That said, I’m surprised so many GMs write out their social contracts — I really didn’t think that would be very common.

Examples of social contracts might actually be an awesome section for the reworked GMing Wiki. Thanks for sharing!

Thus: Without discussion and explicit discussion, a document got started that acts as our social contract.

Here it is:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/alex/Roleplaying_Social_Contract

My Friday night group [current, established] has not had a “social contract” discussion formally, but we’ve had a lot of discussions that have established it informally. For us:
- yawning isn’t an insult; playing Friday night after a long work week can be s low ebb, but we’ll play on best we can
- I’ll do the phone calling, site creation / maintenance, etc. and host
- The kids are welcome, but must be willing to self entertain
- At the end of a game, we’ll pitch new games, discuss them, and pick the next
- We’re currently into long term games with campaign style development.
- (plus lots more)

The new group is still coalescing. We’re communicating by email and after monthly meetups; we hope to launch by the end of September. Here are the beginnings of our contract…
- Bryan will run the first game, Saga Star Wars
- We’ll alternate hosting between Fresno and Hanford
- This group is looking to play experimental and short series games– trying out all those new and indie games in our closets
- We’ll rotate GMing at the end of a game, probably by pitch
- Group composition at the outset is fixed, but we may revisit the player list later
- We’ll meet twice a month

Also, while a few know each other from previous games, we mostly know each other only from this group. Having an explicit social contract was helpful as we became closer friends.

It wasn’t pretty.

But it hasn’t happened in years in my group. Maybe I’m just lucky and I have great players. Maybe I’m very unlucky and I have players that are very at whining behind the GM’s back – so good I never notice!

I guess it’s better to err on the safe side and discuss the game every now and then.

My old face-to-face group fell apart after we’d been playing together for *six years* because of social contract issues that amounted to: whining behind the GM’s back, frequent lateness, and blatant favoritism. I maintain ironclad control of my group’s social contract as a direct result of this.

One thing I think is useful for social contracts would be: always bring problems directly to the person that is CAUSING the problem. Don’t be a whiny insecure passive-aggressive twerp and try to get ANOTHER player to address the GM and hope that HE will address YET ANOTHER PLAYER. This scenario will play out in the following manner: The problem-causing person will ask the GM (or whoever actually had enough spine to finally bring the problem to them) “Well, what should I do to fix it? What sort of behavior would be better?” and the GM *won’t know*. Your intermediary’s intermediary won’t know. All you’ll do is offend the person who has no idea what you *do* want, only that you *don’t* want *something* they’re doing.

I hate being the only one in the group with enough testicular fortitude to face the facts . . . I’m the girl!

Even if you don’t discuss this issue out loud, I think the first scene of a campaign should set the tone.

If part of the group didn’t seem to enjoy the first scene or game of a campaign, then you really need to talk!

We have recently addressed the issue of how to handle absent players; we started with a vote to decide if we wanted to play with a single player absence. Once we decided that a single absence would be permissible, we had a group discussion on how to handle that absence.

I think having it written down isn’t a bad idea, so long as it isn’t like robert’s rules of order and strictly adhered to. We sit down to play GAMES after all, and the fun is the most important thing.

As an old-school GM, that’s not acceptable to me; the GM is in charge of the table. I still think that a written-down social contract is a bad idea, kind of like having a group of friends use Robert’s Rules of Order (technical parliamentary procedure) to manage their social interactions.

But since we each bring a unique perspective to the table, a group should explicitly define a few things. Once I realized that “shared expectations” fit under the definition of social contract, I accepted the idea (even if the name still bugs me).

I just finished a long campaign, and am not GMing right now, but some of my biggest expectations are:
- Whether I GM or play, the GM is in charge of the table. As a player, I abide by the GM’s call, and will take it up with him after the game if there’s a problem.
- The fun is more important than the story, and the story is more important than the rules.
- I’d rather roleplay than rollplay, but I’d rather do either than ruleplay (to play the game entirely mechanically, without regard to character, story, or verisimilitude).

I don’t really mind this because it’s a brand-new group playing via a method (chatroom) where I’m pretty much the only old hand . . . plus I’m the only person in the group (as far as I can tell) that likes to write up a lot of background out of game.