trapcast.com

Is there an episode this week?

haha, yes. It will be released in an hour or two - I got a late start editing last night and was just too damn tired to finish

Ok, was anyone else totally turned on by Sara's panting after laughing so hard?

Rule #1: Don't be a dick.

it works out well that i don't have one

yeah, that's the only conclusion i could draw

Just because you don't have one doesn't mean you can't be one. Whether or not you could then fuck yourself is a theoretical exercise I'll leave to George.

For those who dont know, this is Greg and they were talking about my packet. I have modified the packet somewhat since sending it to Trapcast a few weeks ago and if anyone wants to see the final version (Trapcast host or otherwise), just PM me with your e-mail address.

Big thanks to Trapcast for using it as a topic. I find it hilarious that George used a syllabus as an example because I used to be a teacher. I also have started the first playtest of the module that this is the packet for. The first session was the night of the 26th of June. So I have now playtested the character creation process using the packet.

Some observations:
- I never got a single question from the normal "can I take this" category. Nobody asked if they could be an Elf, or if they could use Karate, etc. That was nice.
- Several players asked me questions that were in the packet. What is the exchange rate? How many levels of Magery can I take? etc. That was kinda annoying.
- Several players simply took things on the prohibited lists. My solution was to meet them halfway. Someone took Rank even though I specified I didnt want people to start with that, so I made them a disgraced noble that had to work off the negative through XP payments. Someone took prohibited magery outside of my set limits via the use of an advantage that is an item/gadget. I let that into the world with some restrictions. But overall, the filter pretty much worked. Stuff I didnt want didnt generally get into the game. No flying vampiric gadgeteers!
- I am pretty sure every player brought the packet with them to the game and used it as a reference. Which was nice.
- To my dismay, nobody took any of my power investiture options, nor did anyone take any poison skills. One of my guys took an addiction. Oh well, I guess the drawback of coverering many angles is that not every angle will be taken by the players, nobody was a Dwarf either. Or a half-elf. Maybe further playtests will reveal that I am just getting the nuances of my group here. Time will tell.
- One thing that nobody picked up, I think, is that not only does the Poisons list provide a handy reference for the players, but that they might actually end up on the receiving end of the poison. I probably would not ever use the GURPS default poisons in a campaign, but the fact that I made a list of my own radically improves the chances of my using it. I cant wait to afflict a few characters with uncontrollable diarreah or itching or psychotic delusions. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

And other benefit of doing this whole packet thing is that it forces the GM to consider how they intend on actually running the game. That may be the biggest boon here, I think.

EDIT: I have 7 players in this playtest.

Oh hot damn was I.

I try to stay involved enough in character creation that I can tweak some player choices, as can the other players, if they have one of their own. My players usually have more and better ideas in store for the character they first pitched to me, so I get more material to play off of if I let them have what they want.

Last night, I ran a group through character creation for my Spirit of the Century hack, for which I wrote not just a packet, but a rulebook. Only one player, it seems, actually read it in depth (that being my grandfather, who put that off until the morning of the session, but hey).

Note: I didn't send my players thirty photocopied pages of my scrawled handwriting and ask them to look over it, or a long single-column word document; I typeset a PDF document in LaTeX, with tables, chapters, callout boxes, a table of contents, sample characters, an overview of the FATE 3.0 rules, sample character concepts from the genre of literature my SotC hack covers... the works, really.

Nevertheless, I'm not too put out by that. All my players have a copy of this rulebook, and eventually more of them will look at it. Also, it was rewarding to write it (and if I end up being able to publish it, it'll be doubly rewarding). I've got other such write-ups going as well, one even with an appendix of sample scenarios. It's kinda fun.