They have trouble not treating everything like a joke, and they have trouble roleplaying anything besides puerile self-insert character power fantasies, and they have trouble coming up with character ideas which are not showboats for how cool they are, and they have trouble making the effort to take on such herculean tasks as keeping track of their ammo. Theyre all about the gaming equivalent of junk food: plenty of empty laughs and empty self congratulatory feelings of winning and the schadenfreude of roleplaying socially unacceptable behavior like shooting authority figures and beating down old ladies in starport concourses. And they have trouble not getting upset when the iv drip of laughs, winning, and schadenfreude is interrupted.
General Is there any concise summary of Traveller setting lore to help potential players?
- Thread starter Tiikeri
- Start date
They have trouble not treating everything like a joke, and they have trouble roleplaying anything besides puerile self-insert character power fantasies, and they have trouble coming up with character ideas which are not showboats for how cool they are, and they have trouble making the effort to take on such herculean tasks as keeping track of their ammo. Theyre all about the gaming equivalent of junk food: plenty of empty laughs and empty self congratulatory feelings of winning and the schadenfreude of roleplaying socially unacceptable behavior like shooting authority figures and beating down old ladies in starport concourses. And they have trouble not getting upset when the iv drip of laughs, winning, and schadenfreude is interrupted.
Shadow Shack
SOC-12
Seriously though, does anyone here remember what it was like trying these games out back when they were new? When we started playing Traveller, or D&D, or Star Frontiers, or whatever other RPG tickled our fancy (or for that matter, a board game like Monopoly or Risk etc), there was NO INTERNET to research the game. Maybe there was a blurb in Dragon or White Dwarf magazines when the game was released, and maybe the proprietor at the hobby store that carried the products knew more than a simple "People must like it, I sure sell a lot..."
It's a freakin' game, how much research is needed to have fun playing a game?!?
Already off the historical road...
"You just killed 39 people."
"No, I killed 39 orcs.¹"
"Orcs are people!"
"Not according to our laws.²"
"Those who demand comfort for the non-people are in league with them. Recant or die!"
"What makes them../.‹pop›‹gurgle›"
"Good riddance, traitor³..."
¹: also historically used against many minority groups, based upon phenotype, religion, or political beliefs, even to present.
²: be those laws mundane, religious, or even just social customs.
³: or heretic, or infidel, or ...
The difference in sci-fi is that the "Axiomatically evil species" tend to either be political or religious metaphors, or are presented as mindless hordes...
And we're drifting right to the edge of the "outside the pit" tolerance. I know several are going to be annoyed that I even went this far... but the psychology of otherness is a very real thing in RPGs...
Basically, that psychology is "Anything notably different from us is bad." And in almost all games, there is a difference between the rules for NPCs vs those for PCs... like the lack of requirement in CT for PCs to make morale checks... and NPCs getting whatever equipment the Ref feels is appropriate, unlike the PCs, who have to budget and buy....
Shadow Shack
SOC-12
NPCs get the good stuff. If the PCs want it bad enough, they'll have to kill the NPCs. They don't kill the NPCs for racist/ideological/religious reasons...they simply kill them for their stuff.
Back then people knew what traveller was, the books were in the stores, and the books cost 6 bucks. Peoples interests are much different now, and when i ask them to do this im asking them to put in about 3 hours of their time a week. Theyre not going to do that unless theyre pretty sure theyll enjoy the game.
I thought it was the psychology of lazy writing, and the psychology of not bothering to provide ones antagonists with complex motivations.
Shadow Shack
SOC-12
If people really need to research a game to the point that they need to find out what the best course of action is to play, that sounds an awfully lot like metagaming and if that's the case you need to make some ultimist* classes for whatever game system you're trying to attract these people to. Barring that, once again...it's a game.
Here's how I got into Traveller ---
A friend of mine in high school played D&D, as did his younger brother. His brother had a couple friends that played also, and my friend had a couple who played sporadically...that is to say they played until the newness & novelty wore off and then they stopped playing. So there I was, playing D&D with my friend, his brother, and his brother's friends (as the novelty wore off for the other two).
One day I introduced them all to Star Frontiers, and my friend got his sporadic friends to join in on the first session. They all loved it, although my friend's friends eventually bowed out once the newness & novelty wore out. By then my friend wanted to GM his own Star Frontiers game and went to a hobby store, but they were out of stock. The hobby store owner told him that "a lot of folks seem to like Traveller, because he sells a lot of the books."
And that's how I got into Traveller, because a store happened to be sold out of a game that my friend wanted and he got something else instead. No internet required (it didn't exist back then), no research required, none of us really knew what it was about, and the interest was directed towards something else. Our group had a blast (even after the two usuals dropped out).
My latest gaming involves a friend who used to play D&D, I re-introduced him to it, we played a few sessions --- and I popped the question of Traveller. He asked what it was and I said "Basically, D&D in space". No internet required (it does exist now), no research required, he didn't know what it was about, and he had and to this day continues having a blast with it.
My observation is if people really need to be sold on playing a game, they're probably not really interested in playing a game in the first place.
* Y'all do remember the infamously farcical "ultimist" from Dragon magazine, right?
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
In Warhammer, it's pretty clear that if you don't kill adherents of opposing alignments, they will either kill, corrupt and/or enslave everything you hold dear.
With Dungeons and Dragons, moral ambiguity has crept in.
