tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782642015911121830.post166793595610600793..comments2024-02-26T08:43:30.852+00:00Comments on The Bearded Quail: Christmas Is Over (If You Want It)George Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08706465827178319046noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782642015911121830.post-89406313063967318632016-01-03T17:04:57.042+00:002016-01-03T17:04:57.042+00:00Thanks for sharing your experience, David! Yeah, ...Thanks for sharing your experience, David! Yeah, I think that one might be able to help sell the experience of air combat by narration even if mechanically they're a bit underwhelming. After all, you're flying in out-of-date planes with poor equipment in the pitch black while better trained and equipped force harries you. You're also fighting an opponent who utterly despise you and who you utterly despise - while the British/Germany conflict saw grudging respect between soldiers and officers, that shit ain't gonna happen on the Eastern front! <br /><br />I think it's always going to be hard to convince a group that has a primary GM to consider a rotating GM type setup in a single campaign. We tried a "Guest GM" deal in my Star Trek game in 2015 - two players ran a single session each, and any player who did got a benefit for their PC when they returned to play. Night Witches doesn't exactly have a huge carrot on offer to encourage players to be a co-GM, instead just insisting it should happen in certain circumstances... but as you say, people might feel uncomfy if they feel they can't do it without being an expert in 1940s Russian pilots. <br /><br />I think one possible fix might be to sell that the rotating GM thing is an important part of the games feel and participating in it, even though it might feel weird at first, helps with the theme of the game. It's not a story about individual pilots, exactly, but about a regiment - not all the members are going to make it out alive. Giving each GM a different battlefield lets them also play with the tropes of the different parts of the war, from the grim sections where the Russians are on the ropes to the triumphant sections where the days of Nazism are numbered.<br /><br />In the case of Primetime Adventures, it absolutely would handle a drama game just fine and to be honest is in fact a better fir for that than more action-y ones IMHO. All conflict resolution is handed the same, with a hand of cards dealt out between players and GM and success/failure determined by who has the most red cards. Scenes are either "plot scenes" about advancing the story of today's episode of "character scenes" about showing glimpses into a person's psyche. You resolve a knife fight with the exact same mechanical complexity as you would trying to convince your wife to admit she's cheating on you.<br /><br />Play examples throughout the book back this up - the primary case study is of a 1920s Chicago gangster style game in which the main characters are an older brother shell-shocked from the war, a younger brother who wants to prove he isn't the kid, a sister who wants to be of a better class than she currently is and the patriarch father still grieving for his dead wife and lashing out at others. Like an episode of the Sopranos, Fargo or Breaking Bad of course there will be some actiony sections where people punch, shoot or chase them.... but it's clear that a heavy focus is going to be on resolving the personal issues of the cast.George Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08706465827178319046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782642015911121830.post-2430320043567542902016-01-03T02:53:39.749+00:002016-01-03T02:53:39.749+00:00Nice haul!
Re: Night Witches. My actual-play podc...Nice haul!<br /><br />Re: Night Witches. My actual-play podcast has <a href="http://esoteric-rp.blogspot.com/search/label/night%20witches" rel="nofollow">a couple sessions in the can</a>, and I'm finding the same issues as you: the programmed nature of the combat rolls tends to make the bombing raids into a sort of side effect of the main focus of drama on the base. After the first session, I made a concerted effort as GM to describe the brutality and terror of the raids a little more effectively. It's just an effect to be mindful of, I think.<br /><br />As for the rotating GM thing, I'm the group's regular GM, and even though I pitched the game as being conducive to GM rotation, I've yet to have any takers. I'm not particularly hot on forcing the issue either, since I happen to be the most knowledgable about this period and theater of war, so it's been a nice excuse to apply some of that knowledge in-game. I think if everyone at the table was on about equal footing in terms of knowledge (or lack thereof) of the setting, it might work better. Likewise if the group had a tradition of GM rotation already in place.<br /><br />Question about Primetime Adventures: is it primarily focused on action-type concepts, or would it work well for procedural dramas as well? Or is Drama System the way to go in the latter case?David Larkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04133630988557116729noreply@blogger.com