ITT: John Wick DM Tips

>>49103983
>put nails in the backs of all the chairs, that way the players are on the edge of their seat because of your storytelling.

>>49104019
>First, encourage players to make characters that are good friends and care about each other a lot, then encourage players to hook up with other players' significant others IRL, to create that tension between what the player wants and what the character wants, that only an RPG can provide!

>>49103983
>Sleep with Bayushi Kachiko if at all possible, then brag about it.

>>49105005
congratulations, anon, you managed to say the dumbest thing in the thread yet.

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>>49105029
>He doesn't know the story

>have an NPC betray a PC, getting the PC thrown in prison, then make the player watch everyone else have fun for literally months, occasionally saying to them "you're still in prison," all so the PC can later get out and get revenge on the NPC
This one isn't a joke. He really did this.

>>49105051
Not entirely, but I have played in a game where someone did exactly that.
It didn't end well.

>If a PC is explicitly immune to a disease thanks to an ability they spent points on, make it happen to them anyway, then make their immunity stop the cure from working!

So who is this guy, and what did he do to piss off so many fa/tg/uys?

>>49105124
He's the mastermind behind 7th Sea and a few other rpgs. He's a shitty dm who's done all of the things people have said in this thread to his players.

>>49105124
He made Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea.
He's also publicized GM advice that is extremely GM vs players, and there are a lot of stories of him doing these things to players. He's also crashed 7th Sea LARPs by playing as his self-insert metaplot character with bloated stats and killing random PCs for not playing correctly.

>>49105075
Holy fuck, what sort of masochist 'friends' does Wick play with? I would have demanded to roll up a temporary character by the second session and given him the middle finger by the third.
>>49105124
His name is John Wick. He designs roleplaying systems, which would normally put him on passable terms with /tg/.
He's also a titanic douche who goes out of his way to fuck with players and create arbitrary drama for no conceivable reason.

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>>49103983

Who is John Wick and why does /tg/ hate him?

>>49105147
So why are people still playing with him, and how much does his games reflect his being an asshole?

>>49105147
>He's a shitty dm who's done all of the things people have said
Come on, if we're going to spread misinformation let's at least be honest about it.

>>49105204
Well, his games reflect his strange priorities, with heavy cultural inaccuracies that he claims are historically realistic (They really aren't), and lines such as "Ronin aren't important to samurai stories" and a heavy focus on landbound politics in a pirate game.
Later editions of L5R dropped his claims and took up the mantle of a fantasy setting, but 7th Sea has only gotten worse without anyone to reign Wick in.

>>49105176
See, I actually like L5R and 7th Sea and so does my entire group, so I won't hold that against him.

I'm guessing it's the second half that clinches it though. Go on, fill us all in, guys. On a scale of one to "Why hasn't someone jammed a pen in his eye yet?" how bad is he?

>>49103983
>If one of the party members has a pet or uses an animal companion, make them develop am OOC bond with it. That way, it's much more dramatic and traumatising when you take it away from the PC.

>>49105236
These are all from firsthand accounts from his players and/or from GMing advice that Wick himself wrote.
There's an article he wrote called "Play Dirty" which really shows you how The Wick operates.

>>49105268
Oh, I like L5R and 7th Sea as well. I was just listing what he's done to get our attention (Be a mostly competent game designer) and then an example of what he does to get our contempt (Be a douche and encourage others to be douches).

>>49105276
Even the one with nails on the chair?

>>49105190
Why would praying ever change anything?
If god has a plan for everything, why doesn't he just act according to that regardless?
Is praying supposed to draw god's attention to something, so that he can fix it? If so, wouldn't an all-knowing god know about it regardless? Is it supposed to show devotion? Again, wouldn't any show of such be according to god's plan, and he'd already know how devout you were anyway?

>>49105310
Maybe not that one. Anything written about in-game stuff is accurate though.

>>49105310
Would it really surprise you?

>>49105316

You fell into the trap.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/graveyard/26912082/images/1377858602708.pdf
Play Dirty, by John Wick.

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>>49105316
If god ever payed attention to us... well, lets just say Trent Reznor drew up the exact situation if >>49105190 's pic related turns out to be accurate. The end result we were fucked.

>>49103983
Don't sweat the unwashed neckbeards from 4chan who hate you. They're just jealous and their shared hatred comes out in these circle jerk threads they'll keep posting about you. But BFD. These ducks would pirate your books, anyway so having g them hate you is a great thing! Wear it as a badge of honor.

He also made Houses of the Blooded, which includes a lot of his weirdness, but weirdly little space to do this sort of gm dickery.

It has possible the greatest amount of player agency outside of pure freeform.

Then again, it's supposed to be about stories of epic tragedy. It's just the players take an active part in their own falls.
Which probably explains why he still gets players, they actually are into that sort of game and are having a good time.

>>49105276
OP here. The whole point of this thread is that it can become difficult to separate reality from fiction.
>>49103983
Made up.
>>49104019
Made up.
>>49104148
Made up.
>>49105005
Real.
>>49105075
Real.
>>49105114
Real.
>>49105269
Probably real.
>>49105536
I laughed.

Does anyone have the word for word of the supers one? I will never be able to get over that insanity.

>>49105816
I believe it's the first one in >>49105469

Also, anybody else find it weird that in the introduction he seems like such a kind person, with this very deep emotional connection to people, and how on YouTube he seems so friendly (even when he's giving terrible advice)?

It's like he IRL took "shitty DM" as a flaw with max ranks so he could put more points in "decent dude" or something.

