For those of us lucky enough to be in a relationship with a fellow gamer: Do you ever worry about the appearance of preferential treatment?
It’s irrational, but the whole "GM’s Girlfriend" thing pokes me in the back of the head every time I sit down to write up content for my significant other. Am I giving her too much attention? Or am I overcompensating and giving her too little? Am I making too many rules calls in her favor? Does she have too much loot compared to the others? Maybe I should kill her character just to be fair?
Clearly, it is possible to overthink this sort of thing. That’s why I’m hoping for a little perspective from you gys. When you’re GMing for your partner, do you ever second guess yourself about how much attention they’re getting? And for all the players out there, have you ever seen your GM give “most favored player” status to somebody else?
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play adventure paths, no one gets preferential treatment that way
I am 62 and have been playing D&D and the like since 1978 or 1979.
Back in the good old days, that were not nescessarily so good, female role players were rare and were usually the GMs girlfriend.
This lead to me formulating 3 rules to deal with such campaigns. Don't expect the GM to be objective and never, never get into a conflict with the GM's girlfriend and always be nice to the GMs girlfriend.
I have played in campaigns that lead me to advocate for a law that nobody should GM for anyone they are bonking.
Since the bad old days, the world has had a sanity attack and it is actually entirely normal for role playing groups to include... girls.
Incidentally, playing favourites among players is among the worst, or the worst, of GM flaws. Everyone makes rules, logical, or continuity mistakes at times. In fact they are likely going on by the thousand w/o anyone knowing or caring.
The very worst example of bias in GMing I have ever seen involved 2 friends [I am pretty sure they were not a gay couple] and reads like a joke campaign made up parody of GM bias.
I will relate some examples of the GM, KC GMing for MP.
1 Every single thing MP did in multiple campaigns turned out roses. MP would often make trivial errors like going off by himself and having encounters designed for the whole party, not to mention turning the session into one for him alone.
2 KC ran a Star Wars campaign where, at the end, a dying sith gave the galaxy to MP. The party were the siths most persistent enemies and MP was a long way from being the most combat capable PC, so MP couldn't enforce his control over the galaxy over most of the characters in the party, let alone the galaxy.
3 KC always acted like MP was the party leader so he always was.
4 KC actually ran a highly overcrowded campaign where, as always, MP could play the whole session solo if he wanted to. All the other "players" would be left doing nothing for an entire session unless MP ordered them to do something. If they announced actions it would be ignored or quickly go nowhere.
Bizarrely KC was otherwise a good GM. I am pretty sure KC got on just as well as MP did when the other was GMing.
Maybe multiple issues here. I think there is a difference in preferential treatment and preferential attention. Either can be problematic, but in different ways and different amounts.
Preferential attention is when a certain character is the star of the show. All plots center around such a character. This is most common when a character is the "chosen one". It's actually not terrible for a hook to start the party on their way, but one character should never be narratively more important than the others throughout the entirety of an adventure.
Preferential treatment is usually more about gaining mechanical advantages. Like, a specific character never suffers any danger, while those around them are constantly dying or nearly dying. Or worse, a specific character gets all the best loot, usually because it has been tailor made for their character.
Like, a specific character never suffers any danger, while those around them are constantly dying or nearly dying. Or worse, a specific character gets all the best loot, usually because it has been tailor made for their character.
Melkiador, everything you say is true imho. I seem to remember a Melkiador who was on these forums around a decade ago when I was really active here. And he always seemed to have his screwed on the right way, which is a little odd for a reptile.
Or maybe it was someone with a similar name or ikon.
One thing all you say is most of these phenomena are just not good enough on the GMs part. Generally anyway.
When I can see paying very different attention to players is in a similar situation to what I encountered coaching at my old chess club some years back.
I had one dream student named David Barry. He was young, ambitious, somewhat socially isolated so gave a lot of time to chess, worked hard on his game and was playing multiple rated games a week. I took him from around 1100 to around 1750 in 18 months, which included some breaks.
If you know what the numbers mean, and most of you will not, no I am not the world's best chess coach and Magnus Carlsen did not become world champion because he sacked Kasparov as coach and got me instead. David made huge progress because he worked hard, did nearly everything I told him to and came every week, always on time. A coach is like a teacher, you can help someone to learn but you can do little by yourself.
The only other person who came more than once or twice was Lucian Penis, who showed up infrequently and always late.
