Changes in good old roleplaying?

[Atgxtg]

Or best, that you as a player come to me, as GM, and tell me, "I see my character as charing into..." and then I work to facilitate that.

Well, sometimes that is the same thing. There is something stage magicians do called a force. One example is to get someone to pick a certain card. The whole idea is to get the person pick the card you want them to pick, but do it in a way that they do not suspect that their decision is being influenced. If done with care a GM can get a player do do what he wants and it will be the PCs own idea.

And there are times when the course of events can force players into things just out of common sense. For instance, if the building is on fire it is a good bet that the PCs are going to want to get out of there.

[rust]

In my opinion, the only real difference between a linear and a non-linear sce-

nario is that in a linear scenario the GM provides the goal the characters ha-

ve to achieve, while in a non-linear scenario the players have to decide what

goal they want to achieve - and in both types of scenarios the GM has to

provide the obstacles on the way to achieving the goal.

From my experience I cannot say that a non-linear scenario is in any way mo-

re difficult to prepare or handle than a linear scenario. Once the setting has

been developed to a certain point, it may even be much easier to lean back

and let the players make most of the decisions (through their characters),

and just to react to their decisions with the instruments of the setting, than

to script a linear adventure with dozens of pre-planned events and scenes.

[cleombrotus]

I think that another pertenant point is that the group dynamic will more often than not thwart any pre-planned story arc, anyway.

I have never managed to use a printed adventure in its original format except by complete chance. Player input scuppers the best laid plans.

I think I ran The Belly of the Eel from Strangers in Prax with little change, but that had more to do with a particular players absence on one evening that prompted them to stay in Corflu 'for one more night' so the player didn't miss anything. Phew. I even think I managed to maintain my blase "You can do anything you want" face.

Mostly I end up with unused maps which get filed away for future use in an alternative session.

I once ran The Battle of Five Armies for Rolemaster, and that was a linear story with loads of combat. I went through The Hobbit and took every line and deed by an unnamed human character (there are a surprising amount) and worked out how that could be delivered by a pc. This created some hugely linear storytelling as you can imagine, right down to handing them scripts for their characters to read out. But it worked, and despite everyone knowing what was going to happen next the moment they were stood alongside Bard looking across the Long Lake and saw the distant flicker of fire from the Lonely Mountain, the scenario gathered an atmosphere of tension about it that just built and built. It was pretty cool, if I say so myself, but it was totally dependent on my players being up for what they could see I had planned.

I know that if I had tried that in Glorantha, they would have bugged out like the callous mercenary bastards they are...

[RMS]

In my opinion, the only real difference between a linear and a non-linear sce-

nario is that in a linear scenario the GM provides the goal the characters ha-

ve to achieve, while in a non-linear scenario the players have to decide what

goal they want to achieve - and in both types of scenarios the GM has to

provide the obstacles on the way to achieving the goal.

I'd say it has to do with how those obstacles work more than the fact they're there. Is there only one way to get to point B and is it through solving what's at point A, or do the players have free reign to discover a series of alternative solutions. If they come up with a solution that bypasses a bunch of things the GM thought of ahead of time, does he force them back towards those (however subtly) or just roll with it and improvise from there?

From my experience I cannot say that a non-linear scenario is in any way mo-

re difficult to prepare or handle than a linear scenario. Once the setting has

been developed to a certain point, it may even be much easier to lean back

and let the players make most of the decisions (through their characters),

and just to react to their decisions with the instruments of the setting, than

to script a linear adventure with dozens of pre-planned events and scenes.

You're correct, if you put together enough of the setting either way. However, I've seen a few GMs who's setting consist of only those things that are part of the prescripted scenario: no development of anything else. That's what I was thinking of when I wrote that.

I think that another pertenant point is that the group dynamic will more often than not thwart any pre-planned story arc, anyway.

That's my experience, but like I said above, I've seen and read of GMs who pretty much force people down a path. Plenty of prewritten adventures, especially those in the transition period from dungeon crawls to "stories"*, were written to pretty much force the players down a path, with no or little variation. PCs encounter X and must succeed, in a limited number of ways, at defeating it before they can move to Y.

