PDA

View Full Version : [Any] Masochistic Gaming



Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-13, 03:39 PM
Have you ever been repeatedly drawn to a system that you know - from experience - is bad for you?

ANECDOTE
Just the other day I was sitting back and thinking about playing SR3 again. I've always loved the setting and there's a little voice inside me that says "yes, you want to spend 3 hours picking out fictional guns and accessories" - but I know it's such a bad idea.

Y'see, I never actually played much SR3, much less finishing a campaign. To start with, my friends (even in High School) have never been that mechanically focused; it was hard enough to get one of them to start a campaign, much less put in the time to finish it up. Then, of course, is the problem of trying to run a SR3 game with a less-than-perfect knowledge of the mechanics: misremembering even a single cog in the complex machine of SR rules is enough to cause the system to jam up entirely! And finally, SR3 is a system that mixes high lethality with long character generation - it's exhausting to spend hours tweaking your Street Sam only to have him geeked by a lucky shotgun to the face.

Running it myself is no better. While it's fun to build a single SR character, it becomes increasingly less fun to stat out even just the major combat NPCs for a single run. Plus, you run into the standard GM's Remorse - I wanted to play a game, not run it.

So, knowing all this, I still find myself wistfully thinking of setting up a run. I'll probably get one together too and even try to patch clunkier parts of the rules and draw up "cheat sheets" for my Players. The last time I did this was a couple of months ago - and my Players promptly got into a shootout with a mob of Halloweener enforcers for no particular reason. We scrapped the game there and then and never looked back.
Long story short, I'm probably going to set up a game for all the wrong reasons and watch it crash and burn again. And my Players are no better - they're just as eager to play in a game they must know is doomed to failure!

Anyone else have similar experiences with systems? Or even just particular GMs / Players?

Totally Guy
2010-12-13, 04:47 PM
As a player I'm in a SR3 game and I feel like the game wants me to curl up and hide. The game wants me to become a boring gamer. I feel like I'm fighting the game at every turn to do the things I want to do because the things I want to do do not get rewarded. Mostly just punished.

And I have a really good time during the sessions! But afterward I look and I don't understand why I enjoyed it. It's like watching a mediocre movie and insisting it was ok only to look back a week later and realise you're lying to yourself.

I hate being this whiny guy. I've talked to the GM and he praises my ability to act in the face of adversity, in spite of the punishment. That's what he sees the game as. I just think I'm acting in dumb sub-optimal ways out of pure masochistic fascination. But that's our understanding: I'm not being dumb, I'm doing it wrong on purpose.

randomhero00
2010-12-13, 05:21 PM
D&D in a way. If its vanilla it rather sucks starting from 1st level. So I homebrew as much as possible.

Totally Guy
2010-12-13, 05:32 PM
I played in a Vampire the Requiem game one time and it felt like every time I succeeded a roll the situation would shift around and my success would screw me over somehow.

That's frustrating.

Kaulesh
2010-12-13, 05:39 PM
Our group loves Shadowrun. I don't know what the differences are between your version (3) and mine (4), but we all enjoy it. That might be because we shoot first and ask questions later, the exact opposite of what you actually want to be doing. We've never had a PC die even though combat is supposed to be lethal.

Anyway, yeah. I've got a lot of games I want to play. I've got complete sets of 2300AD, BattleTech, Pendragon, Traveller, and Twilight 2000, but I know that starting any of them will accelerate my descent to madness. Then there's that one little book I want so bad to run, Little Fears. That one will destroy my mind in a different way.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-13, 05:46 PM
Our group loves Shadowrun. I don't know what the differences are between your version (3) and mine (4), but we all enjoy it. That might be because we shoot first and ask questions later, the exact opposite of what you actually want to be doing. We've never had a PC die even though combat is supposed to be lethal.
Feh, SR4 has no draw for me. The setting is a bland transhumanist whitewash of the original storyline and the rules have all the "old school" flavor wrung out. The "run and gun" style of play is fun and all, but not only is it out-of-character for the setting, but it ends up with the same sort of aesthetic you see in D&D - but with intensely more complicated rules.

YMMV, of course :smalltongue:

...someday, I'll find a way to tweak SR so that it supports Gibbsonian Cyberpunk plots as well as action!

Totally Guy
2010-12-14, 06:29 AM
I think I must be masochistic for coming to this forum as much as I do. The boring threads all get lots of attention and all the cool ones get virtually no replies.

Psyx
2010-12-14, 06:47 AM
Any D&D game above 13th level.
Any superhero game.

