A Year of Crappy Roleplaying
InkMeister:
Hello Forge, this is my first post here. I've been a lurker for about a year, and have been fascinated with the ideas and theories and experiences discussed here.
My name is Nick. I'm 27 years old. I've been back into RPGing for about a year now. My recent experience is primarily with D&D - a several month stint with 3.5, and a new game with 4th. There was a dabble with Runequest and Trail of Cthulhu. I've not GM'd since I was a teenager (then I mostly did AD&D 2e).
I've gamed with three separate groups in the last year, all in the range of 4 to 8 total players, ages varying from 12 up to 43 (averaging probably 20), and most every game has really been pretty horrible. There have been fun moments, but they are tiny islands in a sea of lameness. Most of us regulars are people with RPG experience, but I've seen maybe 4 or 5 new people introduced to the RPGing through my gaming groups. None participated beyond a session or two. Last night was the latest initiate, and the look of dismay and annoyance on her face makes me think we would be lucky to see her return for a second go. These games suck! It's sad, because I know the potential for these games to be fun is there, but we are scaring off potential gamers because our games suck.
Why do we, the regulars, come back to play again and again? Because, on some level, I think we have fun in spite of the game. The game is awful, but the company is fun... usually.
So perhaps my experiences will be a bit of a case study in how games can really, really, really suck - maybe others will have similar experiences and some insight. Here are some of the issues encountered:
1) Problem player. In my games, this is someone who doesn't respect the game. In the last few sessions, this has been a person who's disruptive play has occured INSIDE the game. Specifically, his character acts like an idiot. He jumped off a boat randomly and began sinking hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean because he was sure - with ZERO evidence - that he would hit an air bubble and then somehow descend to the lost city of Atlantis (no evidence was given that Atlantis was even at this location). Everyone told him not to. He did anyway. Character died. He whined about it for awhile, until the GM ruled that he didn't die afterall (she took pity on him because he whined and complained - a decision I thoroughly disagree with). This guy constantly plays his character recklessly, endangering everyone around him, purposely trying to do the most ludicrous thing possible. The player always has this silly smile on his face, like he is making a great joke of the game. "Look at what I can do! I can do anything HAHAHA!!!" I guess the best analogy is this: you and your friends are building an elaborate sand castle. Then one of them suddenly starts destroying the towers and turrets of the castle, laughing hysterically "haha, this is fun!!!!" Particularly annoying, this fellow, because he disrupts other people's turns constantly so that he can state his next moronic action. It's obvious he wants to be the hysterical center of attention - a real clown... but no one is laughing. I guess we can't kick this particular guy out (which would probably be my choice); he's related to another, much younger, player in the group. Luckily, I think we are (as a whole group) starting to literally shame him into respecting the game... the second best solution, I guess. This fellow is near 18, I gather, and nearly threw a tantrum when he began to realize everyone was turning against him, recommending penalties, mocking him, treating him with disdain - truly dysfunctional "play" happening. But he seems to be calming down...
1a) Problem player 2, this is the ADD type player; can't focus on the game at all. Every situation turns into a pop culture reference, or some real life anecdote, or... anything not directly related to the game at that moment. It might even be tangentially related to the game, but not bearing on the situation ("OH, GM!!! When I get my next 2000 gold, I want to buy a XYZ so I can do such and such!!!" - this just as we are about to engage some orcs in vicious battle). The game constantly starts and stops, loses focus, goes astray, because these problem players can't get into the game. Eventually, what happens, is that the game will lose enough focus that more and more of us start this kind of joking and parodying of the game itself, and talking about completely unrelated stuff, and zoning out, and it becomes all about just socializing with friends while somewhat halfheartedly attempting to play. I wish I could say these sort of problem players are just bored with the game in the first place, but in my experience, with one fellow in particular... the problem player would claim to LOVE the game, and would always be the first one there... always be talking about it, etc. It was like they couldn't focus at the moment of truth, just couldn't embrace the exploration - seemingly regardless of what the exploration involved.
