I believe in the Robin Laws ideal that you can please both the orc-smasher and the politcal intrigue guy at the same time.

Last night, I ran a game that started out with the PCs battling super-zombies on a frozen sinking ship, and then about an hour later, they were back in town investigating mysteries, and then an hour later they went undercover to an Aristocratic Birthday Banquet/Ball.

Now, at the ball, I had 4 players doing different things: One guy was pursuing a subplot where he ends up involved with a rival NPC as a girlfriend. One guy went around trying to start rumors. One guy did sort of a comedic thing where he described how his character got drunk and made a total nuisance of himself, eventually getting thrown out. The last guy developed contacts (through roleplaying) with the artistocrat that threw the party, and picked up some new 'adventure threads' for follow up later.

Basicly I did it just like a tactical encounter: one by one in clockwork order:

What is your guy doing? (then do like a mini-scene).
(turn to the next guy)
What is your guy doing?...

And so on like that.

Maybe I'll put up an AP.

But the point is- you really can serve everyone. It certainly isn't impossible.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI believe in the Robin Laws ideal that you can please both the orc-smasher and the politcal intrigue guy at the same time.

Last night, I ran a game that started out with the PCs battling super-zombies on a frozen sinking ship, and then about an hour later, they were back in town investigating mysteries, and then an hour later they went undercover to an Aristocratic Birthday Banquet/Ball.

Now, at the ball, I had 4 players doing different things: One guy was pursuing a subplot where he ends up involved with a rival NPC as a girlfriend. One guy went around trying to start rumors. One guy did sort of a comedic thing where he described how his character got drunk and made a total nuisance of himself, eventually getting thrown out. The last guy developed contacts (through roleplaying) with the artistocrat that threw the party, and picked up some new 'adventure threads' for follow up later.

Basicly I did it just like a tactical encounter: one by one in clockwork order:

What is your guy doing? (then do like a mini-scene).
(turn to the next guy)
What is your guy doing?...

And so on like that.

Maybe I'll put up an AP.

But the point is- you really can serve everyone. It certainly isn't impossible.

It sounds to me like your players fit into the middle between the two extremes. They maybe like a little orc smashing to go with their intrigue.

to me the moderate players are by far more common than the two extremes. My point is that when you have one player that gets no enjoyment out of the game unless he is smashing orcs and another gets no enjoyment unless he is into deep intrigue, it causes problems. For them there is no middle ground. The only way to make the game enjoyable for both is essentially running two completely seperate games where the characters would not likely interact at all.

Quote from: Mcrowto me the moderate players are by far more common than the two extremes. My point is that when you have one player that gets no enjoyment out of the game unless he is smashing orcs and another gets no enjoyment unless he is into deep intrigue, it causes problems. For them there is no middle ground. The only way to make the game enjoyable for both is essentially running two completely seperate games where the characters would not likely interact at all.

All smartassery aside, I would consider such an extreme player (extreme bias to any particular uh.. 'agenda') to be a griefer. And outside of the self-identified types on the internet (and the ones who are following the bad advice on the internet to become such a person) the extremists are vanishingly rare in the real world.

One thing that's slipped by in recent years is the simplest of facts: moderate play is the norm.

Quote from: Abyssal MawAll smartassery aside, I would consider such an extreme player (extreme bias to any particular uh.. 'agenda') to be a griefer. And outside of the self-identified types on the internet (and the ones who are following the bad advice on the internet to become such a person) the extremists are vanishingly rare in the real world.

One thing that's slipped by in recent years is the simplest of facts: moderate play is the norm.

Exactly my thoughts.

Quote from: StuartI have a hard time imagining a game outside of the RPG hobby where this is true or even beginning to give people the advice to not play the game together.

You might get people not wanting to play a particular game...
"Hey wanna play Monopoly?"  "Naw, Monopoly is boring."

But you wouldn't get people starting to play Monopoly and then realizing they have such different play styles that they can't enjoy the game together.

This would only happen with crazy people...
"Hey, what the hell -- you're supposed to be in Jail!" "Ah, not so -- my character has tunneled out of the jail."  "Dude, we can't play this game together anymore -- our play styles are too different."

That's a positive thing you can say about some games:
"Hey, want to play My Life With Master?" "Naw, I'm not into that."

Monopoly is an interesting example (and one I've toyed with as an experiement  - Monoploy: The Buying). In a way, could it be inferred from your example that MLwM is more like Monopoly than "traditional" RPGs?

Not having played MLwM all I can say is that if you asked me if I wanted to play a game, I'd know what I was being offered.  That's not the case with a lot of RPGs.  

I like that many RPGs offer so much potential for creativity.  I don't like that many RPGs don't encourage the players to establish what the actual game is before sitting down to play.

What I really like and want out of theory is A) functional advice on identifying what people want out of game experiences and B) functional advice on how to bring different folks into the game.

Quote from: RPGPunditIn no way.  Its up to the GM to figure out how to incorporate them so that everyone enjoys themselves. What your GM should have done is split up the party so that those of you who are best at (and most interested in) the Orc Hunting went off to do that, while you (and anyone else who wanted to) stayed and handled the Political side of things, and create challenges for both of you. There, problem solved.

But you've still got all the suckage, and now you'll be interupting the 'good' parts to flip back to suckage (from any given player's POV) before you can build steam on them. It'll be like you've got two different tables running two different stories/games and changing which tables you are at. So everyone is still getting 1/2 game and half a GM.

I usually fix stuff like that like this:

The people doing the intricate manuevering outside of combat, I handle myself.

For the people who go haring off to do combat, I have one of the group act as GM for them.

It works pretty good for us.

Quote from: T-WillardI usually fix stuff like that like this:

The people doing the intricate manuevering outside of combat, I handle myself.

For the people who go haring off to do combat, I have one of the group act as GM for them.

It works pretty good for us.

At least acknowledging that you have two different tables and games going on. Plus "player empowerment".