Tag / bph

by guyeatsfood

Bad Player Habits – And How To Avoid Them (Part Two)

A while back on twitter I posted about one of my gaming bugbears (not the furry kind) – players avoiding risk when the rest of the group is embracing it. This led to part one of this post, where I looked at Risk Avoidance, probably the biggest – and most frustrating – Bad Player Habit (BPH). Now it’s time to look at the other two big BPHs – Revisiting and Un-Roleplaying. 

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Remember, this isn’t me dicking on noobs – in my experience these are always done by players who should know better – experienced roleplayers who probably do this every single game. And, again, whenever I’ve seen this it’s been one player not realising the effect they’re having on the rest of the group – maybe spotting these is something players should think about too.

Revisiting

GM: Right, so you’ve discovered the Ruby is in the Caves across the Desert of Ja’darr – and secured a guide who thinks he can trick a roc to get there. So as you creep across the mountain to the rocs nest….

Player: Wait, before we set off I want to talk to the merchant again. What does he know about rocs?

GM:….

Player: And does he have any more clues about the Caves?

GM:….

Player: Also, I want to buy a new sword.

This is the enemy of pace, and it can be frustrating for everyone at the table. It’s not hard to see how it develops – some types of games reward methodical analysis, and risk missing important pieces of information if every room is searched and every possible witness interrogated. These types of games are rubbish, by the way – avoid them.

How To Avoid It

One way you can mitigate this is by being clear when all the information is extracted – “so, the merchant has told you everything,” and even add in whatever in-game reason to prevent further investigation “well, the sun is nearly down, I’d better pack up for the day – I cannot talk any more!” Do this in-character first, and then move to direct, in-game if the hint isn’t taken. It’s also fine to say no if the player wants to go back in time – if everyone else at the table, including you, wants to move to the next scene, you can certainly go to the next scene. 

The passage of time also helps – I think having a pace in investigative games of each location, clue, or witness taking at least half a day is a good pace to start with. Prep your clues sufficiently far apart to support this, and any investigation game needs a looming countdown or other pace-setter to help investigation be done at speed.

Un-Roleplaying

GM: The merchant eyes you across the table… “Aye, I could tell you how to cross the desert, but I promised to never speak of it to outsiders again…”

Player: We knew he’d say this. Can we bribe him?

GM: …

Player: Why doesn’t he want to speak to us? I’ll Intimidate him (rolls dice)

GM: “Outsiders must never discover the secrets of Ja’darr…”

Player: Is 16 enough? Will he tell us now?

Look, I get it. There are some players who do not want to talk in character. I have a particular balance of tastes about the amount of in-character talk at a table, and I’m left cold by the lengthy in-character discussions that some streamed games have (it’s an audience/player distinction, though – I get why they do it). But you can get players who will actively resist any kind of character interaction, including just saying what their player 

But if you get just one player who actively resists talking in character, it can mean nobody at the table does. And while we all might have different tastes, I’d like more than zero of it in a session. If they really don’t want to, narrating what they say is fine (“I ask him what his problem with outsiders is” is a way round that doesn’t interrupt the rhythm of the game).

How To Avoid It

So how can we encourage a bit of in-character talk? Well the first thing is by baking in some character relations in our pregens or session zero process. If they’ve got some stuff to talk to each other about, they might actually do it. The other is by having some NPCs to start the conversations, who can ask in character for players to respond to. Having some sort of feckless ally travelling with them into the dungeon is a great way to make sure there’s some in-character chat even in the most barren of RP landscapes, and they can provide a helpful Greek chorus-echo of what’s going on.

The amount of in-character chat is a good thing to handle at the start of a one-shot or in a session zero, too – getting this element of play culture aligned is really crucial.

