Category: Gaming

WISH 79 asks:

What do you think is the best cast size for the games you’ve played? What are the factors that go into your answer: genre, play group, gaming system, etc.?

Well, once upon a time I would have said “three, maybe four.” But the Unknown USA campaign had, what, six regular players and worked like a charm. Not all of ‘em showed up every time, of course.

Hm. Let me take cast size as meaning “the number of people who show up, on average,” and I’ll answer “three or four” with some confidence. I’m kind of a spotlight hog, so I like three players. More deadly combat oriented games sort of need four people. D&D works way better with four people; three PCs are riding the ragged line of survivability. Champions can be the same way — it’s less deadly, but you don’t want the heros getting knocked out all the time.

Interestingly, both of those games have combat systems in which PCs get knocked out of the fight but come back on a fairly regular basis. In D&D, it’s healing spells; in Champions, it’s Recovery.

WISH 78 asks:

Do you think allowing one player to play more than one character in a game is a good or bad idea? Does the style of the game make any difference? What about the format (FTF, PBeM, etc.)?

Well, you wouldn’t want multiple characters in a LARP, I imagine. (I joke!)

I think that playing two equal characters face to face is generally a bad idea. I was in a game recently in which everyone had two players, and while I enjoyed the game, I gotta say I would have enjoyed it more if I’d been able to focus on one PC. If you’re playing in a purely tactical game, it perhaps makes more sense, but I like exploring personalities.

Troupes seem to work better. I’m defining “troupe” as “one primary PC, and multiple secondary PCs,” in Ars Magica fashion, which is perhaps a little too specific but it’ll do for a working definition. I expect this is purely psychological; a troupe-style game allows me to concentrate on a single PC, with the others being adjuncts. (I really looked forward to Amelia Wellstone’s band of street kids. Alas.)

I s’pose I had multiple PCs back on AmberMUSH, come to think of it. Usually only one primary, though. There, the trick was maintaining a serious amount of separation, and occasionally going through contortions to avoid having PC interests intersect. It was really more like having separate PCs in overlapping campaigns.

In this week’s WISH, Ginger asks:

What do you think the value of contributions to a game is? Do you think it’s fair for the GM to give out experience or character points for contributions? If so, what qualifies? What about the informal value of contributions? Do they balance or unbalance a game?

I think contributions can add a lot to a game (he said modestly). They’re not essential, but they can really help set tone and feel and they definitely make players feel more of a stake in the world. That’s not always a desired effect, but it’s an effect I happen to like, so I’m all for it. It takes a certain willingness for the GM to let go control, but that’s OK.

On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of giving out extra points for them. This is more a sign of my uncertainty about experience points as a whole, I suspect — but what exactly are you rewarding? Contributions don’t much reflect additional training/learning/experience gained by the PC in an in-game sense. If you give experience points “just for showing up,” then sure, contributions are another sort of “showing up.” But then you get into the problems of lack of balance. I just think it’s a bit of a risky wicket.

WISH 76 asks:

A lot is made of the role of the GM in a game, but what is the role of the player?

I’m not really sure if I can answer that one, since so much depends on the game. The single most important trick to master can be summarized as “support interaction,” which covers a lot — sharing spotlight time, making your character sticky, and so on. Most other stuff depends on the game, I think.

Some games really are GM-driven, and I don’t actually have any problems with that. Sometimes I want to be a spectator. Not often, but sometimes. Some games, the role of the player is to be tactical opposition. Some games, the players help drive plot.

Idle question: is the GM playing the game as well? Shouldn’t we call him or her a player?