MTAM: Reflections Upon Results
So, here's the deal.
I've been gaming since junior high, cut my teeth on some AD&D 2.0e and old GDW games like Twilight 2000, along with some random one-off trials of other systems - but I really didn't start "seriously" gaming until high school. I've kept the same group (essentially) since that time, although the group has winnowed away due to life complications and some new people have popped up. In any case, we have a common experience on the games we play and how we play. It's been pretty traditional Tabletop RPGs, usually centered around D&D and White Wold WoD stuff. Some Shadowrun and Cyberpunk once someone could really get into it. Several of the folks (pretty much everyone but me and the new blood that's come in the last few years) also had a firm grounding in miniature wargaming (anything Games Workshop, Battletech) and board game strategy.
I'll get to a point here, seriously.
So, we have a pretty conventional, mainstream, and one might even say conservative experience in gaming. It's a lot of kill and loot, with some good socializing and some pretty decent roleplay (although never really heavily so, despite the fact that we all love our characters as people and actors). Even in non quest-oriented RPGs (like WoD is supposed to be), the combat was usually gritty and fatality-heavy and the concept of 1) surrender, 2) mercy, 3) taking prisoners, and 4) acknowledged defeat were pretty much non-existent. While GM-ing, I attempted on some occasions to play with these expectations (e.g. the infamous 6 hour combat sequence that was supposed to teach the PCs [and players] about the existence of a no-win situation), usually to horribly failure as apparently I play with a bunch of determinators whom I am loathe to flat out kill when they don't catch a clue. I swear, I must be the fluffiest bunniest fluffy-bunny GM on the planet.
On the rare occasions that the PCs manage to take a prisoner, this is usually carte-blanche for them to start in with the Jack Bauer Interrogation Techniques (at best, now that I'm recalling the horrible torture porn sequences from my early Vampire games). This is not to mention the inexplicable villain Baiting, Mook Murder, and general mayhem your PCs will get up to 'cause they can and roleplaying a courtroom drama is not what they (or you) signed up for. What I'm trying to get across here is that the gaming history we have had has nutured this bloodthirsty, no holds barred, no consequences action paradigm.
Which doesn't mesh well with the comic book genre - at least without going all 90's Dark/Iron Age on the setting. I'll comment on that bit later. I will mention that my experience with comic books was definitely colored by that period in time, being the period that I first actually read comic books (although my experience with the genre extends back to when I was still in the cradle).
So, during the first session, the players ran into a problem where they were being set upon by hapless brainwashed hordes of innocent civilians. Xtian (playing Jerome Lee, Special Agent Q) wanted to teleport an oxygen tank into their midst and then shoot it to...do something. He balked from this because the NPC Liasion of ProAll had told the group to avoid fatalities and injuring civilians. In his (logical) mind, doing this would have sent fiery shrapnel all over the place and would have probably killed several of the civilians (cyberzombies or not). We then entered into a brief discussion where I pointed out that I would have let this be non-lethal damage (knockback, area effect, whatever), even though it wasn't necessarily logical, but was consistent with the tropes of comic-book action. Similarly, we had the other PCs dealing non-lethal damage with a pistol (SAQ's Nemesis gun - which will Nemesis-ize to a normal pistol for general humans) and a Katana (Kitsune's NINJAsword) without really wondering how they could actually do this.
As the game is developing, I am coming to a strange crossroads where my intent in mood and theme are necessarily deviating from where I wanted it to be. I had initially set this up to be a "High Energy Thriller" but wanted to avoid Iron Age grittiness and fatality but also wanted to avoid Four Color silliness and nerfing the consequences of the PCs actions. And yet, as play starts to develop, it seems that I am wishing to slide back into More Four Color Comic action (of course an exploding oxygen tank won't actually hurt anyone!), and yet the potential plot lines I am moving toward are a darker than this setting will allow. This isn't taking into account the intentional subversions and aversions of traditional comic book tropes that I'm working with here (I have gone out of my way to avert Reed Richards Is Useless) in order to create a more realistic setting that just happens to have superpowered people in it.
Indeed, the real issue I think is that I envision a fairly narrowly defined setting, but the PCs and the necessities of their backgrounds is forcing me to open it up further - but I don't have the fully formed logical framework in order to make it consistent throughout. Foremost is the fact that I've really put no thought into the mystical cosmology for the setting - and despite it being a MT:A hack, I really don't want it to be a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. And god, I don't know what I'd do if someone wanted to bring Aliens into this (SAQ's transdimensional Secret Agency is already blocking any attempts for me to understand how to use it effectively)
So, I'm losing touch with keeping it grounded in some sort of immediate connection to the Real World. Which is not unreasonable in a Comic Book setting, which is all about Grand Guignol Over The Top Action and Damn The Consequences. And maybe that's enough, but it makes things sorta hard to tell a story with and becomes Just A Bunch of Shit That Happened. Foremost, of course, is that people have a good time. Secondary to that is my need to tell a good coherent story, but that's of course what I want to focus on ... cause it's all about me?
Hmm. That's not a good conclusion to come to.
So, we have a group that is trying a new genre of RP, a new setting, and a different kind of aim for what is expected of the characters and by extension, the players. I guess I wonder if I should kick things over into the realistic in order to meet their expectations and in order to ease my misgivings with logical construction of belief/disbelief. Obviously I want to get the PCs to be Big Damn Heroes, but I sorta want them to learn something along the way without things devolving into Revenge for Great Justice when the Big Bads come calling. I want them to THINK about the Big Bads. I want them to THINK about what they mean and what they represent.
Oh, but is that compatible with people having a good time and players trying to grab the spotlight in order for their PCs to have BDHM for themselves?
I think this game will bring a lot of metagame issues to the fore, which is not what I expected.
