T w e n t y S i d e d
Now the question is: If the players attack the wrong guys and prevail, do they get XP?
Apologies for the late comic, I got pickpocketed by the ocean and lost my phone. If I begin posting anything particularly oceanic just assume that the crabs got it.
(That isn’t actually why the comic is late, I’m just hoping it’s distracting enough that you’ll forget. I did drop my phone in the ocean.)
MMO Population Problems
Computers keep getting more powerful. So why do the population caps for massively multiplayer games stay about the same?
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Borderlands Series
A look at the main Borderlands games. What works, what doesn't, and where the series can go from here.
Lost Laughs in Leisure Suit Larry
Why was this classic adventure game so funny in the 80's, and why did it stop being funny?
Charging More for a Worse Product
No, game prices don't "need" to go up. That's not how supply and demand works. Instead, the publishers need to be smarter about where they spend their money.
RPGs really bring out the fun in friendly fire incidents.
I love how this comment works regardless of which kind of RPG you’re referring to.
Somewhat tangentially, this reminds me of when I hung out on the GitP forums, and a guy called John_Dahl would occasionally post the most ridiculous stories from their games. Their, let’s call it “style”, was extremely black box, the sort of “you didn’t say you were looking up” sort of thing. But on top of that, their players also seemed terminally incapable of learning from experience, and one of them would abandon the others at the drop of the hat (and then be rewarded for it by not losing levels and looting their bodies later). This lead to things like them posting the only ever campaign journal for the Red Hand of Doom module I’ve ever read that ended in failure. Because they didn’t tell the players what the module was about, or possibly even that it was a module instead of whatever quasi-sandbox random stuff they normally did.
I think when they got to the city defense they had completed zero objectives, and if it wasn’t literally defending a city I’m quite sure they would have run the battle as the comic suggests, not telling the players who’s on what side causing them to immediately kill their own guys.
There are times no amount of GM warnings will suffice.
Example: in one of my games half the party got into melee with a creature. Another player (heavy) decided to fire long burst from the HMG right into melee. Confirming it three times, despite being informed hits will be randomised between characters in said melee and rest of the party protesting vehemently.
As Nuffle was in good mood that day, the result was two party tanks brought back from the brink of death, and a slightly irritated creature finished off by someone else.
That being said, players are always free to make their mistakes. And take on the consequences, including friendly fire.
That reminds me of Fallout 2 whenever I forgot to take Marcus’ minigun away from him…
Or the fact that in our Deadlands game, the party doctor has been wounded more often by our sniper than by the enemy. (And he gets wounded lot as, despite being a gunslinger, he spends almost as much time in melee as the Samurai does).
To be fair at this point she wasn’t so much making a mistake as going “to hell with consequences”. Also, in the past you at least once let me actually roll for aim and with a good roll I hit enemies only. Admittedly the combat was much less intense, the enemies had solid numerical advantage and the weapon I was using was much less volatile (both physically and metaphysically).
Aye, but that’s the bit of a difference between a precise psychic power or a carefully aimed single shot and a long, indiscriminate burst :)