Catching up in some of the threads, I came across this:

Quote from: Lunamancer;869317Take the last campaign I ran in college. By then I had come to grips with reality. I wasn't going to have my perfect campaign. People had home work and projects and term papers and exams. Things that made their schedules irregular. So I said fuck it. No more story bullshit. Just dungeon crawls. We begin in town, we end in town. Whoever shows up, shows up.

The way that campaign grew in popularity was absolutely staggering to me. I booked huge tables in conference rooms on campus and we still got to the point of standing room only. We had to continue one session in a laundry mat, because the campus center building was closing and everyone was having too much fun to stop playing. The emotional highs some of the encounters brought players too was unbelievable. All those years of trying hard, trying to make sure there was a little of something for every type of player never measured up.

Stupid me. I saw we had a core group that kept showing up reliably, week after week. And they all wanted to do something more. More story. Some kind of epic quest. Bigger adventure. I said fine. That fell apart after 3 weeks. After 3 months of these 6 players never missing one game, making 2 games back-to-back proved too much of a burden.

Let me be clear, the moral here is not that we should all play dungeon crawls and nothing else. Notice, things never went right when I "listened to my players." They only went right when I was responsive to the reality of actual play. I only switched to dungeon crawls to alleviate the pressure of being expected to show up to the weekly game. It wasn't the dungeon crawl itself so much as saying, "Hey, fuck all your tight-ass aesthetics. This is supposed to be fun. Not work." And when things fell apart is when I decided to change gears from something that was already working perfectly.

Listen to the players. But listen to their actions more than their words. I don't care how much they bitch. If they show up every week, they're having fun. For some people, bitching IS fun. And if they tell you how awesome your game is and how sorry they are they have to miss it this month, they might not be telling you the whole story.

There's two sentences in there I think are important.

• Notice, things never went right when I "listened to my players." They only went right when I was responsive to the reality of actual play.
• It wasn't the dungeon crawl itself so much as saying, "Hey, fuck all your tight-ass aesthetics. This is supposed to be fun. Not work."

The reason I bring it up is that at one point in college I went through the exact same thing.  My players all claimed to want "deeper roleplaying", and they did that by wanting to play in campaigns I had available like MERP or Shadowrun which were long-term and had grown complicated.  They turned their noses up at a Rifts Coalition campaign, which was "guys with big guns blowing shit up."  However, when Rifts was scheduled, guess who showed up religiously?

There's something about the College Years as opposed to High School or Real Life that seems to want more escapism.  The schedules are wilder, from semester to semester, relationships are harder because they're threatening to be the Real Thing, the pressure is on as graduation nears.  Campaigns where the stakes and pressure are high for the characters as well can be too much of a good thing.  They wanted a complicated, in-depth campaign, they just weren't able to do it week after week.

In the end, we kept playing during that time because I basically did the same thing as Lunamancer did - don't listen to anyone's words, observe their actions and focus only on what seems to be actually working when the dice start rolling.  That worked.  Endless planning sessions, votes for game system or campaign, none of the "talk it out stuff" did.  Not then.

Now of course, with older players (some of whom are the same), it's different.

What are your experiences as GMs?  Was there a certain time more than others when you gave the players what they needed, not what they said they wanted?

Well, four things:

(1) I think games run better when you have a strong GM.
(2) I think you can have that in many modes of play.
(3) It may be easier to be more firm in your rulings if you get the aesthetics out of it and treat it like a board game, with tables, and dice and hard turns and shit.

and, finally:

(4) Someone is going to see this thread as a criticism of their style of play.

That was a great post. There's something freeing about just raising up your flag and letting whoever wants to play show up. Don't need to worry about endless micromanaging.

Though I wonder what it was about not having an expectation of showing up making a difference. I mean someone can not show up anyway either way.

The problem with giving players what they need instead of want is getting them to go along. I just "know" some potential players will like certain things, but some of them are very fussy about the game going exactly along with their preferences.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876476I just "know" some potential players will like certain things, but some of them are very fussy about the game going exactly along with their preferences.

Fuck 'em.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876476That was a great post. There's something freeing about just raising up your flag and letting whoever wants to play show up. Don't need to worry about endless micromanaging.

Yeah, the campaign was basically a shake-down tour for new grunts, doing the standard patrol of the Coalition borders.  Equivalent to an open table dungeon, but it turned out not to really be that open because everyone came nearly every session.  All the scheduling conflicts just seemed to go away.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876476Though I wonder what it was about not having an expectation of showing up making a difference. I mean someone can not show up anyway either way.

Yeah, I dunno.  Were some of the players unconsciously exercising power by refusing to show?  Were some just not wanting that much responsibility?  I expect it's just people looking for something simpler and expectation free at a time when everything seems complex and pressured.  Who knows?  All I know is the result.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876476The problem with giving players what they need instead of want is getting them to go along. I just "know" some potential players will like certain things, but some of them are very fussy about the game going exactly along with their preferences.

True, although the 90s I think were much less like this than modern times, but when I just said "Here's what we're doing, show up if you want to.", people did.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;876481Fuck 'em.

Agreed

Quote"deeper roleplaying"

Hah...Do they want to be inside?

Great post and great thread.

I'll file it under further proof that creative affairs are better managed by people who are actually invested in creating content, rather than people invested in pleasing an audience. (Are you listening, Hollywood?)

Incidentally, I just shot our 5e DM the link to this thread. One player had the most ridiculous meltdown (IMHO, ultimately over his own inability to respond to freedom of choice) and I told the DM to stick to his guns -- and the player that if he wanted to do something else, my character would join him, no drama, no strings attached.

