Turtle player - advice?

[Kerstin Schmidt]

This quote from one of Ron Edwards's GNS articles made me shiver, it is so precisely a description of one of the players in my DnD Midnight game:  

"I have met dozens, perhaps over a hundred, very experienced role-players
with this profile: a limited repertoire of games behind him and extremely
defensive and turtle-like play tactics. Ask for a character background, and
he resists, or if he gives you one, he never makes use of it or responds to
cues about it. Ask for actions - he hunkers down and does nothing unless
there's a totally unambiguous lead to follow or a foe to fight. His universal
responses include "My guy doesn't want to," and, "I say nothing." 

I have not, in over twenty years of role-playing, ever seen such a person
have a good time role-playing. I have seen a lot of groups founder due to the
presence of one such participant. Yet they really want to play..."




The last paragraph of the above quote actually only partly fits my player - he really wants to play, _and_ he really enjoyed himself recently in a pure roleplaying challenge (after dithering for a session and a half about whether or not to engage, while other players went ahead and dealt with their own challenges and opportunities).  

I try to run my game at two distinct levels:  tactical DnD wargame for combat sessions, character-centred stuff with a mix of sundry non-combat challenges in other sessions.  My turtle player loves to conjecture outlandish possibilities and at times can practically paralyse the group with his talking in paranoid circles .... OTOH sometimes he has brilliant ideas, when (rarely) he steps up to a roleplaying challenge he can be good at it and visibly enjoys himself - but then he clamps back down and I have to fight every inch of the way, it feels like, to get him to engage again.  

I'm trying to get him to open up but it's a long hard battle.  Sometimes I think I'm making progress, sometimes I'm not so sure.  I know this player has had some weird experiences with other GMs in the past, one in particular he described as being "all smoke and mirrors" - that might explain his mindset to some extent.  But he's now been playing in my game for seven months and is still a difficult case, although he reliably turns up for every session, takes notes and writes passable, entertaining and mostly reliable chronicles of our games.  


Have any of you people experienced turtle players and found a way to help them out of their shell? If so, what did you do, or avoid?  

As a secondary remedy if you didn't get a turtle to open up, what did you do to contain the damage and let everyone wtill have fun with their different styles?



(I know of course about the possible remedy of getting rid of players who are a liability - but that's not currently what I'm looking at here.  We like our resident turtle, we'd just like to get him to come out of his shell a bit more ... )

[TonyLB]

You're trying too hard.

The player is asserting his right to choose not to be engaged.  Every time you try to drag him in more aggressively, you are assailing that very right.  You're saying that not caring is forbidden.

There is absolutely nothing so enticing as the forbidden.

You can not force the player to care.  The more you try to, the more attractive not caring becomes... it proves his independence and makes him the center of attention, all at the same time.

But the fact that he enjoys the game says that he wants to care, if you'll get out of the way and let him do it on his own terms.

Try treating him like just another player for five or six sessions.  Give him the same opportunities to engage in the world that you would for anyone else, but plan carefully so that it won't matter to you whether or not he avails himself of them.

It is not your job to assure his fun.  It cannot be your job, because nobody on God's green earth can give you the tools to reach directly into his mind and turn on his fun receptors.

[hix]

I like Tony's advice, which I interpret as 'taking the pressure off the situation'.

Another possibility (that extends on that idea) is to consider encouraging him out of his shell as a multi-episode, multi-game endeavour. Now I'm not saying you're responsible for him changing his behaviour ... but you can demonstrate that there's not so much to get defensive about.

Example:

In the Buffy game I ran over christmas, one of the characters (Jo) had a boyfriend. The most cynical player said, "Watch out, he's destined to get kidnapped." So I made it my mission to ensure that nothing bad happened to that NPC, that Jo's player always felt comfortable and entertained about what was going on.

The Point:

Say the player feels that he will be taken advantage of by NPCs. Show one of the other players having a blast with an NPC relationship (that you NEVER take advantage of).  Then - after a few sessions / games - start creating an NPC rich environment. IF your player likes hanging out with one of the NPCs, make them into a side-kick / foil. Use the NPC to engage them in non-threatening elements of the rest of your world (family squabbles, marital entanglements, etc).

Basically, it's not extra work on your part. You've just shown the player a cool alternative to how he's currently playing and given him the opportunity to try it out.

[eef]

There was a time in my life when I was going through a lot of personal changes and hard choices, and what I wanted most out of RPGs was a chance to relax and just be somebody else for a while, somebody without worries beyond bashing the next ork.  In short, turtle maximus.

The player may be getting a whole lot out of your game, just by hanging out.

That being said, the player does give off a few red lights.  "talking in paranoid circles" and worrying about a past GM that was "all smoke and mirrors" -- that doesn't sound like the healthiest of individuals.  Be careful about getting the player to be more active.  You may get your wish :-).

[Bill Cook]

Have any of you people experienced turtle players and found a way to help them out of their shell? If so, what did you do, or avoid?

Yes. One of the former players in my group was very risk aversive. He'd play high-level mages (1st ed. AD&D) with some defense or backup for every conceivable type of threat. And he was very secretive. Many times we'd ask him what he's up to and he'd just sit there with a knowing smile on his face, refusing to answer. It seemed like his character was a one-person clique within the party.

