A demoralising day

[clehrich]

Just a very brief note on Walt's brilliant post.  It occurred to me while reading it that what he's describing has an endpoint analyzed in detail some time ago: bricolage, as described in Chapter 1 of Claude Levi-Strauss's The Savage Mind.

I'm not going to go into all the details now; I'll work it up as an essay, and see whether it makes any sense then.  But the point is that Levi-Strauss thinks the bricoleur, or the myth-maker, essentially has a stock of odd bits in his mental warehouse.  As the story, characters, audience, and everything else going on (read: every possible concern in the RPG) move along, various "holes" show up.  As in, "What comes next has got to have X and Y characteristics; beyond that it doesn't matter a damn.  Well this weird thing in my warehouse has X and Y characteristics, although it sure as hell doesn't seem like it's going to fit easily otherwise.  Oh well -- so long as it fits, we'll see where it leads us."

The trick is that these X and Y characteristics, the things required, are in RPGs related to Genre, Character History, Social Contract, all of Fang's various structures (up or down, etc.), and whatnot.  Thus when the guy goes fishing with a net, the magic mer-person bit from a totally different story (as imagined initially) fits perfectly.  Who knew there was going to be a magic mer-person in this story?  Nobody, but it was the best "fit" for the "hole" that opened up when the guy dipped his net.  Quick change of sex to add a little va-va-voom to the story, and away we go!

I love it -- RPG advice, pushed toward the limits of intelligence and perception, starts to turn out to be how mythology really alway worked in the first place, from a Structuralist point of view.  Ha!

[hyphz]

I should add here that I also thought Walt's post was fantastic.

The only things is that it assumes I'm running a regular game, which I'm not, and, well... basically, I just don't know if I can make things up on the fly.  I mean, I've had way too many experiences when I spend ages - sometimes months - trying to think of an idea for a scenario, and then I run it by somebody and they immediately suggest something much better in ten seconds.  Even if I get a general adventure idea, I can generally never think of an in-between at all, and things have faded in the meantime.  Like, those UA characters were made in the middle of last year.  The players, quite literally, couldn't remember their characters because it was so long ago.  They've also had unused TROS characters sitting around for about a year now after every scenario I could think of fell into the "lazy and cheating" mold and even then, again, I had no idea how to fill it out.  I couldn't even develop a Star Wars scenario and a freakin' 16-year-old can do that.  (And then I see module authors who get published in spite of writing bs like narcoleptic military security guards, and wonder how bad I must be..)

I know there's not a lot of point posting this and it seems horribly like a whine, because it's not exactly like anyone can tell me how to be creative, but I guess it's just to explain the other reason why I might have seemed defensive.  Yea, there's the "practice" deal, but how am I really supposed to practice?  Have the players sit down and, as soon as they move into something that needs 'no myth', have them wait a few hours while I think of something?  Doesn't seem likely to me.

[Jason Lee]

I'm kinda sad I missing the development of this thread...and my head is sort of spinning from sitting down and reading the whole thing.  Forgive me if I repeat something that has already been said.

Yea, there's the "practice" deal, but how am I really supposed to practice?  Have the players sit down and, as soon as they move into something that needs 'no myth', have them wait a few hours while I think of something?  Doesn't seem likely to me.

You could training-wheel yourself into with some improv-assist tools.

Make sure the PCs are constructed with a common goal, compatible priorities, and something linking them together.  I'm not actually a big fan of forcing this at character creation (ye ole party format)...but, dealing with it during play can be the most difficult thing to do as GM.  Save yourself the pain, suffering, and hours of game play devoted to getting the group to work together and just start with a cohesive party.  If you're having trouble in other areas, I'd worry about them first and deal with this pain in the ass later.

Flowchart - Start with one event and just sit down and answer 'what if the players did blah?' questions.  Do don't need to use it during play, but with some thought put into it beforehand improvving should be easier.  Plus, then you don't need to think of a senario - you just need a single starting event (blowing something up is always good).  It'll allow you to break the thought process down into easy to manage chunks and create all those nice slices Walt was talking about.

