And now for something completely different…

This is gonna be a weird one.

Despite the name it ain’t really an Ask Angry column. It’s more like an essay. It’s inspired by an Ask Angry incident and there is a question at the heart of it, but I can’t handle it like I usually do.

I’m also helping some players rather than a Game Master. Though, to be fair, everyone’s got to hear what I’ve got to say, whatever side of the screen they’re on.

I’m also dropping my normal humorously hyperbolic abuse. Most of you know that’s the price of admission for getting an Ask Angry answered, but the person who contacted me didn’t sign up for that shit. As I’ll explain below.

Despite that, I’m going to spew some harsh truth today. Some of you won’t like what I’ve got to say — and they’re not really about gaming specifically — but I’ve got to say them nonetheless. It’s a bunch of social interaction crap people are supposed to learn when they’re young, but most people don’t anymore. The point is, I’m gonna some flak, but I’m used to that.

This shit’s worth wasting a day on not just because I’ve been asked for help and not just because I have set right what I did wrong, but also because I’m gearing up to launch the next phase in True Game Mastery: True Campaign Management. And that series ain’t gonna be about worldbuilding and uberplotting. It’s about managing the table and the people at it.

So this makes for a great unofficial prologue.

Enough warnings. Let’s get on with it.

Help! My Game Master Asked You for Help

So, I do this Ask Angry Mailbag thing wherein I answer three to five reader-submitted questions each month. If you didn’t know that before, you do now.

Back in August, I answered reader Allan’s e-mail in which he asked me how to handle his players’ absolute refusal to take any kind of a loss in the game. They wouldn’t surrender, wouldn’t flee, and wouldn’t take any kind of combat loss without complaint. They also refused to play any scenario that started with capture, imprisonment, or recovery from loss. His players, said Allan, had threatened to quit the game rather than play such a game.

I answered in my usual way. I insulted Allan, I insulted the players, I insulted all modern gamers everywhere… I think, anyway. I lose track of who I insult because I pretty much insult everyone all the time. It’s part of my… let’s call it charm.

Basically, I told Allan that if his players had threatened to quit, he should call them on it. He should run the game he wanted to run and let the players walk. You can’t negotiate with, “do what we want or we quit.” Once you give in once, you’re giving in forever.

The Plot Thinkens

So, what did Allan do with my advice? He printed it out and threw it at his players, of course. And, for some crazy reason, that didn’t go over well. Apparently, his players said, “Why do you ask that Internet jackhole what he’d do if he were stuck at a table with a made tyrant for a Game Master if threatening to quit is off the table?”

Seriously. Allan left a follow-up comment. Here’s the relevant bit…

So I showed my players this article, and they are not happy. They feel like their tantrums and threats are the only leverage they have, and that they do not want to be ‘held hostage by a tyrannical game master’. They have also requested that you write a follow-up article from the other side about what players should do when they feel that the GM is wrong about something.

And because I absolutely fucking love Internet drama and because nothing bad ever comes of inserting yourself into another couple’s fight, I told Allan to have his players reach out to me.

And one of them did.

But before I get to that…

The Apology

I owe Allan’s players an apology. I’m sorry I called you a bunch of pissbaby brats throwing a tantrum. That was insulting, inflammatory language. And you didn’t deserve it.

Now, I ain’t going soft and I ain’t dropping my bombastic, hyperbolic tone. That shit’s entertaining to read and fun to right. When someone e-mails me or comments on my site, they know what they’re in for. At least, they should. If they don’t, that’s their own dumb fault. I’ve got no problem ribbing and jibing people who participate voluntarily and I’ve got no problem picking apart public statements on social media or public figures who post on the same. And I don’t consider sweeping generalities about “all gamers” or “all players” or “all the dumbasses who keep reading my abuse” a problem either. That’s all fair.

But I insulted a group of specific people — Allan’s players — who didn’t sign up for that shit by emailing me or posting dumbass opinions on Twix or InstaTok.

Hence the apology.

