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The mentality of being a DM
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8239057" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I've come across the behaviour you're describing from players, but here's the thing, I've had the same main group of players for 30+ years right, so they're not really a variable. They're a constant. The same for me, I'm pretty much a constant. Maybe I've got better at DMing, maybe I haven't, who knows, but still, pretty much a constant. I've also been a player with other DMs in the group, so that's a variable, and I can see the results of it.</p><p></p><p>So when I've seen this behaviour - "roll up the plot wagon" - and I have, I've noted three things:</p><p></p><p>1) It tends to happen much more with certain systems than other systems. 3.XE/PF and Shadowrun (all editions I've played, but esp. 2E/3E) were the systems I saw that were worst for this, and I tend to think I know why. I think it's because both systems robbed the players of confidence, due in large part to the complexity of the systems, combined with the apparent unreliability of getting good results, especially out of combat (as you note, combat isn't really where this manifests). Systems where the players did feel confident, where they understood how non-combat stuff worked and could reliably expect good results without huge investment, tend not to have this happen. With 3.XE I think the high failure chance of a lot of stuff (as well as more explicit and often harsher consequences for failure) made some players extremely risk-averse and suddenly the wild plans of 2E or other systems started to dry up.</p><p></p><p>2) Adventures which don't fail forwards and are finickity in design definitely help to cause this, as do adventures which railroad hard in certain parts and then stop railroading suddenly. This is mostly stuff found in pre-written adventures, but I've seen DMs who weren't me do it too. I've even seen a DM quit a campaign because the adventure required us to do some specific finickity thing and we literally couldn't work it out. The worst offenders are Shadowrun adventures, again, some of which make quite wild assumptions about what players know to do (esp. 1990s ones), and some of Pathfinder's APs - some of these latter are fine, but some have this whole railroad for weeks, then suddenly stop deal, and if players get used to getting railroaded and/or lead by the nose, it tends to deprotagonize them, so when it's time for them to step up, they don't. I've also seen it with CoC adventures which relied on finding some particular item or bit of info to go forwards, rather than failing forwards. That can leave players standing around thumbs-in-arses.</p><p></p><p>3) DMs can have an impact too. I tend not to run pre-gens and I dislike running the systems mentioned, so this hasn't happened to me a whole lot (but when it has, it's been with those systems). When I've seen it player-side (and I have), it usually breaks down to either really inexperienced DMs who don't know how to get the players moving, or how to inject failing forward into stuff that doesn't have it, or DMs who have a very specific idea on how the campaign is going to run, and when it isn't going that way, kind of "cease cooperating", which can lead to a sort of mutual impasse which again, certainly looks akin to players sitting around doing nowt.</p><p></p><p>I've also seen DMs successfully fix this, simply by warming the players up - i.e. the players are being a bit useless, the DM breaks down some of the obvious options they have, they take one, things start happening, and before you know it, the players have a "just crazy enough to work" plan involving posing as wine merchants or something. Sometimes they just need a shove, esp. if they've not played for a while.</p><p></p><p>EDIT - What I think I forgot to mention is that whilst I've seen individual players be "bumps on a log" as you describe Hussar, sometimes even most of them, I've never seen it happen to <em>every single player in a group</em> (of at least 4 people) unless at least one (usually multiple) of the above factors was <em>also</em> in play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8239057, member: 18"] I've come across the behaviour you're describing from players, but here's the thing, I've had the same main group of players for 30+ years right, so they're not really a variable. They're a constant. The same for me, I'm pretty much a constant. Maybe I've got better at DMing, maybe I haven't, who knows, but still, pretty much a constant. I've also been a player with other DMs in the group, so that's a variable, and I can see the results of it. So when I've seen this behaviour - "roll up the plot wagon" - and I have, I've noted three things: 1) It tends to happen much more with certain systems than other systems. 3.XE/PF and Shadowrun (all editions I've played, but esp. 2E/3E) were the systems I saw that were worst for this, and I tend to think I know why. I think it's because both systems robbed the players of confidence, due in large part to the complexity of the systems, combined with the apparent unreliability of getting good results, especially out of combat (as you note, combat isn't really where this manifests). Systems where the players did feel confident, where they understood how non-combat stuff worked and could reliably expect good results without huge investment, tend not to have this happen. With 3.XE I think the high failure chance of a lot of stuff (as well as more explicit and often harsher consequences for failure) made some players extremely risk-averse and suddenly the wild plans of 2E or other systems started to dry up. 2) Adventures which don't fail forwards and are finickity in design definitely help to cause this, as do adventures which railroad hard in certain parts and then stop railroading suddenly. This is mostly stuff found in pre-written adventures, but I've seen DMs who weren't me do it too. I've even seen a DM quit a campaign because the adventure required us to do some specific finickity thing and we literally couldn't work it out. The worst offenders are Shadowrun adventures, again, some of which make quite wild assumptions about what players know to do (esp. 1990s ones), and some of Pathfinder's APs - some of these latter are fine, but some have this whole railroad for weeks, then suddenly stop deal, and if players get used to getting railroaded and/or lead by the nose, it tends to deprotagonize them, so when it's time for them to step up, they don't. I've also seen it with CoC adventures which relied on finding some particular item or bit of info to go forwards, rather than failing forwards. That can leave players standing around thumbs-in-arses. 3) DMs can have an impact too. I tend not to run pre-gens and I dislike running the systems mentioned, so this hasn't happened to me a whole lot (but when it has, it's been with those systems). When I've seen it player-side (and I have), it usually breaks down to either really inexperienced DMs who don't know how to get the players moving, or how to inject failing forward into stuff that doesn't have it, or DMs who have a very specific idea on how the campaign is going to run, and when it isn't going that way, kind of "cease cooperating", which can lead to a sort of mutual impasse which again, certainly looks akin to players sitting around doing nowt. I've also seen DMs successfully fix this, simply by warming the players up - i.e. the players are being a bit useless, the DM breaks down some of the obvious options they have, they take one, things start happening, and before you know it, the players have a "just crazy enough to work" plan involving posing as wine merchants or something. Sometimes they just need a shove, esp. if they've not played for a while. EDIT - What I think I forgot to mention is that whilst I've seen individual players be "bumps on a log" as you describe Hussar, sometimes even most of them, I've never seen it happen to [I]every single player in a group[/I] (of at least 4 people) unless at least one (usually multiple) of the above factors was [I]also[/I] in play. [/QUOTE]
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