*Note how I cleverly refer this back to the original point where I brought this concept up. :thumb: The whole discussion of what is/isn't linear spun off on a tangent from there. Just saying...

I think I ran The Belly of the Eel from Strangers in Prax with little change, but that had more to do with a particu

lar players absence on one evening that prompted them to stay in Corflu 'for one more night' so the player didn't miss anything. Phew. I even think I managed to maintain my blase "You can do anything you want" face.

We ran that several years ago with my latest group and from getting on board the ship to entering the monster it went pretty well as written: which is about 15-30 minutes of game time. I don't remember the details, but I know that the monster died, the ship was destroyed and all the NPCs killed...while the PCs coasted off on a sylph with no damage and a couple of nifty gifts. Orlanthi get gross that way out of nowhere, I swear! (For those who recall, this is the same group that came up with the idea of teleporting in/out of enemy backlines with full magic up and an alynx as recon.)

[Gnarsh]

What you can have are setting type scenarios rather than prescripted stories. As noted before (and below) RQ had some good scenarios that fit this mode.

Yeah. But what I was trying to get at is that ultimately, as a GM, you're going to have to write something down on paper. Even if it's just "off in that way, there be dragons...". While the overall environment isn't scripted (ie: the players can choose where to go and what to do) at any given time you as the GM are going to have some specific set of scenarios ready to go. In those canned adventures there were a set of pre-written scenarios, each of which may be activated depending on where the adventurers go, what they do, who they talk to, etc. But is that really any different in a philosophical manner then a dungeon where you've written out what's in each room, but the players choose which direction they go?

I'd say that one is no more or less "linear" then the other. The only difference is that the players are going to more likely think they have more choices in the "open setting" type of adventure. But the reality is that there might be *exactly* the same number of encounters, with exactly the same number of choices available to the players (including going off in a direction where there aren't any written encounters and the GM will have to make stuff up). One is outdoors, and the "rooms" are larger, but ultimately they're the exact same design. Flowchart them, and they look virtually identical.

This is why I was angling at the idea that it's more about how rich the setting is and how "real" it feels to the players that ultimately matters. You could play an entire campaign in which the player characters are vassal/knights of some noble, fighting on his behalf, going where he tells them to, and otherwise being completely "lead by the nose". And if the world feels real, and the setting is rich, and the storylines are good, the players will enjoy this just as much (and often *more*) then a game in which the GM sets them somewhere and says: "Ok. So what do you want to do...?".

And just to tie this back to the original topic. It's my fervent opinion that good roleplaying derives from exactly such good settings and stories. If the players believe in the world their characters are in, and there is consistency in terms of actions and decisions and the resulting consequences/rewards, the players will naturally roleplay well. They will much more easily "feel" how their characters fit into the game world. They don't have to work at roleplaying at that point. They just know their character and it flows through them. At no point do they have to stop and think "How should I play this?". They'll just know how their character will react because the character is "real" to them as well.

[rust]

Yes, in my experience the difficult times for the GM are over once the players'

characters have accepted roles and resposibilities within the setting, and be-

gin to invest their own creativity in further developing and expanding the set-

ting.

[Atgxtg]

Yes, in my experience the difficult times for the GM are over once the players'

characters have accepted roles and resposibilities within the setting, and be-

gin to invest their own creativity in further developing and expanding the set-

ting.

:thumb:

The hard part for me as a GM is usually the start of a campaign. Despite often having more prep time adventures are tougher to write, since I'm working in a vacuum. Once a couple of adventures have been played, things become easier as characters make friends, and enemies, establish goals, and run into obstacles.

Eventually adventures start to write themselves.

[Ars Mysteriorum]

I have a question.

I remember "failing" to be a source of fun when I was a kid playing games. We usually pointed and laughed at the player who "failed" and spent the next 30 minutes nearly hysterical with our attempts to reenact just how the person failed. The person who "failed" was always in on this and laughing just as hysterically.

