Can't We All Just Get Along?
The situation stays the same. One minute you're bleeding to death. The next minute you're on your feet, thanking the Gamemaster that you didn't get snuffed. And as your bandages get pulled away, you stride confidently back into the world with a gleam in your eye and a smile on your face. Where you're immediately faced with the one villain you know you can't defeat.
The situation stays the same. One minute you're bleeding to death. The next minute you're on your feet, thanking the Gamemaster that you didn't get snuffed. And as your bandages get pulled away, you stride confidently back into the world with a gleam in your eye and a smile on your face. Where you're immediately faced with the one villain you know you can't defeat. In moments you're back in the same situation, bandages and all, waiting the moment when your friendly GM will pick you up, dust you off, and send you on your merry way. With some new prize or motivation, and no way to win.
We've grown into a culture of Gamemaster verses Playercharacter, where every monster or trap is no longer a puzzle or challenge, but an attempt for the GM to prove his power over the underlings he so willfully tosses about in worlds he alone commands. The goal of the game has changed from story to power.
Now, we all know that challenge is the integral point of a Role Playing game. In the end, whether you prefer a rule-oriented, dice-throwing campaign, or a story-oriented, dialogue-throwing game, one thing will always remain present: conflict. It's the moment of truth in any story. So we need the mazes and monsters to keep things moving along. Nobody wants to roleplay a character by doing nothing more than cataloguing the moments of a mundane lifestyle with no challenges to overcome. (And if you do, I have a wonderful invention to introduce you to: it's called a Barbie Doll.)
However, I have little desire to descend into the discussion of story vs. rule. I instead resolve to rant on the plague running rampant through GM's everywhere.
Meanness.
We all know that Gamemasters everywhere love to lock a dragon behind a door and then tell his players they'll find what they need on the other side. And somewhere, at the dawn of time perhaps, this was the greatest thing about roleplaying. Everyone knew they needed a bag of dice or a good vocabulary because they were going to have to work their way out of some sticky situation. That is the heart of adventure. But there is a difference between placing a sentinel at the door your players must pass through, and placing them in a cage, in the frying pan, over the fire, with only your friendly GM as the way out.
I'll illustrate with two examples:
The first form of meanness comes from a Gamemaster playing more than the PC's. I'm talking about any instance where the party is trapped or faced with a villain only the GM's favorite NPC can save them from. It's the Gamemaster doing for the characters, instead of letting the characters do. And while it's neat to have a powerful or advantageous friend in a campaign, it's belittling to the players when they're never capable of self-preservation without the GM's little friend around.
The second form of meanness comes from a GM abusing the sacred legends of Roleplaying systems. Like throwing in an Antideluvian Vampire against the players when they're out on a stroll, or hiding a Balrog under their bed. Some characters where meant to be impressive just to talk about, not to do battle with. And any Gamemaster that uses the legends of a system for common detail in an ordinary, ongoing campaign is suffering the realism of that game for sake of ridiculous drama. It would be like a campaign of Hobbits just setting up a campfire in a small cave and finding out that they just stumbled on the Dark Lord Sauron's summer home. Only the GM, by weighing things in their favor, or overruling events to their benefit, can save the characters from certain doom. Which undermines the possibilities for the company to win fairly.
Why is it that any time a GM wants to make a badguy seem cool, he does it with a character sheet that's so maxed out it looks like the game representation of Moses?
I used to think this was the fault of the Gamemaster; that their poor ability to structure a campaign was the issue, and not their perspective. It could be argued that the only reason Gamemasters would set you up against an enemy too powerful is due to their underestimating your character (or overestimating the amount of leveling up his adventures should have provided.) This seemed like a good solution, until I hopped into a couple of GURPS campaigns. The situation did not level out as I had anticipated. Instead of a game where the villains were created by my GM's to be the perfect fit for the perfect fight, I ended up pitting a low level mutant human against Gundam Epyon in a room enclosed with spikes. As always, it was by the graces of the GM alone that I survived to fight another impossible villain.
