Gaming Again
Jun. 23rd, 2008 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynI've been thinking about running another game. (For those who didn't know, the game I started in December officially died in April).
I like PBEM as an RP structure: the asynchronous and unscheduled nature of it works well for me. But in my (admittedly limited) experience with it, it's got certain inherent disadvantages and I've been pondering ways to address them in my next game. Because why should I make the same old mistakes when I could make exciting new mistakes instead? >:)
One issue: the pace of action. PBEMs tend towards long discussions by the PCs about what they ought to do, and rather less of the PCs actually doing things. This is an issue in all RP, actually, but it's exacerbated by the slower pace of email. There's a tremendous amount of back-and-forth to get to the best possible plan and to achieve consensus, and in cases where the last isn't reached, the PCs are sometimes left taking no action themselves and waiting for whatever the GM does next instead. Which may well make all the previous discussions obsolete and require a whole new round of planning.
I love the discussions among PCs: they're one of the things that make PBEM work for me, because they keep the game alive and the players actve while the GM plans. If all the posts by players required direct GM response, the game would be less active and interesting. This said, spending several days and a couple hundred posts trying and failing to reach a consensus gets frustrating.
So I've been thinking about various ways to address this problem. Ideas I've had so far:
1) Solo. This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, IMO, but having only one player would make intraparty consensus pretty easy to achieve. Also, I've had a lot of successful experience with one-on-one games on MUCKs, so it might be fun.
2) Similar PCs. Under this option, all the PCs would be designed to have not only the same goal but also similar ideologies and worldviews. The idea here is that it would take less time for three liberals to agree on a plan than it would for a communist, a conservative, and a libertarian. While the theory has some validity, I think diversity leads to more interesting RP, and also that people will find stuff to argue about no matter how similar their intent. I mention this more for the sake of completeness than because I'd really like to try it.
3) PC Party Leader. I've heard of these before, but I've never been in a campaign, as either GM or player, where the group had a de facto party leader. I've hardly been in any that had even a nominal party leader. So I don't know how well having one works in practice, but if nothing else it'd be different for me.
4) NPC Party Leader. I've never heard of this being done, but it's got some appeal. I wouldn't run an NPC leader who used his own ideas (I might as well write a book if I'm gonna do that), but the PCs could come up with ideas and throw them around for a while, then have the NPC step in and make a decision when the GM is ready to move on. I'm not sure if the NPC leader would decide at random, or based on whatever the GM thinks would be the most fun. I mean, I could decide based on whatever would be most successful, but where's the fun in that? >:)
5) Co-Stars and Supporting Cast. Under this model, two or three players would get "starring" roles and make decisions for their own characters or try to work with the co-stars. The other players would be the supporting cast: they could contribute ideas and RP, but would ultimately either go along with whatever the stars wanted or bow out of the plot. This idea doesn't resolve the consensus problem that well, as getting even three PCs to agree on a strategy can be a big hurdle. Still, it's an option between a free-for-all and the more restrictive party-leader method.
6) The Terrible Way. This phrase was coined in +terrible butterflies+, and referred to the decision by any PC to skip discussing ideas and just do whatever the PC thought best at the moment. This caused a lot of trouble, but it was also a lot of fun. Now, as aforementioned, I like discussions, but a game mechanic where PCs occassionally had to go with their ideas could be fun. Like "Roll d6, on 1-2: PC does it now, 3-4: PC talks about it but will do it anyway if PC still like the idea (even if everyone else hates it), 5-6: player's discretion." Also, having it as a built-in feature of the game might mitigate some of the IC animosity that this style of play can generate.
All of these options assume the setting and character concepts are integrated with the OOC plan. PCs bound by the Terrible Way will not be soldiers in a squad of crack commandoes, but ones with an NPC leader might be.
As the GM, I can live with any of these options. To find out how potential players feel, I will use the handy-dandy poll feature. I won't take voting as a firm commitment to play on anyone's part, but please only vote in the poll if you are interested in playing in my next game.
