RE: stuff and plot

[Steve Ames <steve@ns1.cioe.com>]

[This message has been modified from its orignal form.]
[It has been modiied to fit my screen.]
> The only inclusion from my other note that I will make here is that one should
> be careful in making such personal judgements.  Isn't a GM telling a player
> that a required teacher, book, or other resource is unavailable the same as
> telling that player that they cannot use their eeps as they please?  
> Would that be immature of the GM to do such a thing?  Think on this...

Emphatically, NO. If I say you require a teacher and then say one is
unavailable then that person goes where there is one. Leave town,
start a quest, etc... I've not stopped them or limited them in any
way really. This is really no different than saying you can't buy
a adamant broadsword in the fishing village of Veslic.

[ MUCH DELETED ABOUT RELATIVE MERITS OF RULE CHANGES -versus- ADDING
  WORK FOR THE GM]

I believe things can be setup to not add work to the GMs if they
don't want to do work. Some GMs will relish the work. If a GM
doesn't want to do work they just setup a 'teacher' who teaches
and doesn't really care beyond that (maybe a small fee for his
services). No work for the GM and pretty much status-quo for the
game. And probably a good way to handle a lot of the skills that
we don't believe have as much game impact (gardening leaps to mind).

But a GM who wants to actively interact with the players, can. And
will probably enjoy this work. We're talking some extra documentation
and town actions.

Lotsa good points... you've obviously thought about this. Everyone
should.

> Hmmm, "a good GM ... you become his tool."  Two things bother me about
> this statement.  The first is that not all GM's are created equal, and, as is
> evidenced by the conflicting ideas we have seen across the list, most GM's
> have differing ideas regarding how certain things should be run.  So now,
> you're down to a value judgement which is _very_ subjective; a dangerous
> thing when you are striving for consistency within a large-scale campaign.
> Secondly, you are implying that now the player is completely at the whim
> of the GM because he has now become a "tool".  Isn't this counter to your
> implied ideal of players having control of their situation?

Plot tool. Sorry. I didn't mean slave. But a teacher can send them
on missions, quests, etc...

All GMs are not created equal. Then again, neither are all teachers and
that will weed out the bad ones in time.

> Don't get me wrong.  I like the idea of handling this within the game, but for
> the reasons I pointed out in my note to Jevan (included above) and the fact
> that we have a _large-scale_ campaign, I'm not sure I find this to be a very
> feasible solution across the board.  Doing such things within a small-group
> campaign (i.e., a specific small group of people that meet to game outside
> of a large group setting, or even a small-group setting within a large campaign,
> like Centralia or the original Sylvan Isles group) is _very_ feasible.  But in
> our large campaign, devoting that much extra time to the higher level characters
> when they are already overshadowing the lower level characters during game
> play... I don't know.  It just seems like a good way to further alienate certain
> players.  Everyone is there to have fun; I think we have a consensus regarding
> that idea, but when you further increase the attention given to certain players
> at a cost to other players, you are defeating the purpose.

Alrightly. I agree. However we now have three settings and around three
games per week. I think we've spread things out to a point where we are
almost dealing with small games. Also the added book-keeping isn't much
at all once teachers are listed. Then theres just a book of teachers
and a list of their students. Done. No book keeping beyond that. The
extra time comes in when you tell people they can't find a teacher. And
they should always keep their eyes open for a teacher or search for one.

In practice I think the extra GM work is pretty minimal... however, as
you point out, it is extra work and we would have to decide as a group
if its extra work we want to shoulder.

					-Steve