A Year of Crappy Roleplaying
Paul Czege:
Hey Nick,
A 43 year old female DM running a game for 4-8 twentysomething guys? How'd you hook up with this group? What can you say about the DM outside the game?
Paul
InkMeister:
Paul,
I have to apologize for the overly vague descriptions on my part. I wanted to leave out names, but I can see how that is confusing. At the same time, I was generalizing from my experiences, and didn't expect the individual details to be of interest - but it is fine if they are. As I said, I'm happy to answer any questions.
So, to be clear, the DM of my first group was a 43 year old male. This was the 3.5 D&D power gaming group. There was one regular female gamer in that group, who is NOW the 20 year old DM of the present 4th edition group. This newer 4th edition group contains the player who likes to do very disruptive, crazy things in-game (and out of game, too, frankly). I mentioned a third group in my post, but didn't go into any detail about them - there was no need, the game sucked for reasons already mentioned with regard to the other groups (mainly #2 "unfocused" - not so much problem players in this case).
Each of the three groups have one or two common members (though the first group has disbanded). It all started with me approaching the 43 old DM about getting a game going. I knew him casually, but saw a post of his on the internet for D&D, and so I got really excited and thought "YES, I finally know someone else into this hobby." We got the ball rolling, and various friends and people met through the internet joined. I'm just amazed so many of us stayed involved for so long.
I guess a question I have for YOU all (any readers) - a question that helped prompt me to write this whole thing - is this: is this how gaming often is? Is this common? If I were to base my thinking on RPGing off of just my last year of play, I'd think it was hopelessly stupid. I stick with it because I remember it being more interesting as a teenager, and because I read such fascinating ideas and games online, and it sounds amazing.
Maybe I expect too much, but I doubt it... The games I play in make no sense. People end up acting stupid. There is no character development. No compelling story. No real motivation. No real excitement. No point. No challenge. I read GNS theory and I think about these creative agendas, and I think "wow! ALL of this sounds so cool!" I'd love to do a game with Fate and see how the different mechanics tie character to setting, for example. I'd love to do some kind of simulationist, immersive game. I'd love to do crazy old-school D&D dungeon crawls with high PC casualty rates. But the games I play in seem terribly unfocused. Like I said, it's as if we all expect that just getting together and playing D&D is going to be cool. But then we run into a wall.
Here are parts of the wall, as I see it. We don't sit down as a group to decide what kind of game we want. So we end up kind of creating characters in isolation (even if we are at the table at the same time, it's isolated). All the character development is mechanical. No real background or connection to the world. And we don't have much input regarding the world (because, traditionally, and conventionally, that's the DM's job). The DM ends up just saying "you are here, what do you do?" But how do we decide what to do when we don't know anything about the world? No character... no world... So what do you do?
Maybe the above could work if the game were more focused in a scenario involving a challenging situation (I'm thinking gamist structure). You wouldn't need an elaborate setting, and you wouldn't need character development. Just roleplay the situation and try to win. That would be cool... Except I think everyone I play with is bogged down under this notion that 1) an RPG can't be a simple win/lose game (that would be, I guess, too low-brow or simple), AND also 2) that an RPG needs to be geared towards extended campaign play. Too bad, because I think the simplicity of a straight up gamist approach might give us the focus to actually enjoy RPGing on SOME level. And given that our games are geared towards extended play, there is a strong drive on the part of GM's, I think, to not let anything too bad happen to the characters. Players might get upset if they die (this hasn't really happened, though... no one ever dies... so I don't know why people are afraid to see a PC die.)
In other words, there is no story, no setting... To me, that leaves the remote possibility of a focused, challenging gamist structure - which I think the group might really go for if it occured to them that you can play an RPG in such a "low-brow" way. But then we can't do the gamist thing, because there really are no loss conditions... There is nothing to prove.
This is why I say our games are unfocused. It's like we try to do everything, or expect that everything will just happen by the simple act of getting together to play an RPG, and we end up going nowhere. And everyone is so protected that there is no way to suffer or die or fail in the game, so whatever we accomplish has no meaning in even the most basic challenge sense. there is literally no point to what we do.
Does anyone else experience this? If I had to guess, just based on my own thinking and my own experiences, I would think this experience is extremely common. Perhaps not here, but in general... But I could be wrong.
Nick
InkMeister:
Sorry to double post, but I think this is important in response to Paul's question:
Both of the DM's I've mentioned are really neat people outside of the game. I'd say they are well rounded, intelligent, sociable, friendly, outgoing... Genuinely likeable people. The 43 year old guy DM is always fun to talk to... funny, friendly, cool. The younger lady DM is very sharp and good with people as well.
Outside of the game, I honestly like almost all the people I game with - even, though to a lesser degree, the annoying and disruptive ones. The thing is, before gaming with them, I didn't know a lot of these people. I think, generally speaking, all these people like each other, as well. I think that's the main reason we come back week after week. We really like each other, and we do have fun, but it's IN SPITE of the game, not because of it. And when the game starts getting really bad, we end up joking and laughing and making fun of the game, and getting crazy. We end up becoming kind of like that ADD player I mentioned in the first post - we joke, we disrupt, we ignore the game to have conversations about whatever. Something will happen in the game and it'll turn into a joke, or a parody of itself, for no reason (I'm as guilty of this as anyone). Things get really loose and disorganized, but still kind of fun. What becomes unfun is the feeling we have to keep plugging along with the game, because it's D&D night. Still, we all consistently show up, and if I had to guess, I would say that we all genuinely want the game to be good. We want to roleplay and have cool in-game experiences. We want to use our imaginations and face challenges and create stories. I think a lot of the problem is that, as a group, we don't know how to make it happen. We aren't focused.
Nick
dugfromthearth:
find better players. This is really it. If you like playing but don't enjoy who you are playing with - change the group. Kick out who you can, or find a completely different group. Check online for other players in your area. The players make the gaming experience.
I checked online for some players and met a guy who was new to the area who wanted to GM a game. We found another player and his sister. The player claimed he wanted a "heroic" game. We discovered that to him heroic meant powerful. His character concept was the most powerful mage in the world who was feared and respected. The GM and I stopped playing with them and found others. It sucked to not play for a few months while we looked, but it was better than playing in a game we didn't like.
dugfromthearth:
oh, and for a simple system you might try Savage Worlds. Vastly simpler than D&D.
I also like BASH for a simple superhero game, they supposedly have a fantasy version as well.
There are simple but good games out there if your interest is playing the game rather than building characters.
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