How To Be A Better Player

Episode 113 – How To Be A Better Player
(Live from Dragonmeet, London, 2019)

The lads have been down to London Village for Dragonmeet 2019. Among other fantastic activities, they hosted a seminar on being a better player. If you want great advice on quite literally upping your game, then look no further! Joined by special guests (co-authors of Call of Cthulhu 7th ed) Paul Fricker of the Good Friends of Jackson Elias podcast and CoC Creative Director Mike Mason, the panel provided all manner of top tips and advice, to rapturous applause.

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​​Being a Better Player – I’ve Painted Myself Out of a Game​

Episode​ ​​7​​: ​​Being a Better Player
(a.k.a.​​ ​I’ve Painted Myself Out of a Game​)

​There’s lots of advice for GMs, but how can we be a better player? Every day is a school day, so if only there was a podcast to help us with lessons on how to do a more sterling job of performing the player role. Well, now there is!

Con Conflict Characters

I was asked at a Con recently how I got conflicts into my games – so much happening from three or four statements. Not sure if it’ll translate to text well, without the full demo, but here’s a stab at giving people the first go at getting some intra-party rivalry into their convention games.

A Good Time in Spite of All

So, its been quiet round here? Well, yes, the Smart Party have been heavily involved in weekly games and organising campaigns and not so much of the one-shots we’re here to talk about. With summer over however (did it ever really begin?) there’s a convention a month into the new year starting with last weekend’s CONcrete Cow in Milton Keynes. This is a one day con Ideal for one shot adventures, and although I could only go last minute and hence didn’t get much chance to prep games or get involved in advance, I did get chance to play in a game of Spite: the second book of Pandemonium – following on from Dread (the first book, not the game involving Jenga as a resolution mechanic). Ably refereed by the always-reliable Mr Dorward and good fun as it was, it reintroduced me to the world of Playing RPGs With People You Don’t Know and threw up some behaviours I observed around the table; behaviours I think we could all do with trying to avoid…

Support Your GM

It’s easy to go to cons and think that the GM is there to offer you a service and should be great at what he’s doing and deliver a fantastic game with control over all elements, including other players (who he doesn’t know).  It’s also easy to forget that most people running games are doing it for the love of the hobby, that they’ve paid to be there and if they do get some kind of reward, a five pound gaming voucher doesn’t really cut it when compared to the normal out-of-hours rate they could be getting on a weekend…  So what can we do to help?

Wimmin

Strange beasts aren’t they, with their funny smells, crazy ways of dressing and odd ways of thinking about things.  But enough about mad hermits in roleplaying games, how do we deal with the fairer sex?  Well from a player point of view that’s easy isn’t it?  Treat them like everyone else – what’s wrong with you you chauvinist pig!  Female characters however are often neglected.

Its better to give than receive?

One thing that it rarely done regarding convention games – and even more rarely, done *well* – is criticism. First things first, its probably best to ask someone if they want to chat about their game. A GM may well have just had a bad game from their point of view and be feeling down about it anyway, and in no mood to be told by someone else that it was poor also. They might have other things going on in their lives and have struggled through to run a game anyway so they don’t let people down who’ve showed up. There could be all manner of other reasons – perhaps they just don’t like talking about games? So, the best thing to do, before we even start, is make sure your GM wants to hear what you’ve got to say.

Who Brings The Fun?

I saw a heated debate online about who’s responsibility it was to bring the fun and what lay with the GM. As with all these discussions, that can be a thousand and one things depending on which game you’re playing and who you’ve got round the table, but lets assume we’re talking about a reasonably middle of the road (“Trad”) game like something Savage or White Wolf or Cthulhu even. Lets also assume that people are their to try and have a good game and not just hanging about like a friend of a friend on a double date who got dragged along even though convinced the whole night is going to be a waste of space. If you think something is going to be rubbish going in, there’s a good chance it’ll be a self fulfilling prophecy. Spend your time more wisely and don’t risk spoiling everyone else’s fun by filling a space in a game you don’t want. Someone else might want it for starters, and they could be really interested in what’s on offer.