I think it’s all a closed feedback loop that is causing the trouble all across the spectrum: increased videogaming leads to shorter attention spans because instant gratification is what you get with the game so you now expect it in the movies and Hollywood gives that demographic what it wants because they pay for it and when combined with less reading of actual books and not being taught critical thinking (or how to think at all beyond the next 5 minutes if that) leads back to the inability to even have the slightest clue as to what to do in an RPG unless spoon-fed every little thing. And there had better be lots of chrome and flashy goodies laying around or everyone gets bored and stupid. The ones who can’t or won’t stay actively involved start wandering around turning on TV’s and the PSP.
And God forbid you hurt or kill anyone in the game – I’ve seen a steady increase over the years of players who get mad or just flat out quit playing if their character gets killed or has all his pretty stuff taken away.
Case in point: early in my current campaign (until they finally started to “get it” about how to play the game) even one of the players who should have known better – but hadn’t played in my game for over 10 years – got all pouty and bugged over an incident that would in the past have probably resulted in my just shrugging and saying, “So be it” – then unleashing hell on the entire group.
Players are escorting a bulk carrier to the jump point in case they run into a privateer who has been seen lurking in the area. They hear a mayday call over comms from another merchant who is under fire by that privateer. The players haven’t built up much of a vector yet so they decide to tell the bulk carrier to continue to the jump point and go…they’ll be right behind them (uh huh..right – but I let that kind of thing slide since long ago I gave up on trying to clue players in on all the time=distance stuff…education just isn’t what it used to be).
So the players move in to help the merchie and the enemy is a 300 ton raider armored and loaded for bear; it’s pounding the snot out of the 400 ton merchant who – thinking the cavalry is coming instead of a 200 ton ship manned by wannabe terrors of the spaceways – is putting up one heck of a fight. The turn before the players come in combat range the merchie loses its power plant to a critical hit and the enemy tells the players to back off – “This prize is mine, you are outgunned and this crew will run out of air soon if you try to fight.”
Players, “Not so fast…fire, fire, fire”. And they engage while the merchie is screaming for them to just stop and allow him to evacuate his crew. The players press on and the enemy, who knows his business, takes out one of their turrets and blows out their cargo hold (no more ATV, and the 10 mercs in low berths float away) with a missile and laser barrage.
The players, including the one who should have known better decide to press the attack and actually said, “We’re the players, Scott won’t kill us off this soon so let’s take a chance.” Sad, really.
So they manage to take out one turret on the enemy before he knocked out their remaining one, all but destroys their M-Drive, and kills the navigator when the bridge gets hit with a missile and he fails his saving roll to seal up (nobody ever said they were getting their suits on) since he didn’t even have Vacc Suit skill.
At this point the players are ticked off, including the captain (who should have known better after years of playing with me and refereeing the game himself) and are just throwing down their dice and ready to quit. They gripe that this is too soon for this kind of thing, they weren’t ready yet. I tell them the enemy commander radios over and says, “Fair warning…this merchant has cargo I want, and a ship for a prize. His crew needs rescue, my next salvo will probably destroy you and cost this crew it’s lives. Today you lost and cost me a turret…maybe next time you’ll win. For now your choice is to live till next time – and let these merchants live, or do I kill all of you right now and still get the cargo and prize? Your choice – you have 5 seconds.”
If looks could kill I’d have died right there. But, the players pouted and went away to rejoin the bulk carrier as best they could while patching up their ship. Of the 5 who played only 3 came back the next session and the others needed reminding of the why’s and wherefore’s of the event and how they can’t always win. T’aint a videogame, no reset button, yada yada. There are moral choices to be made, consequences to actions, allies and enemies alike will respond to those choices based on their own perceptions and desires, etc..
But it has been touch and go since…every time they complete something they look at me to hold their hands and walk them through the next segment. Little or no input on their part…”I dunno anymore what we are supposed to be doing…what do you want us to do?”
Maybe I’ll just start calling adventures levels and that might help them. Or kill them all off and put the game away for good. These guys will play Call of Duty for hours and hours, even when they die like every 30 seconds or so, but they have no clue what to do in a campaign game where they can do almost anything they want to if they could just wrap their heads around the idea that it’s an open-ended system but like real life there is a cause and effect equation to be dealt with.
Oh, and that imagination thing. Yeah…maybe I need a bigger cluebat.
