Why I don't GM by the nose

[Argyle King]

In contrast to the many people who have said the issue is due to GM failure, I am going to say otherwise. I too am somewhat irked by players who seem to have mental inertia. As someone has already mentioned, if I'm GMing the world and also telling your character what he should be doing, I might as well just stay home and write a book.

I do not believe anyone else is playing the game wrongly by prefering to be lead by the hand. I simply highly prefer that players have at least a modicum of initiative. Even if it's hack & slash, that's at least something... it may not be a strategy that always works in the games I run, but you're at least doing something without me needed to tell you what you have to do.

I see no reason why players can't create hooks. Even if I am running an adventure path and am providing hooks, I still like it when a player's character has... well... has character. When I sit and ponder your character's motivations for being an adventurer, I like it when I have more of a reason than 'well, the GM says so..." Again, I'll take even ye olde cliche of fame and fortune; just give me some sort of feedback.

One thing which I don't think gets said enough is that the GM is a player too. If I'm not enjoying my seat at the game from the GM side of the table, I'm not going to want to play any more than a player who isn't enjoying being part of my game. I'm willing to compromise my style and include things in games which fit the styles of the people I game with; however, a compromise goes both ways, and I expect at least a token effort at giving me a little bit of what I want. If you hate my GMing style, hey, that's fine too; I'll let somebody else GM if the group is violently opposed to what I want to run rather than do all the work of GMing only to be miserable every weekend.

I have had experiences similar to the player 2 example which Fire gave. One of the players who comes to mind would literally not do anything unless I practically played his character for him. Again, I understand that some people just want to sit down and roll some dice without much thought; I really do understand that. However, asking whether or not you open a door shouldn't -I feel- lead to the deer in the headlights* look.

Pacing can be controlled by players in more than just combat situations. In the face-to-face campaign I am running right now, the players are in a town on the edge of civilization. Through various social interactions with NPCs, the players developed a desire to be involved in the growth of the town. This meant that the players chose to take a break from the story arc they were involved in and instead create their own hooks involved with the town. This also meant that several months of in-game time had passed. Thirdly, it meant that they had control over what they felt was important to them and the game. From the GM side of things, I highly enjoyed that they were looking through the world in the eyes of their characters and creating things which had some amount of sentimental value to those characters; the world became something shared with the players rather than something completely dictated to them.


*Yes, I understand there can be a variety of reasons for this. If all you've known are linear campaigns and you're caught offguard** by the ability to choose your path, I can work with that. If you're new to rpgs and the game seems confusing, I can work with that. I can work with a lot of things. If you just don't want to play in an open ended game, fine, I can even work with that or find you someone else better suited to a linear game. All I ask is to let me know, and I'll do what I can to help if that's what you need.

However, if you're just willfully choosing to not participate because "well, that's not why I'm here" that's -in my opinion- somewhat selfish. I feel that rpgs are meant to be a shared experience. As a GM, you need to know your players. As a player, you need to be mindful that not everyone at the table is there for the exact same reasons you are. Sometimes Expecting the GM and other players to compromise and include things to fit your style without being willing to do anything at all which is outside of your prefered playstyle, I feel that is somewhat insulting to the other people at the table.

**I know some people don't like the term 'train your players' as illustrated by the posts earlier in this thread, but I do feel that some amount of training can and should take place in this case. An rpg experience need not be exactly the same every time you sit down at a table. That's something I feel that enough people are not aware of; that there's more than one way to play the game. Especially in the case of new players being exposed to the hobby, I think it's good to showcase the flexibility of rpgs and illustrate that it's just as possible to interactively play through a multiplayer choose your own adventure book as it is to play a tabletop version of WoW.

 

[Hussar]

Johny3d3d - I'd pretty much agree with all of that.

Just a point about the players controlling the pacing. When you say that several months of game time got taken up by their plans, how much table time did that take up?

I wonder if there's a bit of a misunderstanding in the idea of pacing. By pacing, I don't really mean how long things take in game. That doesn't really matter. By pacing, I meant how things play out at the table. "We spend three months rebuilding the town" can take thirty seconds at the table or it can take two hours (or more). And that time is mostly determined by the DM.