Last night, I had a crap game of Warhammer. We had just gotten into the sewers of Middenheim in the first chapter of Ashes of Middenheim in the Paths of the Damned campaign. One player brought the entire game down every time one of her rolls failed. Her Apprentice Wizard gained a few sanity points thanks to whiffed casting rolls, and despite my telling her that she wasn't at all near insane yet, she asserted that she was and ran away abandoning another character, an Initiate of Morr, to his demise.

She would also argue with me of where everyone was in combat because it didn't match the image she had in her mind. The GM has the image and shows it to the players, not vice versa. Maybe the player has some control issues, who doesn't?

OK, that could just be written off as roleplaying. Understandable. The Halfling Thief in our group did not want the Initiate to die, and so attempted to convince the Apprentice to save him. The Apprentice's player then attempted to dictate another player's actions be telling the Thief's player to have her character slap her Apprentice.

I hate this. Allow me to elaborate. Nothing bothers me more than playing a game, and then being pissed off when things don't go the way you envisioned them. Or worse, rather than angry, the player becomes silent and/or mopey. Then telling other players what to do with their characters to conform with a new envisioning you've created to justify the apparently negative things that have happened compounds my dislike.

Now, if everyone was laughing and having a good time, I would have no problem with this. But the player was taking the game personally.

Rather than killing the Initiate, I had him captured for enslavement and the characters will attempt to rescue them. I hope. The offending player is all for abandoning the entire trip in the sewers, which is central to involving characters in the plot.

Ugh.

Games are like a democratic government. The consent of the governed is required to make things run smoothly. A game is a bit more fun when everyone agrees to cooperate in order to unfold the story being presented and to have fun. Fun, of course, overrules everything. Being selfish and making an entire game about one player and ruining the fun (not only for yourself, but also the other players) does not contribute to the game.

Personally, I have seen this trend in gaming increasing. Everyone is a capable hero, everyone gets what they want. Death is temporary, permanent injuries are non-existent. These things become simply negative rather than interesting things about a character.

Sorry if this is kind of a vent, but I also think that today's games are catering more to players getting what they want pretty much all the time. I fail to see how this is fun or interesting.

[Atgxtg]

I think it is sort of a double edged sword.

I remember a lot of players who would get upset when they lost a character who they spent a lot of time building up. TO some extent it is not only understandable but desirable. If a player wasn't bothered at all, then they probably wouldn't be interested enough to be fun to game with.

The "death is temporary" thing has been around since the beggining, both in RQ and certainly in games like D&D.

Players moping or storming off was just as common back in the old days as now.

What you do see more of now are games where the players have an say as to the course of the storyline. That isn't a bad thing either, since most of the people around the table are players.

As for the image thing. Well, that is something I'd blame on the GM. Basically the GM is the eyes and ears of the players. It sucks but no matter what perception skills you have down on your sheet it is up to the GM to run them. If the GM doesn't tell you that you see something then there is no way for the player to pick up on that detail.

AN example: I was once playing in a supers game where my character had enhanced senses similar to Daredevil's. One day, while relaxing at a picnic, I got ambushed by forty (yeah, I said forty) ninjas.

Now my character could pick up people's heartbeats a block away but somehow 40 ninja's ambushed me. Why? Because the GM didn't factor my perception abilities into the situation. Now I'm admit that ninjas are sneaky, and maybe a couple of really good master ninjas might have been able to do it, but not half a clan.

So if a player constantly thinks characters are in a different spot than the GM, I say the the GM probably didn't clear up the positioning well enough. Unless the rest of the group all knew where the were. Then it usually means someone isn't paying attention.

As for player's telling others what to do. Again, nothing new. Back in my first RPG group there were a pair of sisters who through they knew everything about D&D and constantly told everyone what to do. And not just in character either. One guy almost had a girlfriend because it. We used to tell new member to pick a fight with one of them in the fist week or two to keep her from forming a crush on them.