2) Utter lack of focus. I think this is in large part a CA issue. Basically, everyone seems to have the expectation that when you get a nice group together (6 - 8 people) and play D&D, magical fun will just happen. WRONG!!! It sucks. It sucks because no one really knows what they want or what to expect or what to do.
My longest running group was DM'd by a really awesome guy (very friendly, smooth, cool, fun to be around, great as a socializer, etc). He claimed to be really into the game for the story aspect, having taught creative writing, etc. He runs 3.5 D&D, and it is obvious very soon that a major focus of the game is going to be about optimizing our characters - super high stats, awesome abilities, RADICAL class and race combos (basically anything goes with any D&D book you can come up with). Truly gonzo power gaming going on. The fellow even strongly urges some of us to take certain options because they will be "more powerful." Fine. So we have massive power gaming.
But we don't play by the game's rules. Lots of things are overlooked. Resources aren't tracked. Who has what spells memorized? Doesn't matter. Resolution mechanics are ignored (he's using D100 for things that should be standard D20 skill checks, in ADDITION to the standard skill check). DC's are seemingly plucked from a hat, and seem very high - perhaps compensating for our awesome character powers. New rules are used, but not explained at ANY point (like the mysterious D100 roll which happens at every skill check, or at all sorts of random points in the game). Attacks of opportunity are ignored. Initiative isn't consistently rolled. Characters can buy magic items seemingly at any time, even mid-adventure in the wilderness...
Characters are constantly getting redesigned. An anthropomorphic ape becomes an anthropomorphic wolverine because it helps some bonuses... then he becomes an anthropomorphic cat for some other bonuses. Feats are selected, re selected, etc, well after play has started. Sometimes this happens right smack in the middle of a session. No continuity, no explanation, nothing. My character eventually went from being human to being some kind of lizard man. It helped some of my bonuses, which the DM assured me would be important. This was at least a month and a half into the game. To the DM's credit, despite ignoring rules, he really, really is on top of our characters in terms of calculating bonuses, keeping track of abilities, etc.
There is no challenge. Encounters are very slow, but not because of crunch, and not because of difficulty, but rather because we are so disorganized as a group, and because the encounters are simply very large. There is never any doubt that we'll simply destroy any opposition. I learn to dread all fights, because fighting is pointless - we will win, yawn. It's just going to bog down play into a million dice rolls - why can't we just say we won already? By the time I quit, the game had gone on for about 4 months, weekly. We had progressed from level 5 to level 25. Sometimes we would go up 3 or 4 levels at the end of a session (clearly against the rules, and often after very little achievement in game)
There is no character background. Maybe one sentence of background. No character flaws, no interesting history, nothing to work with from the character standpoint. No reasoning as to why we know each other or are adventuring together. No sense of purpose.
There is no setting background. We know we're in some alternate Earth America. But what are the powers in this world - governments, wizard orders, secret societies, great monsters, etc? No idea! There is no setting. We just wander around having encounters, and sometimes a scenario will be thrown at us (one scenario was pretty cool; we had to investigate some murders, and it was actually fun because we had a lot of freedom in deciding how we would do it, and it seemed like we were, for once, engaging some kind of universe that existed, and we saw the consequences of our actions... and because combat was not really a big part of it).
There is some kind of story thrust on us - I believe it's supposed to be something epic. Something about us transporting a super artifact (we don't know what it is and can't use it) across the country, keeping it from the forces of evil (Lord of the Rings type thing?). There are seemingly no alternatives to this main plot. The plot sucks. Can't do anything else because what would you do? The game world is a big blank canvas. I guess with more initiative we could PUSH the DM to make up new things for us to do and interact with, but with no background given us at all, we would basically have to take on some GM responsibility as players and tell the GM about his own world so that we could interact with it. I could be wrong, but I don't think he would have gone for it; he had some definite story in mind, and beyond that, he upheld strong GM/player split. It felt pretty damn railroady to me (he did often make little comments about how he was a story teller). By the time I quit the game, the DM just decided to change the whole world around, and the game was happening in Europe and based in Norse mythology - a total transplant that had no in-game basis or explanation.
