1.30 - Playing Characters and New Temptations

In this episode, I talk about my experience of playing a character in my own campaigns and Loz pops in to give us all an update and to tempt us with new releases. Welcome to the Mythras Matters Season 1 Episode 30 - Playing those characters and new temptations

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Combat Cards Review: https://youtu.be/eQiwO1BCMrc

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Transcript

In this episode, I talk about my experience of playing a character in my own campaigns and Loz pops in to give us all an update and to tempt us with new releases. Welcome to the Mythras Matters Season 1 Episode 30 - Playing those characters and new temptations

Hello and welcome to Mythras Matters, a podcast dedicated to the Mythras ruleset and all its supplements. As always, I’m your host, inwils, and welcome to November.

Clocks have probably all gone back an hour now and we are back to GMT time here in the UK. Darker morning but lighter evenings for a while. I really like the colours of autumn, the leaves on the trees although they do get a bit slippy once they hit the ground and get wet with rain.

We are currently back to playing the fantasy version of  Mythras with the characters progressing in a range of areas. If you haven't seen an episode recently, Hasra has discovered that he has a totem spirit looking after him, Cyrus has learnt a new spell and is still working on progressing in his order and Bartleby has risen in his religious order and has now gained access to more healing magic!

It's good to be back to the characters that we have been enjoying for a long period of time. One of the reasons I really like campaigns, rather than one-off adventures, is the way the characters progress. Not only do they get better spells and enhanced skills, they also develop their personalities. Since Hengist no longer plays in the campaign, Bartleby has become the longest-serving member of the party and I really like it when the players start to reminisce about past adventures. Does anyone remember when Hasra gained his Lump hefting skill!

In this episode, I'm going to be flying solo again. I actually keep a document full of ideas for when I have a solo content episode. This saves me from getting stressed out when no one has approached me to make an appearance on the podcast, or I fail my influence roll to try and persuade someone towards the microphone.

Remember, if you would like to contribute to the podcast then why not just drop me an email or message and let me know what you would like to cover. I am always looking for reviews or interviews with people. So if you are interested, you can email me at inwils@gmail.com or send me a message on the various forums I frequent. 

Also, if you want to skip to certain points within the podcast then I do add chapter markers for this.

Okay let's fill the episode - later Loz will pop in with some updates but first - all about me playing a character in my own campaign as well as GMing!

I always get quite anxious when a new player joins the group. I never know how they are going to fit in, whether their playing style fits the campaign or if they are going to get on with the rest of the group. Shortly after we had created characters for the new M-Space campaign, Longshanks decided to no longer play and left. This really left a problem within the composition of the group, since his character was not only the character with psionics but also the medic and doctor!

I felt that this was an important role within the group and, until I had a feel of how deadly the combat was, I needed to have medical support readily available for the characters. It was at this point that I decided to play a character within the campaign. I could have tried and found a new player in the group, but I have never liked inviting people and saying you have to play this sort of class/character. I always want everyone to have a choice. I can imagine that other more experienced GMs than myself might have gone with a different option. But, for me, I created a character and launched into the campaign. Perdi was created!

Perdi is essentially a medical robot. I wanted to use the robotics from the M-Space companion rules and felt that a robot with medical skills would be a perfect match for the group. Initially, she was going to be a floating droid type device similar to the interrogation droid that floats into the cell when Darth Vader wants to interrogate Princess Leia. However, I thought a floating robot might provide some conflict with her passive playing. For example, if there was a chasm to cross, the party could send Perdi across with the rope, rather than working out a different tactic. Or - Perdi just float up there and see what is in that window! As a robot she is there to serve but I didn't want her to be taken advantage of. Although the players sometimes joke about using her as a shield etc, I know that they are excellent players and would never actually do that! - well I hope!

Being a robot, Perdi can remain very quiet most of the time. She rarely interacts unless asked too and although she has a variety of skills, she would not volunteer using these unless asked by the players. This allows me as the GM to only say what actions she will do, roll her dice and possibly provide ideas when the party get stuck. I have always liked the Idea roll from Call of Cthulhu and playing a character within the group allows me to support the group with that type of roll.

The other really great thing about Perdi is that I get to role-play her! She has already adopted a style very similar to C3PO in star wars and everyone knows that she has a dislike for public recharging stations. In her words, you never know what you might catch from a public terminal. Although the majority of the time we refer to the characters by their surnames - Minsk, Hammond and Nueman, Perdi always refers to them by their first name. Rather like a fond aunt or grandma. This coupled with her hidden sarcasm and robotic thinking makes her such fun to play!

