I guess that me being a good dm is true because I am always asked to DM. In this essay, I will illustrate my experience and knowledge of how to dm as far as I'm concerned. In so doing, I desire to assist you, our new would-be [players and] characters.
All I can say is "Welcome to heaven". Robowars is a game where anything is possible, any desire can be achieved, any goal can be fulfilled. The restrictions of all other role playing games do not apply here, but they are a great foundation. TSR's Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was the very first role playing game I ever encountered. The game has a very strict set of rules and a well defined manner of playing. This constituted my initial role playing experience and allowed me to hone skills as a DM.
I still play D&D to this day and enjoy such an excellent game, and by no means [has] D&D [been] the only role playing game that I have ever played, because I have played a large variety of other games, so large that I will not mention them all. As I have said before and will say again in this [essay], it will be to your benefit to have played other games. The unconfined freedoms that you will experience with Robowars are unimaginable. Anyone who has playing D&D or any other game can know the importance of one rule over another. Those who read the books incessantly have an advantage over less experienced players and Dm's [in D&D?].
For example: when a DM throws a monster at them, they know exactly what that monster can do, what it can have, what it doesn't have, and what it can't do. For the DM and his players this destroys a fine quality of this game, the unknown.
How? you may ask, are you able to keep suspense in a galaxy where your character can possibly determined all social interaction of each person in a the situation simply by his presence, and maybe your character can make any element by sheer thought? Robowars is the form for the unreal to become real, Better yet for the unreal to become believable.
Every role playing game I have encountered excluding this one has had a wealth of books and manuals, allwith a section on how to bring to life characters and their adversaries. We don't have this section for the reason that if you need this you should not yet be playing this game. No other game has ever reached the depths of realism that Robo has achieved.
You may say I feel this way, and due to the fact that I have contributed sections of the material to the making of this game. Well, if you are thinking that your wrong it solely due to the way my friends an I have set it up. [In other games] the reliance upon the players and the DM to the books is mutually shared. This is not so in RoboWars. We don't have a damage chart, we don't need one. If you're at the wrong end of most any weapon in Robowars the conclusion is readily apparent...you're dead! Why I feel a damage chart is unneeded is because I feel that it is unbelievable for a character to have any idea how damaged he or she is, or how much damage they can receive.
I have seen many characters in other games with four hit points left and then suddenly decided to run from their fray. In real life we don't have a hit point gauge on the back of our wrists. So this adds to the unknown which adds to believable, If I was shot and I had a hole in me and I wasn't very close to a hospital I would probably assume that I was going to die, wouldn't you?
Yes...we have things written down and limits for certain characters an items but by no means do we rely upon those limits to determine the outcome of one player character. For example see the pds on [the character] Jello.
For most of my life I have been quite poor. And nothing is for free as we know. Most games can cost a couple of hundred dollars to get a complete set of books. Robowars was made out of economic necessity and the unrealistic and burdensome chore of having to carry the books everywhere we wanted to play.
Most of the time playing the game has been in places that I did not have the time or ability to take out a book or books, and to refer to page 14 of the Damage Chart for the correct damage from my adversaries blow. Robowars was bred, from the need to be able to play a game on the move, And not have a wealth of reference material available to players or DMs aside from the imagination and logical conclusions.
Nothing is what it appears to be in Robowars. You could be talking to your character's best friend discussing how to overthrow the local government and find that some crafty Sudorphian has taken his body through possession and you would have no way of knowing. This adds the unknown which in turn adds to [believablity which makes] the game on a constant basis more playable.
Players always have to anticipate what they are doing and who they are with and how their NPCs are acting...because who knows? Maybe Garnac is lurking around the next corner. The need of the believability of NPCs is more than a little important. You could scare your PC if an NPC starts acting strange. (In some cases this has lead PC to kill the NPC for paranoid reasons!)
This leads directly into some of my DM-ing style. Never give your players all the answers. Always leave your players guessing, and never confirm their worst fears. DMs: this game is to be fun and enjoyable your players. [They will] respect you as their DM and wish for a fair game. Saddling a player character with unbeatable odds his first time out is unfair, [ed's note: Hey...that's how I DM! --Jed] and will ruin the major principles that his game is based on. [ed's note: hrmf!]
Providing a diversity of NPCs is essential. And those NPCs having an excellent rapport with those player characters is essential. You should make your life as the DM easy: have your player write down all the records on their NPC, but never disclose all of an NPCs information.
