Quote from: Spinachcat;936614It's worth the effort. And you don't need teens. There are plenty of adults who are gamers, ex-gamers or missed out on gaming who know about D&D from various media who would be interested in playing with you.

Forum wank is fun, but its not a substitute for gaming.

If there are any regional game cons near you, I highly suggest attending. It's a good way to meetup with the local RPG scene, as are actual Meetup groups.

Go for it. When you have a rocking table again, you'll skip being old and tired.

Seriously.  If Gary Gygax could find 20 players in the goat's anus of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in the 1970s, anybody can find a player or three.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;936680Seriously.  If Gary Gygax could find 20 players in the goat's anus of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in the 1970s, anybody can find a player or three.

I have a sense you gave Lake Geneva, Wisconsin's Tourism Bureau a sad...

Quote from: rgrove0172;936669Some will no doubt vomit when watching this but the GM's style is fairly similar to my own so I thought it might be useful to post in lieu of some of the misunderstandings present here. (Im referring to useless flowery descriptions not the original topic ) Kind of fun to watch too with a celebrity playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLEMb_RIZ3o

(shrug) They're playing a game. No one seems immersed, but presumably seem to be enjoying themselves.

So, ignore what you think everyone else here thinks is good GMing....what do you want from a game?
What do you think is your greatest strength as a GM? What would you say is your greatest weakness? (and I mean you, not what you think a group of posters on here would say)
What is missing from your games or your experience GMing that you'd like?
Is there some aspect to roleplaying that you've only heard about online and don't know how to achieve?

Actually, some more background is probably necessary to really analayze those answers...

What system do you run the most often?
What system do you like the most? (if different)? Why?
What other systems have you run? Which ones did you like and dislike?
Were there any you liked but your players did not? If so, why?
Is there anything about your GMing that your players have specifically said they dislike? What were the reasons?
What do you look for in a "good" RPG system?

Have you ever played in a freeform game?
Have you ever played in a heavily railroaded game?
What was your experience of both, and which did you like or dislike?

Do any of your players also GM? If so, what do they do differently than you? Do you like or dislike this?

Which of the following would you say is your primary goal when playing RPGs, either as a GM or player? What appeals most to you, satisfies you the most, or is the most fun?

A. The feeling of having for a short time existed in an alternate reality
B. The feeling of having participated in a interesting and satisfying narrative
C. The creation or exploration of an unknown and interesting environment
D. Having fun spending time with friends
E. Creating an interesting story with a logical and dramatic location
F. Acting like another person or persons, hamming it up or really throwing yourself into the role
G. Accomplishing a goal within the game, achieving a "win" condition

In no way am I exhorting the player's play, nor even the game only using the GM'S colorful and descriptive narrative as an example of I try to produce at the table.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;936704(shrug) They're playing a game. No one seems immersed, but presumably seem to be enjoying themselves.

See my last post. Although I think most of those reading this thread could care less or at least are pretty sick of talking about my gaming, Ill try to answer your questions as I appreciate the time it took you to answer them.

So, ignore what you think everyone else here thinks is good GMing....what do you want from a game?
Assuming we are talking only about roleplaying games, I want a fairly immersive experience, a period of disconnect from our mundane world and a touch of adventure, drama, or whatever from some setting of fiction. As a GM I want to provide this experience, as a Player I want to get lost in it for a little while. The term game really isn't that accurate when I think about what I want as the usual elements of winning, losing, strategizing, analyzing opponents etc. doesn't play much of a part unless of course the story line pits some antagonist against the players.

What do you think is your greatest strength as a GM? What would you say is your greatest weakness? (and I mean you, not what you think a group of posters on here would say)

Strength would be the ability to create and present detailed and seemingly realistic settings. My weakness would be managing all of the various sub plots, NPC activity and player actions without scripting. When things get overwhelming and confusing the simplest solution is often to minimize options and narrow the plot.(yep, that's when I have been guilty of railroading, no denying it.)

What is missing from your games or your experience GMing that you'd like?

Believe it or not what I find missing is a clean, logical and dramatic plotline most of the time. For the very reasons many on this board rave about randomness, storylines often suffer anti-climaxes, fruitless sidetracks, deadends and other unfortunate occurances which to my mind detract from the flow of the game. Granted, sometimes they can be entertaining in themselves but when looking back afterward usually seem as 'badly written scenes' in a movie, ones the editors usually pull before release. I allow them to occur, most of the time but prefer it when the drama comes off properly paced, the story follows a logical path. I could give examples but Im sure you know what I mean.

Is there some aspect to roleplaying that you've only heard about online and don't know how to achieve?

Cant say there is. Ive heard of a few ideas and tried them with mixed results. Some have become permanent fixtures (like some random rolls) others Ive dropped permanently (such as players taking over narrative)

Actually, some more background is probably necessary to really analayze those answers...

What system do you run the most often? Cant answer that one, I have bounced around a lot in recent years. Rarely do I stick with one system through more than a campaign or two.

What system do you like the most? (if different)? Why? At the moment I am enamored with Ebiquity, perfect balance between ease of play and grit.
 
What other systems have you run? Which ones did you like and dislike? Wow, many. Ubiquity Leagues of Adventure and Gothic Horror, D&D in several editions, Savage Worlds(several different settings), Deadlands, Conan d20, Twilight:2000, Traveller 2300AD, Classic Traveller, Fantasy Trip, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Call of Cthulhu, Chill, FFG Star Wars, FFG End of the World, Don't Rest Your Head,  and on and on, lots of the older games, not many of the currently popular ones.

Were there any you liked but your players did not? If so, why? Only Rolemaster and Spacemaster - the players felt it was too complicated.

Is there anything about your GMing that your players have specifically said they dislike? What were the reasons?
Only the new individual mentioned during our Star Wars game. I have had players suggest I abstract combat to make it faster, award more experience, crap like that but nothing major.

What do you look for in a "good" RPG system? The right mix of freedom for player and GM improvisation and narrative and sufficient rules to govern action.

Have you ever played in a freeform game? No, Ive played scarcely over the years, almost always serving as GM and when I did, it was typically conventional games such as D&D.

Have you ever played in a heavily railroaded game? Yes, a D&D module. The direction of the GM was felt but I thought it was necessary to run through the module so I didn't have a problem with it.

What was your experience of both, and which did you like or dislike? As player I don't feel I would have issue with either, its the GM's game afterall. I don't have to play if I don't like it but am there from the standpoint of my character and such things are, in my opinion, beyond his knowledge and unimportant. As a player I try to view the entire experience through the character and so even ridiculously strict railroading or completely random goofiness wouldn't be noticed by him, more than likely.

Do any of your players also GM? If so, what do they do differently than you? Do you like or dislike this?
They aren't as descriptive in their presentation of the setting and I find it a shortcoming. Telling me we see a car parked off to the side of the road and get a spooky feeling as we approach just doesn't compare to a well described scene that instead "makes us feel spooked' naturally. I realize everyone has skills and I have never complained but its a bit of a let down when I come across it. In some of these games it seems to me that the emphasis is on WHAT is happening instead of HOW WE PERCIEVE it. I get that, but too me that is pushing the GAME element of the experience and minimizing the ROLE aspect.

Which of the following would you say is your primary goal when playing RPGs, either as a GM or player? What appeals most to you, satisfies you the most, or is the most fun?

A. The feeling of having for a short time existed in an alternate reality. Sounds silly as you don't really FEEL anything but the illusion can be awesome.

B. The feeling of having participated in a interesting and satisfying narrative Not for the narrative's sake, I don't care about actually writing a story, just experiencing it.

C. The creation or exploration of an unknown and interesting environment That's a good one

D. Having fun spending time with friends. Sorry but nah... I can have a great game with a stranger. In not a particularly social individual. I have a few friends of course but gaming is a separate interest for me.

E. Creating an interesting story with a logical and dramatic location This one is pretty high up there personally, but I understand as I stated above, its a rarity.

F. Acting like another person or persons, hamming it up or really throwing yourself into the role. nah
G. Accomplishing a goal within the game, achieving a "win" condition Not at all

Read through above.

Grove here's something to mull on a bit (or not)...

Quote from: GroveMy weakness would be managing all of the various sub plots, NPC activity and player actions without scripting. When things get overwhelming and confusing the simplest solution is often to minimize options and narrow the plot.(yep, that's when I have been guilty of railroading, no denying it.)

See, RIGHT HERE is why Tenbones is calling your style Basic and suggesting there is more for you to learn.  It might seem condescending, but bear with me.

For many of us, we found ourselves in similar situations, and we handled them pretty much the way you say might be a weakness - control the chaos by restricting options.  Grab the reins and start steering.  Get things under control again.  The "advanced" method Tenbones is advocating is to not control the chaos by turning it to order, not ride the chaos like a horse and grab the reins, but more surf the chaos, stay on top and see where it goes.  When you do that and succeed, you'll find out that even though you were still GM the whole time, the players had more freedom than ever before, and the plot might have ended up nowhere close to what you originally had planned, but Goddamn, what a run.  