That said — and this in no way mitigates what I did; I was wrong to insult Allan’s players — that said, y’all do know that you’re not meant to fling this shit in your player’s faces, right? That I offer a mix of advice and entertainment and you’re supposed to distill out the advice and act on it yourself. Which is why I let you stay anonymous by picking whatever name you want. I really never expected anyone to actually fling my responses in the faces of the people they were pissing and moaning about. Especially when it’s loaded with sarcastic insults.

Allan, I’m pretty pissed off at you right now. That was a bad move and you should feel bad.

The E-mail

Ultimately, I got an e-mail from one of Allan’s players. We even had a nice back-and-forth. I promised to respond to his questions, but also to leave his name out of it and to be — mostly — polite about it. Which is why I ain’t sharing the e-mails.

Besides, I think they’re unnecessary. The problem here ain’t about gaming, it’s about group dynamics and social activities. And that’s what I’m going to tackle. Though, by the end, I will tell all you players out there what you can do when you’re held hostage by a tyrannical Game Master who won’t listen to you and demands you play a game you don’t want to play.

The problem is, the answer ain’t a great one. I doubt either that Allan’s players want to hear it or that Allan himself wants to hear it. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s an answer no one wants to hear. Which ultimately means it’s probably the right answer.

Harsh Truths About Games and People

Unfortunately, before I can address the issues underlying Allan’s conflict with his players — and vice versa — I’ve got to establish some basic assumptions.

Allan’s Player — and Allan himself — used phrases I’ve heard a lot in gaming circles. Allan’s Player, for example, and his fellows feel “held hostage” by a “tyrannical Game Master” whose stance is “my way or the highway.” Allan’s Player feels it is unreasonable for the Game Master to have “unilateral control” over an ostensible “group activity.” He and his fellows feel as if being asked to accept losses is unreasonable as, in a role-playing game, means losing everything, including “a character they are fond of” and “having to start from scratch,” which makes it different from losing in other media.

Finally, Allan’s Player feels that if the players are unhappy, it’s totally reasonable for them to consider quitting. That if they aren’t enjoying their hobby, they should question whether or not continued participation is worth it.

Before I address the underlying issues therein, I want to spell out exactly where I am coming from. I want everyone to understand how I see gaming and social interactions. Because I don’t believe any gaming-related conflict can be resolved without accepting these baseline truths.

The Nature of Role-Playing Games

First, gaming is a totally voluntary activity. Unless you’ve actually been kidnapped and strapped to a chair and are being forced to play some kind of Saw-like game, you are not a hostage. You choose, every week, to show up to the game. And you choose to stay. At any moment, you can stop playing. You can walk out. You can never come back.

Second, gaming is a low-stakes activity. However attached you are to your character — however much you’ve invested in them — they’re still just an imaginary persona with some words and numbers. I ain’t saying it doesn’t suck to lose characters. I ain’t saying that people don’t get attached. I’ve lost characters. I’ve gotten attached. And I build in games in which my players form extremely strong attachments to their characters. I’ve mourned the loss of my own and others’ characters. And as a Game Master, I have lost entire worlds. I have lost months and years of hard, creative work. It hurts. But the risk of losing that shit is something you accept the minute you sit down at the gaming table. That’s gaming. That’s life. And, in the grand scheme of things, it’s just pretend elves.

Third, gaming requires asymmetric effort. It is not a purely group activity. But I’ll come back to that below.

The Nature of Living with Other Humans

Still here? I’m impressed. Usually, when I tell people that your character is just a piece of paper and losing it just ain’t a big deal compared to the ravages of actual life, most folks jump ship. But I’m sure I’ll lose you in this section. Because there’s another set of harsh truths to accept.

Gaming is a social activity. It’s something you do with other people. And doing shit with other people means accepting certain things.

First, you can’t control anything except your own responses. You cannot control external events, you can’t control other people’s behaviors, and you make people act or think any certain way. That is beyond your human power. The only power you have is the power to choose how you act and behave.

Second, the world does not work the way it should; it works the way it does. You might think things should be a certain way and that people should act a certain way — and you might even be right — but you can’t make the world work that way. People shouldn’t be assholes, but some people are assholes. I’m proof of that. You can’t stop people being assholes. Which means you have to learn how to live in a world that has assholes in it.

