The Arrogance of Unacknowledged Playstyles
August 14, 2015 6:43 AM Subscribe
Bell of Lost Souls user YorkNecromancer talks about different approaches to playing games (specifically about 40K and Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, but the points made apply to all games) and how particular playstyles can cause confusion and pain when unexpected.
tw: child abuse mentioned, panic attacks depicted
This dynamic isn't limited to tabletop gaming - any local softball league or similar pickup sports thing deals with it too, though in my experience people tend to have at least a smidge more social proficiency about it.
posted by Wretch729 at 8:02 AM on August 14, 2015
posted by Wretch729 at 8:02 AM on August 14, 2015
It gave me some insight into the other players on the MMORPG I play, though I am completely unfamiliar with the game the article is framed around. Interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
posted by diane47 at 8:12 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by diane47 at 8:12 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
A very interesting article and one for me to keep in mind as I start trying to introduce my sons to more and more games.
I also found the Eight Kinds of Fun article from the Angry GM interesting, from a tabletop RPG perspective on playstyles.
posted by nubs at 8:37 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
I also found the Eight Kinds of Fun article from the Angry GM interesting, from a tabletop RPG perspective on playstyles.
posted by nubs at 8:37 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's tough even for the narrative gamers, which is what I am (these days). You want to spend time in developing the story or acting in character- other people just want to get to the meat. It can be a really bad time.
posted by corb at 8:50 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 8:50 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
The competitive vs. casual conflict is getting worse with 40K, because the rule systems are becoming increasingly unbalanced over the last few editions. The power difference between a WAAC type and the beer & pretzels crowd is getting bigger.
At least there is the ability to talk to your opponents before a casual pick up game about your own limits and preferences. Tournament organizers are for the most part good at being clear about what kind of environment you're going into.
Contrast this with online gaming, which drives many people away because of the limited ability to choose to play with people at your level of aggression and competitiveness. I'm thinking of the data I've seen from WoW and D2 (admittedly dated) that the majority of people chose to play online without PvP.
The consent metaphor is a good one, inasmuch as the core concepts (SSC, S.H.A.R.E.) are there.
posted by LegallyBread at 9:26 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
At least there is the ability to talk to your opponents before a casual pick up game about your own limits and preferences. Tournament organizers are for the most part good at being clear about what kind of environment you're going into.
Contrast this with online gaming, which drives many people away because of the limited ability to choose to play with people at your level of aggression and competitiveness. I'm thinking of the data I've seen from WoW and D2 (admittedly dated) that the majority of people chose to play online without PvP.
The consent metaphor is a good one, inasmuch as the core concepts (SSC, S.H.A.R.E.) are there.
posted by LegallyBread at 9:26 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is also really true for tabletop RPGs. There are a whole bunch of theories (GNS for one, the stuff in Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering for another) about how to develop game systems to make things more fun for different play styles and accommodate players with different interests in the same gaming group.
posted by immlass at 10:02 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by immlass at 10:02 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's tough even for the narrative gamers, which is what I am (these days). You want to spend time in developing the story or acting in character- other people just want to get to the meat. It can be a really bad time.
But, of course, for the narrative- or drama-oriented players (that's character drama, not player drama), those moments of narrative and drama are the "meat" or "core" of the game, that's the good stuff, the things you remember and tell your friends about, not the time you rolled really well and killed that troll or whatever. I've listed to audio plays where clearly the high point of the session (for players and listeners) was the characters ordering their dinners. Every session, that would be boring, but that session, it was pure gold. The trick is for the GM to know what the players want and make sure everyone gets some of that, and for the other players to respect each other.
I have known lovely people who are so WAAC that I don't ever want to play a non-coop game with them because being in competitive games with them was absolutely no fun for me. We played a lot of V:tES in those days, and I still get eye-twitches thinking about it.
I've been doing some Netrunner lately, and I hear about people organizing tournaments specifically for new (or relatively new) players, which are built around the idea of letting them get a taste of the fun of a tournament without the hell of being ground down by players who just want the win and are really bad socially toward anyone who hasn't memorized the mathematics of each card and all the special rule interactions (there are other tournaments for those people as well). It's best for growing the hobby if everyone has a chance at the kind of game that they would enjoy.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:29 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
But, of course, for the narrative- or drama-oriented players (that's character drama, not player drama), those moments of narrative and drama are the "meat" or "core" of the game, that's the good stuff, the things you remember and tell your friends about, not the time you rolled really well and killed that troll or whatever. I've listed to audio plays where clearly the high point of the session (for players and listeners) was the characters ordering their dinners. Every session, that would be boring, but that session, it was pure gold. The trick is for the GM to know what the players want and make sure everyone gets some of that, and for the other players to respect each other.
I have known lovely people who are so WAAC that I don't ever want to play a non-coop game with them because being in competitive games with them was absolutely no fun for me. We played a lot of V:tES in those days, and I still get eye-twitches thinking about it.
I've been doing some Netrunner lately, and I hear about people organizing tournaments specifically for new (or relatively new) players, which are built around the idea of letting them get a taste of the fun of a tournament without the hell of being ground down by players who just want the win and are really bad socially toward anyone who hasn't memorized the mathematics of each card and all the special rule interactions (there are other tournaments for those people as well). It's best for growing the hobby if everyone has a chance at the kind of game that they would enjoy.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:29 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Woa, they sell decks for Camarilla? Back at CTY, we just played it with printed up rules and playing cards.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:41 AM on August 14, 2015
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:41 AM on August 14, 2015
The consent metaphor is a good one, inasmuch as the core concepts (SSC, S.H.A.R.E.) are there.
