Last Saturday after my Pathfinder game my friends and myself settled in to watch Deathstalker, kindly purchased for me by the delightful Chris Card. For those who don't know because they've experienced joy and hope in life, the Deathstalker movies are a horrible, horrible series of ever-increasingly cheap sword and sorcery flicks that are hilarious in their incompetence. While we live in the era of the Bad Movie (the fact that Michael Bay can have money fights with Steven Spielberg after they've Cleveland Steamed my childhood fills me with a sense of cosmic depression) as any trip to the local cinema will show, the wonderful era of the delightful bad movie is sadly past us.
Which I find regrettable. I can look back with warm nostalgia at the mind-blastingly bad movies of my formative years. Movies like Troll, Trilogy of Terror I and II, The Re-Animator, Beastmaster, The Blade Master, Dolomite; true testaments to the human spirit. I really couldn't to this day tell you what Lifeforce was really about but I still rank it as a special movie, mostly because it was the first time I remember seeing a naked woman (not counting pressing my face against the TV watching scrambled porn channels like some sort of degenerate Magic Eye poster).
The death of VHS and the death of the video store were the end of that golden era. VHS was the perfect format for the bad movie, picking up the torch after the drive in let out a death rattle and plunged off the cliff. It allowed people like St Corman and the Holy Church that was American International Pictures and its chosen disciple Orion to cheaply pump out the finest schlock and knockoffs Italy had to offer. It allowed anyone with a camcorder and a dream to browbeat their friends into helping them to fulfill that dream. The dyed Karo syrup flowed, boom mikes were visible and people that vaguely remembered high school Spanish classes were given jobs as dubbers. All was right in the world.
The video store was the market of these dreams. The small business, Mom and Pop stores where you could find 2001 A Space Odyssey sitting alongside Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn. The hours I spent watching horrible Euro-sleaze movies that were dubbed by what I assume were actors given horse-grade, Keith Moon approved tranquilizers were some of the happiest of my young life. Even browsing the titles was a treat, especially when spotting the same movie under two different titles and with two different sets of box art.
Occasionally one would find a gem amid the filth. Tombs of the Blind Dead at times almost approached something that if you turned and squinted could be called artful and inventive. The Resurrected is horribly overlooked when discussing the best Lovecraft films of all time. Waxworks 2 should be required viewing by anyone that rolls dice and plays make-believe. The Eliminators is like watching someones out of control, mad, brilliant RIFTS game played out. And of course the king itself: The Last Dragon, perhaps the finest Motown Kung Fu film ever produced in that august genre.
A certain pity fills me thinking of how the generations to come will miss out on all of that. Chain stores and their depressing, mediocre selection killed off the Mom and Pops, and have in turn been driven to the fate of the Dodo by Netflix. Tastes have changed too I suppose. The moronic single beat slasher picture has given way to somehow even more tasteless borderline snuff film torture porn and Dramamine required found footage films.
I guess this is more of trading across the line then any sort of improvement or degeneracy. The slasher genre has always been one I've poked with a stick, backed off, gingerly approached and then poked again before scuttling off. I always preferred the cheerful stupidity of the sword and sorcery genre and the gooey gooey hamster gablooey mentality of the Italian horror film of the 70's and 80's. But to each their own.
Time passes and inevitably things you love will fade and vanish. We are the stuff that dreams are made on after all. But as the Boss once said, "Maybe everything that dies someday comes back". So maybe someday the craptapular movies of my youth will make a resurgence. Let's hope so. I mean, Robert ZaDar needs work too people.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
What Makes a Game Lebowski?
A few weeks ago I was at a nice little con called Almacon. As it was about a mile from my house it a must go to. While mostly an anime con it did have some role-playing, along with some seminars. I went to one that was called Winging It!: Doing Things on the Quick, or something along those lines. It was interesting but not in the way I believe it was intended. If I were giving out titles I believe How to Punish Your Players For Getting Lucky would have been appropriate.
