(new guy) Lost at the Forge...

[Ry]

Hi, I'm new to the Forge, although I devoured the intro to forge theory blog entries and read deep in the game start to finish.

I'm pretty dissatisfied with my current game rut, which looks like:  Get some ideas, know I could run a game in them, tinker with my homebrew system, and get exhausted at the prospect of getting everyone to buy into MY ideas.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE to GM; I enjoy prepping content (not stats), combing through books for ideas, etc.  I can also think on my feet and handle mechanics on the order of Savage Worlds off the top of my head without skipping a beat.  The exhausting thing is always the "Okay, I know I can build a very well-structured enclave of brain sucking monstrosities or a scenario with an imperative threat or problem that players' characters will respond to because of their character definition... but how do I make the players buy into it?  How do I get the hooks in and make them care?  And why is it my responsibility to do that?"

The sad thing is that my players are telling me they're itching for a game, and they tell me they like everything I run, but I'm sick of knowing what should happen and being responsible for everyone's fun.

[Ry]

Sorry, deleted the last line, in which I ask what I should be looking at to help me out (my players like my system and most importantly don't like phased resolution, but they're pretty flexible if I want to add things like scene mechanics to the system).

[Ry]

Maybe that should read "my players like my core mechanic" rather than "my players like my system."

[Simon C]

Hi! Welcome to the Forge! I haven't been here long myself, so I can give you some advice based on my (very steep) learning curve when I first started reading here.  This is what I did, and it worked for me:

First, read a bunch of threads, poking around into the old history of GNS and the like.  A lot of it won't make much sense to you, but you'll find a lot of links to the theory articles.

Second, read the theory articles.  These might not make much sense to you either, just yet.  Hust kind of get a basic idea of it.  You don't have to agree with it all, or any of it, just get an idea of the terms and what you think about them. Over in "Site Discussion" there's a really good precis of terms and ideas that are used around here.  Think about how they apply to your own play.

Third, read a bunch of games.  There are lots of free games linked from here, and people are discussing a lot of games in the indie forums below.  Check out as many as you can, and think about how they're using the theory you just read.

Now, the most important step:

Post in Actual Play with a description of an actual game you played.  Focus on the dynamics of what was happening around the table, rather than what happened "in-game".  You might get more milage out of posting about a less successful game, rather than the best one you ever played.  Either way, talk about what made it suck for you, and what made it great.  Think about the theory you've read and the games you've checked out, and ask some specific questions at the end of your post.  I promise you you'll get a really useful response.  I did.  The question you're asking above is a good one, but I think people will be able to answer it better, and you'll be able to understand the answer more, after following the above steps.

Sorry if this comes across as patronising, too.  Take it from one newbie to another - this worked for me and might work for you.  Someone else might come along with some better advice.

[komradebob]

One thing you might look at is games that have a rules set up where the players have to have input into what's going on and have to share those ideas with the whole group. Universalis is my favorite, with Prime Time Adventures up there, too. Both games have forums down in the Independant Games section, and you can get some idea how that works just from reading threads or their homepages.

There are other games that have this sort of formalized "pregame/pre-campaign" group brainstorming, too, so hopefully other boardmembers will pop in with suggestions as well.

It's a neat idea that can be transferred over to lots of games regardless of the individual game's mechanics. At bear minimum, it's a good way to find out what the players think is cool about the game you're going to be playing, and gives you, the GM, some idea of what to hit them with, rather than making you feel around in the dark until something clicks.

[johnwedd]

my biggest advice is randomly messing with story and mechanic. and then letting the players see how well they work with it. and the key is play testing....when someone says, "hey, this <insert-random-player-gripe> doesn't make any sense....blah blah blah" you have to listen. Avoid using terms like "its supposed to" and "but you don't do it that way". etc etc.

your there to learn from thier play experience, not what you had in mind. They still have to enjoy it. some complaints you gotta take with a grain of salt, others need serious consideration.

