Toning it down.

[alexpshenichkin]

Had a minor epiphany today, thanks to this post about buy-in on Playing D&D with Porn StarsSometimes, games demand that we be always on -- constantly exciting, constantly creative, constantly sharing. This makes games scary. This makes games hard

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

This is an excellent summary of why I never feel comfortable roleplaying, and why it's so stressful for me that I just don't think it's worth it. Largely summarizable in this sentence:

"For many people, it's embarassing to be seen putting out mental effort and failing."

I also feel like I'm badly behind everyone else - probably there was a time when I had a bunch of college friends who'd never roleplayed, and I could start along with a whole bunch of newbies, but at this point, it seems like everyone already knows how and I don't. So if I played with them, they'd kick my ass, even if roleplaying games aren't things you really play to win the way you do, say, Puerto Rico or Dominion.

[alexpshenichkin]

I understand the feeling. Lots of hobbies can be daunting that way.

If it's any consolation, I feel like a lot of the stuff that the big-name games used to teach their players is wrong anyway, so it's not like newbies are actually that far behind on the level of techniques.

As Playing D&D with Porn Stars demonstrates, new people can be really fun to play with. They bring their own kind of special energy. They have their own unique perspectives, less tainted by learning the shared thing. Ideally, I think, they also make excellent bullshit sensors since they haven't learned to put off having fun now in exchange for some potential future fun (which is something I don't want to do but have to unlearn).

-- Alex

[crystalpyramid]

How does he convince the porn stars they want to play? I feel like my few roleplaying experiments have had a special lack of energy, largely because I was dragooned into playing, and aggravated by being surrounded by experienced players.

[alexpshenichkin]

In Zak's case, I think it's because he's just a naturally fun and creative guy. Just look at his Wikipedia page.

One reason you saw a spike of play around my year at Swat was that we didn't have a bunch of "experienced players" gaming with us. Some folks had prior experience, but generally every campaign group had a lot of newbies in it together. That's quite a different dynamic from being the FNG.

I'm guessing your lack of energy also came from the shared fiction failing to really spark your interest. The impression I have of you is that D&D-style fantasy will, at best, only haphazardly hit the stuff you like about fantasy fiction. That makes for some rocky and boring play.

Reading through the posts, I can see that Zak is playing with a group of fresh players and he's doing the legwork to make stuff interesting just for them -- note all the discussions about what they find cool and the way they feed back into how he sets up adventures and the setting.

-- Alex