Have anyone other then me noticed that the "generic" gaming group has many expectations of the storyteller, and very few of the players? I'm a storyteller more often than a player (unfortunately) and have therefore given the topic some thought.
Players expect the storyteller to have made various preparation in advance of the game session. They expect him to be prepared, with at least a story or some interesting scenes. That he has some interesting people for them to meet and interact with. Some groups expect him to have prepared a neat puzzle or a mystery for them to solve. Last but not least they expect that their own actions are taken in to account.
What may the storyteller expect from his players? From experience I would say only that they show up, or at least let people know in advance if the do not. Aside from that players almost seem affronted if more are expected of them. I have on more than one occasion heard players say that they have had no time to think of the game since the last session. How would the game be if the storyteller did the same?
This leads me to requirements. I wonder if it might not be a viable alternative to stop expecting things of players and make them requirements of participation. Is it unfair to tell someone that in order for us to have a fun evening we all have to contribute? We all need to put in some effort in between the sessions.
I have plans for trying this requirement strategy with two campaigns. I'm very interested in seeing if this change who will participate. Will the people that usually go "I have been too busy (during the last two weeks to make room for even 30minutes of preparation) to prepare or even think about the game." not join or will they make room in their schedule? Also, it will be interesting to see if the required effort will produce anything beneficial. Will it lead to the players just doing the motions of preparation with out putting any effort into it?
The idea is that for the first campaign I will require a in character summary of last gamesession to be written before next session is planed. Either of the two players may write it as long as it is written.
For the second campaign I'm going to use a setting I'm creating. The game will take place in historical time in relation to the completed setting. I wish to flesh out certain details about the session by playing in it. The general idea is that we will play three weekends, and in between the weekends the players are required to write a contribution to the setting based on the game sessions. This can either be a historical record as written by a historian in the future (relative to the game time), a private journal for one of the character, a in character letter or some other such thing.
For both of them there will be the requirement to spend some time thinking about the game and your character. Especially formulating some goals for the character, and thinking through how the character should act and respond to various things.
