Over on The Master’s Council, MtFierce asked a huge question:
What were your defining moments as a GM? What have you seen other GMs struggle with? Have you got answers, solutions, a rule-of-thumb system?
That’s quite a question. I’ll try answering it in pieces, but if I fail… it’s quite a question.
Defining moments:
a) A one-shot D&D adventure, hastily cribbed from Leguin’s The Tombs of Ataun. I learned that using books as inspiration is OK only if you’re willing to make the setting completely clear. And if you’re willing to be taunted for the rest of your life about vaguely sexual overtones in an adventure you plan when you’re 14.
b) A quite successful D&D campaign in high school– it lasted for about a year and a half, and died mostly due to player level rivalries. I should have learned my lesson here… a game can be fun, but it isn’t a replacement for friendship.
c) The first college campaign I played in: I played an ‘foreign’ hero, got to shine– and learned that a cool magic weapon doesn’t have to have cool stats, it just has to be narrated as cool. Later, when my turn came to GM, I ran a standard “protect the caravan” adventure– and got called on it. The players were quite clear that they weren’t used to just hiring out for money, but that they’d accept to keep the game on task (and save my prep.) That was a biggie– characterization actually matters when you’re making an adventure for specific characters,
d) You must agree on genre– and that’s more than a game world. As players in an Amber game: My roommate and I were constantly frustrated by a GM who had our Amberites constantly outclassed by shadow dwellers. Constantly. We wound up getting tasked with Hunt the Wumpus D&D style quests, getting our asses handed to us, saved by a friendly NPC cousin (who had the healing that we inevitably needed), criticized for failing our mission, and sent on a new one. Very frustrating- and it came about mostly because he saw our “low” stats (Amber and greater, but quite low in number of points) as being a low investment, instead of cheap “first ranked in our generation” as we saw ourselves. There were a number of unspoken assumptions that made the game miserable for everyone.
e) Getting buy in counts. I ran a successful Mage campaign for a couple of years. The greatest misstep was attempting to introduce two new characters to the group mid campaign. Unfortunately, they generated their characters in a near vacuum, so the points of contact with the group were few. [I’d specifically demanded that the original PCs have ties to 2 other players at the beginning, which did work very well.] They never really integrated, so one player (Dave) would up having solo scenes and being suspicious toward the other PCs while the other (Dusty) was glued in tight (as a brother in law), but was a nuisance as a player, which led to disastrous relations with his character. A new character but the same player wound up repeating the problems (but even faster).
f) Characters should be uncontested in their niches. [Among PCs at least.] Two players (with slight rivalry) built characters with the same niche– badass hand to hand fighters. When they fought each other, neither would give any quarter, and every bad die roll (or good roll by their opponent) did damage to their character concept. The death that followed (and its consequences) should have been predictable from the time they submitted their character sheets.
g) Player level dislike can not be solved inside the game. Really, no matter how many times you try. When it crops up (especially after warning/ table talk), you must stop the game and discuss it as players. The players MUST buy into the solution, or it will keep recurring under slightly different surface conditions. [Bright counterpoint: As long as the players aren’t in conflict, the characters can have any relationship that everyone considers fun. But really: if the characters are going to be in opposition, the players ought to explicitly agree to a level of disagreement and scope of conflict. Then hold them to it.] This happened later in the Mage-2 campaign (the same campaign as the last revelation).
Those are my turning points. The bitter end of the Mage-2 campaign put me off of GMing for quite a while, taught me my limits (character driven stories require fewer characters– too many means no story gets progress), and that social level problems trump everything in game.
As for a system: I have boiled down a few lessons that can be passed on. GMs might have to encounter the circumstances for themselves to understand why I’m making the suggestions, but they are transmissible.
- Select your players carefully. Do not include too many, or characters will not get enough camera time, leaving everyone dissatisfied. (This does vary slightly by system and campaign style, but any system can handle 3 or 4 well.)
- You can not be too clear when you’re establishing expectations. If a player is doing something that you’re uneasy with during character generation, address it now. Don’t hope it will fix itself– it’ll always be worse than you’re imagining. At worst, the explanation will reassure you.
- If players fill the same niche, a GM must be able to make each character exciting. The characters must never come into direct conflict within their niche, or [without extreme effort] the looser will be upset that his character is not as well supported by the system/campaign.
- Tie characters together tighter than you can imagine needing– unless the players promise to make up the difference.
I thought my list was longer, but I seem to keep learning the same lesson again and again. Well, it makes for a shorter list, which should be easier to learn.
That was quite a question, but it was a good one.