Hello Tom,

I appreciate your PM to me, and the reasons why you feel the way you do. If I may, I would like to explain a bit about the game and why I ask people to do certain things within it.

The Exeter game had begun to fall into dissaray as no-one was willing to step up and take the CO's position when April (the former CO) announced she was having to leave, eventualy I did. The game has had to be virtualy built up from scratch, as a great number of the former members were Aprils crew and decided that a new CO should have a new crew and a number of them left leaving me high and dry.

As with anything you wish to succeed I took great pains to seek out who I believed to be the right people for the newly revamped Exeter game, however, I was not nieve in knowing that things would not be easy all the time, new members take time to get to know one anothers writing styles and to a certain degree, personalities as well.

As a CO/GM, this has always been in the forefront of my mind, as I know how it goes. People are sometimes shy, sometimes bold, mostly they don't say anything at all, and this is where I've found it the most difficult. A number of times, I've asked for the memberships input into how they feel the story should go, what it is they expect of me and of the story, and please believe me when I say that the responses to those requests have been extremely lacking, leaving me almost solely to decide where the story goes, as no-one else has let me know what they want.

I have in my thoughts what the story outline could be, as no-one else has expressed where they want it to go as I said earlier, and what is best to be in it to involve as many of the members in that story as possible. This is the formula I've felt has served the game best for everyone from a GM's point of view and kept the game going.

This has been a heavy responsibility as I not only am GM/CO of this game, but XO to another and Chief of Security on 2 others. To answer your thoughts on this being a script, I never ever have that in mind and I am actualy quite hurt that you think that, I have only ever wanted to do what is best for the story idea, and if that is to ask others in the game to write a certain post as I hope it will help the story as no-one else has expressed and opinion on where they want it to go, then that is what I do, and at ALL times, I only ever 'ask', I never force anyone to write it, I 'ask'.

If people disagree, then by all means I wouldn't be upset if they say no, and then offer up an alternative, but please, I ask you to stop judging me on this as all I've ever tried to do is have everyones interests at heart in the game, balance the story out so everyone is involved, and try to keep the story going to the best of my ability.

I'm not going to ask you to stay if you don't want to, however I would like to pray and hope that the above explanation would go some way to letting you into how this game has come about and why it is now set out the way it is. If you feel it would help, I'm happy for you to take a LOA till you felt it would be the right time to come back and play.

I have always tried to encourage everyone, give praise where praise is due and be a help to those who ask for it, so you can imagine how down I now feel with this criticism that has now been cited at me from yourself.

I will now have to take this situation away and have a really good think about it as it has taken me very much by surprise and if that is how people feel, then there is no point in me carrying on as CO/GM of the USS Exeter RPG.

Kind regards,

Drew.

Andrew,

First of all, it was not my intention to hurt you, but to give you clear reasons why I was not enjoying the game.  As for inquiries as to the game's direction, I honestly did not know what direction to take the game to beyond solving the mystery.  A mystery we did not seem close to solving at the point of the question (Unless the mystery was solved during one of those extremely long joint posts and I missed it).  It did not seem to be a pressing issue to me as there already seemed to be so many plot points in the works that there seemed to be a wealth of options for you to choose from. Besides, I already GM a game, I had no desire whatsoever to do anything but play.

I am sorry that you were placed in a difficult position when April left, but many GMs are faced with the daunting prospect of putting a new crew together.  I have faced that problem and you have my sympathies.  As for asking where the storyline is to go, that is not what I am looking for.  I am looking for direction from above, not some interactive role playing.  Asking me to put the ship in the shuttle bay contrary to my character's feelings, that should not even be asked.  You should be waiting to see what I do, then act.  If I park the ship in the shuttle bay then it blows up, then that is one thing.  If I have the ship parked in orbit nearby then that presents another set of parameters.  But telling me the scene ahead of time (i.e. cell block breakout) or trying to push me in that direction, then that gives me no sense of adventure or excitement whatsoever.  It is like reading movie spoilers. I did not offer to give direction because I do not want to know what direction the game is going in before I get there!

A LOA won't help, Andrew.  Yes, I know I am writing under duress, I know I am upset about what I have done to my cat, but that does not change the fact that I am not enjoying your game and I have not really enjoyed it for some time.  It is not just your GMing style, it is the whole Nova set up, this joint post nonsense.  This whole ignorance of what is going on elsewhere in the game until I get this huge infodump e-mail I have to wade through.  I suppose I am old fashioned and prefer what some view as an outmoded game system where the method of communication and means of information storage are found in different places, but that is how I feel.

