[Elfs] RavenElfs First Session

[jburneko]

Hello,

So last night my group played our first session of Elfs.  As a scenario I'm using an Elfified version of the original I6 Ravenloft module.

First of all, I'm very glad I followed some advice I saw in an actual play post about skipping any kind of "intro" portion of the module.  Originally, I was going to have the mysterious gypsy who delivers a letter in the module deliver the letter to a group of adventurers who laugh it off and dump it in the PCs hands on the way out the door.  But instead I started with the iron gates of Barovia slamming shut behind them and a comment about how they'd stolen the letter from some adventurers back at that last tavern.

I'm glad I did this because given the chaos that ensued I doubt they would have made it out of the tavern had I started it there.  As it stood the players spent nearly 15 minutes bantering with each other and not really doing or going anywhere (Except for one player, an oral stage elf, who chewed his way through the lock of the iron gate).  When they finally did decide to head down the road they encountered a dead body with a second note.  Before even reading the note two of the Elfs were carving up the body to collect "body parts."

One player commented about the chaos, "Wow, this is what we end up doing when we play D&D only now we're SUPPOSED to be doing it.  This is cool!"

But from there things seemed to get out of control really fast.  Not out of control in the story but out of control at the actual social level.  My players just started yattering all kinds of dialogue and action at me.  I had trouble getting a word in edgewise.  I'd start to describe something and before I'd gotten through a whole sentence one of my players would be shouting a reaction to some fragment I'd mentioned.   The whole thing got really frustrating for me as I tried to react to and ajudicate what turned out to be 5 different sets of chaos.

As I mulled over it latter (and I actually lost some sleep over this) I realized that Elfs has thrown into sharp relief what I think is a deep rooted general problem with my group.  It comes down to an IIEE problem but it stems from the attitude that System isn't really the responsibilty of the players.  The players just yatter dialogue and action at me and expect me to just stop them should anything they say require a die roll or something.  This was especially true from the players who focused on Low Cunning over Dumb Luck.

This revelation has been slow in coming but I should have seen it sooner.

I had the first inklings back when Ron would talk about running Sorcerer and how he'd bring every character up to the point of an important die roll and everyone would roll at once.  I've never really been able to achieve that effect.  Mostly because most die rolls would stem from me cutting the player off mid-sentence saying, "Alright, all that sounds like a Will roll..." but switching away seemed weird since I'd just kind of stopped the flow to interject system.

The next big inkling came when we played My Life With Master.  When I found myself often having to squint lean in and ask, "Is that meant to be an Overture of Affection?" and was met with a kind of, "I don't know, you tell me" response.

This has been a constant sense of unease over the last few months while I've been running The Riddle of Steel which doesn't really have a good IIEE/Resolution system for complex social interaction.  There have even been times where I've been wrong.  The player will be yattering at me and I'll say, "Okay, roll diplomacy."  They'll obediently roll, tell me the result and I'll start describing the NPC's reaction and the player will then, sigh and say, "Okay, but all that was really just a prelude to X which is what I'm really trying to accomplish."

But what really came as a rushing moment of revelation was not during an RPG session at all.  After last night's Elf session a couple of the players hung around and played a few games of Magic: The Gathering.  I watched.  And as I watched I listened to them talk.  And I noticed that they would say things like, "Alright, I'm going to attack you.  I tap two mana and use my assassin's special abilty to target your birds."  "Oh, and my birds fall from the sky, how sad."

Goal first, system second, roleplay third.  IIEE, Fortune In The Middle.  It suddenly occured to me that no one sounds like this while we're playing.  No one says, "Okay, I'm going to seduce the young gypsy.  I'd like to use Low Cunning.  I knock a wine glass into her lap and then cop a feel while cleaning her up."  My players would just say, "I knock the wine glass into her lap and cop a feel."  And I, as a GM, have no idea if this is an attempt at seduction, an attempt to distract so that they can pick a pocket, just a prologue to the REAL action.

So what I think I'm going to do next time is go in a more round robin fashion and ask for concrete goals and methodologies to those goals.  If they strike up a conversation with an NPC I'm going to find out in advance if they're doing so with an agenda or if they're just feeling out the NPC.  I'm going to clamp down on interrupting me while I'm describing things.  I'm going to see if I can break some of these habits, and I'm sure they're deep rooted habits and not necessarily a concious play preference methodology.

I'll see where that goes.

Before I end, I would like to highlight a particularly nice moment.  The Elfs had decided that 'Strahd' was some kind sexually transmitted disease.  When it came to the first round of looking for magic items one player decided to use Dumb Luck.  She was standing near an empty coach.  Her stated action for her Elf was, "I'm searching the coach for signs of the Strahd."  And her stated action was that "she finds a ring between the cushions."  The roll scored three success and so she found the ring and... Strahd sitting in the coach!!!!  

Jesse

[ADGBoss]

Jesse

I wanted to comment on the 'Interruptions' while you are describing things, which can be disruptive even if it is not meant to be. One thing that we do in Living Greyhawk (and indeed all RPGA or Living games I am aware of) is that in each module there are areas known as Box Text. This is really kind of Story Imposition or a Triggered Event.  Box Text is inviolate (exception... see below) and the reason for this is that you basically have 4 (or 8 depending) hours to get through this module and it is designed to move the module along at certain points. So it is one part Info dump, one part Railroading of a sort.

Now, since many conventions are run on shoe string budgets, they sometimes come up with inventive ways to make money.  Several years ago, one of the local Cons sold Chits with various bonuses or abilities on them.  One of these was "Interrupt Box Text". Now it was disaster for several of the Modules run, as timing it right totally threw the module off. However, I have always felt that for non-Tournament / Module play that it could be an effective system.  

