"The term 'GNS' is moronic and annoying" – well this should be an interesting interview

[Thomas Shey]

In think in the video he draws a clear distinction between jamming with musical collaborators that are all invested in the same thing and having an "okay" (imperfect) session ("we'll do better next time,") and someone who is a clear outlier and is consistently miserable in their game. He wants to address the latter, the former is all good, expected and even encouraged. But he even references the "every time I drink coffee my eye hurts" joke for the latter group.

That was rather my point. You see a lot of "no gaming is better than bad gaming" flying around, where in some people's minds "bad gaming" translates into "any game experience you have complaints with", which seems setting the bar for "bad" rather low.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There's a very good segment where he talks about good friends gaming together don't necessarily make for the best game. It's really about finding players who want the same things out of their game -- they may not even like each other in other venues! You're not dumb at all; this isn't something that's obvious -- we always think our best friends are aligned on everything. But like in his example, if you were playing pickup football, you'd look for people who enjoy football before going to your pool of friends, some of whom may dislike sports.

With long enough contact, you can even have the situation where a group that was more-or-less aligned at one time have slowly dropped out of alignment over time. I had a gaming group I removed myself from just a few months ago that I had gamed with (primarily in a GM role) in a satisfactory fashion for around three decades, but I was leaving every session feeling drained and unhappy, with the sense that more and more they were too, and did not see any way to address it. Somewhere along the way we (by which I mostly mean me, since I can't read their minds) had come to expect different things.

 

[Wolfpack48]

That was rather my point. You see a lot of "no gaming is better than bad gaming" flying around, where in some people's minds "bad gaming" translates into "any game experience you have complaints with", which seems setting the bar for "bad" rather low.

The line seems to be drawn at "was it fun?" If it was an imperfect game but everyone had fun, then all is good. If the game is consistently "not fun" for one or more players, then there's a problem. It then becomes important to find out what is bothering folks, which can be a whole range of things.

I get what you're saying about some folks' threshold being very low for "not fun" but it's just as important with a low threshold person to understand what they are looking for out of their game. If they can't be accommodated due to standards or needs that can't be met by that group, then they may need to find another group, or even another hobby.

 

[Thomas Shey]

One thing that would be interesting to understand is, for those who are unhappy at their tables, what they have to say about it. As in, how are they feeling about their ruleset and the table they play at, and the overall satisfaction of play? Then maybe probe a bit deeper. Maybe a survey? Hmmm.

The problem you may run into is that a lot of players have been taught not to complain publicly about game problems. That's why I'm always more than a little dubious when I hear "My players are all fine with (X)". I've heard that one in person more than once over the years, only to have one or more players associated with that GM privately say they really weren't so fine with it, but they didn't want to rock the boat because they'd rather play with the problem than not play/not play with that group.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The line seems to be drawn at "was it fun?" If it was an imperfect game but everyone had fun, then all is good. If the game is consistently "not fun" for one or more players, then there's a problem. It then becomes important to find out what is bothering folks, which can be a whole range of things.

That's fair, but its often not that simple. Sometimes it can be "Some really high points of fun mixed with some really bad experiences." How does one assess that?

I get what you're saying about some folks' threshold being very low for "not fun" but it's just as important with a low threshold person to understand what they are looking for out of their game. If they can't be accommodated due to standards or needs that can't be met by that group, then they may need to find another group, or even another hobby.

Sure. I mostly take issue with it when they act like other people who's thresholds are not so low don't bail out of games they're having problems with, because its not incompatible to have non-trivial problems and still consider the overall experience worthwhile.

 

[Wolfpack48]

The problem you may run into is that a lot of players have been taught not to complain publicly about game problems. That's why I'm always more than a little dubious when I hear "My players are all fine with (X)". I've heard that one in person more than once over the years, only to have one or more players associated with that GM privately say they really weren't so fine with it, but they didn't want to rock the boat because they'd rather play with the problem than not play/not play with that group.

Good point -- I just added this to the first poll question:

One other clarification: this is about how well you personally like the ruleset, not your overall group. If you think everyone else at your table is "satisfied" but you personally are "unsatisfied" please vote unsatisfied! The poll is anonymous, so don't worry about what other folks think.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I see this was already considered a bit in posts following the one I replied to....


An anonymous survey could be interesting, yeah. But I think it would have to have longer questions than the typical survey does; as also mentioned, folks don't know what they're missing, or what they want, etc. An interviewer can ask clarifying questions and such. A survey is limited to the multiple choice answers, or to free-form responses that may well wind up requiring more time to interpret than live interviews.

There are super well-established processes for this, but when you maybe stand to make a few 1000 bucks, who's got the resources? I'm 100% sure WotC does plenty of trade studies or whatever, but we're unlikely to see any innovation out of them...

 

[niklinna]

There are super well-established processes for this, but when you maybe stand to make a few 1000 bucks, who's got the resources? I'm 100% sure WotC does plenty of trade studies or whatever, but we're unlikely to see any innovation out of them...

Indeed. I don't expect to see a comprehensive & broad survey any time soon. But it'll be interesting to see what @Wolfpack48's survey comes up with.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Indeed. I don't expect to see a comprehensive & broad survey any time soon. But it'll be interesting to see what @Wolfpack48's survey comes up with.

Well he blocked me for whatever reason, you can tell us all about it when the time comes.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Sure. I mostly take issue with it when they act like other people who's thresholds are not so low don't bail out of games they're having problems with, because its not incompatible to have non-trivial problems and still consider the overall experience worthwhile.

Well, even though there's a scale of frustration tolerance, frustration is frustration, and it should be voiced. I mean in software, after each sprint, you have a review - "what worked, what didn't work" with no accusations or finger pointing. People can have mostly a good time, but then have some serious issues that should be voiced allowing for continuous improvement. What's not good is to let the frustrations fester or remain unvoiced even with a good session. A good group will allow for that, a more toxic group would discourage it, but if you feel discouraged from doing it, that's a problem right there with the health of the table.