Obviously, taking a look at the expected activity level before joining a game to make sure you can keep up is a player's responsibility, and I advise really taking a good look (and thinking about how many other games you happen to be in) before applying for a game.
But today, what I want to talk about is how active players--players that can be on and move frequently--can allow their fellow players to still have an impact on the game without sacrificing their own ability to keep a game moving and thereby keep it alive.
How can we--if we tend to be able to move more often than others--limit our impact, while still providing our full support to a game?
I want to emphasize that these are concepts that really tend to only be necessary when you have other players in a game who are invested in the game and do want to be involved, but just can't be around as often as you. There are other situations that lead to slow play, and I'll touch on them briefly at the end, but this is primarily about a situation where everyone is into the game, but some players can be on more often than others.
Here are the general rules I follow:
Let at least X player(s) move between your moves
The number "X" stands for can vary depending on the game size. If we're talking about a small game, it probably only means 1. If we're talking about a larger game, it probably means 2. If we're talking about the really large games that I sometimes find myself in, probably 3.The central point, though, is simpler: just don't move and then move again before anyone else has moved.
What you want is to be sure to allow other voices to be heard in the game. Make sure the game is not just a string of your moves.
One point I do want to raise on this, however: I do count the narrator's continuations or scene changes as moves for this purpose. If I'm in a small game, the narrator continuing the scene, or the end of one scene and start of another, is definitely enough justification for me to move again.
As with a lot of things, this is more art than science, but the central point is just to avoid putting up two moves in a row.
Sometimes you need to--sometimes it just feels right for the story that you, for instance, finish up one challenge on a move and then do a move on another active challenge in a scene. That's fine. This isn't an "absolutely avoid," it's a "try to avoid." When I feel like I need to move twice in a row, I'll generally post to check if anyone objects first.
Don't finish two challenges in a row
If I finish a challenge, I try to make sure I'm not the one who finishes the next challenge to be finished. That way, I make sure that I'm sharing narrative power with other players.Generally, what that means is that when I finish a challenge, if other challenges are out there that I want to lay cards on, I try to play cards pretty early in them.
I generally don't pay much attention to this in context of different scenes--if I finished the last challenge of the previous scene, I don't tend to worry about whether I finish the first challenge of the new scene or not, unless I've really been completing a lot of challenges. A new scene tends to feel like a fresh start in my mind.
This one's sometimes a bit in conflict with letting players play between my moves, of course, depending on challenge length and all, but generally I find if we've got a lot of short challenges, then letting players play between my moves means those players also finish a challenge--so it's rare for me to have to make a real choice between these rules. If I do have to make a choice, I prioritize letting players play between my moves, usually, unless someone asks to finish a challenge.
Abide by player requests
That brings me to my next point. If someone asks to be the one to finish a challenge--or even to play on a challenge--I try my best to let them.When someone says, "hey, I don't have time right now but I'd really like to finish The Charging Orcs," generally I'm totally fine to let them. I don't mind people laying claim to a challenge like that: it means they're invested in the game and I generally find it means they have a pretty cool idea.
If I have a cool idea too, I might send them a PM or otherwise discuss, but in general I find that it's good for the game if I let these requests stand. (I'll make them myself sometimes, too.)
Look, when someone says something like this, what they're saying is that they're really invested in the story at this point and just haven't had time to put something together. They really want to play. Thus, it's a good idea to encourage them by letting that happen.
And sometimes players will ask just to be able to play on a certain challenge. By all means, let that happen! (Also, generally I've found that if players just request to "play" they may in fact specifically mean they don't want to be the finishing move. Try to leave a point open for them before the ending, then!)
This is a common thing players will do when they really want to play Storium games but recognize they're not able to be as active as other players in their game, so helping them out can make sure they stay involved in the game.
Make everybody awesome
Oops, there it is again!This may sound odd in a discussion of activity levels, but really, it's on the same point. The point of all this is to make other players feel like they are important to the game, and have an impact on the story.
I try to do that as I can--and really, I think I could do a lot better at this--even in my own moves.
I'm not going to discuss this in detail here since I've written whole articles on it already, but the general idea is just to use other player characters in your moves in a way that makes them look good.
