So I'm back to play testing my game and some of the new mechanics in it.  The current group of players are interested in developing a story and a character personality, but they just don't know how. They tend towards power playing, but I believe a lot of that has to do with the group's regular GM.  Also, some of the players are really not picking up how creative they can be with their characters.

My game is mostly a typical fantasy setting. I'm trying to focus the game around the idea of the characters each having an "Epic Destiny."  There is a game mechanic I am using to promote that where each player creates an eventual destiny they imagine their character completing.  Working towards that destiny is rewarded with character advancement. 

The intrepid adventurers are locked inside a temple.  To gain entrance to the temple, they used four amulets keyed to the elements... But once inside, two of their amulets were stolen by their employer, who then locked them inside.  They were then trying to figure out how they could leave.
Adam, "Hmm, can I use my magic skill to change the element of the wind amulet to fire?" 
Me, "Sure. Difficulty 8."
Adam, "10, I succeed.  I place the 'fire amulet' in the alter."
Me, "The flames recede from the doorway."

Eric to Karl, "This game's magic system is confusing."
"Yeah, I don't get it at all."

Later, outside the temple, I described the grand entrance.  They originally entered the temple from underground, but now that they were exiting the main entrance, they got the full view of the place.  The temple is a place of worship for a dragon cult, who worship the apocalyptic world devouring wyrm.
Me, "You stand in a huge unlit chamber. Your light doesn't reach the ceiling and you can barely make out the doors on the far side, about 300' away from you. The room is completely barren except for numerous scorch and claw marks. To your far right, you see a dragon sleeping. It wears a chain and a collar."
Eric, "Well, I know they say 'let sleeping dogs lie, but what the hell!  I'm going to fly over their and rip off it's eyelid." 
Me, "That's a really bad idea."
I should mention at this point that they had encountered a dragon earlier and had been completely overpowered.  They hadn't become any more powerful than they had been before.
Eric, "Yeah, I'm gong to do it anyways."
Me, "Ok, you fly over... make an attack roll."
Eric, "12"
Me, "You rip off it's eyelid... Its body shudders as it awakens painfully, then the dragon snorts and starts rolling over to a standing position."
Eric *stares at me blankly*
Me, "Do you want to do something?"
Eric, "Uhh, I fly away I guess?"
Me, "The dragon stares at you, then starts flying after you.  He's a lot faster than you."
Eric, "What the hell, why isn't he blind?"

Uhm, it basically went really down hill from here.  I was really hesitant to kill his character. I mean, it was going to be the stupidest character death I've ever seen. I felt like it was character suicide and all of the players had "WTF" expressions, or were actually saying, "Wtf?"  Some of the players felt betrayed, because they could help in a battle like that, but would have been better off if they set up an ambush.  Finally, I had the dragon trap him in a dead end tunnel and then the dragon pushed a boulder in front of it. The dragon was content that he was dead, without the player actually dieing.  Later I asked the player if he was committing suicide, and he said he was.  He said the reason was because he had failed to kill his arch-nemesis earlier.  (Although it should be said, this was the first time the player had met his arch nemesis, after finding out he was his arch nemesis...)  I kept showing Eric that he was outmatched by his rival in the current situation, as well as power.  Also, who's heard of a story where the hero immediately kills his nemesis after he was revealed? 

Usually after a situation like this, I feel like I need to take my game back to the drawing boards.  I feel like I must be missing some crucial pieces that are failing to guide the players into making well defined characters (for everyone).  I also feel like maybe it would benefit from some mechanic that would allow the players greater control over their story. The GM is supposed to guide the whole progression of things, but it is supposed to be up to the player to set a scene. 

I wanted to expand on the last thing I said.

The GM is supposed to guide the whole progression of things, but it is supposed to be up to the player to set a scene. 

Okay, first impression:

Dickery. Who the hell goes over to a dragon, knowing he can't defeat it, knowing he doesn't F-ing have to, and rips off its eyelid? His motivation was made of fail and topped with a savory weaksauce, as you yourself commented.

