Gaming with dummies. (and we're all dummies)

[Jasper the Mimbo]

My group does this thing, where we all call each other trying to figure out what we're going to do on a given day, figure out who's free, when and for how long. Once we do this we say "We want a game, what do games are we doing with this group of people. That one? Is the person running it ready to run it right now. No? Alright, who want's to run something." Usually we can pressure Calder into making something up on the fly, so then it goes like this.

"Let's all make charecters"
I ask about the world and try to fit my newest idea for a character into it. I usually change the character quite a bit in the process. Eli makes a character and forces Calder to figure out a way to fit the character into the world for him. Anders comes up with an idea, jots down a few numbers and then gets lost in a movie or video game for most of the rest of the evening. Tyler, if he's there at all, finishes his character first. I finish my character last after changing it six times and then we all realize that while we thought Anders had finished long ago, he had in fact barely started. He insists that he's close enough to done that he can play while he finishes up. Usually by this time Calder has had between 2 and 6 beers and it's getting late, so we end up playing for less than an hour (if at all) and then all go our seperate ways. The next day (or week or whatever), instead of coming back to the new game, we do it all over again. This has happened so many times that it has become expected.

It's hardly even frustrating any more, it's mostly just funny and even sort of enjoyable if I resign myself to the inevitable outcome at the beginning. Is this abnormal behavior in a group? Anyone have similar stories?

I finally got tired of it and came up with a style of gameplay that requires almost Zero prep time. It's also an homage to the game most of us learned on. I call it "DnD for busy and/or lazy people." aka "The Forest of Dread" (see split for play report.

[Ben Lehman]

*cough*

As an adjunct member of the same group, I think that this bespeak some basic problems with our social context more than anything.

Gaming is, probably rightly, seen amongst some of our group as a subset of "hanging out."  But, since gaming is a rather more difficult thing to accomplish than most of our activities, it sort of gets shoved by the wayside.  Even when a game starts, there is an impulse to let it drop if other people come by, which happens all the time.

What we really ought to be doing is scheduling a specific time of the week to do gaming, and then actually doing gaming at that time.  Know what people are coming in advance, what game we're going to play, etc.  If other people want to come by and hang out, tell them "no, not now, we have a game that can't accept more people, perhaps another time."

Essentially, make gaming more of it's own thing than a thing that we happen to do when we're all together.  Having it happen whenever we got together was great in high school, but just doesn't hold together now that everyone has jobs and such.

I have a desire to do this myself, but I'm worried that it would fall apart as soon as I left.  So I'd like to nominate you to get it together.  Something like:

"From now on, every Saturday afternoon we will game.  The following players should show up, or cancel well in advance if they can't.  Everyone else, I'd be happy to hang out with you at a later time, but not during this time."

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  Polaris?  Yes!
P.P.S.  Also, I'm back in town.  Call me.

[Callan S.]

It's hardly even frustrating any more, it's mostly just funny and even sort of enjoyable if I resign myself to the inevitable outcome at the beginning. Is this abnormal behavior in a group?

Prolly not. "Hey, lets make characters!" was a catch cry in our group during high school. It was said with an actual joy (though I found making characters a chore). Often we'd be sitting around and, although the inspiration/desire to game wasn't there, the inspiration to make characters was.

A lot of RPG's use something that increases PC power, as a reward. So think of just how rewarding PC creation is in itself...it's like getting a bunch of presents (ooh, 17 strength! Cool...and hey, I rolled max for my hitpoints...sweet! And so on). It makes me think there should be a game where character gen IS play, not something you do with some points you get from play (ie, rolling up that 17 STR involves some interesting questions pitted to the player, or something).

Also I think there's a lot of intellectual activity there, as a reward. Much as working out puzzles is part of human interest, so is your own 'work over my PC till he fits' a stimulating intellectual excercise, where you evaluate the game world needs and balance that off in terms of your own needs. It's a conflict resolution. The other guy who just gets the GM to accept his PC is basically another sort of conflict resolution (his arguing his PC into the game).

