Mother-May-I and 20 questions: Games GMs play
Joel P. Shempert:
Quote from: Andrew Cooper on January 30, 2008, 10:39:52 AM
If nothing else this thread has underscored for me why the social dynamic between the players is so important and foundational to functional play.
True that. The difficulty now is figuring out how to achieve a functional dynamic. I'm kinda sitting here going, "Functional. Yeah, that sounds good. Hmm, functional. . .so, uh, yeah, how do I do that?"
I can think of two approaches, broadly speaking: One is to form a new group. Possibly with some overlapping membership with the current one, possibly not. The other is to work toward healing within the group. To that end. . .
I had a talk with my brother Matt yesterday. I told him I'd been talking to Ron, and related to him the 3 components of a Social-Creative Endeavor. In the abstract: He was pretty on board with the first one, Trusting the Procedures, except that I threw something in about agreeingto the rules, to which he went eh, I dunno if loyalty to a written ruleset is realy the point. I backpedaled and talked about system as a whole being the whole agreement between participants, not just written rules, but I think perhaps I made a mistake (, not tactically) in bringing rules in at all. for 2 (it now, with these people), he was in perfect agreement, especially about the contrast between "with anyone who'll let me." but for 3 (Reflect Meaningfully), he balked--"I don't think that's necessary." I think he was stating conceptual belief, not necessarily preference--that is, not "I don't want to reflect meaningfully," but rather, "regardless of whether I want it, I don't think it's necessary for Social-Creative activity." I replied that I know it's something that I, for one, want, and that I'm not getting.
And with that, we got down to cases. I said the deepest our game reflection generally went was , "Wow, it was cool when [fictional character] did the thing!" Matt suggested that perhaps that was sufficient reflection. I said that what's missing is the feedback of "Hmm, that cool thing, how did we achieve that? What did people like, and what could be done better? What worked and what didn't?" Matt did then understand and agree that that was valuable.
We didn't really talk much about #2 and its failings across the group. But I know from previous conversations that Matt understands and largely agrees about the social muddle that our group is. What he thinks about Ron's claim of needing that "these people" buy-in is anybody's guess.
We talked a lot about #1 in relation to our group. The conversation kind of cafreened all over the map and became a bit more about "why Player X was/wasn't justified in doing whatever." Matt was understanding of my frustration at micromanaging time and space, even if he's less bugged by it. He seemed to get me when I talked about everyone bringing their own disparate understanding to the table and each thinking that's "what roleplaying IS--Matt's especially in agreement in the case of D&D. I think I started to lose him a bit when I talked about the Murk giving me no clear expectations of what my input will mean. I talked about both J and Colleen as GMs (and me at one time--check out I was an Illusionist Wanker!) constantly calling for rolls out of the blue with no explanation--just "roll a D[whatever]." I said I'd much rather know what I'm rolling for and what effect it'll have. Hekind of got it, but advocated in favor keeping some rolls mysterious, so that he as a player can be in suspense about some things. I'm not entirely sure if this is a fundamental misunderstanding of roleplaying or just differing play preferences on both our parts.
When I talked about my issues specifically with Colleen, I brought up the whole "I'm gonna be a daring thief of priceless artifacts!" thing not seeming to pay off. I talked about my part in the failure, and the need to be more direct about intention. Matt said that he definitely saw no problem in being upfront about intent, so I'm thinking I may have the social support to try that. Yay! Also, having played a couple more sessions since I wrote about it here, I think the issue is partially pacing--Colleen's not necessarily blocking me from my goals, just allowing their pursuit to follow a slower path of development. I think my problem was not that I wanted to commit the most outlandish theft the city has ever seen in the first session, but rather that I didn't have any opportunity for a more minor heist to establish my cool piratey-ness. It was all, "you come to the city." "OK, I gather Information on cool thieving leads." "Well, there's this priceless artifact being unveiled." "Cool! Ima totally going to nab it!" ". . .uh, you can try, but there's no way you'll pull that off."
I talked about being more intentional in all working toward cool stuff for our characters, instead of just kinda "winding up" everything and letting them "play out," and the cool stuff will just sorta happen, right? Matt said that Colleen was just trying to slot my character into what was already going on, which I said was all fine and cool, but it felt like I was slotted into a situation that I wasn't allowed to really affect, and it was the only situation I'd been provided with, so I was kinda impotent. Matt didn't quite share my perspective but suggested that I talk to Colleen about my frustrations and work more closely with her to come up with cool stuff for my guy to do. Which was my intention anyway; I just haven't hat the opportunity yet to sit down with her. But it was nice to test the waters with Matt before having a discussion that's more directly confrontational, even if Collen is one of the people in the group where I feel there's mutual respect and some degree of understanding.
So that's how that went, more or less. Interesting, a little rocky, but a step toward real honest communication. However, that's the easy part; Matt's one who I talk about serious stuff with all the time. Working that base of communication and understanding outward through the group, that's the challenging part. I think I'll talk to S next, as I know secondhand that he's dissatisfied with the social context of our game as well, but I haven't been able to discuss it directly with him.
Peace,
-Joel
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