You can lead a nerd to Cheetos, but you can't make him eat.

I see the GM as a leadership position; the GM is responsible for setting direction and providing a framework for everyone to play within.

I believe everyone at the table is responsible for supporting the team and the team goals -- that is, everyone has a good time.

In general,if the GM (or anyone) is having to make a heroic effort to meet that goal, something's not right.

But from my perspective if anyone at the table isn't having fun everyone fails.

What this means, with respect to characters that don't seem to fit, is that everyone involved is 100% responsible for everyone having fun. As a player, if I make a character that is hard to fit in, I'm responsible for making sure that I find a way to have fun with my character (or change him). As the GM, if someone makes a character that seems difficult to fit in, I'm 100% responsible for accommodating that character in a way that still means I'm having fun (meaning that the game fiction works and it's not too much trouble for me).

Generally, I don't find it that difficult to find a way for everyone to enjoy a game. If it's a chronic issue, I'd say it's likely that someone (or someones) are failing to support the team.

An example of that failure would be someone saying, "It's not my problem."

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Kyle AaronIt's not Game Non-Judgmental Recommender, Anarcho-Syndacalist Co-Ordinator, it's Game Master

Can I use this for my sig? please??

Allen

Quote from: RPGPunditThe bigger issue is that the GM is responsible for the ENTIRE group's fun. He's the one who is mainly concerned with that.

Each player is obviously concerned with his own fun, and often his concept of his own fun is one that you end up realizing would damage the possibility for fun for the rest of the group. He might think its really "fun" to have a character who's better at everything than everyone else in the group, but that will pretty well fuck it up for several of the other players.

So letting the Players have the fun they initially envision is not the name of the game. The point is to actually help the players see in what way they can have fun and fit into the play group and the campaign concept.

Besides that, there is also the problem of players having an initial character concept that they imagine will be "fun" (I want to play a guy who can't communicate at all with the other characters! I want to play a guy who's a total pacifist! I want to play a guy who's a two-dimensional stereotype I find momentarily funny!) that you realize will stop being fun after the initial amusement wears out. It then becomes your responsibility as a GM to either help to modify this initial concept or suggest an alternate idea that might end up being more practical for the long term.

RPGPundit

QFT.

There are people who just seem to want to play characters for their own amusement and just don't care what it does to the other players and their fun. One example I ran into in Mutants and Masterminds: a character who not only avoided any type of directly offensive ability but gave his character Posession so he could take over OTHER player characters and use THEIR offensive abilities rather than risk his own character! And sometimes he would intervene to keep others from getting "hurt" in combat by basically preventing them from fighting at all, even if they wanted to..and this included the group's main "tank"!

I got really sick of that fast and finally banished the guy completely..it was totally ruining the game.

Allen

Quote from: TonyLBYeah, I know what you mean ... but ...

Isn't the ability for Joe to infect me with his unhappiness based, at least in part, on my believing that Joe's unhappiness is something I'm responsible for?

No. Well, maybe, if you were autistic, sociopathic, or just extremely socially inept.

I'm not trying to be harsh here; human beings pick up on each other's moods. It's called "empathy". We are affected by the current mood of the people around us whether we like it or not. Have you ever noticed how you tend to laugh more when you're watching a comedy movie at the cinema than you would if you were alone at home? It's because when you're in a room full of other people laughing, you're more inclined to laugh yourself.

Maybe you honestly wouldn't care if Joe felt down, but guess what: if you don't give a shit whether or not he's happy, you are not his friend. Friends have an emotional investment in each other's well-being or you can't describe them as friends at all. Furthermore, unless you're actually an enormous misanthrope, you're probably going to feel a certain amount of empathy with him even if you only met five minutes ago; again, it plain sucks to be around unhappy people. Even if he's not your friend, but some guy your other gaming buddies brought along, and even if you are callous enough that a stranger being bored or unhappy has absolutely no impact on you, it's surely going to impact on those players who are his friends. Or are you not friends with any of your players? If so, I can honestly say that I pity you.

QuoteBut there's degrees and degrees of gray area between the two extremes of complete sociopathy (where Joe makes no impact on me at all) and utter codependence (where I cannot separate Joe's feelings from my own).  Taking on more responsibility for Joe will tend to make me more invested in Joe and his happiness.  Taking on less responsibility will tend to make me less invested.  Make sense?

