A message to my players that some of them found very off-putting

[Agemegos]

Here is a big slab of legacy text that I originally wrote as an e-mail to the members of a role-playing circle that I am a peripheral member of, following discussions about why we had all found my latest adventure unsatisfying. There is rather a lot of it, and in it I explain a number of points about my approach to GMing that some forumites might find interesting. I don't want it to vanish into utter obscurity. So I'm re-posting it here.

I have subjected the text to a medium edit, removing all personalities, but "you" still refers to the original addressees, not to you.



Over the last few months* I have been holding forth over Skype and AIM about what I demand of the lucky people who get to play in RPGs I run. Some of my interlocutors in these pontifications have asked that I commit my opinions in these matters to text, so that they can ignore me at reading speed rather than having to wait through my glacial drawl. So here goes.

* Actually, this was over a year ago.

Note well that I have taken part in numerous bitter arguments about the nature of RPGS over the InterNet, including disputes on the UseNet group <rec.game.frp.advocacy> and with towering luminaries of RPG. I am therefore aware that other people prefer to do things somewhat differently, and that those people are complete idiots. In the screed to come I shall occasionally make statements of how things are or ought to be in the form of unqualified declarative sentences. In no case is any such statement simply my opinion. I only ever make statements of unarguable fact, except occasionally when I express someone else's opinion. In no case should you take it that I am expressing my own opinion, that I recognise that other people might prefer to do things differently, or they anyone has a right to do things differently if they prefer. Is that clear?

There might be traces of irony in text coloured indigo.

I see RPGs as collaborative, participative, extemporary, story-telling games. This statement raises five points, which I will address in reverse order just to be annoying.

[Agemegos]

GAMES

In the article "I Have No Words and I Must Design" (http://www.costik.com/nowords.html), Greg Costikyan defined games thus:

"a game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal".

I have suffered bitter arguments over this, because if you take it as correct then soccer, tennis, hacky-sack, and spin the bottle aren't games, and neither are the RPGs I run. From an even greater eminence John von Neumann defined games as competitions in which participants choose "moves" attempting to maximise their payoff, which is specified. Again, soccer, spin the bottle, and RPGs are excluded. Let these eminences use whatever definitions they find convenient as terms of art. I mean "game" in the sense of something that people play.

RPGs are like hacky-sack, except that the players narrate instead of kicking a ball.

[Agemegos]

STORY-TELLING

Note that soccer is a running-around-and-ball-kicking game, inasmuch as playing soccer consists of running around and kicking the ball. That is not to say that kicking the ball is the object of the game. In terms of the game itself, the object of soccer is that your team score more goals than the opposing team. Different people on different occasions play soccer for different reasons: their objects are to get physical exercise, to exercise the faculties of chasing and striking small prey with which we are equipped by evolution but which our modern life does not provide sufficient exercise for, to display to the desirable sex, or to earn obscene gobs of fame and money. But though neither running nor kicking is the object of soccer, running and kicking are the essence of soccer. You play soccer by running around and kicking the ball whatever your object in playing is.

In the same way, the essence of RPGs is storytelling. Even if your goals are not narrativist (whatever than means these days), you play by recounting things that characters do. That's storytelling.

I'm not going to go into the classification of RPGs and players' appreciation of RPGs into narrativist, gamist, and simulationist in this screed, except to say that I think these things ought to be integrated, not separated, and to point out that there is a similar or even wider diversity in the appreciation of stories, and different sorts or genres of stories dedicated to pursuing different aesthetics. Mystery stories have a gamist element, for instance.

Anyway, the game is not a story, but playing the game consists of telling a story. Temporary responsibility for the story is passed from player to player like a football (or, considering the absence of an opposing team, perhaps more like a hacky-sack), and the player with the "story football" tells a little bit of story before passing the "football" on to someone else [whose character is] in a better position to carry on. That's how you play an RPG whether your aesthetic is narrativist, gamist, simulationist, or whatever. An RPG is a sort of story-telling jam session.

