So, when is it acceptable to make players pass a test before they can join your game, Veeky Forums?

Sounds asinine, but based on how much flakey faggots I've dealt with, I just might support this. So tired of guys only participating in like two sessions, then going "Uhhh I'm busy, can't make it," then next week going "Yeah I need to drop out man I got real life stuff."

It's very explicitly a gotcha moment. He didn't mention that detail while going over the initial session explicitly for the purpose of being able to say AHA! YOU DIDN'T READ THE PACKET!!! later on. It's narcissistic and malicious from the get-go.

Sadly there's no way to do this sort of test in reverse, i.e. make the GM pass a test to prove they've actually read the rules, have time for the game both in running and in preparation, and have the balls to say no to any randumb bullshit that might come up.

>ask to at least skim over the packet to play the game
>loldidn'tread.gif
>the gm sure is mean to trick us like that

this guy gets it

The only way to miss it is to not open the packet. He even put it in bright red text for one to see it. It's not a "Gotcha", its "Can I trust you to do the one thing I've asked of you".

And frankly, I don't think any GM is losing out on two players who not only can't find time to literally just open to the first page, but then find the need to lie about it.

Why do a preselection though? Why not just start playing and, if you find them to be unenjoyable players, talk to them and tell them that they're probably not in the right campaign for their kind of roleplay?

I mean, we're all mature people here, we can talk to each other, right?

>laughingautists.jpg

Because otherwise you end up with the first people applying to your game who have an insane tendency to flake or otherwise be shit. No structured application also shows you as a GM have no fucking clue what type of players you want.

Why didn't he just tell them they couldn't play without skimming the packet? Why did he care to begin with, if he already went over the setting basics during the prep session? Why only mention this after everyone put in the work to make characters, learn about the campaign, and think they were going to play?

Because he wanted a chance to trap them. He has a noxious, self-important, me vs them mindset.

>t. flake who didn't read the fucking packet

It needs to be made clear to your players immediately that you have requirements and standards that need to be met before they can join your game. None of that gotcha shit, tell them upfront that there will be a test. That way the players can decide for themselves whether they want to be in your game in the first place. This not only helps you weed out players who wouldn't be interested, it also isn't rude to your potential players by wasting their time if you have no intention of playing with them.

I'm sure many of you can relate that finding someone to game with can be a bitch because so many gamers are a little... off.

I've been having problems filling some empty chairs, partly due to the first test - the beer test. If someone won't meet me at the pub for a pint then they can just fuck off. Whats even worse is the guys who show up at the pub but don't drink even if I offer to buy them a pint. If you won't have a pint with me, you can fuck off.

Any similar tests you use for new players?

If he'd told his players that reading the packet was required or they couldn't play the game, the other two probably would have read it.

But he chose to be passive-aggressive instead, so I guess we'll never know.

This.
That's why OP is a shitter.

>going down to a pub for a pint
>getting a bud light
All plastic paddies should fucking hang

This is the best way to filter it.

>I've been having problems filling some empty chairs, partly due to the first test - the beer test. If someone won't meet me at the pub for a pint then they can just fuck off. Whats even worse is the guys who show up at the pub but don't drink even if I offer to buy them a pint. If you won't have a pint with me, you can fuck off.

I am totally in support of this. People who won't drink are always some of the biggest assholes. If you're a recovering alcoholic then I can deal. But most of these guys are just people who've never had a drink in their lives and think they're better than you for it.

>Why only mention this after everyone put in the work to make characters, learn about the campaign, and think they were going to play?
>learn about the campaign
>didn't read the packet

Sounds good, doesn't work. I don't how many times people have flaked on my games despite me clearly stating, "THE BIGGEST THING I WANT IN MY GAME IS COMMITMENT, IF YOU WOULD RATHER BE OUT DRINKING, GOING ON A DATE, PLAYING VIDEO GAMES, ETC THAN PLAYING ONCE A WEEK, PLEASE DO NOT APPLY. IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO GET A JOB/UNI WHATEVER THAT WILL INTERFERE IN THE NEAR FUTURE, PLEASE DO NOT APPLY. THIS WILL BE A RELATIVELY LONG CAMPAIGN THAT'S GOING TO LAST ABOUT 6 MONTHS TO A YEAR."

