 4 or so would be capable of crashing the jeep. A really bad GE roll, you could verse out. At least from what I've noticed. Adam's list was 6 botches, 4 of which would almost certainly crash it. The way that it did crash was actually the safest way it would have crashed. My point is, there's a solid chance I could have versed out right then and there. What's the point in that? I'm trying to study and learn from refereeing styles. Why would would want to verse out the player 20 minutes after he gets there? (Again, I'm trying to ask this with civility.) Adam, do you not like having repeat players or something? I think I would be more inclined to make the botches funny. All of my botches would be to further harass the MP. (Should be obvious why) I think I would be a more gentle referee. Like I said, just trying to learn.
(Doing Therapy)
Two
And to clarify, when I say "What's the point of that?" I mean exactly what I said. Is there a point to that kind of refereeing?
(Doing Therapy)
Well John, I used 6 because I didn't feel like spending an hour thinking of another 4. As for the list, not all the options were directly crashing the jeep, but since you are driving in a jeep when it happened, it was going to be an incidental action for many. As for why I would verse someone out? I didn't your actions forced the rolls, the botch, and GE rolls, I was telling a story for you to play in and your actions determined that outcome. If you would have not messed with the MP in the Jeep, wonder what might have been. Every action, has a consequence.
Adam
As for why I would verse someone out? I didn't your actions forced the rolls, the botch, and GE rolls
You picked the botches. You were versing me out. Not the rolls, not circumstance, YOU. My actions may have forced the botch list to be created, but YOU picked them. The one that crashed it was "Knock out driver" There's only one outcome of that. So, I ask again. Do you not like having repeat players?
You know what John, your a coward, other people here may be tolerant of your "doing therapy", but your near constant questioning of a game that happened *4 Years Ago* is getting tiresome. If I wanted you versed out, you could be gone in 5 seconds, but I didn't I let the dice fall where they may. You wanted to harrass the MP, you wanted to do psionic tap constantly and your saying it's all my fault, is insulting. I don't have the words anymore, and I should know better than to explain things rationally. John, if that's what you believe, that's between you and your therapist to work out. I've moved on and will not respond to any more "discussion" *coughbaitingcough*, about this subject. You will just need to be content, that you will never get the answers you seek, I come here to game and have fun, not start drama.
Adam
You know what John, your a coward
That would be "you're" a coward, doofus.
This was asked legitimately to study refereeing styles. Why do referees do what they do? I asked my friend Rob about it. He's been gaming for years. He said he wouldn't even have considered crashing the jeep in that situation. And here's the kicker. He used to BE an MP at Pearl Harbor. Why do some do it and some don't? That's what I'm trying to learn.
I strongly suspect Adam isn't going to answer again. You've refused to take any responsibility for your in game actions and try to pin the blame on your referee.
Furthermore you've been asked REPEATEDLY to stop correcting Adam's use or your/you're. You know it frustrates him when you do and there is no need for it. You've mentioned it once, now stop mentioning it.
As to refereeing style, MJ is incredibly patient and kind. He has coddled you John, but even MJ, whose patience is far past any I've ever seen has gotten frustrated with you for questioning your referee.
As to the concept that Adam does not get repeat players I somehow doubt that. I have read the game thread and Adam was reasonable. If your actions could be potentially fatal then there should be a chance for them to be potentially fatal. If your actions are more likely than not to result in a fatal action the dice should reflect that. Your situation lay somewhere in between those as did the dice roll.
Regarding refereeing style there are numerous articles that you could read as to the pros and cons of different styles. You don't have to harass someone because you don't like theirs. One piece of advice though, start being more respectful of your referee. I know referees who will kill someone off in a game based on a stupid decision. Dice rolls are merely a formality at that point, since if your actions are stupid enough there are enough dice rolls you WILL die. I'm not even talking about multiverser referees though, so that actually would end your campaign. Many referees have the view that they are there to provide a world for the player to play in. They have no obligation to make the world work for the player, simply give the opportunity for it to be a fun and intriguing world. If the player does something to cut his life short, that is in not way the fault of the referee.
I would advise you try going to a gaming convention and play in some non-multiverser roleplaying games. I have a feeling a Call of Cthulhu game run by the average convention referee will open your eyes a little.
I strongly suspect Adam isn't going to answer again. You've refused to take any responsibility for your in game actions and try to pin the blame on your referee.