You know these guys far better than I do. You're in a much better position to determine if it was just the guy being a dick. That's what it looks like from here, though.

If it's just dickery, then there's nothing your game can do about it. So I guess it's best to proceed with the assumption that the player was being genuine.

This is the type of moment I wanted to capture as a player and it is the type of moment I want the players to be able to make.  The GM should be in control for most of the story, but the players should be able to decide those defining moments.

Reminds me of constructive denial and the 'package' unraveling.

From that post

A great deal of the aesthetic power of Simulationist play, as I see it (and I mean that literally), lies in (a) adding to or developing that package, and (b) enjoying its resiliency against potential violation.

To stick with the example, let's say your group is enjoying this Star Trek role-playing experience. Then someone in the group announces an action for a character which demonstrates that he or she, the player, doesn't understand the group's shared agreement about what Star Trek "is" in the first place. At all. The announced action simply cannot be tolerated, even as a suggestion, partly because it undermines the source inspiration, but especially because it makes the (b) step, which is the real payoff, totally impossible.

When that happens, everyone else gets that sickening feeling which I should have a name for, the instant and non-verbalized knowledge that "he's not doing it right"

Callan,

If it turns out that the player *is* just being a dick, you cannot teach him the skills, because he isn't interested in learning. That, in addition to it simply being a first impression, was my point. You have to put that on the table to decide whether it's true, or it's not. If it's true, changing the system will not be beneficial, and may in fact be detrimental to the system, if it works for players who are properly invested. If it's not, then there's reason to move forward. I said as much in my post, and moved on to ask a question with the assumption that dickery isn't the root of the problem.

You say it "seems" like the player was genuinely surprised the dragon wasn't blind. I say the player was trying to kill off his own character (he admitted as much) and therefore "seems" like a dick. We're both on our respective ends of the internet though, so our impressions may be completely false. Additionally, I think your "package unraveling" is flipped around back'ard. David made it fairly clear that dragons weren't to be fucked with lightly. Everyone in the group seemed to grok this. Hence, *that* is the package. David's actions weren't unraveling a package, Eric's were.

Anyhow, I don't think I'll have much more to add until I know more about how authority is apportioned between GM and players.

I gave evidence (he was genuinely surprised the dragon wasn't blind) and I expect that to be examined critically AND there is no way of concluding for sure (barring scary levels of MRI technology). Alot of people use 'I think' to mean 'it is' and yes, I didn't put in alot of disclaimers that I wasn't doing that.

I'll also give a couple more pieces of evidence in terms of killing himself: A: He flew away and B: Pull out dagger, slit own throat? Why bother with a dragon when a dagger would do?

Lance, just check your not fighting to argue he's a dick because you already called him that/sent him to the firing line. And if it turned out he wasn't a dick after you did that, then you would look like a dick yourself. Your not arguing he's a dick just to save your own bacon, are you? Because I don't care - no ones been sent to the firing line yet, so even if we somehow totatally figured out he was legit, your fine by me atleast, as no ones been shot yet. Maybe your totally ready to shoot, but that's not the same as having already shot. Or maybe this doesn't apply - but I'm adding disclaimers now and this is one of them.

Additionally, I think your "package unraveling" is flipped around back'ard. David made it fairly clear that dragons weren't to be fucked with lightly. Everyone in the group seemed to grok this. Hence, *that* is the package. David's actions weren't unraveling a package, Eric's were.

I'm with Lance.

This sounds like a bored player, or an intentionally disruptive one.  I can't tell from what you've written which it is, but in my experience this kind of thing stems from one of two sources:

Either: The player is feeling like their character's actions don't influence the outcome of the game.  They don't feel like they have any say over where the game is going, so they respond by working with the only thing they can control - their own character.  They're not any more excited by the results of their character's actions than you are, it's just that these results are something they caused.  They're taking control.

