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Old 07-07-2006, 12:51 PM   #21
Mark Skarr
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
For the most part, I'm a total auteur type about game design, in much the sense in which the term is used in film theory
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur_Theory),
and thus I don't normally have any use for player collaboration in campaign design. A large part of what I'm offering my players is the chance to be surprised by the world I've created.
I love you, whswhs, but I'm going with the "Gamer's Paradise" defense again. (I'm trying to find a better one, but this one keeps working.) Most of us just simply don't have either the writing/world building chops to try that, and/or we don't have the gamer pool to draw from. Again, I have five gamers (six, if you count me) to draw from to form a reliable pool. And we game reliably (one of them has a crappy work schedule so she may not be able to make it all the time).

To me, the best campaigns are ones I've sat down with my players and said "here's the general over-view, what do you want added or subtracted." My collaborative-effort supers world (Super San Diego) has my PCs regularly injecting new and interesting things. I have to veto occasionally (when it doesn't fit with the world, or something nearly identical already exists).
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Old 07-07-2006, 06:42 PM   #22
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

whswhs, can you elaborate on the current campaign? Is it a fantasy setting or a modern one? sounds like a great idea.

I usualy developd a game alone and after the first coulpe of sessions talk with the plaeyrs about how its going and if it was what they thought it would be when I described it to them. Then I make changes in how the game is played, not what has happened inthe adventures, but the tone and pace, and maybe the scope of the game
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Old 07-08-2006, 12:16 AM   #23
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

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Originally Posted by cadia134
whswhs, can you elaborate on the current campaign? Is it a fantasy setting or a modern one? sounds like a great idea.
Pure, total fantasy. The Empire of the distant, forgotten past is partly borrowed from Exalted; the isolated community led by the magically gifted is inspired by Ars Magica; the distinction between ritualized magic and free magic comes partly from Big Eyes Small Mouth and partly from Garth Nix's novel Sabriel. The technology is deliberately low, based on craftsmanship rather than industrialization, but with spells and enchantments that can do some very modern or postmodern things, such as exactly identifying the parents of a child by genetic mapping.

I can send you the campaign log thus far if you're interested. E-mail to macavity@mindspring.com to request it.
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Old 07-08-2006, 06:25 AM   #24
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Skarr
I love you, whswhs, but I'm going with the "Gamer's Paradise" defense again. (I'm trying to find a better one, but this one keeps working.) Most of us just simply don't have either the writing/world building chops to try that, and/or we don't have the gamer pool to draw from. Again, I have five gamers (six, if you count me) to draw from to form a reliable pool. And we game reliably (one of them has a crappy work schedule so she may not be able to make it all the time).
I don't really see why that's relevant.

Certainly, if I were just saying, "Here's the campaign I want to run. Trust me, it'll be brilliant," I'd have to have a tremendously loyal player base to get away with it. But I'm handing out a list of from 10 to 50 different possible campaigns, and asking the players to tell me which ones they like. I run the ones that are most popular—I may pick an option that's slightly less than the top choice to get a more compatible player group or to fit my personal tastes, but I'm hardly unilaterally imposing a campaign theme on the players. They get input when I ask them, "What do you want to play?" That seems to me to take a lot less player trust.

Now, the fact that my players go for some pretty interesting and way out stuff does fall under "gamer's paradise." But the method should transfer over to gamers with more conservative tastes.

Quote:
To me, the best campaigns are ones I've sat down with my players and said "here's the general over-view, what do you want added or subtracted." My collaborative-effort supers world (Super San Diego) has my PCs regularly injecting new and interesting things. I have to veto occasionally (when it doesn't fit with the world, or something nearly identical already exists).
I don't inherently object to that; as I've said, I'm running one of my current campaigns with massive player input. It's just not my default mode. Nor that of my favorite GM (that is, someone other than me in whose games I play).
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Old 07-09-2006, 02:50 PM   #25
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
Certainly, if I were just saying, "Here's the campaign I want to run. Trust me, it'll be brilliant," I'd have to have a tremendously loyal player base to get away with it. But I'm handing out a list of from 10 to 50 different possible campaigns, and asking the players to tell me which ones they like. I run the ones that are most popular—I may pick an option that's slightly less than the top choice to get a more compatible player group or to fit my personal tastes, but I'm hardly unilaterally imposing a campaign theme on the players. They get input when I ask them, "What do you want to play?" That seems to me to take a lot less player trust.
(Honestly, if I was in your area, I'd believe you if you said "Trust me, it'll be brilliant." I've read your books. I own Fantasy soley for that reason.)
I'm only going to touch on this a little, since we're really OT here. Every time I have made a campaign, or several, without player input, they have crashed and burned marvelously. I've had several campaigns that have done for my world-building skills what the Hindenburg did for blimp/hydrogen saftey. To me, when the next time rolls around, I'm more likely to construct a prospectus that asks about various concepts instead of specific campaigns.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
Now, the fact that my players go for some pretty interesting and way out stuff does fall under "gamer's paradise." But the method should transfer over to gamers with more conservative tastes.
Oh, my gamer's don't have conservative tastes, but many others might. For me, it's just that I don't have a huge pool to draw from, and if we're going to be playing a game for a year or so, I want their input to ensure that I can make it fun for them.
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Old 07-09-2006, 11:41 PM   #26
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Skarr
Oh, my gamer's don't have conservative tastes, but many others might. For me, it's just that I don't have a huge pool to draw from, and if we're going to be playing a game for a year or so, I want their input to ensure that I can make it fun for them.
I'm still not getting what the problem is. I mean, I come up with a bunch of concepts for diverse campaigns—you've seen one of my lists at the start of this thread. My players pick ideas they like. Then I do the best I can to come up with things that will be fun for them. If that isn't working for you, I can think of several interpretations, but I don't know which might be true and I hesitate to believe any of them:

Your players are no good at predicting what would be fun from a campaign description.

You're really bad at turning a campaign description into a campaign.

Your players are a bunch of prima donnas who don't enjoy anything.

I'd like to figure out why there's this difference, especially if it points to a question of method, and I can recommend some nuance of my approach that I haven't as yet consciously recognized as a way to have more fun gaming.
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Old 07-10-2006, 01:11 AM   #27
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

Will, the basic thing is that if you have twenty gamers to choose from - or be chosen by - then you'll be able to try a wider variety of games than someone with five gamers to choose from. Wider variety of people, wider variety of games.

The thing is to get to know lots of gamers, and/or make new gamers. Some people have these essentially social skills and/or courage to do that, others don't.

Your gaming circle will be like your social circle. Some people are friendly and associate with upwards of a hundred other people; other people, at most five or six. That'll carry through into your gaming life. It's all about introvert/extravert and all that sort of stuff.

This will carry through into what sort of games you're willing to offer, too. If you have twenty or so people to pitch to, you can throw out any crazy idea out there, someone is bound to like it. If only five or so, you'll be more worried what they say. This of course is just a part of personal confidence, too. There are people who boldly say, "I want to run a game about X. What do you guys think?" and then there are others who are a bit more nervous and say, "Um, I guess I could run a game, what would you guys like?" And all other kinds in between...

Essentially, Will, it seems that you are a confident person with a wide social circle; not everyone is.
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Old 07-10-2006, 07:31 AM   #28
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

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Originally Posted by Jim Bob
Essentially, Will, it seems that you are a confident person with a wide social circle; not everyone is.
I suppose that could be true. But you know, I've always thought of myself as an introvert. Social skills have never come naturally to me; I like gaming partly because it gives me a mode of social interaction where my handicaps are minimized. It's somewhat the same deal with prospectuses: they're a tool for eliciting preferences in a form that I can approach analytically.

Now your secondary point about the size of the gaming circle implying greater or lesser possibilities of finding support for niche campaigns is well taken. My Manse campaign found four enthusiastic players out of a total of 13 who got questionnaires—and no one else who was much interested. (In contrast to Boca del Infierno, which had three core players and at least four more who were strongly interested in it if their top choice didn't make it.) But I think of the prospectus method's usefulness as being orthogonal to that (or nearly): prospectuses ought to work just as well if you list mostly fairly conservative options for a population of five or six possible players. If there's a reason that they wouldn't, I'm not seeing what it is.

