TRPG General Chat

10:00 AM

If you want them to remain invested in the hobby, letting them go from your game is probably a healthy thing from them -- they're not a good fit and are not equipped to adapt, and keeping them in the game is going to make everyone unhappy. (Or everyone except them unhappy, which may eventually erupt in their face.)

People need to be in healthy group dynamics to enjoy our hobby.

Let them go from the group but also point them to where they can find others who'll take them in (if you know of it or even need to say it -- I assume you met up on a game advertising board), and tell them not to lie about their age 'cause it'll lead to loads more problems just like this down the road.

You can tell them they're being let go because of the age difference -- you really were looking for players who were at least 18 and it's not working out trying to get them to have the qualities you were looking for.

kviiri

Stay in touch with them for a while after and ask if they found another group, so they know you care

Patta

10:29 AM

Definitely, that was one of my main goals, I want him to stay interested. He applied via the Roll20 looking for group feature, yeah, so he knows where he can find other groups (I'll point it out anyway) - Thanks for the input, I'll probably still ask the question on the main site, as it seems like a good question to have (and more input is always appreciated, I have some difficulties with kicking people out :D)

kviiri

10:40 AM

Yea, main site is much better at curation than chat

Happy news just keep piling up, on the weekend I got my thesis code to work and now I can play the entire Maple Leaf Rag without consistent bumblings :P

(that took only what, ten years?)

Joel Harmon

11:05 AM

@kviiri I'm sure my definition of "typical" is quite skewed. In this case, 7th Sea is a system I've heard of other than on this site. A different definition is "I think my FLGS carries that".

doppelgreener

@kviiri hooray!!

kviiri

@JoelHarmon Haha, gotcha :)

doppelgreener

@kviiri counterproposal: there aren't "typical" systems any more than there is a "typical" movie or a "typical" book.

kviiri

I'm a bit pessimistic I guess, I think people who regularly play non-DnD systems are a rarity...

Joel Harmon

@kviiri I think people who regularly play DnD systems are a rarity...

kviiri

11:08 AM

@JoelHarmon I assume we're talking of different scopes here :)

Joel Harmon

As far as systems that lend themselves to West Marches, I'd say low party cohesion would be helpful (alternately, Dungeon World style Bonds would be harmful, as you don't know party makeup). It would also be important to have level not matter all that much, or encourage people to have a stable of characters to bring out, based on the expected level.

doppelgreener

It's the 800-pound gorilla for a reason; it's the flagship game, the first one people tend to get in touch with, and the marketing and community attitude is that it does absolutely everything or is even synonymous with tabletop RPG.

Joel Harmon

Since 7S is a point buy system, it's much smoother than your typical level based system like DnD.

doppelgreener

It is definitely not common for people to move on to trying other games, not least of which because people will think it takes equal or greater amounts of work to learn the other games and invested all this effort learning D&D.

kviiri

@JoelHarmon The reason I think 7th Sea is amenable to West Marches (or a similar style) is that it already prescribes a rather similar mode of gameplay with the Stories

doppelgreener

11:10 AM

waffles

kviiri

@doppelgreener thanks :D

doppelgreener

you're welcome

kviiri

ESL privilege! I can make mistakes and it's ok x)

doppelgreener

that's definitely not just an ESL mixup

see also: inflammable. (sounds like it means nonflammable. actually means flammable.)

kviiri

Anyway, players come up with Stories for their characters, and the GM makes them happen. If a player is not present, they can follow someone else's story

@doppelgreener I used to be a pedant regarding this, but given the nature of the word, I've switched to "flammable" and "nonflammable". Safety > etymological correctness.

doppelgreener

11:12 AM

Any particular reason you're going for West Marches? It's one of many potential approaches to episodic gameplay, and you don't need to do that one specifically.

@kviiri I think that's what people have decided to do generally.

kviiri

@doppelgreener it was Joel's suggestion, although to a slightly different problem

We're playing 7th Sea and it seems we'll have to deal with more player absences than before.

(or play only twice a year or somesuch)

Joel Harmon

As I recall, the original context is "We'd like to play 7th Sea, but Bob recently had a kid and can't be certain of time commitments. How can we still play?"

Also, one player disfavors oneshots for some reason, IIRC?

kviiri

I'm not really averse to playing with a wildly varying level of attendance and I think 7th Sea supports it well anyway. The actual problem is that the people are used to "everyone is present, everytime" paradigm where absences are an exception, and one of them (not the daddy btw) even called me unfair for proposing the idea that we play more often than the dadman can make it.

doppelgreener

I can see west marches as being a way to explore difference from that default.

