Warning: This is a rant of epic proportions. You have been warned.
Over on my good friend Martin’s site, Treasure Tables, he linked to a discussion article on 64 skills that players should have. Martin then further extended the theory by asking what skills your players have and doing an assessment their 64 most frequently used skills. Rather than crap on his site and stifle good discussion, I’m going to take a dump right here and pose the question:
Why the fuck would I?
Presumably you’ve looked at the list. A long ass list of 64 “skills” and the one huge omission that I see is “Having fun.”
Again, are people so focused on the mechanics and concepts of gaming that they’re missing the forest while counting the trees (skill trees?). Of course, I’m not one to talk: These days the key skill I look for in a player is “Has a pulse.”
Out of curiosity, how do you do a skill assessment with a player on these 64 (!) skills?
“David, I notice you’re lacking in your ability to ‘Connect emotionally with your character’; anything we can do to help you and your other 19 player skill deficiencies?”
“No, thank you, Comrade GM.”
I am, of course, being somewhat pedantic. Somewhat.
What do I expect from my players? Show up and have fun…everything else is a bonus! In fact, I’m going to throw out a fairly controversial idea that maybe, just maybe, all those years ago when games were just games and we played — instead of over-analyzing why we were playing — that we ought to step back from skill assessments, personality profiles, and shoehorning players into ‘gaming stereotypes’ and just game!
I mean FUCK! I feel like I’m the only one standing here watching the gaming world go to shit while everyone is analyzing why when the reason is right in front of us: Get some fucking passion for playing back! Instead of coming up with the latest “gamer personality chart” so you can try do understand Dave’s “motivation” for playing, why not ask Dave or — gasp! — actually play a game with Dave and learn for yourself?
I see gaming turning down this path from being a social experience to a scientific one. One where we spend too much time analyzing and deconstructing gaming in order to do what, exactly? Have better games?
Are you listening to yourself? Better games?
You want to have a better game? Start freaking gaming!
I don’t mean just talk about it, read about, or even wish about it, I mean do it. Have some passion! Show up to your next game excited to be there, excited to spend time with your friends, excited to take part in something fun. If you can’t do that then don’t fucking show up!
When the game for this week gets cancelled, don’t moan about it…run something! Not every game has to be epic in scope or form…sometimes a game is just a game. The point is to have fun and spend your time in an endeavor with your friends. Gaming isn’t work (well, not for most of us) and playing shouldn’t be either. The day my GM asks me to take a skill assessment of my 64 player skills is the day I walk out of that game.
We’re working so hard to try to build the perfect gaming experience by making sure our campaigns are perfectly crafted, our systems model everything we need, and that our players are comfortable setting the proper “stakes” that it’s akin to trying to create the perfect snowflake; it doesn’t exist. When you do find it, it’s not through painstaking research, categorizing your players into personality silos, or spending 12 hours on game prep…it’s through happenstance and the magic that takes place at the table. The magic that you could not have possibly foreseen.
You know what? Right now I want to game more than anything. I want to call up my friends, invite them to my house tonight and play a game. I don’t know what we’ll play, their skill sets or player motivation, but I do know it’ll be fun.
Too bad I have to baby sit! 
Note: Lest you think otherwise, the original articles linked were nothing more than a catalyst for a rant that has been brewing in me for sometime. It’s not a reflection of my feelings for Treasure Tables or Joshua BishopRoby. So there.
For those keeping score at home, yes, I do feel better now. =)
I love it, and I think you make a lot of valid points.
I fall somewhere in the middle of the theory vs. “let’s just play” spectrum, although I’m probably closer to your end (fun over theory). I do think RPG theory has a lot to offer, though — just not when it’s taken too far.
At the risk of fragmenting discussion even more, I’m going to post about all three of these posts tomorrow on TT — this is a really interesting issue!
I have to say that I too have been having this feeling for sometime, and it was nice to read it coming from someone else. When I was younger I could play that Pink Box D&D game sun up to sun down and it was fun. Just plain fun.
As I got older, I tried to be more sophisticated about my games, and I think I started to think too much about the theory of gaming and the mechanics of gaming,and started to loose some of that fun.
Just up to last year, I was spending time analyzing my players and my own GM style. I spent hours pondering why the stuff I was running now was not as much fun as the stuff I ran when I was younger. I looked over player dynamics, game mechanics, how much prep time I was putting in, what tools could make my prep better, etc. What I was missing was trying to make my games more fun.
This past year I started an Iron Heroes campaign. Typically I would spend months making up a campaign world and various story arcs and the like. Because that is what I thought would make for a richer gaming experience. This time, I decided to start the campaign off with an idea and a one page description of the world. The rest I would figure out when I needed it.
