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Leperflesh posted:So the truth is that this is not really how things work, and probably most people don't read the book just because they were busy, never really felt like doing it, meant to but didn't get around to it, or just weren't as excited about it as the GM was. But that's where things are strange. Why aren't players as excited as the GM is? It creates this weird kind of reverse facilitator role, where the GM is supposed to be facilitating the players' enjoyment, but in fact the players are facilitating the GM because the GM wanted it more. It's as if the wedding planner wanted the wedding more than the bride, or the soccer referee wanted to be a referee more than the players wanted to play. It's just strange.
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Jan 9, 2022 18:57
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hyphz posted:But that's where things are strange. Why aren't players as excited as the GM is? That's why I always meet my players in the middle and why if I run Lancer for them next, the campaign will be based on Jupiter Ascending
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Jan 9, 2022 19:10
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hyphz posted:But that's where things are strange. Why aren't players as excited as the GM is? Well, you see, the wedding planner and the referee are being paid to do it, so they are more excited than the random bride or children they're working for. But seriously, the reason people always ask for players and not GMs is because GMing an adventure is always going to involve more work than being a player in that adventure, and asking someone to do the harder part feels weird. Groups looking for a GM is possible and it still happens a lot, but you're asking someone to get the same amount of "this game's going to happen" excitement for more work and it's awkward. EDIT: Okay, on second thought I may have lost track of where this conversation ended up. Not going to delete this post or anything, because you have to live with your mistakes.
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Jan 9, 2022 21:31
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Well, you see, the wedding planner and the referee are being paid to do it, so they are more excited than the random bride or children they're working for. Your post is fine. Hyphz's wedding metaphor is wrong-headed. The bride and groom (or bride and bride, groom and groom, whatever) are the GM if you're going to try to draw this comparison, they're the initiators, they commission all the people to arrange the wedding and invite all the participants. Maybe their parents, the maid of honor, and best man are also part of this expanded GM metaphor because some or all of them are traditionally involved in arranging the entire event. This is all a bad comparison anyway because of that. The work of arranging everything, choosing the participants, setting up eating arrangements, and all the steps of the ceremony is usually work shared across way more people than all the aspects of a pen and paper RPG session is on the GM. In more reasonable groups, you'd probably distribute a lot of the hosting duties across multiple people, but that can vary. The GM still carries all the in-game work, usually. GMs are hopefully excited about the whole thing because the game hinges on them being invested enough to take on all that responsibility. The players should still be excited or at least interested in the game though, since their investment in the game is what keeps them coming back for a multi-session story. Successful RPG sessions depend on everyone being able to enjoy the game. Sometimes this means not running a game if there's not enough energy from everyone to try it out. Aka this "Wow, why do people have all these dream games they want to run but can't find players for??" is another stupid non-dilemma answered with "Because adults talk to each other and make compromises." Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jan 9, 2022 |
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Jan 9, 2022 21:46
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Nuns with Guns posted:Successful RPG sessions depend on everyone being able to enjoy the game. Sometimes this means not running a game if there's not enough energy from everyone to try it out. Sure, but we can then follow up with, "why are some systems much more appealing to GMs than players?". "Everyone knows D&D" doesn't necessarily wash, because even in communities which actively seek out other games or are specific to other games, you still get LFP much more than LFGM.
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Jan 9, 2022 22:38
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hyphz posted:But that's where things are strange. Why aren't players as excited as the GM is? The other players won't necessarily be as excited because they're coming in through a different route with a much lower barrier to entry. The amount of excitement required for "Greg's running a game and he's very excited about it! Do you want in?" is much lower than is required for Greg to get up the initiative to get a game started in the first place, and even if people are as hype as Greg there's dozens of reasons why someone might be extremely hype to play Greg's RPG that have absolutely nothing to do with the system and/or setting. "Hype to play a robot hacker at Greg's house" does not necessarily equate to "Hype to read about how to play a robot hacker at Greg's house". The aircraft silhouette is completely white or completely red or whatever it doesn't matter the point is it's pretty much always going to make it home. D&D is the partial exception that proves the rule here, because of the branding and pop culture space. If you're getting Hype for RPGs as a concept you're going to hit D&D first so there's a huge pool of Got Hype Read Book Still Hype Didn't Want To GM Though.
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Jan 9, 2022 22:57
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Maybe its actually that people who are super excited about rpgs wind up wanting to gm, and people who are less excited but still interested, don't eagerly dive into that deep end as often.
