"Pyron's Woes"- take 37

[Eric J.]

I have been getting fed up as a GM for the past few months... "Bring interesting scenerios, verbose discriptions, player control, don't invite my brother, invite me, and f**k off," from my 6 main players each week kind of drove me over the edge.  Each prefers something different and refuses to play with/without other people involved.  You can call this what you want, but I call it a no-win situation.  I got out of the situation-well kinda... You see, my house is almost always the only place available for 6 people.  This accomplishes to simotaniously piss my mother off, and increase my stress levels to an unstable level.  But they're my friends so what the hell.

Well anyway- The point is that I am expected to house a very inexperienced GM.  He actually adapted Star Wars D6 to the Dune setting.  He is one of 2 people who have had ANY experience with dune, and guess what? I'm not one of them.  He gives one person the power of the witches, near-infinite knoledge, the ability to command others without dice rolls.ect; another 2 the abilities and prestigue of fremen; and me, well I'm a trader whose faction's been blown up.  And I'm addicted to spice.  What's my point?  I didn't choose any aspect of my character.  I didn't choose any aspect of what my characters actions have been.  I'm not making plans for my character in the future.  And guess what else.  He doesn't see any problems with this.  If it didn't take up too much bandwidth I'd paste a picture of myself with a smile and a gun to my head.  So-

Should I house his campaign?
Should I participate?
Should I be honest?

This is his first attempt as a GM and I can't really blame him.  Most every one esle will continue further, but I'm just in a little bind.  This may not be the correct forum, but I suppose some one else will be able to relate to this, and this could be a good premise for actual play problems, "Dealing with Newbie GMs"  I don't know.

[kaworuiskool]

Heh, and I thought I was ranting in my thread. What it comes down to is, are you having fun? Doesn't sound like it. You can either try to discuss the situation-and it sounds like there's no discussing things with these guys-or you can hang it up. I don't believe in telling people to find another group, assuming they have the best group available in their location already. I guess it comes down to how much effort you want to put into this. I'm the lazy type myself. Well, I hope that was helpful....

[Andrew Martin]

Should I be honest?

Yes. Why lie to your friends? Ultimately by lying, you do more long-lasting harm to your friends than any temporary good.

Should I participate?

Not, because:

I didn't choose any aspect of my character.

I'm not making plans for my character in the future.

He doesn't see any problems with this.

... a gun to my head.

Should I house his campaign?

No, because:

This ... piss my mother off,...
...increase my stress levels to an unstable level.

Asking and answering are simply the rearranging of words;

[wyrdlyng]

Quick exercise.

1. Write down the definition of friend on a piece of paper.

2. Take another piece of paper and write the down the qualities of the people you game with.

3. Compare the listing to the definition and then consider what it all means.

[mahoux]

Here's where i become the subject of hate mail... so

Don't take this as serious advice.

Participate, but be that bastard player that everyone hates.  Take all the horrible qualities (rules-lawyering, try to power game, use the "my guy would be doing this...") and roll them together in one package of horse's butt.

Don't try this at home.

Seriously, talk to these folks... social contract time.  Only this one sounds like it was drawn up by the devil.

aaron

[Walt Freitag]

Well, I wouldn't be so quick to infer that these people aren't really friends. IIRC, we're talking about an age group that's often not very socialized. I recall treating my own friends -- and yes, they really were friends -- in some rather questionable ways at that age. And vice versa, of course.

Time for you and your friends to level-up etiquette-wise, Pyron. Here's how it goes.

FIRST PRIORITY is to work things out with your mother. Later I'll be talking about you as host, but that's a role that you can assume only by your mother's good graces. So talk to her and find out what it is that annoys her about the situation. Then, solve that problem. If it can't be solved, then that's your answer right there. Stop. But most likely it can be.

Is the problem that you and your friends get noisy or rude? Is it the expense of providing snacks and beverages? Is it that your use of the room displaces other activities, like causing family members to be unable to watch TV shows they like? Are you leaving a mess that somebody else has to clean up? It sounds like your mother is a pretty reasonable person, since she apparently allows these gatherings even though they irritate her. Watch how much more reasonable and accomodating she'll become when she sees you making every possible effort to understand and appreciate the sacrifices that others are making to allow you to gather with your friends, and making every possible effort to minimize them.

If you have trouble bringing up the subject with your mother, you might try asking her to read this post first.

Next step, if you've gotten this far, is to make your gathering at your house a regular weekly event. That's just acknowledging reality. This lets you dispense with the arguing about whose place you're going to use next time.

The other thing it does is put you in the unambiguous role of host (rather than just the loser of the "where we gonna play this week" game). That gives you certain rights and obligations. Specifically:

- You decide who you want to invite, and then invite them. You are under no obligation to pay any attention to "I won't come if X comes" or "I won't come if X doesn't come." That's their problem and their decision, and it should have no influence on your decision of whether or not to invite X. (If more people just grasped this simple principle, half the Dear Abby type columns in newspapers would be unnecessary.) Once people see that it has no effect on you, this particular form of blackmail will likely end.

- You set, and must state clearly at the time of the invitation, any rules or conditions. These might include bring your own snacks, or kick in a few bucks to offset the cost of snacks, or no rude language, or whatever is necessary to help you deal with that First Priority discussed earlier.

- You can, if you choose to, dictate in advance (but only in advance, not after your guests arrive!) what games are going to be played. (Of course, with RPGs you need a GM and you can't assign someone to GM who's not willing.) More typically, you'll be inviting them for "game night" and it's a group decision what to play, and by default that will be the currently running RPG. But have some alternatives available -- some board games, perhaps, or videos to watch. The you-choose option could be useful later, stay tuned.

- You may not use your role as host to force better treatment within a game. At least, not directly. But see the next item.

- On the other hand, you don't have to play. If you do choose to bow out of play, you're walking a fine line etiquette-wise and so you have to play it very cool. Say something like, "I'm not getting much out of this. I'm going to read some comics (or do homework, or whatever) over here and let you guys play, and just listen in." Don't act sulky or bored or angry. In fact, act like you're thrilled that they're all having such a good time. One or two occasions like this, and either the GM will wake up and try to fix the imbalance that's hosing your character in the game to get you back into it, or the others will be much more understanding when your invitation for the following week states, "We're going to play some board games this week, I've got a great new one I want to try" or "I've convinced Ed to try running a session of Call of Cthulhu this week instead of our regular Dune game."

I really hope you can make this work. We talk a lot here about the importance of a social contract in functional play, but to have a social contract you need socialized people. I wish you the best. And if your situation proves beyond solution right now, take consolation in the fact that, guaranteed, things will get better as you and your peers get older.

Best,
Walt