It's not a question of playing RPG's with strangers particularly though.
I've been gaming for forty years. I've lived in a lot of different places. I've completely lost count of the number of groups I've belonged to over the years. No idea, other than lots. Real life happens. The "played together for thirty years" group is very, very much the outlier and not the norm. "Played together for 18 months" is probably closer to the longest most people have a stable group.
The longer you play, the more DM's you're going to have. That's just natural. I mean, sure, if you're lucky enough that you and the friends you game with are all living in the same area for decades at a time, fantastic. One of my players, I've gamed with since about 2004. The others? Four or five years is the absolute longest I've gamed with anyone, other than that one player. And, frankly, I imagine that's true for most of us.
Which goes a LONG way to explaining why we might be talking past each other though. Our experiences are just so different that while we might both be in the same hobby, we very much aren't playing the same game.
I agree we have different experiences. And my group must owe itself, to some degree, to the whims of fate and some lucky breaks.
But I've also worked to make it happen. We recruit the right people, bringing in new blood as we find people who seem to be a good fit. Sometimes, it's not for them and they quickly move on, but almost always they stick around. Occasionally a long term player's circumstances change and they have to move on, but that's why we bring in new players.
So, yeah, a group that lasts this long isn't just something that falls in your lap, you need at least a core of two or three people willing and able to make it happen, some hard work and probably at least a little luck. But that work is worth it to me, because without a group like I have, I couldn't see myself actually running or playing these games at all
I don't feel it's fortune (at least, not in the main). I carefully cultivate my friends and people don't join our group unless they are vetted by an existing member.
Sure, people absolutely do. I don't get it and, to be honest, I think doing so is dumb. This, also might make me an outlier, but if so, I am certainly very happy to be so.
As mentioned, I probably am an outlier. But, if so, it's in no small part because I've made an effort to avoid pointless drama and angst in every aspect of my life.
Here, in our games we've all been through the wars and drama and angst and, after slowly running off the people who took it all too seriously, have largely learned to just play such things for laughs.
But if so, it's only because I honestly don't see the appeal of gaming in more volatile environments, or of making them volatile environments by regularly choosing to die on some hill or another of rule interpretation or stylistic differences. I can accept that some people are willing to accept that, but I don't think I'll ever really understand why they do.
My characters die on hills all the time........and in valleys, caves, rivers, back alleys, boats, canyons, hallways, doorways, bedrooms, parapets, gardens, staircases, tents...........
I agree we have different experiences. And my group must owe itself, to some degree, to the whims of fate and some lucky breaks.
But I've also worked to make it happen. We recruit the right people, bringing in new blood as we find people who seem to be a good fit. Sometimes, it's not for them and they quickly move on, but almost always they stick around. Occasionally a long term player's circumstances change and they have to move on, but that's why we bring in new players.
So, yeah, a group that lasts this long isn't just something that falls in your lap, you need at least a core of two or three people willing and able to make it happen, some hard work and probably at least a little luck. But that work is worth it to me, because without a group like I have, I couldn't see myself actually running or playing these games at all
Oh, I totally get that. As I said, I spent a lot of years moving pretty constantly and I work in a field where everyone else is pretty constantly moving as well. Granted, I've stayed in once place for about twenty years now, but, no one else has. The vast majority of people are transient. Just the nature of my job.
And, I would hazard a guess that this is true for a lot of people. Particularly anyone under the age of 30. If you started in high school and gamed through university and then after graduation, it's entirely possible, and I'd argue plausible, that you've likely gone through a dozen different DM's.
Oh, I totally get that. As I said, I spent a lot of years moving pretty constantly and I work in a field where everyone else is pretty constantly moving as well. Granted, I've stayed in once place for about twenty years now, but, no one else has. The vast majority of people are transient. Just the nature of my job.
And, I would hazard a guess that this is true for a lot of people. Particularly anyone under the age of 30. If you started in high school and gamed through university and then after graduation, it's entirely possible, and I'd argue plausible, that you've likely gone through a dozen different DM's.
