Posts Tagged ‘gm advice’

One of the interesting things about Don’t Rest Your Head is the GM dynamic. 90% of the GM’s decisions points & influence are narrative, as there’s only one mechanic to immediately press: how much Pain dice is rolled in a moment.

Normally, that’s determined by the sort of threat you have in play (or, if you’re like me, you decide how much you want to throw this beat, and adjust the moment accordingly by adding or attracting to the scene[1]). But let’s talk modifiers!

Because DRYH is narrative in focus, and because mechanics make tactile elements of the world, you might want to show how other things are influencing the moment. When you do so, link the mechanical effect & narrative trigger together in your description.

I came up with this a few years back entirely on accident. When I first ran The Bad Man, one of the kids ran off and bumped into a Nightmare. I said, when the conflict went to dice, “So, that’s six Pain for this guy. Hey, you’re alone right? Awesome. It’s scary to be alone. That’s two more Pain.” The look of horror on the player’s face was pretty fucking sweet. So I kept this in my bag o’ GM tricks.

The trigger could be anything. “Wait, you guys are standing on cobblestones? Yeah, that’s a couple more Pain.” or “There’s a raven watching you from the rooftops. So this is three Pain less.” When you do this, you create two things: a sense that the world is bigger and stranger than the immediate conflict, and that there’s mystery all around. What’s up with the cobblestones? When do ravens make things easier? Can I trust that?

Be as consistent as makes sense, and keep in mind that cause & effect aren’t always direct or constant. After all, this is the Mad City…

- Ryan

[1] A future post

As the last post on Horror Week, let’s get into some GM talk. It’s all good and well to design a horror game — really, it’s fun! — but the heart of the horror game is the same as in any game: the performance.  The playing. The GMing. And my Cardinal Rule of Horror: Cheat.

Horror, more than other games, is about the emotional beats impressed on you by others. In a traditionally structured RPG, that’s the GM impressing the beats of anxiety, dread, fear, hope, etc. on the players. Since that’s job #1, you need to use any means necessary to pull that off, even if it’s something that has nothing to do with the game. Here’s a goodie bag of tricks. (Like any goodie bag on Halloween, some of these will be sweet and some will be sour, so handle with care.)

Atmosphere tricks like mood lighting & music are often cited, and they’re total cheats. Awesome cheats, since they aren’t about the game providing mood, but the surrounding environment.

The mechanics of the game can also be a cheat if they’re tied to the more primitive part of the brain. Dread’s use of Jenga causes anxiety because of Jenga, which is a total cheat. But it’s a great cheat! That’s why people love Dread. Similarly, making resources tangible goes a long way toward provoking anxiety when they’re taken away, more so than abstract numbers reducing. When I ran D&D, everyone had their hit points out as poker chips, and I would reach across when they were hit as the Hand of Death. It was great. (And for my NPCs, all numbers on paper they couldn’t see, so they couldn’t do it back.)

Hidden information in games that don’t call for it is a great cheat. Hide hit points & sanity.

Make hidden rolls for things like perception checks, or when dealing with what foes do to the characters. Roll at times when it’s not needed. Roll more dice that you need to, just for that disturbing clatter of dice. Hell, you can even get really trippy, and have the facial reaction you’re projecting also random with the rest of the roll. Chessex makes facial expression dice that are great for this. (Yes, I am in fact telling you to lie with your facial expressions.)

Shorten the roll boxes to keep the emotional beats of discordant mechanics from taking hold of the game. One of the reasons that sanity in Call of Cthulhu works despite it construction is that it’s a really short roll beat with no fiddle, so you can push in hard with whatever other emotions are there and take the reigns riding out of that. Hell, handwave rules when you need to.[1]

Be discordant. Create expectations and then violate them. The world in a horror story cheats from the perspective of the real world (though the good ones keep to their own  internal, unknown consistency. Or intentionally done, a la Lovecraft).

Get physical. Scare the player by suddenly shaking the game, and use that beat to weave the fictional fear.

Whatever it takes to create and sustain the right emotional beats for the moment is fair game. You might not view some of these as cheats, of course, but depending on the game, these are. Depending on your gaming group or the folks at your con game table, these are. And just like in any performance, audience[2] matters. More than in other genres, you step into the role of the magician, and the audience is looking forward to you manipulating and misdirecting them for their amusement.[3]

Happy Halloween, friends!

