What makes John Wick a bad game designer?
Too adversarial.
>>44895222
His complete unwillingness to accept constructive criticism.
>>44895222
he isn't real
>>44895222
Somebody killed his dog.
>>44895222
I had to make sure I didn't accidentally click /v
>>44895444
Anon, John Wick is the name of a game designer, though he's probably most famous for being the smug cunt who wrote "Play Dirty" the definitive guide to being That GM.
People on /tg/ have been making jokes about the names being the same since the movie came out.
He basically wrote a guide on how to be "that GM".
>>44895588
>People on /tg/ have been making jokes about the names being the same since the movie came out.
Really? I haven't seen them.
He's unwilling to comprise. He's the kind of person who would advise anyone who's having any issues with their play group to just up and quit.
Another way to put it is he has a very specific and narrow world view, and if you stray outside it then fuck you
>>44895444
Wouldn't that be /tv/ not /v/?
>>44895222
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/graveyard/26912082/images/1377858602708.pdf
Open this. Go to page 5. Start reading about him using disadvantages and advantages against people. Now, continue reading until you get to the bottom of page 12. Read about "Immunity".
Congratulations, now you know the sort of mind that John Wick has, which should answer your question!
>>44898011
Okay so tell me if I get this straight.
He takes heroes that are immune to disease.
He makes a disease that bypasses their immunity, somehow.
And then declares that the CURE doesn't work because of the immunity?
That's some really idiotic way to rocksfall on people.
>>44898011
That's all terrible.
And the writing is horrible.
>>44898197
Yeah. You're correct.
John Wick is a That DM who can't stop masturbating over his own cleverness and how he tricks his own players.
Someone have "The Project Aegis", AKA Hick can't writes a mecha focused game to save his pathetic life"?
>>44898011
Now add in his my way or the highway attitude where he'll actively tell his audience to fuck off and the fact that his head is lodged so far up his ass about his narrativist views.
>>44898011
Jesus Christ what an awful piece of writing. It fucking rambles on and on forever, like a bad handjob that just won't end.
In chapter 1 he even misquotes & misremembers Star Wars. How the fuck do you misquote & misremember Star Wars?
What kills me about chapter 0 (besides the retarded disease thing) is that he doesn't once explain how his villains are finding out this shit about the characters. It's like they just read the character sheets straight up. Come on, at least contrive a reason for the villains to know that Aunt May is related to Spider-Man. Keeping secret weaknesses secret is a big part of superhero comics. And how the fuck is it legit to force a character with the "lucky" trait out of the frying pan and into the fire? The whole point of "lucky" is to let you GTFO when you're fucked.
> Chapter 11
> The Thief-Paladin
What the actual fuck is this I don't even.
At least it's not Vincent Baker.
Just kidding, he's actually a pretty cool guy IMO. Baker, not Wick.
>>44898690
>is that he doesn't once explain how his villains are finding out this shit about the characters.
BBEG is super mega genius that owns everybody on both hero and villain sides.
Totally not masturbatory.
>>44898746
ILL FIGT U M...
Oh, well carry on then
>>44898772
I saw that part, but that just begs the question. If you're a superhero do you go and tell the guy you work for "Hi, I'm immune to disease," or "Hi, Janet is my aunt please make sure nothing happens to her", or "Hi, I have a crippling fear of trains and trams"? I have to imagine his PCs weren't that retarded and so he just handwaved the bad guys finding out.
>>44898825
I don't agree with everything he says but his basic ideas are pretty good, and he's actually not a pretentious douche in a lot of ways, like 90% of game designers are.
>>44899102
Jokes aside I dont disagree with you. I have not read any of his interviews but alot of his work can come off as really pretentious. Stuff like Poison'd and kill puppies for satan is shit in my book. But dogs in the vineyard and the MC section of apocaplyse world really got me interested in ttrpgs again. For me the MC stuff opened my eyes to how exciting it is to be a GM if you change your focus when running games. For all the flaws he likely has I will always appreciate him for getting me excited in the hobby again.
>>44899102
On a side note are their any other game designers that you would recommend?
>>44898011
>Read about "Immunity".
Wait, I don't get it. Why would someone who is immune to diseases need a cure for one, even if they're immune to it?
Does this game work differently than, say, a paladin's immunity to disease in D&D?
>>44899746
No, it's exactly like if the GM in D&D says "your paladin dies of super AIDS"
>>44898011
Why? For what purpose?
>>44900117
Wanking.
>>44900083
Fuck this guy, then. Holy shit. The ability to kill characters is either for tough-but-fair dungeon crawls or to make people actually give a shit about their characters.
