This quote from one of Ron Edwards's GNS articles made me shiver, it is so precisely a description of one of the players in my DnD Midnight game:

"I have met dozens, perhaps over a hundred, very experienced role-players
with this profile: a limited repertoire of games behind him and extremely
defensive and turtle-like play tactics. Ask for a character background, and
he resists, or if he gives you one, he never makes use of it or responds to
cues about it. Ask for actions - he hunkers down and does nothing unless
there's a totally unambiguous lead to follow or a foe to fight. His universal
responses include "My guy doesn't want to," and, "I say nothing." 

I have not, in over twenty years of role-playing, ever seen such a person
have a good time role-playing. I have seen a lot of groups founder due to the
presence of one such participant. Yet they really want to play..."




The last paragraph of the above quote actually only partly fits my player - he really wants to play, _and_ he really enjoyed himself recently in a pure roleplaying challenge (after dithering for a session and a half about whether or not to engage, while other players went ahead and dealt with their own challenges and opportunities).

I try to run my game at two distinct levels: tactical DnD wargame for combat sessions, character-centred stuff with a mix of sundry non-combat challenges in other sessions. My turtle player loves to conjecture outlandish possibilities and at times can practically paralyse the group with his talking in paranoid circles .... OTOH sometimes he has brilliant ideas, when (rarely) he steps up to a roleplaying challenge he can be good at it and visibly enjoys himself - but then he clamps back down and I have to fight every inch of the way, it feels like, to get him to engage again.

I'm trying to get him to open up but it's a long hard battle. Sometimes I think I'm making progress, sometimes I'm not so sure. I know this player has had some weird experiences with other GMs in the past, one in particular he described as being "all smoke and mirrors" - that might explain his mindset to some extent. But he's now been playing in my game for seven months and is still a difficult case, although he reliably turns up for every session, takes notes and writes passable, entertaining and mostly reliable chronicles of our games.


Have any of you people experienced turtle players and found a way to help them out of their shell? If so, what did you do, or avoid?

As a secondary remedy if you didn't get a turtle to open up, what did you do to contain the damage and let everyone wtill have fun with their different styles?



(I know of course about the possible remedy of getting rid of players who are a liability - but that's not currently what I'm looking at here. We like our resident turtle, we'd just like to get him to come out of his shell a bit more ... )

You're trying too hard.

The player is asserting his right to choose not to be engaged. Every time you try to drag him in more aggressively, you are assailing that very right. You're saying that not caring is forbidden.

There is absolutely nothing so enticing as the forbidden.

You can not force the player to care. The more you try to, the more attractive not caring becomes... it proves his independence and makes him the center of attention, all at the same time.

But the fact that he enjoys the game says that he wants to care, if you'll get out of the way and let him do it on his own terms.

Try treating him like just another player for five or six sessions. Give him the same opportunities to engage in the world that you would for anyone else, but plan carefully so that it won't matter to you whether or not he avails himself of them.

It is not your job to assure his fun. It cannot be your job, because nobody on God's green earth can give you the tools to reach directly into his mind and turn on his fun receptors.

I like Tony's advice, which I interpret as 'taking the pressure off the situation'.

Another possibility (that extends on that idea) is to consider encouraging him out of his shell as a multi-episode, multi-game endeavour. Now I'm not saying you're responsible for him changing his behaviour ... but you can demonstrate that there's not so much to get defensive about.

Example:

In the Buffy game I ran over christmas, one of the characters (Jo) had a boyfriend. The most cynical player said, "Watch out, he's destined to get kidnapped." So I made it my mission to ensure that nothing bad happened to that NPC, that Jo's player always felt comfortable and entertained about what was going on.

The Point:

Say the player feels that he will be taken advantage of by NPCs. Show one of the other players having a blast with an NPC relationship (that you NEVER take advantage of). Then - after a few sessions / games - start creating an NPC rich environment. IF your player likes hanging out with one of the NPCs, make them into a side-kick / foil. Use the NPC to engage them in non-threatening elements of the rest of your world (family squabbles, marital entanglements, etc).

Basically, it's not extra work on your part. You've just shown the player a cool alternative to how he's currently playing and given him the opportunity to try it out.

There was a time in my life when I was going through a lot of personal changes and hard choices, and what I wanted most out of RPGs was a chance to relax and just be somebody else for a while, somebody without worries beyond bashing the next ork. In short, turtle maximus.

The player may be getting a whole lot out of your game, just by hanging out.

That being said, the player does give off a few red lights. "talking in paranoid circles" and worrying about a past GM that was "all smoke and mirrors" -- that doesn't sound like the healthiest of individuals. Be careful about getting the player to be more active. You may get your wish :-).

StalkingBlue wrote: Have any of you people experienced turtle players and found a way to help them out of their shell? If so, what did you do, or avoid?

bcook1971 wrote:
Yes. One of the former players in my group was very risk aversive. He'd play high-level mages (1st ed. AD&D) with some defense or backup for every conceivable type of threat. And he was very secretive. Many times we'd ask him what he's up to and he'd just sit there with a knowing smile on his face, refusing to answer. It seemed like his character was a one-person clique within the party.

bcook1971 wrote: ...In short, no one felt safe. No one knew what to expect next; PC's were disadvantaged, and I just stood by the results.

While this was going on, the player in question played it safe as usual, and I wasn't paying attention to him, in any case. By the second session, he emerged. For some reason, seeing how everyone was getting screwed by stupid reality and the D&D play rituals didn't really apply, he started putting himself in his character's situation (truly, for the first time) and trying to solve his dilemmas. (e.g. Duck down against a crag in the tunnel wall to make a small signature for the swarming bats vs. casting a fireball to chew through their hit points and then teleport away.)

bcook1971 wrote: Scene framing and weaving are also ace cards for drawing out a turtle. e.g. At the hero's celebration, the party collapses onto the banquet table. The wine was drugged! You return to the main hall to find your companions being stuffed into sacks and carried out. "Wasn't there another one?" "There's no time!" You track them to a regal estate. Peering through a cellar window, you make out the party in manacles. A bare-chested fat guy, wearing a black hood, stokes the coals of a furnace with a poker. Councilman Veneer comes into view. "Let's talk about the Fortress of Besir. I want to know troop strength, what supplies they may have, . . . everything."

eef wrote: There was a time in my life when I was going through a lot of personal changes and hard choices, and what I wanted most out of RPGs was a chance to relax and just be somebody else for a while, somebody without worries beyond bashing the next ork. In short, turtle maximus.

eef wrote: The player may be getting a whole lot out of your game, just by hanging out.

eef wrote: That being said, the player does give off a few red lights. "talking in paranoid circles" and worrying about a past GM that was "all smoke and mirrors" -- that doesn't sound like the healthiest of individuals. Be careful about getting the player to be more active. You may get your wish :-).

hix wrote:
Another possibility (that extends on that idea) is to consider encouraging him out of his shell as a multi-episode, multi-game endeavour. Now I'm not saying you're responsible for him changing his behaviour ... but you can demonstrate that there's not so much to get defensive about.

Example:

In the Buffy game I ran over christmas, one of the characters (Jo) had a boyfriend. The most cynical player said, "Watch out, he's destined to get kidnapped." So I made it my mission to ensure that nothing bad happened to that NPC, that Jo's player always felt comfortable and entertained about what was going on.

hix wrote:
Say the player feels that he will be taken advantage of by NPCs. Show one of the other players having a blast with an NPC relationship (that you NEVER take advantage of). Then - after a few sessions / games - start creating an NPC rich environment. IF your player likes hanging out with one of the NPCs, make them into a side-kick / foil. Use the NPC to engage them in non-threatening elements of the rest of your world (family squabbles, marital entanglements, etc).

StalkingBlue wrote: Cool example, cheers! :) Would you explain the terms "scene framing" and "weaving" for me?

bcook1971 - Thanks for CCing the glossary definitions.
I was kinda hoping for an explanation in (to me) more accessible terms ... Somehow this terminology is too abstract for me to get a good grasp of.

If I understand the above definitions correctly, I try to use both techniques, but am struggling - primarily because my turtle player has a habit of barging into any scene I set, complaining that he was "somewhere else" at the end of the previous scene (especially between sessions) or asking whether he could "just quickly" do or say or play something else after the end of a previous scene before we continue.

Perhaps you would explain in what way scene framing and weaving have helped with your turtle player? Specific examples of play from your game with the turtle might help me.

