Those are the rules for other media.  Movies short stories and especially TV.  Keeps the audience engaged and saves the budget especially for TV.

I think those might be bad directions for Role-playing.  This is based on my recent experence with Amber.  But its been my experence with other games as well.  Most games need a prequel/warmup.

What are your thoughts?  Can you grab new charcters and a new system and throw them right at the action?  I mean obviously you can if the action is simple go kill some orcs type stuff.   But I find my players need a good hold on who they are pretending to be before they can really start doing cool stuff with that.

Getting into a fight early is almost always a great way to engage the players in the game (phones down! roll dice!!) and also to test out a new system. I think it also really helps "getting a hold" on the character as you find out about your character through play and a sudden crisis such as combat really highlights that.

Yeah.  Thats true.  I need to use that one more myself.  

There is a difference between active protagonists and passive audience.  

Still thinking about how to change players from reactive to active.

Quote from: Headless;985230Those are the rules for other media.  Movies short stories and especially TV.  Keeps the audience engaged and saves the budget especially for TV.

I think those might be bad directions for Role-playing.  This is based on my recent experence with Amber.  But its been my experence with other games as well.  Most games need a prequel/warmup.

What are your thoughts?  Can you grab new charcters and a new system and throw them right at the action?  I mean obviously you can if the action is simple go kill some orcs type stuff.   But I find my players need a good hold on who they are pretending to be before they can really start doing cool stuff with that.

1: er. Since when? If you arrive late to a movie you've missed something, if you leave early you've missed something? And networks believe like a religion that the viewers are too stupid to follow ongoing stories and push for everything to be "episodic" and enclosed. Theres even some viewers who bitch about "how hard it is to jump into the middle of a series and how evil it is to have a rich history." ad nausium. And this is why comics keep rebooting as the execs believe that the readers are too stupid to understand anything more than a few issues. ad nausium x2.

2: Im not even sure how you are using the term at this point? WTF? In RPGs Its considered bad form to arrive late and leave early. But its considered fairly normal to draw in new players to an ongoing game. In fact that is exactly how I was introduced to D&D.

3: Whats this have to do with either of the above? WTF pt 2? Tossing the players and their characters sight unseen into the game is fairly common. Its pretty much the start of my long Star Frontiers game. None of the players knew the system or setting. Its also my one time playing 3e. Totally didnt know the system aside from the basics and still wasnt sure on BAB and all that.

Like everything you can toss some players in sight unseen and they will hit the ground running and do whatever. Others need at least some basics to work from. And some cant play without a short novel of prep and tutoring.

Quote from: Headless;985230Can you grab new charcters and a new system and throw them right at the action?  I mean obviously you can if the action is simple go kill some orcs type stuff.   But I find my players need a good hold on who they are pretending to be before they can really start doing cool stuff with that.

I agree with you. I find in media res only works for oneshots. For long term games it's definitely worth starting out with "you meet in a tavern" - let the players get their PCs established before getting to the action.

Likewise it's much better to start out at the "starter town" then travel to "the dungeon" than it is to start in the dungeon. I even find that starting with a fight before reaching Starter Town as in Lost Mine of Phandelver does not work well. What works best is a Campbellian 'hero's journey' approach with a 'safe' starting place, a Crossing of the Threshold, *then* the adventure.

Don't show up to watch the movie late. When writing a show, edit down to the last possible scene that you have to put on screen.  

Obviously players can play with out having played before.  Otherwise there could be no new games or players.  

You were probably writing this while I was was responding above. But I am asking how to turn players from reactive to active.  

Can you throw players at a new situations and expect them to act decisively, and unexpectedly from the word go?  

In 9 princes of Amber Corwin escapes from a mental institution as the very first thing he does.  Before he even knows his name.  Could a player do that?  And if a player did that would it be the right thing to do?  Or a right thing to do.

Sure, you can always start in media res, especially if your players are familiar enough with the setting and what's going on that they can make decisions. What doesn't work so well is dropping them into the middle of something but they have no idea what the heck is going on and no reason to make one choice over another. But keep in mind that RPGs are not fiction and your campaign can go on as long as you and your players want it to, so "leave early" doesn't mean much. Those are good rules for writing any sort of fiction, though. Also a good rule of thumb for a ref who tends to start games with way too much "here's what has happened up till now."

Quote from: Headless;985230Those are the rules for other media.  Movies short stories and especially TV.  Keeps the audience engaged and saves the budget especially for TV.

I think those might be bad directions for Role-playing.

Yes, because roleplaying games aren't movies or books or television shows.

They can also be shit rules for movies, books, and television shows, but that's neither here nor there.

Quote from: Dumarest;985253Sure, you can always start in media res, especially if your players are familiar enough with the setting and what's going on that they can make decisions. What doesn't work so well is dropping them into the middle of something but they have no idea what the heck is going on and no reason to make one choice over another. But keep in mind that RPGs are not fiction and your campaign can go on as long as you and your players want it to, so "leave early" doesn't mean much. Those are good rules for writing any sort of fiction, though. Also a good rule of thumb for a ref who tends to start games with way too much "here's what has happened up till now."

My gawd . . . it's full of stars.

