Well, I just think that you need to find the right people. I play one-shots with friends in a friend's house. Said friend is married and his wife is also a gamer. He also held "cons" in his house where he and his wife are G Ms (of separate games though, mostly. Friend is a narrativist and wife more a simulationist). Also, for the two campaigns that I've run both have players who are a couple.
Gamer couples do exist.
edited 18th Jul '13 4:39:04 PM by IraTheSquire
Oh believe me I know. Problem is actually FINDING em around here. I've had better luck in the past, but right now, it seems that most everyone I've ever played the game with have moved off, or somesuch.
I get what you're sayin, though. Mostly just venting a lil frustration.
Were I a bit more tech savvy, I totally would be all over playin online. It's just, I've never figured out any of the virtual tabletop type programs mostly.
I used to do freeform online, like rather alot, but I just can't seem to find a program that functions similar enough to an actual tabletop while being easy to figure out initially. I get discouraged easily in that particular regard...
"Dude, I'm not taking religious advice from ANYBODY named 'Darth'!"Maptools.
My personal setup is IRC for RP-we segregate the game into an IC channel and an OOC channel-and then when it gets time for combat, we switch over to Maptools. Maptools is especially nice because of the ability to use macros, but that's probably well beyond your technical expertise. Takes a while to learn.
I may just do that, though yeah, I gotta study up on some of this stuff...my education was decidedly low-tech, by the standards of the day, much less now, so almost everything computer related I've had to figure out for myself. There's been...delays.
'Preciate the help.
"Dude, I'm not taking religious advice from ANYBODY named 'Darth'!"Roll20 is crap, Maptools for life foo'! <Flips a table, flips everyone the bird, and runs off>
Actually, I've never tried Roll20. Anything that differentiates it from Maptools?
<Looks up a cross comparison>
Looks like Roll20 is better if you want a simple fast connection and aren't using macros; if you wanna manually handle the numbers (HP tracking etc) it's better than maptools. But sounds like maptools has much better support for integrating token properties and macros.
My guess is Maptools is probably a lot buggier than Roll20. Really depends on what kind of user one is, and one's players.
edited 19th Jul '13 10:13:53 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
Roll 20 is indeed crap. I use it, but only because I'm too lazy to find a better one (the last 3 I tried were worse) and I play Dresden Files, which requires only a very rudimentary map. If I had to play anything that uses precise mapping and gridding though, I'd stay away.
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.One time a player in a LARP I'm in (don't GM, but I used to be on the e-board for it) ragequit the game mid-way, because a god NPC told his not-god NPC (who had been canonically banished, but refused to leave because he found his character too amusing) to stop messing around. God!NPC could be over emotional, but oi ve, the other guy.
On my own time, I was pretty strict as a tabletop GM, so I sorta quashed the one attempt at anything I didn't like (Which was trying to make their character a prodigy) and I luckily have a good enough group that most chicanery takes place as a joke off-table.
Read my stories!I have a good bunch of players, but like everyone here I have things to complain about.
My players just do NOT know when to avoid bad mouthing, insulting, threatening and acting arrogantly to NPCs. Doesn't matter if they're authority figures or friendly/neutral. Nor, apparently, if they're disgustingly powerful elder vampires with both the physical power to make them a tender red pulp and the social connections to have their lives made hell.
They're usually worse on the NPCs who aren't that strong.
I've resorted to asking, deadpan, with a raised eyebrow, if their comments are in character. On a yes, said NPC gets right back in their face like a normal person would. They're learning though, and now less of their shenanigans are IC... Though one incident from the last game just takes the cake.
It's a NWOD vampire game, they were meeting a college history professor whose quirk is wearing Col. Sanders type white southern suits. He's basically a throwaway character I wanted to make mildly interesting, and I expected them to laugh and maybe get a kick out of it, but one of the PC's just point blank asks if he keeps slaves. So I had him explain it's just him choosing to exalt the good parts of southern culture, and that keeping slaves in this day and age was as ridiculous as her being a vampire. Of course, only two out of the three got the joke; I had to explain the prof was a masquerade believing muggle and the concept of dramatic irony to the third.
And the player in question chose to have her character laugh maniacally... So the prof threatened to call campus police on them. It didn't help that player #3 was being an insulting twat, launched into the slavery nonsense headfirst as well, and took off his shirt for no reason. I then had the professor scare the crap out of him with a speculum orum since he couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut.