>>44895222
I've RPed with him twice as GM, and basically it's that he's deeply uncomfortable with the concept of player choice.
He wants you to make pre-made characters with pre-made backstories with "advice" on how to RP them written on sheets he hands you and play through a railroaded game at the pre-approved plot points he's already thought up, and when you go off the rails he punishes you for not following his storyline as he imagined it beforehand.
That's why in so many of his games there are optional character creation choices that are objectively much worse and why there's so many "extra stuff" that's not for PC's and only for powerful NPC's; these are options that are "wrong" for the type of characters he wants you to play, so instead of removing the options entirely he passive-aggressively punishes you for it if you pick them.
>>44900460
But can he handle the bantz?
>>44895222
He shitpostes?
>>44898984
The first and second one are things you would do, since you're being directly employed AS a superhero. Telling your boss "Hey. I'm immune to illness, so if we have a biological weapon situation, I'm your guy" and the latter can be handled anywhere from "Here's the address you can send my checks to" to "Here's my next of kin on the company insurance forms" to "Sorry sir, I can't make EVENT X, my grandmother is going into surgery."
It's also implied the character has some form of telepathy, as it's stated he's a meta-human, with the ability to 'manipulate the minds' of others.
So it's not a big asspull.
Honestly, I think this is not solely John Wick's fault, but a couple of factors:
Firstly, I don't think many of us bother to actually read the book fully. Specifically, the cover, which points out that these are tips on how to be a GM "your players will love to hate."
John Wick's problem is he got popular by being THAT GM in ways just clever and involved enough for his players to enjoy it. So he's come to the conclusion that MANY players will enjoy such games
Further, he openly notes at the start that he finds his own advice in the book humorous or cringe-worthy.
Now, having read some of his other stuff, I can tell you he never really loses the "I'm smarter than the average player" tone. which does make him an ass.
But I think we over-play how Play Dirty was meant to be taken. It's him relating how he was an asshole, but his players enjoyed it.
>>44899491
I like Ville "Burger" Vuorela and his blog. Seems to be laid back guy whenever I've met him in cons, and has some stuff to say about games and creating them.
>>44900460
Surely there is a storytime there anon.
>>44895777
Than you haven't been to any thread about Wick. I don't think there's been a mention of him since the movie came out that wasn't immediately responded to with some variation of "they killed his dog".
>>44898564
God, that game's like a fucking thesis about the importance of letting an editor see your product BEFORE releasing it. Wick's become so certain of his own game-design genius that he doesn't see the need to do that. Or if he does, he's got a real fucking shitty editor because you'd think SOMEONE who's read The Aegis Forge would've commented on any one of the innumerable issues with it, some of which are literally game breaking (that's right, Wick released a game which, RAW, CANNOT BE PLAYED as critical rules are missing from it. Ladies and gentlemen, game design genius!)
>>44901238
What rules are missing?
>>44895222
He had a few very good ideas, was highly decorated from them, and let it go so far to his head that he's certain of his brilliance even though since then he's been releasing nothing but shittier and shittier variations on the exact same idea that got him gold in the first place.
He's the M. Night Shamayay of RPG writers.
>>44900961
Not really much to tell.
The first was a game of L5R, the other was a game of 7th Sea. I don't believe he recognized me the second time (it was a convention thing he GMed me at), and nothing especially bad happened to me personally during the games because I saw right away what he wanted; it was other people who suffered his bullshit.
It wasn't particularly fun though; the characters he made for us weren't very interesting, weren't well-made, and had backstories he seemed to think were cool but were fairly average in quality.
I enjoyed his enthusiasm, but his execution and ideas of GMing are not for me and a few of the other players didn't seem to like it very much either.
>>44900793
Being the GM your players "love to hate" means the difficulties you throw at them are challenging but fair and, if they succeed, rewarding. Satisfying when you win and educational when you fail.
A GM that I would "love to hate" would make me feel like I was playing Demon's Souls. A GM that I would just flat-out hate would make me feel like I was playing SNES Aladdin.
>>44901443
> SNES Aladdin
Or an even worse example I just thought of:NES Battletoads
>>44898011
>>44898197
>>44899746
Is there actually any clarification to the immunity bit? 'cause I read it as 'the only problem *with the disease* was all those super fellows who bought
Immunity were, well, immune to it.'
>>44901522
The super chaps were vulnerable to the disease by virtue of being super, even if they were immune to disease as their super ability.
And then that super ability made them immune to the cure.
>>44901577
Huh, that wasn't how I read it at all. Also since when was a cure to something a poison?
>>44901616
Since it helped Wick establish intellectual dominance over his Stockholm syndrome ridden players
>>44901522
That's...a potential reading.
However, it's an unorthodox one. Generally in English, indefinite pronouns refer to the last/next potential target noun. So it's more intuitive, and likely, that the "it" refers to the cure, meaning the superheroes were immune to the cure.
>>44901616
>Since when was a cure a poison.
Pretty much all the damn time. Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy are basically the medical world saying "If we pump you full of poison, the sick parts SHOULD die FIRST."
Digitalis is a common cure for heart problems, and, if the dose is tripled, an effective poison.
Vaccines are just the disease in question, weakened so your body can defeat it on Easy mode, so it doesn't have trouble on Normal difficulty.
We used hemlock as an early anesthesia, as well as opium and mandrake.
One diabetes medicine is based off of Gila monster venoms.
Caffeine, Nicotine, and Alcohol are all poisons, just with relatively high OD50s.
Seriously, any compound that makes your body not work in the normal way is technically a toxin.
The whole situation would have made more sense if he set it up that the "disease" was a type of microscopic parasite (not expressly blocked by the immunity) but the cure was a low-grade toxin that killed the parasite while not harming the host, but that the immune characters' systems just refused to process the toxin.
>>44901812
>Pretty much all the damn time
>triple the dose
Everything is poison if you take too much of it.
Everything.
>>44901812
It's not the immune character that would have needed to process the toxin in the first place. The parasite would have died to the toxin, leaving the host free of it and immune to the toxin.
They could have literally pumped him full of the toxin to kill the parasite.
>>44901812
>The whole situation would have made more sense if he set it up that the "disease" was a type of microscopic parasite (not expressly blocked by the immunity) but the cure was a low-grade toxin that killed the parasite while not harming the host, but that the immune characters' systems just refused to process the toxin.
Still a pure rocksfall just to wank his "super strong GM" cred.
>>44901872
Technically true, but also mildly irrelevant.
There are plenty of compounds that are functionally impossible to reach that level of critical mass.
As two not-at-all divisive examples: To overdose on vitamin C, you would literally need to have IVs pumping it into you at high concentration. Because otherwise your body would just piss it out before it could harm you.
And the toxic effects of marijuana would require you to fill your area with enough smoke that you'd die of suffocation before any sort of toxic effect.
The difference in Digitalis, on the other hand, is actually much narrower than I claimed, with a 5-23% chance that the dosage required to have any medical effect on you is also enough to cause intoxication. Accidentally taking two pills in the same 12 hour span is enough to cause adverse reactions.
>>44901948
It depends on how the toxin and parasite work. The cure might require interaction with the subject's physiological systems. Remember as well that the intended goal wasn't to make a super-effective cure, but a super-effective cure that COULDN'T help a certain subset of the population. If I know the parasite only resides in the bloodstream, destroying healthy cells, I make the cure an ingestible tablet, claiming it needs to be processed by the patient's liver in order to properly integrate with their system. The immune hero's liver refuses to process it, and boom, I have an easy excuse to avoid it, and I swear that my teams are working to make a better cure in the future.
>>44902235
I minorly disagree: it's definitely a dick move, but it's the kind of dick move that a villain in-universe would come up with. The idea of Lex Luthor finding a way to give Superman cancer isn't just believable, it's one of the best regarded Superman stories of all time.
But improperly handled, it definitely comes across as a rocks-fall ass-pull.
>>44895588
>"Play Dirty"
>That GM.
pick one faget
>>44901343
I mean that sounds like a regular con game with the pregens though.
>>44902394
It is an objective rocksfall at specific character. He first ignored the character's power and second denied attempts to save him anyway, with reason for denial being his own power as an extra dick move on top.
>>44902434
Both, lad.
>>44902538
It was how he GMed it.
If you ever acted with that character out of character, he punished you.
If you ever acted outside of his pre-planned plot, he punished you.
If he ever decided to give you special attention, it was to punish you somehow.
>>44902735
Kinky.
>>44902735
> "Don't be noticed: the game"
It sounds like working in a massive bureaucracy.
>>44902538
>>44902735
if you only GM con games, it will cause your personality/style to change. while it gives you all the freedom of a one-shot, it removes any concept of long term player agency. makes the advice they give very limited in scope as there is never any consideration for what the players "want" so much as what will cause the game to move forward and eventually end.
con game/one shot mentality creates a very short sighted gm/writer.
Everyone giving Wick shit for telling them how to GM is a retard. Sure, he writes poorly and hasn't done anything good since L5R 1st, but his point is that the GM has the power to do anything they want and that character sheets don't matter if the GM doesn't want them to.
>>44903061
Sup Wick.
>>44903061
> his point is the GM [can do whatever the fuck they want]
Yes, and that's terrible because a tabletop RPG is ultimately a cooperative experience between the players and the GM. All the humans at the table are supposed to be, deep down, cooperating to have a good time.