As an unrelated issue, I started implementing a lot of position-based house rules, as well as a more efficient and direct method of establishing initiative and calling for action. This picked up the pace considerably while throwing many assumptions into question. For instance, I wouldn't let sword fighters target flyers unless the flyers had targeted them with a swooping attack that round. Also, I played the module straight from the page, resulting in the whole party getting ass-whooped by a golemn who could only be harmed with blunt weapons. (The high attack rate, two-axe wielding dwarf was particularly impotent.) A ranger sent his hawk down an underground waterway . . . and it didn't come back; no explanation. I attacked the party with bats and bats; so many, they couldn't be burned away. In short, no one felt safe. No one knew what to expect next; PC's were disadvantaged, and I just stood by the results.

While this was going on, the player in question played it safe as usual, and I wasn't paying attention to him, in any case. By the second session, he emerged. For some reason, seeing how everyone was getting screwed by stupid reality and the D&D play rituals didn't really apply, he started putting himself in his character's situation (truly, for the first time) and trying to solve his dilemmas. (e.g. Duck down against a crag in the tunnel wall to make a small signature for the swarming bats vs. casting a fireball to chew through their hit points and then teleport away.)

Scene framing and weaving are also ace cards for drawing out a turtle. e.g. At the hero's celebration, the party collapses onto the banquet table. The wine was drugged! You return to the main hall to find your companions being stuffed into sacks and carried out. "Wasn't there another one?" "There's no time!" You track them to a regal estate. Peering through a cellar window, you make out the party in manacles. A bare-chested fat guy, wearing a black hood, stokes the coals of a furnace with a poker. Councilman Veneer comes into view. "Let's talk about the Fortress of Besir. I want to know troop strength, what supplies they may have, . . . everything."

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Yes. One of the former players in my group was very risk aversive. He'd play high-level mages (1st ed. AD&D) with some defense or backup for every conceivable type of threat. And he was very secretive. Many times we'd ask him what he's up to and he'd just sit there with a knowing smile on his face, refusing to answer. It seemed like his character was a one-person clique within the party.

That's my turtle! To the dot on the "i".  

I've played alongside him in another DM's high-level game which figured PCs involved in local politics to some extent.  He'd always insist on playing his PC's conversations with NPCs away from the table, so other players wouldn't know what was going on - this wasn't a game of PC-PC intrigue, mind you, so there was no good reason for this that I can see.  

...In short, no one felt safe. No one knew what to expect next; PC's were disadvantaged, and I just stood by the results.

While this was going on, the player in question played it safe as usual, and I wasn't paying attention to him, in any case. By the second session, he emerged. For some reason, seeing how everyone was getting screwed by stupid reality and the D&D play rituals didn't really apply, he started putting himself in his character's situation (truly, for the first time) and trying to solve his dilemmas. (e.g. Duck down against a crag in the tunnel wall to make a small signature for the swarming bats vs. casting a fireball to chew through their hit points and then teleport away.)

Hm, interesting. My players have had to adapt to an environment in which PCs are constantly outnumbered and outgunned and where traditional DnD staples are invalid on a regular basis.  Two took to it with relish, one struggled for a bit but then got into it, one dropped out.  After seven months of biweekly play (in which he didn't miss a single session), my turtle alone still has difficulties, and says so.  

I haven't seen him emerge in situations that required thinking out of the box, although he can be very good tactically in combat when he plays a paranoid spellcaster and has spells up his sleeve to deal with the situation.  When the going gets rough or when he's surprised and feels threatened by something, he's more likely to panic and teleport out on his own (or gallop away) leaving the other PCs in the lurch.  

Scene framing and weaving are also ace cards for drawing out a turtle. e.g. At the hero's celebration, the party collapses onto the banquet table. The wine was drugged! You return to the main hall to find your companions being stuffed into sacks and carried out. "Wasn't there another one?" "There's no time!" You track them to a regal estate. Peering through a cellar window, you make out the party in manacles. A bare-chested fat guy, wearing a black hood, stokes the coals of a furnace with a poker. Councilman Veneer comes into view. "Let's talk about the Fortress of Besir. I want to know troop strength, what supplies they may have, . . . everything."

Cool example, cheers!  :)  Would you explain the terms "scene framing" and "weaving" for me?

[Kerstin Schmidt]

There was a time in my life when I was going through a lot of personal changes and hard choices, and what I wanted most out of RPGs was a chance to relax and just be somebody else for a while, somebody without worries beyond bashing the next ork.  In short, turtle maximus.

You wouldn't have enjoyed my Midnight game then. The one player I had who wanted merely orc-bashing out of a game has recently dropped out, to our mutual relief.  

As a group we have found a strange hybrid style with tactical, wargame-flavoured DnD combat alternating with scenes involving difficult decisions, heroic melodrama and character growth - it's almost like I'm running the game on two levels, heavy-Gamist and kinda-Narr.  (I've introduced a limited number of Fate Points as a 'buffer' to make death in the Gamist challenges less likely.)  My turtle player has difficulties at both levels:  

At the Gamist level, the lack of magic items and spells limits the number of rules-supported tactical options more than he likes.   There's of course nothing to prevent him from thinking out of the box, looking at the environment and coming up with creative tactical solutions for problems using resources at hand - but he won't do that.

At the Story level, he's a no-show.  He will drag out every moldy old excuse to avoid going into character, which not only wastes numerous opportunities for his PC to develop star potential, it's also a constant drag on the mood at the table.  The worst thing is that he's getting more and more dissatisfied and frustrated because he sees other PCs develop and be successful where he can't or won't go.  

I've given him NPC contacts that might help the group in a given scenario - he will have an excuse ready to ignore them.  If I don't give him contacts, he's envious because other people 'get' contacts (through their own performance in play I should add).  If I do give him contacts he cuts them dead.  