Is the goal of an RPG to tell a "good" story? The answer of course depends on what you answer to "good for what?". The kind of story that is good for telling in a participative, collaborative, extemporary, story-telling games is different from the kind of story that is good for writing in a mystery novel, or for telling to little children at bedtime: but those are different from each other anyway. There is no universal standard for good stories across all audiences, media, and genres. The ephemeral, participative, collaborative, extemporary nature of RPG storytelling means that good RPG stories require qualities that not shared by good novels or good movies or good bedtime stories. The goal of RPG is not to tell stories that are like novels or movies in every respect. A good story from another medium can be bad for RPG, a good story the is good for RPG can be bad for any other medium.

Which is not to say that recognising the storytelling nature of RPGs is useless. Even if trial and error were the only way to tell for sure whether a technique were useful in RPG were to try it and see, literary theory would still be useful in suggesting things to try. In practice affairs are even better than that: some of the things that are recommended to novellists and screenwriters are obviously not even possible in RPGs (for example, dashing off a rough draft and then re-writing, polishing dialogue); some of the things that you read about in how-to-write books are obviously and immediately useful in RPGs (eg. designing characters steadfast to a core motivation, establishing, the status quo, avoiding jumping conflict, using a crucible).

Finally on the subject of storytelling: you don't necessarily need to study writing to be a good roleplayer. You don't even have to study it to be a good writer. There have been natural storytellers who wrote great books without having a stepsheet or being conscious of their theme, and there are natural roleplayers who are great fun to play with without analysing their play in the least. But I wasn't one of them.

[Agemegos]

EXTEMPORARY

My greatest shortcoming as a writer is paralysing perfectionism. I never get anything finished because I sidetrack myself into repairing the defects before the first draft is done, and keep re-writing and re-writing until I get disgusted with the work and all progress halts. This may be why I prefer GMing to writing. You can't revise GMing. Your first draft is either good enough or it isn't, but the only thing to do is to go on with the story. I'm not seduced into premature polishing because polishing is impossible. Perfectionism becoming impossible, my paralysis goes away. This may be the reason that I like extemporising in my GM more than you (in the Newcastle Mob) seem to be used to.

A lot of other GMs seem to go into GMing with a much clearer and more detailed idea of what the story is going to be than I prefer. They decide in advance what the general course of events is going to be, and don't extemporise much, or extemporise only superficial details. I have three reasons for preferring not to do things that way:

1. Mistakes in preparation are likely to be critical. If there is a weakness anywhere in the plot, if any required action of any PC is insufficiently motivated, a character is likely to take an unexpected action. Then, unless the GM produces a diabolus ex machina to coerce the PCs into the planned course of action, the prepared plot doesn't work out. When I am a character-player I hate diaboli ex machinae.
   
2. A linear story plan robs the character-players of any chance to make a substantial contribution. (See "collaborative", below). Branching story-lines are hell to prepare in any detail.
   
3. I find it dull to go over the story twice, once in prep and again in play. I don't like GMing as much when I know what is going to happen. I don't feel than my faculties have been exercised by the game unless I use them in the game. I find it boring to run a prepared scenario with predicted actions and potted speeches.

So my approach to designing an RP scenario is this. I decide the premiss, and then I establish the status quo and recount the initiating incident. And then I jam.

Nothing, or very little, more of the story is planned. That's not entirely the result of laziness. I put quite a bit of effort into my games, devising and describing background, maintaining NPCs etc. I prefer making up the story as I go to making it up during prep and telling it to a receptive audience during play. I like storytelling jam sessions miles better than recitations.

It seems to me that in the Newcastle Mob you are used to the GM doing a lot more prep on the plot than I do. You seem to expect that there is a correct or expected course of action, and when it isn't clear to you what it is you sit still rather than rock the boat. You wait for the correct course to become clear. I'd rather you picked up the football and ran with it. I don't have a plot in mind, there is no correct course. I expect to extemporise.

[Agemegos]

PARTICIPATIVE

I don't think the term "game-master" is apt. "Story-teller" is worse. I don't like constructions (such as "player-character") that suggest that the players are a category that excludes the GM. I disagree that the GM is an entertainer and the character-players an audience, or that it is the GM's sole duty to make the game fun for the character-players. The GM has more to do, it is true, but RP in my opinion is participative, and every player is called upon to amuse and entertain all the others. We have to take turns because it's no good for everyone to talk at once. We all spend most of the time listening to others, not talking. But the essence is taking part, not observing, playing with others, not being entertained by a performance. The GM is one of the players.