I mean, I know we're supposed to hate him, and I'm sure if I were subjected to one of his games, I would, but I don't.

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>>49105746

>>49103983
>A PC's flaws are perfect ways to make situations to build character!
>Breaking their unmasked superhero's spine in front of family and press also builds character!
>Make sure to have the villain pack their specific weakness and render them helpless first!
>Character!

>>49105868
He probably is a nice guy and plays with people who enjoy the sort of shit he pulls.

I think the assumption that his players are caught off guard by his style is false. He's open about it, and probably makes sure his players know what they are getting into.

>>49105469
Jesus. I felt dirty reading that. All that rope. All that fucking rope, and none of them even saw it coming.

>>49105051
tell the fucking story, anonpai

>>49105816
http://googlebordello.crushhumanity.org/internettreasures/hitem.html

>>49105051
Tell the story, Dammit!

>>49105179
>Holy fuck, what sort of masochist 'friends' does Wick play with? I would have demanded to roll up a temporary character by the second session and given him the middle finger by the third.

I think that Wick and his friends, at least as he was telling the story, were actually playing a meta game in that Wick was betting he could make them all quit without actually GM fiat'ing their characters to death. So >>49105114
and >>49105075 both happened in the same game that he also had someone voluntarily retire, then get killed in a random convienence store robbery, and convinced another character to kill themselves.

Even with that explanation, Wick is still a special, grade-A fucko.

>>49105469
>Reads last story about his d&d campaign.
Fuck it that sounds awesome. I'd play in that game in given the chance.

>>49105469
>The Luck talent actually makes things worse!

Does he think he's clever for breaking the rules like this?

Jeez, I've only just started reading and this guy seems like a colossal asshat.

>>49105268
>See, I actually like L5R and 7th Sea and so does my entire group, so I won't hold that against him.

No, you like L5R and 7th Sea as sane folks, or at least relatively ordinary /tg/ people play the game. There are mountains of tools in those systems that allow the GM to fuck the players eight ways from Sunday without breaking a sweat or even any rules. Look at how crap your starting characters are in 7th Sea. Look at the mountains of meta-plot about aliens and the end of the world that are deliberately hidden from players. Look at how even if you've managed to dodge all his other shit, he can still throw a Super Pirate who simply wins any fight at you.

Wick's games are well designed, but half the systems and lore in them go unused or underutilized because they're GM tools to bend players over the table and fuck them in the ass. Sane GM's don't use these special Wickian parts of the rules because they're all total bullshit that make for unfun games.

>>49106113
>The Berserk Story.
Am I reading this correctly? the PC has a disadvantage that makes him go into blind rampage when he sees a red trolley.
The GM says he was seeing red trolley's "wherever he looked "and has him roll to not berserk.
Did he say why he was seeing red trolley's?
Because so far it sounds like a total ass pull, and not clever at all.

>>49106536
He was fighting a villain named 'Mindbender.' I think you can connect the dots.

>>49106536
The reason why was because illusionist mook.

The real reason, though, is because the BBEG's power is 'reads your character sheet and also is the DM'.

The more I read of John Wick, the more I see pieces of myself, and my GMing philosophy. I don't know how to feel about that.

>>49106536
Illusions. Also, the player took a "Flaw" that would never come into play in the game setting. Thats more of an ass pull.

>>49106536
The thing that gets me is that it's clearly a villain's doing, and one known for mind control powers at that. Anyone who looks at that situation would know he did whatever berserking he did against his will. He shouldn't be fully accountable for that kind of shit.

>>49106602
>and also is the DM'.
Seriously, read that first part. The villain is totally an idealized Mary Sue, self-insert.

>>49106575
well im dumb.

>>49106610
Yeah, but instead of Wick going 'no, you don't fucking do that shit', he purposely dragged the character's involvement in the game out until no one was having fun before removing it from the game.

>>49106671
Ah, I apologize. I was not trying to say that Wick was right, I was trying to point out that they were both wrong, with the player being the worse offender.

>>49106695
And I'm not disagreeing that they were both in the wrong, but I believe Wick was - instead of just saying no to something he felt was unbalanced and munchkin-y, he let it into his game, let it cause problems, *let it ruin everyone else's fun*, and THEN pulled the 'yeah give me your sheet' part.

>>49106732
*I believe Wick was more so

>>49106019
>I've actually played in a game where this happened.
The game was pitched as a mix of golden/silver age and that ship sailed at the top of the first session. GM straight lied to us, the smug prick.

>>49106610
I feel great about it. My best gaming sessions involved fucking with the players emotions hard.
They still talk about it, in an excited fashion.

The times I was nice, or at least straightforward, totally forgotten.

As Jim Butcher says, it's about manipulating people's emotions and making them like it.

>>49105469
So what is the secret in the beginning of this thing?

I really don't feel like reading in between the lines of some masturbatory GM advice book.

>>49106780
Use meta knowledge to fuck your players over.

Also hershey's kisses make great tokens because you can eat them!

There you go, literally everything else is Wick beating Wick's wick to Wick.

>>49106771
I guess I've never lied to my players about how much of an asshole I am, but they've never believed me. They just laugh and go "Oh Anon, we know deep down you like us, and thats why you don't kill our characters."

No, you condescending bitch, I don't kill your characters because that would be setting the plan in motion too early. Also, if I kill your character, the pain stops.

I'm looking forward to my last sessions with these players.

>>49106879
Oh, I do like my players. Sometimes we game for harmless silly fun. That's just not when I gm.

I gm when they want to feel shit.

Like, there are times when you watch Out an Host Club, and there are times when you watch Gunslinger Girls.
I provide the latter experience.

