Socratov
2016-09-21, 04:13 PM
Ok, due to my regular DM having too little time to play every week (or as it seems right now, any week) I decided to step up and kill 2 birds with one stone: get my first time DMing over with and finally getting to play a system I'd wanted to play since a kind but banned here user pointed me towards it: Anima Prime RPG.
All I required my players to do in 3 weeks time is to take the time to write a name, a character concept and the mechanical stuff. With which I will help them in person as much as they need. Really. I have (between jobs right now time is on my side for once), so obviously I see one character being made the weekend before the session (tomorrow), and the rest today. Ok, fine, as long as they have characters before tomorrow night when we play the session. And it looks like it's going swimmingly. Only one more demand: I want the players to write a backstory worth half a regular a4 size page and add it to their character sheet (or make a separate file). I tell them 3 times, on three separate occasions, including but not limited to this morning. I want something that is readable that tells me who they are, what they do and how they ended up or could have ended up in jail (where I revealed they will start their adventure). Now I have two people who get it and write me a background that's short, to the point and relevant. So far so good.
Teasers of their characters Hollywood would be extremely jealous of.
But my 3rd player thinks he needs to be special and can't help but write a full page. When confronted he claims that he can't really make it any shorter. Upon reading the amount of purple prose en filler meant that he basically wrote Pinocchio meets Wolverine, but including all the feelings he had which mean nothing to him now after he was changed into a monster.
His comment: "Oh, I thought we were supposed to make up a fully detailed background filled with minutiae and after we summarise it for you."
This is a player who is prone to playing snowflakes, a fact I know but did not expect to bite me so soon.
I dread tomorrow.
All I required my players to do in 3 weeks time is to take the time to write a name, a character concept and the mechanical stuff. With which I will help them in person as much as they need. Really. I have (between jobs right now time is on my side for once), so obviously I see one character being made the weekend before the session (tomorrow), and the rest today. Ok, fine, as long as they have characters before tomorrow night when we play the session. And it looks like it's going swimmingly. Only one more demand: I want the players to write a backstory worth half a regular a4 size page and add it to their character sheet (or make a separate file). I tell them 3 times, on three separate occasions, including but not limited to this morning. I want something that is readable that tells me who they are, what they do and how they ended up or could have ended up in jail (where I revealed they will start their adventure). Now I have two people who get it and write me a background that's short, to the point and relevant. So far so good.
Teasers of their characters Hollywood would be extremely jealous of.
But my 3rd player thinks he needs to be special and can't help but write a full page. When confronted he claims that he can't really make it any shorter. Upon reading the amount of purple prose en filler meant that he basically wrote Pinocchio meets Wolverine, but including all the feelings he had which mean nothing to him now after he was changed into a monster.
His comment: "Oh, I thought we were supposed to make up a fully detailed background filled with minutiae and after we summarise it for you."
This is a player who is prone to playing snowflakes, a fact I know but did not expect to bite me so soon.
I dread tomorrow.