Last night I played a role playing game, Exalted. First time in over 20 years. The group's got some potential, but if you think gay men have issues, gamers take that to the next level.
The episode itself was so freakin' open ended that we got very little done, the only combat over ~6 hours was a 2 round sparring match, and we spent at least 30 minutes figuring out what the characters were going to eat for lunch. Not to mention, the anachronistic kinds of things- do the restaurants have the technology to serve iced tea? Much less a peanut butter and butter baked potato? Most of the players had been playing Exalted, weekly, for the last 2 years, and obviously have a mental picture of this world. Somewhat difficult to enter in the middle of.
The Storyguide [Dungeon Master, whatever] likes briefly acting out scenes, and is able to talk at length, while providing some information. There are a couple of other people who seem to be pushing the story along, one person who was bored and kept getting into trouble, and some other, more passive-seeming players. Why in the world, if he's got 8 players attending semi-regularly, the storyguide decided he needed new players I'm not quite sure.
It's also kind of interesting- I think D&D's levels provide a certain amount of structure. Basically, in the game, at this point deathlords are taking over most of the world, and the characters have no idea how to stop it. With levels you could say "Ok, you guys are 3rd level, they are 20th, you don't stand a chance in a direct attack. So you need to go to the Castle of Unmentionable Terror to get the Doohicky of Plot Significance, to defeat their Wicked Plan." But with the Storyteller system, the group could probably kill one of the most powerful guys, except for the fact they're in the middle of an army. So you get some players wanting to go for the magical widget, some wanting to fight, and some wanting to just sail away. We'll see.
Posted by Owlish at January 28, 2006 10:25 PM | TrackBack