First of all I should introduce myself. I'm GM Bob. I've explained all of this to Goodhometownboy when it all went down last February, but considering the fact that it's been brought up in here I'll explain myself once again.
It's true what he said about having 2 seperate GMs. We gamed at my place every other Saturday & on the off Saturdays GM Fred (Goodhometownboy) ran what we called the "Denver Game" (we live in CO). As he stated, all was good with that schedule.
Before Goodhometownboy joined our group, last October, I did remove a female player from the group.She came to my place every other Saturday. I drove to Denver to play in a PF game that she GMed as well. I want to say that this was about 1 1/2 years ago & the gas, while still high, was cheaper. Well, as it turned out, the woman who I later removed was an extremely bias GM & player. She had her "favorites" when it came to other players & she made this obvious. This caused a lot of tension between the players that she favored & those that she didn't. I talked to both, her & the other players about this & told them that if things don't change she would be dropped. After another month (2 of my games & 2 of hers) of the same problems I was true to my word & dropped her from the group.
Next, as for the group coming to my place for the games that I GMed, this was how it's been since I started GMing Palladium games almost 20 years ago. I explained to the group that I didn't want to drive to Denver to game & if they didn't want to make the drive to my place I'd understand, but everyone continued to want to drive to my place. As for the transportation issue... at that time I did have a truck, which was on it's last leg, but let everyone know that it wasn't the transportation that was the issue. My wife & I pay between $400-$450 a month in gas. So, once I replaced the dying truck, gas was still an issue. For those of you who don't know (I Know you're aware of this Misfit
), I've been married for 16 years & have a 10 year old daughter & a 16 year old son. We budget our income & unfortunately the extra cost of me driving to Denver for gaming wasn't in the budget. Anyone out there with a family &/or children know the importance of budgeting & those who don't yet will find out later.
I had & still appreciate the fact that all the players, Goodhometownboy & his wife included, drove to my place for the games. At this time 3 of my players were college students (at least I'm pretty sure all 3 were) & received financial help from family, one who has been identified as the "friend of 15 years" (which is actually 10 year. We met in '98) had a very good & lucrative job (he made some great decisions getting himself in that position) & Goodhometownboy & his wife were living at his parent's house so that they could save money to buy a home. There's nothing negative with how any of them lived their lives. I'm simply stating that I had a lot more expenses & therefore didn't have the budget that they did.
As for cancelling games; true I've cancelled some games, who doesn't? My son was a Sophomore in High School & in Marching band at the time. At that time my son's school made it to the State Semi-Finals & then Finals & since several (I believe it was 3) of their competitions landed on a couple game days I cancelled. I wanted to support my son. There's nothing wrong with that. My father came up fro a visit from TX twice. I might add that he has cancer & is doing fine right now, but at the time he had changed treatments & wasn't taking well with it. These reasons for cancelling were explained to the group before & all seemed fine with it. I was told by the "friend of 15 (10) years," "You have a family man... do what you have to do." As for me being "****hurt" about them cancelling... sure I was disappointed, as I'm sure they were when I did, but I wasn't mad at anyone (even when they generally cancelled as much as 2 hours after the game was supposed to start).
Giving me a break GMing was a cool idea. It wasn't my idea, but Goodhometownboy (GM Fred) really wanted to GM a HU game & when I thought about it, a break from GMing & actually playing would be cool. I decided to play a Super Soldier from HU Powers Unlimited 2, but when I showed the character to the GM it was completely redone to what he wanted me to play. I didn't want it, but I decided to give it a shot anyways. As it turned out I was dictated, by the GM, how to play the character from what weapon to use at any given time to how the character should react in certain situations. I didn't control the character. It was more like another of the GM's NPCs.
