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I think I should start that I dislike the word proactive. I side with the Itchy & Scratchy writer on the episode of the Simpson when they created the Poochy the Dog character, but I digress.
Dictionary.com defines it as "Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty; anticipatory." When I see it used around here, it appears to mean taking an active role in play. The phrase, acting not reacting, appears to apply.

Quote from: Christopher KubasikThe narrative of most roleplaying games is tactical simulation fiction. This style of story revolves around weapons and split second decisions made during combat. Such stories discourage flamboyant behavior though flamboyant behavior is often a vital part of the fiction that the games try to model - because better combat modifiers are gained with conservative tactics.

From this, I had learned that most RPGs I had played encourage conservative tactics in combat situations. This extends to other aspects of play, especially under some forms of illusionism. That is, if the GM is the final word on the flow of the narrative, then what you, as the player does has little impact (unless of course the GM decides to take what you do into account). In which case, you may eventually realise there's no point to doing anything and then do nothing that could be described as proactive.

I'm less interested picking apart this style of play, which people do enjoy, than to fish for thoughts on encouraging more proactive play.

One tactic I have seen used, including recently by my friend, is to try to hook the character with plot hook, relationships, etc. This works so long as the player is into the character enough for these things to work. In my friend's case, the only remedy if the player is not is to say "well, get into your character."

Comments?

That's the great issue isn't it.  

Well for starters if you need to encourage this (i.e. they aren't doing it already) its probably because they've been well trained not to do it.

D&D is a classic for training players to reactive style play because success in D&D (as traditionally presented) requires extreme amounts of caution.  Players learn to never just walk down a hall without probing with a 10' pole first; to never open a door without checking for traps; to never leave a room without searching for secret doors; to never stop and camp without setting a 3 shift watch and spiking the door shut;  etc, etc.

In other words any time in the past the players acted...they were smacked.  Personally I blame this on the whole GM as dispenser of secrets method of play.  After all what is a trap, hidden treasure, or monster ambush other than a secret that the GM doesn't want the players to know about until it "gets 'em".

The first step in encouraging more active players then is to help them unlearn this.  Make sure that you as the GM NEVER penalize the player them for acting first and planning second.  (Note:  penalize the player...not necessarily the character).  Its ok if a characters rash action gets the character into trouble...thats fun...as long as the trouble is one that is appropriate, able to be dealt with, and also considered fun by the player.  Its when rash actions lead to penelties that aren't fun that players turtle up to avoid them.  

Once players are thoroughly broken of the idea that they have be wary lest the GM pull a nasty on them, I think you'll find that the active behavior you seek comes much easier.  But for this to work, the GM actually has to be worthy of the trust and resist the temptation to revert to the hidden nasty.

Once Ralph's trust issue is established, then there are other means to promote the sorts of play you're looking for. The first one that copmes to mind is to reward proactive play. The obvious example is Bonus Dice for action ala Sorcerer. Instead of being less likely to succeed, proactive (even reckless) action makes you more likely to succeed.

Mike

And if you get down what Ralph and Mike suggest, don't forget to have the players make characters who are driven.  Nobody like a character who's whole goal in life is to be safe at home.  Even if that's the character's goal, make sure the player gives them some kind of drive away from that.  (Anyone remember the friendly little hobbit who got talked into an adventure just because he was such a good host and couldn't say no?)

Fang Langford

Well, you can manage to make your players proactive at the very begining of play. IME, that's a really good time to set the players into that way of thinking.

As Mike mentioned Sorcerer... I think that the most efficient tool to engage the player that came out of Sorcerer is the Kicker. It's almost like a traditional character hook except that the player chooses it, and how he will respond to it. Here, no GM plot to take/enjoy/endure.

Another way to incite the player to be proactive is to let them create a whole bunch of the situation they are in and let them introduce some of the major PNJ.

As the player himself establishes what matter to him as a player it's much easier for the player to care about what happen and to want to make things happen by himself (not waiting the GM to provoque all the interesting things).

Just my 2 c,

Fabrice.

Quote from: Mike HolmesThe obvious example is Bonus Dice for action ala Sorcerer. Instead of being less likely to succeed, proactive (even reckless) action makes you more likely to succeed.

*nods*

I feel I should mention that even though games, such as D&D as Ralph describes, encourage conservative tactics does not mean that everyone who plays plays with conservative tactics. My friend still talks about one player who would perform the "flamboyant behavior" in spite of what the rules encouraged. I am unclear myself on the particulars, the stats and dice rolling involved and just how much fudging was involved. That and this player had move to a different city and has not been a regular player since I had been with the group, and I have been with the group for ten years or so. So behavior is indeed posible oposite to what the rules encourage. Just a point worth mentioning.

Quote
This extends to other aspects of play, especially under some forms of illusionism. That is, if the GM is the final word on the flow of the narrative, then what you, as the player does has little impact (unless of course the GM decides to take what you do into account). In which case, you may eventually realise there's no point to doing anything and then do nothing that could be described as proactive.

I think Ralph's comments could be applied to this also. I.e. if the players ignore a plot hook, don't beat them with it. Unfortunatly alot of GM advice
I've seen suggests that the opposite, i.e.  make hooks that can't be ignored (do this or the world blows up!) or use it to 'get' them later. (You didn't rescue the princess, so her father comes after you).  The second one has some utility, but should not be applied ALL the time.


