Three recent GMing threads from RPGnet: The Big Thread of GMing Tips, GMing is not easy and How much do you personalize the elements of the game?
The second one is the first tip I’d contribute to the first thread. Number three is a very interesting question. Here’s one of the first responses:
“I put dozens and dozens of hours into preparing a game they’re going to enjoy. They, on the other hand, just show up.”
She’s got a point (read the rest for the context). What do you think?
All I can say is that my experience is very different. My GMing style has evolved into something that’s very character-driven, and the players do as much to tell the story as I do. I think they *think* I have it all planned out in advance, but the truth is that I don’t. I know my world intimately; I know the various NPCs and their motivations and machinations. Some things (like the Zombie Master setting up a cult in Detroit) take place on their own timeline, and if the player characters are pursuing other goals, they continue (and might be more successful).
My GMing style has evolved over the last 20 years. I still have a foot-long box of index cards that was my first dungeon, with a card for every room, every item, every creature. These days my prep is in the form of handouts/information in response to the things the characters are pursuing.
I vividly remember my watershed moment. I was still in heavy-prep mode. I’d been running a horror scenario once a month for 18 months, and the player characters had reached the moment of final confrontation. They’d been beat up pretty badly by the last encounter, but they knew their quarry was about tapped out, and would be vulnerable by daylight. They were in the village at the foot of the castle as dawn broke – all they had to do was limp in there and get her…
And one of the players said “You know, we’re pretty beat up, and we don’t know how many minions she’s got up there. We should go back to town and rest up for a few days.”
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach and I swear the blood stopped moving in my body for a moment. 18 months of story development and planning was about to go down the chute – if they healed up, so would she, and there was every chance she’d hand them their butts when they came back. Plus, I had *nothing* planned…
I flipped over my inch-thick stack of notes and said: “Okay, so who’s driving?”
I pulled the rest of the session (and the next 4) out of thin air. When they finally confronted the Big Bad, she killed one character and two NPCs, thought they did defeat her in the end.
I’ve never looked back.
GamerChick
I feel the same way as the poster you site. The play world is MY world, MY creation, MY baby. I’M the one who poured blood sweat and tears into it.
Of course, that all changes the instant the game starts. Once the players start impacting the world, then it’s their world too. I’d like to think that it’s still LARGELY mine, but as the sessions role on it becomes more and more of an even ownership. I don’t track this, there’s not definitive point at which I say “Hey, we’re all equal owners in the game world now.” but it’s bound to happen some day.
Of course, the impact that your players have on the world and the amount of it they effect are entirely up to you as the DM. I have a world I’ve been running (off and on) since 1997 and I can honestly say that no PC that’s ever been in it has ever gotten to the level of “world shaking importance”. Several groups of them got close to being nationally important, and several groups of them got close enough to view truely world-altering events, but weren’t directly involved.
Part of that is the scope of “My” verison of the world vs the scope of “Their” version of the world.
“My” version of the world includes the entire planet, including several detailed countries and a bunch of handwaving “yeah there’s some stuff here”, a small part of the neighboring planet, and some other astronomical anomalies, several planes of existance, A hand-ful of NPCs that are truely world-shaking, and various points along thousands of years of history.
“Their” version includes five different campaigns that span the three detailed countries and that small bit of the neigboring planet, and also span three different gaming groups.
So it’s hard to consider the world equally “ours” simply because there’s so much more that I’m aware of and effect.
In the same fashion, I don’t consider the worlds of any of the DMs I’ve ever played in “mine” My characters and their impacts on the world are minimal and I’m aware of this. That doesn’t mean I don’t have fun or that MY players don’t have fun. It just means I’m aware of the effort and scope that goes into creation of a world.
However, if that’s not the way you and your group see it or play, that’s fine by me. I’m aware that I can be a little OCD about “my” campaign world, so I don’t doubt there are other, maybe even better, ways to look at it, go about it.