The player may be getting a whole lot out of your game, just by hanging out.

Hm, I've asked him what he enjoys about my game, and his answer always starts and ends with "Well my problem with Midnight is ..." Not that any clear response follows, else I could at least try to understand his play style better and try to accommodate it to some extent (as I do fr other players), or at least contain the damage.  

I understand that he enjoys hanging out with people. He enjoys the tactical challenges, especially of the DnD magic system - which doesn't apply in Midnight, so it's moot.  He enjoys mulling over potential plans and thinking of ever more outlandish and non-obvious solutions, and discussing them with other players.  He realises that this is a bit of a problem in my game because our game time slots are only 3 hours or so long, but can't seem to help himself.  

That being said, the player does give off a few red lights.  "talking in paranoid circles" and worrying about a past GM that was "all smoke and mirrors" -- that doesn't sound like the healthiest of individuals.  Be careful about getting the player to be more active.  You may get your wish :-).

Oh hell yes!  My problem isn't that he isn't active, he is far too active only in the wrong way.  Some of his habits actively harm my game and the enjoyment of the group.  


The most harmful thing about his paranoid circles is that he more often than not talks other, more proactive players into paralysis.  
He has a very persuasive aura somehow - he will conjecture the most unlikely theories out of thin air, but when he tells you about his newest "idea" about what is sure to be behind that door or how to judge this or that NPC (usually to ignore them, distrust them as enemies, or distrust them as incompetent individuals), he sounds rational and convincing.  I experienced another GM's game through this turtle player's eyes exclusively for many months and first saw clear about his grotesque-yet-harmful thought processes when I started running my Midnight game for a subset of the same group in which the other GM also plays ... and had the same revelation only vice versa:  he had always wondered how stupid his players were to get caught in the paranoid circles of the turtle player;  once he started playing alongside the turtle, the same thing happened to him.  


So, er, no I don't want him to be more active - I just want him to be active in a healthier way.  There have been occasional flashes of desire on his part to emerge, and when he recently was the centre of attention in a roleplaying scene (that after much dithering he stepped up to at the last possible moment), he greatly enjoyed that, he's still beaming when we talk about it.

In that scene, part of the showdown in a court intrigue/mystery scenario with an assassin loose in the court, he had his PC walk up to a twelve-year-old prince NPC who had shown signs of liking the PC (a contact I'd given him 'for free' a session and a half earlier) and who was evidently distressed and not himself.   He talked to the boy simply and quietly in a way that helped the boy emerge from his shell and finally (after reassurance about being protected) admit he'd seen his tutor murdered and been intimidated into silence by the murderer, an impostor at court.  

By this time the impostor had already been exposed in another way and fled, so it wasn't the glorious Gamist success that it could have been, but the scene as he played it (playing in character without my prompting!) was moving and seemed almost real. It defined a new PC's attitude towards his taciturn PC, helped the NPC prince find the courage to talk to his stern and disdainful father, and actually helped the turtle to redefine his own stance towards his PC to some extent.  There was a touch of actual emotion in the chronicles he wrote of the session when he came to that scene (which figured prominently in his account).  

I've asked him whether he'd like me to offer him more opportunities to bring out this "caring and loyal" side of his PC and he said he'd like that.  

We all loved that scene he played - if I can get him to trust me/us more and come out of his shell occasionally, I'll be very happy.  

I'd hate to quell his talking-in-circles-doing-nothing tactics even more harshly than I have done in the past without offering him some other route into enjoyment of the game.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Another possibility (that extends on that idea) is to consider encouraging him out of his shell as a multi-episode, multi-game endeavour. Now I'm not saying you're responsible for him changing his behaviour ... but you can demonstrate that there's not so much to get defensive about.

Example:

In the Buffy game I ran over christmas, one of the characters (Jo) had a boyfriend. The most cynical player said, "Watch out, he's destined to get kidnapped." So I made it my mission to ensure that nothing bad happened to that NPC, that Jo's player always felt comfortable and entertained about what was going on.

I've been doing that for seven months now, with no results on the turtle that I can see.  It's not the first time that I've worked with players' attitudes - I've introduced a number of newbies to the hobby, some of whom can be very shy at first, and I've dealt kinda successfully with players who have suffered under adversarial GMs before.  In fact, my Midnight game has one such player, and he's meanwhile loosening up and beginning to *gasp* trust me because he's realising that my game provides routes towards becoming a star that an adversarial game wouldn't involve.  But my turtle consistently ignores factual evidence and stays in his adversarial stance.  

My fellow GM and player has recently described his stance as "cringingly adversarial":  he won't criticise a GM ("The DM is always right." - That is a turtle quote) but will harbour grudges and resist attempts to work with him and gain his trust.  

Say the player feels that he will be taken advantage of by NPCs. Show one of the other players having a blast with an NPC relationship (that you NEVER take advantage of).  Then - after a few sessions / games - start creating an NPC rich environment. IF your player likes hanging out with one of the NPCs, make them into a side-kick / foil. Use the NPC to engage them in non-threatening elements of the rest of your world (family squabbles, marital entanglements, etc).

See above.  The only result of my other players having a blast with NPCs on a regular basis is that he grows ever more envious and clamped-down. He doesn't say so outright, but it's pretty obvious that he's envious of certain other players, and feels I'm playing favourites (or being manipulated by them).

[Bill Cook]

Cool example, cheers! :) Would you explain the terms "scene framing" and "weaving" for me?

