Inspiration from disappointing gameplay

[ks13]

The conclusion.
.....

CG's character was supposed to be reverend and in awe of priests and magic wielding characters. Not something that CG agreed with, and this was one of the GMs additions to the characters background. It was supposed to explain why his character hung out with mine. CG looked at a more of an honor thing, and repaying a debt for my character saving his. My character was so out of it, he probably wouldn't notice if he was suddenly on his own, but the angle that CG was pushing was just cool. I looked at it as an exploration of a theme along the lines of Honor/repaying debts. How far would he go? Would a time come when he considered the debt repaid and what would happened then? What if his roguish qualities (i.e. greed) came into conflict with this. In fact, him pushing my character towards get rich schemes was absolutely fantastic;"hmm, what, a cave filled with man eating giant bats? Sure if we need to go lets go". There was no need to tell my character about the treasure hoard in said cave. The dynamic between the two characters was great, and the idea of the player choosing to explore a certain concept or theme seemed so cool, that I worked to have my own game actively supporting this (on the character level, this is SA's from TROS). Unfortunately the system I was playing in did not support this. Oh well, it was still me and my partner out for adventure, and this time we would kick ass.

But then CG made some in character comments that were deemed offensive to a god. He wasn't showing the GM scripted reverence for the holy as listed in his background. It went against the character concept. CG wasn't about to accept that since he never wanted that to be a big part of his character. A clear conflict between GM and player. The game continues, we enter some sort of shadow-teleportation tunnel. The GM makes a roll, decrees that a strange spirit lands on top of CG's character's head (which he doesn't notice), and then crawls into his head through his ear before anyone can do anything about it. The spirit takes up residence and cause the character to go blind and mute. Not wanting to believe that we are seeing what we think we are seeing, we try to deal with the problem in game. The warrior-priest learns that it is the spirit agent of the offended god, and that it might be able to leave if the character makes sufficient apologies. This bit of playing was actually done only between the GM and TA, while the rest of us had to leave the room. CG knew right away what he had to do, but wasn't going to do it. We did attempt to try to drive the spirit out by nearly killing the character, in fact CG told me to go ahead and kill of the character if needed. I couldn't make the tough call and went with the in-character justification that my mage wouldn't go so far as to kill him. Needless to say, the GM didn't budge, and neither did CG. We all (players) thought this as a low blow and an unnecessary ego trip. No one went so far to say exactly that to the GM, but we did try to simply resolve the situation OOC.  The GM stuck to the in-game justification, weak as it was, and so CG decided to leave the game. He wasn't pleased that it came to this, but wasn't overly antagonistic. He wasn't going to change his mind, and so instead of escalating anything, he decided to bow out. He encouraged the rest of us to continue. We had another session with a new player brought it. Instead of a new character he was assigned the inflicted knife wielder, made quick apologies to the offended god, and things went on. Prior to this, I had made it clear that I did not want that character in play. It simply killed the whole dynamic (nothing against the new player - who much like TA was all over the "explore my world" gameplay that the GM was running), and more importantly, it was hugely unfair to CG. So I left the game, which was rather surprising to everyone else since my reserved nature led everyone to think that I was passive and wouldn't go against the GM in any way. But there was clearly no give on the side of the GM, and it amounted to an ego trip. I had two character concepts trounced, one via mechanics (that one I could accept), and the other vial social issues (that one I could not). Bad odds, so I cut my losses and bailed.

The Aftermath

The game I think is still continuing. One of the GM's regulars was brought in to shore up the group. CG harbors no ill feelings, and the everyone still hangs out outside of the game, though for me it is rather infrequent. I have even less contact with the GM. No hostility, I just felt that he showed huge amounts of disrespect for the other players. Unlike the other players, this is not someone I would particularly want to spend time with. It is also interesting to consider that for some, he is seen as a great GM. No knock on his preparation or in-character abilities, and there were a couple of nice bits of mechanics in the game. But the whole staged, play in my world, live by my rules, obey the dice thing left me cold, though others were having a good time exploring the world. The reward for the GM is clearly the "hey cool" response when he reveals some new bit of the setting or an element of his intricate plot. I can understand that. That's a cool moment for the GM. Yet there was so much more that I wanted to be able to do or get out of the game that I could not. It clarified what I really wanted, or perhaps needed in my games, as well as provididing inspiration as how to achieve it.

In the end, as a player the game was a bust, but as designer it opened all kinds of windows. That, along with meeting some new folks, certainly made it worthwhile.

-Al

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Al,

The answer to the Big Time GM, then, is "No."  At least, mmm.... Wait a minute... I might have been that Big Time GM.

I remember one player saying, one night, when the group put together some dream imagery the PCs had encountered with some religious symbols of the evil priests they were battling, "But of course.  Everything's connected to everything in Christopher's game."

