GM Questionaire

Zak over at D&DWPS instructed and we all must obey

Repost and answer. Or, if you don't have a blog, answer in the comments. Or be a big rebel and do neither.

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

  A: My D1000 Abyssal layer/lord generator

2. When was the last time you GMed?

  B: Last Saturday (Jan 14)

3. When was the last time you played?

  C: Sometime before X-mas

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

  D: Each session is derived from pictures and articles in this months National Geographic

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

  E: Roll dice ominously, "make notes" and consume beers

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

  F: Typically pizza, chips and usually beer

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

  G: At times, though I think it's the beer an hour that I usually consume

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
  H: Hurling the head of an executed mass murderer to the thronging masses to avert a riot. (He also performed the execution

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
  I: Not really, I use Forgotten Realms, which is pretty well established

10. What do you do with goblins?

  J: Faerie Tale stuff, or Mad Scientist stuff, or both.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

  K: Mechanical puzzles from Prince of Persia

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

  L: Dylan keeps falling in the poo

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

  M: Pathfinder Bestiary 3, because its new, and pretty cool

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

  N: Brom

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

  O: I think so, wait, afraid for their characters, or their sanity

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)

  P: Doesn't really apply, I've only ever run two, simultaneously for a split-up group of eleven, as filler and I didn't really care about them

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

  Q: A 1/2 dozen overstuffed leather chairs, big flat screen cued up with game visuals and a table with drawers for minis and built in dice trays

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

  R: Tough one, which I am too lazy to consider

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

  S: I find I simultaneously love minis and terrain and all manner of visual aids, but really trend towards having almost nothing on the table

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

  T: Someone who is picking up what I am putting down, someone who is interested in trying new stuff and not fixated on the game they "need" to play

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?

  U: Almost all of them, I claim circumstance bonuses, assume things have racial bonuses or class levels, and make regular use of take 10

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

  V: I dunno, I can only imagine that I don't know about all the products

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
  W: A friend who "sorta played" because we did, but never really got into it. He makes an alright sounding board for some ideas I have brewing, but the conversations are usually short and one sided. I get the feeling he wants me to think he cares, but really doesn't.

Where I have been

For some time now I have been seeking a deeper understanding into how and why the game ticks the way it does. With so many different RPG options why is D&D where I gravitate?

I'll admit it is where most of my RP experience lies. It's what my friends and I have played for a long time partly because it's what we know, a gaming language we all speak. At a certain point you become pretty heavily invested in a game, and I'm not speaking personally or emotionally or any of that crap. At $30-$50 a book after everyone in your group has the basic, and you as the DM have 30 some odd books it's just not cost effective to change gears. It's a system we like, with a setting we like so why rock the boat?

Here are some reasons why: After a while everyone becomes so versed with the forms of the game that several players start doing crazy things with their characters because there is very little world left to discover. This in itself is not an issue and I applaud a player for coming up with something cool, but what frequently happens within our circle is that a cool character idea will pop up, get played, not be as cool as it first seemed, fade into the back ground and then get replaced by the player because they have some other cool idea. It's hard enough to keep a story together in the face of dramatic character deaths, but when someone is subbing out a character every other session because they are A.D.Ding on something else today it's pretty impossible.

As a DM I find it difficult to keep things relevant when players have valid but very divergent ideas about their characters. We play a lot in the Forgotten Realms, which has so much rich detail that I can't really fault a player for wanting to be a part of it. If one of my guys takes the time to learn about the country or religion or secret society that's relevant to his character I feel like I should be including some of those things for him, else he immersed himself in the setting for nothing and might not bother next time. I like to tell deep stories so to discourage my players from making deep characters is not an option, but when everyone is deep in a different direction I sometimes wish they would.

There is no mystery in the world for us anymore. We've killed all the monsters, we've been all the heroes.

We need new heroes, we need new monsters, we need a new world.

I have some ideas...

Hey there interwebs

   So I’ve recently moved far from home, and thereby from my gaming group. Now I’m out in Ottawa with gaming on my mind and as of yet no outlet.  That makes you, the anonymous internet, the vessel unto which I shall pour my game theory, likes, dislikes, past gaming experiences and so on.

   Before we begin let’s get to know me a little. I’m 30, play mostly 3.5 and pathfinder, have DM’d for groups as large as 11 and as small as 2, and have an unhealthy love of tentacles. I am a fan of this guy and this other guy, who both seem to think like me. As such, if you think I am ripping them off from time to time I might just be, and will hopefully remember to give them their due. I have considerable cross-geek knowledge and often look at things in terms of other genres or games.  More on me as it becomes relevant.

   I find myself constantly trying to recapture the sense of wonder RPing held for me when I was young, and many of my rules experiments tend to lean in that direction.  

   I’ll leave more specific discussion for another time.