Morphine: Easing the Pain of Playing D&D
David C:
Patrice, I think you're confused. Nick is the GM, I'm the player.
Rustin, I understand now. I've been shooting some emails back and forth with Nick, and unable to provide him with some "magic bullet," I think he lost interest in anything I was saying to him. Basically, the magic bullet he was hoping for was something to take D&D and get like, Narr or Sim play out of it (I can't tell which, he wants people to RP so that he can get "Story" out of it... but it is NOT gamism, which is what we are getting.)
He wasn't OPPOSED to the idea of playing Spirit of the Century (which I need to read up on), but somehow I see it never happening.
I'm thinking about providing Nick with exactly what he wants, with my skills as a player and taking my assertiveness to another level, for at least one session, and see what he does with it. Basically, I'm going to make a character that 1) sucks at combat 2) has an incredible story 3) one that approaches every situation in non-combat terms (talk them out of fighting!) 4) inject conflict and story, unrelated to the "story at hand", as much as possible.
He might hate it. Heck, he might hate ME for it, but... at least it'll make him take a stance instead of being wishy washy about it all.
Callan S.:
Why is it up to you to make him take a stance?
Patrice:
Oh.
Silly me, okay.
I don't quite get one point in your relating your game : do you actually want to dungeon crawl or do you want to avoid it and focus upon the social interactions, Sim aspect of the game and plots of the campaign?
Sounds like your GM is choosing the second option. Cool. Except that such gameplay doesn't spontaneously sprout from the nether upon Gamist ground. You're quite right when you say that this new campaign is going to be bogged in tactical encounters and endless fights like the late one because all your GM sounds to be planning to change it lays upon rule mechanics.
You're going to play an utter gimp, right. I still don't understand why you can't talk openly about it instead of trying such a trick. the main issue lays upon how to develop a Sim or even Nar game from a Gamist frame. The first thing is, that won't happen by itself. The second is, tweaking the rules won't bring this big change.
The whole issue seems to lay upon the GM stance here. It's his job to allow your own version of the story and of the game to develop, if he's not ready to let go of his power here, there's no way a Nar game might happen. You need to talk him out of this illusion. Honestly, if you can't talk with someone to solve your issues, why would you play with him? There's Sim left as an option, but here it's about his stance all the same.
I've played D&D two days ago and my players went into some city investigation. I dropped the screen and said "okay, pause. How do you feel it? Do you want to role-play at length? Wondrous descriptions, flashy NPCs, great interactions. Or do you want us to go through it with a few dice rolls, a bit of color and to jump directly into action and fight scenes?". Their answer was "we want to fight, let's go for the dice rolls". That was their Gamist choice, but I offered them to play Sim if they would like. So we went for a few Streetwise, Bluff, Diplomacy and the like checks, me providing them with a bit of cool descriptions, NPCs and places and... right into the fight and we spent the night rolling dice and crushing foes. Cool too.
If Nick wants to play Sim, all he has to do is to choose the first option. Will he? This choice is underneath any D&D game nowadays. What usually happens is that nobody really chooses anything, the game goes like the first option and at some point turns into the second, likely when everyone's bored of the Sim option because it has never been set clearly from the start and the style isn't defined.
All the players like to say "our game is about wonderful social interactions and great impersonating RP" when they play D&D, but most actually feel this aspect of the game as some kind of tedious stuff, nice wrapping for the dice-rolling and moving minis part that shouldn't bog the game down.
Discuss it at a metagame level with him. Is he aware of that? What style of game is he aiming for?
Rustin:
David,
Quote
I've been shooting some emails back and forth with Nick, and unable to provide him with some "magic bullet," I think he lost interest in anything I was saying to him.
Can you enlighten Nick to play RPGs with feeling?
According to the Swain Theory, and the limited background you’ve given us about Nick, we can conclude he is an Objectivist player (i.e., he is caught in the snare of the objective).
We also know those caught in the snare of the objective distrust feelings.
Therefore, the Swain Theory would predict that if you approached a person who distrusts feelings, and asked them to reflect on emotion in gaming, they will tune you out. And this is what we see. We see Nick has "lost interest" in you. Tuning out is a very common stress coping mechanism.
If you go ahead with your plan to play a gimped out, story based, feeling based character—the same will happen, you’ll get tuned out, or maybe some other form of rejection: scorn, ridicule, anger.
That rejection, that social dust up, will probably cloud any point you’re trying to make regarding feeling based roleplaying.
The social group dynamic forces you are up against are just too powerful. That’s why the overwhelming recommendation that I have seen on this topic is: leave the group, find a new group that gets it and move on.
I have yet to hear a conversion story about a player who single handedly shows up to a group set in its objectivist snare, who then begins playing with feeling, and by sheer social force of will, turns the style of gaming around.
Though I have heard many stories of people, already jazzed and open to playing with feeling, organizing a group and having fun.
It seems that players can independently get themselves out of the snare of the objective somehow or another. It would be interesting to study that psychological change. I would suspect the transformation requires something outside of a group dynamic. But ultimately, I think it starts with the ability to understand and trust feelings.
Daniel B:
I think you're right, David, that Nick doesn't want to run dungeon crawls. If he is anything like I was:
I used to GM very low-power/low-magic campaigns and I'd get really nervous when any one character showed a hint of power. However, I also knew that in many cases, they were making valid requests and I'd be asking for the same things in their position. (E.G. why *shouldn't* they get the gold and magic items commensurate with their level.. a low-magic campaign is fun once in a while, but sometimes you gotta live a little)
I eventually realized that the reason I felt nervous was that a more powerful character would eat up my content that much more quickly, so that we couldn't really savour the content. (I can remember a few heartbreaks where the PCs obliterated some enemies I was fond of, and had intended to stay in the game longer.) However, by forcing down the power-level, the game was dragging on ad infinitum and the players were feeling unjustly unrewarded. Later I tried a complete reversal. D&D on crack. While two of my players were happier (.. the gamists..) the rest and myself were feeling unfulfilled because I was putting little effort into content, and quite literally running the monsters directly from the manual. Even their hit dice, I didn't bother rolling, just taking the average instead.
Eventually I settled upon a happy medium, and it seems to work. I continue to run my games this way. We collectively decide how quickly we want the character growth to proceed. This allows them as players to know what to expect, and tells me as a GM how much effort I should be putting into my content. Furthermore, although they still get some XP for your basic monster-kill, they get much more from regular story bonuses, which I grant when they perform some "relevant" task which is left intentionally open-ended. (Basically it's either a step towards some meaningful goal that they've chosen, or that has been handed to them due to the situation they've wound up in).
Maybe pass the following link on to Nick. Though it was written regarding single-player adventure games, the lessons translate to RPGs well. (At least, they've worked for me.)
Grumpy Gamer's Why Adventure Games Suck
Dan Blain
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