I think the solution here to just to make sure the characthers arn't always under pressure to do something, allow them some room to do their own thing and cause events that can be developed into plots.

Player directorial power mechanics are great for this.  I.e. players are usually proactive if they create the thing involved.  This can be done in a very ad hoc manner, frex players could vote on the resolution of plot hooks they don't take.

Mysteries are usually pretty good, i.e. curiosity can be used as a modivator.  Also you can present a mystery and define the resolution later.  (Your attacked by people with...uh...this...symbol on their jackets).

Lack of proactivity can also be caused by other issues, such as metagaming issues(I think this is the most common). Kinda a seperate topic though.

Quote from: Jack Spencer JrSo behavior is indeed posible oposite to what the rules encourage. Just a point worth mentioning.

Sure.

And if a player still remains "reactive" despite doing the things that encourage proactive nature, then you're only choices are to accept it, or not to game with the individual. That's life.

OTOH, I think that this is relatively rare. I'm a believer in the potency of system and proactive GMing. Remember that your proactivity will help to spur theirs.

Mike

Hmm.  Personally, I consider "pro-activity" to be very different from "flamboyantness" or "recklessness".  There are two different problems here:
1) Excessive caution in taking on challenges.  
2) Not creating new challenges.

Really, I know a lot of players who are gung-ho to go charging in as long as they know what they are supposed to do.  This is fairly easily solved in many traditional games.  The most important thing is just to give the PCs a lot of power.  For example, Feng Shui is pretty good about encouraging charging in.  

I talk some about #1 in my recent essay on "Techniques for In-Genre Planning" at http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/styles/genre/planning.html.  

"Pro-activity" to me means something different -- going out and doing something even if there are no clear arrows suggesting that that is the right thing to do.  A highly pro-active player may hear the description of an ordinary town, and come up with interesting things to do to it.

In general, I would say that "re-active" play is to maintain the status quo.  i.e. The characters only act when a particular disturbance happens: like someone approaching to hire the PCs for a job, or someone comes and asks for their help.

Quote from: John Kim"Pro-activity" to me means something different -- going out and doing something even if there are no clear arrows suggesting that that is the right thing to do.  A highly pro-active player may hear the description of an ordinary town, and come up with interesting things to do to it.

Yes, I'd entirely agree.  I have no trouble at all getting players to leap into the fray with lots of appropriate color.  I recently mentioned Ken Hite, who's a master of this: he sets up the most amazing railroad ever, and then you just charge down it guns blazing, and a good time is had by all.

The question, for me, is what to do when there's no railroad at all.  Fang talked a lot about this in a recent thread about Star Wars; as I've now mentioned it twice, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4994&highlight=star+wars" target="blank">here's the link.  There, the terminology was "bunkering": you set up a relatively complex situation, and the players, not knowing what they're "supposed" to do, hole up in a bunker.  Fang suggested baiting them out, and I'd love to see more discussion of this.  The basic idea was not to "hook" them out (nice double use of the term, don't you think? :>  ) but to drop bait.  This encourages them to go out and do something, in hopes that it will be the right thing; eventually they find that doing the right thing doesn't matter so long as they're doing something fun.

But this may be thread hijack: is this at all what you mean by "proactive"?

Just a personal example to re-enforce Ralph's earlier point.

I'm a pretty proactive player, but one thing for sure will shut that off.  The GM fighting me.  If the GM starts to fight me, I'd rather turn down my participation level to reactive rather than create a conflict that might disrupt the game and piss on everyone's parade.

Case in point:  Bad men are running an immigrant slave trade.  The PC's being the save the world types track down the bad guys and take them to the cops.  In return the cops let the slave traders go and try to arrest the PC's for false arrest because they ain't cops, so the PC's run from the cops.  There were no other significant events.  I think my character spent the rest of the session watching TV in a church...and I didn't do much of anything.

It was partially the events, but mainly the GM's 'you've been bad have a spanking' tone that lead me to deactivate.

This kind of thing can be nigh impossible to recover from, once you've spanked the players they don't want to come out of their rooms.  It's real easy to ruin trust, and hard to build it (if that isn't obvious ;) ).


As far as encouraging proactive play, I think the best you can do (from a system stand point) is not discourage it, and hence those players who want to be proactive won't be impeeded.  

In my play experience proactive system elements (like director stance mechanics) are enjoyed by the proactive players, and ignored by the reactive players.  When proactive system elements are included in a game I've noticed the gap in individual play time between proactive and reactive players increases.  However, as long as the group keeps player spotlight time in mind, I think this is a manageable loss.

There are a whole bunch of personal non-game issues that make a player reactive (a much bigger list than previous game experiences).  I think actually getting a person who is reactive by nature to play proactive requires an understanding of the person and a comfortable environment.

The undercurrent of this discussion seems to be the idea of the GM as facilitator and director vs the true "master" of the game and that the absolute worst thing any GM can do it "spank" or otherwise punish a player for straying from whatever the GM may find appropriate, for whatever reason, because then the player will shut off and it is hard to turn back on again.

I can confirm this myself, as per the anecdotes in Actual Play. I had actually been turned off even more. I no longer play.