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Tanarii
2019-12-25, 10:21 AM
So, there are a bunch of games that implicitly or explicitly encourage the GM solicit players to help fill out world details. Asking them things like "what do you think it looks like" or "why do you think they want to help you". Basically, player improvisation on things other than the player character. Sometimes tangentially related to the PC, other times not at all.

(Note: this explicitly is different from session 0 player assistance with setting/world design , or even out of session solicitation for player ideas. I'm specifically talking about in-session improvisation.)

Have you done this, what was your players reaction, how did you get them to not only buy in to the concept, but to work it?

I've only tried it twice, a long time ago in the D&D 2e era, when such concepts were becoming popular. Both times players nominally bought in prior to the campaign. The first time the players were deer-in-the-headlights confused each time I gave them an opportunity. They tried, but never got beyond timidly offering vague idead. The second time three out of four players quit, because I was constantly "asking them to do the DMs job".

This experience has made me leery of play testing games that rely on such concepts. But I'm thinking of running some 13th Age, and trying to do it true to Heinsoo.

False God
2019-12-25, 11:29 AM
I do it all the time in D&D. But it's not mandatory.

Some folks just want to sit down and plug into a game. I get it, that's fine. I'll fill out as much detail as I care about, and they'll take it. Their opinion of it doesn't matter because that's the kind of game they want.

Some folks are fine with doing world-building from the player side.

EX: in last week's session of a new game, I had only lightly penciled in the details of the religion of the Elven Empire and dropped that it was more shinto styled but didn't go into details. The player, being something of a Japanophile and having already rolled a couple elf characters randomly, ran with it and is now doing my work for me.

Meanwhile I could tell the other guy at the table that his hometown wears shoes on their hands and walks backwards while carrying a pickle on Tuesdays and he just wouldn't care.

I think it's perfectly fair that some people want their TTRPG experience to be one where they "log in" and play their character in the established game world and see where it goes. Some people want more.

Tanarii
2019-12-25, 12:02 PM
I think it's perfectly fair that some people want their TTRPG experience to be one where they "log in" and play their character in the established game world and see where it goes. Some people want more.
IMX is that the vast majority of players want to experience a fantasy environment, by playing an character in it. Not play the world itself, and lose something when it comes to experiencing it. If they want to play the world instead of play a character, people usually run games themselves.

So my question is: how do you convince a set of bog standard normal players to get interested in partially playing the world, instead of playing their character experiencing the world?

After all, I'm asking them to sacrifice some of the experience of playing the game instead of having to run a game. What's the hook to get them to really buy in?

JoeJ
2019-12-25, 12:33 PM
IMX is that the vast majority of players want to experience a fantasy environment, by playing an character in it. Not play the world itself, and lose something when it comes to experiencing it. If they want to play the world instead of play a character, people usually run games themselves.

So my question is: how do you convince a set of bog standard normal players to get interested in partially playing the world, instead of playing their character experiencing the world?

After all, I'm asking them to sacrifice some of the experience of playing the game instead of having to run a game. What's the hook to get them to really buy in?

I think that if you play a game where that's part of the rules you won't get the same push back. The players will have bought in to that mechanic when they agreed to play the game.

False God
2019-12-25, 01:07 PM
IMX is that the vast majority of players want to experience a fantasy environment, by playing an character in it. Not play the world itself, and lose something when it comes to experiencing it. If they want to play the world instead of play a character, people usually run games themselves.
To be perfectly honest, I've ended up playing at a lot of tables where everyone is a DM. So yes, I totally agree.


So my question is: how do you convince a set of bog standard normal players to get interested in partially playing the world, instead of playing their character experiencing the world?
Start small, start simple and trick them into it.
Have them tell you about their family, or their hometown friends. Many DMs require this as part of "your background". Get them to give you the name of their mom and dad, their best friend and a note about their hometown (I'd say, 5 items like this or less, or they'll catch on). Ta-da! They're world building!


After all, I'm asking them to sacrifice some of the experience of playing the game instead of having to run a game. What's the hook to get them to really buy in?
No, what you're asking them to do is tailor their playing experience to make them more invested in their character and the game.

It's the age-old problem of getting people past the "I'm an orphan who has no ties to anything and has a terrible bloodlust that frightens away everyone around them but isn't doing anything to improve themselves so they became an adventurer because they just like killing."