Surely. I'm not the pro at this. In fact, I think Ron Edwards coined the term, weaving, so I hesitate to suggest that my understanding is the gold standard. It isn't, but I manage:)

To me, scene framing is cutting out all the crap. Anything that can reasonably be assumed, frame past it. Anything that performs a maintenance function or fails to make relevant progress cries out to be skipped. (e.g. Determining the order of watches when making camp, splitting up the treasure, travelling through the wilderness, buying supplies at market, performing your normal duties at work, etc.)

Scene framing breaks up the cyclops eye and splits the narrative into many threads. You can use any particular character's pespective as the lens to view the game world, instead of sticking with one guy and narrating his every step until he rejoins the group who has had to wait, doing nothing, so everyone can (as I imagine) hold hands to cross the street. Juggling threads can be challenging at first, but once your group acclimates, it's sooo much better (IMO). It's the difference between Tropicana and Tang.

Weaving is crossing threads. There are three things I like to do with it: cross nemeses, cross PC's and cross thread elements. e.g. "You wire down to the vault room floor and spray mist to reveal the laser lines surrounding the display. You reach between and grasp the gem, only to feel your fingers pass through air. It's a hologram! The alarm sounds and iron bars come crashing down. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a black-garbed figure rotate open a window, high on the wall. She removes her mask, jet-black hair falling around her shoulders, and holds the gem above her shoulder. Saratoga! With a wink, she escapes into the night."

Weaving is contagious. Once your players get on board, one weave will generally inspire a cascade of others. When it's good, you get this sense of "Well, who the hell's telling this story, anyway?"

* * *

About your turtle . . . When I think back on it, I think mine came out simply because (1) he sensed the shift in focus (2) recognized that everyone else was getting on board and (3) became inspired by the success they were having. It was just that schoolyard thing of "Well, I wanna play, too. Guys, can I play?" When you're training your players on new concepts, an efficient path is to praise leadership. Once one person demonstrates understanding, it breaks across the group consciousness. The specific thing the GM can do to encourage this is to interrupt play and celebrate. i.e. "Yes, by George, you've got it! Everybody: did you see what he just did? That was brilliant! I wish we could have one moment after another, just like that." Boy, does this work.

Also, I've neglected the obvious: ask your turtle what kind of play he wants. Then give it to him, just the way he said. Then ask, "Is this what you meant? Did I do it like you wanted?" This is kind of like putting it in his face and helps him to define his interest in play, which I submit, is probably vague, even to him. I had a guy in my recent Sorcerer campaign literally ask me to put him in situations where he could avoid risk by escaping. It just floored me, but I reserved judgement, and worked my ass off to drop him in one perilous circumstance after another, knowing that he'd just whisk his character away. And he got off on it. It just blew my mind.

* * *

Just read some of your responses to other posters . . . Fundamentally, this guy may be mismatched to your group. In my group, I'm probably the most mismatched. You can always axe the guy, or he can always find another group; and as a matter of principle, that may be the best choice, but I'm betting that he's your friend and that you'd both prefer to work things out. Anyway, an idea I had to break up his paranoid cycling is to interpret his words as Initiation (cf. IIEE.) Undoubtedly, he'll move to strike and explain that he's just talking. But stay on it. And he'll repeat the process: make a protest and explain that he's working through his options, airing his thoughts. After a few times through, ask him, "So what do you want to do?" More than likely, he will not have a clear answer and will start back into his paranoid monologue. Then cut away to another player, saying something like, "Well, alright. I'm gonna let you work that out. Robbie [another player], back in town, what's your next move?"

One detail of your account really jumped out at me:

StalkingBlue wrote: At the Gamist level, the lack of magic items and spells limits the number of rules-supported tactical options more than he likes. There's of course nothing to prevent him from thinking out of the box, looking at the environment and coming up with creative tactical solutions for problems using resources at hand - but he won't do that.
...

He enjoys mulling over potential plans and thinking of ever more outlandish and non-obvious solutions, and discussing them with other players. He realises that this is a bit of a problem in my game because our game time slots are only 3 hours or so long, but can't seem to help himself.

bcook1971 wrote:

StalkingBlue wrote: Have any of you people experienced turtle players and found a way to help them out of their shell? If so, what did you do, or avoid?

Scene framing and weaving are also ace cards for drawing out a turtle. e.g. At the hero's celebration, the party collapses onto the banquet table. The wine was drugged! You return to the main hall to find your companions being stuffed into sacks and carried out. "Wasn't there another one?" "There's no time!" You track them to a regal estate. Peering through a cellar window, you make out the party in manacles. A bare-chested fat guy, wearing a black hood, stokes the coals of a furnace with a poker. Councilman Veneer comes into view. "Let's talk about the Fortress of Besir. I want to know troop strength, what supplies they may have, . . . everything."

Thanks, this is brilliant billcook- now I understand what you mean. :)

bcook1971 wrote: ...
To me, scene framing is cutting out all the crap. Anything that can reasonably be assumed, frame past it. Anything that performs a maintenance function or fails to make relevant progress cries out to be skipped. (e.g. Determining the order of watches when making camp, splitting up the treasure, travelling through the wilderness, buying supplies at market, performing your normal duties at work, etc.)

bcook1971 wrote: Scene framing breaks up the cyclops eye and splits the narrative into many threads. You can use any particular character's pespective as the lens to view the game world, instead of sticking with one guy and narrating his every step until he rejoins the group who has had to wait, doing nothing, so everyone can (as I imagine) hold hands to cross the street. Juggling threads can be challenging at first, but once your group acclimates, it's sooo much better (IMO). It's the difference between Tropicana and Tang.

bcook1971 wrote: Weaving is crossing threads. There are three things I like to do with it: cross nemeses, cross PC's and cross thread elements. e.g. "You wire down to the vault room floor and spray mist to reveal the laser lines surrounding the display. You reach between and grasp the gem, only to feel your fingers pass through air. It's a hologram! The alarm sounds and iron bars come crashing down. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a black-garbed figure rotate open a window, high on the wall. She removes her mask, jet-black hair falling around her shoulders, and holds the gem above her shoulder. Saratoga! With a wink, she escapes into the night."

Weaving is contagious. Once your players get on board, one weave will generally inspire a cascade of others. When it's good, you get this sense of "Well, who the hell's telling this story, anyway?"

bcook1971 wrote: About your turtle . . . When I think back on it, I think mine came out simply because (1) he sensed the shift in focus (2) recognized that everyone else was getting on board and (3) became inspired by the success they were having. It was just that schoolyard thing of "Well, I wanna play, too. Guys, can I play?"

bcook1971 wrote: When you're training your players on new concepts, an efficient path is to praise leadership. Once one person demonstrates understanding, it breaks across the group consciousness. The specific thing the GM can do to encourage this is to interrupt play and celebrate. i.e. "Yes, by George, you've got it! Everybody: did you see what he just did? That was brilliant! I wish we could have one moment after another, just like that." Boy, does this work.

bcook1971 wrote: Also, I've neglected the obvious: ask your turtle what kind of play he wants. Then give it to him, just the way he said. Then ask, "Is this what you meant? Did I do it like you wanted?" This is kind of like putting it in his face and helps him to define his interest in play, which I submit, is probably vague, even to him.

bcook1971 wrote: I had a guy in my recent Sorcerer campaign literally ask me to put him in situations where he could avoid risk by escaping. It just floored me, but I reserved judgement, and worked my ass off to drop him in one perilous circumstance after another, knowing that he'd just whisk his character away. And he got off on it. It just blew my mind.

bcook1971 wrote: Just read some of your responses to other posters . . . Fundamentally, this guy may be mismatched to your group. In my group, I'm probably the most mismatched.

bcook1971 wrote: You can always axe the guy, or he can always find another group; and as a matter of principle, that may be the best choice, but I'm betting that he's your friend and that you'd both prefer to work things out.

bcook1971 wrote: Anyway, an idea I had to break up his paranoid cycling is to interpret his words as Initiation (cf. IIEE.) Undoubtedly, he'll move to strike and explain that he's just talking. But stay on it. And he'll repeat the process: make a protest and explain that he's working through his options, airing his thoughts. After a few times through, ask him, "So what do you want to do?" More than likely, he will not have a clear answer and will start back into his paranoid monologue. Then cut away to another player, saying something like, "Well, alright. I'm gonna let you work that out. Robbie [another player], back in town, what's your next move?"