[Nightshade]

Sorry if this is kind of a vent, but I also think that today's games are catering more to players getting what they want pretty much all the time. I fail to see how this is fun or interesting.

But that's because what you want is different from what they want.

As A says above, none of what you described is new; some of its simply bad habits, other parts conflicts of style. Whats a truism is, however, that a lot of the style preference today is not congruent with the gritty, quasi-simulationist bent that many BRPers, especially RQers carry around. That's just as it is, and the players who don't share that bent aren't worse than those who do; they just want something different out of the game, and those views aren't entirely compatible.

[Atgxtg]

But that's because what you want is different from what they want.

As A says above, none of what you described is new; some of its simply bad habits, other parts conflicts of style. Whats a truism is, however, that a lot of the style preference today is not congruent with the gritty, quasi-simulationist bent that many BRPers, especially RQers carry around. That's just as it is, and the players who don't share that bent aren't worse than those who do; they just want something different out of the game, and those views aren't entirely compatible.

:thumb:

Yes, sometimes not everyone comes into a game expecting the same things. Like that example I gave earlier about the guy who left the group because after several sessions his RQ character never got any XP or went up a level.

Sometimes this is just a misperception that can be cleared up by communication. Like if the GM was planning on making Dwarves and Orcs "enemies" only to wind up with a 50-50 Orc-Dwarf group of PCs, who rejoice over their cultural differences.

Other times it can be stylistic differences, like the group of D&D players who went into shock the first time I ran them in RQ, and a PC got his arm chopped off. Or when they spent 10 minutes checking to see if someone was really dead because he was killed by "only" one arrow.

Sometimes this can be worked out by talking with the player and seeing if the expectations and the reality can be worked out. Other times, it just isn't going to work. If a player has his or her heart set on having a +5 vorpal blade of kobold slaying, and you are running a low magic world with no kobolds, either some give and take is required or people will be unhappy.

[RMS]

If a player has his or her heart set on having a +5 vorpal blade of kobold slaying, and you are running a low magic world with no kobolds, either some give and take is required or people will be unhappy.

That rings a bell to a similar situation I once had. I had a player insist on something like that once. After carefully explaining the equivalent of "no kobolds" and "no big magic" and getting nowhere, I ended up giving him the "+5 blade of kobold slaying" and he was happy. He wandered around proudly displaying his big, bad weapon that had no use since no "kobolds" existed, and it was so powerful of a weapon that detect magic didn't even work on it.... so of couse all the other PCs and NPCs just shook their heads and grinned at the poor dufus who thought he had a magical sword that killed off imaginary creatures. (Seriously, the other players just about died over it and the one player was happy as a clam and never did get the joke...strange deal.)

[Atgxtg]

That rings a bell to a similar situation I once had. I had a player insist on something like that once. After carefully explaining the equivalent of "no kobolds" and "no big magic" and getting nowhere, I ended up giving him the "+5 blade of kobold slaying" and he was happy. He wandered around proudly displaying his big, bad weapon that had no use since no "kobolds" existed, and it was so powerful of a weapon that detect magic didn't even work on it.... so of couse all the other PCs and NPCs just shook their heads and grinned at the poor dufus who thought he had a magical sword that killed off imaginary creatures. (Seriously, the other players just about died over it and the one player was happy as a clam and never did get the joke...strange deal.)

:lol:

I once gave a player a ring of DM control. Then I pointed out that I wasn't the DM it worked on.

[Gnarsh]

Games are like a democratic government. The consent of the governed is required to make things run smoothly. A game is a bit more fun when everyone agrees to cooperate in order to unfold the story being presented and to have fun. Fun, of course, overrules everything. Being selfish and making an entire game about one player and ruining the fun (not only for yourself, but also the other players) does not contribute to the game.

I've always viewed it as a combined storytelling experience. The GM creates the setting and the plot, the players fill in the detail and dialogue. Roleplaying should specifically be about how the players fill in those details within the existing setting and plotline. Good roleplaying will involve the characters acting in consistent ways within the context of the events around them (and hopefully in enjoyable ways). Bad roleplaying may simply involve the players making mechanical decisions in order to fulfill the objectives of the scenario.