One final note -- I am (don't laugh!) going to try to make the next game "short". By which I mean, it will cover an IC period of hours or possibly a few days at most. I don't expect it to be quick in RL terms, but I'm hoping for a game that runs for a few months RL, as opposed to my usual time length best measured in years. So whatever the game goes with, no one's going to have to live with it for very long. :)
[Poll #1209596]
If you have any other clarifications (like you'd be interested in a "PC leader" game, but only if you don't have to play the leader), or if you've got favorites among the choices you're willing to live with, please leave a comment about it. Thanks!
I like PBEM as an RP structure: the asynchronous and unscheduled nature of it works well for me. But in my (admittedly limited) experience with it, it's got certain inherent disadvantages and I've been pondering ways to address them in my next game. Because why should I make the same old mistakes when I could make exciting new mistakes instead? >:)
One issue: the pace of action. PBEMs tend towards long discussions by the PCs about what they ought to do, and rather less of the PCs actually doing things. This is an issue in all RP, actually, but it's exacerbated by the slower pace of email. There's a tremendous amount of back-and-forth to get to the best possible plan and to achieve consensus, and in cases where the last isn't reached, the PCs are sometimes left taking no action themselves and waiting for whatever the GM does next instead. Which may well make all the previous discussions obsolete and require a whole new round of planning.
I love the discussions among PCs: they're one of the things that make PBEM work for me, because they keep the game alive and the players actve while the GM plans. If all the posts by players required direct GM response, the game would be less active and interesting. This said, spending several days and a couple hundred posts trying and failing to reach a consensus gets frustrating.
So I've been thinking about various ways to address this problem. Ideas I've had so far:
1) Solo. This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, IMO, but having only one player would make intraparty consensus pretty easy to achieve. Also, I've had a lot of successful experience with one-on-one games on MUCKs, so it might be fun.
2) Similar PCs. Under this option, all the PCs would be designed to have not only the same goal but also similar ideologies and worldviews. The idea here is that it would take less time for three liberals to agree on a plan than it would for a communist, a conservative, and a libertarian. While the theory has some validity, I think diversity leads to more interesting RP, and also that people will find stuff to argue about no matter how similar their intent. I mention this more for the sake of completeness than because I'd really like to try it.
3) PC Party Leader. I've heard of these before, but I've never been in a campaign, as either GM or player, where the group had a de facto party leader. I've hardly been in any that had even a nominal party leader. So I don't know how well having one works in practice, but if nothing else it'd be different for me.
4) NPC Party Leader. I've never heard of this being done, but it's got some appeal. I wouldn't run an NPC leader who used his own ideas (I might as well write a book if I'm gonna do that), but the PCs could come up with ideas and throw them around for a while, then have the NPC step in and make a decision when the GM is ready to move on. I'm not sure if the NPC leader would decide at random, or based on whatever the GM thinks would be the most fun. I mean, I could decide based on whatever would be most successful, but where's the fun in that? >:)
5) Co-Stars and Supporting Cast. Under this model, two or three players would get "starring" roles and make decisions for their own characters or try to work with the co-stars. The other players would be the supporting cast: they could contribute ideas and RP, but would ultimately either go along with whatever the stars wanted or bow out of the plot. This idea doesn't resolve the consensus problem that well, as getting even three PCs to agree on a strategy can be a big hurdle. Still, it's an option between a free-for-all and the more restrictive party-leader method.
6) The Terrible Way. This phrase was coined in +terrible butterflies+, and referred to the decision by any PC to skip discussing ideas and just do whatever the PC thought best at the moment. This caused a lot of trouble, but it was also a lot of fun. Now, as aforementioned, I like discussions, but a game mechanic where PCs occassionally had to go with their ideas could be fun. Like "Roll d6, on 1-2: PC does it now, 3-4: PC talks about it but will do it anyway if PC still like the idea (even if everyone else hates it), 5-6: player's discretion." Also, having it as a built-in feature of the game might mitigate some of the IC animosity that this style of play can generate.
All of these options assume the setting and character concepts are integrated with the OOC plan. PCs bound by the Terrible Way will not be soldiers in a squad of crack commandoes, but ones with an NPC leader might be.
As the GM, I can live with any of these options. To find out how potential players feel, I will use the handy-dandy poll feature. I won't take voting as a firm commitment to play on anyone's part, but please only vote in the poll if you are interested in playing in my next game.
