This is about when you join in someone else's old campaign, how it can be hard to fit in.

Over in another thread about Forge theory, there came up someone describing a player new to the group, who despite being friends with everyone in the group and having gamed with them happily before, just couldn't fit in. John Morrow replied like this

Quote from: John MorrowWhen I spent time living in Japan, I stopped playing with my regular group and they ran a long campaign that all of the players enjoyed. When I returned, I had no desire to join that campaign and I've had little interest in attempts to run other games in the same setting. Why? Because when people run long-term campaigns, the players develop a shared experience that's very difficult for other people to step into without changing anything.

If I had joined that campaign after a year or more of playing, I would have changed the game simply because I would have brought a different perspective to the table. It would have had nothing to do with style clash or incompatible objectives. It would have had to do with a shared history in the game, or a lack of it, and a difference in the composition of the gaming group. A social issue. And in my experience, such changes can cause problems even when the added person has played successful games with the same people in the past.

Have you guys found the same thing? I have. For Tiwesdæg Clíewen 2, I had three players for about twelve sessions. They weren't particular intense sessions, people showing about 7pm, but no real gaming starting until 8-9pm, and then the session ending at 11pm. And probably one in three sessions we'd just hang out and chat or watch a DVD. So it's not like there was some grand epic campaign to catch up on - but the group was pretty tight with each-other. Then we had a fourth player come. People were pretty quickly comfortable with him as an individual, but still there was an initial hour or so of shock and discomfort. One player commented afterwards, "it made me realise just how close the four of us had become."

The discomfort didn't come about because he was an unpleasant person, but simply because he was a new player in an established group. It's like when four blokes are standing at a urinal, comfortably spaced-out, and then a fifth comes, he's going to be standing somewhere that makes two of the others feel uncomfortable, until they move about a bit and accomodate him. He doesn't have to be some smelly freak for them to be uncomfortable, just a normal inoffensive guy - in the wrong place, until everyone shuffles about a bit to accomodate him. But if no-one moves, then two of them at least, plus the new guy, will feel uncomfortable. And everyone will be standing there looking right at the wall, and finding they can't piss.

We made that effort to accomodate him, to ignore our feelings of slight discomfort and welcome him, and pretty soon he was right into the group and everyone felt the group was incomplete without him.

But it took a conscious effort.

What about you guys, then? What have your experiences been with new players in old groups? I don't mean when the new player was some freak, just a normal person trying to fit into an established group - or not trying, or being made welcome.

I can see it complicating the process of easing into a new group.

Some of it depends on the game/setting, that is tweakable. Personally I aim for a fairly flexible "spider-web" of plot points so that any one player leaving or joining won't break it.

The comradeship of a long-standing group is harder to shrug off IMO. Very easy to get into an old guard mentality.

Personally I don't get into long campaigns face to face so this isn't as much of a problem campaignwise. Groupwise it can be as I tend to stay with groups, though we try to accept newbies.

Online I make transcripts and such available though that's not the same as having played in those sessions. The "wall of seperation" both helps and hurts here. It's harder to "connect" but easier to accept people.

I agree that it takes a conscious effort, on both sides. I joined a Traveller campaign that'd already gone through several adventures but worked hard to play well, have fun, and learn the ropes.

Quote from: JimBobOzWhat about you guys, then? What have your experiences been with new players in old groups? I don't mean when the new player was some freak, just a normal person trying to fit into an established group - or not trying, or being made welcome.

Yes.

From the beginning, any new player faces the difficulty of assimilating the history of the campaign, and that is always a sort of tribal experience.  The history of campaigns is almost entirely oral tradition.

Then they face the problem that they're a brand new character coming in during the final scenes of Act 2 in a three act play.  Everyone else is deeply involved and the new guy simply doesn't connect enough to the game to have much of anything to do.  It doesn't hurt that they'll often stumble over nuances of the campaign which all the other players know about on such a level that no one even sees it worth mentioning.

Finally, there's just the matter that it isn't satisfying for the old hands to play with the new guy.  All the new guy brings to the table is his newness.  He has to be schooled in everything about the campaign.  It's awkward and distracting for everyone else, who is already easily immersed in the game.

It's really easier to just have the new guy be part of a new campaign rather than integrate him into a long running one.

I always start a new campaign when a new player joins the group. IME no matter how well we get on with the new person as individuals, introducing the new guy into an established campaign, filled with players playing well defined characters is always rough.

Everyone starting from scratch, puts everyone on a level playing field. The players are playing new characters and there is not that in game bond between characters.

We are a pretty welcoming bunch, going out of our way, to make the new guy welcome, and a fresh campaign, IMO is the best way to integrate, the new chap into our crew esp is he has not gamed before.

Regards,
David R

It's a matter of adaptation, of people getting used to the new group dynamic. How well you do depends on your willingness to adapt.