If the GM is too strict, the players wont participate and the roleplaying will be strained at best. If the GM is too loose, the players will run rampant on the campaign, and the roleplaying ends up being more about player egos then realistic playing of roles. Part of this is the "GM Image" concept you touched on. Since the GM creates the setting and the plot, his image of the world the characters exist in is "golden". If his image is that something is too high too reach, or too small to get through, or there's no way around that group of bad guys without them being able to engage you, then that's simply the way it is.

Obviously, it's the GMs responsibility to convey that information to the players, and equally obviously, his image of the world does need to take into account player perception (as the 40 ninja example shows). However, it's also important for the players to accept the GMs image and trust that the GMs image "works". This requires that the GM be consistent in how his game world works so that the players become comfortable playing their characters within that world. They know what to expect and can therefore react appropriately as things happen.

There's no one best way to do this. But I think that consistency is the most important thing. If on one adventure, you are overly restrictive about some activity, magic use, or tactic, and then you expect them to use those very things on the next, the players are going to be scratching their heads quite a bit. From a roleplaying perspective, this is huge. The players should learn what sorts of personalities, actions, behaviors, etc "work" in the world and which ones don't. As long as the GM is consistent, then the players will use those tools, and the result is generally positive and fun for everyone. If it isn't consistent, then they'll tend to be much more closed and less likely to adopt any specific roles while playing.

[Simlasa]

As far back as I can remember there was bickering over how people were 'supposed' to roleplay.

I lucked out and was in a pretty solid group who were in happy agreement... low fantasy, gritty post apocalypse... not a lot of resurrections or magic items being handed out.

But there was another group we knew... member of whom visited our game... and completely hated it... they were much more of the 'magic motorboat in my pocket' variety of D&D players. There was quite a bit of enmity stirred up between our group and their just based on a couple of games they sat in on...

[cleombrotus]

Sometimes it just doesn't work out. I have a good friend who, we have decided, just can't play in my games any more than I can play in his. What we want out of a game is just too different, and even the way we imagine our game worlds is completely incompatible. In terms of Glorantha, he sees it as a world of elves and dwarves and dragonewts in, I guess, a Talislanta style of fantasy, whereas I see it as a dark, materially humanist ancient world where the magic and mythology just happens to be real. He never enjoyed my style and I never enjoyed his, but we get on fine. As long as he unconsciously knows that my way is better, it's cool...

[Ars Mysteriorum]

Sometimes it just doesn't work out. I have a good friend who, we have decided, just can't play in my games any more than I can play in his. What we want out of a game is just too different, and even the way we imagine our game worlds is completely incompatible. In terms of Glorantha, he sees it as a world of elves and dwarves and dragonewts in, I guess, a Talislanta style of fantasy, whereas I see it as a dark, materially humanist ancient world where the magic and mythology just happens to be real. He never enjoyed my style and I never enjoyed his, but we get on fine. As long as he unconsciously knows that my way is better, it's cool...

Exactly. On every point.

*And you're right. Gritty fantasy is the coolest fantasy. ZOMGLOOKITMAHKEWLPOWAZ is not cool.

*This announcement brought to you by the My Opinion Is So Much Better Than Yours Foundation a.k.a. The Best Foundation in the World.

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

I've got a campaign where the setting is fairly developed - at least where the PCs are - and the original idea was to have relatively self contained sessions against an evolving background of rising tension, incipient war and the re-emergence of legendary 'fairy tale' beings.

My expanded group (son, daughter and three of my son's friends) were tasked by the local lord to persuade a scholar in seclusion in the hills to return with them so he could advise on the deteriorating events. The players arrived to find the scholar babbling (as they thought) until they realised he was trying to see a 'lord' from the folk under the hills. Three of the players then decided - some pursuing ambition - they wanted to enter through the portal to the halls beneath.

