There have been a couple of instances in recent memory where I’ve heard players talking about how much plot they have (or don’t have) in a LARP they’re participating in. This isn’t an uncommon complaint for a player to have, but my experience has been that it’s generally an inaccurate complaint that gets bandied about because the player is unable or unwilling to address the real problem. To be clear, I don’t think this is (generally) malicious, but it’s still a topic worth some discussion. And so, without further ado, “plot.”
To begin, it’s important to understand what plot is. Merriam-Webster defines it as “the plan or main story (as of a movie or literary work).” That’s a fairly serviceable definition, so long as you don’t fixate on the term “main” too much, as even a 22-minute sitcom generally has an “A” plot and a “B” plot. Additionally, plot is generally driven by conflict (man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self). So, in a campaign LARP it’s possible for there to be dozens of plots in play at any given time, each a a diferent point along its narrative arc. (I use “campaign LARP” here because of the idea of staggered plots, as most one-shot events have plots that are meant to last the whole event.) I don’t think any of this will be particularly new or surprising to anyone, I just want to make sure that everyone is on the same page before we continue.
Having done a bit of work to define plot, now a question arises, “How do you measure it?” Honestly, I don’t have an answer to this. The chief problem with attempting to measure plot is that so much of it is ephemeral — “suffers a crisis of faith” is a perfectly real plot, for example, but it’s primary form of interaction is within a player’s head. Even in more traditional plots it’s only practical, and often feasible, to track progress at a very high level (generally from interactions either with writers or that they are present for, or from following public discussions to gauge information flow). Additionally, “quantity of plot” is difficult to track for oneself as an individual — in my experience it’s almost impossible to do for anything you’re actively involved in; meaning that it’s easy to say “I (or he) was in those plots” and even “He is currently in these plots,” but much more difficult to say “I am currently in these plots.” What this all comes does to is that plot is, by itself, an awful metric.
If plot is a horrible metric, then what can be used in its place? I can think of two: boredom and frustration. Really, these come down to two related states of mind: “there’s nothing for me to do” and “there’s nothing I can do.” Trying to recast a plot problem into these terms is useful, it helps break the issue down into more concrete areas and also helps to suggest solutions. If boredom is the primary issue, then the question to ask (of yourself or of a writer) is “What else should I be doing?” If frustration is the primary issue, then ask “How should I proceed?” If the problem is a combination of the two, then it’s probably worth taking a bit of time to figure out how the elements are interacting with one another. It’s also possible to have these issues multiple times; Plot A & B can seem to be at dead-ends while Plot C seems unapproachable. Breaking things down to that level of granularity is going to be extremely helpful in resolving issues — the more you understand a problem the easier it is to fix.
It’s also worth noting that there’s a third factor that, while not really an independent axis like boredom and frustration, can be a very real catalyst: jealousy. It’s easy to look out at other people and imagine what a fantastic time they’re having, especially if you’re having a less than ideal time. The only thing I want to say on the topic is this: talk to them. They may actually be having an awesome time and unaware that you’re having an awful time, in which case they well be able to help you have a better time. Alternately, they may not be having a great time at all, and you’ll find out years later that you’ve isolated yourself by putting others up onto a pedestal that wasn’t there. (For what it’s worth I’ve personally been guilty of this.) To make a long story short, don’t fall into a jealousy trap, communicate.
Looking back over what I’ve written so far I’m realizing that a lot of this could be reduced to just an argument for personal responsibility, although I hope that’s just me selling myself short. Anyone who’s known me for a while knows I’m a big advocate of terminology (”diegetic” or “locus of control,” anyone?) , and I think another part of this can work just as a push-back to our love affair with the term “plot” (while hopefully bringing up some useful alternative terms / ideas).
But I digress — what does anyone else think about this? Are these sound ideas or am I full of it? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Tags: larp · larp theory23 Comments
23 responses so far ↓
I use the word “plot” when designing a game as a shorthand for “stuff to do,” which is in itself a shorthand for “stuff to do that’s meaningful to the game,” sort of the opposite of “boredom and frustration.”
