Re: (TFT) Pitching game to newbies

[Jay Carlisle <maou.tsaou@gmail.com>]

Would You like to play a game involves a social contract and, in the case
of role-playing especially with new Players (at this point everybody) I
like to make explicit just what it is I'm offering (as Game Organizational
Director) and just what is expected of a Player.
I've seen my share of new group startups go boom over the course of... well
four decades next month and it's not like there's a common theme but
implicit assumption twixt Players and GM is top of the list as identifiable
"that's why" reasons. Speaking personally I note that I'm a bit... hummm.
...
Okay lookit, The thing is I've found that working to make something in a
medium You've invested Yourself in from the other end is a GREAT method for
purging oneself of any traces of fanhood and becoming hypercritical so I
ain't the best guy for the downside analysis but I will note a pet peeve of
mine as Player and that's when I get offered to play a game and what I get
is somebody telling Me a story with some dice tossing that is by and large
inconsequential as the "GM" has a plotline and the most effect Your gonna
get on it is dying which doesn't matter either way really except Your
characters name isn't on the list at the happy ending. The more the style
is fly by the seat of the GM's pants the more likely it is they are relying
on a scene A to B to C progression which is the model most viddie's follow
with the Choose Your Own Adventure branching narrative popping up on
occasion although often with inconsequential choices or with main branches
grafted back into the trunk up where You rock the baby so in the end You
get the red, blue, or green background and some exposition about defeating
the Borg by being dead in some galactic Masada and fini because all those
war assets You were running around gathering? Red herrings because twist
ending. SURPRISE! It was a story.
I'm playing a bit of Boarderlands currently and note that all the button
mashing between cut-scenes is for all intents and purposes separated from
the CGA such that they're two different things being shuffled together to
give a gestalt illusion. (I made My disbelieve) No matter how well or
poorly the play to get to the next clip goes the same clip rolls and then
it's off to trigger the next clip.
I still enjoy the game but that's in part because I've ID'ed the pattern
and don't expect anything from the form so when the really good voicing and
writing in one of these shows through I can appreciate it for what it is
without expecting it to be anything but movie and it's not like I can't get
on board with a ... clap Your hands for Tinkerbell story performance or
whatever but the thing is if Your gonna tell Me a story say so elseif it's
not going to fly for Me expecting interactivity not the motions thereof
like the way banks go through the motions of using money in the loan
process but they ain't putting risk into it they hand You debt and a set of
keys and You think money is involved in the process especially with fresh
payments hanging over Your head but not for the paper person institution
with fractional reserve currency behind the curtain Oz says pay no
attention to. I have texts on game design that call for precisely this when
the story dichotomy is assumed heavily as an essential aspect. Give the
Players the illusion of choice when choice would obviously play hell with
plot because the authors don't know how to make a game like that... at
least implicitly. Talk about Your poor art.
I think at this point I can make something of a case for what happened to
bring about the creation of a Game Master role and why I'm quite sure it
was a mistake to elevate a meta-Player from a group of Players and it has
to do with what table top face to face gaming brings to said table as
rather unique features of the particular medium as opposed to others
specifically cooperative story creation through the act of play rather than
the passive viewing of a complete work with no input. By definition a story
is an accounting of something that has ALREADY HAPPENED. This puts story as
directly opposed to participatory play and seeing how that participatory
play is a strength of the mediums form and preformed story needs passivity
to progress point to point which it only gets if it reserves the right to
ignore Player choice when it conflicts with plot but why tell the Player
when giving the illusion is a principal of design? Oh yeah that social
contract thing... Do You wanna play a game?
Yeah I do... do You have a game?
I'd be very clear first to Yourself on this so You can be clear with Your
Players as new to role-playing are actually fairly close to My way of
thinking. Avowed RPG'ers actually are fairly indoctrinated some with no
experience with a non-story narrative whatsoever who think a story driven
narrative is necessary to interactive games and that's the GM effect, D&D's
biggest mistake purportedly needed to deal with the "rules lawyers" but in
digging a bit as well as coming outta experience in miniatures into D&D
first ed I note that not only were much of the rules half baked and failing
to meet the basic concept (that being cut a single figure from the unit
herd a center play on it i.e. individuals not groups) MA10 is straight
outta table top mini's and has not been worked up as individual at all for
example. and the white-box is rife with it but worse still is the rules
themselves a disorganized mess of unclear to plain unintelligible concepts
with poor layout and generally speaking few and far between were the groups
with nothing but the ruleset to work from who managed to play a full blown
game as conceptualized because the ruleset failed to communicate that and
yet We hear the role of "whatever I say goes" Player^2 was created to deal
with the rules lawyers who asked too many questions as though the ruleset
were so clearly written and executed as to be self-evident therefore
questioning the rules amounts to nitpicking that wastes playtime but here's
the rub.
In shared creation the game tools, i.e. periodic tiling, miniatures, stats,
dice, etc. are about fixing everybody on the same imaginative page as
closely as possible while remaining gameplay back of the envelope casual
but the game master thing flys in the face of this by vesting a Player with
because I say so now shut up power that quite literally amounts to stop
playing and listen to My story from the, dare I say narrator? GRIPES is
Generic Role-playing Independent Player Environments System and the Game
Organizational Director role is a tutorial device that allows Players to
feel out an open world sandbox experience with familiar structure to assist
them until they catch on at which point killing GOD should be obvious which
doesn't preclude referees overseeing play to verify procedure is proceeding
properly and clarify sticky situations but not to direct the course of
action along the lines of a predetermined plot or pull fodder from their
nether regions because the story needed a tough fight the the Players got
lucky dice against so here come more because that's not cheating and
doesn't violate design at all as it's serving the climactic scene which has
nothing to do with how many Orcs currently inhabit the fortress it's about
the wounded party finally making their way into the throne room to see the
antagonist who's trap drops them near death but just when all seems
hopeless the cavalry arrives just in the nick of time and rescue the
Players via bad cliche and there was much rejoicing and randomized treasure
rewarding, The End
So to that end I ranted this rambling babble as a bit of a warning sparked
by Your mention of creative types new to RPG's who might notice a staged
progression easier through creatively poking at said plot where others may
not...
Mostly it's a Me thing likely I'd think, formulating My why statement has
proven one of if not the roughest part of the actual writing and I'm
guessing there is more than a touch of justification seeping through into
what I think are key points but I can't quite kill 'em off in toto which is
why I mentioned the social contract and suggest an explicit approach with
it.
As far as "timing" I've done extensive fiddlin with it as I feel that
offering sessions of a more defined period allow Players to commit when
life's served them a full plate of todo's and I use Poe's short story
formalization of able to be read in a sitting tagged at ~90min although
some of it is tied up with formalization I made of the play environment
itself with the purpose being components that could adapt somewhat to
different environments and an overall standardization of the "table" such
that Your designs drop onto My table and vice versa without breaking the
game so to speak because if that's not the rule but instead it's the
exception it begs the question is it the same game on My table being played
on Your table and etc.
Just because the things are all titled Dungeons and Dragons for each
edition does not mean Your playing the same game anymore than the term
federal makes the federal reserve part of the federal government which is
the flipside of the shared imagination communication thing writ large
across play table a game component as sure as the dice rolled upon it.
That should give You enough to give Me a yea or nay on bothering to do a
write up on it or skip it as it ain't the droid Your looking for. There's
nothing wrong with story driven narrative as the engine powering play I
just think there are other forms the medium supports that haven't been
explored because of profit for the sake of profit business practices that
seek to repeat the proven profitable products and have no consideration for
the community of hobbyists or the product that's foisted at them evidenced
by regular releases of new editions that rewrite not improve as well as
assumptions made about gameplay and what is necessary to it and why. I'm
more than tickled to try and help if it sounds like something You'd wanna
lookit but if it's sounding off or not Your thing I'm in sore need of time
and would rather avoid dead ends where I can. I get enough of that from My
computers these days and the absolute stupidity of what passes as legit
practice even if one isn't on the hsd list a gifted with the performance
hits you get from spyware with massive footprints and minimum wage
operators because there's this thing about playing with concepts and
pushing narrative as entertainment where it can become something more that
rises into the mythology as unintentionally as the flip phone period We
endured owing to Star Trek communicators not from a perspective of good
design so much as so many minds fixed on that flip "Kirk to Enterprise" bit
(functionality similarities in reception I'm not so sure of ;-} ) or the
idea that police are a necessary component that prevent chaos and protect
citizens which is obviously hard to do lacking a physical presence but they
do show after the fact mostly and if paperwork equates to protection I
stand corrected elseif I'l note that the amount of those speeding has been
estimated at a constant 70% no matter time of day or which particular day
or year and regardless of law enforcement efforts to the contrary but the
narrative is a very different story. How many bad boys get away much less
beat a cop on Cops?  My fav was the kung fu flick set in New York The
Warriors. "Can You COUNT suckers?!?" Silas calls out to the crowd and lays
out the figures upon which He's gunned down and at a gathering of all the
gangs of the region who were just told the count a few cops show up and...
everybody runs... When does that kind of thing move into propaganda? But
that's neither here nor there when the question is rule of thumb timing of
session play so I'll grab this chance to stop Myself before it's too late
and get back to My over full plate and mayhaps even some sleep... what a
concept.