Make the core mechanic loose, but exacting when needed. one term i'd use is to make it swiss army knife of resolution solveing, but make sure that they understand that they don't always need to roll on something. (i hated that as GM, constantly looking up stats cuz some nut wants to kill the lord that gives them the quest so that they can take the throne or some stuff like that. plain annoying)

other than that, all i can say is take alot of notes, then after its been played to a fine tuning, then write it all up for the system.

[Callan S.]

I'm pretty dissatisfied with my current game rut, which looks like:  Get some ideas, know I could run a game in them, tinker with my homebrew system, and get exhausted at the prospect of getting everyone to buy into MY ideas.

Pretty much my problem.

Have you looked into initial buy in? Like for example, before the game day, you send out the information about how the whole thing runs. Don't be mysterious, really lay out the stuff the players would be doing all the way through. And say turn up if you like this stuff.

That way the only people who turn up to play will be those who are interested in that stuff.

Can you see the idea of rather than selling your idea, just leaving it to sell itself? I mean the worst thing is that no one shows up - which is still better than exhausting yourself selling the thing, since you can spend the time doing all sorts of other fun stuff instead.

Though I will say I did spend alot of time trying to get people to my games because A: I wanted to 'win' at being a good GM and B: I had some deep story issues to tell and couldn't stand the idea of having no outlet to do so. But that's my history.

[James_Nostack]

Hey, I'd like to second (or third) the notion that the best way to get concrete advice about GM'ing and problems with play is to post to the Actual Play folder.  Several other folders on the Forge would be helpful in getting your design up and running, but if there are some problems you're having in play that you either don't understand, or understand but can't seem to fix, AP is the best place for it.

Welcome to the Forge!

[Ron Edwards]

Hello!

I'm Ron, the site co-founder and moderator.

I moved this thread to the Actual Play forum, because (1) it's already partly about some actual play comments, and (2) posting about your own actual play is the answer to your questions. I hope I can demonstrate that by starting some dialogue.

You mentioned Savage Worlds - is that the game you're currently running, or have run a lot lately? If so, I think I can certainly see why you are getting exhausted. Tell me more about what games you've played and which ones you and the players are currently accustomed to.

How many players are there? Have you guys been playing together long, or not? Also, I know this is a little personal, but are you a bunch of college dudes at a dorm, or forty-somethings getting the old group back together, or what? Knowing that kind of social context helps a lot in trying to arrive at solutions for you.

To be absolutely sure of your situation, help out with a description of a session that really illustrates the lack of buy-in that you're describing, or perhaps, the buy-in that only occurs when you put in so much effort. I'm interesting both in what the players do at the table and in what happens with the characters and fictional events of play, during that session.

Best, Ron

[Ry]

Sorry, responding to Ron's questions is drawing out a lot, trying not to meander though.

I run a homebrew system that is similar to Savage Worlds in terms of rules depth and the list of stats, but that's about it - it evolved from a different direction.  The core mechanic is 2d6+Modifiers vs. Target Number (12 = crit succeed, 2 = crit fail), NPCs roll 7, variances in modifiers are small but important, and we all like that setup a lot.  Damage and hit points are also used, in that mechanic it's similar to D&D if D&D only had levels 1 to 6.

The key thing the mechanic does right is the action points - characters have a Conviction score, which regenerates daily (or more often), that they can spend to add a die, re-roll a die, or take an extra action during combat.  PCs have more than NPCs.  This has meant that the players can say "hey, watch this" and I can do the same for monsters, without anybody hogging the spotlight.  Conviction also raises the stakes on an action - when you succeed with Conviction, it's like "YES!" and when you fail, it's tragic.  PCs have "aspects" that make some uses of Conviction cheaper, so characters have a niche in the party.  The setting is fantasy loosely inspired by a combination of Conan-style Sword and Sorcery and ancient India.

