A lot of very elucidating discussion, at least for me, has taken place on the GM is God thread. Most of the conclusions in that thread seem to point back to the Social Contract as the basis for the Players' roles, the GM's role and any abuse of said roles in a particular group.

A question that I've split off from that thread, however, concerns how exactly to establish an explicit Social Contract within a group of gamers.

It's my experience that scribbling down Robert's Rules for Table-top Play amongst a group doesn't quite fly. For all the trouble that it would save players and GM down the road, I've known few groups who could stand taking a half-hour to actually discuss how they want to play together and interact socially.

Furthermore, the mutable nature of the Social Contract, IME, often means that when such explicit rules come to the fore they won't likely even be valid.

So, what's best in your own experience? Letting the SC develop on the fly or laying down some ground rules prior to play?

And what has worked (and especially what hasn't worked) in setting up the Social Contract of your groups? How useful is discussing SC up front? Any ideas on good ways to do that?

Thanks for all the input, especially on the GM is God thread. Everyone's different perspectives on both what constitutes GM abuse and what potentially causes it helped me amend my own ideas of the social dynamics at work in the average gaming group. It's a fairly complex issue.

I appreciate any insightful replies to this latest round of questions.

S.

quot;Scripty"
Is this statement rhetorical or have we been doing this on this thread?

I always find it difficult to respond to these "how do you create the social contract" sorts of threads, because they don't really mean that.

What you must mean, really, is "how do you discuss inserting specific game-related elements into the existing social contract, in an effective but inoffensive manner?" The social contract exists; it is already controling interactions between the people in the room (or over the Internet) from the moment interaction is anticipated. It tells us things like "Hi, how are you?" is a better opening statement than, "So, can I sleep with your girlfriend?"

Further, if you tried to define all the elements of the social contract through discussion, you would very quickly offend people. Here are some possible elements for your social contract:

• Don't steal things from my home when you come over to play.• Don't make a pass at my girlfriend/wife.• Don't be mean to my kids while you're visiting.

Those seem obvious principles of human interaction; yet those principles of human interaction are part of the social contract--or not, depending on how the group is functioning. I've seen them all broken in gaming groups. Yet if you were to name those as your expectations in terms of social contract, most people would be offended that you would even mention it.

The vast bulk of the social contract operates at this level of the undiscussed. You can't easily write it, and you certainly can't possibly write all of it.

The game rules become part of the social contract to the degree that they define how the group comes to agreement about what they are imagining together. Those can be codified (although as I was pointing out to a freeformer this week, the fact that it's never been expressed doesn't mean it's not there). There are other aspects of how the game is played that you can add to the rules that seem more social than mechanical, but these are still game rules--and the mechanical rules are not less part of the social contract for being mechanical. Everything that has anything to do with the way people are interacting is defined within the social contract.

So what you're trying to do is not create a social contract, but specify elements within it that are not usually considered part of the rules of the game--e.g., in Monopoly, it does not say you're not permitted to visciously hurl dice at each other or set fire to the game board, but these are social contract elements that could have been mentioned in the game rules.

I think understanding this much is a first step to figuring out how to do what you want.

--M. J. Young

Scripty wrote: So, what's best in your own experience? Letting the SC develop on the fly or laying down some ground rules prior to play?

James, thanks for the reply. I'm relieved that your statement on the previous thread was more rhetorical in nature and not directed at me specifically.

Thanks for the link to Formless. It sounds like something I should definitely take a look at and will in the near future.

M. J. Young wrote: So what you're trying to do is not create a social contract, but specify elements within it that are not usually considered part of the rules of the game--e.g., in Monopoly, it does not say you're not permitted to visciously hurl dice at each other or set fire to the game board, but these are social contract elements that could have been mentioned in the game rules. I think understanding this much is a first step to figuring out how to do what you want.

Yokiboy wrote: Definitely the latter. I took a group of SIM and GAM players and introduced them to narrative roleplaying, without an explicit social contract it would never have worked. We still discussed things, and will probably mutate and change things as we go along, but everyone involved appreciated setting the correct expectations up front.

Prior to this most recent experience we gamed together for 1 1/2 years, and all seven of us had different goals, which made the whole thing a mess and a half! At least someone was always frustrated by the game not meeting his goals, when in fact we had never discussed the goal of gaming at all.

Scripty wrote: So, what's best in your own experience? Letting the SC develop on the fly or laying down some ground rules prior to play?

And what has worked (and especially what hasn't worked) in setting up the Social Contract of your groups? How useful is discussing SC up front? Any ideas on good ways to do that?

M. J. Young wrote: .. how do you discuss inserting specific game-related elements into the existing social contract, in an effective but inoffensive manner?

Yokiboy wrote: At least someone was always frustrated by the game not meeting his goals, when in fact we had never discussed the goal of gaming at all.

Because it I am now quite experienced at introducing new players to games featuring experienced players, I have developed the habit of starting a game with a little speech about what we are here to do and how to achieve it. I know think this is quite a useful device, becuase in fact the social contract might chnage in subtle ways depending on the genre or specifics of the game (like the degree of acceptable inter-character competetion, say). I suspect that many established groups have been playing together so long that this sort of thiing probably does not seem necessary, but I have grown to think of it as very useful.

Thanks, Bill, I think there are some real nuggets of wisdom in your post, though I'd like to see some of these points broken down to a practical (as opposed to theoretical) framework.

bcook1971 wrote: Using a one-page of rules is a good start. Also, stating an objective and a time limit are the hallmarks of any productive meeting.

bcook1971 wrote: In one sense, gaming is like politics: if you're explaining, you're losing. As in sales, what players want to know is how terms benefit them.

bcook1971 wrote: To me, one of the most important parts of running a gaming session is providing direction for play. This implies being clear on expectations for player input. You get those two things spelled out, (1) what we're doing and (2) how we do it, and you prepare the group for success. A word on discovery: it's ok to discover elements of the SIS; it's never ok to discover either of the two above. (IMO)

bcook1971 wrote: Are you planning on having a discussion with your group to suggest default handling of the listed issues? Is that the reason for asking about our experiences/approaches?

contracycle wrote: Because it I am now quite experienced at introducing new players to games featuring experienced players, I have developed the habit of starting a game with a little speech about what we are here to do and how to achieve it. I know think this is quite a useful device, becuase in fact the social contract might chnage in subtle ways depending on the genre or specifics of the game (like the degree of acceptable inter-character competetion, say).

Scripty wrote: Do you have (or can you point me to) an example of a one-page of rules? I've seen one-pages for settings in games like Sorcerer and used such devices in the past with mixed results. In terms of explicitly laying out some Creative Agenda/Social Contract issues, how effective have you found one-pages to be? And what are some of the approaches that you've taken that have yielded results?

Scripty wrote: I've been fished into one-too-many groups on the expectation that the SIS is a collaborative construct where players can have input and lend direction only to find that it wasn't the case. How many of us have had GMs ask, beg or cajole us for character backgrounds only to seen said backgrounds play little or no role in the campaign?

My follow-up on this pretty much rolls into what I asked earlier. What do you do, say or write to get these things across in a concise/positive manner?

Scripty wrote:
So, you typically start play with new players with a brief speech covering these issues. Is there anyway you could post what a typical speech would be like? I'm not expecting word-for-word, but maybe just some notes on the main points you cover and how you cover them. I'd really appreciate that.