 

[Argyle King]

Johny3d3d - I'd pretty much agree with all of that.

Just a point about the players controlling the pacing. When you say that several months of game time got taken up by their plans, how much table time did that take up?

I wonder if there's a bit of a misunderstanding in the idea of pacing. By pacing, I don't really mean how long things take in game. That doesn't really matter. By pacing, I meant how things play out at the table. "We spend three months rebuilding the town" can take thirty seconds at the table or it can take two hours (or more). And that time is mostly determined by the DM.

It took the better part of three gaming sessions. It probably would have been more, but I am close enough to them to have regular contact with them even when it's not game day, so there were times when we talked shop on non-game days. We play every weekend, so that would be close to a month in real time.

 

[Krensky]

A better question isn't how long it took, but is did everyone have fun?

If everyone had fun for those three sessions, the pacing (as it relates to the topic at hand) was fine.

 

[Argyle King]

A better question isn't how long it took, but is did everyone have fun?

If everyone had fun for those three sessions, the pacing (as it relates to the topic at hand) was fine.

Surprisingly, yes... I didn't think they'd get as deep into the details as they did.

 

[Beginning of the End]

I don't know if that kind of thing is common in your games, but if it is, I would be player two. Why? Mostly because I wouldn't give a rat's ass about the statue. I don't care how the dried oranges might interact with the statue or whatever else you had in mind.

I've had gamers like Malenkirk at my table before. I refer to them as "damaged goods" since, IME, they tend to be created by poor GMing at other tables. (I've never seen a player new to RPGs suffer from this problem.) My GM has a pretty funny story about the time he ran into a whole table of them without realizing what was happening.

Malenkirk seems to be a pretty bad case, though. He can apparently look at someone saying, "I don't want to tell my players what to do." And his only response is, "! It's a trap! When he says he doesn't want to tell me what to do, what is he secretly trying to make me do?"

The examples I've encountered in real life tend to respond well to simply explaining the disconnect. Once they realize that Admiral Ackbar isn't going to leap out of the closet, they generally respond enthusiastically.

The GM is the only person at the table who controls the pacing, because even the things the players can do to change things rely on the GM enabling them. Moving to a different location won't change anything if there's nothing different there.

Your position of "GM as Ultimate Tyrant" is, IMO, a rather flat and boring one.

The truth is that both the GM and the players have control over pacing. If the player decide that their PCs take a knitting class instead of chasing the guy who just tried to assassinate them, that decision has an effect on the pacing of the campaign. And while theoretically the GM could turn their knitting class into a fast-paced thriller or the rooftop chase into a serene art film, the reality is that the responsibility for how a campaign is paced belongs to both the action chosen (which the players largely control unless the GM is railroading them) and the presentation of that action (which the GM largely controls).

Should the players be more proactive? Possibly. Maybe the ref has done a bang-up job on the setting and they really ought to be finding something to do. Maybe your entire group of players are a bunch of unmotivated laggards. But in general when there is a choice between 3-5 people being in the wrong or one person being in the wrong, it's usually the one person.

All other things being even, you're probably right: If everyone has a 50% chance of being wrong, then the GM has a 50% chance of being wrong while there's only a 3% chance of 5 players all being wrong at the same time.

But if the players have been taught through experience that the way to play an RPG is to "wait for the GM to tell us what to do", then all other things aren't even. That prior experience on the part of the players will skew your hypothetically perfect conditions and make it quite likely that when they're presented with the situation "the GM wants us to make decisions for ourselves" they'll screw it up.

I suppose one can argue that the GM should just suck it up and run another "I'll tell you what to do" campaign for these players. But since I'm (a) not a big fan of the "GM is a slave" meme and (b) I think railroading is generally a broken model for tabletop play, I'm generally going to try to make these players explore a better way of playing before giving up on them and finding new players. (I have zero interest in running a railroad.)

 

[Haltherrion]

All other things being even, you're probably right: If everyone has a 50% chance of being wrong, then the GM has a 50% chance of being wrong while there's only a 3% chance of 5 players all being wrong at the same time.

