Payn's Ponderings[ Forming, Storming, Norming your TTRPG group.

[payn]

Greetings!

Intro
So, lot of the discussion lately has got playstyle and group forming on my mind. Reminds me of those communication courses I took in college on communication in work groups. Im sure some of y'all are familiar with Tuckman's stages of group development (see image above). Not to be confused with Tucker's Kobolds, although Tucker's could certainly be an item for investigation in this discussion on TTRPG groups! I thought it might be interesting to discuss our ways and methods of forming TTRPG groups. Particularly since, unlike scholarly and/or occupation group work, TTRPGs are groups we want to be in, as opposed to have to be in. What has worked, what has not and such in our RPG lives? I assume discussion will begin with personal methods and expand into exploring them in a true open discussion. What I hope is not open though is claiming one-true-way and I ask you be respectful of preferences and experiences.

Forming; How do you do it? In the past, it was up to finding friends and classmates that had an interest in gaming. That may have grown into hanging at college clubs and FLGS cruising for games. Later, it may have resulted from interest from work collegues and/or message boards like meetup etc.. Organized play was a natural stop for many to meet like minded folks in a low commitment environment. Though, with social media in the last 10+ years the world has never seemed closer to one's doorstep. Discord, Facebook, message boards make finding gamers easier than ever. Has forming become easier though? I think thats an elusive goal becasue if you examine all the leaps in human technology, forming never seems to get less complicated; just more efficent.

Storming; How do you weather it? Finding folks to play is the first step, getting everyone to stay is the next. The earilest stages of TTRPG were delt in physical rules books on kitchen tables and in school lunch cafaterias. Word of mouth through regular games and occasional conventions. Then, rulebooks got better editors and playtest feedback, and magazines were written, whcih lead to websites being developed, etc.. There are a myriad opinions on how to play D&D itself, let alone the hundres if not thousands of other TTRPGs in existence. As much as session zeroes are helpful, often the only way to find out what you got, is to play. Does the growing collective experience of the community make storming more complicated? This too is an elusive goal because personality differences make even like minded individuals difficult to bridge.

Norming; How do you accept it? The groups together, you talked it over, books have hit the table, its become a regular thing now. As covered, earlier your pool of options was as far as your neighborhood could take you. This meant likely a compromise among friends and family in how the group played the game. In organized play circles, you know, debate, and accept the consistent rulings of whoever the authority is. With advent of communication technology, that pool is greatly widened, and the boundaries greatly expanded. No matter how you regularly play, it took a journey to get there. Has the efficeny of forming, and the wealth of experience in storming, made the norming of a functional TTRPG group more relatable? I think the fact that social science dedicates models to work group formation indicates human aspects transcend their actual functions, such as that of an TTRPG game, making it difficult rgardless the subject.

My Experiece
For me, the journey is as I described above. It started with whomever I could find and wanted to play with. We didnt neccesarily have the benefit of the internet to inform us of possible play style. We had to figure a lot out on our own. In some ways it made it easier becasue of the necesity of having to make it work out. Though, I cant say the epxerience was optimal for anyone. Organized play allowed me to experiece a lot of styles and personalities. Between that and the internet coming alive with message boards, I really began to form my ideas of what I want an RPG experience to be. It also sharply contrasted that with the experiences I was getting. That is where I learned the hard lesson of "sometimes your best friends, make the worst gamers". This broke me of my habit of only playing with folks I knew well.

After org play and finding groups online, I started to really focus sharper on my own style. How to communicate it, how to apply it in session, how to notice it in others. This broke me of another habit of joining long term gaming groups and/or campaign with folks I didnt know. I'll one shot with anybody, at anytime. I do genuinely like meeting people and sharing my hobby. However, I prefer a deeply engaged and long term campaign and I find it a rare desire amongst fellow gamers. I need to know a person is not only reliable to commit, but that we can share experiences and enjoyment on a collective level. I find talk is good, but experience is better in achieving my gaming goals.

I'll open it up to you good EN Wrolders now.

