Author: Scripty (---.108.72)
Date: 03-25-2004 06:46
Good article, Tim. I agree with many of your points. I'm not quite sure that the "quick synopses" advice translates all that well at the gaming table. For instance, take a recent experience of mine...
I had been running a D&D3e game for about 3 years at the FLGS. In that time we'd gone through 3-4 campaigns each lasting a number of months. I had noticed that the games had tended (from the player's end) to digress into the same-old-same-old. Attendance was still high, but the games were as much habit as anything else. Players weren't as engaged during play. Eyes were glossing over, etc. etc. The games towards the end were actually better from a GM standpoint (better prep, more inventive challenges, more player-focused), but these players had been playing in a D&D fantasy game now for quite some time. So I posed the question to them...
"I've been noticing that there hasn't been as much input from you guys lately as there was in the past. How are you guys doing with the fantasy thing? Do you want to keep playing D&D or are you interested in trying something new?"
The responses were all in the affirmative. The group as a whole definitely wanted to try something different. D&D was fun but they had just been playing it too long in one stretch. They all agreed they were ready for a break. Except for one guy, who was ready for a break depending on exactly what that break was going to be.
I had prepared for just such an eventuality. Over a period of time, I had made a number of synopses for our "next" campaign. In total, I had 7 of them, with 2 of them being ideas for a new D&D campaign (in case the players still had a desire to play in that ruleset). So, I was left with 5. Of the five I had a steampunk campaign, an Ancient China campaign, a super-hero campaign, a World War II campaign and a Dark Fantasy -- Call of Cthulhu campaign. Of those campaigns, all except two of them were d20. The World War II and Dark Fantasy campaign were in CoCd20 and the super-hero campaign was Mutants & Masterminds. I was interested in having the players branch out, but was prepared for them to not branch out too far.
This is where the real breakdown occurred. 2 of the players wanted the Dark Fantasy campaign. 1 of the players really wanted to play Mutants & Masterminds. 1 of the players was partial to the idea of trying out a steampunk campaign. 1 of the players wanted to play the Ancient China campaign so bad he was practically salivating over it. The other 3 players didn't care, except for one who didn't care as long as he had the reasonable possibility of playing an elf.
There wasn't much middle ground here. And the middle ground never developed. The guy who was really into the Ancient China idea pushed it through on the force of his personality alone, pulling the 3 undecideds along with his enthusiasm alone. We then started up a game that the majority of the players didn't (really) want to play. The result was less than good. No surprise here but the majority of players didn't want to play any single game. The guy who pushed the Ancient China idea through showed up for exactly one session of it. In fairness, this was due to work scheduling and was no fault of his own. His attendance was spotless prior to this campaign. He was upset that he was missing the campaign that HE essentially chose, but the end result was that I had to drop the campaign prematurely because the group began hemorrhaging players. At the end of the debacle, I had only 4 players left.
From experience, I'm not sure I would do the "here's a synopsis, want to play it?" approach. I've tried it several times and it's been a disaster each time.
I'd be more apt now to either sit around and flesh out the potential campaign with the group beforehand Soap or Universalis style. That way Johnny can have his katanas while April can have her super-powers. But I haven't had much success with that approach either to be honest.
The best response I've had thus far is to essentially come into the game with a campaign that I'm really jazzed about. Not lukewarm, but really excited about. This enthusiasm generally spreads on to the players. Whenever I've tried to do a campaign that attempts to meet the needs of the audience from the outset, it's always been a disaster. I do think it's important to consider the audience but I also think this advice is relative to the group in question.
I would amend the advice to suggest that prospective GMs consider their audience when determining what system they'll be using for a campaign. A bunch of D&Dites may not take too kindly to a game of Feng Shui (even with Elves, as I found out). A bunch of rules mongers certainly wouldn't take to keenly to a six-month campaign of Risus or the Pool. Conversely, a bunch of dramatists might not enjoy 6 straight weeks of Kobolds Ate My Baby either.
I would also suggest that prospective GMs consider their audience when determining the types of challenges that a group will face. Political intrigue is meaningless to a group who thrives on hack-n-slash. Melodrama falls on deaf ears for those interested in tactical movements, charts and AoO apocrypha.
But I would fall short of suggesting that GMs allow players the opportunity to choose the campaign in all groups. I'm sure it would work fine for some groups. But from experience I can forewarn that the players will choose:
1. The campaign that you didn't think they'd go for and are, therefore, least prepared to run.
2. The campaign that the most forceful personality wants to play and, therefore, a campaign that is ill-suited to the wants/needs of the group as a whole.
3. Or no campaign at all, leaving a big question mark as to not only what they want but why they don't want anything.
Even realizing this up front is often not enough, IME. After talking with the group, I discovered out more of what they were interested in and determined that the Ancient China campaign was an ill fit. I stressed the steampunk campaign or the Dark Fantasy campaign. But the group just became more adamant about sticking to the Ancient China game, even though the other two campaigns aligned much more closely to their expectations of play. It's amazing what one person being really jazzed about an idea can do. IMO, it's better if that person is you than a random player who has the seed of a good idea in their brainpan.
Why is that?
Because no one knows these campaigns better than you. You know what they have lined up. Even though the card may read a "murder mystery in Ancient China" the player only reads "Ancient China" and immediately thinks up: Crouching Tiger-Hidden Dragon, Chow Yun Fat, katanas, and (yes) Dragon Ball-Z. Even though the card (and indeed Ancient China) contains few or none of those elements, those are now the unspoken expectations you as a GM must meet. Worse, because they're unspoken, you can't possibly meet them until after-the-fact. After the player decides that the campaign listed in the synopsis is not exactly what he thought it was when he voted on it, you're pretty much stuck. Abort the campaign. Or amend it. Either way, continuity is shot, IME.
So, I would take care when letting the players pick the campaign on just any group. I don't think that it's a cure-all nor do I think it's even particularly good advice in all situations. If this were to be attempted, I think that I would offer very narrow choices AFTER the initial discussion with the group. The problem with this is that you're never running with something that you've already gotten ready (not from a plot standpoint but just from a campaign standpoint). Say you've got this really killer Modern Horror game going and your group agrees they'd all like to play dwarves in a tolkeinesque setting. Well, you're screwed unless you have just such a campaign that's been gathering dust for the last 4 or 5 years.
My advice is that you would be best served by choosing between one or two campaigns that you're really jazzed about. Enthusiasm is contagious. Beyond that, there's also probably a reason that you're jazzed about this particular campaign at this particular moment. Most likely it's either the best one or the one that is most ready for the masses. IMO, it's generally better that you determine what you're ready to run than for a group to do so. Invariably, you'll wind up running things that aren't ready to be run, that you're ill-prepared for or campaigns that just don't have that spark for you at the present time.
|
|
