#206 – Having Fun

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I've been informed that role-playing games are supposed to be fun. I know it's crazy. I thought that there was just another 8 to 20 hours a week that you spend with people you may know and you charge through accomplishments to get stuff that is make-believe.

8 to 20 hours a week. What fantasy world are you living in?

Um, high school and college.

Okay. Fair.

That tracks. This has not been my world for a very long time.

I was about to ask you some very pointed questions.

Yeah, this isn't being recorded, right? Because if work finds out that I'm spending 8 to 20 hours playing role-playing games, I may not be employed anymore.

No.

All right, so we're going to be talking about how to have fun in RPG, and it's actually a kind of an important conversation. I have looked at players after months of a campaign and asked, So is everyone having fun? And no one wants to look me in the eye because they're not enjoying the game, but they didn't want to tell me. And as a GM, not a forever GM, but as someone who's GM'd a lot, one, I didn't pick up on it. 2, what am I doing wrong? Or 3, what's going on in my players' lives that is taking away from their fun?

Mm-hmm.

Oftentimes, we always harp on this, session zero is super important when you're sitting down at a table and ask the question, what is fun for you in a role-playing game? I'm looking to run this type of game. Is that fun for you? This is a great example I had. One of the people everyone in this room knows wanted to run a game in Menzoberranzan. It was going to be a drow political game.

Oh, yeah.

For those that don't know, D&D drow, Underdark, very dark, very political.

See, Jacob's over here like, oh, heartbeat. Me over here, I'm like, ree-er, ree-er.

Yeah, that's how I was. And I felt bad because this was Bowman.

Okay.

And he loves that setting.

He could pull it off.

Oh, he totally could.

Yeah.

I was dealing with stuff at work. that was like, I don't want to play work. Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right? And so, and other players, but we had the ability to communicate that it was not going to be fun for me. Now, would I have played it?

Probably.

I probably would've played it. I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I could have, but we had that conversation. So how to have fun at your RPG table. The first thing, have the conversation. of how to have fun.

Yeah.

What is fun for all your players?

Include that in your session zero.

Absolutely.

What are the things that you enjoy doing? What do you get out of gaming the most? And what are the things about gaming that you're not so keen on?

Yeah. I have had a player and he loves my games and he shows up at my convention games all the time. He is, he would be the ultimate poker player. He has no facial expressions. He has no tonal inflections. He is very analytical when he writes down his sheet and makes his rolls. I'm getting no feedback from this player. Every time I ask him at the end of the session, did you enjoy? His light, his eyes, his face— he shows me more expression when I ask him that question at the end of 4 hours than I saw for the first 4— the entire 4-hour session. And I'm like— but he's like, yeah, I had a lot of fun. I love your games. That's why I'm always here.

I've had a lot of players like that. It's, it's this personality type where they are so focused on the game that, and what it's evoking in their head, that nothing comes out. And yeah, I, they, they can throw you for a loop.

All of these things lead into every player has fun at the table a different way.

Yeah.

I am a builder when I play a lot of characters. I look at I will sacrifice skills like boxing and not take them knowing that I can take another mechanical skill or a different skill which will allow me to do things in 3 or 4 levels that I really want to do because I want to create. I want to build something in that game when I'm playing a character that I really like. This is all also why I like techno wizards in Rifts. I love them because I'm going to build shit. If you're a GM that's scared of what I'm going to do, On first level, you're misunderstanding the scope of my character. But that's fun for me. Building a big spreadsheet and tracking all of our shit, that's fun for me. That's not fun for a lot of other players at all. Like, they want to show up and be cool and kill things. That's fun for them. And that's okay. And these roles may change. We ran a game Uh, where all the players said, we don't want to think, we want to show up and hack and slash every game, and we'll do— we want to do this for about 3 months. Okay, cool, bar set. Now the GM said, I'm going to throw some political stuff in because that makes fun for me. And it's okay for the GM to have fun, but we were very upfront with them. If you do that, we may ignore it. Is that okay? And the GM's like, yeah, it's fine.

Okay.