Third, you’re not entitled to anyone’s work, time, or friendship. No one owes you anything. You can’t make people like you, spend time with you, or do anything for you. You can’t force people to give you a seat at their table or do you favors. You can ask people for shit, but they can say no and there’s nothing you can do if they do.

Of course, all these swords cut both ways. No one can control you. People might think you should act a certain way, but they can’t force you. And no one’s entitled to your time, company, attention, or effort. The problem is that most people forget these things go both ways.

The upshot — or downshot, depending on how you see the glass — is that everyone — yourself included — is constantly doing a bunch of unconscious social math. When someone’s spending time with you or doing something for you, there’s a little calculation going in their head about whether it’s worth it. Everyone runs the numbers differently and they run it differently for different relationships and different people. And it’s all personal and subjective.

The point is if you want social interaction — including group activities like playing role-playing games — the onus is on you to be someone others want to hang out with. If you push people too far, if you demand too much, or if you’re just kind of insufferable, no one’s going to play with you. And if other people push you too far, if they demand too much, or they’re insufferable to you, you’re going to stop playing with them.

In truth, social interaction is a gift. When someone spends time with you, they’re giving you something. Voluntarily. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re getting something in return, they’re still giving you something you don’t have and aren’t entitled to. Which means the correct response to anyone spending time with you, first and foremost, is gratitude.

And yes, people should be grateful for your social interaction gifts as well. And if people stop treating your social interaction as a gift, you will stop spending time with them. But you can’t control that. You can only ensure that you consider other people’s social time a gift and respond accordingly.

None of this is specific to Allan or his players or their situation. These are just the basic human social rules under which all social activities must operate. It’s impossible to resolve social dilemmas and social conflicts without these starting points. Maybe Allan’s player doesn’t need to hear this shit. Maybe you don’t, dear reader. Maybe you find this all condescending. If that’s true, I applaud you for accepting the social reality of the world around you.

And now we can move on.

The Basic Gaming Group Dynamic

Gaming is a voluntary, social, group activity. A bunch of folks agree to play a game together for their own fun. From the moment you join a group, you totally should be running the math on whether the game’s a good, fun, rewarding use of your time or whether you’d be better off doing something else or playing with other people instead.

Allan’s player specifically asked whether it was reasonable to leave a game that wasn’t fun anymore. The answer is, “Yes, it is absolutely reasonable to walk away from a social activity that ain’t rewarding.” If you’re not happy, as a player, you should totally quit the game. You should not be putting your time, effort, and energy into something that ain’t worth it.

And that’s exactly what I said to Allan. “If your players don’t like the game you’re running,” I said, “let them quit. Or you should quit.” The door swings both ways. No one’s a hostage. If anyone at the table — Game Master or player — ain’t enjoying the game, they should stop sitting down at the table.

So let’s call that part answered. Allan’s players did nothing wrong when they considered quitting a game that wasn’t making them happy. But they didn’t quit. They threatened to quit. And that didn’t work out the way they expected it to. And that’s because there’s another element to this dynamic.

Hosts and Guests

Tabletop role-playing games are voluntary, social, and group activities. But they’re also asymmetric. The participants don’t participate in the same way. And that changes everything.

A roleplaying game’s not like a pickup game of basketball. It’s ain’t just some buddies shooting hoops. Instead, it’s like a dinner party. You’ve got one dude — the host — that decides they want to have a dinner party. The host invites some friends to the party. Meanwhile, they plan the meal, buy the ingredients, spend the morning cleaning the house, spend the afternoon, cooking, and spend the night cleaning up after everyone’s gone. They do it for the fun of hosting a dinner party. And it’s up to each host to decide why hosting a dinner party is worth that effort. Every host is different.

The guests don’t have to do much of anything. Their participation is voluntary as well — and if there’s something they could do instead, they’ve got to choose the dinner party over that — but their effort is lower. Many dinner party guests will put some effort in. They’ll buy a bottle of wine or agree to bring a dessert or an appetizer or they’ll help clean up or they’ll bring a board game to play after. That shit’s polite, but it’s not required. If none of the guests do anything other than show up and eat a free meal, the dinner party still happens.

