Dieter's 2013 Gaming Realizations
Dieter the Bold ... 2013 Gaming Plans ... Combat in Games
I'm just starting to comprehend how I want important combat to be, as well as just how blindly I've been pushing against combat taking up so much real-time. This swerves into why I can be so goal-driven in games. My initial reflections seem to place it as a defensive mechanism against spotlight-hogging, which leads to group tension. I've seen too often players get bored with how the game is progressing, and suddenly try to grab the spotlight and hog it with shennanigans that don't really add to the overall experience or game outside of, "Wow, this character (but we're all sorta' thinking "this player) is dangerous. we need to keep a closer eye on them." Boom. Bored player suddenly becomes more important and feels engaged again, but disgruntlement starts to build up among the rest of the group. So long as we're pushing towards a group goal, everyone is in theory engaged, because we're all going to win. I'm now starting to realize that this is cutting out a good amount of actual roleplaying that players can do to actually immerse themselves in the experience and engage with their own characters.
Mixed up in some of this is my aversion to PvP social conflict. I'm fine with "winning" against NPCs, I'm fine with being beatn by NPCs, and I truly enjoy a little tension between characters (Koyanagi wants to lead from the front, but Maniersi is going to undercut her so she stays safe). What I have an absolute aversion to is arguing between characters in a purely roleplaying context. We have opposing ideas on how to assault an enemy base? Totally cool with debate. How to handle a temporal castaway who can restore our timeline at the cost of their dignity? An enlightening discussion. We're different religions who want to proselityze to each other? Go fuck yourself, I have better things to do on a Friday night. I'm fine with brief disagreements: I want to go hunting for cool salvage in these ruins, you want to get back underway; but I don't want to be consistently cross-purpose in roleplaying interests.
I think some of my concern can be resolved through better group character generation. If the players are interested in general roleplaying and setting exploration, then there should be some explicit hooks in personalities and backgrounds between characters so that when Dave wants to track down cheldaro & scotch, Dieter is interested in going along to meet the merchants for some rumor-mongering. Jason wants to find himself some wenches to wine with? Allen's down to come along. And if a player wants to truly strike off on their own, have the GM declare a rotating spotlight period, where each player gets to roleplay their own particular interest without taking away from the group, because once they're done the spotlight will shift onto the next player.