Great post - agree completely.

Quote from: Headless;985243But I am asking how to turn players from reactive to active.

They need goals to pursue right from the giddyup. These goals may change over time, but they should motivate the characters to act now, rather than squat on their fucking haunches waiting for 'the adventure' to land at their feet.

And I'm not talking about fucking 'adventure hooks.' Your character is a cleric: does she want to heal the sick and the lame? proselytize non-believers? smite the wicked? advise the powerful? build simple shrines throughout the land? build a powerful temple to her deity or deities? build a hospital and found a holy order to protect pilgrims of the faith? understand the great mysteries of her faith? find a way to get rich and live comfortably from the whole priest thing? some of the above? all of the above? all of the above plus the twenty things I didn't think of?

In my experience, characters who have goals see adventuring as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, and so they will look for ways to use situations to their advantage in pursuit of their goals. When they do this, you don't need to do much besides throw out rumors and informative npcs and then get the fuck out of the way.

I will usually start new campaigns, especially with new systems, with a clear mission. Go there, do that. Recover the object stolen by the goblin raiders. Take the Death Star plans to Alderaan. Take the Ring to Rivendell to figure out what to do with it.

This gives the players a clear starting point and doesn't require any knowledge of the world or who their characters are.  They can learn about both of those things over the course of that first mission.

Back in the Day when I had my group of extremely self-motivatred players who would ctually RTFM they would usually have a half dozen goals before they even finished character generation.

The one thing to avoid is a long introduction of the GM lecturing about the ins and outs of the game world. I do not want to sit at the game table and listen to a boring lecture, I want to play.

Quote from: Headless;985230Those are the rules for other media.  Movies short stories and especially TV.  Keeps the audience engaged and saves the budget especially for TV.

I think those might be bad directions for Role-playing.  This is based on my recent experence with Amber.  But its been my experence with other games as well.  Most games need a prequel/warmup.

What are your thoughts?  Can you grab new charcters and a new system and throw them right at the action?  I mean obviously you can if the action is simple go kill some orcs type stuff.   But I find my players need a good hold on who they are pretending to be before they can really start doing cool stuff with that.

I think it mainly depends on how it's done, in all genres. The first Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark do a great job of starting in media res, though they also both then slow down a bit to establish at least some background. It's a mercy particularly when the background would mainly be annoying, tedious, and/or superfluous. But slower establishment can be well done, useful and/or also make the fall into action even more interesting (e.g. Psycho, North By Northwest). There are of course also endless examples of crap fiction that's made even more annoying by not explaining what's going on etc., and/or ending without a good ending.

I think it's similar with RPGs, but additional considerations include:

* the style of play (are we mainly dealing with immediate choices and situations, or is it really about larger longer-term situations where we want to understand many things before many choices make sense)

* the type of characters (a beginning character may be quite simple in abilities, background, and world/situation knowledge, but more advanced/old/detailed/politically-involved characters may have a lot for players to learn about before they can effectively step into the shoes of a character)

* the type of players and GM (interests, attention to detail, etc)

Leave early is fine. I think that should be the plan, that way it leaves some spill-over time.

Arrive late, on the other hand, is just disrespectful. When you have 6+ people, there's probably a 50/50 chance that at least one of those people will be a little late as it is. No need to be intentional in that. Aiming at arriving early, if anything, is probably a good idea.

Quote from: Headless;985237Still thinking about how to change players from reactive to active.

One way is if there are clear opportunities for them to try to exploit some things, that would involve them coming up with how exactly to do that.

Another is to have some proactive people (players or, if none, NPCs) around who role model coming up with ideas and doing things a bit like you'd like the players do, hopefully involving them in the process of picking from multiple options of what to do and how to do it.

In Media Res is a tried and true staple. However, as an RPG is not literature, and the players will be playing characters who are not just spontaneously coming into existence in the 'media' of the 'res', it requires that the GM go along explaining anything the PCs would know, to the players, as the action goes along.

I suspect the problems with in-media-res for RPGs is that the GM just doesn't tell the players anything, or at least not everything their characters ought to know.

Quote from: RPGPundit;987230.

I suspect the problems with in-media-res for RPGs is that the GM just doesn't tell the players anything, or at least not everything their characters ought to know.

Even when they do, the players often don't listen.

Quote from: Headless;985230Those are the rules for other media.

What are your thoughts?

My first thought is that rules for other types of media sometimes don't work for table top role playing.
An example that also applies to video games is-
Tell you have to do this in literature. Show don't Tell, this works for movies and TV, but Do don't Show applies to games. (I really wish the last would actually catch on more in the area of game design.)

So, jumping into the action can be a useful tool, especially for a first session to bypass the tedious part of explaining why the party is together. I actually do use this in my first Dark Sun adventure, where everyone starts out as slaves (the party is already formed, and has a purpose to work together towards, to escape) buying equipment is skipped, and with minimum setup, we get right to the action of the escape attempt.

But.

For an operation that the players have to get intelligence, prepare supplies and gear, all that jazz, this part is very important and can't be glossed over, because the success or failure of the attempt may hinge on how well the player characters prepare.

Arrive late, leave early, useful tool, if used wisely and appropriately.