[Hollow Earth Expeditions] Clash of expectations

[Alan]

With this AP report, I've got two intentions: 1) to convey some of the experience of reencountering old-school play after I've been playing in games popular on the Forge. 2) To elicit advice on making constructive contributions to the old-school play where some techniques are grating on me. (No need for advice about talking to them, I'm already doing that.)

SOCIAL BACKGROUND

Last year, for scheduling reasons, I stopped attending my regular roleplaying group. I've just found a group of guys who are just getting together and whose schedule meshes with mine.

I met the organizer at my local game store while we were both buying Nine Worlds and a few other games the store stocks from IPR. I was excited because he expressed an interest in experimenting with such games and I would really like to find a group interested in them. He had a few other players he had just recruited for a new group and thought they might try Mountain Witch.

At our first session, Gerry presented a change of plan: he thought Mountain Witch was too radical for the other two players, so he wanted to run Hollow Earth Expedition. He was very excited about the setting material. I was disappointed, as I've looked at Hollow Earth and it has pretty old school mechanics. However, I'm game for a few sessions to get to know these guys and maybe have a chance to run something for them in return. Gerry has agreed with this.

PLAYERS

The group is new, and I have just met all the others.

Me: six years of delving into Forge theory, playing PTA, TROS, TSOY, Sorcerer. My favorite playing experience has been Trollbabe. Before that I GM'd Fantasy Hero for 15 years on and off, getting caught up in the sim concept of later HERO system while at the same time frustrated that I was unable to get the roleplaying experience I wanted. In Hollow Earth, I'm playing the two-fisted scientist, Everhardt Zola.

Gerry: an energetic extrovert. I'm not sure what his gaming history is. He likes reading game books and has expressed an enthusiastic interest in the settings of Cold City and Nine Worlds, but I'm not sure if he understands how different the rules for those games may be from what I've seen him GM. He's GMing Hollow Earth Expeditions.

Alex: has played Champions a lot and not much else. I'm not sure how well he knows the others. He's playing Delbert, a rail-riding reporter for the Fortean Times.

Jeff: A long time friend of Gerry's. He's a GURPS man. When he runs something, he always uses GURPS. He's playing a British secret service agent, posing as a reporter. Gerry has made jokes about him "never providing a character background," while both Alex and I have written a page or so of background before play started.


THE SYSTEM & SETTING

Pulp Era, 1936. All games will revolve around adventures into the hollow earth.

I haven't read the game text closely, but the book has pretty standard character attributes, task-based skills, and XP earned through attendance to improve the character. An attribute or skill determines how many dice you roll, evens being success and odds being zero. The GM sets difficulty levels.

Two interesting mechanics are Flaws, activated by the player, and Style points. Style points are dispensed by the GM for a vague list of things that include "good roleplaying," actions that support the genre, and also for a player endangering themselves by playing a Flaw into the game. The book also suggests awarding style points for writing a character background (and more if it provides plot hooks and props), and keeping a session log.

Style points are burnt for extra dice before a roll or to reduce damage after. A die is worth a 50% chance of an extra success, giving style points a pretty low influence. Style points may also allow a player to enter some kind of facts into play, but those rules were glossed over.

[Alan]

We spent the first session making characters. Gerry explained rules and the premise that we would all somehow end up in the Hollow Earth. I asked questions about the rules and learned about flaws and style points. I knew I wanted to throw out some plot hooks and have a "prop" which could also earn Style points.

Having just seen The Prestige, I wanted to play Nicola Tesla as a two-fisted pulp hero, so created Everhardt Zola, the protege of the Tesla-like Dr. Zond. I suggested that my mentor had been kidnapped into the Hollow Earth and Gerry liked that. The other players agreed but didn't have the same enthusiastic buy in of Gerry. I hoped they would put out some ideas as well so we could tie them all together. I'm not the sort to steamroll other people's ideas or grandstand, so I don't think the lack of contributions was caused by the other players feeling cut out.

Jeff created his spy, telling us he had a professional paranoia and a cover. Alex talked about how his reporter would have a distrust of authority (and he growled at me). I was worried they were creating loners, so I asked what our intentions about intercharacter trust and relationships were going to be. We agreed our initial sessions would be about learning to trust each other and work together.

I left the game session happy that I'd had a chance to essentially create a kicker for my character.

[Alan]

Our first play session had lots of moments where I felt frustrated. Much of this came from a clash of expectations. Gerry had shown an interest in Nine Worlds etc, and said he had played Sorcerer, so I played a little like I was in a Sorcerer game.