On that note, I would like to ask y'all for some advice. My youngest player I think is conditioned to playing videogames and pushing the "skip cutscene" button. I've come to this conclusion by seeing him play my copy of Asuras Wrath, where he constantly pushes it then has to ask me what's going on in the game. At the game I run, I notice he's barely able to sit through a sentence of me setting up a scene (I prepare small paragraphs for important places/scenes which I read) before he has to interrupt with what he wants to do or some question. I've actually snapped at him once to give me a frickin' chance to finish describing the situation before he launches half cocked. He got a bit better after that, but he's still chomps at the bit the second I start expositing important-stuff-you-need-to-know-to-get-anything-done-and-avoid-dying.
I don't want to get angry and lash out or get passive aggressive and say nothing at all unless prompted with a question. Should I just talk to him and tell him to let me describe a scene? Personally interrupting someone midsentence is one of my Berserk Buttons, doubly so when I've taken time and effort to write it and triply so when doing it is also hurting your chances of enjoying the game.
edited 24th Aug '13 5:23:53 PM by Earnest
Yeah, they're generally at least being compassionate to those who need it and most definitely not being psycho evil. It's just that most other times they ping pong between chaotic neutral and chaotic douchetral.
And for some reason one player (she of the slavery question) seems to think she can make a people farm and stay high humanity.
I fully intend to let her go through with it, but in a very drawn out and horrifying manner. Hopefully she can decide whether to go through with it and be more evil or have second thoughts stay relatively moral.
And that can actually work this session! I can see it now:
Me: You enter a room and you see four hoods brandishing guns and a woman that looks like an addict, they —
Player: I take out my sword and stab the closest one.
Me: [Roll] Okay, you do four Lethal damage and make him collapse. Also, you take five Aggravated damage from fire.
Player: What!? But you said they had guns, not fire!
Me: Well, I was about to say that they were standing in front of a pair of guys with flamethrowers, and that one of the hoods put on a ring that turned him into a ghost possessed fire monster before you interrupted me.
Player: Oh, Crap!.
Of course knowing him he'll whine that I should have told him the whole scene, which will be simply hilarious given the circumstances.
edited 27th Aug '13 6:59:19 AM by Earnest
He can try, but I actually write the scenes out so I can read them. I'll just let him read the rest of the paragraph.
But you're right, he'd probably find something else to complain about: like that I did it to purposely hurt his character, or that I should have warned him anyway. Either way there will be whining, but hopefully a lesson will be learned.
In all seriousness he is kind of sensitive and a little suspicious, so a stunt like this would definetly rile him up. I'd probably have to be ready to slam down his objections clearly and forcefully so the game doesn't derail.
It adds a difficult dimension when the GM has to threaten to bring down the thunder for a character who chronically misbehaves. Sometimes it works, and the player relalizes that they can't be a prima donna and screw with the story. Other times it backfires and people quit or rebel. Either way, the GM's first question is, "Is it fun?", and after that, "Is it what I wanted?"
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.Sounds to me like your players forgot that the main goal of R Ping is for ALL people involved to have fun. That includes you as well. If they feel the need to be selfish and start saying "Do everything the way we want or else!" you could politely remind them that you're there to have fun as well. I don't have a lot of G Ming experience myself, but I know that it can be a lot of work. Perhaps you could take turns G Ming for a bit so they learn to appreciate what you do.
Your mind is a software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it.

Not so much the players, but the lack of being able to get two particular players in the same game, like ever. The deal is, one's married, the other might as well be, and either one'll host the game at his house, but primarily to appease the S Os. Why is it so hard to get that there's not even any women AT the game at all, other that whichever one lives at the venue of the day?
And I know this particular problem from the inside. Back when I got married, it killed my participation in the game. I got to go to exactly ONE session during my marriage, then had to deal with her being pissed off about it. Heaven forbid there be women at the game venue (the back room at my buddy's tattoo/piercing place), much less the gaming table.
It's just, I tire of only having two players at a time. We're already short on players, so if one's out, for whatever reason, the game grinds to a halt entirely till the situation's resolved, and that's the entire reason I haven't been able to play the game in about 6 month...like at all.
And the worst part is, even if I could host, I don't think either one could make it. Being an adult SUCKS sometimes.
"Dude, I'm not taking religious advice from ANYBODY named 'Darth'!"