Selling game play techniques to my GM

[Elysium]

Ron,

Hrm.. how to discribe it. Our gaming usually follows a fairly long term game with one system. World of Darkness,
Shadowrun, 7th Sea, etc. Most of them are fairly happy with most any game that's not a hack and slash/dungeon crawl. Superhero type games, Deadlands, Mutants and Masterminds... doesn't seem to matter terribly much to a lot of them. There a few that are fairly focused on only a few systems or genres or themes. The GM that's running the 7th Sea game I'm currently in mostly focuses only on that right now. I count myself in one of the fairly focused ones, only having found a few games I am somewhat happy with.. the Shadowrun game that I'm in I enjoy in spite of the game setting.

There is a fair amount of buying of new supplements or new editions of older games, as well as a lot of buying of new game systems. This is pretty true across the board for the GMs I game with.

As to the long term group of friends, this is definitely a group of friends at the core of this. We go out to movies, occational dinners, BBQ, etc. Some have stood in as best man/best chick at weddings. A bit of discontent with games isn't going to spoil that. :)

There has been a fair amount of game systems shift in the last couple years in the gaming group, but only once in the three games I'm in. Other games that my larger gaming circle have been in have switched, but usually due to the end of a story arc in their game. They then move on to something different. The switch that happened that I was in was, I think I recall, because the GM wasn't  so into the setting. I may be misremembering there.

Let me know if you have further questions or clarifications on these points that I should make. It does sound like you are getting at a more extreme situation than what my group goes through, but generally aiming in the right direction.

---
David

[Ron Edwards]

So, fifty percent right, or not? My call is that I'm way over fifty percent right in my description.

What I see: the gaming isn't all that important in terms of content or specific enjoyment. Not because it would have to break up the friends in being important; that's not what I mean. But because you wrote,

I count myself in one of the fairly focused ones, only having found a few games I am somewhat happy with.. the Shadowrun game that I'm in I enjoy in spite of the game setting.

Only a few games. With which you are somewhat happy. Current example: you enjoy it, but it's immediately qualified. Do you see what I'm getting at? Maximum fun from role-playing does not appear to be a priority among this group of people. Your point about the strong social ties among the people also reinforces this idea, in this instance anyway.

I'm not saying that such a social/gaming context is bad - I'm establishing a profile from which we can both find out what you are really inquiring about in this thread.

Another point I asked about: two system switches in the last two years? Check. Once in the games you've been in, and implied in others. As a clarifier, I'm not sure whether you misunderstood this point. I wasn't talking about system switches in the middle of a given storyline with given characters. I'm talking about at all.

And finally, I suggest that the various GMs, or at least some of them, are burning out at last ... right on schedule, if I'm estimating the ages right. The one you're with, in the 7th Sea game, looks fair to be a frustrated proto-Narrativist-oriented guy who's swinging into Typhoid Mary behavior because he's just emotionally and creatively blocked from getting what he wants. Given the game titles you've mentioned, I'm not surprised.

I could be right about that, or could be wrong. It doesn't matter so much. I think I get the picture.

Now here's the question: what do you want? I can tell you that folks at the Forge cannot fly out to your group and sprinkle fairy dust on this GM in order to make him run games how you want him to. Nor can anyone present a magical, glowing game to you that will elicit beautiful and satisfying play for everyone.

So what are you looking for? Ways to cope with GMing of the type you describe? Suggestions for setting up a group that will be more satisfying to you, from a subset of this group? Or what?

Best, Ron

[Dav]

Having read all of this thread (which is pretty rare for me, so I felt it merited a mention), I was struck with a couple of realizations:

-At one point, you mentioned that 6-7 players at that game... and not all of them had shown up.  For the love of fuck, man!  That's one helluva group!  I'll shoot back to this in a moment.

-The GM knew the storyline, as it stood, was going to blow at this moment, but it was so said GM could "bring it on home" in the end.  Hmmm, I guess... sounds a bit uncreative to me, in the end, but, hey, maybe there is some super-secret(tm) plan that we are not privvy to (for some reason).

