The dice didn’t yank competency away from you: the player’s narrating their conflicts did, plain and simple.

1. Player does test and succeeds.
2. Your single helping dice (effectively a coin flip) was a weasel.
3. The player chose to narrate you being less than competent.

Personally? I have had LOTS of competent guys help me in my lifetime who, while totally smart and competent, were not any HELP at all — and that’s how I would have narrated it, to respect your character concept.

However, I wasn’t narrating that stuff, and most RPG players are stuck on the idea that ‘if your dice fail, you must look like a chump’, rather than realizing that failure can still mean you’re totally competent.

(And that’s ignoring the fact that it’s one bloody helping die and no indication of your relative skill at all.)

Could I have evangelized for competent-failure? Sure. I was busy teaching people the actual rules, though, so I didn’t have that kind of time.

In a proper campaign (the best kind of game for anything from BWHQ, in my opinion), there would have been a discussion about narrating to respect people’s concepts and letting everyone play their concept while still paying heed to the system. As it was, we just didn’t have the time, so your guy got narrated as incompetent.

Not the system or dice’s fault — success or failure doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with competence.

Finally — it wasn’t the system critique I was objecting to: it was your characterization of me as someone using GM Fiat, a method of play I loathe. I can’t for the life of me figure out what behavior of mine read as Fiat to you, but I assure you: I play the system, not authoritative decree.

The problem is looking like a schmuck even though you’re going to succeed, anyway.

In the two games I played, it didn’t feel like I was progressing toward a goal so much as spiraling away from it due to qualities that I rather thought my character didn’t possess.

In your game, Doyce (the better of the two I played, I might mention) the gruff veteran I played consistently failed at tasks I suspected a gruff veteran would at least look competent at… which is not good for my ego. Yes, we won in the end, but I couldn’t see how considering how often the dice yanked competency away from me!

The Guard’s can’t fail. I don’t mean they shouldn’t. I mean they can’t, mechanically, in the game. Period.

They always get what they want when the dice hit the table. They might suffer while they succeed, or there might be complications that come up while you succeed, but they always succeed. Period.

That’s how the game’s constructed.

Chech your audio levels though. The intro and outro were much louder than the audio of you playing.

The word “never” is the key thing here. I can understand “Don’t split the party if it’s unnecessary” but “Never split the party” is far too restrictive. Also, I do think the point most gamers are making when they say “Never split the party” is the stereotypical one I used in the blog post and not the more sensible one that you’ve made.

That’s my special gaming power. I effectively lower the intelligence and maturity of any group I game with, it’s a gift.

I still see the D&D 3E Rule Zero as the most commonly cited amongst active gamers – and a version of it was 3rd on the Urban Dictionary.

Because I couldn’t be sure who first said “Don’t be a dick” I went with Clyde’s suggestion that we cite JC as the originator. It’s certainly a version of “Love thy neighbor as thyself”, so that works for me. Of course, there are no claims to originality in this blog post. It all came from somewhere – I’m just holding it up to the light.

Got any links to your new game?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rule%200

With 182 up and 28 down the top definition is “The unwritten rule of tabletop Role Playing Games: The Game/Dungeon Master has the right to veto anything any player says, he has the right to change any rule or make up his own, he need not explain why he choses to do these things. If players complain the GM may choose any of the following to do to the player; slap, call a dumbass, restrict snackage privileges and/or threaten injury to ingame character(be it through loss of xp, health, items or gold)”

The next two listing are re-phrasings of the same concept with 130 up, 38 down and 50 up 2 down. For a total of 362 ups and 68 downs. That seems reliable enough to me.

The new Rule Zero I proposed in my game was your #1 Rule Zero: Don’t be a dick. Which I directly lifted from John Wick in Houses of the Blooded and I’m sure he lifted from somewhere else.

To me, this is an important rule for life but it never hurts to reiterate it in print. Even if you’re at a con and someone else is being a dick that doesn’t make it right for you to be a dick. Just… Don’t be a dick people. That’s all I want when you sit down at the table.

It covers the other rules too, “Don’t help the GM”… sir, Don’t be a dick. “The GM is always right.”… as long as he’s not being a dick, sure, why not? “Roll on the table”… how about we just not be dicks about rolling dice? “Have fun”… by not being a dick.

But you are quite mad, Pete. I recommend you apply for membership in the Ludic Peripety Society. You’d do well there, sir!

Mad Mister Pete Figtree
ruthlessdiastemagames.wordpress.com

My wife tries to claim that I only need one box of ice cream to share with my little girl. Pfft.

With the talking over problem, was it a bit of co-GM-itis? Because I think maybe Shannon had a bit of that in WGP and Z in IAWA. Co-GM-itis is not a fatal disease, it’s usually quite endearing, but it does make it hard on the recordings sometime. I’ll try to keep a look out for it in the future, either way.

Breaking up the content for commentary really helps keep me engaged.

I have one complaint that I only mention because it sometimes makes it very hard to follow what is going on. Like all AP podcasts, things get a little chaotic. However, you have one player who has a habit of talking on top of her tablemates– and I don’t mean in a separate conversation. I’m sure she is just getting excited, but boy does it make it tough to follow sometimes. I noticed the same thing during your With Great Power AP.

Anyway. Thank you and your group for a wonderful show.

I really like how you intercut in with commentary during the AP. If I weren’t so damnably lazy, I might do the same thing with mine.

Keep up the good work guys,

Kevin Weiser
http://www.thewalkingeye.com