Taken from the XLG Forums, where the HSOTD game used to be hosted.
Okay, to all of my players:
To begin this mighty block of TL;DR, the way I work things is, the better you RP, the better I GM. So, that means detail, detail, detail. Make it interesting, don't just drop a 1-2 line post and expect me to write a few paragraphs for you. Simply put, I'm an arrogant bastard with a God complex and you lot are either going to shape up or ship out.
Ways to score points with me, and therefore earn a better overall gaming experience:
1) Remain in character at ALL TIMES. If you put a lot of disadvantages down, you'd better stick to them. Same with personality traits, if you're playing for me I've read your sheet at least 3 times and I know what I'm doing. So, if you end up in a situation where doing something totally out of character seems to give you a better chance of survival in your mind, and you end up actually breaking character, I'll find a creative way to punish you... And trust me, I can get VERY creative in punishing people.
On the flip side, I also have a strong tendency to reward people who remain stoically in character, despite being in situations where it would be better to not be.
2) Ask me questions. Feel free to inquire about the contents of a room, warehouse, alleyway, etc. Hell, ask me what the damn buildings are made of, if I didn't tell you in the first place. Characters with keen minds will find many clever ways to save ammunition and a hell of a lot of trouble. This also ties in to point #1, though. If your character is a stupid blockhead who barrels through everything shotgun first and he suddenly starts scrutinizing contents of a room and playing like some kind of strategist, I'll be suspicious. I tailor campaigns to your individual abilities, as in if you didn't build your character to be a social pariah who can make women drop their pantsu at the mere sight of him, then I'm not going to force you through rigorous social combat.
3) God-modding. This one is pretty much a given, but God-modding is a sure-fire way to send your character screaming into the depths of Hell, to be endlessly sodomized by... Ahem, God-modding is bad. God-modding is when you make an action, and then decide the outcome for yourself, as opposed to proposing it to me. Example:
Trenchcoater X: I whip out my double Desert Eagles and fire a single shot into the face of each onrushing zombie, blowing their brains out all over the wall.
Ye Olde and Frightening Elder God Rin-sama: As if by an act of God, your pistols jam up after the first shot, and since you were firing so fast, the second and third rounds cause the first to detonate. A chain reaction of miniature explosions causes the barrels and slides of both pistols to explode, rending the skin and muscle from your hands. The zombies are on you before you have time to even scream, and to your horror, the one that just bit your dongle off looks frighteningly like Alec Baldwin.
Good? Good.
4) The Awesome Rule: this game is kind of like the tabletop RPG Exalted!, in other words, the better you describe your actions, the more I like you, and when you do this, your post quality inherently improves and my responses will be better. Flesh your character out a little bit, show me what goes on inside his head, make him a bit more than just a gun that floats around like some stupid, mindless FPS game. Don't overdo it though. Example:
How not to do it: I shoot at the zombie's face.
How to do it: Rai whips his handgun up, sighting the onrushing zombie's face in between the tritium sights, and fires off two rounds of smoking hot lead, aiming directly for the notch in the zombie's crooked front teeth.
How to piss Rin off, and therefore earn your character a special visit by the newly created Fudgepacker special zombie: Rai, looking nothing like an eskimo but something more akin to a bronzed god without the feathered wings and toga, quite lazily but quickly raises his handgun, eyes like limpid tears on the face of the moon. He shoots his gun like the bow of the mighty Apollo, creating... *head explodes*
Pro tip for all of the above mentioned rules: generally the longer your post is, the better it is. Clearly differentiate your actions and dialogue (Quotation marks were created for a reason). Oh, and finally, please PLEASE double check your posts for spelling errors and missing punctuation. I don't want to have to run your post through Google Translator on the Idiot to English setting (which, for all we know, exists) just to find out that all you did was walk forward.
Well, I hope that was somewhat informative, and it didn't just serve to further cement your made-up image of me as a complete and total hatefulcunt into your minds. For those of you who are reading this and aren't one of my players, then you should try this with your own GMs, it would probably make their jobs a lot more enjoyable, much like it does to me.