>3 hours before first session
>"sorry bruh, something came up, gotta bail"

Yo, I haven't seen this pasta in YEARS. Damn dude, you've either been here a long-ass time or are the same person as years ago.

How does a pop quiz achieve anything that couldn't be achieved by just kicking them if they're chronically absent?

Also, you sound like the opposite of fun.

>ask them to at least skim over the packet
You need him to double dog dare you?

They were given, precisely, one job beyond showing up with a character. A single extra thing they needed to do. This thing wasn't complicated. It would not take more than thirty seconds, tops, to skim through a 3 page packet.

And on top of that, they found the need to lie to him.

You say he has a "noxious, self-important, me vs them mindset", but it's pretty clear that these players (and you), have a lazy, entitled, and self-centered mindset, where you think you are entitled to play because you "put in the work to make characters".

He didn't give them a job, though. He asked them to look over the packet and then didn't tell them that there were any consequences whatsoever for not doing so. This is exactly the Dr. Strangelove problem. If you're going to have consequences as a deterrent for bad player behavior, the players need to KNOW that those consequences exist. This isn't rocket science here.

If testanon had made it clear to his players that there was in fact a test, there would have been an actual incentive to read the packet above just them wanting to. RPGs are a leisure activity and people tend to approach them leisurely. Incentives and disincentives can help motivate players, especially if you're trying to run stick-up-your-ass srs bznss game like that one.

In my book, simply showing up on time, with characters, and a willingness to engage in the game does in fact give the players a right to play. Anything beyond that is basically just busywork to fuel the GM's ego.

I make pre-game packets. I give them to my players and I request them to read it. If they don't, I'm disappointed. But that shit is just a reference source. If they show up and engage with the game then as far as I'm concerned they're upholding their end of the deal.

sounds autistic but in a situation like this, i'd say you're justified. honestly i'd jump through your hoops to play if you have good ideas and i'm sure i'd enjoy the game more due to quality control.

You root out said possible players that were going to be chronically late in the first place, thereby not investing any of your time in to these players, and giving you a much faster chance to recruit other players? I want people to be there at the game from the start or close to it.

>Also, you sound like the opposite of fun.

Indeed, wanting committed players means no fun allowed.

>If testanon had made it clear to his players that there was in fact a test
Except that breaks the whole purpose of the test, you fucking weapons-grade autistic dolt.

The problem with this method is that it doesn't work. Here's what I mean:

Nine times out of ten players dealing with new GMs aren't dealing with a good GM. He might give them a handout but it's going to be shit, and most of them aren't there for a fucking history lesson, they're there to play games.

The issue is, when a player hits me with this kind of shit, I just forget about it because I've read the Dragon Crystals of Vrysonne six million times at this point. I don't care about your worldbuilding until I know you're a good DM or whatever the acronym is in the game we're playing. I skip straight to the races section to see what I'm allowed to play, and from there I maybe go to cultures to see what kind of countries there are that I'm allowed to be from. It depends on the format, I've read setting books, handouts, pamphlets, even test games from companies that haven't released yet. On not ONE of these have I ever read the second page, because there's never anything there.

So you'd filter me out, but you wouldn't filter out the six thousand autistic retards who read everything but are still autistic and can't play games because they're retarded.

This kind of shit-test is idiotic. It's cultureless, the only reason you'd think it was a good idea is that you've never played in the kind of game you're trying to run before. If that's so, why the fuck are you running? DMing is the hardest job in D&D and every other game. It isn't for amateurs and it isn't for faggots. You should know by now that this sort of autism doesn't work. So stop trying to MAKE it work and start doing work to make your games better, that starts with you and it ends with everyone else.

Oh, I'm sure fun is "allowed" in your games. But you're still an entitled bitch by placing your game above people getting a better job. Which you specifically mentioned as a reason to exclude players. I'm quite sure fun happens in your games despite you, rather than because of you.

