Blogwagon - Be a Good Player
Prismatic Wasteland is driving forward a blogwagon about being a good player, so I consider myself summoned to give my two cents on the matter. (It was supposed to take place starting October 24th, but some people jumped the gun, so why not me, too?)
I can talk about this from two perspectives: from the GM side, the player practices that I most cherish when running the game; from the player side, the things I feel proud of doing and those I’ve regretted doing.
GM Side - What I Like to See as a GM
As a GM, my preference for players has everything to do with their engagement with the group. I’m going to structure this as increasing player levels - because we all know players are gremlins who will do anything to gain levels, so I’m hoping that if I structure my ideas this way, it will incentivize them to do their darndest to reach the highest levels. It is definitely not just a silly framing for this discussion for my own amusement - how dare you even suggest that?
Level 0 Player - Is willing to play
Playing RPGs is a hobby that can be for everyone, but that also isn’t for everyone. This is due to the simple reason that you have to want to play it for it to be for you. There are people in my life I would love to game with, but they have clearly expressed to have no interest in this hobby, so I respect that and don’t pester them - simple as.
Which means that to be a good player, the first barrier to clear is wanting to be a player at all. If you’re at least willing to try a game out, no matter your level of enthusiasm, you’ve cleared this barrier and can consider yourself a lvl 0 player. Congratulations!
Level 1 Player - Consistent commitment to the game
Immediately above being willing to play is being committed to the game. This means attending sessions on time, or communicating clearly and in advance when you will fail to do so. It also means recognizing when you won’t be able to consistently make it to a given game and giving up on it when that is the case, again with clear communication. Or perhaps not even applying to a game at all, if it is still at the stage of getting a group together and you think you might maybe be able to attend most sessions, so long as the stars align? But then they don’t and you can almost never make it.
This probably sounds kinda obvious and trivial, but in practice it is the kind of thing where you might find yourself grappling with a myriad different feelings before you can truly know and act upon your degree of commitment. Excitement at the chance of getting to play, social anxiety, frustration with schedules, external pressures or the dreadful realization that, come game time, you’re too tired, depressed or concerned to follow through - all things that can push even the most well meaning person to fail at maintaining the requirements of this level of player.
So don’t assume this level is easy to attain or maintain - it requires no less than being honest with yourself and others, which is a doozy. Being a level 1 player demands enough emotional and social maturity that I’m willing to celebrate anyone who lives up to it - gods know I myself have failed to clear this bar on multiple occasions.
Despite being very possible to fail to clear this bar, attaining this level is, generally speaking, mandatory if you want to do more than play a few scattered one-shots here and there. It is fine if you dip below this level now and then, but if you flake more often than you show up and people can't count on you, you shouldn't expect anyone to go out of their way to include you in their games.
Level 2 Player - Excited to play with the group
Being excited to play is great in principle, but sometimes that excitement can be channeled into the wrong places. I don’t usually like to talk smack on the broadly-defined “neo-trad/5e play culture” (which often boils down to dunking on what’s popular out of envy), but one behavior I do find counterproductive in how people approach these games, when I look at on-line “looking for game” posts, lies with players who are overeager to play a character they’ve already cooked up long before they ever had a game to put them in.
To me, this is a symptom of the real problem: wanting to play a game that exists only in your mind, and nowhere else. If all you want out of a game is to play your lovely OC, if you’re already obsessed with them before they even have a time and a place to exist in, then what you’re excited about is just doing your own thing. This might not be a problem, if it turns out that your particular desires for playing your character mesh with the campaign the group is trying to run - but note that this is far from guaranteed.
Much to the contrary, being overly excited about your own idea of how the game should go usually means you can’t appreciate what the game actually ends up being, or what the other players are bringing to the table. Worse still, it means you might end up doggedly pushing an idea to the rest of the table that no one else is excited by.
This means that a lvl. 2 player isn’t just excited about playing. They need to be excited about playing this game, with this group, exploring this premise.
Some games posit that the GM should be a fan of the player characters. This should apply to every player, really: you should be as much of a fan of your fellow players’ characters as you are of your own. And it should apply more broadly in the sense of being excited for one another’s contributions: everyone should be excited about what will happen when everyone’s ideas come together.
When other players are in the spotlight, you shouldn't be checked out. You should be that MJ meme from thriller where he is eating popcorn with a big ol' grin on his face, eagerly watching the movie. If you find yourself unable to be excited about what the other people in the table are doing when it doesn't directly involve you, you need to ask yourself why. And you need to ask yourself if you should be playing with this group, if you only care about them when they're reacting to your suggestions and actions.
Every player will still come to the table with some personal desires for how the game will go - that is inevitable and healthy - but, more importantly, they should come with an open mind for everything the game could turn into, with a willingness to let go of their own ideas when presented with an interesting alternative. They need to be excited to play with the group - both in offering and in receiving inputs for play.
It isn’t enough to be excited about a game - to be a good player, you need to make sure you’re pointing your excitement somewhere where the entire table can follow, where everyone can share in it. This is the kind of excitement that is infectious, that makes a game sizzle with energy!
