Killing Your Campaign in 30 Easy Sessions

[Brian]

Killing Your Campaign in 30 Easy Sessions

   Another Pedantic Diatribe by Brian Randall

   (As requested by Dunefar.)

   So, I have referenced the 'bad' game I was in, but avoided the specifics of what exactly was wrong with it that upset me so, instead analyzing the underlying reason for the failure.

   We know that it was that the GM's expectations and mine didn't match up.  So why bother recording them here?  Well, the truth of the matter is that some of these can apply to other players and GMs.  You may see things here that you'll realize you want to keep an eye out for to avoid in your own game.

   You may get an idea for how to accomplish what our GM tried, only without making it such a painful experience.

   Okay.  There's a lot of backstory, and the campaign that the GM tried to run garnered an awful lot of fallout.  It resulted in a lot of bad things, some of which will be detailed later.

   Anyway.  The premise for the game is this:

   It's an Alternate Reality campaign, which means the players create characters that are supposed to accurately model themselves, and see how they fare.  The setting is the afterlife.  Apparently, however, the afterlife is some 13 digit number of people in a big tournament, each tier of the tournament being 25 days long, and resulting in 90% of the people in the tier getting the 'tier fate'.

   Tier one's tier fate is to have your soul destroyed to power the new sun.

   This is a mistake right here, people.  Imprisoning your players is generally something you want to avoid, and keep to a bare minimum as often as possible.  People tend to play games in RPG formats with other people because of the unlimited choices and possibilities.  If you're going to be stuck in something so linear, why play it with dice and papers at all?

   Anyway.  The populous of the tournament is divided evenly between Core Worlders (real people) and the various Mirror-Worlders (characters from fantasy novels, video games, etc.), Monsters, Aliens, Demons, and Angels.

   I didn't really find the religious overtone offensive.  I didn't find it interesting, either.

   We each got lists of people we could pick to put on our 'watched' list, so we could see how well these random ten people (anyone, real or not) were doing, and increase the odds of running into them.  In theory.

   There's a major problem here, though.  The players, at the start of the game, are divided evenly into two groups -- those who have played with this GM before, and those who have not.  Those who have, ask if they can play their former AR selves, who have apparently saved the world before.

   The GM approved.

   This was a huge mistake, amounting to favoritism on the part of the GM.  The players who had played before found themselves surrounded by an ungodly number of super-powered allies (including the GM himself!), and three largely ineffectual enemies.  When I asked the GM if us new people would get anything like this, he asked me who I knew.  I mentioned my friends in #void, and the GM put the dice away, said, "They're all dead", and moved on to speak to someone else.

   In the actual tournament events themselves, I have to admit, the GM was a miracle at pacing everything so that you had to fight until your last couple of points of Body (HP, essentially), to win.  Unfortunately, every single conflict was either this, or someone finding a way around the battle.  There was never really any conflict we had where we could wade in and kick butt.  It was always a struggle that often left a few party members dead, or the NPC allies showed up, and the enemies were reduced to ash before we could blink.

   I was playing the game to have fun and do things, but I never got to do that -- I ended up having to spend all my CP on support abilities (healing, weaponsmithing, craft, inventor), because no one else in the party wanted to.  And if I hadn't invested in these abilities, the entire party would have been killed before then.

   Of course, I was never allowed to role-play this out, except for the healing.  It was just noted down, and then the bonuses applied to the dice.  This is, admittedly, a failure of the other PCs, but it resulted in me not having fun, because I wanted to be on the front lines with my friends, and was relegated to support.  The GM really should have seen to it that the game was flexible enough to allow something else, but he didn't.

   Anyway.  I mentioned previously that the game was divided into two groups of players, those who had been, and those who hadn't.  The people who had no allies started dropping out of the campaign, one by one.  Almost all of them left.

   Which brings me to another point of GM inflexibility.  At one point, on a tournament mission, one of the players suddenly decided that he was going to go crazy, and kill the people we'd paid to help us cross a desert, to rob them blind.

   Being forced into the combat, we helped out friend out, and then yelled at him for what he did.  As it turns out, the GM was herding us into a scenario where we'd end up fighting the entire Demon faction in the tournament, and one of the PCs just straight out killed half of the people who were supposed to be our one single 'in' to the Angelic host to make the battle even remotely survivable.

   He knew about this in Tier one, and didn't mention it until Tier five (I got this second hand), when the players unanimously decided the game had become unplayable due to the fact that the PCs just couldn't progress against the Demons.

   Admittedly, there should be repercussions for a character going insane like that.  But holding it against the rest of the party well enough to destroy the campaign, given that the player in question dropped out three sessions after going ballistic?

