Yeah, I can relate. I've had all sorts of paranoid players who thought
that there was a conspiracy to get them. One player even thought one of
the other players was a mole in the organization. In one extreme case,
this guy, who doesn't game with us anymore, insisted that I was just out
to kill the group's characters. Despite my insistence that that wouldn't
be much fun and a colossal waste of the time spent rolling up said
characters, he wouldn't let it go. Fortunately, the rest of the group
thought he was bonkers. They knew that I was out to /torture/ their
characters, not kill them. ;-)
The most recent episode of paranoia among players was when a guy's
character woke up from cryosleep and insisted that he wasn't actually
awake, that the campaign he was in with the other characters was just
some VR prison (a la /The Matrix/). He'd been captured in 1122, thrown
in a low berth, and now it was suddenly 1202. And when he heard how the
Imperium came to its end (not to mention vargr and humans living
peacefully together in a PE up in Windhorn), he just couldn't accept it.
I think he may have finally let it go as he hasn't brought it up in a
while and stopped intentionally trying to break the alleged simulation.
Players always seem to wander off the path no matter how many
contingencies you plan for. When I gamed in person, that was disastrous.
I felt like the Bridge Keeper in Monty Python's /Quest for the Hol//y
Grail./ I'd be forced to wing it on the spot, or we'd be done for the
night. With PBEM I can avoid the sudden gaming crash, but I still need
the flexibility to adapt to players going off path. So to prepare, I
outline the campaign's story and make note of the steps the players need
to accomplish to get from A to B. This way, if the players decide to
take a side route to C or D--or further to C1, C2, and C3--I can fill in
the details just before they get there. It saves me from having valuable
time invested in developing something go to waste.
It helps that any good PC group is raving paranoid. Even adventures that
you intend to be fairly straight-forward they can turn into horror shows,
convinced that the universe is against them, not realizing that mostly I
am trying to help them tell a story, not kill them all. All in all, I
think they've terrorized me more by destroying hours and hours of my
preparation by just blowing everything up.
Players who rebel against the entire premise of cooperative storytelling
are obviously not going to work out, but I understand where the paranoia
comes from. Since it is storytelling, Vonnegut's mandate that the author
must be a sadist with his characters so that it can be revealed what they
are made of is fully operational, but like you, I'm not trying to kill
them, just stretch them, test them, challenge them.
On the other hand, when you're dealing with dice bad things happen. But
even there, when I am horrified that someone just got "killed" (fatal
trauma, can be arrested with immediate medical attention), vaporized most
of a continent, or got the party's MU and Cleric turned to stone, those
unexpected setbacks have yielded some of the best roleplaying and
side-adventures ever, proving Vonnegut's point.
Re: "adventure path," I don't go the "cinematic nugget" route, as that is
just another name for pulling them by a ring through the nose. I create
the whole tissue for the matter being considered, how it functions when
the players aren't there, the timeline for the things that will take place
if the players don't get involved, etc. That way they can take it or leave
it, or pull back and dive into it from another vector than the one
"cinematic nugget" which has been written. That's harder, but it makes me
happier, because not only is it more "realistic," but NPCs are my PCs so
it allows me to play too. Only once did I ever have to slam the file
folders down on the table and say, "well, there's the whole campaign for
the next month, but they're all dead now, thanks a lot." But the players
were more thrilled by that accomplishment. It's not often that the
Universe stops and says, "you win."
> Yeah, I can relate. I've had all sorts of paranoid players who thought
> that there was a conspiracy to get them. One player even thought one of
> the other players was a mole in the organization. In one extreme case,
> this guy, who doesn't game with us anymore, insisted that I was just out
> to kill the group's characters. Despite my insistence that that wouldn't
> be much fun and a colossal waste of the time spent rolling up said
> characters, he wouldn't let it go. Fortunately, the rest of the group
> thought he was bonkers. They knew that I was out to /torture/ their
> characters, not kill them. ;-)
>
> The most recent episode of paranoia among players was when a guy's
> character woke up from cryosleep and insisted that he wasn't actually
> awake, that the campaign he was in with the other characters was just
> some VR prison (a la /The Matrix/). He'd been captured in 1122, thrown
> in a low berth, and now it was suddenly 1202. And when he heard how the
> Imperium came to its end (not to mention vargr and humans living
> peacefully together in a PE up in Windhorn), he just couldn't accept it.
> I think he may have finally let it go as he hasn't brought it up in a
> while and stopped intentionally trying to break the alleged simulation.
>
> Players always seem to wander off the path no matter how many
> contingencies you plan for. When I gamed in person, that was disastrous.
