Player Investment and Tantanea

[jeregenest]

The holy grail for my gamemastering is player investment. I want it, and then I want more. I’m envious of other folks games where I think they are getting more of it, especially when its from the same or similar pool of players. This makes sense since its been my experience that its only games that have high degree of player investment that survive and more importantly thrive. It’s also important because I’ve found that my degree of enjoyment of a game is directly proportional to player investment and the fruits there of.

It is these fruits that are really the best indication of player involvement. The things they write, their involvement on the email list, how much they want to talk about the game. One of the many reasons I like wikis so much for my games is that I find it to be great tool for gauging player investment and the spurts and dry spells are a good indication o health.

So I’m a little worried about Tantaene Animis Caelestibus Irae lately. The player investment level seems to have dropped and I’m starting to feel similarly. Maybe I actually precipitated it, not sure since it’s been a dry few weeks of material being pushed out by me the gm.

So players, am I write in perceiving this? I do know that K’s nonactivity has been a problem and I’m not sure how to bring this subject up more forcefully than I have but I think I need to.

There is just one more prequel session before we get to the modern day (then 1 session of pre-incarnation) and I want to make what ever improvements I can before we get there so we start strong with the modern day. This was my whole intent in doing these rpequel sessions in the first place.

The prequel sessions I think have been great, establishing a lot of backstory in a very organic way. I’d be curious to see what my players thing on that.

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Lack of player involvement in the creative process has always been one of my great complaints in the past decade or so... I used to have players that would put more effort in to the game, and I haven't slacked in my involvement, but generally I find that many folks have lost the ability to have any real initiative or cooperative play attitude.

I can rely on my wife to be involved on some levels, and our housemate, but the rest of the players are often 'out of site out of mind' on their gaming much of the time. 75% of them won't even give me a basic 1 page back story on their characters, or updated character sheets every few months like I ask for.

You're doing better than I am in this matter, despite your current problem.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Theres definitely a decrease ted to growing older. One that frankly I don't believe s tie to free time available (though that s an issue) because there is always time for other stuff of similar involvement.

[dkoulomzin.livejournal.com]

For my part, I think my interest in the game has stayed fairly consistent. The last 4 weeks have been tough for completely unrelated reasons (buying a place, moving in, and I've basically done nothing else), but I think life is returning to what passes for normal.

But in terms of player output, I think its a complicated issue. Speaking from my own experience as a player, involvement seems to peak right around the time play starts. I think the reason for this is a perceived release of control over character's life from the player to the GM. Up until play starts, everything that happens to the player is mostly up to the player. Afterwards, it seems everything happens during play, or else needs specific GM permission, and probably rolling and stuff. How is a player supposed to do this outside of play time?

Now in our game, Jere tends to ask us to write this or that at various times. Most of the time, I do the write-ups, but sometimes I don't. When I don't, its usually because I wasn't sure about what was expected or because I thought what I wrote might not mesh with other players' or the GM's expectations. Sometimes I don't do writeups because I have nothing cool to say, which I think is a kind of legitimate reason. This probably sounds like a cop-out, but hear me out. The GM (especially ours) works hard to weave together a story. The player works hard (hopefully) to create a character. Any writing the player does should serve primarily to enlighten the reader about the nature of the character. If I feel like the writing I'm about to do does not help may my character interesting, or worse, confuses the character, then I don't want to do it. This hasn't yet happened for me in this game, but it has happened in the past.

Does anyone have ideas about any of this?

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

But I have these problems even with my younger players (youngest is about 24 presently, but I had these problems when I had college students too).

I don't know what it is with folks but they jyst come across as passive to me when it comes to things that require effort outside the actual game timeframe.

Maybe it's some sort of overall depression with the universe by the current state of the world, maybe it's really bad work schedules and lack of sleep, or maybe it's an inability to concentrate on one thing over another (wandering into tangents is a constant during games...).

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I don't do writeups because I have nothing cool to say, which I think is a kind of legitimate reason.

I agree, it is a legitimate reason. I would appreciate, however, just being told that so I don't feel all insecure and everything.

that's fair

[dkoulomzin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'll tell you when that happens. I guess I feel insecure when I have nothing cool to say :)

-Dan

Re: that's fair

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Well heres my thoughts. The amount of cool stuff people have to say tells me how well I'm doing my job. So if folks don't say things ebcause they have nothing to say (ratehr than not bothering or other reasons) than maybe I ened to do some tinkering in what I'm doing as a gm.

Its all about having a feedback loop.

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

First, I think that people's priorities shift; people have a lot more commitments, jumping from task to task and already have enough stuff they have to do for work, and so sometimes I think you have to be realistic that not everyone's investment will be equal to your own. When various players have pregnant SOs, or crises at work, or searching for work... game stuff outside of game does tend to take a back seat.

That being said, I prefer high-investment players, and find that people will put in the effort most often when they feel they're rewarded for it - either by the info being pulled into play, or somehow incorporated into the game in a meaningful way. I find that keeping demands short and easy (love yahoogroups for the list - everybody send me a few paragraphs on BLAH; send me an updated char sheet etc...) make it more likely they'll happen. I know that in games where I feel minimally engaged, doing anything for the game outside the game doesn't hold much interest.

I've pondered using a wiki for a Nobilis game idea I'm toying with, but honestly uncertain whether people will bother with it out of game.

Jere, maybe it's time for change of pace? What's going on in the lives of your players?

Re: that's fair

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

It's definitely all about having a feedback loop - what I've found challenging is finding the best way to do that; different players seem to react differently to the same request.

Re: that's fair

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Yeah theres that to. An e be honest a lot of people aren't sued to the idea of actvie feedback, they prefer the passive sort. And since games don't stress this part (for example I think it could be mechanized in sme ways) they don't get into a good habit.

The need to not be pasive, to be actve, in the creative process is one of th reasons I don't regard rpgs as entertainment but something more akin to the creatvie process that makes entertainment for others.