Firstly some background for the game.

The game was played using Fantasy Grounds, an online tabletop program, and using Ventrilo for voice-over-internet, so that other than not seeing the other players, it's as close as possible to playing around a table, albeit with players on the other side of the world.

The game being run was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (2nd Edition), running the start of the epic The Enemy Within campaign. Because two of the players expressed a dislike for using pre-generated characters or having too much 'you start off knowing eachother' we went with standard character creation for the game.

The start of the session begins with the characters wanting to go to Place A (Altdorf), ostensibly for a huge quest being undertaken by a powerful noble. This is, however a red herring just to provide a reason for them all to be travelling the same way. All the characters were also told that while they had prior careers and professions, they were also all desiring 'adventure and excitement'.

Player A, mid 20s very strong roleplayer although actually one of the less experienced of the group, created a rogue/con artist type character (halfling rogue) who nevertheless had a huge curiosity speak and was very outgoing and charismatic IC, she also attempted to investigate/talk to both every player and every NPC she could.

Player B, mid 20s, created a Priest type character (initiate of Shallya for those who know the setting). The god she was particularly devoted to is the goddess of healing and while not a full priest and thus not bound by the full strictures of the cult, had decided her character would be both a pacifist and a zealot for pacifism. I'd pointed out that that was very incongruous within the setting (to the level she wanted to play it) and she insisted that that's what she wanted to play. Of note, she has a habit of playing these types of characters to the frustration of both herself and those around her, but I only found that out after she'd created the character (other people who'd gamed more with her informed me of it). Made no real attempt to interact with any of the NPCs or the plot and barely interacted with the rest of the party, mostly with Player D's character.

Player C, mid 20s, while I've experienced him roleplaying better in the past, decided to create a total lone-wolf type and was also hands down the most effective combatant in the party (A dwarven Pit Fighter). Unknown to me until half way through the session he'd decided that his character 'disliked humans' who made up half the party. Made absolutely no attempt to roleplay with the other players or any of the NPCs and resisted any of their attempts with monosylabic answers.

Player D, most experienced roleplayer in the group, created a mostly independent character whose role (Human Roadwarden) is to ensure the safety of the roads and travelways of the Empire (the setting). Mostly interacted with Player B, some interaction with player C and minimal interaction with the npcs or plot.

A number of key problems occured in the game.

Player A is dyslexic and despite her having asked twice, Players B and C continued to primarily do all of their roleplaying and actions via the chat interface in Fantasy Grounds. This resulted in her missing things and getting frustrated because she, Player D and myself were all using voice and players B and C were primarily typing. Now and then B and C would react using voice (and they certainly have no problem using it as we chat socially via it often) but then slip back into typing. Player A also became more and more frustrated as the game went on as her attempts to interact with the other players were often ignored, or delayed overly-long as player b and c would type, by which time other things had moved on.

Player B pushed her pacifism and, I think, because of OOC relationships with Players C and D this resulted in them attempting to comply with her wishes and do such things as capture murdering cannibalistic mutants that were attempting to kill the players (one in particular that they had witnessed eating a child she insisted should be rehabilitated and not killed). This in spite of the fact that Players C and D were playing warrior-types with absolutely no problem fighting (C was in fact almost soleyly created around fighting). The finale of this came when the group reached a point at which they could separate and she left the others because 'it's obvious no one else shares my beliefs'. Note, this is not leaving the group, she still apparently wants to roleplay this character and have fun but 'it's what my character would do'.

Player C was incredibly taciturn throughout the session. As said above I found out half way through he'd decided his character disliked humans and so said he had no reason to hang around with the others at the point they could separate (for those who know the campaign, when they reached Altdorf during Mistaken Identity). He expressed absolutely no interest at all in the major plot hook (listed below) nor any roleplay about it.

Player D was probably the next most engaged after Player B, however, on getting the major plot hook (during a fight with mutants they discovered a body of a man who was the spitting image of Player D's character and who also had a letter on his body stating that he was the inheritor of a noble estate and fortune if he wanted to claim to be someone he wasn't) then pretty much dropped the ball on it as far as involving the others. Firstly he took the letter off the others, showed no interest, surprise or any curiosity at all in how this person was his exact copy and, when they asked further and eventually found out about the inheritance letter (he had to get someone else to read it out for him), he claimed that the dead body was his brother (A lie) and that it was none of their business.

Taking the all  above into account, I'd not have been surprised if, after they all went their separate ways they'd all said that for whatever reason they hadn't clicked as a group (apart from player A there was very little in-party roleplay, and player A eventually all but gave up on trying to roleplay with the others as they barely responded or engaged). However, they insist that they had a great time and want to continue.

One of the problems I kow is that player A and player B are very much in the school of 'the wizard comes into the tavern and hires us to go do a quest' so they bought into the initial red herring to get them to the city and believe that that must absolutely be what the plot is and therefore i'll crowbar them all into an adventuring party. I had, however, said that WFRP is the anti-D&D of fantasy games, and that there isn't going to be an NPC forcing them together so the onus was on them to make their group work and come up with reasons to want to adventure with the others, something that blatantly didn't happen. When I asked at the end of the session (I ended it about two hours earlier than I was planning to because of feeling drained and frustrated) if they actually wanted to play as this group of characters, they all said yes but B, C and D followed up with variations along 'but my character wouldn't hang out with X or want to be interested in Y etc.)

After having spent a lot of hours setting up a wiki for the game, scanning the handouts for them to work digitally, doing images and maps etc. etc. I'm left utterly drained from a session in which it feels as if I had to drag three of the players through, watch them ignore huge plot hooks and then at the end have the entire party separate with no way to get them back short of forcing them into the same room IC through GM fiat (something I dislike doing) and, on current evidence, having this happen again and again.

Had it not been that I want to run this particular campaign (I've run it twice before, it's excellent and i've never had a problem getting people to buy into the initial plot hooks) then it would be less of an issue, but four pcs going totally separate ways with no ic intention of meeting up again of their own volition isn't good in any game.

Thoughts, comments, criticisms, help wanted as right now I feel i've wasted my time and ended up hitting my head on a wall of 'my character wouldn't do that' style comments, something that got said a couple of times during and after, Player A is frustrated and disappointed, and player B, C and D apparently enjoyed it, but I can't run another session of trying to drag roleplaying blood from a stone.

Edit Player D mostly interacted with B, some interaction with A.

Ouch. I've never played WFRP, though I've heard good things about the game in general -- it's apparently great for hardcore, gritty setting evoked in rich detail -- and about The Enemy Within in particular. Nor have I played voice-over-internet, so I can't advise you from a standpoint of vast experience, but some thoughts come to mind:

1) You say you've playing not only this game but this specific campaign before, but have you ever playing them over the internet before? My own experience of running two campaigns play-by-post, and everything I've heard about both chat and voice-over-internet, is that it is damned hard to play a tabletop roleplaying game -- which is, duh, designed for people playing together physically around a tabletop -- with a group of people who aren't physically together and can't read each other's body language and facial expressions. There's a huge amount of feedback that we primates get non-verbally and it's a bitch to strip all that out of a social interaction. One dyslexic player and two who keep using typed chat is just agonizing icing on the cake of pain.

2) What's "standard character creation for the game"? In particular, I wonder if it gave room for the players to interact with each other, brainstorm together, bounce character ideas off each other, and then come up with a group of protagonists that really mesh -- not because the party coheres for "in-character" reasons (screw "in-character": the characters don't exist!) but because the real people playing together are all interested in each others' characters and want to interact. All my experience of roleplaying has taught me that when people come up with characters independently, neither the fictional characters nor the real people playing have an easy time coming together, but when everyone brainstorms as a group before setting pen to paper on an actual character sheet, the results are often awesome. And it sounds like you really, really need the "party" to cohere in this campaign, because there're aren't a lot of easy hooks like "you're all adventurers in a tavern, an old guy comes up to you with a map, you know the drill."

3) A pacifist in a Warhammer setting? That's not just incongrous, that's utterly disfunctional, along the lines of

radical disfunction wrote:
"I wanna play a space pirate!"
"But this is a film-noir game. I think..."
"Don't care! Space pirate!"
"But, you see, a private eye..."
"Ninja catgirl space pirate!"
"Oh, fine."

I think B and C are almost screaming kickers "I'm a pacifist!!!!", "I hate humans!!!!". It's almost saying explicitely "I'm not interested in the module, this is the issue I want to cover"

Hypothetically, lets say you change stuff and B finds a situation where some innocents are likely to die if she, say, doesn't knock someone out - not kill, but you know, isn't bopping someone violent? And for the dwarf, if he sticks with the group something dwarfy will be much more likely to be saved - but hell, he could perhaps do it alone and isn't that whats more important?

Mind you, perhaps she just wants to play a pacifist and - just play it, and play it. I'm cloudy on that subject, I'll leave it to someone else. Same for the dwarf - perhaps its just how it is, he doesn't want it tested, he just wants that.

You know those flags at the beach, the ones its safe to swim between - what responces do you want from players? What's between the flags? Or, if there aren't flags - perhaps the players are just 'swimming' at very different parts of the beach...they need a set of flags if they are to play/swim together. Damn, hope that analogy made sense!

My advice: tell them their characters DID go their separate ways just as the players said they should, and now they have to create a new party, brainstormed together this time as Sydney describes.  And if they won't, say goodbye, because it doesn't sound to me like its going to get any better.  Also, see if you can bar or disable the text chat function, no ifs buts or maybes.

What I would fear most is that the pacifism, and the human hatred, are essentially blocking strategies.  At any time the player can resist a plot point by pulling their blocking strategy out of the bag.  This is their "reason I don't have to care".  And the reason I think this is because of the collusion with the silly pacifism; they were not really doing "what their character would do" at all.

I think, everybody wants to be Han Solo.  The unsentimental semi-mercenary who loudly protests he is only doing it for the credits, but who has a heart of gold, really.  They want to be persuaded to work for the plot, the greater cause, against their nominal will.  Unfortunately this doesn't work; linear authors can force odd groups together, but when two players are effectively exerting a mutual repulsion, each demanding to be persuaded in-game by the other, all you get is a spiral of antagonism and recrimination.  And the GM cannot intervene effectively because they have no effective control over the characters.  It's really a demand that the game should be "all about me, please".  And when its not about me, I can block.

It is not and cannot be your job to psychoanalyse the characters and give them just the right pushes and pulls that they resolve their internal conflicts and pull together; indeed, in linear media that would be a whole story in its own right.  And it's not going to happen by accident unless the players themselves admit and agree that they WANT it to happen.  At the very least, the only conceivable way this game could be resumed IMO is if you pass the burden to the players explicitly.  OK, so you dislike humans; YOU tell ME why you keep hanging around with them.  OK so they don't share your beliefs; YOU tell ME why you stay with them then.  It would have been far better to have sorted this out before play began but if you have a natural breakpoint here, you might be able to perform some emergency surgery.

Player A seems the least problematic, being self motivated.  Player D looks complicated.  Clearly willing to play along both with the weird pacifism and using voice, but apparently unengaged plot-wise/world-wise.  I suspect player D may have a Plan, and you'd be better off knowing what it is sooner rather than later.  Player D also looks like a good candidate for taking an active leadership role; you might want to discuss this directly with Player D, and ask honestly for help in keeping the pack together.  If player D is experienced and has seen this all before, the plot he is apparently not responding to may be an insurance policy of sorts; knowing the characters are rather more likely to hang singly than together, he will have an opt out when things go sour, a private angle.  He might be banking momentum, as it were.

The main thing is, you have to make it abundantly clear that you are not their nursemaid or a dating agency, and that if their characters are going to get along it is up to them to make it so.

some random ideas...

why not ask, no, tell everyone that roleplaying (all interactions really) are to be done through voice, and that text is just for dice-rolling?

why not go back to char-gen, with all the players online, and ask everyone to give a reason why the character is part of the group?

the Enemy Within campaign has a terrible reputation for being very \\\"railroady\\\"... it\\\'s probably a good idea to work some character motivations in there somewhere, and also be prepared to have the characters wander off in some direction you hadn\\\'t foreseen

finally, it might be a good idea to talk to each of the players seperately to make sure they\\\'re really having a good time (and not, say, just saying so, while secretely hoping things will get better)

JC wrote: the Enemy Within campaign has a terrible reputation for being very \\\"railroady\\\"...

Sydney,

Well, it's really hard to compare play-by-post play, text chat play and voice chat play, as these are effectively three completely different mediums. Of the three, voice chat is as close to face to face play as you can get online - games designed for tabletop work generally as they would face to face, and communication doesn't suffer all that much (it requires everyone to recognize the limitations and be careful that everything comes through to everyone else, though).

However, I usually find it easier to play via voice chat with people I've met face to face before, or played with for a longer period online. And so...

Paul,

Give us more background, from before you actually started the session. Without broader context, people are shooting their advice blindly.

How did you arrange the game? Have you known the players before and have you met them face to face? Maybe you played with some of them before? What about the players - have they all known themselves well? You mention socializing online with some of them, but was it the case with everyone? How long and how well do you know yourself? Also, have you discussed your gaming preferences and expectations before the game, and made sure there's a clear consensus as to what everyone wants?

Anyway, you mention that you feel the time you invested into the game was wasted. I completely agree with you in this regard.

You say that you had an awful time, being frustrated, drained and all. If there's no fun for you in the game, there's no point forcing yourself to continue it, even if your players had a great time.

Never mind that from their point of view it could have been like: "I had my 15 minutes of fun, and it wasn't worse than my average game, so let's not talk about problems and let's tell the GM everything was cool, out of courtesy. He must have invested a lot of work into the game after all, and the others seemed to have a good time, too." I think such "dishonesty out of courtesy" is a somewhat common mentality in GM-centered groups playing games that offer uneven input, and I've even seen people glorifying such approach on various forums. Although I can't be certain, I think there is some possibility that it's a case here. And I don't think it would help the fun, as such approach invites the group to pretend problems don't exist rather than point them out and try to discuss and solve them together.

The thing is, the game you describe is a pile of problems the size of Mount Everest. You have four players, and each of them is trying to play his own game. This includes at least one player with obvious symptoms of "my guy" syndrome (namely, B). As you describe it, I don't even see a group playing a game - I see you running four separate games simultaneously. No surprise it's draining and frustrating.

Now, there is no such thing as a problem that can't be solved. People will suggest you a lot of solutions here, I'm sure of that. However, you need to ask yourself if this game is actually worth saving.

I say, screw the game.

Acknowledge that it really was a waste of time and move along. Such things do happen, and there's no point to prolong something that doesn't lead anywhere. Select those players you felt most comfortable playing with, and propose them to start something new, from scratch. This time make sure everyone is on the same page from the very beginning, and that everyone is willing to actively contribute to everyone else's fun all the time. And if something frustrates you, tell them, even if it stops the session - it's player's responsibility to make the game fun for you as much as it's your job to make it fun for them.

Sydney wrote:

JC wrote: the Enemy Within campaign has a terrible reputation for being very \\\"railroady\\\"...

Yeah, I've heard that too, but Paul said explicitly he made it work in the past. The term "railroad" gets used as a pejorative, but, you know what, I like trains. There's nothing wrong with a railroad as long as everyone knows that it's a railroad and is happy to be along for the ride -- which is where I think this group is not working.

while I put up a sizeable wiki on the empire, the game, the setting, maps etc I'm pretty sure at least two of them barely looked at it.

With this group I encouraged them to talk in advance, 3 of them made characters around the same time, one did it on a different day. Only one person threw me emails before the session to check on ideas etc

Filip wrote:

Give us more background, from before you actually started the session. Without broader context, people are shooting their advice blindly.

How did you arrange the game? Have you known the players before and have you met them face to face? Maybe you played with some of them before? What about the players - have they all known themselves well? You mention socializing online with some of them, but was it the case with everyone? How long and how well do you know yourself? Also, have you discussed your gaming preferences and expectations before the game, and made sure there's a clear consensus as to what everyone wants?

Filip wrote:
I say, screw the game.

Acknowledge that it really was a waste of time and move along. Such things do happen, and there's no point to prolong something that doesn't lead anywhere. Select those players you felt most comfortable playing with, and propose them to start something new, from scratch. This time make sure everyone is on the same page from the very beginning, and that everyone is willing to actively contribute to everyone else's fun all the time. And if something frustrates you, tell them, even if it stops the session - it's player's responsibility to make the game fun for you as much as it's your job to make it fun for them.

Sydney wrote:

When you say they made characters "around the same time," do you mean they did it together as a group? Or just on the same day but still separately without consulting each other?

And in any case, even if the whole group gets together and makes characters collaboratively with wonderful harmony but without you involved, they're kinda missing a key element!

I think, everybody wants to be Han Solo.  The unsentimental semi-mercenary who loudly protests he is only doing it for the credits, but who has a heart of gold, really.  They want to be persuaded to work for the plot, the greater cause, against their nominal will.  Unfortunately this doesn't work; linear authors can force odd groups together, but when two players are effectively exerting a mutual repulsion, each demanding to be persuaded in-game by the other, all you get is a spiral of antagonism and recrimination.  And the GM cannot intervene effectively because they have no effective control over the characters.  It's really a demand that the game should be "all about me, please".  And when its not about me, I can block.

Because two of the players expressed a dislike for using pre-generated characters or having too much 'you start off knowing eachother' we went with standard character creation for the game.

I want to echo what Ralph is saying, with a twist. As I read your horror story, Paul, I kept thinking, "Why wasn't Paul kicking their asses?"

I'm not saying it's your responsibility to make the game fun for everyone. I'm saying that the game seems to provide little or no support for certain things and it's someone's role to step and call the bullshit where they see it. The traditional model says that's the GM's job. I suspect WFRP probably expects that of the GM, too.

You seemed to be "hands off" for a lot of it, trying to let the players do what they will. That's fine if it's totally clear to the players up front. But if they don't take on their share of the responsibility, the game is gonna fall on its face -- and that happened.

From what I can tell, these players weren't trying to share responsibility for traditional GM tasks (getting everyone together, building situation, etc.). They expected you to do it. And I don't think you did.

In my traditional GM-is-God days, I'd have said "no" a lot to that group. "No, you're not allowed to be a pacifist: you'll get killed." "No, you're not allowed to hate humans unless everyone in the group signs on for inter-party fighting." "No, you cannot continue to type your RP instead of role-playing over the voice interface; you're being extremely rude to the dyslexic player!" "No, you cannot start out as complete strangers and expect me to force you all into a group; the campaign we're playing expects a cohesive party."

I think some of them expected that GM-is-God rule. The new player needed more guidance (maybe she just had no idea what was acceptable). The chat interface fucked everything up -- I'll bet a couple of those players are MUSHers, right? If so, they felt more comfortable typing up long blocks of role-play than speaking aloud.

In short, I think you had a vicarious situation to begin with (Internet role-play, new players, new interface, game they'd never played before) and they needed a guide through it all. Maybe your indie sensibilities were too strong. ;) Maybe you let them get away with a lot of shit because you expected them to act like adults and take responsibility for their own fun. Maybe I'm reading way too much into this limited bit of explanation, but I doubt it.

(I know Paul IRL and so I can be a bit of an asshole, but that doesn't mean you can. He knows where I live and will kick my ass if I get out of line.)

Adam wrote:
I want to echo what Ralph is saying, with a twist. As I read your horror story, Paul, I kept thinking, "Why wasn't Paul kicking their asses?"

Adam wrote:
I think some of them expected that GM-is-God rule. The new player needed more guidance (maybe she just had no idea what was acceptable). The chat interface fucked everything up -- I'll bet a couple of those players are MUSHers, right? If so, they felt more comfortable typing up long blocks of role-play than speaking aloud.

Adam wrote:
In short, I think you had a vicarious situation to begin with (Internet role-play, new players, new interface, game they'd never played before) and they needed a guide through it all. Maybe your indie sensibilities were too strong. ;) Maybe you let them get away with a lot of shit because you expected them to act like adults and take responsibility for their own fun. Maybe I'm reading way too much into this limited bit of explanation, but I doubt it.