To use Lullaby of Broadway as an example, right now I’m going through the characters to see which ones need more “plot.” Only, I’m not counting things where the character is reactionary, another character wants them to do something, for example. And I’m not counting things where a character *knows* something, but doesn’t have to *do* something. When the character knows something, it might tie him into the plot, but it doesn’t give him more stuff to do.
I’m not sure “stuff to do” is any better a term, but it is more accurate than “plot” for what I’m trying to give my characters.
I totally read the title of this post as “I want more POT, Father,” and thought “Ah, that explains so much. . .”
I have to admit, listening to people whine about lack of plot in a LARP totally baffles me. It’s a medium in which it is so easy to create your own plot.
To be honest, GM/ST created plots rarely work out for me. Either I end up feeling like I am not making the right choices and therefore can’t really do anything to influence the plot, or the plot simply bores me to tears. (Really? The count is dying and creating all these stupid challenges to choose the new count? I so don’t care who the new count is. - Changeling, Fading Dreams)
This does not at ALL influence my ability to have fun at a LARP. If the “main” plots do not appeal to me, I engage myself with side plots, and sometimes I actively make trouble to keep myself amused. See that guy? I HATE THAT GUY! or OMG I HAVE THE BIGGEST CRUSH ON THAT GUY! or I WILL NOW BETRAY MY BEST FRIEND IN A MOST HORRIBLE FASHION. or I WILL NEVER STOP USING CAPS AND PEOPLE WILL TRY TO KILL ME.
I’m sure someone is going to jump on me and accuse me of speaking from a narrativist or simulationist perspective, and remind me that a game ought to appeal to everyone and that, for instance, a gamist would not feel they were accomplishing anything by creating “extraneous” plot.
To those people I say: whatever. Gamists can go play Darkon.
I think measuring boredom and frustration is useful as well. I would argue that you and Mike are attacking the same problem from opposite ends.
Advising people to communicate is certainly critical to these issues.
I would also advise the player to step back mentally and look at what is happening. In two cases I have seen, the player defined a character that was too reactive (again, in a campaign game) and became frustrated until either rules based or adiegetic (to be annoyingly Johnsonian) solutions were introduced. There can be many reasons you are frustrated and some of them can be a matter of the character you are portraying or your view of the situation.
Also, frustration with a single plot or element may have little to do with overall game enjoyment. While I found the Helium plot very frustrating in Brassy’s, it did not detract from my overall game. It is worth talking to the person and better understanding their frustrations as not all reach the same level of distraction.
I recently came up with a working definition of plot in a campaign. Or at very least in Threads. Plot is something that makes you want to file a BGA
@Mike: I think we’re mostly in agreement here. And to be clear I don’t want to stop using the term “plot,” I just think there are times when there are better terms. When I’m writing I still think of myself as writing plots, although I try to think about what the runtime implications of that plot will be (which I think is pretty much the same as your “stuff to do”).
@Eric: As I said above, I do think Mike and I are on the same page on this, although I’m thinking more as a runtime gm and I think Mike is thinking more as a writer (which naturally leads to some different terms, etc.). I think what I’m trying to get at with the meat of the post is “How do you ’step back’?” A lot of times by the point someone perceives a problem he’s so overwhelmed that they can’t easily say “The Helium plot is frustrating me because of ___,” which is probably the most useful thing he could communicate to a writer / gm.
Players who are bored or frustrated are not necessarily passive. Your two categories - “there’s nothing for me to do” and “there’s nothing I can do.” - fail to capture the balance of causes of boredom and frustration in LARPs, and put the onus on the player instead of sharing responsibility with the writers, organizers, and GMs. That’s not fair.
Other causes of boredom include “I am participating in an event where I am forced to wait”; “my character is an awful fit for the story that the writers are producing” or “the mechanic for the main conflict in this plot is repetitive” among other things. Asking “what else should I be doing?” won’t always help, especially because players who are complaining about boredom have probably already asked themselves this. Perhaps they didn’t think of any good answers because either they’ve auto-LARPed to the limit that they’re willing to; because they have no leads to pursue; or because they have done what you suggested, communicated, and were stymied.
