For the most part it has been a fun thread, with some old-timers chiming in with their thoughts. But at some point I mentioned that maybe I wasn't that bad of a GM after all, and then he made a comment.
I'm not noting a lot of combat posts in this thread. Bar scenes and briefings and debriefings, yes; combat, no.He's actually wrong; there were no bar scenes ;P But that's beside the point. What he is really doing is gently reminding me that yes indeed, I did suck as a GM.
Just an observation.
This guy and I have never gotten along. He rubbed me the wrong way from the very first time he emailed me to tell me all the things the AMRN was doing wrong. I was always on the defensive with him and completely unwilling to listen to anything he had to say.
I'm not proud of my reactions, but that doesn't mean he isn't an asshole.
Up until the time I read his post I had been thinking I wanted to run a small game, with players I liked and with all new characters. I wanted the game to cover a long time period, to involve character development, and to span various different types of campaign. I planned to start with the characters as hostages, then move to things like ground-pounding, intel-gathering, escaping into the underground, and maybe occasionally a mecha battle. But the idea was that the group wouldn't have a home to return to at the end of each day; they would be on the run, trying to get to somewhere they could call home. Thanks to events at the beginning of the story, no one would know they were alive, so it would be completely up to them.
It was a Macross game in my head, partly because I didn't want to have to build a whole new universe. New settings are one thing, but laying out ground rules for an entire universe is a bit much for something that's supposed to be a fun hobby. But I wondered if I really wanted to do Macross, or if I just chose it because I was used to it.
Now, of course, I'm feeling depressed. Regardless of the fact that this guy's a jerk, he did remind me of the reason I quit the AMRN in the first place. If I go back and try again, will the results be any different?
Bleh, indeed.
16 comments:
I'm going to let you in on a little secret of mine. Several months after joining the MRN, I realized that mecha combat bored the hell out of me. Seriously, half of the time, it was only being done to get combat players posting again.
This isn't to say that combat in of itself was bad. I remember one instance when the old Ghostriders were captured by pirates and held as slaves on a mining asteroid. That was interesting because it wasn't "I shoot the Battlepod. And then I shoot the one behind it." We had to figure out how to make our escape without getting ourselves killed (the incompetence of one of my squad-mates nonewithstanding.)
Honestly, there are only so many ways you can do Zentradi attacks before it becomes old hat. Macross Plus was really Isamu vs. Guld, Macross 7 was stock footage shown over and over, along with giant monsters. Macross Zero had some neat VF vs. VF, but again, giant monster at the end.
If you want something, but don't unnecessarily want to feature giant robots, then pick a different show. The heroes of your story could be operatives in the Full Metal Panic! show. I think FMP? Fumoffu would be more entertaining, but I'm a goober like that. =) You could set it in Star Wars, plucky rebel operatives fighting the Empire. Heck, you could set something in my universe. I've already done most of the world building there.
I suppose I'm saying don't limit yourself with Macross and giant robots. There's plenty of worlds to tell stories in, plenty of places to have romance, conflicts, and romantic conflicts.
Hmm. The Full Metal Panic! universe kind of sounds cool.
I guess I need to keep it anime, because otherwise I'll have to set up a forum elsewhere, and I hate setting up forums ;P
I'll have to think about this some more.
The only thing that concerns me about picking a different universe is that I wonder if the AMRN players I'd like to have in my game would feel comfortable with a non-Macross universe. But maybe they would!
You know, I never did get around to doing that Cowboy Bebop game I always wanted to...
As Charles said, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Mecha combat bores the hell out of me.
No, really. You said in the thread, I made combat relevant. I started that habit because combat would drive me frakkin' insane if I didn't. I'm glad it worked because for me it barely helped stave of the boredom.
Sometimes, the combat came together and it was enjoyable, but for the most part it fell flat.
I was reading a website about DM for D&D and I found a bit of advice that really crystallized why combat has always been an issue for me.