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Jan 9, 2022 23:04
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Also most systems require more players than GMs so just by basic probability even if all considerations were equal, you’d have more requests for players. Not saying there aren’t other factors, but if you need 4 players and 1 GM, it’s already only 1/5 for needing a GM.
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Jan 9, 2022 23:21
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hyphz posted:Sure, but we can then follow up with, "why are some systems much more appealing to GMs than players?". "Everyone knows D&D" doesn't necessarily wash, because even in communities which actively seek out other games or are specific to other games, you still get LFP much more than LFGM. This really isn't any different than what you've already asked three times but I'll give this one more go: people willing to GM (particularly people discussing this in online spaces like this one) are already deeper into the hobby than most of the people they'd pull into a gaming group. Maybe they're diehard D&D players, statistically that's highly likely. Or maybe they're a high-fluting indie RPG hipster who will introduce their friends to Blades in the Dark. I don't know if you can say any game is "more appealing to GMs than players" outside of the broadest sense of "sometimes GMs get tired of the crunch/genre/story and want to run something different for a while." I guess maybe there might be times it's hard to recruit IRL games, but I've never really seen an issue with a GM going "I want to run X. Who else is interested?" and not finding some takers in the wide world of the internet.
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Jan 10, 2022 01:05
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coming largely from an indie/homebrew game network that's suffering a critical lack of gms (like 90% of people who join the discord only do so to lurk until someone announces they're running a game and then descend in a storm) this discussion is loving wild
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Jan 10, 2022 04:07
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Leraika posted:coming largely from an indie/homebrew game network that's suffering a critical lack of gms (like 90% of people who join the discord only do so to lurk until someone announces they're running a game and then descend in a storm) this discussion is loving wild Well, that seems a perfect example. If they want to play so much, which they clearly do, why aren't they proactively looking for GMs? All the stuff about "the GM will be more excited about the game because the game only exists if they took the initiative, and the GM will take the initiative because they're excited about the game" doesn't seem to address why players can't/don't initiate, or very rarely do so? I've only ever seen it attempted for D&D.
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Jan 10, 2022 04:47
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hyphz posted:Well, that seems a perfect example. If they want to play so much, which they clearly do, why aren't they proactively looking for GMs? That is a good point. I guess the idea is that if less than the full roster of players show up for a game initiated by a GM, you would still have a game, maybe you could try to bug some last minute additions, while if there's no GM, there's no game, and nobody could just do it last minute.
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Jan 10, 2022 04:58
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hyphz posted:Well, that seems a perfect example. If they want to play so much, which they clearly do, why aren't they proactively looking for GMs? Because there's a rule against frequently posting that you're looking for a game (because people spam every even vaguely related channel and harass anyone who even mentions running a game without that rule in effect) so most people show up, drop a note in the lfg channel, and then never post again unless someone puts up a game recruitment ad. Also if I'm commenting on something that's the exact opposite of the point you're trying to make, it's probably not a perfect example of whatever bee you have in your bonnet this week.
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Jan 10, 2022 04:58
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Leraika posted:Because there's a rule against frequently posting that you're looking for a game (because people spam every even vaguely related channel and harass anyone who even mentions running a game without that rule in effect) so most people show up, drop a note in the lfg channel, and then never post again unless someone puts up a game recruitment ad. It isn't, though? Because all those players who are desperate for GMs aren't scheduling a game and then recruiting GMs for it. That just doesn't happen. Recruiting through Apollo or Sesh or whatever is always GM/facilitator initiated.
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Jan 10, 2022 05:00
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Absurd Alhazred posted:It isn't, though? Because all those players who are desperate for GMs aren't scheduling a game and then recruiting GMs for it. That just doesn't happen. Recruiting through Apollo or Sesh or whatever is always GM/facilitator initiated. They try! But there's a gm shortage for this particular game. So they'll post that they're looking for a game or for a gm for their group and respond to recruitment posts when they come (maybe one every couple of weeks at best?) I'm not entirely sure how much more proactive you can be on a server that frowns upon going hey hey if you're running a game I want in whenever someone so much as asks for gm advice.
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Jan 10, 2022 05:04
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Leperflesh posted:Maybe its actually that people who are super excited about rpgs wind up wanting to gm, and people who are less excited but still interested, don't eagerly dive into that deep end as often. This, but I will say that all of the players in my ongoing 5e campaign have expressed interest in DMing at some point and half of them have. I think they just need a launching point to learn the system and from there they want to branch off and explain their own stories.
