Kesnit
2013-01-28, 07:10 PM
My wife and I have run into a problem with our gaming group. First, the people involved...
Me: Me, duh.
S: My wife.
JG: My best friend and the person who introduced S and me. He was the best man in our wedding.
V: My wife's best friend and the ST of the game in question. She was the maid-of-honor at our wedding.
JA: V's long-time boyfriend
JH: A former co-worker of my wife.
K: A school friend of V and JG.
The gaming group has been playing together (except for K) for at least 4 years. My wife and I played with them until we moved away for 3 years. They continued to play together, and we rejoined the group when we moved back to town.
When S and I started playing with them again, JG was finishing up a Mage: the Awakening game that he had been running. He wanted to take a break from running and asked for volunteers to run a new game. V said she was interested in trying to run (she's never ST'ed before), and started a Changling: the Lost game.
The game was a little rough starting out, but V was a new ST and we gave her the benefit of the doubt. JG and JA got a lot of facetime, which meant the rest of us sat there and did nothing, but V was learning, and we weren't slapped down or anything when we stepped in. Plus, JG and JA are enthusiastic players, so they pushed their characters forward.
As time went on, though, V got a lot better at including everyone. There were still times when the party split and she had to switch back and forth between the groups, but she did a god job of balancing the time she gave to everyone. She also asked for goals our characters would have and intentionally wrote plot hooks to give the PCs a chance to fulfill their goals. (For example, my PC's goal is to become the Winter King. So V set it up that the old King was a Loyalist and the crown was lost when he was discovered. The Winter Court agreed that whoever found the crown would be the Monarch.)
Then there was the last game... JA had said he wanted to get involved in organized crime* in the city, so V had him meet a low-level thief and set up a job with his network. Turns out, the planned theft was of an art gallery where JG's character worked as a night janitor. There were some funny parts to the scene (like where JA could not attack JG's character, even though JG was attacking, because of the Motley pledge). But for the most part, it involved V running a scene for 2 hours with only 2 PC's involved. (The rest of the party had no reason to know what was going on, so had no reason to be there. S ended up playing with her phone. K and I read books. JH dozed off.)
When the scene finally ended, we jumped to the next day. V, to her credit, tried to get the rest of us involved. (JG and JA walked away from the table briefly to make sure V focused on us.) However, S and I both said what our characters would do would involve the whole party. JH didn't really have anything he wanted his character to do. (He is a rather passive player. He goes along with what everyone else is doing, but never really takes the lead.) K did have something for her PC, but that scene was very short, and also her alone. By the time we got all the PC's together, there wasn't a lot of time left to play. (Our game night is Wednesday and everyone has to get up early for work, so we can't play too late.)
Thursday morning, S and I sent V a message giving her some "constructive criticism" on the 2 hour scene. Hopefully, that kind of thing won't happen again, but I'm not too hopeful. V was getting better about including everyone, but JG and JA are aggressive players and put themselves out there as much as they can. (S runs a Vampire: the Requiem game on alternating weeks with the same group, and JG and JA play the same way in her game.) JG is also a bit of a munchkin and likes playing a social PC, both of which can lead to him taking a leading role. I really don't think the attention V pays to JA is connected to their RL relationship.
Does anyone have any tips for what S and I can do if this sort of thing continues? Leaving the group is obviously not an option. They are our friends outside of gaming, and our group is the only nWoD we know of in this area.
* Joining the Mob is not a problem. Most of the party are either on the wrong side of the law, or dance the line. My PC is a drug dealer. S is playing a stripper. The party broke into a crime scene to steal evidence about an investigation that is the overarching storyline.
Me: Me, duh.
S: My wife.
JG: My best friend and the person who introduced S and me. He was the best man in our wedding.
V: My wife's best friend and the ST of the game in question. She was the maid-of-honor at our wedding.
JA: V's long-time boyfriend
JH: A former co-worker of my wife.
K: A school friend of V and JG.
The gaming group has been playing together (except for K) for at least 4 years. My wife and I played with them until we moved away for 3 years. They continued to play together, and we rejoined the group when we moved back to town.
When S and I started playing with them again, JG was finishing up a Mage: the Awakening game that he had been running. He wanted to take a break from running and asked for volunteers to run a new game. V said she was interested in trying to run (she's never ST'ed before), and started a Changling: the Lost game.
The game was a little rough starting out, but V was a new ST and we gave her the benefit of the doubt. JG and JA got a lot of facetime, which meant the rest of us sat there and did nothing, but V was learning, and we weren't slapped down or anything when we stepped in. Plus, JG and JA are enthusiastic players, so they pushed their characters forward.
As time went on, though, V got a lot better at including everyone. There were still times when the party split and she had to switch back and forth between the groups, but she did a god job of balancing the time she gave to everyone. She also asked for goals our characters would have and intentionally wrote plot hooks to give the PCs a chance to fulfill their goals. (For example, my PC's goal is to become the Winter King. So V set it up that the old King was a Loyalist and the crown was lost when he was discovered. The Winter Court agreed that whoever found the crown would be the Monarch.)
Then there was the last game... JA had said he wanted to get involved in organized crime* in the city, so V had him meet a low-level thief and set up a job with his network. Turns out, the planned theft was of an art gallery where JG's character worked as a night janitor. There were some funny parts to the scene (like where JA could not attack JG's character, even though JG was attacking, because of the Motley pledge). But for the most part, it involved V running a scene for 2 hours with only 2 PC's involved. (The rest of the party had no reason to know what was going on, so had no reason to be there. S ended up playing with her phone. K and I read books. JH dozed off.)
When the scene finally ended, we jumped to the next day. V, to her credit, tried to get the rest of us involved. (JG and JA walked away from the table briefly to make sure V focused on us.) However, S and I both said what our characters would do would involve the whole party. JH didn't really have anything he wanted his character to do. (He is a rather passive player. He goes along with what everyone else is doing, but never really takes the lead.) K did have something for her PC, but that scene was very short, and also her alone. By the time we got all the PC's together, there wasn't a lot of time left to play. (Our game night is Wednesday and everyone has to get up early for work, so we can't play too late.)
Thursday morning, S and I sent V a message giving her some "constructive criticism" on the 2 hour scene. Hopefully, that kind of thing won't happen again, but I'm not too hopeful. V was getting better about including everyone, but JG and JA are aggressive players and put themselves out there as much as they can. (S runs a Vampire: the Requiem game on alternating weeks with the same group, and JG and JA play the same way in her game.) JG is also a bit of a munchkin and likes playing a social PC, both of which can lead to him taking a leading role. I really don't think the attention V pays to JA is connected to their RL relationship.
Does anyone have any tips for what S and I can do if this sort of thing continues? Leaving the group is obviously not an option. They are our friends outside of gaming, and our group is the only nWoD we know of in this area.
* Joining the Mob is not a problem. Most of the party are either on the wrong side of the law, or dance the line. My PC is a drug dealer. S is playing a stripper. The party broke into a crime scene to steal evidence about an investigation that is the overarching storyline.