So, you do all that and then that hour of play probably seems a bit of an anticlimax intellectually. I mean, your going to tuck in some 'you walk down the street/down the mountain path' perhaps talk with someone and a simple fight.

I'm thinking its mostly the current common systems...if a game system reward you more during character gen than play, then your going to keep going back to char gen. System matters and all that. Obviously your situation where you've gone from the highschool thing to everyone has jobs thing has an effect on this. But with consoles allowing casual group gaming now, I don't know how much RPG's can require regimented users and be commercially viable.

On a side note, the dude who gets lost in a video game or whatever is basically just enjoying being near a bustling group activity. Personally I'd ditch him as a proper player. If he can come around and occasionally run NPC's and in between his video game watching doesn't distract from play, I'd go with that sort of player role.

[friartuck]

I would hope that this is not usual, otherwise there must be very few people actually playing games out there. My group consists of seven adults, all with jobs and some with family. Some of us are employed at night, some in the day, and some on weekends. All of which means we have to be very regimented about sessions if they're going to happen at all.

Fortunately, we're all enthusiastic enough about it that we agree to carve out several hours on Saturdays for it, to the extent that we will rebuff other demands on our time should they conflict (within the boundaries of reason, of course). Once you graduate high school and/or college and get on with the business of economic and social survival, you simply have to be somewhat draconian in establishing game time. I love it too much to give it up, so this is easy for me. If I had a less understanding wife, I might not have the luxury. But if my group just passively waited for the planets to align, nothing would ever get done. And proposed post-modern character gen games not withstanding, not playing is just not fun.

Set a time. Commit to it. Demand a 90 percent attendance rate. And damn it man, game!

[Borogove]

IMO, the ultimate "character generation as gameplay" game was always Classic Traveller. That and Trav's starship design sequence demolished countless hours of teenage boredom for me.

As far as zero-prep-time gaming, have you tried Universalis?

[ejh]

I've definitely been in on the "Let's all make characters!" gaming group thing.

It's always seemed fun and silly to me, and I've enjoyed it, but if one wanted to get serious one could tie this in to the "dysfunctional gaming" rant about how traditional gaming disempowers players to the point that they only have real narrativistic fun during character creation, when they can come up with cool concepts and a dramatic backstory and weren't whiffed out.

Or not. :)

[daMoose_Neo]

If I might bring one up- my Dungeons/Dummies game (couple of design and AP threads floating about) works really nice with zero prep. No GM, pick a situation off the top of your head, everybody picks an Imp and some stuff about it, and away you play! Haven't had much of a chance to seriously play it, but the little scenarios and such for it have been a lot of fun.
Check out an AP thread here: http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13349
Walked into the evening with no idea how the players would take it, no idea what I was going to do, and ended up with 2 hours of sheer insanity. That, and they really were dummies ;)

[Harlequin]

I've had this problem as well, and while it has produced some fabulous sessions in its day (my "Budapest Zoo" one-shot still summons up memories), I agree that it's indicate of social contract issues.

The trouble is that the opposite end also has problems; our group(s) are currently stuck on those.  That is, if you say "We will game on such a day.  The following people will play; please commit to being present, or at least to minimizing your absences," then what we seem to get is good gaming for a little while, but commitment failures after not-all-that-long which kill the game.  And we revert to hangin' out as the default.  I think the attempt at rigidity contributes, ultimately, to the falling-through process... but I don't yet have a better solution.

Well, okay, the "better solution" is to have players who are enjoying the game so much that commitment doesn't require force, and that their enthusiasm is catching (even to the GM, if uninspired that day).  But that brings us back to the (endless?) topic of how to inspire enthusiasm, esp. in people worn down by a week's worth of nine-to-five jobs and special-needs parenting.

As a thought, perhaps your group - and mine - could stand a session of sitting down and identifying "best moments", to remind us of what gaming can be when it's noticeably better than the baseline rewards of just hangin' out.  So as to synch up creative agendas a little better.  Maybe?

- Eric