Role-playing games are hosted activities. There’s got to be one person at the table willing to make the game happen or else that game doesn’t happen. The other participants can put in a lot of work — and many players do — but the game still lives or dies on the Game Master’s willingness to make the game happen. And what is a fun game to the players is a high-effort engagement with a much more complicated payoff to a Game Master. The Game Master is getting some kind of intrinsic reward from the experience, but it varies from Game Master to Game Master and it’s on each Game Master to decide why it’s worth doing.

Every group has to figure out how to navigate this Guest and Host dynamic. It’s at the heart of tabletop role-playing games and it ain’t going away. Only one gamer in five — according to Wizards of the Coast’s own research — is willing to run games. And that’s because it’s kind of a pain in the ass and it takes a special kind of person to enjoy that sort of shit.

My own community is full of people who not only love hosting games — and who are willing to invest one-half-to-two hours of work away from the table for every hour they spend gaming — but who are also happy to read 20,000 words of insulting, insufferable crap from an Internet asshole just to host the best-damned games possible.

It is, in fact, this setup — the Host and Guest Dynamic — that makes role-playing games so wonderful and amazing and open-ended and fun. But it can lead to problems if it ain’t carefully managed…

The Vegan at a Cookout Problem

It’s summer, the weather is nice, and I want to have a cookout. I buy a bunch of burgers and brats and beer and call my friends over for a big, backyard blowout. But one of my friends is… a vegan. No meat, no dairy, no nothing. Now what?

Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter how you think I — and my vegan friend — should handle this issue. Should doesn’t matter. What matters is our individual and totally subjective social math. And how we each act.

As the host, I might be willing to make a special vegan option for my friend. But maybe I’m not. I’ve got enough to handle.

My friend might be willing to bring her own vegan meal. Or she might be willing to eat before or after the cookout. Or she might bring me something I can heat up for her. Or she might just prefer to skip the cookout. Maybe she doesn’t want to be around all of us disgusting carnivores as we chow down on murder meat.

There are a thousand, reasonable, polite, and healthy ways to handle the Vegan at a Cookout Problem without losing a friend. Assuming it’s even worth keeping a vegan as a friend. But the parties have got to understand the social dynamics in play. Because there’s also a million ways for this shit to go totally wrong. And they’re all to do with ignoring the harsh truths I described above and the asymmetry of the social situation.

Say my friend said, “You must prepare a proper meal for me or else I ain’t coming.” Or she said, “How dare you even invite me to a cookout?!” I’m probably going to say, “Never mind, forget I invited you.” And never invite her over again.

And if I said to her, “No, you may not bring your own meal; you eat what I cook or you ain’t welcome,” she’s probably going to skip the cookout and I’ve probably lost a friend.

But whatever you think should happen and whatever actually does happen, my vegan friend faces a dilemma that I, frankly, don’t.

The Vegan’s Dilemma: He Who Has the Supply Makes the Demand

Here’s the harsh reality: however this shit plays out with my vegan friend, the fact is she’s got way more to lose than I do. If I’m unwilling to make a special effort to accommodate her, and she therefore refuses to attend, I still get to have an awesome cookout with a bunch of friends. She gets to boil some soybeans and sit alone in the dark. And that sucks. But it’s also just the way it is.

Social dynamics are hard and they’re almost always uneven and life just isn’t fair. That stuff shouldn’t be, but it is. And if you spend all your time screaming about how terrible it is instead of learning to be happy in the world that is, you’re going to spend a lot of lonely nights with a blob of tofu.

Am I saying you should compromise on everything for the sake of having friends? No. Of course not. That’ll make you miserable too. You need to find the right balance. But you also need to accept that, if you want to be included, you sometimes have to compromise more than others.

It is a plain, simple fact that I can much more easily replace any of my RPG players than they can replace me. There are four times as many players in the world as Game Masters. And most Game Masters are also willing to play on the other side of the screen whereas most players aren’t willing to run games. To some extent, every tabletop role-playing game player is a Vegan at a Cookout.

