Braden, GMPhD wrote:Guys, I hurt because I love.
I only ever played a few games of Vampire: TM, then decided I hated it. Not because of the setting, or the system, but because the GM was horrible. having a bad GM can ruin a game for you forever, and it is my mission in life not to let that happen again to other people.
now, to speak from experience, when I began running Phase World this past spring, I had a big, general idea of the what the specific setting would be, and so I asked the players to draft accordingly. "Any CCW race or OCC. Altess and Promethians are Ok too."
The first round of characters made me regret that I'd said I would GM again. Rune weapons, machine men, cosmoknights..I wanted to cry. So i had to politely send back these first drafts, explaining what was wrong with them...
"Machine men don't live in the CCW..."
"Only the Splugorth can make rune weapons, and they sure aren't going to sell one to your race..."
"No..."
And now I have an extremely varied and interesting group, because I stuck to my guns. And my general setting plan. One Promethian Time master, one scholar guy who sells books and speaks every language, one Noro Turbo Jock, Two Altess Armoria Officers, One Oni CAF TRooper with his father's true samurai sword (a compromise...there are ninjas coming after him to take it away), and a Seljuk PSi-Tech (because no one could fix anything or apparently use computers).
All from the Phase World setting. All oddly complimenting one another. And one of them is a spy for the TGE...try to guess which one!
How 'bout a Wolfen-Quatoria-samurai-operator-chi master-cyberjack?
I share your pain... but I managed to deal with said Quatoria quite handidly...and all using fair dice rolling and rules handling.
At first I wept bitter tears...
The character mowed everything down (despite being PRINCIPLED alignment), and even auditing his character sheet and removing a LOT of bonuses ("No, robotic PS does NOT add to melee damage, so you do not do 2D6+2D6+15 MDC damage...and stop trying to blabber at me about how that doesn't make logical sense!!!") just made him sneak his die rolls.
One thing he didn't think on; just because you have a cyberjack plug, doesn't mean you automaticaly have the cyberjack SKILL.
Soul-killer is a cast iron beotch to defend against when you haven't the faintest idea what the heck it is
Isn't trying to hack a quantum CPU, psychotic A.I. a pain?
He lasted all of 2 rounds...then he wasn't "quite right" after that.
Digital poessession, 'natch!
He lives in Edmonton now...the player that is, not the rabid mutt
I have no problem with munchkin characters, as long as they are entertaining and don't destroy the narrative. Once that happens, the offending player better start soaking his dice in holy water and praying to Gygax
