Stories We Tell
Last night, I happened to stumble across a podcast on writing linked off Brandon Sanderson's blog, I believe it was. That particular episode, they were discussing broken promises in stories - how bad they are and how difficult to actually do in a way that works well. They cited a few examples and gave some general explanation - basically it's jarring to the audience to lead them to believe one thing, then turn the story into something else. And they put forth that it only works well when the audience has been sufficiently prepared along the way.
They didn't mention it, but Indigo Prophecy came to mind (and one of the books they did mention seemed to work similarly, actually). The story opens as what seems to be an issue of insanity, where the main character appears to be a murderer, but doesn't remember it. Then, partway through, the story veers toward the supernatural. The change felt sort of abrupt to me, but not so much so that I couldn't go with it. If you were fixed in your expectation of mundane issues, though, it could well be enough to put the game down and not come back to it.
Pick a few movies with big "twists" and compare what works and what doesn't. Usually those that do pull it off seem awesome, and have been laying a foundation for the switch that the audience doesn't fully realize - so when things change, they still make sense.
With other discussions going on, this got me thinking back about some RPG campaigns. In my Midnight campaign, I really wish I'd better discussed what I had in mind - the game suffered seriously from my vision going one way and my audience (the players) having contrary expectations. Or there was the Furry Pirates game where the GM seemed to expect the PCs to be morally upstanding while the PCs pretty well thought they were playing pirates (ie. people out for personal profit without particular moral concerns) and when those expectations hit one another at opposing angles, the campaign died.
I also got to thinking about the Star Wars game I started a while back. In retrospect, I can see some clear difference in player expectations. I started with a couple sessions intended as prologue/backdrop to the main story. Some people seemed to get that, and were eager to move ahead. One player dove right in at that as if it was the campaign I was trying to run. So it makes sense that he's the one who felt upended and betrayed when the beginning academy was blown to bits, while at least two (and possibly all three) of the other players thought it was a cool way to kick off the campaign.
His expectations were not met. Theirs apparently were. But... I'm not clear on why, exactly.
Is this a reflection of my ability to telegraph what was to come? Did I get the point that "this is temporary" across to some, but not all of the players? If that's the case... well... I don't know. Obviously, I need to work on that in order to reach an ideal, but I'm not sure a 1 in 4 failure rate is bad exactly.
Or is it more a matter of what the players expected in the first place? "Star Wars," as a setting, means different things to different people. If one player focused on the aliens and places, and others were looking more at the classic hero's journey story style, that could be the entire issue right there.
Either way, I come back to the fix as being better discussion pre-game of what the campaign is meant to be. And yet, I basically never see that kind of talk about a campaign-to-be in advance. Or... maybe I just need to change my style and give up on GM-storytelling in favor of GM-improvising. I suppose if I'm not trying to tell a particular story, then there's no conflict of expectations between me and the players, right?
But then, that leaves me with little desire to GM in the first place. As I've said before, I've only (at least in many years) taken up that mantle when I had some vague campaign story in mind that I wanted to tell.
If a game, or even scene, doesn't really interest me... why should I do it? And I can ask the same of other would-be GM-types - if I want to see something as a player that they don't want to do, why should they have to run something for me? It seems like there should be at least some mutual interest, shouldn't there?
They didn't mention it, but Indigo Prophecy came to mind (and one of the books they did mention seemed to work similarly, actually). The story opens as what seems to be an issue of insanity, where the main character appears to be a murderer, but doesn't remember it. Then, partway through, the story veers toward the supernatural. The change felt sort of abrupt to me, but not so much so that I couldn't go with it. If you were fixed in your expectation of mundane issues, though, it could well be enough to put the game down and not come back to it.
Pick a few movies with big "twists" and compare what works and what doesn't. Usually those that do pull it off seem awesome, and have been laying a foundation for the switch that the audience doesn't fully realize - so when things change, they still make sense.
