In part 1 of this series, I compared a management job to that of a DM. I really think the comparison holds on many levels as you’ll find in this post and the next ones. I then went out to introduce the 4 stages of a team’s development cycle. I concluded by saying that a RPG gaming group was a team like one in the work environment with the DM having the role of the team leader. The key objective of a gaming team being having fun.
Now let’s tackle the first stage:
Forming
- When you got together and formed your 1st RPG group.
- When you started a new game after an extended hiatus.
- When the DM steps down, leaves or asks you to pick up the role…
Those are all examples of the early stages of forming.
Definition:
In the first stages of team building, the forming of the team takes place. The team meets and learns about the opportunity, challenges, agrees on goals and begins to tackle the tasks.
A DM’s job with a new group (or an existing one that underwent a lot of changes) can be colossal. Thankfully, there are a lot of tools to make it easier. For example, Martin of Treasure table used his own return behind the screen to dig up goodies from his own site to help him tackle his new group.
Team members tend to behave quite independently. They may be motivated but are usually relatively uninformed of the issues and objectives of the team. Team members are usually on their best behavior but very focused on self
Creating and nurturing party cohesion in a new gaming group is also no easy task. Making simple, somewhat linear quests may help letting the players know each other and learn to fit together a bit more. But splitting parties and players doing things without consulting can and do occur (and can get worse at the Storming stage).
The new group is in exploration mode. The discovery is fun and the quests are met with curiosity and trepidation. The DM can and should ride on this cloud of motivation and good behavior to try out his natural approach and gauge reactions.
A DM’s empathy, capacity to adapt and soft influence on a group can help ease into a smoother Storming stage. On the other hand, a headstrong, somewhat pushy or adversarial DM of the ‘let them learn the hard way’ school might be in for a bumpier ride.
Mature team members begin to model appropriate behavior even at this early phase.
Thank god you can often depend on your more seasoned player to help you through this. They’ll often take on a leadership role in the group, react in the ways you would expect and be key players in setting the early building blocks of the group’s informal social contract.
Supervisors of the team during this phase tend to need to be directive.
While the group gets to know itself better and explores the group dynamics of the new game, having simpler, almost linear plot might be useful. For example, a small to mid-sized Dungeon Crawl or a simple investigation is a good bet. However, if you or your players are allergic to railroads, you should have the game happen in a simplified environment where the plot has a restricted number of ways to go. Once again, having too heavy a directing hand or letting the players do what they damn please will probably lead to a harsher Storming phase.
When I switched from Gurps to D&D, my gaming group, having gained new members recently, entered the forming stage again. We had a lot of fun exploring the new rules and returning to the classic flavor of D&D. But we were also unsure of the rules, unsure of how to develop the new story and I was practically clueless about my player’s preferences. I relied a lot on my raw skills as a DM. I also had long time players who smoothed out this stage. But this nice fuzzy feeling that is a forming RPG team didn’t last…
Up next, when the Storm sets in.
Image Source: The Order of the Stick
Very interesting perspective – I hadn’t thought about my group in that manner.
I don’t think you could put my group in one category. If I had to, I’d say it’s stuck somewhere between Storming and Norming, with occastional flashes of Performing.
There’s a core group of about 3, inclusive of the GM, who are Performing. There’s a middle circle who are still Storming, but occasionally Norming – mainly creative differences keep the inner and middle circles from being more cohesive. And there’s a few on the outside who drift between Forming and Storming, more often in the latter.
I’m not sure what could be done to bring everyone up to the same level. There seems to be, as noted, primarily creative differences between the core group and the middle; different definitions of what’s ‘cool’.
I don’t think that a group is ever into just one category for extended periods of time (except Storming, when things go real bad, but then the game and possibly the whole group usually dies out).
Thanks for showing interest. This piece is getting to be far heavier than I initially thought. I’ll see it through and move on to lighter/crunchier fare!
Also, I’ll touch on how I think you can have players with varying perceptions of fun meet halfway and get the whole group out of Storming.
There will always be cases where it hust won’t work, but not that often I’d be willing to bet.
Noah you seem to have some tension in your group…
It might just be an impression but here I go (I’m the over-analyzing player remember ;-).
In my point of view there is nothing like communication to solve issue.
I mean if the others don’t know what you are looking for in a game or what is bogging you, they could do the one thing that drives you nuts.
So talk about what you liked or not after each session. Everyone should give it’s impression and the others should listen.
When everyone knows what the others are looking for, it’s easier to let them have the spotlight when it matters while waiting for your turn.
Obviously the bigger the group the harder it is to satisfy everyone and give them the spotlight time.
If things don’t get better, barring blatant misconduct, you know the motivation of each individual and can identify who his at odd with the rest of the group and either make them change their approach (if possible) or exclude them.
I mean you are there to have some fun, if not, everyone is just wasting its time. That is the only golden rule. 😉
My 2 cents.