On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 1:45 PM, Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca> wrote:

> Hi Meg,
>   To start, make sure that the environment is pleasant and that there
> are snacks, etc.
>
>   Start with a simple subset of rules.  For example, I would not use
> HTH rules until you are sure that they are committed to the game.
>
>   I might do a sample session with pre generated characters.  Let
> them know that this is a learning session and that there will be no
> consequences if they mess up.  Second session they can write up
> their own character or stick with the pre-gen that they picked.
>
>   The key thing is to make the first few sessions fun.  Make sure that
> they level up a couple times, make sure that their is some fights that
> are not too difficult.  Make sure that non-combat skills are used and
> generate some exp for them.  (In my campaign, I occasionally give
> 5 exp for 3 die saving throws if the throw is vital and the players are
> low level.)
>
>   An interesting story with the sense that something important will
> be discovered 'just next session' will help them coming back.
>
>  Steve Jackson Games sells, "Robin's Laws of good Game Mastering"
> by Robin Law, which is a good resource.
>
>   Warm regards, Rick.
>
>
> On 2016-05-10, at 12:59 PM, Meg Tapley wrote:
> > I'm thinking of starting an in-person campaign sometime this
> summer-fall, with my friends from school, if I can get enough people
> together for a weekly session. They're a creative bunch and this semester,
> a couple of them did a collaborative storytelling project that attracted a
> fairly enthusiastic audience. Still, most if not all of the players will be
> newcomers to tabletop roleplaying. Since this will be their introduction to
> the genre, I'd like to make the campaign as engaging and high-quality as
> possible, while keeping session length short (two hours per week is asking
> a lot of busy music majors, so I'd like to maximize their enjoyment-to-time
> ratio as much as possible). I've run campaigns before, but none trying to
> meet standards this high.
> >
> > Does anyone have advice on how to make this happen? What kinds of
> plots/adventures might you recommend in this scenario? Any hints on
> fostering in-character interactions among the group, while also providing
> interesting challenges to overcome? Tricks to help a group stay focused on
> the game? How to manage logistics and prepare for sessions?
> >
> > Your wisdom is valued and appreciated!
> >
> > - Meg
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