They said (I paraphrase), Don't save the cool stuff for last. We (in the general 'we') have a human tendency to try to build up to the good stuff. I see now that a number of combats I ran in the past could have been good if I'd used that concept.
Thing is, I never had issue with they way you ran your games. Macross is not about the combats. The combats are about the character development and conflict that lead up to them. There are episodes of Macross that were about combat and the story was back seat in those. We have a word for those episodes: Dull.
You are a fine GM, and if feel your combat is weak, you can improve it. Or you can ignore it. There are people who would sign up just to play the game with you, and that is what matters. Not the opinion of a guy who manages to rub EVERYONE the wrong way with in a single paragraph.
Combat is almost inevitable in any game based on anime (almost). The Key is to use it to inject energy, rather than to break up monotony. That was the biggest mistake we made in the past.
You threads, by being combat lite, proved that you didn't NEED to break up the monotony, because you didn't have much of it. That's a good thing.
That's my positive reinforcement for the day. Don't let that guy shake you're confidence
Thank you.
There were a couple of instances in my GMing in which I wasn't fair to people. I think I have been letting those experiences inform all my memories of the game.
It appears that guy actually meant something different when he pointed the lack of combat out. Or so his latest post would make it seem.
Which is, I suppose, an affirmation of my style, albeit with the caveat of canon anality.
(The spellchecker in Firefox does not like "anality". It doesn't like "spellchecker", either. Down with the Man!)
I guess the main point is that when I GMed my way, I had fun. Looking back at all the old threads makes me want to recapture that.
I'm going to continue to stew until a game plan congeals.
Back when I was in the AMRN, I always thought of you as a great GM. You're a great storyteller, which is really what a GM is stripped down, ignoring combat rules and such. If you think you're combat GMing sucks, just work on it and grow with it. I'm sure you'll be fine ^_^
I'd also like to add that if you do decide to do a FMP game, you know I'd be down for that ^_^ its been such a long while since I've RP'ed, my creative muscles have been aching lately, so I'd be a refreshing to do that again. Keep me posted on that, if you don't mind ^_^
Will do! FMP might actually work for what I was wanting to do.
I echo all of the comments here, Heather. I also would invite your attention to my comments on the AMRN GenDis.
For me, the combat could be fun, but the real essence of the game--the hook--was the amalgamation of character interactions, character building, and story lines/plot development. Combat served, for me, as a chance to manipulate character development. Like how Anthony took a lot of damage from those phosphorus grenades to help protect Charisma Singh. That ended up translating into a subtle, budding romance, before her player disappeared.
Also, the combat in the DIRE game was cool and fun, but not nearly as cool and fun as having Anthony serve in his capacity as translator. That allowed for really getting inside my character's head and expanding upon how I would attempt to communicate with someone if I knew a language similar to theirs'.
I am not a talented technical writer like Sean and Sam; I have little willingness and time to research everything I need to research in order to rise to their level of technical writing prowess.
I do have the time and inclination, however, to research how best to implement character development points. For example, I have been learning a lot more about The Bible in order to appropriately communicate my current character Derek "Preacher Man" Blair as a religious follower who has started to lose his Faith.
Combat can be fun, but character and plot are the things that keep me coming back.
RE your proposed game idea, I like it a lot and I think it would work fine in a Macross universe. However, I agree with others that you certainly don't have to limit your idea to Macross. Macross--like Star Wars--has the advantage of having a large, preexisting world, ready for development along with a lot of publicly available information for reference purposes.
In all honesty, I don't think your idea is game-specific at all. With enough development, you could drop it into any number of universes. The question really becomes: where would you have the most fun setting it?
I feel almost bad commenting here, since I constantly abandoned and re-abandoned the AMRN during the short while I was actually trying to play on it.
It wasn't that I hated mecha combat, but it did present a few flaws that pulled me away. I always felt like I was doing too little. It's like playing chess against someone who spend 10 minutes contemplating the set-up and strategies of the board, then you just move your rook because it makes sense at the time. Of course, all these other careful moves quickly left me falling behind (mentally, if anything), and we know how that turned out.