Boycott my cookout and I can find someone else to take my free brats and beer. Tell me I’m an asshole and call me selfish all you want; I’ll still be hosting fun cookouts and you’ll still be munching salad and begging for validation on r/AITA.

I am absolutely not saying this is how Game Masters should think. For all I talk about dumping problem players, I can count the number of players in my 36 years of gaming that I’ve kicked to the curb without taking my socks off. The last time it happened was several years ago and a total Vegan at a Cookout situation where the player demanded I accommodate her playstyle even though it ran counter to the pre-written pitch I’d provided before the game and was sabotaging the other players. And even then, I spent a literal hour after the game letting her berate me before my social math suddenly pegged out at, “just not worth the effort anymore.

What I am saying is that you can’t navigate social situations without understanding the basic human social dynamics at play. And that’s where Allan’s players went wrong. They weren’t wrong for thinking about quitting; they screwed up when they threatened to quit if Allan didn’t accommodate them. That ain’t a winning strategy for the Vegan at a Cookout. And it doesn’t matter if the host’s an asshole. The host can invite — or not invite — whoever he wants to the cookout and if the guests don’t like the menu, he can change the guests as easily as he can change the menu.

But before I explain what Allan’s players actually can do here, I do want to tell you how I, personally, think things should be.

Yeah… you heard me…

The Host’s Responsibility

I have no frigging clue why people host dinner parties. I have no idea why people run games. There are as many reasons as there are hosts and Game Masters. Actually more given everyone does everything for a mess of reasons. I don’t even know why I host dinner parties and run games. It’s stressful and exhausting.

Most Game Masters — myself included — do this shit at least partially because they like doing nice things for people. Or entertaining people. Most Game Masters have at least an iota of charitable selflessness somewhere in there. Are there tyrants and egomaniacs and bullies out there? Absolutely. People are people. But there are also easier ways to bully people and stroke your ego than learning to run pretend elf games.

The point is that most Game Masters voluntarily accept — or rather impose on themselves — a responsibility to please their guests. Especially the ones who read my crap. I demand my readers undertake a lot of extra work and the only payoff I’ve ever promised is that they’ll run better games for their players. And that’s why it doesn’t matter how easy it is to replace a player. Most Game Masters I know — and that’s thousands, now — don’t want to replace players. That’s a last resort option.

But, as a Game Master, you also have a responsibility to yourself. And to your craft. Don’t run a game you’re not enjoying. Don’t run a game if the effort of running it makes you miserable. Don’t run a game you ain’t proud of or one you ain’t emotionally invested in. And if your players demand you run such a game, stop running games for them.

A Game Master could use everything I said above to justify being a complete asshole, but assholes don’t need justifications, and that doesn’t make what I said any less true. I don’t think Game Masters should be assholes, but some Game Masters are assholes. Or rather, some assholes become Game Masters. And while those Game Masters might maintain a steady stream of new victims, that constant cycling won’t make them happy. They ain’t winning.

The Guest’s Responsibilities

As I said back in January, Game Masters shouldn’t expect more of their players than that they show up and that they don’t ruin the game. It’s nice when guests bring dessert and wine and help clean up, but it ain’t an expectation. When you host a dinner party, you can’t ask more than that people respect your property and they don’t act like assholes.

That said, the most important thing any player can bring is gratitude. As a player, you must recognize that the game you’re playing is a high-effort endeavor and the invitation isn’t an entitlement, but a gift. When I invite you to my table, I’m not just offering you a fun game, I’m also paying you a compliment. “You,” I am saying, “are fun enough to spend my free time with and worth hours of effort to please.”

If you bring gratitude to the table, you’ll think long and hard before you make life harder for the Game Master. Frankly, I don’t need you bringing wine or dessert, just don’t make running games any harder on me because it’s already a lot of work.

You’ll also trust that I, your Game Master, am actually trying my best to make you happy. Which means you’ll be open to new and different experiences. You’ll give shit a chance. If I want to try a new kind of cuisine or serve a dish you’ve never tried, give it a taste. A real taste. Several tastes. And even if I’m not serving your favorite thing in the world, if what I’m serving is tasty, just enjoy it. It’s a free meal, after all.