I'm going to screw you with that, but it'll lead to more combat. Okay, cool.

We're good.

That's not fun for me. I wouldn't have, would not have enjoyed that. Yeah. I would have said so, like, you know, this isn't the game I want to run.

Yep.

Yep.

And that's, and that's super important to have that conversation. Uh, there are players that are really into the character interactions, the NPCs interactions, and they want to, that's where their jam is, is they want to talk to 5 different, really cool people every night. Yeah. needs to know that to, to help them get their fun. They want to talk to the, the crazy homeless guy who was abducted by aliens. They want to talk to the FBI agent who is an alcoholic because he has hard times from war. They want to talk to the prostitute who has a heart of gold. You know, those characters they want to see in their games because talking to them is awesome.

If I am not interacting with at least one Midwestern tourist and 2 Kentucky prospectors per session, I'm out of it.

Well, that's going to be an interesting game.

You should listen to our games sometime, Buckley. You really should. I should. I love you, Kyle.

So these are things when you're looking at how to make it, it's not how to make a game fun. It's how to have fun in your game. Making a game fun is a little bit different. And you're never going to succeed at that if you don't know the mix, the formula of the players at your table, or what you as a GM— I have been in games, I'm running 3 or 4 sessions and I get in and I'm going, wow, the players are having fun, but I'm not. Hmm.

Why?

Why am I not having fun? And this is a question you can ask as a player and as a GM.

Yeah.

It's important to— many people identify, are aware that they're not having fun. It's having the strength, I guess. Is that the right word? Having the strength to say something about it or the willpower to be like, look, I'm not having fun and here's why. Man, seriously, so many Gaming forums really are just relationship talks. Like, how do I interact with my friends?

Yeah.

And that's— and that can be really hard. At some point we'll talk about conventions versus your weekly game, and it can be really hard to differentiate between your weekly game and a convention game.

Yeah.

A convention game, there is no tomorrow. It's your 4-hour session, but you still should be having fun. Me and a couple of people, when we go to conventions, we have an SOS code on our phones. And the SOS code means, come get me the hell out of this game. I do not want to be in it. I'm not having fun, but I don't want to interrupt anyone else's fun.

Yeah.

A weekly game, you have to have those hard conversations, those crucial conversations, which is actually a book. And if you've never read it, it's an excellent book about having crucial conversations that can be very uncomfortable, especially at your weekly game where you've known these people for a while. If it's a brand new game, That session zero is super important.

Yeah.

I don't think we've, we've gone very few podcasts without saying session zero is important. It is critically important. It's also important as a player, as a GM to speak up and go, hey, I'm not having fun. I have been that guy at a game and said, hey all, I'm really not having fun here. How are other people? And I've had the situation where most of them were, I was the odd man out. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'm going to take my time somewhere else. It's not a reflection on the GM or the other players. I'm just not doing it. I will come back when we're done with this campaign. And I came back when we were done with the campaign.

There's, there's a game master who runs all the time at Wagon— not WagonCon, GameStorm. And I think he's a great person. I've interacted with him many times online and in person. I think he's, he's, He and I get along very well. I can't stand his games. And I didn't realize that until I was in a game of his. I was in a game.

No.

Okay. I was in a game with his one year at GameStorm and I sat down and it's like, oh my God, this is so not for me. I hate everything about this. And finally, about 15, 20 minutes into it, I just said, look, Sorry guys, this isn't for me. And I walked away. He looked, you know, down about it. I felt bad about it, but it's like it didn't waste his time, he didn't waste mine, so it was all good. Anyway, a few years later— I didn't write down his name, I didn't know him well at that time— a few years later I go to game store, I'm gonna sign up for another game, and when the game master shows up I'm like, oh no, this guy. Yeah, I feel sorry for him in that one. I was I, me and a friend of mine were both in that game and we basically, we all know everybody had a good time. I had a good time. My friend had a good time. All the players had a good time. I don't think he had a good time because I think he wanted the game to go in another direction that when we weren't buying into some of the tropes. And anyway, afterward I finally said, look, here's what I loved about it and here's what I didn't like. And I'm sorry for that. If I'm sorry if I contributed.