Other causes of frustration include “whatever I do to make a difference is thwarted by system” or “when I try to achieve my goals, [someone] denies me” or relevant to Jason’s complaint about Threads, “a significant amount of the information I want to know is being denied to me.” Frustration almost by definition does not happen until AFTER the question “how should I proceed?” has been asked and answered with void. Nobody is frustrated but those who cannot answer that question.
This time addressing just the part on “jealousy”
I think a better word for this would be “envy”. In every game, there are players who get more out of the GMs. This is a failure of the GMs. I’ve been guilty of it. It’s impossible to avoid, but not hard to catch in hindsight. The question then is what to do about it.
From my experience as a player, writer and GM, there are always characters who fit with what you’re writing or running better than others. For campaign games, some characters fit the campaign better than others.
For a dimension-spanning adventure game, pulp heroes and mages are probably better suited than theoreticians or paleontologists. The GMs will always have an easier time writing plot for action characters in most games, but especially in adventure games.
The fact that some players choose to play suboptimal characters is a failure shared by the GMs (unclear expectations - “you can play anything you want!” is always a lie) and the player (thinking a premise-defying character concept is superior to a premise-conforming concept; failing to learn what is public knowledge about the premise).
Additionally, some characters work well because of built-in plot: Typically these are victims and villains. GMs love it when you play villains (in theater style LARPs) or victims (in adventure style LARPs). That’s guaranteed plot - the character comes with it! Other characters work because of built-in plot-solutions: These would be ones who are invincible. Character invincibility is the #1 factor of choice for many players because typically the only thing you can’t achieve through force of personality and your own brain is your character’s health. It also means you can literally stick your nose in ANYWHERE and know it won’t get blown off. So when you’re bored, you can get nosy on other people’s plots - even plots your character wouldn’t be helpful in. (I like how Threads somewhat discourages this with the tracking system, but not entirely - characters without Armor are actually all-but barred from many scenes).
Past choice of character, there is player connectedness and player extraversion. Intraverted players and players who are not connected closely with the troupe are going to get less attention than the ones who are outgoing and the ones who are practically married to the GMs and writers. E.g. if Kirt knows I’m casting, I’m guaranteed to get good cast roles at Threads. If I weren’t as outgoing as I am, I’d have been ignored for the first year of Requiem instead of being the center of a major plot.
Plot = Action
When people say “plot” in the contexts you’re using, they usually mean “action.” However, they would rather use a term that sounds more mature (plot) than one that sounds like a teenager coming out of a Steven Segal feature (action). But in the literary sense of the word, action refers to the events of a drama which have an impact on the characters. The dictionary defines it as “the bringing about of an alteration by force or through a natural agency”
Dictionary.com:
1. the process or state of acting or of being active
2. something done or performed
3. an act that one consciously wills and that may be characterized by physical or mental activity
4. actions, habitual or usual acts; conduct
5. energetic activity
6. an exertion of power or force
7. effect or influence
In both the exact and literary uses of the term, action requires three things: An subject, an object, and a tangible result on the object. In the literary sense, it requires that that result also be witnessed by the audience and move the story in the direction of a climax and resolution.
For very internal LARPers, I suppose action can be “a crisis of faith”; the subject would be “my reason” and the object could be “my faith” whereby my reason is acting to preserve my faith against some doubt. The tangible result could be “my faith, shaken;” the audience “me;” and the plot to which it is relevant “my character slowly spiraling into madness.” As I mentioned in another reply, however, most LARPers have a quota of how much internal LARPing they can do before the exercise becomes meaningless - after all, I didn’t drive out here and commit my evening just to think about my character!
So for most of us, we want action: We want to be the subject or object of some force which has a tangible result that contributes toward a climax and resolution, and that has an audience. When players complain that they don’t have enough plot, they really mean they did not get enough action.