Now of course the meat of any game is social interaction (Playing a Naruto RP Forum [*dodges rotten fruit*] with a bunch of kids has shown me they want action and combat all day long), but when you're playing in an action-based universe like Macross, the scenes of social interaction need to be linked by something. Which ends up being combat. Maybe if more people tried to show off their writing skills between combat rather than during it you'd have more intense scenes to get people's juices pumping.
It's always hard to get people caught into a game, but what you want is their investment into their characters to pay off. The problem, then, is people whose characters are designed to be perfect pilots or ultimate killing machines. They're pilots in fighters rather than characters in fighters.
Again, since I'm doing pretty simple stuff based on Naruto and whatnot, I see a lot of people who want to be super-ninja. Except in a story about character growth, there's nothing for them to do except try to act awesome. And then when their character - who in their own mind is the best ever - has a flaw exploited or doesn't get to show off they get angry and stupid about it.
Anyway, if you want to GM a game, make sure you can have fun, and that you can dedicate yourself to the story. Then find anyone to play. You'll almost always find people ready to jump on a game with promises of activity and good writing.
Lookit all the responses you've pulled here, Heather! Aside from echoing the similar feelings I have with all the old mrn vets, I'd comment that while I didn't get much if any time under your GMship, "playing" with you was always more like collaberating on a story than playing a play-by-post rpg for me. Perhaps seeking conflict without combat isn't the best method for the general rp crowd, but, I for one was always more comfortable when I didn't have to worry about dice rolls. I think it's a mark of maturity in story telling to be able to convey all the elements of drama that conflict brings to a story without relying on pages after endless pages of "I shoot at target A." "Target A shoots back."
In the end, it doesn't matter what nitwhit says what about you, because you're still one of my favorite writers of all time.
Back when I was in the AMRN, combat was never my favourite part of the game, because it seemed so technical to me. How many ways can you say, "I shoot that guy over there, and fry his ass" before it gets boring? I've always enjoyed the character interaction outside combat - Illie doing stuff with Julien, getting to know her teammates, watching the drama that goes on... it's all so much more interesting.
You have always been a great writer, and I've admired you from day one... remember how we started corresponding? I wrote to you because I thought that Julien is a very cool character, and that the person behind him is a fantastic writer, and that has never changed. I've always been a little envious about how easily you seem to write all those great posts, while I slave away for hours on mine. Don't let these people get you down, ne?
I have read your posts back when I still check the boards regularly, and I think you're a great GM because you put so much effort into your posts, so don't let people tell you otherwise. *hugs*
Dawn
I hate to be the guy who adds a bit of contradiction here but I guess it is part of my nature. :)
Everything I said before still applies. This bit of reaction/advice/commentary is not about RPing, GMing or moderating. It has nothing to do with gaming... and everything to do with writing.
Several folks have expressed complete bewilderment with combat. A sense that the nature of the beast restrains creativity. On the one had that is right, but on another is is totally wrong. A Writer (as Wil Wheaton would put it) can't afford not to understand why that is true.
"Why?" one might ask. There are three reasons. First, a battle between joe average and jill average has so little excitement in it that I didn't even bother to capitalize their names. Each Combat should matter on some level. If the import of the battle is not obvious the battle should be either more impressive (and by impressive I mean 'shock and awe' ala the opening of the movie Saving Private Ryan) or shorter (ala the opening scenes of the Movie Casino Royale staring Daniel Craig as 007. just to be clear, I mean the Black and White scenes not the construction site scene). Take the movie Die Hard. In spite of the fact that it is (at the core) a typical action movie in the mold of Rambo (Man seeks righteous justice against impossible odds while confined to a small area), there isn't a single violent/combat scene that does not further the story. Okay, maybe one (The final fight between John and Karl) but that scene is the climax of an entire story line, so it can be forgiven for not moving the story forward. It ended something. I think it is fair to say combat should either further the story or end a part of the story. Using actual pysical combat for any other reason is just asking to bore you're readership.
