help with starting a group and setting expectations

[tetramorph]

There have already been a few good comments about this but dispersed through differing threads.

I tried to start a group publicly. I just cancelled it after about 6 weeks. I stopped having fun. I am trying to figure out what happened.

I think, in part, it was because folks didn't know what to expect. About four weeks in I refereed my first TPK. I felt ambivalent about it. I shared my players disappointment, but they made a series of poor decisions. A couple of folks (not most) continued at the next to rib me about it. I thought I had made it plain that we were playing an old school game and what that meant. No scaling of encounters. Player skill over character build. Easy come easy go. Fairly fast advancement for those who survive, etc. Anyway, lots of momentum lost after that. I am disappointed. I think folks were 'new school' even if they had never played. I warned them about too much investment in low-level PCs, etc.

Another part that was out of my control was group dynamics caused by random folks with differing backgrounds and expectations coming together because I had started the group through a public meeting website.

Any comments would help about how to find good players and keep them and how to manage expectations. makofan, you were really helpful about this in your thread about on-line games. I would welcome any help about table-top games. Admin Pete, you have also made some good comments about this kind of thing, scattered about.

Thanks folks. I have come to trust your experience and advice.

[robkuntz]

Tsk-Tsk. If one plays Monopoly there is only one winner and every one else goes home crying? Nope. It's a game with rules, pretty simple. Keeping a group has more to do with a group dynamic that parses their playing as just a game. If one loses in Monopoly they do not then stop playing the game but take another go at it. They may learn, get luckier, and the dice rolls may indeed meld with the play intent and create a synergy which in some respects equals the "success" that all folks secretly desire. Barring that, welcome to the "instantly gratify me" crowd or else I'm glum and it's all your fault. In Monopoly that doesn't happen, for they have only themselves to blame, not the (straw man argument) DM. My suggestion? Keep going until you find mature players; and that's not always easy, especially with today's picks.

[waysoftheearth]

Hey tetramorph, firstly (my opinion ain't worth Diddley, but none the less...) you have my admiration your ongoing enthusiasm, and I applaud your effort to keep the original game vibrant. Well done!

I too have tried, on several past occasions, to pull together face-to-face groups from public notices. I too have failed, on several of those occasions, to get a group dynamic that "worked". None of my "random groups" have lasted longer than about a month, so I agree with you that it can be a tough ask.

In some respects it is simply the luck of the draw; there are a lot of folks out there with busy lives, or differing expectations, or limited ability/energy to be a genuine contributor, or whatever else. You can try to "screen" potential players, but ultimately you don't really know how a group will go together until you start playing. Convention play can be a similar gamble, except at a con you are guaranteed a game (or three in a row!) and can expect to get a higher ratio of enthusiasts. In terms of cons, I've found a number of small things that seem to "work" for introducing potential newbies to (in your words) "an old school game", so perhaps the same might be used for more general public groups?

If the idea is to immediately message players that this is something different to what they're used to, then perhaps:

Set the player up with "disposable" pre-gens. No player effort, no player investment. Give them nothing but a character name, class, and maybe an in-game appearance/motivation in one or two lines. Let them see that you have a deck of pre-gens ready to go; maybe let them "pick a card" or take the top one off the deck. Don't give them any game stats. This can save heaps of table time for the ref, and can help the players to click that "this" particular pre-gen is just one from a herd. If they don't like what they get, let the players swap, or draw another card.

I've also found it really works to give each player (i.e., each pre-gen) a simple, personal objective to work toward. Stuff like: recover your Father's sword, pass through to a temple/village/person on the other side of the dungeon, get 300 gp to pay off family debt, find/rescue the butcher's son, gain advise from/petition a specific Holy man/Wizard/retiredHero, etc. etc. I've also found that specific objectives work better than general ones. I.e., make it about the dwarf gold or the pirate gold rather than just "the gold" and see what a difference it can make to a fledgling campaign. All this will hopefully help the players to "play better"; you'll readily spot the players who are in/capable of "switching roles" after their first PC dies, and this alone can be fascinating and educational for the referee to observe. In my own experience of this technique, the more imaginative players tend to shine in this regard.

When they happen, try to make player deaths significant. Where practical, allow the player to utter some "famous last words". Continue to refer to the deceased character occasionally. This can be easy if others have looted his gear; have them write down on their sheet "Bungo's ax" or "Yemmit's spell book", or whatever. Also, as the ref, you might choose to remind the lawful-types (especially) that a deceased fellow's possessions should go to his family, temple, guild, or whatever... if the players buy into it, this can create interesting sub-plots and spawn a whole different branch of the game.