I don't mean this as an insult or anything. The guy doing it was lively and was very passionate about running his game, and his present players seemed to greatly enjoy his style. Several people there were on the verge of shouting, "Preach it Brother!" while waving arms in the air, so I do believe that there were targets for the seminar. To myself what was far more interesting was the contrast in styles between how I approach gaming and how other people play the same game.
Differences in play styles have always intrigued me. The true strength possessed by RPGS over other games is that two people using the same game engine can come up with something completely different that is equally enjoyed by all. I ghost around at several RPG forums, and I'm always amazed at where people take RPGs. While at times it's aggravating to wade through forums and their vernacular (I feel the terms "nerfed", "play balance"and "tier" need to be shot out of a cannon into the side of a large, solid wall) I find people's issues with and discussions about their system of choice as an endlessly fascinating window into their games.
To get to the point what I'm curious about is what makes a great game to different people? What keeps bringing people back to the table time after time? What as a DM can I do to insure that my players are having a good time and leave the table raring to play again? There is a certain magic when everything clicks in a RPG, and I want to know what triggers that in different people so that I might incorporate that in my games.
A difficult quest to be sure. I've played with and read about all manners of players and DMs, some of which have quite different play styles and methods than mine. I've gotten lucky. Even when I've had players that were polar opposites from myself in terms of play style I've usually managed to insure they've had a great time. I'm fairly proud that in 25 years of DMing I've only had one player that I truly couldn't handle running games for, and judging from his reputation as RPG poison I'm not the only one. Regardless though, there is always room for improvement.
Of my own gaming style I prefer a rules-lighter game. I'm not as comfortable with the Pathfinder ruleset as I was with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and I like maintaining a certain pace to my games, and I find having to stop and look at a rule book repeatedly during play to be a very tedious slog. I've played with people however, that enjoy that aspect of the game very much and tend to treat it as a tactical war game where you simply don't play if you don't have a map or minis available. I've played with others that simply seethe at the mention of minis being used and run the game without them or any sort of map. It can be an extremely hard time striking the right balance between the different, often extreme views on what player's derive their fun from.
So to me there it is. There is no right and proper one way to run a game and have everyone enjoy themselves. A good DM is willing to shift between play styles to accommodate their players, often within one game. A session can start off as a game of cat and mouse between the players and the villain before turning into a running battle through moon lit streets against his henchmen. Even the most harmonious party is going to have a different opinion between the players on what constitutes a great game. Any good DM is going to learn what that is and make the effort to insure that each player gets at least one moment of their preferred style.
I don't mean this as an insult or anything. The guy doing it was lively and was very passionate about running his game, and his present players seemed to greatly enjoy his style. Several people there were on the verge of shouting, "Preach it Brother!" while waving arms in the air, so I do believe that there were targets for the seminar. To myself what was far more interesting was the contrast in styles between how I approach gaming and how other people play the same game.
Differences in play styles have always intrigued me. The true strength possessed by RPGS over other games is that two people using the same game engine can come up with something completely different that is equally enjoyed by all. I ghost around at several RPG forums, and I'm always amazed at where people take RPGs. While at times it's aggravating to wade through forums and their vernacular (I feel the terms "nerfed", "play balance"and "tier" need to be shot out of a cannon into the side of a large, solid wall) I find people's issues with and discussions about their system of choice as an endlessly fascinating window into their games.
To get to the point what I'm curious about is what makes a great game to different people? What keeps bringing people back to the table time after time? What as a DM can I do to insure that my players are having a good time and leave the table raring to play again? There is a certain magic when everything clicks in a RPG, and I want to know what triggers that in different people so that I might incorporate that in my games.
A difficult quest to be sure. I've played with and read about all manners of players and DMs, some of which have quite different play styles and methods than mine. I've gotten lucky. Even when I've had players that were polar opposites from myself in terms of play style I've usually managed to insure they've had a great time. I'm fairly proud that in 25 years of DMing I've only had one player that I truly couldn't handle running games for, and judging from his reputation as RPG poison I'm not the only one. Regardless though, there is always room for improvement.
