The Contract between GM and Players: Peace Not War

Or: Don’t be a Player Hater

In my last post I wrote about some of the misguided things GMs do trying to produce cool scenarios for their players. Most of it was based on situations that came up in my long-running Erom campaign. When one player throws his dice and mechanical pencil down hard and another puts his books in his backpack and zones out, those are signs that they are not having fun. And if your players are not having fun, guess what? Your prep work was a waste of time. The truth is, you are probably not having fun either; you’re just too busy running your game to notice.
So what I recommend–and there are plenty of books and articles on the subject–is that you work out some kind of agreement with your players about how you–meaning you and the players–will be running the game.
Think of it as a contract with your players. But what might it cover?
My friend Janyce–whom I think of as the ultimate GM–wrote in response to my last post. That post was about giving your players their moments of awesome. Janyce pointed out that in addition to that, “the contract should encompass more than giving players their rewarding piece of the awesome pie.” She cited one example: “the contract can be an unspoken system to negate the GM versus the players paradigm.”
Oh, how right she is. In fact, I would insist that changing that dynamic is the root of a good campaign. Think about it; if the relationship is adversarial, then the GM has set up the scenario, knows where all the traps are, puts in whatever dangers and opponents he or she wishes, and rules on the results of all contests. Such a GM plays with a stacked deck. If it’s an adversarial relationship, it’s an extremely unfair one.
Those of us who have been playing a while have all had the experience of playing under (not with) a GM who seemed to delight in frustrating the players and making their characters suffer. Shades of Jonathan Edwards and his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”!
So I would insist that the first item in the contract between GM and players would be this: We are playing together, not against each other. And that means that we are all trying to make this game as fun as possible. Which means if there is a challenge, the GM has made it challenging enough to be exciting, but not unbeatable. And if there is something that is clearly difficult to defeat, it will be obviously so, but there will be ways to avoid it, plenty of warnings of the difficulty, and some sort of means of winning that may require further adventures or encompass help from NPCs the PCs encounter. So maybe fighting it today is a bad idea, but someday? It could be something to train up for.
Every adventure has setbacks. If adventures didn’t have setbacks, they would be pretty bloody boring, right? The key to keeping the contract is to make sure that the setbacks make the awesome more delicious when it comes. As the amazing John Wick once pointed out, player want their characters to be like the Bruce Willis character in Die Hard. “They want to be knocked down, punched out, bloody, battered, and beaten. But…every time they get knocked down, they want to be able to get back up.” And so it is important for the players to trust that every reversal has a possible payoff. If the players trust the GM on that, and if the GM delivers, then there is fertile ground for a great gaming experience. Of course, a PC can still blow it. Failure is always an option, but it should be entirely based on the player’s wrong decisions. Otherwise the game is just another railroad.

What else might be a part of the GM/Player contract?

Awesomeness and the GM’s Contract with the Players

(From our “ Wouldn’t It Be Nice” Department)

If there is one thing I have learned about roleplaying games, it is this: your experience is determined not by the system or setting, but by the people you play with. It only takes one person to entirely ruin a roleplaying session. On the other hand, playing with a good group makes roleplaying more fun than just about anything. It’s important to have the group dynamic working well. There are many facets to this; one of the most important is the contract, explicit or implied, between the players and the GM. Most of these times this contract will be implicit; which means that it is easily misunderstood.
What is the thing almost all roleplayers want?
Awesomeness.
You know. A huge slice of awesome pie, with awesome sauce, and a scoop of awesome ice cream ala mode. We all roleplay for different reasons, but I think we all enjoy those moments when our characters get to do something awesome. And we will go through all kinds of trouble in an adventure for the sake of that awesome moment. So why do so many players get frustrated and fret while playing? Because they feel cheated out of their share of awesomeness, and usually–but not always–by the GM.
In my experience this is usually because the player and the GM have different ideas about awesome: what it is, what it consists of, and how to get it. I had two players in my campaign, both good enough fellows, both imaginative and involved players. But they would become extremely unhappy at times. One liked to stack the odds in favor of his character to the point of being completely invincible. You know the kind of player: His character never took off his armor, and if he had been able to wear three layers of armor, his character would have. At times, especially in combat, he would sort of drift off and stop participating. The other would try to make the ultimate tactical plan, then get all upset during combat when it didn’t work because the other players wouldn’t keep to the plan. He would often throw his pen and dice down in disgust. Looking back, it was my fault. I was failing them by not letting them get their awesomeness.
The problem is that both players–and everyone at my table–had their own idea of what was awesome, and those ideas were often incompatible. In addition, they were often incompatible with what I was doing , or at least trying to do.
In the example above, the first player wanted to battle his way through hordes of foes, unstoppable, like Conan. The second player wanted to execute a perfect tactical operation, achieving victory efficiently. I did not know how to make both those things happen, so I ended up making neither happen. My players did not get their awesome.
Neither did I. I had my own idea of awesome. But I was the GM, and when the GM forces his idea of awesome on his players, the result is often no fun for anyone. And that is bad. Example: I am very fond of escapes, so I love to put in situations where the PCs get captured, which will lead to a really cool escape sequence. What’s wrong with that?
So much is wrong with it–not everybody is into escapes, many people hate having their character captured because that means they either have to surrender or be defeated, and lastly, having a situation where they have to be captured and then have to escape is 100-percent whole-grain railroad. And in my book, that’s bad–even though I used to do that sort of thing to my players fairly often. I funneled my players into situations where they felt helpless and had no fun, and then I had no fun because I was losing them.
How do you avoid this situation?
You have to have a contract with your players. It can be inferred or explicitly stated, but explicitly stated is better, because everyone has to be absolutely clear on the basic deal.
First: The GM wants the Players to have their awesome moments. All of the players. And so the game has to provide opportunities for those awesome moments.
Second: Those awesome moments to be really awesome, have to be worked for. Anything easy will not be all that awesome.
Third: The players will have to trust that whenever things do not go well for the characters, that there will be a corresponding possibility of an awesome moment. Setbacks make for adventure.
Fourth: The GM will not railroad the PCs, even in the service of awesome. No forcing them to surrender so you can have a cool escape sequence. Just have ideas for escape sequences ready for when they have blown it.

Next time: More ideas on this…