Mishler game Tuesday?/Game commentary

Heard yesterday that James Mishler might actually make an appearance at Tuesday's game session. I have been looking forward to playing Friar Pudge and Twidorek again in his Gary's Greyhawk campaign. In addition, the other players really want to play Traveller. So I'd have to make a character. Not sure how much I want to when character creation takes longer than Palladium. If I could use Mongoose Traveller (MT) instead of Classic, I wouldn't mind. As I own a copy of MT, I could make a character on my own at my leisure. Granted that's all based on hearsay. In all likelihood we will play Mike's Rifts game unless James shows up and is prepared to run a game.

Which leads me to my commentary on the two pick up games that have occured on Tuesday in lieu of one Mishler's games.

Jayson's 3.5 D&D campaign
Honestly, I don't feel fully comfortable offering my thoughts on the campaign as whole as I have basically joined during the middle of it. Therefore, my comments would be a little unfair as I don't have the "full story". I will comment that I enjoyed last week's session. Even though my character only had one big moment which, in itself, is a bit minor. Basically, my dwarf fighter, Ebert, was disgusted by the lack of both beer and ale at a party. He decided to forgo alcohol for water because of his disgust. Other than that all three players were involved in the session.

Mike's Rifts game
And this is why my commentary has been delayed...

I really enjoyed the two sessions of the Rifts campaign that I played in. It felt like Rifts to me. Despite the lack of combat, Mike has woven two entertaining game sessions using the Rifts RPG. My problem is that I would have to write the rambling blog essay about several key points without sounding negative. No problem. But then I couldn't figure out how to write to those essays. Then I came upon the idea of the mammoth entry. I hit upon doing a likes/dislikes bit. Unfortunately, right around that time, I realized something. I was willing to forgo this Tuesday's Rifts session in order to watch the Watchmen movie. Watching Watchmen wound up not being a problem at all.

But still the idea nagged me.

Mike's Rifts game is a pick up game intended to run with little preparation. Many of the faults I find with the game stem from that. Alas, that is not the problem. Because I know that not much prep time is going into the game, I can accept that. Heck, I consider those faults to have little consequence as I enjoy the game despite them. I am sure I'd like the game even if our characters left Alliance and wondered aimlessly...

Now I understand what bothers me. Its not the game. I enjoyed both sessions. Heck, it was only after the last session that I began to have negative feelings. After the session two weeks ago. As in when experience was awarded. From my history with RPG's, experience awards are vital to long-term games. So what was my problem with the experience award?

A player that barely played received two hundred less experience points than those that actively participated. Now, that wouldn't be too much of a problem except that thePalladium system experience awards correlates with involvement. The more involved a PC is the more likely that character will receive more xp. Or at least that's my interpretation. So one PC received two hundred less xp than my character. I played my character in such a way that it made sense that he, Dirk, was involved. Dirk had no motivation to actually do anything. Let alone with the other PCs. I had to figure out that motivation myself. In the process, my character, Dirk, helped move things along. Otherwise, our characters would have left Alliance. What then? Don't know. Would there be a future for the game? Maybe.

That in a nutshell is my problem with Mike's game. If XP won't be commensurate with the contributions, then I have no motivation to be involved. That's a problem with a character with Anarchist as an alignment. They are hard to involve. Since the character is a Mystic, combat alone won't cut it. So experience points are deciding factor on whether or not I continue to play. In a Palladium game, Experience based on individual merits matter to me especially when one player doesn't do much of anything.

Sorry Mike.