Of my own gaming style I prefer a rules-lighter game. I'm not as comfortable with the Pathfinder ruleset as I was with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and I like maintaining a certain pace to my games, and I find having to stop and look at a rule book repeatedly during play to be a very tedious slog. I've played with people however, that enjoy that aspect of the game very much and tend to treat it as a tactical war game where you simply don't play if you don't have a map or minis available. I've played with others that simply seethe at the mention of minis being used and run the game without them or any sort of map. It can be an extremely hard time striking the right balance between the different, often extreme views on what player's derive their fun from.
So to me there it is. There is no right and proper one way to run a game and have everyone enjoy themselves. A good DM is willing to shift between play styles to accommodate their players, often within one game. A session can start off as a game of cat and mouse between the players and the villain before turning into a running battle through moon lit streets against his henchmen. Even the most harmonious party is going to have a different opinion between the players on what constitutes a great game. Any good DM is going to learn what that is and make the effort to insure that each player gets at least one moment of their preferred style.
That Is No Country For Old Men
Right. So at the moment the campaign I have been working on for the past seven years is winding down. I'm not sure if I should feel relieved or sad. Honestly at this point the game is pretty much the PCs doing a victory lap around the campaign world, getting high fives and ol' fashions from good looking groupies. They're at a power level where climbing the highest mountain and punching God isn't too far out of reach.
I like Pathfinder; one might even claim I have a mild crush on Pathfinder as a system. I write its name on my algebra book in little hearts and my heart beats a little faster when it calls and says yo to me in the hallways. But let me tell you, there have been some hiccups. I've never been all that hot when it comes to high level games, and in a system as complex as Pathfinder that problem is simply aggravated, and I'm seeing that big time now.
I've always considered myself a player's DM. I like to challenge my players in different ways and give them that feeling of, "oh man. I'm hurting Sweet Chuck style" without actually wracking up a kill count. I want my players to feel involved with their characters and have them mean something. I want them to become involved in my campaign world through their characters. It's a kind of social contract I establish. You put the time and effort into making your character into something other then a set of numbers and I won't arbitrarily slaughter them. But I'm starting to wonder at my ability to challenge the players without doing overwhelming nonsense to them.
I'd like to believe I've been doing a decent enough job at it; I know Rick and Chris were making Shemp noises last night after fighting my Siviishian Slayers. But I still feel there is a fair amount of work I need to do on my part to master the system and learn proper encounter staging. I don't know if my next game is going to go from level 1-20. This campaign has taken way too long as it is and the idea of wrapping it up the next one the year I turn 40 makes me sad in a just watched a panda in a top hat get clubbed to death by Nazis sort of way.
So as an aside I will try to maintain this blog for the oh, let's say two to three people that will bother to read it.
I like Pathfinder; one might even claim I have a mild crush on Pathfinder as a system. I write its name on my algebra book in little hearts and my heart beats a little faster when it calls and says yo to me in the hallways. But let me tell you, there have been some hiccups. I've never been all that hot when it comes to high level games, and in a system as complex as Pathfinder that problem is simply aggravated, and I'm seeing that big time now.
I've always considered myself a player's DM. I like to challenge my players in different ways and give them that feeling of, "oh man. I'm hurting Sweet Chuck style" without actually wracking up a kill count. I want my players to feel involved with their characters and have them mean something. I want them to become involved in my campaign world through their characters. It's a kind of social contract I establish. You put the time and effort into making your character into something other then a set of numbers and I won't arbitrarily slaughter them. But I'm starting to wonder at my ability to challenge the players without doing overwhelming nonsense to them.
I'd like to believe I've been doing a decent enough job at it; I know Rick and Chris were making Shemp noises last night after fighting my Siviishian Slayers. But I still feel there is a fair amount of work I need to do on my part to master the system and learn proper encounter staging. I don't know if my next game is going to go from level 1-20. This campaign has taken way too long as it is and the idea of wrapping it up the next one the year I turn 40 makes me sad in a just watched a panda in a top hat get clubbed to death by Nazis sort of way.
So as an aside I will try to maintain this blog for the oh, let's say two to three people that will bother to read it.
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