So I haven't played in a good game since ...  alright, a looong time.

mrlost, a friend of mine (and poster on rpg.net) came down for holiday and kindly offered to run Conspiracy-X for his girlfriend and I.

Now, I love Conspiracy-X, and I've been itching to play (instead of run) a game for awhile now, so I was all hyped up for it.

He asked us to make Project MOONDUST operatives or take pre-gens.  Project MOONDUST is a now-defunct (though not in the world of Conspiracy-X) project by the U.S. Airforce to find and recover crashed extraterrestrial objects, mainly having to do with spy satellites and the like.  In Con-X they also hunt down and secure UFOs.

I created a brash pilot character with a mild drinking problem in the vein of, well, every damn character of that type since Wings.  Lil (the girlfriend) took a pre-gen MKULTRA operative that mrlost had made with 7 levels of pyrokinesis Strength and an alien hybrid homebrew Quality he'd made up.

The first session was a complete frustrating bust.  We were ordered to recover a downed surveillance satellite and its data board from an island in southeast asia.  The satellite crash had set the entire jungle on fire and there was some sort of thing going on where the local villagers were being herded into death camps.  Anywho, I did a fly-over of the target zone and mrlost described how the entire area was fire and forest around the crater, no good landing site.  So I headed to the nearest local air field to set down.  Along the way, we got a distress call from a science research camp and I did incredibly stupid and insane stunts to rescue them, losing our HUMVEE in the process.  It involved me setting the C-130 on autopilot and driving OUT of the still airborne cargo plane in the hummer, jumping the people out of the camp over open flames on a hastily constructed ramp, and getting a chopper evac so I could get back in the C-130 before it crashed because they didn't have another pilot.  Oh, and chinese MiGs attacked us too.

So we're planning to trek through miles of burning jungle when we find out that there are other agencies swarming toward the crash site, including but not limited to: an armored column of chinese personnel transports, MiB outfitted with plasma claws, heavy-combat equipped NDD shock troopers, a grey alien observation sphere, black ops troopers who parachuted in at night, guys in camo ghillie suits, and Gold Dragon (some sort of chinese conspiracy group) fellows with nanotech implants.

We had two soldiers with pistols, a motorcycle, us two agents, and a C-130 with a mechanic and an EMT.  Using a spy drone robot, we discover that the crash site is first the center of some huge fight between these different factions, and then the NDD is loading the satellite onto a Black Manta (super fighter bomber with alien tech).

As we try to pull out of the airstrip, since we haven't been able to do anything, we lose 8 hours of time and are attacked by grey aliens.  My character gets some sort of lump on her spine and there's a rain of body parts and it's basically Oh Shitsville.

After the session, I ask mrlost how we could've possibly succeeded in our mission objectives and he informs us that we could've only done so if we'd gotten to the objective first.  That's right, there was only one solution to the mission, and it was at the very beginning, and he did everything he could to stop us from making that decision.  Joy!

After a second session, I wanted to buy the Nerves of Steel quality for my hard-bitten pilot after she'd survived tooth-and-nail through a submerged Atlantean city being scavenged by some other conspiracy and overrun with Blues.

I was outright denied, with the explanation that it wouldn't be fun for him to have my character be nigh immune to fear.

There's no point to this post other than to bitch and whine, sorry.

Well....


Aside from some mild curiousity about which version of the rules you are using, and the totally awesome (but I suspect totally out of genre) stunts going on willy-nilly.... which should have made for a fun game...

I think your GM needs to play a few more games with better GM's first. Maybe a few with crappy GM's to contrast them with too.


Makes me think i should post about my recent encounter with a GM of seriously lacking skills. I doubt my email to him regarding good and bad GMing was any help, but I tried...

Quote from: SpikeWell....


Aside from some mild curiousity about which version of the rules you are using, and the totally awesome (but I suspect totally out of genre) stunts going on willy-nilly.... which should have made for a fun game...

I think your GM needs to play a few more games with better GM's first. Maybe a few with crappy GM's to contrast them with too.

I'm not sure what to think.

He used to be very bad with punishing the PCs due to bad formative experiences as a GM, and I thought he'd improved quite a bit over time...  whatever he's been doing gaming up in San Diego has apparently settled him back down into bad habits, though.

