Tweet/Link of the Day, ‘The History of No’ edition.

Useful and informative and slightly superfluous in my case.

I have never been fond of being a ‘me versus the table’ sort of GM, my deep and abiding love of old-school Zap Paranoia to the contrary. It’s frankly easier for the players to come up with their own reasons for why their characters are getting hosed, not to mention actively connive at it. And people play with me voluntarily, so I’m probably doing something right.

However, let’s be honest: people like to compete. And if a GM and his (it’s likely to be a ‘his’) table actively enjoy treating each game session as bloodless, yet total war then there’s nothing wrong with that. In the end, it’s a big world and there’s more than one way to play.

3 thoughts on “Tweet/Link of the Day, ‘The History of No’ edition.”

  1. The most fun I had as a player (I often was GM) was a Paranoia game where we all made sport of trying to sucker one another into saying something traitorous, followed by the gleeful whistling of our Teela-O-MLY Traitor Whistles and the exuberant vaporization of whoever had slipped up.

    1. Actually reading the article … the group I gamed with during my Golden Era of gaming, regrettably over a decade ago, had already come together to make our gaming more collaborative narrative than “DM wants to kill the party”. My wife’s recommendation for how to keep a character alive was “entertain the GM”. Having a player do something stupid, but in character, was never automatic doom. And if it was stupid, but funny enough that most of the table was laughing, then it was usually survivable.

  2. Saying no is important.
    Within reason.
    .
    No, you can’t put all your points into Guns! Skill.
    No, you can’t be a catboi ninja with a lightsaber in King Arthur’s Britain.
    No, you can’t get xp from surprising and slaying your loyal animal companion.
    (Yes, I’ve witnessed those specific attempts.)
    .
    That said, if you buy into the setting and advance the story, you can get away with a hell of a lot. (Which can lead to accusations of favoritism. So remember, nothing overmuch.)

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