Name/Feature list - List of unassigned names for the setting and another list of noticable features for npcs.  When you need a random npc just look down and get 'Uh...the cop's name is Bob...he...talks with a lisp'.

Motivations list - List of motives for major npcs/organizations in the setting.  Should be real easy to decide what Jimmy does if you know he wants the Holy Grail desperately.

These ain't 'No Myth' tools, but they might help you improv and ease into it (should you desire that).

[clehrich]

Hyphz,

You're saying two things that worry me here.

First, you say you have trouble coming up with scenarios, in response to Walt's suggestions for Transitioning from scenarios to No Myth.  Before, the problem seemed to be that you were using a pre-printed scenario.  The goal here is to run without a scenario.  That's the whole point.  You don't need a scenario: all you need is some small-scale ideas that seem more or less to fit right now.  You don't know where it's really going any more than they do.  If you want a scenario, then presumably No Myth isn't going to work for you.  But I thought this all started because your players were working hard to break determined scenarios, leading to the idea that maybe you should avoid them for this bunch.

Second, you say you don't have time to practice.  I think Walt means that you have to GM with some regularity.  Furthermore, you have to be willing to suck occasionally, and then try to learn from your mistakes.

Look, it's a game.  The players want a good time, you want a good time, so everybody has the same goal, right?  So get them involved in making it a good game.  Can't think of something intelligent for an NPC?  Tell a player whose character is standing on the sideline, "Hey, um, Dave?  This guy's a cop, a donut-eating fat slob type, okay?  So play him."  And then wing it from there.  Don't know what's next, when the gang have done something you didn't expect?  Well, there are lots of tricks and techniques, but if under-pressure creativity isn't your bag, ask yourself what kind of scene the players seem to like, preferably one you haven't had 10 seconds ago, and do it.  So if they like combat scenes, maybe those guards weren't so narcoleptic as they seemed?  So now it all turns into a whacking great firefight, everybody's having a good time, and who the hell cares what you'd planned?

See, this is what Fang means about fictions: the guards aren't narcoleptic until you say so.  If it turns out it was a ruse, because you decide a firefight would be fun around now, who's to say you didn't plan this all in advance?  Does it matter?

You want my #1 suggestion?  Say the following to your players, a little while (say, a few days) before your next session:

"Okay, guys.  Here's the thing.  I'm not real happy with my GMing right now, I don't know about you.  So I'm gonna try a few things that might help.  Thing is, they're things I haven't done before, or not much, so I'm not really all that comfortable with them yet, so things may be a little rocky for a bit, okay?  Kind of bear with me, but please try to think about what is and isn't working as we go along, and then tell me after the game -- especially, I sometimes have trouble seeing when you guys are having a good time, because I get kinda caught up in my thing and miss your thing.  So if a scene went really great from your point of view, could you tell me afterwards?  'Cause sometimes I think a scene sucked and you loved it, so I get pissed that it didn't work, and you get pissed because you don't get more scenes like that, and so on and so forth.  And you know what?  If we set up a new scene and you think it would be cooler with some little tweak around the side?  You could say so, actually, and that'll help me get the hang of what make you tick, and generally provide a cool game for you.  But anyway you gotta cut me a little slack, because I'm in pretty new territory for me.  Whaddya say?"

I think you're putting way too much emotion and ego on the line (I have this habit too), and so sometimes you genuinely do not see when the players are having a great time, so when they're thinking, "Wow, Hyphz rocks!" you're thinking, "Oh god, here we go again, why can't it ever work?"  Now I'm not saying they're thrilled all the time, but if they hate the game why are they in it after all this time?  I'm betting you do some things they love, and if you can figure out what those are, and recognize when they're happy players, you'll start aiming more for a specific goal, and besides, start realizing what you do well.

Here's another suggestion: don't rehash old ground alone.  I call this the Death Spiral.  What you want is for the players to pay attention, at a meta-level, to how the game is going, and kind of mentally tick off things that go well.  Then, after the game, you can go over it with them.  I'm betting they will say, "Oh, I thought it was so cool when..." about things that surprise the hell out of you.