Quote from: RedFoxThere's no point to this post other than to bitch and whine, sorry.

I recall your posts about Midnight's WoD chronicles in days of old. . . and I am beginning to think that you must attract bad Game Masters

You have my sympathy as, after following your posts for years, you seem like a genuinely enthusiastic player with great ideas that you're not afraid to share -- I'd kill to have more players like you in games that I run.

It seems that many of your Game Masters simply you want to shut up and have fun their way, personal preferences be damned. Which sucks (I've been there more times than I care to recall).

[Edit: MrLost isn't simply another screen name for Midnight, is it? I ask as, after I posted, I seemed to recall the Midnight account being banned from RPGnet.]

Since misery loves company I'll go ahead and post my story here too:

A very close freind of mine was asked to a game with one of her school buddies as the GM, the guy who had always GM'd for them before he'd run off to join the Marine Corp.  She invited me along for the ride, and since I had at one time inherited his old group (before I left and returned...) I thought I'd give it a go.

Things went badly. My friend has her faults; cheifly she will not play anything BUT an elf or something 'magical' (currently, an earth gensai). Period. She hates playing humans or dwarves.  Kai, the GM, pretty much outlawed everything BUT those two choices from the start (but, strangely, allowed me to play a half ogre from Dragon magazine..), and booted her from the game on account that she couldn't come up with an acceptable character.  I stuck around a little longer, otherwise we wouldn't have a story. Silly me.  

The first two hours of the game were the GM and the guy next to him (playing a dwarf) talking in character. Followed shortly by a mission to chop down some trees on the other side of a huge, gated wall in a nearby valley.  The guardians of that wall were 8 foot tall monotheistic human paladins.  Wood chopping ensues, and as the party heads back to the gate, the sound of battle reaches our ears.  Using every trick in the book to do so, I run ahead and climb the wall, leaping down to join the paladins fighting off some Orcs. Good fun, eh? Only one other player (also new to the group) tried to join in, but couldn't get through the gate.

Orcs, no challenge for a third level half ogre, right? Only, these were DR3, Large Sized, d12 HD having super orcs, and only the paladins were capable of beating them, and in a frenzy chasing the fleeing survivors down and massacreing them. Hints of werewolfism were revealed, but staying in character (big dumb lug who liked to fight) I shrugged and ignored them as the party returned to the camp, where we were congratulated on our successful tree chopping mission.

Cue another hour or so of the GM and the Dwarf player running their schtick, with very brief asides to other players who piped up to 'do something'.  The other new guy decides to explore the area around this trade fortress while the 'party' discusses wether to enter the underdark under heavy guard to go to the dwarven city... all while being regaled by tales of this cool supertavern that existed there that reflected the status of the battle between good and evil in the game world. A battle the party apparently was privy to witness.

The other new guy decided to explore, right? So, I went with him... sort of. I figured two of us outside might lead to something going on, rather than just a brief "you wander the rocky hillside for hours, it's getting dark... back to the story'. I was right, sadly.

The theif type new guy uncovers a camp of nearby orcs, flubs is surprise round and flees for his life. I ask if I'm close enough to help, and surprise! I am.

Cool. So I lay the almighty whammy on the pursuing orc in the lead. 38 points of damage, not bad think I, it would drop me. Only the orc is still standing, and his 29 buddies are following. I run, figuring my fast legs will save me, tossing thunderstones behind me. Pow, boom, most of them are stunned. Surprsingly the ones that aren't all have the run skill and catch up. I am summarily (not quite, dice WERE rolled... but as the three orcs that caught me could have seen off the entire party, it was hardly an even fight) executed. Then they track down the theif and kill him. Did I mention we turned out to be five miles from the dwarven camp?

I don't know what happened next. I imagine it involved a lot of talking and a few scenes of super dwarven heros protecting the party from sneaky drow assassins by bouncing nuclear bombs off their chests, maybe a dice roll or two to see how singed their beards got.  I kid not, the paladins vs. orcs battle from earlier consisted of single dicepool rolls to see how many orcs died a turn, and if the paladins were even injured.

To say that I am not remotely tempted to game with Kai again is an understatement.  Stupidest four hours I have ever spent, and I've got some stupid hours it had to compete with... trust me.

