Week One - February 13th 2013

All right, if you're anything like me, you're probably thinking "hang on a minute - February 13th was a Wednesday!" In some ways, that's what this blog is all about...

I'm a married parent in my thirties; I have more responsibilities than I can manage, I'm usually either tired out or stressed out, dice are a choking hazard, books are for colouring in, even computers aren't safe, and in all honesty I have things I'd rather be doing on February 14th. Despite all of this, tabletop gaming is my hobby; it's what I do in my me-time, it's my creative outlet, it's how I recharge. So, here I present for your perusal my collected experiences of how I make it all work.

Anyway, February 13th, four of our five regular players are in attendance and the guy who has been our GM for over a year has just revealed that he needs a rest. After dinner, we talk over the final scenes of our current campaign; an evocative, Arabian Nights flavoured game of Savage Worlds. We share everything our characters have learned and plans are made for our party's next course of action. Then, the time has come for me to take over as GM at our table.

First, we discuss the kind of game everybody wants to play. In order to provide a bit of structure, I give four examples of campaigns that I could get excited about running:

• Classic magic & monsters adventuring (probably on the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan)
• Return to an earlier campaign set in White Wolf's Age of Sorrows
• A Lovecraftian tale of mystery, horror and incomprehensible, alien deities
• Near-future totalitarian UK where a painful epidemic leaves some with strange abilities

One player, who we'll call Rebekka, expresses a casual interest in swords, spellcasting and superpowers. She's open to pretty much anything, but is unfamiliar with the White Wolf Exalted universe and would prefer not to be thrown in at the deep-end of a ready-made setting.
The previous GM (Yaroslav) likes the sound of the near-future setting with its potential for superhero protagonists, whilst the remaining player (Henrietta) would prefer the Lovecraftian game, due to its serious tone, low-powered skillset, and high risk of character death. Further conversation reveals that all three might enjoy a more perilous feel to the campaign, setting it in a world not too dissimilar to our own that stacks the odds against them and makes them work to survive. So, it's agreed that a comfortable middle-ground can best be found by applying this gritty, threatening texture to the near-future UK setting.

As you can see, the players at our table bring a diverse range of tastes and interests to the games that we play. While this is usually a strength, it can lead to issues of low satisfaction if the game totally fails to cater to an individual's tastes and can create tension between players whose needs compete. I decided to approach these potential pitfalls in two ways; firstly, by crafting a campaign that attempts to satisfy every player's priorities and, secondly, by encouraging players to be more aware (and tolerant) of the differences in their gaming styles. I attempt to accomplish these ends by having the players complete my Gaming Survey. I give each player a copy, we discuss the questions and what they mean to us, and then they make a mark in each triangle closest to the statements they agree with or prefer. Hopefully, the conversation will contribute to the players developing improved self-awareness and tolerance of each other, whilst their responses should assist me in producing a campaign that satisfies them as much as possible.

Below, I give my analysis of the survey responses. The responses of our other regular player (Seth) have been included even though I did not obtain them until we met up separately after our Week Two session. I usually find that the differences between players are easier to appreciate when they are presented graphically, so the first thing I do is convert each response into a colour (by treating the corners of the triangle as extremes of red, green and blue).

I'm sure I don't need to point out how little common ground there is! Anyway, by viewing these results (through the lens of what I already know of the players as people), I was able to produce the following profiles which I presented to the players during our Week Three session. On the whole, they seemed pleased with (and in one case slightly creeped out by) the results and I feel it is probably about as accurate as I could have hoped for.

Our Regular Players

Seth

She prefers the GM to provide a fully realised setting with, not only a consistent tone, but also a pre-plotted narrative. She tends to self-blame when dissatisfied.

Yaroslav

A player rich in apparent contradictions: Interested in worldbuilding, but not shaping narrative; in authentic performance, but not consistent tone. The most distinguishable thread is that he enjoys being creative, without overly investing in the integrity of the setting or the personal success of his character.

Henrietta

For the most part, she is concerned with the accurate portrayal of a character that she has created. She desires a system that simulates a gritty reality. She expects that the GM will usually only assert themselves in setting the tone of the campaign and providing meaningful opposition for the characters.

Rebekka

Due in part to collaborative worldbuilding and narrative preferences, she has little interest in a setting beyond her influence on it. Her character is a toy; it needn't feel real, but it must be fun. She wants to win, and the key to doing so is the player-GM relationship which should be the final word in resolving every outcome.

The Regular Players demonstrate a desire for RPGs that provide rich, cinematic storytelling, with well-executed characterisation, in a world that they develop collaboratively with the GM. Their preference is for games that walk a tightrope between the dramatic and the whimsical. The system should privilege entertainment over realism, and reward roleplaying over dice-rolling. The chief responsibility of a player is to portray their character accurately and honestly. The GM has responsibility for engineering an underlying (not overpowering) narrative structure and developing locations and characters, detailed and vivid enough to bring it to life.

In conclusion... wish me luck!