I’m Getting Angry
Number of Views :721Two days ago, The Id DM had an interview with Scott Rehm (AKA The Angry DM). Angry is known for his long diatribes, and he gives some fantastic ones in the interview. Here’s an exerpt, which I’d like to talk about:
And who wins? The players! And I don’t mean in terms of encounters, though they win those too. Because the whole damned game is set up to let the players show off their amazing characters. “Look at me! Look at how awesome I am!” The entire world – everything the DM creates – all of that exists solely to either fawn over the PCs or get slaughtered by the PCs. The few times a DM tries to find something to latch onto, like a favorite NPC, he gets slapped across the face. “No! This is the PC’s story. Keep your DM PCs to yourself!” Say yes to the players. Bow and scrape for the players. Don’t step on their creativity. You can create a dark, hopeless world in which civilization is struggling to find its footing and recover from a devastating war with the primordials and have it deal with the overarching themes of sanity and what it means to be human, but if someone wants to play a silly gnome bard named Skippy, you’re not allowed to say no.
DMing is a sick trap. Its hell for creative people. Create something you love, then turn it over to the ravages of a bunch of uninvested, self-worshiping morons. DMing is like writing an epic series of novels and then locking yourself in a room with a bunch of fan fiction writers, week after week, and clapping for them as their self-insert avatars urinate on the corpses of the characters you breathed life and subtlety and nuance into for years.
It clicked.
He’s right.
On Friday night, when I handed out the campaign books, which I wrote up, hole-punched, assembled and indexed, I made sure to say, “Now, that’s not required reading. I’d like it if you would, but don’t feel obligated.”
What?! I really shouldn’t have been so milquetoast about it.
Why shouldn’t the players read it?! I’ve spent hours upon hours assembling this campaign, making it just right, trying to assemble as cohesive a world as possible, painting miniatures, putting together Dungeon Tiles in fancy ways, and more.
And for what? People who potentially have no interest in the world outside of their characters.
Now, these are brand new players, so perhaps I can work on investing them in the world, to find ways to give them buy-in. And so far, they don’t seem like they don’t care, but it is a concern.
In my Star Wars group online, the players are deeply invested not only in their characters, but in one anothers’, and the galaxy in general. They truly care about what I’m saying. When I mention a particular ship, they go out online and look up said ship, find art, and post it up.
But I can’t expect every group to be like that.
This, I think, could be the foremost reason for GM/DM burnout. Players simply not caring. And, as Angry says, ” DMing is a lot easier when you just stop giving a crap. After all, the players don’t. Why should you?”
If you stop giving a crap, you’re going to lose interest in the game.
I’m not saying my players are a bunch of ungreatful, uninvested chumps. I’m saying, I don’t want them to be.
So I need some help, people. How do I get players invested? What do I do to really make them give a damn?
Don’t wanna start an edition war but this sounds a lot like what old schoolers dislaike about the new school approach. If PCs can’t or very rarely fail/die, and the game (mechanics) encourages more effort being put into “character building” than exploration/survival, then players will naturally see their PCs as the center of the universe. If you want them to buy in to your owrld, two things: give them some input (leave plenty of blank space in your setting and if your player has a cool idea aobut why dwarves are greedy or where orcs come from, run with it) and more importantly give them some mystery … things they may or may not find; people they may or may not encounter; freedom to explore without too many ‘plot hooks’ or ‘paths’. Just have some locales they can find out about and let them decide to explore them or not. Getting thier butts handed to them in the first dungeon may encourage them to WANT to find out more about the world just so they can survive.
Regarding NPCs, it’s fine to have interesting NPCs; the thing is don’t make them Elminsters/Strahds/Mary Sues. The PCs can’t beat everyone they meet … but if you really just wanted to play a kickass hero, don’t be the DM. Make NPCs interesting by giving them personality and histories and so on, which the PCs only get to find out about by roleplaying.
In both cases be prepared to have people and places the players NEVER see. If all roads lead to the awesome encounter you came up with, the players don’t really make meaningful choices. It’s been killing me that for nearly 20 sessions my players have avoided my coolest dungeon like the plague because they nearly got themselves killed in it the first time in. They are all several levels higher still fear it. I could transplant some of the awesome from that dungeon to another place but then I’m undermining their ability to make choices, and that kills interest too. They’ll come back when they want to, and if they don’t then that’s how it goes.