Quote from: jdrakeh[Edit: MrLost isn't simply another screen name for Midnight, is it? I ask as, after I posted, I seemed to recall the Midnight account being banned from RPGnet.]

TBH, I think I shortchanged Midknight intensely.  That was me not kicking back and enjoying his sessions as goofy fun.  He did have some serious problems...  mainly with only-one-solution situations and railroading, but I was demanding too much of him.  He wasn't interested in taking the oWoD at all seriously, and I was in Serious Fucking Business (tm) mode.

So yeah.

As far as I know, Midknight isn't banned from rpg.net, he just doesn't post there a whole lot.  mrlost isn't a pseudonym for Midknight though.  He's played in Midknight's games once upon a yesteryear as well.

mrlost has a very specific style.  He likes high weirdness (confuddling, bizarre weirdness, often treading into outright camp, especially with NPC personalities) and hateful, punishing games where nothing ever goes right.  I think he finds nothing more amusing than putting PCs through the wringer and seeing how they get through it.  His favorite books are Heroes Die, and Blade of Tyshalle, wherein the protagonist is basically tortured by the universe.  He's stated outright that he'd love to play in a game modelled along similar lines.

Quote from: RedFoxTBH, I think I shortchanged Midknight intensely.

Maybe, but his own explanations didn't win him many fans (he clearly wanted the dolls to be taken seriously, for example, though doing so was very, very, hard)

Quotemrlost has a very specific style.  He likes high weirdness (confuddling, bizarre weirdness, often treading into outright camp, especially with NPC personalities) and hateful, punishing games where nothing ever goes right.  I think he finds nothing more amusing than putting PCs through the wringer and seeing how they get through it.  His favorite books are Heroes Die, and Blade of Tyshalle, wherein the protagonist is basically tortured by the universe.  He's stated outright that he'd love to play in a game modelled along similar lines.

Visions of viking hats dance through my head Seriously, if some guy ever told me all of that and then asked me to play in one of his games, I'd politely decline. . .

GM: "Okay, here's the deal -- I like to screw players over. You'll never be able to do anything you want to do, and if you persist, I'll make sure that shit falls apart and things go badly for you. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

Me: "Honestly? No. No, that does not sound like fun. I think I'll pass, but thanks for the offer!"

It's not something I'm particularly fond of, either.  It's why I've never been interested in WHFRP, for instance.

I enjoy more pulp style action/adventure.

Come to Melbourne and I'll run a game for you. I'll also feed you some wicked organic pot.

Quote from: droogCome to Melbourne and I'll run a game for you. I'll also feed you some wicked organic pot.

Now that's a GM to follow.

Oh – you're invited too, then.

Quote from: RedFoxI enjoy more pulp style action/adventure.

So why didn't you enjoy that session? Sounds very pulpy, lots of action and adventure.

That your character ultimately failed his mission, well, so what? Or is that important to you? Are you more interested in the journey or the destination?

Or do you think that if you make the journey entertaining, then the GM is obliged to let you reach your destination? So you feel this guy ripped you off, you made all that effort, generated all that fun, and he made you fail? I can understand that.

Quote from: RedFoxI think he finds nothing more amusing than putting PCs through the wringer and seeing how they get through it.

Sounds dreadful. But still, if it's what he likes, good for him. He just forgot the part where the game isn't all about what one person likes, even if that one person is the GM. Definitely not a Cheetoist.

Quote from: JimBobOzSo why didn't you enjoy that session? Sounds very pulpy, lots of action and adventure.

That your character ultimately failed his mission, well, so what? Or is that important to you? Are you more interested in the journey or the destination?

Or do you think that if you make the journey entertaining, then the GM is obliged to let you reach your destination? So you feel this guy ripped you off, you made all that effort, generated all that fun, and he made you fail? I can understand that.

Hm, how to put this...

...I don't like being given one-choice scenarios, and I don't like being placed in a position where said choice results in failure at the very beginning of the game session.

For want of a better term, I don't like being disempowered and immasculated in my gaming.  I'm unabashedly in it for escapism.  I don't mind insane odds (I did the aforementioned crazy stunts, after all) but I like to be given the chance to succeed.  Or do something other than watch it happen in slow trainwreck fashion.  But when every idea that you come up with is cut out from under you by the next piece of information the GM feeds you, well...