I ran a quite long campaign some years ago where I did some of what you're doing, mentally I mean.  I look back on this game with considerable ambivalence.  I remember OOC "intense discussions" (read: arguments) about whether things were going well; I remember scenes that seemed stupid and pointless; I remember feeling like I was pulling teeth to get them to see the "obvious" clues I'd dropped; etc.  You know what?  When you talk to them now, the players in that game all say, unanimously, "Sure, it had a few problems, but that was a great game.  Why do you think it went on almost two years?  And when are you moving to the city I live in so you can run more of the same?"

The moral of the story?  Goddamn I wish I'd been paying attention to the good things, so I could have as positive sorts of feelings as they do!  Apparently I did pretty well, but I spent much of the time feeling like the campaign was on the verge of total breakdown.

Anyway, hope that helps.

[hyphz]

First, you say you have trouble coming up with scenarios, in response to Walt's suggestions for Transitioning from scenarios to No Myth.  Before, the problem seemed to be that you were using a pre-printed scenario.  The goal here is to run without a scenario.  That's the whole point.  You don't need a scenario: all you need is some small-scale ideas that seem more or less to fit right now.  You don't know where it's really going any more than they do.  If you want a scenario, then presumably No Myth isn't going to work for you.  But I thought this all started because your players were working hard to break determined scenarios, leading to the idea that maybe you should avoid them for this bunch.

Well, no - not quite - but I don't actually like the idea of determined scenarios that much anyway.  The reason it's a problem, though, is that Walt descibed transitioning from determined scenarios to 'no myth' - and that's pretty tough to do if I haven't even reached the determined scenarios stage! (At least, not determined as in determined by me)

The second thing is that I'm not sure about having "no scenario".  As I say, the Unknown Armies game is the most promising venue for testing this, as it has a number of things that facilitate it quite well, but it has a big problem too: a good part of it is in the PCs *discovering* information about the setting.  Now, I have to give them some poking to get them to discover it, because if I don't, they won't know where to go looking to find it - because they don't know about it yet!  Yes, it can "just happen to be" wherever they go, but that runs the risk of making it seem a bit tired and over-normal..

Second, you say you don't have time to practice.  I think Walt means that you have to GM with some regularity.  Furthermore, you have to be willing to suck occasionally, and then try to learn from your mistakes.

Well, GMing regularly is tricky - not just because of my freezeups regarding preparation (which will still apply at the early stages of the transition) but also because we already have a regular 1/week D&D3E session (with one of the others as GM) and many of the people don't want to game more than 1 night/week.  The D&D3E session is all scenarios, btw.. how enjoyable I find it really depends on my mood, and although I like it enough to do it, it's not something I look forward to very much

Look, it's a game.  The players want a good time, you want a good time, so everybody has the same goal, right?  So get them involved in making it a good game.  

Well, that's one of the other things that got me in the sessions on Monday.. the guy who GM's the D&D3E campaign, who is normally a good voice of reason when it comes to the others' nutty PCs and who has helped me with my GMing quite a lot, was the guy who made Homer Simpson in the supers game - out of theme, out of place, with no motivation, incapable of doing anything effective, and existing only so that he could make jokes about eating donuts wherever he went.  Of all the people involved he was the one who I least expected to do something like that.  I thought he had some cunning plan up his sleeve, but it seems not...

So if they like combat scenes, maybe those guards weren't so narcoleptic as they seemed?  So now it all turns into a whacking great firefight, everybody's having a good time, and who the hell cares what you'd planned?

Well, that's something I might have to look at.  I might need to address that, because these players like combat, but combat in UA is not entered lightly as it's very deadly... might have to try and tone it down a bit, at least until the PCs know enough about the background to buff themselves mystically ;)

I think you're putting way too much emotion and ego on the line (I have this habit too), and so sometimes you genuinely do not see when the players are having a great time, so when they're thinking, "Wow, Hyphz rocks!" you're thinking, "Oh god, here we go again, why can't it ever work?"  Now I'm not saying they're thrilled all the time, but if they hate the game why are they in it after all this time?  