-You folks are waaaaaay good friends, I get that, and some of you are likely "better gamers" than others... I'm sure there has been them discussions about "seriously, X needs to lighten up!" and such over the coffee and whathaveyou.

Okay, here's the thing.  6-7 players?  Plus GM?  GM wants to map a plotline and stick to the hook?  You guys are good from the Days of Way-Back?  All makes sense, of a sort. 

6-7 players is not conducive to any roleplaying.  That is just too many balls to juggle.  You cannot seriously have any type of storyline explorations, or deep character interaction with that many players and a GM... the GM will seriously fucking lose his mind.  The reason is, because as you focus on one or two players for a few minutes, the other four to five get bored and wander off to grab chips, soda, talk amongst themselves, heckle & snipe from the peanut gallery, and so on.  It happens.  Why?  Because sitting and waiting your turn sucks.  Always sucks.  Sucks to high heaven.  When you have to wait through two or three iterations of character highlighting, it REALLY sucks. 

Ron mentioned that your poor GM seems to be an ur-narrativist... mayhaps, even... not gonna argue that one without shaking the GM's hand and looking for that geeky gleam in his eye.  But with 6-7 players, that will NEVER NEVER NEVER develop, if it was going to.  My advice there:  next time the storyline in the GM's head dictates plot, ask said GM to explain the plot arc (or, if he says it will "ruin things", or pulls some sort of "GM only" knowledge crap, tell him that players can do three things when faced with a GM who loves his story: 1) conspire to help him, if they can understand why or how, 2) conspire to fuck with his chi (killing NPC's, generally messing with the plot, not being present so there are no PC witnesses to his great and powerful scenes, etc.), or 3) be passive and play it out.  Of those choices, only #1 is really any fun for the players (#2 is amusing for about ten minutes, then notsomuch). 

Anyway, not to derail things with my ramblings even further, but, my Quention That I Need Answered is:  How Many Times Has Your Group Been Whittled Down to 3-4 Players And A GM Due To No-Shows (etc.) And You Good Kids Have Played On And Then Realized That Your Game Was Much To The Awesome With Fewer Players, And That Even More Got Accomplished, And Wasn't That One Scene Awesome, And How Cool Was This (etc.)?  That happen for you guys every so often, does it?  Because if it does, and it is under the same GM as your current 7th Sea game, then I would humbly submit that your GM is not an ur-narrativist going Typhoid Mary (great term), but rather a full-fledged pubescent narrativist, replete with new curlies and wants to show them off but displaying them to that many people is scary.


That's all.

Dav

[Dav]

And also (damn no editing of posts!), I would think your game might be better served by having the GM run 2 sessions.. split the group to 4 and 4, or whatever is manageable, run one this night and one that night, have the group catch wind of rumors and such that the other group is doing, then bring them together for that Big Scene, then split them again, etc.  That way, the GM can more easily manage the group play, make certain that everyone is having the input, and can more effectively focus on having the players conspire to aid in storyline direction.  Let he GM know that play fast and loose with a story is better than mapping it out, as things become amusing and creatively challenging to pull back together once the players get a chance to mess things up.

That, in the end, is my advice to you on how to sell game play techniques to your GM.

Dav

[eruditus]

The main problem with running rather than playing is that I suck as a GM,

Can you bring in a receptive guest GM?  maybe set up a game outside your normal sessions or have thwe group do a run to a local game day or convention.

[vulpin]

I am one of those three GM's (I am the Shadowrun GM to be specific).  I can only speak to my own experience (which includes a lot of hashing stuff out with David in a dialogue), but part of the problem for me is that every time I think I'm grokking what is being said in this forum, someone says something that shows that I do not get the jargon or phrases something as an absolute that should be an opinion.  For example, Dav (not to be confused with David) said that 6-7 people in a game makes it impossible to have a good role playing experience, while my own experience is that the best non-one on one play I've ever been involved in was in a group that big that, during the times one character was in focus, played interactions between ourselves.  The character the GM was working with then added new information, or opened doors for someone else to become the focus.