   Another problem I had was the lack of a moment to ever shine.  I've touched on this before, as I wasted all my CP on trying to help everyone else out.  I think, that pretty much everyone who ever games, especially in a large group of players, wants at least one moment to shine, to pull something amazing off, and to really make a difference.

   This was a privilege reserved for players with pre-existing allies, unfortunately.

   When I tried to make an ally of my own within the game, he turned out (after the fact) to be some baby-eating-monster that the other PCs refused to associate with me because of.  All of this, just to try and gain some of what the GM's favored players already had.

   I had a lot of grievances, one of them being that when I aired my complaints on my blog, the GM e-mailed me in reply.  The net result was that he wouldn't listen to any of my points, and then told the other players that he had to 'deal' with my complaints, but we were all ready to game (complete with rolling-up-of-sleeves motion on his part).  I'll admit, he didn't throw anything worse at me as punishment for my perceived transgression.  But he also didn't even try to fix what I pointed out as flaws.

   I told the GM early on that I hated the tournament part of the game, and was only playing because I thought that there was something beyond the tournament.  Basically, that the world was larger than just this forced regime, and we could do something without being so rigidly forced.  The GM said, "Oh, just wait and see," without actually promising improvement.  I told him that if things hadn't changed by tier three, I would be dropping out of the game.

   I think, realistically, waiting 10 months for a campaign to get to the 'good part', and continually getting nothing, is another one of those not-so-much-fun things.

   Now, looking back, and knowing what kind of person the GM is, I have to say, his game is exactly the kind of game he'd like to play in.

   Unfortunately, it's far from perfect for everyone else.  This is another case of player and GM expectations just not matching up.  Mostly a laundry list of personal grievances, but it gives you an idea of what NOT to do.

[Brian]

Forgot to mention the fallout:

One of the players was evicted from his living situation because of the rift created by the game.

Me and one of the other players got really pissed at one-another.  The GM said he found this kind of interaction 'interesting'.

I lost the updated on when I actually left the game (my website was deleted on accident, at one point), but it basically resulted in me telling the GM that I couldn't respect someone who completely lacked humility.

It was a very bad game in every possible sense.

Though, the GM had a pretty good flair for description.

Ah, that rant was cathartic.

[Anastasia]

Killing Your Campaign in 30 Easy Sessions

Another Pedantic Diatribe by Brian Randall

(As requested by Dunefar.)

*Blush*

I feel so honored....


This was a huge mistake, amounting to favoritism on the part of the GM. The players who had played before found themselves surrounded by an ungodly number of super-powered allies (including the GM himself!), and three largely ineffectual enemies. When I asked the GM if us new people would get anything like this, he asked me who I knew. I mentioned my friends in #void, and the GM put the dice away, said, "They're all dead", and moved on to speak to someone else.

Ouch.

Not only is it clear favorism, it's stupid on the GM's part. How the fuck are you going to get new PCs in when you treat'em like that versus your old ones? It makes an immediate divide, and one that most new PCs wouldn't be inclined to even try to deal with.

Frankly, I'd see that, shake my head and just hang up there without some damn good talking by the GM. I don't demand equal footing automatically, but I'm not going to look like the comedy relief to the old schoolers.

I was playing the game to have fun and do things, but I never got to do that -- I ended up having to spend all my CP on support abilities (healing, weaponsmithing, craft, inventor), because no one else in the party wanted to. And if I hadn't invested in these abilities, the entire party would have been killed before then.

Effectively reducing you to a one or two note background character that may as well have been an NPC? That just breeds a 'why bother' approach to the game. You're a little healer/weaponmaking 'bot, and the mentioned lack of RPing below only reinforces that. Who wants to play a game where the GM pigeonholes them as that?

Admittedly, there should be repercussions for a character going insane like that. But holding it against the rest of the party well enough to destroy the campaign, given that the player in question dropped out three sessions after going ballistic?

Yeah. Agreed, there will be shit to happen and pay for because of that. Simple cause and effect there. But, it shouldn't utterly screw over the others. Unless the player ends the world or somesuch, why screw over everyone else? It's the same idiocy where a teacher punishes the whole class for two girls in the back chatting, you know? Hardly fair, and it shows the GM either doesn't care or isn't intelligent enough to comprehend that point.

Another problem I had was the lack of a moment to ever shine. I've touched on this before, as I wasted all my CP on trying to help everyone else out. I think, that pretty much everyone who ever games, especially in a large group of players, wants at least one moment to shine, to pull something amazing off, and to really make a difference.

This was a privilege reserved for players with pre-existing allies, unfortunately.

