It's who you know, not what you know...

[demonground]

I don't know why I didn't realise this earlier (okay, maybe I did, but it just didn't stick) but when it comes to Roleplaying it doesn't really matter what game you are playing, or where you are, but rather the mood players are in when they come to the table

Comments

[grandexperiment]

Why do you bother to use RPGs at all if they don't matter? Just could just sit around and play pretend without all the baggage ;)

[anonymous]

It's a tough subject indeed.
IMHO the GM often has a lot more power to set the tone and mood of a game than he/she realises. I've played with many passive GM's who just set back and let the players bring it - which is entirely unpredictable.

I've also played in, and run, games where you start a light conditioning process. You need to start describing things carefully, the more detail the better. Morgue started his Aliens game with a map and quite a bit of detail, which really helped everyone get a feel of the setting, you could even take it sone step further and create some small scenes, like intro scenes in a movie to really help players visualise the environment, even though their characters haven't actually seen the event. Then the first scene is o-so-important. How are the characters introduced. If you're really setting the scene, you'll need to have a good deal of control initially, which you can relax as the players start to dig the vibe...

Did I mention EPOCH is on my mind most of the time? : )

[anonymous]

Oh, that EPOCH related ramble was Dale, BTW.

[mashugenah]

I've generally found in media res just results in a shitstorm of questions rather than an instant engagement - but you may have better luck. Especially now that people are trained onto the ideas of the indie market, which uses that kind of technique a lot.

[demonground]

Oh I fully intend to give them a lot of lead in to the scene, it's just that it will be further advanced than they expect when game play starts!

[samnotluke]

I remember Dale playing a looped track of gun fire etc from the first 10 minutes or so of 'Saving Private Ryan' when he ran a World War One game at Confusion one year. I found it got me into the oppressiveness of the situation very quickly and I just wanted to get out of the war/room.

Don't know if that helps.