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Giving Thanks for Players
18 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of Tabletop Tune Up, Mark and Ben express their gratitude for the players who elevate every RPG experience. They discuss what makes great characters—from those with rich backstories and room for growth, to ones that enhance the party dynamic and align with the campaign. Good players actively share the spotlight, support their fellow players, and feed the GM’s creativity. We also explore how GMs can nurture these qualities by building trust, encouraging creativity, and responding to feedback. Tune in for tips on fostering a positive, engaging environment where both players and GMs collaborate to create unforgettable experiences at the table.
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Transcript
Ferengi Brain and Telepathy
00:00:00
Speaker
Perhaps your telepathic skills are ineffective owing to the anomalous construction of the Ferengi Brain, which is composed of four different heroes. Thank you, Mr. Data. Thank you, Mr. Data. Thank you, Mr. Data. Well, thank you, Mr. Data. No, thank you, Data. Thank you, Data. Thank you, Data. Thank you, Mr. Data. Thank you, Data. Thank you, Data. Thank you, Mr. Data. Thank you, Data. Thank you, Data. Thank you, Data. Thank you, Mr. Data. Thank you, Mr. Data. Thank you, Data. Well, thank you, Data. Thank you, Data. You're welcome, sir.
Thanksgiving Spirit in Gaming
00:01:02
Speaker
Thank you, Data. Welcome back. Data must have done a lot of things that occasion thanks. ah Apparently. And well, welcome back. Thank you for being here, Ben. Thank you for being here, Mark. Hey, today we got um kind of got the spirit of Thanksgiving going on, don't we don't don't we, Ben? That's right. And we're going to do something very uncharacteristic of us. Never going to do it again. Never going to do it again. Don't ask for it twice.
00:01:30
Speaker
Today, our episode is about giving thanks for our players. Do we have to, Ben? Look, here's something I've been noticing. As I look around the interwebs, I notice that there are a lot of threads where GMs are frustrated with their players, where people are going, how do I manage this or that problem child? What do I do about this or that situation? And there's a tendency maybe for some carping about what your players are like. But you know what?
00:01:55
Speaker
Something I think I see much more rarely is people saying, hey, you know what? My players are awesome. And I want to tell you what makes them great. And I think that we as GMs play a role in
Creating Compelling Characters
00:02:06
Speaker
that. And that's what we're going to talk about today. ah Ben, that doesn't make a podcat. Nobody's going to listen to that. Nobody's listening anyway. Fair point. Fair point. So we might as well. So we're going to talk nice about our players. I'm not going to, I don't want them to hear this, but like, what is it that we like about them?
00:02:25
Speaker
So here's the thing. There are a lot of things that our players do for us. And the first thing is they make great characters. Great players make great characters. When I think about the kind of characters, I'm really looking forward to building stories around as a GM. I'm thinking about players that give me a lot of great story hooks, that give me a lot of kind of red meat, things I can dig into, and I can i can bring up villains from their past. i can create interesting relationships with NPCs. There's all kinds of stuff you can do.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot of fun, isn't it? When you get a player who just comes with you so with some interesting backstory, but not like so fleshed out that you can't incorporate some of your ideas in the campaign into it. That's just like a lot of fun. Yeah. And it's not just where they originate those characters in their backstory. It's also that a part of the way they've built that character is with room to grow, yeah that those characters will have story elements that they might want to see happen in the future too.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think about sometimes, particularly in those early games when when I was very young, i would I would come to the game with this kind of fully fleshed out character, like, hey, I'm going to play this Elric ripoff or whatever. But you know I'm presenting to the GM a fully fledged level whatever character, but we're going to start at level one. And somehow I have to pretend that this character has had this big, long, rich backstory. And I'm like, that's not what we're really going for here, folks.
00:03:55
Speaker
We want a character with room to become that character. I do remember I was running an adventure and I was talking to one of my players and he had this idea for this really fully fleshed out military operator type. I said, you know, that's really great, but you got to think about the guy who's maybe six months out of boot camp, not the guy who's 10 years on the job.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's like we want we want that early version of that character before he becomes the star so we can get there. Space to grow is very important. You know what I like? Also, I like a unique character. Both in the concept of the character, if you can pull that off,
00:04:33
Speaker
but also in relation to the the characters that are around him. So nothing frustrates me more than having a barbarian in my group and another character comes in later and he creates a barbarian. And you're like, well, you know,
00:04:47
Speaker
had one of those I mean, there is a classic 80s movie called The Two Barbarians, but we're not going for that here. We want to have people, you know, have their unique roles within that party dynamic. So that's another thing I really like about when players come with that. Yeah. And I think a part of that, right, is not just contributing to the flow of the group, but also contributing to the group's story in the campaign. A great character is one that actually fits within the flow of the campaign that you've pitched to the players.