When I tried to make an ally of my own within the game, he turned out (after the fact) to be some baby-eating-monster that the other PCs refused to associate with me because of. All of this, just to try and gain some of what the GM's favored players already had.

Fair enough...everyone wants the spotlight once in awhile. Not only denying you it, but dropping that on you? *shakes head* Just... dot dot dot.

Wow...that was just...ugly. He just didn't seem to understand that the game wasn't working out for you, and made no effort to fit you in. If anything, his attempts so an almost sadisitc and demeaning humor, as if your not fitting in was worthy of mockery.

I wonder why you stuck around that long. GRANTED, it's easy to say that from my position in hindsight. But man, the way you're making it sound? It's a goatraping clusterfuck of a game.

Hm. If you don't mind, I'd like to post a game that went sour for me as well. Not a topic hijack as much as something that I think could be useful as well to illistrate.[/b]

EDIT - Missed that follow up post, I suck.

Um...I won't get into the personal shit there, though. I think that stands well enough on it's own merits.

[Brian]

I had a lot of complaints, but I thought he'd listen when I raised them.  Also, the other PCs kept assuring me it would get better (it didn't, even after I left).

But yeah, let's make this more than just about me -- share the bad gaming experiences so we can see what can be done wrong, and hopefully how to avoid it in the future.

[Anastasia]

I had a lot of complaints, but I thought he'd listen when I raised them.  Also, the other PCs kept assuring me it would get better (it didn't, even after I left).

But yeah, let's make this more than just about me -- share the bad gaming experiences so we can see what can be done wrong, and hopefully how to avoid it in the future.

*Nods* I can understand that...friends can be terribly influential.

I'll post mine tomorrow or Sunday, I have work in like an hour. I'll cook up a few doozies.

[Anastasia]

Huitzil wrote:
I learned that games in motion tend to stay in motion, and games at rest tend to stay at rest until they asphyxiate and die. Goddamnit.


In a word, yes. Momentum is worth quite a bit.


---

Well, it's late, but here we go.

I have a few games I'd put under bad, bad enough to illistrate points about what doesn't work in an RP. We'll start with a game from right here: Derelict.

Now, let me preface this with a gentle disclaimer. I'm good friends with Rat, who GMed this. No malice is intented when I touch on it's flaws. So put down the Splatterin' Mace+4, Rat.

But anyway...

This game is a prime example of the point Huitzil made. It was designed as a IRC game with weekly sessions. However, it ran into an early problem - timing. With myself at EST, Panda and Cy on CST, Rat and Rez on some zany Australian time, there was a natural difficulty getting everyone set up in chat around their schedules.

I can't stress this enough for any sort of IRC game - GET COMPATABLE TIMES. Times that all the players can make without issues, without having to pull out all the stops. We managed one IRC session before it was obvious it wasn't gonna work out very well, and onto the boards it went as a posting RP.

From here, the latter half of it's problem came out - Momentum. While Rat and the PCs had decent communication by my observations, posting never took off and started to s...l...o......w down. The time zones thing came into place again, making it hard for PCs to post once a day each.

Thus, the game started to die.

To be fair, the great Soulriders Server Drama of 2003 is the real killer, but it wasn't in supergreat shape before that.

This is what really drove home the problems IRC games have with timing and momentum - I've made it a priority in game design since then. Even the best game ever can't work if you can't manage to hook up.

I'll add another post about Tomb(A far bigger mess, IMO) and a real life game that was a clusterfuck royale shortly, but I wanted to get something up here after I slacked so long.

[Ranmilia]

So!  Last post April.  Hum.
There are a couple of my PCs who attend the DL and/or these boards, so I will have to make light on the spoilers.  If you notice odd dancing around, that's why.

In my experience, the difference between a successful campaign and an unsuccessful one is two things - a well developed setting, and players who can roleplay well and behave themselves socially OOC.  This can be simplified to "Good GM, good PCs" of course, but you'd be surprised about how often people neglect these things...

