Do you guys even have any powers of your own? I wasn't really clear on just what your PCs can do.
I mean, if you've got some decent abilities and there's a whole group of you than kick in a door, take over a building, and establish your own kingdom in the middle of downtown. And wrap tinfoil around your heads to keep out the mind control.
We've got an ecclectic mix of powers. My guy can control light and turn it into matter, my girlfriend's character turns into some kind of boogeyman hellbeast, another player has telepathy, and the last member is a teleporter with sweet ninja skillz.
As for the storming the city idea... we could do it, but it would be out of character. This is a group of pretty hardcore roleplayers, and the idea of doing something so blatantly character-violating just rubs us the wrong way. Things are getting pretty bad though... we might have to go there to get anything to happen.
If you think that he just doesn't know what he's doing than you have a pretty simple solution: record the game and make him listen to the audio. Relistening to myself has thrown alot of my choices as a GM into a different light for me.
Actually, we HAVE been recording all the game sessions, but he hasn't asked for the recordings yet. I'm planning to hand those over tonight when I talk to him about how things are going. Hopefully it'll impact him as it did you.
OR you could learn him some Game Mastering Essays,
or atleast refer him to the RPPR Podcast about shitty GMs or w/e episodes you think will open his mind.
Or you could run a one shot, same characters but before the start of this game- sort of a prelude background kind of deal and just totally SHOW HIM WHO THE BOSS IS !
That's what I'm hoping to do, verbally. I've referred him to RPPR several times, and suggested some reading (uncle figgy's list and such) but he hasn't read any of them. I think he still feels he's above that because he's enjoying the game so much that it
must be good. Hence the point about "a GM's place in the game" that needs to be driven home. Maybe once he realizes he doesn't have it all figured out he'll be more willing to do some studying.
Just tell him you would love to see some action. I am thinking it sounds like he is trying to lay a bunch of groundwork for a epic campaign of some kind... which if he is new might be a lot to chew off at first. Or not, depending if he is like a writer or something.
Basically just tell him you are interested in seeing him realize his plot, but that you would like to see some action. I bet he's planning something where you establish a lot of inter relationships between factions, players and NPCs (sort of like in the first season of Heroes) before he ends the season with a big action scene or multi-scene war type thing.
That is a good thought. It's kind of where we thought things were going too. Then he revealed that next game is "the climax" and that we will probably be wrapping up in two sessions. I am going to suggest that he try and introduce some extra layers of story to maybe give us at least %50 action-y gaming to go with our sitting around and talking.
Thanks for all the advice. Some of it I had already considered, but hearing it again helps me feel that I'm not being a douche by pointing this stuff out.
