Feedback, the other other white meat

Its amazing really, how we indulge ourselves in our civilization, our music, Ipods, we are on the information age, exchanging information left and right, meeting people from all over the world, I mean… you guys are reading a blog from a Venezuelan and I dont even know where my readers are from…

Why is it then, that in this day and age its so hard to communicate asertively and efectively with others?.

I wish I had the answer, but seeing as that´s not coming anytime soon, lets talk about the solution!…

Have you ever fought with a player or a GM?, come ooooon, be honest… there must have been a few times when you felt that heavy feeling in the stomach of being upset, differences and fights are part of our daily life, remember as a kid when they taught you something in school and then when you got home your parents told you that it wasn’t like that at all?, ah I knew you would…

So how do we deal with the differences?, we could kill everyone that doesnt think like us, but it seems like some people wrote something pretty cool called the human rights, so thats not an option anymore… so instead, lets try and understand each other´s points of view…

Feedback is the act of giving back, returning, and in doing so producing a change, when you say something to someone and that persons just stands stills, doesnt look at you, or keeps doing whatever he or she was doing… do you feel like you conveyed your message?, no, why?, because there is no feedback, in stopping the activiy, looking at you or just nodding the person has just given a feedback, letting you know that he payed attention to what you have to say.

Is every feedback good feedback?… nope… just like not every cheeseburger is a good cheeseburger.

For example, before starting a game I like to write a social contract, a common set of rules we as players should abide to, one of the rules is that if you are playing (that means, your character is actively involved in a scene) no distractions are allowed (Handheld consoles, internet browsing, etc, etc, etc) otherwise if you are not involved its fair game, this one time one of my players was playing with a handheld console, I call for him becuase its his turn, the guy sits down the handheld in hand, one of my players raises up and says “No handhelds on the table, its a social contract” the other one replies “so what?!”, it wasn’t until we pressured him further that he put down the bloody thing… the next day he comes right of the blue and tells me that he found the last session boring, after talking to him for a while I realized that we had a difference in opinion, as far as he was concerned, GM should provide entertainment for the group, my perception is that the group provides entertainment for itself, that I as a GM am a facilitator whose job is to makes thing go smoothly.

So we talked for a while, ironed things out and I invited him to be proactive, if a scene was boring for him it was his job to change it (the others players were really enjoying the drama by the way), I would help in any way I could but in the end it was his responsibility, no more problems like that have aroused, and it could all have been solved that same night if he would have told the group how he felt in the first place.

Guidelines for a good feedback:

- Never use “but” as a word it invalidates what it came before.

Wrong: I liked the session but the combat was too long.

Right: I like the session, the combat was too long, I would like to speed things up next time.

- Always speak in singular, about yourself, your position, your thoughts and your feelings.

Wrong: We wanted to kill the governor and you didn’t let us!.

Right: I really wanted to kill the governor.

- Never insult.

Wrong: of course you dont get it, you are an idiot.

Right: Ok, what is it exactly that you did not understand so I can explain it with other words.

- Dont interpret or presuppose, speak only of behaviors and observations.

Wrong: Of course you are not gonna let the governor die, hes your pet npc…

Right: When the governor escaped throught the tunnels when we had them riggeds with traps I felt really upset, it didnt seem a fair call to me.

On that same token, GM you have to be crystal clear with your players, you are sitting on the other side of the screen because people trust you with their time, if you did handwave the escape of the governor dont be afraid to admit it “I handweaved the escape because I wanted to use him for another plot” and also be ready to offer a solution “how about I give you guys and extra reward for it and the promise that you´ll eventually get to kick the crap out of the guy?” (even better: if you tell them right on the spot that you would like to use the governor for another story and that  you would like some help in thinking another way around it, they can come up with something you didn’t thought of) I assure you that your players will respect a thousand times more if you are honest with them.

Anatomy of a good feedback

social engineers have come with this formula:

Name of target + Witnessed behavior + state of mind and emotion of speaker when behavior occurs + alternative/future pacing.

“Adam, when you let the governor escape throught the tunnels after we had rigged them with traps I felt like it was an unfair call for me and it made me feel upset, in the future I would like you to let us take him down”

“Sarah, when you killed the town guard without provocation it made me feel very unconfortable as a GM, in the future could you be a little less agressive?”

In both cases you are speaking from youself, about what you feel and how you perceive the world, no sane person would argue against a subjective experience like that, Adam and Sarah may take the advice or they may not, but at least you are giving them something to think about “oh this person feels this way when I do this… I get it” social awareness

Words to erase from your dictionary

I dont want to finish my thoughts on feedback without telling you first that there are two word you have to get rid of right now!… put one of this little fuckers and your whole communication system goes down the drain, “right” and “wrong”.

Let me start by saying that Im a catholic born turned atheist, I beleive in god as an inner force, and I make this notation because right and wrong are terms directly tied to morality which is in itself part political awarenes, part religion.

