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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6960605" data-attributes="member: 42582">In my experience, there are three broad sorts of gaming issues.In gaming groups that arise out of bigger social situations (eg school/uni clubs) there are some people who don't really want to be RPGing at all, but are there just because a friend is, or they have nowhere else to be, etc. This happens in other group activities too. I don't think there's any uniform solution to this, but I think the solution obviously is a social one, rather than a game-related one.Sometimes there are players who want to play the game, but they have social issues which manifest in the game. I think RPGing probably attracts more than the human statistical norm for this sort of person. Eg they have a tendency to attack or trick other PCs. This is the same person who, in a wargame, always breaks alliances even if it hurts his/her own position. I don't think there is any game-related solution to this either.Then we get to issues that arise from how the game is run - stuff that tends to get described as viking hat GMing, railroading, player entitlement, etc. I think a lot of this stuff results from a combination of (i) a lack of clarity as to what the players are meant to be contributing to the game, relative to what the GM is contributing, and (ii) poor rules, or inadequate procedures/techniques more generally (not all of these are spelled out expressly as rules).I think that this last category is the sort of stuff that  [MENTION=30438]Ralif Redhammer[/MENTION] is describing as about "control".Communication is one way of solving these issues: different people want different things from RPGing (both in general, and in any particualr campaign/session/moment). I happen to like The Forge's way of describing these differences, but no doubt there are other ways of thinking about the same basic point.As well as communication, though - ie getting clear on who is hoping for what - there is then actually the need to reach agreement (and I don't think there is any distinct magic for RPGing in this respect, any more than working out which film to go to or where to meet up for lunch). And once agreement has been reached, there is then the need to actually give effect to it. This can require both GMs and players learning how to do stuff. At this stage of things, there's no substitute for practice.</blockquote>

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