1KM1KT Free RPG Community

This is inspired by last week's responses. Do you have trouble with getting story games to work? Either because of your own expectations or by your players? Tell us what trips your attempts up.

I've had some success with storygames but I have difficulty keeping them going. It's like they take more mental energy than a classic RPG and players burn out from it. Many times I can see a perfect description in the various results that the games can give, but my players sit there dumbfounded by something they perceive as contradictory. I usually have to give suggestions which then feels like I'm telling the story all by myself. I really think that a lot of players are bogged down by too much choice. I think this happens because they aren't looking to tell a story that emulates the tension of a book or movie, they're trying to 'win' a game. Another factor is energy investment. As GM, I'm used to investing a ton of mental energy into the game. Some of my players have basically said that they want to sit back and let the game happen. They like combat and that's all they're really looking for.

My players have trouble just showing up on a regular basis, so that creates problems with certain sorts of story games (Shock, Polaris, etc.). They don't have trouble improvising story. Heck, a few of them have played completely without rules. Toronto has a lot of people, so finding a few interested in playing story games is easy. But they're mostly older, and gaming has to take a back seat in their lives.

Yes, having a genre helps. Being familiar with the genre imposes a certain set of expectations. But don't ask players to play a Romance genre game without reading a few romance novels, because the expectations won't be established in their minds.

I've never quite grown up with the shared narrative type of game, and still tend to think sessions need to have at least one combat encounter. My players have had a bit of an anarchist bent as well, so shared games would've been difficult.

Furthermore, when you're trying to find a new group of people, they want to see some structure, or have a group leader. You need a bit more familiarity, which make it difficult when you have a revolving group (like a school club).

I'm trying to learn a few games with a greater narrative focus - namely "Mecha" by Heroic Journey Games. (We've mentioned my obsession with giant robots, right?)

I thing my players just want to enjoy the story, they don't want to create it themself. My old group was Playing Game of Thrones, a setteng where, in my humble opinion, you get active and outsmart the others or you die. Maybe I should have killed more Characters to force them to get creative. It's game of Thrones after all.
My new group is the same. They are all beginners and are to affraid to do anything unexpected.

I barely even knew what a ‘story game’ was until a few weeks ago.

It was only on attending a – suggested to me by Monsieur-le-Grand-Chat over these very boards – that I realised how in vogue they were. Turned out I’d been running them for years without really knowing what I was doing.

I’m very much in favour of the ‘let’s all hold hands & tell a story’ approach, but I think Onix is right: the average player doesn’t like it much. They tend to act like you’ve asked them to take out the rubbish at 6am.

The cynic in me says they’re lazy. The idealist understands that we all want to be transported by catharsis without having to observe ourselves having fun.

The impression I got from Indiemeet was that it’s a much easier transition for people used to running their own games.