Goodhometownboy is right about the games going downhill. Like I said before, I've GMed Palladium for almost 20 years (GMed Rifts for about 18 years). During those years, like most GMs, I've developed some House Rules. The House Rules have stayed in effect for years. Goodhometownboy & I had communicated through email before he even moved to CO (if I remember right he was in CA) & I explained the House Rules to him so that he knew what they were before we ever gamed so that there would be no surprise & if he didn't like something we could try to work something out, but he said everything was cool. Everything was fine, but went downhill when he simply "disregarded" the House Rules & started contesting them with the Rift GM Guide. I explained to him that I knew what the book said, but these House Rules had been explained to him & he agreed to them. Not to mention we had gamed with the House Rules for almost 2 months before then. I, once again, mentioned that we could go over the House Rules & see what the players didn't like so we can see where any possible comprimises may need to be met, but he simply wanted the House Rules gone. Remind you most of these House Rules had been in effect for almost 20 years with little to no problems.
The group was very vocal & we talked about likes & dislikes when it came to the game, primarily GM calls. One incident in the game that started a "nose dive" was the following scenario... the players were ambushed by a Coalition Squad. A volley of Plasma Mini-Missiles were fired at a random character, who on their own decided not to wear any body armor. Goodhometownboy, wearing the shredded reminents of the Violator SAMAS (from the Free Quebec book) , which had only 1 MDC left said thathe was going to shield the unarmored character with his own body. I reminded him that he had only a single point of MD left to his power armor, but his response was that the new Rifts Rule states that any amount of MD done that exceeds an existing MD of body/power armor is "dissipated." I reminded him that we had never gamed itthat way. It was a rule we had never gone by, including during games that he played with us. This went for for the players as well as me. Goodhometownboy had killed plenty of CS soldiers by depleting the MD of their body armor & the remaining MD obliterating the poor sap inside the armor. In this incident he decided that there was a problem with it. Then again, in his defense, the unarmored character that he was trying to protect was his wife. I'd expect him to be upset if he simply forgot that House Rule & I killed his character, but I gave him the opportunity to rethink his actions after I had reminded him of the rule. Either way he just wasn't hppy with much after that incident.
We did take some time off for Christmas & New Years, but it was actually a month, not 2 weeks. I used that time to get a bit ahead & get things ready for the next few games. I got to the point where the next 3 or 4 games were fleshed out. Goodhometownboy had become a relayer of the game schedule, which was great. I only had to call him & he let everyone know what was going on during their Denver game.
I don't know what happened All I do know is that from January to March I prepared for games that I scheduled with Goodhometownboy, including buying all the snack & soda, & rearranging the livingroom to accomodate everyone for games that no one showed for. So as far as "booting the whole group" I simply quit waiting around.
Goodhometownboy,
Whatever happened to the group exactly I don't know. Since I was the one waiting I can only guess, but throughout this I have no hard feelings towards anyone whatsoever. I hope you have a great gaming group that you're with now & just for the record I don't have another gaming group. No one was replaced. I've ran 3 games since our last one (1 which was for my son's 16th Birthday Party). I'm using this time building new campaigns & getting some well needed writing done. I'm sorry that this has been bothering you for the past 9 months, but no one was "dropped." My home is still open to any of you. If you want to call me we can talk about this more. If you don't have my number anymore I can give it to you in Yahoo.
I called "the friend of 15 (10) years" last night just to verify that I didn't do something unintentionally to upset him greatly as you stated here. He said that all's good and that even though he was disappointed that we weren't gaming anymore that he was never "upset."
Everyone should still feel welcomed to take part of Goodhometownboy's Poll. I just wanted to explain the other side of what happened since this particular Forum had left out a lot of details that was needed for people to make a rational judgement.
Just for the record my response is in no way meant to be a bash against Goodhometownboy at all. He's great guy & a good GM.
I was completely caught off guard. I had never had anyone want to change a rule. We had even played it that way with that particular player for the past 2 months or so. He was able to kill a good number of CS troops using my House Rule. It was just when it wasn't in his favor this particular part of the game that he wanted to challenge it. I do have to say that every other game session with this player was great! It was mainly just this one incident.