There were usually 3-4 players from a tightly-knit circle of 6 high-school friends.  That's the "core group".  We've been through a lot together as friends, keeping in touch through university and into the horrors of the real world.  We had a bit of a diaspora as University ends, but there's sort of a "beta group" (also mostly connected via the same high school back in the day) that's wildly interested in gaming but less intimately acquainted with how things run in the core group.  If I want to game, I'm going to have to be flexible with a mix of the close and beta group  - and with spotty attendance.

The typical session (I can only talk about the core group right now) has everybody sitting around, really into the game, for about 4 to 6 hours.  I stand throughout the session, describing blow-by-blow details of actions sequences and roleplaying NPCs.  The players usually sit in a rough semi-circle facing me, then are up and down depending on how excited they get.  The system works for me especially because since I don't have to roll any dice and I can keep track of numbers in my head without sitting down at the table. 

There's been some very story-heavy stuff that I do that makes the fiction of the game coherent, but it's always very tightly written around the player characters.  For example, the most recent game was a coming of age story about young warriors in a traditionally mercenary tribe (called Akavars), going through their rites passage to manhood together and their early exposure to the outside world and its dangers.

The real "sweet spot" is when the players feel that great sense of comraderie from solving a problem or defeating a threat together.  That's why the action points are great - player characters have their place to shine.  Even if the dice go south on one player, ones play to their strengths to save him.  There's also a baseline of martial ability in the player characters that isn't something they can trade off - and this means that you don't have characters that need to be carried by the rest of the party.

The "buy in" is the way I get the players WANT to fall in and work together against the threats and problems.

[Ry]

Oh, and I see the convention on the boards is to introduce yourself by real name; I'm Ryan but I go by ry.

-- ry

[Ron Edwards]

Hello Ry,

Well, the first thing I can say is that you guys have certainly set up a "Ry entertains the rest of us" situation. Even the physical blocking of play emphasizes your role ... the very role that you are saying you'd like to de-emphasize or reduce.

In a way, you're reaping the rewards of the myth of the Great GM ... the guy who's so good, the rest of us don't have to do anything except show up and act a bit. The reason it's a myth? Because showing up and acting-a-bit doesn't really accomplish much, and the central guy eventually realizes (a) all the content is tautological (it's there because he puts it in, he puts it in so it'll be there), and (b) he's freaking tired.

So have you considered changing the physical space and action of play? How about you sit down for a while, and how about you only talk once everyone else has had his say? That'd be different right there. But more importantly, and on a larger scale of discussion, it's a good idea to let everyone else know that you need a change.

Here's the really serious issue that underlies your situation, though - the whole idea that buy-in is something that you must elicit from the other people. What do you think of the idea that such a buy-in is a baseline, required element of participation, not something you have to generate? Instead of them being wood, and you being Mr. Tinder and Mr. Flint and Mr. Kindling and Mr. Blow Air and Mr. Look-It's-Fire all at once, how about everyone showing up with a blazing torch?

Are you interested in talking about options of play that lead in that direction? Do you think they might be interested in that?

Best, Ron

[Ry]

So there's 2 issues here: 

1)  My role as the core of the entertainment
2)  The idea that buy-in is something that I must elicit from the players.

I know they're related, but if it's OK I'd rather focus the discussion on the second issue.  I like GMing, the role is a good groove, and even if I'm tired after the campaign, it's not the current thing holding me back.

[Ry]

Here's my thought process, and what I mean by "buy in" - because I don't really know the jargon around here yet.

Game 1 I have to work to get the players' character concepts to mesh into something like a party.  This is not too bad with the core group - most recent campaign they all made young men from the same small warrior tribe, who were raised essentially as brothers.  The campaign before that it was a small order of knights.  Both ideas came from me, and characters were built to match.  I told them a bit about their family and relatives in the village, set up a rivalry with another group of young men in the tribe, and the first session was focused on that rivalry (which helped build that sense of comraderie).  The game started with the two groups challenging each other to a big brawl outside of the village (without alerting their parents), the player-characters won, but then had to work with the defeated group to scare off some bandits (by pretending to be adult warriors).