New players, fortunately may lack experiences with bad DMs who use parents, friends, pet dogs as murder targets to engage the players. Noone likes that. (well, someone probably does since it seems a common story IME)

Once you've got them to bite on the "friends and family" bit(hey it's a bit and a bit!) just toss out the occasional question about their hometown, maybe their neighbor. The mayor. The local drunk. Their favorite tavern. Have they ever met anyone famous? Work your way outward from the small points they give.

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As JoeJ also says, if you're playing a game where that's part of the package, you shouldn't get pushback on it. That's why they're here right?

Tanarii
2019-12-25, 01:18 PM
I think that if you play a game where that's part of the rules you won't get the same push back. The players will have bought in to that mechanic when they agreed to play the game.
Hmmm. I guess if I stress it is important for Icon dice results, that might work.

I'll also have to discuss a few specific powers with players that choose to use those classes, and make it clear they get to invent a small part of the world a bit as a part of that power. Most of them involve icons so that will tie in.

But a more straight forward example is Rangers: their Tracker feature involves a terrain trick, where they get to define some aspect of the terrain as part of saying what stunt they pull with it. As opposed to a more traditional game, where have to work with the description of the terrain the GM gave, and work your stunt around that.

Sniccups
2020-01-10, 04:47 PM
I once worked with a player to create a homebrew race. During one session, I decided to involve this race more heavily in the campaign, and she spontaneously improvised a religion for them. The party spent the next few sessions at a festival for this religion.

Basically, I have no problem with this. I usually ask for player input during worldbuilding anyway, but when it happens spontaneously that's fine too.

Cluedrew
2020-01-11, 11:23 AM
Have you done this, what was your players reaction, how did you get them to not only buy in to the concept, but to work it?I have done it, on both sides of the equation.

On the player side I have played games (well only one where it happened in a big way) where the GM just stalled on a description and I just started rattling it off and got an "Yeah lets go with that" at the end.

On the GM side I have mostly done it in systems that encourage it (Powered by the Apocalypse games are big on that) so they players did know what they were getting into. And I would try not to spring it on people if I wasn't using such a system. After that you get some really crazy ideas and the resulting adventure tends not to be formulaic so that is great. The challenge then of course becomes to combine and make effective use of everything given to you.

I play with people who tend towards "put more in, get more out" so I haven't had trouble getting people to participate. The main problem is when people fall back on D&D style characters which don't work quite as well in this context. I can work with a risk-taking big game hunter but the leader of a cult practically hands you answers.

Jay R
2020-01-11, 03:08 PM
If I asked them what they expected, and then used that, then the two most likely results are:
a. a deer-in-the-headlights look, or
b. an attempt to use that “power” tactically.
Both are bad for the game.

My players do have some effect on the world, but why tell them? I listen to their guesses and anticipations, and quietly accept them when their idea is better than mine. [And by “better”, I mean “more likely to lead to an interesting adventure or problem”.]

This way, when they think they might be approaching a giant’s fortress, and then they spy a giant’s fortress, they don’t think, “Hey, we can control the DM.” Instead, they congratulate themselves on cleverly deducing my plan.

JoeJ
2020-01-12, 04:35 AM
If I asked them what they expected, and then used that, then the two most likely results are:
a. a deer-in-the-headlights look, or
b. an attempt to use that “power” tactically.
Both are bad for the game.

Sometimes you can work off the players' questions:

Player 1: We leave our room and go down to the common room. Do we recognize anybody?

GM: Who are you thinking might reasonably be there?

Player 1: I don't know.

Player 2: What about that guard we talked to last time?

GM: You mean Captain Morgan?

Player 2: Yeah, him. Is he there?

GM: Let's see. <rolls dice and ignores result> Yeah, he's over at a table in the corner, talking to two other men in guard's liveries. Do you go talk to him?

Rolling the dice here is just to (hopefully) stop the players from thinking they have "power" over the GM that they can use tactically.

Cluedrew
2020-01-12, 11:30 AM
a. a deer-in-the-headlights lookI don't have a full one solution to this, I would be surprised if anybody does, but I have found my best partial solution is ask character related questions. So ask them where does your character come from, what sort of place is it, why did you leave and so on. They may not be thinking about the larger setting but character adjacent details usually have started to form.


b. an attempt to use that “power” tactically.So far I have found fighting the urge to "win" more effective than trying to fight any particular symptom of it. The win condition is to go through interesting situations, not to trivially overcome as many challenges as efficiently as possible.

But a different way, I think any strategy to keep people from realizing they are effecting the setting is a bandage on the wound of adversarial gaming. Mind you habits are hard to break so I can hardly blame anyone for using it with players stuck in their ways. Plus the GM is the one that puts things into practice so they can always adjust the difficulty of the idea.