Once you get really good at that, and do it enough times, then you'll notice something.  Your players, consciously or not know that you control the chaos, they know you railroad at times, grab the reins, whatever, and they play accordingly.  Once they Ride the Lightning a few times because you have Let Go, then they will adjust their play subtly and then more confidently.  As you keep GMing and Playing together it becomes a new cycle of reinforcing behaviors.  Once this happens enough, you'll find you're no longer prepping Plots, you're prepping Situations.  Your characters are no longer in a Story, they are in a World of a hundred simultaneous events that result organically from the setting and its NPCs which have a life of their own, which the PCs are free to become entangled in...or not.

Quote from: GroveBelieve it or not what I find missing is a clean, logical and dramatic plotline most of the time. For the very reasons many on this board rave about randomness, storylines often suffer anti-climaxes, fruitless sidetracks, deadends and other unfortunate occurances which to my mind detract from the flow of the game. Granted, sometimes they can be entertaining in themselves but when looking back afterward usually seem as 'badly written scenes' in a movie, ones the editors usually pull before release. I allow them to occur, most of the time but prefer it when the drama comes off properly paced, the story follows a logical path. I could give examples but Im sure you know what I mean.

We do know what you mean, but your evaluation of the results of past is constrained by context - you're still evaluating it based on the rules of Story and Drama as if you were directing a performance.  You are not.

Once you move Beyond Story, you'll find you really are taking it to another level. It is much harder to deliver a good game this way, but you have an advantage in that you are a Mad Prepper, so there are probably thousands of details floating around in your head about the setting that don't immediately apply to any given structured plot you have.  But when you're running the World in Motion, any of them could potentially come into play.  Your shit has to be quicker, your setting has to be tighter, your planning and logic of how NPCs and the world who aren't present are going to be affected by PC action has to be quicker, sometimes in Real.Time.  It's an absolute cast-iron bitch to do.  But when it fires on all cylinders...Holy Christ it's awesome.

Will there be anti-climaxes along the way, easy victories and surprising defeats?  Yes, that's what Chaos gets you, Chaos.  But the game will be alive in the way a controlled Plot can never be.

So anyway, that might explain the "Basic" idea in hopefully a way that makes sense.

I'd say that was a pretty good explanation:).

Quote from: CRKrueger;936779Will there be anti-climaxes along the way, easy victories and surprising defeats?  Yes, that's what Chaos gets you, Chaos.  But the game will be alive in the way a controlled Plot can never be.
.

what becomes clear over time is this stuff can be totally fine. In order to consistently have things like a predictable climax, a 'perfect' challenge in each fight, etc, you have to rig the game somehow (through methods like railroading or baking it into the system itself). But the trade off with that is potential loss of player freedom. When you accept the game-side of the equation, that this is meant to be a game of chance at times where outcomes are not known...and when you give the player's the ability to decide what they do (to really decide), it can be so much fun on both sides of the screen. Is it for everyone? Probably not, tastes vary. But rather than dismiss it because things might not always build to a climax, folks should really give it a shot. And by give it a shot, I mean try it for at least six sessions back to back.

Also, you can mix it up if you desperately need to. If the players aren't doing anything with the freedom you've handed them, then by all means, throw them an obvious hook (or ween them into the new approach slowly if you must).

I used to GM the more railroady way, and even on my side of the screen that started to suck after a while. I was basically running the game the way the books said to at the time. Once I realized I didn't have to do it that way, that the bulk of GMing advice floating around wasn't working for me, I started to enjoy myself once again. When everything is a foregone conclusion though, why even play?

There is something of an excluded middle here, an assumption that a game feeling "alive" is the primary goal (or should be as its innately the superior choice) and that it sand box style play works for every group, every game style, setting and genre. I've tried pure sand box a few times and it didn't work for me as a gm or for the groups I was running at the time. It came out dull, meandering or anti climactic much of the time or didn't deliver the game everyone had signed on for. Superheroes in particular didn't work as a sandbox. I feel most things are a spectrum and its important find where on the continuum your tastes and abilities sit and what your players are enjoy, want and are comfortable with. It doesn't have to be one extreme or another.

Quote from: AsenRG;936815I'd say that was a pretty good explanation:).

It was, and void of the spit and vinegar that sometimes ruins an honest attempt to give advice. I really appreciate the time and thought within.