The difference is, my world wasn't going to eat you alive if you didn't put it together.  In fact, *nothing* would be lost if it wasn't recognized.

Typing this now, I realize this changed after my NU and Chicago gang days.  By the time I was playing in Chicago, when I ran a game I wanted every little detail to shine in the players eyes.  Again, it wasn't a make or break deal if the players didn't see it.  But its interesting that after moving heavily into Sim as a player, I lost my -- humility, I guess is the best word for it -- as a GM -- and it became about Showing Off All My Cleverness -- because, by God, I put it there and that's what the game was about.  Whereas back in high school it was all about tossing out stuff and whatever they responded to was what I'd make shinier.  Hmmmm.

Christopher

[Scripty]

...I guess is the best word for it -- as a GM -- and it became about Showing Off All My Cleverness -- because, by God, I put it there and that's what the game was about.  Whereas back in high school it was all about tossing out stuff and whatever they responded to was what I'd make shinier.  Hmmmm.

Christopher

At my best, I'm still a GM like you describe you were in high school. I've just never had any luck with the other approach. Besides, I typically think my plots suck so I'm always looking for a player to spice something up.

Beyond that...

I recently left a game where the GM engaged in "Showing Off All My Cleverness". I'm not sure how this happened, but I've never really encountered that style of GM'ing until moving here. Most of the time in other groups being the GM was more of a chore. We all wanted to play and generally the most organized individual or the one who would spend the most time on the chore (read: me...) would get "stuck" being GM.

But, after moving here, I've seen a prevalence of Primadonna GM'ing. I suppose it's a valid form of running a game, but I personally find it farcical after a point.

Most of the groups in this area view GM'ing as some kind of "performance" to which everyone else is beholden. Being a performer for over half of my life, I don't have that sort of attention deficit. So, I don't get it. I prefer to run games in this area simply because I get annoyed with being railroaded at every turn and then having to "ooo and ahh" at the right moments to plot twists or developments that are uncannily predictable.

For example, in a recent campaign, a local GM had established this 100 or so page series of adventures that involved a bevvy of major NPCs (at least 30, I honestly lost count) and factions (easily more than 6) and setting colour, etc. He had consulted with me earlier in the development of his campaign, which flattered me, but completely ignored any of my advice. Primarily, I told him to "Keep it simple, keep it open and don't invest too much in any one ending". After 3 months of play, a number of players had been given bits and pieces of his 100 page puzzle,  there were more factions than we could keep count of, we had no idea how any of the factions related to each other, and we had no idea what the final goal of the whole thing was.

The GM became frustrated. We became frustrated. NPCs with intentionally stirring dramatic deaths were greeted with: "Who was that guy?" Grand quests were met with: "What are we looking for again?" The GM threw his hands in the air with the whole campaign and brought it to a screeching halt. Despite pages and pages of notes, no one could keep his plotline straight. The bad guys turned out to be these guys we had met once. And the guys that we hated turned out to be the guys that we were supposed to be liking. There was also this odd Crab Thing. But, thankfully, it never came back.

To this day, I don't know what happened in that campaign. I pretty much followed the lead of whoever seemed like they knew where they were going at the time and learned not to ask questions because I was already supposed to know the answer to them (even though the GM passed information on to individual members of the party without the expectation that it would be passed on to anyone else). I stared in glazed amazement as the GM marveled us with his latest plot twist or story element that should have hit home, that should have meant something, but just fell short of the mark. Once, I asked the guy to explain the intricacies of what we had played. 3 hours later I understood it all and remember being quite impressed. I couldn't recite it now for the life of me. For shame.

Unfortunately, for the work I know he put into it, the campaign just sputtered. I felt bad for him, but no one could ever keep it all straight. All of our PC backgrounds were ignored. There were no player-initiated plot hooks. This is probably the cause for me being able to remember the characters and some of the insane things that they did, but nothing about this labrythine plot.

Meanwhile, I bring plotlines as bare as "Vampire Gang Tries to Destroy the Mall" to the table and scour through character sheets at the last minute for "something good" to match it and people still talk about the game like it deserved an Emmy. I think it's a difference in approach to GM'ing and Christopher hits on that. I've always felt the spotlight should be on the players, but I'm running into GMs now who want the spotlight on them.

I guess that's why I call them Primadonna GMs. As a musician, I ran across many a singer or guitarist who had to have everything just right, everyone fawn over them. Some new riff had to be treated like it was "Crosstown Traffic" or they would just break. We called them Primadonnas and it didn't matter if they were playing a stadium or a juke joint it was always the same. These types of GMs strike me the same way. If the game goes exactly as they plan, it will be a spiritual experience and they will ascend to the top of their craft... but when does anything go by a plan?