Both I am doomed to hate. I've pretty much learned my lesson, but sometimes I feel the need to torture myself more.

Earthwalker
2010-12-14, 08:05 AM
I hit a moment when the D&D game I run reaches about 7th,8th level where I lose control and it start just getting silly.

Even as a player it get silly with just the WBL, where you can get enough money to live out the rest of your days safe and happy but instead you get +2 enchantment added to your sword.

The one time I ran a game of Mage, that was painful. I still love the idea and want to run it again, just not with my usual players.

As for Shadowrun I love the game, I have spent more time playing or running SR2 and 3 then any other system. I can see how the OP feels and the flaws that are inbuilt.

panaikhan
2010-12-14, 08:20 AM
Playing Paranoia more than once can be seen as masochistic.
Ditto for Call of Cthulhu.

Trouble is, I enjoy both.

The only game I've played repeatedly and hated every time, was Middle Earth.

Halna LeGavilk
2010-12-14, 08:33 AM
Every time me and my friends run GURPS, it ends up with us destroying the combat system. Every problem is solved with dynamite*, a .50 cal. machine gun mounted on the head of a wide, squat man who was used as a tank**, or us beating 12 guys in all of 5 seconds, with a giant death ogre killing half and the sniper dude killing the other half***. We always take too many flaws and everyone ends up being frikkin' crazy and delusional, and.... bleh.

*A mobster game. One of the players was a dynamite obsessed loony, "Trashcan" Pete Deluco, one(my self) had SO MUCH MONEY, I literally BOUGHT my way out of every situation, and had money to spare, and a man so charismatic he could have walked his way onto the Senate floor and persuaded all of the senators that he shold be made Grand Poobah of America.

**Same game. One of our subordinates, Boris, was a large, squat man. We went to fight Russian mob. We had a fifty cal....
***Fantasy GURPS game we ran. I was the giant. 7'8, weighing 330 lbs, I killed everything and was nearly impossible to kill.

Gan The Grey
2010-12-14, 09:06 AM
I think I must be masochistic for coming to this forum as much as I do. The boring threads all get lots of attention and all the cool ones get virtually no replies.

Seconded. Sigh.

Earthwalker
2010-12-14, 09:16 AM
Playing Paranoia more than once can be seen as masochistic.
Ditto for Call of Cthulhu.


Paranoia has always been a fun break for me, would never want a campaign of it, but its a nice one shot break from the norm.

CoC I like alot but it always gets me that my character have no knowledge of the bad things out in the darkness so I have no need to worry about them in character and get deaded. I prefer it where at least I have some idea something is wrong before the first adventure.

DragonOfUndeath
2010-12-14, 09:34 AM
Paranoia has always been a fun break for me, would never want a campaign of it, but its a nice one shot break from the norm.

You can have a Campaign of Paranoia? I thought all of them was maybe 2-3 sessions MAX.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-14, 09:58 AM
The one time I ran a game of Mage, that was painful. I still love the idea and want to run it again, just not with my usual players.
Heh. Yeah, oWoD Mage can be really finicky. Moreso than other oWoD games since the casting rules require so much DM fiat to function.

Running oWoD Mage isn't masochistic for me, but I imagine playing a pick-up group game of it might be :smallbiggrin:

Earthwalker
2010-12-14, 10:31 AM
Heh. Yeah, oWoD Mage can be really finicky. Moreso than other oWoD games since the casting rules require so much DM fiat to function.

Running oWoD Mage isn't masochistic for me, but I imagine playing a pick-up group game of it might be :smallbiggrin:

It was the constant arguments over weather this effect caused paradox or not, and why ? How come this did and that didn't and on and on. That and to move create a force to knock a cup of a desk is the same number of dots as creating a nuclear explosion.

Not really the games systems fault tho, was my players at the time.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-14, 10:38 AM
It was the constant arguments over weather this effect caused paradox or not, and why ? How come this did and that didn't and on and on. That and to move create a force to knock a cup of a desk is the same number of dots as creating a nuclear explosion.

Not really the games systems fault tho, was my players at the time.
Well, it's partially the system's fault - it doesn't really give good guidance as to what is Vulgar and what isn't. That said, groups over time reach a mutual understanding of the rules; it's like AD&D like that.

Also, I'm pretty sure you only need Force 3, Prime 2 to move a cup; Force 5 is required to create a nuclear explosion. But yeah, it's not the world's most clear system.