I also approached the game with a relaxed attitude. I use to be one of those GM’s who took himself too seriously. That the players should be thankful that I have decide to run for them. But I changed that feeling, and now I am happy that they want to take time out of their lives to come over and let me run something for them.
I also stopped asking the players to recap the past sessions, as a test if they were paying enough attention the last time we played. Now I write it the re-cap to help them get back up to speed. Again, a GM to serve, not to be served.
I stopped making my games ultra-realistic. I let this campaign be heroic and epic. Where good is really good and defeats evil. No more overly complex antagonists who are in the moral gray area, challenging the players to decide if they are evil or not. Bad is bad, and good is good.
And you know what happened? It started becoming fun again. It is fun for them, and it is fun for me. I like writing the game. I love taking a few minutes to make up a part of the campaign world that I need, when I need it. I like running the game and they love playing it.
So while I do still enjoy talking about theory at times. Before anything, gaming should be fun. And that before I try anything new, or adopt any new GM or Player Theory, I just ask myself, “Will this make my game more or less fun?”
Abulia, you are absolutely right.
The only worthwhile insights I’ve ever had about gaming have been either at the table or through reflection of stuff that happened at the table. Talking about gaming without actually gaming is nonsense; designing games without playing them is sheer lunacy.
And I’ll be right there with you when a GM tries to grade me on my player skills — right out the door.
Quote:
We’re working so hard to try to build the perfect gaming experience by making sure our campaigns are perfectly crafted, our systems model everything we need, and that our players are comfortable setting the proper “stakes” that it’s akin to trying to create the perfect snowflake; it doesn’t exist. When you do find it, it’s not through painstaking research, categorizing your players into personality silos, or spending 12 hours on game prep…it’s through happenstance and the magic that takes place at the table. The magic that you could not have possibly foreseen.
I think you’re wrong. Not on the entire point of your rant. I think you’re dead on that the point of our hobby is to have fun and by too much theory and not enough practice we can loose sight of that. But with this last part you’re essentially saying “There’s no point to theory” And that’s where I have to disagree. There’s ALWAYS neww stuff for me to learn out there as a GM and there ARE definable things that we can study to make our games better. Knowing those things (including knowing our players and tailoring our games to them) is a good way to improve.
That being said, as in all other things there’s a proper balance and chances are, making up a report card with the 64 player skills for each of your players to fill out about each of your other players, then compile and hand back to each player so they can “improve themselves” is a bit too far on the “too far” side. On the other hand, if you, as a player, want to read that list, identify a few things to work on personally, and try to improve, that would be fine. Like so many other things, moderation is the key.
Sorry everyone, I was horrifically sick this weekend and was not ignoring this post nor your replies. Some comments in general:
1) I appreciate that my profanity-laden tirade was taken in the spirit in which it was intended: nothing more than a well-meaning rant, interposed with a bit of humor and an actual point or two.
2) I think a post for a later date — perhaps this week — will be my thoughts on gaming theory in general. This rant kind of puts the cart before the horse and many people don’t know where I’m coming from. By reading the above, you’re probably fairly convinced that I detest gaming theory and that’s not true.
3) After re-reading my post, aside from some structural errors, my feelings haven’t changed on the matter. That’s A Good Thing™, as I’d hate to find myself feeling totally different after that emotional release of near epic proportions and be obligated to backpedal today.
The funny thing is, after posting this on Friday, I *really* did want to game *so badly* and was looking forward to our group’s Saturday game. Mere hours before I became violently ill and had to cancel. Damn karma! =)
DNAphil, I dislike “me too” posts but your well-stated response elicits that feeling in me: After every paragraph I found myself nodding and agreeing.
Your point about becoming “more sophisticated” really strikes home for me, as there is this point in what I consider the “gamer lifecycle” where you become self-aware of your gaming style and preferences. If you run games, it also includes your GMing style and such. At that point we start drawing less from our emotional side (passion, enjoyment) and rely on our intellectual side to craft a good game. Our society is such that we can map out the perfect diet and computerize matchmaking services to find your soul mate, so why not build the perfect RPG game/campaign?
I used to also (until very recently) ask for player recaps as an opportunity to jumpstart the session and as a carrot to earn additional XP. Instead it was work for the players, who really had no interest in doing a recap, *and* they did it badly, defeating the entire purpose of the recap. It’s not that they weren’t interested in the game, it’s just that it’s only a *game* and in that intervening week they had finals, an argument with their significant other, stress at work or any of a million things that we all deal with daily in our lives. Now here I am, on a night that we’re supposed to be relaxing and having fun and I’m giving them more stress and work! What an absolutely horrible idea! (Hindsight, 20:20 and all.)
