2nd post on the site and first "let's write something and get a feel for the place thing" one.

Oh and just so you know in advance, I'll point a few time to blog posts I made because I'd rather not re-write or copy-past this. I hope this is cool for you all.

I stumbled upon RPGPundit's very colorful blog and he graciously pointed me toward this here forum.  I'm a blogger and I don't usually write in forums much anymore. But you guys have interesting things to say and say them passionately.

This is not about game theory per say, but it does address player conflict and general grooviness of a RPG group.  I have been a DM for 24 years and a  manager for about 5 and I've noticed quite a lot of similarities between a developing RPG group and a Work team under a common supervisor. Still I think it would be intersting to have a game whose mechanics could take this social progression into account... maybe there already is... I'm a D&D head now and back in the 90's I was into crunchier systems like Gurps so I wouldn't know really.

I wrote 5 posts on this:

• Introduction
  
• Forming
  
• Storming
  
• Norming
  
• Performing
  

Open for comments.

The Chatty DM

Quote from: The Chatty DM2nd post on the site and first "let's write something and get a feel for the place thing" one.

Oh and just so you know in advance, I'll point a few time to blog posts I made because I'd rather not re-write or copy-past this. I hope this is cool for you all.

I stumbled upon RPGPundit's very colorful blog and he graciously pointed me toward this here forum.  I'm a blogger and I don't usually write in forums much anymore. But you guys have interesting and things to say and say them passionately.

This is not about game theory per say, but it does address player conflict and general grooviness of a RPG group.  I have been a DM for 24 years and a  manager for about 5 and I've noticed quite a lot of similarities between a developing RPG group and a Work team under a common supervisor. Still I think it would be intersting to have a game whose mechanics could take this social progression into account... maybe there already is... I'm a D&D head now and back in the 90's I was into crunchier systems like Gurps so I wouldn't know really.

I wrote 5 posts on this:

• Introduction
  
• Forming
  
• Storming
  
• Norming
  
• Performing
  

Open for comments.

The Chatty DM

You might want to check out Kyle Aaron's work on these very same concepts. He can give you a link when he pops in from Upside-Down Land.

-clash

I will and I shall... I'll google the name RFN.

Thanks

The Chatty DM

His name's Kyle Schuant, but he posts here as Kyle Aaron. He's from Oz, so he pops in at unpredictable times - clocks go backward in the southern hemisphere, y'know!

-clash

Huh, and just the other day I ran into his Chatty DM blog, good stuff.

Check out this. If only you'd seen that first, you could have just stolen it instead of having to be original.

I stumbled upon your Wiki last week... that's when I realized that no matter the idea, there's almost always someone who tackled it 1st on the internet!

I will read with great interest and will link to it in a post soon!

Thanks Kyle.

Cheers!

Few thoughts, no particular order

1) I think seeing RPGs as a team sport is a natural way to look at things; In my experience it's one of the better frameworks for looking at how people interact and get along (or fail to get along).

2) I've wondered if people who find the traditional GM role problematic (e.g. tyrannical) have any issues with team leaders in other areas (work, games/sports, etc.)

3) I think the stages of team formation also apply to a new campaign: in my experience games come together -- the process goes much faster if the gaming group is familiar with each other, but each new campaign has new rules, new characters, etc. In my experience, the role of the GM changes from being more directive (in the beginning) to less so as the game matures and the players are familiar with each other, the setting, and so-on.

Cheers,
-E.

First up, ChattyDM, note that I added a fifth stage, "Stagnation." Tuchman's original theory was talking about work groups, brought together for a specific task and afterwards broken up. But a game group's task can be unending, so their group can stagnate.

Now to E's comments.

The players I've met in person who had the most problem with a GM's authority - I mean, the GM position in general rather than some particular GM - were two or more of unemployed, single and lacking in friends. That is, they had social problems in general, so naturally they had social problems in a game group, too.

A new campaign will sometimes bring out some storming in the game group, especially if there's a change of GM. But not always.

I emphasise that discussing what to do or even arguing about it is not necessarily a "storm". The process Chatty DM and I are talking about is a social one, the process of a group of people figuring out how they'll interact. Exactly what the group is trying to achieve - a fun game, save the Apollo XIII crew, buld a bridge - doesn't really matter, it's cosmetic. What we're really talking about is how the individual people fit together into the group, how they interact, and whether they as a group achieve their task.