Yeah.

to you not having a good time. Everything is great from that point forward. Yeah.

And it's having that conversation is super important. Uh, and you can have it at convention games. You can have it at your weekly game.

Yeah.

Um, there are GMs at conventions that I will sit down and be like, usually you're going to know within the first 15 or 20 minutes, but at a convention is a big deal because you've used a bunch of time and you've taken a slot. So as you go to conventions, Figure out those people, talk to those people, figure out the names and try not to do that. And, or have the conversation in the middle and like go, hey guys, this is really for me.

It's not on you all.

Or make up some excuse. Hey, I had some really bad gas station hot dogs last night and my stomach, I gotta go, you know, uh, and, and take off.

We've used the, the text code method before too. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think I first got clued into that on a gaming way at one year at Dragonflight. We were in a game that was, I was in a game that was so bad that I'm under the table texting a friend of mine who's there. Uh, she finally is like, she shows up. Hey, got some pizza.

Let's go.

I'm like, hey, I'm sorry. I'm really starving.

I gotta go.

Yep.

There was no pizza though. Unfortunately, it was a lie.

The pizza was a lie, but it got me out of the game.

So I was fine.

Absolutely.

Phantom Pizza. Thank you.

Uh, back in the '90s when I had just moved back to the city closest to my hometown and I didn't have an established gaming group, but I had another friend who also wanted to game. And I was at a point in my life where I couldn't GM. I just did not have a time. I was holding down 3 jobs. We were looking for GMs to run with us, to run for us, and because both of us had moved— I had moved back, he had moved too— we were having to basically audition gaming groups and GMs. And I thank God He had a pager that had a button on it that would just make the pager go off. It got us out of 2 really gnarly gaming sessions where it was like, oh, Jacob, I'm, I'm really sorry. My wife is throwing a fit. Um, or the dog just shit all over the house or whatever excuse it was. And we're like, oh, well, he's my ride.

I got to go.

Yeah, I would not do that now. I practice far more radical candor these days.

I would note though, it's very important that if you are not having fun in someone's game or your own, and you think you can make it at least to the end of the session, try to do so because then you can bow out a little bit more gracefully or you can bring up your reservations. grievances a little more gracefully. And if you are able to do that, I recommend having a moment to breathe and think on it. Don't react. Do not commit the ultimate sin of turning, I'm not having fun, into, your game sucks and here's why. That's, that's not cool. Chances are it was something that you had a problem with or there was a miscommunication. that maybe both of you are at fault, or there's just a whole group of people here all wanting different things and no one communicated it. That's no excuse to just tear someone apart because you're not having fun. I've, I've witnessed that. It sucks.

Absolutely. Which is why, you know, we are talking about some of the stealth ways you can get out of convention games.

Yeah.

We're trying not to break other people's fun.

Yep.

And blowing up at a table will break everyone else's fun at that table. And that's, that's not your job to do. Your job is to make sure you're having fun and it should not infringe on other people's fun. Because if they're all having fun, great. Uh, there's a, there's a type of GM that really likes to get into the nuts and bolts of the technology of the things in the game. And I call them the technophiles. And I've been in 2 games before where the first 30 minutes was them describing the cool gadget that one of the NPCs had. And I real quickly, I'm like, I like cool gadgets, but I would like some sort of story beyond the cool widget that they have.

Was it a Shadowrun game by chance?

It wasn't.

Okay.

It was a Rifts Robotech mashup game.

Oh.

And the other I think I've talked about before was The Morrow Project.

Yeah.

Which I think is a reference game as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, and so, but other people at the table were obviously digging into it. One, I got an SOS. The other one, I had a friend come over and actually said, hey, you're supposed to be running a game right now, which I didn't realize, which wasn't true. It was an ambush. They wanted me to run a game and they pulled me out of a game I didn't want to play to go run a game for them. So it worked out well. Uh, but in your weekly game though, you can really harsh an entire group of people that have known each other a long time.

By playing The Morrow Project.

