What I look for in my ideal player(s)

Recent posts on ideal players within the GURPS community got me thinking. What is my ideal player? As it happens, there's not much to it.

Arrives on purpose

I want my players so excited by the game that they have a hard time not turning up. While I can't say I provide this kind experience every time, I can say that players definitely won't have it if they don't turn up.

To make matters worse, frequent missing players mean frequent missing contributions. I do my best to summarise previous sessions but some details are invariably missed out, so players who miss sessions often act out of character, breaking the narrative while the group readjusts to the unexpected behaviour.

That said, absences do happen; this is my ideal player after all.

Method actor

My kind of player is the kind of player that is very interested in their character. I love GMing stories with characters that are rich, unpredictable and consistent.

'Unpredictable' and 'consistent' may sound like polar opposites. But all drama involves opposing forces. Does the hero save the girl or the children? What are the consequences if they do save the girl/children? What will others think of them for saving the girl/children? These competing ideals make the tension in my games. I really love to present situations where the players are surprised by their characters. That's the kind of investment you just can't magic up.

Meta investment or investment in the system

Players that are invested in the game system, whatever the system is, are great.

Investment is very different to mastery or knowledge. One can be invested in a system you have only heard about 5 minutes ago but mastery of a system only happens over time. Taking time to learn about how the system works to represent your ideas is essential. As GM, I have limited brain space for verbal descriptions but system mechanics are an agreed-upon standard for character data that will keep between games.

Conclusion

My ideal player may not exist in the wild, but I've been lucky to have players that are pretty close. Not everyone plays this way, but as the old mantra goes:

If you're having fun, you're doing it right!

NecroBurn: the necro-psi hacker

Imagine a hacker that could always get physical access to the hardware. Because they are literally the shadows. Enter Pyramid #3/99, Necro-psi.

NecroBurn plugged in.
Credit: Benedict Farley
(used by permission)

NecroBurn is a hacker with a difference; he reads the minds of the recently deceased. A garrote for hire, NecroBurn is an hacker-assassin who gains admin passwords from the sysadmin's brains. Since he needs physical contact to read the thoughts of said sysadmins, he always burns the body.

A few notes on traits:

• Low Empathy Since a child, NecroBurn hasn't been able to understand emotions. 
• Bloodlust This comes across most often as seeing killing people as the most 'practical' option. It's easy to persuade him not to kill someone ... as long as it's really more practical
• Amnesia (Partial); Wild Talent 1; Unknown disadvantages Reading dead minds all the time has a cost, NecroBurn has permanent lost a part of himself which is constantly replaced by his most recent read. He will sometimes quote memories from his read as his own, or even exhibit talents he has never trained in. Occaisonally, he sometimes acquires phobias, addictions or worse!
• Assassin! From #3/107, this covers assassiny type things like assassin's weapon;s skills and various other things. (If you don't have #3/107, replace with at least Garrotte-16 and Stealth)
• Silhouette The ability to literally turn into a shadow. See #3/99 for more info
• Corpse Sense; Flashes of Insight The ability to read (dead) minds. See #3/99 for more info.

NecroBurn [250]

ST 9; DX 12; IQ 13; HT 9; HP 9; FP 9; Per 13; Will 13; Basic Speed: 5.25; Basic Move: 5

Traits: Wild Talent 1 (Only from alternate identity, -40%.) [12]  Unknown disadvantages [-30]  Corpse Sense 1 [26]  Silhouette 4 [72]  Bloodlust (CR: 12 (Resist Quite Often).) [-10]  Low Empathy [-20]  Amnesia (Partial) [-10]  Always burns the body [-1]

Skills:  Assassin!  16 (DX+4) [72]  Corpse Sense  22 (Per+9) [40]  Flashes of Insight (Corpse Sense)  22 (+0) [5]  Silhouette  14 (IQ+1) [4]  Computer Hacking/TL10  13 (IQ+0) [8]  Computer Programming/TL10  12 (IQ-1) [2]