Gerry started us out in New York, describing an opening scene for each of us. Gerry started with the Delbert, the reporter, finding Dr. Zond's house in Manhattan, then cut to six weeks earlier with the spy getting assigned to check out a Nazi who's interested in Zond. Then he cut to me and had a workman call Everhardt into Dr. Zond's excavation vehicle.

Eager to get what I thought of as a kicker started, I suggested this would be a great time to get knocked on the head. I got "have patience" message from Gerry. So I said I went into the vehicle and looked it over. Gerry gave an admirable and loving description of the inside of a mechanical mole. What do you do? I look over the equipment. The key is missing! And Dr. Zond is currently in Manhattan at his home -- oh, and the he refuses to have a phone in his house. Okay. I go into the street and get a taxi. On the bridge, Gerry says the car is stuck in traffic.

As player I was puzzled why I kept encountering little obstacles. He didn't seem inclined to cut away from me, so I had an idea. I pulled out a the memory of a femme fatale I'd written into my backstory. I elaborated on what I'd written, saying Everhardt got out and looked off the bridge where Elsa had disappeared six months earlier. Gerry described a very moving image of her face in the water disrupted by a tug boat.

I declared Everhardt was walking to a pawn shop in Manhattan to see if anyone had redeemed the jewelry she had pawned on our previous adventure (this was pure creation of the moment -- I might have been f***ing with content authority here). At first, Gerry had the shop owner push boxes of junk jewelry at me, describing how there was so many items it would be impossible for Everhardt to find anything in a short period of time. I said the jewelry would not have been junk. Gerry bought that and had the pawnshop owner find the redemption ticket -- but he had no memory of who had picked up the jewelry. So, I headed on to Dr. Zond's home.

As player I was hoping Gerry would take the opportunity to tie this in to the kidnapping I knew was coming for Dr. Zond, but all I got was blocked. I was not explicit with that idea and I don't think Gerry knew what I was up to.

So, we cut away from Everhardt and Alex played Delbert getting an appointment with Dr. Zond. When Delbert met the Doctor, Gerry asked me to describe the Dr. He made a big deal about giving me the chance, but the description of what I thought of as color left me flat. Gerry and Alex exchanged dialog in character -- I noticed Alex acting out Delbert's holding a cup of tea with a shaking hand. At that point, I noticed that as one major difference between myself and the other three -- they acted everything and rarely spoke as players while the GM attention was on them. I do enjoy a little acting, but I prefer to speak more often as a player than as a character.

Anyway, play continued. Nazi's showed up and knocked out Delbert, kidnapped Dr. Zond. When Jeff and I entered the scene, we found Alex's Delbert unconscious and Dr. Zond gone. We thrashed around playing out checking the house and getting Delbert help, until Alex suggested they'd taken the Doctor to the excavation machine. We headed there. (En route, stuck in traffic again, I suggested grabbing an autogyro from a past acquaintance. Gerry said no.

We arrived in time to see the mechanical mole descend into the ground. Thinking that this was the dramatic turning point, I had Everhardt run up and collapse saying "It's too late!"

But Jeff ran up and jumped in the hole, trying to open the rear hatch. At this point I turned to Gerry and said, "This is me as a player asking: do we have any hope of actually stopping this?" He replied, "I don't know." So I proceeded to make my best contribution. We tied a chain to a beam and tried to hook it to the hatch lever. Some dice rolls were made.

Ultimately, the mole got away and Jeff and I were left hanging from a chain in a collapsing tunnel. Gerry made a half-serious suggestion that this would be a good place to stop and I said that was okay with me. But the other players didn't say anything and Gerry continued the scene. I decided now was a good time to activate a Flaw ("Dying" due to radiation suffered saving Elsa the last time). I said Everhardt was coughing and gritting his teeth. Gerry called for strength checks to hang on to the chain and I asked if I could just fail mine. He said okay and this left me at the mercy of Jeff's rolls. I don't know what Jeff thought of that. IT gave me a sense of efficacy -- as if I'd made a difference.

Then followed thirty minutes of play where we started preparations to chase after the kidnappers into the Hollow Earth. Everhardt declared there was a prototype that we could reassemble. Meanwhile Delbert and Jeff's spy went off to research rumors of traveling through the hole in the north pole.

Gerry kept cycling between us and every time it was my turn I just explained that Everhardt was obsessed with assembling the prototype. Each time, he'd suggest some new obstacle (it's in pieces, pieces are missing, you need lots of workmen, etc.) and I just shrug and said, I'll work through it. Eventually, I asked if he didn't want me to pursue this. I said I really wouldn't enjoy playing out the details of constructing the machine and would be happy if we jumped ahead three weeks -- or if I sat out while the others played their time. Shortly after that we agreed to adjourn the session.

