compendium rant on gaming

Okay folks. Since, evidently, some people didn't read the article about gaming this is it, redux, in complaint stylee.

As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to run a game - much like the only reason for S&M - is for everyone to have a good time. If you can't make sure that your players (or your masochist) is having a good time, you shouldn't be running a game.

While this sounds like a simple concept, evidently it isn't.

I base this on the fact that the Captain continues to run a game that people continue to have a problem with. Why do we continue to play? Because we're sad-ass losers, basically - that and the fact that it was the game going while I was around and no one wanted to put together a one-shot so that I could get some gaming love action.

There are three primary problems, and, much as I like the Captain, they're all with him. The first is that he clearly is a much better GM if there's one person in the game - then you get his total attention and things move along at your pace. Add other people, and they wind up separated - however hard they try to prevent this - in their own adventures. Being mad gamers, of course, this doesn't prevent us from continuing to act like we're all in the same room and talking in character, but it makes it mightily difficult that he continues to break the group up.

The second problem is that he's allowed a game full of people (five, I think, or maybe six) who have no reason to work together. There isn't even the standard cliche of all being the same clan, or of getting us together as part of some organization we already work for. This is a problem because all the characters I've met are fiercely individual. I think nothing of it that my character would want to walk away from the group and go find the person we're supposed to overthrow. Or whatever.

The third problem, weird as it sounds for gamers, is dice. We don't use them. Astolat lies about roles if they have a negative impact. I lie about rolls if it means I'll get fried. The Captain relies on them religiously, in direct contradiction of what the two strongest characters in the group want.

All of these problems boil down to one: The GM doesn't know how to make the group do what he wants if they are acting as a group and using actual character histories, so, rather than solving the problem he breaks us up to make us easier to deal with and uses dice to predict the outcomes of our actions. There are ways of getting your group to do what you want, and the Captain's going to have to learn them real quick-like.

One of Astolat's games (and one of the longest running we've done) involved all the characters working for the Talamasca, of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Even though the characters had no reason to know each other - and in a lot of cases either didn't bother or actively disliked each other - we worked for the same people and had to do what they said (or quit, which we did much later on.) In that case, the individuals had to be built with the requirement that they would work for and obey the organization.

In the case of the Captain's game, you've got all these individuals running around, with no reason to work together, except that we've all been hired (under useless circumstances, I might add) by someone who wants us to achieve an objective for him. Minimal compensation - I got the best deal on it because I was brought into the game separately and could bargain without everyone else getting impatient for the group to come back together. The reason we're all working for this guy is beyond me, quite frankly. And I know that the Captain isn't going to be able to handle the serious scenario-trashing that Astolat and I will get up to if the game doesn't change.

This problem, however, would be solved if the Captain knew his players. He can get my character to do anything he wants - as long as she's either entertained or confused. Some of the other players have figured this out - the scene where Alanya pulled out a pen as a defence against me shooting her had me so confused I didn't do it. I'm quite sure that Astolat has a similar hook for her character, which means that if the Captain is smart enough to figure out what it is (and to figure out what she as a player won't stand for), he can get the whole group together. Get her and I into the story and the rest will follow - it always happens that way.

But he hasn't figured that out, and quite frankly, I don't know if he's noticed the problem. Why wouldn't you notice such a thing? I've never been a real GM, and I know how to manipulate the players. Silly me, for thinking that after gaming with us for two and some years he'd know the consistencies to our characters - for example, almost all of my characters will respond to flirting or a love interest with total confusion. I suspect that Spackle doesn't like to be the center of attention as a leader (as a non-leader, sure) - hence his reluctance to play characters that lead the group. Astolat varies widely as to her hook, but she always writes GM treats into the character - like taking Dark Fate or providing some kind of hook in her character story - and if you know what it is (and it's always a big, obvious thing) she will respond to it. For that matter, the Captain himself will always get along with the other characters unless they do something really horrific to him. You have to work to get him to hate you.

This is not difficult.

With a little bit of ability to read his group - and I don't know why you'd want to GM if you couldn't read a group - the Captain could develop a game around what he wants us to do that we would be happy doing.

Again, this is not rocket science.

However, you would think that it was. Because he's elected not to read the group (and believe me, he's not the only GM I've met who does this, but, to his credit, he's trying to run a game other than blog-blog, total lack of character development), the GM is dealing with a group that is bickering internally. I came as close as I've ever come to killing friendly PCs and NPCs because of my lack of motivation to keep them alive - the only reason I didn't was because, as a player, I was willing to act out of character to keep the game going. I will not be compromising on this again.