Essentially set a Box Text Rule i.e. when you say BT or use the Hand motion (we make a box in the air...) then its your turn to talk and no one can act or interrupt.  However, make one of the possible rewards in the system a chit for Interrupting Box Text.  That way if a Player wishes to act during BT, he or she can.

Now this does not fit neatly into EVERY system and some systems already have something like this, but it might be a useful technique for reigning in needless chatter without totally shutting down Player interaction.


Sean

[greyorm]

Sean, I don't think "needless chatter" is really Jesse's problem (correct me if I'm wrong, Jesse). What I'm seeing is a habit some of my players also have -- the idea that if they need to roll something, I will tell them to roll it.

But this is disruptive, and puts a ton of extra responsibility on the GM, because not only does he have to pay attention to the social interactions going on, and what his NPCs are doing/saying/reacting to the PCs, but also what sorts of system events the players might be trying to accomplish with their dialogue, or system events which should be included at that moment (diplomacy rolls, surprise rolls, use of a skill, etc.) that it really should be the player's responsibility to indicate.

I don't know of a good fix to the problem, unfortunately. I've discussed the idea of "making it clear to me, as a player, what your goals are, outside of your character's specific actions" with my players, but never really come to any conclusion on it. They are mainly worried it will mean "less role-playing" -- and given the way I was presenting it, that was a problem, especially given their play preferences. Perhaps going through and stating goals at the start of a particular scene, without attaching rolls or action to them, just as a sort of player-created primer for the GM, would work.

(However, I will note that last night one of the players initiated a diplomacy roll on his own initiative alongside his role-playing, and I could have cried from joy. In hindsight, it was exactly where I "should have" asked for a diplomacy roll, in a "GM deals with system" style game -- but of course I was not thinking about system at that moment, but playing the NPC, so it was great that he caught it, saw the opportunity, and used it without prompting!)

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This is me, raising my hands upon high, in praise. YES. Jesse, YES. This is key. Realizing the primacy of these issues is what's helping you break out of that "computer mode" of role-playing which you described a while ago, in which you're either in freeform or in fully-automated play.

However, your players have long ago learned how to manipulate you and get what they want, when you're in this kind of mind-set. All they have to do is keep you off balance. All they have to do to have their characters stay in advantage is to rattle you, keep you out of "system-automation" mode, and thus avoid any system-based consequences.

I've often thought that if I were GMing your group, they'd experience a very rude awakening the first time I sat back and snapped "Shut UP!"

Think of ... oh, say a card game, any kind. The one thing that anyone and everyone understands about card games is that there are turns, rounds, and routines, whatever you want to call them, in which everyone knows where everyone else is in the process. At all times. Without negotiation. And in many games, with no waiting or dropping of attention when it's not your "go," because everyone's "go" is relevant to everyone else's.

I don't role-play without this shared understanding at all times. Most RPGs commit the fatal error of having (a) an overly slow and restrictive version of this organization at (b) very limited and in-game-defined circumstances, i.e. combat; with no guidance or structure whatsoever out of those circumstances. That's what's locked you into "freeform vs. automated" habits. Alternately, a card-game like situation in which instances of System are already considered pieces of this uber-System (what I think of as "real" System) is rarely found.

Universalis depends heavily on this kind of uber-structure; so does Soap. My Life with Master does as well, and now I wish Paul had emphasized it in his text a bit more. All dicing in Sorcerer is like this, and both Nine Worlds and Dust Devils are very similar to Sorcerer in this way. Trollbabe, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Extreme Vengeance all consider their dicing-stuff to be subcomponents of structured Scene and Conflict stuff, with clear communication about "where we are" and "whose go" being a major feature of play at all times.

I think you've finally hit upon why System has never really helped your group achieve satisfactory play. It's because "system," to your group, means "Jesse bumps us into automation." In that case, wouldn't you simply pull out any and all social stops merely to stay in freeform and shout out what you want, and rattle the "automater" so he can't mess with what you want too badly?

A lot of my game designs depend on understanding the difference between (1) proposal, provisional input, and set-up; and (2) resolution, outcomes, consequences, and upsets. Actual spoken interactions among us is the matrix within these things happen, thus creating a continuum from dialogue among us (the people) and narration of what happens (fiction).

It seems to me that a number of people in your group are determined to keep this distinction as blurry and chaotic as possible.

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

Hello,

Raven has it right and his description was much simpler than mine.  He's also right in that "detracting from the roleplay" is the biggest objection by players who basically don't want to pay attention to system and want to just "be their characters."  I'm reminded of someone who once remarked, "I really don't like playing with minitures.  I find it distracting.  I mean, how can *I* be my character when my character is sitting there on the table in front of me."  Any kind of reminder that he isn't actually the character apparently detracted from his experience.   I thought this really odd.

Anyway the complaints are all varitions on a theme.  Players who like to to improv out every line of dialogue (particularly if it's an argument with an NPC).  Players who are fond of 'reveals' where the motive for every action they take must be obscurred until an exact moment of their choosing when the pieces are expected fall into place for everyone in the group.  And so on....

A nod to Paul on all this, with My Life With Master the round-robin nature of the game I thought was very clear and I strictly enforced this when we were playing.  It didn't solve the within scene problems (i.e. figuring out what the scene was all about and what die roll was approrpiate when) but everyone understood the format.  They worked with it, they were quiet and they paid attention to each other.  Only one player really complained.  He said it "interrupted his flow."

Jesse