Ways to sell more narrativist or indie-like games to traditional players?

[Jargon]

I was just wondering if the great minds here at the Forge would have any tips for trying to sell narrativist and more indie-like rpgs to the traditional gaming public? There has to be some way to convince basic fantasy-players of the joys of more "exotic" ways of playing.

Just a little awhile ago I had a really bad experience with Nobilis and players who had been playing pretty standard fantasy/history/(para/quasi)realism games. It really didn't amount to anything good even though I tried my best and now I'm convinced that I have to find new people to play with. The biggest problem was that players didn't really understand the world or refused to do so and responded with passive gameplay and wrecked the whole thing at start even though I tried just about everything to get them interested. They tried to play Nobilis like they had played these low-powered fantasy campaings and the result was a complete disaster. Everyone was totally put off.

I talked about my plans here before starting and the feedback was pretty much that there is no way that one can run Nobilis properly and I should forget it. Maybe I should've listened, but I still refuse to think that this game is unplayable.

There is another campaing that I'm running with Heroquest rules (in Glorantha ofcourse) and I tend to have this same problem even though it doesn't manifest itself too much because of the basic fantasy setting. This game has run a long time and now I'm having doubts about running it anymore because of the problems that are clear only to me in this group.

Is there any good advice for setting my players on to the road to more narrativist games with that indie-twitch that I really love?

[Vulpinoid]

When you say sell, you could mean two things (or at least two things first come to mind for me).

"Sell" could mean shipping products in the direction from designer/publisher to player/consumer...

or "Sell" could mean getting a group to "buy into" the concepts involved.

Based on your post I'd tend to think that your going at it from the second perspective.

Either way, I'd look at your local gatherings of players who are willing to expand their horizons by trying new stuff. This could be a local convention or a gaming club that is looking for something new to experiment with.

If your regular group is stuck in a rut with a certain paradigm of gaming firmly entrenched in their minds, then try a new game with a new group of people. If no-one is familiar with each others gaming styles, and no-one is familiar with the game, then everyone seems to have a better ability to remain open to the concepts available.

I'm certainly not going to say that you'll get a guaranteed success this way, but experimental modes of play will take you in directions you might not have considered.

A convention will give you a new group of players every couple of hours, and you can get some rapid development of your gaming concepts. A local club can give you a bunch of players who you can work with a couple of times to develop the concepts with a unified focus group.

Once an experiment does prove successful, stick with the pieces that work and tweak the bits that don't seem to be gelling with the rest of the mix. In a convention you can do this pretty much instantly in the next session (but you've got to follow your instincts about what may or may not have worked), in a gaming club you might have to wait a week or two (but you'll have this time to more carefully consider the events leading to your conclusions).

I don't believe that any game runs perfectly the first time. So after a few sessions that are gradually becoming more successful, start inviting new players to watch or take part. With a critical mass of players on your side, these individuals will either understand what is happening around them and will follow the lead of the group...or they still won't get it but at least they won't have caused a trainwreck.

That's my "Hardcore Sell" method, it's not for everyone but it's worked for me.

V

[Moreno R.]

I was just wondering if the great minds here at the Forge would have any tips for trying to sell narrativist and more indie-like rpgs to the traditional gaming public? There has to be some way to convince basic fantasy-players of the joys of more "exotic" ways of playing.

Hi Jargon.

Your question, in some form or variant, is one of the more frequent asked in this forum. Reading older thread I often found it, and my answer come both from reading these old discussions, and from my personal experience in trying to "change the way we play" in my older group, some years ago.  And the short answer is "no, you can't". People play what they want to play, you can't "teach" someone how your preferred way of playing is better than theirs. Changing the system you use to play can solve many problem, but not this: people play like they like to play, period.

This doesn't mean that you problem has not a solution. Luckily, it has a lot of possible solution, based on finding out who in your group could be interested in some different kind of game, or in presenting a new game to them in such a way to make them want to play it with interest or passion, or even in finding a complete new group to play with.