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Jan 10, 2022 05:07
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Leraika posted:They try! But there's a gm shortage for this particular game. So they'll post that they're looking for a game or for a gm for their group and respond to recruitment posts when they come (maybe one every couple of weeks at best?) I'm not entirely sure how much more proactive you can be on a server that frowns upon going hey hey if you're running a game I want in whenever someone so much as asks for gm advice. Again, this isn't expected at all, but conceivably a group of three players who want a game could coordinate a time between them and then post up a session and then tag LFG or some role like this asking for a GM, not just say "hey, we want to play" over and over. hyphz is saying that there is something a bit not obvious about that set of expectations. Meanwhile a GM would not be expected to just say "hey, I want to run" without at some point posting up a date and time to tag people, even if prospective players have not been specifically identified. They might just never do it, but if they did that's standard procedure.
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Jan 10, 2022 05:10
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Again, this isn't expected at all, but conceivably a group of three players who want a game could coordinate a time between them and then post up a session and then tag LFG or some role like this asking for a GM, not just say "hey, we want to play" over and over. hyphz is saying that there is something a bit not obvious about that set of expectations. Meanwhile a GM would not be expected to just say "hey, I want to run" without at some point posting up a date and time to tag people, even if prospective players have not been specifically identified. They might just never do it, but if they did that's standard procedure. This conversation started with hyphz posted:It just struck me that perennially, when we’re talking about indie systems, it’s always complaints about “finding people to play”, not “finding people to run”. And I was saying that that was not the case in my experience (and that my experience was so different that it seemed very strange to me). Then hyphz asked why people weren't proactively looking for gms, and I said they were! They're definitely forming groups and asking for gms, or just asking for gms, in LFG. Before the rules were put into place to stop people bothering anyone who so much as mentioned the possibility of running a game, there would also be a bunch of people following up any such comments with 'well if you run a game I want to play' which was definitely A Problem. The stuff about expectations does not really seem to have much bearing on this conversation.
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Jan 10, 2022 05:25
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I think it's an etiquette matter, and being a GM is most like being a host. Which means you can solicit people to come to your party, but it's impolite to solicit people to host you for a party. And while the GM might not be the host in the sense of "owner of the place you're playing in," they have a similar hosting role in facilitating the social interaction. So I feel most people see them in a similar light and feel like they're not supposed to ask for a group unless they're offering to host.
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Jan 10, 2022 06:47
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People generally don’t host parties for strangers outside of existing communities though. You never see a public advert saying “hey I’m hosting a party because I really like hosting parties, anyone want to come so that the party can happen?” The cat herding issue feels more reasonable - that there’d be no point a group of players cat-herding themselves into a group and then hoping a GM is available at that time - but it seems overcomable?
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Jan 10, 2022 08:01
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hyphz posted:People generally don’t host parties for strangers outside of existing communities though. You never see a public advert saying “hey I’m hosting a party because I really like hosting parties, anyone want to come so that the party can happen?” They’re called bars.
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Jan 10, 2022 08:18
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I'd like to be a player but am a GM nine times out of ten because I've never been in an online game that holds a candle to in-person play, and because all of the GMs I've ever played with who I didn't know beforehand (IE: I only knew them as "the GM of the game I'm in on Sundays", not as "Bob from work who also runs a Lancer game") have been utterly horrible at running a game and I've dropped out in a couple of sessions max. I'm talking, dudes who threw a tantrum because a boss got defeated too quickly... in a pre-written adventure. It was something like the boss got a charm spell cast on them from a scroll the writer had put in the dungeon and this was somehow bullshit and unfair. Or the guy who just drew a map of the world, gave everything names from Final Fantasy videogames, and that was the entirety of his game prep, and I'm not talking in a "play to find out what happens" system. I'd have loved to have been playing a pre-written instead of that, "Here's literally nothing to go on, what do you do?" style of GMing. Gort fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Jan 10, 2022 |
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Jan 10, 2022 14:01
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Gort posted:Or the guy who just drew a map of the world, gave everything names from Final Fantasy videogames, and that was the entirety of his game prep, and I'm not talking in a "play to find out what happens" system. I'd have loved to have been playing a pre-written instead of that, "Here's literally nothing to go on, what do you do?" style of GMing. I like to call this the empty sandbox.
