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View Full Version : Player Communication, Encouraging it? (Any System)



TheLogman
2010-05-15, 08:32 PM
For about a month now I've been playing a play by post game with some friends online. In order to encourage inner-player communication and strategy, I opened up a thread for them (we're using mythweavers) where they can just discuss their plans, the game, and strategy that I've sworn I won't read.

I've stayed true to that promise, and they apparently have been using it quite a bit, as it currently has 104 posts and spans 11 pages.

And though I can't say for sure that the thread has specifically encouraged cooperation or anything like that, they do seem to be quite coordinated and have employed some very good strategy in combat and out.

So, how do you encourage inner-player communication and cooperation? Do you think that sometimes the DM being within earshot or reading the player conversations discourages intense planning and the like?

What about in real life games? Do you encourage players to pass notes at the table or have sidebars without you?

Have you ever experienced this? How did it affect the game?

Iceforge
2010-05-15, 09:51 PM
I am currently planning for my group to be required to do a heist/theft against an organization which is a considerable threat to them (in a Vampire the Masquerade game).

I hadn't thought about it, but I think it is a good idea if I leave the room while they are planning with whatever tools they got at their disposal (blueprints, guard schedules and so on, depending on how good they are at scouting the place out prior to the actual heist)

It can easily seem for the players like encounters are adjusted on the fly to fit their planning if they stumble into the premade traps and guards of a facility, specially if the storyteller was eavesdropping on them while they were doing their planning, as there is no real way for a player to check if the storyteller is using meta-gaming or not.

DabblerWizard
2010-05-15, 10:26 PM
I would happily leave the room if my players asked me to. They never have up to this point, though.

Part of the reason for this is chronic under-planning, and passive acceptance of much of the information I present to them. In other words they fail to think out of the box. Perhaps my presentation is more oriented towards narrativist thinking instead of simulationist behavior.

I haven't given them serious repercussions for their lackluster performance to date, and I'm hesitant to significantly hinder their progress just because they forget to make a knowledge check on their own, for instance.

In any case, the last time we played, they seemed comfortable and happy with the story and the game in general.

I suppose this leads me to the conclusion that side-bar player talks don't take place in my group because there is: (1) not a lot of pc vs. pc malevolence, (2) a general sense of openness in the group, where everyone rolls dice out in the open and they believe (correctly) that I have multiple contingency plans taking into account likely player plans, and (3) perhaps a feeling that they can't step beyond number (2).