I played a fantasy rpg with my old Sydney group on Saturday night and despite looking forward to it, it was far from a success; in fact I spent the last hour looking for an excuse to end it.
Here are the problems as I saw them:
1. There were too many (eight) players.
2. Players didn't listen to each other and character cooperation was low.
3. Both in and out of character, people found ways to annoy each other and they also found in and out of character ways to become upset.
4. People spent periods of time disconnected from the game.
The first one is easy to fix: Five players max.
The next two have been problematic to different degrees for a long time.
The last one is not disruptive, so it has never been addressed, but when three people at the table are not involved in the game, it makes it difficult to maintain (GM) enthusiasm.
How do I choose who to include in the future?
How do I fix problems 2-4?
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11 comments:
I'd say the solution on who to include is bribery.
Failing that look at reliability, likelihood of being disruptive, and game compatability.
There are certain players I wouldn't invite into a Champions game as I don't feel they get the genre for example, whereas there are others I wouldn't invite as I feel it would be too much effort to try and teach them the system.
I guess sometimes you just have to be a bastard about it and hope you've got the choices right.
I hate being a bastard about who I invite and who I don't. i also don't want to split the group and run two games.
I notice you can post now too.
Then I guess it goes back to the bribery.
It's a problematic subject I agree.
Problems and personality clashes aside, I enjoyed the game.
It's possible I'm easily pleased.
A shame you didn't feel it worked out so well.
it's hard to say how problems 2-4 would be affected by reducing the number of players, but maybe 8 is too many. i don't think hard limits are good to have for yourself, though - being flexible is always better, imo.
i do find problems 2-3 are very affected by how well people get along with each other in the first place. i suspect that caused more of an issue at your game than having too many people, but that's just an opinion.
i guess the way you decide who to include is to see how people interact at your games, and leave out those you feel do not fit in with everyone else. it's no different to having dinner plans - some people might get upset at not being invited, but everyone here is an adult, and you should be able to expect them to behave accordingly.
from my own point of view, i enjoyed the game a lot. right up until the arguing did my head in. i did feel that my character had nothing to offer to the part of the story we were at, but if it weren't for certain interactions between people, i don't think that would have been such an issue for me.
overall, i think your game was a success, but some of those people haven't gamed together before, and certainly there are also difficulties when it is a new system to most of them. i think with time, you would find it would settle down a lot. :)
I don't want to pick and choose players too much, it makes me feel like I am trying to be elitest. Having said that, it is probably only a fantsy game that I would invite everyone along too, because some people find some genres problematic.*
I really think I have the answer to have people in the game treat each other with respect and that is to be open about it. If we need to say 'hang on a minute' to someone when they are starting to be a bit uppity, then we need to feel that we can say it without it being viewed as a personal attack.
Personally, when I am DMing and players are behaving poorly, I get bummed out. I wonder why I spent so muych time developing the game and at the same time that maybe if I'd done a better job, players would be appropriately focussed. It especially gets to me when players are pissed off and disengaged.
I invited all of the players for a reason and I would like to think that if I was to run another fantasy game I could invite those same players again.
*Possibly this is just an expectations issue.
> Personally, when I am DMing and
> players are behaving poorly, I get
> bummed out. I wonder why I spent
> so much time developing the game
> and at the same time that maybe
> if I'd done a better job,
> players would be appropriately
> focused. It especially gets to
> me when players are pissed off
> and disengaged.
I understand where you're coming from here, as I've had similar feelings over games that I've run previously, but I think you also have to remember that the people you're playing with are adults (even when we don't act that way) and need to take responsibility for their own actions.
Having said that, I know, from many a night out with you, that you often take other people's happiness as a personable responsibility. This is a good thing, but you have to just temper it sometime.
I hope this makes some sort of sense. It did when I started writing it.
What people have been saying here makes sense.
Also, i didn't hate the fact that the game didn't follow the path I thought it was going to. I enjoyed the first half with the role playing. It was the second half with the problems that I disliked.
that's your problem you discuss things uber much. play on McDuff.
Tried to change my password but didn't work as I now don't know who I am. So I'll try Anomymous.
Pop
Hey it now works. One up for the troglodyte
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