>>44903061
And that's exactly why he's a shit.
>>44903173
What's interesting--and I'm not disagreeing with you, I'll say that off the bat--is that I'm not sure this was always the case. At least not in practice.
Recall that tabletop gaming largely sprang out of the wargaming scene (most overtly and infamously with Gygax and Arneson); the Gamemaster is there to moderate between opponents and interface with the rules.
Tabletop roleplaying, though, positions GM as both moderator AND opponent at the same time.
Since then, obviously, our perception of what a GM is and should be has shifted but I for one don't find the adversarial attitude of a lot of GM's surprising. I get where it comes from.
>>44903262
you're right. the view of the GM has become more plural; the GM is not necessarily just adversary or friend. both are end members of a diverse spectrum. i think wick's issue, which is a common issue across the board (see Zak S) is believing your way is the only/best way.
>>44895222
He's That Guy behind a GM Screen. I'm OK with using the characters disadvantages against them, but not exploiting them in the way he describes it. He conducts his games as giant Deus Ex Machina where things happens just because he says so, no matter what the PCs do. A group can face great perils and fail, and it would be OK if they feel the could have done something about it. But that asshole doesn't care. He only needs players because he wants to hear how great he is.
That's not storytelling. And it's not roleplay. It's a farce. It's drama with the sound of meaningless dice rolls.
Somebody must point him the definition of conflict and consequences 'cause those words don't mean what he thinks.
Worst of all, he's gonna get an ego boost this year with the new 7th sea.
Fuck him.
>>44899308
>kill puppies for satan is shit in my book.
No
>>44903262
I disagree that it comes from wargaming. When you are playing a wargame against an opponent, you are, in a sense, cooperating with them as well. At least you can be said to have a number of agreements in place: agreements about the capabilities of individual units, order of turns, legal moves, etc. etc. obtained from the wargame manual, plus the implied social agreements of not throwing punches if you lose or breaking the other guy's stuff. Hell, a lot of wargamers today play for the fun of seeing what happens when they do move X or field unit Y, not winning or losing.
I think the real adversarial GM-vs-Players relationship comes when you try to be original. A tabletop wargamer cannot pull rules out of their ass; the rules are in a book and both players should know the book. At best they could conceal the rules of a unit but this is generally frowned upon; if your wargame opponent asks "what can unit X do?" you are expected to answer or point him to the book where the rules are located.
On the other hand when you are developing a new RPG the rules are up to you. And when you are GMing in the early days of RPGs, where monster manuals were few, your players might demand originality, stuff they hadn't seen before. And in those cases you would just make shit up.
So when you hear about stories from Ye Olden Days of Dungeons And Dragonnes, you hear about the bullshit monsters that "killer DMs" would bring out and how they broke what were at the time the rules, it makes sense, because those early DMs were trying to come up with fresh meat for their players. Character knowledge and player knowledge weren't separate things back then; when your PC died and you made a new character your new guy was played with all of the knowledge you learned in the previous life.
But we're not in that dark age any more. RPGs are more like cooperative wargames.
As a GM my job is to make the players trust me. My job is to understand my players and to make everyone entertained. My experience is that when everyone is there to entertain each other (including the players doing their best to entertain each other as well as the GM and not just focusing on their own entertainment and actually trusting everyone else to entertain) it turns out the best for everyone. Sure success is just the easiest tool to use but even failure and missery has to be entertaining.
The rule zero is there so that system mechanics, dice results and setting won't limit the entertainment, to point out that they're just suggestions and sources of inspiration.
If people are not there to entertain each othet then what point is there to even play with each other?
>>44903637
>wargames
Rick Priestley and the boys of original warhammer fame was all about that cooperative entertainment, making things up together, putting trust in each other to make sure everyone is there to have fun together.
D&D though have gone out of its way to not be like that. D&D, and its like, have done its very best to avoid having to trust the fellow players, the group, and instead pushed the whole "trust the published material". Which is a great business move, buy the material and trust that blindly instead of your fellow players. Which also makes it gather a certain crowd, not unlike what we can see in the tournament scene in many wargames (unlike the more original cooperative experience hobby core of the miniature wargaming scene).
A GM's one job is to provide an enjoyable story for the players. Thus, Wick is right and the GM is God.
If players want to play a sandbox setting they should specify that before the campaign starts or just stick to fucking video games.
If the way you RP is combat heavy then you're not really RPing and the GM is just a guy who rolls dice for the bad guys and maybe reads some italic text. If you're actually real life roleplaying then it's story-driven and the GM should take the initiative so that the story pans out.