Or: The player is pissed off about something out-of-game, or is unhappy with the general direction of the game.  The player doesn't want to deal with this out of character, so they use what they've got in the game - their character. 

In both cases, it's about taking control of the game. 

In the first case, you can respond by making sure the characters' actions do influence the outcome of the game.  A classic thing I see in "epic" fantasy games is the idea that all the cool stuff has to be "earned" by sucking for a really long time first.  "It'll be cooler if you work for it" is the idea, I guess.  The GM has all these great ideas for how the characters are going to totally change the world, but they've got to piss around doing errands for people first.

If that's at all applicable to what you're doing, throw that shit out now.  Let the players play the main characters of your story.  Let them make world-changing decisions right now.  Have their actions matter.  Above all, let the players make decisions, and have those decisions really affect the direction of the game.

In the second case, no amount of in-game tweaking is going to fix your problem.  Talk to the player about what he wants out of a game.  If you're interested in doing that too, maybe you can work something out.  If that's not what you're interested in, don't try to force the guy to play it your way.

Also, Callan, I have no idea what you're talking about.  Violating your own package?  I understand the issue you're referring to, but I don't think it's useful in this thread.  Maybe start your own?

Guys,

I think we're moving in a non-constructive direction. David needs to come back here, and make a decision.

A. He thinks about it, and realizes "Hey, he was just being a dick. I don't need to change rules to deal with behavior I can't control."

B. He thinks about it, and decides "No, I don't think that's it. Something about the rules lead to this behavior, and I need to know how to fix it."

If A, David's current problem is not something we can help him resolve by talking about rules. If B, then we've got something to discuss. Any further discussion based on speculation is kinda pointless.

At the conclusion of his posts, he talks about what he wants this game to do. I think we need to know how he's trying to address that goal with the rules before we go further. I am not a moderator, but I think we should wait for David's response.

I like hearing people's opinions, because some of them are so dead on that I can't help but agree.  Let me first say that I don't think Eric is trying to be a dick. He can come off as dickish at times, but I think he genuinely is there to play.  After all, he spends hours every week making his own D&D campaigns (and sometimes we let him run them *shudders*) but that's a different story.

To stick with the example, let's say your group is enjoying this Star Trek role-playing experience. Then someone in the group announces an action for a character which demonstrates that he or she, the player, doesn't understand the group's shared agreement about what Star Trek "is" in the first place. At all. The announced action simply cannot be tolerated, even as a suggestion, partly because it undermines the source inspiration, but especially because it makes the (b) step, which is the real payoff, totally impossible.

When that happens, everyone else gets that sickening feeling which I should have a name for, the instant and non-verbalized knowledge that "he's not doing it right"

TWO packages, Lance! Two packages that could not be melded together at the time and thus both unraveled. Let's avoid the old human habit of saying *we* have a package and the other guy has abomination and anathima.

This sounds like a bored player, or an intentionally disruptive one.  I can't tell from what you've written which it is, but in my experience this kind of thing stems from one of two sources:

Either: The player is feeling like their character's actions don't influence the outcome of the game.  They don't feel like they have any say over where the game is going, so they respond by working with the only thing they can control - their own character.  They're not any more excited by the results of their character's actions than you are, it's just that these results are something they caused.  They're taking control.

How is authority apportioned by the game rules? What, in the rules, gives the player the ability to decide defining moments?

I also feel like maybe it would benefit from some mechanic that would allow the players greater control over their story.

Isn't this an issue of no buy-in to begin with? They play to humor you, but actually just don't really care? Perhaps they say they want story and character development, but perhaps this isn't really true. Have you played other games with them that facilitate such things, and did it work then?

It sounds like Eric simply wants to kick ass (not Step On Up, not Story Now, but Dreaming a power fantasy).

I'm going to talk about my own gaming history here.  It's possible that it's not at all relevant to what you're experiencing in your game, but it's the best advice I have.