Some would appreciate this style. They would say it's better to defeat an enemy you know you can't defeat rather than enter a fight you know you'll win. It is the opinion of this humble author, however, that there is indeed a better way.
Instead of trying to show off you capabilities at filling out character sheets that look like Jesus was playing your game, try giving the characters what they want. This alone is the key, and so I shall repeat it: give your characters what they want.
In rare circumstances, where the GM has no prior knowledge of his players or has no outside contact with his players, giving anybody exactly what they want is near impossible. But let's face it, the majority of Gamemasters play with their friends, and they know exactly what would make them drop their jaws with sudden shocked joy.
I tried this with a homebrew game of my own concoction, and it worked wonders. I had run several campaigns with the same core group and several peripheral acquaintances. In no time, trends appeared that hinted rather blatantly at what they were looking for in a game. So instead of throwing the campaign into a house of horrors, I outfitted them with weapons that I had seen each of them enjoy in the past. And then I dropped them into danger. However, it was a mixture of challenges they had all talked about, mentioning their heroics with a grin or a frown. I put them back in the places that made them grin. And by giving them these simple thrills, I took them where they were hoping to go. The result was an adventure they still talk about today.
Where is it written that Gamemasters have to deny their players what they want when the goal of the game is fun?
Finally, I posit this, which stories do you tell more often? The ones where somebody saved you from a hopeless situation, or the ones where you attempted something difficult and came out on top?
Nobody wants to talk about how they played a game where the GM bailed them out time and again. But we all want to brag about how we handled the situation on our own. Gamemasters: stop beating up your players. We all know you can color in the dots or dream up big numbers for an NPC's stats. Try giving your players what they want for a change. And we'll all get along better.
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"We've grown into a culture of Gamemaster verses Playercharacter,"
I disagree with this assessment. While your area may possess a strong majority of GM's who grew up that way, mayhaps under the original influence of your area's first GM's, this is in no way true over a wide area of influence. It may be heavily influenced by genre, however.
"In the end, whether you prefer a rule-oriented, dice-throwing campaign, or a story-oriented, dialogue-throwing game, one thing will always remain present: conflict."
In short, no matter what the -focus- of the story, conflict will always be an integral part? I agree with that, just not your form of it. In about a week I will freely speak on that matter. This is when the article which, in passing, is related to these issues, comes out.
"The first form of meanness comes from a Gamemaster playing more than the PC's."
If the GM is playing the PC's at all, this is a problem. The GM -should- be playing the NPC's. But not scripting the actions of the PC's.
"Only the GM, by weighing things in their favor, or overruling events to their benefit, can save the characters from certain doom. Which undermines the possibilities for the company to win fairly."
If doom is that certain, why is the GM even contemplating this? It wouldn't be FAIR - and no, "fair" is not a one-sided term, to be weighed only in terms of it's advantage to the PC's.
"It could be argued that the only reason Gamemasters would set you up against an enemy too powerful is due to their underestimating your character (or overestimating the amount of leveling up his adventures should have provided.)"
... Or to prevent you from killing off the really cool character before the game even started. Do not underestimate the ability of a munchkin to neem anything with stats down to zero, and do not underestimate the ability of a normal PC to get lucky or be better than you had expected, and kill off an NPC.
"Some would appreciate this style. They would say it's better to defeat an enemy you know you can't defeat rather than enter a fight you know you'll win. It is the opinion of this humble author, however, that there is indeed a better way."
Aye, a compromise. A fight neither one is guaranteed of winning [however THAT is construed], but still not easy for either. I'll have to assume this was what you mean, since the rest of your article is a repeated exhortation to "give the characters what they want", without any specifics as to WHAT this is.
Or you could be suggesting that you realized your players wanted to be munchkins, and so you started running munchkin campaigns [high power level all around, does not make combats predictable]. In any case, you seem to use some terms without regard for what they really mean, and I'll be demonstrating that in 7 days ;)
"Where is it written that Gamemasters have to deny their players what they want when the goal of the game is fun?"