It is a 100% literal use of the word "consent" by its dictionary definition.
posted by LogicalDash at 12:40 PM on August 14, 2015
It is a 100% literal use of the word "consent" by its dictionary definition.
posted by LogicalDash at 12:40 PM on August 14, 2015
I have a hard time with this because my default mode is to make the best play I can see. I don't like tournaments of any kind much because I don't enjoy having actual stakes in play; what I like is the puzzle aspect of gaming, figuring out what would be the best overall play possible at any given time. (I am easily seduced by the Goofy Ridiculous, though, and can be successfully tempted to make a doomed but dramatic play. The Narrative type cited in the article.)
Often, when teaching games to strangers, I stay out of the first game and just teach it to others because learning a game by playing against me tends to be the School of Hard Knocks. I will crush you as quickly and systematically as possible, and then explain ways to improve the outcome. If I focus, I can "go easy," but it requires constant reminders and also makes me feel almost unwell. In our regular group, I am a known quantity, which means that when I teach them a new game (or even if I'm taught a game that everyone else has played a handful of times already), it's just culturally expected that everyone will punch Nathan first if they can and continue bludgeoning me until they think I can't win.
Really, though, beyond the call to talk about this stuff up front (which I heartily endorse), this is just a renaming and slight reshuffling of Mark Rosewater's "Timmy, Johnny, Spike" from forever ago in Magic: The Gathering. Here, Casual is sort of Timmy but with a focus outside the game itself, and Narrative is somewhere between Johnny and Timmy. (MaRo's version, being generated by a game designer wanting to talk with other designers about how to design their game to appeal to their players, obviously wasn't super focused on people who are just there to hang out and don't care so much about the game itself. IIRC, he later brought in a sub-type to talk explicitly about the social aspects of play, but I forget what it was called.)
posted by Scattercat at 11:30 PM on August 14, 2015
Often, when teaching games to strangers, I stay out of the first game and just teach it to others because learning a game by playing against me tends to be the School of Hard Knocks. I will crush you as quickly and systematically as possible, and then explain ways to improve the outcome. If I focus, I can "go easy," but it requires constant reminders and also makes me feel almost unwell. In our regular group, I am a known quantity, which means that when I teach them a new game (or even if I'm taught a game that everyone else has played a handful of times already), it's just culturally expected that everyone will punch Nathan first if they can and continue bludgeoning me until they think I can't win.
Really, though, beyond the call to talk about this stuff up front (which I heartily endorse), this is just a renaming and slight reshuffling of Mark Rosewater's "Timmy, Johnny, Spike" from forever ago in Magic: The Gathering. Here, Casual is sort of Timmy but with a focus outside the game itself, and Narrative is somewhere between Johnny and Timmy. (MaRo's version, being generated by a game designer wanting to talk with other designers about how to design their game to appeal to their players, obviously wasn't super focused on people who are just there to hang out and don't care so much about the game itself. IIRC, he later brought in a sub-type to talk explicitly about the social aspects of play, but I forget what it was called.)
posted by Scattercat at 11:30 PM on August 14, 2015
I've been doing some Netrunner lately, and I hear about people organizing tournaments specifically for new (or relatively new) players, which are built around the idea of letting them get a taste of the fun of a tournament without the hell of being ground down by players who just want the win and are really bad socially toward anyone who hasn't memorized the mathematics of each card and all the special rule interactions (there are other tournaments for those people as well). It's best for growing the hobby if everyone has a chance at the kind of game that they would enjoy.
My friends and I (who have been obsessing over Netrunner for the past year and a half or so) finally went to our first tournament this past weekend, where the best of us managed a .500 record, and I myself pulled off a very respectable .000 record. It was eye-opening. BUT!
The important thing is how cool everybody there was. The four of us brought in the decks we thought we could win with best. As it was a "casual" tourney, the more experienced players brought in stuff they were experimenting with for fun. The guy who took first had been to exactly one previous tournament, where he'd come in dead last (this was also the first opponent I faced, which was encouraging on a number of levels.) Most of all, though, literally everyone there was chill, fun, friendly and encouraging to one another. It was all male, which sucked, especially because Netrunner really is doing everything it can to appeal to women and create a welcoming, safe environment and game for them (and my GF, who plays a bit, had to work and so couldn't enter herself.) Still, it was a scene that encouraged fun over everything else. In Netrunner, some people are Johnny/Jenny, some people are Spike.* Most people are both at different times. A good tournament can make sure everybody has fun regardless.
*strangely, no real analog to Timmy/Tammy but the game skews older in it's demographic as well, so that might have something to do with that.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:19 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
My friends and I (who have been obsessing over Netrunner for the past year and a half or so) finally went to our first tournament this past weekend, where the best of us managed a .500 record, and I myself pulled off a very respectable .000 record. It was eye-opening. BUT!
The important thing is how cool everybody there was. The four of us brought in the decks we thought we could win with best. As it was a "casual" tourney, the more experienced players brought in stuff they were experimenting with for fun. The guy who took first had been to exactly one previous tournament, where he'd come in dead last (this was also the first opponent I faced, which was encouraging on a number of levels.) Most of all, though, literally everyone there was chill, fun, friendly and encouraging to one another. It was all male, which sucked, especially because Netrunner really is doing everything it can to appeal to women and create a welcoming, safe environment and game for them (and my GF, who plays a bit, had to work and so couldn't enter herself.) Still, it was a scene that encouraged fun over everything else. In Netrunner, some people are Johnny/Jenny, some people are Spike.* Most people are both at different times. A good tournament can make sure everybody has fun regardless.
*strangely, no real analog to Timmy/Tammy but the game skews older in it's demographic as well, so that might have something to do with that.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:19 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
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