Joel Harmon

It was the best suggestion I know of to handle that kind of thing, and nobody else seems to have mentioned it.

doppelgreener

11:17 AM

The way we did it was with a lot less than all the west marches style expectations: Our players were members of, or connected to, an organisation with an overall goal. We had missions and goals to achieve, and we might know one session what we were going to do the next. Whoever is around for the session can go on one of those missions we know we need to do.

kviiri

I'm just not seeing how it solves the problem

Joel Harmon

Unfortunately, I can't back this up with real world experience, as I've never been involved in a successful West Marches game.

doppelgreener

It has a norm of episodic mission play, but your group still needs to get used to it.

You can also point out how it isn't working to wait on everyone every time, and that other groups (like ours, that you're in direct contact with) do this and it works well and not at anyone's expense.

kviiri

I've been talking about the pointlessness of the ideal where we schedule games so everyone makes it, and wind up playing almost never (and then someone's sick/hung over/with kid trouble etc anyway and has to wait several weeks for another shot to play)

Joel Harmon

@kviiri I think the point is you can make Newdad feel included by always trying to include him. If/when he falls through, you can seamlessly switch to another sub-group in the world and continue play. That way, he doesn't have to feel bad that his friends aren't having fun just because he's not available.

kviiri

11:20 AM

@JoelHarmon I'm trying to say that I don't believe simply changing the game solves the FOMO (in the short term at least)

Joel Harmon

@kviiri I don't really know you, and I certainly don't know your players, so if reframing the social problem that is scheduling won't help, then I am out of ideas.

doppelgreener

@kviiri My thinking is propose a trial run in a new game/setting for a limited period of, say, six weeks, where you meet up regularly and whoever's there plays the session.

Propose that after that trial run, the group will discuss how it went, whether it works well or not, if they'd like to keep doing things this way, if they'd like to change anything, etc.

kviiri

Yeah, I just fear I'll be seen as unfair for proposing that

doppelgreener

Pick a game and system where it's pretty easy to do an episodic structure and where it's relatively easy to account for someone not being able to make it or 1-2 unexpected people turning up. (Even if that means taking a few minutes at the start of the night to adjust preparations.)

You might be seen that way by that person. Ask them to see how it goes. It's a trial run and you don't have to keep going after the trial ends. If it won't work out you'll find that out. You'll only be doing it on the nights not everyone's present for the full game anyway, unless everyone's present but opts to continue the episodic game. Nobody misses out, and the by-design structure of this game will be to be able to play regardless of who's in attendance.

Joel Harmon

@kviiri Try talking to Newdad one on one about this, to see if he really is comfortable with it. It should be much harder to argue it being unfair if you have buy in from the guy it's supposedly unfair to.

doppelgreener

11:31 AM

Right, every potential member of this game -- including Newdad -- should be in on this conversation.

You're proposing the trial to all of them, Newdad included, with the explicit acknowledgement that some members will be present more often than not, and members like Newdad may only be able to be there infrequently, but it's designed to support play with or without any one person being there, so that one or two people can be absent without holding up the entire game.

The critical mass in our games was having 4 people turn up, so 1 GM + 3 players. Anything at least that was fine. When it was just 3 people we'd often do one-shots instead.

Patta

Yeah, two players (+ GM) in such a situation is not that ideal in my experience. Might depend on the game (and the type of "adventures" they will have) though.

doppelgreener

If it's 1 GM + 2 players, it's my experience that if we do play the main game it's smaller-scoped, more intimate sessions.

e.g. exploring the dynamic between two characters for the fun of the players playing them.

Patta

Yeah, we did that once with the Fallout-Westmarches Style game I'm currently running, and it spawned a lot of insiders and great chracter dynamic between the two people that played.

Helped that the two players were good friends in Real-Life (it's a Roll20 game), with people that don't know each other that well I would have probably said "let's do something else instead"

BESW

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Patta

Ah, nice to see Nebula Jazz on there :D Also Dresden Files. I'm still waiting for the german release of that one, should be soon.

Patta

11:58 AM

Current working title for my question: "What is the best way to kick someone new to the hobby out of my group without alienating them from the hobby" - Is it only me, or does that seem like an "opinion based" question? Though most interpersonal questions about RPG Groups are, I'd say... I am a bit torn about the question title :D

BESW

8

A: Should we be answering the question, or the question posed in the description?

The post body is the actual question, and the other part is just the title. Questions regularly have their titles adjusted to match the real question in the body, while the reverse (changing the body to match the title) is done only in unusual circumstances. Answers should answer the question — ...

Questions shouldn't get closed because the title sounds opinion-based, if the actual body text of the question is not opinion-based.

doppelgreener

title could also be “Kicking someone out of the group without alienating them from the hobby”, since the title doesn't have to be a question at all, just a summary of the question body

Patta

12:29 PM

That's a good point, that I had not thought of. Thanks.

Patta

12:49 PM

I don't know why, but every time I post a question (which is not that often), I feel like the question is kind of "rambly" :D

Most of the time, people tell me it's fine, but still...

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