Walt Freitag wrote: Can you give an example of one of these "outlandish" solutions that are causing problems when he proposes them? It sounds possible to me that he's coming up with ideas that are incompatible with your game preparations, and is being slapped down as a result -- and then retreats into "okay, if you want me to just go through the motions then that's what I'll do" at the shorter-term tactical level where you would actually be more amenable to unexpected choices.

Walt Freitag wrote: Your characterizing his ideas as "paranoid" and his plans as "outlandish" suggest that you expect him to stay very much inside some boxes while thinking outside others. Depending on how wild his ideas and plans actually are, you might be reasonably justified in this expectation, but might it also be understandable if he doesn't see those boundaries the same as you do?

Walt Freitag wrote: You say you plan for "combat sessions" and for "sundry non-combat challenges" in other sessions. The implication (my apologies if I'm reading too much in here) is that you know in advance which are which -- and therefore, you're probably planning in advance how you expect each challenge to play out.

Walt Freitag wrote: What happens if someone tries to use noncombat means to achieve the objective of a planned combat session, or use combat to deal with a problem you've planned as a "non-combat" challege?

Walt Freitag wrote: Is that often the case with this player's "outlandish" ideas?

Walt Freitag wrote: I find, when dealing with a great variety of player styles and preferences, that limiting my pre-planning to focus on plausble and difficult problems the PCs might face, without trying to pre-plan specific solutions (often, without even having any good ideas for how the problem might be solved), can help to get a lot more players to take a lot more initiative. Thinking outside the box on any scale becomes a benefit rather than a problem.

Your turtle reminds me of a friend I used to play DnD and Vampire with back in the day. I was co-GM in a game where he was a player, and it seemed to me that he had a bad case of "make-problem-go-away-now" syndrome. He had a lot of plans that seemed rather strange to me, and a tendency to ignore advice we gave him through his NPC contacts. Of course, after ignoring this advice, he would be doubly convinced that we were screwing him over. Not only did the situation not make any sense, his contacts were totally useless.

In hindsight I've come to a the following conclusion: Hints don't work. At all. Well, perhaps for some people but you can't count on someone taking the hint. In the game I was helping to run we had far to many grand and mysterious plans for our own good. The players really needed to know what we had planned - we should have trusted them not to abuse this knowledge. Actually, we should have framed in-character advise from NPC contacts in a more out-of-character way. Rather than have the NPC state some "Cool New Concept", we should have explicitly explained that we (as GMs) have inserted "Cool New Concept" into the game, and this NPC is why we can tell you and not anybody else. A little out-of-character knowledge should be able to go a long way - unless the player refuses to let you tell him for certain that he really can trust his contact.

The paranoia situation seems to be at the heart of this. It seems to me that the player doesn't trust you or the other GM not to screw his character over. So he doesn't do anything without double and triple checking first. If you've been explicit (no hints, remember) that certain actions (like scrying) are counterproductive, and he still persists you could probably take that to mean he wants his character to get caught. I doubt that this is the case. You mentioned that he doesn't "speak in character". He may be a very "My Guy" sort of player, but conversely you may be reluctant to provide information at the meta-game level. Maybe he does trust you as a GM but he doesn't trust your NPCs. Your description is of a suspiscious player who sees risk in everything - a balor in a goblin warren? Kinda paranoid. Maybe he wants to see the balor, but more likely he just suspects everything is a trap. If the situation had been described more along the lines of "there's a goblin trying to escape through that door" rather than "there's a goblin trying to open that door" very little out-of-character knowledge would have been introduced, but probably enough to defuse the paranoia.

Of course that's just based on your description. It could be that your poor turtle truely is paranoid and no amount of outside knowledge will convince him that he is not a target. He doesn't seem to distance his enjoyment of the game from his character's success/survival. I think it can be fun for my character to be royally screwed - but I doubt he'd agree with me.

StalkingBlue wrote: Hm, not sure what you are referring to here. I obviously cut back and forth between individual PCs' or subgroups' scenes when the party splits up - is that what you mean?

StalkingBlue wrote: I ended up running 75% of the session with one player, who had his PC run around talking to people trying to figure out what was going on and getting some success, even though it was the other two who had all the pertinent information to solve the mystery!

StalkingBlue wrote: I'm currently getting ready to run a scenario the turtle player requested btw, as I posted earlier, and after putting some work in to make it fun for me and potentially meaningful for the other players, am looking forward to running it.

StalkingBlue wrote: Misunderstanding. Big time.

You are jumping to conclusions thinking about a GMing style you probably have encountered in your gaming - it's got nothing to do with my style.

dalek_of_god wrote: Your turtle reminds me of a friend I used to play DnD and Vampire with back in the day. I was co-GM in a game where he was a player, and it seemed to me that he had a bad case of "make-problem-go-away-now" syndrome. He had a lot of plans that seemed rather strange to me, and a tendency to ignore advice we gave him through his NPC contacts. Of course, after ignoring this advice, he would be doubly convinced that we were screwing him over. Not only did the situation not make any sense, his contacts were totally useless.

dalek_of_god wrote: In hindsight I've come to a the following conclusion: Hints don't work. At all.

dalek_of_god wrote: Well, perhaps for some people but you can't count on someone taking the hint. In the game I was helping to run we had far to many grand and mysterious plans for our own good. The players really needed to know what we had planned - we should have trusted them not to abuse this knowledge. Actually, we should have framed in-character advise from NPC contacts in a more out-of-character way. Rather than have the NPC state some "Cool New Concept", we should have explicitly explained that we (as GMs) have inserted "Cool New Concept" into the game, and this NPC is why we can tell you and not anybody else.

dalek_of_god wrote: A little out-of-character knowledge should be able to go a long way - unless the player refuses to let you tell him for certain that he really can trust his contact.

The paranoia situation seems to be at the heart of this. It seems to me that the player doesn't trust you or the other GM not to screw his character over. So he doesn't do anything without double and triple checking first.

dalek_of_god wrote: If you've been explicit (no hints, remember) that certain actions (like scrying) are counterproductive, and he still persists you could probably take that to mean he wants his character to get caught. I doubt that this is the case. You mentioned that he doesn't "speak in character". He may be a very "My Guy" sort of player, but conversely you may be reluctant to provide information at the meta-game level. Maybe he does trust you as a GM but he doesn't trust your NPCs.

dalek_of_god wrote: Your description is of a suspiscious player who sees risk in everything - a balor in a goblin warren? Kinda paranoid. Maybe he wants to see the balor, but more likely he just suspects everything is a trap. If the situation had been described more along the lines of "there's a goblin trying to escape through that door" rather than "there's a goblin trying to open that door" very little out-of-character knowledge would have been introduced, but probably enough to defuse the paranoia.

dalek_of_god wrote: Of course that's just based on your description. It could be that your poor turtle truely is paranoid and no amount of outside knowledge will convince him that he is not a target. He doesn't seem to distance his enjoyment of the game from his character's success/survival.

dalek_of_god wrote: I think it can be fun for my character to be royally screwed - but I doubt he'd agree with me.

bcook1971 wrote: This is really telling, to me. I've suffered immensely as a player, being disconnected from the process of discovering intrigue, where that was the focus of play.

bcook1971 wrote: It's a real campaign rite of passage, to establish your ability to impact the SIS; although, I concede, it sounds like you're describing petulant behavior. Then again, there're three sides to every story.

dalek_of_god wrote: An opposite to this end could be that the most important play happens wherever whoever goes. (e.g. If Luke stays on Dagoba, then Han has the duel with Vader and founds out he's his dad.)

bcook1971 wrote: Best wishes.

Walt Freitag wrote: ...I wasn't completely wrong about the boundaries being there, it's just that there's no evidence that the problem has anything to do with the player rejecting those boundaries.

Walt Freitag wrote: It's as if this player were interpreting negative feedback, especially from the GM, in reverse, turning it into an inadvertent positive feedback loop that turns the original idle idea into a momentary obsession. The same general pattern appears to apply to the scrying incident as well.

Walt Freitag wrote: How frustrating for all concerned, if that is indeed the general pattern. I have to ask, is there any trace of anything similar happening with this person outside of play? Like, if he suggests ordering pizza with broccoli, and the rest of you say "yuck," does he insist on it even more?

Hiya,

SB, I have a suggestion: trust Walt. He has a lot of experience in dealing with stuff like this. If you answer his questions instead of asking "why would you ask that," then the result might surprise you. Then if you still wonder why, you can ask.