Gerry gave me a ride home and we had a talk. I asked if I had been a pain, and he said no, he liked having a playing giving suggestions, he just wasn't used to it. He talked about the group getting to know each others styles and his desire to get a group together after a long hiatus, even if he had to make compromises. I said I want to work with a group and get to know people, but I was really hoping to find a particular kind of play. He asked what kind, so I made an attempt at describing a little bit of narrativist play, focusing on Sorcerer rmaps and setup. (I've since recommended the GM text in Dogs in the Vineyard, as I know he owns it.)

Several things stand out for me in my experience of this game: 1) the GM had great enthusiasm for describing color and gave players opportunities to describe elements like the physical appearance of things in their character background. 2) The other players took care to speak and act  in character while interacting with the GM. 3) I felt like I was on the proverbial moving mine car, reacting to the twists and turns and beasties that jumped out of the dark. 4) Several times when I made suggestions or asked the GM direct questions, Jeff would say "trust Gerry, he's go a good story coming." Rather than reassuring, this sounded ominous to me.

Looking at myself: 1) I started with the assumption Gerry had some familiarity with what I would call player-driven play. Once in that groove it was hard to get out. 2) Frustrated from meeting obstacles, I drifted towards using things Gerry had allowed me to influence -- such as a limited content authority when it came to my character background. I wonder if that wasn't abusive. 3) I realize this is an opening session, where Gerry might feel a railroad ride into the Hollow Earth is necessary. Maybe things will get looser -- or maybe I just have to hang in there until I have a chance to introduce them to Dogs in the Vineyard or Trollbabe.

[Alan]

Thanks for your patience -- I realized I wrote a lot and thought it best to break it up into sections. This is the end of my record and now I'm inviting thoughts and responses.

First I offer this up as an artifact of experience. I think I recorded some significant elements of a clash of expections in the distribution of the fruits (narrational, plot, content, and situation authority). Am I right to suspect illusionist assumptions in play at the table? Was the GM's response of "I don't know!" (when I knew he did) demonstrative of a particular philosophy of roleplaying?

Second, I'd like to set this as a data point and update you on how I fit in with this group as our relationship evolves.

Finally, I guess I'm looking for advice how not to be a jerk in this game while still finding some satisfaction. How do I learn to love this kind of play? Or should I keep influencing the group to drift play?

[Alan]

In order to give this thread some focus, please only focus on my last questions:

"...how not to be a jerk in this game while still finding some satisfaction. How do I learn to love this kind of play? Or should I keep influencing the group to drift play?"

[Simon C]

Man, do I ever feel your pain.  It's hard to be in a group that isn't meeting your needs, and not be an asshole about trying to get what you want.  I'm somewhat notorious for hijacking games which aren't going the way I want them.  I hope I've outgrown this now, but I still feel the awful temptation.  After all, how I play is "right", and they'll be so much happier when they start doing things my way...

I don't think I have any answers for you, but I'm sure as heck interested in any answers.  My feeling is that attempting to change the way people play by your own behaviour in game is inherantly disruptive, and no-one's gonna love you for it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Alan,

In many ways, the account stands on its own, and it's hard to say anything toward the end of "how can I enjoy myself." I'm not sure anyone else can really answer that.

You're right that the first session may not be much to go on. However, many things do seem to add up ... trust Gerry because he's got a good story coming, whereas it seems like your preference would be to trust him because he doesn't; the sort of button-pushing that seemed to go on when you tried to do stuff ...

Well, let's see about that latter. Backing way up, let's say (I'm speculating) that "everyone knows" that what a player does with his character in the first hour or two of play isn't consequential. It's only there to get everyone into the visual and verbal space of the setting and the details, and to try out a few things that don't matter in order to learn the GM's ropes. Some groups do this with hurling a pack of easy foes at the characters; others do it by having individual characters wander about for a while. After a while of that, then the adventure starts.

OK, given that particular outlook, when you felt blocked, perhaps you were supposed to be appreciating the color of it all - "wow, traffic is really a pain in the ass in this place." Or, also given that outlook, perhaps you were supposed to be learning (and hopefully to embrace) the idea that you'll be in the adventure when it happens, so for now, speak in character and continue to provide input only as establishing-shots until that arrives. Either way, in this context, your desire to play a Kicker is pretty much out of place. That also explains why Gerry likes the suggestion that you made during character creation, because it helps with his prep, but the other players didn't really see the point - after all, they're all going to be together in the adventure, right?

That might also clarify why they made up loners, and what seem to be posturing loners at that. If everyone's on board that (a) the adventure will happen, and (b) that we'll all be together in it, then why bother rationalizing it or setting it up? The characters are drop-ins, if you will - and the more spikey or verbally-antagonistic you make your character, the more you'll have to say and act out as you go through the adventure.