If the group's scout hasn't gotten a chance to play in a scene or is on vacation or something, don't let him fade from the story. Involve his character. Maybe he's the one that notices the approaching orcs, not you. Or maybe the party's wizard points out the sections in that tome that you're studying that help you put two and two together and figure out the solution.
You won't always have to do this for activity reasons (though I still advise the "make everybody awesome" approach in general), but it's just a good way of making people feel like they were still involved in the game and their contributions still matter, even if they had to be away for a little while. It keeps people in the game.
Obviously, one caveat: do make sure you're in a game where the narrator and other players are fine with players writing for other player characters, first. Most games, I've found, are fine with this--especially if you're writing to make the other character look good--but there are a few that aren't.
Assist with brainstorming
Sometimes players really want to move, but are just having trouble putting ideas together.Generally, I find that in these cases players will actually say so in comments. If they do, do your best to help. Take a look at their cards and ask yourself how those cards might affect the current situation. Throw some ideas out in the comments. They don't have to be perfect--just think about what you know about the character and their cards.
One thing that helps a lot of the time is just helping a player get to a "broad interpretation" approach to their cards. I've said this before, but my philosophy on Storium is that all challenges should (barring serious game slowdown / player drops that require narrator intervention) be completed...and that means that there should never be a circumstance where no one has a card to play. Thus, the various cards should be interpreted broadly enough where at least one of them can be played in any situation. If a player is having trouble getting to this mindset ("I mean, I can't use 'great warrior' because that's all about combat and we're in diplomacy, right?"), help them see other ways to look at their cards ("Well, if you're such a great warrior, it's possible you're known for it, right? Maybe your reputation for skill makes people respect you, or fear you, and that could help here.").
But sometimes you just need to toss some general ideas out there. Everybody gets writer's block sometimes, and while Storium's card system can help with that, sometimes folks just get stuck on a point anyway. Throw some ideas around and see if something sticks.
One point on this: Generally, don't do this unasked. You don't want to start coming off like you're trying to control the other players' moves. What you want to do is help when help is necessary. If players seem to be stuck but haven't said anything yet, what you can do is ask if anyone needs to brainstorm, and if someone replies affirmatively, then start making suggestions. But don't (generally) put a suggestion out there without any prompt.
However, keep the game active
All the above rules (except "Make everybody awesome") are overridden, however, if the game starts to become notably inactive.What "notably inactive" means changes depending on the game, and really has very little to do with the speed setting. It's...kind of more art than science, but I find you can tell when a game reaches that stage when not only has no one made a move for a while, but no one has commented for a while.
But my general rule for games is that if no one moves in...say...four days to a week, I'll see if I can make a move to keep things going, even if doing so means that I break one of my above rules.
Sometimes people are kind of stuck, or just can't formulate ideas, and if you can, it's a good idea to toss something out there to change up the situation. That can help give people something to focus on or react to. It's interesting, but writing reactions can be a lot easier than writing actions.
Before I do this, I will often make a note of it in comments: something simple like, "I know I just moved, but if no one else has something, I'll move again to keep us going. I'll do it on Friday unless someone else has something by then." You can word it a lot of different ways, but the point is that I try to make it clear that I'm not trying to dominate the game, just that I feel like I need to put more out there.
I'll also quickly note that this generally, for me, follows me asking first if anybody needs to brainstorm. I like to encourage other players to play rather than taking charge myself if I can.
You don't have to be perfect
The above is a general guideline, not an absolute. It's not going to kill a game if every now and then you make two moves in a row or finish two challenges back-to-back or anything like that. What can hurt a game is if you make those things regular occurrences, where your activity level is actively preventing other people from participating in a game.If Player A wants to be involved, and logs in when he can, but every time he logs in all the challenges are done and everyone else has moved multiple times (challenges or no), he can start to feel like he's not a valuable part of the game. If everyone's following the rules above, though, that's less likely to happen.
It's not about perfection--it's just about making an effort to keep everyone involved.
That brings me to one other point: if there's one particular player that definitely seems to want to be involved but just seems to be getting cut out despite the above concepts, look into why. A bit culprit sometimes is time zones. Storium is global, and sometimes you'll end up with players with wildly different time zones in the same game. If you're aware that time zones are why a player rarely gets to post, try to adapt for that. Work with the other players to leave things open for him as best you can.
