Chebucto Regional Softball Club

Some of it depends on what system you're playing. I always recommend reading more games, because even if you don't adopt their rules wholesale there's often ideas you can steal. CofD had this idea of "aspirations". Players are asked to write down one long term thing they want to see happen to their character _as a player_. That's not necessarily what the character wants. The players should also have one or two short term aspirations. Since these are for the player and not the character, they might be something like "Get in a car chase" or "Take a hit that would fell a normal human" This gives the GM a little guidance on what the players want, and if they're like "i dunno" that's a prompt to talk about why they're here. More general advice: Engage with the game and its premises. If you're playing a game about superheroes that go out and fight street level crime, don't make a character that spends all their time making a mundane brass band. If you're playing a scrappy militia defending an outpost from a zombie threat, don't play a guy whose current obsession is writing poetry. Engage with the premise. "Wacky" stuff gets old fast. Playing safe to the tune of "Oh that sounds dangerous I'm just going to stay in the fort" makes for boring gameplay. I ran a game that ended unhappily because of this. I wanted it to be "explore the cursed island full of monsters and traps", and one of the players just wanted to open a restaurant. No. Bad. Engage with the game as pitched. If you want to play something else, talk about it instead of rowing against the current constantly. Engage with NPCs. I have a lot of players that just don't ask NPCs anything. That doesn't mean the NPCs are going to drop everything to help you, but if the GM is doing a decent job they have their own motivations and desires. They should be more than Final Fantasy NPCs that have a few fixed lines and a quest reward that pops out.

I've played a fair amount of PbtA and close relatives, mostly at a meetup I go to that does one shots. Never seen anyone playing apocalypse world. I don't really like pbta that much, though, so I'm not seeking it out.

Running games has definitely helped me run meetings. - Establish turn order. - let people finish their thought instead of immediately following some dumbass tangent - take notes

I think Mage: The Awakening 2nd edition was a cleaner version of the game, but yeah no version is something you can just phone in. I ran a game of it a year or so back, and one player just refused to read the book in any detail. She was always frustrated by not knowing what she could do, or how to do it effectively.

Well, technically there's Vampire: The Requiem. It's very similar, but not in the exact same universe. Some of the names are reused, but there's no canon metaplot, and many details are changed. I personally liked it a lot, but I think it's less popular than Masquerade. If you want to roll your own setting, I bet there are generic systems that would work. Fate is my go-to, and I can see how it would work. (Probably a stress track for hunger, some consequence boxes for becoming a monster)

> try to talk them out of the idea of “Leveling” they get scared and run back to the system they’re familiar with. I still think about the time in college I tried to get a D&D friend to consider Mage. I was telling him about how you can just do magic, and the real limitation is paradox and hubris. Like, it's often not about 'can you?' but rather "should you?" He couldn't get over "you can just cast whatever you want? Fireballs every turn?" "Yes, but that's probably going to make a lot of paradox, and probably isn't the best way to solve your problem" "Sounds broken," he said, and lost interest.

I'm partial to Fate. It's very open. You don't have to worry about looking up the right class or feats. You just describe what you want to play, and if the group thinks it's cool and a good fit for the story, you're basically done. Now, the downside is this requires a lot more creativity up front. A blank page can be intimidating. I like that players have more control over the outcome. You can usually get what you want, even if you roll poorly, but it's more of a question of what you're willing to pay for it. Every roll will be one of - succeed with style - succeed - a lesser version of what you want - succeed at a minor cost - succeed at a major cost - (if you roll badly and don't want to pay any costs) fail, don't get what you want It's a lot more narrative power than some games give you. I don't like being completely submissive to the DM, so I enjoy even as a player being able to pitch "ok I'm trying to hack open this terminal... how about as a minor cost I set off an alarm?" or "I'm trying to steal his keys and flubbed the roll... How about as a major cost I create a distraction, get the keys, but drop my backpack by accident. Now I'm disarmed, have no tools, and they can probably trace me with that stuff later. But I got the keys!". It's more collaborative, like a writer's room, so if someone proposes a dud solution the group can work on it. The math probability also feels nice. You tend to roll your average, so there's less swinginess like you'll get in systems rolling one die.

> Plus, I don’t know any other system that lets me pull my intestines out of my abdomen and use them like a lasso to climb a cliff when I forgot my rope at home. Nitpick: more narrative systems like Fate let you do this, but then you typically don't get a lot of crunch. Plus it can vary if your group isn't on the same wavelength about what's cool and appropriate for the story.

Nitpick: It's probably not the _devs_ so much as the capitalist owners and management collaborators. I'd guess most of the people making the games would be happy to have someone play their game at all. It's not like they typically get a cut of the profits (again: capitalism)

True, I'm definitely doing arm chair analysis. If I was in charge, I probably wouldn't have entered the console market at all. I'd probably have tried to build steam. That had to be easier if you own the OS, too. On the other hand, they utterly fucked up "Games For Windows! Live" or whatever it was called.

I said in another thread but I've been unemployed for a while now. Even jobs I'm referred to my old coworkers aren't giving me interviews. If capital wants me to spend money, they have to pay me money first. Until then, fuck them.

It's funny because like 20 years ago or whenever Xbox launched I was like "why don't they capitalize on the fact that they own windows? The platform everyone plays games on. Why are they competing with themselves?" Hypothesis: businesses are run by idiots and people whose contradictory incentives create behavior indistinguishable from idiots.