I used to play a lot of Rolemaster.  Rolemaster is an incredibly detailed and complex game, and it takes a heck of a lot of time to make characters, resolve conflicts, and achieve anything in the game.  Nonetheless I planned these huge, sprawling fantasy campaigns, imagining in my head that one day "when the characters were powerful enough" they'd achieve amazing, world-changing feats.  Of course, at first level they mostly got to fight goblins and things.  So we had all these goals about what play would actually be about (world-changing conflicts), butting up against what actually happend in play (fighting goblins).  No matter how much I exhorted the players to come up with characters with cool stories, and interesting goals, people always ended up making characters that were silly, or "power gamy" or just didn't fit the concept.  They were making characters that they wanted to play now, when I wanted them to make characters that would be fun to play later.  Of course, what I didn't realise was that "later" never came, and all we ever did was fight goblins.

Now, I don't think your game is exactly the same as what I was doing.  It sounds like you're trying really hard to have play revolve around the characters' goals, and to make that directly relevant to play.  I think though that maybe you're using some of the same techniques as I was, and they're not working for the same reason.  You're focusing your energies on "later", and the players are interested in "right now".

So what techniques can you use to make the characters' goals and personality relevant to play, right now, in every moment?

The first thing I'd say is that mechanics don't work in isolation.  I'd be very wary of introducing ideas outside the context of the games for which they were created.  That said, here are some ideas that I think might work for you:

Conflict Resolution:
This is a kind of overused term, but here's how I understand it: When a character is doing something in a game (or in a novel, or a play, or anywhere), there are two aspects to that.  There's "how" they're doing it, and there's "why" they're doing it.  In other words, what are they trying to achieve, and what are they doing to achieve that.  

"Task Resolution", which is how most traditional games usually work, is very good at resolving "how".  Using the example from your game, Eric says his character rips off the dragon's eyelid (ouch!), and the system tells you he has succeeded in that task.  It doesn't tell you however, whether he's succeeded in the intent behind this task (evidently blinding the dragon).  These systems often leave resolving intent up to the GM.  

"Conflict Resolution" means resolving both the how, and the why (though a lot of people, and a few games, interpret it as meaning just "why" without "how").  So from your example, when Eric is like "I'm gonna go rip its eyelid off", you're like "what are you trying to achieve?".  And he'll say something like "um, I wanna blind the thing, so we can beat it up".  And you'll either be like "sweet, here's the difficulty - if you fail, it'll wake up fully sighted and ready to eat you" or you'll be like "pulling its eyelid off isn't gonna blind it.  Want to try something else?".  So the idea is, every time the dice hit the table, something exciting is gonna happen.

The advantage of conflict resolution in your situation is that it gives the players real power to change the world.  You, as GM, can't get away with hedging stuff.  There's no more "you succeeded, but now you've got to roll this other thing" and no more "you failed, but if you roll this, it might still be ok".  Players state intent, they say how they're achieving that intent.  You tell them what'll happen if they don't get that intent, and then you roll.  Things happen!

The other technique I think you should look at is the way you award XP.  Consider making it much more immediate, and for things you actually want to encourage.  I've gotta run so I can't talk about this too much, but check out this link: http://files.crngames.com/cc/sweet20/experience.html

So it seems you've got a few factors at work here. I see agenda conflict, abused player syndrome, and some plain ol' interpersonal issues.

Agenda Conflict: It may turn out that your game's goals do not jive with the goals of your group. If they are, as Jasper states, there to kick ass, then you're failing to meet their goals by presenting challenges that they *cannot* overcome, and you're failing by folding when they call your bluff. If their goals are Step on Up, they want challenges that they can overcome by skill, wit, and luck. They don't want things like dragons lying around that can munch them with ease. If there's a dragon, they may read it as "be clever, and you can overcome this dragon". They also don't want you to fudge rolls, or have the dragon lock them away in a cave instead of killing them, like it normally would. (They, in this can, may also simply be read as "he")

Abused Player: They may be afraid or merely apathetic toward setting goals, or coming up with big stories because they've been abused in the past. GMs may have run roughshod over their character concepts, used their backstories not as cool hooks, but as ways to screw them over, and ignored their goals. Often, this is done by the same GMs that demand short novels of backstory, so the fact that you're putting it out there isn't necessarily helping. The only thing you can do under this circumstance is keep at it, keep requesting this stuff, and reward shit that they contribute that's cool. Suggest "hey, wouldn't this be an appropriate time to declare a defining moment?" The words "that's badass!" spoken with feeling are much more effective than "You can do better."