>>49106080
>>49106150
For John Wick's bachelor party his fiancee, best friend, and another (hot) friend got together and creepily recreated the scene where Kachiko seduces Bayushi Yojiro, with her in full costume. He didn't say they fucked but heavily implied they did

His fiancee is an amazingly chill woman or they are low end swingers or something for that to happen

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Why would anyone play with a GM like this?

>>49106976
Or he lied.

>>49106972
My players are decent people, and I'm friends with most of them. But they're still missing the point of why I'm not turning my Mage game into Berserk/ASOIAF.

>>49106771
Personally, when deciding whether to take the hurt to a player character or not, I ask the following questions:
>Is it consistent with the game's desired tone (for example, in a meatgrinder a guy fails one save and pulls out another of his Fighter's twelve identical siblings)?
>Is it compelling to the character and helps them develop in a way the player is interested in?
>Is the player vicariously experiencing the emotion through the character in a way they enjoy?
>Does it make sense within the setting?
>How much heads-up/chance of prevention does the player get?
>Did their character set this one up for themselves in a way that's obvious (you raped a mobster's daughter and shot the girl's fiance before he found out what was going on, come on, seriously, That Guy?)?

>>49106990
Because it would be wild ride.

I forced my players to become murders, then rewarded them by having them find an orphanage run by child molesters. They loved that campaign and want me to run another with the new Delta Green book.

>>49105316
I think there was a really big debate about this in the 1600s, something to do with predeterminism. Don't really remember how it ended, presumably with some poor sod getting burned alive or being driven off to America.

>>49107093
The hundred years war happened around then.

>>49107015
That would also be in character. Either way either he's telling a weird goddamned story that if it didn't happen casts aspersions on his friends, or it did happen and he bragged about it later. Though the fact the Kachiko's entrance was in the bachelor party and thus would be seen, I doubt that was a lie. His friends existed online too and could read his livejournal.

Either way you cut it though, why on earth would he post the story no matter which interpretation is true?

>>49106976
I thought it was his fiancée that played Kachiko?

>>49105176
Wait.

Wait HE wasn't the fucking O'Bannen, was he?!

>>49107357
No, he was Reis iirc.

When I saw this I thought it was John Wick the movie with the guy who's dog was killed so he murdered the entire local mafia. So I posted >>49105269

>>49107452
given that people thought this was the sort of thing John Wick would pull as GM, and that doing this in the film was very effective and made you enjoy Keanu going on his killing spree; it is perhaps the best illustration for why people would want to play in a game run by this guy.

>>49107354
No, his fiancee approved and helped, but Kachiko was a friend of theirs who probably was the initial inspiration for the character.

>>49107074
>I forced my players to become murders
>players
Where do you live so I can call the cops on you?

>>49107849
well, the players had to choose for their characters to do it.
If I said I forced the characters, people would assume I took control of the characters from the players. I didn't, murdering someone was just the only way they had to stop the evil house.

It was a pre-written adventure, Music From a Darkened Room, it's really good and free online.
Unlike when I was a player, I didn't give them access to elder sign. I did decide to be really 'nice', and after they failed the first time, basically dropped a hint into their laps that lead them to the spell they needed to finish the house.

>>49107408
Man Reis isn't as bad as fucking O'Bannen.

>>49107567
Huh. Achievement in ignorance, figuring out why people tolerate games with this guy.

>>49108136
Two reasons, I would assume.

1) He's "famous"
2) He seems like he's probably not that bad of a person to get along with.

Actually three

3) "Killer DM" was an acceptable gaming style back in the day, back in the day where it wasn't uncommon to have dungeon crawl modules whose meta goal was simply "survive to the end of the module."

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>>49105176
>7th Sea LARP
Holy fuck I need this.

>>49106049
Pretty much. Play Dirty was a "how fast can Wick remove PCs from the game in a system that prevents killing PCs" iron man competition.

>>49103983
Did we ever discover why he's so antagonistic to players? Did his wife leave him or something? I remember back in L5R 1E he wrote at the end of the book he was going to ask her to marry him or something.

>>49108644
Too much time fantasizing over the ToH? Or too much time fantasizing over Gygax's con plots that he would run.

>>49108644
GM vs players mentality was a hell of a lot more prevalent back then because meat grinders were not as nearly as uncommon aka most adventures at the time were still "your party meets in front of a dungeon and do your thing". Wick merely bothered to codify that attitude into some dickish rules. L5R was in many ways saved by its focus on strong social aspects of the setting.

>>49108644
Apparently his divorce was spectacular, and play dirty came about after that.

>>49108747
>Being so mad you write an entire book about the most efficient method of being a dick
Damn, given it was a divorce, I can't even really begrudge him that, unless he had it coming.
That's the sort of thing a that drives a man to write like fifty pages of power fantasy he proceeds to burn and disown as soon as he gets out of his system.
Except he decided to publish it as a DMing handbook.

>>49108796
Play Dirty was just a compilation.

I had a friend who loved all those "tips" from John. He also believed it's the only way to have fun. He strongly insisted it's the only way. You can guess why it's all in a past tense.

>>49107215
Pls tell me you're joking

>>49106019
>how did he know?
>oh that's because the chief supporter of the justice league is a super villain mastermind, too smart and wily for anybody to catch

>>49103983
Every time a player loses hit points, stab them with a needle. It will really increase the immersion!