From the Provisional Glossary:

Scene Framing

   A GM-task in which many possible Techniques are used to establish when a sequence of imaginary events begins and ends, what characters are involved, and where it takes place. Analogous to a "cut" in film editing which skips fictional time and/or changes location. A necessary feature of System.


Weave

   The Technique of bringing non-player-character (NPC) activities closer to the player-characters and to introduce multiple responses among NPC and player-character actions. Term coined in Sex & Sorcery.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

bcook1971 - Thanks for CCing the glossary definitions.  
I was kinda hoping for an explanation in (to me) more accessible terms ...  Somehow this terminology is too abstract for me to get a good grasp of.  

If I understand the above definitions correctly, I try to use both techniques, but am struggling - primarily because my turtle player has a habit of barging into any scene I set, complaining that he was "somewhere else" at the end of the previous scene (especially between sessions) or asking whether he could "just quickly" do or say or play something else after the end of a previous scene before we continue.  

Perhaps you would explain in what way scene framing and weaving have helped with your turtle player?  Specific examples of play from your game with the turtle might help me.

[Bill Cook]

Surely. I'm not the pro at this. In fact, I think Ron Edwards coined the term, weaving, so I hesitate to suggest that my understanding is the gold standard. It isn't, but I manage:)

To me, scene framing is cutting out all the crap. Anything that can reasonably be assumed, frame past it. Anything that performs a maintenance function or fails to make relevant progress cries out to be skipped. (e.g. Determining the order of watches when making camp, splitting up the treasure, travelling through the wilderness, buying supplies at market, performing your normal duties at work, etc.)

Scene framing breaks up the cyclops eye and splits the narrative into many threads. You can use any particular character's pespective as the lens to view the game world, instead of sticking with one guy and narrating his every step until he rejoins the group who has had to wait, doing nothing, so everyone can (as I imagine) hold hands to cross the street. Juggling threads can be challenging at first, but once your group acclimates, it's sooo much better (IMO). It's the difference between Tropicana and Tang.

Weaving is crossing threads. There are three things I like to do with it: cross nemeses, cross PC's and cross thread elements. e.g. "You wire down to the vault room floor and spray mist to reveal the laser lines surrounding the display. You reach between and grasp the gem, only to feel your fingers pass through air. It's a hologram! The alarm sounds and iron bars come crashing down. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a black-garbed figure rotate open a window, high on the wall. She removes her mask, jet-black hair falling around her shoulders, and holds the gem above her shoulder. Saratoga! With a wink, she escapes into the night."

Weaving is contagious. Once your players get on board, one weave will generally inspire a cascade of others. When it's good, you get this sense of "Well, who the hell's telling this story, anyway?"

* * *

About your turtle . . . When I think back on it, I think mine came out simply because (1) he sensed the shift in focus (2) recognized that everyone else was getting on board and (3) became inspired by the success they were having. It was just that schoolyard thing of "Well, I wanna play, too. Guys, can I play?" When you're training your players on new concepts, an efficient path is to praise leadership. Once one person demonstrates understanding, it breaks across the group consciousness. The specific thing the GM can do to encourage this is to interrupt play and celebrate. i.e. "Yes, by George, you've got it! Everybody: did you see what he just did? That was brilliant! I wish we could have one moment after another, just like that." Boy, does this work.

Also, I've neglected the obvious: ask your turtle what kind of play he wants. Then give it to him, just the way he said. Then ask, "Is this what you meant? Did I do it like you wanted?" This is kind of like putting it in his face and helps him to define his interest in play, which I submit, is probably vague, even to him. I had a guy in my recent Sorcerer campaign literally ask me to put him in situations where he could avoid risk by escaping. It just floored me, but I reserved judgement, and worked my ass off to drop him in one perilous circumstance after another, knowing that he'd just whisk his character away. And he got off on it. It just blew my mind.

* * *

Just read some of your responses to other posters . . . Fundamentally, this guy may be mismatched to your group. In my group, I'm probably the most mismatched. You can always axe the guy, or he can always find another group; and as a matter of principle, that may be the best choice, but I'm betting that he's your friend and that you'd both prefer to work things out. Anyway, an idea I had to break up his paranoid cycling is to interpret his words as Initiation (cf. IIEE.) Undoubtedly, he'll move to strike  and explain that he's just talking. But stay on it. And he'll repeat the process: make a protest and explain that he's working through his options, airing his thoughts. After a few times through, ask him, "So what do you want to do?" More than likely, he will not have a clear answer and will start back into his paranoid monologue. Then cut away to another player, saying something like, "Well, alright. I'm gonna let you work that out. Robbie [another player], back in town, what's your next move?"

[Walt Freitag]

One detail of your account really jumped out at me:

At the Gamist level, the lack of magic items and spells limits the number of rules-supported tactical options more than he likes. There's of course nothing to prevent him from thinking out of the box, looking at the environment and coming up with creative tactical solutions for problems using resources at hand - but he won't do that.
...

He enjoys mulling over potential plans and thinking of ever more outlandish and non-obvious solutions, and discussing them with other players. He realises that this is a bit of a problem in my game because our game time slots are only 3 hours or so long, but can't seem to help himself.

Can you give an example of one of these "outlandish" solutions that are causing problems when he proposes them? It sounds possible to me that he's coming up with ideas that are incompatible with your game preparations, and is being slapped down as a result -- and then retreats into "okay, if you want me to just go through the motions then that's what I'll do" at the shorter-term tactical level where you would actually be more amenable to unexpected choices. Your characterizing his ideas as "paranoid" and his plans as "outlandish" suggest that you expect him to stay very much inside some boxes while thinking outside others. Depending on how wild his ideas and plans actually are, you might be reasonably justified in this expectation, but might it also be understandable if he doesn't see those boundaries the same as you do?