You definitely need to nail down ?????. It needs to be concrete, it needs to have constraints. Just saying "I win!" isn't going to fit with the rest of it. The rest of it seems pretty traditional, and so players who are used to that sort of game are going to flounder when you're suddenly telling them that they get to decide what happens. They're either gonna come up with something boring because they don't want to be slapped down, something stupidly over the top because they want to push your limits, or something lame because deciding what happens is the GM's job. Give them a way to be badass in the moment but with constraints that they can work within, and you'll be much better off.

On top of that, the group's dynamics are... not good. Eric wants very badly to be the super hero with his spunky side kicks along for the ride.  But even more than that, he wants to be the leader of the group.  He wants people to ask him how they should plan a battle. He wants them to listen to what he wants to happen.  Instead, the other players tease him.  When he makes a complicated battle plan, they'll follow it for a turn and then do their own thing (which makes sense anyways.) When he tried to trick a dwarven merchant out of his precious mithril ore, the other players played a prank on Eric involving the merchant and some fake ores.   

If I knew everything I know now, I'm not sure that the game I'm creating would be the way it is.  It is fairly traditional, but I definitely enjoy the non-traditional parts of a game.  I think they are what gets me coming back to a game. I'd like to finish this game in the way I envisioned it before moving onto something else, though. I am a game mechanics guy. Every game designer has their strong suits, and mine is definitely in mechanics, which is probably why I use it to "solve" the things I think need solving. 

I'm wondering if my game would benefit from a narrative token mechanic?  Perhaps players could bid tokens to make things go the way they want them to go.  Eric could bid tokens to successfully steal the ores from the merchant, if the other players cared to stop him, they could bid against him.  If Eric wanted to kill "Sauron" immediately, he could bid tokens to do so. (Would the GM then have tokens?)  Would it be appropriate to tie this into the character rewards? (ie. unspent tokens could be traded in for "XP" or advancement points or w/e you use)

I've purchased and read some games that push a narrative agenda, but I haven't played any of them, and I don't feel like I fully understand these things until I see them happen (kinistetic learning.)

I am going to talk to the group some of the things people have brought up.  I thank everyone who has helped me understand what might be improved upon.

David, I wouldn't make major decisions about your design based on play with this group. Concentrate first on finding some testers who actually care about the same things in the game that you do. You'll never get reliable feedback on whether your game encourages people to define their characters if you play with people who don't act as though they care about defining their characters.

Also, you said in your first post that you're making mechanics to give each character an "Epic Destiny" - did the players engage with these mechanics at all?

Mike,

Your right about making not making major changes. I am feeling that part is inadequate.  I'm a hopeless perfectionist, so I'm sure there'll always be some change I want to make.  Some of the changes I HAVE made, I look back and am very glad that I did.

I'm now thinking that my problem isn't so much the game, but the group.  Instead of trying to make the game make them enjoy being a group, I think I need to make the group enjoy being a group. I think maybe if I can get people to talk to each other positively, we can fix things.
1) Adam needs to stop teasing Eric incessantly.  Even though it's teasing, Eric is taking it personally, I feel.
2) Eric needs to realize that he needs to earn respect, not take it. He wants this group to be like his "old buddies" where I think he was the leader. Also, maybe address the issue of him trying to be a one man army.
3) Karl will fall into line if Adam falls into line.