You have been supportive and you have worked very hard, that I cannot deny.  You have striven to keep a strong line of communication open with players and to keep a full crew.  And you are a good writer.  I just feel that your GMing style is not to my taste nor are the mechanics the game.


Tom


I prefer to be called Drew. I'm sorry you still feel the way you do, but even under duress (and I really am sorry about the situation with your cat and wish it a speedy recovery), I will not be criticised by you in the manner you are putting me through. You're correct, I have been nothing but supportive to everyone in the game, and the only person to criticise me is you, and for that, I am upset. I believe that anyone who criticises 'does' start out to intentionaly hurt the person they're doing it to, so yes, I believe it is your intention to hurt me, and you've succeeded. I had such high hopes for the 2 of us working together in the game and had intended at the begining of the next mission to communicate with you about it, but I guess that idea has now gone.

Drew.


Drew,

First of all, I am still part of the Exeter web site.  I had assumed you would remove me as I did not see any means by which I can remove myself.  If there is some means by which I am supposed to do so at my end please let me know.

Now, since you sent me your message twice this morning by two different means I will assume it was of the utmost importance to you that I receive it.  Very well, I shall respond.  And please bear in mind that as one unaccustomed to writing lengthy e-mails I do this not because I am looking for a way to pour metaphorical salt in your wounds, but because I do care about you.  You may not care that I care, you may not believe that I care, but I hope that you will at least read most of this e-mail to better understand me.  And if you choose not to read the e-mail beyond this point at least for me it was an enjoyable exercise.

Was it my intent to hurt you?  To wound you?  To make you feel bad?  Maybe.  I will not sit here and claim all my motives are clear cut and pure.  But your last IM to me in regards to what you wished for my character to do brought everything that frustrated me about your game into focus.  You were essentially handing me a script to follow, and perhaps it was optional but it did not feel that way to me.  You, the GM, the guy running the game, was expressing a desire.  It was akin to your boss couching an order in the form of a polite request, of a  WWI lieutenant asking for volunteers to go over the top.

When someone leaves a game it is for different reasons.  And sometimes when they explain those reasons they are not honest.  They may lie to spare the feelings of the GM because he was a nice guy.  I do not do that, Drew.  If I have issues with a game I am honest about it.

I am more than just one of your players, Drew.  I am one of your peers.  I have been running games for over ten years now online, I was running table top games before that.  Hell, I write a blog discussing issues regarding role playing games.  How else do you become a better GM if not without a healthy dose of criticism?  The reason I had not spoken earlier was I did not see how anything I said could improve the game.  Should I have complained about the Nova system? The joint post format?  Should I have complained about things you were not prepared to change?  No.  Instead, I knuckled down and tried to adapt to this new system.  And I found it wanting.  Now I may very well be wrong.  This system may be the bees knees. But really, I don't think so.  I think mailing lists and forums are still a better system.

So there were two principle issues with the game, one tied to the other, and neither one likely to change.   So I decided to leave.

I am going to wax nostalgic here and I am going to get pretty self indulgent, but please bear with me.  My first PBEM was a Star Trek game, the Lionheart.  It ran from late March1999 and just squeaked into February 2001.   Two years, and sometimes it felt like patching an old, leaky boat.  But I loved the boat.  Players quit, players disappeared, players just stopped posting, and ultimately my patience ran out.  But it was a wonderful two years.  And during that time I had begun another game, a super hero game, Maximum Justice, which later became The Vindicators (Vindicators is still going).  And during all that time, from April '99 to now, I have made mistakes.  But often it is only in retrospect that I realize I had made them.  Why?  Because no one told me or tells me what I was or am doing wrong.  Or when they did I took offense, argued, and the player quit (I have since then mended fences with Paul and he is one of my best online friends and among the most reliable of my players.). 

Let us look at the definition of criticism.  One is "a spoken or written opinion or judgment of what is wrong or bad about somebody or something".  My criticisms were not about you but about your game.  I made no character judgments.  However, I can see when one works hard at something it is difficult for them to separate themselves from their work.  The second is "considered judgment of or discussion about the qualities of something, especially a creative work".  Who else are you going to get an honest opinion from than your peers?  At the risk of sounding arrogant (and please, let me indulge in my delusion here for a moment) I am like the C. S. Lewis to your J. R. R. Tolkien!

My criticisms give you pause.  As well they should.  I hope they do.  They should not, however, compel you to quit.  To paraphrase B.A. Felton from Knights of the Dinner Table, many answer the call, but few stay.  I hope you stick it out, Drew, because it is obvious the game brings you joy.


Many Regards,

Tom

Drew.