You say you plan for "combat sessions" and for "sundry non-combat challenges" in other sessions. The implication (my apologies if I'm reading too much in here) is that you know in advance which are which -- and therefore, you're probably planning in advance how you expect each challenge to play out. What happens if someone tries to use noncombat means to achieve the objective of a planned combat session, or use combat to deal with a problem you've planned as a "non-combat" challege? Is that often the case with this player's "outlandish" ideas?

I find, when dealing with a great variety of player styles and preferences, that limiting my pre-planning to focus on plausble and difficult problems the PCs might face, without trying to pre-plan specific solutions (often, without even having any good ideas for how the problem might be solved), can help to get a lot more players to take a lot more initiative. Thinking outside the box on any scale becomes a benefit rather than a problem.

- Walt

[Lee Short]

Have any of you people experienced turtle players and found a way to help them out of their shell? If so, what did you do, or avoid?

Scene framing and weaving are also ace cards for drawing out a turtle. e.g. At the hero's celebration, the party collapses onto the banquet table. The wine was drugged! You return to the main hall to find your companions being stuffed into sacks and carried out. "Wasn't there another one?" "There's no time!" You track them to a regal estate. Peering through a cellar window, you make out the party in manacles. A bare-chested fat guy, wearing a black hood, stokes the coals of a furnace with a poker. Councilman Veneer comes into view. "Let's talk about the Fortress of Besir. I want to know troop strength, what supplies they may have, . . . everything."

My experience is that doing this only forces the turtle deeper in his shell, in the long run.   Tony's appoach seems better to me.  Let the turtle come out of his shell of his own accord, with some gentle encouragement.  If he doesn't really want to come out, I think you're in a no-win situation from the start.  I know I've seen that.  And Ron's right, it can mess up the game for everybody.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Thanks, this is brilliant billcook- now I understand what you mean. :)

...
To me, scene framing is cutting out all the crap. Anything that can reasonably be assumed, frame past it. Anything that performs a maintenance function or fails to make relevant progress cries out to be skipped. (e.g. Determining the order of watches when making camp, splitting up the treasure, travelling through the wilderness, buying supplies at market, performing your normal duties at work, etc.)

Heck yes,  I do that all the time of course.  My turtle player doesn't have a problem with this generally speaking - except he has a thing for drawing up and going through interminable items lists.  

It's not the last copper piece or moldy potato he's interested in, but anything that might conceivably come in useful at some stage in the future.  In a standard setting game, it's everything with a magic aura.  In my game (rare in magic items or indeed usable loot), he's cutting back on the items-counting, partly out of disdain of what is likely to be on offer and partly because in everybody's interest by now I've learnt to override him and tell him to just let me know what he wants to take, and make sure it isn't the last straw that will break his horse's back.  
The latter warning I give merely because the other PCs decided long ago to make speed the core of their operating strategy.  None of the other players are in danger of lugging half a fantasy hardware store around if I don't check - the turtle is, unless reminded on a regular basis about maximum loads and stuff.  (Do I have to stress that I hate having to babysit players about basic style things like this?)

Scene framing breaks up the cyclops eye and splits the narrative into many threads. You can use any particular character's pespective as the lens to view the game world, instead of sticking with one guy and narrating his every step until he rejoins the group who has had to wait, doing nothing, so everyone can (as I imagine) hold hands to cross the street. Juggling threads can be challenging at first, but once your group acclimates, it's sooo much better (IMO). It's the difference between Tropicana and Tang.

Hm, not sure what you are referring to here.  I obviously cut back and forth between individual PCs' or subgroups' scenes when the party splits up - is that what you mean?  

Weaving is crossing threads. There are three things I like to do with it: cross nemeses, cross PC's and cross thread elements. e.g. "You wire down to the vault room floor and spray mist to reveal the laser lines surrounding the display. You reach between and grasp the gem, only to feel your fingers pass through air. It's a hologram! The alarm sounds and iron bars come crashing down. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a black-garbed figure rotate open a window, high on the wall. She removes her mask, jet-black hair falling around her shoulders, and holds the gem above her shoulder. Saratoga! With a wink, she escapes into the night."

Weaving is contagious. Once your players get on board, one weave will generally inspire a cascade of others. When it's good, you get this sense of "Well, who the hell's telling this story, anyway?"

My experience too, yup.  The longer a game goes on, the more material I have to work with. I love doing that.  In my current group I am lucky enough to have two players who don't run away screaming when I approach them for character motivations, long-term goals and plot input, in fact I've got the most fantastic input from them both OOC and in roleplaying - and the third is learning to trust me a bit as well.  

Of course that once again leaves the turtle the odd man out, I suspect it may be that he's completely blind to the anything in a game that isn't expressed in DnD rules.  

About your turtle . . . When I think back on it, I think mine came out simply because (1) he sensed the shift in focus (2) recognized that everyone else was getting on board and (3) became inspired by the success they were having. It was just that schoolyard thing of "Well, I wanna play, too. Guys, can I play?"

I'm getting hesitant signals in that direction from my "third" player, but not the turtle.  