I still need to get some narrative mechanics that work for me.  This game is very complicated (design wise). If I get it working the way I imagine, the pay off will be great (for my personal enjoyment).  The downfall is, it isn't easy trying to make the game work this way, because of the detail and flexibility inherent to the system, while trying to push for character and story development.  (Basically, the difficulty is that I am trying to keep tactical fights as a subsystem of narr play.) 

Dream mismatch by the sounds of it, hilarious dream mismatch! Here's my diagnosis; he has his starting hook, generated at char gen, which is created based on his own interests. He whiffs on that so goes for an alternative:

I may be wrong but he sounds like a D&D giant killer in a jack and the beanstalk world! Someone else defines something as badass (sauron), he wants to take it out. Something defined as scary and tough (dragon) and he wants to humiliate it. A friend of mine loves stargate, which operates on the principle of "the bigger they are, the harder they fall". If something is about to destroy the universe, it's gone in two seconds, after it has had it's turn to set up how bad it is. In your world though things are closer to universalis: a creature like that has a solidity in the world that can only be overcome by greater solidity, by building yourself into the mechanics of things and overcoming them through struggle.

Now this objective is close to "dickery", because it explicitly means kicking over your sandcastles; he may want to beat everything big and stand on their corpses, basically standing on the corpse of your world. He's not doing it to spite you, he probably just thinks that's the kind of thing that protagonists should be up to. Meanwhile, because his objective is based on bigging up himself, everyone else responds by subverting his self-pedestaling. It's just classic "he who exalts himself will be humbled" stuff.

Solutions? Intermediary and possible total: Firstly ask "why" when he does something, whenever he first initiates and action or pauses and looks like he is changing direction, as an ancillary question when he declares the task. This will help you get a grip on what on earth the significance of his actions is. His means may not be appropriate for that purpose, and you can tell him now that that is the case. For example you could have him roll or just tell him, if the means are inappropriate given your campaign mechanics/metaphysics. This adds one of the big strengths of a conflict mechanic into a task mechanic, in that the motivations of play constantly appear, allowing GM and players to get inside each other's heads faster.
Secondly, sounds like he wants vicarious esteem, and doesn't know how to get it except at the expense of other things. If you just complement him on other features of his character, that relate to his own actions in shaping the character but not to his giant-killing objectives, he may hop onto a new track and start going for that. What kinds of things may he be able to do? Well, helping well-drawn npcs, being able to hit other players concepts nicely and having them thank him, perhaps having an actual npc sidekick of his own, made less than sentient for your satisfaction, and totally obedient for his! Loads of stuff that could happen, keep the variety of rewards you try up, but don't push the intensity that high, or the other players could get peeved.

Just giving him tokens will likely lead to him zeroing in on the thing that has the most tokens, and trying to destroy it. Perhaps play some games of universalis to check. The brutal honesty of that game may change how you respond to each other.

Finally I have a difference of opinion with some people here; there is an idea that for the sake of play you should construct a coherent group based on a shared agenda with a focused game to support it. You find people who are already just as invested as you in a concept/way of play and then go for it. I understand that as a valuable concern, that can produce exciting play, but I am also interested in starting with a group of people you like and moving towards coherence. Now that basically puts achieving "buy in" within the context of the game, rather than a prerequisite at the start.
Imagine people play a themed "icebreaker" game before they start playing an rpg, and then imagine that the two are linked, so that insights from one can pass into another, and then imagine a further more involved and specific rpg later on. Stages of insight and further specification of the experience as you get to know each other better, ideally approaching a constant feedback loop that teaches you about each other.

How much of this coherence are you front loading into character creation? How much can people shift their characters to suit events and find a niche? What mechanisms do you have to tell you what people like? How frequently do they operate? But if you take this approach to the extremes I intend to, be aware that no-one in the world has yet succeeded at it!

This post regards the trouble you had getting players to care about stuff in the fiction. You're aiming for player buy-in. You can front-load that by getting players to invest in their characters (most common technique) or the setting (somewhat common). You can try to get them to invest during the game through escalating situation.