Because action-in-a-literary-sense has five components, there are four ways it can break down:
The subject - as you said, the player may not be proactive enough when an object is present and known; the player is aware of and has the tools with which to produce a tangible effect; there is a sufficient audience (just a GM, a cast member; or another player is often sufficient); and it is tied to plot (e.g. there’s some REASON to do this). This is a failure of subject. Mesmer shows up, he’s definitely connected to rising action, the GM is nearby, and the character has the “Slay Mesmer” skill at 7, but the player does nothing.
The object - no appropriate object to act upon avails. In this case, the subject is willing; capable; armed with an audience; and interested in a plot, but the object of the action fails to materialize. The players are there, they’re eager to take on Mesmer, it would be a rising action for a plot, they have the “Slay Mesmer” skill at 7, but Mesmer doesn’t show.
The tangible effect - The subject and object are present, there is an audience, and there is a point to taking action, but the action fails. Two examples this time: The classic Dungeon Master mistake - the PCs roll to find the secret door to the Arch-Lich’s lair, but they roll a 1. Subject, object, audience, relevance… no effect. It can also happen to more sophisticated GMs - in Vampire: the Requiem, characters of the Gangrel clan can be nigh invincible for a trivial XP expenditure. If the object is a Gangrel character, and has taken advantage of this broken system, the subject will probably try and fail - or else balk and not try at all (which may seem like a failure of subject) because the ability of the subject to influence the object has been subverted (or at least that reasonably appears to be the case from a player’s perspective).
The audience - In LARP, you can’t do anything but auto-LARPing without an audience, so this is actually mostly irrelevant. Still, personal angst plots actually require it. If everyone’s off attacking the Sabbat, the three Toreador left at Elysium don’t have enough people to angst to.
The contribution to plot - a.k.a. “relevance.” A player is eager for action, there are other characters around to act as audience and potential objects, and the player’s character is a combat badass so he knows he could kick any and all of their asses. But what’s the point? Another example: The PC has the gamble skill. Unless playing a game of poker is going to actually mean anything in any long-term way, he’s not going to whip out the cards. That said, there are many ways to make the cards have long term effect - betting big money, drinking, or feeling out other gambler PCs in the room. Lacking other gambler PCs, anyone willing to gamble, or any liquor; the card game is just a way to kill time. You might as well bring your gameboy.
More on how these elements connect to the personal responsibility of the GMs later.
How do I make paragraph breaks in this comment feature? Is there a markup faq? ’cause the comments I’ve already posted are hard to read without breaks in them!
Personal Responsibility… of the GMs
A GM has a significant amount of responsibility for the amount of action players get to experience. The event’s organizers (GMs, writers, STs, what-have-you) are partially responsible for the players’ fun. A significant part. I know this can be a controversial statement for you, but it’s pretty simple and straightforward.
The issue has nothing to do with entitlement, lack of player responsibility, or a “consumer mentality” (as Gordon once put it). Though I can understand how a 48 hour $175+ commitment can lead a player to a consumer mentality pretty easily. That aside, that’s not why GMs have a responsibility for their players’ fun.
Player enjoyment often derives from getting involved in action (as previously defined). But not any action - action that has a significant effect on other players and on the world that the players inhabit. Conflicts are defined by the “vs. X” so players who get to see a non-trivial change in X as a result of their action are getting some good action - and thus they’re probably having a lot of fun. Notice I said “change in X” not “defeat of X.” Many players like defeat plots in certain circumstances, but I digress.
As I previously mentioned, action derives from the arcane confluence of subject, object, effect, audience and relevance. The player only controls one of these elements directly - the subject. Through careful stat-builds, he can have some trivial impact on effect; by associating with other characters, he can have some effect on object and a good deal of effect on audience; and by getting involved in PvP plots (in games that encourage them) he can keep a stable of objects. But the GMs have exponentially more control over these other elements of action than the players.
1. The GMs know things the players do not. They also know things about each player character that the other player characters do not.
2. The GMs control the NPCs. They also control which NPCs make an appearance and how often. They also control how strong NPCs are, who they approach, and how much larger stories hinge on each NPC.
3. The GMs describe the effects of action on the world. They describe the laws of reality and adjudicate the effects of character action. Far-reaching consequence of action can only be controlled by GMs, and even some small effects on the world must go through GMs depending on the situation.