Yeah, it's probably fair to say having the core two or three people I mentioned as requisite all in the one city on a long term basis would count as the part where I got lucky.
Alright. I'm inventing this from whole cloth (since I don't play in games where DMs expect functionally unlimited trust), but here goes. I am, of course, making things a little fancier than is needed, in an attempt to capture the "realism" folks have spoken of.
Kyle is playing Ranakht, a dragonborn paladin of Bahamut-Horus, a distant cousin of the Pharaoh on her throne, who takes his faith very seriously. The party goes to Hut-Waret seeking guidance on how to stop the awakening of an avatar of Tiam-Apep the Sun-Hunter, whose coming would lay waste to all of Kemet, Upper and Lower alike, and block the Great Nahal's life-giving, earth-dark waters. But the Hyksos priests who hold sway there are secretive and wary of others, as their foreign-born ancestors once took the crown of Lower Kemet, and they continue to revere Sutekh-Garyx above all others. As the god who protects the desert, however, his aid would be invaluable, so the party soldiers on.
Ranakht knows that, in the holy text, his god and the Hyksos' fought bitterly--but also that they came to a legal accord after, as they saw their infighting for what it was, despoiling the Black Land and the people alike, so he approaches a Hyksos guardsman. No priest of any ranking would welcome an envoy without proof--but how can they get proof to show, without the priesthood's aid?
Hannah, the DM, says, "The guard cannot be bribed. His loyalty is absolute."
Kyle: "But we can reason with him, right? This is the calling of his god, after all, to defend the land."
Hannah: "I'm sorry, he, like any of his Hyksos cousins, can't be convinced. They just aren't willing to listen to you."
Kyle frowns but keeps his peace, waiting for after the session. The party goes on to do other things, never actually speaking to the priesthood at all, and finds other allies in Hut-Waret who can help them understand the ritual being used by the cultists of Tiam-Apep.
Privately, he tells Hannah, "I'm really not very happy about what happened when Ranakht sought an audience with the priests. I know it's not supposed to just be a walk in the park, but it feels really weird and out of place that a devout member of a fellow priesthood couldn't even attempt to get an off-the-record audience with somebody. Like, this really feels like my choices don't matter very much, and especially that the backstory I worked really hard to write is irrelevant to you."
This isn't a player immediately treating things as OMG game over flip the table, run away from this HORRIBLE JERK of a DM (which is what everyone keeps painting as the only possible alternative to complete acceptance under all circumstances). But in this context, I think it's quite valid to be concerned by this action, completely without regard to whether it is backed up by DM notes or not.
In this (again, completely invented) example, if I were Kyle, being told "you just have to trust me" would not in ANY way assuage my concerns. It would, in fact, significantly worsen those concerns. I would feel like I have no ability whatsoever to seek redress, and that any request for understanding or accountability will be met with, frankly, stonewalling.
In all fairness, while you gave the player-side version of the situation we don't know what the DM has in mind.
Were I the player here and brought this up, I'd fully expect an answer along the lines of "What you just said is probably exactly how your character feels at the moment - something might be amiss. To say more would reveal information your character doesn't (yet) have, and if-when your character learns more then so will you as his player."
Which is, in truth, a long way of simply saying "That's need-to-know, and you don't". The whole point of secret DM or setting etc. information is that it's secret until-unless revealed through play.
That's precisely the point. I was asked what it would look like from the player's perspective, so I answered from the player's perspective. You can hardly fault me for doing precisely what someone asked me to do!
Were I the player here and brought this up, I'd fully expect an answer along the lines of "What you just said is probably exactly how your character feels at the moment - something might be amiss. To say more would reveal information your character doesn't (yet) have, and if-when your character learns more then so will you as his player."
Which is, in truth, a long way of simply saying "That's need-to-know, and you don't". The whole point of secret DM or setting etc. information is that it's secret until-unless revealed through play.
