DM fun vs. Player fun...Should it be a compromise?

[Kahuna Burger]

Several years ago, I ran a oneoff for a tournament where I had lots of little info handouts on bits of paper, each a short paragraph. The players didn't read 'em. I learnt my lesson. All important information must be communicated verbally. Written material is an optional extra.

Wow, you had some lousy players... I've included written tidbits on the character sheets in most of my one shots and the players read them and use them in the game.

 

[delericho]

Wow, you had some lousy players... I've included written tidbits on the character sheets in most of my one shots and the players read them and use them in the game.

Agreed. When running campaigns, I've seen a lot of players ignopre the background materials, but for one-shots it's a different story. In order to cut out a lot of the boring "here's how we get to the adventure stuff", I routinely provide backgrounds and background information for the characters to get them where they need to be, and give them something of a leg up... and I've never had a player not read this information.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Agreed. When running campaigns, I've seen a lot of players ignopre the background materials, but for one-shots it's a different story.

I think the opposite is true. With a oneoff, time is extremely limited so you've got to use the least written material you possibly can by relying on familiar situations and archetypes. I'd go for no more than one page, ideally less. The players have got to 'get it' as fast as possible so they can start making a meaningful contribution without asking questions all the time. This is the lesson I learned from going to the Student Nationals in the UK. Games with recognisable setups worked well, games with weird backgrounds and five pages of reading material didn't.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think the opposite is true. With a oneoff, time is extremely limited so you've got to use the least written material you possibly can by relying on familiar situations and archetypes.

I agree with this.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

I think players tend to be spoiled little brats, as ive see in my own current experience. They want everything handed to them. And if I write 1 sentence or 100 pages of an items history they are gonna listen or they can leave my game.

AS DM or GM your job is the hardest, and the very least the players could do is take some interest in whats going on. As a DM when I play I take more of an interest in whats the big picture than kill monster and take their stuff. If you know your DM is a storyteller and all you want to do is kill, kill, kill, do everyone a favor and just dont play. Or better yet walk a few miles in his shoes and run a game. Most of my players who whine and moan about my games cant last more than 3 sessions without wanting to quite their game cause it's too much work. Yet like clockwork they will be whining within a few months about mine again.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think players tend to be spoiled little brats, as ive see in my own current experience. They want everything handed to them. And if I write 1 sentence or 100 pages of an items history they are gonna listen or they can leave my game.

If someone isn't liking some aspect of the game, I'd rather know it than remain ignorant of the problem, perhaps having the problem grow over time. Then, I can try and mold the game into a more enjoyable time for everyone. Perhaps the distinction here is that indulgent exposition isn't something that I find enhances game play from either side of the screen anyway. As a DM, I would find much more enjoyment engaging the players than them humoring me. And, I somewhat expect this from others when they DM (although if all they want is for me to pretend to pay attention while smiling and nodding, I guess that's fine with me as well...).

Part of it depends on how often these soliloquies take place. If its a rare event, then a player should know to pay attention because its going to be important to the story in some way. If its fairly common for a magical item to get a couple of sentences of history behind it, then there's no way to keep track of it, plot hooks are lost in a sea of detail, and eyes begin to gloss over as the DM goes on about the fifth item in the last three hours.

It's sort of like playing out shopping trips. If you roleplay out every trip to the local smith, then its going to get boring and uninteresting. If its a rarity, and the DM starts to run the encounter with the shopkeep and his store, then you know something is up and you start to pay attention.

I love designing custom magic items (see my thread). I give out about 2-3 custom magic items a session. Many of them get sold, tossed in bags of holding never to be seen again, get equipped but rarely used, or just forgotten. I'm okay with that, though. I don't expect the PCs to use them (or even not dislike them) because I took my own time to make them. That's just how it is.

Same thing goes for back story, history, plot lines, etc that the DM introduces in the game. Either the players find it interesting in its own merits, or they don't. If they don't, well... then they don't. The DM can either learn why they didn't like them, alter the game and his style to run a more engaging game, and end up with happy players and the satisfaction of improving his craft, or he can go ahead and read through the exposition anyway, forcing the players to listen to something because he finds it interesting himself. I prefer the former, personally.

 

[Hussar]

This also brings me to another point...how can you run a mystery/noir adventure...such as supported by the Eberron setting when everything has to be "relevant now". This genre is about dark secrets that are slowly revealed and conspiracies that are labyrinthine. The characters may not think the information relevant(which is one of the problems with the whole...if the players don't think it's relevant, then it's not...sentiment) but two sessions later when everything is revealed and they need that information, then what? Then the players are claiming the DM didn't make it obvious enough, or the clues were to hard to find, or whatever else allows them to justify their position, even though you put it in their laps and they rejected it.