>>49108644
>>49108655
>>49108721
He explicitly and repeatedly says on his YouTube channel that he doesn't see RPGs as players vs. DM, except insofar as the DM is playing characters who want to fuck the characters over and thus has to play those characters accurately. He just thinks wrecking the PCs is good storytelling.
>>49108747
>>49108796
Yeah, except in the intro he says he and his ex wife are friends again and he still feels sad about things sometimes but they're better now. He published it completely independently of the divorce.

>>49108942
>He also believed it's the only way to have fun. He strongly insisted it's the only way.
This is doubly bizarre since even the Great and Terrible Wick says on his channel something like "this is just how I like to GM and if you like to play differently, that's fine. There's no one right or wrong way as long as everyone is up for the way you play."

>>49105469
Tried reading this and it was like reading the edgy, autistic teenagers blog. I couldn't get past the bit about demasking a superhero in front of her grandmother to induce a heart attack. It doesn't help that hes writing it like you KNOW he's jerked off to some self-written domination fanfic about her.

I would have a beer with Wick and maybe play with him if he was a player. I would not let him DM for me.

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>>49105316
You ever hear the phrase, "Do not pray for a lighter burden, pray for stronger shoulders"?

Your prayers are not like a debate, where you win God over to your point of view (there are stories of prophet's talking with God and convincing him to spare certain people in the Old Testament, but that's another kettle of fish). Prayer is a means of coming to acceptance of God's plan, especially when things happen that you don't understand, with the knowledge that you are surrendering yourself to a loving God who is not acting out of malice but out of love in ways you cannot yet understand. With confidence you can draw near the throne of God, and ask him for the grace to accept the hardships that will better you, and to thank God for the grace he has already bestowed on you.

>Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine
>Luke 22:42

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If you want a good example of John Wick's style, read through his books and count how many times the phrase "a clever GM will" comes up, or a sentence ends with a vague yet ominous ellipsis.

It gets toned down when he works with a team (1e 7th Sea vs. 2e [which he had much more control over] being a prime example), but basically Wick's style is antagonistic. His games are littered with dares for the GM in the form of super-powerful NPCs and secret societies that will fuck over the PCs, qualities that may or may not actually do anything (like Faith), or setting up no win scenarios. So many of his stories involve, "powerful patron of the PCs who is not only evil, but specifically only helping the PCs for the moment so that they are perfectly positioned to obliterate all the PCs down the line."

He may be OK sometimes during running the game, but going off his books he wants the DM to constantly be holding the means to the PCs destruction, not only through fiat but baked into their character sheets.

>>49111159
Then what about the times he crashed other games to tell them they were literally having badwrongfun?

>>49103983
>base your next 5 rpgs on random stuff you have read on 1d4chan

>>49111103
>He just thinks wrecking the PCs is good storytelling.

I mean, sometimes it may be but sometimes it is the universe just going out of its way to spite people. You'd think someone so into the setting and storytelling aspects of things would know when things sometimes just are not appropriate.

I've never really understood people like John Wick, mostly because he gives my method of DMing a bad name. See, I run high risk, high reward games. Now, most people see this and start immediately finding the straightest path to the nearest exit. Thing is, I don't like killing my PCs. I make things hard, but right on the upper end of tolerable.

To put it in perspective, for those of you who play, or played, D&D 3.5 and know the CR system, normally you give them challenges equivalent to average party level. I calculate their party's level like CR and match it; four level threes are equivalent to CR six, for example, so I'd give a party that level challenges bent around a CR of six. A challenge, for sure, but nowhere near impossible; it won't be easy, you're going to be either lucky or hurting, but you can get it done.

This guy, though... I get the feeling that, if you disagreed with his rulings, he'd go from being violently opposed to you, as a person, existing to screaming with his fat little fingers crammed in his ears within the span of, maybe, two lines of you saying he's being a prick.

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Forever DM here. Take Wick's advice withna grain of salt but he has some great ideas and anyone can benefit from at least one of them. Particularly the bits about creating stakes by using your characters backstory against them. It really helped me be more creative than just "You get back home and they're all dead!" Also realizing that Wick doesn't necessarily advocate that you form a DM vs. Players mentality but rather create a WORLD that constantly creates conflict and drama for the players. You don't have to be adversarial to do this, because ultimately you want your players to succeed if only to make their failures more impactful.

Shit on Wick all you want but I think he's just misunderstood.

>>49113347

>playing 3.5 in 2016
>thinking anyone wants your input

kek

>>49113347

>To put it in perspective, for those of you who play, or played, D&D 3.5 and know the CR system, normally you give them challenges equivalent to average party level.

Except even THAT'S a terrible idea because the CR system for 3.x is busted and it's fully possible to have a party encounter a monster that is conveniently hyper resistant to all but a very specific kind of damage.

Or even going into more silly shit how certain monsters can 1 hit drop a Monk who by all accounts is a frontline fighter.

>>49113440
He just used that as a point of reference, anon. It's as well known as a point of reference for monster-party balance as any.

>>49113440
I... Don't, though? I used it as an example because I used to, and a significant portion of /tg/ did as well.

>>49113475
>CR system ID busted
Yes, it requires a bit of self-moderation to not shaft your players with resistances/immunities. But that's par for the course for 3.5; you need to basically just design most if the encounters around your party and have several waiting in the wings in case they decide to fuck off.

>monk
>frontline fighter
They wanted it to be, Wizards really did, but it's not. Too much going on.

>>49113570
It's not an anything, sadly. It's a miserable little pile of shit.

>>49113590
The monk? Yeah. It can be made to be good with certain builds, but requiring a build that uses very few levels of the class in question to be even passable is poor.

