Quote from: jeff37923;1024236I agree. The catch is that proactive players are rare and most often I have to train them to be proactive in the game. Once they become proactive, my job as GM gets much easier because I can follow the players' lead in adventure prep.

Why do you suppose that is?  The default used to be "this game is about having adventures, so go have adventures."  After three or four dungeon crawls, we started wondering "hey, what's outside the dungeon and town?"

In my experience proactive players weren't rare 35 to 40 years ago.  They seem to be now.

Why?

Quote from: jeff37923;1024236I agree. The catch is that proactive players are rare and most often I have to train them to be proactive in the game. Once they become proactive, my job as GM gets much easier because I can follow the players' lead in adventure prep.

Proactive players are a godsend for gaming. Reactive gamers are... well... dead weight ultimately. It's okay to have one or two reactive players, but ultimately you need players that want to drive the game to places that reactive players would never go.

Grooming reactives to being proactive is a lot of work. But it can happen. Depends on the player and how much energy you're willing to burn on the process.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024241Why do you suppose that is?  The default used to be "this game is about having adventures, so go have adventures."  After three or four dungeon crawls, we started wondering "hey, what's outside the dungeon and town?"

In my experience proactive players weren't rare 35 to 40 years ago.  They seem to be now.

Why?

Damn... this is a good question. My hot sports opinion incoming:

 I feel like in the late 70's and early 80's this is exactly how we used to be. I suspect it's because back inna day we had no preconceptions about setting. We going on an adventure to the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, or we're gonna traipse around the Isle of Dread etc. there was little consideration to anything but being in the moment of what our characters were doing. I think once Greyhawk broke out (for me at least) - as a GM I wanted to put it in a lot more connective-tissue in my games. Where the dungeons were actual places I slapped in those hexes - and the players started interacting with the setting beyond - "Okay everyone jumps off the ship on the Isle of Dread - lets go!".

Players seemed to want to explore more. I suspect it's because such novelties didn't exist for us in entertainment. Today? It's different. Most entertainment has been proscribed and unless you're doing multiplayer gaming (and a lot of the time even then) - it's passive and linear.

I think we came from an age where we were *hongry* for it. Because we simply didn't have a lot. I mean... when I try to explain to my grown-ass kids oh Venture on the Atari 2600 was insanely awesome!! (You play a goddamn SQUARE)... compared to the insane photorealism of games today - it is inconceivable that Venture could have been remotely fun.

My players, now, want more sophistication than just "a module" in our campaigns. I've picked up younger players that are either blown away by the way we play where everything is wide-open and nearly anything within the context of the setting is possible. Rather than going on "adventure paths" where things are much tighter. My games have scared away some players because being proactive rather than being served up a platter of adventure stresses them out - or they don't even realize they're in it until it's on them. I've noticed that a lot too. Some players will sit there while the world is spinning on around, rumors of monsters rampaging on the frontier... while they putter around waiting for shit to happen, then one day the monsters are storming the town and savaging and pillaging their homes and everyone/thing inside.

Yeah - it's a weird phenomenon. But I do agree it seems more prevalent today than Backinnaday.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024241Why do you suppose that is?  The default used to be "this game is about having adventures, so go have adventures."  After three or four dungeon crawls, we started wondering "hey, what's outside the dungeon and town?"

In my experience proactive players weren't rare 35 to 40 years ago.  They seem to be now.

Why?

Having been all over the board in my GM style over the years, I think it has something to do with the way the game is presented to them.  

A. Long time ago, me talking to prospective new players:  "This is a game we are playing where you are a single character and you go into the dungeon and try to get treasure."  We were already playing board games, war games, etc.  This tended to attract active participants.

B. Later, me talking to prospective new players:  "You play a character in a story, similar to how a movie or book would go."  I give you three guesses on what we got with that pitch, and the first two don't count.  Eventually, I got it fixed.

C. Now, they already think they have some idea of how an RPG works, because they've picked it up from general discussion, internet, etc.  So I don't get to make their first impression.  Instead, I usually must start of with something that disabuses them of their first impression.  Though every now and then, I get lucky.  Started two new players today, one that had never played before:  "You are a character in a setting.  I'll describe things. You tell me what you do.  I'll tell you if you need to roll."  It's too early to tell for sure, but out of the recent five new players, it appears that at least two are reasonably active, and the others are willing to go along with whatever they do, unless it sounds insane.  

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024241Why do you suppose that is?  The default used to be "this game is about having adventures, so go have adventures."  After three or four dungeon crawls, we started wondering "hey, what's outside the dungeon and town?"

In my experience proactive players weren't rare 35 to 40 years ago.  They seem to be now.

Why?

I always read the really good questions when I am about to start work.....

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1024250Having been all over the board in my GM style over the years, I think it has something to do with the way the game is presented to them.  

A. Long time ago, me talking to prospective new players:  "This is a game we are playing where you are a single character and you go into the dungeon and try to get treasure."  We were already playing board games, war games, etc.  This tended to attract active participants.

