Things Got Salty: Letting Go of a Player
It's been a few months. Campaigns have ended, new ones started, and then those ended and others began. Had a group break up with one of the players; which sorta took over August as I was readjusting mentally to things. It was a strange experience and felt a lot like breaking up with someone. Telling a player that you can't run games for them anymore is a hard thing to do. It's necessary sometimes though. Like pruning a bush so it can grow better in the long run.
There was a player that had been gaming with me from the beginning that had been playing their own version of every game we played without ever bothering to tell me that's what they were doing. The approach was to play a slightly more dickish version of themselves in every game. So far that's pretty standard RPG character stuff, but the problem arose when he forgot everything that made his character in that specific game unique or useful. Like a wizard forgetting it has spells in D&D. Just nothing that makes any sort of sense if you are trying to play a game.
The player also admitted great difficulty in remembering any of the details of the story or their character between sessions; which incidentally meant the prep emails I sent a few days before each session recapping the events and the write ups I was doing on this blog were not being read by this player which defeated part of the purpose of my efforts. The result of this meant that every game the player was part of they were having a different conversation than the rest of the people at the table and the campaign would dissolve in lackluster efforts from everyone.
Now I'm positive they would tell version of the events: rules too difficult to remember, characters too complex to remember, too much story to remember, etc. But to that I'd say we have spent 2-3 years playing using nothing but games built on the Apocalypse World system, they had a character sheet that was rarely more than a page long, and I sent recap emails within a few days of the game. The straw that broke the GM's back was when they said they wanted RPGs to be like a videogame where they could show up each week, plug in and then unplug and not need to remember anything about the game or their character.
One of my mantras with all players is RPGs are not videogames. That's kind of the whole fucking point. Videogames restrict you to specific actions and limits game space. RPGs allow you the freedom of unlimited customization, that's one of the reasons to play them. Maybe you want to be a crazed barbarian and an Elven hunter fighting a horde of alien monsters instead of some power armored gun toting space marine. Maybe you want that space marine to go AWOL and open a bar on a mostly defunct spacestation that emulates Cheers only with nightly futuristic bar brawls. That's why you play RPGs, because they are limiting your experience.
The more I thought about the descriptions of their approaches and desires for it the more I realized RPGs couldn't deliver what they were looking for at all. They need actual video games, or an improv group, or a masochist GM that only wants to run oneshots for all eternity.
As a GM, it's important to be aware of what the players are expecting/hoping for at the table before you get gaming. Having one player that would want to build a story and loved the idea of having a rich backstory and build them into becoming a badass and another player that liked inappropriate jokes and gave zero shits about building a story with friends or their character's history, made running a coherent campaign difficult. If people are going to be expecting contradictory kinds experiences it's really important to get that cleared up before the game. It isn't impossible to have one player want a lot of combat and another want to sneak around, or be diplomatic, in the same game. It is impossible to have one player playing their own version of each game without telling anyone while everyone else is playing the actual game they agreed to play.
On the plus side of all this, I realized that particular player's shitty approach forced me to become a better GM. All my other groups are running smoothly and the remaining player has since grown immensely as a player in understanding how to get into it and get the most out of it. There was one of those "OH! So THAT is what RPGs are all about." moments after a solo session that warmed the cockles of my GM heart. That player has also brought new players into the group and even wanted to revisit a game that had been sorta botched the last time we played.
It's a shitty situation, but it's going to be better in the long run for everyone involved if a GM let's a player go if it's clear it's just not gonna work. You win some and you lose some.
There was a player that had been gaming with me from the beginning that had been playing their own version of every game we played without ever bothering to tell me that's what they were doing. The approach was to play a slightly more dickish version of themselves in every game. So far that's pretty standard RPG character stuff, but the problem arose when he forgot everything that made his character in that specific game unique or useful. Like a wizard forgetting it has spells in D&D. Just nothing that makes any sort of sense if you are trying to play a game.
The player also admitted great difficulty in remembering any of the details of the story or their character between sessions; which incidentally meant the prep emails I sent a few days before each session recapping the events and the write ups I was doing on this blog were not being read by this player which defeated part of the purpose of my efforts. The result of this meant that every game the player was part of they were having a different conversation than the rest of the people at the table and the campaign would dissolve in lackluster efforts from everyone.
Now I'm positive they would tell version of the events: rules too difficult to remember, characters too complex to remember, too much story to remember, etc. But to that I'd say we have spent 2-3 years playing using nothing but games built on the Apocalypse World system, they had a character sheet that was rarely more than a page long, and I sent recap emails within a few days of the game. The straw that broke the GM's back was when they said they wanted RPGs to be like a videogame where they could show up each week, plug in and then unplug and not need to remember anything about the game or their character.
One of my mantras with all players is RPGs are not videogames. That's kind of the whole fucking point. Videogames restrict you to specific actions and limits game space. RPGs allow you the freedom of unlimited customization, that's one of the reasons to play them. Maybe you want to be a crazed barbarian and an Elven hunter fighting a horde of alien monsters instead of some power armored gun toting space marine. Maybe you want that space marine to go AWOL and open a bar on a mostly defunct spacestation that emulates Cheers only with nightly futuristic bar brawls. That's why you play RPGs, because they are limiting your experience.
The more I thought about the descriptions of their approaches and desires for it the more I realized RPGs couldn't deliver what they were looking for at all. They need actual video games, or an improv group, or a masochist GM that only wants to run oneshots for all eternity.
As a GM, it's important to be aware of what the players are expecting/hoping for at the table before you get gaming. Having one player that would want to build a story and loved the idea of having a rich backstory and build them into becoming a badass and another player that liked inappropriate jokes and gave zero shits about building a story with friends or their character's history, made running a coherent campaign difficult. If people are going to be expecting contradictory kinds experiences it's really important to get that cleared up before the game. It isn't impossible to have one player want a lot of combat and another want to sneak around, or be diplomatic, in the same game. It is impossible to have one player playing their own version of each game without telling anyone while everyone else is playing the actual game they agreed to play.
On the plus side of all this, I realized that particular player's shitty approach forced me to become a better GM. All my other groups are running smoothly and the remaining player has since grown immensely as a player in understanding how to get into it and get the most out of it. There was one of those "OH! So THAT is what RPGs are all about." moments after a solo session that warmed the cockles of my GM heart. That player has also brought new players into the group and even wanted to revisit a game that had been sorta botched the last time we played.
It's a shitty situation, but it's going to be better in the long run for everyone involved if a GM let's a player go if it's clear it's just not gonna work. You win some and you lose some.
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