When you're training your players on new concepts, an efficient path is to praise leadership. Once one person demonstrates understanding, it breaks across the group consciousness. The specific thing the GM can do to encourage this is to interrupt play and celebrate. i.e. "Yes, by George, you've got it! Everybody: did you see what he just did? That was brilliant! I wish we could have one moment after another, just like that." Boy, does this work.

Hm good point. I've done that a fair bit after sessions I think - but perhaps not immediately enough to work magic...  I'll keep that in mind in the future.  I made a point of praising the turtle player's recent RP performance, and other players have told him they enjoyed it a lot, which he seemed to like.  

Also, I've neglected the obvious: ask your turtle what kind of play he wants. Then give it to him, just the way he said. Then ask, "Is this what you meant? Did I do it like you wanted?" This is kind of like putting it in his face and helps him to define his interest in play, which I submit, is probably vague, even to him.

Very good point, thanks.  I've tried talking to him about what kind of play he enjoys and I talk to my playsers on a regular basis about what they enjoy and what I should change/improve, but I don't think I've ever given the turtle a clear signal that I had something specifically for his enjoyment and got his feedback on it.  

The next scenario coming up will be one the turtle had set his heart on doing, and had got the other players to agree even though their PCs don't have a big motivation to deal with it.  I think I've found some tricks that will make the scenario fun for me to create and run and worthwhile for everyone else to play in, and I'll make a point of asking him afterwards whether that was the kind of play he wanted.  

If I can offer challenges that have a bit for everyone and occasionally ones that he enjoys a lot and everyone else kinda has fun with, that would be great.  

I've had some encouraging signals from him lately btw - he's told me repeatedly that he had a lot of fun playing in the last scenario, in which he was paralysed into inaction most of the time, but got to play his talk-to-young-prince scene at the end.  

I had a guy in my recent Sorcerer campaign literally ask me to put him in situations where he could avoid risk by escaping. It just floored me, but I reserved judgement, and worked my ass off to drop him in one perilous circumstance after another, knowing that he'd just whisk his character away. And he got off on it. It just blew my mind.

Heh!  Sounds as if it can be fun in a solo game - but in a group, running away and leaving the others in the lurch all the time gets old pretty quickly, as demonstrated to exhaustion by our resident ever-teleporting turtle.  

Just read some of your responses to other posters . . . Fundamentally, this guy may be mismatched to your group. In my group, I'm probably the most mismatched.

Could be.

You can always axe the guy, or he can always find another group; and as a matter of principle, that may be the best choice, but I'm betting that he's your friend and that you'd both prefer to work things out.

Well, if we can't find a common ground with him style-wise, being friends won't keep me from booting him from the group.  I don't live in the illusion that all my friends have to share all my leisure interests to the same degree, and I won't have the most exciting game I've ever run fall apart because he can't or won't fit.  

I'm working hard to avoid this though. We all like the guy as a person and there are ways in which he is an asset to the group.  If I can stop him harming my game and perhaps help him to enjoy it more at the same time, that would be fantastic. It ain't proving easy though, which is why I'm posting here.  :)

Anyway, an idea I had to break up his paranoid cycling is to interpret his words as Initiation (cf. IIEE.) Undoubtedly, he'll move to strike  and explain that he's just talking. But stay on it. And he'll repeat the process: make a protest and explain that he's working through his options, airing his thoughts. After a few times through, ask him, "So what do you want to do?" More than likely, he will not have a clear answer and will start back into his paranoid monologue. Then cut away to another player, saying something like, "Well, alright. I'm gonna let you work that out. Robbie [another player], back in town, what's your next move?"

Both my fellow GM and I have done both to him, time and again.  It's necessary to keep the game moving at all, if we didn't interfere he'd grind our games to a complete halt with no way to get action out of any of the players - as I said, he's brilliant at talking others into paralysis as well.  

The session before last I had only three players at the table, with one of the two more proactive roleplayers away on holiday.  The turtle managed to sit through a good 3-hours session avoiding all contact with the environment and mostly without even talking in character - and worse, he got one of the other players to sit under his shadow and do nothing together with him.  
I ended up running 75% of the session with one player, who had his PC run around talking to people trying to figure out what was going on and getting some success, even though it was the other two who had all the pertinent information to solve the mystery!  
Every time I cut back to my Paranoid Paralysis Pair of players, they told me their PCs were just sitting there letting time pass, waiting for some NPC to come back to them (which obviously wasn't happening fast, but the turtle player had decided that this must be The Important Guy to talk to and all the rest of the world was irrelevant and better ignored - never a smart approach in an environment that has a mystery and tons of named NPCs in it, not even in a run-of-the-mill DnD game of the type my turtle seems to expect all the time despite evidence to the contrary).  They kept conjecturing possibilities, theories and dangers out of thin air.  
At one point the player sitting with the turtle had an idea for something to try and they discussed tactics extensively, then shut up with a satisfied air.  I cut back to them as quickly as I could without shortchanging the other, active player and asked, "So, what do you do?" The turtle stared at me down his nose, turned to his fellow-paralysed player and said in a conspiratiorial voice: "What do you want to do?" At which they started their discussion all over!  I told them that wasn't what I wanted to hear at this point, and returned to the active player... who had meanwhile thought of another scene or three he wanted to play.  

I ended up talking to the second player, who'd let the turtle paralyse him, and dropped him a hint or two about his scenario contact point he could use to try something he had thought of (but that the turtle told him he couldn't pull off).  The player liked my suggestion, talked to his contact, got some information that finally gave them an idea of a smart next move - and the turtle hung back until the path to follow was crystal clear, then followed the second player's lead with an injured air.  

