Encouraging Proactive Players

[Quinn]

As a staffer, I also tried to cater plots towards character sheets for the people who showed up. Did someone take a bunch of nonsense points in diving and underwater basket weaving? Then by god, they're going to need to roll those to trap an underwater somethingorother in a basket made from kelp! I loved rewarding people who spent points on character stuff that they probably thought they'd never use.

[Arkandel]

@auspice said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Why is it so much to hope that people might actually take some initiative and go 'page storyteller=Hey, you said to let you know what we'd like to follow up on. I'd like to have a scene where we go talk to that museum curator sometime.'

Because that's how people are. It's also why Storytellers need to stop asking people what they want ran; in my experience if players know what they want - which is rare - they'll let me know. Otherwise I give them what I have in mind, and it just works that way.

The way I handle it at least is that if I'm making a multi-part PrP I have the scenes planned in advance, but they're in a very vague state so they can stay flexible. So if it's a three-scene PrP about a new drug based on vitae, it might be structured like this:

• Discovery (the PCs are approached by a concerned, shaken neonate who gives them some basic facts. This lets the group get together)

• Action (the PCs go to the warehouse they were pointed at in the first scene. There are goons there, who they either walk into surrendering or fight with)

• Climax (the PCs go visit the Ordo Dracul whose identity they discovered in the second scene as the mastermind behind all this. She either gets away, killed or is subdued and delivered to the Prince)

There are opportunities for proactive actions between scenes; they can go on fact finding campaigns about the warehouse or its staff between 1 and 2, or research the Elder by talking to some of her allies and enemies between 2 and 3, or whatever else.

Maybe if one of them figures out something whacky or brilliant then one of those scenes doesn't get to happen; perhaps one of the PCs secretly makes a deal with the Elder who gets away before the party gets there, and the scene becomes about raiding her laboratory and figuring out her ties to the Brood. Or maybe the party use their police connections to get the warehouses raided by cops ahead of time, and I need to come up with something else for them to do in the second PrP - there's always a possibility one of the scenes is invalidated by PC actions. That's fine!

But all things considered I want to have a 'next scene' in mind whether my players do stuff or don't. If they come up with their own plans that's awesome! If not, that's why I get paid the big bucks.

[SG]

@lithium said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

I used to run plots all the time, on several games, when I was just a player on those game. I can explain the two things that have /dramatically/ cut down on my desire to do such.

1. The lack of staff doing something too.

When I get the rug pulled out under me it really kills any desire to do anything further. If I can't actually do anything to create a /lasting/ story, then it kills desire too.

This is one of my peeves when I run things. I love running plots, but when it takes 3 months for staff to process rewards like stolen cars, loot, whatever, it really takes the wind out of my sails. Especially when I see other players running around with all the toys in their inventory, I know someone's processing something somewhere!!

Before I got stuck in the timesink of conan, I was contemplating starting my own google doc for rewards tracking and just running my own campaigns without any staff involvement.

[Arkandel]

@sg said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

When I get the rug pulled out under me it really kills any desire to do anything further. If I can't actually do anything to create a /lasting/ story, then it kills desire too.

That's because something has gone terribly wrong.

The issue used to be staff were super protective of their games and staff were fiercely protective of it. It took a long time if ever to get a plot cleared for running. At some point game-runners realized this was really stupid and relaxed their iron grip on everything, allowing PrP runners a lot more leeway.

This was a good thing.

The issue is that eventually game-runners started not giving much of a shit about their games past just getting them up. With the efforts of coders like Chime and Theno we saw a resurgence of nWoD MU* for example but they were really not that innovative (if at all), and not much actual work went into them. Little pride was invested in these works; we just started seeing one sandbox follow the next, with only cosmetic changes between them ("MY game is going to be ran in CHICAGO you guys!" "Well MY game is going to be ran in the SEVENTIES ooooh!").

Well, that hasn't gone well. One sandbox followed the other, resulting in short spikes of activity followed by idleness. Part of that idleness is what you're reporting - staff who just don't care. To quote Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, they're absentee landlords.

But I think it's a completely separate issue than the one discussed here. Maybe someone should make a thread called "proactive staff".

[SG]

@arkandel Maybe give players the ability to create objects, but they have to have an attribute with a PrP log URL tied to them?

I'm sure a coder could tell me how that could go all sorts of wrong.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@scissors said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Granted, using +event for scheduling purposes makes things easier. +Events are well-suited to certain types of scenes, such as one-off "Monster-of-the-Week" scenes, or game-wide major plot scenes. For ongoing mini-plots and story lines, I think using +Events will only end up with frustrations for the ST.

