Getting the Most out of Your Players
Jim Vassilakos (jimv@uia.net)
Traditionally, the scope of player
creativity has been limited to character
actions and character background, and
in most games even this allowance is
circumscribed by the game system:
Player: My character was the son of
the king and first in line to the
throne before his father was
assassinated by an evil cult.
Other Players: Ooh… a prince.
GM: I don't think so. Roll percentile
dice for social status. Ooh…
peasant. Roll again to see if your
mother was a prostitute.1
In some campaigns players attempt to
distinguish their characters by
acquiring unique personal equipment:
Player: Can I get some big, hollow
antlers built into my helmet and
fill them with healing potions?
That way I'll be able to run a
spigot down to my mouth so I
can heal myself during combat!
Other Players: Ooh…beer antlers of
healing. Can we get some too?
GM: Umm…no and no.2
Or by their animal companions:
Player: Can I get a beefy guard dog?
GM: Sure! He humps your leg as a
sign of affection.3
Player: No! Down, boy! Down!
In writing these examples, I'm
obviously making fun of both players
as well as GMs. As Max Cairnduff
argued in Places to Go, People to Be
#26, many players seek ways to
1
Another option, of course, would be to
allow each of the PCs to have heroic
backgrounds. One plays the prince,
another the nephew of an arch-mage, yet
another the daughter of the master of the
thieves' guild, etc.
2
Or, the GM could simply call it a
masterwork item and allow it, perhaps
throwing similar silliness into the
campaign at various intervals.
3 6
Or, the GM could allow one of the other
players to play the dog (as well as playing
one of the bipedal PCs). Every gaming
table has a resident Mr. Silly (possibly the
best player at the table) who would
probably jump at the chance to roleplay his
own version of Scooby Doo.
enlarge their power in order to make
themselves look cool4, and the GM's
job should be, in part, to stop them.5
However, even assuming that one is to
take this argument for granted, it's still
possible to introduce methods to foster
player creativity without necessarily
caving in to their need for self-
aggrandizement.
Some enlightened GMs have gone in
the opposite direction, trying to
expand possibilities for player
creativity. For example, my recent
Warcraft GM asked everyone to do
session write-ups from our respective
characters' points of view. Likewise, in
some of the games that I've GMed,
characters have invested their loot into
castles or starships. Such ventures will
often prompt the players to create
detailed floor plans or hire NPCs to
guard or operate their characters'
investments.
Here are some more ideas:
Shared Character Histories: One
character being a prince isn't a
problem so long as the other
players don't object. Perhaps it
might be advisable to allow the
players to edit and approve each
other's character backgrounds with
only minimal GM intervention.
Players Playing the Monsters: I've
talked about this one several times
before, but it's worth mentioning
again. It might work particularly
well in a high-mortality campaign
where one or more players find
themselves PC-less toward the end
of a particularly violent session.
Players as Co-Designers: In one
campaign I ran, the players created
many of the spells their characters
4
Not a great problem until this comes at
the expense of the narrative or the tone of
the campaign. On the other hand, shouldn't
the players have a role in determining the
narrative as well as the tone?
5
See my comment to Paul Cardwell in
A&E #364 for more on my specific
thoughts. I contradict myself a bit in this
essay, but perhaps there's room for
contradiction. After all, not all players
abuse the rules, and as Uncle Figgy
suggests, perhaps, with the right GM,
munchkins can evolve into mad gamers.
ended up using on a regular basis.
However, I've recently been
thinking of extending this idea to
non-human races or even entire
nations. Suppose we say to our
players, "If you design it, I'll find a
way to use it." Then, a session or
two after they hand you some nifty
race, suddenly they're meeting
members of this race and learning
about their culture and society. I'd
imagine that the players would
take a greater interest in the game
as they see their various ideas
"coming to life" as it were. Of
course, this could also decrease the
GM's workload as well as infuse
new ideas into the campaign.
Players as Movers & Shakers: In
order to move the events of the
setting, the GM will often develop
a political situation and then
decide how it unfolds. In this way,
a political backdrop is provided,
and as the players increase in
power and influence, they may
eventually take part in the
campaign's major, world-shaking
events. However, in order to catch
their interest early, it might be
useful to allow the players to pull
double-duty, playing their
characters but also taking a few
minutes out of each session to play
the great leaders of their time, the
NPCs who make decisions of war
and peace.6 In this way, instead of
the GM telling them what's going
on in the world, they're the ones
who are in large part deciding
what's going on. They'll actually
be able to see the political
mechanisms at work, and the
campaign may well take on an
entirely new dimension as they
become more involved in this
evolving political backdrop.