Earthwalker
2010-12-14, 10:48 AM
Well, it's partially the system's fault - it doesn't really give good guidance as to what is Vulgar and what isn't. That said, groups over time reach a mutual understanding of the rules; it's like AD&D like that.

Also, I'm pretty sure you only need Force 3, Prime 2 to move a cup; Force 5 is required to create a nuclear explosion. But yeah, it's not the world's most clear system.

From memory it was force 2/3 for minor forces and 4/5 for major. I must have got what force was used for pushing the cup, weather it was minor or mqajor. I really can't remember, the books got put away and left after the failt first try.

From the sounds of things, the system has improved alot (game wise) in the new world of darkness so perhaps I should look again.

@Glug - Keep going with shadowrun, just play your flaws and die anyway. Try to keep making fun and interesting characters and run with it. Can you tell I really like Shadowrun

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-14, 10:54 AM
From memory it was force 2/3 for minor forces and 4/5 for major. I must have got what force was used for pushing the cup, weather it was minor or mqajor. I really can't remember, the books got put away and left after the failt first try.

From the sounds of things, the system has improved alot (game wise) in the new world of darkness so perhaps I should look again.
Meh, the nWoD Mage misses out on the dynamic magic system that made oWoD Mage worth playing in the first place.

The cup issue is illustrative of oWoD in general.
Most groups would have used the general "Free Quintessence into Force" transformation (Forces 3/5 + Prime 2) and likened moving a cup to be less like a nuclear explosion and therefore make the particular spell a Forces 3, Prime 2. The question, then, if what number of dice to do you need to roll to make it work? :smalltongue:

Earthwalker
2010-12-14, 11:07 AM
Meh, the nWoD Mage misses out on the dynamic magic system that made oWoD Mage worth playing in the first place.

The cup issue is illustrative of oWoD in general.


I have learnt two things.

Onethly I was playing oWoD wrong and should have been more flexible.

Twothly I don't think I want to play nWoD if mages can't just make it up as they go along.

Oddly for Shadowrun 2e or maybe 3e we allowed some level of dynamic casting at one stage. You could duplicate any spell on the fly with a force equal to the square root of the number of magic pool dice allocated to it.
9 dice gets you force 3 spells, after creation you can't add any more dice to the spell casting. As most people only had about 6 dice this worked quiet well.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-14, 11:12 AM
Oddly for Shadowrun 2e or maybe 3e we allowed some level of dynamic casting at one stage. You could duplicate any spell on the fly with a force equal to the square root of the number of magic pool dice allocated to it.
9 dice gets you force 3 spells, after creation you can't add any more dice to the spell casting. As most people only had about 6 dice this worked quiet well.
Ah, square roots.

That reminds me of Heavy Gear - a game with an intricate system for the custom building of mecha which involved both square and cube roots :smalltongue:

Another system that seemed like a good idea at the time, but really isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

hiryuu
2010-12-15, 05:12 AM
Twothly I don't think I want to play nWoD if mages can't just make it up as they go along.

They can, nMage just made it a lot clearer about what a rote is and made them way easier to use. There's a lovely chart about it at the beginning of the magic section designed specifically for casting on the fly that everyone talking poorly of nMage conveniently ignores (one theory I have is that it's because you can't do things like build up an infinite pool of paradox-free successes with Entropy (which has been split into Death and Fate) anymore). There's some cool examples of on the fly casting in nMage over at the official White Wolf boards.

I think it's the flavor of new Mage that really gets people. On the one hand, I'm sad that the old flavor is gone. On the other hand, after reading Banishers, nMage really grew on me. If you want to know why this stuff can be creepy or interesting, look up sites like truthism or abovetopsecret, or just about anything at crystalinks.

In fact, I even found this the other day:

"Actually, some humans know much more about Spiritual Reality than you are writing here. This writing reflects the particular knowledge and bias of the writer. The underlying truth of all the world’s religions is called the Perennial Philosophy. The Perennial Philosophy transcends religion, which are merely collections of man made myths, laws, and rules. Mystics have always experienced Ultimate Reality directly and have watered down the experience so as to put it into words palatable for the ignorant masses."

Nothing to do with nMage at all. Sounds pretty much exactly like what nMage's cosmology is like. And this was someone being serious about our reality.
__________

For me, D&D is masochistic gaming at it's finest. Over a decade of trying to hammer the system into doing what I want to do, always being unable to do so, and yet, it's the only game in town. I've done Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu, SR 3 and 4, oWoD, nWoD, and no matter how far I stray, I keep getting drawn back into its Buddha-like grip. Mutants & Masterminds cleared up a lot of the problems I had, but even when I wrote my name on the pillars holding it up, D&D turned its hand toward me and showed me that I had only written on its fingers.