4. The GMs control the pace of large plots. Typically they also control the pace of small plots. Anything but most parlor plots and autoLARPing, really.
5. The GMs control the spread of plot-relevant information, which is crucial in the case of every kind of mystery plot. The GMs choose how to spread it, how much to spread, and whom to spread it to.
The player has comparatively little power over his own action in a LARP.
I agree that the player has significantly more responsibility for his own fun than the relative proportion of power he has would indicate. However, if a player does not have fun because of boredom or frustration, it IS mostly the player’s RESPONSIBILITY, but usually it is NOT mostly the player’s FAULT. By that I mean that the staff may have neglected the player - usually not intentionally - but it was the player’s responsibility to do something to rectify the situation: talk/complain to the GMs, get involved in other people’s plot, start PvP plot, take a break from the event for a while, or just leave and not come back.
@ greymaiden
We gamists love making PvP plot!
I’m not a pure gamist (I’m more narr/gam) but I am a HUGE proponent of PvP plot and even creating characters that are doomed to lose! See, gamist doesn’t mean “out to win” it means “here to play” like as in play a game.
See: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/
Gamism is about two factors (quoting from the article):
1. “…players’ performance and impact on the game-world”
2. “conflict of interest … in the game-world.”
Consequently, gamists love PvP games as much as adventure games. And many gamists - like you - love their characters getting into conflict with other players’ characters.
Also, my gamist bent is why this entire discussion is so interesting and important to me. “Plot” really means “action” which derives from “conflict” which is based on that little “vs.” which means either/both “impact on the game world” and “conflict in the game world.”
It’s non-gamists that confuse me: People who don’t need conflict at all (pure simulationists) and people who enjoy conflict even if they or their characters have no measured impact on it (pure narrativists).
@ greymaiden some more.
Also, also; gamists don’t only have fun when winning.
Imagine a group of guys who get together every week to play $10 buy-in Texas Hold ‘Em (aka playing for quarters). They’re not always winning, but they’re enjoying the game. There’s probably one guy who’s pretty good and wins more often, and a few guys who suck, and usually lose. But they all have fun. the guys who lose are still “gamists” despite 1) being in conflict with their friends every week and 2) losing most of the time. They’re still having fun at it, and that’s what makes the difference.
Some LARPers hate PvP plots. They can’t stand being in conflict with one another. Others will reveal all their secrets and plans OOC. Those latter guys are frustrating to a gamist because then it stops being a game! Yes, I can use that information to my advantage and win. That’s like one guy at poker night always playing with his cards visible to everyone. Now beating him is no longer a question of whether you can outsmart him or read his tells - it’s about whether you choose to beat him.
That’s what separates a pure gamist from a pure narrativist: The pure narrativist would love nothing more than to play open-handed, have the table discuss who should win the pot, and then arrange the betting so that he wins it in the most dramatic way.
Since I’m not at all simulationist, I suppose I can’t speak for that creative agenda. I’ll let someone else do that.
@ Mike “I’m not counting things where the character is reactionary, another character wants them to do something,”
If you were to gauge Brassy’s by that, I had very little plot. But I felt like I had a ton of it. (Er… “Tonne” of it. It was a British game, after all.)
As regards “jealousy” or “envy”… for the most part I have understood that people known to the GMs will be more adept at getting things they want from GMs and getting attention from the GMs, if only because of the advantage that acquaintance gives in ease of communication and understanding of how the other person thinks. This is true in RPG campaigns, and there is no reason it wouldn’t be true in LARP play. There is really nothing to be alarmed about or jealous about, most of the time…
I *have* seen a particularly egregious case of GM favoritism, where (in essence) a GM used a LARP setting to give his RPG campaign players a lot of straw men to mow down like new grass. As you can imagine, I don’t expect to be playing any LARPs run by this GM again.
“Plot” - I’d have to opine that “plot” is more than adequate terminology. “Plot” is direction, “action” is pursuit of direction. “Plot” is what the writer/GM presents to the players, and action (which may result in new plot elements) is what the players give back to the writer/GMs, and to each other.
