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Casual Player, Casual Roleplaying, Sucking the Wonder Away
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<blockquote data-quote="phindar" data-source="post: 3991988" data-attributes="member: 37198"><p>It sounds like you have a personal dislike for how this person plays her characters, which is, sad to say, tough noogies. I mean, its unfortunate, but we can't make people play the way we want them to. If they don't enjoy the same things we enjoy, or if they're not interested in the same things we're interested in, you can't change their mind for them. People like what they like. </p><p></p><p>Sometimes, as a GM, we can stick on things that the players have no interest in. To take an example out of your post, you wanted to run a game where the pc's were hiding out in the big city, and she wanted to play a game where her character was a rock star. You're working at cross purposes. On most of these issues, I think its generally easier to let the players have their way, because it doesn't change the game that noticeably and it makes the players happy and engages them more. Or if you don't let them have their way, you have to work with them. If you boiled that conflict down to two sentences, it might look something like:</p><p></p><p>"I want to be a rock star."</p><p></p><p>"Well, you can't." </p><p></p><p>I mean, she'd probably be happy if every third or fourth NPC said something like, "Oh yeah, I've heard you sing. You're good," and then went right back to whatever that NPC is there for. It takes about 10 seconds for the GM to do it, but it can be a huge part of the buy-in for the player, especially if it highlights something that is intergral to how they see their character. Players have an idea of their character in their heads, and they're thrilled when that comes across in play. This is all the more true in players who are new or unfamiliar with the rules, because they have no idea how to make the character match up mechanically with the idea in their head.</p><p></p><p>I did notice that she apparently wants people to be impressed with her character and it seems like your resistant to that, and that you want her to be impressed with things in the game and she seems resistant to that. I think its possible you guys can find some middle ground there.</p><p></p><p>But it isn't, you know? I don't think the GM should be in a position to refuse character goals; if that's something that grabs the player's imagination, its going to grab it whether you allow it or not. Plus, it seems like it could lead to some interesting plot developments, particularly if she becomes famous and her husband hears of her. I mean, the whole point of having a villain in the background is to bring them to the foreground. If its in a different way that you had originally imagined... well, that's the difference between gaming and writing short stories.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="phindar, post: 3991988, member: 37198"] It sounds like you have a personal dislike for how this person plays her characters, which is, sad to say, tough noogies. I mean, its unfortunate, but we can't make people play the way we want them to. If they don't enjoy the same things we enjoy, or if they're not interested in the same things we're interested in, you can't change their mind for them. People like what they like. Sometimes, as a GM, we can stick on things that the players have no interest in. To take an example out of your post, you wanted to run a game where the pc's were hiding out in the big city, and she wanted to play a game where her character was a rock star. You're working at cross purposes. On most of these issues, I think its generally easier to let the players have their way, because it doesn't change the game that noticeably and it makes the players happy and engages them more. Or if you don't let them have their way, you have to work with them. If you boiled that conflict down to two sentences, it might look something like: "I want to be a rock star." "Well, you can't." I mean, she'd probably be happy if every third or fourth NPC said something like, "Oh yeah, I've heard you sing. You're good," and then went right back to whatever that NPC is there for. It takes about 10 seconds for the GM to do it, but it can be a huge part of the buy-in for the player, especially if it highlights something that is intergral to how they see their character. Players have an idea of their character in their heads, and they're thrilled when that comes across in play. This is all the more true in players who are new or unfamiliar with the rules, because they have no idea how to make the character match up mechanically with the idea in their head. I did notice that she apparently wants people to be impressed with her character and it seems like your resistant to that, and that you want her to be impressed with things in the game and she seems resistant to that. I think its possible you guys can find some middle ground there. But it isn't, you know? I don't think the GM should be in a position to refuse character goals; if that's something that grabs the player's imagination, its going to grab it whether you allow it or not. Plus, it seems like it could lead to some interesting plot developments, particularly if she becomes famous and her husband hears of her. I mean, the whole point of having a villain in the background is to bring them to the foreground. If its in a different way that you had originally imagined... well, that's the difference between gaming and writing short stories. [/QUOTE]
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