>believes in blindsiding players with a fucking pop quiz
>calls others autistic.

If this is pasta, it's surprisingly astute pasta.

as long as they pass a penis inspection they can play

Where I live the GM receives tips at the end of each session. It's an extremely simple way to tell who is taking a game seriously and who isn't. If it's something that seems workable in a game, I would suggest trying it.

Tests are a last resort for when your play environment is so bad that you would otherwise get consistent shitters, and even then they're a gamble since the players you would want are usually put off by such a specific thing. I didn't come to play to do homework.

Everything in this thread is stale as shit pasta. We've had this thread multiple times in the past month.

I know nu-Veeky Forums is shit, but back in the day this is how everyone posted. Writing a few paragraphs is its own reward.

And you're a colossal faggot that probably spends 5 extra mins during combat sessions because you're too retarded to read rules, and likely an entitled pansy that would cry when your character died based on how much crying you've done for a GM that wants a good game run with people who won't bail.

See, we can all assume retarded things and infer hyperbole from anonymous messages.

>i would rather have no players at all than to have players that require even minimal motivation
Confirmed for autism.

Hidden consequences are a hallmark of shit GMs. I mean, if your goal is to have tiny games filled with players who are as desperate for social interaction as you are, it works great. If your goal is to have a game that's fun and meaningful interactions with friends, it's counterproductive, arrogant, and entitled.

You are talking like the players are getting punished, it's not like they are entitled to play that game, if you create a game and recruit for it you have the right for arbitrarily retarded expectations from your players. If he wants them to read it without threat(which is a sensible request, if they can't even open it without a threat moving them there is for sure something wrong) he has the right to say they are not welcome to the game..

The only reason I suspect pasta is
>even test games from companies that haven't released yet

I dunno, that reminds me a lot of shit like "my dad works for Nintendo" or "top of my class at SEAL school"

>he thinks I'm OP
I'm just arguing against your stupidity user. It's okay to be wrong.

It's best to do your weeding as early as possible. Kicking players out mid-campaign is disruptive in-game and out of game and it gets worse the longer things have run on for, ESPECIALLY when you factor in a need to replace them.

I more or less specifically run very short games so that I have an up to date understanding of who is and isn't a good player, but that isn't how most people operate, and it isn't what most people can get away with.

As for the effectiveness of the OP ploy, I don't think that would realistically weed out a lot of people likely to flake over time pressures etc. but it at the very least guarantees that players are capable of doing the most basic prepwork outside the session, which can save a lot of time if your one session a week is very limited.

Except the quoted poster specifically said that his game was more important than the quality of life of his fellows. His game was more important than people getting jobs. His game was more important than people getting an education.

He's a shit gm, and a shit person. And so are you.

I have done exactly the test in OP, and I have done exactly as you suggest, telling them beforehand that it was a test. After a few sessions it became clear that one of my players had not looked at the packet beyond the red line. The kind of people you're weeding out with a test are also the people that will cheat on the test if they can.

Wait, I'm not supposed to type in paragraph form and use proper grammar and punctuation? Fuck me, man. I gotta get on-board with the culture before I look like an autistic faggot.

Are you by chance, this fucking stupid, or are you a prick just strawmanning to win an argument by insults?

He's advertising a game. He's giving expectations. He's saying if you have plans in the future that will likely have you dropped from the game, don't apply. Nowhere does it imply the game is vastly more important than the life of a human being, you shit-for-brains fucking autistic inbred retard.

If you tell them there's going to be a test, you don't do the big red notice like in the OP. That's retarded. You do a few basic questions that will confirm that they at least skimmed the packet. If they don't answer at least 3/5 correctly, they didn't read the packet. Punish as necessary, but at least they knew it was coming, and weren't suddenly surprised by your autism. Treating your players with respect helps your game run smoother.

HOWEVER, if you make the test like it was in the OP, you still aren't guaranteed that the players actually read it. The players who actually did open the packet can just read the big red text, and then safely ignore everything else. They already know the answer, why should they bother reading anything else?

The OP test is horribly flawed for a variety of reasons.