All these solution are based on some precise principle, that are well discussed in older thread. I will write them now in a concise way as if they were some "truth" to follow, but they were not presented like this, they were born of a lot of discussion and sharing of experiences. It's only that English is not my native language and I find much easier to present them like this.  I have found a couple of link to older threads that discuss this that I will give to you, maybe other people can give you more.

The first principle is "play only with people who want to play THIS game WITH you". If there is not this interest (the group play your game only to humor you, or they don't really value your input and participation in the game, you have no hope of a satisfying game. You have to get their interest before playing. By convincing them (really convincing, making them excited about playing this game) or by finding someone who will be excited to play it.

The second principle is usually said like "You have to trust the procedure of the game", but I prefer to say it from another point of view: "you have to use game procedures, a game system, that you can trust".  And here I will depart from the opinion of a lot of people here, and I will say something more controversial than these first two principles:  forget Nobilis. Forget every game built on the assumption that you will have to do most of the work (and carry the most responsibility) of the game success. These system will betray every attempt you will make. Oh, I don't doubt that a lot of people had good sessions with them. They are not systems than don't allow for good games. They only made it much, much more difficult. And when all your attention will be on a new game or a new group, you really don't want to give a lot of attention to the system to make it work. So, forget any game published by the "mainstream" game companies, big or small (harsh? Yes. I know that they are not the same, and it isn't right to paint every traditional game with the same brush, but really, on this, better safe than sorry. Better missing one good game - good games are not rare by any means, you will miss most of them anyway - than risk having your push for a new way of playing or a new group sabotaged by the system you are using)

If and when you will have a group of people to play it, choose a simple system, well-played and that you can trust. Better, much better if it has a forum here where you can ask the game author question about the game text (check if they answer the questions, though: not everybody do).  Some very good choices are Dogs in the Vineyard (maybe the best choice if you play it with people used to traditional rpgs), Primetime Adventures (maybe the best choice if you play it with a group of people who never played a rpg before), My Life with master, Don't Rest Your Head, The Shadows of Yesterday or Polaris

If you play with the old players or with players who already played some rpg, choose a system very different from anything they played before (it will lessen the risk that they will play as always before. Using a "somewhat familiar" system or setting is one of the most frequent errors, it seldom works). If you can build a group made up of people who never played before, do it, it will save you a lot of grief and you will be surprised at how well people not used to playing badly... play well. (this too is not a universal rule, just a statistic one. I know people who played only traditional rpgs for years and play very well. But they are the minority)

From your choice of games (First Nobilis, now Heroquest-Glorantha) it seems that you want to play in very detailed settings. Are you really sure? It's not that you are searching from reading the books the kind of atmosphere the game is not giving you? Are you prepared to see the players smash, destroy and dismiss most of these setting, if they will play in a more proactive manner? Are you sure you see these setting as springboard to play, and you don't have an emotional attachment to their published form? Do the players share your interest and will gladly read every gloranthian book ever published, or you will have to describe to them, during the game, every details listed on these books?
This questions, too, could seems harsh, but I am asking them because somebody should have asked me the same questions fifteen years ago when I tried to play in Glorantha (with Runequest) or ten years ago when I tried to play in Harn (with Harmaster)....

My suggestion is: if the players are not fired up by the setting, enough to read avidly at least the setting books about the immediate location of your characters, and you are feeling let down by this, don't go to that route. Choose something that will not force you to be the group resident tourist guide, and will not cause you frustration when they will not remember most of what you say about the setting.  If, instead, you are SURE you want to play in Glorantha, I think that reading this thread would help you a lot:
[Orccon][HeroQuest] In Glorantha, of all places!

In any case, if you want to play Heroquest, run to the old heroquest subforum here (now closed) and read what Mike Holmes wrote about it. They are really a lot of posts, full of invaluable advices, and they are in my opinion indispensable to be able to run Heroquest in any satisfying way (defining "satisfying" as "not having the players follow you around doing what you tell them")

I talked at the beginning of this post of two threads about these subjects. The first one is a "classic" of these discussion, the one most cited:
Mike's Standard Rant #7: You Can't Sneak Up on Mode

The second one is much more recent, and it touch these issues talking about playing Primetime Adventures (the issue shows up later in the thread)
[PTA] Players wanting their PCs to fail?