You've just 'granted,' as if it were a side note, the main utility of +events.

I use them as a calendar. I assure you, it's a hell of a lot better than wading through +mails and hoping everyone has their WhenIsGood set to the right timezone or trying to set something in a Google calendar that nobody checks or or or or or...

I mean what's your alternative for this? I feel like this is blaming a tool when the actual problem is player behavior that stems from a lot of things, lemminging to +events being only a rather small part of it.

I do wish every game allowed private as well as public +events. This feature is pretty sweet! As are notifications an hour or a half hour before something you're supposed to be at is going to start.

[faraday]

@three-eyed-crow said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

You've just 'granted,' as if it were a side note, the main utility of +events.

Right, events are, well... events. Using the event system for an ongoing plotline is using the wrong tool for the job.

I considered adding private events to Ares but it just didn't seem like there was a lot of utility for that. It struck me as the difference between using Outlook to schedule an important work meeting (i.e. +events) and just sending a text (aka page or +mail) to your two buddies coordinating movie night.

[Lisse24]

@three-eyed-crow

I mean what's your alternative for this? I feel like this is blaming a tool when the actual problem is player behavior that stems from a lot of things, lemminging to +events being only a rather small part of it.

That's ... kind of everything I've been trying to say all rolled up into one. I don't think the problem is the players. The problem is the tools. We use bad tools to try and accomplish something that they suck at accomplishing and then wonder why nothing is happening.

You know it's not the players, because when you take the same players and give them different tools they act differently. If you want proactive players, then you need to give them the tools and environment where they can be proactive.

[Roz]

@faraday said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

@three-eyed-crow said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

You've just 'granted,' as if it were a side note, the main utility of +events.

Right, events are, well... events. Using the event system for an ongoing plotline is using the wrong tool for the job.

I considered adding private events to Ares but it just didn't seem like there was a lot of utility for that. It struck me as the difference between using Outlook to schedule an important work meeting (i.e. +events) and just sending a text (aka page or +mail) to your two buddies coordinating movie night.

Disagree. +Events code is, at its core, just a way to schedule something. There's no reason why using it to post when scheduled scenes are (as for an ongoing plotline) is using the "wrong tool for the job."

I'd rethink private events for Ares. They're hugely useful on Arx as an organizational tool. Scheduling is already such a nightmare across MU*s that it helps to ease some of that burden by maintaining a consistent place that people can reference to remind themselves of when stuff is happening that they're involved in.

[faraday]

@roz said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Disagree. +Events code is, at its core, just a way to schedule something. There's no reason why using it to post when scheduled scenes are (as for an ongoing plotline) is using the "wrong tool for the job."

Um... a scheduled scene is the very definition of an event, i.e.:

something that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time. source

The original criticism (as I understood it) was that having an events system to schedule scenes was somehow mucking up the continuous plot followup type stuff that happens between events. That's stuff that IMHO doesn't belong in the events system. It's not a scheduled happening so the events system would be the wrong tool for the job.

[Roz]

@faraday I think the disagreement here is whether something that's an OOC scheduled scene means that it's an IC event. Which I don't think it has to be. For me, and I know for a good number of others, +event is just an OOC calendar. Why shouldn't an OOCly scheduled event go on it even if it's not something that's ICly scheduled? Do we just need to change it to +calendar or something?

[Quinn]

Maybe we all need to agree on the steps that we usually see/take:

1. Event gets posted/shouted, people sign up/show interest.
2. Event gets run, people show up and play!
3. Players RP amongst themselves about things. Perhaps put in +requests for more information and followup (?)
4. Another scene is run either because players have followed up, or plot runner has more to move it forward to try to get people involved (?)
5. Repeat of steps 3-4 as necessary until plot runner gets burned out / until plot is finished (?)

So, is question how to keep that momentum going or how to inspire people who only want to do steps 1 and 2 to move onto later steps? Or both?

[faraday]

@roz I never said it had to be an IC event as in a monumental occasion (maybe someone else did and I missed it?) "Event" is just the standard terminology for the scheduled thingies you stick on calendars.

[Roz]

@faraday Right, okay. Then I don't see why scheduled PRP scenes that are lower-key don't also belong on the calendar.

[Seraphim73]

@quinn said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Maybe we all need to agree on the steps that we usually see/take:

1. Event gets posted/shouted, people sign up/show interest.
2. Event gets run, people show up and play!
3. Players RP amongst themselves about things. Perhaps put in +requests for more information and followup (?)
4. Another scene is run either because players have followed up, or plot runner has more to move it forward to try to get people involved (?)
5. Repeat of steps 3-4 as necessary until plot runner gets burned out / until plot is finished (?)