So in short, there is no discernible premise, no discernible setting, no discernible genre to emulate or create, and no challenge to overcome. I'm amazed I stayed in the game as long as I did. It all devolved into some kind of pot-smoking / beer drinking nonsense extravaganza (it didn't start out that way at all, though - it's like drugs moved in to fill a gap in the play). I gave up all drugs and alcohol in my life right as I was quitting the group, and came back one last time to play - totally sober - and I couldn't stomach the experience. It was simply too awful. I was painfully bored. I ended up watching movies on youtube on a friend's laptop while the others played. Some of the others were awfully interested in those youtube movies too...
To restate: people think you can get together and good play will just happen. I think we needed to sit down as a group and decide what we wanted. What kind of game? Challenge based? Story based? Are we going to stick to the rules? If not, what rules do we use? What kind of setting do we want? What is the setting? What happens there? What kind of characters do we play? Where do they come from? What do they want? What are their problems? I'm not saying all these things have to be answered in the game, but as a group, we needed to pick some goals - pick something to work with. We can flesh out characters and focus on that. We can say "fuck the characters" and simply do challenging dungeon crawls (something I was and still am very interested in). We could immerse in a detailed setting. Whatever (I'm truly very open to all creative agendas). Just SOMETHING. FOCUS! As a group!
The default D&D assumption SEEMS to be that the DM creates everything; he is the keeper of the world. He creates the game - you, as player, play. The game just magically happens. NO!!! Everyone should decide together what is to be played. Decide on tone, style, genre, focus, etc!
3) Complicated Rules - This one bugs me a lot. It is very hard on a game when people don't have good knowledge of the rules. I brought a few of my non gamer friends along to play, including my girlfriend. None lasted beyond 2 sessions. Aside from all the BS mentioned above (problems 1 and 2), they were totally disempowered in the face of six hundred billion different options (D&D 3.5, all options allowed). They didn't even know what the 6 basic abilities were in D&D, let alone the gajillion feats, spells, skills, etc. Total virgin roleplayers. The DM made them a character based on some loose conception of what they wanted to play (badass elven archer for one lady friend, and a druid/archer type for my girlfriend). They didn't know how to play their characters, though. What number do I use? What option? Etc. Too complicated for them. Too much investment to learn a complex system just to see if they like RPGing (and I'm pretty certain learning the system would have been a waste, since 1) the game sucked, 2) we didn't follow the system properly - just randomly).
It goes beyond newbies, though. If everyone isn't on board with the system, there is a problem. What I tend to notice is varying degrees of enthusiasm about the rules. Some people (and I'm this way with regard to 4th edition) just want to relax and PLAY. We don't want to study a new system and learn all the neat tricks to make a super character. We want to engage a situation with minimal system getting in the way (I, for one, love roleplaying through situations, not having to use any mechanic to decide what happens). Others want to twink a bit (and I recognize surely that this can be fun) and be able to handle anything. They have the time and interest to really learn the system. From a crunch/challenge standpoint, this is a big problem. How do you run any kind of gamist/tactical/strategic/resource managing game when half the players don't know the rules? In my present D&D 4e game, the DM doesn't even know most of the rules, just the broad strokes. I, for one, just want to play basic D&D (literally, B/X D&D.) I don't want to have to scan 10 pages to see what power options are available to my wizard, then 5 pages to find out my skills, then 10 pages to find out my feats, then ........ So the complexity of system, particularly when you aren't enthused by a system, can be a major barrier. I want to role play, but my group wants to use this system! AGH!
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Admittedly, I'm all over the place. It's a broad post, trying to summarize with some small examples why I think a year of RPG experience deserves the grade of F. I hope to do more detailed and focused posts on specific issues I've had, later.
Before I quit, though, I'd like to throw a few ideas out there. A week ago, I had a good experience. In my new D&D group, one of the players decided to run a Cthulhu game for us - a one shot. It was actually surprisingly fun. There were problems (the idiot gamer who wants to experiment with just how stupidly he can play any particular game, for one), but by and large, it was fun. I noticed other players saying very positive things about it, and comparing it favorably with D&D. Why? Why the difference?