[Jargon]

Thank you for the answers and sorry about the ambiguity of the topic. English is not my native language either, I'm finnish and I tend to do mistakes like that when I'm tired, but I'm glad it came out well enough in the end anyway.

Yes, I've been thinking that the best solution is probably to find new players. It's just puzzling how people who have played RPG's for a long time can't really get into a game like Nobilis. I chose the best players in my group for it and thought that it would be just the thing for them and that it would give them new challenges. I was proven wrong and understud in those 3 sessions I ran that they just refuse to try to adapt to any new kind of roles (and rules) and were playing (or at least tried to play) pretty much the same way than they had been playing with low-powered fantasy settings. So Nobilis really didn't work for them at all and I blame myself for not seeing it beforehand and going through that catastrophe.

It's hard to understand how set in their views people can get mainly because I haven't had any problems playing these traditional games, I just don't want to run them as GM. This is the reason why I asked if there would be any way to "wake" players that are really badly stuck in a rut. If I could somehow do it I think I would do them a favor and maybe give them new ideas into their own games.

Anyway, Heroquest's Glorantha as a setting is not a big problem for my players that luckily have played PC game King of the Dragon Pass which gives a great basic knowledge of the world for a sartarite campaign. Problem with HQ has mainly been that players don't seem to be able to look the rules in the narrativist light and try to use them in the way of more traditional skill-based systems. It kills the creativity that is inherent to HQ and the main reason I love it as a system. It has started to annoy me more and more over time even though the game has been lots of fun as a story. It's perhaps the only reason why my players want to play it even though they think that the rules suck.

Thanks for the links and the advice. I have to look through these and maybe I should try some of those other games and see if they could introduce the joys of different gaming to my players. For my Nobilis project I have to start looking for new players, that I admit.

[dindenver]

Jargon,
  I hope I am not too late, the internet ate the post I made last night.

  OK, here is my two cents and it is a little different take, so hopefully it helps.

  Roleplaying is a social activity. This means that any new "ideas" introduced to the group are going to be viewed through two lenses, right?
1) The social techniques you use to present the new "idea" to the group. In other words, if you try and "sell" the game to the group, some people will be put off by that kind of pressure. And if you come off like a rabid fan boy, it might even provoke contrary behavior.
  Let me put it this way, in the past, has a player come to the session and told the group, "you have to check out band X, they are the best musicians ever!" And when people give mixed reactions to this advice, they just get more rabid with lines like, "no really you HAVE to check them out, it will change your life!" And as this escalated, everyone became more and more uncomfortable and less likely to check it out, right? Well, that could be you... I am not saying it is definitely you, just that you might be doing that and not realizing it. Or you might not. Think about it though, ok?
2) Group perspective - If you say, I am Indie and you are Traditional and Indie is better, what are you saying about your place in the group? And about the other members of the group? If you say this to the group, what incentive do they have to take your advice or trust your new "idea" if you have already pre-judged yourself superior to them? Maybe you haven't said it in so many words (at least I hope you haven't, lol), but that is the implication, right? Instead, approach it from the angle of, I am a traditional gamer like you and I like X.
  Can you see the difference, does that make sense?

  It seems like you have played with these guys for a while. And it seems like they did try something new and it just didn't work. Nobilis is a good game, but its kinda like teaching someone to swim by throwing them in the deep end of the Pool, no? One way to sort of transition into Nobilis might be to try a more trad game that is similar in theme (characters control of reality, not necessarily power level). Like Exalted, Mage or even Toon. In some ways, I feel like Nobilis is what Exalted would be if Borgstrum had sole creative control of the franchise... So, that might be a good starting point, I dunno...

  And if they are playing HQ, they are already playing indie games. That is an important point to make to them. HQ is born of the same indie vibe that games like Sorcerer, SoY and Nobilis were born from.
  Not only that but the looseness of HQ (especially regarding different magic types) allows you to introduce mechanics from games you want to try into HQ. One thing to try might be to award HP like fanmail. A simple hack like this can prime people to try PTA and give players authority over the narrative without going all the way to Noblilis in one session, right?

