How to enjoy Story Before without Participationism
Josh Porter:
I am trying to figure a way to communicate my frustrations about this game with the GM in a way that will not hurt his feelings. He is one of my good friends, as are the rest of the players, and that may be why we all put up with the game as it lies. We are a bunch of friends hanging out together before all else. The GM has some very concrete opinions concerning roleplaying, and he stands pretty firmly on them. They all are pretty traditional, and he's very resistant to a lot of the concepts and terminology regarding the Forge in general. He recently ran a couple sessions of Dungeon World for a couple of us, and I could see him adapting his old-school GM sensibilities to the style that DW requires as he went. It was pretty great to see. But since FATE has no such GM rules, he is definitely falling back to what always worked in D&D (at least that's my take on it).
Long story short, I'm looking for a way to broach the whole conversation of this game without putting him on the defensive. I think he's got a cool plot going, but it's not flowing the way it needs to for all of us involved to have fun consistently. It's difficult to tell a guy who sees himself as a storyteller that his story needs to adapt to the group. That's kind of what's up. He ran a disastrous L5R game with us about 9 months back where much the same thing happened. We all went around having character fun and missed his plot without even knowing it. The thing about that game was that the PCs had fun every session, but the GM got so frustrated that he just called the game short a couple times and kind of stormed off. I think a lot of us still remember this and are wary of ruining his fun again, so we may be trying to "go easy on him" and follow the trail he's laying.
Now I know that I am the most radical (as in far left hippie games) player in the spectrum of our group. The other players, while not experiencing maximum fun potential, are generally more content with it. They are pretty OK with just knowing the basics of a system enough to play it, and then following that wherever it takes them. I am a glutton for rules and always have been, so I see the way it could be working reflected in other systems, and I lust after it. This all being said, I am trying to experiment with how to get the most out of the game, while everyone else just kind of waits it out till the good parts. If I become the railroad conductor, I don't think it will be noticed as such, and it might just throw some extra coal in the furnace to move the story along more quickly.
This has been quite rambly. I think I just need to drop out some more context on here so that the whole situation is a little more fleshed out. And if anyone's had a similar conversation with their GM before, I'd love to hear how it went, and what the effects of it were. I think that might help me lay out my case in a more non-confrontational manner.
Alfryd:
Well, I appreciate the clarification. I can see where you're coming from now.
I suppose, in the best-case scenario, embracing the railroad could work, but the worst-case scenario is that you'll just wind up delaying the inevitable breakdown of the group and, in the meantime, not enjoy yourself much.
I can't give you any specific advice on how to talk to a GM on a subject like this, but in my experience, railroaded games work best when whatever localised scene-specific problem you're addressing constitutes a viable, interesting, 'mini-game' in itself.
To take the classic example of D&D, players frequently have absolutely no control over the plot, but the monster encounters en-route and the variety of small-scale tactics available for dealing with that problem (i.e, the mini-game) create enough cognitive demands to keep the players engaged. The fact that the players will win is usually a foregone conclusion, but looking cool while doing so, and maximising the efficiency with which those enemies can be dispatched, is good and sufficient reason to keep playing.
The problem here, I suspect, is that the 'mini-game' which your GM is trying to keep you engaged with isn't really a game at all. There is one correct skill which will net you one correct answer and allow you to proceed to one correct outcome, which often requires guessing what the GM is thinking beforehand. There isn't enough analytic complexity (i.e, 'challenge') there to keep the players hooked. And- I'm guessing- the GM doesn't *want* the procedure here to be all that complex, because he really just wants to push you through these scenes ASAP up to a big conflict/climax. But paradoxically, the very bareness of these lead-up scenes makes them uninteresting, which makes the players disengage, and therefore makes them take up *more* time, not less. The problem here is that the GM really just wants to give you the answer without actually giving you the answer.
Perhaps if he were willing to make these lead-up scenes into little puzzles of some kind- where are the clues are handed to you, but the trick lies in interpreting them correctly?- then that would pose enough of a brain-teaser to get all the players aboard?
Callan S.:
Quote
He recently ran a couple sessions of Dungeon World for a couple of us, and I could see him adapting his old-school GM sensibilities to the style that DW requires as he went.
That sounds really promising - if you think of rules as disscussion itself, this method of discussion clearly worked.
Even more so, could you just run a game yourself? I'd recommend capes, since you can try the free version (and it has a flash demo online too). Or is there a dynamic there - are you at his house and pretty much get together for his game sessions? I come from a background of where everyone in the group pretty much GM'ed at one point or another, often enough even in the same campaign.
stefoid:
Is this guy THE GM? Why didnt you run Dungeon World? Why dont you suggest running something 'in tandem' i.e. switch games every fortnight? and you GM a game you like in the style you want. The groups reaction to the contrast should be enlightening one way or the other.
philipstephen:
One thing that I have not noticed mentioned yet (and it could be because I was skim reading) was talking to your GM.
Tell them what your experience of the game has been and what the experience you are hoping for looks like.
Ask if it is possible to work together to make the game fun for the both of you... maybe the whole group has something to say.
Though it sounds like you have a workable solution to try from other comments.
Good luck!
Phil
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page