ars ludi

The game table can be a lonely place. Everyone else is running around, having fun exploring their pet plots or doing cool things, but no one seems to be interested in the thing you want to do. So you sit quietly and wait, and you get more detached and disinterested in the game. You drop out.

The bigger the group the more this happens. It’s an inescapable mathematical rule that more players means less play time per person.

So how can you salvage things? You need to find a partner in crime, someone else at the table who’s willing to do the thing you want to do or talk about the thing you want to talk about. Two players working together have more influence over the game than two players flying solo, and even if you don’t get to do everything you want you’ve got some company and moral support. A co-conspirator makes any game more fun.

Look around the table. See another player checking out? That’s could be your partner in crime. They may even need a buddy more than you do, so do them a favor and team up.

A good partnership requires compromise and reciprocity: if they do what you’re interested in, you should also push for what they’re interested in. Sometimes it isn’t even an issue — lots of players are flexible about what they do so long as they get to do something. It’s more about having a voice and participating than pushing any particular agenda.

If you’re playing something story gamey, even agreeing to be adversaries can be teaming up — you’re cooperating in bringing your conflict front and center.

GMs, same advice: look for orphaned players and try to hook them up with someone else. If you have a large group (by which I mean even 5 players in a roleplay-heavy game) start people off in pairs or sets. Never leave a man behind.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive…”
–Sir Walter Scott

Lying to someone in roleplaying games often goes something like this:

“I want to convince the guy these are not the droids he’s looking for.”
“Okay, roll.”
>roll roll roll< "I win!"

It's simple: you have a goal and you roll to achieve the goal.

It's also boring. Worse yet, it doesn't give the player anything interesting to do. Even if you roleplay telling the lie (and use something like a Virtual Roll) you’re still just saying what you want the person to believe (”these aren’t the droids you’re looking for…”) and then rolling for it. How interesting is that?

Resolving a direct lie with a die roll also reduces the would-be victim to a (literally) two-dimensional caricature: they either believe the lie or they don’t. Forget about a nuanced or interesting reaction based on their personality. It’s a litmus test, not roleplaying.

So what if we take that option off the table? Let’s arbitrarily say you can’t roll to make someone believe your main lie. Instead come up with a different lie — a stepping stone — that will (hopefully) pave the way to convince them of your real lie, then roleplay from there.

I can’t roll to convince the chamberlain to give me an audience with the Duke, but I can roll to convince him I’m a visiting dignitary from Carpathia and then try to persuade him to give me an audience because of that.

I can’t roll to make you think your partner betrayed you, but I can roll to convince you I saw him talking to Fez Mumbo last night at the casbah, and we all know who Fez Mumbo associates with…

I can’t roll to convince you the harmless butler is trying to murder you, but I can roll to convince you that he was a practicing physician in Berlin until he performed a series of ghastly experiments and was confined to an insane asylum. After a clerical error led to his release he changed his name and fled all past associations, eventually adopting the guise of a humble man-servant. If you watch closely you may notice the nervous tic he takes pains to conceal, doubtless a sign of his lingering psychosis…

What makes a good starting lie?

- It can’t refer to or directly imply the main lie you’re going for — that’s too easy.

- It should make the situation more interesting and give everyone more to talk about. A stepping stone lie generally creates more details than a direct lie, because you are trying to say some things just to insinuate something else. There may be lots of unplanned side effects of those details as the game continues, but that’s part of the fun (”You’re a Carpathian noble? Death to the tyrant monarchy! Free Carpathia!”).

- Making up stuff is good, but incorporating known facts is better. If you know there’s an army marching into town tomorrow, use it in the lie. If you know the governor has a gambling problem, use it rather than making up a totally fictional character in your lie. Adding lots of detail also tempts the fates by making it more likely the whole house of cards will come crashing down — the sign of a truly daring liar. Kudos to you sir!

