Advice for Game Masters
4-13-01
Posted by
The Old Druid
Greetings and salutations fellow gamers, this is my first article for GamingReport.com. My pen name comes from a favorite character I had in AD&D; a long time ago. That old druid kicked some serious, but excuse my digression.
I claim to be a veteran, if not an expert, due to my many years of gaming and being a GM (we won't discuss how many at this time). I can only hope my experience shines forth to help as it can. I know you have your particular frustrations and grips concerning most everything under the sun, and that's why I'm here to help. I'll answer your email through GameReport.com and incorporate the better or funnier questions into a series of regular articles.
Today we will discuss two common issues every GM faces sooner or later. They are first of all creativity in generating ever more exciting and dramatic scenarios, or story lines, for your "usual" players that have mastered your special tricks and techniques for keeping them honest, and secondly motivating your players to step out of their role-playing ruts and experiment with other types of social classes or races. The second topic is harder to accomplish than the first.
Creativity could be a problem if you typically run one game at a time, close that curtain down, and move on to another scenario, module, game, or story line. Where is the consistency? Let the flow of several similar game sessions work for you instead of against you. Don't break the flow of the story line. Build up a novel like story from one session to the next. If you buy modules, then at least work to make them flow together like a single story. If you have your own map, world, and story line in mind then maintain a constant story line from one story to the next by having the actions / reactions of your players affect your game's "political law of physics". For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction along a straight line - in the game.
When the game is directly designed to allow the players to affect the long term future through their short term actions, then they take a new level of interest when for example the "enemy sorcerer is successful in releasing a thousand baby black dragons into the world because they were too slow or got distracted by the treasure room." Don't design yourself into a corner, and let the players run and enjoy themselves.
After each game session is over ponder the immediate and long-term impacts of the last session's activities. Make some definite decisions based on the world, as you know it, and go from there. Which enemies or competitors got upset due to their success or failure, and what are they going to do (or try to do) about it? What specifically accomplished (or even attempted) actions should cause what specific reactions? Think about these concepts along social, economic, and political lines, and you shouldn't have a big problem figuring out what will happen next. Build in some nice subtle and gentle impacts along cultural or political lines, and watch how your players adjust their behavior. Try to allow for major turns in the story line to occur that are the direct result of long ago major actions, and watch for a pleasant look to appear on their faces as they remember the past and logically deduce this result.
Beware: An extreme out of balance measure or reaction could cause a fatalistic knee-jerk reaction by the players because they feel they don't have any control over "things like that". Keep everything logical, rational, and measured in your own mind, and your players will typically agree.
The second topic is motivating your players to expand their role playing skills when they allow themselves to get into their own special routines or ruts. You will always need a good warrior to swing their sword, but when one person must always do that, and they can't, or won't, play anything else, then what do you do? Unfortunately, it's easy to let the warrior stay a warrior, but other players want a break from being the "helping priest", the "quiet thief" in the back, or the "weak wizard" trying to stay alive and make a contribution to the party. Develop a rotation schedule when characters bite the big sleep, so the next person (regardless of their old player character) must play the next character on the list. Your job is making the list interesting and appropriate for the various situations in the story line.
That might be too arbitrary for your special group of "characters", so try handing the "stuck" player a pre generated character that is "critical" for the next session (and it's the truth). Let them enjoy the spotlight for a while, and maybe they will also appreciate other types of characters to play. Also, allow all the players to have two or three characters at one time. So what if one character takes a side journey home for some home cooking, if you can gently explain why someone leaves and someone else appears suddenly, then so be it. Just make sure all 3 back up character sheets are not all warriors. This also helps speed up the game when a character doesn't get up off the wet red colored stones.
Usually, when the group is in a tight spot, and a player is late for the game, no one really minds that the "strong warrior friend" just showed up at the last door in the dungeon one mile deep under ground out of no where. "How did he know where to find us?" is never yelled out, I only hear "get your slow .... in here and help us you fool!" Exchanging or rotating characters back and forth might be politically ok in your group, or not, but try to find something that does work so everyone enjoys the game at a reasonably high level. Remember that the reason we love to game is the fun factor and the companionship with friends, so everything we do to prepare and organize should also be geared to those ends. Enjoy your gaming!
The Old Druid
|
|