Masturbation and Spaghetti Throwing

[Peter Nordstrand]

So, there's this guy. A nice guy; friendly and humble, interested and committed. I like him. I want to keep playing with him.

I'm the gm. We're playing Call of Cthulhu 5th edition, with quite a bit of incoherent drifting, but that's not the issue here.

This guy does a couple of things that I would like to help him stop doing. I believe they are connected. I'm also quite sure that this is acquired, learned, behaviour. Someone has fucked up his ability to have fun role playing. I haven't asked him, but I do believe that his behavior is indicative of someone who has been having not-fun roleplaying while being constantly told that what they are doing is indeed fun. A sort of disconnect has happened, where actual play has been reduced to the backdrop against which his own (usually more satisfying) fantasies can take place. I'm guessing some serious deprotagonizing has happened in the past. It's a guess, but I think it is a reasonable assumption.

I do not  think that this is about creative agenda at all. I do not believe he has a creative agenda.


Symptom: not-playing

Overly focusing on backstory, thinking about character "psychology" in a way that is really unplayable in actual play. Also constantly trying to add more "depth" or "color" (his words) to his character, while completely unable to recognise that the personality and motivation that was established during character generation is enough. In fact he often does not use the established personality and motivations at all in actual play. I don't think he can see that they are real tool. I suspect that fantasies about immersion is in there somewhere as well.

In short, he is playing in his own head, not recognising actual play as the place for character development or possibly even a reasonable source of fun.

Metaphor: He is masturbating with his eyes closed, while the rest of us are there to fuck. He seems to have no idea that he isn't fucking.

In order to play the same game as the rest of us, I believe he needs to stop making all this irrelevant shit up, and instead focus on actual play.


Symptom: Throwing spaghetti at the wall

Since he doesn't seem to know how to create fun actually playing, he is for all intents and purposes playing blind. Therefore he is throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping that something will stick. He seems to have trouble identifying what the game "is about" at any given time. There's also a bit of disconnect between in-game events and his reactions to them.

He seems to believe that part of the role playing experience is about asking the gm the right questions. He also seems to expect the questions and answers to be completely arbitrary.

He used to ask a bunch of irrelevant questions all the time. Like, I would briefly describe "a small study, with a desk below a tiny window that hasn't been cleaned in months", and he would start asking about how many chairs there were, if the wallpaper was modern or not, if there's an ashtray in the room, what kind of ashtray, etc. etc.  In the beginning I would answer, but I soon realised there was no point to the questions, other than perhaps that this is what you do when roleplaying. Again, I'm guessing his motivations based on his behavior. I've since told him to stop asking questions about the environment and start asserting instead, and it is much better now.

Basic scene framing is nigh impossible for him to understand. If allowed to, he always starts every scene at the very beginning, quickly moving to in character conversation containing nothing more than empty pleasantries. If left unchecked, this leads to every scene beginning with a "good evening, my name is".

"I knock on the door"

"No you don't, your in his kitchen and you've already told him what you want."

I think at least partly this has to do with his inability to identify what the interesting, important or fun part of play is. How can he possibly get to the point, if he cannot identify the point?


What I am looking for

You must understand that this guy is not an obnoxious asshole. He is a nice guy, and I just want to help him have fun. I want to empower him, help him make strong meaningful choices.

So this is my question to you:

- This is hardly unique. Feel free to refer me to earlier discussions in this forum, the forge or wherever. I've tried searching the forge archives, but maybe I've not identified the appropriate terms; what I've found is tangential at best.

- I am open to advice, questions, ideas.


Thank you for indulging me.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Ron, feel free to correct my formatting mistake in the last section. Only the headline is supposed to be bold.

I tried posting from my iPad, not entirely compatible with the forum software used. Sorry about the mess.

[lumpley]

Got it.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Thank you, Vincent.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Peter!

The jargon worked up a term for this sort of thing, Zilchplay - the lack of creative agenda, the disengagement with others' experiences, the use of play as raw material for later construction, all go together. Sometimes I talked about Zilchplay in terms of checking out or being only barely engaged, with a lot of reading comics or wandering around (or I guess texting in this day and age), but what you're describing meets the definition too. The idea is that the Exploration (fiction) platform limps along, and is kind of spotty if you're looking across its "shared" quality, so the first "S" in SIS is more like "sometimes shared if the GM really tries hard."

Here's the wiki entry; it has links to the relevant threads.

In order to play the same game as the rest of us, I believe he needs to stop making all this irrelevant shit up, and instead focus on actual play.

As you know I am notorious for answering this kind of inquiry in an aggravating way: the question is not how he can have fun with you, because you just answered it in what I quoted. The question is why you even play with him when he is clearly not going to do it.

I'm focusing on the implication - or my inference - that the only valid excuse to stop playing with someone is to judge him or her very harshly: an "asshole," "disruptive," a "problem." The idea is that in order to be dis-invited from role-playing, a person has to be really bad; otherwise they stay. I may be over-reading your post, so ignore the rest of this paragraph if I am ... Is it not possible to decide to stop inviting someone, not because they fit any of those or similar descriptions, but specifically and only because you aren't enjoying playing with them? "No blood, no foul," not a bad person, but not who you want in the room at that time you are engaged in this activity.

