Your gaming metaphor?

[edemaitre]

Feelings

As a Game Master and host, I usually begin a session trying to get organized as the role-players arrive. Getting drinks and munchies ready, giving out handouts, and dealing with administrative questions (about scheduling, rules, or character records/levels). I'm also mentally putting the finishing touches on my plans for the night's gathering, such as last-minute changes to Non-Player Characters or the challenge level, based on who's in attendance. The players usually banter about genre entertainment or nongame interests.

My main desire is for everyone to have fun. As a storyteller, I also hope that the Player Characters reach their heroic potential, that the gamers work well together, and that my campaign setting and plot continue to grow in breadth and depth. Pacing is another concern, as well as challenging combat and role-playing encounters. Longer-term story arcs are what I worry about at the end of sessions or between meetings.

When I play, I arrive at a session with anticipation of what might happen. In homebrew games, the choices of the party are particularly important, but in established worlds, I'm interested in exploring new corners and testing their realism. I'm also more of a "character actor" and investigative player than the team leader, so I hope for that moment in the spotlight where my P.C. can shine...

 

[Mycanid]

I pose this question as an opportunity for introspection: How much of your personal gaming style is a reflection of what you expect in life in general? The cleric's healing thread elsewhere on this board, for example, revealed a rift between those who expect cure spells for the good of the group versus those who don't expect anything in particular. In line with this thread, I wonder how they treat their coworkers or friends. Are you bossy and know what's best for other people? Are you focused on crafting the perfect character and getting the bestest stuff level after level? Do you step up to offer abilities/skills, or are do you wait for an invitation? ... That sort of thing.

Whoa. That's a big question. Well ... first off I would honestly have to say that I "expect" my fellow players to be "through thick and thin" loyal with me (not blindly and "irrationally" but pretty thoroughly/as much as is reasonably possible), because that's how I am with those few I consider to be my really close friends in life AND in the game. So THAT is reflected in my gaming, I guess. As Shakespeare said: "those friends thou hast, and their affection tried, grapple them to thyself with hoops of steel". Of course this is from a "player's" perspective and not a DM per se.

Other than that I'd have to keep thinking about it. I love these sort of questions, though.

 

[The Shaman]

I hear they make an xbox game that you do that in....

Nah, killing things and taking stuff while playing on a tabletop is much better.

 

[Hussar]

I picked the first one, although, in the last game I was a player in, I think the other players would have picked the third. It got to the point where I had to drop the game because I just got too frustrated with (what I saw as) the lack of focus.

In other words, I just wanted to kill things and take stuff in a group of drama players. Sigh.

 

[Nomad4life]

If the players want to focus on their characters, we do that. If they want to follow any of my plot hooks, we do that. If they want to wander around and question peasants about the key differences between African and European swallows, we do that. So, I picked the "see what happens" option.

But that’s a little misleading. Why?

Simply because our time together is scarce now that we’re all working and married. In other words, even though the players are free to do whatever they feel like, they always go for the plot hooks. If they went through all the trouble to make game night, they want to foil the plan of the Guys Behind It All, and take part in a story by darn!

In other words "see what happens" becomes "working towards a goal" 19 times out of 20.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I voted "let's just hang out together and see what happens."

I as an individual am very interested in a campaign's story and, luckily for me, my current DM is running a campaign he's been working on for the last fifteen years, so it's incredibly deep and layered, with new revelations coming nearly every week these days, now that we've begun to come into the final stretch of it.

As an individual, I like to see my PC grow and succeed in the campaign world, and my DM has been good about feeding that desire. My paladin started out as an ex-squire taking a last chance at honor by joining the guardians of the kingdom's border. Now he has several titles and speaks to the High Priest of his faith on a regular basis. About the only thing I haven't seen develop is the romantic angle. But then, I've made comments about hoping to have him hook up with an elf princess, and we haven't been to the elven kingdom yet, so that may be more my fault than anything.

But as a group, we're more a beer and pretzels game. Most of my fellow players have a hard time remembering what we did week-to-week, or any of the NPCs names. We get together to have fun as a group. Often, the first half-hour to hour of time is merely spent chatting, until the real gaming starts.

Not perhaps as focused a game as I might like, but at the same time, as fun as I could ever want.

 

[Driddle]

Interesting. This dovetails nicely with the "cleric won't heal" thread.

It seems there's a strong split between those who expect their co-players to act as cohesive unit with one mind, and those who allow more individual approaches to the experience (whatever that may be).

Makes a huge difference in how you design a character, too. In one, you've got to ask first, "What part will I play in the party?" or "What role does the party need filled?" before you can follow up with, "What sort of character sounds like fun to play?"

It's important that the other players feel the same way. I've seen examples of frustration and resentment expressed here when that's not the case.

It would be interesting to see how that sort of role expectation plays out in the real world for those gamers -- ala, "The 'daddy' is supposed to act *this* way in the family unit."

 

[Mycanid]

Driddle - yes, I agree with you somewhat, but just like real life, isn't it the differences rp wise that make the game more enjoyable. Yes, on a personal level I "expect" the party to work together as a team, for example, but people have all sorts of ideas of how they will play or want to play. What is sweet is when the party finds ways to work together instead of fighting each other.

Granted, this model is hard to have come up each time you play when you have the same group of people, which is one of the nice things about having a couple of gaming groups or conventions, but such things can often be managed to a "lesser" degree.

I think that the model has to be somewhere in between the party acting as a cohesive unit and allowing for individual expression.

Oh, and by the way, the DM in Pendragon's game sounds like a genius. That's just the sort of adventure I love. A lucky man!

 

[Desdichado]

I want my games to move my players. To that end, I insist that the characters be fully fleshed out personalities that the players really relate to, then I put them vicariously in situations that cause real emotion. I also like to make my games a metaphor for current events so I can make sure and inculcate valuable moral and political lessons in my players.


OK, not really.