Earlier this month I attended 1d4 Con held in Charles Town, WV and, for the most part, had a smashing time. I just attended one day, but I played in three games, including running my Alien game \u201cGames without Frontiers\u201d (more on that below), met old and new friends, including James who runs the con, ate amazing tacos at a roadside stand, and generally just had a pleasant time hanging out with other gamers for the day. All great except\u2026<\/p>\n
Except the one player who came really close to ruining my Alien game (and my second ad-hoc game of Into the Odd\/Sytgian Library) \u2013 he has triggered numerous conversations about how to set up convention games for success, as well as getting me to sit down and write this post where I\u2019ll attempt to put some new rules in place for when I (and maybe you) run convention games.<\/p>\n
The situation is not new \u2013 you sit down to run or play in a convention game and while most of the table is collaborative, friendly, and focused on creating a safe and fun space for everyone else, there is one player who starts sending up yellow and red flags early that they are not willing or able to think of anyone but themselves. Maybe they are extremely juvenile in their humor or engagement, maybe they are super-distracted with their phone, or maybe (like in my case) they quickly show that they are at the table to highlight themselves, their character, and their fun \u2013 at the expense of everyone else.<\/p>\n
I have discussed table safety extensively on MUP (especially in these two episodes that I\u2019m very proud of) and how safety tools make sure that everyone at the table gets on the same page at the start of a game to have a fun time. But what I\u2019ve never really discussed or even thought about was what I\u2019m calling \u201ctable fun rules\u201d \u2013 a set of upfront expectations detailed at the beginning of a game that give the GM and table clear boundaries and actions to take to make sure everyone is supporting the table and the collaborative story that we build together.<\/p>\n
(This topic also merges with something I\u2019ve wanted to discuss for a long time around building a \u201cGamer Hierarchy of Needs\u201d and I begin to wander in that direction, turning this into a multi-part post and helping me realize I do need to put down those thoughts. Warning \u2013 this post goes long.)<\/p>\n
So I want to develop a set of tools that GMs and players can bring to their tables that bring the necessary conversations front and center to the table, just like Table Safety, and start weeding out troublesome players up front.<\/p>\n
Let me use my Alien game at 1d4 Con to illustrate why we need these tools.<\/p>\n
Our table of five players \u2013 all of whom were new to the Alien RPG \u2013 was very dynamic and different, with widely varying player personalities, styles, and experiences. The first yellow flags came early when our troublesome player Larry (not his real name) took the one PC that holds a key narrative element and began using that narrative to set himself apart from the other PCs (to my later point \u2013 I need to take care in who takes this PC because they own an important part of the story and they need to be willing to share the story).<\/p>\n
While there was a little friction with him setting himself apart from the rest of the table, I let it ride because the first hour of the game is really just warming up. I re-greased the narrative skids and kept the story moving until, at the halfway point, things went sideways – fast.<\/p>\n
I have run GWF about a dozen times, including multiple convention runs, and I\u2019ve never had anyone ruin the narrative like this – I was caught off-guard so dramatically (and I continued to trust the player to do the right thing) that I let it go too far without correcting and that ended up really challenging the other players to play their own roles.<\/p>\n
Larry jumped past any \u201cfigure out what\u2019s happening\u201d actions and directly tried to instigate combat between the other players and NPCs multiple times, attempting to use his PC\u2019s in-game authority to basically upturn the whole narrative (literally saying \u201cKill him,\u201d \u201cshoot him,\u201d and \u201ctake this gun and destroy him\u201d). There wasn\u2019t discussion with the other players, there wasn\u2019t discussion with the NPCs, there wasn\u2019t consideration for what the purpose of the agenda was that he was using to attempt to instigate combat \u2013 he just tried, repeatedly, to get PCs to kill the NPCs, and when that didn\u2019t work, tried to get the NPCs to kill each other.<\/p>\n
The table was very unclear on where to go with this \u2013 mostly because I was unclear on where to go. I had never had someone take the agenda so literally, so quickly, and try to get into combat in the second act. Technically the PC was following his secret agenda, but it really went against the spirit of the game, and I worked with the other players to bring the narrative back on track \u2013 offering many options that did not include killing the NPCs \u2013 but Larry wasn\u2019t having it. He tried every way he could to instigate combat and was visibly frustrated when everyone else at the table worked around it.<\/p>\n
I even mentioned at some point as the table was getting frustrated, \u201cHe is technically working within the bounds of his agenda,\u201d which he was. But \u2013 and this is the important part \u2013 he was wayyyyyy outside of the bounds of the table\u2019s fun, and his continued efforts really challenged the rest of the table, including myself, to have a good time. (Also \u2013 very important \u2013 this is where I should have said something more direct to Larry, but did not. More on this below.)<\/p>\n
All of this friction took time, and the table fell behind the allotted pacing for fitting into the four-hour slot. I pushed the group to engage with the final act, but Larry would not follow the very clear action his PC needed to take to move the story into its final stage. Every single player that has played this role has moved the story into its third act because that\u2019s what the story expects you to do \u2013 because they were playing with the table\u2019s story and not their own. I even explain this goal multiple times as part of the mission briefing. This is not a matter of miscommunication or unclear agendas \u2013 this became a player refusing to play the game in front of him.<\/p>\n
It all boiled over when, about 15 minutes from the end, as the final scene spun out of control (with gunfire and panic in the true Alien way), the PCs began to retreat \u2013 because Larry\u2019s PC has not done was is needed for the group to be successful \u2013 and another PCs runs past Larry\u2019s PC (who has been critically injured and is having trouble moving) and Larry says, \u201cI shoot her\u201d (meaning the other PC). There was no narrative reason to do this \u2013 Larry was just frustrated that all of his shenanigans have spun the narrative and table against him and got him injured.<\/p>\n
I said, \u201cNo. You can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a really big deal for me, and that\u2019s when I realized that I let the story get too far out of sync and that Larry was now ruining everyone\u2019s fun. I told him he needed to do something else other than PvP \u2013it was now acceptable to shoot the NPCs per the narrative \u2013 and I pushed the story hard back on track. But the damage was done.<\/p>\n
Shortly thereafter the session ended, and the players left, except Larry who asked to play another game with me later. (To which, strangely, I said yes. More on that later.) And with that, my table walked away frustrated and confused with a game that didn\u2019t need to go sideways.<\/p>\n
All of this drama has led me here, and I needed to write down what happened to give detail and merit to the idea that Larry never wanted to be a part of the group, and never had collective story in mind during those four hours. I talked with other players at the table, as well as players who were frustrated with Larry\u2019s behavior in earlier games, and all of these discussions lead to the idea that I needed to do something earlier about making sure the table \u2013 including myself \u2013 had the right guardrails needed to keep one player from ruining everyone else\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
Because that\u2019s what happened, and it\u2019s not fair to everyone else who shows up to do that, including me.<\/p>\n
And while this is not something that happens to me regularly, it\u2019s enough of a thing that anyone who goes to cons has experienced this in some way or another, and it\u2019s bound to happen again. I think it\u2019s time to set some ground rules to help myself and other GMs prepare for it.<\/p>\n
But this means we need to do some real work on ourselves and be willing to have hard conversations. Like Safety Tools, though, it\u2019s really important to get this right. More in Part 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Earlier this month I attended 1d4 Con held in Charles Town, WV and, for the most part, had a smashing time. I just attended one day, but I played in three games, including running my Alien game \u201cGames without Frontiers\u201d (more on that below), met old and new friends, including James who runs the con, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weird8.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}