In the end, it's a matter of choices, and being able to cope with them in the aftermath, which is why I graduated in ShadowRun to sleep and memory wiping spells, backed up with tranquilizer darts.
And a twelve gauge shotgun, just in case.
With Dungeons and Dragons, moral ambiguity has crept in.
In the end, it's a matter of choices, and being able to cope with them in the aftermath, which is why I graduated in ShadowRun to sleep and memory wiping spells, backed up with tranquilizer darts.
And a twelve gauge shotgun, just in case.
If people really need to research a game to the point that they need to find out what the best course of action is to play, that sounds an awfully lot like metagaming and if that's the case you need to make some ultimist* classes for whatever game system you're trying to attract these people to. Barring that, once again...it's a game.
Here's how I got into Traveller ---
A friend of mine in high school played D&D, as did his younger brother. His brother had a couple friends that played also, and my friend had a couple who played sporadically...that is to say they played until the newness & novelty wore off and then they stopped playing. So there I was, playing D&D with my friend, his brother, and his brother's friends (as the novelty wore off for the other two).
One day I introduced them all to Star Frontiers, and my friend got his sporadic friends to join in on the first session. They all loved it, although my friend's friends eventually bowed out once the newness & novelty wore out. By then my friend wanted to GM his own Star Frontiers game and went to a hobby store, but they were out of stock. The hobby store owner told him that "a lot of folks seem to like Traveller, because he sells a lot of the books."
And that's how I got into Traveller, because a store happened to be sold out of a game that my friend wanted and he got something else instead. No internet required (it didn't exist back then), no research required, none of us really knew what it was about, and the interest was directed towards something else. Our group had a blast (even after the two usuals dropped out).
My latest gaming involves a friend who used to play D&D, I re-introduced him to it, we played a few sessions --- and I popped the question of Traveller. He asked what it was and I said "Basically, D&D in space". No internet required (it does exist now), no research required, he didn't know what it was about, and he had and to this day continues having a blast with it.
My observation is if people really need to be sold on playing a game, they're probably not really interested in playing a game in the first place.
* Y'all do remember the infamously farcical "ultimist" from Dragon magazine, right?
Theyre reading about a game to see if it interests them or not. It has nothing to do with the best course of action or metagaming. Due to a lack of a concise readily available description of the what is the setting like, what kind if characters can they play, and what do the characters do in the game, they decided tracking down enough info online wasnt worth the effort.
They want to play games, but they want to play games they will enjoy. The experience of trying to find travellers obscure lore to put together a coherent picture of the setting was not enjoyable for them, so they declined to play.
In short, it was a drag.
Then, i tried it. And it was still a drag.
My error was in refusing to abandon travellers vast freedom of choice and not presenting potential players with a tiny little reductionist version with a limited number of clearly defined roles to choose from set in a preset narrative.
I realized i was asking them to play a game with 40 years of obscure lore, sort of like a fandom. A giant body of not particularly interesting lore is one of the reasons i have little interest in playing games set in the star wars, star trek, and marvel universes.
Well, now i know. In the future ill make an ATU and have summary descriptions and handouts ready.
I ran our 1st Call of Cthulhu game. I did the math and saw there was no real recovering from SAN loss. I warned the other players "Don't get too attached to your characters. They tend to die quickly. If you go combat monster on the villains, you WILL die Solve the mystery, then stop the evil." I was not taken seriously because we had finished playing 1st ed Hero System (when they still called it Champions ) where it is really hard to die. Lost players on that one... Would not have lost them had there been a campaign book or a detailed review, but it was a brand new game...
Why thank you, flykiller, i appreciate that.
Maybe i could run a game at some point. Can anybody start a new story thread in that section?
And you want to play with these folks, WHY, again? Are they family members? I had trouble squashing =some= of what you say when introducing my kids and their friends to RPGs (not the two sons who are CotI members!), but I had established connections already and an investment in teaching what I'd known and loved since the 1970s. And even then, those kids weren't as bad even starting off strictly from videogame experiences as what you describe. But that was 5-15 years ago; maybe it has gotten worse.
I dont, but, its what i get when i try to game. Its like going to the drive thru and getting a different rat in your burger every time.
The behaviors ive been describing in this thread and other threads all happened as i described them, but its a composite picture of the behavior of many individuals over a long time. Its not a group of live cretins that i sit across a table from every week. The physical cretins i stopped gaming with a long time ago. The next group of cretins as well. Then there were short li
ed groups with changing memberships. One day i gave up and never ran a live game again. So, i migrated to online gaming forums, and thats where the mary sues, self insert fantasies, and all that exploded. Theres been countless virtual cretins. And it has been getting worse. Before even live cretins would make a desultory effort play a game with some crunch. Now virtual cretins wet themselves at the sight of a chart. Niw its all abou feel good narrative style games and theyre accustomed to being stroked. Yes youre a princess. Yes you have cyber wings. Yes youre the kewlest of them all. Now click on the diceroller ffs. Now the cretins dont know what gender they are and they intriduce themselves with their special pronouns. The difference is the emotionality and mental laziness. They get upset when they dont get their way, they get upset when they dont win, they make their characters appear in locations where they arent so they can paricipate instead of waiting their turn and not ruining it. Theyre allergic to any rules with crunch, to playing like there will be consequences to their stupid actions, and they dont want to make the effort to sandbox. So, thats that i guess.
The good thing is that my creative writing is much better than it used to be.