>>44900793
>But I think we over-play how Play Dirty was meant to be taken. It's him relating how he was an asshole, but his players enjoyed it.
But that's the thing, we only have his word people enjoyed it. From people who have actually played with him, you get a much different story, where his 'cleverness' was just saying no until they got on the train and were railroaded into his super-genius villain trap.
>>44904059
I always assumed this is a given, unless a DM is an asshole. Wick seems to be That GM, because he revels in how he can fuck with the players. This is not a healthy attitude.
>>44903061
>his point is that the GM has the power to do anything they want and that character sheets don't matter if the GM doesn't want them to.
If the character sheets don't matter, why are we using them? Just because the GM can disregard rules when they want to doesn't mean they should. The fact that he advocates barefaced invalidation of player abilities and *always* punishing players for taking flaws is what makes him a bad GM.
If you want to play adversarial DM and use opponents intelligently and really push the players - you do it entirely within the rules. Otherwise it's just wankery. If the DM says 'XYZ happens and you die,' You're just covering 'DM says you die' with a layer of bullshit.
>>44903061
>but his point is that the GM has the power to do anything they want and that character sheets don't matter if the GM doesn't want them to.
But that's wrong you fucking retard. There's a line you don't cross. That Immunity story is a perfect example of the line being crossed.
Oh but he's the GM, if he doesn't like that trait then he can say fuck that shit. Okay, and if I'm the player, I think it's a far better solution to be up front as a GM and say "Nah, we're houseruling that power out." What Wick suggests is setting the stage for Player vs GM. What he suggests is that you utterly ruin your players chances at having fun and throw any chance of developing a mutual trust out the window.
I don't know about you, but if my GM was doing sketchy shit like that, I'd respond by throwing sketchy shit back at him. I'd go full "That Guy", and make a brokenly overpowered piece of shit with an indomitable will. I mean hey, it's fair to play dirty, isn't it?
>>44895222
His games.
>>44904059
>/tg/ - Traditional Games
>Traditional Games
>Games
>GAMES
We're here to play games. Of course you need a (good) story, but if you can't handle your players going off of your rails and decide to punish them for it, you're a shit GM and should stick to writing bad fanfictions.
breaking the rules when GMing is all about trust. If I as a player trust my GM to move the story in an enjoyable direction, he is free to break the rules until such a point as he loses that trust. Once that trust is lost, I will fight him with rules, and should conflict continue Rule Zero will inevitably fall pray to Rule Negative One: The GM's word means nothing if he has no players.
Reading Wick's writings and general philosophy, it is immediately apparent he is not deserving of trust.
Nobody in this thread would bitch if a DM fudged dice rolls to save characters.
>>44905709
There's a difference between fudging a roll to save a character and outright saying "Your disease immunity doesn't work because this disease targets the genetic mutation that causes your immunity. Oh but somehow your immunity makes you immune to the cure but not the disease. I'm the GM, I say so."
>>44904383
I think that's more a later thing.
Like, the guy got popular enough to be known in the industry and consulted and asked to write articles on GM advice.
It's just that, like many artists, once he got popular enough, he thought he was beyond critique. So over time he turned into a rail-roading jackass.
>>44905709
Shrug. I don't think either way (fudging to challenge players vs fudging to support players) is particularly impressive, nor is either way notably bad. The trick is to ensure you're doing it in the right amounts, for the right reasons. In Wick's stories, it often seems like he's in it to PUNISH the player, not challenge them. Personally, I think the immunity example is nothing compared to the bullshit he spits in the Lucky section. "I see you've used your ability that explicitly moves you away from harm. Let's have it fuck you in the ass."
>>44906299
>Personally, I think the immunity example is nothing compared to the bullshit he spits in the Lucky section. "I see you've used your ability that explicitly moves you away from harm. Let's have it fuck you in the ass."
I'd say they're both equally bad. Both punish the player for playing the game as intended (which is to say, not the way Mr Wick seems to find "fun").
>>44897936
Payday 2, a popular /v/shit grind game, has a tie-in where you play as John Wick from the movie.
>>44903607
It came off as extremely lazy to me. I mean its rules lite sure but there is nothing of substance in the whole thing. What do you like about it?
>>44904059
I smell railroad.
>>44901238
>critical rules are missing from it
Holy shit it's racial holy war all over again
>>44902983
To an extent sure but its not usualy as bad as wick
>>44903338
I haven't read his rpgs but holy shit does zak s have shitty art
>>44902434
>pick one faget
John Wick.
>>44905709
I would.
