One thing I've noticed is that players love to be independent. This is particularly clear with Henry (David Cho's player), who in almost every session so far that's involved any kind of combat or stealth has gone well out of his way to put as much in-game distance between the party and himself as possible. He'll always be the one to "sneak around", "stay back", or "take a position" somewhere away from the rest of the party.
Generally speaking, in my experience and the experience of a number of other GM's whose work I've read, this kind of habitual party splitting is driven by one of three motives: first, a desire for individual attention, second, a roleplaying imperative, or thirdly, a deathwish for their character.
The first motive is the most common in my experience; gaming is an inherently social experience, and we all (or most of us, anyways) crave social attention. It is very easy as a GM to start ignoring some players without realizing it -- other players have taken lead on what's happening, so your attention is there. Being hyper-aware of how much attention each player is getting isn't terribly helpful (although we all go through the phase of trying to do that), simply because there are different attention requirements players feel from game to game, from session to session, and even from moment to moment. Sometimes a player who is happy to sit in the background for hours one week will want a disproportionate amount of spotlight the next week, and vice-versa.
If a player is looking for more individual attention from the GM, one of the easiest ways to get it is to move away from whatever the rest of the party is doing. If a character is in a different room, or even different situation, than the rest of the party, they need to be dealt with more explicitly than the balance of the group. This tends to come up more in fast-and-loose exploration mode play than tactical play, if only because the initiative system tends to ensure that everybody at least feels like they're getting their fair share of time to act and affect the game. Going off to explore on your own provides the opportunity for your character to find something special before the rest of the group (and what prestige might be associated with that discovery) and carries relatively little risk if the area is secure and/or you're pretty sure the GM isn't going to gank your character for it.
The second motive is a roleplaying imperative; the character has some reason to go somewhere separately from the rest of the group, be it for reasons of principle, money, or to protect themselves or the rest of the party from some danger. There are tactical reasons to do so as well (spread out groups are less vulnerable to area-of-effect attacks.) Generally speaking, you can predict when these splits will happen (or at least are likely or possible), and plan accordingly.
The final motive is the deathwish. The player is no longer having fun, but simply quitting the game would have social consequences. As a result, the player is trying to place their character in as much jeopardy as possible, as at almost any game table, character death is a valid reason for taking a break from the game for a few session, if not dropping the game completely. This motive is easier to see if one knows to look for it; it generally has other symptoms, such as an equipment loadout that favors damage over protection, as well as tactical choices that tend to exposure the character to more than their share of fire. Behavior like this often prompts me to have an out-of-game conversation with the player in private, to determine if there is some change in the game they'd like to see, or failing that, to give their character an appropriately epic send-off on their own terms. This is, after all, about pleasing the players.
In Cho's case, I believe he is most strongly motivated by the roleplaying motive, although I suspect that a bit of the lack of attention has played a role at some times. I suspect I'll find out for certain when the whole party is relying on his infiltration skills on Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment