It's been a long time coming, but I think my patience with sub-standard gaming has come to and end. I've complained long and bitterly in the past about some pretty un-fun sessions with my local gaming circle.

For example,

one of the players (who most often hosts) consistently opens his laptop at the table and plays a MUD or check email or surfs.



numerous conflicts with the way we play the games (creative agenda)



covert railroading



and so on. All events and behaviors that really make me miserable.

I've borught this up with some of the other players and pretty much have stated that I'm stepping back from our regular gaming night. In one conversation I had with a fellow player and sometimes GM about how in the last few years role-playings games have been very boring and not very fun. So much un-fun that I've mentally noted a preference to stay home than to put up with it any more.

At one point someone said, "Why play if it's not fun?" My immediate response was well "Some bad gaming is better than none at all." I changed my mind. Yeck!


I've also indicated that int he future I may invite some people over on another night (so as not to force people to make an exclusive choice). I plan on trying out all the cool games I never get to play - face-to-face Sorcerer, or TROS, or whatever.

I think there is a chance I will be alone in this. I don't think everyone would be prepared to try these things out. I am running a risk that some people will take this as a purely social snub. We're all good friends outside of gaming.

If anyone has had a similar experience and had decidedly good results, can you share them? What worked and what didn't? I'm not looking for gaming group horror stories - I'm looking for gaming group rebirths.

I tried to think of a suitable quip about how you'd best be sure your version control software was able to handle forking the build, but it was too geeky even for me. ;)

I run a successful campaign (up to about a dozen sessions) using FATE, with all the trappings you hear about here on the Forge -- fortune in the middle, addressing premise, author stance, etc. Every one of my players has a long history with D&D 3rd edition in the "standard" mode. They have been really happy with our game, but it was a nontrivial transition process to get them on board.

From my experience, it's key to address up front that while you're going to be playing in a very different manner than most people are used to, it's simply an alternative, and it's not meant to invalidate other styles of play. (That helped my case a lot -- none of the players have changed how they play or run their ongoing D&D games, even though they love the way we do things in this game. "Apples and oranges" is their take on it.)

I brought the players in with a one-shot with clear but simple expectations (mostly Social Contract stuff and a lot of talking about how I welcomed Author stance), and left things open at the end for future sessions if they wished them. Everyone was interested in continuing, and as we went on, I continued encouraging player input.

Almost to a man, people thought was I was doing was Illusionism, but really good Illusionism. Even though I said on four or five different occasions that there was no one plot for the PCs to follow, it took at least six sessions before they really grasped it.

If I was going to do it again, I might start off with a one-shot of Inspectres or something very much "out of the mold" to show them the kinds of things I was going for, then follow that up with a three- or four- session Sorcerer game and see how that went. I confess I snuck up on mode (heck, I started off using D20 Modern to pull in the players), and while it worked, I'd suggest cutting to the chase and demonstrating your preferred play style right away.

I fear this is vague and fairly unhelpful, but at least I'm here to say it can be done. Several players (along with myself) were in an unsatisfying D&D 3.0 game (with one of the other players GMing) about a year ago, and differences in CA, deprotagonization, and lack of interest were huge issues. For me at least, to see this same group playing in a different way, and so happy with it, has been an immense encouragement.

I tried to think of a suitable quip about how you'd best be sure your version control software was able to handle forking the build, but it was too geeky even for me. ;)

Hiya James,

I have a couple of comments.

I think there is a chance I will be alone in this. I don't think everyone would be prepared to try these things out. I am running a risk that some people will take this as a purely social snub. We're all good friends outside of gaming.

If anyone has had a similar experience and had decidedly good results, can you share them? What worked and what didn't? I'm not looking for gaming group horror stories - I'm looking for gaming group rebirths.

James wrote: At one point someone said, "Why play if it's not fun?" My immediate response was well "Some bad gaming is better than none at all." I changed my mind. Yeck!

James wrote: If anyone has had a similar experience and had decidedly good results, can you share them? What worked and what didn't? I'm not looking for gaming group horror stories - I'm looking for gaming group rebirths.

