How to enjoy Story Before without Participationism
Callan S.:
I'm pretty sure a dislike of spoon fed plot means
Quote
My advice to you for ways to increase your fun and reduce my frustration is to grab on to story hooks with both hands and engage.
He wants you to pick up the spoon yourself and feed yourself.
I guess my question would be how does a player know what a story hook is? And what is 'engaging'? He might very well be asking "So what are you guys doing?" because no one can see the important parts and even once they cotton on after frustrated prompting, they don't know the exact engagement method.
I'm kind of thinking keeps just enough remnants of 'you can do what you want' freedom so as to evoke a world, but that itself gets in the way of the plot because it hides what the story hooks are and what the engagement method is.
It's possible that if the GM could be put in the same position as the player, he'd be just as cluelessly standing there, needing to be prompted with "what are you doing now?". But he can't as he knows the script, so whenever he looks at it from a players point of view, he's always informed by the script. How often is he a player?
David Berg:
I agree with Callan.
I think this:
Quote from: Josh Porter on December 18, 2011, 12:46:02 PM
HIM
I've tried really hard to avoid pushing y'all down any particular path . . . my intent has been to provide multiple hooks into things going on for PC's to latch on to . . . My prep has been to work up 2-3 different situations for the PC's to become involved in.
tends not to work well with this:
Quote from: Josh Porter on December 18, 2011, 12:46:02 PM
I do have an overarching plot in mind
Giving the players hooks they will reliably want to pursue is a craft that requires certain techniques. If your game system hasn't handed you those techniques, you'll need to develop them yourselves. In my experience, uber-plot concerns tend to interfere with the process of developing those techniques, and with a GM's ability to employ them to best effect.
I can make some suggestions regarding "hooks that will be pursued", but I dunno if that's off topic or fodder for a new thread or what. (You could also try searching the Forge for "flags", "flagging", or "flag framing".) Once that's covered, then I'd take a closer look at the uber-plot and how to work it in. I've had some success doing that, but it depends on how important uber-plot progress is to the GM's enjoyment.
Callan S.:
Just thought I'd quickly add, what might be really helpful to ask for from him is a hypothetical example of play - ie, he writes out a section of made up play, what he'd say, what he'd like the players to say in responce, when rolls happen, and so on, back and forth between what the GM says and what the players say, a few times. In seeing an example, it might really illustrate what the cues are for when players are to do something.
contracycle:
I think what Dan has flagged up is very important, possibly critical. So it might be interesting to know what the dynamic is between the player characters - how are they connected to each other? Becuase in this respect, the least effective solution is to have characters be "just friends", and the best solution is to have them in some kind of command structure.
I've experienced exactly this sort of problem as a GM, and my solution was to make one PC the head guy and all the others subordinates. This meant that if I could hook the head guy, all the rest came along too. And because the relationships wese in character, this meant that it informed some of the rest of play - they could also squabble, plot mutinies, and so on, but it was all now directed rather than random, and contributed to the overall direction and tone.
On a slightly more abstract level, even if you don't have such a structure, even one player willing to actively work with the GM can be absolute gold. The worst case is being faced with a bunch of players looking back at you and demanding "go on, make me care". Just one player willing to pick up the ball and run with it can set off a virtuous circle of engagement producing fun which produces engagement and so on. You can, if you want, be that guy.
JoyWriter:
Josh I've been writing my response to this as I've been reading the thread and been able to tick off my own advice as you've done it, but I do still have some ideas.
The sort of stuff he's said really does seem promising, as he's obviously working to make the game better, it's just that he doesn't have the tools to do it properly yet. These are the tools that come to mind to me, although people more experienced with Fate may need to check them:
He seems to be using clues when he could be using compels, which are a piece of dresden files equipment perfectly suited to making players follow a plot/set up future events. People think that they have to use them to get people "into trouble" in order to "earn" players their fate points, but it's not like that at all: Fate points allow the GM to do almost exactly what he did to you at the camp fire within the system. If he wants you to act a certain way, then all he needs to do is set up a situation so that a compel will be appropriate given the aspects you have set and the character you are interested in.
