Hook Us Fast

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

So, I bring back a load of indie rpgs from a convention, and I'd like to try a bunch with my local gaming group. This often doesn't happen, and when it does, it often peters out sadly.

After some thought, I have concluded that it is not because my local gaming group is intrinsically flawed. The people I play with have, by and large, compatible styles, and want enough of the same things. The people I play with, by and large, as the same as the people I socialize with.

I have a pretty smart bunch of friends, and they also have a fairly high tolerance for crunch, rules hacking, rules reading, and generally paying attention to the rules of a game. So, I am reasonably convinced that, if my fellow players tell me en masse that a rule is vague and fuzzy, they are not being astoundingly clueless.

We do, however, have limited free time. We also want our games to be fun for us. These two factors mean we won't leap to try every new game. Still, there are enough games with a good enough rep that enough of us are willing, nay, eager, to give them a go. We've tried My Life With Master, Primetime Adventures, and Sorcerer, as well as a bit of noodling with Dogs in the Vineyard and Capes, and a session of the alpha release of With Great Power.

The results have been, at best, mixed. Now, sometimes, it's a matter of what we want vs what the game provides. Sometimes, in our not so humble opinion, a given game isn't as good as it's cracked up to be. But, sometimes, there's a game that I think could work if we put more time into trying it. Makes sense, right? You don't get good at something overnight, do you?

But, we don't want to. Under the best of circumstances, a game is likely to get one shot. If it doesn't work out, well, life's too short, and there are games that do work for us.

Oh, I still think Primetime Adventure has potential, and I do hope agrumer gets off his duff and runs a game of Dogs in the Vineyard. We may well play The Shab al-Hiri Roach. I've run multiple sessions of a Sorcerer game, and I do hope to run Polaris. But, in general, if it doesn't work well the first time, there's not going to be a second time. It's like a book where, if the author doesn't hook me from the get go, I want to go on to the next one.

I don't want to hear that I need a new bunch of players. I don't want to hear that I'm not hip enough to get it. If the author can't communicate clearly enough that we get it the first time, that is the author's problem.

Comments

[mylescorcoran]

"I don't want to hear that I need a new bunch of players. I don't want to hear that I'm not hip enough to get it. If the author can't communicate clearly enough that we get it the first time, that is the author's problem."

Say it, sister!

I think that I have a group that could have more compatible play styles and certainly we could all use more focus, but I don't like a book (or a forum) that suggests the solution to all my problems is to find a different set of gamers.

Indie games often take a different approach to mechanics and I think the onus is on the innovator to explain clearly how a system or mechanic works.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Yes. Now, that said:

One of the worst offenders in the "get new players" was actually a passage from a gming aid for Legend of the Five Rings, saying that if the players had a problem with a particularly heavy handed tactic that the author was recommending, maybe the gm needed "a smaller group of samurai". Yuck.

Also, I do have sympathy for authors faced with this line of rhetoric: "We didn't have any fun with your game. It was awful. Huh? Well, no, we didn't actually use the rules as written. Why? Is that important?" I've been told that some indie authors have to contend with this a lot.

But, I'm talking about a group that does read the rules, that tries to play by them, and that runs into trouble doing so. A lot of indie authors are extremely generous with their time in online fora, and will answer question after question -- but exactly how does this help when I have the game and we're trying to play it and we hit a problem? Sure, going online is ever easier, but it shouldn't be a required supplement to the game in hand.

This is even before we get into communication issues ranging from an author saying, "Well, it's obvious from the rules that..." when, sorry, no, it isn't to overprotective fans of a game slipping into borderline flaming. All of these issues color our perception of a game, rightly or wrongly, and when we hit something like this, it's one more weight on the "life's too short to bang our heads against a wall" side of the scale.

[mylescorcoran]

Okay, I agree that it's not just the indie games crowd where this problem of 'change your players' occurs. It is at the heart of the GNS theory, however, in the choice of Creative Agenda and how you follow-through.

I firmly agree that life is too short to waste time on unproductive or unfun matters. It's clear that for some people a particular game is the bee's knees and for other it's... less so.

I know that for your group OTE suits your purposes admirably in most cases. I think that any new game has to offer something really good to make it worth switching from a system your group is comfortable with. I know I've inflicted a number of systems on my players over the years and that familiarity is really important for getting the rules to just work.

If, like for a lot of greying gamers, free time is in short supply, I want rules that are clear, easy to explain and easy to use in play, and that give me something that my current set of rules doesn't. Those rules shouldn't need a check with the author or a forum first to make me feel comfortable trying them out, even if my nature means I'll probably do that sort of digging anyway.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

... and that give me something that my current set of rules doesn't.

I suspect that this is one of the key factors that kept us playing HERO for so many years. When we had an abundance of idea-machines within the group, there just seemed no real need to move over to using other games. We tried a few here and there, but typically fell back on HERO for most of our stuff.

Only in the last few years have we been stretching out to try other systems. I think the primary motivation there was the gradual tightening of our time to play. 10 years ago our game sessions were three to four hours long. Now, they're two to three hours long. If you have any tactical action in HERO, it's difficult to do much other than that in a two-three hour session.

[mylescorcoran]

Okay, you can also go too far in sticking with a beloved old car that just eats petrol and costs a fortune to run. Sometimes it is better to make the change. (Not meaning to rag on Hero in particular, though I've had experience of the long action scenes and I'd never go back to it now.)

My sessions are down now to about 2-2.5 hours in length, with a crowd of chronic digressors (myself included). Any system we use has to be low handling time, quick but comprehensive resolution. I think setting clear stakes makes a huge difference for us. If only I could get better at it, and at encouraging my players to really get stuck in when it comes to defining stakes at the beginning of a conflict.

[(Anonymous)]

Greying gamers -- yes. I used to be utterly impatient with rpg books that had huge text, clearly designed to fill up space. Now, while I still don't want huge text as a substitute for getting my money's worth of content, I am quite glad to have something easier on the eyes.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

That was me.