Umm.... they're not.  We've played a bunch of one-shots, not an ongoing campaign, and it's been getting harder to get them involved in them, not easier.

[Ron Edwards]

Hyphz,

What do you think of starting a new thread with a focused or specific point that's emerged out of this one? Your choice, but I think it might be time. Also, it's possible that we've moved to "intellectual digestion" stage, in which case more discussion at this time (however interesting or valid the points) is actually obscuring your initial goals in beginning the thread.

Here are some things to consider as well.

#1 - I think that Unknown Armies play is far more pre-set than most people seem to realize, based on Forge posts. The one-shots are essentially 91% completed stories; they seem coherent and "we made story" in play, but that's because the key decisions are incorporated into the character descriptions and all we've got left is One Last Revelation and the Big Blow-Out. I consider all the published scenarios for this game to be Illusionist, albeit using different techniques.

#2 - You wrote, regarding the weekly D&D game that you're in,

although I like it enough to do it, it's not something I look forward to very much

This is a warning sign to me. I strongly suggest analogizing role-playing to sex, and considering whether this group represents a "relationship" that you are happy with in the first play. I am not talking about whether you are friends with them or not; I'm talking about whether you think you should be role-playing with them or not.

Best,
Ron

[hyphz]

What do you think of starting a new thread with a focused or specific point that's emerged out of this one? Your choice, but I think it might be time.

That might be a good idea.  I think it might also be worth waiting until I have more real evidence and the knowledge myself to select appropriate specifics.  I think I do agree, though, that this one probably ought to wind up soon before it gets too theoretical.

I will, however, ask one more question that's important to me at this point: you stated that you think all the UA one-shot scenarios are Illusionist.  Do you think that the UA setting, in general and without scenarios, is a good testing ground for 'no myth' play?

[clehrich]

[Edited because x-posted with Ron & Hyphz]

Well, [sudden combat scene]'s something I might have to look at.  I might need to address that, because these players like combat, but combat in UA is not entered lightly as it's very deadly... might have to try and tone it down a bit, at least until the PCs know enough about the background to buff themselves mystically ;)

Hyphz, it's a one-shot, right?  Who cares if they get hurt?  In a UA game, this whole "buff themselves mystically" ain't going to happen in a one-shot.  Don't bother: make it intense, brutal, scary.  Think Call of Cthulhu, but the monsters are basically humans.

In reference to UA for relatively open-ended play, here's a suggestion for you.  Open-ended, typically UA, etc.

1. They're some sort of group, I don't know, maybe PI's or something.  They go investigate somebody.  That somebody gets the drop on them, wastes them pretty bad, drugs them, smacks them unconscious, uses a sleepy-spell on them, whatever.

2. They wake up.  They're chained to the walls of some kind of basement dungeon.  The guy they're supposed to be investigating is here, wearing a robe.  He's got a lot of black candles.  And some knives....

3. Torture them.  Maim them.  Rape them, if the group can take it.  Describe all this in detail.  Play with their minds: try to get them to beg, where they say, "Oh god, please don't cut me there, it's not me you want, it's Fred over there, he knows."  Boy, isn't Fred going to be happy about this?  Watch "Closetland" for inspiration: mental cruelty is what UA is all about.  At any rate, have them watching some sicko using their blood to paint pentagrams on the floor.  A demon arrives, makes a really nasty remark about how this dude doesn't have the Goblet, and then eats him alive.  Slowly.  With lots of description.  Now you've got them chained, bleeding, surrounded by stinking gobbets of flesh, with pentagrams painted on the floor.  How are they going to get loose?  

4. When they do get loose, and just then the cops show up (who alerted them anyway?), exactly how are they going to explain this?

5. The guy in the next cell of the jail is a dipsomancer "sleeping it off."  He wants something.  Let them figure out what -- you have no idea.  Presumably something about the Goblet you mentioned before, but if they don't bite, make them figure out what's cool.  Just keep implying that this guy knows something, and wants something, and can help, and force them to make him an offer.  So they all cut a deal.