The syntax of your question implies that the goal ["fun"] is different from what the players want. So, what do the players want? The continuity of facing old challenges once again?
-Coilean mac Caiside
Twenty-one days... I had to insert an article before #5, to introduce certain key concepts in time for one later in the queue, and the rest got displaced.
-Coilean mac Caiside
I'd have to agree with Coilean. I don't see GM v PC games all that often any more. Having said that I do now play only once a week with a regular group and not three or four times a week with a gaggle of unknowns. That probably makes a big difference.
"try giving the characters what they want"
Which is much more difficult than it sounds. Given five different players in any one game, (eg) you're going to have five completely different characters to deal with. Even if they're all the same Game Level they won't all have the same level of ability. The adversary that's perfect for Player 1 / Humbolt the Bold Barbarian might be capable of utterly dicing Player 2, even if he plays Peter the Paladin. Since you can't guarantee which character, Humbolt or Peter, will get to that door first, it takes a certain amount of finesse to make sure that the challenge is appropriate to the characters.
"I'm talking about any instance where the party is trapped or faced with a villain only the GM's favorite NPC can save them from."
Agreed enthusiastically. I hate games like this. Unfortunately a friend of mine likes to run them. The last D&D campaign had uber-Drow (he's a Drrzt d'Burdensome booster. Sorry to the fans, but I just don't like that character), as villains, and friendly Ancient Dragons as allies. Needless to say it all got very silly very quickly. Massive battles with sparkly spells & dragon breath & the Twinky Swords of Doom.
He plays munchkinesque characters too, which may be a factor. He who Munchkins as a PC may favor Munchkining as a DM.
Why do you bother playing with your GM?
Although I don't agree with your assessment of the spread of this trend of GMing it is way too common. I know a DM who's campaigns are little more than him telling the story and the players just sitting around and watching all the NPC's do everything.
Now about meanness… I don't know, I often throw in an obstacle that the PC's can't go through just to give them a reason to grow. i.e. "Man wait till I get my 3rd level spells and you get your spring attack…. That Black Knight is toast!" Sometimes though the players are too thick to understand that not everything I put in front of them will give them a fighting chance. Even if you're only 5th level, don't jump to the conclusion that something is a Gas Spore because you don't have the level to fight a beholder… Now I have to agree that unless the GM gives the players a chance to run away, there is no point in throwing a dragon/balrog/deathstar/horror/toxic spirit or Black Spiral Dancer at them. The locked, spiky vault with the Mecha Warrior is a good example of pointless Total Party Killing.
Still, if you run an open ended game (where the PC's can chose to do almost anything) you can't let them attack the space port without honestly trying to blast them to pieces. Just as if the players were stupid enough to burglarize the Witch Queen's vault and make a slopy job of it, they should expect swift, merciless retribution on her part.
As far as "giving the players what they want" goes, I totally disagree with you. The aim is for the group as a whole to enjoy the game. Both the GM and the players should have a good time. As a GM I hate running a Monty Haul, Munchkin game and prefer putting my players against puzzles and villains that are more cunning than powerfull. Although once in a while a fight against a formidable foe is needed to get the adrenaline pumping.
As a side note,
I personnaly love the dark elf novels but I would never place Drizt in one of my games, just as my players would never face Boba Fet, Darth Maul, the Borg Queen, Loftwir, Elrond or Raistlin. These special characters should be used as doomsday weapons (you know the thing that will happen if the heroes don't succeed) I.E. The PC's get hired by a mage to recover a lost magic item and realise that in reality they are working for a polymorphed Pit Fiend (they don't have to face the beast but the fear of having to please their boss while trying to figure out why it doesn't do the job itself might make the game more exciting).
Well that was my two cents.
Cthulhu Matata.
I have to agree alot on what Sam has to say.
We Gm, and play all for the same reason. "FUN" I can tell you many times in which I was Gming a game that was good for me good and for a few other players, but not all of them. I have spent countless game sessions trying to form the game around those selfish players.
