News and games

I have started a radio show with another player and buddy of mine, if you listen to my other podcast of the same title as this blog, you will know him as PlayerDave.  The link for the radio show (yep, it is a podcast and streaming online Tues. from 5 to 6 PST) is here.  Look for the show called Gamer Corps.

This does not mean we will stop with the RPG Rants and Raves podcast.  Yet, we might move it to one show every two weeks.  Or, just need to buckle down and get one done every week.  Keep you posted on that.

I have started up another Star Wars game, a KOTOR era game.  It is an interesting setting that allows for Jedi to walk in a larger gray area than anything in the Old Republic or New Republic settings.  I have also been ready the comic, at least the one with Zane Carrick in it, and liked it.  The game I am running started on the planet of Taris months after the events in the end of the first volume of those comics.  The Mandalorian War is in full swing and two players are working for opposite sides.  One is a Jedi and the other is a Mandalorian.  The part that has broken down was the Jedi has readily accepted the Mandalorian into the group.  The group of four, another Jedi who started a session late and a droid owned by one of the Jedi, are working along with this Mandalorian.  The player who sort of got the armor wearing warrior into the group isn't a big gamer, he did do me a service by letting the guy into the party.  Yet, when does that train of thought break down or possibly break a game?

This is something I have thought about several times, I think I might have brought it up on a podcast.  Not sure.  But, where is the line between bringing a party together that might be very divergent and having them stay as a group?

I think the best way to explain what I mean is with the above example compared to the next example.  In an earlier part of the Hackmaster/2nd ed. mash-up of the Temple, before we got there, I was running a druid.  Another friend had lost his character and created a female tiefling mage-using Hackmaster phobias.  The mage was afraid of druids.  He didn't realize it, since he had rolled this character up as a backup and just pulled the sheet out.  The actual encounter went smooth until the tiefling found out I was a druid.  She had a hatred of druids and turned herself around and left.  The character was played for less than five minutes.  He didn't try to do anything, he even said his character "just hates druids," and left it at that.

So, the two very different ways characters can react to each other.  The first example is someone who just wants the game to be played, doesn't care much for role playing, just wants to roll the dice and kill things.  The other one was a role playing situation that was a little to hard headed.

There is a middle ground that I prefer, yet both sides do have merit.

Which side do you fall under?