tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7657840612384361644.post1012546642981810665..comments2024-03-27T04:29:39.486-07:00Comments on Blessings of the Dice Gods: Social ContractJeff Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14017877412359840010noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7657840612384361644.post-72431319461841427022010-04-11T16:03:36.000-07:002010-04-11T16:03:36.000-07:00Back from vacation and trying to catch up on my re...Back from vacation and trying to catch up on my reading, here.<br><br>I agree with everything above until you get to the prescriptive portion, which I think is a little too much gaming koombayah for me, especially if you don't have a group of tried-and-true, died-in-the-wool gamers. It'd be hard to briefly explain why in a five-minute period. Still, here goes.<br><br>I disagree that certain actions/play-styles must be entertained; some people need not only to be booted from your group, but discouraged from gaming in general. These folks are usually of the kingslayer variety, though it can be a lot more subtle. I believe that they set out, whether fully consciously or not, to spoil things for the other players. <br><br>As a DM, especially for new players, you have the real opportunity to shape their expectations and actions in-game. I've solicited input after a game, but I really feel like, most of the time, this shakes a group's faith in a DM (ie "What? Don't you know what you're doing? Why are you asking us?"). My method tends to be to incentivize roleplaying, out-of-the-box thinking, &c with in-game rewards. <br><br>In a very recent game, while a group was running through Thunderspire, one of the players decided that he would attempt to bronco-bust a dire wolf (it was saddled, and they'd already killed its rider). Great idea! We had a rodeo, he used the wolf to take out an archer (a moment in which the awesomology quotient was rather high) and then got thrown. Would he have likely achieved a similar amount of damage with a thrown dagger? Yep. Would anyone have enjoyed that as much? Nope.<br><br>The success of this maneuver (on which the dice rolls may have been somewhat fudged) encouraged the player to later attempt a further feat and got the other players considering that there might be more options in and out of combat than their standard attacks. I try to similarly emphasize non-combat skills, and to often hinge the success of a mission on skill challenges (in which roleplaying is requisite).<br><br>Just my brief and poorly stated two cents.Tylernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7657840612384361644.post-74867797529526015772010-04-12T11:27:35.000-07:002010-04-12T11:27:35.000-07:00Tyler,Glad you got some gaming in! I'm jealous...Tyler,<br><br>Glad you got some gaming in! I'm jealous. If I were playing games like I should be, there wouldn't be as much here to catch up on. I've had nothing to do but pontificate.<br><br>First off, yeah, I got a little too touchy-feely relativist there by virtue of being sloppy. I brought up an example of *clearly* dysfunctional, broken, bad play, and then later discussed how innocent differences in play style and what you want out of a game can cause problems. That ended up conflating the two.<br><br>So, to put it more clearly: on the one hand, you've got plain old disruptive/dysfunctional play. Guys being jerk offs, people taking out real-world grudges on characters, whatever. On the other hand, you have fun, rewarding play. What I meant is that in the "fun zone" you have further subdivisions. Some people will happily skip from one to the other and enjoy all of them. But some other people will have a strong preference for one of those subdivisions, or be unfamiliar with what's going on with the other subdivisions.<br><br>It's this latter group that I was more referring to towards the end of my entry. It's very sad, but true, that among the "fun, functional" gamer set, you can have incompatibilities. I think this is where my prescription comes more in handy. Like you said, with new gamers who don't have those preferences yet, maybe the 'full disclosure' I mention isn't such a good idea, but I think *some* level of explicitness is okay, like when you ended up with the wolf rodeo, after the session you could go "what happened tonight? Yeah, that was awesome, feel free to come up with stuff like that".<br><br>Finally, you can contribute as many cents as you like, right now you're practically a guest blogger. If you can rope other people into discussing here. . .Jeff Russellhttp://dicegods.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7657840612384361644.post-55405737692227522532010-04-13T03:20:08.000-07:002010-04-13T03:20:08.000-07:00Worth Noting: I'm bed-ridden with some nasty c...Worth Noting: I'm bed-ridden with some nasty cold/virus/alien infestation; this may have effected the lucidity of the prior post.Tylernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7657840612384361644.post-17552423105164761292010-04-13T12:04:37.000-07:002010-04-13T12:04:37.000-07:00Hahah, fair enough. My condolences, hope you feel ...Hahah, fair enough. My condolences, hope you feel better soon. Also, after giving it some thought (and reading some gaming blogs with more experience and know how than me) I'm not sure the explicit "this is what we're here to do, let's talk about it" is the right way to go. As you said, it can be stultifying and erode confidence.<br><br>Instead, I think I'll just say that those of us who *are* died in the wool gamers would do well to be more aware of the social nature of our hobby and knowing that rules can affect that and that it can affect rules, and that in the end, the social framework that the game happens in trumps any other levels of what's going on (dice rolling, printed rules, whatever).Jeff Russellhttp://dicegods.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com