I love a great storyline, one that has conflict, a plot, and every other literary term you can think of. But how many times has anyone actually asked the GM what kind of character would best fit into the GM's game?
I have wanted to snatch the dice out of the hands of the player that said they where going to play a Priest/Mage of Kelemvar, that is from Thay, and learned dwarven rune magic, that wears full plate, and wields a Greatsword. Which might have been a good call for a different campaign, but I told the player before hand it was going to be a more pirate, social game. (Not to mention the game was set on the other side of the Forgotten realms world).
But what can we do as players and Gms? Why not just talk with the players, tell them what you (the GM) are trying to achieve. If you want to have a light hearted game, that has swashbuckling romance....then tell them. They are adults, they can decide to leave.
It is the biggest mistake that I can make is to have everyone have free reign on character creation. The players are not making the plot up. They are just providing the main characters, and as such the GM has to realize that the characters are just that the main characters. Talk to them outside of the game, ask them what kind of game they want. Then try to mix in a little of what they want.
"COMPROMISE!!!" The 2 groups have to work together.
Late
"Why do you bother playing with your GM?"
He's a friend.
That pretty much says it all. Come on, we've all got friends who irritate the hell out of us sometimes. Maybe it's their crude sense of humor or their awful taste in movies or the way they'll get drunk and hurl in your toilet. You can't make your friends do exactly what you want them to do. If you could, they'd be robots, not friends at all.
"I personnaly love the dark elf novels but I would never place Drizt "
Sorry, I may not have been clear. Drizt didn't turn up in the flesh. What did turn up was a bunch of insanely powerful Dark Elves of much the same style as DdU.
Example: We're taking ranged weapon fire from a position hidden in the treeline. My first impulse is to rush the location - the quicker the better, to take out the shooters before they take me out. However, I take one hit too many and go to ground in a convenient ruin. The very next combat round a DdU type appears at the window (me: what window? I don't remember saying that I was going to hide next to a window) and, without rolling to hit, wallops me with a sword for 10+ damage.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't. From later combat rounds I learn that even if I had closed to combat range a nat 20 wouldn't have hit these fellas. So my charge was pointless, but so was my running for cover.
That's what makes a DdU type. Not the name, but the tricks that he can pull off under the DM's control.
Yep, that got me steamed. Like I say though, he's a friend. Grit teeth & bear it time.
As for the rest, there does need to be a consensus in campaign creation. I usually end up telling the players the kind of game that I'm planning, eg: 1920s All Flesh. The campaign is based on real-life-factoid about Wild West gunfighter Bat Masterson, who ended up writing a sports column for a NYC newspaper. The characters are old fogeys, relics of another age, who have to deal with the modern 'wild west.' That's a campaign that I'm going to run, and that's how I described it to the players. Once they had that initial briefing it was easy for them to design characters that suited the game.
Adam.
Did your Game Master "warn" the players of the difficulty level of the game?
I mean I am not one for munchkinism, but what you describe is a game that is geared towards players that have been constructed with min maxing in mind no? I mean I pitty the bards, the scholars and the socially oriented characters from you Uber Drow campaing.
"Because he's a friend and I don't want a robot as a friend."
That's all fine and dandy, I mean I love to dissagree with my buddies, but Bongo describes a game where I don't think the players are enjoying themselves. Are you folks enjoying your game?
What I meant was "If you find it so frustrating, why bother playing?"
I've once had a whole gaming table quit because after a while they felt the game was going nowhere. If I had listened more to my players we could have played a while longer… well now we play star wars and I'm not GMing so I can't complain.
Here's a trick I use with new gaming groups. At the end of every session I give each players 5 minutes to tell me how they as players liked the session and how they feel their character is feeling. ie: "So Max, how did you find the game tonight? What was going on in Louis' head during the game?"
It allows me to find out what makes them tick, what adventure hooks to use and it also allows players to exchange on their likes and dislikes (both in terms of adventure elements and styles of play).
What are the gains:
Better understanding of what people are getting from the game.