This isn't a moderator post, but rather some experienced advice.

Best,
Ron

I appreciate Ron's confidence, but I'm not claiming any special prescience in this particular case. The case strikes me as unusual, something I haven't experienced directly myself. I agree that it's classic "turtle syndrome" in its broad outlines, but appears to go beyond it in some ways, making we wonder whether the usual causes (which usually amount to the player having been heavily, though inadvertently, rewarded for that behavior in past play) actually apply here.

Not sure how your example relates to our case. Why would he stop ordering his pizza the way he likes it merely because someone else doesn't? :)

He doesn't twist feedback, he ignores it.

I believe he said that in jest at first, but quickly got into believing it (rather like a child terrifying himself with his own ghost story)

Would you mind explaining what boundaries you see? I'd say I'm as open-minded about players thinking out of the box as any other GM I've experienced - but maybe you see something else?

It means that once I've prepared what I call a "world bubble", ie a bit of environment to play in, it's easy for me to run with players' crazy on-the-spot ideas ... but when they would ask me to prep A and I agree, and they then come to the table suddenly wanting C or X instead with no advance warning, I wouldn't be willing to sit down and wing it all. Fortunately my group and I are in agreement on that.

We sit down to play, I start the session, the turtle interrupts with one of his typical "Before we do this, can I just...?". He turns to another player and suggests a different course of action that would take place seomewhere else.

In character the other player couldn't possibly refuse, his PC would have been desperate to do what had just been suggested (rather than what had been agreed beforehand)...

It was sad really. He had a brilliant suggestion, but entirely the wrong timing - simply because he never expected anyone to take him up on it. He's just not on the same wavelength as the rest of us. It feels almost as if he's blind to a whole dimension of my game.

Outlandish-solution example from the same game: We were getting ready to assassinate one of the big movers and shakers of the region, an extremely powerful guy with a powerful artifact sword. We knew he'd be likely to kill a few PCs before we could bring him down, and would probably wipe the floor with us if we weren't very smart in our approach. We decided that everything depended on the right opportunity.
The turtle's idea was to scry (magically spy on) the target for about two weeks on a daily basis, so establish his patterns and then strike when he'd be most likely to be vulnerable. Outlandish? In the circumstances, yes. First, under DnD rules scrying can be noticed, and defended against, by the target. Second, we had all reason to expect the target to be unaware of our existence or plans, so we might catch him at a vulnerable moment if lucky - not a chance of that once he'd noticed he was under scrying surveillance, obviously.

Walt Freitag wrote: I appreciate Ron's confidence, but I'm not claiming any special prescience in this particular case. The case strikes me as unusual, something I haven't experienced directly myself. I agree that it's classic "turtle syndrome" in its broad outlines, but appears to go beyond it in some ways, making we wonder whether the usual causes (which usually amount to the player having been heavily, though inadvertently, rewarded for that behavior in past play) actually apply here.

Walt Freitag wrote: ...assuming that the number of pizzas being ordered is significantly smaller than the number of people participating ...

Walt Freitag wrote: How does it relate to your case? I think I can show that by echoing your own question: Why should he stop insisting on scrying the assassination target in advance, if that's what he wants to do, merely because the other participants don't want to do it that way?

Walt Freitag wrote: The answer should be, because he's getting signals from the other participants that the group is not agreeable to that approach. I have no reason to believe that those signals aren't being sent, so he must be either not perceiving them, incapable of perceiving them, ignoring them, or misunderstanding them.

Walt Freitag wrote: And here's the thing: to fix the problem, you have to know which it is.

Walt Freitag wrote: But the balor example in particular sounds to me like negative feedback is increasing his resolve for a particular belief or course of action when it should be decreasing it:

Walt Freitag wrote:
If misinterpreting the feedback were what is going on, it would look a whole lot like he was suddenly getting the idea fixed in his head all by himself, while at the same time ignoring the other participants' feedback.

I'm far from certain that's the case, but it's a possibility that must be considered carefully, along with the other three.

Walt Freitag wrote:

It was sad really. He had a brilliant suggestion, but entirely the wrong timing - simply because he never expected anyone to take him up on it. He's just not on the same wavelength as the rest of us. It feels almost as if he's blind to a whole dimension of my game.

So, everyone agrees that the turtle's suggested action was reasonable in-game, in fact at least one player found it strongly preferable and you describe it as "brilliant." So what was wrong with it? It transgressed a boundary you'd established, in this case a boundary on the timing of when player-character decisions can be made.

Walt Freitag wrote: It sound to me like once again the problem wasn't with his idea, but with the timing. The group had already decided to do it one way, so his suggestion to do it another way wasn't welcome.

Walt Freitag wrote: I infer the boundaries from the timing and the situation as described.

Apparently, no action had been taken yet on the plan (how could it have, if the plan was "attack and hope the attack happens to come at a vulnerable moment?"), there was no way to know what complications or setbacks might occur once you began to act, and yet it was regarded as too late to consider a different course of action. This says to me that a whole lot of planning ahead was going on, on both sides of the GM screen, with shared expectations that the broad outlines of plans will be adhered to, in order to allow play to continue. Those expectations establish boundaries.

Again, not saying those boundaries are bad or anything. But they're there, and they're causing problems when the turtle transgresses them.

Walt Freitag wrote: more like he's blundering into the boundaries because his social compass is out of whack.

Walt Freitag wrote: That's why the issue of how he handles social feedback seems, to me, important.

Re boundaries again: We may be on to something here.

On the whole I don't agree with your interpretation that it is the turtle transgressing them. But I agree that boundaries play an important part in our problem with him. Let me try to explain my thought (which woke me in the middle of the night and kept me awake, so it had better be a stroke of genius).

Of course if you give 'boundaries' a sufficiently abstract definition, then every time anyone does something that you don't want them to do, or
does not do something you'd like them to do could be defined as that person transgressing boundaries. You and I could keep shouting Yes! - No! - Yes! - No! here until bandwidth on this server runs out, but that's not what either of us is trying to do. What we are trying to do here I think is establish communication on a complex human situation, which I have experienced, discussed and analysed in great detail but am currently unable to resolve, while you are trying to reach conclusions and (I hope) come up with suggestions for a practical solution, but can't glean facts except from what you read in and infer from my posts. So no wonder there's a bit of back and forth here. If this were a simple and straightforward situation, my fellow GM, the players, the turtle (maybe) and I would probably have realised that by now and resolved it.

So let my try to take a step back and feel my way back into the situation and try to define where to my feeling the differences between the turtle and me are re boundaries. The reason why I keep saying your assumption that the turtle transgresses boundaries is incorrect is this:

Boundaries are certainly a major part of the problem here - but not, I think, so much in the sense of the turtle transgressing them. On the contrary: my experience is that the turtle loves boundaries. Needs boundaries. Worships boundaries, almost. The troble is that his take on boundaries and mine aren't always conicident or even easily compatible.

For example, when I make a house rule, I only have to state it once. For the turtle, I wouldn't even have to put it in writing somewhere: once the GM states a rule, that's how it is - he makes a point of always having all house rules at the tips of his fingers. It's uncanny almost how my words seem branded into his brain when a rule is concerned.
He may not like certain house rules, sometimes a rule may turn out not to work too well in play, in which case it needs to be dropped or adjusted. However, he would never 'presume' to approach a GM over this, or even answer a GM's question for feedback honestly. "The DM is always right. The player can always walk," is all that you are likely to get out of him. That's one boundary he imposes on himself... or rather a boundary he imposes on the GM. It feels more like an "As a player, I have a right to remain silent" stance.


In his suggestion for 'another scenario', he was appalled and shocked that the player he made the suggestion to wanted to take him up on it, and even more shocked and unsettled when he realised that I, the GM, the Keeper of Boundaries, intended to run with it - and worse, intended to break the Holy Rule of Always Providing the Promised Entertainment to Your Players by calling off that night's session.

I've told you about the bit of our game contract that says that I'll gladly listen to players about what scenarios they'd like to do and run with it, and that I'll run with any solution (or non-solution, like sitting around discussing plans and then giving up because the scenario seems too suicidal or unsolvable), but that when at the end of a session we agree where the party wishes to go next, they will actually go there at the beginning of the next session.