One final note -- I am (don't laugh!) going to try to make the next game "short". By which I mean, it will cover an IC period of hours or possibly a few days at most. I don't expect it to be quick in RL terms, but I'm hoping for a game that runs for a few months RL, as opposed to my usual time length best measured in years. So whatever the game goes with, no one's going to have to live with it for very long. :)
[Poll #1209596]
If you have any other clarifications (like you'd be interested in a "PC leader" game, but only if you don't have to play the leader), or if you've got favorites among the choices you're willing to live with, please leave a comment about it. Thanks!
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 06:03 pm (UTC)Oh, I so hear you there. And the irony is, so often it's only two people who are seriously driving the long discussion - with maybe a third whose only contribution is to play devil's advocate to ANYTHING suggested. (Okay, so maybe I exaggerate.) Others might try to jump in with one or two things, but then get shut out for the bulk of the discussion because they aren't "the leader types." What makes it even more painful is when I, as GM, hand out little tidbits of information to one player or another, and then I get to watch those clues get shredded, via a sort of game of "telephone" - as the information gets sorted through the player's (or player-character's - it's hard to tell which) biases, to support his or her preconceptions.
Times like that make me look wistfully back at the "Advanced MonsterQuest" game I ran a while back. No planning WHATSOEVER! Just a few tense hurried negotiations, threats, and/or bribery. But then, something like that probably works best as the one-shot that it was.
Really, though, I wonder if I bring this upon myself. I want to reward actions that seem well-thought-out, and my knee-jerk response too many times is to unduly "punish" those that aren't. But well-thought-out plans take time ... especially when I realize that the players are flying blind most of the time and only after the fact do I realize that there was some critical bit of information I COULD have given them that could have dramatically reshaped their perceptions of the threats involved.
I guess I want that adventurous feel ... but for any player's plans to "click" with me regularly - and on the fly! - would require for us to seriously be on the same wavelength, and I just don't think that's humanly possible.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 06:54 pm (UTC)And it is really hard, trying to preserve some sense of adventure and suspense, while still giving enough information and time for the PCs to make good decisions. I'm not that good at it, myself. :/
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 07:05 pm (UTC)I don't see similar PCs helping much -- however you describe the similarity, people will end up with different opinions, from their own biases if nothing else. Stars/Supporting cast will just end up with people arguing the same as always, most likely. And an NPC party leader seems to kind of defeat the purpose.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 08:34 pm (UTC)Having only two or three people who argue is better than five or six, but it'd still be an issue, yeah. I agree on the "similar minds" ... I almost didn't include it.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-25 06:52 pm (UTC)Good leadership also entails recognizing the needs of X, Y, and Z, and inspiring them to want to do A, B, and C, but that's a whole different subject in itself.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 08:30 pm (UTC)Anyway, I wanted to elaborate a little on my choices:
* Solo - I picked this option because, quite honestly, I enjoy playing one-on-one with my GMs. So sue me, I like the attention! (Even though that sort of attention can get you into trouble, especially if your GM likes pointing his or her PCs towards the Garden Path to Hell, just to see what they will do. But at least I'm aware of this!) However, I do understand this may not be the best option, which is why it's last on my own list. It just seems to me that if five different people sign on to PBEM with you, and they all want the "solo" option...then that adds up to an awful lot of work for the GM. :-/
* NPC Party Leader - Out of all the "Choose Your Own Leader" options, this one seemed the safest to me, for lack of a better word. It may cause less strife between the players, both IC and OOC, if the GM-run NPC Leader makes all of the final choices from among the PC-inspired ideas...or rejects a few of them out-of-hand for other reasons, you never know! Having that happen every once in a while could spice things up, anyway.
* The Terrible Way - And now watch me jump from the safe, shallow end of the pool right into the deep end! This is because I freely admit that I've had impulses to do things "the terrible way" in the past, mostly because I got bored when PC conversations went on for far too long and I just wanted to do something to get back to the action! So allowing PCs to suddenly drive the plot forward (even if that option comes with certain restrictions) could be dangerous and fun, but potentially solve some of your frustrations as noted above.
Just my two cents!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 09:39 pm (UTC)But I've never really done one by PBEM, so I am kinda curious how it'd go if I tried. :)