Here comes some logic.

- According to you, your responsibility is to provide a good game.
- By default, you are not a sociopath, your players are not sociopaths. Therefore, by your own admission, Joe's mood has at least some impact on you and the rest of your players.
- If Joe is bored and unhappy, therefore, that is going to have a negative impact on you, whether or not you actually "took responsibility" for his happiness.
- This negative impact is going to undermine the quality of your game, and therefore make it less good.
- Therefore, you have a responsibility to avoid this negative impact, because it undermines your primary goal.
- Therefore, you have a responsibility to care about Joe's fun, as well as Sue's fun, Larry's fun, Amy's fun, and your own. Everybody has a certain responsibility towards everybody else's fun.

Quote from: WarthurNo. Well, maybe, if you were autistic, sociopathic, or just extremely socially inept.

Well you're a charmer, aren't you.

Quote from: TonyLBI think that there's a big difference in viewpoint between saying "My job is to provide X, Y and Z ... and incidentally those things are well chosen to help everyone at the table have fun" and saying "My job is to care about people and help them have fun ... and my tools are providing X, Y and Z."

So I agree with everyone at the table being responsible for things that (often) happen to contribute to each other's fun.  But in my personal style, I don't go with the whole "I'm partly responsible for your fun" bit.

There's two really compelling problems with your view - which I assume corresponds to the first example you give. Firstly, if you just do stuff that you find fun and don't give much thought to whether the players are going to enjoy it or not their enjoyment of your game more or less becomes a matter of chance. Maybe you'll throw out something that the players will enjoy, maybe it'll be a wash, but if you haven't been prioritising their enjoyment who's to say which will happen?

Secondly, even if you run reasonably sandboxy games where the players can proactively create their own fun, with the stated attitude you run the risk of accidentally trampling all over the players' fun; you're throwing out X, Y, and Z, but the way you've set them up means that A, B, and C that the players have been working on end up undermined, rendered irrelevant, or otherwise destroyed. For example, if the players have been seriously getting into political intrigue at court, and then you have a sudden plague kill the entire aristocracy of their home nation while the PCs are off on a hunting trip because you decided the game needed more exploration of postapocalyptic wastes, that fucking sucks.

I know of several GMs who find overbearing, vocal NPCs, ramrod-linear plotlines, and all sorts of other opportunities for them to grandstand and show off how awesome they are to be very, very fun indeed; if they took the attitude you're advocating they would run incredibly shitty games.

Quote from: TonyLBWell you're a charmer, aren't you.

Dude, in the very post I was replying to you pointed out that only sociopaths are actually totally unaffected by the moods of people around them.

This is the first time I have ever offended anyone by agreeing with them. I'm actually kind of proud.

Quote from: WarthurDude, in the very post I was replying to you pointed out that only sociopaths are actually totally unaffected by the moods of people around them.

This is the first time I have ever offended anyone by agreeing with them. I'm actually kind of proud.

Well, you "agreed" with a more extreme position than the one I espoused.

I said "Isn't feeling responsible for somebody's happiness at least part of this issue?"

And you said "NO!  It is no part whatsoever, unless you are autistic, sociopathic or asocial."

You still serious about that?  Or are you down with the idea that there's some middle ground where people can be more or less effected, depending on circumstance?

Quote from: WarthurFirstly, if you just do stuff that you find fun and don't give much thought to whether the players are going to enjoy it or not their enjoyment of your game more or less becomes a matter of chance.

Oh noes! :eek:

Oh ... wait ... no, that's actually okay.  They're big boys and girls.  They can take care of themselves.

Quote from: WarthurSecondly, even if you run reasonably sandboxy games where the players can proactively create their own fun, with the stated attitude you run the risk of accidentally trampling all over the players' fun

Oh noes! :eek:

Oh ... wait ... no, that's actually okay too.  If I'm doing my best to provide good stuff for the game, and it turns out not to be the perfect stuff ... well, nobody's perfect.  As I'm not trying to hold myself to a standard of being perfect (and being responsible for everything) that doesn't actually bug me.  I did my job, it didn't work out, we'll probably all have a chat as a group about how we can have more fun in future.  It's not the end of the world, and it's nothing we can't fix.