When we moved back to Mythras - I had the same issue with replacing a character. Hengist was the main tank of the group and really took the role of the front line fighter. Hasra has excellent skills for combat, but his armour means he is more of a supporter fighter or skirmisher. So I created another character, a tanky human known as Ulrich. Now, at this point, I'm not going to tell you all about him, since I know that the players sometimes listen to this podcast and I don't want to give anything away. I have to say I am very pleased with him as a character and will enjoy playing him in a passive way. There is definitely more to reveal about him in future adventures!

So, what do I think about playing a character in the campaign while I am also GMing? 

Well, first I enjoy creating characters and creating my own I have really started to understand the character creation procedure much better. 

In a similar way - I have to start to look at specials more in combat and really choose which ones to use in which situation. 

I also have a way to passively steer the party in a certain direction or help them when they are puzzled. 

Of course, I would prefer to have created and played both Perdi and Ulrich in a real campaign but as a dedicated GM the opportunity to do that is rare and far between.

If you get the opportunity ever, then do have a go at it. It certainly allows you the opportunity to see things from the players' point of view and to create characters that actually develop as the campaign progresses.

With Christmas approaching quickly, I invited Loz onto the podcast so he can tempt us with new releases that we can add to our Christmas lists!

Over to you Loz!

Updates from Loz: no transcript available

So many excellent things on the horizon, I'm going to have a very full list for both Black Friday and Christmas! The only difficulty I have is where to find the time to actually play and engage with all these rules and supplements.

You have probably noticed that when I am flying solo on these podcast episodes they are generally shorter than usual. But don't worry I'm not finishing here! I have got something else to chat about before I finish. I didn't mention it in the introduction, but I wanted to slot it in here as a bonus.

We have been exploring a new system within our gaming sessions that, after playtesting it for a while, have decided to stick with it. I thought I would share it with you and you can let me know your thoughts about our system and whether you have created anything similar for your own groups.

We are all aware of how precious luck points are. They can be used in so many ways that can result in anything from succeeding in a roll or bringing your character back from the brink of death.

The players in our group are well versed in using luck but I was not. As a GM I often thought that I would never use luck and never actually assign it to any monsters or NPCs. I had dabbled with the use of group luck rolls and had found these usable. When creating an encounter I would allocate a number of luck points to it that I could use at my discretion. Of course, as per the core rule book, I could not affect a dice roll that had already been changed by a luck roll but, apart from this, I really had no restrictions. I didn't ever want to remove the heroic nature of the encounters but at the same time wanted me, villains, to have the same chance of voiding death or making that skill roll as the players did.

After a while of using this method, I proposed a change that we have been playing for some time now that appears to be working very well.

At the start of a session, the party starts off with all their luck rolls and I as the GM start off with none. As soon as a player uses a luck roll then it is transferred to my pool for use throughout the session. So, the more they use luck the more I gain to be able to use. This really makes the players think before they use their luck not only because they have a limited number but also because the more they use the more I get to use against them. I use the combat cards to track my luck - I did a video about these that you can find on my YouTube channel - link in the show notes - placing them on my keyboard so I can see them throughout the game. I also use them to wave at the players when they are considering using luck so they can see what they will be giving to me as the GM.

The whole system is really working well at the moment. And I wonder what you thought about it?

And while you are thinking maybe you could help me with something. As the game reaches the last few minutes many luck points are spent. Although they are used well, it does mean that they know that the end of the session is close and the luck points will be replenished for the next session. This means that they use them and I get luck rolls to spend but there is no time to spend them - in my script there is a sad emoji.

So, should I be allowed to carry my luck over to the next session or should I just accept that this is what happens and allow the players to taunt those luck rolls at me knowing I will never get to use them?

Do let me know, interested in what other people do and how you have integrated luck into your games.

And that’s it, another episode of Mythras Matters completed. 

Don't forget you can check out all my content by following my YouTube channel and the campaign areas on World Anvil. I really appreciate your support and do check out the TapaTalk forums, there are some great people there sharing their ideas within the discussions.

So, until next time have a great month of gaming and I will chat again with you all in December

Until then I hope that all our opposed rolls succeed and provide you with a well-deserved special.

Thanks for listening cya - Bye!