This is what puts the spice in RPG for me, what makes it so much more absorbing and satisfying than making up a bed-time story for a six-year-old. Other players participate, they take a share not only of telling the story but of making it up, and the unpredictable content of their extemporisations challenges me to extemporise, to improvise, to think on my feet, to adapt. It's like a jam session: far more exhilarating than either playing or listening to a recital. So as GM I don't think of myself as putting on a virtuoso improv for the other players. I think of myself participating in a storytelling jam session.

As GM I don't tell the story. I don't provide the scenario and leave the other players to improvise routine detail. We get together and improvise a story together. The role of the GM is larger than that of a character-player because of the way narrative responsibility happens to be divided up, but we are all contributing to the course of the plot. We are not (perhaps sadly) equal participants, but we are all participating, all of us have at least partial control, and all of us bear at least partial responsibility for the story outcome.

It seems to me with the Newcastle Mob that when the GM passes the "story footsack" to another player that other player doesn't often do very much with it. He usually passes it straight back in an easy and predictable lob. That's a good way to avoid upsetting a prepared plot, and it is a good way to leave the game-master in control of the game. It's a good habit for a less participative style of game, especially one in which the GM runs prepared plots. But I improvise my plots anyway, so I don't depend on the expected. That enables me to hand over [some] freedom and control to you. You can take a larger part in my games, and I urge you to do so, not least because I have a lot more fun with player input to improvise off.

[Agemegos]

COLLABORATIVE

Okay, I'm asking not to be fed a boring sequence of easy lobs. But that means I want interesting input to work with, not difficulty for the sake of difficulty. I'm asking you to play with me, not to try to beat me. I like character-players to take on some of the power and freedom of the author, but with that there goes doing some of the work of the author. We'll work on it together, or collaborate. That means that when I GM I give the character players some authorial responsibility, but that I want them to use it to do some of the work of the author. Ideally, we'll all be extemporising a story together, each improvising our own part, enjoying the challenge as we go, and sharing the appreciation of a surprising conclusion. Ideally.

[whswhs]

Yes, all of that is extremely close to the way I do things. I am unsure about one point: When I run a campaign, I sometimes specify a theme in advance—for example, "we'll have scenarios about the investigation of illegal actions involving the control of information"—and ask players to design characters specifically suited to that theme. Do you make the same request, or does that go against your expectation that theme, like plot, will emerge in play?

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

When I wrote that I was using a rather limited definition of "theme" which I had from James N Frey's How to Write a Damned Good Novel. In Frey's terms the theme of a dramatic work is that one thing in confrontation with another leads to a third thing. E.g. he would say that the theme of Romeo & Juliet is "teenaged love in confrontation with family enmity leads to catastrophe". In those terms I would say that I start with an incomplete theme "Let's put teenaged love in confrontation with family enmity and see what results".

Frey's idea of a theme is a proposition in the laws of cause and effect demonstrated by the plot. And I start with questions rather than propositions.

If you take a broader definition in which "teenaged love in confrontation with family enmity" can be a theme, I do sometimes start with a theme. But not always.

[sir_pudding]

It seems to describe my gaming style and expectations as well. My only real concern is that there are a few places that I feel you come across as confrontational, and a few others that I would worry about the hard of humor.

Here:

A linear story plan robs the character-players of any chance to make a substantial contribution. (See "collaborative", below). Branching story-lines are hell to prepare in any detail.

I wonder why you don't specifically use "railroading", as it seems to be nigh-universal gamer slang.

In general though it is very good, too bad almost nobody who needs to do so will actually bother reading it. :(

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It seems to describe my gaming style and expectations as well. My only real concern is that there are a few places that I feel you come across as confrontational, and a few others that I would worry about the hard of humor.

Had I produced this text for the forums I should have striven more earnestly for anodyne blandness. But I figured that people who had known me for years must either be inured to my sardonic style and lavish use of irony or already so offended that a little more would do no harm.

I wonder why you don't specifically use "railroading", as it seems to be nigh-universal gamer slang.

Too confrontational. I was talking about the addressees' GMing styles.

In general though it is very good, too bad almost nobody who needs to do so will actually bother reading it. :(

Perhaps no-one needs to read it except who is thinking of playing in one of my campaigns or those of GMs who share my preferred style.