More immediately, perhaps, some simple props can hep to stimulate player interest. E.g., for M-Us I printed out out 1st level spells as one-liners in a little booklet like this: www.fimp.net/makeabook.html. Piles of coins (plastic Pirate gold/silver can be had cheap at various thrift stores) for treasure can spark interest--particularly when getting certain treasure is a personal objective for the players. If you have them, miniatures can be a great prop--especially if the players have an entourage. It helps to show how large and cumbersome the player party can be, even if you do nothing with it other than show a marching order that will fit into a 5ft or 10ft wide passage. It should be apparently that the entire company of 15 Men, elves, and dwarfs cannot all be "at the front", nor operating effectively in a 20x30ft room.


This part I haven't tried yet, but is the result of my own thinking on a similar problem: Have a plan for how you'll handle a TPK before it happens, so that if/when it does happen it doesn't feel like an abrupt end of play. I.e., have the players name an heir before they set off. Write that name down, or even have each player pull a pre-gen for their heir before they set off. Have a cleric's temple or other player's guild somehow invested/engaged in at least one of the player objectives. Then, when the dungeon group takes a rest, reaches an impasse, or otherwise does anything that takes up game-time, cut over to a short scene back in town, or at their local camp. Has anyone noticed the players have gone? Are overdue? Is anyone calling for a search and rescue? Is there any reason to test the loyalty of hirelings left back at camp? This can help keep the players warm to the idea that the game is bigger than just these current PCs, and that "stuff" is still happening elsewhere in the world while they are down in the pits. In the event of a TPK, you can cut back to pursue these events, and the game can (we hope!) continue...


I hope that might help some, tetramorph. Let us know how you go

[robkuntz]

Some nice suggestions WoE. But I have a broad question: Through all of this very elaborate detail, are you not in fact impressing your own style upon those who you would suggest use it? These are more than recommendations, they would assume an utter absence of these in any DM's case, which is an assumptive leap, as information to the contrary is not apparent in Tetramorph's descriptions. Just wondering where the act of suggestion, which in most cases is rather general, divides with style, which is specific to each DM.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 29, 2016 2:10:10 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

I have a broad question: Through all of this very elaborate detail, are you not in fact impressing your own style upon those who you would suggest use it?

Tough call Rob. I merely thought to share some of my own experience that seemed relevant... if I went overmuch into detail it's because I had nothing else to do with my lunch break that day. It's all just suggestions to chew over, kick into shape, or toss out entirely.

[Admin Pete]

The way I started my current group was this, I went to Meetup for Columbus OH back about 2003 for the 3.0/3.5 D&D group and in the message center/quasi-forum area I posted that I reffed the 1974 OD&D. I followed on that fairly frequently for a long time until in 2009 (Yeah 6 years later) I got an email from a guy asking me if I still did that. I replied and then recruited a couple of other guys from my friends here that finally decided to play and since July 2009 I have been running the game ever since. Counting kids I have had as many as 15 players in a game, but 5-6 is typical and currently all adults.

As far a the public place part goes, that is where we hold our games and I don't have any flyer up or anything. But every now and then people come over and ask what we are playing. One of them started playing the last game and right now I have two more promised to start in our April game. Over the years I have lost some players that just did not want to play with kids. And some players of modern "D&D" that decided it was not for them, even though they told me that they had fun. I always try to be clear about what the game is that I play and let the chips fall where they may. I had a person on a forum that has a massive amount of posts come and play in one game and he had fun and went back onto the forum (one of the forums I am banned from) and gave a glowing report of my game. He hasn't played since partly because he works weekend in a job he was just starting, but I think mainly because of the three teens that were in the game at the time. He was a very good player. Another person on that forum told me he would come sometime, but since it is a two hour drive I don't really look for that to happen. I have several friends that play a couple of times a year. One of my constant players was my age and had never played before and a couple of years in he passed away of a heart attack.

I would try to start with 2-4 committed players if you have them and then let it grow as it will from there. As far as the TPK and character death in general, I am not ambivalent about it at all. It is part of the game and from my side of the table it is no big deal (if anything it is more like a rite of passage, now you are one of us type thing) and all of my experienced players also just treat it matter of fact and that rubs off on the newer players. I have pre-gens that I have done sitting there and a player can pick one or roll their own. I always try to work them back into the game fairly quickly, which is what I have always done since bitd.