B. Later, me talking to prospective new players:  "You play a character in a story, similar to how a movie or book would go."  I give you three guesses on what we got with that pitch, and the first two don't count.  Eventually, I got it fixed.

C. Now, they already think they have some idea of how an RPG works, because they've picked it up from general discussion, internet, etc.  So I don't get to make their first impression.  Instead, I usually must start of with something that disabuses them of their first impression.  Though every now and then, I get lucky.  Started two new players today, one that had never played before:  "You are a character in a setting.  I'll describe things. You tell me what you do.  I'll tell you if you need to roll."  It's too early to tell for sure, but out of the recent five new players, it appears that at least two are reasonably active, and the others are willing to go along with whatever they do, unless it sounds insane.  

What was the "fixed" pitch you eventually started using to disabuse people of their previous notions?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1024254What was the "fixed" pitch you eventually started using to disabuse people of their previous notions?

Sorry, that wasn't what I meant.  That was in my "let's try this other stuff that people advocate that sounds good but will completely screw up my game" phase.  I did it with an almost complete new group of players. Eventually, I painstakingly got them to be proactive by identifying each of my screw ups, developing a fix strategy, and working through it.   Playing a more lethal game helped.  When people know that going with the obvious can get their character killed, they tend to think a little more.  Once they start thinking, it eventually occurs to a few of them that they can bypass some of the problems by charting their own course. Though in fairness, the bad pitch wasn't anywhere near the whole problem.  If I'd have done that, and then run the game well, it probably wouldn't have hurt much.  But the bad pitch was representative of my fuzzy thinking.

What else did you do to fix it?

I have some passive players too and I'm wondering if there's things I can change or if that's just their personality and nothing can be done but to let them enjoy what they enjoy.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1024258What else did you do to fix it?

I have some passive players too and I'm wondering if there's things I can change or if that's just their personality and nothing can be done but to let them enjoy what they enjoy.

That sounds like a good opening for a new topic.  I doubt I'm the only one with feedback.  I will say, that some people can't be really turned into proactive players.  All you can realistically do is get them to stop sabotaging the active players, but that's often enough.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1024261That sounds like a good opening for a new topic.  I doubt I'm the only one with feedback.  I will say, that some people can't be really turned into proactive players.  All you can realistically do is get them to stop sabotaging the active players, but that's often enough.

How do passive players sabotage active ones? Wouldn't they just go with the flow?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1024263How do passive players sabotage active ones? Wouldn't they just go with the flow?

Passive player doesn't like the sound of a suggestion from an active player.  Passive player refuses to go along, but also refuses to make a counter-suggestion.  Basically, your type of player that always has a reason why something won't work or is too risky or too boring, but never seems to have a better idea.  I suppose that could be called something more like "inertia" rather than "passive" though.  "Actively Inactive."

Some players will be proactive if other players will let them, but they won't be confrontational about being proactive.

Passive-aggressive, pretty much textbook.

To which "Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way" is the best answer.  As referee I won't put up with that shit; after about 5 minutes, put up or shut up.

Quote from: Sailing Scavenger;1024177I think you would still learn good techniques running it even if you didn't enjoy it. The effect of the moves is not to constrain GM actions but to expand it. How often have you been in the position where you felt like something should happen, but throwing a random encounter at the party would be lame?

I cannot recall one instance.

Quote from: Sailing Scavenger;1024191Let me rephrase SHOULD as "it would be fun if the players were presented with an opportunity or problem right now". Unless you prefer a completely reactive world which is inert till the players poke it.

The world reacts the way the world reacts. And it's important to realize that the PCs are not the only thing or even the most important thing in the entire world that I am running. Sometimes the world is passive because a world where Ninjas leap through the window every time something slows down for more than ten minutes of real time strikes me as gonzo and silly and neither is what I want in a setting. Sometimes the world is active and it pokes the PCs. Whether that reaction sounds "fun" to me isn't very high on my list of things I care about when I GM.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024289Passive-aggressive, pretty much textbook.

To which "Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way" is the best answer.  As referee I won't put up with that shit; after about 5 minutes, put up or shut up.

Passive-aggressive is one subset of the type I'm discussing.  I don't put up with that, either.  There is a milder former of that kind of thing, though, that can cause the same kind of problems, but isn't motivated by being a trouble-maker or trying to control things.  In fact, I think a great deal of it is merely thoughtless, bad habits.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024241Why do you suppose that is?  The default used to be "this game is about having adventures, so go have adventures."  After three or four dungeon crawls, we started wondering "hey, what's outside the dungeon and town?"

In my experience proactive players weren't rare 35 to 40 years ago.  They seem to be now.

Why?

I think it may be an American generational cultural thing. The only correlation that I can think of is the preponderance of entertainment that requires the user to be passive (television, movies, or Youtube videos) and the decline of entertainment that requires some interaction (reading). Maybe. I don't know, really. It does make for something to think about.