"Buy in" here happened really well, and quickly, and the players were invested in the success or failure of their characters - and most importantly, each other's characters.  Once that happened,  were invested in whether or not their characters overcame the challenges lined up against them, and worked hard, and worked as a team, to overcome those challenges.  It was easy to take that comeraderie and jump right in when we had the next session a month or so later, and when I presented a problem or threat they went straight for it.

[Callan S.]

Hello Ry,

Do you remember how you felt before they bought into that 'same tribe' idea? Before that point, you would have had expectations for fun from everybody. But you can see that, only once they bought into an idea could they have any fun.

Does that come off sounding partly true - only they were in control of whether they had fun (because only they can buy into an idea), but they were expectantly looking to you for their fun? And that's a real missplacement of roles and jobs at the gaming table?

I'll give a similar AP account of my own, which I ment to write up but didn't. A friend, Chris, had invited me and another friend, Daniel around for some D&D. Chris has run some great games, but also has more of a habit of doing some shocking railroading. This time I went around with the thought in mind to ask him what climactic end scene he had in mind. I did, diplomatically*. He said he didn't really (which I thought was a ploy at the time to just hide the ending he had in mind), so I kept pushing and eventually (in a tone that suggested it was what he wanted/was looking forward to. ie he wasn't defending himself), was for us to 'just learn some things about the game world'. I asked "Like three big sort of things?" or something like that, and he said yeah and then I said yeah.

Boom, there it is! I could buy in for a game of snakes and ladders with these guys. Or playing kick the kick out in a park nearby. I can buy into all sorts of activities with these guys and now I knew what the activity was, I bought in! Honestly, it isn't really the excitement I expect of roleplay - BUT, it doesn't matter what I expect of roleplay, he'd just defined what this activity was. I then consulted myself and thought 'Oh yeah, I can see fun types X and Y occuring, I could go for a bit of that!'. What I expect from roleplay normally might be fun types A and B, but when I consulted myself, I found some hunger for X and Y. That's what I mean with snakes and ladders and kick the kick...I have a hunger for a wide range of games. If I'm told the game that's being played, I most likely have a hunger for it somewhere within me.

The game did engage finding out stuff, hitting those fun types X and Y - sadly part of me tried to go for what I usually do in RP, which wasn't the activity offered (nor the one I accepted). It could have gone even smoother and more fun, if old habits didn't show up. But that's cause I'm a battered old roleplayer - the principle is true, even if you find people like me trying to do some other activity than the one offered, cause of old habits.

There was a climactic ending - kobolds, stired up by our investigations, attacked the town and there was this scene where Dan's battle wizard was shooting magic from the first floor window of the local inn, which started to look like a wizard throwing down magic from his wizards tower. After, I said to Chris, with a smiling face 'You lied! You said there wouldn't be a climactic ending!'. He said 'Well it was possible there wouldn't be'. Basically I'd bought in for fun types X and Y, but then as a special bonus fun type Z had been thrown in! BUT at a mechanical and social level, I'd like to note that if I hadn't liked fun type Z, I could have just focused on the 'find stuff out' bit and would have been legit to do that.

Okay, sorry for going on - the crux of the account took longer to give than I anticipated. Here's a question - what if you had said to your players, well before the game day, something like 'The game will be about being in the same tribe and having a rivalry with another gang in the tribe and the fun thing about play will be seeing how that rivalry is resolved (partially or fully)'?

Do you think that'd remove your responsiblity to get people to buy into it, remove your responsibility for everyone elses fun? By the very fact that people who don't find it fun, simply don't turn up on the game day?

(although your probably thinking some people would turn up for A and B, even though your tribe offer is about fun types J and K, kind of like how I did a bit in my example. I think you have to kill the urge to try and forfil their A and B needs, even though a large part of your GM training has been to try and make everyone have fun).

Rambly of me. Any of it sound close or gives some perspective?


* I can literally feel the hair raising on some forgites necks, in terms of doubting I was diplomatic 'enough'. Which is probably due a thread itself.