Hot answers tagged social
116
I'm a consultant IRL, and run into this kind with every client I have - So, I have a standard practice in life: whenever I encounter a situation where someone has made an important declaration that I think might be in error, I say something like:
"I think I'm confused." - I always assume that I might be wrong (even when I'm pretty sure I'm not.) I would ...
48
I think it boils down mainly to the winning two step formula of
Invite females to play
Don't be a dick to them when they do
Step one should be fairly self explanatory, but for some reason many people worrying about this topic skip it. Try it, it works. My roommate was talking to a manager lady at work about an unexpectedly shared interest in Babylon 5, ...
43
First, the generic advice:
Plan for it. [You do this.] Set aside the first 30-60 minutes for chat.
Hold your players' interest with an exciting game. [You are doing this.] If they're chatting, frankly, then they'd rather be chatting than playing. Make them more interested in playing than chatting by making your game more interesting. Is there a lot of ...
42
Two words: Dramatic Exit
Though others adequately attempt to help with the group dynamics, I'll answer the question as asked instead: "How do I quit a game gracefully?" and work my way around to the same place.
Work within the fantasy. Make appologies to the GM and offer to work with him/her to make it work within the story of the game. Make your last ...
36
What the answer comes down to is "exercise your social networks, both online and offline." You can be both looking for gamers/groups of gamers you can join and also registering your interest so that groups of gamers interested in a new player can find you.
Decide what you want to do and prep your pitch
Do you care what game(s) you will play, can you ...
36
My children want to start playing RPGs; at what age should I allow them to participate unsupervised?
There's a variety of dimensions to whether an activity is appropriate for children of a given age or not.
Activity Appropriateness
There's no inherent age limit for "roleplaying." Kids roleplay from a very young age via "cops-and-robbers" (though nowadays it's more likely ninjas vs Transformers or something). Group imaginative play as kids is RPGs ...
35
Sounds like you have a couple separate issues mixed in together.
Uneven Spotlight Time
If only some characters are engaged in the planning, make sure and spread the spotlight time around to the others. After 5 minutes of the planning characters doing their thing, go around to the other characters and get 5 minutes of what they're doing, don't let the ...
34
Ask more generally about their comfort boundaries
Tell the party that you have some ideas you think might be crossing the line, and ask them where they'd like the line to be drawn. In that context you might even give examples and include something similar to your idea as just one of several.
Throw in a scaled-down version as a test
Use the general concept ...
32
"For every 5 minutes you spend planning realtime, an [hour/day/week/whatever's appropriate] goes by game time. Over 10 minutes realtime and I start checking to see if the enemy gets wind of your plans and uses it against you. Let's get this thing moving!"
Especially in a game where logistics and character death aren't core parts of play, putting pressure on ...
31
Anger is a natural part of human existence, but most people learn to control it. You seem to be letting it get the best of you.
This sounds like a problem bigger than just gaming. If it is, there are actually anger management courses and, of course, therapy. If anger affects one of your favorite pastimes this way, it's probably also affecting the rest of ...
29
I see several options here:
Get over it
Embrace it
Talk about it
Change it
Most likely you will have to implement several of these methods to come up with a true solution, but here are my recommendations for each:
Get Over It As a player (but more a GM) you're putting yourself out there a bit. Yes it'd be nice if your players respected your NPCs a bit ...
28
The goal of the tactics below is to inform the GM what behaviours produce a good enjoyable game for all (point 2), what behaviours they should adjust (point 3), as well as (point 1) to try to make them aware of the fact that they have a different role at the table as the GM (as judge, as arbiter of fair, and as the interpreter and controller or rules) in ...
28
I cannot answer as fully as I’d like right now, but for the moment I want to leave you with this:
A DM should not think of himself as having the right of Rule 0, which is why he controls the game.
A DM should instead think of himself as having the responsibility of controling the game, and therefore being given the tool of Rule 0 in order to do so.
...
27
One of my all-time favorite solutions for this was a DM who would have NPCs react to OOC conversation as if it had been directed to them. Generally at very inopportune times. Or the party would miss an opportunity because game time would continue to pass while the chatter went on. He impressed upon us the concept that the OOC chatter had a cost, and we ...
25
As usual, there are several grades of response. In order of goodness:
Option 1. Talk to him.
Discuss this concern with him as a fellow adult, outside of game. Bring to his attention that he's behaving like a homicidal maniac rather than the character he claims he's playing (sounds like a good reason to deny him Willpower restoration in WoD, too). ...