And I'm totally not implying that any of you already do this. Totally not.
Okay, to all of my players:
To begin this mighty block of TL;DR, the way I work things is, the better you RP, the better I GM. So, that means detail, detail, detail. Make it interesting, don't just drop a 1-2 line post and expect me to write a few paragraphs for you. Simply put, I'm an arrogant bastard with a God complex and you lot are either going to shape up or ship out.
Ways to score points with me, and therefore earn a better overall gaming experience:
1) Remain in character at ALL TIMES. If you put a lot of disadvantages down, you'd better stick to them. Same with personality traits, if you're playing for me I've read your sheet at least 3 times and I know what I'm doing. So, if you end up in a situation where doing something totally out of character seems to give you a better chance of survival in your mind, and you end up actually breaking character, I'll find a creative way to punish you... And trust me, I can get VERY creative in punishing people.
On the flip side, I also have a strong tendency to reward people who remain stoically in character, despite being in situations where it would be better to not be.
2) Ask me questions. Feel free to inquire about the contents of a room, warehouse, alleyway, etc. Hell, ask me what the damn buildings are made of, if I didn't tell you in the first place. Characters with keen minds will find many clever ways to save ammunition and a hell of a lot of trouble. This also ties in to point #1, though. If your character is a stupid blockhead who barrels through everything shotgun first and he suddenly starts scrutinizing contents of a room and playing like some kind of strategist, I'll be suspicious. I tailor campaigns to your individual abilities, as in if you didn't build your character to be a social pariah who can make women drop their pantsu at the mere sight of him, then I'm not going to force you through rigorous social combat.
3) God-modding. This one is pretty much a given, but God-modding is a sure-fire way to send your character screaming into the depths of Hell, to be endlessly sodomized by... Ahem, God-modding is bad. God-modding is when you make an action, and then decide the outcome for yourself, as opposed to proposing it to me. Example:
Trenchcoater X: I whip out my double Desert Eagles and fire a single shot into the face of each onrushing zombie, blowing their brains out all over the wall.
Ye Olde and Frightening Elder God Rin-sama: As if by an act of God, your pistols jam up after the first shot, and since you were firing so fast, the second and third rounds cause the first to detonate. A chain reaction of miniature explosions causes the barrels and slides of both pistols to explode, rending the skin and muscle from your hands. The zombies are on you before you have time to even scream, and to your horror, the one that just bit your dongle off looks frighteningly like Alec Baldwin.
Good? Good.
4) The Awesome Rule: this game is kind of like the tabletop RPG Exalted!, in other words, the better you describe your actions, the more I like you, and when you do this, your post quality inherently improves and my responses will be better. Flesh your character out a little bit, show me what goes on inside his head, make him a bit more than just a gun that floats around like some stupid, mindless FPS game. Don't overdo it though. Example:
How not to do it: I shoot at the zombie's face.
How to do it: Rai whips his handgun up, sighting the onrushing zombie's face in between the tritium sights, and fires off two rounds of smoking hot lead, aiming directly for the notch in the zombie's crooked front teeth.
How to piss Rin off, and therefore earn your character a special visit by the newly created Fudgepacker special zombie: Rai, looking nothing like an eskimo but something more akin to a bronzed god without the feathered wings and toga, quite lazily but quickly raises his handgun, eyes like limpid tears on the face of the moon. He shoots his gun like the bow of the mighty Apollo, creating... *head explodes*
Pro tip for all of the above mentioned rules: generally the longer your post is, the better it is. Clearly differentiate your actions and dialogue (Quotation marks were created for a reason). Oh, and finally, please PLEASE double check your posts for spelling errors and missing punctuation. I don't want to have to run your post through Google Translator on the Idiot to English setting (which, for all we know, exists) just to find out that all you did was walk forward.
Well, I hope that was somewhat informative, and it didn't just serve to further cement your made-up image of me as a complete and total hatefulcunt into your minds. For those of you who are reading this and aren't one of my players, then you should try this with your own GMs, it would probably make their jobs a lot more enjoyable, much like it does to me.
And I'm totally not implying that any of you already do this. Totally not.
