[TML] Gerrymandering, was Re: Threadjack Counties

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007, Timothy Little wrote:

> Richard Aiken wrote:
> > The only problem is . . . they may well starve to death before they
> > see any cash.  Considering how cash-poor most PC groups are to begin
> > with (at least, if the GM is doing his job properly).
>
> I don't see the GM's job as being to keep the players desperate.
> Players generally do enough entertaining and sometimes stupid things
> by themselves without adding external prodding.

I don't know about you, but I play RPGs so that I can have a
little escape from my everyday life and its worries--my everyday
life in which I can always make rent and eat, but everything else
can be a bit of an adventure in itself!  A game in which I'm just
one step ahead of my creditors?  Really really not my thing.  I
suppose this is why I frequently play high-status characters.
I've been in games where the ref did everything possible to keep
the characters broke and desperate, but never for very long.
That's...not fun, and 20 years ago when it was basically my life,
it really wasn't fun--at least now I can look back with nostalgia
on the days when I could get everything I owned in the back of a
car, even if I never want to be that broke again even in fantasy.

> I also think it soon looks rather strained to have PCs own and
> operate a starship worth tens of millions of credits, with
> highly variable revenues and expenses on the order of a couple
> hundred thousand credits per month, and yet somehow be
> consistently poor without actually going bankrupt and having
> their ship auctioned off.

I have to agree.  The problem with being really broke is that one
large infusion of money won't fix it--because there are so many
problems that have to be taken care of, things that have been
dealt with short-term but not really fixed, like health issues,
ship repairs, debts...

> > And - of course - this all assumes that the PCs didn't do
> > something that causes their coverage to be voided.  Like -
> > oh, I don't know - try to fake an emergency landing in order
> > to deliver a black market cargo . . . and goof it up.  :)
>
> Hehe, that does sound like a few PCs I've been acquainted with.
> The trouble is that their insanity and/or incompetence usually
> got them turned into ex-PCs in fairly short order, often
> managing to screw things up for everyone else as well.

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I try to cushion the smarter
PCs in my games against the ill effects of the bad behaviour of
a player who is really incompetent.  I can't always manage to
(and I can think of a recent, non-Traveller instance in which the
screw up was so spectacular it was downright impossible) but I
*try*.

Of course I usually try pretty hard to find those players a niche
where they can't make too much trouble, but some of the really
bad ones manage anyway.

~malfoy :)

****************************************************************
Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy)
ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness

"I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it
think we all bow down." --Christopher Morley