[UA] OOC Knowledge and Never saying No (was Players screwed over)

[John Scott]

At 09:06 09/05/01 -0700, you wrote:
>On Tue, 8 May 2001 22:55:55 -0700 (PDT), ua at lists.uchicago.edu wrote:
>
>   > Depends.
>   > use of Out-Of-Character knowledge annoying, if not
>   > actively
>   > wrong.
>
>I know exactly how Chad feels on this one.  I have a player in my 7th sea
>game who reads every section of every book he can get his hands on, and now
>that the surprise has been ruined, he'll make blanket statements to other
>players about things like: the emperor can't teleport.  It really does
>impair the fun.  Unfortunately, he's seen as one of the area patron saints
>of gaming and it's a big political issue if you don't invite him to games
>(one I usually take the rap for) but kicking him out would cause problems
>with the other players.  One of whom worships the fat stupid jerk.

I don't know enough about the 7th Sea background to know if this would 
break it ...

But why not have the Emperor teleport in front of the players? Or have them 
read reports of him teleporting if they're not of sufficient social 
standing to actually meet him.

It gets the message across that there's no point in learning the background 
as written, because you, the GM, have absolute veto over the world.

I used to run intermittant Paranoia games at a local games shop.  I would 
turn up with all 3 editions of the rules (1st, 2nd and 5th) and when called 
on to make a rules call, would pick up the nearest edition.  It stopped the 
munchkins and rules lawyers (which IMO drop-in games are infested with at 
times) from feeling too comfortable.

Now, you can do that with Paranoia, not with UA or a more serious 
game.  But you _can_ (and I'd almost say should) do it with the background.

John


_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua