I'm putting this up here because it's been bugging me for the past couple of days, and I'd like to get some input from other people who may or may not have experienced the same problem.  I recently tried to run a game of 3:16 for a few friends at school; having been enamored with the game for a while, I pushed them into it a couple of weeks ago.  At first, everyone was a tad bit reluctant, as they always are (let's just say I push for us to play new games a lot, and the rest of my friends have gotten to the point where they only agree somewhat grudgingly) but once we got rolling, I think the game started to appeal to them.  But what slowly dawned on me as we played some more was that the game seemed to be appealing for all the wrong reasons.  Well, alright, I admit, maybe I shouldn't be saying that there are "right" or "wrong" reasons, but what had really gotten me going about the game was the ease with which you developed this empty trooper shell into an actual character through gameplay, and the way that the game, for all that it appeared to be a simple "burn all the bugs" kind of thing, was actually capable of great depth in story.  What I slowly came to realize was that this view was not shared in the least by any of my players. 

In the beginning we had five players.  Their five characters were:
- Sergeant Wolfkick
- Corporal Action McAction
- Trooper Jeffcoats
- Trooper Clay
- Trooper Cole

Now, as many of you have probably immediately noticed, there were a few warning signs right up front.  Action McAction as a name...yeah, that was a pretty big one.  But as I said earlier, my players were already only somewhat grudgingly accepting the game, and in particular, that player was kind of a joker.  I didn't see too much of a problem with it, partly because I guess I wasn't anticipating any deep role-playing from him anyways, and I kinda figured Action McAction would die soon enough.  I should also have noticed the red flag from the descriptions of the characters; for instance, Jeffcoats was "Badass".  Yes, very promising. 

Well, anyways, we ran through a forested planet populated with lightning cats.  I tried to utilize a few of the tricks I thought I'd picked up from these forums, like the "make them roll NFA not to vomit on the way down" trick.  I gave them a really annoying Lieutenant, the foppish kind, and then I cut communications from their ship, the Beelzebub.  It took them almost no time to grab the Lieutenant, hold him down, and put a bullet in his head.  Ahem.  I hadn't realized I was making him that unlikable, but whatever.  I thought it was kind of a fun turn of events, and the players were clearly enjoying it. 

But something was planted in that mission, a terrible seed that would grow to become an underlying problem.  Because I had set up that lieutenant, and because, I guess, I had made that first mission somewhat difficult (I think I used an AA of 6 or 7, with Leaping or Rapid Movement, I believe...I apologize for the inspecificity, my notebook is hidden away elsewhere at the moment), they banded together, as players.  They gleefully altered their name of Alpha Squad into Asshole Squad, and they were clearly never going to turn on each other in any way.  I had tried to use the lieutenant to make the sergeant unlikable, by making him take unlikable actions, but they wouldn't bite.  They were now more close-knit than I would ever have wanted.  Furthermore, they started treating un-named NPCs in their squad as chaff.  "We need somebody to stay here and guard the landing site."  "Leave all the NPCs."  "Alright."  Eventually, they sent all the NPCs forward, and they were massacred by the lightning cats.  Even the poor, hapless trooper I had set up, who idolized Action McAction...when they found him with his limbs ripped off, their reaction was to immediately put a bullet in his head and move on.

Ahem.

So, after that first mission, I sent them on a mission to a sea planet, where they were attacked by manta rays with quills that could splinter in the air and create a light-refraction that would screw up visibility.  Yeah, I was reaching, but they bought it.  So they were AA: 5, with the Impair ability.  They had been sent to the planet to make contact with the base on the planet, which had been out of contact for a week or so, and if necessary, to introduce a device into the planet's ocean that would basically make the entire ocean quite acidic, and kill everything.  Command didn't want them to use this device unless necessary.  So, they made their way down through the ocean in a submarine after a short encounter with the mantas.  In the base, they discovered that the denizens of the base had somehow become infected by the quills, and had started using them as a narcotic substance.  Due to such use, the people in the base would grow quills on themselves.  Over cries of "Evil Dolphin Hive Mind" (yes, the cries were about dolphins, even though they had been mantas), I tried to convey that the quill-users were relatively peaceful, but they of course massacred everyone.  Which I sort of expected.  But again, any attempts on my part to divide the group were far less than successful, including an attempt to try to get one of them to stay behind and detonate the device.  I had also introduced a new trooper into their squad, Trooper Carson, who was calm, cold, and by-the-books.  I had also introduced Lieutenant Petrov, who was cold, fierce, and aptly enough, Russian.  These two new characters, for all that I was trying to use them to get the military atmosphere, simply further pushed the players into each others' arms.

Well, the adventures of Asshole squad continued for several more missions.  I slowly tried to reveal a plotline in which there were humans with similar technology to that of the 3:16 who were aiding the aliens.  Eventually, these humans would turn out to be the remnants of the 3:15, who had joined the alien Stellar Union once they had realized that the Union was peaceful and the best hope for the advancement of civilization.  Earth, of course, considered the Union a threat, and wanted it annihilated.  So while the Union kept trying to observe new species, potentially for induction into the Union, the 3:16 kept going on missions that would inevitably lead them to cross paths with the 3:15 forces in one way or another.  Of course, my reveals of this plotline took place with several rather blatant clues and plot hooks, which were not unnoticed by the players, and were often identified as such..."Oh look, there's the giant massive plothook...I mean, ship downed by weapons similar to our own."  "Hello, man-hiding-in-locker and only-survivor-of-attack.  Can I call you Mr. Infodump?" 

To be honest, I introduced this plotline because it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to generate any kind of cohesive story asides from "KILL EVERYTHING" with just the players.  Or at least, that's how it felt from my chair.  They weren't going to turn on each other, they weren't going to act in interesting fashions...they were just going to team up and take down every threat I threw at them.

So what was happening, for all that I really hadn't wanted it to happen, was that the players were beginning to take on a very "Us vs. the GM" mentality.  I was the one putting threat counters on the mat, I was the one creating NPCs who would inevitably be problematic for the players, even if I hadn't meant for them to be, just because they might object to the players' plans.  Maybe the players would disagree, but to me, it started to lose the feel of a collaborative story-telling effort, and started taking on the feel of an adversarial game. 

For the purposes of full disclosure, none of the above was helped by the fact that, due to factors of players dropping in and out as time constraints allowed, there was a relatively fluctuating cast of characters and players, which of course screwed up the Strength and Weakness economy.  Furthermore, Sergeant Wolfkick, who had started with 7 NFA and 3 FA, consistently rolled highest for leveling up, and as a result, quickly became absurdly powerful, with a 9 NFA and a quite workable FA.  To his credit, the player refused to go all the way to 10 NFA, so that there would always be a chance of failure; I thought that was a nice concession.  But in the end, he became extraordinarily powerful, with a small reserve of strengths and weaknesses built up.  So, the large number of different characters, each allowing for additional strengths and weaknesses, and each adding to the overall number of dice the players were rolling in every conflict, helped make it that much harder for me to deal any significant damage.  So basically, no one died.  I can see now that this was one of my biggest mistakes, but because no one died at all, everybody began to adopt a mentality much more suited to, say, D&D, in which each player was attached to his character, and didn't want him to die.  Character death became quite a big punishment; I found this out in particular when I tried a silly little stunt on a planet of koala creatures who had managed to get a planet-bomb from the 3:15, and were using it to try to threaten the 3:16 with mutual destruction if the 3:16 didn't leave.  The koalas triggered the bomb, and after a short series of NFA rolls, everybody escaped...except for one guy.  And he got so upset, because it was the first time he had gotten the most kills, and it was the first time he would level up...and I really didn't want to kill him, as a result.  So I let him use a weakness, which in the end, I think might still have been appropriate.  But the mentality had even infected me.  For all the good advice in the book about being ruthless, not pulling punches...just as the players had grown attached to their characters, I didn't want to ruin their enjoyment by taking those characters away. 

Now, I will also admit, we did a total of about 8 or 9 missions, and then, due to school coming to a close, we brought the campaign to a close.  So maybe some of these issues would have solved themselves over continued play.  But all I knew was that as we came into the end couple missions, and I tried to bring the overarching plot line to a close, I had gotten kind of fed up with the play that was going on.  The players knew that no matter how many counters I stacked against them, they had but to use a strength, and WHOOSH!  Stack gone.  So what if you had to come up with a flashback?  Who cared?  The fact that it got rid of threat tokens was all that mattered.  Every time a strength or a weakness would be used, I would be sitting there, screeching, "Come up with a flashback!"  And of course, I would have to further feel myself in this role of the Adversary every time a player would come up with some ridiculous, psychotic flashback that was absolutely loathsome to whatever roleplaying instincts there are in my body, and I would tell him to come up with another one instead.  As an example...ahem..."Okay, so, back on earth, I killed my wife and my two children with a knife, so my strength is, Knows How to Deal with Greater Numbers".  Maybe I should have let it go...but it just felt so freaking wrong.  One of the other ones that drove me up a wall was the weakness, "Afraid of Failure".  He was supposed to have been so afraid of failing the rest of his squad, that he had to run from combat to get more equipped so he could come back.  As much as that doesn't seem too bad, it felt at the time like when, in an interview, someone is asked "What would you say your biggest flaw is?" and the interviewee responds "My biggest flaw is that I'm too awesome."  His weakness was that he's so driven to succeed for the sake of his fellow teammates, that he had to go and get better equipped, so he could come back and rejoin the fight.  At the time, I let it go, because we were in the home stretch, and I was just getting too tired to worry about it.

Well, anyways, we got into those last couple missions...Things actually went as you might expect.  3:15 got in touch with the players, finally...Captain Wolfkick agreed to take down the Brigadier...And Asshole Squad was off.  And that's when I kind of lost it.  I will admit, in retrospect, I seem to have gotten very much into a killer GM mode.  I assaulted them with an AA of 10 and lasting wounds, and encounter after encounter after encounter, rationing my threat tokens very carefully.  Basically, I murdered them, one by one, eating through their entire supply of weaknesses and strengths, until they were all dead.  And clearly, none of them enjoyed that ending.  Even I didn't, shortly after I got over that rush of "WOOHOO!  I FINALLY BEAT THEM!"  I can fully admit, that was a pretty big screw-up.  If nothing else, I should have tried to end the game with something the players would enjoy.  But I was too seized with the revenge urge. 

So, to boil down to the specific questions:
1) How do you get the players to interact with each other a little bit more...competitively?  I couldn't manage to do it, even with constant prodding.  "Use your grenades," "You know you can use Force Weakness, right?", "He used a weakness, you could try to get him demoted", all failed.  "If you kill the highest rank PC, you can get promoted if you're the next highest rank PC," got some intrigued looks, but in the end, nothing came of it.  So how do you get the players to not band together so tightly?  Or should that not even be a concern of the game?
2) How do you avoid the "Players vs. GM" mentality?  How do you prevent the players from seeing you as their opposition in the game, as opposed to, I don't know, a fellow player who just fills a different role?  Or again...is that an unimportant concern for this game?  Should the GM actually be viewed as the adversary?
3) How do you bring out more depth in the players?  Is it just a matter of who you play with, either it's there or it isn't?  Or are there techniques that an amateur like myself doesn't know for bringing more thought and depth out of play that begins kinda silly and unserious? 
4) This is perhaps one of the biggest ones that's been bugging me, just about RPGs in general, for a long time.  I know it's a big issue that's probably been discussed plenty of places elsewhere, but I thought I'd bring it up anyways.  As a GM, where do your responsibilities lie?  Is your job to make the game as enjoyable as possible for the players?  Is your job to make the game the best it can be, within the possibilities of the system and what that system's goals seem to be?  Should I have basically just ended the game earlier, if I wasn't enjoying it as much, even if the players were?  Because I think that's one of the most confusing elements to me.  For the most part, the players enjoyed the way we played the game.  It wasn't at all what I got from the book, wasn't at all the type of game that I had originally envisioned playing, but they were enjoying it.  I...was enjoying the fact that they were enjoying it.  Is that all that matters? 

Sorry about the long post and the multiple, long questions...But this play experience has been kinda bugging me for a bit now, just because I don't know what to make of it, whether it was a complete failure, whether there was anything I could've done to salvage it (besides not going all killer-psycho GM at the end, there).  Any input you guys could give me would be great.  Thanks!

1) How do you get the players to interact with each other a little bit more...competitively?  I couldn't manage to do it, even with constant prodding.  "Use your grenades," "You know you can use Force Weakness, right?", "He used a weakness, you could try to get him demoted", all failed.  "If you kill the highest rank PC, you can get promoted if you're the next highest rank PC," got some intrigued looks, but in the end, nothing came of it.  So how do you get the players to not band together so tightly?  Or should that not even be a concern of the game?

2) How do you avoid the "Players vs. GM" mentality?  How do you prevent the players from seeing you as their opposition in the game, as opposed to, I don't know, a fellow player who just fills a different role?  Or again...is that an unimportant concern for this game?  Should the GM actually be viewed as the adversary?

3) How do you bring out more depth in the players?  Is it just a matter of who you play with, either it's there or it isn't?  Or are there techniques that an amateur like myself doesn't know for bringing more thought and depth out of play that begins kinda silly and unserious? 

4) This is perhaps one of the biggest ones that's been bugging me, just about RPGs in general, for a long time.  I know it's a big issue that's probably been discussed plenty of places elsewhere, but I thought I'd bring it up anyways.  As a GM, where do your responsibilities lie?  Is your job to make the game as enjoyable as possible for the players?  Is your job to make the game the best it can be, within the possibilities of the system and what that system's goals seem to be?  Should I have basically just ended the game earlier, if I wasn't enjoying it as much, even if the players were?  Because I think that's one of the most confusing elements to me.  For the most part, the players enjoyed the way we played the game.  It wasn't at all what I got from the book, wasn't at all the type of game that I had originally envisioned playing, but they were enjoying it.  I...was enjoying the fact that they were enjoying it.  Is that all that matters?

Hiya,

I think my comments are close in content to Lance's but I'm taking it from a different conceptual angle: purely social.

The warning signs to me are not the names like Action McAction. Those might be light-hearted details scribbled upon an otherwise serious participant's character. I should clarify what I mean by "serious" - not arms folded, frowning, cerebral, but rather committed to being there, engaging in what there is to engage with, and having fun with the others involved.

I know some folks I won't see movies with. They aren't there to watch the movie. They're there to be at the movie in a way they like, which is to mock it and yell at it and laugh at anyone who's trying to watch it. In fact, unless someone is there trying to do that, they'd probably do something else.

The warning signs in your post, as I see them, lie here:

... I pushed them into it a couple of weeks ago.  At first, everyone was a tad bit reluctant, as they always are (let's just say I push for us to play new games a lot, and the rest of my friends have gotten to the point where they only agree somewhat grudgingly) ...

Hello Erebus,

I'm rather thinking it's a doormat situation the other way around (as well?). Even if the player thinks they are roleplaying but you don't think it's roleplay, then your saying it's not roleplay? Eg,

..."Okay, so, back on earth, I killed my wife and my two children with a knife, so my strength is, Knows How to Deal with Greater Numbers". 

Thanks for the comments everyone, they’ve really been making me think.  I wanted to address everyone, one at a time.

Lance:

You make a lot of very good points, and really my only question is just one of clarification/curiosity, in terms of your response to my question two.  You said:

Lance wrote:
Don't be just adversarial. Play the LT that may disapprove of their actions, but defends his boys to the brass simply because they're his boys... And takes the fall for it. Play that hero-worshipping young trooper. Play that guy that is more loyal to the squad than even the PC squaddies.  Or, don't. The GM-as-adversary is a time-honored role. Embrace it.. But make a choice either way.

Ron wrote:
You push them. They grumble. You won't shut up. They accede. You manage way past your share of setting everything up and explaining things. They participate in such a way as to show you that they don't really care. You enthusiastically begin to play, hoping they're really into it this time (after all, they made characters, right? Cool! Maybe this time!). They totally yank your chain and enjoy making you miserable (after all, maybe you'll get it this time).

The idea of my suggestion wasn't necessarily to make them care about the NPCs you come up with, so much as to demonstrate a non-adversarial side, consistently. It *seemed* like you made a few attempts, then threw up your hands in disgust. The point about mechanical implications is well taken, though. So, think about how, within the rules, NPCs can be mechanically helpful. Have the LT give an instruction to set up a defensive perimeter, and when they do so successfully (NFA roll) then give them that +1 to their ambush roll, or their first FA roll in the combat. If they manage to get buddy-buddy with the supply sergeant, give 'em a +1 on their next requisition roll. Tie a few mechanically acceptable bonuses to NPCs, and suddenly they may take on a new significance to the PCs. Or, you know, not.

Re: Badass as a reputation, I think that is perfectly respectable. How did he get that rep? Is it from stories he's told from before? Can he live up to that rep now? There's meat there, if you look for it. Now, dude may have wanted that opportunity to die in a blaze of badassery, and if so, then yeah, you should have given it to him, if the chance arose. If you didn't see it until you were looking back, well, shit happens.

Re: Action McAction, my response would have been "Seriously? I mean, really?" With all the skeptical facial expressions that imply that he could come up with something less lame. If he was serious, then... well, I guess I'd take it as an indicator that he's gearing up for beer and pretzels, not serious roleplaying, and I'd have to make the determination as to whether or not I was okay with that. I'd also be looking around the table, seeing other people's reactions. If everyone else was cool with it, then it's a sign that they're on the same page as he. If other people were rolling their eyes along with me, that's an indicator too.

I'm less pessimistic than Ron is. I'd hope that you're a good enough judge of character that you'd know if the players were getting their kicks from pissing you off, rather than getting their kicks despite it pissing you off. One is malicious, while the other is just general jerkiness which can be caused by many less than ignoble qualities, such as the assumption that "it's just a game, and if you really had a problem, you'd say something about it".

Really, I don't think you're GMing 3:16 wrong. I don't even think your players are playing it wrong. 3:16 supports both play agendas quite well. The problem is that you're playing two different games, and you're frustrated because you think it's just one game. Some people playing that sick, twisted funny game when others are wanting a serious game is the same sort of thing as some people wanting to address serious themes where other people just want to kill orcs.

I definitely appreciate the point about trying not to doormat someone’s role-playing, no matter what.  But I guess what I’m curious about is whether or not you think it’s possible that sometimes, they’re not actually “role-playing”, so much as…I’m not sure how exactly to phrase it…playing along in a farcical way?  In other words, do you think that there can be insincerity in role-playing, that descriptions such as the one you quoted from me can be considered ridiculous on both sides of the table, or do you think that either that can’t happen, or even if it can happen, it shouldn’t matter, and role-playing in any form should be accepted? 

Callan, I'm with you 100% on this. Your post makes a lot of sense to me.

Now, how that applies or doesn't apply in this case, you and I cannot know. But those are the issues. Those God-damned right are the issues.

Best, Ron

I think a chat about what your group wants is definitely in order. I'd consider myself a fairly experienced GM. I've been running and playing games for about 14 years, and I've never seen things end well if anyone at the table is there because they were pushed to it. Really, unless everyone is willing and eager to play and enjoy the game, and all on the same page with regard to what the game should be about, there are going to be problems.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, I've been unfortunately detached from the interwebs for a while.

Thanks for all the good advice, everyone.  I've got a lot to consider. 

Callan,
Your point about games going all the better when the GM actually takes what the players say as perfectly serious is a great one.  I would absolutely love to experience the kind of games you describe, with those realizations.  But I think that what worries me most is that I would do exactly what the player said, and let some horrible thing happen, but that moment of realization would never come...or if it came, it would never actually matter to the player.  You acknowledge that this could happen, that these horrible actions might be continually brushed off, but I guess the issue I see is that, at least with that particular group, I definitely got the vibe that taking these "jokes" seriously wouldn't phase the players in the slightest.  This vibe was strongly reinforced by the fact that they actually had occasional moments in which they would point out or acknowledge that they were monsters or assholes, and then would laugh and glory in it.  And I guess that's okay, per se, but it struck me as somehow wrong, specifically in that I was pretty confident that none of these players would actually like to play someone that monstrous...It wasn't the thrill of trying to think like a monster thinks, or anything like that...it was odd, "I don't really care" detachment that allowed utterly monstrous action without any sense of consequence.  Which wraps right back around with Ron's first point, that it seems to be an issue with the group and the Social Contract more than anything else, methinks. 

Regardless, I think it's great advice to try to take those things seriously and then to see what happens.  In that regard, I need to be braver as a GM, or at least less wrapped up in my own head.  So thanks for the good advice. 

And thanks to everybody for the comments.  I now have a good sense of some places where I, as a GM, can improve, and of a number of items that I need to discuss with the group for any future gamings.  Greatly appreciated. 

it was odd, "I don't really care" detachment that allowed utterly monstrous action without any sense of consequence.

For you to get what you want, the players need to care about something. Your group's history might be working against that. If there's anything that might grab them, it's probably "hatred for home". That might not be what you want. Perhaps 3:16 isn't the best game to learn about caring for your group, because the carnage filter is completely blocking it out.