Let's look at front-loading characters. One way to make characters more interesting is to let another player create certain aspects of your character. For instance, in Annalise, every player writes a "secret" on a slip of paper and then the secrets are randomly redistributed. If you reaaaaally hate your secret, you can ask to trade with someone, but generally people go with what they got. In my cyberpunk game, Verge, you create group-owned characters first with all kinds of weird relationships; once they're mostly finished, players get to choose which they'll play and customize it a bit more to their liking.

Yeah, a lot of players get riled up when other people start telling them how to play "their" characters. You can skirt this with a rule that says that other players get to create situation for your character, but can't get in his head. For example, in such a game it would not be cool for me to say that Bob's character is in love with the princess, and the king doesn't want it to happen. However, it would be totally cool to say that the princess is in love with Bob.

Front-loading setting investment can be done in a couple ways. A lot of games just try to make the setting so awesome that players are dying to connect their characters to it. Mechanical bits help. Alongside that, you can add player-created setting rules. Look at My Life with Master. The group collectively defines the Master NPC who makes their lives miserable. By the time the Master issues the first order, the players already have a love-hate relationship with him, because they created the thing they hated most. You don't want to go overboard with player-generated setting. This should be quick and fun. Maybe have players write phrases on notecards describing setting elements in certain categories: like each player writes 2 cool places, 1 evil NPC, 1 magic item, and 2 threats. Then give every player 10 poker chips and have them vote their chips onto cards. Use the number of chips as scores for GM-dice or some other mechanic.

Using situation to build investment is tricky but very rewarding. Dogs in the Vineyard does this marvelously with its Town creation and escalation rules, which tie closely to the resolution mechanics. Basically, the GM creates a Town, which is really just a place full of problems that will get worse if the players don't do something, anything, to change it. The rules further tell the GM to escalate conflicts. Okay, Bob, you shot a sinner earlier, but will you shoot a sinner if it's a 15 year-old boy? Yeah? What if it's a 5 year-old girl? Really? But with each escalation, the conflict gets more grabby and important because you're getting at the heart of what is really important to the players.

These suggestions are generally useful, regardless of your specific game mechanics, because every game designer needs to figure out how to hook players and keep them coming back. The various elements of Exploration (character, setting, situation, system, and color) are the main points, I believe, for inserting the hook.

David wrote:
I'm now thinking that my problem isn't so much the game, but the group.  Instead of trying to make the game make them enjoy being a group, I think I need to make the group enjoy being a group. I think maybe if I can get people to talk to each other positively, we can fix things.
1) Adam needs to stop teasing Eric incessantly.  Even though it's teasing, Eric is taking it personally, I feel.
2) Eric needs to realize that he needs to earn respect, not take it. He wants this group to be like his "old buddies" where I think he was the leader. Also, maybe address the issue of him trying to be a one man army.
3) Karl will fall into line if Adam falls into line.

I think your right, Joywriter.  You know, I don't think you can really have any narr play in a world where you are able to kill anything.  I mean, if the king doesn't like you hitting on his daughter, kill him!  If the kingdom gets angry, kill them! Etc. Etc.

D&D has set up this really bad precedence of whatever you meet, you can kill with practically no problem. Some friends I've never played D&D with have told me stories about these complicated strategies to kill the dragon where they hunted down these herbs and things to help them.  However, my experience with D&D has always been, no matter how badly prepared you are, you always kill the dragon.  For example, one time I played a Ptolus campaign where we fought the dragon after fighting all of his minions.  We were all badly damaged and out of spells, and this dragon had been terrorizing the countryside for 500 years. Also, he had a giant vat of acid he could swim in.  But we killed him... even though he could have grabbed several of us and jumped into the vat of acid to escape (and kill some people.)

As for finding new play testers.  Well, that is always an option, and I've HAD other play testers in the past.  The truth of the matter is that Adam (the organizer of the group) really badly wants me to run my game for him. We're all good friends, but as soon as it involves dice... well all's fair in love and war.

It's probably obvious, but may need saying nonetheless: You could play with Adam and some other people!