> I felt like the Bridge Keeper in Monty Python's /Quest for the Hol//y
> Grail./ I'd be forced to wing it on the spot, or we'd be done for the
> night. With PBEM I can avoid the sudden gaming crash, but I still need
> the flexibility to adapt to players going off path. So to prepare, I
> outline the campaign's story and make note of the steps the players need
> to accomplish to get from A to B. This way, if the players decide to
> take a side route to C or D--or further to C1, C2, and C3--I can fill in
> the details just before they get there. It saves me from having valuable
> time invested in developing something go to waste.
>
> \_/
> DED
> TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin
>
> =========================================
> dcnilsen13 wrote:
>
> It helps that any good PC group is raving paranoid. Even adventures that
> you intend to be fairly straight-forward they can turn into horror shows,
> convinced that the universe is against them, not realizing that mostly I
> am trying to help them tell a story, not kill them all. All in all, I
> think they've terrorized me more by destroying hours and hours of my
> preparation by just blowing everything up.
>
>
I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on without realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken over an amusement park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure was spent by them in a lab in what amounted to a shared hallucination. In the hallucination, they continued to explore the amusement park, where they found things like battledress and FGMP15s fully functional, brand new and still in the crates, along with other goodies. They also encountered a number of robots which they dispatched with great glee. After a few hours or so of this I started making rolls periodically without tell them why. Since I roll dice periodically for no reason behind the referee screen, the players didn't think too much of it. However, in this case I was rolling against their Willpower. At first it was a Formidable task, and gradually got easier (the drugs they were given were slowly wearing off...). Whenever they had a success, there would be a "glitch" where they would have a flash of where they actually were. Handwritten notes were passed to explain what they thought they saw. For a while, they shrugged off the notes and continued. Eventually, the flashes became longer and they started talking amongst themselves. Eventually they rolled enough successes that one of them woke up. They found themselves in a robot repair facility in the amusement park, on a table. Nearby, previous results of "experiments" lay on the floor, humans that had been captured and died due to various causes including some that had been "disassembled" and studied after having spent a considerable time there.
Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they freaked out a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons were missing. So they went off in search of the weapons and found the battledress and fusion weapons they had found previously in the hallucination. They went to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked and sounded impressive and when they hit their target they did...nothing. Basically they were props. So was the battledress. Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their real gear and weapons and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in Challenge #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think. To this day, the original players talk about that adventure.
Been watching The 100 on CW, actually been watching it on Netflix, if you can get past the love triangle that never really works in season 1 it would be a pretty kick ass TNE scenario.
High tech crew crash lands on planet X and are beset upon by low tech locals, they find out that there are high tech locals and the high tech locals have been preying on the low techs for 100 years so they can survive.
Thus high tech crew lands in the middle of a snake pit of local politics.
If you can get past the love triangle it's pretty dark and horrifying.
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPhone...
> On Mar 12, 2015, at 11:58, Harold Hale [Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>
> I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on without realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken over an amusement park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure was spent by them in a lab in what amounted to a shared hallucination. In the hallucination, they continued to explore the amusement park, where they found things like battledress and FGMP15s fully functional, brand new and still in the crates, along with other goodies. They also encountered a number of robots which they dispatched with great glee. After a few hours or so of this I started making rolls periodically without tell them why. Since I roll dice periodically for no reason behind the referee screen, the players didn't think too much of it. Ho wever, in this case I was rolling against their Willpower. At first it was a Formidable task, and gradually got easier (the drugs they were given were slowly wearing off...). Whenever they had a success, there would be a "glitch" where they would have a flash of where they actually were. Handwritten notes were passed to explain what they thought they saw. For a while, they shrugged off the notes and continued. Eventually, the flashes became longer and they started talking amongst themselves. Eventually they rolled enough successes that one of them woke up. They found themselves in a robot repair facility in the amusement park, on a table. Nearby, previous results of "experiments" lay on the floor, humans that had been captured and died due to various causes including some that had been "disassembled" and studied after having spent a considerable time there.
>
> Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they freaked out a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons were missing. So they went off in search of the weapons and found the battledress and fusion weapons they had found previously in the hallucination. They went to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked and sounded impressive and when they hit their target they did...nothing. Basically they were props. So was the battledress. Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their real gear and weapons and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
>
> My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in Challenge #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think.& nbsp; To this day, the original players talk about that adventure.
>
>
>
Yes the 100 is excellent, season 2 with mountain men and repears is a
nasty TNE scenario
On 12/03/2015 19:49, Derek Stanley [Traveller_TNE] wrote:
> Been watching The 100 on CW, actually been watching it on Netflix, if
> you can get past the love triangle that never really works in season 1
> it would be a pretty kick ass TNE scenario.
>
> High tech crew crash lands on planet X and are beset upon by low tech
> locals, they find out that there are high tech locals and the high
> tech locals have been preying on the low techs for 100 years so they
> can survive.
>
> Thus high tech crew lands in the middle of a snake pit of local politics.