Quote from: Nexus;936819There is something of an excluded middle here, an assumption that a game feeling "alive" is the primary goal (or should be as its innately the superior choice) and that it sand box style play works for every group, every game style, setting and genre. I've tried pure sand box a few times and it didn't work for me as a gm or for the groups I was running at the time. It came out dull, meandering or anti climactic much of the time or didn't deliver the game everyone had signed on for. Superheroes in particular didn't work as a sandbox. I feel most things are a spectrum and its important find where on the continuum your tastes and abilities sit and what your players are enjoy, want and are comfortable with. It doesn't have to be one extreme or another.

This isn't the argument I was making. I think different strokes for different folks. What I am mainly reacting to is advice that says games have to be climactic, that they have to have a certain level of challenge, and that outcomes need to be a certain way. For a lot of us, that isn't what we are after. That doesn't mean sandbox is the only solution. In my mind I wasn't talking about sandbox, but about providing a living adventure/setting. That could be a living setting constructed like a sandbox, but it could be more like a situational adventure or one that revolves around active power groups.

For you, superhero adventures may need a climax or may need to avoid meandering. It is true that a comic or a superhero movie needs that, but I don't see why a superhero game can't meander or not always have a climax. I've run a lot of modern games, and my approach is to play them more like chemical reactions with NPCs, groups, situations, etc. I've been in games where they've been like sandboxes. I think it is about knowing what structures work for you.

Quote from: Nexus;936819There is something of an excluded middle here, an assumption that a game feeling "alive" is the primary goal (or should be as its innately the superior choice) and that it sand box style play works for every group, every game style, setting and genre. I've tried pure sand box a few times and it didn't work for me as a gm or for the groups I was running at the time. It came out dull, meandering or anti climactic much of the time or didn't deliver the game everyone had signed on for. Superheroes in particular didn't work as a sandbox. I feel most things are a spectrum and its important find where on the continuum your tastes and abilities sit and what your players are enjoy, want and are comfortable with. It doesn't have to be one extreme or another.

I agree totally. Great advice aside I can't imagine ever making the hard change but perhaps introducing some of these elements here and there. My goals in gaming will always benefit from a stronger GM hand but I can see some benefit from the chaos as well.

Once you start viewing the campaign as a linear plot diagram, you have no choice but to follow the steps. Exposition, rising action, climax, denouement, and all the other assorted bullshit that makes folks hate Lit classes (I say this as someone who's had to teach this bullshit). A living campaign is a web of mostly connected actions. I mean, our own lives are some well-planned, ascending line toward a particular moment. A lot us fumble around, only to discover that the fumbling around is the point. Most of us end up satisfied with where we are, never having followed such a neat progression.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;936822This isn't the argument I was making. I think different strokes for different folks. What I am mainly reacting to is advice that says games have to be climactic, that they have to have a certain level of challenge, and that outcomes need to be a certain way. For a lot of us, that isn't what we are after. That doesn't mean sandbox is the only solution. In my mind I wasn't talking about sandbox, but about providing a living adventure/setting. That could be a living setting constructed like a sandbox, but it could be more like a situational adventure or one that revolves around active power groups.

For you, superhero adventures may need a climax or may need to avoid meandering. It is true that a comic or a superhero movie needs that, but I don't see why a superhero game can't meander or not always have a climax. I've run a lot of modern games, and my approach is to play them more like chemical reactions with NPCs, groups, situations, etc. I've been in games where they've been like sandboxes. I think it is about knowing what structures work for you.

I was referring to the overall thread not your post specifically.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;936818what becomes clear over time is this stuff can be totally fine. In order to consistently have things like a predictable climax, a 'perfect' challenge in each fight, etc, you have to rig the game somehow (through methods like railroading or baking it into the system itself). But the trade off with that is potential loss of player freedom.

Worse, if every event has to have a climax, the fact that there will be a climactic event and "le dénouement" is, by itself, predictable and gets boring, thus making the climax anticlimactic:).

Sometimes, I want the murderer of a PC's wife to be killed in a duel, or administered a long and gruesome death.
And sometimes, I want to roll a die, murder him back and then go after his masters who put him in charge until the PC gets the emotional payback he was fighting for;). Even if it's by spitting in their faces while he dies.

And most importantly, I don't want to know in advance which one is going to be the case, even if one of the results is more likely.
If I was to know that in advance, I could as well ditch the system and just narrate everything, like we do in freeform games:D!