My impression was that the turtle honestly couldn't so much as think outside those boundaries. Once we'd agreed that the group would return to shelter in the forest and would take the new, time-travelling PC along with it (rather than help her search for a way home), that was what was going to happen no matter what. He was disappointed and I think disgusted that when he came up with his brilliant new idea that immdiately clicked with the player concerned and with me, I didn't observe that boundary, but allowed the time-travelling player to stray across it onto greener fields instead. It was almost as if he expected to be completely safe to do a bit of suggesting and conjecturing because nothing was going to come out of it anyway. When contrary to his expectation it did, he seemed to feel cheated.

What made it worse for him, and that's where I feel for him, was that the next scenario in line (the one that we'd have played that night if he hadn't come up with a better alternative plan) was one that he had in effect chosen. It had been one of a long list of tedious local 'cleaning up the area' missions that he thought the group should do before they moved on to more interesting things. No one else was thrilled by the idea of working our way all the way through that checklist, so I told the players if the PCs dropped suggestions with the right NPCs, NPC groups would be able to take care of most of those clean-up missions and the players might just choose one from that list, whatever appealed most to them, and I'd offer an opportunity for them to do it and make sure that it proved worth doing. No one was too bothered (or enthusiastic) about which one to choose, so the turtle got to say which one'd most like to do. I'm still meaning to run 'his' scenario and I'm hoping I've added dimensions to it that will make it interesting and rewarding for all the characters and players to deal with, because of the turtle's own brilliant suggestion, it's on the back burner for now.

So in effect his suggestion, which I've called a brilliant if sadly mistimed idea, was a disaster from his point of view. Not only did it lead to all sorts of holy boundaries being broken, but also it resulted in him not getting a game that night for incomprehensible reasons, and 'his' clean-up scenario isn't coming up next in line as he had expected.

(Oh. Expectations are a big deal with him, too, perhaps that isn't as obvious from my previous descriptions of him as I thought. He's extremely flexible when others in the group forcefully state preferences - but he hates surprises. Once he comes to expect something, he feels ownership in it happening as he expects.)


His standard tactic of sitting down, talking and doing nothing is a matter of keeping within a boundary, too. Again, it's a self-inflicted boundary or at least one that he brings to the group.
He's played in the other GM's game for two years now and in mine for a bit over half a year. Nothing in either of our two games suggests that sitting around doing nothing is a tactic that's going to be rewarded. On the contrary, both GMs are much more likely to reward players for stepping on up to the challenge. I've said that on one level our games are very Gamist.
For the turtle, however, every challenge that isn't thrust on the group without any control on the players' side seems a Big Delectable Thing, better to be observed from all sides and flirted with from a distance than actually engaged. He can't seem to bring himself to cross the threshold into actual adventure. I think he's turned that threshold into a Big Boundary that he likes to take cover behind (hoping that if only he does nothing, the challenge won't dare cross the boundary and come find him) to watch and think "terrible thoughts" about in safety and at leisure.


And another boundary on his part, this one inherent in traditional DnD play and to some extent rooted in the system: According to what I can tell from talking to him about my games and other games he plays in, the turtle is convinced that the only chance you have as a player to "succeed" in a DnD game is by exploiting all the rules and tactical conventions of the DnD rules, especially by having a wizard (not other arcane spellcasting clases, they don't count) in the party and having tons of magic items. The Midnight setting doesn't have wizards, it has its own spellcasting class, and magic items are very rare. To him this means that the party is doomed to fail sooner or later. That is nonsense of course, with our partly Gamist slant no one in our group particularly wants to play a game doomed to failure. But when my fellow GM asked the turtle the other day where he sees his Midnight PC in 10 further levels, he said dryly, "Dead."

He hates being deprived of his habitual manifold layers of magic security in my game and even after half a year of play isn't getting into it. Why does he still play? Claims he enjoys it. What it is he enjoys is hard to make out because he either can't or won't tell.


Which leads to yet another boundary inherent in traditional DnD play that I stretch and transgress again and again, much to his discomfort: I don't run a purely Gamist game, I try to give players room to invest in their PCs, develop their personalities and come out of pawn stance. My fellow GM and one other player are with me, as I've said earlier a third player is beginning to wake up to it a bit. We're feeling our way, learning by trial and error. On the whole it's an exciting and rewarding process. But to someone with DnD play traditions hardwired into his brain, it's disconcerting and disorienting. He sees me break the boundaries of 'proper play' time and again (of course in his view what players do doesn't count, he'll see me as responsible for allowing them their actions like a good little DnD DM should be), and just can't seem to wrap his head around what other boundaries might be there that would help him find his feet again.

I've tried suggesting to him to think of his PC as a protagonist in a story. I've suggested to him to think in chapters or scenes. "Scenes?" he said and the corners of his mouth turned down. Like in a movie, or novel, I suggested. He slightly shook his head and clammed up. He does read genre novels and he does watch genre films... he just can't seem to see any connection between characters even in a DnD novel (which for some strange reason he enjoys reading) and characters in a DnD game.
We've told him that we think of his PC as played by certain movie actors in the "movie of our game". He smiled (not unhappily) at Humphrey Bogart and seemed to like Max von Sydow a lot. But it's not giving him any boundaries to work with, and I don't think he can get anywhere further without clear boundaries to follow.

Does that make any sense? :)

And I just remembered why I keep thinking that there may be a way through to the turtle player. It's to do with a scenario I ran about three or four months ago, in which I as the GM transgressed all sorts of boundaries and rules of your group's game contract, by throwing the players into not only a scenario I'd prepared without telling them a word about, but in one sense into different characters as well. I took a big risk doing that, if my players had resented it (as they might well have been in their right to), it could have seriously damaged GM-player trust at my table. As things played out, it mostly worked out. I succeeded to draw everyone in, most importantly (for our present purpose here) and for the first time the turtle as well.

At the time I had five players, all of them 'inherited' from the other GM, who was running a heavy-Gamist high-level DnD game with lots of cool challenging combat and some (mostly abstracted) politics, but (at the time) hardly any in-character roleplay at the table. I'd been running my game for maybe three months and was getting frustrated. I'd been doing my best to offer the group tactical combat challenges, which on the whole was working nicely although PC casualties were too high for my taste. The group zoomed through my scenarios at top Gamist speed, interlaced with situations where the turtle bogged them down to discuss 'terrible thoughts' of his. At the tactical level, I was thrilled at being challenged as a GM like I'd never been before. But there was something missing.

I was missing in-character interaction. Some of the PCs had clear star potential, and as I gradually found out, two of my players (one of them the other GM with the then heavy-Gamist game) were as keen on in-character roleplay as I was. On the few occasions I dared offer roleplaying opportunities and challenges to the group (with a deep breath and almost chickening out of it every time), incredible scenes were created. That was the good bit. The not so good bit was that the other three players were left out. Completely. At one point one guy sat there flicking through books while roleplaying was going on, and another kept checking his phone for text messages. The turtle player AIR just sat there staring into space. According to him he was making a point of not listening to any of the roleplaying because his PC wasn't there.

I decided I had had enough. I had been thinking of introducing some form of dream/time travel to the campaign, but hadn't yet discussed it with the group. My ideas on how it would work or how important it might become to the game were pretty inchoate, but I had a vision of a first scenario to try it out, a massacre between elves and humans thousands of years ago when a diplomatic meeting just after a bloody and protracted war had gone horribly wrong. So I sketched a rough idea of how I thought the massacre might have been started, did rudimentary DND stats for my NPCs in case of combat (which I didn't really expect, but you never know), and created an NPC escort for the young prince of a human nation travelling into the elven forest to meet with his elven bride.
I made each escort an 'echo' of a PC: a character that would work with the PC's stats, had the PC's name and a station at the court that 'felt right' to me - right in view of the PC the player had created, and what I felt they might enjoy playing. I typed and printed a brief paragraph for each NPC to offer each player a bit of backstory and a motivation in the scenario to use if they wanted.

I also asked each player to give me an idea for a "waking-up moment", which described as the most powerful emotion or memory that they could think of for their PC. All players gave me some kind of suggestion. The turtle actually e-mailed a nightmarish, chilling scene about being pulled from a heap of corpses by an ugly orc when he was a young boy. He was reluctant at first to let the other players read it, but posted it on our campaign boards after I encouraged him and awarded him story XP for it. (The way he wrote it, it seemed to indicate that the scene ended just as the orc was proceeding to rape the boy, but he doesn't appear to have intended that.)

