[WFRP] Terrible 1st session of Enemy Within, advice sought.

[Paul Tucker]

I want to echo what Ralph is saying, with a twist. As I read your horror story, Paul, I kept thinking, "Why wasn't Paul kicking their asses?"

I don't know. Afterwards I was thinking to myself 'Self, why didn't you just kick and say no'. I think in part it's because of my indie-leanings as you say below, it's also because my regular tabletop group is very good at holding to their side of the equation and will come together even if they start off as disparate individuals. I was expecting these guys to do the same, albeit without any reason other than me thinking 'well, they should'. I should have made that more explicit.

I think some of them expected that GM-is-God rule. The new player needed more guidance (maybe she just had no idea what was acceptable). The chat interface fucked everything up -- I'll bet a couple of those players are MUSHers, right? If so, they felt more comfortable typing up long blocks of role-play than speaking aloud.

I think that as well, though I don't think they're MUSHers, they do do rp in MMORPGs which is typed. But all of them do tabletop gaming as well, so I find it hard to relate to them choosing not to use voice when it's so much faster and better for rp.

In short, I think you had a vicarious situation to begin with (Internet role-play, new players, new interface, game they'd never played before) and they needed a guide through it all. Maybe your indie sensibilities were too strong. Maybe you let them get away with a lot of shit because you expected them to act like adults and take responsibility for their own fun. Maybe I'm reading way too much into this limited bit of explanation, but I doubt it.

Other than player 1, they've all used FantasyGrounds and voice for gaming before, it was just the system/setting that was new. In hindsight I should definitely have been far more 'you will conform to a/b/c/d' than I was, I just didn't expect to have to hand-hold to the level I evidently do (assuming I continue it, which is going to depend on a long conversation with all the players tommorow). I probably had an unrealistic expectation of their level of understanding on things I take for granted with groups (players responsibility to fit into x/y/z, GMs responsibility to provide A/B/C etc). So, while I mentioned some of these things, I should have reinforced or enforced and not assumed they'd follow suit.