Remember the time when he DM'd Tomb of Horrors for his friends in middle school and they got pissed at him when he killed their characters and made fun of them so they beat him up and stopped being friends with him for a year?

>>49113570

CR system is completely broken. Really nothing redeemable about it. Nothing makes sense and you're basically saying "yeah well this dictionary is all out of order and misspelled but if you just take your time and edit the whole thing yourself it's usable"

>>49105746
>Be sure to make threads on /tg/ then correct others when they don't understand your not-at-all obvious point and they start having wrong fun.

>>49113670

Sounds like some little bitches 2bh. Closest I ever came to getting violent over RPGs was when my buddy was being a huge obnoxious OOC asshole to me for some IC shit that wasn't even my fault. Even then it was only tangentially related to RPGs. To get that butthurt that your character died and you got laughed at a bit you'd have to have some real anger issues.

>>49113715
To be fair, they were probably like 10 years old at the time and 10 year olds aren't the most stable with their emotions.

>>49113412
Basically this.
I feel I would actually enjoy a lot of stories he talks about, because I go from the perspective that the people involved knew what sort of game it was, and are there to have a good time. Most of these things could be fun.

Again this comes from Houses of the Blooded, where the players have a lot of control, but the players are heavily encouraged to ramp up conflict and drama, both by the setting and the rules.

>>49113715
Dude, they were probably just looking for an excuse to beat his ass and ignore him for a year. Tomb of Horrors was just the perfect reason.

>>49113680
It's not impossible to understand. It's just an annoyance. The only real problem with it is the fact that the numbers are arbitrary as shit and the actual adding scheme makes no sense.

It's annoying and cumbersome to work around, and you do have to work around it, because trying to work directly with it on the fly is impossible, but it's not as annoying as you're making it out to be. It's bad, don't get me wrong, but it can be dealt with; it's less of deciphering a coffee without a cipher and more of solving an algebra problem.

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>>49114542
>The only real problem with it is the fact that the numbers are arbitrary as shit and the actual adding scheme makes no sense

Isn't that the whole point of CR? It assigns number values to monsters, and you're supposed to add those numbers together to develop the appropriate challenge.

If the numbers are pointless, and the adding doesn't work, what's left?

>>49114594
Eh. It's less that they make no sense and more that there's no work shown that adds up to that number. Little correlation between hit dice and CR, no, "+1 for this," or, "+2 for that, but -1 for this," where the rest of the system kind of thrives off of that shit. It feels weird not being able to see the math behind it.

As for the adding scheme, well... Let's say you want to have your players fight one enemy, and it's CR 5. That's fairly simple. If you want there to be two CR 5s, that's CR 6 instead, because you add +1 for everything of the same CR. But then, if you want to vary that up with multiple monsters, and they have different CRs, you have to actually figure out what everything's, "worth," as far as lower CRs are concerned. So, if you want that CR 5 from before to have, instead, a pair of CR 3s for allies, you pretty much have to figure out how many CR 3s that CR 5 is, "worth," and work from there.

So, for that example, since you add +1 for everything that has the same CR, a CR 5 is, "worth," three CR 3s. So, with a CR 5 and two CR 3s, it comes out to CR 7, because the CR 5 is worth three CR 3s, you're effectively looking at, "five," CR 3s, for a total CR of 7.

Confusing? Yes. Annoying? This was a pain in the ass to type, and the mental gymnastics made my head hurt after all this time without having to do them. Impossible? Not unless you're doing it on the fly. Frustrating to the point of killing the game? ...

Well, why do you think I quit? The fact that wizards are broken? That's only part of it; that part of the system has cancer isn't too much of a concern when the rest of it has already circled the drain fur so long that it's basically doing its victory lap.

>>49114594
>If the numbers are pointless, and the adding doesn't work, what's left?
Only you, anon. The game has stripped away the final illusions the world has put around your eyes granting you at last perfect clarity and freedom of choice.

Congratulations!

>>49111757
Another anon here. That's a good explanation for some sorts of prayers, but petitionary prayer is a lot harder to explain (as you say, God agreeing to a course of action because of prayer in the Old Testament is one example).

It gets even worse if you try to resolve the paradox of omniscience and free will by resorting to a timeless God, since it makes even less sense that such a God could intercede on your behalf as a genuine reaction to your prayer as he wouldn't be "reacting" to anything, being outside of time and all.

Even if there are some really troublesome exceptions, though, I'd say this explanation is pretty good for practical purposes.

>>49106976
Who or what are all those anglicized moon runes?

>>49115492
Characters from the books based in the world of Legend of the Five Rings.

>>49115566
So erping (bedroom sense) a scene he wrote?

Sounds pretty neat, desu senpaitachi. But then again, I thought there was the odd gem or two in his play dirty book.

>>49115566
More like from the metaplot. Bayushi Kachiko is a pretty important character in that era of the in-game history.

>>49114825

Furthermore some things just plain don't work like how you'd want them to.

Like say you wanna have players fight 1-2 big bad tough guys and a couple weaker dispensible targets that can threaten them if ignored but are taken out easily.

You might think "okay if I throw in some CR 1 Orc enemies that'll do it" except the orcs are literally only a threat if they roll a 20 and that's IF you do the "criticals always hit" houserule. Meaning if you wanna actually do that you need to start taking regular monsters and fucking with their stats which a lot of new time DM's would be incredibly reluctant to do.

>>49115603
The weird part is that it was at his bachelor party and then rather than taking it to the grave if only for his wife's sake he told the story on his livejournal.

But I don't know, maybe their relationship is and was fairly open so it isn't something weird to share.