I really like “Dawn of Worlds” and I’d have to say that it goes a LONG way towards providing a more equal base for ownership.
I’m trying to personalize… well, not less, just differently. I’d rather spend more time on what’s interesting– stuff the PCs encounter (especially on good characterization to make for vibrant NPCs) and less on general background and gross world building.
If I’m the only one who cares that the local currency is the farthing, and it’ll never figure into the plot, then it’s work that should be low priority.
As with all things gamewise, there’s a balance to be struck…
My preference is tending heavily towards lighter prep systems and more player direction. But there also has to be some player willingness to go along with what the GM has prepared. Dogs in the Vinyard is an awesome game, but if the players decide to leave the town the GM has prepared (which didn’t take all that long), the game session is over, the system does not at all support creating situation on the fly.
I make use of a lot of modules and such to give me situations with less prep. And if I can run them in a system like Cold Iron on RuneQuest where it’s pretty quick to come up with NPC stats, my investment in NPC stats can be pretty low. Where I tend to spend the most prep time is just trying to find an interesting module.
Right now in my RQ campaign, I’ve got less player direction than I’d like, so the game is pretty heavily GM directed. Unfortunately, the two players who would help make it more player directed are unable to make it early enough in the session (and the one who would give the most direction arrives pretty late sometimes, and also sometimes has had to bail at the last minute – it’s just impractical to wait for him before starting). The two sessions where they dominated because of who was there, were more heavily player directed and run totally off the cuff, and pretty fun.
But all of that said, I think a good social contract gives those players (usually GMs) who invest significantly more into the campaign than the others more deference. In the old days of the hours of labor dungeons, good players didn’t say “no we’re not going into THAT dungeon.” In fact, part of the social contract of playing D&D was in fact that you would go into the dungeon, you aren’t playing D&D if you say “My 1st level mage decides to stay at home and become a gardener instead of an adventurer.” There must be agreement that everyone is indeed going to play the game, and it’s perfectly ok if part of the situation setup is part of that agreement.
Of course the situation should get refined as the players (and GM – who is just a special player afterall) get to know the game and each other better.
I do want to try some GMless gaming, and see what it’s all about. But I also know I’m not going to try it out first with my current group. I’m going to try it out with folks who I know are committed to collaborating to create fun for all. Our one experience with collaborative situation creation resulted in basically one player defining a conspiracy, that I myself wasn’t really too keen on, and the other two players had absolutely no meaningful input to – and it was still a GMed game (Burning Wheel) which meant I had to actually try and turn this conspiracy into something playable.
Frank
It’s a tough one. Often when I’ve felt intense ownership over an aspect of the game (not in the sense of not wanting to share it, or have the players bend it to their will), that’s bitten me in the ass.
But at the same time, that passion — or at least that initial passion, before the word go — has to well up, be nurtured and be expressed in ways that tend to produce feelings of ownership (“It’s my baby”).
So yeah, it’s a tough one. 😉
When I start a game I generally tend to define the world in my head and notes up to the point of the players starting. I keep track in my head of major NPC’s motives and actions etc., political events that would affect the players but I let them define action from there on out.
I try to have a good enough base for the world that they can build the rest of it themselves with a few plot hooks. If i’ve got something defined I run them through it but in general try to have the players leading the action.
I found out rather early into my GMing that players are never going to follow any cookie cutter pattern. To get them to the path you have to force them into it. So improv for me is one of the best GMing skills. You’ve got to be able to take the completely unplanned for situation and make something fun out of it.
I also tend to shortform events that don’t fit into the plot. Say the players go east to the mountains instead of south to the plains where the bandits they are hunting are hiding? I have them make rolls every day and they turn up with nothing but maybe one small easy random encounter. They eventually realize (after 1 week game time/20 minutes real) that this isn’t the place the bandits are.
John: I really like your shortforming idea, and the term itself. Any interest in turning that into a short guest post?