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This episode of Q and Angry is a follow-up to The Anatomy of a Game.
Q and Angry: The Anatomy of a Game |
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July 26, 2024 |
The Angry GM
RPG Advice with Attitude
I really like this change in format of rephrasing each submitted question into your own words! It feels natural, and the context and core part of the question comes across clearly this way.
Also looking forward to jumping through the looking glass and being a much better game designer. “Manipulate, don’t predict, player behaviour” you say(ish)? Eeeexcellent!
Do my players generally follow the broad strokes path of a game I planned? Yes. Is that all part of a beautiful lie, where I’ve I manipulated them towards a particular story direction? Probably, at least to an extent. But because they have chosen to go down the path I’ve enticed them down, they are happy they have freedom of choice, and we all end up having loads of fun. Maybe some of it is about how you go about enticing them.
If manipulation feels like arbitrary brick walls in the way of players who have a reasonable game-related interest they want to explore, or they feel there’s a stick beating them in just one direction, that’s not going to be a good game experience. Or if there’s only a vague, stale, withered old carrot drawing them down the path we want/expect players to go, and they’re not that interested, that’s not a good game experience either. I think we need to make it a clear, fresh, delicious carrot to entice players to follow the story we want to run, look back over Angry’s back catalogue to ensure we’re doing that well, and they’ll follow. And maybe if they keep going off doing their own thing anyway and that’s not fun for us then it may be time to find some new players who want to play the game we have for them. When I play, I think one of the best things I can do as a player, which will give everyone the best game experience, is to play the game presented and encourage the other players in that too.
I think that the Santa isn’t real thing mostly applies to using pre-built content. I’ve homebrewed quite a lot, and when I GMed, I created and prepped the material based on the choices of my players, so in that regard Santa very much was real in my games, at least in terms of where to go next.
Now obviously I did to some extent have preferences and ideas of my own where I thought it would be appropriate to go. A few plans on what I would like to put in, and definitely at some occasions tried to lead them there, but yeah I think that’s mostly a problem that exists for those who use pre-built content. Because if you bought and is running Curse of Strahd, obviously all roads are gonna lead to Strahd, lest you buy something else every time they veer off.
The only thing I would rein in would be if they veer away from the intended tone and style of the game I promised to run. So I’m not suddenly gonna turn a dungeon crawl into harvest moon or anything like that, although that doesn’t sound too bad.
This is incorrect.
We’re talking about the supposed illusion of player choice, yes?
If I’m designing after the choice is made, then isn’t that a very different beast to if I designed first and then wanted and encouraged the players to go a certain way?
Is it simply by virtue of me ultimately having the control to veto any choice they might make?
Or are we working under the assumption that I have some overarching plot ticking away in the background that’ll find them regardless of where they go? So travel locations are just a backdrop to the plot in that sense.
No. If you’re using the term “supposed illusion of player choice,” you’re not talking about what I’m talking about.
So what are you talking about?
I listened to the podcast several times, but I get a lag spike that makes it impossible to refresh and re-open the site every time, not the greatest format, I have no idea why it would seemingly eat so much bandwidth or whatever is happening.
Santa isn’t real, you need to lie about Santa being real.
The answer needs to be ugly, it can’t be an aha moment.
So what does Santa pertain to?
I’m not sure what could be going on on your end to cause such a problem. I’m sorry about that.
I also suggest you continue following The True Scenario Designery Series as this idea will be explored in great detail going forward.
I had to google this to find it. For your consideration, there are a few things on this website that isn’t entirely inuitive I’ve noticed, like it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a supplementary Home button below the big text at the top there. Seems obvious in retrospect to click the big text but I just didn’t really think about it until I noticed the archive wasn’t up to date through that unassuming side feed. You said before that not a whole lot of people read blogs so just to make it a little easier on the few that do.
I had imagined a more Guru Larry sounding voice, but you did sound rather angry though. I trust that you’re aware of your verbal tic, slightly distracting, ok? 😉 But “knowing” you, maybe it’s entirely deliberate and it calls us listeners to attention or something.
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When I was a player, I really hated dice. Dice was an obstruction to what I wanted to do, I found it arbitrary to roll for just about anything outside of combat, but even in combat it was really prohibitive seeing as the best course of action pretty much always amounted to swing with sword, because if I tried to swing from the chandelier and failed, well now I’m prone and hurt and didn’t get anything productive done. Of course the same is true if I miss, but the consequence of that is just nothing happens, unless the monster has some special ability to further punish me for not “gitting gud” with the die.
And I carried that with me as a GM for a while, but now I’ve started thinking; this whole you don’t need to roll, cool thing happens attitude, isn’t very fair is it. Like yes John doesn’t need to roll because I liked his idea, but you Hubert you roll, you roll right now, with disadvantage. That’s not really great either.
I can’t really recall if I ascribed any positive feelings to rolling “well” (oh look, it’s even implied) in the moment, that I felt I had anything to do with the outcome, but I certainly wash my hands of the bad rolls. Which is why it felt so unfair, my input was limited to the choice, the GM’s input was great idea but roll a die, the die says no. And then the next time it was my turn to make a choice, I was less likely to take that chance and leave my faith up to the die, and it just made the game less fun. Dunno what point I’m trying to make other than the difference in perspectives and how those two well meaning wishes can collide.
I am aware and there is a big reorganization coming once I work out a better workflow for all of this.
Okie-dokie. Btw, while I’m at it, I would also like to humbly suggest a more neutral looking background, those d20s are thematical and all, but they do draw the eye a bit more than what is desirable, at least for me, and irritate the outer parts of my field of vision a tad when I’m not looking at them. When reading, the less distractions the better, imo.
Not a huge thing, but if at some point you’re gonna re-work the site anyways, that would be my suggestion. Just a simple, neutral, single color background that doesn’t constrast too much with the white would be nice. Or maybe tone down the d20s so they don’t so sharply contrast. Please excuse me if I’m being presumptous.
Regarding whether it’s still possible to enjoy role-playing games after you know that Santa isn’t real, I feel it’s dependent on your motivations as a player; what kind of fun you seek out. I know I’m heavily invested in narrative as a player, knowing how a good narrative is constructed, how people can be manipulated through narrative, and being able to tell if the narrative I’m experiencing is good or bad doesn’t give me what I look for when I’m at the table.
I want to know what happens next and how the adventure resolves (building or reading through a scenario then playing the same one would be a mood-killer though).
That last sentence is brilliant 🙂