Totally Guy
2010-12-15, 05:45 AM
@Glug - Keep going with shadowrun, just play your flaws and die anyway. Try to keep making fun and interesting characters and run with it. Can you tell I really like Shadowrun

That's pretty much what we're doing. I had to talk to the GM to say that I felt that there was a dichotomy of - "Funless turtling or entertaining death-spiral". So I said that I'd rather have the entertaining death-spiral every time. But I'd be making sub-optimal decisions and that's not becuase I'm stupid but because I don't find playing in such a fearful cautious manner at all fun. I expect I'll lose my guy once per "season" but that's ok.

J.Gellert
2010-12-15, 05:49 AM
For me, it's always been that one DM.

That one DM:
> You cannot be anyone important. Importance is reserved for NPCs.
> NPCs cheat blatantly, like casting unsaveable spells, or auto-succeeding on their own saves.
> Random guards are always at least level 10, so that you are afraid of them. And clerics. They can Raise Dead each other.
> Core only for you. Doesn't matter that half the people in this city are tieflings or ogrillons or kobolds.
> Killing you is what I do. Sure, most of the time you can get raised, but I just love watching you lose levels.
> Wizards are overpowered, so no flight, teleportation, or similar things.
> The above doesn't apply to NPCs, who even have spells to teleport you (no save).
> The bad guy you just killed, well he's not dead, only unconscious. Because I say so!
> Status quo is god. Everyone important is ~level 20.
> Yes there are monsters in the sewers! And in parts of the city! No, the level 10 guards don't kill them, you have to!
> Omg! Dragons are attacking the city! Plural! I don't know why! FIGHT!
> Omg! This awesome NPC lich is totally killing you all! MORADIN SAVES YOU!
> Stop asking questions!
> My homebrew setting that is totally not a FR-ripoff is awesome!

tl;dr version: Your victories don't count, the world makes no sense, and NPCs are awesome.

Why did I ever play with that guy? It was a large group, and large groups are fun! Besides, the slower the game runs, the less the DM screws you over. So it's half-masochism.

What I don't understand is why people still play with him, though. They must be total masochists :smalltongue:

Dhavaer
2010-12-15, 06:03 AM
Mage. I've never actually played, but I keep picking up the book despite knowing that I'll just end up putting it down again when I realise/remember that punching someone is generally a better choice than blasting them with celestial fire.

Earthwalker
2010-12-15, 06:04 AM
That's pretty much what we're doing. I had to talk to the GM to say that I felt that there was a dichotomy of - "Funless turtling or entertaining death-spiral". So I said that I'd rather have the entertaining death-spiral every time. But I'd be making sub-optimal decisions and that's not becuase I'm stupid but because I don't find playing in such a fearful cautious manner at all fun. I expect I'll lose my guy once per "season" but that's ok.

I just remembered that in SR3 in the companion I think there is a flaw, Living on Borrowed Time. It gives your character 3 months to live (or something like that). Can be explained by a disease or perhaps someone tinkering with your DNA. Either way its worth a good chunk of build points and if you only last one session go for it. The main benifit is you can play your character realistically after all you know you are on borrowed time so just trying to put right what you can before the end.

Totally Guy
2010-12-15, 06:25 AM
I just remembered that in SR3 in the companion I think there is a flaw, Living on Borrowed Time.

Considered it. But I've gone for doggy themed ones for my new dog shaman. Colourblind, Uncouth, Dependants.

I almost feel like I should be paying for the negative ones as a lot of them are more entertaining than the positive ones!

Earthwalker
2010-12-15, 06:54 AM
They can, nMage just made it a lot clearer about what a rote is and made them way easier to use. There's a lovely chart about it at the beginning of the magic section designed specifically for casting on the fly that everyone talking poorly of nMage conveniently ignores (one theory I have is that it's because you can't do things like build up an infinite pool of paradox-free successes with Entropy (which has been split into Death and Fate) anymore). There's some cool examples of on the fly casting in nMage over at the official White Wolf boards.


It sounds like I am going to have to buy nMage, so that I can read the rules and want to run it, then hit a big brick wall when my players get too much Game into my role-playing.

Oh well me getting a copy and then getting annoyed with the game would fit perfectly with this thread at least.

Anterean
2010-12-15, 07:30 AM
What I don't understand is why people still play with him, though. They must be total masochists :smalltongue:

Because the alternative is running a game them self :smalltongue: