Wow, the "gamers don't bathe" episode. And right at Gencon time too. Nice to see the Podgecast breaking new ground, shattering stereotypes, and covering subjects that every single other gaming podcast hasn't been/won't be talking about during "Let's Talk About Nothing But Gencon Month."
Maybe episode 54 can be a constant stream of Monty Python quotes. I might've said that the topic can be used on episode 58 or 59, but then I realized that maverick pioneers like the Podgecast certainly aren't going to spend the month of September talking about what Gencon was like.
You know, I did think about that when we started talking about the subject, and honestly, it wasn't even on my the list of vices I wanted to talk about. You're right, gamer funk has been done to death.
I don't think Monty Python is that funny, so we likely won't do a string of quotes from them.
I've done most of my Gencon wrapup so far, so I doubt I'll have much to say on the issue when we record tonight.
So, let me turn this around on you then, Doctor, what would
you like us to talk about this week?
Ok, I have a topic idea I submitted to one of those OTHER podcasts, and they mentioned it for like 3 minutes and I don't feel they really covered the issue (Hint: It didn't directly involve Battletech, so it wasn't much of a big deal to them.). Other ideas follow.
1: How to get players in Horror Games to make the kind of decisions that CHARACTERS in Horror Movies make that move the story along, but players, having seen all these movies, just won't do it. (Creating character conflict.)
My example: Any RPG involving zombies mentions somewhere in the rules that the zombies are just a plot device and the real conflict comes from the characters' interactions. I'm talking about those scenes where someone is trapped outside and one character goes to open the door to go out there and save him and another character tells him "Bob's dead, and if you open that door, so are the rest of us!" But character 1 won't listen, so he goes to open the door anyway and character 2 shoves a gun in his face. Let's pretend for a moment that your integrity as a GM forbids you from saying "Look at your sheet and play your flaws, jackass!" What are some other ways to get them to that point? How do you get someone to wander off alone and/or back into the monster behind them when they've seen a million horror movies and are way too smart to do that?
2: When will we see a renaissance in RPGing? Have computers killed the pencil and paper game, or can we find a way to make pen and paper live again? Or must we compromise and semi-computerize gaming? On that note, since eBooks are here to stay, what are good ways to bring them to the table other than having a laptop party ?
3: Juicer Problems and how to make the players THINK before they take them. Don't know what a Juicer Problem is? Here:
http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/RPG_Lexica:JKLMost cyberpunk games, to my mind, suffer this problem. Yes, you CAN get your arm hacked off and replaced with a better, faster, cooler, more powerful metal one, but WOULD you? The usual solution seems to be "make it trendy to do so," which I suppose I can buy to SOME degree with the tattoo and piercing fads, but there's got to be a limit to this. Barring getting everyone in disfiguring accidents, how do you make the players justify their characters' decisions to get this stuff done to themselves?
4: Getting the players to accept limits on their characters: Speaking of cyberpunk, let me talk about the most balance-destroying piece of cyberware in Cyberpunk 2020: Skinweave. 12 armor to all locations. Throw on some leather and you've got 16 armor. And the average police sidearm does 3D6 damage? So, I made Skinweave extreme black market tech in one of my campaigns and it degenerated into Quest For Skinweave. In a game of Vampire with a different group, I put an upper limit on Generation at 10 and the players turned it into Quest To Find Elders To Diablerize. If you want to start out small and have the characters work their ways up, how do you stop them from making that mad dash for more power? If you want to run a Watchmen-type heroes campaign, how do you keep everyone from whining that they don't get to be Dr. Manhattan?
5: Avoiding talking about cons in a podcast.
A while back, I did my thoughts on the podcasts I listen to. In August and September, all of them change to the following format:
Most of August: We're going to Gen Con!
End of August: Here we are at Gen Con!
All of September: Wow, wasn't Gen Con cool?
Then you'll get an actual topic or two til it's time for Dragon Con or Ar Con (sp) or Elaborate Con or "We're Putting On Our Own Con" and the process repeats. Some podcasts (ie; Brilliant Gameologists) are about nothing BUT the podcasters themselves going to cons. Yeah, yeah, yeah: they're noisy and crowded, cosplayers, gamers don't know how to bathe, yadda, yadda yadda. I'd like to hear about what other things go on during those periods INSTEAD of cons.