By playing, yes, by playing The Morrow Project and then bringing your weekly game to Game Storm.

Apparently you've seen my 4-page questionnaire for getting into a Morrow Project game I ran.

Oh my God. Anyway, um, we're not going to go into Morrow Project.

Thank God.

Please. But be, please try to be somewhat respectful. Uh, what NPC has said is perfect, spot on. Try to let the session complete or get in there before the session. Talk to the GM on the side, talk to the players on the side. Um, but let's— those are ways to handle it if you aren't having fun.

Yeah.

Talking about— let's talk about for a moment.

Uh, before we jump forward, I have a little bit of a caveat on all this, whether or not Your group that you're playing with had a session zero. If you're in session one and things aren't working for you, unless it's something pretty egregious for you, I recommend toughing it out and then having either an at the end of the session, between sessions, or at the start of the session, a conversation about it rather than just doing a blowout.

Yeah.

Because session 1s are oftentimes both the GM and the players feeling out the basics of how things are going to flow. And if you can get through session 1 and then have that meaningful conversation, it's a time for fine-tuning and retooling. It, it happens naturally after a session 1 anyways.

Yeah.

So embrace it.

Session 1s are very important. Most people talk about session 0, session 0, session 0. You see those 2 words together so much. We mentioned it so much here. But there's this fallacy that people think that session 0, if we have a session 0, everything's fine from then on. Problem is session 1 is going to test everything that you talked about in session 0 and you probably even forgot about. Session 1 is just as important as session 0, and oftentimes things that you discussed in session 0 will change based on how things happen in session 1. So do not Discounted. Don't forget it.

Like, at the number of tables you and I have shared, how many times have we seen people radically change their character concepts after session 1?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just what they saw in their head and what they feel they can put out doesn't quite match most of the time.

I've done that many times myself.

And so you can look at these and kind of pair them together. And go session 0 is your setup. It's your beta is what you think. Session 1 is the first time all those conditions hit the road. And actually, does this work? Do we really want this? Oh, I thought playing the crazy was going to be really fun. And I was going to be the mainline kind of fighty guy. And I was going to have these delusions and then I play it and I'm like, ah, I can't do this.

Right.

And so figuring out how you're going to have fun in that game and conveying that to the other players is super important. And it doesn't have to happen in session 0 and session 1. It could happen 4 or 5 sessions later. It's, it's reestablishing with your players. These are people you are choosing to spend 4 hours a week or more or less somewhere in there, or 4 hours every couple of weeks or however much time you have. Your time is valuable. And you're there to unwind from the reality of the world, right? Regardless of how the world is going, you're there to have fun. And if you're not having fun, address that. Talk to the people about what's going on and ask other people. Some GMs are really good at touching bases multiple times in session. Some GMs are really good about touching bases every couple of sessions. I know a lot of times players We'll just kind of give the nod.

Uh-huh.

Everything's fine. Don't do that, please. Tell the other players, tell the other GMs what's going on. I have some of the best sessions I've ever had in a 4-hour session, 'cause I like to use that as a standard. Um, we had 2 hours of gameplay and 2 hours of, uh, impromptu support group because of whatever was going on in the player's life. Did I have fun? Actually, yeah. Because I knew all the players were there for me and it was a great experience and we got some really cool gaming in and we all were able to have those conversations about it. I've also seen the player that gives you nothing or the player that only is there for certain things and that's all they really care about. And that's fine too, as long as they're not pulling away from the fun of the other players.

I think it's also important to consider the fun of everybody else around you. And that don't be the only person having fun. Don't put your fun above everyone else's. This is hard for people who don't think that way because, you know, gamers often still, it's a hobby of people who aren't necessarily the most socially adept. Less so now that gaming's become a lot more popular and mainstream, but still chances are.

Yeah.

A lot of people at your table, especially if you're playing at a convention, are not necessarily going to be the most outgoing and socially capable of people, which means they're also not going to be the most self-aware. So it's hard to tell someone to do this, but I'm going to try. And that is read the room. Try and keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on around you. Remind yourself to mentally check in, like to stop and breathe and look around you. See if everybody is smiling or if they're frowning. Take a look at the people in your vicinity sharing the space with you and just try and read them because that can tell you a whole lot about whether or not they're having fun and also whether or not your fun is impinging upon theirs.

