What to do with the unhappy gamer? (long)

[urizenhh]

Hi there!
This place being the most interesting self-help group for frustrated gamers and gms I shall present you with my problen, either to get help or just to share...

My group has quite a tradition, we are playing together more or less since 1990. We started with Rolemaster, had some Earthdawn, more Rolemaster and recently d&d in various incarnations. I don't know if it is lack of time or d20 but gaming has declined. Nobody reads background information anymore, I get half a page of personal background if I am lucky and roleplaying is at a lowpoint. But my actual problem is more of a personal kind. (forgive me if i ramble a bit, cant share this with my group)

We had a great start when d&d came out. With Wheel of Time d20 I axed the regular campaign becouse I really liked WOT. An otherwise great campaign was marred by two problems.
First I really started to dislike the rules ald took my players on an adventure converting the characters to D6, then to CODA and back to d20.It  was not the best idea, but we live to learn...
Second, to keep in line with the theme I had a prophecy as campaign hook that killed my enjoyment of the whole thing. The reason? The players started to hurry (the end of the world might be tomorrow) and skipped a lot of roleplaying opportunities. In the end i fast-forwarded to the endbattle.
Since then it went downhill...
We played regular d20 in an old homegrown setting and I tried to form a wide spanning conspiracy, but especially one player complained a lot.
He said the characters had no reason to stay together. In case he did not understand an NSCs motivation he said that NSC was not logical. The campaign hook (something is his characters past) was ignored because he said he would not put his characters interest in front of the group interest... We cancelled it.
Next try we started Monte Cooks AU (d20). First group was abandoned because the players said that their characters could not stand each other.

Now we play a second group and I thought something up to counter the Players concern for group cohesion: the masters of the characters are kidnapped, and they figure out whats up and how to free them. After a few sessions the problem about too much hurrying and no roleplaying was back (no time for character play, the mission is first). And of couse, the player complaining that the hook (kidnapped masters) kills good roleplaying.
I can accept that it might have been a mistake to rely too heavy on the idea. He says he is frustrated because his character sees no light at the end of the tunnel and is always worried he might be too late.
On the other hand maybe he ist too gamist? He insists it is my duty to keep it interesting for him, I think if they act too stupid and miss clues, why should I help?
And again I have the feeling he is not interested in finding solutions in game (I dont understand that NSC, he acts illogical; What? we neet to get into that well-fortified tower with no easy way in and an angry mage on top? impossible (without even trying))
I really think if nscs do not behave in a way he can imagine, he thinks they are illogical (I meet millions of people i dont understand in real life)

I don't know what to do, he already offered to leave the group, but I like him and think he is a good roleplayer (usually). But I also get frustrated...

So should I try to change things because of one guy? Or should I tell him if he is unhappy maybe a timeout is best for him because if I change too much I am not happy!?!?

Like I said, I do not see an easy solution, especially frm you guys, but meybe I just need to get this of my chest and talk about it with someone neutral...

Urizen

[Loki]

Urizen,

What is "NSC"? Is that like NPC (ie non-player character)?

I'm having a hard time really getting a handle on what's going on in your group, but it sounds like at the very least, the player you refer to is unhappy with the games you've been running.

Ask him and the other players whether they like what you've been running. It's hard for me to tell if you're burned out on GMing (many system switches, dropped campaigns, etc usually point to that), or if he's looking for a different experience than the rest of the group.

If he doesn't like what you've been running, but the rest of the group does, then he should find another group. If the rest of the group agrees with him, ask him to help you figure out how to incorporate the kind of roleplaying into your plots. Give up some of your authorial power and allow your players to direct the adventure ideas--you'll have plenty of opportunity to inject your own two cents while running it.

[Clay]

Your players are trying to tell you that your ideas bore them.  They aren't being very subtle about it.  It may be that they're experiencing burnout, which does happen.  I needed a solid six month break once after putting one very intense and intriguing campaign on hiatus, and its followup was a pretty weak series of generally unrelated adventures in a system and setting that didn't inspire me.  I'm better now, and enjoy gaming regularly.

You might want to investigate SEX & SORCERY, which helped me dramatically, as well as THE SORCERER'S SOUL.  Sex & Sorcery helped me understand better what would capture my players' motivation. Sorcerer's Soul gave me the foundation to create the sort of stories that would interest me in the telling.

[Nicolas Crost]

Hi Urizen and welcome to The Forge! (I´ve always wanted to say that)

Some ideas from not too far away...

What you have to find out is the following: Do your players enjoy themselves? Do they like the style of the adventures? I am asking because your advetures seem to be pretty linear and plot-driven and don´t seem to encourage in-character dialogue (what you seem to be refering to as "roleplaying").