I am describing a type of play that I know extremely well, having mastered it from the GM side many years ago and honed it through hundreds (and hundreds) of play sessions. I don't know if that's what Gerry and the rest of you are doing, or trying to do, but if there are some similarities, or if anything seems to fit, let me know.

Here's the bit that really jumped out at me, though. There's your character, in the collapsing tunnel and whatnot, and there's the mole-thing escaping, and now, everyone knows the adventure has started, or that Gerry is getting the story started, or that now we can really play, however you want to say it. Here's the minor point, first - if I'd been GMing in that fashion I was so good at, and said "I don't know" to your question perhaps in a slightly dramatic, slightly teasing voice, it would have been intended to convey "you must roll your dice, even if they are meaningless." It would have been an attempt to say, we roll dice as part and parcel of participating, even if the outcome of the action (more likely the overall scene) is entirely forecast. It might even have been part of a notion that the players are supposed to feel tension based on dice outcomes, no matter what, even in the context that they also feel safe in the hands of the GM's "story."

Here's the major point about it - that under those circumstances, you felt more effective as a participant by absolutely abdicating from any input of the dice. That seems to me, in microcosm, the entire origin and explanation of the "system doesn't matter" mantra. If it's all in the hands of the GM's story, and here we can all add in the usual cheerleading about the grand & good GM with his good story, then sooner or later, all that dice-tension that really isn't tension gets abandoned.

Anyway, there are more things to discuss, but that's it for now. What do you think?

Best, Ron

[Alan]

Hi Simon,

Yes, I do worry that changing my own behavior in play will just be disruptive. The only two factors that mitigate that are 1) two of the other members (including Gerry) have expressed some interest in trying indie games. While they might historical be used to a particular kind of play, they might be open to something new and so be more willing to accept my actions. 2) The group is new, so the social dynamic isn't tied to the rpg style yet.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the validation. I'm hpoing for the best and do take what you mean by not being able to advise me on "how can I enjoy myself." I am the only one who can answer that I think.

In the situation where Gerry was throwing out obstacles to my suggestions (and later to my pursuit of assembling the mole machine prototype) I want to add that I got the impression that this was a technique Gerry used when he had nothing planned: give the player an obstacle. In the pawn shop scene, I think it was an attempt to keep me on track. In our after game conversation, I tried to explain that I was looking for a clue that tied my background into the kidnapping. Gerry said something like "you just don't give away the big stuff all at once." I think this is a clue to the creation of obstacles -- a way for the GM to eek out the really big revelations. Is that plot authority? I think it is. We conflicted over plot authority there.

In my ideal game, Gerry would have come up with something like the pawnbroker saying: "Yeah, the blond lady was with some stiff German guy. He said they had an appointment with a Dr. Zond?" Way cool! Of course, that's morning after clarity. In the moment, I was groping, hoping for help and afraid to articulate clearly for fear of stepping on the GM's toes. (It was after that that I started speaking up more.)

I agree about the "I don't know" response -- in my old GMing days I'm sure I've said the same thing, though with a bit more subtext. The subsequent struggle to stop the escape of the mole machine didn't have much engagement for me, because I was pretty sure that Gerry would find some way for it to escape. You recall I initially declared that Everhardt collapsed in defeat just at the sight of the mole disapearing into the ground -- I wanted to end scene and move on to trying to pursue -- as is required in the assumptions of our adventure. But there seems to be some assumption that players must exhaust all avenues before a scene can be resolved. I saw this in the endless anti-climax where I had Everhardt assembling the protoype and we kept doing rounds of "What are you doing?" "Okay, this obstacle arises?"

Now, the moment hanging on to the chain, where I asked if I could fail the die roll -- I do see what you mean by rolls that really don't have any tension. But I was most satisfied because I had succeeded in actually having input into what situation Everhardt was to experience next. Had I gone with the die roll, the result would not have been my choice. There's the rub.

I'm not sure how I'll play the next session. I don't want to be disruptive, but I do kind of like asking the direct questions that seem eccentric in the group culture. It might just keep the old style play from solidifying in place.

I'm curious how Gerry will take us from where we are to inside the Hollow Earth. Will we spend a session playing assembly of an rescue expedition, then maybe half a session drilling into the depths, overcoming obstacles with science and engineering rolls?

Or will we just cut to emergence in the Hollow Earth, with the Mole machine depserately in need of repairs, and surrounded by primitives under Nazi control?

Join us next time on Hollow Earth Expeditions!

(I couldn't resist.)