What happens now?  The dipso gets them out on bail -- but it's not clear how -- and the gang now have to go do whatever they promised.  Unfortunately, they're still seriously injured, they're having nightmares about torture and demons, weird-ass shit is happening whenever they look, they have no weapons unless they can convince somebody to sell them some black-market because they're out on bail, and they really have no idea what's going on.

For the endgame, think CoC: one guy survives, seriously traumatized.  The final scene involves the same demon, and knives, and hooks, and giblets.  The dipsomancer gets what he wants, and doesn't give a shit that these guys are lunchables.  That one guy, if he knows what's good for him, moves to Wyoming and lives alone for the rest of his life as an accountant, because he really really doesn't ever ever want to encounter any of this ever ever again.

Does it make sense?  No, not really.  Does it seem like there are big secrets?  Yes.  Do the players ever figure out any of them?  Yes, maybe one or two, but not much.  Is it sick and violent enough for any not-very-sane individual?  Oh yes.

If you're running one-shots of UA, why are you being so nice to them?  This isn't a nice world.  Kill, maim, torture, rape, brutalize.  Ever seen "Marathon Man"?  If somebody gets caught, strap him to a dentist's chair and have some obviously not-quite-human dentist drill him for a bit, panting, "Where is the Goblet?" or whatever.  Let the other guys try to rescue him.  Do they succeed?  I dunno, what time is it?  If it's early, yes, but not without a lot of trouble.  If it's late, then no.  The dentist gets the secret of the Goblet from the character, because he dowses with a drilled, bloody tooth, and starts summoning the demon.  The gang arrives in time to see the demon appearing in the mist.  The PC in the chair ought to be screaming at this point, because the chair is inside the circle.

Wacky hijinks ensue.  If you can engineer it, have the guy in the chair be the only one to survive the scene.  Boy, the cops are going to love this.  And this guy is sure as hell never going to the dentist again.

Well, no - not quite - but I don't actually like the idea of determined scenarios that much anyway.  The reason it's a problem, though, is that Walt descibed transitioning from determined scenarios to 'no myth' - and that's pretty tough to do if I haven't even reached the determined scenarios stage! (At least, not determined as in determined by me)

If you feel this way about determined scenarios, then maybe you should scrap 'em entirely.  Don't bother with transitions: leap straight into the madness, but tell them you're doing this.  They don't like it?  Well, it's a one-shot.  Surely they can hack it for one session?

The second thing is that I'm not sure about having "no scenario".  As I say, the Unknown Armies game is the most promising venue for testing this, as it has a number of things that facilitate it quite well, but it has a big problem too: a good part of it is in the PCs *discovering* information about the setting.  Now, I have to give them some poking to get them to discover it, because if I don't, they won't know where to go looking to find it - because they don't know about it yet!  Yes, it can "just happen to be" wherever they go, but that runs the risk of making it seem a bit tired and over-normal..

With a UA one-shot, how much are they really going to discover anyway?  The big discovery is that the universe just ain't all that normal, and that whatever abnormalities you'd hoped for are actually a lot sicker and uglier than you'd really hoped.

Well, that's one of the other things that got me in the sessions on Monday.. the guy who GM's the D&D3E campaign, who is normally a good voice of reason when it comes to the others' nutty PCs and who has helped me with my GMing quite a lot, was the guy who made Homer Simpson in the supers game - out of theme, out of place, with no motivation, incapable of doing anything effective, and existing only so that he could make jokes about eating donuts wherever he went.  Of all the people involved he was the one who I least expected to do something like that.  I thought he had some cunning plan up his sleeve, but it seems not...

This is the guy who helps you with your GMing? Ugh.  You might want to stop listening to him so much.  Any GM who cares this little about other people's games is not somebody who ought to be teaching people.