With other discussions going on, this got me thinking back about some RPG campaigns. In my Midnight campaign, I really wish I'd better discussed what I had in mind - the game suffered seriously from my vision going one way and my audience (the players) having contrary expectations. Or there was the Furry Pirates game where the GM seemed to expect the PCs to be morally upstanding while the PCs pretty well thought they were playing pirates (ie. people out for personal profit without particular moral concerns) and when those expectations hit one another at opposing angles, the campaign died.
I also got to thinking about the Star Wars game I started a while back. In retrospect, I can see some clear difference in player expectations. I started with a couple sessions intended as prologue/backdrop to the main story. Some people seemed to get that, and were eager to move ahead. One player dove right in at that as if it was the campaign I was trying to run. So it makes sense that he's the one who felt upended and betrayed when the beginning academy was blown to bits, while at least two (and possibly all three) of the other players thought it was a cool way to kick off the campaign.
His expectations were not met. Theirs apparently were. But... I'm not clear on why, exactly.
Is this a reflection of my ability to telegraph what was to come? Did I get the point that "this is temporary" across to some, but not all of the players? If that's the case... well... I don't know. Obviously, I need to work on that in order to reach an ideal, but I'm not sure a 1 in 4 failure rate is bad exactly.
Or is it more a matter of what the players expected in the first place? "Star Wars," as a setting, means different things to different people. If one player focused on the aliens and places, and others were looking more at the classic hero's journey story style, that could be the entire issue right there.
Either way, I come back to the fix as being better discussion pre-game of what the campaign is meant to be. And yet, I basically never see that kind of talk about a campaign-to-be in advance. Or... maybe I just need to change my style and give up on GM-storytelling in favor of GM-improvising. I suppose if I'm not trying to tell a particular story, then there's no conflict of expectations between me and the players, right?
But then, that leaves me with little desire to GM in the first place. As I've said before, I've only (at least in many years) taken up that mantle when I had some vague campaign story in mind that I wanted to tell.
If a game, or even scene, doesn't really interest me... why should I do it? And I can ask the same of other would-be GM-types - if I want to see something as a player that they don't want to do, why should they have to run something for me? It seems like there should be at least some mutual interest, shouldn't there?
I think I accepted the idea of the academy being a temporary thing -- but blowing the place up from orbit wasn't quite what I expected. I was more expecting we'd have started out with some training, having mentor figures for us, and then going off-planet because of a mission or something. Basically, the academy would be 'home base' until we became Jedi Knights (or what have you) at level 8 or so. You'd introduced a lot of NPCs for us to get to know and figure out, and that helped give an investment into the setting -- so removing them was kind of a shock.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest. That works. That works really well. You got emotionally upset about their loss. Ever watch a horror movie and point at people and go, "He's dead, she's dead, he's kinda cool it's going to suck when he dies. He's annoying he has to die."? The disconnect between that and watching a suspense movie and going, "Everyone might be dead by the end but I like them all." is the matter of the GM giving you NPCs you like, but then get offed *coughKushielseriescough* making you want revenge upon those that had done them in. You want justice and vengenace. Driving goals for a character that may not have had many, if any, up to that point.
ReplyDeleteIt might make for interesting storytelling, but the problem is that when I'm faced with a shock like that, it actually takes me out of the game. I already had driving goals for the character - and they were effectively removed. Then I had to deal with a direction for my character I particularly didn't want to face yet. Then I had to deal with the emotional response. To get my character back on track, I actually had to emotionally remove myself from the game, and deal with it as a tactical problem. It became a 'this is broke, fix it' response for me, which meant finding the quickest, most direct path to solving the problem, rather than relaxing, laying back, and enjoying the game and exploring the setting. This isn't a case of 'bad GM', this is a case of 'this isn't what I bought into', and me having to do my best with the cards dealt me - which meant I dug in, fixated on the goals needed to let me relax in the game once more, and push hard for it until I got to that point. No, it wasn't fun. But then, I'm willing to take 'not fun' for quite some time, if I think the end result is worth it -- and getting a chance to play Star Wars under Scott, and getting the opportunity to explore the setting and learn more about the Star Wars universe I decided was well worth the effort on my behalf to remain involved.
ReplyDelete