Maybe I came off kind of rough, but really, seriously, I was just asking why referees do what they do. Using that as my example. How would different referees have handled that situation? Rob said his motivation is always to keep the story going. Is he the exception? Seriously, I may have come off rough, but I was just trying to learn.
Do you have any links to any of those articles you were talking about?
Well there are a couple of considerations.
Does Rob run multiverser games? In multiverser the story continues either way.
As to the philosophy of trying to keep the story going, that doesn't always entail everyones survival. Keep in mind most role playing games have multiple heroes. The story can conclude even if the person causing problems gets himself killed.
There are also two views I know of for what a role playing game is supposed to be.
One is a real world. This is how I think of multiverser and Call of Cthulhu. The world can have magic, but there is no driving force trying to make things possible for the player, or keep him alive.
The second is a cinematic viewpoint. Some referees like to view the game as directing a play. The goal is to play a game that would be enjoyable to watch. As such if a character getting beaten to an inch of his life by his archrival and then has an amazing comeback when reminded of his burning desire that can happen. That's not Multiverser though.
I just checked my friends website who used to have a "tips for running games at conventions" section. He apparently took it down to revise it. I can ask him if he still has a copy of it.
Otherwise google generally works to get advice, and MJ may have written articles about this, I'm not sure.
Like I said. I've only had 2 referees for any length of time. That's not an excessive amount of information to go by. This forum is here to teach referees. That's the point. I'm merely using an example from an old game to ask how different referees would have handled it. Rob said his botches would have been funny and kept the story going. He used to be an MP at Pearl Harbor, and still, he would have kept the story going. If any ref would crash it, you'd think it would be him. I swear, I'm just trying to learn.
Botches aren't meant to be funny. They're meant to be dangerous.
I think they're meant to be unpredictable. Unpredictable can be funny or dangerous.
I guess what I'm stuck on is why not tell your intended story? This is a story told by two people. With one single typed sentence, I had changed the story from a thrilling adventure of the attack on Pearl Harbor to a boring, waste of time about laying in a hospital. The attack hardly came into play at all. Why would a referee want to tell a story like that? OK, the player just did something stupid. Why should the story suffer for it? Why not tell your intended story anyway? What was the point in essentially taking the player out of the story?
We've talked about this a little. I think I'm with Rob. I'd prefer to tell an exciting and fun story than a "realistic" one.
More than one
My botch list would be like
Make MP's hair grow (When we get there's he's Goldilocks)
Shut down jeep engine
Melt steering wheel
Transmute jeep from steel to solid silver
Fuse MP's hands to steering wheel
Brain Burn.
Safe, funny, don't derail the story, nothing really hurtful. Some of them could crash it if they were going around a hairpin curve at 90 miles an hour. None likely in normal driving on a straight road. That's just me.
(Doing Therapy)
This post is already long from the number of quotes I've pulled from it; hopefully I can address them sensibly and briefly.
John:
Using the jeep crash as an example, MJ's list would be 10 or so botches, 4 or so would be capable of crashing the jeep. A really bad GE roll, you could verse out. At least from what I've noticed. Adam's list was 6 botches, 4 of which would almost certainly crash it.
You assume too much, my friend.
I am a bit soft in my botch lists; but ask Graeme if I protect characters from death from botches--he has died more from the botches of characters with whom he was working than from perhaps anything else. Falling into the ground with the mummy king leaps to mind, and more recently being killed when an Azmayincan was attempting to work magic in Roma.
It is true that if I see botches that are almost certainly fatal or have other very serious consequences I try to balance them with botches that are not so severe and make my list longer. It is also true that (thanks to Ryan) I usually attempt to include a "good" botch, something that went wrong but dang, you'd like it to go wrong like that again--and particularly when my list has gotten to ten items.
But you also have misread what Adam did. Knocking out the driver was not itself a fatal botch; it meant only that there was likely to be an accident--a dice question. Once there was an accident, it was again a dice question how bad; and again how badly you were hurt in it. You got bad rolls that day, John, and I know that there have been days when you've gotten bad rolls from me and would have done much better if the dice had been sweeter. That's why we use dice: so that the referee isn't simply deciding that he wants good or bad things to happen, but instead that he gets to fairly adjudicate just what it means when something is this good or this bad.
