OOC Nonsense

In all seriousness, though, I want to make clear that I am in awe of Spinach's deft touch as GM. His (really hope I'm not misgendering) handling of this crazy campaign is what I would pretty much call the gold standard. He knows exactly when to let us spew insanity and when to tighten the reins just enough to make us spew in a better direction. And what he did today (yesterday for some) was absolutely incredible.

Hear hear!!

Am I the only one who has noticed how spectacularly bad Darcy is under pressure? I mean she's standing there with a phaser rifle trained on the alien when force field is up, and when it goes down, she manages to not fire a single shot while he bounds halfway across the cargo bay at Cass!

Well, the choices I had were either:
a) Have the NPC shoot the enemy and resolve the situation
or
b) Let the PCs do the interesting bits with the NPCs acting only as support

Looking at those options, I prefer the one that leads to one PC getting an acid shower.
But yeah, I could have written more about how she's taking a shot as well but since Kendall already had that covered, I skipped over that and only mentioned her when she helped Moira.

You should talk to my IRL group, though. Making all my NPCs appear useless is what I do best...
Just pretend she was doing helpful stuff the whole time xD

She could've at least shot and missed! :D

I just let my PCs run the NPCs and then stop them if they are doing something he/she wouldnt do, or interject if the NPC would know something they wouldn't. I have enough crap to manage! Wouldn't work as well for PbP though...my weakness seems to be having a monster/baddie do the cool thing they're designed to do.

Oh here's an alligator! He tries to grab you and do a death roll. Nat 2. Aaaand he's dead before he gets to act again.
Look out a tiny demon witch that can turn invisible and summon other creatures! She starts her monologue, and then one PC beats her in initiative and casts lip stitch. Ok...well she can't do anything now but fly away. Every single one of her spells has a verbal component.

I could go on and on.

Well, at the other end of that spectrum, we have the DM of the one and only Roll20 game I once played in, who wholeheartedly believed that HE was telling a story and the players were just tools to help him express his vision. He regularly complained that we were too powerful whenever we succeeded at anything and would do all sorts of punitive stuff to us in fits of pique. I gritted my teeth to finish that campaign because we had a hard end date and I didn't want to create drama by flouncing. In the final confrontation with the big boss, he had another NPC (kind of a mirror universe "good" version of the big boss) engage in direct combat with the boss while the PCs were on the sidelines throwing magic and crossbow bolts. The NPC ended up killing the boss and dying in the process.

Moonbeam: I know. I overlooked it. Just pretend she did, really well!

kona: I know the feeling. The Silence spell is the bane of my existence

^

I've read so many of these stories and I guess I'm a bit overcompensating by letting the NPCs take too much of a backseat sometimes. I'm worse in IRL games because I already have so much to juggle that I often end up forgetting about/ignoring the NPCs.
I'll try to be better about it at least here in PBP where I can take all the time I need

Please understand that I am in no way complaining about your GMing. I was just laughing at the fact that the first officer arguably had one job in that scenario and managed not to do it. Just a point-and-laugh at the character moment, not a bad-GM moment. :)

Q: What is Cass' least favorite fashion fad right now?

A: Acid-washed denim.

Please Cass. Before you pass out. Transfer the captain's chair to Moira XD

Oh gosh she's so worried for tha bonny lass....

At this point, she might be more inclined to transfer it to Kendall! :D

You know what?

Fair. XD

Moonbeam, i just realized. In the campaign DM'ed by spinach, im trying to keep you alive. In the campaign dm'ed by me, spinach is trying to keep you alive. I feel like maybe your dice roller is broken, or youve angered RNGsus.

Moonbeam!!! I'm now officially concerned for your health in 78's upcoming campaign.....

ROFLMAO. I'm just going to leap straight to conspiracy theory. You're all trying to kill me.

OMG, I forgot about that one. I may need to leave GP entirely!

Your next character in whatever system needs to have an extremee paranoia of death, a constant fear that its right around the corners and the gods are conspiring against them. They wear the biggest hardest suit of armour they can find, and always carry four or five medkits.

I love breaking the fourth wall haha

And don't worry, Moonbeam. The Council apparently wants my character to be collateral damage. I may buy you some time XD