Hopefully you’ll never roll for the main lie at all. Once the stepping stone lie is accepted, the situation should take on a life of its own and reactions will fall into place from roleplaying.

By coming up with a stepping stone lie, you are really making up details that you think would make the person believe what you wanted them to believe in the first place. What would it take to make a person think the butler was out to kill them? They’d have to think the butler was a very different person than they thought, and so on. You’re making the logic of your lie explicit, making it easier for anyone else to figure out how their character (or NPC) would react to it.

You don’t have to use this technique for every lie — save it for the ones that you want to play out as part of the plot. The juicy bits. On the other hand if you use it for small lies you may find all those fictitious details chasing you around as the game goes on (”But you told me you were with the bishop last night!”). Which is awesome trouble to be in.

If you’re like me, you’ve had those times when you’re at your Grandfather’s for Xmas, and your younger cousin who’s really curious about this whole “roleplaying thing” wants you to run a game for her, but you try to weasel out of it by saying you don’t have any dice, and of course she’s like well why’s that important and doesn’t understand why you won’t run something, until finally you accept your filial duty and run a pickup game hunkered in a corner of an upstairs hallway where the rest of the relatives won’t notice, but eventually they hear the weird cawing noises you make when the intrepid wizard and her sneaky companion creep through the crow-infested orchards outside the ruined castle on the way to find the lost crown of their forgotten kingdom.

It could happen to you. It could happen to anyone: you want to game, but you have no dice.

What do you do? Flip a coin, or maybe a bunch.

Any range of numbers you could roll can be easily represented with a bunch of coins. The more coins you use, the more fine-grained the result.

It’s easy: divide the size of your die by the number of coins you are going to flip. Flip your coins, and multiply the number of heads you get by the result to find your roll. Zero heads equals the lowest value (a 1 usually).

Let’s take the ubiquitous d20. If we use only two coins we divide 20 by 2 and get 10 for each coin, so if we get 1 head we get a 10, 2 heads is a 20, zero heads is a 1. A better spread is probably 4 coins (20/4 = 5), which gives us 1/5/10/15/20 for zero through four heads respectively. We could also go all the way up to 10 coins, whatever.

Want to do an odd range like 10-60 for that big fireball? Just treat the number range the same as a single die of that size. We’ll fudge and call that 0-50 + 10. On two coins that’s 10/35/60 (0/25/50 + 10). Or flip five coins and have each head do 10 more damage.

Are the odds the same for flipping coins as rolling a die? Nope, not exactly. Without getting too technical, the more coins you flip the more of a bell curve you create, so the mid-range results will be more likely.

Interestingly if you use 4 coins to recreate a d20, you have a 1 in 16 chance of either a 1 or a 20, which is pretty close to the normal odds. So feel free to let someone get a critical if they flip four heads, or hit them with a house rule fumble if they get all tails.

Now go forth and teach your relatives how to game. You have one less excuse.

You’re a good player. You’ve got all the basics down pat: you understand your character, when it’s your turn you make decisions (even bad ones) rather than hold up the game, and when you sit down at the table you are ready and eager to play.

You’re definitely holding up your end, but as you’ve already heard a thousand times, gaming is a social activity, and to really bring a game session to the next level everyone else has to play well too. You might still have fun even if you’re the only one playing well, but if the game gets cancelled because no one else is having fun it won’t do you much good.

Luckily you can help your fellow players. No, not tactical help — this is not about making sure everyone is healed up or has a marching order buddy before you head into the kobold caves. This is about voluntarily passing the focus, giving up some of your own glory to help others shine.

1) Embrace their character concept — A player wants his necromancer to be dark and mysterious, so try and play like he is, no matter how badly that player sells it. Give him the benefit of the doubt and buy into the character concept he is trying for, don’t disregard it because “you’re not convinced.” If you embrace the concept you will make it easier for that person to play better.