Right and Wrong are subjective terms, just like good or bad, they are  dependent on culture, religion, upbringing and innate characteristics, something which might seem wrong to me is perfectly fine to my brother, by calling something right or wrong you are judging it under your own system of beliefs, you are imposing your own view of the world on another person, that is the closest thing to an agression without getting physical, so always keep in mind that when you say “this is wrong” always add “to me” at the end, Im not asking you to accep it and embrace it, just understand that if you dislike something its your choice and your opinion.

Observation and body language: The other speech

Being a psychologist is no easy task let me tell you, when you sit in front of a person for an interview you are expected to take notes not only on what the person says but the way he says it and what he does when he says it, my notebooks are listed on Chaosium´s Call of Cthulhu as mythos book that takes 1d10 sanity points on a fast read… but in the end its well worth it.

The most basic premise of observation is to observe without judging, the best way I can find to explain it is with a short story:

Two psychologists once boarded a train in london to go sighseeing around Britain, one of them spots an animal herd on a field and calls his colleage “hey, I didnt knew they had goats in England”, the other sees throught the window, turns to his friend and apprentice and says “Well… to you its a goat, but Im only seeing half side of an animal with horns a goatee and white thick fur, I´m really curious to see the other side, I wonder if its the same”.

See the difference there?, the first one made a presupposition, based on his sensory input he interpreted what he was seeing as a goat, the other one just described what he perceived with the language he knows… a small difference but a vital one in the technique I´m about to explain.

First lets define a behavior as: the measurable changes (active or reactive) we perceive in others with our senses.

There are two kinds of body language, the first one refers to physiological reactions to outside stimuli.

For example, dilated pupils are related to states of excitement, yawns are related to tiredness and lack of activity, flushed cheeks point to exercise and socially tense situations, the body changes and adapts according to the circunstances in a  biological sense.

The second relates to actions linked to a certain emotion or state of mind, this are subjective, and even if there is a social tendency, its almost impossible to speak about universal body signs, crossing your arms could mean that you are cold, that your back hurts, that you are thinking, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are on the defensive…

How is this useful to us?, by doing a little thing NLPers* call “calibration”, in plain english it means “learning the association between a behavior and an individuals state of mind and thoughts”.

I have a player, lets call him Albert, cool guy, really smart… but Albert is really shy, he hates being in the spotlight because he beleives that everyone is judging him, everytime Albert interacts in the game and hes not sure of what he is doing he gets a really bad cough, it takes him several minutes to  recompose and afterwards he just does the first thing that comes to mind (usually something very passive like just sitting around, no action no judgment)

*NLP stands for neuro-linguistic programming, a higly controversial theory of communication that have been misused and bastardized in the form of workshops for self-discovery and self-growth by scam artists, I use it regalurary and for me it works wonderfully, but I´ve been very careful in only reading the most prominent literature and learning for credible sources

So how does this little piece of knowledge helps me?, whenever albert starts to cough I know that I have to break his moment, I either introduce and NPC or quickly send him into action, I take away that what worries him and let him get back into the game… but I will only do so with the cough that begins when he is faced with a decision.

A long time ago I had a lady player, lets call her pickle, she always sought romance in the game, but she felt a little ashamed of liking her characters being romantically involved, I observed that whenever pickle was getting into the game she would flush and her pupils dilate (both common signs of arousal), incidentally the scenes she liked the most were those where I could observe this reaction, so I knew that when I observed those behaviors she was having a good time.

There is nothing magical about this, I laugh when something makes me nervous, I crack my knucles when I get into something I find interesting, I stare with a small smile when I see someone I like, (remember, brain-rituals?), we have little quirks and a trained eye can catch them, ask a professional poker player.

So here is an excersice for you, next time you GM something pick a player, and observe, dont interpret, just observe, what are his or her behaviors, whats the reaction when you ambush the character, when the player rolls a crit, write it down, try to find a pattern, with their actions the players are telling you how they feel about your game, the amount of feedback you can get out of this is huge.

Remember:

- Observe behaviors, dont interpret them, and inference says more about you than about the person you are observing.

- Watch for behavior patterns, things that are repeated many times.

- Dont be afraid to ask “hey joe, why do you laugh when the orc dies?”

- Practice Practice Practice.

Why is observation useful?:

In my experience I have been able to:

- Determine when a decision has made  a player upset.

- Figure out when the group needs a break or I need to wrap up the session.

- A conflict between characters turns personal.

- A player is bored.

- A player is interested.

- A particular scene is emotionally touching.

- Also observation leads to a good feedback (an issue I have never seen treated in RPGs and that I want to talk about).

There is so much I would like to say about observation, but I have to go to bed, and rather than being a cathedratic I want you people to go out into the world and try this out, if it doesnt work I´ll personally go to your place and teach you

Till next time