I do the GM vs Player thing in dungeons. Although its mostly kind of like the AI director in L4D, if they are doing great things go sour quick, if they are hurting I'll give them a break.

>>49105868
>>49106049
Wick's players seem like the RPG equivalent of people who play shit like I Wanna Be the Guy or Battle Kid. That's fine if you like that stuff, but it's not how most people like their video games. John Wick putting out a book for how to do that sort of GMing that treats it as the "correct" way of doing things makes him come across like the people who unironically use "casual" as an insult

>>49107567
I actually hated the entire buildup to john wick going on his killing spree and I was wishing the whole time that it was half as long.

>>49111757
>Arab-style mocking of Christianity
noice

>>49116134
Christianity deserves to be mocked. I'm not saying that as an insult, either. The bible begins with a dad joke, when God makes man (Adam) out of clay (adamah). Mocking is a sacrament.

>>49103983
I love SOME of the advice that John Wick and Mike Pondsmith give, but I take it with a grain of salt. I agree with Wick insofar as sometimes a character must be humbled before they can soar.

Also, there is literally no reason why a characters flaws shouldn't be used against them. That's what those flaws are there for.

As far as keeping a player around for months, just to tell him he's in prison that's some straight up bullshit. At least get creative. Find a way for that character to still be doing things while in prison. Make that a story arc.

>>49114542
>it's less of deciphering a coffee without a cipher
Autocorrect is a comedic genius sometimes.
>"DAMMIT HOW ARE THEY PASSING THESE MESSAGES?"
>"Sir, I suspect they may be doing it by changing the flavorings in their man's daily cappucino."

>>49113570
>Yes, it requires a bit of self-moderation to not shaft your players with resistances/immunities
Giant Crab. CR3. No immunities or resistances. Will still absolutely wreck a party at level 3.

>>49111757
>Catholics ignoring what's written in the bible if it's unpopular or inconvenient

Seems about right.

>>49117809
>All rocks go to Heaven
And Presbyterians can't take a joke, apparently.
But
>Traditional Games

File: MonstrousCrab.png (320KB, 757x920px) Image search: [Google]

320KB, 757x920px

>>49117430
Truly, a terrifying creature.

>>49113412
Hnnnnnnnng siege warfare pics.

File: Drew_Carey.jpg (36KB, 512x384px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 512x384px

>>49114594
>Welcome to the show where numbers are pointless and the adding doesn't work
>things you can say about balancing CR but not your father

>>49116227
The Old Testament was written by the jews, there's no way some of that shit isn't intentional comedy.

>>49118300
>at least from time to time it's working

>"Hey, you know the captain of the personal guard? That guy you spend resources in character creation buying so that you could have some added protection? Yeah, turns out he was a traitor and kidnapped your sister to force her to marry him. And he turned several other members of your guard against you too so you can't give chase."

Our GM seriously pulled this on us. In the FIRST SESSION. And the sister was another PC who had no way to prevent it either.

I mean, usually he does a good job and not pull shit like that, but -damn- were we pissed about that.

>>49118923
I sincerely hope you walked the second he pulled that.

"Yeah, fuck you." And just left the table. No big blowup, just refused to put up with his horseshit.

>>49119169
Well, it was the last thing that happened in the session, so we didn't really have time to. But we did talk about it with him later.

He defended his choices at the time, but the next session we find out that the captain actually did it on orders of our lord (and the kidnapped PCs daughter) as part of some crazy scheme to deliver her to our enemies so she could spy on them for us. And that we there were only 2 or 3 traitors involved total, and that most of out guard was still loyal. A pretty obvious asspull (especially when he asked us at the beginning of the session if we thought the guard captain was really a traitor), but still better than leaving it as is.

Honestly, we weren't even that pissed at him for having someone backstab us (we were playing the GoT RPG, it was pretty much expected), but for said person to be someone we paid for in character creation doing so almost immediately for the purpose of creating drama.

>>49120027
>Honestly, we weren't even that pissed at him for having someone backstab us (we were playing the GoT RPG, it was pretty much expected), but for said person to be someone we paid for in character creation doing so almost immediately for the purpose of creating drama.
Yeah, that's the key point of it, really. If you paid for it...

>>49117430
>No immunities or resistances.

Except for, ya know, the immunity to mind affecting spells like color spray or sleep due to being a vermin, which is the one way your average level 3 party would actually have to beat it.

ITT edgy tryhards

>>49113690
I was explaining to the initial anon what I meant. I wasn't saying that anything else that goes on in this thread is "wrong fun."

>>49120832
Different anon, but I don't have NPCs you paid for be permanently loyal.
Pulling the betrayal right at the start is bs, and honestly not something I think Wick would do.
If it's faceless NPCs then they need to be bought off, if they are full NPCs they can develop and change just like any NPC. You paid for their starting loyalty, after that you need to keep it.

>>49117809
>Protestants can't even get transubstantiation right.

>Parties of murderhobos exist and presumably enjoy it and I don't like that
>I'm going to make cumbersome and narrativily obtuse rules, spending time and book-space to restrict players who aren't murderhobos so that I can stop people from enjoying my games in a way that I don't like
>I also poo a little and cry when I cum
Actual quote form John Wick probably maybe.

>>49124899
John Wick here. If I didn't say that, it's because I was too busy punishing players for not playing murderhobos while also yelling at them if they do.

>>49124949
Very well said John Wick.

John Wick here as well to happily announce my next game with my newest breakthrough in tabletop storytelling yet.