Collaboration in Storytelling
00:05:16
Speaker
So like what you mean is if you're playing, let's say you're going to play a Firefly, this was a Western fantasy, you know, game, and you come in there with something diametrically opposed to that campaign idea, just, just to almost spite the gym or maybe, you know, you you're, you're coming up with something that's campaign appropriate. Yeah. Great players are wanting to collaborate with you in that story, uh, in the development of the campaign.
00:05:46
Speaker
We'll talk more about that, of course, when we talk about the great players' relationships with the GMs. But the first point, overall, what we love about our players, the thanks we would like to give to the players that play with us is thank you for creating great characters. Yes. And Mark, another thing we're thankful for is that great players make other players better.
00:06:06
Speaker
heck yeah, they do. When you kind of understand those other players and those characters they're playing, you can help elevate your character and you could play with with them alongside them and give them lots of good ideas as well. Yeah, I know great players are usually looking to help players at the level of the player understand the game a little bit better. They're looking to help people understand the tropes and the narrative elements, the things that are going to make that game great. And they also like to see other characters shine. They like to see other characters have their moments. And to your point about understanding other characters, if you don't really understand what those other characters are doing, then, of course, it's very difficult to know how to find that moment for them to be great. Yeah.
00:06:55
Speaker
You're really, by by understanding those characters and giving them place to shine, you're extending the story for everybody at the table, not just you. You're extending it for the players, the other players, and for the GM. To do all that, you need to be paying attention. So ah great players pay attention. They're watching the other players. there's They're not just sitting there on their turn waiting for their turn. They're they're watching the other players, seeing what they're doing, and reacting in accordance. Yeah.
00:07:24
Speaker
So the second thing we're super grateful for with our players is that they're helping other people be better as players. And then also they're helping you be better as a GM. Mark, what is it that great players contribute to you as a GM?
00:07:39
Speaker
Well, one of the things that a great players, they give me ideas, they give me inspiration. you know They're reacting to things that I'm throwing out there, whether that's good or bad. A bad reaction is just as informative as a good reaction. So they're giving me feedback, even with something where they go, ugh, or they roll their eyes. I appreciate even that, to be honest, because I now know that maybe this is the direction I don't want to go.
00:08:04
Speaker
One of my favorite lines about feedback, uh, I learned from some people at work and they said, feedback is like a wedding gift. You don't always have to like it, but you always have to say thank you. That's true. So that feedback is important. Um, and those reality checks are also important, but I love players who take notes because I am not a good note taker. Yeah.
00:08:31
Speaker
So I always appreciate that one player who's writing down the name of some NPC I just rattled off. And I forgot to circle it on my list and I'm like, heya Hey, Hey, what was that an NPC's name? I've done that. I've done that. Slippy a little inspiration on the side here. I'm so grateful for those players that are actually paying as much attention to my stories. I should be. Yeah. Great players are not just paying attention to the other characters and the other players and trying to elevate their games. They're also helping use a GM.
00:09:01
Speaker
by paying attention to what you're doing with the story, taking notes and elevating your game too with feedback and helping keep track of information.
Trust in Gaming Experiences
00:09:09
Speaker
And one of the things that is really at the core of all that I think is that good players really do invest some trust in you as a GM. And they know that when you're getting together, you're doing your best to lay down ah a track for them to follow, to lay down a storyline for them to journey through. And hopefully for everybody to have fun doing it.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, you know what? And we we talked about all these different things that players do with their characters, how they make their there ah friends better at the table, and how they make you as a GM better. And honestly, the best players can do all these things. And they are out there, folks. This is not out of the realm of what's possible.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah. Now, Mark, some of this is something that we as GMs take a little bit of responsibility for too. And I think of it this way, you know, good players aren't born, they're made. And a lot of times we as GMs can create bad players or at least the kinds of experiences that bring the worst out of our players. But conversely, we can do a great job of creating the kind of environments that really inspire people to become great players. So what are some things we can do as GMs to help players be the kind of players we hope to play with?
00:10:23
Speaker
Certainly, you know come prepared, bring your best stories, entertain them. you know you you you want to Trust is built by inspiring them, creating that story that they want to experience. so Let's start with that story. you know In many other sessions, we talk about starting slow. You're going to build up that repertoire. You're going to build up that trust during that whole process. What are some examples? How do you build trust with players like that?
