Pointers for tomorrow

Well, I think I should remind you of some things and bring up some other things while I’m at it before the session tomorrow.

To begin with, I hope you all have read and taken to heart the critique I gave you in the Olak Hills posts. Also the pointers and suggestions you should have thought about. If you need more answers and think I was wrong or anything, bring it up tomorrow. Also if you think you have some critique towards me as Game Master you should bring it up. The only thing I’ve heard so far is that it’s felt like I don’t give you the openings you need to play out sometimes. Though the truth is mostly that I seldom let it fall silence because that will bring everybody to a halt.

I also can give myself some critique to open up a session with soft talk about other things. To begin with some people in the group seems to isolate themselves from this social act and plainly ignore it or just keep out of it while others might or might not participate in this to some extent. What I’ve discovered is that the most focused sessions have been the best in my view, but those sessions are hard to recreate since I mostly need to lower my annoyance with some of you when you arrive. Annoyance some of you mostly just ignores even though I explicitly said otherwise. I just want to note, yet again, that things like that might result in a total loss of respect from my side and I might loose interest to in anyway give some extra attention or focus to you or your characters.

The reason for why I say this so many times now is that lately I’ve begun to doubt on and off that this group works. Or rather the style in which I try to play is possible with this group. To begin with, many of you, most of you… all of you… almost seem to rather want an lengthy explanation/lecture or walkthrough or something instead of realizing and experiencing things through in game play. Especially Danne is like this. Foppa is also very inquisitive but in a completely other way.

The key to do this, if we should even do this (to play in this way) is to be able to absorb the information and change your behaviour pattern and your character on this and not act on prejudice or misconceptions we together build with off-game talk. Another way to deal with this might be to simply just relinquish control or rather raise the tempo and speed enormously and give you mostly choice in what you want to do, but not how you do it – that will be up to me to explain with the necessary key points, and rapidly progress through events as they occur and bring you in a slow paced, compared to single sessions but rapid compared to regular styles, so you get to the point where you finally can play your characters instead of demanding things you obviously doesn’t want to do. But that is only a possible solution based on a feeling of doubt I have since I’ve felt like nobody have had the will or energy to do what I’ve repeatedly complained about since we begun. But maybe I demand too much, but if I would demand less, I would do less too which is the dilemma of the situation.

In anyway the posts Olak Hills and A Normal Day are of great importance plus your profiles. I also thing you should reread your profiles and see if there is something you need to ask about or change. If I’ve but the bar too high it’s better to lower it instead of waiting for more complaints from me. This is a game, and it’s meant to be fun. And me complaining can hardly be fun.

So remember, try to be brief, but try to fill in even the plainest of situations that you act out with explanation. Not too lengthy explanations since that will only make it bad, but brief and concise and often as simple as possible is enough. Take initiative and use your surroundings and use them well. Do not count on me doing everything for you. Like I’ve said, there are things which will trigger other things and I’ll mostly present the facts necessary.

Explore in an indirect kind of way. Explore casually so you learn more about the Fort and its people or even better, what you are interested in knowing about the Debians and its people. The less questions the better, it’s better to see things in action than to get simple answers without building an own opinion of things.

Pursue and strengthen your personality. You should try to find more depths to your character and a more personal way to play him or her so your character does not feel like a cheap replica of your other characters.

Try to UNDERSTAND and play a HUMAN for once. Feelings, emotion, burdens and personality is in layers within layers.

Vary your actions. Just doing the same old thing every time gets old, not to mention that I will most likely not reward you by answering by always saying and doing the same thing if it’s not a good part of your personality or it really fits.

Let time flow to suit your current idea. You can always go back and add or do something in the in between. Do not stick in time or focus too much in playing something in a chronologic order. This is actually a great way in making something fluently instead of stumbling and just doing cake on cake.

This should be quite sufficient. Have this in mind and it should get better. And show some enthusiasm. You know that if you try, others try, and when we all try and we succeed we all succeed and things get rolling good. This is a butterfly effect that we should strive for, so don’t just sit and wait for someone else to drag the whole load by himself.

Best regards,
Herid Fel