>
> If you can get past the love triangle it's pretty dark and horrifying.
>
> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPhone...
>
> On Mar 12, 2015, at 11:58, Harold Hale
> <> [Traveller_TNE]
> < <>>
> wrote:
>
>> I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on without
>> realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken over an
>> amusement park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure was spent
>> by them in a lab in what amounted to a shared hallucination. In the
>> hallucination, they continued to explore the amusement park, where
>> they found things like battledress and FGMP15s fully functional,
>> brand new and still in the crates, along with other goodies. They
>> also encountered a number of robots which they dispatched with great
>> glee. After a few hours or so of this I started making rolls
>> periodically without tell them why. Since I roll dice periodically
>> for no reason behind the referee screen, the players didn't think too
>> much of it. Ho wever, in this case I was rolling against their
>> Willpower. At first it was a Formidable task, and gradually got
>> easier (the drugs they were given were slowly wearing off...).
>> Whenever they had a success, there would be a "glitch" where they
>> would have a flash of where they actually were. Handwritten notes
>> were passed to explain what they thought they saw. For a while, they
>> shrugged off the notes and continued. Eventually, the flashes became
>> longer and they started talking amongst themselves. Eventually they
>> rolled enough successes that one of them woke up. They found
>> themselves in a robot repair facility in the amusement park, on a
>> table. Nearby, previous results of "experiments" lay on the floor,
>> humans that had been captured and died due to various causes
>> including some that had been "disassembled" and studied after having
>> spent a considerable time there.
>>
>> Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they
>> freaked out a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons
>> were missing. So they went off in search of the weapons and found
>> the battledress and fusion weapons they had found previously in the
>> hallucination. They went to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked
>> and sounded impressive and when they hit their target they
>> did...nothing. Basically they were props. So was the battledress.
>> Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their real gear and weapons
>> and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
>>
>> My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a
>> version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in Challenge
>> #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think.& nbsp; To this
>> day, the original players talk about that adventure.
>>
>>
>
> On Mar 12, 2015, at 13:02, rjperks [Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>
> Yes the 100 is excellent, season 2 with mountain men and repears is a nasty TNE scenario
>
>> On 12/03/2015 19:49, Derek Stanley [Traveller_TNE] wrote:
>>
>> Been watching The 100 on CW, actually been watching it on Netflix, if you can get past the love triangle that never really works in season 1 it would be a pretty kick ass TNE scenario.
>>
>> High tech crew crash lands on planet X and are beset upon by low tech locals, they find out that there are high tech locals and the high tech locals have been preying on the low techs for 100 years so they can survive.
>>
>> Thus high tech crew lands in the middle of a snake pit of local politics.
>>
>> If you can get past the love triangle it's pretty dark and horrifying.
>>
>> Derek Stanley
>> Sent from my iPhone...
>>
>> On Mar 12, 2015, at 11:58, Harold Hale [Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on without realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken over an amusement park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure was spent by them in a lab in what amounted to a shared hallucination. In the hallucination, they continued to explore the amusement park, where they found things like battledress and FGMP15s fully functional, brand new and still in the crates, along with other goodies. They also encountered a number of robots which they dispatched with great glee. After a few hours or so of this I started making rolls periodically without tell them why. Since I roll dice periodically for no reason behind the referee screen, the players didn't think too much of it. Ho wever, in this case I was rolling against their Willpower. At first it was a Formidable task, and gradually got easier (the drugs they were given were slowly wearing off...). Whenever they had a success, there would be a "glitch" where they would have a flash of where they actually were. Handwritten notes were passed to explain what they thought they saw. For a while, they shrugged off the notes and continued. Eventually, the flashes became longer and they started talking amongst themselves. Eventually they rolled enough successes that one of them woke up. They found themselves in a robot repair facility in the amusement park, on a table. Nearby, previous results of "experiments" lay on the floor, humans that had been captured and died due to various causes including some that had been "disassembled" and studied after having spent a considerable time there.
>>>
>>> Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they freaked out a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons were missing. So they went off in search of the weapons and found the battledress and fusion weapons they had found previously in the hallucination. They went to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked and sounded impressive and when they hit their target they did...nothing. Basically they were props. So was the battledress. Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their real gear and weapons and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
>>>
>>> My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in Challenge #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think.& nbsp; To this day, the original players talk about that adventure.
>
>
Pah, season 2 its don't mess with clarke or octavia
On 12/03/2015 20:40, Derek Stanley [Traveller_TNE] wrote:
> Do not mess with Clarke's mom.
>
> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPhone...