Frankly, when I saw you were repeatedly pushing the driver, I thought to myself, "Absolutely nothing good can come of that; it's just a matter of time before this is a disaster." But it was not my place to warn you, and frankly it is the hope of every referee that a player who gets his character killed or near killed by doing something stupid will be smarter next time.
Again John:
I think I would be more inclined to make the botches funny. All of my botches would be to further harass the MP.
Well, let me note that what the character was doing was intended to harass the MP. Therefore if the character botched he probably did not succeed in harassing the MP--that would be a mistake. The only way I could see "further harass the MP" as a reasonable botch is if it continued with "such that he attacked the character", and then I'd have a dice question of whether he shot you or merely clubbed you over the head with the butt of his rifle. You were annoying me with that nonsense, and my relationship to the game was spectator with minimal oversight.
I'll allow a botch to be funny occasionally, but ask yourself: when you fumble and drop a knife, how often is it funny? When you trip and fall, how often do you (yourself) find it funny? As Mel Brooks said, if I stub my finger, that's tragedy; if you fall down the stairs and kill yourself, that's comedy. I've never been much for slapstick, but I can imagine that some people thought it was pretty funny when your antics put you in a full body cast in the hospital in the one place you wanted not to be.
I don't think that more than one in ten botches ought to be "funny", and "funny" replaces "good". Botches are things you want to avoid; they're supposed to make you think twice about attempting something less reliable. Their function is to chastise foolishness.
Adam:
Every action, has a consequence.
I wanted to say that. I also wanted to say that the first article I ever had published outside of my own website was about that: Morality and Consequences: Overlooked Roleplay Essentials made that point in a different context. Whatever you have your character do, it would be completely unfair of me as referee to prevent your actions from having their appropriate results. If you do stupid, you suffer for it. If I don't let you suffer for your own stupidity, you won't learn not to be stupid.
I've seen it happen in games.
John:
You picked the botches. You were versing me out. Not the rolls, not circumstance, YOU. My actions may have forced the botch list to be created, but YOU picked them.
Oh, stop that. Adam picked very reasonable botches, as everyone besides you agrees.
When I have to create a botch list, I write down as many things as I can find--I'll check the rule book for suggestions both for the bias area and for the specific skill. If I get eight, I'm happy; if I get six I think about how much trouble it would be for me to get a couple more; if I get less than six, I put effort into it. I will wander out into the other parts of the house and find my brood of fellow gamers, tell them the situation, and ask for their input. If I remember a botch on a similar skill recently, I'll see what's on the other botch list and steal good choices. But if all I can find is four ideas and all are almost certainly fatal, well, then whatever it is you did was pretty bad, and you're probably going to verse out.
Adam's right: it's work to create a botch list, and if he had six items not all of them certainly fatal, he did his job. You didn't like it, but you were being stupid anyway so you've no right to complain.
John:
I asked my friend Rob about it. He's been gaming for years. He said he wouldn't even have considered crashing the jeep in that situation.
As Mike later asks:
Does Rob run multiverser games? In multiverser the story continues either way.
Eric has elsewhere said that Multiverser unleashed his "killer GM". A lot of referees who run Dungeons & Dragons or Traveler or any of a hundred other role playing games pull their punches, fudge their die rolls, and do everything they can to keep the player characters from dying, because once a character dies that's the end of the game for that player. As Eric realized, if death means you're in another world now--and one in which you can have more adventures, then it's perfectly reasonable to let you get killed and start you with something different.
I'll note that not all referees treat their players with kid gloves. I've played Gamma World with a couple of referees, and they always tell you to start two characters up front so that when one of the dies you're still in the game while you create someone else to join and become your backup after that.
Ron Edwards (author of Sorcerer and perhaps the leading RPG theorist) somewhere commented that Multiverser had possibly the best answer to the problem of RPG death, because we make it a tool to advance the story instead of the end. What applies to a hundred other games does not apply to Multiverser, because death is not the end. Rob's opinion doesn't matter here.
With all due respect, you can tell him I said so.
Mike:
As to the concept that Adam does not get repeat players I somehow doubt that. I have read the game thread and Adam was reasonable. If your actions could be potentially fatal then there should be a chance for them to be potentially fatal. If your actions are more likely than not to result in a fatal action the dice should reflect that. Your situation lay somewhere in between those as did the dice roll.
Indeed, Adam gets hordes of players every time he runs Hackmaster at Ubercon. He doesn't run Multiverser there because I get hordes of players running Multiverser, and he wants to play. But his players keep coming back for more, and I hear nothing negative about him. He may be more revered by the players there than I.