I encourage my readers to cook healthy games. To focus on game experiences that are less about in-the-moment fun and more about long-term investment and satisfaction. That’s worth going along for the ride.

With gratitude, you’ll also bring forgiveness and patience. No Game Master runs a perfect game every time. Experimentation is how Game Masters grow, learn, and improve. So be patient if things go wrong now and then.

Honestly, it’s in your best interest to bring your gratitude, trust, patience, and forgiveness. Because players who don’t show up with those things in their dice bag often find their invitations to future games getting lost in the mail. This is all part of “being someone people want to hang out with.”

All of that said, you’re responsible to yourself too. You absolutely shouldn’t play a game that’s not fun. You should be willing to try new things and trust your host and show some patience for a little while, but if the game stops being fun and it doesn’t get better, you should stop accepting the invitation. And I hope it goes without saying that if you’re being abused or mistreated, you should also stop showing up.

What’s a Vegan to Do?

Let me wrap this shit up by returning to the original question: what can a player do when they’re “held hostage by a tyrannical Game Master” who says, “It’s my way or the highway?”

Option 1: Talk it Out Like Adults

Whenever you find yourself at odds with another human, the first, best step is to try to talk the conflict out. Try to resolve it. This is, unfortunately, an extremely difficult thing to do and most people suck at it.

The first problem is that you won’t get what you want. At least, you won’t get everything you want. You’re going to have to compromise. And given the Host-and-Guest power dynamic, you may have to bend more than the Game Master. That’s how it be. If you can’t talk under those conditions, don’t bother opening the lines of communication.

The second problem’s that most people suck at talking shit out and they get pretty dang emotional and defensive. That means the person trying to talk things out — the Peacemaker; you — has to give the other party a lot of leeway. That’s the Peacemaker’s Burden. If you’re willing to try to talk things out and you really want to make peace, you’ve got to be willing to take some flak with grace and forgiveness.

The third problem is that you can’t force anyone to compromise with you. Or to listen to you. Or even to talk to you. You can try to talk, you can use your best argument, and you can offer all sorts of concessions, but you can’t force anything.

Because this conflict resolution shit is so hard and because one person’s got to play the Peacemaker and be the bigger person, I consider it to be the Game Master’s job. Whenever a conflict arises at the table — whether it’s between multiple players or between the players and the Game Master — it’s the GM’s job to open the lines of communication, resolve the conflict, and take whatever flak needs taking to do it. I have two entire articles planned on this shit for the True Campaign Management series.

To be frank, I don’t know if this is an option for Allan’s player anymore. Allan has said, “It’s my way or the highway.” Allan’s player has said, “I’d rather quit than concede.” Those are ultimatums; they’re refusals to compromise. In most social conflicts, once either side lays down an ultimatum like that, it’s almost impossible to recover back to talking.

So, what’s left then? What can players do when they’re “held hostage by a tyrannical Game Master” who says, “It’s my way or the highway” and the lines of communication are closed.

Option 2: Nothing

As a player, what can you do when the Game Master says, “It’s my way or the highway?” Absolutely fucking nothing.

You can’t make a Game Master run a game they don’t want to run. You just can’t. And you can’t make a person compromise. So if those are the only two options the Game Master is offering, you’ve got to pick one. There are no other answers. You can insist that there must be, you can scream that there should be, but there isn’t and you’re just making yourself miserable by not facing reality. And it doesn’t matter if the Game Master’s being a total asshole, you’re still the Vegan and it’s still their Cookout. You’re screwed.

If a Game Master says to me, “It’s my way or the highway,” I choose the highway every time. Just as I told Allan not to concede when his players said, “Either run the game our way or we quit,” I also suggest Allan’s players not concede to “either play the game I’m running or quit.”

And once you quit, you’ve basically got three options. You can either try to find a new game — which is really hard and it’ll take a lot of work. — or you can run your own game — which is really hard and it’ll take a lot of work — or you can find a new hobby. That’s probably the easiest solution.