Game Wish 52

Game Wish 52: Your Robin Laws Type

Robin Laws identifies several types of gamer in his book of GM tips: The Power Gamer, the Butt-Kicker, the Tactician, the Specialist (plays one type only), the Method Actor, the Storyteller (plot and pacing fan), and the Casual Gamer. Which of these types do you think you are, and why? Most people aren't pure types, so multiple choices are OK.

Like a lot of people, I'm a mix of more than one of them. I think I'm more of a Storyteller than anything else. Plot and pacing matter a lot to me, especially as I currently GM as much as I play. I've never been much of a munchkin^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hPower-Gamer, which I attribute to not discovering RPGing until my twenties, and I not really into deep immersion enough to be a Method Actor, at least face-to-face. Of course, there's no room for method acting when GMing! I'm certainly not a Specialist, since the character's I've most enjoyed have been a real mix of types.

I've got a bit of Butt-Kicker and Tactician in me; good fight scenes can be entertaining provided they don't get bogged down in too much fiddly detail (For instance, I much prefer GURPS basic to Advanced Combat), and it helps to have some sort of plan even if I get bored spending the whole session planning.

On-line it's a different story, and I become a bit more of a Method Actor, and the Tactician in me vanishes completely. I remember one combat scene in my first on-line game, where the traditional RPG combat of dice, minatures, maps and hit-points vanished, to be replaced by a sense of sheer terror as my cyberpunk technican was confronted by heavily-armed ninjas who's ambushed us in the hotel, and I was convinced my character was going to die. In both that game and another I wrote long surreal posts detailing what my character was dreaming about, something I'd never do face-to-face.