Spotlight is Not a Conserved Property (No Zinegata, thanks)

[MGuy]

Long held animosity between board members can find its way into posts that distract from whatever point was being made. In this case zine in particular is really mad at 'the den' collectively. I'd suggest just sticking to the parts worth talking about and ignoring the chaff. PL isn't saying anything objectionable here. There's not much else to say other than 'I agree and here's the same argument with hopefully more agreeable language'. If that don't work then I'll just wait until there's something else worth replying to.

[...You Lost Me]

Zine is notorious for doin that. Fox, could you put a "no zinegata" in the title to save us all some pain?

A lot of this thread is "you have added this person to your ignore list" so I may be repeating something that someone already said: I don't agree with your examples. Situational jokes and putting up illusions that let you win an encounter through a single player's creativity -- those both sound like spotlight moments. Everyone will look at the character doing the illusion / telling the joke / using the psyker power / etc, and their eyes will not be on other players. Those both seem like clear examples of spotlight being conserved between players.

[jt]

I think the property that Fox is saying isn't conserved isn't "who has the moment to moment focus of the group" but rather "who features in the group's memory after-the-fact." The latter version can be generated with memorable moments or destroyed in a forgettable session.

[Foxwarrior]

Okay, Zinegata gets to be banished. You didn't miss much, but it was kinda amusing to see PhoneLobster heroically arguing against Zinegata.

Yeah, I guess notable moments are spotlight moments, and there's surely some saturation point where: if more interesting things happen in a session, the players won't be able to pay attention to and/or remember them all. It's just that most sessions don't actually hit the limit much, so there's a lot of spotlight time that could have been taken by someone but wasn't. So instead of saying that the psyker stole 60% of the spotlight and each of the four other players got 10%, I think a more accurate description would likely be that the psyker got 18% with a lucky roll, each other player took up 3% by just chugging along with predictable actions, the DM got 20% for setting the scene, and the remaining 50% could really have stood to be more interesting.

[MGuy]

One of my intents when I run is to get my players emotionally invested in what's going on in the game. I'm pretty explicit about it as well. I like when my players give me material to work with and I like when their connection to their character, the world, or some event in the game is evident. When I hear players referencing the game later on there're certain things I keep my ear out for. I'm not as interested in hearing about how big the numbers were for a thing they did, crazy builds they tried from the char op boards, or anything like that. Not that I'm against hearing them go bonkers over a crit or rolling a bunch of dice. That still happens. I'm more interested in hearing about their character's motives, development, inner turmoil. I want in character triumphs to solicit a measurable irl feeling of pride and accomplishment. Since I GM most of the time there are some tricks I've picked up over time that help me get more of these moments and the resultant stories. I find that some adventures work better for producing these moments than others as well as some adventures give me more material to work with than others. So this is definitely a thing I think about a lot each time I even run a game. So I think well designed adventures can play a part.

I think there are a few things that I can think about at the moment that I keep in mind when I run and when I'm thinking about what I'm designing. When I GM I get in the mindset that I'm putting on a show for my players and there are a few things I think are important in doing this. Part of what I concern myself with is the nature of the audience, part of it is investment, and part of it is what the rules encourage. These elements work together, I believe, toward generating that positive energy that gets people really going.

Of course it helps if you just have a group that just works well with each other but you can't design around that.

Audience, I think, is a big factor. There are all kinds of people who are in the hobby and everyone comes to it with different tastes. As I outlined above I'm not all that interested in the numbers. So if I had a player who was interested in nothing but testing out 'builds' the things they would be excited about would not excite me. This may or may not be a problem because while these interests aren't mutually exclusive, I'm much more prone to pursuing and catering to things that interest me than things that don't. I have regular players that really like to play around with builds so I'd prefer a game where they could min max in a way that doesn't inevitably lead to me having to put as much work as I currently do in catering to their power level versus the relatively smaller power level of the other players. Of course there is an outright verbal agreement I have with them to not fuck around too much where this is concerned and in exchange I make tougher challenges just so they can sink their teeth into them. I imagine that if the system was just better balanced, where things didn't get too out of hand at mid and higher levels, I'd be much freer to spend my prep time more on fleshing out things that cater to my primary interests. I get by just fine now but a better system would straight up help me as a GM to allow more time producing content that would encourage more memorable moments.

Players can also show up with different things they are invested in. Some people really just attend games for the social experience. They are not all that interested in their character sheet, or really, even their character. They just want to play around with everyone else. Quite a number of people show up to do some version of wish fulfillment. I get a LOT of mileage out of understanding things my individual players think makes a good or fun character and just giving them that. For some you can facilitate it through numbers and abilities. They want to feel strong so they make strong builds or simply characters that 'are' strong. Some want to feel smart or clever. They get that by having their plots work out well, finding emergent uses out of things that were only meant for utility, or for overcoming challenges through subversion instead of direct action. There are some people that really just want to collect pets or act in the role of hero or protector in the game. I have had players in games pretty consistently take up the role of adoptive parent or caretaker for animals, kids, or entire settlements. These people are the kind who really feel invested when they can do good for imaginary beings.