Naturally, after a while I essentially taught David and anyone else there mostly just listened though I was polite and answered questions. Before long, anything David didn't already know was way beyond anyone else who showed up.
Sometimes RPG campaigns have their Davids, dedicated players always there and attentive, and others who show up sometimes and pay attention sometimes. The GM is justified in giving his dedicated players more attention.
Otherwise playing favourites is among the worst GM flaws.
There was another prolific poster who used this same avatar, but I can't remember his name. We mostly didn't post at the same time.
Something I should have mentioned is that a character with preferential attention can often also receive preferential treatment because of that attention. If a story hook is based around a single character, you can't exactly have that character go and die. At least not until their life has served its story purpose.
On a slightly related topic, I often encourage character attention from the GM by giving my characters family and loved ones. So many people build their characters as lone orphans, so their family can't be used against them. I see things from the other side. If my family is being used against me, then I'm important to the story.
So many people build their characters as lone orphans, so their family can't be used against them. I see things from the other side. If my family is being used against me, then I'm important to the story.
Melkiador- that might be the case if you were a human or halfling or something.
But you are a f###ing crocodile.
Crocodiles lay gigantic piles of eggs that result in gazillions of tiny, almost microscopic crocodiles. The overwhelming majority of these get eaten by birds, fish, snakes and most of all, especially once they reach any decent size, other crocodiles.
The way to use a crocodile's family against them is to get hold of a younger member, poison it and toss it in the water near you. You will then eat it and become an ex-crocodile, an un-crocodile that has ceased to be. A stiff mate.
I've been gaming with my wife for nearly eight years now (one year before we were married). I don't think I've struggled with any kind of preferential treatment with her. When I am in GM mode, I tend to lose focus on who the players are and I see them more as avatars for their characters. It helps that we are all a close group of friends and, when we play our characters, our own personal preferences and habitual ways of speaking seems to alter to suit the characters. Even or humor tends to fluctuate from our social norms, myself most of all.
I am aware that other groups might struggle with these sorts of things, but it is really not something that I have experienced at my home games in the last ten years (or longer). Even in the online games that I play in, I've rarely had to deal with feelings of unfair treatment.
dot
Realize that people will assess to some degree the political and social dynamics of your group and thus responses will vary.
That is the hardest thing about this forum (or EN World, or your subreddit of choice, or whatever). Context and nuance just don't come across in a text-based anecdote, and the micro-culture of any particular gaming table usually fails to translate.
Given all that, how do you even begin to give successful advice to someone in a "looking for perspective from the community" kind of question?
Writing is a SKILL.
I'd argue that it is more of an ART than a skill, but skill does play a huge role in it. Storytelling, in pretty much all of its forms, requires a talent for it.
I was in two campaigns where preferential treatment to the SA was evident. One for 4E the second PF 1E. The first was so bad it was jaw droppingly bad.
The SA ran her Rogue like it was a free for all at the table. With the added bonus of making her character voice sound all squeaky like she had permanently inhaled Helium and could not remove it from her lungs. Anything and everything she did even if it was against Rawvot a bad idea was allowed. Did I forgot to mention that the rest of the table could never bring any junk food because his best friend lacked the willpower to not eat it. Was asked not to show to the game ever again by email. Truly miserable provoke who wanted to play with people who acted and behaved like themselves.
Second time it happened it was player with SA. I joins an existing game and two years she could not be bothered to learn most of the rules let alone what her character could do. The whole process was made even more enjoyable with the boyfriend insisting on making his Barbarian sound like Grimlock from the original Transformers series.
Again as the first SA anything and everything goes. Bad idea after bad idea and apparently she and the boyfriend expected neither the DM or the players to refuse let alone politely say it’s a bad idea. So instead of discussing it either group decided to have a huge meltdown instead. With the boyfriend insisting we were bad people for telling his SA that her truly objectively bad ideas were just that.
The DM gave the player a knife that if it skinned the creature allowed the person using it to control its skeleton. She skinned a giant and had its skeleton under her control. Except she wanted to bring it everywhere. If we’d trying to sneak into someplace like we tried it’s not going to be effective. How does anyone sneak in with a giant skeleton. It do turned off the DM from gaming he quit running anything. Why because “ you’re all being mean to me for refusing to cater to my needs at the table”.