This is what I think: it worked in large part because it was a one shot. By nature, it had an intense focus that these drawn out, pointless D&D games have not had. We were to investigate a storefront/residence in the 1930's, and recover some boxes with, as it turns out, occult artifacts. We get trapped in the house, realize quickly that there are strange supernatural happenings tied to the artifacts, and the game quickly becomes about finding out what the artifacts are, and how the hell to escape. Of course we all died (in part because the idiot player mentioned above murdered us because he thought it would be funny), but the scenario was engaging.
Our characters were pre-gens with background that linked them together (we were criminals - I was a bookie, my associates were hired muscle, cat burglers, etc). The scenario was predefined. The goal was made explicit (go to house, retrieve objects....... oh! We're trapped! Find out what's going on so we can hopefully escape with our lives and our sanity!).
In short, the game had focus.
I'm becoming interested in running a game of my own, and I think what MAY work for groups such as I've played with, is serious, explicit gamism with a simple ruleset (B/X D&D, or some OD&D clone), in the one-shot format. Sit the players down and say, "look, guys, this is a game. Here is the situation. Here is the goal. It will be challenging; there are multiple loss conditions, ranging from death to failing to complete the scenario. Failure is a real possibility. You have 4 hours to try to win. Go!" I'd probably want to game it up as much as possible, with acknowledgement for most badass move, best strategy, etc. Maybe even break the scenario down into checkpoints, so that players could achieve 70 percent victory (to be announced AFTER the game, of course), not completely unlike, say, Ninja Warrior (TV show). The game would not be about character - no need to dream up a life story or come up with some heavy character premise. It wouldn't be about some big sandbox world. It would be a tightly defined scenario with win/loss conditions, where players must step up and see what they can do.
I don't know. In a way, the above is contradicting the idea that everyone should cooperate in trying to decide what sort of game to run, what sort of creative agenda to embrace, what system to use, what techniques and setting to use, etc... But at the same time, I think a more top down approach, combined with such focus, could be helpful, whereas a more direct critique of the present game could be taken much more personally and cause offense. I've not found it fruitful to discuss theory or to offer constructive criticism to a GM or play group thus far. People seem to just assume they are doing it right, no matter how crappy the sessions are (and the sessions are crappy - if they weren't, people wouldn't be texting, playing on their laptops, talking loudly on other topics, acting bored and frustrated, etc). I wonder if simply embracing a very focused style with a one shot game might SHOW them what might work, rather than telling them. I don't know. I do know my group is open to other people running games/sharing the GM duties.
This post is as worthy as any other for the comment "TL;DR." I understand. If anyone wants to comment, feel free to comment on any single part, or ask questions on any single part. Or just ignore it. My future posts will be far more focused; consider this one more of an introduction, but conversation/discussion is welcome.
Nick
Mike Sugarbaker:
Welcome to the Forge.
How old are these people?
And why is It-Would-Be-Funny Boy still getting invited to the game?
InkMeister:
Hello Mike, thanks for the welcome.
In the longer running game (3.5 D&D), the DM was 43. All but two of the group were 25+.
In the newer, more promising game, we have 2 older teenagers, one 13 year old, a 20 year old DM, and some other college kids who might be 20-22. Younger group. One fellow who might be older than I (maybe 30).
I don't think age is the issue, for the most part. Especially considering the older crowd's game was a good bit worse.
The Foolish One is invited back because he is a family friend of the DM, and the older brother of another player in the group. It sucks. The DM gets very frustrated with him, but she doesn't want to kick him out (too nice, I think).
Nick
Ron Edwards:
Wow.
I think this is going to be the basis for some serious discussion. I will be back with some heavy replies in a day or so.
Best, Ron
InkMeister:
Hey Ron, I have read a number of your essays, posts, etc, and admire your work. I look forward to any discussion. To you and anyone else, I'm open to any questions, comments, insights, criticisms, related experiences, thoughts... Looking forward to it.
Nick
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