Level 3 Player - Willing to share the burden
We’re way past the level of a player that is simply “good to have at the table” here; level 2 was already more than I would ask of any random player, at least at the start.
This here is the level of angelic beings, of enlightened individuals. Of people who are probably just a couple of rungs shy of Nirvana, really. Not a good player, a great player!
When you start actively taking on the responsibility for making sure the game happens, helping alleviate the burdens from the GM, working to make everyone have a good time - that's when the heavens will smile upon you.
Should you send a weekly message checking in on folks a couple of days before the session, the ground blossoms with verdant abundance beneath thine hallowed feet.
It is not the smell of the freshly baked brownies you brought to the session that lights up the room upon your arrival, but the aura of your sheer munificence.
The spirits of the sun and moon bow before the presence of the player who, of their own volition, does the recap at the start of a session.
Every little gesture that shows everyone - particularly the GM, but preferably everyone else too - that you care about this game and this group of people, and that you’re willing to put in some extra time out of your busy life to help keep this good thing going, is a deeply appreciated sign of respect. It is a well of energy that keeps GMs from burning out, the lighthouse of engagement that brings other players back to the harbor of the gaming table again and again.
This level comes after the level of excitement for the game not only because it is even less mandatory than it, but also because what I’m talking about here needs to be a genuine expression of that excitement. I’m not talking about simple player roles that some games expect - being the dungeon mapper is a fine thing to do, but it is also just playing the game. I’m talking about the things that go beyond that, about having the wherewithal to observe the game beyond your role as a participant, but in your capabilities as a facilitator.
There are things you may not be able to do - perhaps the GM doesn’t want to forgo certain powers or responsibilities of facilitation, perhaps you yourself will not have the time or capability to put in this extra effort. But any time that you identify a way you can make the experience of playing together be more pleasant or happen more smoothly, that is a true blessing for any game.
Seriously, as a GM, if you help me with scheduling, you are well beyond a saint in my eyes! I can’t emphasize this enough!
From my perspective as a player
To close things out, I’ll give two real-life examples of things I’ve done as a player: one which was good and enhanced the game; and another that I regret doing. Both hold lessons for how I want to act as a player in the future.
The good: so I was once playing a one-shot of Lady Blackbird. If you’re not familiar with this game, what you need to know is each character in it comes with bespoke roleplaying “keys” that generate certain benefits to your character whenever you, as a player, manage to activate them. Most characters have keys built to further the drama between them, centering around their personal desires for one another and their shifting allegiances to powerful external factions. In this session, however, I was playing the little goblin character that serves as a comic relief - one of his keys is literally managing to make the entire table laugh! The moment I’m proud of during this one-shot was precisely the one in which I managed to ‘turn this key’, as the system calls it.
But while I do feel proud of myself anytime I can make an entire table of people burst into laughter - one of life’s great joys, no doubt - the reason I highlight this as a moment of being a good player is that this moment wasn’t all about me. I mean, yes, I did hog the spotlight a bit for my little comedy routine, but the entire routine was focused on another player character’s key. That means it wasn’t just a self-serving bit of roleplaying, but a bit that also existed to serve this other player with an opportunity for them to turn their key as well - which they did!
The lesson is to use your own character actions as a stepping stone for the other players to shine, too. Don’t just “pass” the spotlight around - share it, too!
The bad: being good at learning and remembering rules is a good thing in RPGs 99% of the time. But sometimes, you’re a player and you notice the GM is misremembering a rule. Sometimes, you notice that a particular ruling doesn’t make sense given some quirk of the system.
Sometimes, you decide to offer what you hope will be a helpful reminder or advice on how to run the system you are all playing.
Sometimes, despite all your best efforts, you completely derail a game by suggesting your GM should make a different ruling.
The lesson here isn’t “never contradict the GM” or something to that effect. But it is a reminder of how precarious it is to have a strong opinion on how to run a game and see someone else do it differently. Particularly when they seem unsure of what they’re doing! A self-confident GM will take your suggestion into consideration and call it however they see it, and that will be that. An unsure GM may feel flustered, challenged, inept; they may well feel like they’ve completely lost control of the session, or conclude that they must defer to your (inexistent) authority.
The thing I’m trying to do better at as a player, then, is to more effectively shut my GM voice up while I’m playing. Not only for the sake of whoever is running a game for me, but also for my own. It is hard to just enjoy a game if you’re thinking about how you’d be doing things if you were on the other side of the metaphorical screen.
“They should have adjusted your position and effect after you clarified you’re using a different action rating!” - the GM inside me hisses, like a shitty Gollum impression - “They forgot to take encumbrance into account!” Gods above, shut up, GM-brain! Let me just play here. However they decide to do things is fine!
But GM-brain doesn’t shut up of his own volition, so I need to learn how to hogtie him in the depths of my mind’s basement - I’m sure he’ll still want to say his piece once the session’s over and I let the bastard out again.
Anyway, uhh… therapy session over, I guess?
There was some passable player advice somewhere in here, right? Sure.