TL: DR
Forming a group for anything is hard. How do you form up, bond up, and keep up your TTRPG gaming groups?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Unfortunately, its been literally decades since I had to form a group from the ground up. The most I've had to do recently was supplement an already extent (but somewhat shrunken) group, and the two people I brought in were both ones I knew quite well (one of them I'd gamed with many years ago).

I will say, however, that forming and keeping groups can absolutely be fraught; I was involved in a big, multiGM interlocked RuneQuest group some decades ago, and while it worked well for a while, internal politics ultimately tore it apart.

 

[zakael19]

This is a great discussion, especially since so many of us are playing via the internet. I've only recently really realized how important the contents of the "Same Page Tool" are to get a group aligned on a potential ruleset. I think it's really worth settling in during session 0 and walking through something like that with the group to express how you all see the system performing - probably double so with something like 5e since the play styles and table cultures can be so broad.

Games with a really focused premise / goal are probably easier to orient on, but then again the expected play style might be so different its still worth having the discussion up front.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

My personal experience is that the crux is really between Storming and Norming, some people see Norming as something adults simply do not have to do, and intend to keep Storming until it becomes Morning, and if that never works it was the leader's fault for not giving in and any consequences for the group as a whole are their fault.

I think community does play a role in this (thinking of it since you asked), because the sense of having a consensus or a movement behind you makes it less likely you accept the norms of your group, you have people backing you up, even if those people aren't going to actually furnish you with a gaming group.

Overall, yeah, I both attempt to and aspire to be able to focus more on a "house style" in the sense of developing a stronger style as a GM, rather than pursuing maximum flexibility, and simply communicating that, rather than always changing for others-- I'm always happy to adjust for feedback, requested elements, hangups, but I have to be able to do it on my terms.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I will say my experience does tell me that a lot of groups get stuck at least somewhere halfway between Storming and Norming because they don't entirely accept the other players as supporting them (potentially, with reason). That sort of dynamic can actually proceed for a long time as one of the groups I used to play with showed (it went on, essentially, for decades) if they get enough value out of each other to tolerate the other players and the GM, but it is not a comfortable situation and when something gets out of wack it will start to progressively fail.

 

[payn]

Currently going through the storming phase with a new group. Forming happened out of a bunch of us that have been playing a wargame Battletech at an FLGS for the last couple of years. We tend to have a regular after game chat in the parking lot for 30-60 min after a BT session. One night Traveller came up and I tiptoed over to the players discussing it. I asked them if there was a game (I really want to play in Traveller some day but never find a GM and/or game...) and they both looked at me and said, "there is now!"

So, of course they meant that I would run it with my love and experience of the system. So, I dropped my files and started loading the discord with a campaign. Instantly they loved the amount of material I had prepared, but also seemed a bit intimidated by the volume of it. Though, chargen was a riot and everyone is eager to get started.

Now that we have a few sessions under our belt, we are still trying to figure each other out. Three of us are completely new to Traveller and RPG with one another, two of the five have known each other for a very long time and experienced all sorts of games together. Everyone seems to have D&D experience, but Traveller is a bit new (albeit something everyone is very interested in) to the group minus myself. Finally my GM style.

So, a few things here. The main is my GM style isnt too radical, but neither is it very conventional. I seek player input as often as possible and I live in the social pillar to use D&D parlance. I see conflict resolution as a discussion that leads to a negotiation. For example, I'll ask, "how do you think the character would resolve this?" and am often met with, "just tell me what skill to roll to get through this..." Then, there is Traveller. One of the biggest hurdles is the kill,loot,level playloor of D&D that overshadows all of RPGs. Folks often have a hard time reconciling that their character is, for th emost part, complete and that what they have is what they are going to adventure with. Adventuring for wealth and power isnt a significant propellant, its playing the game for adventure sake itself. It is surprising how difficult it is to make that change...

So far, folks are enjoying themselves. Our storming journey is still going and ill check back here now and then and let you know how it develops. I'd say our familiarity with one another has given us advantage on our storming roll. For example, we already know we are reliable to meet regularly to game. We have adjudicating rulings experience with games already under our belt. So, some norms are transferable making it a quicker journey in the present. Lets see if it proves to be successful in the long run.