That they have a discussion or argument from time to time doesn't mean they're now "storming" or have stopped "performing." Performing is not the absence of all conflict or disagreement, it's simply that things get done more often than not. Whereas in the "norming" or "storming" stages, very little gets done.

That's the key to describing their interactions in this Forming/Storming/Norming/Performing/Stagnation scheme, looking at whether those interactions are getting things done or not. Then by looking at the style and nature of the interactions, you can see whether they're failing to get things done because nobody wants to step on anybody's toes (forming), because nobody can agree on how things should be done (storming), or because everyone's just sick of things (stagnation, the stage I added to the scheme).

So I would say that simply having a new campaign, you're not going to fall back to "storming" because of it, if you've kept all the same group members and added or lost none. If you change GM then you'll get a change along those lines, yes. And if you change, add or lose a group member, you might get a "storm". But simply starting a new campaign with the same GM and players - nope. One or two arguments doesn't mean you're "storming" - the question to ask is, "is anything being achieved?" The essence of "storming" is not that people are arguing, it's that the arguments about their social interactions and the way the group should be run prevent the group from achieving its actual tasks.

Thanks for bringing up Stagnation.  It's a fact that a performing playing group can degrade for various reasons.

I will link to the Wiki in a follow up post soon!

Thanks Kyle.

Quote from: Kyle AaronNow to E's comments.

The players I've met in person who had the most problem with a GM's authority - I mean, the GM position in general rather than some particular GM - were two or more of unemployed, single and lacking in friends. That is, they had social problems in general, so naturally they had social problems in a game group, too.

I suppose if I said, "that's about what I'd expect" I'd be over-generalizing.

Quote from: Kyle AaronA new campaign will sometimes bring out some storming in the game group, especially if there's a change of GM. But not always.

I emphasise that discussing what to do or even arguing about it is not necessarily a "storm". The process Chatty DM and I are talking about is a social one, the process of a group of people figuring out how they'll interact. Exactly what the group is trying to achieve - a fun game, save the Apollo XIII crew, buld a bridge - doesn't really matter, it's cosmetic. What we're really talking about is how the individual people fit together into the group, how they interact, and whether they as a group achieve their task.

That they have a discussion or argument from time to time doesn't mean they're now "storming" or have stopped "performing." Performing is not the absence of all conflict or disagreement, it's simply that things get done more often than not. Whereas in the "norming" or "storming" stages, very little gets done.

That's the key to describing their interactions in this Forming/Storming/Norming/Performing/Stagnation scheme, looking at whether those interactions are getting things done or not. Then by looking at the style and nature of the interactions, you can see whether they're failing to get things done because nobody wants to step on anybody's toes (forming), because nobody can agree on how things should be done (storming), or because everyone's just sick of things (stagnation, the stage I added to the scheme).

So I would say that simply having a new campaign, you're not going to fall back to "storming" because of it, if you've kept all the same group members and added or lost none. If you change GM then you'll get a change along those lines, yes. And if you change, add or lose a group member, you might get a "storm". But simply starting a new campaign with the same GM and players - nope. One or two arguments doesn't mean you're "storming" - the question to ask is, "is anything being achieved?" The essence of "storming" is not that people are arguing, it's that the arguments about their social interactions and the way the group should be run prevent the group from achieving its actual tasks.

I think the cycle goes much more smoothly and much more quickly when people know each other, but "storming" is a phase where the team is working toward agreement on what to accomplish and how to work together.

I see a new campaign as a "new project" with its own set of objectives, dynamics, and roles -- even if all the people are the same.

It's true that the big-picture things (and the really critical things) will likely be worked out the second time through, but I'm not just being hypothetical here: I see the 'storming' phase both in project teams at work and gaming groups in new campaigns.

Cheers,
-E.

Q: "per say" realates to "to rain on someones parade" as does "per se" to "to rein in someone´s parade"?

You got it.

Also, coup de grace, i.e. the pronunciation thereof.

Coup de grâce... Ça se dit comme ca s'ecrit (It's said like it's spelled)...


Ah yes... The D&D Compendium has a text on just how massacred this expression was in the PHB glossary.

Coo d-huh grawss  (Closest I can make it using English Phonemes)