So yes I rather not post with an SA at the table. Not without any written guarantees thst either as a DM or player they’re going to be objective to either or.
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The distinction between art and skill is not at all clear and in many ways rather modern.
I've always seen skill as inherent and developed talent in a particular area, while art is the creative application of said talent for a specific purpose. For writing, specifically, just about anyone can put words down and create sentences that tell a very straight forward and literal message. Art comes into play when the writer uses those words beyond their own literal meanings to paint pictures and to invoke complex, higher thought well beyond the literal meanings of the words.
Art, collectively, is hard to categorize but most of us know it when we see it.
Sometimes it's a thin wire to walk when gaming with an SA, especially if they're new to the hobby because you want them to have fun and be excited enough to want to continue playing. Gaming with an SA is something I've only had to deal with two or three times over the decades, though. But I've heard some absolutely terrifying stories regarding games with SAs in them. There are a couple of Youtube content creators who read gaming horror stories garnered from Reddit and personal experience and I thank the Lords of Dice those things have never happened to me.
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My rule of thumbas a long time GM's girlfriend / occasional GM with boyfriend as player is "fine for home games, avoid for conventon games".
With a home group we all know each other so there are a lot of relationship group checks and balances already going on. In a group of strangers ant a con or similar it just becomes too easy to focus on the person you know amd be biased towards them.
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Fairly certain that all of my players who've played in games where my gf was a player would tell you I do not favor her. But I also don't unfairly punish her because that's toxic bs.
That said, I'm mostly running Runelords (a TON of folks really want to knock that one out) these days and I try to follow the AP as much as possible. I also tend to include special things (flavor items, plot points, bonuses for certain character backstories in certain situations) that let my players know I value all of them and am engaged in their character development.
If you treat your players like you appreciate them and want to know more about they're characters, this should not be an issue.
And, speaking as a girl who has played TTRPGs for 20 years, I would also point out that most of these situations are just bad players who are looking for reasons to be mad. I've had exactly one instance where I personally experienced my GM showing favoritism towards his gf at the table and the rest of us (players) all just left without fuss. He asked why, we told him, he admitted it was messed up to give her a Ysalamir pet (Star Wars obv), and we all moved on. I've had 2 instances where someone tried to show me preference (once a player, once a DragonCon GM) and both times I noped out of that so hard the "nice guys" are still confused about what happened.
Most gamer girls don't want the special treatment. We hate it. It's the TTRPG equivalent of that rando guy buying you a drink and expecting you to "give him something" in return. We're not stupid, we know that. Even when it seems like the person in question is loving the extra attention, often they just don't know how to make it stop/realize the issue yet. There are hundreds stories that show this to be true.
But reading through some of the comments here it's super obvious that some of y'all are why Reddit keeps getting more horror story fodder.
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For those of us lucky enough to be in a relationship with a fellow gamer: Do you ever worry about the appearance of preferential treatment?
My wife likes to be challenged in roleplaying games. Which is difficult, because she is a tactical genius and trains her fellow players in teamwork. She has been playing roleplaying games since she was a teenager, after an older brother brought Dungeons & Dragons home from college in 1978. And at her peak, she was in three different weekly campaigns.
My wife and I used to both be players together for decades, except I had time for only one weekly campaign. She started GMing in 2010, running the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, which she borrowed from a friend. She had to stop GMing due to health problems. I was invested in the story and the modules were already in our house, so I offered to retire my character and take over as GM to finish the Rise of the Runelords. After a few weeks away for medical treatment, she rejoined the game as a player. Surprisingly, I had the temperament to become a recurring GM, also running Jade Regent, Iron Gods, and Ironfang Invasion.
And we raised two gamer daughters! Though they live in other states, they joined my current Ironfang Invasion campaign when we went to Roll20 virtual tabletop due to the Covid-19 pandemic. They are good at wrapping daddy around their little fingers. Two other players are our landlords: we and our best friends merged households to save money when we retired, but they are the ones who own the house. I usually just call them housemates or family.
The preferential treatment my wife wants is encounters that let the players show off their characters' teamwork and tactics and narrative elements that make sense. Everyone likes that. So I have no problem.
Another thing about a relationship with a fellow gamer is that my wife's intelligence attracts me. And she shows off that intelligence while gaming, so she is especially hot and sexy while gaming. I love being married to a gamer girl.