- Ryan

[1] Later I get to talk about why this is a horrible idea most of the time. :) But it’s a horrible idea I employ often in horror.

[2] Just happens that this audience also are your co-creators. I’m sure I have some people wincing at my use of this word, but it feels apt in a GMed horror game.

[3] Remember: not all emotional manipulation is negative. We consume stories & get romantically involved for that ride.

Last week, ENnie-nominated Dave the Game[1] interviewed ENnie-nominated Brennan Taylor and ENnie-nominated[2] me about one of my most very favorite probably-ENnie-nominated topics ever, convention GMing. It’s on the ENnie-nominated Dungeon Master Guys podcast, episode 11.

In This Episode:

• Special guest Sarah Darkmagic assists in hosting duties
• Dave talks to Brennan Taylor and Ryan Macklin about running convention games
• NewbieDM talks to Daniel Perez about running online games
• And we answer reader questions, including how to break the stigma of D&D to potential players, eating healthy at the game table, how to appeal to a mixed party of roleplayers and minmaxers in 4e, a time when a game really clicked, and money in game.

The episode is 65 minutes long (63M). Brennan & I talked for around 10-12 minutes, much like you’d expect if you listened to ENnie-Nominated The Voice of the Revolution. I mentioned that I should write up my convention questions as a blog post, so it’s now on my giant list of Things I May One Day Write About.

Oh, and remember, vote for the ENnies. If you don’t, They win. Who are They? You don’t want to find out, do you? So vote.

- Ryan

[1] Who should perhaps be known as Dave the Fame. Right, ladies? Hello? Is this thing on?

[2] Technically, it’s ENnie-award-winning, but that breaks the pattern.

I started running an Aethertide game over Skype, so this week will be all me talking about that. Today, I’ll talk about a couple GM tricks that I used during it to attempt group cohesion we did during the character creation/world creation/playing out the initial meeting.

To recap the premise: Something simultaneously bombs the Technocracy to near-extinction, takes out the more prominent Tradition Chantries. No one has a good read on who did. The Sleepers didn’t notice at all, not even at the exploding Technocrat buildings. And the Umbra closed fast and firm, which continually smothers the avatars of every Mage left alive. That happened two years prior to the start of the game.

The three characters in the game:

• 0000::07A6 (Atlas Six), Full conversion It X Enlightened Shock Corps[1] (former Hermetic, brainwashed)
• James Michael Smith, a.k.a. Operator 27, Disgruntled ex-NWO spook
• Miss Abigail Jean Martin (Miss Abbey), Cultist of Ecstasy Kindergarden Teacher

So, you may have noticed one of these things doesn’t look like the other. This is typical for faction-rich games like the sort that White Wolf is known for. And I loves loves loves me this part of Mage, because it’s all about paradigm. But, if we’re all not careful, this because two or three stories, not one. The players are all top notch, and I’m a pretty good GM, but the risk is still there, so I employed some tricks to help bridge gaps. (If it fractures after a few sessions, I’d be happy with that, because then it organically fractured in the story rather than in the setup.)

The two tricks I used: the NPC touchstone and “Two Months Later…”

The NPC Touchstone

This is a pretty common trick for me. I introduce the idea of an NPC, say a couple sentences, and then ask other people about him or her. This time, it was a Oliver, Son of Ether who was a part of Project Aethertide. I asked questions like “When you saw this Reality Deviant, why did you not immediately terminate him?” or “What’s your intimate connection with Oliver?” We talked about the relationship here, so the characters coming from different backgrounds could have a common touchstone or cause, at least long enough to work to form their own naturally.

To make sure I was on the mark, I then asked, “So, on a scale from 1 to 10, how well do you trust Oliver?” The first person to speak up, the guy playing the full conversion cyborg, said “-2. He is withholding information from me.”

My response: “Uh, what can we do to make that a 5?” And we talked about the changes in the setup to make that happen. They talked about the cyborg beginning to remember his humanity because of this Etherite.

I asked for another, and the Spook player answers “Yeah, 0. I don’t trust shit.” Again, I asked what could change to make it a 5. Oliver provided his character information to further his quest for revenge against the remains of his Technocrat masters that, in his mind, lies to him.

The last person said “6,” and I left it there. We talked about why — she teaches his kid. We also talked a bit about the awkward parent-teacher conversations that must have made.

