Gaming and Friendship (for DM's)

[DarrenGMiller]

I think we may be coming at this issue from perspectives based on our own gaming groups and that's likely coloring our responses (I know it is with mine).

My group mostly games with each other and nobody else. We're not really all that "plugged in" to other local gamers (except me since I'm the person who organizes the NC Game Days). And we game once a week, which is the most we're going to get most of the time since we've all got wives and kids and so forth. The net result of this is that, in our group, if you are not a player in our weekly game then you're pretty much not gaming. So I try to go out of my way to make sure that whatever game I'm running appeals to everybody on some level because to exclude them from a given campaign pretty much excludes them from the hobby for some time period.

Now of course they could hunt around for other local groups to game with if a campaign idea was floated that they didn't mesh well with. But I think that would be a bit hurtful to them and I would rather be gaming with these guys than gaming without these guys, even if it means that some system or genre I'd rather play has to take a back seat to that desire.

YMMV.

Well, first off my "regular" players are split about half-and-half on who games on other nights or with other groups. There are probably three of us (myself included) whose live are too busy to find another local group if we so desired and all of us have some gamer connections or at least the games at the FLGS we could go to for another game.

As far as running a campaign to please everyone, I have players with vastly different style preferences which range from WoD dark world vampire fantasy to Eberron and everywhere in between (hmmm... how much ground is in between my examples... not sure). I have tried to run games that would cater to as many of those tastes as I could, but since about 2002, I have not run a game for MY tastes. Now I am trying to do that.

DM

 

[DarrenGMiller]

For me the way you ask the question is a bit of a paradox.

See, I play with friends, with people I know and respect *prior* to the game precisely because the hobby of RPG is one that supposes sociability first. If I play with people I don't know, I will be on the defensive, weary of mistakes I could do, how I look, behave etc etc. At least more than with friends I know.

I met 2 of these people through the FLGS when I ran a game there in 2001, 2 came through these original two, and 4 are former students of mine (this is out of my "semi-regulars - they are not usually all at the table at the same time, though sometimes they are).

Depends on the reason why you are refusing not to play with that friend. If that is because you are scared that your friendship will end, then that means that you probably do not believe you are friends in the first place (since, by my standards at least, being *friends* implies that you trust the other and feel like you are *yourself* with that person).

If that is for another reason, then I can't tell you. Some other reason might prove to be justified, like you are a really really sore loser, you have a bad comportment in games in general, you know it, and don't want your friend to suffer from this "dark side" of yours. Who knows ?

Not sure what you are getting at here... seems like the only reasons you are suggesting are faults of mine and not that what they want is not what I want to run, or that their manner at the table might take enjoyment from the game for me when they are not playing exactly the setting they want.

DM

 

[DarrenGMiller]

I guess I got the impression that Wolf was saying, "I'm gearing up to run a [Classic Style Greyhawk] and George, you're not invited to play because I know that this genre is not your thing. And, by the way, meet Bob. Bob here LOVES Silver Age Supers campaigns so he'll be joining us."

If your friend, Wolf, is not invited, how will he ever get the chance to like Greyhawk and see it the way you do ? Personally, I would propose any friend to come enjoy a Greyhawk campaign, and let them decide if they want to play or not. It's not my role to think they won't be interested. They might, you never know, plus there wouldn't be any hurt feelings since they would decide by themselves.

We were playing it for a couple of months. I have enough time in the game style to know it is not meshing with their play style. Yes, we have discussed it. The "game" was to the point of being stopped by incessant sillines. At the last session, I actually packed up all of my stuff while they ridiculed something about the game. When they noticed the screen come down and get folded up, they begged me to take it back out and they would "get serious" which I did and they did for a few minutes, but it fell apart again after about 20 minutes and we ended at that point. The players in question hate dungeon crawls, hate "classic" gaming and just make fun of the "old style" of play.

DM

 

[Odhanan]

I see Wolf. An all-too familiar sort of players for me as well. The kind saying "dungeons are dumb, dungeons are for munchkins, etc" I suppose. *sigh*

That legitimates your fears from my point of view. These guys will probably disrupt your classic Greyhawk campaign, for sure.