And yes, if you're distracting the driver you're probably going to cause an accident, and accidents often kill people, so you should not be surprised at all.
Mike:
Regarding refereeing style there are numerous articles that you could read as to the pros and cons of different styles.
It's funny that he should mention this. There's an article here on Gaming Outpost written by John Wick that's been getting a lot of traffic and discussion recently despite being rather old. John is author of OrkWorld and if memory serves one of the geniuses behind Legends of the Five Rings (and one of my Facebook friends, but that's just me name-dropping). The article is called Hitting 'em Where it Hurts: "There's More Than One Way To Kill A Champions Character", and it begins up front by stating that John has a reputation as a referee for finding ways to kill the player characters in superheroes games. He then gives some examples of how he's done it in the past. The discussion that follows is filled with argument on both sides: should a referee be looking for conniving ways to kill his player's characters or not? John's players apparently enjoy it.
John:
Rob said his motivation is always to keep the story going. Is he the exception?
I like to keep the story going, but that begs the question: what story is it?
When you were in The Dancing Princess you ducked the story. You knew perfectly well that it was supposed to be about you being the hero that rescued the princesses from some unknown evil; you chose to be a blacksmith.
Now, if I were going to "keep the story going" I'd have strong-armed you into that--no blacksmithing job, no options, can't leave the country, you're going to starve if you don't find food, and gee, the only opening seems to be that the King is looking for someone to investigate this problem with his daughters.
I didn't do that. I let you make choices and create your own story. But that's fine with me. When Big Bill Friant was in Sherwood Forest, he organized a commando raid to kill the wicked Prince John in his bed. When Joe Kondor was in Sherwood Forest, he created the first free clinic to treat the poor of Nottinghamshire. When Oak was in Sherwood Forest, he preached the gospel and healed the sick and started getting near being listed as a capital-S Saint. I've had players do the work-with-the-merry-men thing, and that's fun and interesting, but I'm not locked into it.
So you can't be said to have derailed a story that hasn't been written; you can only be said to have written a different story from what the referee anticipated. And if you don't like the story you wrote, write a better one next time.
Mike:
As to the philosophy of trying to keep the story going, that doesn't always entail everyones survival. Keep in mind most role playing games have multiple heroes. The story can conclude even if the person causing problems gets himself killed.
Absolutely--and particularly given that those who get killed who are player characters or their associates continue the story in the next world.
John:
I've only had 2 referees for any length of time.
I can't help thinking that you're slighting Kyler, who in my recollection ran your game for long enough that he left a distinctive stamp on it. But I haven't counted the days, so it may be that I've underestimated how long you were with Adam or overestimated how long you were with Kyler.
John:
I guess what I'm stuck on is why not tell your intended story?
There is no "intended story". There is only the potential for many stories, one of which we will tell.
John:
I think I'm with Rob. I'd prefer to tell an exciting and fun story than a "realistic" one.
I don't see that an exciting and fun story can't be realistic. I've never really found much appeal to Toon (a game in which you are a WB type cartoon character, the worst thing that happens to you is that you get "knocked down" for five minutes which is an eternity in the fast-paced game, and "made the referee laugh" is the objective) but I can see why people would enjoy it. Some of my worlds are played more cinematic and some more gritty ("realistic" is a loaded word in role playing game theory and ought to be avoided). But the game requires give-and-take from at least two parties (more in a gather and in most other role playing games), and so we get the story we create. If you want a fun and exciting story, make good choices that will bring that about.
I didn't want this to take this much time, and now I'm hoping I can get everything else done, but that's what happens when one poster gets caught up in something that should have been resolved long ago.
--M. J. Young
My botch list would be like
Make MP's hair grow (When we get there's he's Goldilocks)
Shut down jeep engine
Melt steering wheel
Transmute jeep from steel to solid silver
Fuse MP's hands to steering wheel
Brain Burn.
And I puzzle over just how any of those are at all related to a telekinetic pulse. It's like saying that the result of a botch with a knife would be that you drop it and cause an earthquake. The Brain Burn is the only one that I would include on a botch list for a TK pulse because it's the only one reasonably related to the skill being attempted, unless perhaps I included one "wrong skill" and found a skill on your sheet that you could accidentally use instead.
--M. J. Young