>>44898011
>First, as I've said before, the Champions game was a unique circumstance. It was an Iron Man environment (who can make it longest at John's game). It also followed on the heels of me running Call of Cthulhu for a year. I was dared to run a game like Champions where "it's impossible to kill characters." You'll also note that the only character I "killed" in those examples was the last one and only because the player requested it. The "I kill characters" comment was meant as an ironic statement and a lot of folks missed that. I don't kill a lot of characters.
>>44910028
Maybe by a literal definition of kill, but render unplayable? He does that a lot.
>>44895222
Because moats of his games have fun ideas but only focuses on beuracracy?
Once had to have him escorted away from a game I was running at a con.
He came up, introduced himself then told me exactly how I was running a game wrong and how the players would cause trouble for others later on. When I told him that his input was not needed, he went into a long winded rant before I called in trouble on the walkies.
If you are in here John, go fuck yourself.
trivia.
Matt Wilson, the guy who wrote page 5 and who co-designed WarMaHordes, hates Wick's guts from their old L5R days.
he did a piece of art that said Wick no Baka in the art 'gana.
>>44905709
I would and have. If I fucked up, I want the consequences. I ran through an entire campaign where the DM would bend reality to save my character, so I intentionally did more and more suicidal things just to see how far he would bend.
And do you know why? Because I wanted to know that I could fail. The sweetness of success is measured by the risk of failure.
The question here is what made L5R and 7th Sea work. Is Wick a shitty GM but a better designer, or were they just flukes?
>>44911799
Trick question, they dont.
>>44911799
7th Sea worked?
>>44911799
Other people were involved to filter Wick, before he was enough of a big name to just run everything on pure ego..
>>44911799
Fluke and also he was reigned in by other people too.
His solo projects lack from anyone telling him shit is dumb or nonsensical or is missing coverage.
So then you get his solo projects like Aegis Project or the Harry Potter knockoff which have bad editing and have missing rules, his playstyle leaking into how run the games, and bad crunch.
>>44912061
It's more playable than say Aegis project which has rules that are missing. All I had to do is ignore Char gen costs to make everyone beefy so as to be heroic.
>>44912114
That seems to be fairly comen
Especialy in film
>>44910489
Thanks for sharing, anon. He sounds like a total prick in real life as well as his writing.
By the way, for those of you still defending John Wick, here are some other examples of the bullshit he pulls in-game:
>drugging a character and then forcing him to beat his own girlfriend to an inch of her life
>forced characters to one-shot-kill villains if they rolled high enough for damage, then charged them with murder
>punishing player A's character because player B got distracted at the table
>outright stating that 'if there is nothing in the rules that says you can't do something, you can' and using that as a justification to ignore the rules of the game completely and arbitrarily decide whether a character succeeds or fails, or what dice they get to roll
He's a complete dick and his advice is some of the worst I have ever seen.
>>44913128
See >>44910028. Play Dirty is a collection of shorter works relating to a game where a) it is really hard to permanently kill PCs, and b) everyone in the game had just seen Wick run CoC, and was there to see just how he could find ways around that.
In any case, that was 1999. Even Wick doesn't agree with everything he's done there. If you're looking for Wickian advice that doesn't coincide with piles of exceptions, find a copy of Silence Within Sound - one of the early GM guides for L5R. Advice there sounds more like, "When you're considering a curse, ask yourself: Will it be fun for the player? [...] they can ruin a player's good time, and that's not what being a GM is about."
>>44914150
Bad advice is still bad, and justifying it though context doesn't work when it's intended as general advice that transcends said context. If John Wick was saying "Hey, my group made overpowered characters in a supers game and I had to find ways to challenge them, these are some of the nastier tricks I pulled on them", that might justify some of what he's saying. Unfortunately that's not the case, and to be honest we never get the sense from the book that ANY of the characters were overpowered. Heck, Wick himself states that his favourite character (aside from his villain that he describes at length, of course) was a really low-powered simple hero with no significant advantages or disadvantages.
On the subject of killing characters, as >>44910028 mentioned how Wick never killed characters, he instead opted to neuter them. One character had their super strength (and ability to act at a normal human level) taken away by turning his skeleton into jelly. Another had all their emotions taken away, negating their empathy power. One math genius had that ability explicitly destroyed. He also had a player's character sit in prison with a life sentence, no option of parole, and needled him every single turn by asking him what his character did, refusing to kill him and instead more or less torturing the player by excluding him from the game until he forfeited.
Forcing a player to sit at the table and preventing them from taking meaningful actions while provoking them repeatedly is bad GMing, sir, and if you disagree then we have nothing more to say to each other.
