Becoming a Team

We humans get lonely. We crave intellectual exchanges like conversation and debate; as well as primal sensory experiences like passionate sex, warm embraces, or a gentle caress from someone who cares. We’re a social species. Sure, there are outliers, but hermits are a small fraction of humanity. People need each other to function and strive towards higher goals. So why is getting a group of RPG characters to work together the hardest part of a campaign?

Let’s set the scene: the four players’ characters are in a tavern. They’ve never worked together, maybe never even seen one another. Suddenly, a messenger steps in; bleeding to death. He warns of a grave threat nearby and then collapses. Maybe one or two characters sally forth to fight, but the others are a bit too self-interested to risk their lives. The GM prods them to go. They do for the sake of the story, but it’s totally out of character. Immediately, the most important relationships in the game are poorly constructed. Every subsequent interaction is flawed by this foundation. Your players won’t really notice what’s wrong either, since they’ll be fulfilling the social interaction on a personal level but not their characters’ level.

How do we fix this? The way I see it, there are two solutions: force the players to band together under duress or establish the party’s backstory.  The former is easier for new players, but the latter lends more storytelling depth.

Situations requiring the players to work together aren’t hard to come up with. Any violent scenario with immediate threats has the players’ characters acting in concert to pacify the aggressors. Bear in mind, they need to stay together once safety is returned. In a recent playtest, I had the players escaping from a prison. The entire first session centered on this goal and they had no reason to abandon each other before leaving the grounds (strength in numbers after all). In doing so, the characters learned about each other, their strengths and weaknesses, how they complimented each other, and what quirks made them endearing as people. They organically developed friendships from fleeing the facility. Abandoning each other at the next town didn’t make sense: they’re the only people they can trust.

The goal is to have characters stick together for the duration of the campaign. Having that bond established as part of character creation gives players reasons to act with each other that would not easily happen otherwise. Have players discuss how they know each other and why they are working together. If someone is a mentor, they act with pride or shame when their counterpart succeeds or fails. The mentee is forced to try and prove their worth when it might not otherwise be advisable. Having characters indebted to each other gives opportunities to pay off life debts or call in favors. These previous connections don’t have to be fancy. Having characters who stick together because of stuff like old school loyalties lets players make callbacks to previous events outside of the campaign, adding depth and fun storytelling moments.

The goal of role playing is to live vicariously in a fictional world through a different personality lens. Taking the existing social structure of the room’s people and transposing it into the game world does the experience a disservice. Make them like each other all over again. Approach friendships from a different angle or completely ignore your real life bonds. Don’t always save Slim because he’s your boyfriend; save him because he is kindest soul your character has met in this dark world.

--Alex

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More Demos

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The CPG crew is doing a tour of duty all around Cascadia. Come check out Catalyst demos at these game stores:

Come join the forces of humanity and play a couple sessions of our role-playing game, We'll outfit any new recruits with some Catalyst swag if they purchase a copy on site.

If you can't make it to one of these but want to fight some demons with us, shoot our scheduler an email. We can repeat a location or travel further if there is demand. The goal is to get this apocalypse survival guide in everyone's hands, after all.

(Past demo sites below. Thanks for the love.)

Introducing RPGs

Getting the uninitiated to play a role-playing game can be a daunting task. Honestly, having a group of people regularly do any activity is a logistical nightmare. Our modern lives are so chaotic; finding available people able to engage in meaningful social experiences is a blessing. Sharing this hobby with others is a wonderful experience and well worth overcoming a couple inherent challenges. Here’s our guide to clearing common hurdles with new role players.

The elephant in your gaming room is going to be the inherent stigma associated with role-playing games. There is a stereotype of antisocial neckbeards playing Dungeons and Dragons in their parents’ basements while eating Cheetos and chugging Mountain Dew. It’s silly. Even when I was a high-school aged, nerdy virgin, our D&D sessions were far more engaging and fun on a interpersonal level than most barroom drinking sessions I’ve done.

The first step to convincing people RPGs are for everyone is removing this stereotype. Sell gaming as a social experience: honestly describe your sessions. Talk about the absurdity of plots, the logical challenges, the heroic moments, and the spectacular failures. Make your play environment welcoming. Have drinks, food, comfy chairs, room to pace around, whatever people need. Promote the game as an excuse to hang out with friends.

I’d pitch an earlier session of mine to newcomers: “The four of us met up at my place after work. We opened a few beers, I made dinner, we reminded each other what happened last week, and started playing. My character left off sneaking behind some crazy zombie dude; he used to be in our group before Chad over there shoved him out of a plane. Now he was acting super evil and turned the nearby planation into a graveyard. His kid was nearby, so I figured he was responsible. We knocked out the kid, killed his dad (again), and headed back to the prison to meet up with Zack, err, Bonesaw. In this little break, our GM started texting a lady friend, so the rest of us began spamming sexts to each other. Once he got the point, we flashed over to Bonesaw holding off a demon army single-handedly with his crowbar of justice. I had the brilliant plan to shove a brick on our vehicle’s gas pedal and jump out on to their leader while the truck careened into the army. Apparently, I never noticed the alignment issue and the truck flaccidly drive off to the right. Regardless, we saved Bonesaw and lived to fight another day.”

Once you’ve convinced people of the positive social nature of RPG’s, the comradery and teamwork from getting together and chatting about a different world, they might begin to worry about the mechanics and complexity of such a game. This is particularly true if your friend doesn’t play any modern board or video games.

Initially, you’ll need to sell these people on the narrative nature of the game. Depending on the game, the rules for play can be introduced slowly and glossed over when they start playing. Setup a campaign that has a simple starting goal and, if combat is a part of the game, a basic tutorial-esque fight. I like escaping from a prison as a base point. It’s a simple enough premise and no one wants to remain a prisoner, so they’ll be forced to progress. I like having a non-playing character provide a plan to players and give them a couple scenarios. The players weigh choices, maybe come up with something different, and proceed. Moreover, it gets players talking to each other about something in the game.

Now, the other difficulty for new players is character creation. Every system has different complexity levels, but for most this is the most complicated part of the game. It’s usually because this is the most choices a player have with regards to the game’s mechanics and it comes at a point when none of those mechanics have been used.

Sit down with new players and walk them through everything. My starting question is always, “who do you want to be?” For Catalyst, I’ll give a couple examples like, gun-slinging blood mage or fast-talking illusionist. If they give you an answer, adapt it to the game. If not, just ask at each step what they want: what sex is your character, what age, how do they fight, etc. Be liberal in your advice; don’t let them make a character that’s either useless or hard to play. Help them make a character that will be invaluable to the party. Damage dealers are my default starter characters because their impact on the game is obvious.

Finally, make sure your new players are actually playing. During social scenes, prompt for their input. During combat, let them mulligan bad choices. Don’t let experienced players dominate the scenes. If possible, have your story be skewed against experienced players. I enjoy making the early enemies have all the counters to whatever skills my most veteran player has.

Do be aware role playing isn’t for everyone. Like any hobby, there is a certain mindset required. You can guide people to it and shine gaming in a favorable light, but there’s always someone who just won’t enjoy it. Hang out with them elsewhere. For your new gaming buddies, enjoy an evening of laughter, intense debate, adult beverages, and the unique friendship that comes from knowing someone better by their character name.