Re: AWMBI - Discussion
Alright, thank you, time is short (heading off to work), but i'll get what i can down now.
Truth is, I wasn't joking about any of that post. People have gotten so worked up over my mistakes, beginner GM mistakes, as this is my first game, that most of the time I can't take what they're saying seriously. But, not everyone acted that way, and those opinions, I listened to full heartedly. I took Wallpaper's dislike for the creatures to heart, and felt as if I failed in another aspect of the game because of it, yet some time before that, I heard someone compliment the selection. I kept hearing back and forth opinions about the game, and have had many people leave already for reasons mostly gone unvoiced.
As far as I can remember, I messed up in one scene with Kayi, and it was completely my own fault, as I brought OOC knowledge into action, that ruined what might have been an interesting scene. I didn't just forget that, let it go through one ear and out of the other, as you say I did, and I think I learned to GM a little better from that mistake.
Like I said, I know very little of what happened with Kayi, as it was back when I was playing in 10+ games myself, so a lot of the stuff that wasn't directly pertinent to me went right by, especially when the OOC thread was getting three pages a day. I myself have tried to be as calm and logical about things for as long as I can every time, but it just seems like I've got to be a hell-consuming bitch just to get a straight answer, and it stresses me out.
From the way I read your PM's, and complaints, which I did not see as suggestions as much as dislike for a certain way the game mechanics worked. I saw you trying to have River do something amazing, and when she couldn't quite do it due to her stats, I saw you getting angry over the fact, and when I read the accusation that I was doing it wrong, I couldn't take it seriously, although I did hear your suggestions. But, this was a two-way mirror. I didn't like how easy it was to max out stats, even some of the pre-made characters often had level 5 stats, and that made me relate them to heroes, not survivors. While you preferred that method. And there was also your suggestion for specializations, which I thought about when I started the interest get thread, and decided that due to the way I had points distributed, that'd be awkward to implement.
Now that's what I would like to know. Everytime I had made a suggestion, you had never really said anything about it. If I had been told that you had thought about it, and decided that it would be too difficult to implement, then I would have felt better about it, instead of feeling like my thoughts were being ignored.
The mechanics themselves are fairly familiar to me, and if you felt that 20 points was too many for Attributes, for example, then by all means, cut the number down. Seeing as the one example they give has a 5 and the rest are all threes, I agree with you, it is too easy to make overpowered characters. But the massive growth of point costs makes it near impossible to be even average, without sacrificing something to do it. Same thing with skills. As an ordinary person, we all pretty much have 1 or 2 points in every single skill on that list, but in order to be useful and helpful characters game-wise, we are forced to reduce ourselves to complete retards in a lot of things that we would have used in everyday life. Do you get what I'm saying?
I guess what really ticked me off and caused the 'you're doing it wrong' part was compounded right from before the game truly began, with that first argument on how to spend the points. You quoted the book directly, which was what caused the initial confusion, but that all got settled. Then you handed the book out, and I found the part that you quoted, which actually explained that it went the other way of the initial discussion. No big deal, but I PMed it to you, because it was pertinent to what we were discussing at the time (the part where I wanted to do something amazing). You stood by your initial reasoning and told me it was correct, so I started quoting page numbers. Only then did you explain that you had purposely changed it, to reduce the power level of characters, which started us on that other big argument.
Point is, there have been several times where we've gotten into heated arguments, where if you had come out and told me what I had asked
fully, I would have gone 'okay, makes sense, moving along'. If you had told us that you had changed the point buy system, instead of swearing up and down that what you described was how it was done in the book, it would have saved a lot of grief, for the both of us.
That was mainly due to the people, few and far between that actually voiced their opinions, that complained over how points were distributed, how certain game mechanics worked this way, or that way, that honestly had my palm covering my face, saying, "For the love of God, I hear more complaints than anything else from you," This isn't me, 'going emo,' it's me very much wanting to go back to the good old days, where I would play games like this by myself, and I'd be perfectly happy with the game mechanics. And if I wasn't happy, I'd just either revise, or make a new one from scratch all over again, and nobody would complain, nobody would jump in and say I was stone walling them, or that I was doing it wrong. It is a peace of mind I miss.
If you change a system, there will be snags, every time. And when that happens, players will go 'huh? Why is this like that?', every time. That's just what happens, it's called playtesting. That's something both sides have to live with
Running a game is not an easy job by any means, and I realize that, it just seems like everything i try to do is just flat out denied, without explanation, until i moan and whine and hassle for three days, and then i finally get something out of asking you about it. I'm trying to help, as well as play, because that's what I do, and why nearly every persun I have played under has taken me in and shawed me what they were doing, at least on some level. Maybe that spoiled me, but I know what I'm doing, and I get frustrated when I'm not at least told why something can't be done, or shouldn't be tried, etc etc... And I will keep on pointing things out as far as mechanics and plot goes, because even if you end up hating me for it, it's something that I can't choose
not to do.
Thoughts?