I think you're putting way too much emotion and ego on the line (I have this habit too), and so sometimes you genuinely do not see when the players are having a great time, so when they're thinking, "Wow, Hyphz rocks!" you're thinking, "Oh god, here we go again, why can't it ever work?"  Now I'm not saying they're thrilled all the time, but if they hate the game why are they in it after all this time?  

Umm.... they're not.  We've played a bunch of one-shots, not an ongoing campaign, and it's been getting harder to get them involved in them, not easier.

Not the point, Hyphz.  The point is this: focus on what works.  What doesn't work, you try to avoid in future.  That's all.

Oh, and another thing about Unknown Armies.  One-shots ought to work great, because you don't have to be nice to them.  Your goal is this: they have nightmares.  Think "Seven" and "Silence of the Lambs" with magic.  The basic point is that in order to do magic, you have to be sick and warped and basically a loony-tune.  For a one-shot, this is the only secret[/b].  Everything else can be made up on the fly, because it doesn't really have to make sense.  The secret of the universe, the One True Secret, is that no reasonable person has anything to do with magic, and that being involved with magic is prima facie proof that someone is a raving psycho.

'Course, if you're running a whole campaign of UA, the trick is to convince them that while some people go seriously wacko when they get involved with magic, it doesn't have to be that way, and since it takes power to stop powerful people, the PCs maybe ought to get some magical power, and don't worry, I'm sure they won't turn into sick wackos, no really, 'cause they can handle it, man.  Get me?  And if someone dies in the line of duty, he dies.  Just make it sufficiently horrible and evil that everybody feels vaguely dirty just being in the game.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

H'm, given the cross-posting, it's going to be hard to close this thread. So let me state it here: we're done here. Anyone want to continue? Focus on one specific point and start a new thread, whether in Actual Play or RPG Theory based on the content.

To be a good example, I'll continue with the Unknown Armies issue in a new thread.

Best,
Ron

[Le Joueur]

I've only a few things to add to the fine commentary provided.  One way you could think of straight No Myth gamemastering is like running InSpectres or Donjon, but telling the players that it's just regular (or Illusionist) gaming.  Most certainly they are 'making it up' as much as in those games, but you are 'making it look' like they aren't.  (Well, actually you're 'herding' play towards a satisfying conclusion, but not an specific ending.)

Secondly, you seem totally riveted to both the problems inherent to puzzle-solving and one-shot play.  Neither should create any special difficulty in No Myth gamemastering; you could even us a clock to run this way.

Here's the plan: a four hour game;


Hour 1, you do some really spook and mysterious things and don't tell them what the problem is (just keep them interested) - take notes on what they think are clues;

Hour 2, start with a confrontation with a mysterious 'big baddie' and get them to 'try and figure it out' using the clues

they think they have;

Hour 3, work each Complication resulting from tracking down each clue together with the others so derived (give each clue-to-Complication only 10 minutes);

Hour 4, quickly merge all the Complications into one major Complication and attach that to the mysterious 'big baddie' (extra points if you could make it look like he - or his influence - was sneaking around the background throughout the middle of the game - late hour 2, early hour 3), build this up to the big 'faceoff' and leave enough time for the game system to 'run a combat.'[/list:u]
It ends however it ends.  And you can do this by the clock.  Ya gots yer puzzle and yer one-shot, all in jus' four hours, can't be beat.[/list:u]Third, the trick I use to run No Myth gamemastering even on my worst days is, "If all else fails run an action scene."  If things happen to fast for the players to think about and you stress the kind of action that the players like; they won't notice any mistakes you make.

Lastly, don't be afraid to suck!  You're trying something new and for heaven's sake you're only human!  Fear not being bad.  Make sure they know how hard you are trying and if they have a shred of decency, they'll forgive any failure.  They're your friends, right?  (You aren't being graded on this are you?)

Fang Langford

(p. s. And Ron's right.  Let's address your concerns and situation separately from the No Myth gamemastering stuff in a new thread.  What's the deal?)

p. p. s. Whoops, cross posted with Ron.  (Shouldn't leave those browser windows open so long.)

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Closed! Stop! No one post again to this thread! Good-bye! Have a nice day!

Best,
Ron