John Wick

>What was that supposed to be an example OF?
Curtailing players from "minmaxing". It doesn't matter what you're trying to achieve with a player build, it should never be outright immune to something. After all, you could potentially break the rails by swimming through a river of HIV the DM put between you and some goal he wants you to acquire via some specific string of quests.

That's ridiculous.
There's a game designer/self-styled expert at DMing named John Wick.
Why not just... use something you know none of the players are immune to if it's that important?

Also,
>humans are OP because they're immune to chocolate, unlike dogs

we aren't immune, we just have a very high tolerance because our bodies process the dangerous chemical, theobromine, quicker and much more efficiently than any animal I know of
You will die if you eat say half your body-weight of chocolate in under an hour

Sounds like an armchair DM who no one actually wants to play with.

Pretty sure you'll die if you eat half your body weight in water in an hour.

as am I. Is this role-playing?
is it a bizarre coincidence that a meme-tier That GM named john wick exists?
Has the name become a term for shit GM's?

I guess playing a paladin in 3.5 is "Min Maxing"

No, it's just one guy who's published books on GMing.

I need more stories of this guy there great

>is it a bizarre coincidence that a meme-tier That GM named john wick exists?
Yes. The character and the GM just happen to have the same name.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wick_(game_designer)

I'm reading his book "Play Dirty" now. He has a superhero campaign with a villain whose whole MO is pretending to be an ally to heroes, actually being a good resource to them, but also being a supervillain who likes to find out their secrets and ruin their lives for kicks. He goes out of his way to make it frustrating for players because he thinks that creates immersion since it would be frustrating and upsetting to the characters.

He also once had a player watch everyone else play for months, occasionally going back to that player to tell him that his character was still in prison, so that when the opportunity arose to break free it would be that much more exciting for the player.

That makes loads more sense, OK.

>Apparently he's gotten better, his latest book contradicting a lot of what he said in his first one, but some of the examples from his first book were super shitty.
What's his latest book? I really liked the philosophy he seemed to be TRYING to go for, but I thought what he actually described was terrible.

I think it's just Play Dirty 2

I just hate that my favorite RPG setting, 7th Sea, is managed by him...

Man, I came into this thread worried I was going to lose respect for Keanu. Confused as hell for a moment.

John Wick games typically follow a specific pattern of demanding that the players be entirely aware of and responsible of their actions and punishing them for any degree of ignorance.

Legend of the Five Rings, Seventh Sea and House of the Blooded all have this in spades, at least when John Wick has jurisdiction over them. Games all become about court intrigue, esoteric etiquette and being arbitrarily punished when you don't mention your character following an obscure rule that you weren't told about out of character.

I was recently skimming through the new edition of 7th Sea because a friend of mine is thinking about running it and I kind of got the impression that system has the opposite problem. It came off as being virtually impossible to fail at a roll unless you choose to. Am I missing something?

a lot less than that, probably just a couple gallons. Anything is toxic in half-bodyweight quantities

In October 2001, Keanu Reeves met with the families of 9/11 victims. After a brief interview in which he expressed his condolences and hope for closure, he reportedly burst out laughing and made airplane noises and mimicked two planes crashing. He then picked up the child of a deceased victim and whispered into her ear "Your dad's dead, bitch", and proceeded to put on a pair of sunglasses and unleash a barrage of martial arts attack on the small child. She was rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead due to extreme trauma. When asked later about the incident, Reeves became visibly sexually aroused and repeated the same attack on the reporter.

did she died?

This sounds really similar (though not exactly) the same as a story from the L5R 4th edition Core Book. That book wasn't written by John Wick, and the story isn't attributed to him.

It also details that this is something that happened in the last session, not an arbitrary number of sessions later, during the wrap up phase of the story.

I do entirely disagree with failing to give the player any information or chance to get out of it, because that is some fucking bullshit - but it isn't quite as bad as you made it out. The main takeaway though is that it isn't John Wick but some other asshole who did that.

I read that part.
Honestly all the players who left before were right. I'm never going to stand there every week for months sitting there while my character is in a prison built with unescapium.

John Wick is the sort of narrator who believes that just "rolling for something" doesn't guarantee success and that players can fail without screwing up a single roll, if they fail to recall a piece of information that he might not have even shared with them.

>>What makes him so infamous as opposed to all the other shitty GMs and players out there?
>The first RPG ever is not an RPG

wtf i love John Wick now

Thats actually just being a really dumb GM and the inane example just makes it seem worse.

John Wick, quoted verbatim:
>The first four editions of D&D are not roleplaying games.

Yes, Satan, I think that's the point.
>player gets resistance immunity to X
>player feels safe against X
>Hurr Durr I be smart DM I must make the player fear all
>player must not be allowed to feel safe against X, because if you let them feel safe against X they will eventually build to be safe against Y and Z
>so smart DM must subvert safety to X by making player immune to X get hit specifically by X!
>IT'S ONLY WAY TO MAKE THEM RESPECT ME

At least I hear the man has renounced some of his old statements, but stuff like are the product of a man who is more concerned with soliciting specific behaviours out of his players than providing entertainment.

The last living Sierra adventure game designer
He belongs in a museum

You should write for Guardian or WSJ.

>barrage not barrel
What a shame

The most immersed I've ever been in an RPG was in OSR shit. The second most was in a full-on narrativist game called Misspent Youth.

This guy must be high or some shit.

>...some of his old statements, but stuff like are the product of a man who is more concerned with soliciting specific behaviours out of his players than providing entertainment.
This. I couldn't have said it better.
Feels like he treats his players like effing children

I saw Keanu Reeves at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

In 1991 during the filming for 'Point Break' Keanu Reeves (whose role involved playing rookie FBI agent 'Johnny Utah') was surfing with co-stars when a small child was dragged under the waves and began to struggle to stay above surface. As his co-stars rushed to help, Reeves held out an arm in front of them, stopping them and was reported saying by Lori Petty (who played the character Tyler Endicott in the film) "The waves have claimed her, let her fight for her own life". The crew, dumbfounded, proceeded to watch her struggle until her body disappeared beneath the waves, lifeless. He was later spotted outside the child's house, making drowning gestures and thanking the family for their child's sacrifice to the great ocean.

He's a man that makes a living off of pandering to the "have you tried not playing D&D" narrative.

I like the idea that while he's the best assassin in the world, John Wick is a super shitty GM too.

We need a story about how John Wick (the assassin) played a really bad character really poorly in one of John Wick's (the GM) games, so that John Wick (the GM) tried to punish him, John Wick (the assassin), and promptly got his (John Wick, the GM's) ass handed to him (ibid), and then John Wick (the assassin) walking out while reciting a pithy saying from one of his (John Wick, the GM's) own books.

Add candles to the bathroom and I'm sold