Okay, but that's being pretty blatantly dismissive of the player's problem. Which is, as I said, something that makes that problem worse. Having your seemingly 100% legitimate grievances dismissed with "I know better, and you aren't allowed to know better yet" is...I mean, it comes across as basically not caring at all what I think or feel, treating my concerns as a trivial nothing to be dismissed, not a serious problem that needs to be addressed before it begins actually damaging trust.
In the very act of dismissing it this way, you have made the problem worse, not better!
Edit: And, to loop this back around to the railroading discussion, how on Earth could a player tell the difference between this and railroading?
Because this was, pretty openly, the DM stonewalling the player without explaining herself. What, functionally, from a player's perspective, is the difference between being stonewalled because there's secret DM information the player isn't allowed to know, and stonewalling because the DM will only accept one or a small handful of pathways and everything else is just a non-starter?
Seeing one person succeed after many, many, many, many failures is not going to make everyone think success is just one lucky roll of the dice away. Humans are, in general, by nature, risk-averse--because risk aversion is a good survival strategy. As I know I've told you before. Humans respond to "you have a 1% risk of instant death" with "ah, so I should never, ever do that thing, gotcha" in the vast majority of cases.
There's 32 teams in the NHL. Only one of them can win the Stanley Cup each year. Does that make cheering for a team that doesn't win it (and in the case of my team, has never won it) a good sports-fan strategy? I sure hope not.
Same is true of D&D characters. It's a pyramid, where a few succeed and become stars or even superstars while a lot fail along the way. Does that mean playing (and cheering for) the ones that end up failing is a waste of time? Not at all!
Perhaps you have a group of people who all think like speculative investors, where the thrill of never knowing whether you'll go bankrupt tomorrow is valuable to them. The vast majority of people do not think like that.
I've always seen D&D as something of a gambling game or game of chance and I approach the "gamist" side of it largely from that perspective. I figure if it wasn't a game of chance, it wouldn't use dice.
If-when I make a ruling on something I try to take the time to get it right, because that ruling becomes locked in as precedent for the remainder of that campaign (and written in the rules if needed).
There's 32 teams in the NHL. Only one of them can win the Stanley Cup each year. Does that make cheering for a team that doesn't win it (and in the case of my team, has never won it) a good sports-fan strategy? I sure hope not.
Are Stanely Cup victors chosen purely by chance, where every team has an innate, unchanging 1% chance to not just lose the season, but have their franchise fold entirely?
No, for the reason noted above. A team that loses one game, or even multiple games, can still potentially win the Cup. No team ever has a persistent, every-single-match 1% chance of literally having their entire team permanently disbanded.
I've always seen D&D as something of a gambling game or game of chance and I approach the "gamist" side of it largely from that perspective. I figure if it wasn't a game of chance, it wouldn't use dice.
Okay, but that's being pretty blatantly dismissive of the player's problem. Which is, as I said, something that makes that problem worse. Having your seemingly 100% legitimate grievances dismissed with "I know better, and you aren't allowed to know better yet" is...I mean, it comes across as basically not caring at all what I think or feel, treating my concerns as a trivial nothing to be dismissed, not a serious problem that needs to be addressed before it begins actually damaging trust.
In this case, grievance appears to be, "I don't like this style of play." We don't have a GM here maliciously withholding critical information. It has been pointed out and agreed that, in this example, it's a GM running a game that uses secret information. I would assume that the style of game has established up front (if not, I believe it certainly should have been -- even in my group where we all know each other very well, I take pains to ensure the players understand what kind of game I plan to run prior to any new campaign so we can discuss and set expectations).
The solutions are:
The group changes the style of play to accommodate the unhappy player.
The unhappy player adjusts their expectations.
The unhappy player finds a group running a game more to their liking
Which one is the best depends on the nature of the group and the opinions of everyone else at the table. I get the impression that you feel only the first option is valid.
