Easy one today. Both.
I’ve learned a lot since I started in 1980. Thirty-six years of make-believe mostly within an asymmetrical social structure? What could possibly go wrong.
Not that it’s been one long Stanford Prison Experiment, but hoo boy when I was younger? Younger as in “into my mid-30s”. Gaslighting individual players (immersion!), capricious and inconsistent rulings (not rules, ptui, those just take away my creative authority!), trying to fix interpersonal problems diegetically (!!!)…it’s a long list.
GMs are both.
Sometimes.
I’ve learned a lot.
I’ve learned that I can trust my players more than I used to.
I’ve learned that I can make mistakes at the table, say so, and be forgiven.
I’ve learned that I do my best work when I’m at the bottom of the hierarchy, not the top.
I’ve learned that everything the GM handles can be handled by someone else, at least some of the time, if they want to.
I’ve learned that radical transparency and honesty doesn’t mean the end to discovery and surprises.
I’ve learned that I’ve spent years in codependent relationships with some players, to the detriment of both of us.
I’ve learned that it’s okay to say no, to shut down the game, to do whatever it takes to generate my own enthusiasm to facilitate. Because it sure looks like I’m in it for the long haul.
I’ve learned that there’s still so much to learn.
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It’s going to start September 1, but to get your creative juices flowing, here’s the official Indie Game Reading Club’s list of questions to ponder.
Obviously this is needed because the #RPGaDAY list is so freighted with assumptions about RPGs that mostly it’s incomprehensible if you’re not in that scene any more.
1. When were you last deprotagonized? What happened and how did you reassert your agency?
2. What game created your most elaborate relationship map? How much of it did you actually use?
3. What’s your favorite behavioral incentive?
4. What’s your favorite perverse behavioral incentive?
5. Would you say rolling dice to have sex is hot, dirty, deprotagonizing, or all the above?
6. How many PbtA games do you own, and which one best captures its most clichéd genre tropes?
7. When did you last spend more time setting up a situation and talking about the situation after than actually playing in that situation?
8. What was your most awesome fight online about what does and does not constitute a story-game?
9. When was the last time an indie game made you feel guilty about your race, gender, or sexual identity? Were you more or less woke after you played it?
10. When did you most recently refuse to play a trad game because the central facilitation role was granted too much creative authority?
11. Best unwanted fictional input generated by procedural uncertainty?
12. Best story about waiting for players in a GMless game to finally get to the point in a scene they’ve called for but obviously had no idea why they wanted it in the first place?
13. What’s the most you’ve spent on a Kickstarter game relative to the amount of play it received?
14. What’s the most play-disruptive discovery you’ve made when you insist on playing by the actual printed rules?
15. When was the last time you unironically used the word “diegetic?”
16. GMs: abusers, control freaks or both? Best story explaining why this is so.
17. Do you buy your legal-sized paper by the ream or by the case? Do you ever try to reuse your playbooks or just start fresh every time?
18. What’s your best story about a precious snowflake character some trad player brought to the table because it was “clever?” How did you call them out?
19. What kind of shit-fit did you throw the last time someone tried to schedule your convention game in a ballroom like you’re playing fucking Pathfinder or something?
20. What’s your best story about falling all over yourself trying to rescue a bunch of awesome fiction that just got invalidated after making a fortune-at-the-end roll like some commoner?
21. What was the last OSR game you tried to play, but quit because you realized there’s literally no mechanical support for a storyline at all?
22. How many friendships have you terminated because they confessed they kind of like to play Fate games sometimes? It’s okay. Fate players have to hear the truth.
23. Tell your most scandalous story about getting X-carded.
24. What was the very saddest thing you wrote on an index card?
25. Do you like your scene framing hard, harder, or hardest? What’s the very hardest you’ve had your scene framed?
26. When you interrogate the nature of heroism in your game, do you prefer to directly or indirectly invoke Lacanianism?
27. What’s the very best playtest-stage game your friends probably haven’t heard of yet? How long ago did you play it and how much better was it than the current version?
28. What’s the most interesting period of obscure and unrelatable history you’d like to see a game set in? How would you do it?
29. What indie game tech do you most keenly miss when you play something more mainstream? And then do you denounce the game in person or do you save it for a social media rant?
30. What is your fondest memory of a game you thought was fun before you knew better?
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Great post, Paul. Best one so far!
The Plus is quiet with the hash tag today. At least, my feed is near silent. What did you do, Paul?
😉
If it’s for the reason I think it is, that’s not a good thing. I hope it’s just Friday.
Standing ovation!
Great list of learns.
Yeah I’m going to unfollow you here.
I really dug this question today, and I super dig your answer, Paul.
This is not the first time this week I’ve seen the idea proposed that misinformation/gaslighting in a fictional gameplaying environment is a kind of abuse.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/52w6bx/is_it_immoral_to_gaslight_the_player/
kirin robinson well…It kind of depends on what you mean by misinformation, doesn’t it? Maybe the Reddit thread goes into it, not sure I’m gonna go in there because Reddit.
I’ve used misinformation and asymmetrical information, and they’re great tools. Sometimes! But I’ve also done it in an unethical way, and not only failed to produce the experience I wanted but undermined trust at the table.
Everything good in the world can be misused as well.
Wonderful.
I love that list of things you learned, Paul. The Forge and its descendant culture brought all that to me, and I’m so grateful for that.
You speak from my heart, Paul Beakley. Great list of learnings – most of them apply to me, too.
I’ve really loved your threads this month, and this one most of all. There’s something oddly soothing about this type of open self-reflection, and kind criticism of the many quirks and dogmas of RPGland. All in all, I find your lack of faith refreshing! Thanks.
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