We had our fourth Quail Valley Campaign session last night and although it will be a bit before the campaign log gets posted, I did want to share something that really struck me after the session. It wasn’t anything new as many, many others have discussed this issue in the past. It was just something that really struck me in the difference between how this session went and how the prior sessions had gone…all of the players trusted–implicitly–the GM and this made all of the difference.
Like I said, nothing new but it is something absolutely critical (at least to me) for a good campaign. It is very important that the players trust the GM…trust that he or she is going to be fair, trust that–no matter how much he or she might joke about killing a certain player’s character(s)–the GM is not out to get anybody, trust that he or she wants the players to ultimately enjoy the session, trust that he or she ignores the rules to enhance the play experience for everyone, trust that he or she–despite creating challenges for the characters and players to overcome–is not the adversary or the enemy, trust that he or she is not competing against the players to somehow “win” the game. This trust helps make the game run smoothly…or perhaps, more to the point, makes a campaign run smoothly.
In our prior few sessions, we had a new player in our group who had admitted he was accustomed to a more adversarial relationship between the players and the GM. More often than not, this player would question and challenge (in what I considered a rather confrontational/adversarial manner) my rulings…even if they didn’t break or violate any of the game’s rules. This significantly impacted play by slowing things down, breaking the flow (or immersion) of play, and by having a negative impact on the general atmosphere at the table…which the other players noticed as well.
This player recently decided to stop playing with us.
Last night was our first session without him and the atmosphere was markedly different. All four of the players at the table are people that I’ve known for many, many years. We’re all friends and we’ve all gamed together for quite some time as well. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that they all trust me as a GM as well. This isn’t to say that we haven’t had our ups and downs in terms of gaming over the years but we long ago reached a spot where they have that trust in me. It doesn’t mean that can’t/won’t question things but they don’t do so in a confrontational fashion. They aren’t challenging things as an adversary, they are trying to understand rulings…and possibly improve them This, in my opinion, makes all the difference. It eliminates a significant portion of GM stress and potential burnout and makes the game much, much easier to run.
I also think this contributed to my 3.5 burnout. As I understand it, part of the reason for the heavy rules emphasis of 3.5 was to help standardize play across campaigns, make organized play easier due to consistency, and to assist in reining in power-mad GMs that were adversarial in nature. The heavy reliance on rules rather than trusting a GM’s rulings, however, likely contributed to a more confrontational relationship between the two sides of the screens. More importantly, at least for me, it puts GM rulings–rulings intended to improve the play experience–on a more tenuous footing…unless, of course, your players already trust that your rulings are designed to do exactly that.
Although some of our early 3.5 campaigns had some rocky starts, we eventually settled into a pattern of trust and I was able to stay in my comfort zone of “rulings not rules” even with the rule monster of 3.5. By the time we were playing our Company H Campaign, the group had hit that sweet spot of trust and we had a great and memorable campaign ongoing. However, as is often the case, we had a change in players. Players have to leave a game for various reasons (e.g., moving out of town) and new players come in to take their place. The trust dynamic can change as this happens.
Intended or not, 3.5’s design seems more conducive to a lack of trust and an adversarial relation between player and GM. For a GM that doesn’t want that in his or her game, a lot of effort has to go into managing the game to get new players to that sweet spot, possibly too much effort. I know that it certainly isn’t where I want my time and effort in a campaign to be put. If, however, I don’t establish that “trust dynamic” within the group, the campaign will suffer as will my enjoyment in running. It is, essentially, a no-win situation for me and one that has, more than once, led me to ask myself why I am bothering to run a campaign.
Ultimately, I think this is why I gave up on 3.5. It was simply too much of an effort to create the right trust dynamic at the table. Of course, this problem can exist no matter what system you are playing but my sense is that 3.5 is more susceptible to it (for a number of different reasons). It just got to be too much work to both do this and run the campaign. If 4e hadn’t come along with its shiny newness, I probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer with 3.5 due to this issue (not that we kept playing 4e for all that long). I was simply burned out on fighting to create trust with a system designed to be played without it.
As I mentioned way up top, the four players currently in my campaign and I all go way back. We’ve established the trust dynamic I want. If I had to, I could go back to running 3.5 with this group because of that. I don’t particularly think that I have to as Myth & Magic is working nicely so far. The point (which may have gotten a bit lost in the ramblings about 3.5) is that I don’t feel like I’ll need to stress nearly as much about GMing (i.e., prepping for the game, managing play, and the like) as I have in the past because of the current composition of my group. They trust me as a GM and that makes my life so much easier and will make the campaign all the better.