In addition to bickering, we're all wondering why, and for what, we're working for Nathan, the guy who's hired us all. We have no reason to. This is why we wander off - when we're not actively forced into a separate adventure, which compounds the problem with the players by splitting the group up.

As to the dice thing. While it's gratifying to roll high enough to just say "I do it John Woo stylee" and get a really cool description of what happens, it's also irritating to be playing a weapons fanatic who can't just shoot someone, but the dice have to be rolled to find out if I hit them, whether I got to go first (even when I had the drop on them) and how much damage (!) I did.

An example: My character is a psychopathic Gangrel who had shifted to wolf form to check out the grounds of the house we're in, rather than attending some pointless dinner that Nathan wanted everyone to be at. After the dinner, Guido and Alanya decided to find me - by whistling for me. (There's a reason I call Alanya Fuckwit). So, when I come up to them, preparing to rip out throats, they suddenly scramble into the mansion. I follow. Alanya whips out the aforementioned pen, which, believe me, I've seen before. I shifted back to human and shot the pen, destroying it (I had to roll for this) and putting a bullet into the wall. Before anyone can do anything, I went back to my campervan to make a lightbulb bomb, which I planted in Alanya's room while Nathan was trying to figure out what happened. On my way out, Alanya slipped a Milk Bone into my pocket.

Cut to Barnes and Noble in the mall. I found the Milk Bone and reacted badly - I think I used napalm to set the mall on fire. Then we got back to the house, where Alanya turned on her light and it exploded while I was outside. Nathan put the house on lockdown so that I couldn't get back in.

See the problem here? Rather than being told that we must get along, or get out, I'm suddenly off on my own adventure (to find and kill REM), while everyone else is inside the house and there's no way to get in that I would have thought of.

If I were running the game, I'd have pointed out that Cyr (my character) had found an entrance to the house that bypassed the lockdown entirely (one used by Rashid later on that night, in fact). Or I would've called the group together and said that, since they'd all agreed to work for me, they were all going to get along, and if they couldn't do that then they'd have to get out (and the players would have to make new, more tractable characters.) I would also have prevented the characters from being used against me by killing them if they declined my employment.

Instead, I'm on a solo adventure, and I could see (and hear) the other players recognizing that this would likely take an hour or more of game time, while they were literally stuck inside the house. I forced the Captain to cut it short.

I had no problem with being solo - that was a flaw with the character that the GM knew about at the time. Trust me, he's met this character before. The problem was that this was not what the group wanted, and additionally that he was not willing to throw his weight around to get us to do what he wanted.

Instead, the problem here was that the Captain was not, so far as I could see, thinking like a GM. He was, instead, thinking like a person not in control of anything. If he had been GMing, he would've pulled me up short and forced the group to do what he wanted. By acting as he did, however, the plot became totally driven by the characters who were acting (me) and that was to the detriment of the game. I should not have been allowed (or forced) to become the center of attention in this situation. It pisses me off that I was.

See, the reason I game (other than the pudding) is to experience intereactions with other people playing other personalities. If I didn't want that, I'd just live in my room and play out fantasies in my head. What I crave, more even than the catharsis of taking out RL stress on game characters, is the interaction with my friends. Probably why I've never stopped gaming. I like having the wildcards of other characters and of the GM.

To me, the GM exists to provide control. If I didn't want some sort of policing of my actions in games, I wouldn't game. I'd just go kill people in real life. The GM prevents me from having to do this, and my acceptance of a GM is based around the fact that what I crave is not unrestricted freedom to misbehave, but rather a guided exploration of my character and of myself. I've learned more about myself through gaming than I ever thought I would. Same is true for what I've learned about my friends.

By failing to meet this requirement, the Captain is failing in what I see as his obligation. Again, like the S&M example, the GM or sadist has by far the harder job - to give the players or masochist what they want, obeying their requirements.

And I say, to the person who fails at either, "Why in the name of god would you try to do something that you cannot do?" No one has a good time if they are being prevented from getting what they want.

I'm not trying to sound like a real tightass about "this is my style of gaming and you're not doing it, so I'm gonna take my ball and go home". Instead, I'm trying to point out that there is no point in running a game if you cannot accomodate what your group wants and expects from a game. We could deal with any one of the three major problems. All three together, however, mean that we all, players and GM, wind up frustrated, and that's not how it should be.