[Jesse Burneko]

What Ron said.  You're allowed to set your own standards for participation and exclusion due to lack of skill, interest or commitment is acceptable.

Here's the "kinder" version: You are allowed to decide whether you want to take on a mentor role to a weak player.  It's okay to say, "No, I don't."  But let's say your answer is, "Yes, I'm willing to be a mentor."  That still only gets you half way.  He has to be able/willing to be mentored.  Your example suggests that *maybe* he is since he respected your request that he stop asking about minutia.

So given all that here's what I do in similar situations.  I try to get very concrete with the situation and ask action oriented questions.  "Hey this guy has gun in your face, are you going to do anything about that?"  If it's a social situation that appears to be going around in circles I ask things like, "Is there something you want out this situation?  Do you want this guy to DO something or tell you something specific?"

I try to avoid asking internal focused questions because that feeds the issues you're describing but sometimes given a concrete enough situation it's a helpful stepping stone.  You go from, "tell me how this situation makes your character feel?" immediately to, "And what do you want your character to DO about those feelings?"

Hope this is helpful.

Jesse

[Callan S.]

While I think it's good to consider the question of whether you play with them at all, that doesn't mean that's going to work out okay, socially. If you invited them by giving them a season pass, so to speak, then you're stuck with that - and who invites from session to session anyway? Maybe if you have a 'see if you jive with me' session at the start that was explicitly about whether they make the cut and can come to the main play - but that sounds kinda pretentious even then. And when you gave them a season pass but then you essentially do the same jive thing without saying that as if you have supreme veto over what previously appeared a given - well, you'd be showing up on the social radar with a big red blip.

I'm not saying if it's a red blip you can't do it. But I think it's important to recongise where one is breaking with social convention (too many people simply insist to themselves they are actually adhering to social convention - thus inventing a new convetion (without admitting it to themselves). Sometimes quite fucked up ones, with no option for an audit because they can't acknowledge they invented anything)

[Peter Nordstrand]

Thank you guys

Zilchplay, as described in the wiki, does indeed seem to be at least part of it.

As you know I am notorious for answering this kind of inquiry in an aggravating way: the question is not how he can have fun with you, because you just answered it in what I quoted. The question is why you even play with him when he is clearly not going to do it.

I'm focusing on the implication - or my inference - that the only valid excuse to stop playing with someone is to judge him or her very harshly: an "asshole," "disruptive," a "problem."

I know where you are coming from, Ron, and I do agree with the sentiment not to play with people you don't enjoy playing with. I also agree that him being a good guy shouldn't be the only reason to play with him.

You quoted me, and I may have chosen the wrong words. "In order to play the same game" was not meant to mean "if he wants to play with us". Instead I quite literally meant he is currently not engaging in the same activity that the rest of us are. However, together we can change that. I do believe that he has to do a lot of unlearning in order to get there, though. He seems to have destructive preconceptions of what roleplaying "is" that is getting in the way.

I'm not posting out of frustration or unhappiness. We're at the beginning of our relationship as gamers, and he doesn't have to get it all right from the start. I don't mind him lacking certain skills. I don't mind that it might be a bit difficult to mentor him.

I guess my post is about didactics and not about a dysfunctional social situation.

But let's say your answer is, "Yes, I'm willing to be a mentor."  That still only gets you half way.  He has to be able/willing to be mentored.

He trusts me and listens to me.
He is never arguing, even though I've been quite direct at times, interrupting him to cut scenes etc.
He is not really passive, just tends to get lost in a lot of meaningless zilchplay. He can be quite proactive at times, and even though he hasn't cracked the code, he most certainly is trying.

I do want to help him figure this out.

I have more to say, Jesse and Callan, but I'll ho slowly, one thing at a time. Thank you for being patient.

[glandis]

Hi Peter,

Others have covered a lot of important stuff - I'll assume you know what you're doing, the player is interested in engaging with the game in a new/different way, and together you're trying to figure out how to make that happen. The one thing I want to point at is this:

We're playing Call of Cthulhu 5th edition, with quite a bit of incoherent drifting, but that's not the issue here

It may not be the issue, but if you really mean "quite a bit of incoherent drifting", I think it's likely to be at least an issue. If play itself is incoherent a good portion of the time, the midst of all that incoherence is not the best/easiest place to communicate with the player about where/how to find the fun stuff. Ideally, I think learning about unfamiliar stuff in RPGs would happen in a more focused play environment. I've learned a lot more from even brief (1-2 session) play with people using a well-crafted system in a clear and coherent style than I suspect I would have from months of more, um, meandering play.

So maybe I'm saying ... try playing a few sessions of some other game with this guy. Trollbabe. Primetime Adventures. Find something that clearly shows alternate approaches to his normal style. I've no personal experience, but I was recently told about a guy who credited running the FATE Dresden Files game with making him (as GM) and, to an extent, his whole group better at doing CoC.

If that's not possible, I'm not saying you shouldn't go ahead and try within your CoC game, it's just an issue that jumped out at me from your post. I look forward to hearing how it goes, however you decide to approach it.