A Bad Session

A Perspective on Understanding
Every once in a while the best laid plans go astray and things blow-up in our faces. This is disappointing to say the least and can cause much grief and unhappiness if not addressed in a positive manner. Our hobby, our escape from the pressures of work, family and life in general is not immune to this disappointment. Occasionally the bad game session happens. My fault, your fault, nobody's fault...it happens.
Assigning fault or blame is not the point, however. It is good for each of us to look at our role in the bad session and ask ourselves, what happened and what can we learn from the experience. How can we do things better next time? It may also be good to talk about the session (after things cool down) and try to figure out what went wrong among the group, but that can risk making a bad situation worse. Sometimes we must agree to disagree. Gaming groups are friendship forming and sources of shared fun, but they can also be sources of tension and hurt feelings. So tread lightly!
One of the groups I regularly play with has been using Genesys as the rules for adventuring in the Aventuria setting of The Dark Eye. As I have mentioned in another post, the Genesys core book is incomplete and needs a lot of work to adapt it to any setting. The group attempted to do a lot of that work at the table during play and during our last session this led to disagreements and frustration. Tempers flared and good friends found themselves in a tense situation over a game that is supposed to be fun.
Design by committee is hard enough under ideal circumstances. While engaged in a game, with each player working their own PC's agenda as well as objectively trying to contribute both criticism and suggestions is a tall order. The referee, who both wishes to please his players and promote his own vision for the game, is probably not in the best situation to be making design decisions and have fun either. Perhaps that is expecting too much.
So what are my general bad session take-a-ways? Expectations play a big part. The referee as well as each player brings to the table a set of expectations about how the game will play, about what role each person has, about how decisions are made, and about the unspoken social contract that is always present in a group setting (rules of politeness, trust, mutual compromise, boundaries, taboos, etc.).
Designing on-the-fly produces a very different experience than that found in an average game where the rules are established (even if unknown). Looking up a rule is very different from making up a rule. Old School style referee fiat involves rulings-not-rules, but uses a different social contract - one based on lots of trust where the referee makes the rulings and players don't argue. Design on-the-fly with input from the players means opening the table up to discussion every time a ruling must be made. Players may disagree on how they would like it to be and if this is being done during play the fate of characters may bring emotions into play. (Egos may even get involved!)
Bad sessions may happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the referee (or players) are tired and grumpy (or unmotivated). Sometimes the players just refuse to cooperate and party tension gets out-of-hand. Sometimes expectations clash - maybe the referee wants to set a sinister mood for a horror themed game and the players just want to be silly. New rule systems may produce a bad game session because they don't fit the group's preference for complexity, or style, or tone, or pace. Sometimes the adventure just doesn't play out the way the referee envisioned it.
Perhaps how a bad session is dealt with afterwards is more important than understanding why it happened. This hobby is ultimately about fun and entertainment...and friendships. Putting the friendship factor ahead of the fun and entertainment seems to clarify things for me. A bad session can last a few hours, a friendship can last a lifetime. Make it so!