But if the players have been taught through experience that the way to play an RPG is to "wait for the GM to tell us what to do", then all other things aren't even. That prior experience on the part of the players will skew your hypothetically perfect conditions and make it quite likely that when they're presented with the situation "the GM wants us to make decisions for ourselves" they'll screw it up.

Yes, if the players simply have not experienced a game where the ref expects more from them, then the ref should demonstrate what he expects to them. That was essentially behind my earlier comment (in this thread IIRC) that as I ref, I'm fine with having to train my players, by training meaning demonstrating to them that their actions matter.

If you get to this awkward pause point well into your campaign, you should have had plenty of opportunity to do this training/demonstration to your players already. If it happens in the first session or two, well, I'm still in my training phase. Either way, it's the ref's job to move things along

That said, I guess as a ref, I never expect all my players to be proactive and ready to dive in at such pauses. There are a few there because the SO is there and as long as they aren't detracting from the game, I don't mind if they opt out of the problem solving bits (my wife would be one such person). In the bigger picture, different things engage different players. As long as some of them are willing to move things along at any given time, I'm happy.

 

[fireinthedust]

A point has been missed.


The OP (myself) brought up one of many possible table dynamics. The GM in this case has tried all the things mentioned, listening to player wishes, setting pacing, all that. However, when a room is described to players, they don't respond.

The point is that the GM can only do so much. At some point even a game run by, say, the Steven Spielberg of GMs must have a group of players who wish to respond, who are willing to interact.

Railroading is the RPG equivalent of spoon feeding. While it is a great tool for time-strapped games, like at conventions, its more of a tool than a true method.

The opposite dynamic is a group of interested players with a GM spoon-feeding them info that a) they can predict so it isn't a surprise, and b) that they're not interested in and have said so many times.

While the points of Mal and Krensky are well taken, this isn't the dynamic that the OP is bringing up as a problem.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Malenkirk seems to be a pretty bad case, though. He can apparently look at someone saying, "I don't want to tell my players what to do." And his only response is, "! It's a trap! When he says he doesn't want to tell me what to do, what is he secretly trying to make me do?"

That's what you got from my post? The underscored part is sheer fabulation that can't be reasonably extrapolated from what I wrote.

The gist of what I said was don't ask me 'What do you do' if you have just put me in a situation where I'm bored out of my skull. Obviously, you won't like the answer.

The one example the OP gave was a bland situation where the PCs stand in some courtyard, with a tree, a door and dried apples. It might be a puzzle ( which I dislike) and in any case there is no antagonist, stakes or tension. Of course I am bored. I did mention I would probably try to get out of there with a perception/thievery check in the hope of moving on to something actually interesting.

I basically said that if that was a common occurence, no wonder some players are non-responsive. I don't care one bit for that aspect of RPGs and I'm not alone. I am not playing a role in that scene, I am playing Mist! As you can guess, I don't play Mist.

The OP then slighlty shifted the premise by diminishing the value of the sample scene; it was not in that specific type of scene but under any circumstances that players were showing little initiative. This is why I stayed out of the debate afterward. If the game is interesting but players are uninterested I have little insight to offer beyond 'change groups'.

BTW, the 'damaged good' reference is arrogant. It is a sentiment based on the assumption that there is greater value in the way you like to play than the way I like to play.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Now this is a new one to me. I don't think I've ever seen people try to pass the buck on pacing from the DM to the players.

How exactly does a player control the pacing?

The players opportunity are more limited in scope and tend to be cooperative but they are plentiful.

Basically, it involves being decisive and taking risks. Groups of players tend to get bogged down in details whenever it's time for a tough decision. For a short while you just cooperate with your friends to come up with a mutually acceptable decision but if it drags down a few minutes, it's time to move on. Just have your PC take the lead (as long as he assumes most of the risk, for the sake of not pissing other players!).

For example, let's say you are at court and you think the chancellor has been replaced by some kind of imitator and now the group is arguing what to do. If no consensus emerge after a few minutes, I'll just do something dramatic to get the story moving like breaking into his room or tackling him in the middle of the court to forcefully remove whatever looks like a magic item.

Trust me, it greatly improves the pace! Maybe not always toward the DM's planned endgame, but at least things are happening.