All of these things can be enhanced by your ruleset. One of my goals is to make a connection between some of these things. Where in some cases there's a mechanical incentive to say 'have a family that the character interacts with' or having a kind of in game physics engine that will allow for (and hopefully encourage) interacting with the environment (ideally in an intuitive way) to allow for encounters to feel more tactically inclined. All of that and other, similar, ideas. Players tend to get more invested in something if it's something they already care about in some way and if they feel like they are spending in game resources and personal resources (like time and effort in learning how to do things) and then being rewarded for it positively. Having mechanisms in your game that give this regular positive feedback is a thing ttrpgs already do but it traditionally came in the form of loot and xp from killing things. It's been expanding for a while now but I think that we're only just beginning to explore all the ways reward systems can encourage more positive play.

Every rule in the game changes what players are incentivized to do and therefore change the play experience. Players are not just robots however and come into the game with their own biases and desires. It was inevitable that players who wanted something more nuanced out of their DnD would push the game and its spinoffs toward rewarding xp for something other than farming orcs. It was probably inevitable that 'monster races' would become core species because if you're going to play in fantasy land you're going to want to play a fantasy being and you're going to want to not get punished or unnecessarily limited from doing so. A player will value and remember a 'unique' character they got to play more than most people will remember your average human fighter. Being a drow seems to be more attractive to a lot of the gaming population than being another human or even a dwarf. A ruleset that allows for more species/class combinations or other interesting 'builds' opens the way for players to create more unique characters. The time and effort investment in making these character concepts work will increase the chances players remember that character.

I don't have any hard numbers on any of this. I can't say what percentage of the gaming population likes or wants a given thing. No one is going to be able to make a game that appeals to everyone. Some people care more about the setting and all the other things I listed will be a secondary concern to them, well behind making the setting 'feel' right to them. Then there are the aforementioned players who don't much care what they are doing as long as they get to hang out. This was all ultimately just a long ramble on things that I thought about while ruminating on what's honestly been a concern of mine for a long time given what I seek to get out of my players when I'm the one behind the screen.

[jt]

Some want to feel smart or clever. They get that by having their plots work out well, finding emergent uses out of things that were only meant for utility, or for overcoming challenges through subversion instead of direct action.

This is absolutely me. I'm happy with a session if I get to help someone in need, see something new, and cheese a solution to an encounter. I don't know if I'd characterize this as wanting to feel smart though - it's more that thinking this way makes the world feel more real to me. It's not really about the clever payoff moment, it's about engaging with the world as a physical space with its own rules for the entire session, and the clever moment is just confirmation that the world in my head is the same as the one in the GM's and party's heads.

Since I'm now the elected representative of this example group, I'd suggest that a quick way to make me emotionally invested is to give people interesting problems. Like I said earlier, I found myself instantly invested in the party of a mute, a potted plant, and a ghost. Having to think critically about how to deal with these problems is very similar to caring about the problems, so it's easy to make that emotional jump. It doesn't need to be built into the party like in that example, you could just as well attach that sort of problem to the people we're expected to help. Rescuing a prince is more interesting if he's been turned into a lead golem and would fall through the wooden bridge we used to get here, and by the time I'm trying to solve that puzzle I basically already care.

[deaddmwalking]

Keep in mind that 'spotlight' can be time where the player has the tools to succeed, but they can also be times where a particular character fails. When it all comes down to one roll - win or lose - it's dramatic.

There are 'trap options' that are always bad, but more often you have a variety of options that will sometimes be exactly what you need to advance easily, sometimes what you need to advance with difficulty, and sometimes insufficient to help you advance. If 'getting the tools you need' is an option to move forward, that's okay. In the second act, there is always a problem that can't be solved and the players have to hero up and reengage to win in the 3rd act. While games don't always follow the conventions of that kind of story, a combination of 'easy' and 'difficult' obstacles is optimal, but what that specific combination is may depend on the players. If player choice matters at all, it's not impossible for them to make an easy challenge more difficult - maybe for fun! If they choose not to use the tools they have (or use less effective tools), as long as the game/story continues, it's all good.

[...You Lost Me]

I think a more accurate description would likely be that the psyker got 18% with a lucky roll, each other player took up 3% by just chugging along with predictable actions, the DM got 20% for setting the scene, and the remaining 50% could really have stood to be more interesting.

I agree with that. Though my next question is: of that 50% that could have been more interesting, don't you need to design your game so that it is divided fairly? Like if my game is good, and the players are focused on the game state 50% of the time and on their own wacky hijinks 50% of the time, then should I aim to split a 5-person party's "spotlight" into 10%/10%/10%/10%/10%?

[MGuy]

I think failure can be a big deal for players. When players lose it tends to have profound effects on how they approach issues. I ran a Kingmaker game and rolled up a troll encounter in the first book. That was the only encounter they lost in the first two books but it was a heated topic of discussion throughout the game.

And this happened before the 'real' troll threat came into focus later on

I think people either realize the value of failure as a vehicle to move the story forward or it's becoming more popular. Failing forward is an idea that I see coming up more and more.

[Foxwarrior]

Though my next question is: of that 50% that could have been more interesting, don't you need to design your game so that it is divided fairly?

I think it's hard enough to really fill out the interest limit of a game that putting too much effort into keeping players balanced with each other will just hobble your design options. Of course balancing the spotlight is better than not doing so (well, keeping in mind that not all players actually want the same amount of spotlight), I just think it should be lower priority.

[...You Lost Me]

Of course balancing the spotlight is better than not doing so (well, keeping in mind that not all players actually want the same amount of spotlight), I just think it should be lower priority.

I am on board with that.