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August 02, 2002
| WISH |
| This week's WISH: | List three or more maxims/proverbs/bits of conventional wisdom/etc. that you've learned in your gaming career, and explain what they mean and how you've seen them apply in your gaming experience. |
There are two big temptations here: One is to roll out the favorite movie/book/comics quotes that we constantly hear from our Gen X, hyper-referential ADD gaming crowd. "Yeah, yeah, enough with the flavor text..." "Don't see the PGMP-15, Danny, be the PGMP-15..." "Get 'em? That was your plan? Get 'em?" (hey, it often worked...) The other is to trot out my favorite quotes from games that do and do not have quotes pages. I'm looking for the lines we've repeated for years that are part of our collective decision-making process.
Whatever you do, don't say 'Whatever you do, don't roll a one'.This is a meta-rule at the table, which has to do with respecting other gamers superstitions, not touching their dice if they're a 'don't touch my dice' person, letting people be wierd about probability and chance, and generally not looking for trouble at the table. If someone has to say 'chicken bone, chicken bone, lucky, lucky chicken bone' before he rolls in order to have fun, let 'em... You're not heros, you're assholes!Usually quoted when the Champions team was about to make some utterly logical but not particularly four-color heroic choice. Bled over into a lot of games, because it was useful. It's a maxim about examining your motives and the role your character wants to project in his life. Don't feel bad, lots of paladins have warhorses that are smarter than they are...aka "next time, spend a few extra GPs and buy the helmet. Head injuries may not slow you down, but that's because it's not a vital organ in your case..." Plan B is where we don't do something stupid...Plan B was frequently spontaneous... Gaming is like sex. It's only fun if you trust your partners.This includes the GM. This is about willingness to leap out into the blackness, secure that, even if you fall on your face, your partners are there for you. It's why it's no fun to play in a game when two people who really don't want to be talking to each other are both playing. It's about being picky and the rightness of being picky. And it includes the implication that, while bad gaming may be better than a swift kick in the privates, really bad gaming is enough to make people consider swearing off the art...
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| .:Posted by Michael on August 2, 2002 10:29 AM:.
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oooh, those are good!
Reminds me of one of our own 'gamer cliches':
GM opens new session with, "When last we left our intrepid zeros . . ."
| .:Posted by Arref
( total) on August 2, 2002 12:48 PM:. |
Well, it looks like you've beaten the odds again.
This line was deliverd by a formerly good friend.
He held a grudge due to my fabled good die rolls
to defeat him in backgammon. It's true, he was
much better than I, but a string of fortiuitous
die rolls over months allowed me to beat him like a gong.
The line was delivered shortly after my Afrika Corps had
out thought, out manuvoured, out numbered and attacked what
little was left of the British defense. They promptly
dissolved in a set of die rolls that can only be characterized
as unbeliveable; leaving the desert to the British.
Thereafter, the Kobold critical hits your high level, magicly armoured
warrior -- Well, it looks like you've beaten the odds again.
| .:Posted by Anon please
( total) on August 3, 2002 9:06 PM:. |
