[UA] Varying skill costs . . .

[Hammons, Jade]

If you can not find time to spotlight what your characters think are
important skills/abilities/personality traits, you should not be
game-mastering. Period. 
Let's take CSI as an example. Player says, "I want my investigator to
have a really high level in entomology", GM then places something buggy
every few episodes. 
"I want my 23rd century navigator to have knowledge of 19th century
earth firearms." - Ok Takei, I think I can work that in there.

A player not being motivated and sitting on their ass is not the same as
not having the ability as a game master to make your players choices
important. If your player took 50% in cat lover, they obviously wanted
it to define there character, and that becomes your job to make it
important from time to time. If you can't, and your players feel
shorted, it's your fault, especially if you just nodded your head and
said "Uhm, ok, you can take that skill."  If you are doing your best,
and they still whine, then maybe you have a valid complaint.

If you have a classic D&D game going and you have a thief and you fail
to put in things for them to overcome, you are shortchanging him. If you
don't have a thief but insist on putting thief challenges in your game,
you are punishing your players for a party imbalance. 

The story has to adapt to the skills and personalities of the characters
involved, not the other way around.  If you want your story to survive
contact with the players, you better be making some pre-rolls, and
writing up some strict psychological outlines for them to adhere to.

If you became a GM to satisfy some control complex, maybe you should
take up writing, because that's the only way you will get your
characters to play their roles just like you want.

As a GM it is my job to make Hairdressing, or Cat Lover important. If I
can't do my job, then I need to be fired. It's that flexibility that
makes me a dangerous player, because if I take an esoteric skill in a
game, you can be damn sure I will find ways to use it.

Jade Hammons
"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be
normal." - Albert Camus




-----Original Message-----
From: ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com
[mailto:ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com]On Behalf Of Chad Eagleton
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 11:15 AM
To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [UA] Varying skill costs . . .



 
> If the player takes the skill, it is his/her/hir/hes
> prerogative as a player to find an application to
> use
> the skill they took in the freaking first place. If
> players can't find a place to use their skills, too
> damn bad. 
> 
> This is crap. As a GM I've had it up to the ruptured
> fucking jugular with players that sit on their asses
> and whine about not being motivated or there's
> nothing
> for them to do, or the game is boring.

You do have a point. There are players who just sit
around and bitch. But I've also played with GMs who
were just as responsible for games sucking...case in
point I was playing in a Fading Suns game...during
character creation I decided I wanted to play a
priest, so I went to the GM told him what I wanted to
play and asked, "Is that going to work with what you
have planned for the game?" "Sure, sure," he says. And
then lo and behold look at that, I have nothing to
fucking do, because my priest character with his lack
of combat skills or piloting space craft ability had
nothing "useful" to the game. Oh, I still had
fun...for a while, but then when I tried to mention it
to him, even suggesting I make another character more
suited to what we were doing, he assured me no, no,
we'll work something out. And you know what--it never
came, and I just got a lecture about how I should take
inititive and not his responsibility, blah blah blah
blah, he crafted this fine story blah blah blah...then
who's responsibility is it? You're the one running the
fucking game. If you can't look at my character sheet
and do something with what's there to give me a bit of
a personal interest, then what the fuck? Hell, even
Xander on Buffy got his "own" episodes...Maybe you
should just try to right novels on your own and give
up gaming. 
     Players can and often do suck, forgetting that
they are the main character and they should be
interested in what's going on because of that very
reason. I mean hell, would you what I tv show where as
soon as the first plot point came around the main
character decided he was going to go off and work on
his car? No.
     But GMs can suck just as much too...and I think
all it takes is a littler effort at character creation
and a little time spent now and then doing something
for the characters to improve things all around.

chad

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