Yeah. And that's super important. It's a skill that you can learn and develop. And one of the ways you can find out if you're having fun, are you thinking about that game next week? Are you thinking about, oh, I'm looking forward to Monday or Friday or whenever you have your game and that's in your head, that is you somehow telling yourself you want to go do that more.

Yeah.

And if you're not thinking about it, Then maybe you need to change something to make it so you are thinking about it.

Are you enjoying the moment or are you just waiting for your chance to talk?

Right. Or waiting for your chance to kill something and throw dice. Right. Uh, it's, it can be a very reflective period. And as, uh, Jacob mentioned, reflect after the game and go, huh, I have gone multiple campaigns before or multiple sessions in a campaign. And it wasn't until I stopped just going through the motions that I realized, wow, I've been playing this particular game for 8 weeks. I don't care about my character or what's going on.

Huh.

Is this me or the game? And it's been both. And how do I fix that?

Yeah.

And do I need to fix it by removing myself or do I need to fix it by bringing it up with the players and talking to them? And it is okay to have, I don't know what people would call it, re-session zero, multiple sessions into a campaign. You go, hey, can we talk about the norms of the group? Can we talk about some of the session zero stuff we talked about? I know it's been 2 months or 3 months or whatever, but can we readdress some of those things? Because I think they've changed. They've changed for me. I would like to discuss this because I— and, you know, and take a session to do that.

Yeah.

Can we rebase the Git repo?

Yeah.

It's funny, you were talking about— you just made that comment, and earlier when you were talking about the difference between session 0 and session 1, what was mentally going through my head is, so session 0 is your proof of concept environment, session 1 is your test environment, and then we'll roll it to prod.

Well, I keep thinking the Tuckman model for team organization, and if you've never heard the Tuckman model and you're wondering why certain teams work and certain teams don't, gaming groups utilize the Tuckman model 100%. Go look it up. It's an amazing model that was developed and you'll go, oh wow.

Yep.

This is amazing. And, and I, and I look at that all throughout life and things I do that require more than one person. It's hard to do a Tuckman model by yourself.

The one thought that I'm just gonna throw out there, and this is mostly for those of us who are, shall we say, older gamers who have been gaming for a very long time. At some point, we all started to experience the any gaming is good gaming mindset.

Mm-hmm.

And I know I intentionally suffered through a lot of gaming experiences I did not care for because I was attached to that group of players. I wanted to game and I was telling myself it didn't matter whether the game was good or not. It was just I got a chance to game. Uh, sit down. If that even remotely echoes as a feeling for you, sit down and have a hard conversation with yourself. Your time is valuable. Not all gaming is good gaming. And your time spent at a game you don't like is better used with other pursuits in your life or finding a game you do like.

And with online and being able to do games online, while not perfect for a lot of us, You can find groups out there online. If COVID taught us anything, it's that you can make a community without having them be next door or in your town. And it'll be different, but you can find something better than perhaps, well, if I can't game with these people, I can't game with anyone. So it's kind of some closing thoughts real quick. For everybody here, having fun should be right up there with rule of cool. You should be having fun at your game. If you're not having fun at your game, check in with yourself, check in with the people and figure out why you aren't having fun. Otherwise, you're not going to do it or you're just going to have a horrible experience. For those of us at this table, Role-playing games are too important to us not to have fun at them. This is a huge portion of our lives. We're doing a podcast about a role-playing game that is not necessarily fringe, but it's, it's not like one of the big ones that a lot of people haven't heard about it. We apparently love this and we want you to have fun. We want to have fun. So think about that and it's okay to have fun.

And if you're not having fun, ain't nobody got time for that.

And if you're not having fun, there's a very good chance you are detracting from the fun that the other people at the table are having.

Yep.

And theoretically, you're gaming with friends. Don't do that to your friends.