I knew a bit about the Fae and their preoccupations but little was written down - however rather than turn the scenario back to where I expected I decided that the Aelfar Earl would not look a gift horse in the mouth of some humans he could manipulate to his own ends. There ensued about three hours of roleplaying where there was no combat but only elliptical conversations, persuasion and - at the end - a party deciding to do something completely different for diverse personal (character) reasons.

The players apparently loved it - I found it exhausting but rewarding. If I'd stuck to the planned course of events it would have been a lot more mundane and wouldn't have got the 'spooky' feeling.

Regards

Edward

[Nightshade]

As far back as I can remember there was bickering over how people were 'supposed' to roleplay.

I lucked out and was in a pretty solid group who were in happy agreement... low fantasy, gritty post apocalypse... not a lot of resurrections or magic items being handed out.

But there was another group we knew... member of whom visited our game... and completely hated it... they were much more of the 'magic motorboat in my pocket' variety of D&D players. There was quite a bit of enmity stirred up between our group and their just based on a couple of games they sat in on...

Well, it never helps that the disease of considering your own gaming preferences a Higher Form is so friggin' epidemic in the hobby; nothing is calculated to get people as irritated as an implied or overt statement that they're having, as RPG.net puts it, badwrongfun.

[rust]

Yes Oh yes. Over here we have some people who travel from forum to forum

in order to explain with missionary zeal the One Right Way to roleplay, based

on their pseudoscientific roleplaying theories, usually insult all those who re-

fuse to join their semi-religion badly, and in most cases get thrown out of the

forum in question. However, some weeks later the next missionary appears ...

I am a rather peaceful person, but there are moments when I wish Attila the

Hun could lend me a helping hand with some of these people ...

[soltakss]

And I thought that Roleplaying Games were about having fun!

I didn't know there were cults involved.

I've played in games that I didn't like, tried to change and failed, so quit the game. It was never anything personal, I either didn't like the system or the setting.

As to only having one style of roleplaying, I've never really encountered that. I've played in several games with different styles, but most of them have had a lot of fun and have involved roleplaying in various degrees.

But, roleplaying means different things to different people. In one of our recent games, one of the players was talking about a new on-line game he was playing and he described the stats the game used and said that the game also has roleplaying elements and described the stats for that as well. So, to him, a roleplaying game involves having stats for skills and personality. Who's to say he is wrong? Certainly not me.

We had a session a few weeks ago that didn't involve rolling dice, but the PCs got a lot done. Other games involve huge amounts of dice-rolling and don't achieve anything. They are just different ways of roleplaying.

[rust]

Yep, I am also convinced that roleplaying has something to do with fun and

with personal taste.

But I have been told over and over again that only "old-school roleplaying"

(Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Trolls, etc.) is "real roleplaying", while

all other games are somehow flawed, and the World of Darkness games are

especially "wrong", because they encourage "narrativism", which "leads an

entire generation of young gamers away from true roleplaying" - and so on.

And on. And on - ad nauseam.

It is especially bizarre because most of the missionaries of this creed are

less than twenty years old, and know "old-school roleplaying" about as well

as I know life in the Middle Ages - from hearsay only. But the less they know,

the more aggressive they are. Call of Cthulhu players have been called "swi-

ne wallowing in their desire to be driven mad", to give just one example of

that "style" of debate.

Ah well, I am far off topic now, but when something touches that sore point,

I am likely to go off ... sorry for complaining, so.

[cleombrotus]

It only goes truly wrong when we take ourselves a bit too seriously and perhaps start to believe our own hype. Personally I love the whole shebang. Rpgs are the nuts, and though we may be geeks, I always love meeting other roleplayers, because whatever the game there's always a kindred spirit and a decent conversation to be had.

Except for the Vampire/Werewolf crowd, who seem to forget that they're only playing a game - you're all muppets...

[rust]

Except for the Vampire/Werewolf crowd, who seem to forget that they're only playing a game - you're all muppets...

Oh, how considerate - you are trying to make me feel at home !

[soltakss]

Call of Cthulhu players have been called "swi-

ne wallowing in their desire to be driven mad"

Well, fair's fair. They do have a point there :)