My initial instinct was right — just because we created a shared NPC experience didn’t mean they had bought into trusting him, and thus having a reason to plausibly trust each other out of the gate. Thus, the scale and adjustment.

Two Months Later…

Once we made characters, world details, etc., we started playing out the initial meeting. We didn’t have much time for it, so we were only going to get in one scene. But I wanted to start the next session with this out of the way. They were gathered with Oliver and a couple other Awake on Christmas Island (where there was also an MTV Spring Break party filming). They started the meeting, when someone else was using Dimensional Science to phase in and start executing them. They got Oliver with a fatal shot — one that was going to take a couple minutes before he was dead — and outright killed another by blowing her head off. The cyborg jumped into action, causing the spook to fight rather than run (“He’s…of course he is. Fuck. Damnit. Fuck. I jump in too. Fuck.”[2]) The Ecstatic was using Life to save Oliver. Action was had. Things about this threat were learned.

The characters sort of worked together, but also really had no reason to stick around. Maybe the two Technocrats, but a crisis with unknown assailants who attack gatherings of Awake means it’s probably better to not be around each other. We ended the scene, and I said “The first scene when we play next time takes place two months later. Over email, we’ll talk about why you’re still around each other at this point.”

Which made me think of that as a GM trick. If any opening scene doesn’t establish what you need to keep the game focused on one line rather than two or three or six, stop it after the first scene, advance time, and say “So, tell me why you’re still together?” This frees you from having to play out characters changing ideas, and instead just announcing that they do. We’ll see how well it works, but I think there’s some merit here.

I’ll be blogging more about how I’ve changed the system from my initial notes and things like that over the rest of this week.

- Ryan

[1] This is by far one of my most favorite concepts ever — the Enlightened Shock Corps are all full-conversion cyborgs made from brainwashed Tradition Mages. Only someone who was has the instincts to hunt down other Reality Deviants. And if they start to remember, their NWO handler wipes their memories again. The guy who is playing this, Jerry, ran a ESC one-shot for me and some friends years ago, where I further fell in love with Mage.

[2] Leonard Balsera ladies and gentlemen.

[Edit: Thanks to the power of my accidental SEO fu, if you're looking for the panels & seminars at DunDraCon, go here.]

I’m pretty damned excited to announce some stuff I’ll be doing at DunDraCon 2011, February 18th-21st in San Ramon, CA. I’ll be hanging out with the redoubtable Jennifer Brozek, drinking at the hotel bar, or, well, both. For the events that don’t involve a bar tab, here’s what I’m doing:

How GMs can Bring their ‘A’ Game to the Table

Saturday 9:00 AM-10:00 AM, room 156

Having problems with your GMing? Or maybe it’s perfect…except for that one kink? Ryan Macklin and Jennifer Brozek have the solution for you! They’ll roll up their sleeves and show you how to use various techniques they’ve learned over the years to help you find your ‘A’ game. Get and keep your players hooked on your game while making your GMing easier.

Stealing From Indie Games: Borrowing systems, themes, and settings to enhance your RPG campaign

Saturday 10:00 AM-11:00 AM, room 156

There’s a lot of very interesting “gaming technology” out there for role-playing games. Systems such as FATE are really opening up story telling and leading to some very interesting gaming experiences. This seminar will talk about some of the cool stuff that’s out there and how to use it in more traditional RPGs such as D&D or CHAMPIONS.

[Note: This is a late addition, and my name’s not on the schedule. But I’m totally going to be there, rocking with Bruce Harlick & the rest of the crew.)

Learn From Our Mistakes

Sunday 5:00 PM-6:00 PM, room 156

Jennifer Brozek and Ryan Macklin, award winning veterans of the RPG industry talk about what it is like to write RPGs and for each other. Combined, these two Swiss Army Knives of publishing have authored, edited, and managed more than 30 RPG products. Learn from our mistakes. Reap the benefit of our experience and discover some of the secrets of what really goes on in the back halls of the RPG industry.

Random Pick-Up Gaming

I’m otherwise a free agent at the con. @ me on the Twitters if you’re at the con, and we could meet up! I’m happy to drink with folks and play games. I can run a crapton, and will probably have some secret and not-so-secret playtests on me. Look forward to seeing you there!

- Ryan