Hello to everyone (and a question about how to save our gaming sessions)
Caracol:
Hello to everyone, I'm a new member and a amateur game creator. I heard of this community only recently, and my interest in gaming creation makes this place useful to get advices and sincere feedback.
I'm a newbie here, so forgive me for my stupid questions and proposals (and for my terrible english, I'm not a native speaker), obviously you people are light years beyond in game creations, but I would really like to share my stuff and get critics, advices and opinions by expert users (playtesting is fine too!).
Now for the question:
I come from a long experience of roleplaying and board games. Recently playing in my gaming group has become impossible and endless arguments ruin almost every session. All the work of the DM is usually wasted and unused, since most campaings don't even continue after the first argument or the players lost interest after the first games.
I tought that the problem was in the gaming system (we use D&D 3.5), abused both by declared powerplayers and regular gamers. So I tried a different approach, and DMed a campaing using the True20 system (I think is REALLY good, any toughts about it?). The sessions went good, with no abuses, but it didn't last long: the players lost interest and then they went back using D&D under another DM. Then all the problems stated above came back: now nobody has fun anymore and no one wants to DM because he knows it will be only a waste of time.
What can we do? Was the alternative system a good solution? For the sake of fun, please give me some advices.
Vulpinoid:
Honestly, the best advice I can give you would be to read the articles...see the link up at the top right-hand side of the screen.
They'll give you some good ideas about what may have been happening in your game, I'm sure you'll find a couple of instances in the articles where you think..."Oh, now I see what player X was probably trying to do and why player Y hated that idea".
The next piece of advice I'd have to give would be not to obsess over the information in the articles, don't consider them to be a gospel from on high (No offense intended if you're reading this Ron). Arguments can arise just as easily about the theory of roleplaying as the arise from the actual application of games. Use the words as a new tool to help shed new light on the events that you've seen.
Beyond that I can only hazard guesses at what may have happened...
Perhaps the players operated under a certain social contract (or lack thereof) when playing D&D. They had certain expectations of what they wanted from play, but were never willing to accept the expectations of other players present.
When you took the simple switch to True20, the players didn't quite know what to expect and you had the chance to develop a new social contract with them. Their normal D&D ideas were in the backs of their minds, but they were more open to the potential differences in the system, but if you threw them the same types of stories with the same scene development and the same methods of interaction, then the players probably didn't see much difference between True20 and D&D. So they go back to the system they know how to use and abuse. You had the chance to really shock them out of their shells, maybe with spectacularly positive results...maybe as a catastrophic failure. Either way they probably would have taken a new experience into their roleplaying repertoire.
Hopefully once you've read through the articles you'll have a better idea of how to bring certain roleplaying concepts to the table.
Then if you really want some good advice, you might want to post about a particular session over on the "Actual Play" part of the forum. Offer as much detail as you can remember about the game, then you can hypothesize about some of the things that might have gone wrong, and a dozen people will either agree with you or shoot your concepts down (probably both).
Anyway...Welcome to the Forge.
V
Callan S.:
Hi Caracol,
Do the arguements start in regards to what rules procedure to use next? Perhaps it's as simple as whether you can five foot step diagonally near an opponent, or something like whether the ghoul would use coup-de-grace on a downed character, even when others are still up and fighting?
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The sessions went good, with no abuses,
Do you mean it went good because there were no abuses, or that something good happened in it and at the same time there was no abuses either?
And could you give an example (doesn't have to be long - a sentence or two is fine) of when your group actually did have fun?
*ear pressed to the bonnet, listening to the engine...*
Caracol:
Thanks for the quick replies. As for the right place for this discussion, perhaps the mods could consider moving this thread to the proper forum.
Quote from: Vulpinoid on March 04, 2009, 01:01:44 PM
Honestly, the best advice I can give you would be to read the articles...see the link up at the top right-hand side of the screen.
I'm starting to do that and to approach the RPG theory (of wich I've never heard about before yesterday). It looks intersting on paper, the problem is the actual application of it in the small amount of time I can dedicate to gaming.
At a first glance, it seems that the problem derives from different styles of game we prefer. I think I can be included in the Narrativist (with a bit of Simulationist) type, but all the other players are different from me as from each other.
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Perhaps the players operated under a certain social contract (or lack thereof) when playing D&D. They had certain expectations of what they wanted from play, but were never willing to accept the expectations of other players present.