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Jan 10, 2022 14:40
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I honestly enjoy being GM most of the time, but there's a minimum level of enthusiasm I need from all players at least most sessions, below which my will to game and to live are drained like a flushing toilet. I really, really want to get back to gaming, but I can't even do online right now until we get the electrical in our house fixed up.
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Jan 10, 2022 14:52
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Leraika posted:This conversation started with Yeah, for literally any of the popular indie systems (e.g. well-known PbtA or FitD stuff) or anything cool that just came out and which a moderate number of people are aware of, there are always tons of people going "oh, I really want to play X, I wish someone would run it." The idea that there's a bunch of GMs running around struggling to find players for the Apocalypse World or Beam Sabre game they want to run is patently false. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jan 10, 2022 |
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Jan 10, 2022 15:11
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I have played at someone else's table probably twice in the past 5 years, and it's because everyone I play with who doesn't GM says that GMing sounds fun but they'd be bad at it, and also they don't have the time. I really think most people view roleplay as a fun little way to spend a few hours with friends but they view the prepwork as... work. Folks who view prep as fun in itself end up GMing, but if you think about learning a system as work, you're not going to do it in your precious spare time as an adult. I have a friend who runs DnD exclusively because he's already taught so many people how to play that there's no friction for any of his regulars to roll up a character with little help, and he's got the new player spiel down pat. Hard to blame him, to be honest.
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Jan 10, 2022 15:13
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For me as a gm the hardest part is to convince players to read up the rules section. And it kinda takes me out of the game if I have to explain to someone how the character they built works.
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Jan 10, 2022 15:18
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I enjoy prep stuff but I don't enjoy that I consistently prep wrong e.g. functionally everything I prep gets circumvented trivially. I think this is largely me being bad at predicting the behavior of others though.
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Jan 10, 2022 15:22
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I think the reason why there are fewer GMs than players is, as noted, most games already require 1:X GM:Player ratio and also it's just more work. Depending on the system you're using this can come in many forms. When I'm running Lancer I've already done a lot of work setting things up, getting NPCs ready, drawing maps, coming up with the general direction of the plot etc. Then I have to do most of my thinking on the tactical combat aspect of things, picking out enemy compositions, thinking of which sitrep to use or designing my own. It can be a couple of hours of work to plan out a 2-3 combat mission. When I run Blades in the Dark I don't do nearly as much prep and prefer to just improvise as much as possible, but that's work too. It's just that you're doing it in the moment rather than ahead of time. If you have a pre-written adventure (I've never done this except for Shadow of the Demon Lord one-shots) I think you need to prep by knowing the adventure, being familiar with the structure of events, the NPCs, all that sort of stuff. I guess this is less work than making it up yourself, but its still a decent amount of effort. I came into RPGs as a GM and I've never gotten to do much as a player, but from the people I've talked to about running games it really comes down to how much time you want to devote to this hobby. I think as a player you're waiting for someone else to take the initiative, while as a GM you're taking the initiative and seeing if anyone else wants in. The GM generally has to devote more time and effort, but in return you can basically guarantee that the game will happen. That is assuming that enough people are interested but I've never had trouble finding players but I mostly stick to the more popular indie games rather than the truly niche stuff. One day I will get an Ars Magica game going! 
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Jan 10, 2022 15:22
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Chakan posted:I really think most people view roleplay as a fun little way to spend a few hours with friends but they view the prepwork as... work. Folks who view prep as fun in itself end up GMing, but if you think about learning a system as work, you're not going to do it in your precious spare time as an adult. Where do you fall if learning a system and preparing to GM is nothing but work, but you still end up in the "have to GM it, unsuccessfully every time" bucket because no one else runs the games you want to see? ... Asking for a friend of course.
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Jan 10, 2022 15:22
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Tulip posted:I enjoy prep stuff but I don't enjoy that I consistently prep wrong e.g. functionally everything I prep gets circumvented trivially. I think this is largely me being bad at predicting the behavior of others though. For me, best way is to set up npcs and setting and avoid putting much work into plot since players will get of rails as soon as they can and I tend to slap things together n response to their initial actions.
