Re: (TFT) I knew this guy

["Neil Gilmore" <raito@raito.com>]

I knew this guy

I also knew this guy, but I'll get to that later.

Trashing the GM's knowledge of the rules isn't good playing. It's playing
the numbers. Playing the numbers is only truly enjoyable for juveniles and
twits. Hence the reason I stopped playing Champions long ago and far away,
because those people thought it was more fun to crunch the numbers than to
play a superhero.

The perfect solution is for the GM to do everything, including maintaining
the character sheeets. But that isn't really practical, asd the game tends
to move slowly. The best likely solution is to play the character, not the
system. It's one of the things I like about TFT. If you want to do something
not in the rules, it's easy to make up a rule.

The ultimate answer to a player saying 'that's not right', is for the GM to
say 'who's running this game, anyway?'. (This assumes that the GM is being
relatively fair, etc.) (smiley on) It's as if I wandered into a game run by
someone on this list and said "POW? That's not in TFT"...

to run all those years ago.  A DM/GM should know the game at least as well
as the player, if not better.  Ideally they should know it a LOT better.

   In the second to last paragraph of the section above there is an asterix.
  I feel that sentence touches on the reall issue.  My memory of the dawn of
role playing is one of DM's who guarded their 'secret campaign' notebook
with their life.  No one could touch it, let alone look at it.  It gave an
aura of authority to person when they would consult their binder, even make
notes in it, but no one knew what they were doing or what it said.  Detailed
notes add a layer of authority and keeps players guessing.  I realize now
that in the disasterous AD&D game I tried to run I didn't have any campaign
notes.  In fact the very books I was using belonged to the guy who had asked
me to run.

Much of my early game playing (of all types) was done at the University of
Wisconsin's Wargaming Club, a venerable institution. Being close to Lake
Geneva (home of TSR), we did have a couple of people who started their
roleplayng careers in the almighty Gygax's basement (when the nastiest
monster was the 3-headed snake, because it got 3 tries to hit things). But I
digress. For some time, before a separate group split off, roleplaying games
were done their. The most popular D&D campaign there was by this guy Rocky.
The whole of the campaign was stores in a particularly ratty backpack. One
day, the backpack was stolen. It has been referred to for 2 decades as 'the
day the world died'.

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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