10. RolePlaying

Wow I need to really kick it up a notch on my posting if I am going to make 200 posts by the end of the year. Ok that being said back to the topic of this post.

This past Sunday we had our second Star Wars RPG game take place, and I was please with its outcome. We had a change in a couple players from the previous week, but I excepted that. In fact I except it to continue until we settle into a regular group. When I started my Shadowrun group we went through half a dozen players coming and going before we finally settled down and got a regular group. This kind of thing happens for a number of different reasons.

1. Personalities - This is a very big thing when it comes to putting a group together. When people RPG, some (not all) tend to play the kind of character/person they wish they could play in real life. This tends to be jerk like characters who really dont work well in a group settings. I am not sure why this happens but it makes the whole group dynamic very hard. For example when we first started playing Shadowrun we had a player who came out for maybe a half dozen games. He had two characters that he played in those six games. The first was an anti social character who lived in a school bus. One day during a game two other players went over to the school bus to wake up this personas character. If they didn't do this the player would be left out of the game. When they got there the player attacked them. When I asked why he was doing that he said "because they woke me up". As you can imagine this did not go over very well, and eventually he left the group and never came back.

Getting a good group together can sometimes take a little bit of work and sometimes people just dont mesh.

2. GM Style - Every Game Master has a different style. Some GM do everything they can to kill their players. Some enjoy a lot of combat, some like puzzles, stories, etc. The list is very long. Just like GM's all have a different style all players have a certain type of GM they are looking for. The way I GM is very story heavy, with some good combat and a few puzzles thrown in here and there. I also expect my players to actually role play their characters. Nothing drives me crazy more then when a player tells me what he says to the player sitting right next to him. I want him to turn to that player and actually have the conversation not have it through me. This style does not work for everyone, and I can appreciate that. Doesn't mean I am going to change the way I GM, but I can sympathies knowing that I am not going to meet the needs of every hopeful player who comes to my table. It just means they need to keep looking till they find that perfect GM.

3. Time - This can be the hardest part of putting a group together. Dealing with time and schedules. I have a lot of players in my group who would love to come out every single week, but cant because of family, work, personal commitments etc. Dealing with time can be a huge hurdle for many players.

These are just a few of the reasons putting a good group together can be a process, but I am looking forward to seeing what our group turns out to be in Star Wars after we have done some of the sifting. Stay turned for more details.