I'm saying that whether or not you beat yourself up about not entertaining Joe, Joe being unhappy still sucks for everyone. For the other players, it pretty much sucks the same whether or not you care. For the GM perspective, I think the primary source of suck is always going to be the fact that one of the players is bored or unhappy, whether or not the GM is beating himself up inside because he failed at a task (keeping everyone entertained) that he set himself. (And not every GM is going to beat themselves up over that sort of thing - I certainly don't). Saying "I'm no longer going to emotionally invest in whether or not my players have fun" - which is essentially what you're saying there - is treating a minor symptom but doesn't cure the problem at all. The major problem - which, by itself, is more than sufficient to turn a good game into a bad game - is that a player feels left out, neglected, bored, or otherwise unhappy, and it's that problem you need to address, because if you don't your game may be wrecked.

I never saw a campaign fail because the GM cared too much.

Quote from: WarthurI'm saying that whether or not you beat yourself up about not entertaining Joe, Joe being unhappy still sucks for everyone.

Very true.

Quote from: WarthurFor the other players, it pretty much sucks the same whether or not you care.

Also very true ... though it may suck more or less depending on how much they feel responsible for Joe's happiness.

Quote from: WarthurSaying "I'm no longer going to emotionally invest in whether or not my players have fun" - which is essentially what you're saying there - is treating a minor symptom but doesn't cure the problem at all.

It treats part of the problem.

Quote from: WarthurThe major problem - which, by itself, is more than sufficient to turn a good game into a bad game - is that a player feels left out, neglected, bored, or otherwise unhappy, and it's that problem you need to address, because if you don't your game may be wrecked.

But then again, if you don't treat it then Joe may figure out that he's not going to have somebody bail him out of the problem, and be prompted to fix it himself.  No guarantees ... but then there aren't any guarantees the other way, either.

Quote from: WarthurI never saw a campaign fail because the GM cared too much.

Oh, I have.  The GM burns out, and then he flip-flops all the way into not giving a damn about anything in the game, since nothing he can do is good enough, and then the whole thing goes straight down the crapper.  If you've never seen it ... well then, that's your good fortune.  Me, I've become aware that GM energy is a finite resource, and I'd like to invest it in things that create more GM energy ... like the GM having fun.

Quote from: TonyLBOh noes! :eek:

Oh ... wait ... no, that's actually okay.  They're big boys and girls.  They can take care of themselves.

QuoteOh noes! :eek:

Oh ... wait ... no, that's actually okay too.  If I'm doing my best to provide good stuff for the game, and it turns out not to be the perfect stuff ... well, nobody's perfect.

I'm not talking about "not perfect", I'm talking about "actively disruptive to the fun of others". There is a distinction.

QuoteAs I'm not trying to hold myself to a standard of being perfect (and being responsible for everything) that doesn't actually bug me.

The sands are shifting. The straw men are here, and they are running away with the goalposts. You've turned "I am responsible for ensuring that everybody is enjoying the game" into "I am responsible for ensuring that my game is PERFECT! and if I fail to do that then I should feel bad about myself."

It sounds to me as if you're taking this tough "you take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself, bitches" attitude because you actually take it quite badly when you don't quite match the standard you've set for yourself, so you want to protect yourself by effectively not setting any standards for yourself - or at least, none that people other than yourself can assess. So long as you enjoy the game, you're in the clear: if the others didn't, it's no skin off your nose, and you can't be held accountable for that (even if their lack of enjoyment was down to your GMing decisions).

I see no way in which washing your hands of any responsibility for other people's experience of your games is going to help you run better games; in fact, it's my opinion that it'll make it significantly more likely that you'll run bad ones. If you find yourself nervous and angst-ridden because of the burden of responsibility the solution is to work on your self-confidence and ability to accept failure, not to run and hide.

Quote from: WarthurIt sounds to me as if you're taking this tough "you take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself, bitches" attitude because you actually take it quite badly when you don't quite match the standard you've set for yourself

Oh, totally!  When I go into a game saying "I will only be successful if I assure that everyone has fun," then I take it pretty hard when someone doesn't have fun.  I mean ... failure!  That sucks. :mad:

Quote from: Warthurso you want to protect yourself by effectively not setting any standards for yourself - or at least, none that people other than yourself can assess.