While all these are methods by which
player-creativity can be encouraged, I
There are, of course, possible pitfalls.
Dave Coleman talks about some in his
article "Damn Your Logic! Or, the Art of
No Compromise" in the latest issue of The
Larper (see
http://www.thelarper.org/issue_winter_200
4/compromise.html).
think the most important thing of all
for a GM to remember (and, perhaps
conversely, the easiest thing for a GM
to forget) is that it's a shared story. I
was cleaning my desk just now and
found this forgotten note that I'd
written to myself.7 It more or less
sums up what I see happening in many
of the games that I've visited over the
years. The note reads:
It's not that a game is hacked up and
it becomes only a play.
It's that play is hacked up and it
becomes only a game.
To take a stab at translating, I think
what I was getting at is that it's bad
enough that many games are run as if
they were movies with little or no
player direction over the plot. (The
GM simply tells the party the mission,
and then they go and do it.) What's
even worse is that when this happens,
the wonder seeps out of the whole
experience, and all that is left is to
move miniatures around the table and
participate in the largely mathematical
exercise that is RPG combat. The
question is no longer, What shall we
do? It is instead, How much damage
can we sustain while we're doing what
the GM's NPC told us to do? And,
though apparently hugely popular, I
often find such campaigns to be
terrifically boring.
The lesson, I think is simply this:
Find ways to give the game to your
players, and your players will reward
you by turning the story into
something far more interesting than
you could have come up with yourself.
That, at least, has been my personal
experience.
Comments on A&E #364:
Myles Corcoran: re Aliens in
Ragamuffin: They vary. I’ll try to do
an article on it for an upcoming issue,
or perhaps just post them online.
Joshua Kronengold: re GMing
Workshop: You argue that the GMs in
my example seem to be trying to mold
the "hotseat" GM toward their own
style, possibly while working on
insufficient information as to whether
or not said GM's established style
7 9
Perhaps I was in a somewhat altered
state when I wrote it…too much caffeine.
works or doesn't work. Yes, I see your
point. However, perhaps in this
circumstance, the hotseat GM could
respond, "But wait. I'm doing such-
and-such because of such-and-such
reasoning. Let me continue, and you'll
see that this is a feature, not a bug."
And then the others around the table
could weigh in, but the hotseat GM
would have the final say on what sort
of methodology he or she is using.
In any case, my worry with respect
to waiting until after the session is that
critiques are more valuable when
they're immediate. Otherwise, there
might be confusion as to exactly what
is being critiqued and what the
alternative behavior might have been.
In any case, those are my concerns,
although I'll grant Myles Corcoran's
comment that this method
unavoidably breaks "flow", perhaps
cramping a GM's style to the point of
crippling it. But perhaps there's an
intermediate solution somewhere
between our two perspectives, and
perhaps a process of trial-and-error
would iron out the kinks.
re my writing not being as good as a
number of the contributors: That may
well be the understatement of the year.
I was re-reading my zine for last issue
and was mortified to note that it’s
chock full of embarrassing typos and
other assorted goofs. I seem to be in
desperate need of an editor.8
Nonetheless, my goal wasn't to teach
Lee or anyone else to write as I write
(to do so would be a disservice to Lee
as well as to the readership). My goal
was to offer an idea on how to criticize
constructively so as to better maintain
the civility of the APA.9 Regardless,
you're correct in surmising that it
probably wasn't a terribly constructive
use of my time. Speaking on such
topics rarely is.
re Lee using irony rather than
sarcasm: Well, now that you mention
it, I actually found her comment
doubly-ironic, though probably not
intentionally so. I'm somewhat
doubtful that our thoughts on this
coincide. Nonetheless, rather than
discuss it in the APA, I think it would
be better if we were to pursue it over
private email. Please feel free to write
me with your thoughts.
8
See “OOPS” at the end of my comments.
Please see the concluding paragraph of
the second half of my essay in A&E #363.
re AIs: I guess I was operating from
the Unix mindset of there being a root
process from which all others are
spawned. I’m no guru, mind you, but
this was my general understanding. In
any case, as you say, the multitasking
could be handled either by the AI-
consciousness literally juggling
different tasks or by it spawning
copies of itself. Or, a third option
would be the AI already being
composed of multiple conscious
entities.10
re Ragamuffin and the necessity for
hydroponics ASAP: Right. Without a
long-term food source or lots of
freezerinos (cold berths for suspended
animation), there would eventually be
a food shortage.11 As usual, you’re
making excellent points.