A big problem is when it's not the style of game the new person prefers, so he goes out to disrupt things. Or the older players don't like the new guy's way of doing things, so they make life hard for him. In any new relationship there's a period of adjustment and it can be very easy to fuck things up.

All I can suggest is lots of patience in such cases. Especially when the new guy is used to a radically different way of doing things.

it depends on the group.

If they think they're some sort of elite crowd that you must endure "Hazing" to get join, then things will go shitty. I've been there, joining a 4 year old campaign. I found out that one immature, young player had basically taken over the group completely and that the other players and GM had basically let him become the center of the universe, more or less.

When this player gave me an "order" and I refused to obey, he tried to force me to do what he wanted. (BTW, about every other sentence of his started with "I want..")


Finally after about 10 minutes of his just telling me to do things his way and ignoring me whan I said I would help the group, but not under his command, I insulted him to get it thru his head.

So he basically, believe it or not, exiled my character and the GM started making the game as shitty as possible for me while the other players under his command treated me like I didn't exist. The goal was to force me to start new characters and this time obey the 17 year old bully in charge. I refused to, quit the game and basically crossed the people who'd gotten me into it off my friends list.

That was a worst case scenario involving a bullying, immature player, spinless gamers who let themselves be bullied into servility and a cheting weasel of a GM.

With a better group you could join into a long campaign easily, with a bad group it doesn't matter if you're there from day 1 or join after 4 years, it's gona suck.

Quote from: Dominus NoxIf they think they're some sort of elite crowd that you must endure "Hazing" to get join, then things will go shitty. I've been there, joining a 4 year old campaign. I found out that one immature, young player had basically taken over the group completely and that the other players and GM had basically let him become the center of the universe, more or less.

Not altogether unlike my own experience.  The major difference being that the problem player in question was immature, but not actually young.  IIRC, he's in his 40's!

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNot altogether unlike my own experience.  The major difference being that the problem player in question was immature, but not actually young.  IIRC, he's in his 40's!

Mate, you have my sympathies, I can already tell your game experience with these people sucked ass.

What we're seeing here are two different things.  On the one hand you have the trials of joining any pre existing group.  This is going to be uncomfortable whether its a new gaming group, new school, new job.  Obviously the important terminolgy here is new.

The Forge post on the other hand sounds like the reverse of Nox and Funk's experiences where the writer wouldn't join and encouraged others not to join pre existing groups for fear of damaging the existing 'culture'.

It's like the Prime Directive but for gamers!

stupid double post!

The AD&D group I'm in has quite a history behind it.  The current campaign's been running about 2-3 years now, and many of the participants have known the DM for 20+ years (one of them even connects remotely via Skype).

They're a nice group of guys and have been nothing but accomodating to me.  I'm still in the getting comfortable stage; not only does the group have a long-standing campaign history that is constantly referred to during sessions, but many of them have known one another socially for years, so there are quite a few group memes and in-jokes.  Most everyone, however, will be happy to explain what they're going on about if it's important to the situation at hand.

There is definitely a conscious effort toward inclusion on their part.  We're starting on a new leg of the campaign, and this should allow me and my character to fit in a bit more comfortably going forward.  When I first joined, my character was introduced mid-stream during the party's latest mission.

I ran a D&D game that lasted close to five years, with characters going from 1-20, and in that time I had several people come in and out without much of a hassle.  The key for me was explaining the group dynamic before the new player rolled a character.  The in-jokes and such were usually quickly explained, as the players enjoyed retelling the stories behind them.

Making the new players feel welcome is paramount in situations like these.  Of course, I've always been blessed with very cool players who were more than happy to make room for "the new guy".

On the flip side of the coin, it's important for the new player to respect the existing group dynamic.  I don't mean to say that the dynamic is set in stone, or that his appearance won't change it; but when the group of (mostly) law-abiding heroes is suddenly introduced to a CN sociopath with a penchant for arson, things just aren't going to fly.

Either way, as the DM I always assumed that the responsibility was mine, and took steps to make sure that the transition was as painless as possible.

I...will get off my soapbox, now.  

I've been running a Wheel Of Time RPG for like 3 years now, and recently one of the players begged me to introduce a friend into it, which I did.

It's going quite smoothly, except for 2 items. First, the style of play: this campaign does have a healthy mix of intrigue with the mandatory heroic antics and killing myrddraal, gholam and (running from) Forsaken. This makes it kinda hard for an outsider to be accepted into the party's trust, as they have had a nice-guy-next-door NPC turn out to be a Forsaken puppet in the not so distant past and are sensitive on these matters.

Secondly, there's the matter of in-game knowledge. Though the player has read what must seem to him as an endless supply of WoT info, he's totally unknown to the world and doesn't know anybody. Thus, the others are always saying stuff like: "Oh, you know, Anaya Sedai, that bitch at the... wait, you don't know her..." and they sometimes take the time to explain, but not always, and this has caused quite a bit of frustration on the newbie.