2) Play up their talents — Much like embracing their character concept, mentioning things that another character is good at reinforces their character idea and makes it easier for them to play up their own strengths. Having clear strengths (or weaknesses) makes it easier to get a grip on the character. “Hmm, some kind of markings here in the mud. Redhawk you’re supposed to be the hotshot tracker, what can you make out of them?” The temptation is always to be the one to do things, particularly when the GM has already handed you the situation, but if something involves a trait that is more important to another character, roleplay passing it to them instead — not because they are more likely to succeed than you, but because it’s cool for them to do it.

3) Create soil for their issues — Help generate roleplaying situations that suit the other characters. If one character is supposed to be a bereaved paramour, start innocent discussions about how nice it is to be a family man. Be the straight man and lay ground work for the other character to step up and play into the spotlight.

4) Metagame your tactics to let them win — You just finished off your own opponent, and this round you could snipe the badly-wounded evil prince with an arrow and take him out, but your buddy has been dueling the creep for rounds. Dramatically he deserves the kill, or at least a chance at the kill. Don’t just check out of the fight or leave him hanging if he needs help, but maybe delay and let him go first, or attack another secondary opponent instead of stealing the kill. [The opposite case is the one where your fellow player would enjoy roleplaying having his kill stolen, but that's less likely.]

5) Call in other characters — When you are in a scene where the characters are split up, roleplay calling in other player characters for help. “Alien DNA? Look, I just work here sister. You better call Doc Huxley.” This can be a sub-case of referring to other character’s talents, but you also might just bring them in for rationalized reasons (”Liz got us into this, she better think of a way to get us out!”). The alternative is to remain passive and let the GM control when characters join the scene, but prompting the GM to pass the focus to another character who isn’t getting any at the moment is a good constructive move.

Help others play better and you’ll find you’re in a better game overall — more fun for them and more fun for you. Next time it might be them helping you.

Gaming is a social contract. Everyone has agreed to show up and spend their time participating to the best of their abilities.

Just as the GM has agreed to not (intentionally) create a situation which automatically wipes out the party, or precipitously violate the framework of the imaginary world by having German tanks roll out of the Elven woods, _you_ the player agree to try to play the game, and to play it in a way that not only satisfies your own creative urges but also works for everyone else who has committed to spending their time this way.

There are three ways a player can violate this agreement. They are the three sins of players:

being a passive audience
being a saboteur
being a critic

Passive audiences listen more than they take action. They sit quietly while the GM describes the scene, but then just keep sitting quietly when they are supposed to participate.

Saboteurs take actions or raises issues that block the game. They may adhere to a strict character concept that doesn't permit them to actually go on the adventure (slavish roleplaying) or they may do things like go on spontaneous solo missions and leave the other players sitting waiting.

Critics points out flaws in the game. They might be rules lawyers or plot perfectionists, or just the people who needless point out how much the game seems derivative of some movie or book they read (double points for any comparison to Star Trek).

These sins are often rooted in the best of intentions. Very few players intend to harm the game, but misguided help can result in harm.

By being interested in the story of the game and listening attentively to what the GM tells you, you risk being a passive audience. After all, no GM likes a group that can't sit still for a minute and listen to a description.

By including conflicts and dilemmas or adhering to your character concept, you risk being a saboteur. A good roleplayer wants an interesting character, and an interesting character enhances the game. A completely bland character can fit anywhere, but what's the point?

By wanting the game to be better and pointing out possible improvements, you risk being a critic. The flaws in the game may be quite serious and need fixing. Most GMs will claim they would prefer to get this kind of feedback rather than have the players suffer in silence (and potentially get sick of the game).

These positive behaviors are valuable and even essential for games, so it isn't so easy to just say “oh well I'll never do that.” You may start helping the game and slip into committing a gaming sin before you know it. I'm never guilty of being passive, rarely a saboteur, but probably a critic more than I should be — a sin that stems from my constant urge to improve the game.

What about you?