When the players arrived I told them I'd determine seating arrangements that night because I was "going to be evil". What I most wanted to achieve with this was break up the two 'factions' at my table to help break habitual patterns. Usually the in-character roleplayers had drifted together at the left end and non-roleplayers at the right end of my table. Also of course, having read my Machiavelli, I knew that those unsettled are more easily led...

Everyone took their allotted seats like good little GM-led players, each rolled one Will save as I asked, and without further explanation I started my intro with the sun setting behind the trees and "'the servants" setting up "the prince's tent" and rolling out carpets in a nice spot by the brook to sit on for dinner. There hadn't been any servants or princes apparent in the campaign region up to that point, in fact as far ass anyone knew there might not be any left in the world because human lands had been overrun by orcs several generations ago and the few free humans left were hiding away in refugee camps in the Elven forest; but no one objected or said anything. Everyone was sitting completely still as they listened. I told them what year it was, that the war against the elves had justed ended, who each of them were, told them to use their PCs's stats and handed out their character notes.
There were a few minutes of utter, stunned silence from the players, during which I had the prince appear and provide some irrelevant dinner chatter and then retire. During this I had the prince 'put his foot in it' on two occasions, triggering glimpses of visions in two NPC-PCs that were actually fragments of memory of the real PCs. When one of the players responded and played her NPC's unrequited love for the prince (who the NPC had grown up with), I let her experience her full waking-up moment and gave her a choice: "You are hovering on the brink. You can remain in this pleasant dream, or you can return to much darker, more painful, but real world." She decided to return.

An inaudible sigh rippled around the table. Suddenly people felt they knew what was going on. From that instant on, roleplaying erupted. People were getting into character, first their NPC-PC and then, as other PCs helped them remember, decided whether or not to be "awakened" - in fact, two of them decided their PCs would prefer to stay in the less harrowing dream than face the grim reality of their own lives again.

In that session, no one was left out of the roleplaying, and no one wanted to sit and discuss 'terrible thoughts'. The turtle played his role as the prince's bodyguard religiously, hovered around him, evacuated him when things between two "awakened" PCs and their hot-headed elven NPC-PC friend grew tense and was every inch a noble, dedicated bodyguard.

He has loved playing the role that I assigned him - he did ignore half of my typed notes on the NPC "because I didn't like them", he said; but that's perfectly fine with me, in fact it's great: that night it felt like he made the game his own, and he enjoyed it and contributed to everyone's fun.

He has had a similar, more highly profiled scene as the prince's bodyguard in the scenario we last played - that's the scene I posted about earlier. That scene was set about ten years in time before the elven-massacre scenario I'm describing in this post: the prince was still a little boy and the war with the elves was on. The way the turtle played that scene and wrote about it later in his character's chronicles of the scenario, it laid the basis for the loyal, eternally patient bodyguard somewhat jaded by the young adult prince's continuous lightheaded chatter that the NPC-PC would have grown into ten years later and that he'd played before.

It was almost as if by dictating a character he should play, and by sending the group back into their own past, so to speak, I was taking the load of responsibility and risk off him and allowed him to expand and be creative and actually roleplay.
This last bit is my interpretation of things and I may be horribly wrong, as I've said it's difficult to talk to him about his views and wishes. But it makes me kind of hopeful that we may yet develop a common frame of reference that will allow him to expand into my game and do stuff he enjoys that we others can live and play with, rather than sit around refusing to engage and talk "terrible thoughts".

In any case it convinces me that the way to solve our common problem, if there is one, isn't ignoring him and isn't merely stifling his bog-down tactics.
I can stifle his planning to some extent by setting time limits for player planning discussions (which players would agree to because our bi-weekly game time slot is only about 3 hours, and which he'd accept anyway because he thinks that as GM I have that kind of right), but it isn't good for the atmosphere at the table: I want to be able to relax control to invite players' creativity, not increase control. In order to be able to rely control, I feel I have to offer the turtle ways of doing other stuff he enjoys: distract him and invite him, rather than curb him. The more he is involved in actually playing, the less time I'm hoping he'll need to spend sitting behind his non-risk boundary fence caught in his own game of 'terrible thoughts', and catching other players in it.

Cool, you've given me a lot of new information to digest and it sounds like in the process you're starting to come up with ideas of your own.

A lot of this is starting to sound more like classic Turtle after all. Instead of saying "I do [my character does] nothing," your turtle is doing nothing by virtue of never being satisfied with a proposed ccourse of action. Which is even worse, because as you say it drags others into inertia in the process.

Teasing out the cause and effect would be interesting, if you could figure out how to do it. Is he perpetually delaying actions because he keeps thinking of alternatives and can't get them out of his mind? Or is he afraid of making decisions, and just using thinking of additional alternatives as a way of delaying or avoiding doing so? Several details (such as that he's able and willing to act when clear guidelines are in place) suggest the latter. That this behavior affects his pizza-ordering as well as gaming suggests that the ultimate cause does not stem from gaming (such as bad experiences in past games), unlike the classic "turtle" syndrome.

However, indecision is also something we all experience at times and can all sympathize with. You might want to look into some of the recent research on decision-making (I'll help you track it down if you want; I heard of it from reports in the general news media) that appears to show that after a certain point, adding more options to choose from not only make the choice harder (obviously), but they also make the chooser less satisfied with the choice once it's been made, which goes against the common notion that more choices always leads to more satisfaction from getting to "have it your way." I mention this to suggest that if your turtle is affected by this more than most people, it might be worthwhile to consider how he reacts when decisions between limited alternatives. This is to say, choosing A, B, or C rather than "what do you want to do now."

None of this, though, explains the balor incident, which is why I went off on a tangent looking for another theory in my previous post. You've given a lot of information and I'll have to think it over some more to see what other suggestions I can come up with. Thanks for all the data, and stay tuned!

- Walt

StalkingBlue wrote: The turtle actually e-mailed a nightmarish, chilling scene.... He was reluctant at first to let the other players read it, but posted it on our campaign boards after I encouraged him and awarded him story XP for it.

I've been debating posting a similar mechanic. I ran a game for a group, many years ago, who were fountains of ideas - to the point of bringing play to a halt as they debated courses of action. I told them I was going to assign time limits, and that when the limit expired, events would simply begin to take place, with or without their actions.

Fortunately, they were happy with this (recognizing the problem of endless debate), helped me keep an eye on the clock, and everything worked well.

However, I'm not sure if a time limit would constitute extra pressure on Mr. Turtle in a manner that would help him break out of his shell, as opposed to in a manner that would leave him yet more defensive - "I hunker down out of the way because I haven't had time to prepare for every possibility", instead of "I know I cannot foresee every possibility so I'll act and se how it comes out".

Good point, James ... and stalkingblue actually mentioned earlier that the player would be uncomfortable with time pressures. The mechanic I suggested doesn't need to be used so forcefully. You could play it that there's no in-game consequence to taking longer to decide - just a reward for quicker decisions.

From there it's up to the players to come up with their own balancing point that they're comfortable with.

Thanks Walt, it feels to me like we're talking about the same guy now. :)
I'm going to give you a couple more examples below.

--In fact after writing most of this post I've reached a conclusion about one horrible problem we have that I hadn't seen so clearly before. I'm leaving all my thought process in, so you can see where I'm going from and maybe glean more data on the way. --

Walt Freitag wrote: A lot of this is starting to sound more like classic Turtle after all. Instead of saying "I do [my character does] nothing," your turtle is doing nothing by virtue of never being satisfied with a proposed ccourse of action. Which is even worse, because as you say it drags others into inertia in the process.

Walt Freitag wrote: Teasing out the cause and effect would be interesting, if you could figure out how to do it. Is he perpetually delaying actions because he keeps thinking of alternatives and can't get them out of his mind? Or is he afraid of making decisions, and just using thinking of additional alternatives as a way of delaying or avoiding doing so? Several details (such as that he's able and willing to act when clear guidelines are in place) suggest the latter.

Walt Freitag wrote: That this behavior affects his pizza-ordering as well as gaming suggests that the ultimate cause does not stem from gaming (such as bad experiences in past games), unlike the classic "turtle" syndrome.

Walt Freitag wrote: ...after a certain point, adding more options to choose from ...also make the chooser less satisfied with the choice once it's been made...

Walt Freitag wrote: I mention this to suggest that if your turtle is affected by this more than most people, it might be worthwhile to consider how he reacts when decisions between limited alternatives. This is to say, choosing A, B, or C rather than "what do you want to do now."