>
> On Mar 12, 2015, at 13:02, rjperks
> <> [Traveller_TNE]
> < <>>
> wrote:
>
>> Yes the 100 is excellent, season 2 with mountain men and repears is a
>> nasty TNE scenario
>>
>> On 12/03/2015 19:49, Derek Stanley [Traveller_TNE]
>> wrote:
>>> Been watching The 100 on CW, actually been watching it on Netflix,
>>> if you can get past the love triangle that never really works in
>>> season 1 it would be a pretty kick ass TNE scenario.
>>>
>>> High tech crew crash lands on planet X and are beset upon by low
>>> tech locals, they find out that there are high tech locals and the
>>> high tech locals have been preying on the low techs for 100 years so
>>> they can survive.
>>>
>>> Thus high tech crew lands in the middle of a snake pit of local
>>> politics.
>>>
>>> If you can get past the love triangle it's pretty dark and horrifying.
>>>
>>> Derek Stanley
>>> Sent from my iPhone...
>>>
>>> On Mar 12, 2015, at 11:58, Harold Hale
>>> <> [Traveller_TNE]
>>> <
>>> <>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on
>>>> without realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken
>>>> over an amusement park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure
>>>> was spent by them in a lab in what amounted to a shared
>>>> hallucination. In the hallucination, they continued to explore the
>>>> amusement park, where they found things like battledress and
>>>> FGMP15s fully functional, brand new and still in the crates, along
>>>> with other goodies. They also encountered a number of robots which
>>>> they dispatched with great glee. After a few hours or so of this I
>>>> started making rolls periodically without tell them why. Since I
>>>> roll dice periodically for no reason behind the referee screen, the
>>>> players didn't think too much of it. Ho wever, in this case I was
>>>> rolling against their Willpower. At first it was a Formidable
>>>> task, and gradually got easier (the drugs they were given were
>>>> slowly wearing off...). Whenever they had a success, there would
>>>> be a "glitch" where they would have a flash of where they actually
>>>> were. Handwritten notes were passed to explain what they thought
>>>> they saw. For a while, they shrugged off the notes and continued.
>>>> Eventually, the flashes became longer and they started talking
>>>> amongst themselves. Eventually they rolled enough successes that
>>>> one of them woke up. They found themselves in a robot repair
>>>> facility in the amusement park, on a table. Nearby, previous
>>>> results of "experiments" lay on the floor, humans that had been
>>>> captured and died due to various causes including some that had
>>>> been "disassembled" and studied after having spent a considerable
>>>> time there.
>>>>
>>>> Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they
>>>> freaked out a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons
>>>> were missing. So they went off in search of the weapons and found
>>>> the battledress and fusion weapons they had found previously in the
>>>> hallucination. They went to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked
>>>> and sounded impressive and when they hit their target they
>>>> did...nothing. Basically they were props. So was the battledress.
>>>> Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their real gear and weapons
>>>> and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
>>>>
>>>> My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a
>>>> version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in
>>>> Challenge #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think.& nbsp;
>>>> To this day, the original players talk about that adventure.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
For some reason I remembered that as being Mike Mikesh, obviously not.
Probably the double-initials MM and HH, both from HIWG must have conflated
in my head. Paranoia and Toon were pretty big around then too, with some
connections.
Matrix my @$$. Mark Twain did it before that (better), Plato did it
(better), we all imagine it as kids (better). Matrix was an embarr@$$ment.
> I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on without
> realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken over an amusement
> park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure was spent by them in a
> lab in what amounted to a shared hallucination. In the hallucination,
> they continued to explore the amusement park, where they found things like
> battledress and FGMP15s fully functional, brand new and still in the
> crates, along with other goodies. They also encountered a number of
> robots which they dispatched with great glee. After a few hours or so of
> this I started making rolls periodically without tell them why. Since I
> roll dice periodically for no reason behind the referee screen, the
> players didn't think too much of it. However, in this case I was rolling
> against their Willpower. At first it was a Formidable task, and
> gradually got easier (the drugs they were given were slowly wearing
> off...). Whenever they had a success, there would be a "glitch" where
> they would have a flash of where they actually were. Handwritten notes
> were passed to explain what they thought they saw. For a while, they
> shrugged off the notes and continued. Eventually, the flashes became
> longer and they started talking amongst themselves. Eventually they
> rolled enough successes that one of them woke up. They found themselves
> in a robot repair facility in the amusement park, on a table. Nearby,
> previous results of "experiments" lay on the floor, humans that had been
> captured and died due to various causes including some that had been
> "disassembled" and studied after having spent a considerable time there.Â
>
> Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they freaked out
> a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons were missing. So
> they went off in search of the weapons and found the battledress and
> fusion weapons they had found previously in the hallucination. They went
> to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked and sounded impressive and when
> they hit their target they did...nothing. Basically they were props.Â
> So was the battledress. Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their
> real gear and weapons and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
> My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a
> version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in Challenge
> #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think. To this day, the
> original players talk about that adventure.
>
>
>