(This btw was the first session of the scenario the turlte tells me he enjoyed a lot. Go figure.)

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Can you give an example of one of these "outlandish" solutions that are causing problems when he proposes them? It sounds possible to me that he's coming up with ideas that are incompatible with your game preparations, and is being slapped down as a result -- and then retreats into "okay, if you want me to just go through the motions then that's what I'll do" at the shorter-term tactical level where you would actually be more amenable to unexpected choices.

Misunderstanding.  Big time.  

You are jumping to conclusions thinking about a GMing style you probably have encountered in your gaming - it's got nothing to do with my style.

The only time I will slap players down is when the group has told me what scenario they would like to play next, I prepare it and on the spur of the moment as the session starts the player tells me they've had second thoughts and don't want to play in that scenario after all and want to go off somewhere new and more exciting instead.  In that case, a player is free to leave and come back for the next scenario he can see his PC playing in - but I'm not winging an entire scenario or side plot (with the PC split from the main group if they still want to run the scenario they wanted originally) merely because a player has changed his mind about things and hasn't bothered to inform me or the group in time for us to change directions.  

I run an extremely open-style game and always respect player/PC choices. My scenarios can be a hell of a lot of work to create and prepare because I do my best to offer meaningful choices to PC and present an environment that will give players true options in all directions, not merely two or three that a Storyteller GM might pre-script.   With the rules-heavy system we're using _and_ Story and character-centred challenges and opportunities, many levels of communication with and input from my players, yet no pre-agreed scenes (which we all would hate), that's complex yet exciting work, and I most enjoy doing it when I'm running with what players have suggested they wish to do.  

It means that once I've prepared what I call a "world bubble", ie a bit of environment to play in, it's easy for me to run with players' crazy on-the-spot ideas ... but when they would ask me to prep A and I agree, and they then come to the table suddenly wanting C or X instead with no advance warning, I wouldn't be willing to sit down and wing it all.  Fortunately my group and I are in agreement on that.  They'll happily "interfere with" all "my plans" (which they know I don't have, although my NPCs might), but they won't violate our game contract by that kind of behaviour....generally.

Can you guess?  Last Thursday my turtle came close.  He apologised afterwards saying that "it was merely a suggestion to the other PC" and he wouldn't have had his own PC follow it, but....:

We sit down to play, I start the session, the turtle interrupts with one of his typical "Before we do this, can I just...?". He turns to another player and suggests a different course of action that would take place seomewhere else.  

In character the other player couldn't possibly refuse, his PC would have been desperate to do what had just been suggested (rather than what had been agreed beforehand).  In the event he bit down on his tongue and declined the turtle's suggestion.  I moved on for a couple minutes more, then decided to call it a night (first time ever I did that, in any game).  We went for drinks instead.  The turtle was mightly miffed at first at not being given "his game" as expected, and wasn't saying a thing while the other players agreed that they wanted to play his newly suggested scenario after all.  He wasn't happy with that, it had been "merely something he'd wanted to mention, not really to play" - but everyone else including me was more than happy to play the other stuff first (next session, not that night) because there was a great deal more character motivation towards that one, and more potential for me to develop in case it becomes relevant.   I'm really looking forward to running that new scenario, and the other one after that if everyone wants - but at the time I wasn't willing to even try.  

The turtle, not being into character motivation and all that, ended up being mystified and kinda unhappy at not having been fed a game session, but was reassured at the end of the night that I wasn't planning to quit running the campaign (!!) but had merely called off the session because we all needed to step back and think.  

It was sad really.  He had a brilliant suggestion, but entirely the wrong timing - simply because he never expected anyone to take him up on it.  He's just not on the same wavelength as the rest of us.  It feels almost as if he's blind to a whole dimension of my game.  

Your characterizing his ideas as "paranoid" and his plans as "outlandish" suggest that you expect him to stay very much inside some boxes while thinking outside others. Depending on how wild his ideas and plans actually are, you might be reasonably justified in this expectation, but might it also be understandable if he doesn't see those boundaries the same as you do?

We...ll...  Actually yes I think he should stay in certain boxes.  One thing I expect from a player is that he'll take note of what happens in the game world and not consistently ignore obvious facts in favour of wild conjecturing that makes no sense but will paralyse him into inaction.  Examples, hmmm.  Let me think of some that will be easy to explain out of game context.  

A paranoid-conjecturing example from another GM's DnD game:  We were deep in a cave complex fighting a tribe of goblins, who were living there and posed some degree of threat to our high-level group only because of their vast numbers.  We'd finally penetrated to the throne room and were fighting the elite bodyguard around the king.  The DM described how one skinny little goblin slunk away and struggled (for several rounds of combat) to slide open the bolt on a big door at the far end of the room. It was just a a wooden door with a big bolt.  The turtle suddenly convinced himself that there must be a balor behind that door - an extremely powerful demon who'd have killed the entire group of PCs without a blink.  There wasn't the slightest indication that the goblins living in those caves had any dealings with demaons, much less powerful ones ... least of all one 'locked in' (?!) behind a mere wooden door right behind the king's throne.  It was ludicrous.  I believe he said that in jest at first, but quickly got into believing it (rather like a child terrifying himself with his own ghost story) - and was ready to teleport out to save himself as soon as the door swung open.  The door opened, the poor lone goblin ran away down an empty hallway, and everyone laughed loud and hard at the turtle player.  

You see, when I say paranoid I mean paranoid - seeing danger where there is none, interpreting things in an irrational way and ignoring all evidence to the contrary.  

