Today’s guest article was written by Will Jobst. Find him @dm_ilf and at www.willjobst.wordpress.com, before he finds you. Hurry. Oh God, I hear him. Will is based in Boston, MA. This is his second guest article; his first was Blank Check GMing. Thanks, Will! –Martin
D&D provides a state-of-the-art power fantasy, but all GMs can do is neuter their players. Gross. Don’t neuter your players, let them be super badass! Let them describe killing blows, feats of athletics, and their guile and charm. Let them describe magic rituals, their trusty mount, and how exactly they broke into that dungeon.
Don’t describe combat, let your players. I’m talking about conflict resolution. The final blow. Your players have whittled down the Ogre’s hp for the last 20 minutes, so how does Var the Wood Elf exactly kill that beast?
Power

+1 longswords is one thing, but narrative control is another. That sword changes the narrative in that more goblins are skewered by the end of the day, yet if the GM handles the bulk of the narration, players miss defining moments. When the GM describes everything surrounding the die rolls, power is taken away from the players, no matter their caster-level. Let players narrate the before the roll, and the after.
Consider the ogre situation:

Var: Ok. I loose another arrow, chanting my hunter’s chant.
GM: Cool, throw some dice.
Var: Does a 19 hit?
GM: Yes!
Var: 6 damage.
GM: Ok. Tell me how you kill this awful thing.

Var: Well, remember how this guy started with two eyes?…
Var now has narrative power! Albeit limited, yet very character defining. The player can do the coolest thing imaginable! Headshot? Arrow through the heart? Panic-induced heart attack? Combat specifics are unimportant — this is a finishing blow. This quick and easy strategy maximizes player involvement and shares narrative control. Let players go gonzo.
Trust
Narrative control is tricky. Trust is a big component. Sharing narrative control is sharing the truth in the game. The collaborative GM trusts her players. Once narrative control is handed over, it is handed back, not snatched. Imagine a scale, with the GM on one end, and players on the other. The collaborative GM’s scale tips back and forth often.
When the GM hands over narrative control, the players are more powerful within the fiction. Extremely empowering to the players, but diminishing to the GMs. Don’t panic, the scale tips back. They don’t even know about the other Ogre.
That’s a great idea for getting the players more involved in the narrative. I’m shamelessly stealing it the next time I run a dungeon.
I love this, it lets even low level characters appear “cool and heroic” without needing any special rules or powers added into the game itself.
This is indeed a good one; There are actually whole games built on the principle of “the player describes what happens when he succeeds”.
I agree that’s it’s a great technique, and often a great first step to drawing players out and encouraging them to take on larger roles around the table.
It’s nice when players step up and describe those intermediate hits too; harder, if you don’t know whether it’s a scratch of a maiming. As a GM, it’s tough to describe the thirteenth sword slash of the battle and have it feel fresh or distinct.
Most of my players are the opposite: they want me to tell them what happened.
It’s the same mentality with which people play immersive video games. Player chooses the target and method of attack, game system displays the result in vivid detail.
Yeah, but tabletop isn’t a videogame and a dungeon master isn’t a computer, and playing that way is…so… unbelievably restrictive. =/
Agreed, but tell that to the player who, repeatedly handed the narrative on a plate, drops said plate in a welter of “I dunno, I guess I’ll … no, um, I just kill it”. A total buzzkill and pace-nerfer. One can almost hear the stylus being dragged across the record as it happens.
I have one player who, when his character was killed graphically and irrevocably in a recent Delta Green session, on being offered a chance to leave everyone with some immortal last words, opted for “um”.
Some players cannot handle being passed the talking stick – they play a sort of midfield game between first- and third-person roleplaying style, stepping back abruptly and letting their internal camera fly high above the action whenever some internal comfort level is passed.
Personally, as a GM I’m usually far too busy trying to keep the rest of the game ticking over to watch each player for signs of burgeoning mike-fright.
I revel in being handed the narrative when I’m on the other side of the screen, but I’m a GM and have to curb my instinct to grab the scenery and chew holes in it the GM du jour cannot patch.
I recommend games of Fiasco! to help narrative-shy people develop personal improvisational narrative chops. Swapping in a Fiasco! session in place of the usual RPG (perhaps if the session would have been a short one due to latecomers or early leavers) is a great way to reset your GM burnout meter too.
In my opinion.
I’ve been using this technique with critical hits instead of finishing blows, I may have to do both now. There’s something incredibly gratifying as a GM when players get so invested in a combat that theyre itching for a good hit just so they can describe what happens.
Giving players more narrative control is nerve wracking at first, but its so worth it, especially when the narrative control extends past combat and into the world and story itself. Then everyone is invested.
I have been using this type of combat description for some time now. It has worked well, but also we as a group have talked about using this in our adventures. I said that this your adventure too so tell us what you do. All is not perfect either, there is one individual who takes the “I don’t know approach.” but I have had to talk with him privately about what he has agreed to previously then he changes back. If he continues to take that approach I can just describe the death strikes for him, but I think that group peer pressure from the others who are describing the hits does persuade him also.
Roxysteve, when my group was struggling with role-playing I had them play Fiasco. It was a huge success! It seemed to set them free from the bonds of hack and slash and set the table for role-playing. Immediately the players developed and embraces the uniqueness of their characters and the game seemed to be much more enjoyable by all.
I had a player that had played for years, and would just sit back and daydream or (worse) READ while he “played”. He was always a “roll a die, do the math, regurgitate the results, return to sulking.” The group had whittled a Frost Giant down to only a few hit points, and it was this guy’s turn.
A hit, damage calculated, he leaned back…
When I passed him a note saying, “You took the giant to -4hp, how does he die,” the guy looked like the whole group just announced that we all ate babies and kicked puppies.
“Uhhh…. well… um… it was going for Jim… I mean… Keldrick. It raised it’s huge axe and it looked like Jim would have to roll up a new… no, it looked like we’d need to find a new fighter. Suddenly, a tiny dot that looks like feathers appeared in its chest. It roars mightily, but the roar becomes just a gurgle as the hoisted axe falls behind it from lifeless fingers. It sags to its knees and then slumps toward Keldrick, who steps aside to let it fall.
The other giants take a step back as I knock another arrow.”
He told me later that nobody had ever asked him what the action LOOKED like from his viewpoint.
A roll-player died that day as a role-player was born. It was amazing. He never read or sulked again.