Girl Interrupted:
Hey Evileeyore, enlighten me on why the 'rules behind the scenes' is a hard stop...
Blue Dwarf nailed a few points, but for me Number One is trust.
I don't know you, I don't trust you enough to roll dice unseen* for or 'against' me.
Beyond that, I like to see when the GM is making things more or less complicated† within
and outside of the rules, and that is 'impossible' when everything is obscured behind the GM's Screen. I mean at that point, as far as I'm concerned, we may as well be playing free form.
Now, that's just me. There are plenty here who are of the opposite opinion and would happily pile in on a game where all the mechanics and rolls are out of sight and they just focus on the rp. So have a blast. (Seriously, no sarcasm.)
Also, it's fine if you're not running a game for GURPS newbies, but newbies cannot learn a system if the only time they interact with it is during chargen, and you'll find while there are a lot of GURPS vets here, there are far more GURPS neophytes and newbies.
* Yes, I know rolls can be Fudged and Skewed. Don't remind me, if I'd have known that when I started gaming here 7 years ago
I never would have started gaming here. Luckily (?) I only found that out a few years into being here, by which time the GM for the game I've been in this whole time had earned my trust to know they let the die fall and play from the results. I don't join many games here as the premise has to surmount that initial dislike of not being able to trust die results. But as I mention above, that's a me thing.
† You can tell what a GM really gets into by what they focus on, and in GURPS that often gets expressed in how complicated they make the 'subsystem'. Frex, if a GM is using no optional rules for combat, no maps, and barely using penalties or bonuses in fights, but they've dug deep into Social Engineering for every social subsystem, bonus, penalty, reaction roll result... well, you can tell they're more interested in social conflict play than combat. So as a Player I'd know where to focus my energies and exps.
Also, if (for instance) my Character constantly misses rolls that should be 'pretty easy', I can see if the dice were just against me, or was the GM piling on every possible penalty.
Neither can be easily seen when that's all hidden away behind a GM screen.
quote:
... and do you think that's typical of Gurps players on RPOL?
On RPoL? I... don't know.
From my experience... there are plenty who barely interact with the system as it is, constantly forget rules, constantly forget penalties to their rolls, constantly even forget what skills are for what, so for them, yeah, never having to deal with that might be a blessing, or a curse. Depends on if the 'forgetfulness' is deliberate or not.
But on the flip side, I've seen what I take to be the average number of Gear Heads among the GM and Player base here, that is, the Players/GMs who like the crunch of the rules between their teeth. They might not want to let that go in play.
I'm of that camp. Sometimes I'm fine with letting the crunch go, I've done it before, but then it's for a game (and group) that brings enough to the table that I can let my preferences slide for the novelty of the campaign or the camaraderie of my fellows.
Girl Interrupted:
Well in that case, I guess I'll shelve the 'behind the scenes' stuff. I'm just trying to avoid those situations where the story/adventure/narrative takes a back seat and the game becomes a forum for discussion/hashing/squabbling about rules.
Well, even hiding the rules won't get rid of that. For that you need hard, fast, strict, and up front rules on cross-table talk. Let your potential Players know you won't put up with open discussion or questioning of the rules, and let the Players know that PM discussions with you are fine, like you'll listen to an appeal, but once you've ruled, that's it.*
I mean, even in a freeform system, you'll still get people arguing about how things went down, that's just the nature of "Bang! Bang! I shot you" and "Nuh-uh, you missed!"
* And with that you might get a Player who thinks the rules don't apply to them, this time, because of reasons.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:05, Tue 04 May 2021.