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Jan 10, 2022 15:26
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SkyeAuroline posted:Where do you fall if learning a system and preparing to GM is nothing but work, but you still end up in the "have to GM it, unsuccessfully every time" bucket because no one else runs the games you want to see? I think we have a mutual friend. This is the same drive that causes people to go mad creating wonderful works of art, and I desperately hope that our mutual friend is able to find joy in the work or release from the shackles. I was TRYING to glide over the feeling I have that often this is work for the GM because simply nobody else is willing to run the game idea I'm obsessed with, but I don't think I can do it justice or it's an idea I want to be a player during or whatever. The best real advice I have for this situation is to either do the work with a light heart, or forget about it by writing a vignette that you want to see and moving on. It's not perfect, but take heart that stone tools can still build houses. e: Covermeinsunshine posted:For me, best way is to set up npcs and setting and avoid putting much work into plot since players will get of rails as soon as they can and I tend to slap things together n response to their initial actions. Yeah, the hardest skill in GMing for me is keeping the world breathing after the players are introduced to a scene. I think a lot of the difficulty comes from not having the right tone set with the party to inform the motivations of the NPCs. If I can write a sentence about what each NPC cares about accomplishing, then I usually do pretty well. Chakan fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jan 10, 2022 |
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Jan 10, 2022 15:33
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I very much enjoy worldbuilding, but it can definitely start to feel a little masturbatory. Like as a GM you don't want to get a 6-page backstory for a PC (this may just be limited to me and the people I've talked to, if not more power to you) and conversely I can't imagine players want to read 20 pages of my nonsense in order to play in the campaign. It's a tricky line to walk, so I have to limit myself to painting with broad strokes and just lightly developing a world before drilling down into the things the players show interest in. It does increase the appeal of playing in a pre-established world because at least then you know the players are either already interested in the lore or they have easy access to more information. I've run a couple games in the Star Wars universe for this reason alone. And I see people getting very into the lore of games like Exalted and Legend of the Five Rings, which serves to increase buy-in.
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Jan 10, 2022 15:49
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Chakan posted:I think we have a mutual friend. This is the same drive that causes people to go mad creating wonderful works of art, and I desperately hope that our mutual friend is able to find joy in the work or release from the shackles. Out of curiosity, any particular ideas here at the moment? Similar state, wondering if it's a thing for certain genres more so than certain people.
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Jan 10, 2022 15:50
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Covermeinsunshine posted:For me, best way is to set up npcs and setting and avoid putting much work into plot since players will get of rails as soon as they can and I tend to slap things together n response to their initial actions. Different systems go differently for me. DITV is still my gold standard for giving a GM structure that can actually be used. AW is definitely the game I've GM'd the most over time and it's functionally no prep, but DITV gives me at least enough structure that it avoids one of my big fears in RPGs (my players twiddling their thumbs and being bored). WOD and LANCER are the real pits for me where I put a ton of effort into making NPCs with stat blocks and stuff that never actually get engaged with on any vector I expected. NPCs I expected to be allies get shot, boss fights get run away from, etc.
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Jan 10, 2022 16:17
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Covermeinsunshine posted:For me as a gm the hardest part is to convince players to read up the rules section. And it kinda takes me out of the game if I have to explain to someone how the character they built works. If your players refuse to read 30-50 pages of rules/setting information (the one responsibility they have as players in the run-up to the session starting), then they're either not interested in playing, or they're just bad players and you should find new ones.
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Jan 10, 2022 16:26
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Doing thirty to fifty pages of homework is kind of a weird ask when you can play D&D or Carcassonne with zero.
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Jan 10, 2022 17:19
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Siivola posted:Doing thirty to fifty pages of homework is kind of a weird ask when you can play D&D or Carcassonne with zero. Someone has to do the homework for D&D still, it's just that a lot of people already have & have the patience to walk others through it. Not saying folks here don't have the patience with other systems, of course. Just an observation that D&D isn't really an exception.
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Jan 10, 2022 17:21
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I rarely make my players read much of anything before the game, let alone forty pages of setting. If it's there I'll toss them the book or a PDF so they can skim it for ideas, but an elevator pitch for the campaign is usually enough. "You're gonna be space pirates, so make a character who'll do space pirate things". Then we can go over rules in session zero - I generally like it better if players make their characters as a group anyway.
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Jan 10, 2022 17:24
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SkyeAuroline posted:Someone has to do the homework for D&D still, it's just that a lot of people already have & have the patience to walk others through it. Not saying folks here don't have the patience with other systems, of course. Just an observation that D&D isn't really an exception. 
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Jan 10, 2022 17:25
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