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About to make my first run as GM - any tips?

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GiraffeShaman

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« Reply #15 on: <09-17-12/2248:12> »
I agree that discussing rules at the table for any length of time is a bad idea. I generally just rule in favor of the players if there's some gray area or dispute, unless it's that once in a llifetime scenario where the fate of the entire sprawl is at stake. Then we study the rules later and discuss how to resolve the issue on our group's discussion board.

Cheating in favor of the players can be done, if the players can't see your rolls and you have the absolute trust of the players. If you run fairly lethal games or have lost player trust some other way though, the players not being able to see your rolls can become an issue and this removes the option of cheating in favor of the players.

If the players can actually see you cheating in their favor it can cause problems. It can remove the sense of danger and immesion in the game. It can create the sense that the dice don't really matter or that the game is like a free form WOD game or MUSH. Players might also  expect to be saved and wonder why you saved them one time and not another.

Note, choosing to do something like arrest the characters or implant cortex bombs in their heads as an alternative to TPKing the party I don't really consider cheating in the player's favor. The key thing here is that there are consequences to the party defeat. They made poor decisions or lady luck turned against them and now there will be some form of loss to get  back to life as it was. But if it becomes a common thing that the players are saved by outside forces and there are no real consequences to failue it can lead to the feeling that nothing matters.

lurkeroutthere

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« Reply #16 on: <09-18-12/1421:27> »
I realize by now you've already had your first game, I hope it went well. Mostly i'm going to touch on things for SR.

1) Remember that the world is not our world. Corporate governments, data balkanization, wandering paracritters, rampaging go-gangs in the evening commute.
2) Visual aides are your friend. Personally we have an Xbox almost everwhere we play. X-box can display jpeg images off a USB for easy visual aide deployment. Youtube if your willing to put more work inot looking and even some video editing can also be useful.
3) Likewise any other props you can come up with are a huge help. Hand the Hacker a printout of an email they find while rooting around the system, have a map drawn up and printed out of the site, etc.
"And if the options are "talk to him like a grown up" versus "LOLOLOL murder him in his face until he doesn't come back," I know which suggestion I'm making." - Critias

No team I'm on has ever had a problem with group think.

Glitch

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« Reply #17 on: <09-30-12/0250:04> »
The Silhouette rules (created by Dream Pod 9 for Heavy Gear, Gear Krieg, and Jovian Chronicles) have some very interesting ways to give players agency -- they're called Genre Points.

Players start with a very small number (say, three) Genre Points (player teams can pool their GPs) and can use them to purchase "genre effects" during play -- anything from a re-roll of a critical throw to mysteriously avoiding certain death and coming back later (at the end of the run, in a few runs, or at the end of the campaign, etc.).

Here's an incomplete list of genre effects:
  • Accessorize: 1-3 GPs can be used to buy or borrow something useful for the quest
  • Do it Again, Please: 1 GP; re-roll your last test
  • Goad Villain: 3-6 GP; manipulate a villain into doing something they would normally never do
  • The Return: 3-9 GP; a character killed during the campaign returns, either at the end of an encounter ("Good thing I grabbed that branch on the way down..." 9 GP), at the end of the run ("I was in a coma for a few days, but it turns out I was fine..." 6 GP), or at the end of the campaign ("I was nursed back to help by a pygmy tribe..." 3 GP)

This has a couple of effects:
1). It takes some of the pressure off by giving players room to screw up a little, without you having to compromise your position as a GM -- they can choose to spend the points or not, so it's fair
2). It prevents you from being tempted to throw in a deus-ex-machina solution -- the PLAYERS have control of deus-ex-machina, giving them a sense of agency
3). If players share their GPs, it encourages cooperation (it can also generate fault lines, though, if one player keeps messing up and begging for GPs)

Naturally, if players accrue a lot of GPs (my rule of thumb is giving players 1 GP per 25-50 karma), you might have to limit how much they can spend in a given campaign.

Also: major villains get GPs, too! =)

I like GPs -- they make things interesting.
« Last Edit: <09-30-12/0301:43> by Glitch »