  So, that would be my suggestion, assuming you like the group you have as people, use HQ to introduce the concepts you love from other Indie games. And when you guys are short people for your regular campaign or want to take a break, suggest the full game as a short diversion.

  In this way, you increase people's likelihood of saying yes and experimenting, right? I mean if its only for 1-3 sessions, even if its terrible, it won't be for long, right? And if its good, players will probably suggest on their own to keep going, right?

  Anyways, good luck with your group and I hope you have more fun soon!

[Jargon]

Thanks for the advice Dindenver. No post is ever too late whatever internet's eating habits may be. It ate one of my posts last night too.

I think that you have a point there with this social aspect. It might be that I failed in some way to ease my players into Nobilis because I was so excited about running it. It might have created a bit of a defensive attitude in my players and biased them against this system. One of them was very sceptic about Nobilis and I had a lot of discussions about the problems and tried to explain everything as best as I could, but I don't think he really listened me. Then again I asked everyone if they really wanted to play this game after I had explained most of it and they said that they wanted to try.

Running Nobilis was a huge risk anyway and I knew that it might fail as it did, but I was also very disappointed to the lack of efforts from the players side. When they didn't react into anything that I presented to them and part of the time I felt that I was doing monologue, I really knew that something was fundamentally wrong. I can only assume that Nobilis somehow scared them too much and it made them passive. Well, better luck with some other group.

And about HQ's magic system. That's the root of the problem to me these days, my players are refusing to think the game in the terms it should most of the time. Use of magic has always to be helped by me even though I try my best to indicate that they can experiment and be creative about the use of keywords. It just does not happen, and it's really frustrating. Maybe the best thing I can do is to try to go to basics and have some clear challenges in the next session that can be solved by creative use of keywords. They just have to learn to think by themselves because in this game the keywords wont do it for you.

[greyorm]

Use of magic has always to be helped by me even though I try my best to indicate that they can experiment and be creative about the use of keywords. It just does not happen, and it's really frustrating. Maybe the best thing I can do is to try to go to basics and have some clear challenges in the next session that can be solved by creative use of keywords. They just have to learn to think by themselves because in this game the keywords wont do it for you.

Sometimes we create our own worst players, and we become frustrated trying to train them out of habits we are or have been unconsciously reinforcing throughout the rest of our gaming. I may be mistaken, but your players sound like they are "turtling": afraid to take steps off the beaten path or engage their own creativity without GM guidance because in the past that behavior has resulted in their character being assaulted, hosed, or demeaned in some manner or their creativity being shot down or even "corrected" (even if such correction was well-meant). Perhaps you didn't even do this, maybe that's just the way they learned to play and thus those are the unspoken rules as they unconsciously understand them.

I don't know that HeroQuest is going to be the best game to retrain them, though, because you can play it without needing to get all Narrativist or individually creative, especially if you are holding their hands when they refuse to do anything like that. If you want to encourage them to take a more active role in creation, I would suggest playing a game for a while that requires more structured individual input into the shared play space, something with required/overt Director stance, where play simply can not move forward without player participation and player participation and creativity is the central mechanic.

Hrm. Maybe something like Universalis, which wouldn't allow them to fall back on Actor-stance based turtle-habits. Or It Was A Mutual Decision, if you have a good mix of men and women in your group. Though perhaps others can suggest better(?) choices that would not allow that avenue of escape.

(You might even change terms on them to see if that helps -- if you play a "story-telling" game instead of a "role-playing" game, they might not start playing with the old paradigms and understandings fired up and ready to go inside their head, instead thinking this is a different type of game with a new set of unwritten rules to learn. But then you need to make sure it actually is a different type of game, and you're not doing the same old stuff you would do in any regular RPG, or it is just going to cause problems.)