Also, a sketch of your campaign world that leaves out some of the most important information will be more intruging than one that gives a 500 year chronology and king list. Give them a very incomplete and misleading map, a few pages of info, and let them find out the rest through play.
I think you have to make the world matter to them. Give them a hook. “Your character is a member of the Red Brotherhood, a mercenary band that was nearly wiped out by the Sons of Dawn, stationed in this city over here”. The less the characters are mere wallpaper in the world and more a vibrant part of it, the more it matters. I think it’s a grevious issue the Realms has—there’s so much history and lore, which is awesome, but you also have (in a lot of games I’ve seen) these high-level PCs really chewing the scenery and dominating everything.
Don’t let them get away with zero allegiances and relationships. Nationalities, guilds, secret orders, wizard’s schools—whatever—they have a stake in the setting that way.
Players are selfish. You’ve got to use that selfishness and character narcissism, channeling into interacting with the world by describing how they fit in. Yes, your character matters here, and here’s why.
I think using the Burning Wheel character background system will help. Give the players a chance to invent their outside relationships. From this you will build up a list of NPCs. When the NPC makes an appearance, introduce them in a way that reinforces their relationship with the player. Then, the player will immediately attach themselves to their friends, and hate their enemies. That way, if a player decides to start messing around with another player’s sister, the player will take offense and protect his sister. If anything, it will help increase party tension, as they start either working together, or pissing each other off. For the enemies they create, make them impossible to kill (because they are too smart, or whatnot) and really enforce the laws in the world. If a player invents a really nasty merchant as an enemy, and the player decide to murder him, create an investigator that will then hunt them down and enforce the law. Make it so they can not get away from their own lives, and every action they make has a reaction.
-Monday
I was on the other end of the interview asking Angry questions, and I’ve always appreciated his advocacy for the DM Role. I try to reinforce and reward players for being invested in the campaign. If they write a review of the session in the form of a character journal, then I will give them in-game bonuses. But it’s important for me to remember that the players are likely NOT thinking about the game other than the few hours we play each month. I think you have to find your own joy in the creative process and in running the game.
At the same time, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to request things from players. For instance, if you spent many hours putting together a guide for them, then I think it’s acceptable to request, “Please read through the guide as it’ll help you learn about the world, etc.” Very reasonable to ask, but do not get too down if the players ignore the request.
If you feel the players are not invested *enough* in the campaign, then speak with them openly about it. If you can’t reach some type of middle ground, then it might be time to look for new players. Sounds harsh, but it’s important to remember you are also playing the game. Even though you’re the DM, your enjoyment should matter.
Also, I really want to play a Star Wars RPG one of these days!
Well, I’m not afraid of fighting edition wars, so I’ll come out and say it. By playing an old-school game (either 0E, 1E, a retro-clone, or a reconstruction), there is much less of this sort of problem. In 4E, as the Angry DM rightly points out, the emphasis is entirely on the characters, with the campaign setting placed as a mirror before which they can strut. In older games, the characters are tools for the players to explore the campaign world. In the ur-game as DMed by Gygax in Lake Geneva, they often didn’t even bother to name the characters, knowing that the high mortality rate would obviate the need. People often mention that old-school games place an emphasis on “exploration” and this is exactly so. But what are the players exploring? The campaign world carefully crafted by the DM. You want the focus to be on the world, rather than the player characters? Make figuring out the world, and delving into its secrets and layers, the focus of the players’ activities.
Maybe it’s just my approach to DM’ing… but my problems deal less with the players trashing the set, and more with the Motivation getting Stale.
Let’s take a Pirates of Dark Water Premise. On it’s surface, it’s a great plot. Players are ragtag people who happen to get an item that points to more treasure! Get on a ship and sail to more treasure! Throw in an arch villian that has legions of followers and helpers, and all you have to do, at that point, is window dressing. I’m really, really good at window dressing.
