Question: Where can I find or how do I make tht list of 20 questions you talked abou tin the podcast?

Also, I have recent sucess with one player in particular who has gone out of his way to create this log book of past deeds done in our campaign so far. At first when I mentioned the game system (saga) he was reluctant. We had only played dnd and a few months back played a cybernet campaign. They all wanted to play the cybernet campaign but I felt the rules were unbalanced (Little did I know then) and I really really wanted to play starwars again. So we decided to run a session, and the players were instantly hooked, and the next session turned into two more turned into a full blown campaign. Anyways, we are deep into our campaign and now they players are starting to really interact with my npcs (funny voice and all) and im finding that it’s easier to envelope a character with npc dialog when it really affects them in a characters relation ship (Thier aunt is kidnapped or some one they knew from school is abducted) and suddenly with some background your able to hook the players into the npc. I find that its hard to do the first game maybe but as you develop it it becoems more and more easily able to do as you weave it into your story. I just thought I’d like to share that with you guys. Thanks!

I’ll see if I can find those 20 questions and post them.

Gerfunkle makes and interesting point that leads into what Dan was talking about switching systems.

I’m going to second the “World of Darkness” style game, as long as the players are on board with a darker modern game, because it really does bring out the roleplaying due to the focus of the game’s rules.

Also, I had an experience with a D&D group. My wife and I are pretty big into the roleplaying, and we were just doing our thing, not realizing the effect we were having on the group. Then we move away, and the group kind of degenerated. We were the role models and anchors into the roleplaying style and without us, the group fell back into their own style of kick-in-the-door style D&D.

That also brings about the brilliant concluding thesis: All groups are different, and each has a balance. Whether my wife and I was with that group or not, the game was still fun. The style of fun was different, but it shifts with the personal differences everyone brings to the group.

I’ve found that, when I GM, I adjust my game to what the players want. In a way, to give a metaphor, my players are the waves of the ocean, and I’m just going to surf along the biggest crest I can and do some tricks along the way.

One way that I’ve managed to both encourage character roleplaying among my players and award XP for roleplaying well was to adapt “Keys and Buyoffs” from Clinton R. Nixon’s Sweet20 (http://www.lawfulneutral.com/sweet20/xp.html). I re-named it Character Arcs in my own games, since that’s basically what it is: motivations, problems, connections, duties, and loyalties that determine which actions will earn XP for a character.

For example, if your character has the arc (or Key, in Clinton’s terminology) of “Ambition”, the character earns roleplaying XP awards whenever said character makes progress toward the goal of their ambitions, overcomes an obstacle or hurts someone in order to make progress toward it, or makes a major personal sacrifice to take a significant step toward the goal. The impact of the action taken determines the amount of XP awarded.

These character arcs can be completed for an XP reward, as well. Every Key has an associated Buyoff. When the player has decided that this particular motivation has been completed (the above character’s ambition has been realized), or the character’s values or outlook have changed, etc., the character may behave according to the Buyoff and receive an XP reward. The player is then free to choose a new character arc.

In the games in which I’ve used this system, I’ve found that the players would often be reminded of their character’s ambitions, values, and goals by having these on their character sheet, and when things began to bog down, plotwise, they would shake things up by acting on their chosen Keys. They liked getting the XP awards, and I didn’t have to justify why I was handing out roleplaying awards to one player and not another (always awkward, in my experience, even when the players are relatively indifferent about it).

I encountered another type of scam movie at my work. We get promotional copies of low budget movies that I really never look at. Some are Indie, some are art flicks, lots of B movies, and some soft porn. After listening to the episode I decided to see if we had anything that would count as a scam movie. Boy, did we ever. The most blatant ripoff was Batbabe: The Dark Nightie. Imagine Batman as a female stripper who fights the “Jerker” and sleeps with all the naughty criminals. The box to this movie proudly boasted that is had produced other hits such as Spiderbabe and Lord of the G-strings. Clearly even the porn industry is into the scam market.

@Sardel:
What? So you had never heard of Porn Wars?
Shaving Ryan’s Privates?!
And, coveted gem of trashartporn-enthusiasts internet-wide, “Edward Penishands”?!!
It’s a gigantic, thriving (and throbbing) industry! Name a decently successfull blockbuster, and I betcha there’s a porn/soft-porn rip-off out there, waiting for someone to lay his sweaty palms on. His one free sweaty palm, that is…

plot hooks and cliffhangers? sounds like radio drama