23
Mentoring
If you have a mixed group of experienced and green players, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by engaging the veterans to help the newbies. Let them suggest stuff and guide their apprentices, and even throw in some game-tangible bonuses like mentoring XP. And if a mentor happens to screw up and put his apprentice in a tight spot, he will ...
22
I think you are right in assuming that "everyone pulls their own weight" is not very helpful or realistic. However, everyone can pull different weight.
In my group I'm the host, which means I clean up after my friends. In return, I don't have to travel on game night - an even trade as far as I'm concerned.
I think when you are the "one in charge", you ...
22
Female gamer geek, checking in with 2 cents...
It's okay to treat women/girls like "one of the guys" -- as a matter of fact, it's preferable. Walking on eggshells around us is just as much unwanted attention as never taking your eyes off our breasts. Ignore people who suggest you have to communicate differently, be PC, etc. to get female players: the ...
22
A note: While this is a system-agnostic question, certain systems (ex: DitV, FATE, Paranoia) are much better at handling this than others (ex: Any D&D system). Some games are even focused entirely around CvC conflict (En Garde, Everyone Is John, etc). For the purposes of this response I'm going to assume that in this game the party is all on the same ...
21
Yes and no. The limit to Rule 0 is defined entirely by agreement of the people playing the game. If such a limit existed, it would be created by a philosophical limit on the ability for human beings to cooperate to achieve consensus, which would lie somewhere far outside the scope of the roleplaying game they're playing. So in theoretical terms, there is no ...
21
The root question here is Why are some members not keen on GMing? This could be answered by a simple questionnaire (if you had the time to do it) or by asking a sample of them face to face. Now, because you are not asking about that, I'll leave it at that for this side.
There are tricks that you can do:
Have a library of ready to run adventures. Once a ...
20
The player problem that rules changes seem to handle really well is boredom. If combat drags on and on, or if you have two players who are really interested in setting up elaborate tactics on the battemap and one who just wants to roll the dice and move on, then changing the rules to better suit the group as a whole can help.
Another thing rules can have a ...
20
I've gamed with my kids, I think most importantly you have to look at RPG gaming as you would playing a board game or any other "traditional" gaming. #1 you should be having fun and using the time together to create future fun memories. How would you act if you play Monopoly, or Sorry, or Scrabble with your kids? Obviously you try to win and do it in a ...
20
Welcome and great question! You have two major paths you can try.
More Social Characters
One of the joys of roleplaying is trying out things different from yourself. And personality types are as much a part of that as being an elf or a dwarf. You can do research (read How To Win Friends and Influence People, watch some of those personal-makeover shows, ...
20
Differences that arise from different ways of perceiving and interacting with their environment are the easiest things to draw on for alien mindsets. (Harder are psychological, history-influenced sociological differences.) In this case you have an easy point of differences: they have no eyes, and sense their environment entirely via the Force.
Consider what ...
19
It depends on what's going on in the session. If the session is going to be mostly combat or dungeon-crawly, especially if it's a continuation of a previous session, then running them as an NPC makes sense. Even then, though, there's the risk that someone's character is going to be killed or permanently altered on the basis of things that happened when they ...
19
Don't lie about it and don't cause drama. Just tell them you need to back out of the game for a while.
I quit all my games every several years. I get really burnt out on tabletop gaming and it stops being fun until I take a 6-12 month break. Whenever I've come back from such a break is when I've had the most fun and come up with my best characters. I've ...
18
Play a one-off encounter with the parent, if they're up for it. Most people are open to trying something new if you can tell them it'll take an hour or so and they know about it ahead of time. Roll up a first-level fighter and have them stumble upon bandit goblins on the road. See if they can talk their way out of it, have a little skirmish, and role play ...
18
I'm currently running a weekly game and think I've hit upon a series of tactics that, for me, works better than anything else I've tried thus far.
1) Regularly Scheduled One Off Night - Most gamers suffer from a bit of magpie behavior (flitting from one shiny object to another) and that's not necessarily a bad thing. To create an outlet for this, we have ...
18
D&D 4e has Skill Challenges whereby the group has to succeed at multiple skill checks (the number depending on the difficulty) before accumulating 3 failures. The choice of skills boils down to whatever the players can justify.
The Essentials red box (spoilers ahead!) has a nice example in the prewritten adventure "Talking to the Dragon" which gives ...
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