[UA] My players are too intelligent! (long, for a change)

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

I spent the weekend helping some people move and
finished it off with a game convention, which is why,
of course, you're only just now hearing from me.

Got some questions for ya (and a few comments.  Take
them with a grain of salt and remember that I got no
one wanting to play with me who knows me):

--- Ville Halonen <halski at purpleturtle.com> wrote:
> Never thought I'd complain about the players being
> TOO intelligent (in comparison to the slaughterers I
> played with before), but as I've read through some
> archives that offered great plot hooks, I thought
> that my players would hardly never catch them with
> their own characters. They simply don't usually make
> characters that can be easily dragged into
> adventures by introducing an intriguing plot hook,
> and you can never expect what they'll do. 

There's two ways of looking at plot hooks.  They can
be fiats, where the players don't really have a choice
(you wrote down that you were obsessed with power, why
WOULDN'T you set up a meeting with the kingpin?)

Plot hooks can also be discussed with your players. 
You might have to show a little vulnerability as a GM
(the one thing no RPGer likes to show is vulnerability
-remember I just came from a con.  Everyone there
wanted to be Iron Man -the comic book character, not
Tetsuo-) and admit that the plot hooks are necessary
for there to BE a plot.  As long as the average player
gets to blow something up, they seem to understand.

> 
> An example follows, although I had nothing to do
> with it. It just involved two of my players in a
> Vampire game.
(Must resist temptation. Must not start avalanche of
quakingly defensive e-mails.  Must not... ngh...)

> IIRC, the first one (the one playing
> the entropomancer in my game) was a low-generation
> Sabbat packleader, and had played him quite a while.
> The other players were in his pack.
> 
> The player portraying a personamancer in my game was
> supposed to join up with them in the campaign, and
> he was an Anarch. 
Actually, I, for one, would like to hear a little bit
more about this intermingling of a UA magic school
with vampires. How were you doing it?  Why were you
doing it?  Were you using UA rules or WW?  Some sort
of hybrid?  There are plenty of WW groups around here
and if I could get into one and slowly introduce UA
concepts through some sort of cross-germination
program, I might shake up the Colorado Springs
roleplaying scene a bit.

> The packleader gave orders to one
> of his pack to call the Anarch up to a meeting, so
> they could get together and start playing. So the
> Sabbat calls up the Anarch, and it went something
> like this (I'm gonna make myself ridiculous with the
> dialogue):
> 
> "Uhh, da boss wants ya to come up to this joint,
> he's arranged a meeting."
> "Why should I come?"
> "Well, just come on."
> "Why?"
> "Well, you're, uh, supposta. Come on now."
> "Tell me a good reason."
> "'coz he wantsta meetcha."
> "Tell you what: we'll meet, but on my terms. I'll
> tell you where, and when. And tell him to come
> alone, unarmed."
> "Umm, okay."
(I like this dialogue.  It's not ridiculous at all. 
Lots of characterization.  Maybe a little exaggerated,
but exaggeration is a reasonable narrative tool.)

> 
> So they set up a meeting at a graveyard.
> Conventionally, the Anarch's player should've, of
> course, simply met up with the guy. But the player
> wanted to do as the CHARACTER would do. So he called
> up his friend and asked for a nice chunk of
> plastique, just in case.
Why would the character be carrying a nice chunk of
plastique? I ask because I don't naturally match large
explosions and personamancy in my head.  Don't get me
wrong, I like large explosions, I just don't see the
personamancy connection.  Obviously this character was
some sort of bang-bang nut, right?

> 
> And we see the graveyard, where the Anarch is
> hiding, and the Sabbat leader comes up in his nice
> convertible, alone. He's looking for the Anarch, who
> goes up to the car and sets the plastique. (Or was
> it the Anarch's car, already set up?)
This is my biggest question:  Why did the Sabbat
leader arrive alone?  Even if the cemetary was
arranged at the last minute, he could have vampirized
several stupid street kids on the way over and had
them hiding with celerity in the bushes ready to
explode in a glorious fireball of screaming neonate
bits.  As I recall, the Sabbat have no compunctions
about creating as many vampires as they need whenever
they need.
> 
> The Sabbat returns to the car, and gets a warning
> from the GM that his supernatural senses say
> something's wrong. The player, not knowing what's
> wrong, plays it up, looking around him, whattafugg?
> 
> The Anarch pushes the button.
When did he get a chance to wire the car?  His friends
did it?
> 
> Kaboom.
> 
> The Sabbat is caught up in the explosion and the
> Anarch's never seen again. Things could've been
> different, had the minor Sabbat's player done the
> phone call less suspiciously. It stank like a trap
> to the Anarch character's nose, although the player
> knew what was up. So, end of campaign. Sayonara. 
> 
> So here I have players that don't want to do things
> because they're SUPPOSED to them as player
> characters, but they really do what their characters
> would do. 
Why would the Anarch blow up the car again?  Because
he's suspicious of a trap?  Why not just run or
secretly tail the sabbat guy?  Why would he think a
guy getting INTO a car is a trap?  Why did that end
the campaign?  Why couldn't it have been Fudged so
both survived and create a long-standing feud?

What's with vampire games ended by plastique, anyway? 
Way back when MET first came out, a friend asked me to
help her run a game (I'd run a kind of wonky starter
game to try and get my thirty bucks out of the cheap
boxed thing -never did feel like I recouped.) 
Although I wrote something up with ten or twelve
characters in mind, she ended up attracting over 30
people and, well, to make a long story short, it
dissolved into chaos (I didn't do such a good job
doubling the plotlines and motivations at the last
minute -I've gotten better, though.)  About halfway
through the night, my friend, a GM, decided that the
house was secretly laced with plastique and told me,
her frantic assistant narrator, that she had just
blown everybody up.  Like an idiot, I went around to
every single player, explained the explosion and told
them to gather outside to determine what kind of
damage had been dealt.  They gathered outside and
continued roleplaying with the four vampire hunters
who'd walked up to see what was going on.  Nobody
mentioned the explosion, which I thought was a
terrible waste.

It was a good, if completely unfair, explosion.

=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

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