And it could be an excellent opportunity to kind of push yourself and have those conversations with your friends. You'll come out on the better side if you— if these people are your friends, you can have these conversations. And have them in a kind way and say, hey, you know, let's, let's talk about it. And then, um, and if you have questions on how to have those conversations, you can hit us up, any of us up on Discord. We've all had those conversations personally, professionally. Some of us may get paid to have those conversations.

Some of us are, yes.

Yes. Uh, and so, uh, we are building, we've been building this community for Discord for a while now. And come and talk to us. Talk to us about this type of topic. Yeah, hit us up direct. Talk to the people on the Discord channel. A lot of them have similar stories and it'll help you help us and it'll kind of build our community.

Yeah.

We look forward to seeing you there.

We look forward to seeing you on Discord. Please check out our Patreon. Go check out our—

Coffee.

Thank you. Goddamn it.

It's so easy to say.

I know.

Our Ko-fi. Check out our Our stuff on Redbubble. 'Tis the season where it's getting chilly. And I personally am planning on picking up one of our fleece throws shortly.

Because he's sitting across from one.

Yeah, and I've experienced— like, I'm gonna be real, folks. I've bought more than a couple things for podcasts, YouTube channels, etc., because I thought they were cool. or more often than not, my spouse was enamored with them. And they tend to be a little on the cheap side. I love that plushie. Yeah, that throw. And the sweatshirts aren't bad either. So I paid my own hard money with them. I did not get a freebie or anything. So yeah.

I've been told if you buy your own merchandise, that is the worst way to try to do a Ponzi scheme.

Yeah, it's a horrible way to do a Ponzi scheme. Yeah, it doesn't work out well long-term.

But what's not a Ponzi scheme is Palladium right now is doing their Christmas grab bag. It is the antithesis of a Ponzi scheme because you pay little bits of money and you get much more stuff back.

Oh yes.

And you can get, I can't remember what it's costing right now, $50, $60, you know, and then there's shipping and such, but you put into your box, hey, I'm looking for these types of things. I would really like someone to give me a new copy, an updated copy of Recon, an updated copy of The new TMNT, who knows?

Get some cool shit, get some weird shit.

Yep.

And it'll come to you and you're like, wow, this is amazing.

Yeah.

And you'll, you never know what you're going to get. And you also can specifically request like, I need this book. I'd love this book to be in my grab bag because I don't have it. And oftentimes it'll be there.

Yep. Get some games for your friends, bring them into the hobby or just bring them to the Palladium fandom. And when you put in your order, just leave a note that we sent you.

One of the things I'd love us all to do is request a free ticket to the next Palladium Open House to show them that we want to have a Palladium Open House. And those who haven't gone, it is an amazing thing. I want to get some other people in the room to a Palladium Open House so we can have a whole session about it.

I would love to go.

Like, we would— the 3 of us here have talked about this before. Yeah, all of us have kind of like an emergency fund set aside for as soon as the next Palladium Open House happens. For plane tickets and the whole bit. Airbnb, the whole bit. Uh, and we're all coming from the West Coast. So.

I've been to 2 or 3. They're great little mini miniature conventions that are awesome. So check out the Palladium books, buy their stuff, keep us supported, keep them supported so we can keep making content. We don't get anything from them, so it's not supporting us directly, but support Palladium. We all love their games and such. And check out the Christmas grab bag.

Yeah.

And if you want to buy their books digitally, follow the link in our show notes because then you can pay them. And if you follow the link, it's an affiliate link at DriveThru. They kick us a few cents back.

It's pretty nice.

Well, that's it tonight, folks. Thank you very much. And we'll see you on the flip side.

Catch you next time.

Magic, mystic martial arts, romance. All of these can be found in A Cloak of Blades by Isaac Sher. You might have heard my name before. I've done a lot of voiceover work for Breakfast Puppies, and I've recently released my first novel. It's available on Amazon as an ebook and paperback, and you can get it for free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. I do hope you'll support my work as you're supporting Breakfast Puppies, and it's been a pleasure talking with you today.

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