While I acknowledge that some problems with plot should be examined with the idea that perhaps the player needs to reach out more, or try more, some problems may be rooted in production values and writing style. Better proofreading and cross-referencing of character material can obviously prevent a wide variety of problems. Clarity of expression and purpose are also very important…
I suffered some frustration during my first TSFL event… much later, I realized that some of the root causes of that frustration came from the narrative style the character sheet appeared in.
It should be understood that I love that style of character sheet in some ways. It allowed the writer/GM to expound at length on the recent history of the character (issues pertinent to the time period just before the setting of the LARP), it was entertaining to read, it was informative in many ways. In spite of that, I can think of two ways that it failed…
First, the GM should have recapitulated the goals that were implicit in the text as a bullet list, in order to bring them into sharper relief. If there was an expectation on the part of the writer/GM that some plot directions should be obvious from the text, they should have *made* them obvious.
Secondly - on the subject of clarity of purpose - I’m pretty certain in retrospect that the writer/GM should have created a handful of *specific* objects of interest for the character to pursue, rather than saying “there are a lot of opportunities open to you”. For a campaign LARP, that might have been sufficient; the player has a long time to investigate those opportunities, decide which ones to pursue, and prepare for them. In a single-weekend event, it puts a considerable burden on the character to do a LOT in a little time. Focus on more specific targets would very likely have prevented the frustration that I experienced, without making any unrealistic representations that they would be *easy* to achieve.
Still, I’d agree that the player should examine themselves before either looking outward for solutions or just deciding that there isn’t anything they can do. There’s always opportunity to improve the quality of your experience by trying different things, and if nothing else you might be able to help someone else with their game and (particularly in a campaign setting) create future opportunities for interesting play.
@Jon: I think you’ve got a lot of interesting observations. The one thing I specifically want to comment on is that I’m not suggesting that a player needs to be primarily responsible for resolving issues he is having with a LARP. However I think they do need to be responsible for doing preliminary analysis of their issues. If, as a GM, a player comes to me and says “I have problems” or “I need more plot” but doesn’t have any supporting analysis or data, then I have to go back and do forensic analysis of how they’re interacting with my event before I can reasonably expect to be able help him. The more effort a player is willing to put into understanding his problems the better we can work together to resolve them.
Even if you were to assume that LARP was running under a consumer model (which I don’t think is apt) this would not be an extreme ideology. If you call a tech support line and have a poor understanding of your problem then you’ll have to jump through half a dozen scripts and possibly a few agents as they try to guide you into better defining your problem. If you have a better understanding of your problem (and get an agent who’s not a complete moron) then you can skip the initial steps and get right to solving your problem. The same applies in LARP, and is actually compounded by the general lack of time that GMs have.
@Richard: I think a lot of what I say to Jon above also applies here. I’m much less interested in assigning blame to anyone for issues than I am in coming up with the most expedient method to resolve them, and I think the best solutions require an involved player (and GM) to be successful.
Re: jealousy / envy: I think everything you say is true, although I don’t think that negates the power of jealousy to be a very real catalyst. I consider myself to be a relatively mature LARPer and I know that I’m still prone to falling into a jealousy trap on occasion, which is ultimately why I thought it was worth bringing up here.
Re: TSFL: I’m not a TSFL writer, so I don’t have too much to contribute in this regard, though I will note that I think that it’s even particularly important to bring an issue you’re having to a GM’s attention if you’re in an event where you receive a character sheet since there’s some pressure to play a character as the writer intended that can make a confusing sheet particularly debilitating (Unless the intent of the sheet is actually to confuse you). Unless an event has been run before in the past there’s always a (disturbingly high) chance that your sheet was written hours (or minutes) before the event by someone who was three sheets to the wind. Most writers will realize that their sheets may not be perfect and should be happy to help you make sense of yours (and help correct the sheet for the future as well).