If I understand David correctly, I've been sort of doing some of what he'd like already (which is why he's stayed in my Shadowrun game despite not liking the basic premise of Shadowrun).  If I may be so bold as to attempt to reword what he wants, it's to have some methods of rewording the jargon heavy premises here such that the three GM's (including me) don't have to spend hours of time to just get to the basic level of communication required to understand his requests, that we might actually implement stuff sooner rather than later.  I personally can sometimes end up working 30 hour days (seriously), so some method of making the theory here accessible to lay people might help.  (I am trying to grok the jargon here, but I tend to get a headache with the way things are presented here, and my work-related learning does come first so I can pay my bills, so the going is slow)

Now, as to the 7th Sea GM, I really have no clue what he gets a charge out of when running a game - it may be fair to call him incoherent (from a creative agenda standpoint) - he gets into the rolls, the roles, and the thematic or legendry elements (to oversimplify things some) and I can't tell what he gets the most charge, not even based on what he says.  I think the third prefers to explore characterization and interactions more than thematic elements, but without the thematic elements (we're talking things as simple as the iconic Hero's Journey to things as complex as "at what cost?") he doesn't seem happy.
However, we're talking about three very stubborn and opinionated (I use these words deliberately and without malice) individuals who want to do better, and an equally stubborn (and I say that also without malice) player who wants change, but has a language rift to cross.

I welcome input from anyone that actually tries to cross the gulf of language.  I don't have the months to do dedicated study of the Big Model or Creative Agendas if I want to make things better for David (and probably my other players) as soon as possible.  Some ideas of how to integrate what he wants now, without dropping my game likewise now are what I would hope he gets from you (and I likewise hope to get that, as I do want to run the best game I can for my friends).

I hope this helps, and if anything I said needs clarification just ask.  I will try to answer to the best of my ability.

-V

[Elysium]

Ron,

Your description seems to be somewhat correct, and somewhat not. I'm not sure about percents. Some of our gaming group seem to be focused more on getting fun from the role-playing, some more on the social thing, with fun at the games secondary. That's cool with me, save if it interferes with me having fun at games.

As to the Typhoid Mary behavior, I am fearing that this may be accurate. I'm hoping it is not. This particular GM realizes he has weaknesses as a GM. He's currently thinking that he's relying too much on player directed plots and not enough on plots that he provides.

My theory is that he doesn't have a good system for bringing about, allowing, and focusing on player inspired plots. When I tried mentioning some techniques that I thought would allow this, I met with resistance, and it seemed he dug his heels in further. It could be that I'm trying to change the games too much too fast, or that these just weren't good techniques for that particular GM. I don't know.

I am looking for different ways to try to introduce this GM to these concepts, and different tools to use to try and show him that player inspired and player focused plots can be fun, and could potentially easier to run than having to come up with his own plots and having us inspired and player focused plots can be fun, and could potentially easier to run than having to come up with his own plots and having us run through them. I don't know that this would be true for our group, because we haven't really tried it yet, but I want us to try it out.

I've sent off the Flag Framing link that Warren mentioned to the 3 GMs I play under. Two haven't read it, including the 7th Sea GM, but the GM that runs my Shadowrun game was interested. That article seems to cover a lot of what I want to try out, and said in a better way than I could. Thanks Warren! I haven't heard back yet from my other 2 GMs. Hopefully it will inspire some thought and changes.

---
David

[Elysium]

Hi V,

Thanks for joining me here and working with me on this. :)

---
David

[eruditus]

6-7 players is not conducive to any roleplaying.  That is just too many balls to juggle.  You cannot seriously have any type of storyline explorations, or deep character interaction with that many players and a GM... the GM will seriously fucking lose his mind.  The reason is, because as you focus on one or two players for a few minutes, the other four to five get bored and wander off to grab chips, soda, talk amongst themselves, heckle & snipe from the peanut gallery, and so on.  It happens.  Why?  Because sitting and waiting your turn sucks.  Always sucks.  Sucks to high heaven.  When you have to wait through two or three iterations of character highlighting, it REALLY sucks. 