Provides a "forum" to address certain problems in a game (people interupting others, hoarders, etc)
Permits to both delve into your characters' personnality and psyche while taking a few steps back.
What are the costs:
You have to be ready to get unsetling feedback from your friends (criticism happens).
The Gm has to act as a moderator if things get too hot.
It takes more or less 30 minutes off your game time.
You have to take into account what the players are saying or they will demobilize.
By the way this isn't my idea I took it from Frank (the guy who likes "bird maidens") a great Warhammer Game Master from Quebec City. Merci Francois.
Cthulhu Matata
Sorry Ah, I though the author was Bongo.
My bad.
Cthulhu Matata.
"Did your Game Master "warn" the players of the difficulty level of the game?"
That's a story in itself.
The game was the brainchild of two people.
One of them was good at characterisation & NPC acting, so he took on the role of 'second DM.' No rules input, just roleplaying the enemies & extras.
The other, (the Munchkin), was the rules DM. He statted everything (insofar as they were statted - he wasn't one to put in extra work), and rolled the dice.
Between them they agreed to mutually plot the campaign. The initial idea was Orcs, Orcs & more Orcs. Ancient human empire about to be overrun by intelligent & organized green-skinned devils. The heroes were agents of the Good Guys looking to avert catastrophe. All well and good.
Says Munch to the other fella: 'you know, it might be nice if there were some sneaky elf-types behind the orcish threat.' Now, the other fella knew about Munch's DdU obsession and guessed what would come next, but didn't foresee the scale of the dilemma. So the other fella says yeah sure, why not.
Up turns the elves. Not just one or two Evil Villains. Whole hit squads of the little buggers. Commanded by ancient evil dragons.
The dragons were wholly unanticipated. To be honest, knowing my little Munch as I do, I don't think he planned them. He just thought in the heat of the moment, 'cool idea!' and flame-breathing lizards appeared out of the aether.
It was all a great shock to the other fella. It was even more of a shock to us.
However, magical weapons of immense power rained down on us like candy from a pinjata. There was a catch, natch. The weapons were sentient and could play with our minds. Allied ancient dragons also turned up. They were the ones who sold us the weapons - though sold isn't really the right way of putting it. They gave us the weapons as freebies saying 'pay us back whenever you can.' Which seemed to mean never. We didn't really win the gold that we used to buy the weapons, (that was a freebie too), so the whole thing was looking a little wacked.
Oh, there was a deck of many things floating around too, just for chuckles.
Soon there we were on the ground, watching the dragons squabble. We had no input or impact on this. Our weapons were talking to us. We were walking into hidden hoards of treasure every second tuesday. The world was being saved, but we weren't the ones doing it.
I'm not sure what happened to the orcs. Perhaps the dragons ate them.
The game didn't last very long. It had a little appeal, (who can resist magical weapons of immense power after all? ;-) ), but not enough to save it.
As for your feedback idea: it's a good one. It requires trust. It strikes me as something that would be easier to do with players you knew well than with strangers / gaming acquaintances.
To Everyone who read this so enthusiastically...
i find some excellent comments here. Most of which, i believe, are my own fault, for not having been more clear. it seems the latter half of my rant was rather vague as to what i meant by 'give them what they want'.
I guess i would say that this could be easily summed up in what Sam from Quebec has given to this: the five minutes at the end of each session. that is in fact BRILLIANT. I've never had a GM do this for me, and i've never thought to do it for my PC's. So i will say now this is my NEW method of 'giving them what they want'.
Also, the majority of those that seem to disagree with my tactics are making reference to D&D style gaming, where a very structured method to leveling-up is implemented. and i dont' think this is not a bad thing. all i'm saying is TRY. if you have a mixed campaign of munchkins and Jedi's then so be it. As it was said, ust be honest with your players, tell them the Sith is supposed to fight the Jedi and the Jawa is supposed to fight the Ewok. that way the sith doesn't kill the Ewok so quickly the game ends in one turn (though that may not be such a bad thing...)