The next game I run the watchword (for me) will be “fun.” No, I’m not going to try to work too hard to make the game fun, but instead try to let fun happen on its own and foster an environment where it can grow and nurture. I want my next game to have a chance to make my next “Top Ten” list, and worry less about structure, motivation, or any of the crap that gets in the way of just having a good game.
Martin, thanks for your comments. I’ll admit that I was worried that you wouldn’t like the rant or would take it personally, hence the warning phone call ahead of time. =)
After reading your intro bit on Treasure Tables I had an immediate reaction and started writing. I quickly realized that I had a strong, emotional drive behind my words and stopped censoring them. Unfortunately it seemed ill-suited for your site and, frankly, a bit juvenile for me to use TT to “take a dump” and express my opinion. Hence the rant here.
Like you, I’m probably more in the “middle of the road” way of thinking, but sometimes too much theory can actually be “too much;” I think people need to take a step back as the industry is stuck in one of the worst ruts in many years. Are we (gamers) the solution, or the problem? I suspect more the latter.
At this year’s E3 (Entertainment Expo) both Sony and Microsoft duked it out head-to-head with their ultra-hardcore, high-definition video game consoles, the PS3 and the Xbox 360. Both will set you back $500 or more, closer to $1,000 once you add on some games, controllers, etc.
Meanwhile, Nintendo, currently in third place in the console wars, is ignoring HD, ignoring “gee wiz” features and CPU processing power and focusing solely on one thing: FUN. Sure, they have a new interface, but their mantra continues to be to make fun, accessible games that apply to everyone without a steep learning curve or pricing their customers out of the marketplace.
I think the hobby and game industry has more than a few things to learn from Nintendo.
Rick (or should I call you Mr. Algae?), I fear you may have read too much into that paragraph when you state that my position is “there’s no point to theory.” I think gaming theory does have its place, just not at the gaming table. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but the intellectual process of gaming theory removes us from the emotional state of gaming and everything that it brings with it. My point in that quoted paragraph was that no matter how well you craft your campaign adventure, how many hours you spend dissecting your player’s motivations and structuring your adventures around them, and no matter how well you write your NPC’s dialog for the big reveal, it’s the emotion of what happens at the table — the je ne sais quois — where the real fun is had.
I fear that Joshua’s “64 skills” may be getting a bad rap here; it’s just one item in a long list of theory discussions (GNS anyone?) that distract us from the key issue at the heart of the discussion: Having fun.
Well, I had said that I agreed with your priority of fun over “the technically perfect game”, and I did note that it was your closing paragraph in particular, not your entire piece that maligned theory. I also tried to assume that a good deal of your rant was hyperbole. I just wanted to make the point that there are benefits and avantages to gaming theory as long as they don’t get it the way of the fun of the game. If I misinterpreted your point a bit, my apologies.
I do understand your point that focusing too much on technique is counter-productive to keeping in tune with the emotional state of your game, and I agree to an extent, but as a DM who has seen a LOT of technical improvement over the years, I feel safe in saying that the better your technical game (if seemless) the easier it is for your players to have fun. Like all things there’s a point of diminishing returns whenin you’re doing a fine job and too much fiddling or effort won’t be worth the effort and concentration you put into them, but it’s hard to claim you’ve reached that point.
I think Joshua’s 64 skills is a somewhat different than most of what I’m used to seeing in that it’s likely of primary use to players. Most technical help is for GMs because they’re bringing the most to the table. Players are largely expected to show up and a most update their character sheet betwen games. While Joshua’s list COULD be used by DMs it seems so unweildy for this purpose that it would immediately breach the point of diminishing returns. I do think for a player seeking to improve themselves (Independantly. I’d be pretty insulted if my DM handed it to me and told me to improve my play.) that it could be a useful tool in the same way as a GM naughty list is helpful for a GM to evaluate their own performance.
I’ve felt that way for a while, Don. That’s why the last three games I’ve run (Two SAS and one Trek), and the current games I’m playing in (CP2020 and D&D 1E) have been all about having fun. Screw the analysis, just jump in and play! And it’s been working great for me.
I wandered over here from the Harping Monkey.
I hear ya man. I hear ya.
But.
The reason I delve into theory is grabbing those aids, those prompts that encourage THE PASSION to be UNLEASHED!!!!
I’ve played games too long that mechanically are dinosaours. They have no way of supporting Flags, Keys, Co-GM stance, etc. All of those things are designed to get to the Passion of the players. To engage the players. To make it matter.
So, while I hear ya… I don’t agree with you entirely.
Storn, I think, as with all things, that a happy middle-ground has to be found. Extreme viewpoints, such as my own in this rant, aren’t that healthy.
I guess my overarching warning is not to miss the forest for the trees; theory is just a tool to make your games better but many people take it WAY too far.
Game on!