Walt Freitag wrote: None of this, though, explains the balor incident, which is why I went off on a tangent looking for another theory in my previous post. You've given a lot of information and I'll have to think it over some more to see what other suggestions I can come up with.

Walt Freitag wrote: Thanks for all the data, and stay tuned!

- Walt

James, hix, thanks for reading and commenting.

I've already once set a time limit for a planning dicussion - AIR it was fifteen minutes for something fairly minor and straightforward. No progress was made until I gave them a time warning, "You've got five minutes left," after which a plan was settled on almost in the next breath.

It's not a technique I'd want to introduce as standard game protocol though. It might work if my game ran on a Gamist-only, combat-only level, which it doesn't. I want to encourage freedom and creativity, both in dealing with challenges and in developing characters and creating moments of dramatic, heroic story. The fact that we are limited to a three-hours time slot already isn't good for that approach. Slicing the game into time windows allotted to specific activities (even if it's only one activity that causes this to happen) strikes me as too GM-intrusive for the play style I'm aiming for.

Ok, let me draw up my list of priorities as I currently see it, with notes on possible solutions wher apparent.

1. Can't allow him to dominate the shared imagination space 'from the outside' with his balors and twisted, unworkable nightmares.
Possible solutions: Nothing specific in sight yet - but I've only just hit on the problem. May involve working both with him to stop doing whatever it is he does, and with the other players to defend our SIS against his balors. In the final analysis, if I can't solve this with him at the table, get him off my table.

2. Want to limit the time he wastes on talking in circles and infecting other players with his do-not-engage approach.
Possible solutions: Setting time limits can work if used occasionally and with good reason, but too much of that would be destructive for other dimensions of the game.
Talking to him more may help. He is aware that he likes talking ideas a lot, and is prone to using up more time with that than is appropriate in my short game sessions. He'd like to have longer time slots for my game but due to our individual schedules that's not realistic at present.

3. Would like to show him ways to get into the shared imagination space by playing in it and starring in it. Like he did in the scenes he played as bodyguard/future bodyguard to the NPC prince.
Possible solutions: Not sure. He'd like to return to times and places where he can be the prince's bodyguard again, I'm sure. Might happen, but it's not likely to dominate the game. I have several more ideas for possible scenarios with the PCs 'hosted' by other NPCs in other times and other places. This might turn out to help him enter the SIS more, OTOH it might also cause him to become disoriented and clamped-down again because it's opening up additional options.

Walt Freitag wrote:

He doesn't twist feedback, he ignores it.

If this is the considered result of careful analysis on your part, then I'll accept it. You have a lot more data to go on than I do. But the balor example in particular sounds to me like negative feedback is increasing his resolve for a particular belief or course of action when it should be decreasing it:

Walt Freitag wrote: I said I didn't think this was the main issue, though, because so far the evidence doesn't appear to show that he's deliberately charging into the boundaries just because they're there (my original theory); more like he's blundering into the boundaries because his social compass is out of whack. That's why the issue of how he handles social feedback seems, to me, important.

BTW Ron while your "trust Walt" advice initially seemed rather condescending to StalkingBlue when I read it earlier, I now see what you mean - Walt's a smart (and perceptive) guy! >:)

SB & me, his 2 GMs, have discussed the Turtle player interminably and tried various approaches, without success and I feel without understanding either. This thread is definitely helping me see things in a new light. Even where SB has had trouble communicating what's actually happening, the ensuing misunderstandings & lengthy corrections have been very instructive.

We and other players have discussed playing some heavy-Narrativist games without him, but I guess what we want is to be able to play our mostly-Gamist games along with him, and have everyone benefit from and enjoy the experience. Too often it seems we get occasional flashes of enjoyment isolated in seas of frustration, and we know that balance needs to change. Life's too short.

Hiya,

I'm glad the moderator-comment had a positive effect. I hope as well that everyone can see that we are dealing with a certain amount of emotional pain in this particular group, which in all cases tends to make people a little defensive.

With that in mind, I hope that my following point might be accepted as more of a consensual surgical strike rather than a hostile rapier thrust.

S'mon, you wrote,

I guess what we want is to be able to play our mostly-Gamist games along with him, and have everyone benefit from and enjoy the experience. Too often it seems we get occasional flashes of enjoyment isolated in seas of frustration, and we know that balance needs to change.

Ron Edwards wrote: ... then perhaps he shouldn't be in your group at all.

How about a direct dose of honesty?

"Uh oh, it looks like that goblin's going off to set something on us! Probably a balor, knowing this place..."
"Umm, no, he's running away from the massive carnage you guys are creating in here."

"We should scry this guy 24/7 for 2 weeks to figure out what elaborate defenses he has in place."
"Umm, he isn't really all that worried about being attacked right now. He has a guard or two but that's about it."

No, it's not a perfect solution, it's actually quite far from it. I think it does some harm to a Gamist game in that you are reducing the option space and making choices easier by giving "free" information. It reduces the challenge. It reduces options.

But.

You should be able to knock down these huge obstacles he's erecting until his "terrible thoughts" are more manageable and you can be all encouraging and say "Well, yeah, that could be happening, but that's not too big to deal with, is it?" It should at least leapfrog the interminable waiting and dithering. Once the game's ACTUAL parameters are revealed, he might start to come around and realize "Gosh, maybe the DM is serious in wanting to help me have fun." Long shot? Yeah, probably, but you gotta try.

Hi Jaik - this is a fair point, but if I _notice_ he's being paranoid I'll often tell him so - he doesn't like it & it doesn't seem to make much difference once he's fixated on an idea*. In the scrying case, the way 3.5e rules work the attempt would probably have failed & only served to alert the scryee. The only thing I haven't tried is incorporating his ideas, ie 'making them right' in the game - but the gameworld he envisages seems so nightmarishly twisted and, more important, _nonsensical_ to me, that I don't want to go there.

*Also,often the only way to get through to him would be to give him all the info for free - in my intrigue-heavy game that basically eliminates the Gamist challenge, which is what he's there for in the first place.

For me, this thread has been fascinating for the simple reason that (at least in my experience), "turtles" are usually not funsuckers who can destroy an evening's game. When I GM, I do my best to treat turtles as realistically as possible, which means that (at best) inaction is rewarded with inaction and (at worst) inaction results in failure and/or defeat.

Being a GM is work enough, albeit a labor of love. For my money, it is not the GM's job to engage the players, it is the GM's job to give the players a backdrop for them to engage themselves. If the players decide to switch from my prepared scenario, so be it-- it's time to wing it (which can be very liberating as a GM and which usually provides the best role playing interactions IMHO). At least they've taken the initiative and used their brains. I'd rather the players be hungry than spoon-fed, and I think that the best players would agree.

The part of this saga that I find most curious is the "contagious" nature of the turtlism at issue. Assuming that the other players are not turtles themselves, hopefully the rewards of activity and the penalties of inactivity will cure them of their turtlism and they can go back to being proactive. In real life, good things rarely come to the passive-- the dice helps those who help themselves (NOTE-no sacrilege intended).

Sorry that this has turned into a bit of a rant. In the end, I agree with Ron--if he's killing your game, either accept its death or ask him to leave. You can still be friends (if you ever really were).

Good gaming!

Andy

andy wrote: The part of this saga that I find most curious is the "contagious" nature of the turtlism at issue. Assuming that the other players are not turtles themselves, hopefully the rewards of activity and the penalties of inactivity will cure them of their turtlism and they can go back to being proactive...

Jaik wrote: How about a direct dose of honesty?

S'mon--

The Dark Side is quicker, easier, but not stronger....

To be blunt, you should not care if your Turtle gets frustrated if he is not swaying you to his Dark Side. If you follow your own lead and he doesn't like it, he can either change or leave.

You are not the custodian of his enjoyment.

Andy

andy wrote: When I GM, I do my best to treat turtles as realistically as possible, which means that (at best) inaction is rewarded with inaction and (at worst) inaction results in failure and/or defeat.

andy wrote: The part of this saga that I find most curious is the "contagious" nature of the turtlism at issue. Assuming that the other players are not turtles themselves, hopefully the rewards of activity and the penalties of inactivity will cure them of their turtlism and they can go back to being proactive. In real life, good things rarely come to the passive-- the dice helps those who help themselves (NOTE-no sacrilege intended).

I'm not claiming that I'm the custodian of anyone's enjoyment.
(Nor is S'mon as far as I can see.)