>>44914909
Depending on how long the game took and how long it was meant to take, I feel like I might've stayed at the table out of spite, fiddling with my phone or otherwise flagrantly showing lack of interest, responding to John's "What does your character do?" with bored "Nothing"s for as long as either of us would be able to stand it. He said his challenge was to kill off our characters. He failed to kill mine. By his bizarre standards which place those achievements over having fun at the table, I won.
>>44915169
Congrats, you've sunk to his level and succeeded in not having fun. The correct response when a GM is a bitch like Wick is to tell him to fuck off, leave, and spend your time doing something you enjoy.
>>44915207
That's why I said "depending on how long the game took and how long it was meant to take". I won't spend months on doing this, but if it's for a con game taking an hour, and I haven't signed up for any other one (and assuming I didn't know I was signing up to be tortured by entering Wick's game) making a show out of it might be worth showing him at his own (literal) game.
>>44915254
>>44915169
In those circumstances I would do the same. Also painstakingly ask about changes in status of every single interactable item in reach and in sight from the cell.
John Wick made a game, Houses of the Blooded, that had an elaborate dueling system... that was missing important rules.
It also had one character be the attacker and one be the defender, but a starting character doesn't have the 'Defend' move and the rules contained no information on what happens if you get in a fight and you don't have a defender.
Someone on his forums asked "What if both characters discard formality and go on an all-out attack on each other?"
"Nope, that's not allowed to happen." says John Wick, despite it being extremely in-character for the setting he created.
>>44914909
Dude. I know a guy who runs games like this. Makes you sit there while other people play. His name's Steven and he is a fucking dick.
>>44901238
>>44912133
>>44915554
So, missing rules is a perennial problem with him?
>>44897911
I think he posts here...
>>44915648
It's a relatively well known fact. He even did so as himself a few times, talking in the first person about how he "had" to become the GM he is because otherwise his players would "completely ruin the game" or something equally autistic.
>>44914909
I already have nothing to say to you, but not because of any imagined agreement or disagreement as seen on your part.
>>44897911
Autistic to the max, then.
>>44898011
This is the most pretentious piece of tabletop guidery I have seen in my life. Jesus christ.
>>44915254
Thing is, you have to ask for something like Play Dirty. Which is why it's relevant that it came off the back of a Call Of Cthulhu campaign where Wick was GMing it straight, and was then given a challenge to do the same thing in a game that restricts the GM's ability to do so.
>>44916021
>and was then given a challenge to do the same thing in a game that restricts the GM's ability to do so.
Well, he failed the challenge.
He did the immunity guy in by violating the rules as written.
All the "lol you berserk and do a thing your character will never forgive himself for" examples too.
>>44916040
*All the "lol you berserk and do a thing your character will never forgive himself for" examples are shitty cheapshots too.
>>44903061
Wick is a peculiar person. His Gming style is very particular, and yet he speaks of it as though it's the best thing ever since sliced bread: that's why we're giving him shit. Because he is shit who thinks he's hot shit.
>>44897911
Wait a minute, what's wrong with quitting if you're not a good fit for a group?
>>44916086
Step 1 is talking about the issues you have. Always.
Quitting is backup plan if talking fails to resolve anything.
>>44916094
Well, talking it out about minor problems you have should be obvious. I just meant that if you're just not having fun because you're looking for a fundamentally different experience than what your group wants. Lame compromises are dumb.
He sounds unpleasant, and I don't think I'd ever game with him given the opportunity.
>>44916146
I agree with this sentiment.
>>44916117
>Well, talking it out about minor problems you have should be obvious
It surprisingly often isn't. And also often there isn't the big fundamental irrevocable issue, but a growing ball of minor things.
Even in cases of fundamental disagreement it helps to talk out, maybe the other players also grew tired of the style they were running but kept at it out of habit (if it's a long term group you have).
And if you end up quitting, doing the talk beforehand will smooth out the exit.
Lastly, by itself, the quintessential advice in there is the "no game is better than a bad game" adage, which isn't bad.
It's just that wrapped in context of everything else Wick does, it's highly probable he warped the advice into an autismally bad form.
>>44916181
Ah, I see what you mean now. I'm used to playing online where a group that I stay in is a perfect group anyways, because all the others I leave very quickly and notify the GM that I'm leaving at least a week ahead of time. To me no game is better than a mediocre game, and a bad game can at least make for fun stories.
>>44905296
Anon, it's not so clear cut. You are touching on age old debate Roll Playing Games vs Role Playing Games and honestly, after much consideration, people just should play how the fuck they want, but they should tell that to other members of the group beforhand.
>Guys, I want to DM a campaign with su much crunch, every action your character makes will be like solving a fucking sudoku puzzle, there will be a story but please go bananas if you wish. We are here for fun after all!