[dindenver]

Jargon,
  Well, there is that judgment again. And now I hear you are badgering them for not being creative enough? Maybe I am reading too much into this, but something tells me you know if I am right or wrong. If I am right, read on:
  This is definitely a sign that you are not looking at the situation through their eyes.
  I feel that the best way to showcase this is to do it yourself, lead by example. Start using Traits on NPCs creatively. In order to rise to the challenge, they will have to do the same.
  Maybe you are doing this already in your head, start saying it out loud and/or calling attention to it.
  Also, if these guys have been playing HQ for a while, ask one of them to GM and then you can really go hog wild and show them something cool, no?

  Well, it sounds like you have already made up your mind to switch groups. But, if you don't stop judging people and showing rather than saying what you want to see at the table, you might just take your old problems with you...

PS
  I know that you can't not judge things in your own RP experience. I mean, you know when you are having fun or not, right? But it might help to phrase suggestions for better play to be about specific actions rather than people or their general behavior at the table.

Bad example:
"You guys need to be more creative when you use the Traits on your character sheet"

Good example
"Dave, if you had used your Profession as a Soldier instead of your Skill with a Dagger, you probably would have won that last encounter"

  Does that make sense, does it help?

[Jargon]

Thank you for the advice Greyorm and Dindenver. And no, I'm not that terrible as a GM even I might sound like it in my posts, it's just my frustration speaking. Anyway, the advice is good and I'll try to get them into good use. There is some sort of turtlnig effect at work in my group and I don't know where it comes from. I'll try to make my NPC actions more visible as part of the rules, not just story. It might really help my players to figure things out.

And make no mistake, I'm not stopping HQ campaign and continue to play with old group, I meant that for Nobilis I have to find other people, the game is completely lost for this group. Maybe I'll try to ask them if they'd like to try some of those games that you people suggested. It might be just the ticket for my GM happiness.

[The Dragon Master]

Having tried the same thing myself recently, I figured I'd toss in my 2 coppers.

The situation: The group I'm in has been going for roughly 15 years. I've joined in the last three, just as two of the "problem players" left the group. When I started with the group I really enjoyed myself because this is what I'd been wanting to do for so long, and hadn't been able to find anywhere else. Naturally (for me) I started scouring the internet for RPG forums so that I could learn what was available and player/gm techniques. Seeing many techniques I felt my group would benefit from (and I still think they would) I tried to introduce the group to it. I bought numerous gaming books (Donjon, Sorcerer, Universalis, Burning Wheel, etc.) and asked players to read them, suggested campaigns in them, tried to explain the mechanics, all for nothing. Example: One week our GM/Host wasn't available so I invited them to my place for a one-shot of Burning Wheel, and actually had one player refuse on the grounds that he didn't like the system (for reference, the system codified into the rules his style of play)*. The problem is that they are so enamoured of their own playstyle, that they aren't willing to try anything else (at least the groups core isn't). And this is the problem I ran into.

I would recommend one of the following two things, after you decide on a system.
1) Have the players read through the core book, and let you know if they are interested in trying it out. Invite those who respond possitively to it to (insert neutral location here) to play a session or two of it. I would highly recomend avoiding locations in which you normally play, if only to force a disconnect between Those games and This game.
2)Find a group in your area who already play similar games (I used this site). Contact them, and either play a few sessions with them to see if the group dynamic fits what you're looking for, or join by offering to run a one or two-shot of the system in question.

I tried option 2.1 (New group, testing the dynamic first) and I'll be running Sorcerer in two Fridays. Don't know how it will go, but it took me 2 years and change to talk anyone in my old group into trying a new system, and it took me 2 months (or so) to get a chance to run Sorcerer with my new group. Don't misunderstand, I still intend to run a campaign in one of the systems I bought for my old group, and still game with them weekly, but joining with this new group has been the best experience I've had in gaming yet.


*I know I'm not wording this well, but the gist of it is that his playstyle is built into the rules as the default playstyle of Burning Wheel. While reading the books, every new bit of the mechanics described reminded me of some aspect of how he'd played the previous session, and every session I see behaviours of his and his PC that would do exactly what he intended if we were playing Burning Wheel. I'm convinced that the problem is my own inability to describe it properly, but by now he is "tainted". He has decided that he doesn't like the system, and nothing I do will convince him otherwise (also known as the let-it-ride mechanic . Though I don't mention this specific instance other than to give background on where I come from.