I have stated clearly that if I remain unable to solve certain problems with this player, I might drop him from my game. I definitely am considering that option, as I've posted more than once in this thread.

However, the reason I started this thread and am still posting to it and reading is that I'm looking for solutions to a number of problems I've identified above. Here's my post with the problems-and-sketchy-ideas-for-solutions checklist again.

I'd appreciate specific input on those items if you can give it, or questions if anything needs clarifying.

1. Can't allow him to dominate the shared imagination space 'from the outside' with his balors and twisted, unworkable nightmares.
Possible solutions: Nothing specific in sight yet - but I've only just hit on the problem. May involve working both with him to stop doing whatever it is he does, and with the other players to defend our SIS against his balors. In the final analysis, if I can't solve this with him at the table, get him off my table.

2. Want to limit the time he wastes on talking in circles and infecting other players with his do-not-engage approach.
Possible solutions: Setting time limits can work if used occasionally and with good reason, but too much of that would be destructive for other dimensions of the game.
Talking to him more may help. He is aware that he likes talking ideas a lot, and is prone to using up more time with that than is appropriate in my short game sessions. He'd like to have longer time slots for my game but due to our individual schedules that's not realistic at present.

3. Would like to show him ways to get into the shared imagination space by playing in it and starring in it. Like he did in the scenes he played as bodyguard/future bodyguard to the NPC prince.
Possible solutions: Not sure. He'd like to return to times and places where he can be the prince's bodyguard again, I'm sure. Might happen, but it's not likely to dominate the game. I have several more ideas for possible scenarios with the PCs 'hosted' by other NPCs in other times and other places. This might turn out to help him enter the SIS more, OTOH it might also cause him to become disoriented and clamped-down again because it's opening up additional options.

One important thing to note here is that we're now two of the turtle's GMs posting to this thread. Just to clarify, while S'mon and I agree on a number of things, that doesn't mean that everything S'mon says necessarily reflects my thoughts or vice versa.

For instance, generally speaking I don't think that our turtle's social compass is out of whack. I also definitely don't feel that the turtle is provoking me into booting him from my game. To my mind the problem is both more serious and more complex than that. I have analysed my take on the turtle in great detail in earlier posts, and I hold to that.

StalkingBlue--

I was going to regale you with war stories of turtles that my group has had over the years, including those who left and those who stayed. As I alluded to in my first post, turtles are not usually my problem players-- I have far more "issues" with power gamers/rules lawyers. However, I realized that there was one common theme that flows through each successful resolution of player problems....direct confrontation of the issue.

And I do mean direct. Much of this thread has been very good advice as to how to get inside your turtle's head and modify his behavior by adjusting your reward system to meet his perceived needs. For players on the edge, this is the preferred course of dealing.

Not so for the extreme cases. Direct confrontation of the problems and the issues with him in a one-on-one, out-of-game conversation may be the only way to deal with him short of summary ejection. It is obvious from your choice of powerful words ("twisted, unworkable") that you are extremely frustrated by his conduct-- this is what Walt picked up on early in this thread. Sit him down and tell him directly without loaded language, but also without mincing words. Explain that the game cannot go on as it is, and that unless some middle ground is reached, you will have to eject him(which you don't want to do).

Make your social contract explicit, not implicit.

If he won't participate, then to hell with him-- you gave it your best shot.

I'll shut up now.

Andy

andy wrote: Not so for the extreme cases. Direct confrontation of the problems and the issues with him in a one-on-one, out-of-game conversation may be the only way to deal with him short of summary ejection. It is obvious from your choice of powerful words ("twisted, unworkable") that you are extremely frustrated by his conduct-- this is what Walt picked up on early in this thread. Sit him down and tell him directly without loaded language, but also without mincing words.

andy wrote: Explain that the game cannot go on as it is, and that unless some middle ground is reached, you will have to eject him(which you don't want to do).

andy wrote: I was going to regale you with war stories of turtles that my group has had over the years, including those who left and those who stayed.

StalkingBlue--

While I applaud your sensitivity, I think that it will ultimately provide an insurmountable roadblock. Perhaps the best way to deal with your turtle is to explain what he needs to do and to avoid doing in order to stay in the game. His quivering response is in itself a defensive behavior that has influenced your actions. I think that you owe him, your players and yourself the unvarnished (but politely-phrased) truth.

What do you like about gaming with him? What are his positives? Why is having him at a game better than having an empty chair?

Back to my day job.

Andy

Hmm, I haven't read every post in the thread, but I have a question: is it possible this player has a psychological problem? From your description, it almost sounds like he is paralyzed by fear. If he has a serious problem, you may need to decide if it's really your duty to deal with it. It's all fine and dandy to be inclusive, but when inclusiveness starts to destroy your enjoyment of a hobby, it's time turn around.

Hopefully this is a misread of the situaion.

Frank

andy wrote: Perhaps the best way to deal with your turtle is to explain what he needs to do and to avoid doing in order to stay in the game.

andy wrote: His quivering response is in itself a defensive behavior that has influenced your actions. I think that you owe him, your players and yourself the unvarnished (but politely-phrased) truth.

andy wrote: What do you like about gaming with him? What are his positives? Why is having him at a game better than having an empty chair?

StalkingBlue--

Actually, your thread asks what you can do to engage your turtle and improve your game. Ask yourself (and the Forge) not what you can do for him, ask instead what he needs to do for you.


Similarly, while you have identified the things that he has done that you have liked, I'm not sure you've identified exactly what he contributes to your game on a game-in/game-out basis. Other than sporadic fits of role-playing, what does he bring to the table?

He's a professional salesman--as such he is very adept at provoking the response that he wants. Something tells me that, with concrete expectations from you (akin to sales goals or quotas), he could rise to the occaision and give you what you need from him.

OK. Now I really will try to shut up.

Andy

Jeez, I feel like I'm trying to psychoanalyze this guy on the basis of a few posts... but he sounds really anxious. I wonder if a lot of his behavior -- the anxious chatter, the refusal to engage, the intense reaction to criticism -- is related to a form of social anxiety. He may not be as frightened for his character as he is afraid of looking foolish or inept in front of other players. This is, of course, a vicious circle, because the more anxious and obstructive he gets, the more negative feedback he gets, which drives his anxiety up another notch.

The easiest way to figure out if this is the problem is to try a one-on-one session with him (if you're willing to invest that amount of time and energy into the problem). If it's social anxiety, he should loosen up considerably when it's just the two of you.

Hello,

Interestingly, I'm getting the idea that this fellow is infecting this thread, not only his group.

S'mon and Stalkingblue - this is the fourth page of discussion. It may be time to stop chewing on it verbally here, and to process what people have contributed. I suggest that your previous objections to any suggestions should be set aside. Just put all the suggestions together and let'em bake for a while.

Best,
Ron

StalkingBlue wrote: One important thing to note here is that we're now two of the turtle's GMs posting to this thread. Just to clarify, while S'mon and I agree on a number of things, that doesn't mean that everything S'mon says necessarily reflects my thoughts or vice versa.

For instance, generally speaking I don't think that our turtle's social compass is out of whack. I also definitely don't feel that the turtle is provoking me into booting him from my game.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

Interestingly, I'm getting the idea that this fellow is infecting this thread, not only his group.

S'mon and Stalkingblue - this is the fourth page of discussion. It may be time to stop chewing on it verbally here, and to process what people have contributed. I suggest that your previous objections to any suggestions should be set aside. Just put all the suggestions together and let'em bake for a while.

Best,
Ron

DannyK wrote:
The easiest way to figure out if this is the problem is to try a one-on-one session with him (if you're willing to invest that amount of time and energy into the problem). If it's social anxiety, he should loosen up considerably when it's just the two of you.

Ok, let me barge in here and ask for a halt.

I'd like a pause in discussions as Ron has suggested, if for reasons of my own.

Walt, if you're still reading I'd still very much like to hear your response to my last analysis, the one in my posts that directly followed your last post including my preliminary checklist.
Please disregard the discussion that erupted after that, I think other people barging in here with sundry theories has muddied the waters again.
If you prefer, pm me about it.

StalkingBlue wrote: Please disregard the discussion that erupted after that, I think other people barging in here with sundry theories has muddied the waters again.
If you prefer, pm me about it.

It's closed now, folks. No more posts, please.

However, this topic is not dead and I look forward to a new thread after a little time elapses.

Best,
Ron