Creating Social Situations & Characters
DudesInCapes:
What I mean by follow the plot is following ANY plot. Every time we play they just want me to set up a bunch of monsters for them to fight. They don't want the story. They want the battle.
Ron Edwards:
Hello again,
I think you're going to have to decide whether you're posting here for solutions, or posting in order to complain.
What I'm seeing from your posts is that your friends simply don't want to play the same game you want to play. And by "game," I don't mean merely the FATE system, but role-playing as a whole. If they really and truly want to do it one way, and you want to do it another, then you're simply, flatly out of luck, and need to find other people to play with. Nothing can make them change.
If that's the case, and if you're merely complaining, then you're not going to get any replies here merely to pat your shoulder. The people here can definitely talk about how you can bring up the topic to them, or compare situations we've been in. but for anything to be genuinely helpful, then you have to be looking for solutions.
Now, maybe I'm getting the wrong impression. But I'm getting it from the way you're stating the problem in your posts, which looks very straightfoward. They "are" like this, they "want" this, and so on. And in your defense, if they are ignoring their characters Aspects when they're playing FATE of all things, well, yes, it does seem like you're dealing with pretty set views.
I'd like to help with your situation. Are you looking for solutions? And if so, do you have any reason to think that they, or at least one of them, might want to play differently?
Best, Ron
wholeridge:
Quote from: DudesInCapes on August 19, 2011, 04:59:20 PM
The problem with naming their character aspects is that I keep having to start over with new stories and new characters, because they'd rather beat everything up than follow the rest of the plot. In most cases, their character aspects are usually rather ridiculous and they almost never use them. It may just be that I'm not very good at actually GMing.
You are getting a lot of good advice here, but this is a problem which can be addressed on more than one front. In addition to what others have advised, I would suggest that you have a problem with your plots.
If blowing things up works for the players, it's because your plot allows blowing things up to work. Make the bad guys smarter. Have the bad guys anticipate your players' (highly predictable) response. If the bad guy's expect someone to come along blowing things up, they can take countermeasures. Suppose the bad guys use their supernatural powers to hide their headquarters in the local FBI building -- are your players going to blow that up? If they do, you have a whole new campaign to play as national law enforcement hunts down your characters with the help of the White Council.
Have the bad guys use cut-outs and intermediaries, so all the players have to beat up on are small time criminals who know little about the real villains.
Your players may rebel, or the may rise to the occasion. Either way, you've got something new happening.
Daniel36:
Yeah, I think you have to start viewing it like the bad guys. If everything they do is thwarted by a group of people blowing things up, you'll be sure they are going to take countermeasures.
Next time, have the bad guys set up a trap. Let them enter a building they will blow up (which, let's face it, never gets old) and have that be the bad guy's plan. When they set us up the bomb (catch the reference) have them get locked up inside. When they wake up from the explosion they will be in a cell. Something like that.
Or have them enter an underwater base. :D
happysmellyfish:
I agree with Ron here. You need to actually talk to the players, to outline what everyone wants from roleplaying. There's no point trying to herd them into "correct" play, via in-world obstacles. In my experience, that'll just lead to a bad time for all, and potentially bad blood to boot.
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