00:10:49
Speaker
One thing I like to do, particularly with new players, I like to do kind of tutorial sessions. This is kind of like a ah a building exercise. You ever play a video game band and they're trying to get you accustomed to the controls of the video game?
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, ah you have those kind of early levels where they're just telling you how to turn left and right and speed up and slow down and find your inventory and stuff like that. Yeah, I kind of do something similar. This is, of course, if I'm playing with players who've never played a game before. What we're doing is we're setting up the rules of the game, but we're also incorporating into the the theme of a story. So in one of my earlier games, I set up this Olympic style event.
00:11:26
Speaker
And in this Olympic-style event, it was like like a contest of heroes. And it's all in celebration of heroes. So we're going to go through all the different things that heroes kind of do. There could be physical checks that you have to do, aiding checks where you aid another person in an action. And during the course of this, you're using the rules of the system to show how this is done. But you're also teaching the players how to rely on each other.
00:11:51
Speaker
how to build that trust in each other and then you as a storyteller because you're setting the foundation of what they're going to be doing in the future. Now what's interesting is you're talking about an example I'm familiar with, an example from Dungeons and Dragons, but you could do this for other kinds of game systems too. In a science fiction game you could do the intro level, hey you've got to prove yourself before you're allowed to take on missions for the rebellion or whatever.
00:12:15
Speaker
Ben, do you remember that many Starship troopers? Oh, yeah. That whole like intro level where they're training at the base. They haven't quite gone off to fight the insect alien things, but like they're all training. That essentially is what I'm talking about. In those scenes, they're building trust in each other. They're building that trust in the storyteller and the other players. They're also building a great deal of fear for Sergeant Zim. Yes.
00:12:43
Speaker
Lovely. Well, I think another sort of wrinkle in this, too, is that if you're as a new GM, not really sure if you're ready to do tutorial adventures. You're not quite sure how to put one of those together. um I do think you can find a lot of great starter boxes out there these days. Whenever I buy a new system, I usually buy three things. I buy whatever their core book is.
00:13:02
Speaker
I buy their GM screen, a couple episodes we talked about tools the trade, and I love GM screens just for reference. But then thirdly, if they've got a starter box, usually it comes with a little short adventure, any kind of tutorial information you need, kind of an on-ramp, some pre-generated characters. And it's really enough, sometimes I'll buy that to start and just see if if people even like it enough to continue. And it's a great way to get started. And also, by the way, it's a great way to kind of learn how tutorial adventures go.
00:13:29
Speaker
That's some great insight, Ben. Let's talk real quick about, I mean, I mentioned that just a little bit. Let's talk about inspiring their creativity and how that can create great players. Because if you're giving your players moments to shine, where they can let their imagination loose, those are some of the best moments at the table when you've allowed them to create stuff. Yeah, one of the things we've talked about consistently on this podcast is that one of the things you want to do with your players is you want to give them a way to help you build.
00:13:58
Speaker
When we talked about world building, a lot of the things we said in there was, you know, give players a way to create the context in which their characters kind of emerge or give them a town in your world to build or define. Try to bring your players into that creative process. In addition to what happens at the table when you're actually in encounters, in sessions, you're also going to see them getting really engaged and inspired and creative when it comes to how they build stuff.
00:14:24
Speaker
And then sometimes you can bring those together. And Mark, I'd like you to tell our listeners about an example of that from one of our favorite Goliaths. Tell us about Roazira's domestic turn. Oh my gosh. we We had a situation where the players passed on into the other life and they were in this, maybe some sort of idealized version of what their afterlife would be. And the goal was the other players were going to try to bring them out of it because they needed them for this adventure. Right. You can't stay resting here. You've got to come out of this afterlife situation and get back into the game.
00:14:55
Speaker
It wasn't their time. So they were kind of trapped in this afterlife that they're all making. So I told the every player, you're in charge of this next session. This is your session. You're going to run the show. You're going to create this afterlife for your character. And we're going to see what the other players can do to bring them out. I didn't know it was going to happen. They knew it was going to happen, which was terrifying for me as a GM because I'm literally heading down the reins for a session.
