When the game stops being fun
I’m a big fan of actual-play RPG streams. Lots of role-players are. When we can’t be with our own gaming group, or can’t get our schedules together, it’s nice to get our fix of role-playing. And it’s great to see a pastime that used to get me bullied as a kid become the most mainstream it’s ever been! And I like watching a cast of great improv artists and role-players. But even through the screen, I can sometimes see that the players aren’t having fun anymore.
Not that the whole campaign has lost its shine, just that the characters are beat up emotionally or physically, and the players don’t look like they’re enjoying it anymore. They just want out of the endless combat, they want one little victory, or they need one little thing to get better.
The fact that the people on channels like Critical Role and Dimension 20 are amazing actors doesn’t mean that they never make mistakes or that the game always goes smoothly. So this isn’t about bashing any actual-play channels, but about taking a look at my own table and analyzing how I tell when my players have hit that point where it stops being fun. And what I do about it.
First, let me preface this by saying that Erica and I aren’t role-players for the tactical combat. I love a good action scene, and I usually play the hardcore combat classes, but it always comes after story needs for us. We’re both writers and general lovers of story before all else. My first role-playing in first grade or so was all theater of the mind, with no dice or character sheets, it was just sitting on the swings while telling a ridiculous fantasy story to some friends, and letting them control characters in that story. But even over the importance of the narrative, we’re always fun-first.
The Three Laws of Storytelling by Ada Powers are a succinct way of talking about our priorities. With that in mind, how do you even know if your players aren’t having fun? Sometimes their characters aren’t having a good time, but the players are eating up the drama and suspense! Even if they’re frowning, maybe that’s just role-playing. I can reliably make a few of my players cry with emotional twists, but they like those gut-wrenching scenes.
If it’s hard to tell the difference between a character having a rough time and a player struggling, that’s okay. Erica’s autism makes reading other people really difficult for her. My own autism means that I don’t outwardly show a lot of emotions, whether I’m miserable or having a great time. One indicator we’ve noticed, though, is that if the players stop joking or laughing, it might not be fun anymore.
I know it sounds obvious, but role-players often crack jokes to relieve tension or laugh nervously during the most intense scenes, like combats and crises. It’s a sign that, yep, you’ve dialed the tension up to the point where the players feel it and now they’re bleeding off a little anxiety. That can be good! On the edge of the seat is where both tension and excitement perch! But when those jokes stop and the players’ commentary turns pessimistic, or they’re complaining instead of joking, then maybe the tension’s been dialed up too much.
But the best way, as always — and we say this a lot — is to communicate clearly, honestly and often with your table. If your RPG campaign has been through several defeats, or taken a downward turn, if your players have stopped joking or just look stressed, then maybe check in with everyone to ask if they’re having fun. Maybe they will answer that they’re just role-playing and love this dramatic nadir! But maybe they’re just tired of being run ragged and really need a change of pace.
Now that we can identify when the players aren’t having fun anymore, what the heck can we do about it? Here’s two easy tools you can apply to your whole game that go a long way toward making sure that your group never even hits that low.
Scenes and sequels
A scene is pretty self-explanatory, but a sequel in this context is literal — the part that comes after the previous scene. It doesn’t mean a second RPG campaign, but the moment to breathe and process after a scene.
I can hear you ask: Isn’t that technically a scene, too? Yes, technically. But we’re using the terms scene and sequel in a literary sense, as discussed by Shawn Coyne in his Story Grid methodology. In the Story Grid, a scene includes some action or plot, and the sequel doesn’t. A sequel is a moment between events where the reader/moviegoer/role-player can digest the last event, catch their breath, and get ready for the next scene.
A story that skips the sequels and jumps from event to event without pause is exciting — but it’s also exhausting. Take Fury Road, a movie that is basically one long chase scene. You might think that there are no sequels in Fury Road, but between every pulse-pounding action sequence, they find a reason to stop. After escaping another threat, the characters just drive quietly for a while, letting you catch your breath. They discuss what just happened, or what they need to do next. The movie cuts away to some other characters to catch you up on what they’re doing. All just long enough to absorb the plot and let your adrenal glands brew up some more adrenaline for the next scene.
This is one reason that I don’t enjoy dungeon crawls. They tend to follow a scene-scene-scene format, with little room for a sequel in there. Some dungeons use puzzles to alternate with combat scenes, but a puzzle can be just as intense or frustrating as a difficult combat. They don’t always let the players recharge.
Note that the sequel is time for the players to rest. It doesn’t mean that their characters have to get a spa weekend, just that the pressure lets up enough for them to collect themselves. But if the characters don’t get an occasional rest, too, their players will get quickly anxious, so that’s something to watch.
