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Thoughts on Games Mastering.
2011-11-06 21:09:30
edited 2011-11-06 21:09:30 in General
One foot in front of the other, every day.
I'm not a hugely experienced GM, although I've GMed for every game I've played -- DnD, Dark Heresy, WoD, WH Fantasy Roleplay, ect -- and I've learned a few things via experience and the GM hints within the texts. Actually, for however confounding Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay can get, its GM book has some of the most brilliant writing on the task I've ever read. A few of those ideas are below, combined with my own experience and other reading.
GMing can be pretty tough, especially given the diversity of material your players might expect you to cover, so a lot of these thoughts actually come down to taking shortcuts in order to keep your own focus so as to best referee the game.
1. Structure your plots. By this, I mean have "acts". Each act should have a single major obstacle, where dealing with that (or failing to deal with it) leads into the next act. This maintains focus, because we know what we want to accomplish and so do you. I recommend the basic three act structure in general. It's your call whether to make a single session a single act, or whether to make your game a series of connecting "trilogies" where each session goes through three and solves an entire problem.
Given that each act only has one major obstacle, you should ensure that it takes some doing to solve. Perhaps the PCs need to find a particular location? So that might be Act 1's major obstacle. They might begin with knowing vaguely what they're looking for and the general area it's in. To pinpoint the place, they might have to find some research resources, make contacts and explore. How much trouble they find on the way is your call.
2. Use the "false choice". This is simply when the players are presented with a choice that isn't. No matter what they choose, the same events will unfold, perhaps just at a difference place. Sure, this is railroading, but players don't care about invisible railroading. Which leads me to another point...
3. Don't be afraid to railroad from time to time, just ensure that you do it surreptitiously. As a GM, you have to be tricky. Sometimes, players will not be cooperative, so you have to trick them into thinking they're doing what they want while falling into your ploy and thereby progressing the plot. You're certainly not in the game to win, mind, but at the same time, you can't let pushy or clever players shift focus too far away, especially if they're on the verge of something cool.
4. Conversely, if a player makes an interesting choice, you might want to run with it. Every so often, a player will make an observation you didn't. The gut reaction is often to deny that observation in some manner to keep things under control, but, hey, why not? See where the story goes. And there's no reason such an observation means you have to scrap your prepared ideas; they just take a backseat until your player's line of investigation is done, or they might be reshuffled.
5. Reward the correct things, like good roleplaying, teamwork, clever solutions and completing major objectives. These should be the players' largest sources of experience, cash and items. You don't want to get bogged down with grind or allow the players to get too stuck in their ways, so reward the things that keep the game fun and thematic.
6. Improvise. Sometimes, shit happens. It's every GM's worst nightmare, but it's also a reality all of them have to deal with. One day, sometime, your game will go entirely off the rails, crash, burn and you have to pick up the pieces as you players watch on expectantly. You can prepare for this; have a set of secret, improvisational obstacles, plot points and the like that you can pull out if your game ever becomes a mess.
7. Err towards generosity, especially when you or your players are just starting out. By this, I mean lean towards generosity in cases where the game might be unfun or too difficult otherwise. Likewise, if a particular battle or event was costly, find some way to make it up to the players. It doesn't have to be in literal game cash or items. One of my favourites is to give the players some sort of hideout, even if it's just a secret cellar or an old barn in the country. There, they can pool their resources away from prying eyes.
8. Don't throw unused ideas away. If you wrote some cool encounters, interactions or places that the players never got to see, keep them for a rainy day or another project. Some will require a little altering for context and others can just be completely transplanted. What the players don't know doesn't exist. So if they come to know something somewhere else, it *always* existed there, see?
Thoughts?
GMing can be pretty tough, especially given the diversity of material your players might expect you to cover, so a lot of these thoughts actually come down to taking shortcuts in order to keep your own focus so as to best referee the game.
1. Structure your plots. By this, I mean have "acts". Each act should have a single major obstacle, where dealing with that (or failing to deal with it) leads into the next act. This maintains focus, because we know what we want to accomplish and so do you. I recommend the basic three act structure in general. It's your call whether to make a single session a single act, or whether to make your game a series of connecting "trilogies" where each session goes through three and solves an entire problem.
Given that each act only has one major obstacle, you should ensure that it takes some doing to solve. Perhaps the PCs need to find a particular location? So that might be Act 1's major obstacle. They might begin with knowing vaguely what they're looking for and the general area it's in. To pinpoint the place, they might have to find some research resources, make contacts and explore. How much trouble they find on the way is your call.
2. Use the "false choice". This is simply when the players are presented with a choice that isn't. No matter what they choose, the same events will unfold, perhaps just at a difference place. Sure, this is railroading, but players don't care about invisible railroading. Which leads me to another point...
3. Don't be afraid to railroad from time to time, just ensure that you do it surreptitiously. As a GM, you have to be tricky. Sometimes, players will not be cooperative, so you have to trick them into thinking they're doing what they want while falling into your ploy and thereby progressing the plot. You're certainly not in the game to win, mind, but at the same time, you can't let pushy or clever players shift focus too far away, especially if they're on the verge of something cool.
4. Conversely, if a player makes an interesting choice, you might want to run with it. Every so often, a player will make an observation you didn't. The gut reaction is often to deny that observation in some manner to keep things under control, but, hey, why not? See where the story goes. And there's no reason such an observation means you have to scrap your prepared ideas; they just take a backseat until your player's line of investigation is done, or they might be reshuffled.
5. Reward the correct things, like good roleplaying, teamwork, clever solutions and completing major objectives. These should be the players' largest sources of experience, cash and items. You don't want to get bogged down with grind or allow the players to get too stuck in their ways, so reward the things that keep the game fun and thematic.
6. Improvise. Sometimes, shit happens. It's every GM's worst nightmare, but it's also a reality all of them have to deal with. One day, sometime, your game will go entirely off the rails, crash, burn and you have to pick up the pieces as you players watch on expectantly. You can prepare for this; have a set of secret, improvisational obstacles, plot points and the like that you can pull out if your game ever becomes a mess.
7. Err towards generosity, especially when you or your players are just starting out. By this, I mean lean towards generosity in cases where the game might be unfun or too difficult otherwise. Likewise, if a particular battle or event was costly, find some way to make it up to the players. It doesn't have to be in literal game cash or items. One of my favourites is to give the players some sort of hideout, even if it's just a secret cellar or an old barn in the country. There, they can pool their resources away from prying eyes.
8. Don't throw unused ideas away. If you wrote some cool encounters, interactions or places that the players never got to see, keep them for a rainy day or another project. Some will require a little altering for context and others can just be completely transplanted. What the players don't know doesn't exist. So if they come to know something somewhere else, it *always* existed there, see?
Thoughts?
Comments
Are you sure you want involvement with the MLP fandom on your evil overlord resume?
Touhou's already on there. Not sure how it can get much worse, you see.
^ U.N. Owen Stole The Precious Ponyish Daughter Dx
I don't know to be honest XD
-scribbling-
Have Fun. What's the point if you're stressing out and making it a chore for yourself?