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13:26, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

personal investment in games.

Posted by xjermx
xjermx
member, 120 posts
a guy with
some dice!
Sat 2 May 2015
at 03:22
  • msg #1

personal investment in games

I've played in and run more than a few games here, and one of the things that I see a lot of is games and players that quickly come and go.

Either the GM throws in the towel, or players come and go like a revolving door.

Am I alone in this observation?

I think part of the reason for that is that games sometimes seem impersonal.  There is no connection beyond the character.  I think this is also why I've seen a fair amount of drama between people, is that their only connection to a given game is a specific character, so if something negative happens to a character, the player is basically like "well screw it, I'm gone".  Or in cases where a player loses interest and eventually just quits showing up, I think that sometimes it's because the player and the game weren't lined up correctly to begin with.

Take for instance a tabletop campaign recently with a group of long time gaming friends - they all wanted to play a certain sci-fi game that was not especially interesting to me, but I agreed to be in.  Weeks later, I suddenly had all sorts of excuses for not showing up.  The campaign and I just weren't a good fit.  I'm still great friends with all those folks, and we can play other games, it was just that I didn't mesh well with that particular game.

I think that GMs and players should get to know each other a little better. We don't have to be best buds, but I think that people who have an inkling of the other players' situation tend to be better gamers in your group than the alternative.

My last point is on the topic of game style.  And this may be somewhat genre specific - I'm running a Vampire the Masquerade game for a small number of players. I find that when I put out an ad, I get a good dozen or so people who express interest, and then I have to try to figure out how to narrow it down to a handful of people.  Can you imagine showing up at a gaming table in real life to GM a game, and finding twelve people standing across from you, character sheets in hand, prepared to make their quick presentation to you, in the style of some sort of awful "reality tv" show like Trump's Fancy Firing People Show? (or whatever its called).  Its awful really.  Anyone can make a reasonably interesting Vampire character.  But I promise you that only a few of those dozen people are going to end up being the type of person that I can run a game with for months on end.  How the hell do you sort the wheat from the chaff?

Wow that was long and probably pointless.  Food for thought, people.
GamerHandle
member, 700 posts
Umm.. yep.
So, there's this door...
Sat 2 May 2015
at 04:09
  • msg #2

Re: personal investment in games

How?  That's really the question that gets asked in dozens of these community chat threads each week.  You'll see discussions on every possible topic: RtJs, Writing Styles, on and on and on.

There's no good answer.  Everyone will develop their own system and idea for handling this.

Let me now rephrase: there are hundreds of good answers; but, only some will work for you.

There's a huge difference (and you noted it well in your initial question), you have to GET ALONG with the people you meet in real life.  But, even then, people; like you said, will drift away from a game when it's not a good fit.  The advantage and disadvantage here: little investment is needed, but also much less effort in tracking-down persons.

I've essentially narrowed-down my play to about 30-people so far (no an exclusive list, just inclusive over time) of people with whom I will get quite jazzed to play a game.

As I meet new people, and we get along during a game; even if the game falls-apart for whatever reason: you become more and more willing to stick it-out with them.

Sorry for not having a good answer, but, therein lies the problem: you answered yourself a little too well =).
Jarodemo
member, 800 posts
My hovercraft
is full of eels
Sat 2 May 2015
at 10:15
  • msg #3

Re: personal investment in games

In reply to xjermx (msg # 1):

Not alone...

The trick really is to persist and keep trying to find good players and good GMs. Once you get them you can find a game that lasts for years with 1,000s of posts.
Lord Caladin
member, 263 posts
It all about the journey
Sat 2 May 2015
at 12:21
  • msg #4

Re: personal investment in games

In reply to Jarodemo (msg # 3):

Well as far as a flaky GM, I think there's little one can do about that. But as a GM, I have had a game go over a year and its still going (6,000+ post). Its had its peeks and valleys. At the end there are a core few players. I have had many, some 20 plus players come and go, .... for all kinds of reasons, and some that as GM were my fault that I could have done better. I am human.

I have found one key aspect to this games success, the adventure is not about any one PC, every PC has their own unique reason for doing the things they do. So each has an important reason to be in the adventure. Some simple, other more complex. But if anyone player drops out it doesn't hold back the game.

Lastly the development of the game is extremely detailed. If the whole game just ended, I could easily reboot it and go on.

As far as personal investment goes, ..... I put in about an hour a day on this game alone. That's well over 350 hours in the last year alone. And if it all ended tomorrow it was worth every second, that's how much I enjoy the experience.
Nerwen
member, 1825 posts
seek to understand before
you seek to be understood
Sun 3 May 2015
at 14:54
  • msg #5

Re: personal investment in games

Eventually what happens if you keep playing long enough is that you'll notice you're playing with many of the same people from game to game. Make friends with the ones you like, and then when you or they start games, you can invite each other first. Everyone ends up with more motivation to play together than just how much they like their characters.

As for filtering out potential players from all the applicants... back when I ran my WoD Dark Ages game, I had a gigantic tome of rules and guidelines that I required everyone to read before they applied. It included pointers to all the other intro material and a quiz. So, only serious applicants got to the end and actually sent RTJs. And then half of them didn't make it through my lengthy chargen process either. I think overall, about 1/3rd of the applicants actually made it all the way in to play - and after that much work, they basically all stayed and played for quite a while. :)
CosmicGamer
member, 102 posts
Traveller RPG (Mongoose)
Sun 3 May 2015
at 15:22
  • msg #6

Re: personal investment in games

Lord Caladin:
Well as far as a flaky GM, I think there's little one can do about that.
You can do some research on the GM before joining.  Search for other games they have started.  I won't tell you what to look for as people are different and what is important to you might not be as important to me.

As far as a GM selecting players, start by knowing what you want from a player and make sure you communicate that.  Sounds simple but it can include everything from posting style to what game mechanics are used to adventure type to posting frequency to game is for new people/experienced people only and so on.  Again people are different and what is important to you might not be as important to me.

For some people who play less popular games, being vague may be a plus because there are few potential players available and your main concern is getting them into the game.
Gaffer
member, 1278 posts
Ocoee FL
40 yrs of RPGs
Mon 4 May 2015
at 14:15
  • msg #7

Re: personal investment in games

As a player, often the only thing you know about other players is their character name, which can make it difficult to connect.

As a GM, you may be able to sort out a few steady hands that you can invite to other games you run.

As a player, you always know who the GM is and can watch for her/him to try to get into other of his/her games (or avoid them). After a couple of years here, I begin keeping track of GMs that I liked or didn't like.
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