Ron said:

No, it's only when the role-playing is being used as a crutch and substitute for actual friendship that re-arranging it or even ceasing to participate in it becomes a problematic social issue.

It occurs to me why I feel dread about this.

Yeah, yeah, I know I asked for no horror stories, just good outcomes to consider. But, looking back, I can't think of ANY instances where a gaming circle broke apart without some accompanying hard feelings. Some of the disentegration was due to other social conditions, but some were meltdowns that occured during play. Hmm.

Time to invest in some muratic acid.

I have a friend who plays the game Axis & Allies. He loves it. It's his favorite game. We used to play together. Last month, I told him I didn't want to play Axis & Allies anymore because it takes too long and it just isn't fun for me anymore. He accepted that and went on to play Axis & Allies with other people. I play other games with other people. I invite him to play other games but he declines. We're still friends even though we don't play games together.

That's all there is to it.

Um, I just realized that this thread isn't about actual play. Movin' it to RPG Theory.

Best,
Ron

Hi James,

Meltdowns between relationships of any sort always occur as a result of long built up friction and/or undefined social contract rules put under any kind of pressure. If you see blow-ups, they're usually an indication of problems that have been there all along, whether personal issues with the individuals(A's ego, B's insecurity, etc.) or between individuals as a relationship.

Chris

JamesDJIII wrote: But, looking back, I can't think of ANY instances where a gaming circle broke apart without some accompanying hard feelings. Some of the disentegration was due to other social conditions, but some were meltdowns that occured during play. Hmm.

Ah! I unleased a beast!

As interesting as the meltdown stories are - and they are interesting to read about - I'd like to to steer the thread back towards positive group birthing stories. Also, what did you do to make a new group ( especially from fragments of dysfunctional ones)?

JamesDJIII wrote: Also, what did you do to make a new group ( especially from fragments of dysfunctional ones)?

You do really need to separate the roleplaying and personal issues. In my experience, people that have been "shown the door" in my group, due to differences in roleplaying preferences, usually remain amiable to the members of my group. (We are very polite about our differences.)
The main cause of conflict is personal issues.

Since roleplaying is a social activity, how cleanly can you separate it from general social issues?

Hey James,

I'm sort of in the same situation as you. Lots of unsatisfying gaming, playing anyway cuz its better than nothing. I found the Forge last year and since then have slowly been able to more fully elucidate why I'm not satisfied in my various games.

One thing I think that gets discounted in the switchover from more "traditional" RPGs for a group is inertia. My gaming group is all friends (and not friends in the gaming only sense) but when I bring up the idea of trying new games to them - they're pretty meh.

I can't explain why, and it'd be cool if someone with more insight could shed some light on the problem. Inertia is a big one - we're all in our mid to late twenties (or older), lots of people have been playing for so long that they know what they like and they like what they know.

So how much luck do you think you'll have in overcoming the intertia, for lack of a better term, in your group?

JD

I can't explain why, and it'd be cool if someone with more insight could shed some light on the problem. Inertia is a big one - we're all in our mid to late twenties (or older), lots of people have been playing for so long that they know what they like and they like what they know.

So how much luck do you think you'll have in overcoming the intertia, for lack of a better term, in your group?

jeffd wrote: My gaming group is all friends (and not friends in the gaming only sense) but when I bring up the idea of trying new games to them - they're pretty meh.

I can't explain why, and it'd be cool if someone with more insight could shed some light on the problem.

M. J. Young wrote:

jeffd wrote: My gaming group is all friends (and not friends in the gaming only sense) but when I bring up the idea of trying new games to them - they're pretty meh.

I can't explain why, and it'd be cool if someone with more insight could shed some light on the problem.

One of my favorite players did not want to join a new game that was starting because he wanted to continue playing his old characters, and didn't want to start any new stories because he had started enough.

If your people are playing in long-term campaigns, they may be thinking that their characters are parts of an established world, and they don't want to lose that continuity.