And sequels are an important time for the players to pursue their characters’ personal plot, side quests or projects, and just role-play. If they never get a sequel, they never get to do this stuff. It’s hard for a character to finally open up about their backstory if they reel endlessly from combat to combat, or are always too beaten up to spend some time on their favorite hobby.
Value shifts
Let’s talk about another thing to monitor during game — value shifts. If you’re wondering what the heck that is, value shift is another term from the Story Grid that I mentioned above. Don’t worry, you don’t need to read or listen to the many hours of analysis that Shawn Coyne and other Story Grid editors have done — I’ll explain the part that has become important in my Storytelling.
Imagine a scale that goes from the top to bottom: Great, Good, Neutral, Bad, Worst. These are the broad emotional values that a scene can have. A shopping scene where the player characters get to spend some of their loot might be good. A scene where they are reunited with a loved one might be great. A scene where a character’s beloved mentor dies might be the worst, and so on.
Note that the emotional scene of the mentor’s death is at the bottom of the scale — worst — but the heartrending sacrifice and touching goodbye are awesome scenes. Maybe you can move some players to tears, but they can enjoy it, even if the scene is sad. Some of the most beautiful stories in human history are tragedies!
But the principle of value shifting a story is that no two consecutive scenes should have the same value. If the party’s mentor just died (worst), then the next scene should move up at least to just bad. Stories that stay in a single value tone get monotonous, and can feel either like pointless fluff (too many good/great scenes) or just bleakly unwinnable (too many bad/worst scenes).
Let’s say that the player party has just taken a hit, they’re behind the villains in the race for the MacGuffin, but now they’re motivated and at least the mentor’s dying words imparted the secret weakness of the villain, giving them a slim hope. (This bit is probably a sequel, where the PCs can talk about their mentor, curse the villains, and take in the heavy shit that just went down.)
The scene after that has to shift values. It can go down to worst again, or it can rise to neutral. In general, you don’t want to bounce up and down the scale more than one notch very often. Leaping from worst to good can be a little bit of whiplash, though sometimes a sudden bright spot can be a welcome relief, or a sudden drop in value can be quite dramatic.
Some RPGs have an actual game mechanic for this. The Expanse role-playing game uses a system called the Churn (as a side note, I’ve adored all nine books of The Expanse and six seasons of the show), and the Fantasy Flight Star Wars role-playing game uses Force tokens which flip light side to dark side and back. These mechanics just ensure that as things get good, something bad queues up, and when things get bad, the party gets a light at the end of the tunnel.
Remember that the scale doesn’t go up past great or down more than worst. If you go off the end of the value scale, you’re probably getting a little over the top. And when you try to shift values while you’re still deep in one end of the scale, the players can get narrative whiplash. So it’s worth keeping an eye on the value of your scenes and planning a rough progression so that you don’t end up at either extreme.
If your game spends most of its time in the bad and worst areas of the value scale, then you better check to make sure your group is alright with that. And they might well be! Some tables love gritty, grim stories where their characters are always getting their ass kicked and TPKs are a real potential every session. But unless your table has signed up for that, make sure you don’t get stuck on one end of the scale.
Because while I’m running a game — or while I’m playing — I spend my time working on the next campaign, I have time to build this kind of stuff into my plot. When I come up with something tragic or tough for my story, I make sure that it either has room to get worse, or build in a spot where things ease up so it’s not a single-emotion slog. I build in sequels so both characters and players can rest, even if they’re short respites.
I’m lucky that I get to play while planning my campaigns on the side. But if you don’t have the time to draft your game up front — or that much planning just doesn’t work for you — then you can still use these tools real-time during a campaign, maybe even during a session.
If your players have stopped joking and they look like they’re flagging — or they’ve just said this stinks — keep your eye open for the first chance to give them a sequel. Find an excuse for the party to stop and rest without the villains winning the race. Give them a night of sleep and role-playing around the fire.
Or look for a way to shift the value. If things have been good or great for too long and they’re looking bored, then hit them with a sudden attack, or some bad news. If things have been bad or worst for too long and the players just want to tap out, find a way to shift the value up — give them a rest, let them find something that helps them, give them an opportunity to call in a favor and get some backup or something.
I’m not advocating taking it easy on your players, or bailing them out. Those saves are important Storytelling tools, yes, but only as a last resort. If the characters are in the thick of it, beaten down and tired of losing, then I’m not going to shift the value in the middle of a scene. The value shift is supposed to be from one scene to another — or from a scene to a sequel — so it’s up to the players to get through the rough spot. Their problem won’t go away and I won’t fix it for them, but I’ll come up with a sequel or a value shift to follow it.
These tools are pretty easy to use, and you can make an actual value shift scale to track the general mood of your plot as you go, or just keep it in the back of your mind. But however you balance game difficulty, plot mood, and player happiness, remember that this is a game. The whole point is to have fun at your table.