You know how you have those pesky players who get in the way of YOUR story? There has to be a better way. Well look no further my friends as John Wick, your savoir is here. My innovative and new narrative mechanic forgoes the need for players entirely. How have I done this you ask? I take the part of the rulebook where rules would normally be and wrote about player characters I made up myself! You don't even have to GM for them, I've already done the hard work for you! What a darling and new concept designed by me, John Wick.

I'm also proud to announce that I am changing the word "Book" to Wick and the word "Rule" to John.

Preorder the new JohnWick written by John Wick, starring John Wick and you'll receive a very special bonus Wickeo of me, your sweetheart: John Wick masturbating into a mirror and sniffing my own farts while I force my group to watch. No need to thank me. It's the least I could do.

>>49125111
>You know how you have those pesky players who get in the way of YOUR story?
except that the most recent John Wick game is one that allows for extreme amounts of player agency.

I know it's a meme to shit on the guy, but you're just hating on him for trying make a type of game you find as badwrongfun too.

>>49125746
His latest game has a mechanic to take any and all control away from a PC for playing in a way he doesn't deem acceptable. I don't even mean like becoming a villain for doing overtly villainous deeds. I mean becoming a villain for killing the bad guy, even if it were to make sense and it makes a better story. I mean it's easy enough to ignore in the cases were it would be worse for the story (read: pretty much every time in a good, in-character, story-focused group) but the fact that it's there in the first place speaks of helicopter game design.

Don't get me wrong. John does good stuff here and there but he always finds some way to slip in a little "fuck you" to the idea of player agency. He's also pretty far behind other systems in terms of allowing player agency and storytelling. Sure, it may be an RPers paradise compared to DnD but DnD isn't really the benchmark.

Difference between me shitting on Wick for adding in these self-aggrandising I-Got-Bullied-In-School-So-I-Need-To-Control-How-My-Friends-Have-Fun power fantasy bollocks is that I'm not trying (note: trying because I really don't think he succeeds) to stop anybody from doing anything. Meanwhile he throws this unnecessary stuff without fail into every system he makes. Advising new players into the antagonistic DnD GM style while at the same time turning his nose up at the mirrored player response. Towing that narrative line real hard but still designing and advising narratives that place the GM in absolute control. That's funny. He's funny. Of course I'm going to joke about it.

He's free to play how he wants and if he by some miracle finds a group that enjoys it, more power to him. But you are out of your mind if you think that laughing at >>49105114 and making immature fart, poop and cum jokes is badwrongfun-ing. You're taking what I said too close to heart.

He is getting much better though, I can tell you that. So that'd good. Greg Stafford is worse though.

I forget the exact page reference and details, but in one of the L5R books John Wick has a little "advice" section on GM'ing.

The story presented is this:

While wandering about the city, one of the player characters gets pulled into an alley and disappears. John Wick tells the player that his character is gone, no one knows what happened to him and that's that. PC MIA forever. The reason this happens is that said character, at some earlier point, killed an NPC and that "The actions of the PCs influence the sort of world they live in, so if they create the kind of world where random murders happen... it also happens to them"

I think this encapsulates John Wick's DM'ing pretty well. The idea that the actions of the player characters should influence both the state of the world, the actions of the NPCs and the "tone" of the world as far as what is allowed and what is reasonable is really, really good advice. If your player characters are all noble shining knights who talk of honor, don't be a dick and have everyone else piss on their virtue; make it a point of reward and play. Likewise if all the player characters are crazed murders - then that's the sort of game they want and it should be that kind of game. Don't play at cross-purposes.

This is good advice.

That Wick then applies this good advice in order to no-save, no-chance auto-kill a PC for the sole reason of proving some obtuse point, while gloating about how that PC totally brought it on themselves for their RASH ACTIONS and isn't he a CLEVER GM with a RESPONSIVE WORLD? That's idiocy.

So John Wick gives great advice in some instances, and you should listen to the advice while ignoring everything the man does with that good advice.

>>49126340
So, instead of saying after a session
>hey, guys, I'd prefer if you didn't kill everybody just because
he prefers to be a passive aggressive cunt?

>>49126738
No, he specifically aimed to teach the lesson that the world responds to player actions, and the only way to prove that point is to make the world unexpectedly but logically react. He just does it in a cunty way cause he cannot overcome his base nature of being a control freak and asshole.

>>49126931
He GM fiat'd away a PC by having him get dragged into an alley way then automatically killed and dumped in a ditch? Aren't PCs supposed to be you know, a bit special and a cut above the rest?

>>49126963
The point of my post was that you can't just tell people post-session "hey, this world reacts to your actions." You need to show it. Then I said the way he suggests doing it is a cunty way, cause he's an asshole. Thus I agree that he's a passive aggressive cunt. What was misunderstood here?

>>49126963
>>49126931
Sure, but that doesn't matter in this instance. PC gets auto-killed because that fits the story and the "lesson".

It's like someone else in this thread wrote, Wick does some good stuff here and there. And then he always seems to take it a step further for no real reason.

Having anarchy and chaos spread because the PCs have been going around causing anarchy and chaos, and now brigands and thugs are endemic is perfectly reason, coherent and makes for fantastic, responsive play.

Having those same brigands auto-kill a PC just because, fuck you, is JohnWickian.

Having heroes be threatened by a capable, focused mastermind who reasonable responds to their activities is interesting, fun play.

Having that same villian auto-defeat everyone by using enormously silly rules descriptions (Immune to the cure of the disease! Weakness causes an auto-kill!) is JohnWickian.

Etc etc etc

>>49127024
So basically this guy is a good example of how a GM should show restraint with their great ideas and not go overboard.

>>49105124
A fucking scapegoat, more legend than man at this point.