Quote from: CRKrueger;876467In the end, we kept playing during that time because I basically did the same thing as Lunamancer did - don't listen to anyone's words, observe their actions and focus only on what seems to be actually working when the dice start rolling.  That worked.  Endless planning sessions, votes for game system or campaign, none of the "talk it out stuff" did.  Not then.

This isn't unique to college or to RPGs. It's a matter of something I call "conviction" which is basically the degree of an opinion. It's measure is what's at stake. What cost are you willing to pay.

It's easy to say, "I think homeless people should be guaranteed a bed and a hot meal." Your willingness to step up and provide those things out of your own pocket or your own sweat is the level of conviction you have in your belief.

In RPGs, it's easy to say you want complex plots. It's not so easy to feel like a dumb ass because you failed to pick up on the subtle clues. It's easy to say you want grander, longer-arcing stories rather than those contained in a single session. It's not so easy to suffer through sessions of exposition waiting for the campaign to approach the climax.

What I'm suggesting is opinion is irrelevant. It's conviction that counts. Don't tell me that you want it. Show me what you're willing to give to get it.

Not for many years, actually.  By the early 80s, I'd figured out a foolproof scheme.  I'd run the game I wanted, using the system I wanted, at the venue that was convenient, with the frequency I wanted.  Sure, the players bitched at times -- when I shifted from Fantasy Trip to GURPS, when I moved sessions from the inner city university campus to my apartment in the suburbs -- but they kept playing.  I figured it was ten times easier all around to get players who wanted to play the game my way than any other option.

Still believe that.

I tend to a balance between when not running a module.

I state what I am running and how. Then wait and see who wants to give it a try.

I ask them if they have any long term goals and make note. Things like "wants to build a castle" or "wants to find a long lost legendary magic weapon."

IE: Things the player can invest in. But are not instant gratification or abstractions.

After that I present multiple situations and see what the players go after and what they dont. How are they interacting, or not, with the things going on around them.

IE: I pay attention to the things they want in game and play off it where appropriate.

EG: A player takes interest in the local merchants and frequents that area. If I didnt have something allready planned for the merchant then the interactions with the PC may suggest directions to go.

With a module I just ask if they want to play after describing the base premise. Though I've had players join in with no foreknowledge.

What gets me about some of these posts is that the existence of person B, who enjoys style B, seems to be an affront to Person A/Style A, who, in all likelihood while never, ever sit down at a table to game with Person B to begin with. Makes it really easy to say "Fuck 'em" when you never game with "'em."

Sorry, but you just wasted that swagger, man...

Quote from: CRKrueger;876467There's something about the College Years as opposed to High School or Real Life that seems to want more escapism.  The schedules are wilder, from semester to semester, relationships are harder because they're threatening to be the Real Thing, the pressure is on as graduation nears.  Campaigns where the stakes and pressure are high for the characters as well can be too much of a good thing.  They wanted a complicated, in-depth campaign, they just weren't able to do it week after week.

While I agree with your conclusions and share the preference for open table sandboxes, I don't see them as being any more suitable for one particular stage of life or another.  Or, if anything, they strike me as most suited to Real Life, considering how many forum threads I see lamenting that, between work and kids and spouse and everything else, it's impossible to commit to a regular weekly game any more.

Strange how important this is, and yet never addressed in any GM advice I know of.

Quote from: CRKrueger;876467don't listen to anyone's words, observe their actions and focus only on what seems to be actually working when the dice start rolling.  That worked.  Endless planning sessions, votes for game system or campaign, none of the "talk it out stuff" did.  Not then.

Of course. What people do is far more indicative of what they truly think and feel than what they say. It's why we have poets. It's why this documentary is so important. It's why modern RPG design takes this into account and attempts to enable conversations on that level.

Yet despite understanding this, here we are on a medium that can only account for what people say, and we barely try to look past that to see what people actually mean. Over and over again. On every RPG board with people who should know better.

Quote from: CRKrueger;876467Now of course, with older players (some of whom are the same), it's different.

Thing is, my gaming drastically improved (or rather stopped being a completely miserable experience) once I started playing with people who were willing and able to express their limits and desires in a clear and mature manner. I'm done performing magic shows for or with petulant children who show no respect and demand to be entertained in ways which will neither bore nor offend them. That stopped being fun forever ago.

Quote from: CRKrueger;876467Was there a certain time more than others when you gave the players what they needed, not what they said they wanted?

Always.

The problem is that most people are absolutely terrible at reading people well enough to do this, believe they're better at it than they actually are, and get very defensive when their mistakes are pointed out. And (ironically) tabletop roleplayers tend to be even worse in this regard.

And what about the GMs who claim to deliver one kind of experience (deep roleplaying, etc) but then deliver another? I still see this happen (though far less often now), and most get really defensive when it's pointed out. It seems many GMs expect players to be able to read them well enough to avoid problems like this, and therefore it's the player's fault when such problems aren't.

The problem is not that gamers (and I'm talking about players and GMs here) don't know what they want and/or can't express it, the problem is the lack of communication skills which enable it, and instead of addressing that I'm seeing a lot of people here take the typically defensive stance of "if you don't like my game then fuck off".

Or, you know, folks might not be making some claim, misrepresented or otherwise, about their games and may instead be saying: "I run my games the way I run them, and if you don't like it, fuck off."  That's not necessarily defensive. It may just be comfortable with the idea that one doesn't NEED more players, especially ones that make one's own experience more difficult or less enjoyable in some way.