>Guys, I want to DM an atmospheric campaign about perils of human existance in dehumanizing world of grim dark future that would refer to existencialism and objectivism and such. There will be a bit of rolling, but we are here to create a wonderfull, tear jerking, soul binding story, right? So please, make characters that will be willing to follow the story and won't go ape shit bananas and force it into a sandbox.
Both are equally good, but all of the players (and DM) need to be on the same boat
>>44916249
Indeed. Not the one who you're replying to, but Wick is shit because he is a pretentious faggot who thinks his way of doing things is the best and should be the only way.
>>44916249
In the case of the grimdark game, wouldn't you just pick a system that helped enhance the philosophical themes being aimed for?
The game is about whatever the rules are about, otherwise you're just using the rules as an excuse instead of actually playing that game.
>>44915557
I don't know him, but here goes:
FUCK YOU, STEVE YOU A SHIT!
A SHIT!
>>44911047
I've done this in a lot of recent RPGs, mainly because it's impossible to lose, so why not just do crazy shit?
>>44898197
Oh wait, I have heard of this guy before.
>>44902835
>don't be noticed the game
Sounds like a interesting one-shot.
>>44895222
*sigh* John Wick's not a goddamn game designer. He's the guy you hire to KILL a goddamn game designer.
>>44916818
>Wick vs. Wick
>Katana vs. Pistol
>Wick appears to lose, until Wick tries to taunt him but doesn't bow deeply enough, sending Wick into zen satori swordsman mode
>>44912061
7th Sea actually works pretty well, you just need to increase the points characters get to start with and it's golden. It was also a team effort, so it wasn't Just Wick masturbating over how clever he is and how shit his players are.
>>44916249
Neither crunch nor story justifies Wick's bullshit, and it is fun on neither level. Wick bends or ignores rules to annihilate his players abilities and self worth if they won't play by his own unstated rules.
>>44916818
>>44916873
John Wick plays a con game run by John Wick. What happens?
>>44917048
John Wick gives his character a loyal dog as part of his backstory. John Wick then kills that dog because it didn't fit in with his vision of the character and plot. There were no survivors.
>>44917048
Playing with himself is all John Wick does.
>>44917068
>There were no survivors
....OOC.
>>44917100
What else?
>>44917147
IC, maybe.
>>44916459
>>44915557
Wait, are we talking about Steven "Tits and Leprosy" Lumpkin?
>>44917191
With the Wicks? Unlikely.
>>44905266
/thread
No seriously why did this take so long?
>>44914150
The thing is 1e L5R is dripping with dares for the GM. I have never seen someone write 'double-edged sword' or 'a clever GM' so many times in a work. It was saying, "If you don't take your player's choices and fuck use those choices to fuck them up the ass, you're a dumb guy and bad GM."
He thinks the role of the GM is to be an opponent, and that they should twist everything available (including the rules) so they could be the greatest opponent possible. In doing so, they make everything come down to their own fiat, because they are both opponent and God and rewrite reality as they see fit.
>>44902835
John Wick tells stories of that time he had a character imprisoned, and the player kept showing up to sessions even though their character was just sitting in a cell day after day, session after session, because they knew if they abandoned the character another player would be brought in to replace them from the long waiting list of people desperate for John Wick's game.
>>44919804
Sounds like quite the martyr. Each day he shows up, knowing the suffering he'll endure, but he goes willingly, knowing if he doesn't his tormentor will claim a fresh victim.
>>44920463
He's the hero we need.
>>44919804
Anansi clapped his hands. "What a great story Mr. Wick," he said. "I believe it with all my heart."
>>44922419
Spider? Is that you? Didn't you end up as a cook or something after marrying Charlie's girlfriend?
>>44922792
It's a joke about one of the original Anansi myths. (His lying contest with moth, fly, and mosquito)
>>44923103
I actually didn't know that. Thanks.
How does it relate to John Wick?
>>44925458
It was a lying contest, with the winner being whomever believes the lies to be true. I think it's a long way of saying "That's bullshit but I believe it." Why he chose Anansi I'll never know.
If you were wondering, Anansi wins by saying he owns the other participants as property. If they speak up, they lose, and he gets to eat them. If they don't, they confess to him being their owner, and he gets to eat them at his leisure.
>>44902394
>And the toxic effects of marijuana
WEED, BRO
WEEEEEEEEEEEED
>>44902394
>mildly irrelevant
No it isn't you idiot.
The argument is that an immunity to toxins or diseases doesn't make sense if it's just flat-out rejection of anything that could potentially be toxic if taken at a higher dose (say, that low-grade toxin you mentioned).
It's only logically possible to have an immunity like that if it doesn't reject anything below a dose necessary for an adverse effect.
God damn you are dumb.