Sorry but I certainly have to disagree on many levels with this.  Certain groups and GMs have a certain tolerance, or a cap as it were, but I know plenty of groups at or over this size and it works just fine.  I ran exciting games at 15 people and many of Luke's BW demos run 8+.  The key is player involvement and a willingness to watch and participate in what's going on with other players.  Aside from having scenes that simply involve more players in conversation one of the tricks I have done is to have players play NPCs, villains even, to keep them involved.

[Blankshield]

May I strongly suggest that this thread follow the model of the Frostfolk thread with only the principles posting, and one or two specific people helping them work through to where there is a shared language and understanding about what's actually happening at the table?

From there it can be opened up a bit and actually produce potential useful advice, but right now advice is coming from all over the map, from people with different understandings, and it's an ugly, ugly mess.

It's not my thread, so I can't say "make it so!", but I can say to the original poster:  "Please make it so?  You'll get much more useable input eventually."

thanks,

James

[Elysium]

I wouldn't be against such a format change in this thread, but I can see the value in more open discourse as well.

I seem to have developed two different questions. Is my 7th Sea GM heading towards 'Typhoid Mary' land, and if so how do I constructively deal with it if that is the case? Secondly, how do I more generally introduce a discussion of change in gaming style with my GMs in general? I seem to be doing a little better on the latter question now, among one or two GMs, but it is too soon to tell if it's been effective with the 7th Sea GM yet. The discussion here is happening faster than the RL discussions with my GMs, so I haven't gotten any new feedback yet, save from my Shadowrun GM, V.

I can't really say 'make it so!' either, James. But I can ask that if anyone thinks it woud be a better direction to go, and would volunteer to be that one or two specific people that I talk with, then I'm game.

---
David

[Blankshield]

It's your topic, David.  You get to decide (within reason) what you want to talk about in it, and we, being polite and civilized humans, will behave accordingly.

Ron is laughing at me with glee in his voice, because this is me volunteering to be one of those people, should you desire it.

thanks,

James

[Elysium]

Agreed, James. I was just trying to point out that I don't think I could fairly say 'I'm only talking to X now!' as they might be finished discussing things with me, at least as far as this thread goes. I am quite willing to have a go, since you volunteered. :)

I've given a few different questions in my previous posts that I'm interested in talking over, and I'm not sure which would be the most productive to focus on. Is there any further information you need from me to discuss any of these issues I raised?

---
David

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

This is a moderator post.

It is perfectly OK for Dav to have voiced his experience with game groups of a particular size. It is also OK for his points not to apply to a given other person's experience. Dav offered his thoughts in good faith that they might be considered, and in full knowledge that if they didn't fit, they could be ignored. There is no point to debating over a point which is not up for debate. He offers it, it fits for you, or it doesn't. No need for wrangling.

Please note, those thoughts were not directed at your game, V. Yes, Dav writes in extremes. But he was not talking about you, so there's no need to defend your game or your preferences as a GM. It would help, however, if you were to present your views on whether the other GM, the one who is being discussed, might benefit from a smaller group.

I appoint James to be the Main Man for this thread including anyone who plays in this group. Everyone else shuddup. James, when you think the discussion has reached a point where others' input is called for, open it up.

I suggest focusing on the idea that David wants to change or inspire the GM in question. James, I bet you have some thoughts regarding that idea. I'm shutting up now and letting the rumpus begin.

Best, Ron

[Blankshield]

Ok, here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to keep my trap shut for a bit (with one exception as below) and reread the thread a couple times deliberately and for comprehension.  I've already read it, but in a "keeping up with the AP forum" kind of way.  Once I've done that, I'll come back and post with what I think the state of the union is and where we go from there.

Now the exception: To get somewhere, we need a very clear goal in mind.  David, am I interpreting correctly to say the following?

You want to get more and better play of the kind you find fun without substianially changing the overall composition or style of your play group?

That is to say: You mostly like what you're doing, you like these people, you like these games, you just aren't having much fun.  You  have had some really awesome moments of fun, and want to know what has to change to increase the frequency of those awesome moments without stomping on anyone else's fun or toes.

Please reply with either a "yup!" or "Nope, I want X".

thanks,

James