If you think people really are incompatible with how your game should work, then you should select the group you playtest with on that basis, not necessarally on the basis of your standard friendship groups. Hopefully your friendships are mature enough that people won't feel they are being "left out of the group", and if they do, make sure to different fun things with them that you both enjoy.

That's my experience, although I would also add that playtesting with (semi-)strangers requires a lot more in the way of introduction, they will be new to you or the other players, let alone your system!

If you've experienced similar already, fair enough, just thought I'd stick that out in the open in case.

This might be going off topic but what Eric did to they dragon could have been a viable strategy, you said in the first post that the dragon was on a lesh (chain & collar), and sleeping, pulling the eye lids off of something probbably would blind it, if not by blood then sheer pain, and waking up to having your eyelids peeled off would make it paniced and enraged which would hurt it in combat. It was a very stupid thing to do however you're playing a ttrpg, not a video game which affords a greater amount of leeway.

I hope that makes sense...

Hey David,

Here's a thing:

You know, I don't think you can really have any narr play in a world where you are able to kill anything.  I mean, if the king doesn't like you hitting on his daughter, kill him!  If the kingdom gets angry, kill them! Etc. Etc.

Hmmm... I see two different problems here.

1) Eric:

Everyone on the planet likes being an important, valued member of the group they're in. To some, it's more important than others. The combination of

He can come off as dickish at times, but I think he genuinely is there to play.  After all, he spends hours every week making his own D&D campaigns (and sometimes we let him run them *shudders*) but that's a different story.

I think it excites him to break the status quo? Either that, or he's testing his boundaries.  (Sometimes, I wonder if he tests me to see if I'm just "bluffing" the danger.)

Eric wants very badly to be the super hero with his spunky side kicks along for the ride.  But even more than that, he wants to be the leader of the group.  He wants people to ask him how they should plan a battle. He wants them to listen to what he wants to happen.

2) Eric needs to realize that he needs to earn respect, not take it. He wants this group to be like his "old buddies" where I think he was the leader. Also, maybe address the issue of him trying to be a one man army.

Hello. This caught my eye, and i feel i have to describe how i see it:
First: Considering the situation, being somewhat bullied by the rest, failing to kill archenemy, getting used by archenemy.... That may actually make a self-proclaimed "Hero" to commit suicide!
Yes, i think that Eric may truly have acting correct to his Character in That case, at least.

Actually, i want to tell a small tale of a character i once played:
She started out as a kind of private investigator, with a higher skill level in fighting than detecting( due to slightly twisted rules).
She was pulled into machinations in a brewing war between two Kingdoms, and ended up doing some important deeds, togerther with the group she was with, for the Kingdom where she was born.

Eventually, the group was approaced by emmisaries from a third party, that seemed to have far more power than any of the two Kingdoms.
These requested that the group would help them, and betray their country.
My character thought "No way i'll help them, and i don't think i'll get out of here alive, since i'll be too big a threat if i'd manage anyway", and i, as player, knew, that the Emmisary was also one the Gamesmaster's recurring cold, but still powertripping "avatars", so he could easily kill all in the Group, i assumed.
So, i let my character say what she thought, followed by something like "...so just shoot me now".
She was dead the second thereafter.

My points is, not all deaths are heroic, even if they are played out well.
Suicide by Dragon is far more fitting a disgruntled hero, than Suicide by knife.
Some people are having power-trip dreams when they play Games, especially Rpg's! There is not much to do about that Ruleswise.
In my experience, with someone very similar to this Eric, is that you have to meet this Storywise, and, even more important, as a Gamesmaster, quite possibly even on a personal basis, if possible!
However, in some cases, you Can say: It says so in the Rules, and that'll be it. However, that may lead them to want to change the Rules...
Didn't you mention Eric was doing his own Rpgs?
To sum it up: If there is anything wrong in the Rules, it is, as i see it, not concerning This sort of half-engaged Gameplay.

Sincerely, Catelf.