For anyone who got the idea I never have trouble in my gaming groups:

Tonight I got a chance for a coupla guys to try to get together a new game (we're playtesting JAGS-2). My scenario starts with the PC's playing 3rd ID troops just heading into Baghdad (and it's got *very* little to do with the war--but rather the surreal horrors housed in the Presidential Palaces!). Anyway:

Two guys (one whom I game with regularly--one whom I don't).

One says "I can't play an army guy."* Now, I'm all excited about my idea and the guy's being pretty vague about why he can't. He wants to play an inventor-army-guy with a test mecha maybe ... or an over-the-top army guy with as shield and a Captain America costume (he ponders)--this in a game starting so realistic I bothered to look up the names of the unit commanders.

I tell him it's a 'realistic' begining and basis--but does involve surreal elements down the road he'll like. This doesn't fix things.

Now, he's a bit agitated. The other guy is being pretty quiet (he thinks the idea sounds 'neat'). So we discuss. I can feel it getting kina power-struggely (he says "I don't want to get stuck with a character I hate"--he asks if I'll let in magic.)

I feel myself getting annoyed--he knows it's a moderately hard-core begining. I make a conscious decision not to fight over it. I surrender.

"I can do something else," I say. "Anything but Fantasy--I'm not into it."

"How about," the guy says, "you run him (the other player) and I'll come in to the game *after* the army segment. Then I can play a character I'll like."

"I dunno how exactly to do that," I say. "The adventure is based on what happens to you guys in the military ... we can try--I'm not sure it'd be good."

"That's pretty harsh," he says, I think maybe annoyed I'm not more flexible.

We ponder. We talk about a space game--he says he could be an engineer. the other guy says (a very little bit unhappily, I think) he'll play a scout for the mining ship. I'm thinking that a generic space game is *not* something I'm excited about right now. No one else's excited about it either. I consider being snarky about it. I drop it. If I don't come up with an idea I'm *not* excited about, I won't run the game--but I'll hack at it until I do.

"Well," I say, "we can do that--let's think on it--I'll toss the idea around and see what I come up with."

At this point, I've let go the idea of my army game. A space game could be good ... I've been reading Ian Bank's Excession and I could do something in a psuedo-culture universe and turn some of the space opera trappings they're expecting on their head. That could be pretty damn cool--

"Hey," he says, "how about I play an embedded reporter?"

A moment. I blink.

"That'll work!" And it will--I'd even thought of the PC's being reporters attached before I setteled on army guys.

So we made characters and changed a buncha rules since his science skills (see the guy was a scientist before he became a reporter) were a bit too high for their cost ... oh, and a advantage that got ported from JAGS didn't fit right in JAGS-2.

We're all psyched.

-Marco
* And I 'knew' that--it'd been problematic before (he just doesn't get inspired by army guys)--I sorta ran right past that when pitching the game: my bad.

Marco wrote: One says "I can't play an army guy."

Well, he doesn't really dig army guys--but nothing like that. I think he just finds the character concept boring. He's a *great* gamer (and one o' my closest friends--and I *wasn't* gonna ditch him--no matter what--he's been there too often for me in real life to cut him out of a game like that).

So no--I figured he'd be won over by my enthauisum--and he was--just not the way I thought it'd happen.

In retrospect, I never should've tried to force a character concept he'd had trouble getting his head around before on him this time. That was *my* fault.

Also: my version was condensed. His agitation (and maybe resentment) was at being put in a position where he was legitimitately tying to make a character he liked and not having any success and precieving himself as 'holding up the game.' (we didn't say that--and he wasn't--but I think he took it that way).

Anyway--a complex thing--but not like that.

-Marco

Marco wrote: For anyone who got the idea I never have trouble in my gaming groups:

Valamir wrote:

Marco wrote:
Marco, you need to offer thangsgiving to the gods of gaming.
If this is what qualifies as trouble in your gaming groups, you are among the blessed. ;-)

I do. nightly. HEY--maybe that's the secret!

However, let me paint you another picture. Roll back several years. More. More. Damn, I'm old. More ... okay--to high school. We're all there--same people--and it's the same damn thing.

Here's goes:
This synopsis is a *LOT* more mature than the specifics.

Marco: "I have this great game--let's go."

Player: "My character sucks. I want to do [X]."

Marco: (annoyed) "You can't do [X], man, it's not that kind of game."

Player: "Hmmph. That sucks. I can't make a guy I like with your rules. My idea for [X] is perfectly reasonable."

Marco: "No. It isn't. You don't like playing anything but super heroes, do you?"

[ big argument, some players bully the guy. Some stick up for him. Some just sit around. ]

Marco: "Look--either you run something (implied threat: see how unreasonable I can be) or go home."

Player (who lives like a hour from my house): "Sure (icily)--okay. This guy."

We called that sort of charcter "The torpedo." The question was whether or not, during gaming, it would hit and sink the campaign. The GM trying to deal with The Torpedo was 'weaseling' (from the StarFleet Battles practice of dropping a wild weasle shuttle to divert seeking weapons from the ship).

What followed from the exact same problem was dysfunction the likes of which Jack Spencer has never seen in his group. A player who *really* felt abused (sometimes mocked) into playing a role he didn't like, a GM who was trying to appear scruplously fair while locking out chances for the player to take down the game.

What happened. I mean, beyond one player chasing another with a broken bottle ... ummm ... which actually happened once in our group ... I can think of little worse dysfunction than a game that's a WAR between a GM and a Player.

There's no reason the other night's session couldn't have slid down the *exact* same path.

What changed was a conscious, serious attempt to be out of power-struggle ... and that means no passive-agressive 'look I gave in but it'll *get* you in the end stuff either.' I really do believe that that decision solves almost all of the social contract stuff outside of clarafication of things like what subject matter might offend someone (because once you've done it, it isn't like just being late to a group--they're already offended/grossed out/whatever).

-Marco

Why don't you have him play an 'Embeddded' reporter, or a civilian government agent seconded to the military as a special adviser, or something?


Simon Hibbs

From my first post:

"Hey," he says, "how about I play an embedded reporter?"

A moment. I blink.

"That'll work!" And it will--I'd even thought of the PC's being reporters attached before I setteled on army guys.

My appologies, I ready your post through, but didn't get enough time to respond untill a few hours later. Doh!

Si