No ... just a standard that I can unilaterally live up to.  One that I can make happen through my own efforts, every single time, no matter what anyone else does.

I got no problem with other people being able to assess it.  "Present a well-thought out world and an adventure with plenty of action and meaty dramatic hooks" is something I can do ... as well as something that people can judge me on.  But "Make people have fun" is not a goal that I have control over ... way too many external variables.

Quote from: WarthurIf you find yourself nervous and angst-ridden because of the burden of responsibility the solution is to work on your self-confidence and ability to accept failure, not to run and hide.

I'm gonna share this quote around with my friends, if you don't mind.  They'll be quite horrified at the prospect of me building more self-confidence

The whole "ability to accept failure" thing?  Eh.  I'm a perfectionist.  I can either try to adjust that thing about myself, or I can set goals that I can drive that energy into productively.  I choose the latter.

Quote from: TonyLBAlso very true ... though it may suck more or less depending on how much they feel responsible for Joe's happiness.

Again, if they are genuinely Joe's friends then "Joe is unhappy" is going to be the overriding concern, and "it's my fault" will be at best a secondary issue.

QuoteIt treats part of the problem.

But if you work on helping Joe than you can solve the entire problem. You are treating a minor symptom while ignoring a major disease; you're like a doctor who gives his patient aspirin and a pat on the head while ignoring the patient's rotting, gangrenous arm.

QuoteBut then again, if you don't treat it then Joe may figure out that he's not going to have somebody bail him out of the problem, and be prompted to fix it himself.  No guarantees ... but then there aren't any guarantees the other way, either.

That's cool, but you're running the risk that Joe's solution might end up being disruptive to Sue or Amy's fun - perhaps through no fault of his own. Maybe he's bored because the campaign has less combat than he was hoping for, and so he takes some of the party's hired goons and shakes down a local mafia hangout. Soon enough the party's locked in a gang war with the mafia that nobody except Joe wanted, and which could well end up disrupting (or putting entirely on hold) the delicate political power-plays that Sue and Amy were really enjoying.

QuoteOh, I have.  The GM burns out, and then he flip-flops all the way into not giving a damn about anything in the game, since nothing he can do is good enough, and then the whole thing goes straight down the crapper.

I wouldn't describe that as "caring too much" so much as "caring in the wrong way". It is possible to have an emotional and intellectual investment in a game without taking it personally when things go wrong.

I would also point out that your case is an extreme of an extreme: there are other, lesser forms of burnout which are equally destructive. Sure, if the GM doesn't care about anything anymore the game will go to Sucksville the quickest. But if the GM stops caring about the rules, and simply comes up with arbitrary, contradictory rulings on an ad-hoc basis, it's going to suck... and if the GM stops caring about the setting, and ceases to put any effort into making it at all interesting or believable, it's going to suck... and if the GM stops caring about the PCs, and never engages with their backgrounds or priorities, it's going to suck... and if the GM stops caring about the players' enjoyment... well, you get the drift.

QuoteIf you've never seen it ... well then, that's your good fortune.  Me, I've become aware that GM energy is a finite resource, and I'd like to invest it in things that create more GM energy ... like the GM having fun.

Which saps more energy?

a) Saying "Sorry Joe, but that character concept really isn't suitable for the campaign because of X... but hey, Y and Z look good, so why don't you hold onto those and tweak the idea a little?"

b) Letting Joe's character into the game, having Joe sit there with a black cloud over his head for most of the game, and then potentially dealing with (intentionally or accidentally) disruptive behaviour on the part of Joe when he gets the message and decides to make his own fun without any regard for the fun of others (as you think he should do).

a) is piss-easy. b) means that the problem drags on and on, undermining everybody's good time and dampening the mood, until it is either resolved halfway through the game (and it's always more difficult to make changes partway through a game than it is at the beginning) or it causes piss and mayhem.

Put it this way, Tony: to me, approving someone's PC for your campaign is a promise made between GM and player. The player says "Hey, GM, are you cool with this PC?" If the GM says "Yeah, sure," they're basically saying "This character is an acceptable addition to the campaign, and I will give them as much chance to shine as every other PCs." If you, as GM, then turn around and don't cater to my PC at all, even though you accepted him into the game without caveat or complaint, you're breaking that promise.

And that makes you a bad GM.