This often is not important to mrlost.  Now that I think of it, I recall a Dragon-Blooded game of Exalted that he ran one time where we were aboard an airship that caught fire and he outright told us, out-of-character, not to bother trying to put the fire out, as the ship was meant to burn and crash and there was no way we could prevent it.  He meant it to be some sort of fighting set piece, but well...  that cuts out a lot of cool possibilities and crazy schemes on the parts of the players.

It's the old, "GM shutting down players' ideas" vibe, and it's just not for me.

Quote from: JimBobOzSounds dreadful. But still, if it's what he likes, good for him. He just forgot the part where the game isn't all about what one person likes, even if that one person is the GM. Definitely not a Cheetoist.

He has very specific ideas of what his games should be like.  He writes out and plans sessions well in advance, giving them titles, themes, etc.  He does research for his games.  In the antarctic expedition we played last night, he'd looked up some information on the company that supplies antarctic research operations and conspiracy theories about them, and worked them into the game.

I'm beginning to wonder if, somewhere in this heap of prep-work, he managed to accidentally excise player input from his games.

Quote from: droogCome to Melbourne and I'll run a game for you. I'll also feed you some wicked organic pot.

Oh you wicked, wicked fellow.  If I'm ever in the neighborhood I'll definitely take you up on the offer.

Quote from: RedFoxI'm beginning to wonder if, somewhere in this heap of prep-work, he managed to accidentally excise player input from his games.

Sounds like he never had it to excise. So, you know, fuck him. That's what happens when you game with non-Cheetoists. "To make your games more fun, talk to your group."

When I post that sort of stuff, people say, "oh but that's obvious." But apparently not to everyone.

Maybe with future GMs you could begin by saying all the stuff you'd like in a game session. If they react with horror then you know they won't run your sort of session; if they react with startled surprise you know they're not used to talking to their group; if they go "cool, I'll see what I can do," then you know you're in for a winner. Maybe it won't be perfect at first, but you'll get there.

I mean, you don't have to be obnoxious about it or anything. Just start a conversation on what sorts of games people like. "Hey guys, I really like playing a lesbianstripperninja, how about you?" or whatever. Again, seems obvious, but it also seems that people miss out on it a lot. So maybe just obvious when it's said.

Quote from: JimBobOzSounds like he never had it to excise. So, you know, fuck him. That's what happens when you game with non-Cheetoists. "To make your games more fun, talk to your group."

When I post that sort of stuff, people say, "oh but that's obvious." But apparently not to everyone.

Maybe with future GMs you could begin by saying all the stuff you'd like in a game session. If they react with horror then you know they won't run your sort of session; if they react with startled surprise you know they're not used to talking to their group; if they go "cool, I'll see what I can do," then you know you're in for a winner. Maybe it won't be perfect at first, but you'll get there.

I mean, you don't have to be obnoxious about it or anything. Just start a conversation on what sorts of games people like. "Hey guys, I really like playing a lesbianstripperninja, how about you?" or whatever. Again, seems obvious, but it also seems that people miss out on it a lot. So maybe just obvious when it's said.

Well, I don't think it's about lack of communication with mrlost so much as mis-communication.

I remember the last Con-X game he ran was one where he'd told us he wanted to run a "high action" "cinematic" game.  Lots of car chases, explosions, high-flying stunts, etc.

So when we were heading away from a military base and saw a bunch of covered trucks driven by NDD personnel heading to the base, I spun my jeep around and attacked them, trying to stop the convoy.

I managed to do so, but only by crashing us and leaving us stranded and pinned down under enemy fire.

A lot of stuff happened, but it boiled down to us being surrounded by troops that had poured out of Black Mantas and a UFO, while we were dealing with wounded PCs and the like (I, btw, was a scientist in this game rather than a pulp hero pilot).

After the session, when I mentioned that I thought the Black Mantas and multiple squads of troops arriving almost immediately was a bit overkill, he said it was our fault for "being stupid."

So, cinematic stunts, but not stupid decisions...  umm...

He later revealed that the convoy was supposed to reach the base and be the basis for further sessions, but he had to radically change his plans because we blew up the base setup equipment they were hauling there to start a new NDD operations site.  :rolleyes:

So, I get the impression that sometimes what he says...  it doesn't mean what he thinks it means.  Or something.