And I don't think my personal confidence in my own visions of possible game settings is necessarily a predictor of the success of those game settings with players. After all, every time I run a new set of campaigns, there are some proposed campaigns for which I had an equally strong and clear vision, but which my players didn't think were interesting. If I insisted on running one of those, I think I would have less happy players and much less startup "willingness to participate" capital to expend. My confidence is at least partly a postjudgment that follows from my having those prospectus responses to look at.
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Old 07-10-2006, 03:06 PM   #29
Mark Skarr
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
Your players are no good at predicting what would be fun from a campaign description.

You're really bad at turning a campaign description into a campaign.

Your players are a bunch of prima donnas who don't enjoy anything.
Of the three, if any of these are the culprit, I'm going with point 2. I don't know for sure, my players don't usually complain. We usually enjoy every game we're in. We're having some complications with IBC, but that's because the GM is bringing new players in a game with four years of history and we don't have a freaking clue. I'm trying, really hard, to get into it, because I can see how much the long-term players enjoy the game. But, there's still a lot of friction.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
I'd like to figure out why there's this difference, especially if it points to a question of method, and I can recommend some nuance of my approach that I haven't as yet consciously recognized as a way to have more fun gaming.
I think part of it is that they'll read the descriptions and think "That sounds good, but I don't like X about it." or "This would be more interesting if it was about Y instead of Z."

As Jim Bob pointed out, we all have social circles. My social circle is rather huge (to my surprise since I'm rather misanthropic). However, I know a good two dozen gamers. Unfortunatley, most of them are seperated by geography. That doesn't bother me, I'm willing to drive across town to game, but a lot of my gamers aren't. So, my gaming groups are divided by who can come to which game.

I usually start by saying "I have several ideas that work for genres A, B, C and D. Which would you guys like to try?" Once I figure out what type of genre they want, we narrow it down. I give a description of the starting situation, and maybe an overview if their character's are likely to know the whole plot. From there I find out what other things they want, and what will or will not fit with the story. I keep a few secrets so I can throw curves at them as the game goes.

I like the idea of a prospectus, but, with a small group, I think it's better for getting the players what my general ideas are, and then they can help me hone it into something they want to play.
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Old 07-10-2006, 03:51 PM   #30
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Default Re: Sample prospectus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Skarr
As Jim Bob pointed out, we all have social circles. My social circle is rather huge (to my surprise since I'm rather misanthropic). However, I know a good two dozen gamers. Unfortunatley, most of them are seperated by geography. That doesn't bother me, I'm willing to drive across town to game, but a lot of my gamers aren't. So, my gaming groups are divided by who can come to which game.
Huh. It just never occurred to me to worry about location in that way. I took it for granted that anyone who wanted to play in a game would be willing to go to where the game was. Yesterday one of my regulars gave me a lift to the house of another of my regulars, who is running a campaign we both play in; it took her about half an hour to get from my place to the game location, and she had been on the road maybe fifteen minutes to get to my place. Admittedly that's kind of high end for us, but not unprecedented. Do you have longer travel times than that, or do you just have a lot of people than spend any time on the road?

(That's not to mention the two people who have driven down from UCLA, once a month. They're extreme cases, even for our circle!)

As a result, I've never had the thing of "here's this group of people that already exists—what can I do that all of them will like?" I handed the list out to everyone and put together groups that liked the same proposals, and just took it for granted that they could all get together. I didn't even realize when I started out that I had to worry about player compatibility, though I've been giving players the right to refuse to game with other players for years and years now, and some players are effectively banned by having made themselves unwelcome to too many other players. But I took it as, "This is an invitation from me to you to do X." The players are players because I invited them; the group of players exists because I brought together players who wanted the same game, even if they didn't know each other before the first session.

Or as Bertolt Brecht said, "If the government doesn't trust the people, why doesn't it dissolve them and elect a new people?"

All of which would be terribly dictatorial if a government did it. But no one has to game, or to game with a specific GM, and so I'm subject to market feedback, which helps motivate me to keep trying to come up with good product.
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