Part 1 - Setting really is everything.  I've often heard it said that story is everything, on the GM side, but think about it - although there's certainly the potential to have a shoddy story in a good setting, when's the last time you saw a really awesome story in a lackluster setting?  It almost never happens.  It doesn't matter how awesome of a plotline you have and how detailed your NPCs are if there's no place else in the world to go and no other NPCs to talk to besides the few important to the plot.  A rich setting allows both much greater freedom on the PC's part, and many more options and variables on the GM's part.   It's a lot more to keep track of, of course, but without doing so you will either have to make it up on the spot when someone asks about it, or confine the game to never asking about anything outside its boundaries...  
In addition, one of the setting's most major functions is defining the tones of a game - what can you be, what can you do, what can you buy, who likes whom?  If you ignore this part, you wind up with a lot of plain flat out logical inconsistancies, such as one PC packing a plasma gun while the others are crafting plate mail.
"But my game is fun and weird!" you say.  "It's comedic and lighthearted, and/or we have fun ignoring the rules!"  That's perfectly fine, of course, because that lighthearted world IS then your setting.  Nothing says your particular version of a world has to match the book canon or whatnot.  Just be sure that whatever setting you have is well defined, at least to you and preferably to your PCs.  I've been in many games that fell apart because of this, often almost instantly because nobody had the same idea of what the game and the world should be like - the DL message board RPs succumbed in large part to this.  

Part 2 - Players who can roleplay well are essential.  This is kind of obvious at first glance, but what exactly does roleplay mean?  I'd say that real roleplaying, the type required to make a campaign successful, requires the players be able to accurately portray the spirit of their characters, to do so in a way that is appreciable by the other players and the GM, and the ability to play a ROLE - that is, to react to situations and adapt their RP accordingly.  It does nobody in the game any good if a player has the most awesome character idea in their head but cannot express what makes it awesome to anyone else; RP is a communal affair, not a bunch of individuals writing their own short stories in the same room.  It also doesn't bode well for a player if they are unable to communicate the character in their head to others through their actions IN THE GAME.  I have had sadly all too many such PCs.  One now, even!  This person believes their character to be of neutral good alignment, bending towards lawful good (in D&D terms.  Yes it's a horrid system don't shoot me.)  Yet, their character's actions in the game have been almost the exact antithesis of this - their character has disregarded the laws of the land and the agreements made with her fellows, and tried to be a one-character army.  As one example, she walked into a hostile facility with a couple of companions to search for her captured husband, ditched those companions when they got whacked by security, infiltrated the prison levels by herself, lied to the guard about her name and purpose there, lied again, tried to kill the guard painfully when he called security, and lied no less than twelve times to security when they caught up with her and chucked her out.  These are neither lawful nor good actions.  The character in that player's mind is totally not meshing with what they're actually playing, and this will very likely lead to problems in the near future...
Finally, there's the whole business of roleplaying.  A good player will be able to have their characters change, in response to events or in different games.  A mediocre player will have Stallone Syndrome - they will play the same character, all too often with the exact same NAME, in nearly every game they are in.  They will argue originality on the basis of the few characters they have made with different names - although they are still the same character beneath the surface.   Often this character will be possessed of a "badass" attitude and very little depth, and/or be simply an extension of the player themselves.  Finally, their characters will never change over the course of a game.  They beat a dragon?  *smirk, witty comment*.  Their family got killed?  *smirk, witty comment*.  They pick up a demonic sword and get possessed, their personality turned around to insanity and pure evil kept in check and further tortured by the sword's iron control over them, and made over physically into a chill being of frost because they were such a cold bastard in their previous personality?  
Well, that's when the player is so unable to play their one idea of a good 'cool' character that they will complain to the GM, saying "You're ruining my character concept!" or something along those lines, and simply refuse to play.  Or worse yet go and play it exactly the same as they were before, forcing the GM to step in and say "Hey, that's not how things would be."
That last one happened in my game, if you couldn't tell.  There's always a fine line to tread between GM control of characters via events and PC's freedom to play their characters, but if the PCs just keep on with the same personality even through events that would change ANYONE in the real world, their character is just not believable anymore.  This whole last thing has been the death of too many players and games for me to count.  It happens especially often when you get the same group of people in multiple RPs, which is all too common... but that's a rant for another day.
Also, Stallone Syndrome characters usually have a problem with contributing to the story or causing events, just as they have trouble letting events influence their character.  They're there because they want to portray a cool character - not to roleplay and interact with other people, other than what is necessary to show off that character and quench their own personal thirst for badassness.

Part 3 - Social behavior.  This one is the most obvious and clearcut of all, yet GMs often feel a pull to give the offenders "one last chance".  After all, a little snip here and there can be excused at times, right?  You don't want to end that person's fun and put a blot on the campaign, right?  
Well, yes, actually, you do.  A player who cannot keep themselves in line socially will always mean bad things for your game.  ALWAYS.  WITHOUT FAIL.  I have seen multiple players who have a profound need to argue with the GM bitterly, drag other players into it, threaten other players, bully them, etc etc.  I have never yet seen one of them reform and stop causing trouble.  Never.
Of course, the drive to give one last chance is always there.  PCs who can roleplay are in short supply, after all, and the person is quite friendly at all other times....  But will they actually use this last chance and change?  Generally not.

