_www.FantasyLibrary.com [Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?] Synthesis & Synchronicity 022

Synthesis & Synchronicity #22

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, working my way thru various things that need to get done around the house and looking forward to Dave's Greenstone campaign session tomorrow. Theres still lots of 'up in the air' feeling to the Wed group, and I'm not sure where that will all lead.

I'm afriad that this missive will be boring to most folks, but I'm trying to maintain my discipline and in the process keep my frustrations, stress and depression under control. Feel free to skip this entry of the column if my personal life, emotional ups and downs etc. have no great hold on your interest.

Cindy has headed off to try to become an extra in a movie they are filming at the Harvest Co-op grocery store, Kiralee is at work, and its just way too hot and humid for me outside for much in the way of travel.

I've already done piles of mundane boring housework, hung a new light up on the new porch, done email, spent some time in design mulling for games, and listened to the silence of my email when it comes to getting folks on my mailing lists to actually volunteer answers to questions I've posted.

We finally have the airconditioning set up and running, so everyone at tomorrows game should be cooler while visiting us then they would be going elsewhere (a good incentive to get folks to show up). I'm guzzling some really lousey tasting coffee from Bread & Circus/Whole Foods (the beans, bought fresh and ground by me this morning, are too burnt). My only other choice would be to go off to the nearest Starbucks and get a caffinated cold drink. Maybe I will... this stuff is pretty awful.

I'm starting to feel that I'm spinning my wheels and getting nowhere fast on my game designs. Games that might work for the Sun group will not work for the Wed group (if it survives). The would-be GM for Wed has evidently decided to back out of doing so, after all the conflicts that she ran into with the other players.

I can see where the conflicts come from, and its simple. She comes from a primarily White Wolf viewpoint in her playing and Gming from years past, and has some assumptions that pretty much spring out of the really poor job that White Wolf does in explaining what the GM (Storyteller as they call the position) is all about in the game.

This means she expects blind trust, a follow-my-plot-its-whats-important concept of player position, and an inability to understand the points of view that people have been expressing to her in regards to what they want in a game. Storyteller wants players who are more passive and less in control of the game then folks here want. They want the GM to call most of the shots, and the players to follow blindly, when they aren't set at each other's throats.

We're big into cooperative games, with a lot of player power over their character's actions, ability to influence the plot heavily and knowing what their capabilities are from the start (Bait-n-switch and other story tactics common with Storyteller are just not good for the majority of our players, and for 75% of gaming in general in my experience). Try telling that to someone who has the Storyteller 'training' and it becomes a 'You don't Trust me enough to let me GM' issue, no matter what is said or how. Sigh.

Add in a GM who prefers games that are "ordinary people blundering around to solve extraordinary problems", in a group with folks who 1) Know that there is no such thing as an 'ordinary person' who becomes a Mage (or is born into a Werewolf pack, or whatever) and who in many cases have real life experience with real-world neo-pagan mages, stage magicians etc. and who 2) Prefer to playing extraordinary people facing a mixture of ordinary and extraordinary problems and finally 3) Are used to playing (at least for the past year) in a Hero v5 Science Fiction Campaign with Superheroic point levels and powers (Teleporters, Telepaths, Weird Alien Psychology, Technomages, Genetically Altered Humans with heightened animal genes, etc.) and its a recipe for disaster from the start.

Why can't people see obvious trends and preferences? Why can't they listen to what their players want and be willing to compromise at least a little? Its so DAMN frustrating.

People do not want to be railroaded. People do not want to be told "You'll play a character of X type only for this campaign', people do not want to be told 'You can't know any details about your character that I haven't given you, until after play begins.' People want choices, options, opportunities, flexibility, and the ability to conceive and create a character they find interesting in a setting that is interesting, and not 'Doomed, Gloomed and Angsted'.

I know, I'm venting. I can't help it. Kiralee asked me not to discuss the problem any more with the person via email.... and maybe not at all. Its doubly annoying because the person involved has the potential of being a good GM if she would toss the Storyteller crap and take the time to listen to folks who had a few more decades of experience in gaming and group management etc. I hate having my hands tied by her in this way. I'd rather try to work the problem out or find a solution or whatever.....

Time to go. I don't know when this will actually get up to the website. I'm going to go toss this crappy Whole Foods burnt coffee and see about finding something a little more paletable. Starbucks paletable? When did that happen? When B&C went down hill after it got bought by Whole Foods, and then later shut the Putnam Cafe so no one was drinking their coffee at point of sale....

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.....

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