More on gaming

In which I fumble around and try to talk about gaming. I just cant seem to collect my thoughts in a manner that seems to communicate effectively. I'll try anyway.

This evening it our Tuesday game, and we're either going to continue some of my Zombies World of Darkness game, or we'll work on doing chargen for my Constantine/Buffy Feng Shui game. I think I'll dub it Monster Hunters, so I can stop calling it Constantine/Buffy. I'm excited about the Feng Shui game (and the Zombies game - I'll continue to run it as long as folks want to play it.) I'm totally trying some new stuff with the FS game. Kickers, Bangs, Flags, and good stuff from the Forge forums. We'll see how it works in play.

Part of what I'm trying to do is to totally separate from "traditional" linear GM engineered gaming. In what I consider a typical role playing game scenario (usually D&D is cited for this example), the GM has created or purchased an adventure for the players to run through. If you look at it from this overview, it is usually a narrow track for the players to go through, a linear series of events that they encounter, one after another. Depending on the DM and players, there is an illusion of player control. "Umm, we'll pick this door", or "We'll go talk to this guy". Or the DM just railroads the players along the given story path, hitting them in the head with it when they stray. But at best its just an illusion. The GM (or publisher) has developed a story that the players are supposed to play in. The players are really just spectators, having little or no real control over where the adventure or their characters will go. The GM paints a picture, the players respond. The GM provides the next scenario, the players respond (usually, and to trivialize it slightly, the players respond with "We hit the orcs on the heads with our swords." Then move on to the next thing.)

I want to create a gaming environment where the players DO have control over the adventure and where their characters go.