Maybe scariest thing about this situation, and definitely the most harmful one to the game, was that even though the "balor fear" was completely pulled out of thin air and defied all logic and would have been inconceivable in that GM's game (whose environments make sense, thank you very much), it kinda dampened most of the other players' spirits...  no one believed in the balor, but most players suddenly vaguely expected something horrible to happen once the door opened.  


Outlandish-solution example from the same game:  We were getting ready to assassinate one of the big movers and shakers of the region, an extremely powerful guy with a powerful artifact sword. We knew he'd be likely to kill a few PCs before we could bring him down, and would probably wipe the floor with us if we weren't very smart in our approach.  We decided that everything depended on the right opportunity.  
The turtle's idea was to scry (magically spy on) the target for about two weeks on a daily basis, so establish his patterns and then strike when he'd be most likely to be vulnerable.  Outlandish? In the circumstances, yes.  First, under DnD rules scrying can be noticed, and defended against, by the target. Second, we had all reason to expect the target to be unaware of our existence or plans, so we might catch him at a vulnerable moment if lucky - not a chance of that once he'd noticed he was under scrying surveillance, obviously.  
The tragically funniest thing about that is that the turtle had pushed through exactly the same kind of plan (trying to eliminate all risk by endless risky surveillance) in a similar scenario a few months earlier, in which the target ended up noticing the surveillance, a plan that would have been flawless foundered due to the lack of the element of surprise, and several PCs were killed.  Not the turtle's, I might add, who wasn't present at the assassination attempt - AIR because the player a the last possible instant decided that this wasn't "what my PC would do".  


In my current game in one scenario he's caused one PC's death by consistently ignoring NPCs' communications as well warning signs from the environment that should have alerted the party to the fact that what he had pre-determined should be going on wasn't in fact going on.  

He consistently ignores and refuses to interact with NPCs, and won't move an inch unless he has convinced himself that there is a clear route to success - often with no relation to the actual facts as I present them (or my fellow GM presents them in his game).  
He has convinced two of my three other players that the group's regular 'employer', the closest thing the human guerrilla in the region have to a military commander, is incompetent and that they should stop having anything to do with him... naturally without having a suggestion for someone else they could build a rapport with instead.  
In the last scenario I ran, I gave him a free NPC contact, whom he proceeded to ignore even when she approached him.  "I ignore her and eat my meal."  He's free to do that of course, even though the result is that opportunities are lost for the group - but his behaviour is harmful to my game in a number of ways.  

You say you plan for "combat sessions" and for "sundry non-combat challenges" in other sessions. The implication (my apologies if I'm reading too much in here) is that you know in advance which are which -- and therefore, you're probably planning in advance how you expect each challenge to play out.

See above.  Apology accepted. :)

What happens if someone tries to use noncombat means to achieve the objective of a planned combat session, or use combat to deal with a problem you've planned as a "non-combat" challege?

It's not a problem, on the contrary, it's great.  It's part of what most motivates me to keep running a game.  I'm not a computer game designer, I don't script stuff.  Tabletop RPGs live through what happens at the table, IMO.  

If anything PCs are likely to get better rewards (XP, contacts, perhaps a rare Fate Point) if the players do better than expected.  

The reason why we tend to have two distinct sorts of sessions is simple: in Midnight the PCs are freedom fighters on a continent mostly overrun by orcs and evil (mostly) human priests.  They PCs live and operate in a war zone, often as guerrilla (or terrorists, depending on your vantage point) behind enemy lines.  This means that some scenarios are likely to focus on combat tactics and fighting.

One recent scenario involved retaking a fort from a company of orcs.  There wasn't any indication that the orcs would be prepared to negotiate without a fight - OTOH the PCs had two bands of freedom fighters attached to them to help, and had received intel about a secret escape tunnel from / into a secret basement in the fort, which they expected to enable them to sneak in and turn the tables on a large unit of superior enemy fighters.  Hence, combat was very likely, a non-combat solution extremely unlikely.  Of course if the PCs had found a non-combat way to deal with the challenge that would have been fine - only I haven't seen this group of PCs negotiate with orcs yet, and they all (even the turtle) have their very good individual reasons.  

Is that often the case with this player's "outlandish" ideas?

I can't think of any example of the turtle dealing with a challenge in a creative way. He likes to exploit rules, especially the thicket of spell rules in DnD, as well as he is able - but I've never seen him look at the environment and try to work out unorthodox solutions by using things present in the game world, which is something my other players can be pretty good at.  He's not playing a spellcaster in my game btw. He says the magic system is too different and doesn't provide the same sort of options you'd get as a vanilla DnD wizard.  

I find, when dealing with a great variety of player styles and preferences, that limiting my pre-planning to focus on plausble and difficult problems the PCs might face, without trying to pre-plan specific solutions (often, without even having any good ideas for how the problem might be solved), can help to get a lot more players to take a lot more initiative. Thinking outside the box on any scale becomes a benefit rather than a problem.

*Sigh* yup.  If you'd simply asked me whether I perhaps do the same thing (I do), it might have saved us both a lot of explaining. :)  

It's the only way I know to run an 'open' game with true player freedom.  


Of course player freedom benefits those who are proactive, and leaves out those who sit around being paralysed, whether it's the turtle himself or those other players he's happened to draw into it on a given night.  

I'm currently getting ready to run a scenario the turtle player requested btw, as I posted earlier, and after putting some work in to make it fun for me and potentially meaningful for the other players, am looking forward to running it.