(Narrators, one thing you can do if you're aware of this, incidentally, is vary up when you do your continuations or lay down new challenges to put it closer to the time when that player is generally able to log on.)
Time zones aren't the only thing that can cause this, though--if you notice someone seems to be getting cut out a lot, see if you can find out why, and adapt for it.
Other cases
Sometimes you run into situations that are a bit different: a player may be less involved, but not due to schedule.What you can do in these cases varies quite a bit. These will probably be discussed more in future articles, but let's just go over a few scenarios in brief here:
- Lack of investment:
- Sometimes a player just doesn't seem to be that into a game. They log on to Storium plenty, but they don't turn up to post, or they'll actually comment that they aren't really feeling it, things like that. If it feels like this is why someone isn't moving, talk to them about why. (This is sometimes a job for the narrator, but players can help too!)
- See if there's something you can do to get them into the game: can you interact with their character more? Use their ideas more? Maybe they haven't been able to finish a challenge in a while and are feeling like they aren't impacting things.
- Sometimes there's nothing you can do on this--I've seen cases where it really is just "this turned out a totally different theme than I thought it would" and there's not really anything that can be done to help--but if you can do something, do something! Surprisingly small changes can get people back into games.
- Wants to play a support / secondary role:
- There are players who play Storium who actively want to avoid being main characters. One of the main ways that they can do that is by not posting as frequently, or not finishing as many challenges. This can look, then, like they're not getting to have as much impact on the game as the others. The difference is that this is their intent.
- Ideally, one of these players will actually mention this and let people know not to wait for them on finishing challenges and such, but sometimes that doesn't happen.
- Sometimes it's best to ask--if you see someone's not moving as much or not finishing many challenges, ask them if it's a problem or not. Sometimes you'll find they reply that no, it's no problem, they're really trying to just be one of the side characters in the story.
- As a note to players who like to do this, though: I as a narrator would really like to know! It doesn't mean I won't choose you for my games--it'll just help me plan my plots and the number of challenges I'm putting down and such so I'm not expecting you to be playing like a main.
- Really needs a vacation:
- Sometimes people force themselves to try to stay involved on Storium when they're just...burned out. If someone's really struggling...look, the vacation function isn't just for when you're actually out of town, okay? If you're really struggling, it's okay to inform the game that you need to take a break, and use the vacation function to set a time when you'll come back.
- With most Storium games, once you're past the first or second scene, you can be totally gone for a week or two and still be easily capable of coming right back into things (sometimes you'll even still be in the same scene). Heck, oftentimes I think it'd be possible to come back after a month or more away, though you might need to do a little more catchup reading then.
- The point is: if someone just starts sounding like they're burned out, it can be good to let them know that if they need a break you'll all keep their character around and not let them vanish from the story. Let them take a break and come back when they're refreshed. Make that okay.
- Bad player:
- Sometimes...you just get bad players. I don't talk about it much on the blog (because it honestly doesn't happen much), but there are players that I consider pretty bad on Storium. They'll apply to a billion games and not move in any of them. They'll start game after game and start ignoring them two scenes in, reliably. They'll never move unless the narrator (and often everybody else too) starts poking them, and sometimes not even then. They'll put comments in saying that they'd surely move in the game more often if only people would send them text messages or e-mails reminding them.
- Yes...that last one actually happened.
- I think that most of the times when you have someone who is having trouble moving in the game, it's one of the above situations instead...but outright bad players do exist, and they're a big reason I highly advise reading a player's play history, if available, when thinking of choosing him for a game (or a narrator's when deciding to apply for one of his games).
- I suggest trying all the above techniques first before settling on the idea that a player is just a bad apple. Players can look like bad apples if they're under some of the above conditions.
- What to do about bad players is the narrator's decision. Most will end up flipping the narrator's "geez, this guy never posts" switch and being forcibly retired. Other times a narrator will just reason that you're pretty close to the end anyway and not bother dealing with it. I could probably write a full article on the different ways of dealing with these situations, but I'll save that for when I've got more completed narrations under my belt.
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