Second is the concept of monotony in combat. "How many different ways can you have a fight before it gets old?" more than one of you have asked. The answer for a writer is, "as many as it takes to end that story". The writer must also look at this narrowing of options as a imeptus toward creativity. It has been suggested (in Wired Magazine I think...it was a long time ago) that by cutting away options creativity increases. Example: Tell me a story, a work of fiction you made up right this moment. You have 10 seconds to at least have a major 3 act outline.
Hard, ne?
Now tell me a story about a puppy, a poisonous animal of your choice and rapidly rising water.
THAT was not only easier for most of you, but more compelling. Not that there is no plot in the above. Just elements. Two character and a situation that they don't have to be in. You could write about a struggle for life as the puppy battles element and dangerous animal, or you could write about the power of cooperation as the puppy and deadly beast cooperate to escape a well in a rainstorm. Or puppy and venomous creature could have tea while puppy's mother draws a bath.
Writing well is not simply avoiding clichés. That's a good step, but once your story gets moving the clichés will multiply. Writing is about making clichés interesting. Combat is almost a meta-cliché. There are actually clichés about combat!
Last, combat is conflict. Conflict is combat. Conflict drives stories. a story with out conflict is a lecture. Weather the conflict is waged with weapons or words it is still a form of combat. Combatants fight with swords to determine the fate of the princess. Combatants also fight with words to determine the fate of their marriage. In each case the battle is meaningless without tension. Conflict cannot support itself. When conflict occurs (which, in a well written story should be on every page in every sentence) something has to be at stake. It's easy for that something to be the characters' lives, but it is much better if it is a part of the characters' souls.
Carl von Clausewitz described war as the "continuation of politics by other means." I submit that combat (both to the writer and to the roleplayer) is the continuation of character development by other means. There have been many suggestions that character development/interaction is good and combat bad. That's an artificial distinction and it gives combat and undeserved bad name.
At this point I digress into what all of this means for gaming.
In the end it doesn't matter much. Combat isn't required. I stand behind what I said earlier because it is true. Heather is good enough a GM that all of us who have posted here would happily play in a game she chose to run, combat or no. I want to expand that by saying it isn't up to the GM to make combat succeed. At least it is not up to the GM alone.
When we play by post we assume the mantle of a writer as well as that of a player. By putting on that mantle we become subject to everything I said above, be the combat one of missiles or missives. The best GM cannot overcome the apathy of the players. As long as the players assume that combat can be nothing more than a series of zentradi attacks that become old hat, that is what it will be, even if the GM never uses zentradi.
As a GM it is good that Heather takes responsibility for elements of her games that aren't satisfying. GMs should take responsibility as GMs are ultimately responsible. Still, the GM must temper that with the fact that the players are responsible for their bit. In one sense the GM brings 95% of the game by 'volume' and the players only 5%. With out that 5% percent there is no game! If the players just 'mail in' their 5%, the game will fail. No matter how good the GM. On the other hand I've seen games soar with poor GMs who brought less than 30% to the 'table', because the players all brought their 5% and put in everyone's collective face.
That's my magnum opus. I could say more, but this is long enough, thank you very much! To sum up, Combat has something of a wave/particle duality. View one way it is a discreet tool in the writer's toolbox and should used with an eye toward advancing or ending the story. View a different way combat is everywhere from the court room too the battlefield, for the bedroom to the school room. Everything is infused with the essence of combat and the rules about advancing and ending still apply.
I want to close with a reiteration and a thought. Combat isn't the heart of any game (no matter how much rules space is devoted to it). If, however, you want to improve your combat skill, ask the people you think are good at it to explain it to you. I know some of my work implies a certain technicaly knowledge and interest is required but that is an illusion. I fancy (because I don't really know) that what I said above is part of what makes my combat work. If it was my study of technical matters alone, I doubt Heather, a confessed non-technophile (at least in a combat sense) wouldn't be able to enjoy my work. But she says she does, so I assume that it is something else that makes the combat relevant to her. I'm always willing to help.