[tetramorph]

waysoftheearth and Admin Pete : awesome concrete suggestions so far, guys.

robkuntz , the kind of concrete suggestions offered here so far are exactly what I was looking for. I benefit more from the concrete things that people have actually done and experience than from abstractions. I can always take what I like and leave the rest. They know that, and so do I. So no worries.

[Von]

Mar 28, 2016 17:02:41 GMT -5 tetramorph said:

I think folks were 'new school' even if they had never played. I warned them about too much investment in low-level PCs, etc.

Another part that was out of my control was group dynamics caused by random folks with differing backgrounds and expectations coming together because I had started the group through a public meeting website.

Any comments would help about how to find good players and keep them and how to manage expectations. makofan , you were really helpful about this in your thread about on-line games. I would welcome any help about table-top games. Admin Pete , you have also made some good comments about this kind of thing, scattered about.

If people have never played tabletop games but have some familiarity with roleplaying games, they have probably encountered computerised ones. The computer format encourages identification and protagonism and, through the medium of quicksaving, the expectation that the player's character will be saved or preserved or retrieved instead of replaced. All you can do is whittle down the expectation gradually (I like the idea of having a stack of PCs pregenerated on cards and simply whipping one out, and of encouraging people to preserve "Bungo's axe" at least). I might suggest trying the DCC RPG solution (you start with four or five characters each, and any who survive the first adventure become the new PCs...), or (if push came to shove) introducing a 'fate point' system like good old WFRP (one 'quick save' per session, or one 'OK, you're not dead, but you wake up in a strange place...' per session). The idea is to provide a spoonful of sugar and help the old-school medicine go down.

I'll level with you: I will never again go out and recruit a bunch of randomers via any sort of public meeting facility, online or otherwise. Every occasion on which I've tried has led to stylistic clashes and the awkwardness between people who don't know each other that well. I prefer to cut the group's teeth with board or card games - once we all know each other a little better and have relaxed to the point where we can show our true colours, a workable group can be created.

In the majority of cases I have created my own players by asking people who like the same sort of media things as I do, or who are into amateur dramatics or board games and seem convertible. It doesn't always work and I'm still perfecting my "turn an adult into a roleplayer" methodology (it was a lot easier when everyone involved was seventeen or thereabouts). Once they're hooked I make sure to control the length of campaigns (end with a bang, not with a whimper) and I encourage them to take a turn behind the screen when they feel ready.

[robkuntz]

It's as simple as: "Do you succeed at or win everything that you endeavor at or for?"  If not, try again with lessons learned, or, hope for the break you never got or arranged, in the future.

[hengest]

Awesome thread here. I'm still racking my brain over similar questions -- more about how not to totally fail the players than how to keep them going through the rigors and fun of this kind of game.

That said, by reading threads like this, campaign notes, house rules, and so on (this includes running through my own thoughts), I'm beginning to assemble an arsenal of approaches and ways to deal with problems that will come up. Been making progress making contact with local gamers, so maybe someday I'll get to post about how my own Original Edition pizza went over...

[hengest]

This seems somewhat on-topic: last night after this post, my wife had a glass of wine and started asking about RPGs again, mainly in connection with my friend who does a lot of LARPing. I managed to explain that a wide variety of things comes under the RPG heading, and she asked to "play" a tabletop game right then. Of course, I had nothing prepared, so I made up a character and adventure on the spot and played a diceless no-system 'game' with her for ten minutes. She played the baker's daughter in a French village who is worried about her little brother who wandered off. My wife on her own came up with consulting her parents and then (I was most impressed here) recruiting her friend Marie for help.

This called for more thespian than I ever expected would be asked of me, but I survived and she was smiling and saying she liked it when she lost interest. It wasn't D&D or even really a game, but it was a start.

[robkuntz]

Zondervan quoth:  "It wasn't D&D or even really a game, but it was a start."

You seem to have fulfilled the purpose of D&D as stated by Gygax in the intro: “They [the rules] provide a framework around which you build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity…”

Of what kind or scaling is involved in doing so has no predispositions attached to it. BTW: A "game" is only a general term for a specified type of play; and as far as I can tell D&D as a game has no set way of playing, thus it remains a game, through play, no matter how you order it and as is inferred by Gary's quote.