[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: (TFT) Man To Man & GURPS - was Re: (TFT) The return of Ogre - Rick did something silly.

dang, pretty harsh. While I do vaguely remember that fighting was an important part of D&D when we played it in the 80s, I distinctly remember that the rest of life was there, too, including negotiating, etc. I think the Fineous Fingers cartoon was a pretty good sendup of the D&D violence, as they attacked pretty much everything, including harmless peasants from whom they asked directions.
That being said, in late high school and early college, we did end up playing GURPS, entirely at the motivation of one of our more creative geniuses, who even had himself in his story as a slightly deranged NPC. Those were some good times.
As the author notes, GURPS allows the GM to give ExPts for whatever is "good play" and I think lots of people noted that long ago in D&D. But I guess the game's design is still something to kick around.
-----Original Message----- From: De Des 
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2014 2:20 PM
To: tft@brainiac.com
Subject: Re: (TFT) Man To Man & GURPS - was Re: (TFT) The return of Ogre - Rick did something silly. 

Ouch.  I remember when I was 11 or 12 years old playing DnD with the high
school kids at the library; they were wanting actual role-playing, and I
had my 9th level ranger with an intelligent vorpal bastard sword and my
natural 18/00 strength (naturally) - I think the sword and I both had
psionics - I kept getting switched to different groups, until finally I got
stuck with a group of kids who were arguably even worse than I was.
Literally, every game ended with them whipping their brightly-colored
polyhedral dice at each other and screaming obscenities, then rolling
around the floor in a general brawl.  I did a little soul-searching after
that.  My playing and my GM-ing improved.  I still had my lapses, but I
started seeing the value in characters who had flaws, and who sometimes
didn't win.  So maybe the kill-'em-all guy came around too ... that is a
kind of awesome "teaching moment" though.


On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 11:35 AM, Joe Hartley <jh@brainiac.com> wrote:


On Fri, 1 Aug 2014 11:05:36 -0400
De Des <denisdesharnais@gmail.com> wrote:

> It helps avoid the "hobgoblin holocaust"
> effect.
>
>
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2008/03/orc_holocaust.html

I liked this article, it explains to me why D&D never clicked with me.
While none of us are above a quick little dungeon crawl just for kicks,
the kill-em-all attitude wears real thin.

One thing I remembered last night was that at one point in my gaming
group in high school, we realised the GM could deduct XP as well as
grant them.  That stupid move where you pressed the jolly, candy-like
button
and sprung the should-have-been-obvious trap?  Yeah, you lose a bunch of
points for that.

We had a new guy come in once and he just killed everything in sight.
The GM improvised and had the party show up in a nursery.  Weapon comes
out,
monster baby parts flying everywhere but then oops! human babies in these
cradles, slashed to bits, followed by the arrival of (roll 2d-2) 8
policemen
who quickly drag him away.  The rest of the evening was spent playing
"Police attempt to transport the Graniteville Babykiller safely to gaol."

I can't remember his character's original name, he became Babykiller and
it stuck.  This guy got more and more PO'ed as the evening went on and
left before his character actually died, because the NPC townspeople were
leaving off before actual death, and just beating the tar out of him, then
force-feeding him healing potions so they could beat the snot out of him
again.

It turned into one of the most interesting nights of gaming ever, as
there were some really good twists thrown in and the main party had some
very interested situations, but the new guy was screwed because he wouldn't 
get out of that kill-everything POV.

--
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh@brainiac.com
 Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"



=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft" 
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"