Home Again, Home Again, Jiggidy Jig.

Dateline: 09/17/97

I'm glad that's over.

That's right. I've finally found a roosting place after that long, long hiatus -- the quick version: along with the preparations for the wedding and wedding itself (and a private mail order project that was disturbed by the UPS strike), my wife defended her dissertation (becoming a Ph.D.), we packed up everything we both owned, drove almost 2000 miles, picked up more furniture along the way, searched for a place to move into, waited for the phone to be activated so we could get hooked up with an ISP, and then wind up with the wrong software disk from said ISP (Which apparently never has happened before according to a drone at that ISP. Yeah, right, and I'm Matthew Broderick.)...

In the upcoming week, I'll be posting capsule reviews of previously printed Shadowrun sourcebooks. Links will be available through the Shadowrun Bookstore (or whatever I've called it. I'm typing this up while the postal service should be delivering the correct disk with the Win95 software and dail-up instructions so I can check out the site). These sourcebook updates will be posted as I get them done during the week. You won't have to wait until next Wednesday to get them.

So until next week!

Oh what the hell, here's an actual bit of entertainment so you won't have just a page of "What's going on with Thomas?":

It could be titled How I Handle Players Using Knowledge That Their Characters Don't Have, but that's a bit longish. How about

Stupid PC Tricks

Back when I played AD&D, there was an annoying character in the adventuring party. And a bit of an annoying player too. His character would hide in the back whenever a fight took place, then steal what he could. But the worse thing about the player was he'd use knowledge his character wouldn't have to save his character's bacon.

The setting: A temple with bad guys around it, our guys come in to clear the temple. Two things to note about this structure -- there's a sniper on the roof and there's a back door to the temple, covered by a wall hanging.

The PC in question manages to sneak around to the back of the building (scouting, he says; neatly avoiding any conflict, everyone else says) while the others take care of the bad guys and go into the temple to dispatch the antagonist of this adventure. The villain is dead just as the PC gets to the back door. The PC shouts out, "Don't shoot guys, it's just me," as he opens the door.

The player was using three pieces of information the character didn't have:
1. The other PCs were inside, with weapons drawn and ready.
2. The combat inside was over (otherwise he would have snuck in). and
3. There was a drapery over the door.

Unfortunately for him, he forgot the most important piece of information:
4. There was a sniper on the roof.

This is how it played out:

Player: "Don't shoot guys, it's me."
GM: Hey, there's a dark shadow from overhead.
Player: I look up.
GM: It's a stone gargoyle falling right on top of you!
Player: I roll out of the way. [picks up dice]
GM: No you don't.

Ever since then, his most-used phrase was "But I wouldn't know that".

Heh.

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