In spite of the fact that I have little experience running
*Traveller*, here's my general FRP gaming rules...
1. GMs and players incapable of maintaing civilized adult
interpersonal interactions under *all* circumstances need
not apply. The fact that one is playing a game doesn't
excuse one adopting a dismal standard of behavior (although
the way certain people on this list have been going on
lately, I'm not sure I'd want to interact with them outside
the gaming environment either (1/2 :-)).
2. GMs and players without a healthy or better sense of humor
need not apply either. This is important enough to rate
rule #2 by itself.
3. The GM and players are meeting to work together at having
fun. Anybody who's not trying hard to have fun and to help
everybody else in the room have fun should go away.
Corollary: nobody "wins" at an FRP game. Or everybody
does. The (real-life) competition is against boredom and
ennui, not against each other.
4. One only buys the rules to help keep the gaming company in
business, and thus producing other useful gaming materials.
One should, in fact, ignore or change the rules at any
plausible opportunity. Last I checked, we're doing fantasy,
not rule-playing. This rule will only work if the GM and
most of the players are reasonable people. See rules 1-3
above.
5. Roleplay, roleplay, roleplay. If one has trouble
roleplaying, one should pick a character so far from one's
own self image that one *has* to roleplay to play at all.
The GM must be a roleplayer par excellence.
6. No fewer than 3 players (excluding GM), no more than 6.
These numbers are completely empirical, and the *very best*
groupings can probably get away with 7 players, while lame
groupings should have no more than 4, if they choose to
play at all.
7. Always try to find a convenient resolution (in the music-
theoretical sense) within 3-4 hours of the start of the
gaming session. People's brains can't take more continuous
gaming than that. (Of course, second and even third
sessions are both permissible and encouraged, but the group
should resolve things quite a bit and take at least a
half-hour break first.) Again, these numbers are empirical,
but highly recommended.
Thanks much for an interesting exercise -- the process of
formalizing and ordering these rules really helped me see what
I've been doing. Major flames, anyone?
Bart Massey
[email removed]