I fully realize the threat of an unbalanced game. But i only wanted to rant that the better way to deal with this is to struggle with letting the characters be/do what they want on their own instead of forcing them into a story you wrote for them. the game is meant for 'fun', i totally agree. and i may be wrong for the majority, but i would say that 'fun' includes a campaign where the players play the heroes they want to play. And fight the characters they know they can fight. I really must admit, i loved it when Epyon looked at me on the other side of that door. but i DIDN'T like knowing i stood no chance and that this would just be another moment where the GM would pull me out of it all. what i loved was later in the game, when i was given the power of the Force (as i wanted from the start) and fought an invisible assailant with my claws and the Force. now THAT was cool.
I also should clarify something here: Open ended games are a whole new bag of worms. I won't even begin to go there. I rarely play or run open-ended, because it's just my personal taste to have story come first. With that as my defense, i will attempt to define 'giving them what they want'.
1- don't just deny them powerful characters or character archetypes for sake of keeping them weak. there's nothing wrong with making someone start small, but don't nix their dreams completely. make them work for it. not delete it.
2- take them to places they want to go, and fight villians they want to kill. And if you don't know what those are, just ask.
3- reitterating: don't throw in Death Star's and Balrog's to look cool. it's just unrealistic. Every now and then it's cool to pit three teenage hunters against a Black Spiral Dancer. but if it's a weekend thing, then it takes from the realism.
4- what i meant by 'the GM playing more than the PC' is when the GM's NPC's are doing all the saving and killing, just because the players are too weak to stand a chance against the antagonists.
and i can't justify my Mean GM experience, but i will say that i've had several, and none have been from the same state (most at college, the rest in different homes as i drift across the midwest). Perhaps i've just had a loosing streak, but i'm guessing there's a trend developing here, and i'm ranting about it, all the same.
Hey Ah, nice article, and Sam, don't think the 'I thought it was Bongo' quote went unnoticed... We have marked it in our archives. Fnord.
On a lighter note, I think that Ah has indeed a solid point on the fact that some GMs tend to have a story revolving around themselves. Although rather rare, especially in new GMs, I've seen more than once inspiration strike them with a magnificent idea that is really coolamundo, but in practice needs to be performed by an NPC because it's too far-fetched for the PCs to even think of it. This leads into a session where the GM insists everyone must be patient so as to understand the plot (which he painstakingly took hours and hours designing and scheming) and watch him run most of the game itself, only handing the reins of control over to the players when the epic battle commences. Although not very common, this is indeed sometimes the case, and agreeably very nerve-breaking.
Also of interest is a fact I've noticed with myself lately. Because the GM often is the most rules-proficient of the lot, and because he also knows exactly what will be needed in a campaign,he is in a position to make far better players than the PCs. I noticed this in a GURPS game recently, when I handed the GMing to a new GM and played a 160-point character in the 200-point game with ease, mainly because I knew how to spend those 160 points accurately on useful skills and powers, trimming off any non-crucial ones. Taken from the other side, this can mean that the GM's NPC is always potentially more powerful than the other players. Hence it is only a matter of time until the lure of power gets to the GM and tempts him to dwarf the poor PCs with his NPCs towering presence...
Peace and bagels
Once in a campaigne I sent an NPC who was not one of these god-like characters most GMs create.
She was pretty useless in the context of battle, stradegy, and anything outside of the city she lived in. She never saw too much battle and almost always rolled a fumble when she did (i never fudged it)
The point is you don't need a uber-powerful NPC. Of couse she couldn't fight a horde of orcs or save the party from the dragon that was about to eat them but she brought so much more than that.
She actually made the players roleplay a little more. Later I eventually wrote out a plot involveing her that linked her to the major villian in the campaigne and has even lead to a romance between her and the party's fighter (him being paladin-ish helped a little to fuel that).
Things like this will make the party do even more work because the major NPC woln't suddenly pull out a "Big-A$$-Sword-of-Slaying-$h1+ (+20)" out to help them at any given moment.
"involving"
why can't I spll anythang wrait?