00:15:24
Speaker
and Literally, that means that for four characters in this group, you had four sessions where we're going through the potential idealized afterlife for them. yes so our are fearsome barbarian rosiea the mighty this fearsome warrior that you know just was splitting skulls all the time. All the players arrive at Rosera's place. And she's got this little idyllic house and she's baking cookies. It was just one of the funniest things. But it was also such a creation of this character that we loved it. And we appreciate that. So thank you, Rosera out there. Yeah, I was gonna say it is very hard for listeners if you
00:16:08
Speaker
weren't familiar with this to really understand how deep the contrast was between this Nordic, Goliath-flavored, hard-bitten warrior accustomed to scarcity versus this afterlife which was full of bakery smells and fresh flowers and springtime sunshine, and then we had to pull her out of it.
00:16:33
Speaker
But just to go kind of go back, we're allowing them to inspire the GM and the other players. and That trust had to be there to even do this. Give your players some trust. If they've earned it and you feel like you've earned it as a GM, give them some of that trust. Let them create, let them cook. In addition to doing that with world building and the other big parts of the campaign,
00:17:00
Speaker
Also, it's going to be really important when you're doing that in sessions, and we've talked about the importance of listening before, reading the room. One of the things that I think is really key here is that when you do a good job of that as a GM, you teach players to become proactive
Understanding Players' Preferences
00:17:17
Speaker
and engaged. When you're responsive, that's the incentive that tells them, hey, I can contribute, I will be heard, and I can engage with this and get really creative with it.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's interesting because it also makes them want to pay much more attention because they don't want to miss anything. Because if they feel like they could you know jump in and collaborate, they're going to want to be there for it. Do you have any examples of of maybe times at the table where you've done this, where you've been able to read the room, catch something, bring something out?
00:17:52
Speaker
Lately, I'd started running a group on the Wild Beyond the Witchlight. This is a fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons and adventure where characters go into the Feywild. There's a lot of whimsy, there's a lot of classic fairyland kind of stuff. And it took me a few sessions with this group. I gotta say, I got lucky in this case. The more I was listening to what they were responding to, the more I could see that like, hey, when we get into this fae world, these guys are going to have a great time and I need to lean into the idea of whimsy and
00:18:22
Speaker
maybe a little bit of ah tapping on the fourth wall. And this ultimately became what we sometimes call a beer and pretzels game, where it's a great opportunity to hang out with your friends. That was something I would not have discovered was the right sort of mode for these guys. I am the kind of guy who his first impulse will be, let's do a version of the Silmarillion. Let's do high fantasy with ah deep drama and all these kinds of things. And you got to set that aside. Yeah, you you you fell in love with that, didn't you? Yeah, you got to not fall in love with your ideas. We've said it before. Yeah. Mark, what can you unwrap that a little bit more? When we talk about not falling in love with your ideas, what kind of ideas are we meeting? And whatever wacko ideas you get in your head. I do this a lot. like i I used to fall in love with, I mean, I still do. I fall in love with this idea in my head. It's this great story, this thing I'm going to tell.
00:19:14
Speaker
And sometimes that's just not what they want to hear. You can just go read the room sometimes. You'll find out that maybe maybe that's your love, not theirs. There's the module no one wants to play, the NPC nobody really cared about when you really wanted them to care about them. yeah um There's that clue that nobody found. There's a story nobody wanted to sort of follow through on.
00:19:35
Speaker
If they're not into your ideas, it doesn't say anything negative about you. It doesn't really even say anything negative about them. It's just what they're into. And it might just be that moment too. But like you're talking about that beer and pretzels group, maybe they've just been working for like, you know, all week and it's Friday and they just want to unwind a little bit and they don't necessarily want to be reading the Silmarion.
00:19:56
Speaker
You've got it exactly right in the first case. So let's just like get a sense what your players like, understand that they may not be into what you're into, but just find a good place. Find a fun place where you can all be.
Time Management and Rule Disputes
00:20:08
Speaker
Ultimately, this is just a social experience, friends. So the important thing is.
00:20:12
Speaker
Make it a great social experience, whatever form that needs to take, whatever ideas get that done. It's subjective because, remember, players are going to be inspired and creative and they're going to have their own reasons for wanting to come and play. They're going to see different things in their head. You've got a role to play in that. But ultimately, it's whatever it is that's turning things for them is what you got to pay attention to. Yeah. And just to carry on bringing it back into context of the players and why, you know, how to make them be great players, find what they like. Yeah. If they're en enjoying themselves, they will become great players. That's right.
00:20:47
Speaker
Well, there's one other thing that I think is probably worth talking about for the GMs out there. ah One of the things about this kind of game, about role-playing games in general, is that they're very time intensive. yeah And so it's really critical that you use the time well. A lot of games fall down when people are spending too much time between turns, when there's too much time spent in books, looking for that one weird rule.