In other words if he wants you to get to a certain place, he doesn't just need to feed you information until you gain a sufficient sense of cosmic destiny/emotional guilt to go do something. Instead he can just get you to be involved in situations by having them fit your character concept, and then compelling your characters to go along with it.
So instead of trying to "compel" you the player via a hook he hopes will interest you, he can focus his hooks on confirming your character concept. In theory at least, he can then give you the kind of situations you want while carrying on his plot, because they have to include the stuff that suits you or there will be no reasonable way to introduce a compel. And this gives you some definite feedback you can give him: "compel my character like this and I'll find it more interesting". A way of getting in on his railroading without him letting you behind the illusionists curtain.
Now this might not be what either of you want:
Do you mainly want to portray a particular character? If that's the cool bit for you, then this method can help you, because you can just chat about your aspects, what they mean to you, and have him expect you to do certain things that you are interested in doing.
And if he is just using clues as he always has, as roadsigns and motivation, then he might be trying to work out what to do with these "compels", like walking around trundling a bike wondering what its for, when he could be using it to get places faster.
But while this could seriously shortcut your way to whatever he's actually interested in, it relies on the assumption that he doesn't particularly like his investigation scenes, and is just doing them to set up the future.
Of course he may have mixed motivations, like if he also wants to introduce certain characters, create a sense of place and so forth. In which case, he could still use compels, to muffle over the logic of "scene transitions". (You know: Let the scene run, and when everyone's had enough, compel people to the next bit of the plot!) But if he actually wants focused in-character interaction, he'd probably be far happier setting things up so that you can all go your various ways, and putting the appropriate NPCs in the places you happen to go, so that each person gets to meet npcs while also doing what they want.
He could observe all those situations when characters in films or books stumble upon something by accident when in their daily lives, then get roped into it, or motivated to work with it, with only about four scenes = 1 hour set up time, often less.
That might also help you, where instead of asking you all "what do you do now", he asks each of you in turn for a bit of detail into your characters ordinary life, then folds his plot ideas into that, wherever you happen to be. Taking turns to play out each player’s story, then with people sort of regrouping and sharing knowledge etc.
But back to compels because the other stuff sounds like it's quite a big structural change, and I can't tell if it would actually give you what you're after.
In addition to solving the basic problem of making that kind of game chug forward; where the GM doesn't have to go all pleading eyes (in character or out) in order to get you to do stuff he can prepare for, compels can also act as a signalling mechanism:
If he starts getting a hang on your character concept, then hopefully you'll be happy to go along with his compels, if he's got it slightly wrong; where his ideas don't really match your interests, you can show him by putting up token resistance in terms of Fate points. Then he can double your current total Fate pot in order to get you to do it, or adjust the compel slightly in order to make it suit you better. The ability to temporarily resist GM force, in a way he can escalate past, allows you to show him when he's pushing things in a way that is not matching your interests, without putting him in panic mode because he's unsure how to get anything to happen.
If this kind of system is working, and the game is very GM-plot-driven, then the amount of fate points in a player's pool can represent the levels of trust and agreement between player and GM, if a player is hoarding fate points to protest compels, then that can be a sign that something is going wrong, and that the two of you need to have a chat about aspects or broader game concerns. But if the player is more likely to accept compels, because they match what they are interested in, then they will be happy to just empty their pool in doing stuff, or even in suggesting facts that the GM agrees to.
The specific way that dresden files uses fate points within the game world can obscure this, but it could be helpful in the game, if your GM replaces any “anyone want to check under the sink?” stuff with just compelling the player he thinks has the most obviously appropriate aspect. It can also be another way of showing him those situations where he is accidentally auto-scripting entire situations.
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