So, is question how to keep that momentum going or how to inspire people who only want to do steps 1 and 2 to move onto later steps? Or both?

My original question was both, and a little more. I always love players who RP among themselves after an event and put in requests for followup, those who chase down plot-hooks that lead to events (request Strange Sounds Investigation=There's a rumor post (bbread #/##) up about strange sounds at night outside of town, my PC is interested in looking into that), and those who put interesting tidbits into random scenes for other players to grasp hold of.

@scar gave us a great suggestion on T8S, which we ended up calling Quick Missions just because that's what came out when I started typing up the first one: little plot-ideas posted up on a board that people can incorporate in scenes. Like, sidequests in a video game. They require zero Staff input, and can just be run any time, anywhere, by anyone.

Thus far, one of the five or six we've posted has been picked up on.

It feels like these are the sorts of things that people used to do for themselves without prompting, but now they won't even engage in when prompted.

A lot of the ideas and suggestions put forward in the previous pages are great ones. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has noticed a decrease in proactive players and an increase in players wanting events spoonfed to them (okay, I'm sad I've noticed it, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who has).

[mietze]

@seraphim73
I’ll be really honest with you. My experience with your game was being excited about CG/researching/looking at what was on the wiki/chatting with some PCs in the same field also going through CG, etc. I had ideas for hooks and proactive ways to get involved.

I got rapidly approved, which meant the history and hooks were approved. And then when I asked a question about ic setup, I was treated pretty dismissively and rudely, and kind of given not so subtle hints that what I’d made as a pc wasn’t welcome and didn’t fit. Honestly I logged out after that exchange a little in shock (I’d never been made to feel by staff that a pc didn’t belong like within an hour of CG approval where absolutely no concerns were raised) that I just didn’t log back in.

I hope that isn’t a regular occurance but honestly in a historical game, people may need a bit more coaching as to how they get involved. Or if what they’ve researched (as I did) doesn’t fit specifics of what’s wanted.

Putting tidbits on a wiki without much guidance about how to utilize them without annoying the staff might be asking for trouble. If you’re looking for people to run things proactively which is great, but when they approach staff for more details and they get the brush off then that might be discouraging too.

I think proactivity is more dynamic give and take between staffers, runners, and PCs than any group gives it credit for.

[faraday]

@roz I think we're just miscommunicating. Let me try my thesis again from the top with hopefully more clarity...

• The event calendar system (aka +events) IMHO is for scheduling "events" (in the lowercase-e sense of 'a pre-arranged gathering of some description').
• There's no implication that "events" would be momentous in nature.
• There's no implication that "events" would be open to everyone. I think that all events should say who they're geared towards - whether that's "pilots only" "everyone in Westeros" or "just people who have been participating in the Foobar plot".
• There's no implication that "events" are staff-only. They can be for PRPs or even a couple friends gathering. I haven't personally seen events used for smaller gatherings any more than I send Google calendar invites to my buddies for movie night, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't use it for that.
• I think that expecting the events system to provide any other plot management functionality (coordination, follow-up, tracking what happened, etc.) is using the wrong tool for the job.

The only thing I'm mildly opposed to is making a bunch of code/commands for marking events as "private" and limiting who can see them. Firstly because it feels a bit exclusionary, and secondly because it would just add a whole bunch of complexity to a system that I don't personally feel is necessary or valuable enough to be worth the effort.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@faraday
In my experience, unfortunately, you'll get more complaints and bad feelings about "exclusion" if a private event is posted publicly where everyone can see, than you will if who can see it is locked.

Which sucks and is another player-behavior problems, rather than a tool problem, but it does make me hesitant to post smaller-scale stuff on a public events calendar.

[Arkandel]

@three-eyed-crow said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

In my experience, unfortunately, you'll get more complaints and bad feelings about "exclusion" if a private event is posted publicly where everyone can see, than you will if who can see it is locked.

I mean it's not so much a complaint, but I admit sometimes it was disappointing to sit in an Order with little to do while another had 3 Order-specific +events scheduled for the week.

But that's not a problem with the system, it's with the game not having enough plot runners.

[faraday]

@three-eyed-crow Yeah that's a fair point. I guess as a coder I'm just a little less-than-inclined to put a whole bunch of my time into coding special things into a system (and making that system inherently more difficult to use, syntax-wise) just because people can't behave like grown-ups