Lee Gold: re the pursuit of multiple
plot threads: Pursuing multiple threads
simultaneously or by splitting the
party is possible, but if the PCs are all
together, disagreements can arise as to
where the party should spend its
efforts. This can usually be resolved
by a party vote. But what if feelings
are particularly strong? What if it's
truly a dilemma? And, perhaps
perversely, these are exactly the sorts
of situations I like to construct as a
GM. By putting PCs in a circumstance
where they must sacrifice one thing in
order to achieve another, it often
forces them to make difficult moral
decisions, and it is within those
decisions that they really define their
characters in a way that bloody battle
just can't accomplish.
re “trying to get people to think”:
You make some good suggestions
here. Also, for what little it may be
worth, on the political topic you
mentioned, as more information has
been coming out I've found myself
increasingly questioning my former
suppositions. In any case, rather than
write about this here, I'll save my
thoughts for the blog.12 However,
perhaps you can help me a bit. You
know, I'm somewhat of a conspiracy
theorist13, and this whole yellowcake
10
See my comments to Myles Corcoran in
A&E #364.
11
It was partly this realization that led me
to write my article for A&E #337.
12
http://www.livejournal.com/~jim_vassila
kos
13
See my article for A&E #331. Also, on
the topic of that article, it has recently
forgery14 has my curiosity piqued.
Who do you think was behind it?
re “soothing lies”: You make more
good points. It may well be the case
that you have identified a weakness in
my own character. I tend to be
indecisive and non-confrontational,
probably to a fault. Hence, while time
and enjoyment were both issues, I
blamed only the former, perhaps
because I didn't see much good
coming from blaming the latter, and
hence blaming, in effect, the GM.
Perhaps I should shift toward your
way of thinking and seek some form
of solution even if I fear that it might
be viewed as being tactless. As you
indicated, there may have been a more
creative solution to be had. In any
case, I’ll mull over your ideas and
consider applying them in the future,
but thank you for taking the time to
finally explain them.
re "putting words in your mouth":
What I felt it necessary to object to,
originally, was your use of what I
considered to be "hostile words" such
as "lying" and "hypocrisy" in what I
perceived as a rather offhand, non-
explanatory manner. Putting together
the words and the manner in which
they were phrased, I thought it
possibly constituted a "cheap shot" 15,
and so I wanted to rephrase your
comment into a way that would
demonstrate what I thought was a
preferred way of making the same
come to my attention though a second-
hand source that Ruby might have died
from arsenic poisoning, a fact or fiction
that should be possible to clarify by
exhuming Ruby's corpse. If it were true, it
would be, at least to my mind, indisputable
evidence of there having been a
conspiracy. As for whether or not my
source will step forward to publicly tell his
story, I'll leave that to his discretion.
14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake
_forgery
15
I'm not saying that this was your
intention. I'm merely saying that this was,
at least for me, a possible interpretation of
your comment. Since I was already on the
subject of how we interpret and deal with
comments, both constructive and
otherwise, I figured that your comment
supplied me with an opportunity to
illustrate the proposed method I'd just been
discussing in my essay. Granted, of course,
this wasn't by mere happenstance.
Nonetheless, I wanted to discuss your
comment in a thorough way that I hoped
might be interesting and from which I
hoped others might profit.
point. This, I thought, would allow us
to discuss what I guessed to be your
underlying concerns, which I thought
were valid and worthy of a discussion.
In any case, since you find such
rephrasing objectionable, I'll do it with
respect to your comments no longer.
However, I'd appreciate it if, in the
future, you'd likewise take care with
your word-choice, so that we can
discuss areas where we disagree rather
than resorting to the sort or tit-for-tat
that often occurs when people feel
unnecessarily slighted by these sorts
of "hostile words" used in non-
explanatory ways.
In summary, I think it's far better to
respectfully disagree rather than to
disrespectfully disagree. And I think
that if one party inadvertently uses
hostile words, that this should be
pointed out and dealt with so that a
genuine discussion can resume. Tit for
tat dialogues are unproductive and
annoying for all concerned. In
conclusion, I will also thank you in
advance for your courtesy in this, and
hopefully we will make all our future
comments both civil and constructive.
Peter Hildreth: re your lost comment:
If you find it, I'd be interested in
reading it.
re groups that eat too much: Been
there; done that. I'm a particular
sucker for fresh guacamole. Mmmm…
ryct Lisa Padol on Holly helping you
keep all the players involved: I
wonder if that's a technique that we
should all be using. I remember in the
olden days of D&D somebody came
up with the idea of a party-caller who
would be the intermediary between the
players and the GM. It was quickly
dropped, as it only served to isolate
the rest of the players from what was
going on. I'm wondering if perhaps
RPG groups should have another sort
of caller, somebody who passes a note
to the GM (or otherwise secretly
communicates) when they notice that
one of the players seems to be a little
too quiet and is perhaps feeling
ignored.
re Polymancer: It has excellent
production quality, but so far only
mediocre articles. I think, however,
that this will be remedied as they
establish themselves and begin
receiving more submissions.