Part 3.5 - What is to be done about all this?  What if I have a problem PC?
Kick em.  Do not be squeamish about it.  Do not give one last chance.  You will anyways, sometimes.  The siren call is strong.  I myself am doing it right now. -_-  But the smart thing to do is not to allow second chances, not to let disruptive players remain.
The same goes in a lesser sense for Stallone Syndrome, although those players have at least a hope of being changed.  Usually in that case, the necessary steps are to first bring the problem to their attention, and to interest them in the game enough and provide them with enough material and chances for their character to develop.  Also, never let a PC use a duplicate character name, if you can help it.  If they ask for such a thing, make them revamp the entire character concept.  It'll be better for them.

If you have unruly players, the game will collapse sooner or later and be not very much fun with the arguments that will surely arise.
If you have players who can't RP worth a stick, well, they might be having fun... but chances are the people who can RP and are there for the RP will be bothered by them, and it's almost certain that the game will be boring since these characters are always the same and don't like taking active roles in a storyline.
If you don't have a well thought out setting, the game won't go anywhere, period.

Such are my thoughts on things that can kill a game.

[Dracos]

Yeah, this is a slow part of the forum.

And while I agree with you...  There's also the note that a game isn't usually worth losing a friendship over.  Some folks simply don't game well with other people.  It's worth remembering when you are forced to remove someone from a game.  It's always a nasty bit.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Just some thoughts....

Part 1 - Setting really is everything.  I've often heard it said that story is everything, on the GM side, but think about it - although there's certainly the potential to have a shoddy story in a good setting, when's the last time you saw a really awesome story in a lackluster setting?

I think you're overstating the case here.  Setting is important, yes, but mainly for the immersion factor.  I have had fun playing and running dungeon crawls, which are probably the most lackluster setting you can come up with.

As you say, the setting provides a tone for the game and context for the story.  A great setting makes it really easy to run a memorable campaign, but it's not necessary.  Conversely, it's easy to get sucked in (as the GM) to a mentality where the setting is more imporant than the game, and that's a danger in and of itself.

Part 2 - Players who can roleplay well are essential.  This is kind of obvious at first glance, but what exactly does roleplay mean?  I'd say ...snip

Yeah.  You'd say.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, by and large.  However, different people have different goals as to what they want out of the game.  If you're into the total-immersion role-playing theory, it might not be fun for you to play with a munchkin, but that doesn't change the fact that his idea of fun is to have the most twinked-out ubercharacter possible.

They're called role-playing "games" for a reason -- it's all about having fun.  If your idea of fun is hour-long combat, using miniatures and quabbling about exactly which saving throw applies, more power to you.  If you want to completely ignore the plot so you can work on developing that carefully flowering illicit romance with the illegitimate princess now working as a blacksmith, that's cool, too.  The key is to make sure you're playing with people who agree on what good role-playing is.  Munchkins play with munchkins, and drama artists play with drama artists, but never the twain should meet.

Part 3 - Social behavior.  This one is the most obvious and clearcut of all, yet GMs often feel a pull to give the offenders "one last chance".  After all, a little snip here and there can be excused at times, right?  You don't want to end that person's fun and put a blot on the campaign, right?  
Well, yes, actually, you do.

Fair enough.  Much more constructive advice, however, would have been to discuss how to do this. ;)

Bjorn

[Dracos]

Yeah. Agreed, there will be shit to happen and pay for because of that. Simple cause and effect there. But, it shouldn't utterly screw over the others. Unless the player ends the world or somesuch, why screw over everyone else? It's the same idiocy where a teacher punishes the whole class for two girls in the back chatting, you know? Hardly fair, and it shows the GM either doesn't care or isn't intelligent enough to comprehend that point.

Long, long after the point...rereading some stuff here and thinking through.

Really, I've come to the conclusion, and yes it is 'my' conclusion moreso than a general statement of how things should be, that a GMs goal should be the maintainance of a good game that provides fun for everyone.

This is an example of doing the opposite, but it is something that tends to be forgotten reflexively in creating scenarios and 'sticking to them' or 'dealing out punishments' for poor playing.

"Punishing" the players tends to miss the point.  A game shouldn't be all about story because if it is, it has little business being a game.  The story may be awesome and part of the fun, but a game that ends is over.

The effort of the GM should be to work a story so that as many people as possible can continue to have fun until it reaches a satisifying end.

Mm, at least, that is my thought of the moment.

Dracos

[Brian]

I agree entirely.  Anyone who feels otherwise, may have forgotten that they're playing a game.  Which is probably the biggest problem with the GM in question.