What he said :D
There was combat in my games. I often chose not to make it mecha combat, sometimes couldn't avoid it, but ultimately thrived on throwing a group of characters into a situation where they had to sink or swim.
I had a hard time doing that on GP4 without kidnapping the characters, because the fleet is so freaking huge that every battle could easily be won by sheer numbers. The actions of individual characters hardly ever mattered, and seemed forced when they did. It did devolve into "I fly out and shoot at the pods", despite my best efforts.
I don't think this phenomenon was limited to my GMing.
Ultimately, I think the key would have been to fastforward past the standard combat that you know would have happened in that fleet, and get to the part where it's personally relevant to the characters. I had a tendency to be very anal about time when I first started GMing...possibly a product of the fact that the first game I ran was a straight run, from mission briefing to planetfall to eventual escape. I wanted my players to tell me what their characters were doing every minute of every day.
This makes it a little hard to create relevance. You can't have a mind-blowing experience every five minutes!
(Though my characters did try...)
Anyway, I think I have learned a lot about storytelling through the AMRN, and I hope to use what I've learned in my new game. I'm going to cut the fluff, make the story as relevant to the characters as possible. I'm going back and forth about mecha combat, because while part of me is bored by the idea, the proud part wants to meet the challenge head on and succeed this time.
I think if I do attempt mecha combat, I won't do the whole briefing/suiting up/status check/launch/initial contact thing. I will simply write the characters into their cockpits, into the battle at the point where the interesting thing begins.
And there will always be an interesting thing.
I do want to say thank you to everyone who's been so supportive. I'm glad that the non-mecha combat and the downtime in my games was fun :) And I'm definitely glad that you all like my writing.
Here's hoping I'm not too rusty ;)
First off, Ironside... that was an incredible post. I found myself nodding along, even in places that ostensibly contradicted my earlier post. I went back to read my own post just to be sure and I think you are more right than me. Whatever that is worth.
Heather: YOU ARE GOING TO RUN ANOTHER GAME!?!? I AM SO THERE...! I mean, that is, if you accept me as a player, and accept my character. And stuff. Because I'm a n00b.
Lastly, I'm a total dolt because I just realized that I did not send you a link, even though I thought that I did. So yeah, here's me and the woman who has decided to tolerate me for awhile: www.theknot.com/ourwedding/melissabarley&rosstrindle
I did get your "save the date" email, aeons ago. :) You guys look good together!
Allow me to indulge in some authoritative married-person speak: by "awhile" you'd better mean "forever", mister! You go into it half-committed and you'll come right back out.
:>
Anyway, yes, I have decided that I want to run a game. I'm still trying to figure out what anime to set it in, though. I like science fiction/space fantasy because of the scope, but something different might be refreshing. I also have to keep in mind that it'd be good to have a resource like the Macross Compendium for whatever anime I choose. Something that compiles the kind of information players would need.
So I'm not sure when the game will start. I'm on vacation starting next Saturday through the following Wednesday, and I'll be visiting the folks in Kentucky. Hopefully the relaxation time will get the creative juices flowing, so that I can once again work to avoid cliches like "get the creative juices flowing".
Oh. That's right. Save-the-Dates. It's like, all a blur, man...
Of course I was being facetious about the "for a while" thing. We're in it to win it!
YEAH FOR NEW GAME FROM HEATHER!
>>Anyway, yes, I have decided that I want to run a game. I'm still trying to figure out what anime to set it in, though. I like science fiction/space fantasy because of the scope, but something different might be refreshing. I also have to keep in mind that it'd be good to have a resource like the Macross Compendium for whatever anime I choose. Something that compiles the kind of information players would need.<<
FMP is pretty simple to do, considering most of armaments and such are real world, with the exception of the AS's and a few others. But info on them are rapidly available. And besides, you know you want your character to dress in a school uniform with a handgun next to their classics notebook...^_^
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