So, there’s the top three BPHs covered. Do you have others? Or are some of these acceptable at your table (let me know, I can pass some players your way at the next convention we’re both at!) Let me know in the comments below.

by guyeatsfood

Bad Player Habits – And How To Avoid Them (Part 1)

Recently on twitter I posted about one of my gaming bugbears (not the furry kind) – players avoiding risk when the rest of the group is embracing it. This generated a lot of responses about similar play that can come up in one-shots, and make it harder as a GM to produce an enjoyable session for everyone. So, looking at some of these behaviours, I decided to think about what we, as GMs and fellow players, can do to discourage – or avoid – them. I’m going to look at my top three Bad Player Habits (BPH) – Risk Avoidance, Revisiting, and Un-Roleplaying. In this post, we’ll look at Risk Avoidance – one of the most common, and most problematic – particularly in one-shots.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

First, though, so you know I’m not a monster:

But maybe the players don’t know any better!

This was a response I got from several commenters – that I was unfairly victimising poor players who just preferred to play in a different way to me. To this, I say two things – firstly, in one-shots you really need to be explicit about expectations, and in almost all of the games I play at conventions, people are. And in any case, “This game is deadly and survival is more important than pace. So play carefully and check every room for traps,” is weak-sauce GMing – don’t do that.. 

Every time I’ve played and these have come up, of the n players at the table, n – 1 of them have had a very clear understanding of the game premise and the kinds of behaviours encouraged – it’s been clearly explained and understood by everyone except the player performing these things.

But what about new players? – I can categorically say that these are not behaviours that I see in gamers who are new to the hobby, but exclusively by old hands who really should know better. In all cases they’ve been oblivious to the annoyance that this has caused to the rest of the table, even when other players have directly challenged them about it.

Risk Avoidance

This is my top BPH. To be fair, I can see how it develops, sort of, if you’re used to an adversarial GM style where you need to check every door for traps and search every room in case you miss something. Careful play is fine – in some one-shot games that I run, it’s encouraged to an extent – in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, you want the players to see combat as dangerous and to avoid, say, fights with the city watch. But it’s when one player is doing this and the rest of the group are playing normally that it’s irritating.

“I’ll stay in the van while you explore the warehouse”

“I’ll stay in the control room and monitor the cameras”

“I’m not very good at combat, so I run away when the monsters attack”

All of this is poor because you’re caught as a GM between including them in the game – when they’ve opted out of the action – and letting them have the satisfaction of avoiding the danger that they clearly crave. They’re also leaving the rest of the group at higher risk from any danger that emerges – which is the real problem with this. When that player runs away, they make it harder for the other players who now have to fight with one fewer combatant. Add to this that very often these same players will back-seat drive the play from their position of safety, despite very clearly not being there.

So how to avoid this?

Well, first of all – and this goes for all of these – be explicit. Both at the start of the game, and during, make the level of risk-taking clear. If you’re running Mork Borg, it might just be to say:

“Look, this is a deadly game and the dice are going to fall where they may – some PCs might die, and that’s just fine – I’ve got a bunch of extra pregens and we’ll bring them in immediately. It’ll be more fun if we all just embrace this, rather than avoiding doing anything.”

Sometimes, you’ll find the whole group gets distracted by a perceived danger – sometimes what they perceive is even actually dangerous, but they can’t get past it and wind up in circular discussions about it. Here, it helps to have a friendly NPC who can drop in some clues as to the most fruitful route – having a local guide to point out that, while the deserts of Ja’darr are very dangerous, he’s pretty sure that heroes of the PC’s stature will be able to cope with them.

The other way is to demonstrate competence early. Begin with an action scene (often, although not always, a fight) where the PCs can win. An easy early scene lets the players learn the rules if they need to without too much peril, and also demonstrates that they can triumph in similar scenes.

Another prep technique is to have multiple options at each stage – if they are really hung up over the Deserts of Ja’darr, maybe there’s another way to cross them to the temple – they could try and hitch a ride on a passing roc to get them there. These alternative options are still dangerous, of course, but letting the players choose the one with less perceived risk satisfies some of the careful players’ needs.

So, there’s some techniques to counter risk avoidance and encourage all players to be on the same page about their approach to play – next time we’ll look at the other two.