However, when the game session hits that 8 to 12 month mark, the motivation is really stale. You can’t keep just going after treasures, and after the 5 or so treasure, players don’t even *remember* why they were doing it in the first place, and you are trying so hard to make it seem important, but you’re trying to make them remember something in ancient history at that point.
It is less about keeping the players vested. They’ll love you if you kill them or if you pander to their every fantasy. That much doesn’t matter so much. It’s about keeping the players interested. It’s about putting together places and reasons to explore interesting places. That’s not always so easy, and the harder part is getting players to help you with that, because, to be honest, not every player at your table is going to be really creative.
As someone who hates edition wars, I’ll call bullshit on them in this case. It was just as hard to get players invested in 1e as it is in 4e. It’s also just as hard in Savage Worlds and GURPS, for that matter. System’s got nothing at all to do with it.
In addition to the excellent advice given already, let me add making it easy for your players to find the information they need. In your Star Wars game, it’s probably pretty trivial in most cases to pop over to Wookiepedia for a ship reference. While you can probably never reach that level of detail in your campaign material, you do have a bible already made. Is it easy to reference? Do you have plans to add to it as the players discover new things? Will you allow players to use the bible instead of making Knowledge checks?
Also, if you want them to read the material, you need to do two things: require it and reward it. Requiring it doesn’t mean yelling at them. Instead, it means plowing forward in the campaign with the assumption that they have read it. If they come to a city that you have detailed, don’t repeat the description. They can read it if they want to know. But, when they need to figure out how to get close to the Duke, the sentence that you put in there about his daughter having a thing for dwarves should be able to be brought into play. (That’s the reward bit.)
I never have a problem, I just let the players do things and build things that last. Big things, major things. I make the world part of their character. I keep the game world persistent between campaigns.
When the major world powers are founded by previous player characters they care a lot more about how they progress, about what happens to the world. The world is then after all, part of their character.
When you create a campaign primer, you need to tie it in so that the consequences of acting in ignorance makes itself known.
For example, I am getting ready to start a new campaign after I wrap up my current one. I have written a primer that I expect my players to read in addition to the player’s guide for the adventure path. However, my approach is a carrot on the stick. If the players read my primer, they get certain advantages during character creation. If they toss it aside and create a normal character, they lose out–big time.
However, there is something to be said about writing a primer that’s short, simple, and to the immediate point. I won’t write up a history on the country or put in information in my primer unless the players are going to utilize and need it in the first or second session. Additional information will come in the form of handouts that can be added to the primer at and for later sessions. In my current campaign, in the beginning, I wrote two primers–one dealing with history and such that was five pages and the other dealing with variant classes, feats, and other stuff for the players to use that was 44 pages. You can guess which one got read and which one did not.
So my point is that encourage the players to read a short primer, provide a good incentive for their characters to do so, but don’t bombard them with information unless there will be an immediate need for it. For my group, their limit is about five pages at a time.
I find that peppering my world with interesting characters and random bits of useful background will usually do the trick. But I also tend to play with exceptional players who enjoy taking this sort of stuff and running with it. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
I completely understand your dilemma. I remember the first time I ran a game in Eberron. I wanted to run an inquisitive campaign, and since I didn’t want the players to go into the game without at least having some inkling of what the game was going to be about, I sent them a little primer, telling them “You’re all part of an inquisitive organization, etc.”
Man, the vitriole I got back from my players. One player straight out told me that I was infringing on his creativity. I told him, “Play whatever you like. I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t surprised when I started calling for things like Gather Information and Search checks.”
Another time, I ran an epic campaign, and I made some changes to some spells to accommodate the kind of game I was trying to run. I sent out a document to the players by email, printed the document out and gave it to them before the first game session, and went over the document with them, asking them if they had any questions. Yet despite all this, each time they tried to cast one of these spells for the first time, they would act like it was total news to them that I’d changed how it works in game, and they would throw a fit.
The one thing I can say about these experiences is that it does get better. The next time I sent out a character creation document for a campaign of mine, the players didn’t even bat an eye. The same was true when another player sent out his own alternate rules for spells document. The first time sucks, but the second time you try something like this, it works. Don’t ask me why.
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