So this seems to be the structure of the adventures. On the one hand side now your players (especially the one guy) complain about not having enough incentive for "roleplaying". On the other hand the don´t seem to want to invest any work into that goal.

I think what you have to do is the following:
- Find out what the players want. Ask them. You might also want to let one ore more of the players run a one-shot to let them demostrate the kind of play they like.
- Make clear that they are as responsible for having fun roleplaying as you are. They have to invest. Perhaps try some game with heavy use of Director Stance or other means of Player Empowerment (perhaps Donjon or The Pool, maybe PtA) to show them that you are not the only one responsible fo everybody´s enjoyment.

Well, it all boils down to: talk to them about what you want and what they want. Anyway, now that I think about ist, the point of this post seems pretty much obvious...

Btw: NSC ist german for NPC.

Nicolas

[Bankuei]

Hi Urizen,

Welcome to the Forge!

One thing you may wish to consider is shorter campaigns.  I have found it more useful, to run a story arc(complete beginning, middle and end, not just extended foreshadowing of "something else"), in about 3 to 6 sessions, and then leave it alone.  Sometimes we'll  play something else, then return later, sometimes we'll start a new story arc, and sometimes we'll just let it die.  

This accomplishes 2 things.  First, if you look at episodic media, such as tv, comics, or short stories, they always have a climax and closure.  Each episode over a long period of time adds up to the "bigger story".  That climax and closure is necessary for human attention.  

Many attempts at epic campaigns(or storytelling, particularly comics) have fallen into the trap that length and miles of foreshadowing make exciting.  Not true.  Bite sized chunks of excitement handed out at semi-regular intervals keep people coming back.

Second, when you do short story arcs, the players have a chance to either take a break, or try out another game or story and come back to it later if they really want.  

I call it the "dating theory".  As long as the commitment is low(short story arcs, dating), people hang around a long time.  Once the commitment gets high(year long campaigns, raising children), people lose a lot of patience.  Knowing that something "will be over soon" or being able to get out of it makes people more tolerant to see things through.

Of course, like dating, it shouldn't be based out of "tolerating", but having fun.  The advantage of the short story arcs is that you can weather the tough times (between fun) easier, and also that if you start a game or story that turns out to be NOT FUN, you can axe it without wasting a lot of commitment time.

Also, it does sound like folks in your group are suffering burn out.  I'd recommend a movie night, maybe play some one shots of something really different, like Inspectres or something like that to clean the slate.  Poll folks and see what gets everyone excited or inspired, and then run a short bit with it.  If everyone's still excited, you can do another, if not, pick out something else that's hot.

Chris

[urizenhh]

WOW!

Thank you for the nice welcome and the answers!!!

Oh, and sorry for my NSC/NPC mixup...

I also sense some burnout issues and some "What do we want?"

The main problem is the fear of the unknown, of course. We did try some other stuff in the past, but it always threatened to shatter the group. As I told, we come from a Rolemaster-Background so most of us are very simulationist with a dash of gamist. When we tried a "storytelling" approach it was desaster! Also most of the guys don't like to commit to one-shots.
But I will try to learn from your advice...
First I'm going to ask if they think we should continue, trying to fix the one player's problems, or try something new (new game/ new setting/ new gm)
Second, I will prepare a questionaire to determine what they want. Maybe I'll look for some help with that...
So far, so good,
Urizen

[Loki]

I owe you an apology regarding the NSC v NPC acronym. It was patently clear from your post what you were referring to, but I failed my resist pedantry roll. ;-)

Best of luck talking with your group. I went through something very similar not too long ago, and as the GM it caused me a lot of angst.

[jdagna]

Urizen, it really seems to me like the biggest problem in your group is that you say you "can't" talk about it with the other players.  Anytime you can't talk about something, there's going to be a problem, and it often represents deeper issues.

One of my friends has been running games for 10+ years, but still ends every session with a short feedback section so that the players can respond to the game.  They can highlight scenes or techniques they liked (or not), make requests for future plots or events.  

It helps to get people into some serious OOC conversation about the gaming - all too often, people trap themselves into an IC perspective and try to resolve OOC issues from that perspective.  Sometimes system-hopping is an example of this problem, though I don't know if that applies to you or not.  I think the lack of roleplaying and player interest certainly is an example of OOC problems trying to be resolved in an IC manner.

Questionnaires and surveys can sometimes help open up the channels of communication, but don't rely on them exclusively.  Also, try to allow lots of specific, but open-ended, questions - like "Describe you favorite character/campaign/game" can be very effective in showing what people really want.  When I asked that question of a regular group of mine, I was surprised by the answers.  I sort of figured that after playing with them for a few  years, I knew what they liked, but many of their favorite moments were ones I barely paid any attention to.