GM versus Players, Round 1

My mind is awhirl lately with RPG possibilities . . . recently a Pathfinder query of mine got picked up b a 3^rd party publisher (they are reviewing the piece now)  and I just submitted two other Pathfinder pieces for another company – bottom line Pathfinder’s been on my mind a lot again. But, I also have Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 3^rd edition sitting on my shelf like some enormous monument of gaming – the box is big, people. And for anyone whose read this blog lately, I’ve been immersing myself in the ‘new’ World of Darkness stuff.

This progress is coming along nicely. I had some issues with the covenants and political factions in Vampire: The Requiem but have decided to really use their open backstory and sandbox approach to minimize the importance of those factions and to sneak a little bit of Vampire: The Masquerade into the game. More on this later.

However, as I plan the game I realize that what fuels my desire to play V: tR or any RPG game is likely different than what fuels my players’ enjoyment of a game.  Now, this realization is not as novel as theorizing the existence of Obama clones or discovering the cure for gonorrhea. Robin D. Laws has long talked of certain player types . . . and we are all familiar with players who prefer powergaming or being dramatic or what-have-you.

But putting that idea to use is important. I’ve played with relatively the same group of players and I know what they enjoy out of a game. Hell, I enjoy some of the same things; still, without a doubt, I’ m the avant-garde one. I push for games besides D&D, I push for one-shots, I write house rules, deal with the online community of gaming more often, and I’m the one who actively amasses a library of RPGs, many of which will likely not be played.

Ultimately, what I want out of a campaign can often be different than what the players want. On some level the very fact of playing a GM or a CHARACTER is going to dictate that the person accepting that role is going to be getting/seeking a different reward from the game than the other.

But let’s chart it, eh? Note that something one side of the chart is not diametrically opposed to something on the other . . .

MY WANTS	PLAYER WANTS
Gritty, story-driven campaign	Coolness factor
A sense of threat & constant challenge to the PCs	Things that make them ‘powerful’
A consistent world that holds to some kind of ‘reality’	Some form of leveling up. They want to feel they’ve gained something.
Sandbox	Freedom
Beer	Beer

Now may my players want other things? Of course. This list is composed from experience, from noting the things that I see my friends really dig into. I won’t know everything unless I ask them what they want; and I will.

But let’s start crossing off some of these points.

MY WANTS	PLAYER WANTS
Gritty, story-driven campaign	Coolness factor
A sense of threat & constant challenge to the PCs	Things that make them ‘powerful’
A consistent world that holds to some kind of ‘reality’	Some form of leveling up. They want to feel they’ve gained something.
Sandbox	Freedom
Beer	Beer

Gaming has always been a social function for us. Snacks, beer, chatter . . . these things will be at our table. This is a mutual want, and easy to cross off.

So is my desire for a Sandbox environment. I’ve been running D&D lately (4e & PF). In both cases the games become a bit linear. I take fault for a percentage of this. I over-prep stuff to the point of practically writing an adventure. As many of us know the majority of D&D adventures have railroad-y elements in them. But D&D is a game that thrives on the structure of adventure group gets mission, completes mission, which A. means they get new mission or B. leads them to a new mission. Sometimes there are even myriad missions, but ultimately they complete them and in that manner the story progresses.

Nonetheless, as I am crafting my World of Darkness Vampire game, I am keeping freedom in mind. The game kind of begs it to be honest. Vampire games seem to operate more on the personal desires of the PCs and the reactions to the world than on a completion of tasks engine. I feel comfortable that this issue is thus taken care of.

MY WANTS	PLAYER WANTS
Gritty, story-driven campaign	Coolness factor
A sense of threat & constant challenge to the PCs	Things that make them ‘powerful’
A consistent world that holds to some kind of ‘reality’	Some form of leveling up. They want to feel they’ve gained something.
Sandbox	Freedom
Beer	Beer

My wants are easy to eliminate. I am playing Vampire: The Requiem. It is gritty. It runs on the Storyteller system. The players are vampires cast into the hard-edged world of the undead where trust is more precious than gold and horrors and humans alike may seek their death. The system is balanced, in that the acquisition of power is more of a story thing than the earning of experience. It takes a lot of time to become the most ‘physically’ powerful vampire . . . thus the world confirms to a sense of inherent reality. There are no farm boys who attain 10^th level in 8 months, who go from chasing their family dog to cleaving an axe forged by dwarven gods through the adamantine scales of a demon-possessed dragon. The power creep, the power curve is a much more subtle thing in Vampire . . . the focus gets shifted away from the mechanics due to this . . .

See it is easy to reach my desires! The chore, loved as it is, is to blend this above paragraph with all the things the players want. How do I keep my cherished grit and tight grasp on power but still make the PCs cool as the Jonas Brothers at a 6^th grade dance? How do I make them feel ‘powerful?’ I do I fulfill their need to conquer to gain importance and stature?

Well, I’ve the answers, but since I am already over 1,000 words let’s put it off until tomorrow.