I think that people who are more reflective (in the “think about and analyze their own thoughts and feelings” sense, not that they have a ) are generally more socially skilled and get more out of life. Players who are more reflective will be better players simply because of their social skills and self-understanding. Players who are informed of how LARP works, through experience - even better. Experience… or presumably education, if they spend enough time studying LARP theory blog posts.
My working definition of “plot” these days is “the ways in which the setting reacts and changes based on the actions of the characters.” [1] Those who protest that they don’t have enough plot generally mean that their actions aren’t having an effect they can see — which isn’t the same as having no effect at all, if you catch my meaning.
In reply to Jason: “Those who protest that they don’t have enough plot generally mean that their actions aren’t having an effect they can see”
This is an excellent point. In many cases people are looking for feedback but there can be many reasons they don’t get that. For instance, the character may have done something in game that got a lot of attention from a group of players but was only discussed amongst them and not even the staff are aware of it. There was a strong roleplaying effect but it is invisible to the player in question. Another possibility is that the effect is slow in coming to fruition and the player does not see that.
@ Jason
My working definition of “plot” these days is “the ways in which the setting reacts and changes based on the actions of the characters.”
The effect of action on the world is the driving motion of plot. But it’s not just that people want to have an effect; often they want a direction. They want to have something to do that leads toward some climax. Hence why I broke “plot” aka action down into the literary compontnts of subject, object, effect of s on o, relevance, and audience. People who want more “plot” may be seeking an effect of their action on an object; but they may also be looking for some action that is relevant to some larger story, or they may have a relevant story in mind and just be looking for an object to act on, or they may have everything they need and just not realize it.
Those who protest that they don’t have enough plot generally mean that their actions aren’t having an effect they can see — which isn’t the same as having no effect at all, if you catch my meaning.
Or that they don’t know what actions to take that would be relevant to any story, even if they would be relevant to the world. Or a lot of things, really.
“… I’m much less interested in assigning blame to anyone for issues than I am in coming up with the most expedient method to resolve them, and I think the best solutions require an involved player (and GM) to be successful.”
Understanding and stating what might be wrong could look like assigning blame, when all you are actually trying to do is to state your understanding of the cause of a problem clearly. My intent above was *not* to assign blame for the problem I experienced, but to explain how I *think* the problem came about.
An important aspect of communication between player and GM must certainly be to avoid the use of pejorative language, and also to avoid the *assumption* of pejorative intent. Escalation into blame-casting or blame-avoidance can only impede actual critical evaluation and problem resolution, and escalation can start on either side of the discussion.
A player should obviously NOT state their understanding of their problem in the form of an attack… by the same logic, though, it’s important for the GM to avoid *seeing* a player’s critical evaluation of a problem as a pejorative attack on the GM’s work.
@Richard: I think we’re actually in agreement on this; clearly I shouldn’t be writing responses when it’s late enough that my critical reading skills are impaired…
@Richard
Isn’t stating the cause of a problem the same as placing blame? This discussion is more useful for us, as LARP writers and GMs, than it is for players. After all, we can’t assign textbooks of LARP theory as required reading before playing our games.
This discussion has already helped me get a better sense of how to understrand and address a problem if a player complains that they “don’t have enough plot.” I can focus more clearly and have a few questions in mind that I would use to figure out exactly what the player wants.
@Jon:
“Isn’t stating the cause of a problem the same as placing blame?”
The negative connotations of the phrase “placing blame” are not conducive to cooperative problem resolution, so I wouldn’t use it if I had a choice. Within the context of Eric’s discussion, problem resolution needs to be cooperative to be truly successful.
“This discussion is more useful for us, as LARP writers and GMs, than it is for players. After all, we can’t assign textbooks of LARP theory as required reading before playing our games.”
You’re just not mean enough… :-). Seriously, though, even if most of the people who read this are writer/GMs, it could be directly useful to players who will never read it… as you noted, you feel that you’ve come away from this with some ideas and perhaps greater clarity on some things you already knew, and players will benefit thereby.
I certainly expect to benefit as a player from both having read what others have said here, and from having to write down my thoughts on what might have been the root of my dissatisfaction with an otherwise good LARP that I enjoyed participating in.