The point is, you can't. Well, that's not true. You can't run that campaign with every group. It's as simple as that. Some groups will jazz on the whole onion peeling thing. Other groups won't. You either have to find a new group or plan a new campaign. There really can't be any compromise here.

Since we don't have the whole story from the article, it's hard to know exactly what's going on. It could easily be that this is the fifteenth time that the DM has tried to hand out six page elven tea ceremony discriptions and the players have finally rebelled. It could be the players are prats and refuse to get with the program at all.

Yes, there needs to be give and take, but, that applies to both sides of the screen. If a DM told me that I have to listen to 100 pages of history about his imaginary world, I'd be out the door in an instant. Sorry, but you aren't Terry Pratchett and I'm pretty darn sure that your prose isn't that good. It just might be, but, I'll take the chance.

By and large, setting doesn't matter all that much. Dark Sun differs for many reasons, partly setting, but also a large part is the mechanics of the setting as well - new wizards, no clerics, desert survival, new monsters etc. CoC differs, not because it's a different setting, but because the mechanics and purpose are totally different. You could easily play CoC in a bog standard fantasy setting - replace revolvers with swords and you're good to go.

Do you need setting? Of course. But, setting should be in the background, just like it is in movies or stories. It's very, very rare for the setting to take a foreground role in any story for a reason. Setting isn't all that interesting.

For example: What was the name of Gimli's axe? How about Gandalf's staff? What was the history behind Leggylass' bow?

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, there needs to be give and take, but, that applies to both sides of the screen. If a DM told me that I have to listen to 100 pages of history about his imaginary world, I'd be out the door in an instant. Sorry, but you aren't Terry Pratchett and I'm pretty darn sure that your prose isn't that good. It just might be, but, I'll take the chance.

I wouldn't want to sit and listen to 100 pages of it all being read out, but if it were written down somewhere and the DM said something like "if you want to know more about the world, this binder has it; please note your characters probably know much less about the world than what's presented there", sooner or later I'd read it. If nothing else, it'd be a fine way to pass the time when my character's dead or someone's off scouting...

This is probably the best way to handle this; have the information available, but leave it at that, and don't be upset if your players never read it.

Things that directly affect their adventuring careers, e.g. that their homeland has a tax of 5% of all booty found while adventuring, does need to be clearly pointed out in-game; and if the players don't pay attention it becomes *their* problem when the King's tax collectors show up looking for the PCs...

Lanefan

 

[pogre]

So you've never had your players take 5 or 10 minutes to plan something, an assault on a fortified area or something similar?

You've never had players leveling up, looking for the cool feat they want, adjusting stats etc., while you wait for them to finish?

You've never had players take time to divy up treasure amongst themselves?

You've never had players argue amongst themselves about, ideas, how to proceed, etc.?



I got more examples, but I don't see the point if you've never experienced these things...All I can say is you are a lucky DM.

I will admit to possibly being in the minority here, but as a D.M. I love listening to this stuff from my players. I especially get some great ideas when they are making plans. But even the excitement of leveling up and dividing treasure are usually fun to listen to - in my campaign those functions all come at the end of the session anyway.

 

[Numion]

IMO that article wasn't even that bad of an advice. Great for a beginning DM who might've missed some key social dynamics in roleplaying games. I don't agree with all that was said in the article, but acknowledging player expectations can't be bad advice.

The 'sad' fact of life is that players tend to be more interested on what their own character used the sword to kill last week, not what some NPC used it to kill couple of centuries ago. I'm actually in that category too; I'd rather have an item on my character I did mediocre heroics wit, by myself (and companions) than hold a relic used to do really great things inside the DMs head my character could never match.

I also think that inhere lay the reasons why so many old school 'world builder' type DMs find magic shops such an affront. It gives players choice to wield the weapons they want into the battle, not those that the DM wants them to have.

As a DM I also started out as a control freak, but then I realised the deck was stacked in my favor anyway, and I could give a little more control to the players. The characters are theirs, everything else belongs to the DM. I do include backstories for powerful items (or any items that usually would have significant history), but I don't expect players to value that backstory over whatever story they're, through play, making for their own items.

But then again, I've never been a world builder DM. I use published campaign as a backdrop while adventures and PCs are in the front. Griping about player entitlement in this discussion, IMHO, serves as a red herring. A single "Gimme gimme gimme" quote out of context doesn't actually mean the root cause of disinterest in background was in increased player entitlement. It would insinuate that listening to background exposition was actually some kind of big detriment to the players, only done in order to get kewl powrz. If that's how item background is considered by the players, there's already something much more wrong in the social dynamics of the game than the players' overt sense of entitlement.