I was attending a college game club for the first time, convening at the odd time of 7:19. I was quite early, having come from another college game club, so I sat down and spread out a couple of games I was seeking to playtest. Not far away a group of guys were talking, and I finally heard enough to recognize they were talking about RPGs and wandered over. It was a discussion to help GMs become better GMs.
The main question amounted to: How do you maintain a serious game and not have it become dominated by silliness? For example, this GM described a game that was going along the way he wanted until one of the players asked if he could shoot his magic missiles from his groin! According to the GM, the game collapsed into silliness after that.
This is a really good question. One possibility is that if the players don’t feel that their characters are seriously threatened, then they can do whatever they feel like. On the other hand, if they do feel that their characters might die, there’s likely to be a lot more focus on playing the game and a lot less on silly questions such as the above. That’s the fundamental formula generalization: the lower the stakes, the less engaged the players, and the higher the potential for silliness.
But there’s a lot more to it. You can run a game without a lot of silliness if you work to find the right players. If you get responsible players who recognize what you want to do and are willing to go along with the game’s plot, they can say funny things and have a good laugh but still focus on the “seriousness” of the situation. The players don’t have to behave like soldiers in combat as long as their characters do. The trick is to differentiate between what the players say and what the characters actually say and do.
In a similar way, if the GM is running a game where he/she is telling a story, the GM needs players who are willing to go along with that, willing to concede some control to the GM. If they indulge in lots of silliness that’s detrimental to the story, the storytellers can very easily lose control – and thereby make the story less effective. When you come down to it, a GM who is telling a story has to work with players to set an expectation about how he/she expects them to behave.
The middle ground where the GM isn’t going for a strong game or going for a strong storytelling session, is where things are likely to get muddled. Perhaps partly because the players themselves aren’t sure how/where things are going.
When a GM is hosting a game, he or she can decide who plays and who doesn’t. We’ve all encountered people who believe that they ought to be able to do whatever they want, including playing in a game when the GM doesn’t want them to. Those types of players aren’t going to fit anyway, so you may as well head off a lot of frustration early by talking to them first before putting the entire group through the hassle.
A GM would be wise to explain ahead of time what kind of campaign he/she has in mind, rather than just recruit “anyone who wants to play Pathfinder” or some other game. It’s just like playing any particular tabletop game, some people aren’t going to like it no matter how good others think the game is, and it saves the potential player time and effort if they find out what the game is about before they play. E.g., if a game can be characterized as “chess-like”, there’s no reason for those who dislike chess-like games to try playing.
While the general formula can make a big difference, in the end it’s about finding players who match the GM’s play style. It’s a matter of, well, being adult, of taking responsibility, of not indulging yourself in a way that will interfere with the game as a whole. It seems simple, but I’ve encountered many, many players who are unwilling to play along, so in the end the GM who wants players to behave a certain way may have to “disinvite” a lot of players out of the game (or not invite them to play in the first place).
The main question amounted to: How do you maintain a serious game and not have it become dominated by silliness? For example, this GM described a game that was going along the way he wanted until one of the players asked if he could shoot his magic missiles from his groin! According to the GM, the game collapsed into silliness after that.
This is a really good question. One possibility is that if the players don’t feel that their characters are seriously threatened, then they can do whatever they feel like. On the other hand, if they do feel that their characters might die, there’s likely to be a lot more focus on playing the game and a lot less on silly questions such as the above. That’s the fundamental formula generalization: the lower the stakes, the less engaged the players, and the higher the potential for silliness.
But there’s a lot more to it. You can run a game without a lot of silliness if you work to find the right players. If you get responsible players who recognize what you want to do and are willing to go along with the game’s plot, they can say funny things and have a good laugh but still focus on the “seriousness” of the situation. The players don’t have to behave like soldiers in combat as long as their characters do. The trick is to differentiate between what the players say and what the characters actually say and do.
In a similar way, if the GM is running a game where he/she is telling a story, the GM needs players who are willing to go along with that, willing to concede some control to the GM. If they indulge in lots of silliness that’s detrimental to the story, the storytellers can very easily lose control – and thereby make the story less effective. When you come down to it, a GM who is telling a story has to work with players to set an expectation about how he/she expects them to behave.
The middle ground where the GM isn’t going for a strong game or going for a strong storytelling session, is where things are likely to get muddled. Perhaps partly because the players themselves aren’t sure how/where things are going.
When a GM is hosting a game, he or she can decide who plays and who doesn’t. We’ve all encountered people who believe that they ought to be able to do whatever they want, including playing in a game when the GM doesn’t want them to. Those types of players aren’t going to fit anyway, so you may as well head off a lot of frustration early by talking to them first before putting the entire group through the hassle.
A GM would be wise to explain ahead of time what kind of campaign he/she has in mind, rather than just recruit “anyone who wants to play Pathfinder” or some other game. It’s just like playing any particular tabletop game, some people aren’t going to like it no matter how good others think the game is, and it saves the potential player time and effort if they find out what the game is about before they play. E.g., if a game can be characterized as “chess-like”, there’s no reason for those who dislike chess-like games to try playing.
While the general formula can make a big difference, in the end it’s about finding players who match the GM’s play style. It’s a matter of, well, being adult, of taking responsibility, of not indulging yourself in a way that will interfere with the game as a whole. It seems simple, but I’ve encountered many, many players who are unwilling to play along, so in the end the GM who wants players to behave a certain way may have to “disinvite” a lot of players out of the game (or not invite them to play in the first place).