--M. J. Young

jeffd wrote: There's probably something interesting to be said about that kind of inertia. Unfortunately I'm not insightful enough to come up with anything other than "oh well their loss." :)

xiombarg wrote: So, if you have something you're comfortable with and you like, there's this gigantic hump to get over to learn something new -- and there's no guarantee you'll like it. So unwillingness to try something new is understandable in those circumstances.

Would we, speaking as people who seem to be struggling with this issue, be so unsure about how to proceed if:

- We'd been eating at a restaurant (say, McFishy's), and then get tired of ALWAYS eating that and want to try the Ethiopian place on 2nd street?
- Water skied every day we could, then decided we wanted to try parasailing?
- Watched only action flicks with Vin Deisel, then decided to try and go see a movie, still action oriented, that starred Jackie Chan?

In each of these examples, imagine if your friends moaned or just limply sat there. Would you still feel reluctant to head out and try the new stuff? Why is that the gaming makes it *feel* different? Why would it be any different?

I think it's the perceived buy-in, James. Often, people think of involvement in role-playing as a long-term investment (the "never-ending campaign" model) and if they get it in their head that they can only handle one of these big committments at a time, they're going to balk at change.

So while I agree that gaming can be more like choosing which restaurant to eat at this week (or maybe for the next four Sundays), a lot of people think about it as making a contract to give up anything but Ethiopian when they haven't even been to the restaurant yet.

My personal experience was that I got a lot of 'meh' responses until I explicitly set things up as a one-shot session (with the option or more if player interest suggested) on a non-conflicting date and time. People gave a lot of caveats as to being unsure how often they could play even though I'd said it was a one-shot. The idea that you're signing your name in blood when you join a gaming group can sometimes be a difficult one to get past.

Andrew,

I see where you are coming from - but can see where I'm standing?

<crickets>

Ok, what I mean to ask is this: Forgetting about the OTHER people, why is that we find ourselves reluctant to just out and out try these new things without the fear that such an action will alienate our friends to the point they they will no longer be our friends.

There's really no other activity I can think of that conjurs up this sort of fear about making that kind of change. (And, like I said, it's not rational . It shouldn't be this way.)

JamesDJIII wrote:
...why is that we find ourselves reluctant to just out and out try these new things without the fear that such an action will alienate our friends to the point they they will no longer be our friends.

jeffd wrote: In this case it really is just a matter of inertia, as far as I can tell. They're more than willing to game, so long as we use White Wolf/D&D/Warhammer Fantasy/Fading Suns/[insert system we've played before here].

There's probably something interesting to be said about that kind of inertia. Unfortunately I'm not insightful enough to come up with anything other than "oh well their loss." :)

This is derailing, fast, off topic.

The point of the thread was: positive rebirthing of a gaming group. It's become... well something else. Perhaps it's time to kill this one, and start a new one.

Our gaming group, which consists largely of friends, rebirthed with decent success.

A long-running Pendragon campaign was wrapped up, and we found ourselves at loose ends. A couple of us (Harlequin and myself), acquainted with forge-speak and RPG theory talked off-board about social contract and explicitly started a discussion about what we (as a group) wanted to do with Friday gaming. Basically, renegotiated the social contract. We had a couple people wanting to try some fairly new games like MLWM, a desire expressed by Harlequin to playtest system designs from time-to-time, some people who wanted 'good old-fashioned gaming' and a couple people who explicitely said "I'm here mostly for social reasons. Gaming is fun, but secondary."

What we ended up with was a split group, with gaming happening downstairs, and boardgames/movie night/vegging with friends happening upstairs. Gaming downstairs has rotated through several different games now (a old-school AD&D module converted to 3.0, MLWM, and it's currently a Riddle of Steel campaign-style game) and people pick up or drop off as that game appeals to them. If they aren't in the current game, they stay upstairs.

This has worked really quite well for us, with a couple major factors helping the shift:
1: We game at a house with distinct "social" areas on two different floors which lets us accomplish it at all.
2: We explicitly did not reopen the floor to "let's do something else" until there was a break - we'd just wrapped up a long-term game and were casting about for "what next?" already.

Hope this helps, and is inline with your original desire for the thread.

James