Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;877609I'm going to turn this back to GaryCon.

As I said in the blog, I was pleased with the way the disparate group of players "got" the mission-based adventure.  Did I seem overly harsh towards "Player A," because I didn't mean to; I like the "if it moves kill it, if it doesn't move loot it" style of play just fine.

Agreed; Let's concentrate on the good stuff, shall we?

I'd agree with you - it was amazing, if terrifying as the GM, to have these people just mesh perfectly as a team. As I said in my blog posts on this game, they gave me nothing to work with as a GM, and stayed right up close-ranks and tight the whole time. Normally, I can usually stay ahead of a game group by at least a half-hour to an hour, but with this bunch I felt that I was - at best! - maybe thirty seconds to a minute ahead of them. They were that good as a team, and really fast and tight in their game play.

The room was far too noisy, which made me be pretty loud in order to he heard, but this party actually used the ambient noise as a screen to conceal what they were plotting. Normally, I can listen to the party's 'table talk' and get a feel for what they're up to, but not with this group; they'd put their heads together and whisper, and then send a runner (!) up to the top of the table to whisper to Gronan. I'd get to hear what they were saying only when they wanted me to hear them.

Bunch of sneaks. Beautifully played, and I enjoyed myself hugely. Worked up a sweat, and was totally exhausted, but it was one of the top five or so RPG sessions I'd ever had. And that's in comparison to games with The Big Three, too.

No, you weren't too harsh on player 'A'; I reviewed the videotapes I did of this game, and you were simply having to be loud in order to be heard. 'A' was asking both in 'party mode' and in 'informational mode', and you sounded more like a squad leader letting the guy with the thumper what was going on. I think it went fine - the nest time this kind of thing came up, 'A' and the rest of these players whipped out sheets of paper, and chorused "WE HAVE A WRIT!" to the NPCs challenging them. As I say, this lot gave me nothing to work with.

And I dangled ever bit of bait that Phil used to nail us with, all those years ago; this lot smiled, and simply kept on going. It was amazing, simply amazing.

Quote from: GameDaddy;877510It is a real thing. Game companies do this all the time. TSR did it. They said exactly that about my 0D&D events in 1981 at Ghengis Con. The Ghengis Con staff refused to let me register and run 0D&D, and insisted I run AD&D 1e events instead at Ghengis Con II.

I can play Mutants & Masterminds, however if I run a sponsored event at any convention I can't use my custom designed Freedom City locales and characters, because Mutants & Masterminds is not truly open source, even though it is using the OGL.

There is plenty of other examples, these are just two that immediately come to mind. It's a shame about Tekumel, I don't believe M.A.R. Barker would have wanted this.

Yep; agreed. it's why GAMA was originally founded. Phil strongly defended his IP, and I supported him in that for years; this current fracas is about personality, and let's leave it at that.

Let's get back to the gaming!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;877609I'm going to turn this back to GaryCon.

As I said in the blog, I was pleased with the way the disparate group of players "got" the mission-based adventure.  Did I seem overly harsh towards "Player A," because I didn't mean to; I like the "if it moves kill it, if it doesn't move loot it" style of play just fine.

Agreed about the kill/loot style; it's fine, for some adventures - we certainly did a bit of that ourselves, over the years.

What I had wanted to do for this game was to emphasize that in Tekumel, mission is quite often more important then personal gain, and I think this party got that just fine. They looked past the immediate, and took a long term view - just like what we did, all those years ago when Phil began to trot out the more 'social' concepts that he had.

No, I think that these people 'got it', and really came together as a group to play a really good game. I thought it went well, and I had a good time - it was a lot of work, as you mentioned both at the time and in your excellent post, but that's what is needed to make a truly extraordinary game happen in the first place.