-12th
I've been gaming since junior high, cut my teeth on some AD&D 2.0e and old GDW games like Twilight 2000, along with some random one-off trials of other systems - but I really didn't start "seriously" gaming until high school. I've kept the same group (essentially) since that time, although the group has winnowed away due to life complications and some new people have popped up. In any case, we have a common experience on the games we play and how we play. It's been pretty traditional Tabletop RPGs, usually centered around D&D and White Wold WoD stuff. Some Shadowrun and Cyberpunk once someone could really get into it. Several of the folks (pretty much everyone but me and the new blood that's come in the last few years) also had a firm grounding in miniature wargaming (anything Games Workshop, Battletech) and board game strategy.
I'll get to a point here, seriously.
So, we have a pretty conventional, mainstream, and one might even say conservative experience in gaming. It's a lot of kill and loot, with some good socializing and some pretty decent roleplay (although never really heavily so, despite the fact that we all love our characters as people and actors). Even in non quest-oriented RPGs (like WoD is supposed to be), the combat was usually gritty and fatality-heavy and the concept of 1) surrender, 2) mercy, 3) taking prisoners, and 4) acknowledged defeat were pretty much non-existent. While GM-ing, I attempted on some occasions to play with these expectations (e.g. the infamous 6 hour combat sequence that was supposed to teach the PCs [and players] about the existence of a no-win situation), usually to horribly failure as apparently I play with a bunch of determinators whom I am loathe to flat out kill when they don't catch a clue. I swear, I must be the fluffiest bunniest fluffy-bunny GM on the planet.
On the rare occasions that the PCs manage to take a prisoner, this is usually carte-blanche for them to start in with the Jack Bauer Interrogation Techniques (at best, now that I'm recalling the horrible torture porn sequences from my early Vampire games). This is not to mention the inexplicable villain Baiting, Mook Murder, and general mayhem your PCs will get up to 'cause they can and roleplaying a courtroom drama is not what they (or you) signed up for. What I'm trying to get across here is that the gaming history we have had has nutured this bloodthirsty, no holds barred, no consequences action paradigm.
Which doesn't mesh well with the comic book genre - at least without going all 90's Dark/Iron Age on the setting. I'll comment on that bit later. I will mention that my experience with comic books was definitely colored by that period in time, being the period that I first actually read comic books (although my experience with the genre extends back to when I was still in the cradle).
So, during the first session, the players ran into a problem where they were being set upon by hapless brainwashed hordes of innocent civilians. Xtian (playing Jerome Lee, Special Agent Q) wanted to teleport an oxygen tank into their midst and then shoot it to...do something. He balked from this because the NPC Liasion of ProAll had told the group to avoid fatalities and injuring civilians. In his (logical) mind, doing this would have sent fiery shrapnel all over the place and would have probably killed several of the civilians (cyberzombies or not). We then entered into a brief discussion where I pointed out that I would have let this be non-lethal damage (knockback, area effect, whatever), even though it wasn't necessarily logical, but was consistent with the tropes of comic-book action. Similarly, we had the other PCs dealing non-lethal damage with a pistol (SAQ's Nemesis gun - which will Nemesis-ize to a normal pistol for general humans) and a Katana (Kitsune's NINJAsword) without really wondering how they could actually do this.
As the game is developing, I am coming to a strange crossroads where my intent in mood and theme are necessarily deviating from where I wanted it to be. I had initially set this up to be a "High Energy Thriller" but wanted to avoid Iron Age grittiness and fatality but also wanted to avoid Four Color silliness and nerfing the consequences of the PCs actions. And yet, as play starts to develop, it seems that I am wishing to slide back into More Four Color Comic action (of course an exploding oxygen tank won't actually hurt anyone!), and yet the potential plot lines I am moving toward are a darker than this setting will allow. This isn't taking into account the intentional subversions and aversions of traditional comic book tropes that I'm working with here (I have gone out of my way to avert Reed Richards Is Useless) in order to create a more realistic setting that just happens to have superpowered people in it.
Indeed, the real issue I think is that I envision a fairly narrowly defined setting, but the PCs and the necessities of their backgrounds is forcing me to open it up further - but I don't have the fully formed logical framework in order to make it consistent throughout. Foremost is the fact that I've really put no thought into the mystical cosmology for the setting - and despite it being a MT:A hack, I really don't want it to be a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. And god, I don't know what I'd do if someone wanted to bring Aliens into this (SAQ's transdimensional Secret Agency is already blocking any attempts for me to understand how to use it effectively)
So, I'm losing touch with keeping it grounded in some sort of immediate connection to the Real World. Which is not unreasonable in a Comic Book setting, which is all about Grand Guignol Over The Top Action and Damn The Consequences. And maybe that's enough, but it makes things sorta hard to tell a story with and becomes Just A Bunch of Shit That Happened. Foremost, of course, is that people have a good time. Secondary to that is my need to tell a good coherent story, but that's of course what I want to focus on ... cause it's all about me?
Hmm. That's not a good conclusion to come to.
So, we have a group that is trying a new genre of RP, a new setting, and a different kind of aim for what is expected of the characters and by extension, the players. I guess I wonder if I should kick things over into the realistic in order to meet their expectations and in order to ease my misgivings with logical construction of belief/disbelief. Obviously I want to get the PCs to be Big Damn Heroes, but I sorta want them to learn something along the way without things devolving into Revenge for Great Justice when the Big Bads come calling. I want them to THINK about the Big Bads. I want them to THINK about what they mean and what they represent.
Oh, but is that compatible with people having a good time and players trying to grab the spotlight in order for their PCs to have BDHM for themselves?
I think this game will bring a lot of metagame issues to the fore, which is not what I expected.
-12th