RPG Crosstalk

This episode will drop on Friday, 1/20/12, at 4am PT. Enjoy!

Episode

Aakin emailed me and said that he was having trouble understanding his own part in the podcast. I'm putting it out to everyone else, since I didn't have any problems hearing him.

Anyone else have any issues with the quality of this episode? I'm still feeling it out with the new microphone...

I'm hearing him just fine. He sounds exactly the same as every other time he has been on. Also, you got the settings down perfectly for your microphone. I no longer hear that tin can effect.

Made me sad face that the two "finalists" were being drunk or time travel. I've always hated time travel and the drunk scenario ticks me off since the GM took away the player's choice to screw up in that hook. Finally, thank you guys for being precise on what you meant for a plot hook. I've asked before and wasn't given an answer. This episode made it much clearer what your intentions were for an FTPH.

That’s a good point Alex and I agree that by playing around with the reality of what your PCs perceive the GM runs the risk of becoming an unreliable narrator and in doing so damage the immersion of the players. Also like you say it's far better to springboard plots from the mistakes that the PCs make themselves, something I always forget.  I hesitate to use overly railroading techniques with my PCs but do use them on occasions to drive the story forward when they lose focus on the plot. Bit naff really and one of my failings as a GM. The PCs should always have something to do, know what it is and be working towards it but it can be difficult sometimes with large groups to keep them all engaged. It feels like spinning lots of plates.

Armour is a great book. Picked it up thinking it was going to be a throwaway bit of military sci-fi and was surprised by the depth and emotion in it. Reminded me of the episode a little while back when the lads talked about the PCs finding a book telling a legend and instead of reading it out you give them pre-gen characters and have them play through the story. You could do the same with the armour, when the PCs put it on you can have them play the original owners stories and it’s a good chance to play test a totally different rules system from the one  you’re using, one more geared say towards mass combat.

Recording sounds fine to me Devon, I pick it up via iTunes and on either headphones or speakers I can hear you all without ever having to alter the volume.

Sorry for overly long post.

Weird. It must be the speakers I was using, then. I'll try it again with headphones and see how that sounds.

Alex, the point of the hook is not to see if players screw up, but rather to see how they function after the screw up. It's not so much a matter of taking their choice away; any good GM wouldn't use this plot hook on a character that was completely straightlaced and who didn't drink, tithed to the church, etc. But if you have a bunch of characters that are known to relax a bit after an adventure, this works as  a great way to bring in the next adventure, in my mind.

Tomato, Tomato, Aakin. I see what you're pitching, I still see it as taking control away from the players. There are many types of drunks and the players might consider themselves happy drunks or angry. Of course, the example given implied they were angry drunks, so that specific example wouldn't work. I've just never seen a person become too intoxicated to not know what they are doing. It could be I just hang out with people who don't lose control when they drink, therefore I'm unable to understand that scenario in a believable manner.

I have hung out with people who lose complete control. It's possible, happens and, in a fantasy game, there's no reason not to ratchet it up a notch.

Of course, there are styles of game for everyone. If that one isn't to your liking, it's there for you not to use. That's all anyone can do: use what you like, toss what you don't.