That's not really that unusual, I tested for SoS, they were literally giving away test copies here on Veeky Forums. If you hang out on any gaming forum you'll get test copies of games.

>meaningful interactions with friends
See, there's where you're wrong. This wasn't a game run among friends, it was an open join game at a lgs. Knowing that anyone can join makes it almost imperative that you test them to see if they can at least be bothered to put in minimal work to making the campaign fun and successful.

quiz desu

>If you're kicking off a game with threats then you're not someone I want as a GM.
If you don't care about playing enough to read a few pages of text, then you're not someone who should be playing.

They were already asked by the DM to read the packet. That's reason enough for them to do so as it demonstrates their willingness to actually respect what the DM has asked of them. Them being unable to put forward the barest minimum of effort to do the one thing the DM asked of them demonstrates an apathetic attitude towards the game which would likely surface in the game itself.

There's nothing wrong with screening out shit players. You really should be screening them out for being shit players, though. Not reading the packet doesn't correlate with them being bad players. See

>Why didn't he just tell them they couldn't play without skimming the packet?
He DID tell them that during session 0, user. Read the screencap again. He explicitly said that no-one who hadn't read the packet would be able to play in this campaign.

>start pulling excuses like:(...) but I have two jobs user

lmao

Not reading a packet correlates with them not valuing your time enough to even read a packet. is being a self important jackass.

The problem isn't the expectations, it's the way of communicating them. If you have to "threaten" your players--ever--then you're probably a control freak GM who won't stop at simply asking players to read your setting notes.

He didn't tell them that during session zero. Re-read it again. The warning that people who hadn't read the packet couldn't play was INSIDE the packet itself. That's why it's a "gotcha" move.

If the test would filter you out, then it's at least doing some good because the GM clearly doesn't want assholes like you ruining their game.

>He DID tell them that during session 0, user
Doesn't say that, you are making an assumption.

I can absolutely get behind that, but how do you screen out shit players after only a zero session? I think makes a good point about apathy. is apathetic, and may be a knowledgeable player, without actually being a good player. And, desu, if he was just joining in a random group in my lgs that I had set up, I'd probably be happy he got kicked as well, regardless of his knowledge.

There's a reason I limit my gaming to strictly friends.

It's not elaborate and it's not a gotcha. It's "read three fucking pages of information to show me you're actually interested in playing." The question was in bright red text on the first fucking page, AND the answer was provided.

DMing a game requires a lot of time investment. I can hardly blame someone for wanting players who are willing to invest a whole five fucking minutes a week in the getting into the game.

I'd much rather screen out players for bad hygiene, obnoxious behavior, or being creepy as fuck, personally. Not reading the packet is strike one for sure, but REEEing about the players not reading it is straight-up autism, especially at a LGS when you haven't proven your quality to your players either.

Reverse the situation. You're a GM trying to get a game off the ground, and one of your players sends you a 4-page backstory with a pop quiz in the middle of it, warning you that if you don't answer it correctly on session 1 he'll quit. Would you consider that to be an encouraging sign from a potential player, or a dire warning sign?

I don't drink because alcoholism runs in the family, on both sides. Guess that makes me a self-important asshole for learning from others' mistakes and not wanting to ruin my life, huh?

>Online game.
Basically mandatory.
>irl game.
Usually unnecessary, since it's much easier to vent people face to face.

Any player who won't give me a handjob doesn't deserve a spot in my game.

How do you expect to face the terrors and challenges in a dungeon if you're not willing to stroke my dong?

I have a very simple test. Every player who want to join our group must do a call of cthulhu one shot with us, and the session is usually heavy on the role playing.
If after that we still want to play with you, you're in, otherwise you're out.

>especially at a LGS when you haven't proven your quality to your players either.

How can I prove my quality, if they don't even make the effort of reading 1 page?

Yes, all the other stuff you mention are also grounds for disqualification, but if you agree to play in a game and can't even muster the effort to flip the first page, you are out.