I find that my DM-ing never actually stops. What I mean by this is that when I start on a module, I'm usually asked out of the blue and totally caught off guard, and at the spur of the moment I come up with a module, and then the players and I play. What I mean by I never stop playing the game by no means I'm constantly engaged in module preparation, but at least two or three times a day I think of new twists to the plot that I have not yet pondered. When I say "new twists," I mean things that the characters have not yet encountered or thought of themselves, and may encounter at a later day.
Adding diversity to a player character is essential! You and I are changing constantly--why shouldn't they be doing the same? Most of them live in a universe that is so technologically advanced that they would be changing at a considerably higher rate than you and I are. So it is the job of the DM to provide diversity. In other words: add depth to all of the player character's abilities and add history! It is perfectly all right for a Player character to feel like he or she is the shit, the biggest the boldest the best, but what is terribly wrong is for a DM to tell him that he or she is not yet out of puberty, let them discover that themselves.
I rarely ever point out he obvious to my characters, if they miss what ever information there is it's their problem. I have never killed a character that was trying to solve a puzzle I set up. Ask any player that I have DMed, and they will tell you.
I set up complex an interwoven web of hard puzzles for them to solve. A DM needs to be able to understand that his players may never solve a puzzle and has to offer them either more clues or more help. Malicious DM's should be shot at point blank range and then banned...and then killed.. and most of all not played with! But by no means should a player ever feel that his DM won't kill him.
Diversity in a moduleis a must. There always needs to be something new. There should be no absolute endings in modules. Never let your players think for an instant they have finally killed their nemesis for the last time!
It is not completely up to the DM to make the NPCs diverse. The player better be doing something there, too! Emotional, philosophical, and physical effects of incurred damage should be maintained by a DM. More or less if you decide an effect and then remove the effect because your player wants you to change it you shouldn't, becuase you are no longer in control of what you are DMing.
What I have killed Player characters for is stupidity. There is no place for stupidity in this game. Killing a player character may be a benefit to a Player if he or she has put a lot of time into a character. They may learn not to do such a foolish thing next time. [Evil chuckle...--ed]
One rule of thumb that I live by as a DM is that all characters get three chances with their lives. When a character is about to die, I inform the character that he or she just fucked up and that one of his chances are up. After their three chances are gone I urge him or her that maybe it's time to NPC his or hers character or take their chances in the real world. In most cases by this time characters have achieved a high level of power in the game.
DM's: I must emphasize again this game is to have fun with, it is not to be vindictive! When you kill a players Character, you kill a part of your friend and a part of the game, you actually could hurt your friend. If you hurt your friends enough they won't want to play with you...I guarantee it! (I have had past experiences in this area.)
When is it time to NPC a character? This is a very good question that I have asked myself the best example that I can think of is: when your character is spending more time in meetingS than they would in real life. In other words: it is time to NPC a character when the responsibilities of that character far outweigh the time that he or she would be able to leave their home empire to go adventure in the cosmos.
here are many terrible foes to encounter. Most of them were actually never characters but pieces of my imagination, concocted to deal with very powerful player characters. These NPCs have been well explained in the game, the reason for them is that most player characters will not want to NPC their characters. This is where it is the job of the DM to provide terrible foes and less luck.
This should tell you why there are such powerful foes throughout the Robowars game! Most players enjoy this part of the game; quite frankly it's a lot of fun to DM! I do not recommend it to anyone who is beginning in this game... you must crawl before you walk, and you must walk before you run.
If you start out with a hierarchy characters in this game, you will play it for six months and most likely never play it again. But if you start out on the bottom and slowly work your way through the tech levels, you will provide yourself with the experience of the [Robowars] universe and you can get accustomed to your DM [and your DMing skills]. Furthermore, this will help you make a strong foundation for these higher level games.
A small explanation when I mean higher level games: I do not mean by experience that you can (tabulate)[cheat? Oh...cheat on "Experiene Points I bet --jed] through playing because we don't use this type of system. What I do mean [by experience] is [the] ability to deal with complex NPCs, PCs, their inner workings, and the rea of space you've selected in our galaxy map.
DM's: if you are just starting to play role-playing games you need help playing this game. Start slow an work out vast parts of your module first!
I hope [these] words that I have typed will help you in your Robowars experience. This [is the] game I love, and robowars is a great deal of fun. Enjoy!
. . . Jason Kashay, 1995