I don't think they even grasp the concept of social contract in the first place. Everyone wants different things: I've already realized that, but is separating the group in smaller parts a solution? We are not a big group, but we are a "hystorical" group of friends: some of them left gaming, some of them came later, but the nucleus is still the same and we find difficult to even consider playing with others (also because we are the ONLY ones that play RPG in my town).
Quote
When you took the simple switch to True20, the players didn't quite know what to expect and you had the chance to develop a new social contract with them. Their normal D&D ideas were in the backs of their minds, but they were more open to the potential differences in the system, but if you threw them the same types of stories with the same scene development and the same methods of interaction, then the players probably didn't see much difference between True20 and D&D. So they go back to the system they know how to use and abuse. You had the chance to really shock them out of their shells, maybe with spectacularly positive results...maybe as a catastrophic failure. Either way they probably would have taken a new experience into their roleplaying repertoire.
It's what I actually tried to do: I wanted to create a new game different from what we used to do. True20 doesn't give much options to be abused, and the unknown system was a chance for the player to reconsider the character creation phase, and eventually to start to actually ROLEplay their characters. I did not come up with a railroaded plot, but I gave them dozens (I'm not kidding) options to accept missions or join factions.
But I admit that, altough the setting was unusual, I gave them the old and classic "standard fantasy" world. They weren't enthusiasts, it's obvious, but the campaing was not different by what they use to play.
Quote from: Callan S. on March 04, 2009, 02:15:56 PM
Do the arguements start in regards to what rules procedure to use next? Perhaps it's as simple as whether you can five foot step diagonally near an opponent, or something like whether the ghoul would use coup-de-grace on a downed character, even when others are still up and fighting?
Argumets start form practically everything: how the others roleplay their character, if a certain spell can be used because "umbalaced", about continuously aligment changes... Every campaing or session ends up with the characters going berseker on each other or on useful NPCs just to "show muscles" or because a NPC dares to insult them, because they are level 8 and can take up the world (they think). Sometimes they kill each other too for the most stupid reason. Results: the plot is ruined, the DM's work is wasted and the players start arguing on everything, and sometimes this goes ever beyond the gaming table. Accuses of being a powerplayer, to abuse the rules or to not care for the other's enjoyment are common. Everyone that DMs (we have turns) now just knows everything will be screwed in his campaing and therefore becomes lazy and uninterested.
Quote
Do you mean it went good because there were no abuses, or that something good happened in it and at the same time there was no abuses either?
And could you give an example (doesn't have to be long - a sentence or two is fine) of when your group actually did have fun?
It went good because, even if the players were not following most of the hooks I gave them, at least they weren't screwing up the game as they usually do.
We had so much fun in the beginning, about 5 years ago, when we starded all togheter with experienced players and all seemed good and new. There were problems of course, but nothing so bad like this. Thinking about it, I can't really realize what actually changed or when this situation starded.
Eero Tuovinen:
Sounds to me that you all just need a complete change of scene. Play something that doesn't break along your usual faul lines. If GM prep is getting ruined, play something that doesn't have GM prep. If players are having their characters express their personal frustration, play something that doesn't allow this, or perhaps something where the players can't make "wrong" plays because the game allows all choices as equally valid. In a word: play something that is completely different from D&D.
As for what such a game might be, you're probably the best judge of that. Many people have got fine results with Baron Munchausen, Shab-al-Hiri Roach and InSpectres, to name a few games among many: all of those games resolve many of D&D's issues by building the game up orthogonally and making all players responsible for important parts of gameplay. In my experience this simple conceit works wonders in making a factitious group play together simply because even the dullest player realizes at some point that he's not making a grand stand for his own fun, but rather ruining the fun of everybody by not striving for harmony. In games like D&D this is easy to forget because the game has an illusionary layer of GM responsibility on top of the real interaction - everybody at the table believes that they can act like jackasses and it's the GM's job to save the game. In many other games, such as the ones I mention above, the relationships in the group are much more public; if somebody is ruining the game, he can't hide behind his character, behind the rules or behind the supposed responsibility of somebody else (the GM) to rescue the game from his antics.
Interestingly enough, a common response to this simple advice is often that many players in the group don't want to play new games, they only want D&D. One is left to wonder whether such opinions in a dysfunctional group are a sign of players actually enjoying their comfortably frustrating play experiences. Humans are weird like that, I've met players who actively want to play a game they ruin each time simply because they are really more interested in socially dominating the environment than getting any play done.
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