I'm not willing to grade tests, mostly because it portrays me as either clinical or elitist, neither of which are images I want my players to have of me. Also them actually retaining the information in the packet is a secondary concern; I want to know that they're willing to read the packet I gave them, because I asked them to do it. I don't want players who are only choking down my bullshit because they think I'm forcing them to do it.

As to your second point, while I'll accept that there may exist a hypothetical player who will begrudgingly read the hand-out, then cop out at the opportunity, I've never met them, and I'm not entirely concerned about the process failing to weed them out. I'm not looking for a 100% foolproof method, getting most of the shitters out right away is enough.

See, that's a pussy neckbeard, who assume that he WILL become an alcoholic if he drinks ONE FUCKING PINT.
Good reason to have this test

This, why not just a oneshot? I played in a campaign once where each prospective player had a 1 on 1 prequel session with the dm and I think he only bounced one guy

I've learned from running a lot of games that giving out any kind of setting guide is bad GMing technique.

Explain what characters would know as it is relevant. Let the players add some details.

It makes things more fun for everyone, rather than turning a game into a pop quiz of "did you read the book I wrote." Because in the past I used setting guides to have gotcha situations to catch players out for not remembering details, and nobody ended up having any fun.

I don't drink because I become an obnoxious asshole when I'm drunk, does that count?

The only test you need is "can you follow the fucking instructions?"

And in skipping to the race section you'd probably at least notice the bold red text and at least skim that part.

Drinking a pint should still be fine though.

That's nice, but I prefer playing with everyone to see the group dynamics. In a one on one the player may act differently and not show some annoying behavior, or he may be more awkward on a one on one than with the whole group.
And it's considerably shorter too, since you do it all at once.

A setting guide without a gotcha is good tho.
I like when my GM have a setting guide so I can construct my backstory around it, and I usually end up asking more questions to immerse my character in the world.
And if some other players don't want to read it, no big deal, he doesn't and he will get some explanations during the game as needed.

>"You have to read this" instead of "let me tell you this"
A GM who doesn't do his job, he didn't pass the test

Now that is some ancient pasta.

Those are very good points. I guess people would be more likely to rein themselves in if it was a one on one, and you wouldn't be able to see any between player clashes. I liked it a lot at the time because I came to the group already knowing the dm a bit, but I was fairly new and nervous

Yeah, shit players are usually a bit afraid to shit talk the GM, but shit talking the other players is way different. Especially because they're hoping the GM is on their sides.

Have you really had players shit talk so much that it goes beyond friendly ribbing? I find it hard to believe that some guy wants to play a game with people and just starts talking shit about them constantly.

It's more of a problem in online games or FLGS games where people don't actually know each other. Sometimes people just get on each other's nerves and then start behaving like children.

We had to kick a guy out once over it. He'd always talk shit about the other player behind their back, but one time an argument got heated. We broke and later on Skype told him that some of the shit he said was not acceptable and that he needed to cool it, and within minutes he was PMing the other guy more insults. I don't know if he actually disliked the guy or if he thought the rest of us would think he was cool, because the other guy was the one who introduced him to the group.

>put in the effort to weave a campaign and a setting
>write the gist of it into three pages
>ask the players to take a look at it so everyone has an idea of what's going on
It is not a test. If you can not at least do 5 minutes of reading in a week you are either not interested enough in the game or do not have enough time to play, and I would not want you in my game.

Because everyone loves 30 minutes of exposition instead of actually playing

Session 0 is for that, to explain the game, hepl making chars that fit the setting, create relationships between chars, backstory, etc

>They'll catch on pretty quick
No they wont, at the end of the campaign they will be asking what other characters names are.
>you're not someone I want as a GM
And you are not someone OP wants as a player.
>This. It's, at least, just a game. At most, just a hobby.
Yea and only consequence the OP is proposing is "I am not playing with you". Stop treating it like he is denying them water or something.

This.

I'll usually read the whole setting brief, but I've read enough such things to know that the average homebrew setting isn't going to blow anyone's minds and I wouldn't begrudge anyone for skipping anything not necessary for building their character. And frankly I'd consider myself a bad DM if I couldn't get someone with little to know knowledge of my setting invested just through play.