00:21:12
Speaker
So it's really important for you to use the time well. And if you do it, it feels like four hours passes in no time at all. If you don't use the time smartly, it feels like a slog. And this goes to the players as well for you out there, those players out there.
00:21:28
Speaker
You know, use your time well too. Be ready on your turn. Don't waste the table's time going on inside tangents when you only have a few hours to play. We love, we love having little tangents. That's why we all get together. Get those out of your system before the game starts. That's right. Probably for the first 15 or 20 minutes, people are just going to be catching up and unwinding. And it turns out that's actually really important because people have to get into the mindset of playing in that game. yeah And to your point about coming from work, whatever it is that they were doing just before they were playing that game with you, people just need a minute to unwind. And if you give them that and then get into the game from there, you're going to find it's a really helpful technique. Yeah. So I think that kind of covers up our appreciation for our players and also like how you can make your players better and how your players can make you a better GM.
00:22:25
Speaker
We are very thankful for you, for our players out there. We're also thankful that you send in your tune-up segments.
00:22:38
Speaker
Wow, you kind of clumsily clawed your way through that. I feel like that was definitely amateur hour on that segue, that's right. yeah but um What do we tune it up today, Ben? We have this tune-up request that says, hey, we occasionally get rules questions at the table that derail our games. Some people want to stop until we get it right and find the one thing on that one page. Others are complaining that it feels like all the momentum drops out of the game if you spend too long in there. How long should we spend looking for answers in rule books during our games?
00:23:11
Speaker
Oh my gosh. yeah Half is spent looking up Jeremy Crawford, uh, links. What does he tweeted lately? Yeah. Yeah. We didn't. Where's the Reddit thread for this? Exactly. We've wasted a lot of, um, time looking up rules. Haven't we been, I think that's time wasted.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think when you're in the middle of a session, there's a lot of people that will advise something like this. And I think it's probably right. They'll say, if you can't find it like in 30 seconds, if you really don't know and you can't find it, then figure out something that seems fair. Float that with the players, right? So step two is kind of make sure that everybody's on board with something that seems like a fair ruling for how you might do that.
00:23:53
Speaker
And then thirdly, move on and find it after the game is done. I think in that case, very rarely are you going to find that the rules after the case would have been so different that you'd have had a really dramatically different outcome.
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah, one thing i'll I'll note here, Ben, is since I've played a lot of games with random groups here and there, that's a difficult one to pull off with people who have not established trust. Now, I can do this with my regular players all the time. I'm like, hey, we're just going to go with this rule for right now. We'll look it up and in between sessions, and I'll let you guys know what the the actual ruling is. And my players are usually OK with that. I did find with groups that I don't know the players too well,
00:24:32
Speaker
Sometimes there might be one player who really has a hard time because we haven't we don't know each other. We haven't built that trust. Now that's interesting because in those cases, what I think I would probably do, and I've done this a few times with people I didn't know well or people who especially were very, tended to be very rules, lawyer, kind of critical. And those are fine people to have in your groups too. The thing you do in that case, I think is that you say, all right, well look, we're I'm going to rule it this way. And while we're waiting for that next turn to come up for you, why don't you dive into the book and figure that out while I attend to the rest of what's going on in this session. Oh, that's great. In those situations where I just don't know the players too well, or maybe it's just like a one shot, I usually err more on the side of the players because it's it's their game. I mean, they're here to have fun. If I'm going to make a decision, usually yeah I will i'll do it. Since I don't know, and I should know, yeah I usually will err on the side of the players. But this these are both wonderful options.
00:25:26
Speaker
You know, what's interesting about that is I remember earlier in my role playing GMing career, I might roll a dice or I might try to randomly determine whether a certain decision cuts for or against the players because of course dice seem fair, right? But I think to your point, like the further on I get, the more I'm like, well, this is a little opportunity for me to buy some of that Goodwill.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah, the dice is not going to build any a rapport with the players. you know like You're going to want to take charge of that. So I think your your more mature version is is a better one. And also, ah you know folks, the main thing is we don't want to just lose momentum. If your game's got momentum, don't let a ruling ruin that.
00:26:06
Speaker
Well, Mark, I hope you have a great Thanksgiving coming up. For all of you out there, we hope you have a great Thanksgiving and a great holiday season. Of course, we're going to continue to be here producing great episodes to tune
Thanksgiving Wrap-up
00:26:16
Speaker
up your table. And until we see you next week, keep those dice rolling.
00:27:59
Speaker
Come get your tuna, it's time for your tuna. Your kids are tuna.