[CoC] Disappointed

[Rustin]

[Eero Tuovinen]

As a matter of GMing methodology, in my experience a player who honestly prefers to play a dim character as dim is either dodging the responsibilities of active play or genuinely enjoys causal simulationism. The latter is a fine form of play (I've had some great experiences with it), while the former is a wexing problem I don't have a general solution for, except to provide the passive entertainment he seeks. Either way, not much to be done except to raise the matter with the player himself and ask which it is, and then act accordingly:

• If it's causal simulationism (that is, he likes seeing the outcomes of events in the fictional world), just throw in a relevant consequence of the character being passive. Done well enough, the player will enjoy his character getting eaten, if that's what should happen to a character like that. We've played several sessions of a Finnish fantasy adventure game exactly like this, and I find it rather entertaining to send a half-competent drunkard into the dungeon and seeing what happens to him.
  
• If it's just that he wants the GM to entertain him, then the intelligence thing is just a crutch, and you will benefit from knowing that this is the case. Plan accordingly.

[fjj]

When playing Coc, there is very often a dilemma between playing in character and playing for problem solving. I usually find that it works best if in character stuff like catatonia and low intelligence is limited to a few colour scenes and then ignored for the rest of the game in favour of a players vs. the GM's puzzle approach. But this has to be a meta game agreement and has caused me quite some frustration in the past as well.

[Callan S.]

Hi Rustin,

This playtest of Afraid would be good to read - seems to be a bit in parralel (Ron's comments might help you): http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=25325.0

I'm not familiar with Afraids mechanics. When it comes down to the monster attacking players, does it just list how the monster attacks (like 'roll these dice against this difficulty') or does it list how to attack and how long to keep attacking? Like 'roll these dice against this difficulty, and keep doing so until every present PC's life points are gone'?

[Rustin]

Callan, thanks for the link. That discussion cleared up my issues with the game session. Ron's comments in particular clued me into some ideas that I was not aware of.

The monster creation of Afraid is fun. However, it needs even more tweaking than I realized, for it to work in a standard CoC game. t its core I simply revealed that "the game" in this case specifically making a monster with motivations to victimize, grow in power and take over the world,"simply does not handle failure/inaction in a consequential way."

As predicted by Ron, during play it happened. The "they play badly/not-at-all, but you are the one who takes the social and creative heat for saying "OK you all die."" happened.  At the end one player literally crumpled a paper and threw it at me, more in jest than anything, but still--- I took the heat.  In this case they played OK, but I still took the heat for letting the situation fizzle.


 

[David Artman]

The "they play badly/not-at-all, but you are the one who takes the social and creative heat for saying "OK you all die."" happened.  At the end one player literally crumpled a paper and threw it at me, more in jest than anything, but still--- I took the heat.  In this case they played OK, but I still took the heat for letting the situation fizzle.

Begging the question: "Are they willing to lose; or do they want illusionism and railroading to guarantee eventual victory?"

You might just be playing the wrong Game with this group, regardless of system (rules). Perhaps an honest OOC/OOG discussion about The Point of Play for your game and group is in order?

[Callan S.]

Hi Rustin,

Yeah, I think you really grasped the problem that was outlined. But in terms of 'tweaking' it, that's probably falling into the same trap - you'll take the creative heat for your tweaks as well.

You'll need the group to agree there's some sort of problem with the game, then see if they want to make some change/tweak. Again I think that'll be a prob, as they have associated the problem with you, not the game (you got the crunched up paper, not the book).

I could only speculate on how to talk about that. Perhaps outline that the only way a character could die is for you as GM to just say they get chomped, and since they all think that sucks, the reality is they cannot get comped. Then ask them 'Do you want to keep playing like that?'

Perhaps Ron will swing by and give some feedback?