Today's comic

[Narf the Mouse]

Now that is an evil grin.

[Illusionist]

Or whatever one Andy Capp uses...

Don't quote me on it, but I think he's either Scouse, Geordie or Cockney.

[Thunderhowl]

Alina, you have to make that bumper sticker and put it in your store.
Seriously.

[Tom the Fanboy]

I can't see it. None of the computers I've tried have been able to pull up http://www.weregeek.com
I'm very sad right now.

[Xaq]

Never fear, Tom... we're switching to a new host, so as soon as the DNS propagates, you should have no troubles getting into the site.

[Tom the Fanboy]

Yay! I can see the comic!

I hate game breaks like that! "So... oh yeah, I was being screwed by the bad guys."

I can't see what would come of it but I'm somewhat suspicious of Joel handing Mark that towel. He's got a shifty look in his eyes........

[Lunaroki]

I dunno Tom. I think it's just your imagination. Joel just looks empathetic to me, a rather atypical look for him but nothing suspicious.

[Narf the Mouse]

It's just that 'empathic' and 'Joel' don't go together.

[Lunaroki]

Never mind Joel. I'm worried that Abbie and Dustin might carry their little spat in-game with them.

[Narf the Mouse]

It doesn't seem that serious and they have a history of teasing each other.

[Lunaroki]

"You're totally not allowed to rescue me anymore."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!

Oh dear. I think Simon just fell in love. ^,^

[Narf the Mouse]

...Pyrhric(sp?) rescue?

[Thanatos5150]

That drone is made of Awesome! The way it talks!
"Hello."
"Lets. Play. A. Game."
"You.Missed."
"My. Turn. Now."

The period after every word is beautiful.

[Tom the Fanboy]

I really liked the like bit of cyber-arm we can see through the tear in Aeon's jacket.

[Tom the Fanboy]

Oh hey, I've seen this before. The old GM tool of "No I won't let you just roll your Charisma, role play it!".
Classic!

The only thing worse than making an introverted gamer try and roleplay a suave lady's man or a hip, mysterious woman is asking a knucklehead hack and slasher to role play his character's high intelligence. I knew people that refused to play Int based classes because of this, the decided to never play a character that had to be smarter than themselves.

[Lunaroki]

*grin* I currently RP a character who is largely clueless about everyday things, but she has a paradoxically firm grasp of more advanced concepts. If you want to explain something simple to her the easiest way to get through to her is to make the explanation as complicated and technical as possible.

[Punstarr]

Oh hey, I've seen this before. The old GM tool of "No I won't let you just roll your Charisma, role play it!".
Classic!

The only thing worse than making an introverted gamer try and roleplay a suave lady's man or a hip, mysterious woman is asking a knucklehead hack and slasher to role play his character's high intelligence. I knew people that refused to play Int based classes because of this, the decided to never play a character that had to be smarter than themselves.

Yeah, I hate that. GMs should cut people some slack. Like in a White-Wolf game, if I play a character with a high Manipulation or Charisma, I expect the GM to realize that while I will RP my character, that character's words will be far more eloquent and swaying than I could ever hope to portray.

[Tom the Fanboy]

Yeah, I hate that. GMs should cut people some slack. Like in a White-Wolf game, if I play a character with a high Manipulation or Charisma, I expect the GM to realize that while I will RP my character, that character's words will be far more eloquent and swaying than I could ever hope to portray.

One of the middle roads I had a DM take was that you could rely on the dice for NPCs but you had to actually role play convincing the other players. This works out pretty well because if you FORCE someone to believe you in game they're going to find ways around it out of game. This is particularly true in Vampire. This DM was running D&D though and you are much more likely to work together in that than you are in most of the games White Wolf makes.

I usually will make the player try an argument so I can see what direction they're trying to steer things and what tactic they're using, then give them the roll. If they're really good at it but still try and blackmail a guy who never gives in to blackmail for some reason, then they'll still fail. If they try and seduce a girl and have high App and seduction, if she's a lesbian she'll still ignore you.
It's never ALL in the dice...

[Thunderhowl]

I've found that Tom's system only works when the players actually play their low social stats, which few do. It works great when everyone plays their sheet.
I've played in many LARPs where the low trait characters who have persuasive players tend to run the games because they, not their characters, are smooth talking hipsters.
It's refreshing to see players who make a real effort to play their stats. CHA is the dump stat after all!
Take a look at Tom's character in the D&D thread. He's kind of an odious jerk while Tom's a pretty cool guy, or xaq's character Karth in the Rifts thread. Karth's kind of blunt and harsh, but xaq's a cool dude who I've seen play smooth-talkin' politicians.

As long as everyone stays honest, even if it screws them over, the game is better. I remember a Vampire LARP scene I was in where the Anarchs were planning some nefarious plan and were practically weeping out of character because an Obfuscated Archon was in the room grinning and taking notes on our plan. Sure, we could have cheated and changed the subject to safer topics until he left out of boredom, but we were planning when he snuck into the room, and so, since we didn't know he was there in character, we forged on ahead and TOTALLY screwed ourselves. It was kinda fun embellishing our plans for the worse once we saw how much fun he was having nailing our coffins shut.

[Xaq]

I have no problems with players using their social stats by rolling the dice... the thing I can't stand is when a player wants to completely avoid any sort of interaction in the first person with their fellow players and/or GM, and rely exclusively on dice rolls. Participating in a roleplaying game is supposed to be a social activity... hence ROLEPLAYING game. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

GM: Ok, the cop comes up to you guys: "What's going on here? What are you kids doing out here so late?"

Player: My character uses his Con skill and tries to deceive the cop into believing that we're on our way home from a movie and that we don't know anything. *Rolls dice*

You see what I mean? Instead of responding by roleplaying their character, the player imediately jumps to the dice roll. This sort of thing drives me crazy. I don't expect the player to be able to give me an actually convincing story, as if they themselves had a Con skill (which is what Tom is talking about, I believe)... but I DO expect the player to at least engage with their GM and fellow players, and ROLEPLAY. Example of the right way to do it:

GM: OK, the cop comes up to you guys: "What's going on here? What are you kids doing out here so late?"

Player: "Um... we were just on our way home from a movie, officer! Why, what's going on? Err... We heard some noises but we didn't see anything..." (a short exchange between the cop and the PCs ensues) Ok, I'm going to roll my Con skill to see if the cop is buying my story. *Rolls dice*