RD: C’mon, we haven’t had a great fight like that for ages.
FS: We all nearly died.
RD: Yeah, nearly. Nearly isn't actually.
AJ: So. Y’all had lotsa fun without us?
RD: Oh. Right. We kind of left you two hanging, didn’t we?
AJ: Nah, s’all good. Ah came up with one mother of a scheme while all y’all were busy.
AJ: We nipped ahead a few jumps and set up an interdictor generator. Next failed challenge, y’all’ll hit it an’ get dragged outta hyperspace.
RT: Lovely. We do have time to take an extended rest first, I trust?
RD: Yeah, sure, heal up.
AJ: Ahoy thar! Plunder off th’ port bow!
GM: Wuf wuf, cap’n!
AJ: Ramming speed! Prepare fer boardin'!
RD: Sweet! OK, Moonlight, what’s your ship’s AC?
RT: 24.
FS: Wait… I use bolster armor on the hull. That should make it 25?
AJ: Rolled a 26 anyhow. ‘less you wanna take that +4 now?
RT: Oh, I don’t think so. Bring it, churl.
RD: OK… the other two aren’t in this fight, so you can play a random crew member on each side.
Hey, where’d you get all these sweet custom minis?
GM: I have a friend with a 3D printer.
AJ: “Give up, Moonlight! Yer no match fer me hearty pirate crew!”
RT: “Ha! I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!”
GM: … I’m a five foot tall Rottweiler…
TS: So how does this system work for PvP?
GM: It doesn’t.
RD: It’ll be fine for a one-off.
GM: I mean, there are no rules. We’re pretty much improvising here.
RD: Nuh-uh. We came up with actual rules and everything!
TS: “We?”
RD: OK, she did.
AJ: Pretty simple, really. Reroll initiative each round, no action points vs. PCs, players take half damage from dailies. Doesn’t cover all th’ bases, but good enough for this. Sound OK?
GM: I guess we’re about to find out. *roll*
RD: …!!
GM: My first initiative is… 17.
RD: …I wanted to say the thing again…
AJ: Ah made cards outta our character portraits. We can just shuffle ‘em around each turn to keep track.
GM: Good idea.
FS: Looks like I’m going first? Um… would I have had time to set up a trap?
RD: Y—
TS: It would've probably taken at least two rounds for the boarders to cross.
RD: Er… guys…?
AJ: Eh, ah guess. Mah passive perception’s 18 ta spot it.
FS: Ok… *roll*
PP: Nice! Crit on your first hit! Criticals work the same, right?
RD: You know… I think I hear Kirby calling my name.
Guest Author's Note: "I have no idea if these tweaks would actually work. I went looking to see if anyone had put up house rules for 4e PvP and these were the only ones I could find.
All of RD's 'bad GM' moments are personal anecdotes. I don't really like memorizing rules, so I tend to leave that to the people who prefer such things, and either deferring to them on rules calls or overriding the rule if it doesn't make sense in the moment. This works fine most of the time... up until you try to play Paranoia."
There's an interesting development that has occurred in one of the RPs I'm in. My character decided to support this one local lord's plan to take over a region, because it would mean my character gaining influence and contacts (two things that served my own goals of owning a lucrative business) through his support of propping up the lord as a king. Another PC decided they want to take over the region themselves, which necessitates that this PC eventually assassinates the lord I'm supporting.
We're discussing these plans OOC in order to try avoiding a potential pvp incident, since their PC assassinating the lord I support quite likely means I'd come to the lord's defense. We've found one work-around so far, and that is if the other PC can prove they're the better choice to rule the region. It'll take work, but the first steps are already being taken, so we'll see how that goes.
On an unrelated note, if you or anyone you know has any dragon or griffon characters that they would be OK with me using as background color in the next issue of Pone Wars, feel free to contact me with a description or reference pic.
DA message, ideally, since it makes looking it up again easier (plus when I credit the guest appearance I have a DA username to link to). But if you aren't on DA I can be reached at christhes(at)yahoo.
Ah yes, when the players get so involved they even take over the rulings, so the GM gets to sit back and watch. The best reaction is not to opt out because you have nothing to do, but instead to accept that you need to monitor for anything too extreme, and use that as an excuse to sit around and enjoy what's being produced in front of you. (If you're the type who needs such an excuse, as RD seems to be here.)
I have no idea what's going on here, but at least it looks good.
I can't memorize rules either, so am still an improviser when it comes to gaming. I run XD20, where the only real rule is: "The GM tells you what to roll."
The gist of the page is RD loses her grip on the GM hat as the other players start making up their own rulings (as indicated by who has speech boxes vs bubbles) and eventually gives up to go play Smash Bros by herself.
Based on the comic where Rd's Player was stating how they wanted Fluttershy's player to have fun and this one, I would say RD has the makings of a good DM (The focus is players having fun (which she cares about) and having a cool adventure (which she's got in spades). But she doesn't care about knowing the rules at all (which if it was a purely story based game would be fine), and she still wants to be part of the story not simply the storyteller. And once you have a DMPC which the DM worked really hard on and is attached to then you get an invincible fun ruiner who is the main character.(Because most of us would make our characters invincible and the protagonist if we could, we love them).
We're discussing these plans OOC in order to try avoiding a potential pvp incident, since their PC assassinating the lord I support quite likely means I'd come to the lord's defense. We've found one work-around so far, and that is if the other PC can prove they're the better choice to rule the region. It'll take work, but the first steps are already being taken, so we'll see how that goes.
On an unrelated note, if you or anyone you know has any dragon or griffon characters that they would be OK with me using as background color in the next issue of Pone Wars, feel free to contact me with a description or reference pic.
I can't memorize rules either, so am still an improviser when it comes to gaming. I run XD20, where the only real rule is: "The GM tells you what to roll."