Spike Jones: ryct Myles Corcoran on
Fires of Heaven: That's a sad story.
Thanks for sharing.
ryct Myles Corcoran regarding
French naval tactics: Very interesting.
Brian Misiaszek: re criticism and
anger: I'll acknowledge your point that
if one procrastinates with one's
comments until the deadline, then one
runs the risk of writing in anger and
not having the opportunity to edit once
a more level-headed demeanor sets in.
However, even when that's the case,
one can always skip an issue.
I did this when Paul Mason wrote to
me in A&E #355, likening the great
battle between freedom and
oppression to the even greater battle
between Pepsi and Coke. In so doing,
he cast my entire perspective into the
shallow waters of irrelevancy, and so I
was a little bit perturbed, but I also
didn't quite know how to respond. I
suppose I could have lashed out in
anger or fired off a cheap shot in
rebuttal, but neither choice would
have advanced the discussion.
Furthermore, I had too much respect
for him as well as for myself to stoop
to such tactics.
So, I just waited an issue. That isn't
to say that I ignored him in the
following issue. I just put off
responding to that particular comment.
I needed time to think over what he'd
said. Then, shortly before the deadline
for A&E #357, I finally figured out
how to respond. I was off and running,
and I didn't need to treat his comment
as a personal attack. I was able to
discuss it without taking the
disagreement to a personal level.
A&Eers do this all the time. Every
time Spike Jones replies to me on the
subject of politics, no matter how
much he disagrees, he always writes
with personal dignity. You, likewise,
have shown the same ability time and
again. And this isn't a question of
writing well (although, as both of you
have demonstrated, writing well
certainly doesn't hurt). It doesn't take
great talent as a writer to formulate an
argument within a framework of
mutual respect. What it takes is simply
an unremitting decision to do so.
Lisa Padol: Thanks for the
mentioning the Forge. I'd gone over
there before to browse a few threads,
but your comment gave me impetus to
go back. It's a treasure trove of ideas.
Simon Reeve: re BoomBoom & Love
Chess: Oh boy! Two amazing ideas
that go so well together! My hat is off
to you, sir!
Marco Subias: I tend to agree with all
of your comments about toleration
versus demonization. I can’t but
wonder to what extent a polarized
press plays a role in this. Perhaps the
cure is to actively seek out channels of
media with which one tends to be in
disagreement. Unfortunately, this very
act seems to run counter to our innate
tendency of generally preferring to
associate with like-minded people. So
what can be done on a society-wide
basis? Perhaps a possible solution, if
there is one, goes back to education.16
gaming space in such a way as to
accommodate them.
What's the big advantage? As I said,
you'd have a written log of the
campaign that can be edited into an
actual story.
Are there significant disadvantages?
Sure! It would be a lot slower, the
computers would be in the way, and
instead of talking and hamming it up,
everyone would be madly typing. In
short, it would be the geekiest form of
gaming yet devised.
Nonetheless, I'm wondering if
anyone has tried it or what people
think of the idea. Also, I wonder if it
could be used in a classroom context
to teach writing skills, the instructor
basically correcting the students and
forcing them to type in correct,
complete sentences.
Anyway, it's just a thought.

OOPS: Gah! Lots of typos in my last

zine. The most confusing one was in
the section on Obeying the Dice. I
wrote in the 4th paragraph of that
section: “But I repeated myself, and
after that said they’d like to continue.”
Correction: After that they said they’d
like to continue.
Sorry for the many goofs. I'll try to
spend a little more time editing from
now on.

Bizarre Idea: F2F w/ Computers

Since I have space on the page and a
few more minutes before the deadline,
I thought I'd talk about an idea that
popped into my head somewhat
recently. How about playing face-to-
face RPGs as though they weren't face
to face? That way, you'd have the
social aspect of gaming, but you'd also
have a written transcript of everything
that happened. If the players have
questions, they'd be able to quickly
ask them and get them verbally
answered. However, when it comes to
actual play (dialogue and actions other
than combat), they'd have to type what
their characters do and say into a little
chat program that would display their
words on everyone's monitors.
What would it cost? Well, you'd
need some old computers on a
network, and you'd need to set up the

16
See my comment to Jonathan Nicholas
in A&E #354.