Society for Aesthetic Deletions

Pick three gaming maxims that other people wrote about and discuss how you think they have applied, or not, in your experience as a gamer. Do they make sense? Are they true or false? Maxims that simply never occurred to you are also eligible for discussion.

This is one of those things that most GMs should know and realize, and many never do.

I had one GM once who spent an entire session trying to get another player to think like him. He (the GM) had the solution, all the player had to do was say the exact phrase in the way the GM knew was right. The other players in the game knew what the GM was looking for. The player in question did not.

Finally, the GM gave up in disgust and told him the answer.

It was when I fully realized that said GM was a linear GM, and we had to follow his prepared path. The GM in question, I think, was trying to get the player to break out of his mode of thinking, to open himself up. But this wasn't the place to do it. And it wasn't the player with which to try it. The player in question just kept retreating, not letting himself think out of the box, out of his already prepared answer - that was the right answer from his point of view! - and it became a fight between player and GM.

That was the worst scenario I've experienced like this. Most of the other things are like, "Wow, you got that! And here I thought I was being subtle," or, "How could you miss that? It was right there in front of your face!" sort of disagreements, oftentimes after the PCs are dead or dying, or stuck somewhere they didn't want to be.

Claire said: Power is only power if you叝e prepared to use it.

Another player in my game, a good friend for whom I won't GM anymore, is a power-monger. He loves for his character to gather information and power, but he never does a frelling thing with it. So what's the point? I don't know, but it's how he plays, and hence we're friends, but we don't play together.

That said, I now have two powerful characters in my husband's Sunday D&D 3E game. One is on hiatus from the group, but was an almost 16th level shaman (not from OE, but instead a druid with shapeshifting taken out and spirit summoning put in). Skyler has those high level spells and isn't afraid to use them. Lou has spent time trying to figure out how to work around what she can do to give us a challenge - Reverse Gravity and Creeping Doom are such fun!

And my replacement character is a 16th level fighter/wizard - four levels of fighter, 12 of wizard. Ennis may not have the big spells he'd have if he was all 16 levels of wizard, but he's got ones that are good enough! The biggest problem I have is in beating a monk, as in our last battle. None of the spells I could hit his AC (his touch AC being nearly as good as his full AC), and the ones that called for reflex saves he'd easily make.

So I did the support magics. Mass Haste in the first round of combat, for starters. And other support spells as needed.

One of the best compliments I've ever gotten was after our last session. Lou said to me, "Boy, am I going to be glad when Skyler comes back!" It means I'm using my wizard's power well. Especially since when Ennis leaves and Skyler returns, we will once again have no wizard at all. Eep.

Ginger said: When you stop trusting the GM, stop playing.

I actually haven't had this happen to me, but it is very true.

I have had experiences where I didn't care for the GM's way of playing - like our DC Heroes GM who'd laugh at the players (not the characters), chuckling over some part of the modules he'd always use (never one to create something on his own was this GM). I didn't care for a game where the GM liked making fun of the players or the characters, so I was glad when the game stopped, and then never expressed an interest in any of the other games he wanted to run. Though I did love my character. I just didn't trust the GM enough to not have things planned, even through the module, to mess with us, just because he thought it'd be fun.

I've been fortunate with most of my GMs, especially my Amber GMs, that trust was never an issue.