>>49127067
Somewhat but more of a cautionary tale of "if as a GM you're doing anything with the express purpose to 'punish' a player somebody is a bad fit and should stop playing with that group."

Punishment GMing is pretty Wick. Which is exactly the sort of D&D murderhobo tier shit he's against.

>>49126931
Holy fuck, John, I'm not playing RPGs to get taught moral lessons but to have goddamn fun. If you don't like the way I play, just fucking tell me and I'm gonna think it over, okay?

I think I know him, he looks like someone I know IRL and we've talked about tabletop games before. /shrug

I always feel vaguely sad when I think of Wick.

He has good ideas, good, clever ideas that are clearly interesting, useful and to some degree exciting. The articles in Play Dirty are at least somewhat interesting and a lot of the advice from the book is actually quite useful. Insightful, even.

But it's all slathered in this absolulety thick glaze of utter banal, venal idiocy of the most trite sort. It's like reading the angry dm or listening to a spoony video or something; the ideas presented might be good but dear god fucking dammit, stop talking already and get to the point.

Wick can't just write: "Create an emotional investment; make the players (not the characters) interested in the game"

no no no it has to be 20 pages of "a sufficiently clever gm (like me) can totally blow peoples minds (like I did here let me tell you how) and also you can use an awesome npc (That I made) to create the result that you want (which is this because all other results are bad-wrong) and then I killed them because I felt like it"

It makes me vaguely sad, like I said, because you easily lose out on the actually good ideas.

>>49103983
Only book I read Wick was involved was L5R 1E corebook and he wasn't as nearly as bad as he apparently became afterward.

>>49126189
>Greg Stafford is worse though.
What does he do? Worst crime I've seen him commit was contradicting himself with things like Yelm vs Yelmalio.

Is he not a follower of YGWV (Your Glorantha Will Vary)?

>>49127383
I like some of Spoony's stuff and I find the Angry DM valuable (mixing his ideas about running games with OSR systems yields a pretty awesome game, I find) and I haven't learned anything of value from John Wick.

Everything he says is either common sense, wrong, or rules that actually seem to give the players agency... but outside of their characters, which I find un-immersive.

"Oh, do I want to use this point to have my ex girlfriend rush in, creating a diversion?" is not immersive to me. That's separating me from my character.

That said, if you run the kind of game where that happens, his "power to the players" video is pretty cool. I think his "dirty dungeon" video is good if you want to be a lazy DM one night and aren't going for any kind of simulation whatsoever.

>>49128955
Pandragon is where most of my experience comes from as far as Greg goes so it's probably quite different from his other stuff. But generally speaking it's 'one standard for npcs another for pcs' and 'look at all these cool characters I have, don't you wish you could do these things?'

My GM was fucking wonderful and put a bunch of work into it. He made it into the best game I've ever played. But if he played it by the book it would have been awful. Half implemented or even straight up contradictory mechanics, straight up 'players die, nothing they can do about it' events without any rolls involved and Npcs that have preprinted results to their rolls: "at this point knightman will critical succeed his roll to strike dayman" that sort of thing. The expansion books only overcomplicated things.

There's some really good stuff in the system. Fantastic ideas but you're going to need to Frankenstein it with house rules in addition to cutting out the parts where he gives awful advice.

>>49129275
>>"Oh, do I want to use this point to have my ex girlfriend rush in, creating a diversion?" is not immersive to me. That's separating me from my character.
I've heard this referred to as character agency vs player agency.

Player agency is where the person controlling the character (the player) can influence the game/world using mechanics totally unrelated to their character - generally used as metapoints like fate points or what have you. I'm mixed on the idea, myself - I like the idea of players being narratively involved in the game, but it still ejects me from my character and a sense of causality which I'm not a fan of, so it's a weird cogdis.

Character agency is just the character is able to do and change things in the world, but only insofar as the character actually would be able to.

The example you just said falls under player agency, as it's using metapoints to affect the world.

Using these definitions, seems like you're probably a fan of low player agency, high character agency.

>>49129534
Yeah, I am. If I can borrow a GNS term even though I don't fully buy into the theory, I very much like simulationist games. Occasionally I do like to go full storygame, but if I do, I don't usually like the kind of halfsies route a lot of games take where it's like "D&D plus a few narrative abilities." Just take away my stats entirely and replace them with ways of doing things, then if I succeed or fail, let me narrate that.

But generally I like simulation.

>>49129656
How do you feel about a setting like Exalted, where meta-abilities like introducing scenery in stunts is partially something your character is doing because reality is malleable?

>>49105469
This was an unironically good read. Did any of you even read the whole thing?

>>49129682
Not the guy you asked (but I do agree with him), but I think that's probably fine because the act of narrative/world-influence is still in-character, so it follows and is cool.
It's like with magic, I suppose. A wizard making a little pool of water appearing is a spell which exists in the universe so the act of creating it is still something the character does, not the player. Cause and effect is in the domain of the characters.

>>49129682
Yeah, that's absolutely fine. Just like characters who have luck as a stat or power and KNOW IT IN-UNIVERSE.

That's different because then I'm still thinking as my character.

>>49126189
wait, what did he make after Houses of the Blooded? Because what you are describing does not fit that game at all

>>49130414
7th Sea 2nd edition, probably. I don't know much about it, just skimmed chargen once.
Character generation does say you shouldn't be trying to be a villain or thinking like a villain and if you are, you need to remake your character.
I suppose the GM rules could say if a player become a villain in play, they''re now an NPC because villains are what the GM does or some such, but that's just me guessing.