|
Its time again for yet another meandering into the nasty little twists and turns in my brain. I got into
a bit of a frustration/depression round this weekend which I hope writing about may lift some of the gloom and doom
I'm feeling. Its partially caused by the Holiday Season, partially be recent events in the world at large,
the lack of roleplaying to any great amount in recent weeks and wrestling with some writers block.
Like all things though it seems to stem back to my roleplaying.... and the fact that I've been suffering from style conflicts with both GMs and players for the past couple of years that does not seem to be getting better.
Style is one of the great secret problems in GMing and playing in roleplaying games, no matter how much one works at fixing mechanics, or developing interesting story line potentials or developing characters real enough they show up in your dreams and make you want to write stories and novels about them, when a style clash occurs it can be the death of fun roleplaying gaming.
The problem is that I rarely find anyone who has a compatible style or understanding of gaming that I do. Maybe its a matter of age, I've been gaming for more than 20 years now, and that means I've been thru all the various changes in concept, design and style that for others may be new or unexplored territory. I no longer get a thrill from "Kill Them All" hack-n-slash games... and haven't for many many years.
I also do not possess a need for a rule system to cover every possible option, but I do need a GM that can 'think on their feet' when they run into a situation that the rules don't cover and can apply the logic or dramatic needs of the situation appropriately. Its an essential part of the job of being a GM.
I also HATE railroading plots with a vengeance. Too many GMs these days have been lead to believe that they are somehow creating a novel and the players are just along for the ride, and this irks me to no end. Free will is essential to me, and so too is the ability to change the course of events. If I want to feel powerless, I'll sit down and read the morning paper and listen to the rantings of insane governments, terrorists and politicians as they seek to twist and turn the truth to drive the world into war at every step. Roleplaying is just as much about being able to decide one's own destiny and change the world (for better or worse, large scale or small) by one's actions as it is about immersing oneself into the lives of others.
This doesn't mean the game should be plotless, the GM just needs to be flexible to both group and individual goals in the group. Forcing a specific plot down everyone's throat because they have nothing else they might do, and having zero non-plot activities going on in the game world is just GM laziness. There should always be ways for characters to get themselves into trouble.... and if not the GM should have a few random ones to drop in so that they do. There's nothing more boring than having your character doing their 9-5 job day in and day out with no real challenges. If I wanted to work at a desk in an office, I'd be doing that and getting paid for it, not being at the roleplaying gathering.
Linear paths and plots, no win situations, puzzles that can only be solved by mathematical geniuses and can't be beaten by basic logic, common sense, process of elimination or luck, are not the sort of things that thrill me.
From a GM point of view, I also have a dislike for players who sit back and expect the GM to provide them with a path to follow and who are basically what I consider lazy players. A good roleplayer learns to both be reactive and proactive in the game, not just play follow the leader.
I also have a liking for the supernatural, the magical, and tinkering with the building blocks of the universe. Magic systems that are flat, stagnant and do not allow for innovation or creatity will always bore me. I believe in Dynamic models, not static ones, when it comes to such things. If magic is flat and static, a matter of memorizing a recipe that cannot be dabbled with, then it isn't fantastic and isn't magical.
Then there is the clash of depth. I really want settings to be well developed, to contain a lot of information to be learned in the course of play. It's one of the reasons why I do a lot of historical periods in my games, so that I can draw from large amounts of cultural and historical ideas and situations and apply them to events. I believe in historical research on characters, countries, religions, etc when I'm running a game. If you are going to use a fantasy setting it has to have depth. Architecture, Music, Art, Social rules, langauges, games, sports, etc must be written up to give onself the emmersion needed to play at a deeper level. (I really hate it when folks fail to do the research, develop ideas and think about things like social structure or whether a concept would change how the world works on various levels).
Sometimes there is also a matter of understanding the nature of a game mechanic. Point based systems, for example, rarely are designed to handle a group of player characters that are of drastically different point values. That's why they have a point system, and if a GM introduces PCs of either drastically greater values, or forces players coming into a game with drastically fewer points, then they MUST have a mechanism in place to eventually cause balance or the lower point end characters will be eternally less important and with less to do than the higher point characters. Level based systems have equalizing methods in place, as lower point characters rise up faster than lowers do, thus reducing the distance between them quickly. If trying harder or taking risks or anything else you might do has no real effect on character growth, then why should a player bother? Always playing an out-classed out-powered and ignored character is no fun.
Gms should NEVER let players play anti-social characters that have no respect for other members of the party, unless the goal of the situation is that the character should outgrow this status. And if they do have such, these characters should never ever be the most powerful or highest status characters in the group (because you then can't teach them anything thru events). If a character (or player) can't work with a team, then they shouldn't be in a team game. Roleplaying is a team game. Cooperation is VITAL.
This all said.... I'm having trouble finding a game to play in that I enjoy, as it has been few and far between in recent years that have not had one or more of the above problems in style clash. Add to this that I prefer to game with my wife, and there are game systems she just won't play (and settings she wants nothing to do with) and that the ongoing overload of the D20 "lowest Common Denominator" games of hack-n-slash that less experienced folks are playing, and I spend a lot of time being frustrated. I either have to take what is available, and find myself in style clash and frustration, or I have to keep trying to find at least the right group of players to GM under my own style (running until burnout hits) or I just don't play (meaning I don't get to do what I want to do and don't socialize with people).
I can find some folks to play in games I run.... there are folks who like my style, even though they can't run such themselves, but never enough to fill out an entire gaming group. And quite frankly I don't want to GM - I've done too much of that in the past decade. I want to play and enjoy myself. Really enjoy myself, not have a constant collection of style clashes, personality crashes or complaints about a game. I don't mean to sound ungrateful to those who have GMed games I've played in. Many of you have tried your best and meant well, but your style wasn't a perfect fit for what I wanted to play, or your setting and mechanics weren't, or the other players steered the game into a conflicting style (when you're one voice in six or eight its easy to be out numbered).
As an Alternative non-roleplaying outlet, I tried our Putnam Cafe card and board game gatherings (my wife doesn't like competitive games and so wasn't much involved in these, sigh) but the attendence draw was not as great as I had hoped. This may have to do with location, dates, weather, time of year, or just the fact that the Boston/Cambridge Area has a lot less gamers in general than other parts of the country. New England gaming has been shrinking in the past decade, as has the number of venues to play and outlets to get games. Too many CCGs and Clix have eaten up the folks who would normally show up for these sort of events. I haven't given up entirely on this idea, but if future attempts continue to produce a turnout no larger than for the games we hold at our home, I may drop it.
Maybe I need to find a different way of meeting new roleplayers, of attracting them to games and getting them to understand what I want as both a GM and player. I've been using game store flyers, the internet and local conventions for quite some time as connection sources (as there is not much in the way of local clubs or organizations otherwise). Anyone have any ideas?
That brings me to my final, off-topic, point.... I know our website gets LOTS of hits, and lots of folks download the games and other files we have here. And numerous websites link to the materials here. We're probably one of the most accessed non-commercial gaming sites on the net, if the numbers I see from our webhost are accurate. But does anyone actually read whats being written here in my columns? The silence has been deafening in recent months. Feedback would be appreciated.
