Game Mastery

Like most GMs out there, I have limits on how much game can live in my head at any given time so I have to keep notes and lots of them. Everyone has their own style in terms of what works for them, and everyone’s style evolves as they GM. Here’s what I’m currently using – borrow what you like, critique what you don’t. (continue reading…)

I’m having a very hard time writing this post. This is at least my 5th attempt. Rather than building up to the point I’m trying to make I’m going to start with the point and babble from there.

Last year I participated in NaNoWriMo to try and write a novel. I knew I wasn’t going to write a good novel. I just wanted to see what it was like and learn a thing or two about writing, a topic I’ve always found interesting. It was something I’d wanted to do since reading Stephen King’s On Writing, but had been putting off.

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I’ve always been a big proponent of beating up the characters a little just to make their victories more meaningful. Okay, so I’m a big proponent of beating up players a lot. It’s how I make the game personal. If a bad guy kicks their collective ass, but the players narrowly escape, they will both respect and hate that bad guy. The next time they get to fight him they’ll be really into it because this fight is personal.

This kind of storytelling (as opposed to “you just killed the bad guy, but wait! His daddy is here and he’s got 10 more barbarian levels. Now kill him instead!”) has served me well for creating meaningful villains in my stories. I recently took it a step further and it backfired spectacularly. I know why the game session failed, but I’m still at a loss for how it should have been run.
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Ever since I’ve been running D&D I’ve been opposed to using experience to level up characters.  I’d rather they level when I tell them to level.  I don’t hand out experience, but I do hand out a level after roughly three sessions (don’t ask how crafting works, nobody has ever wanted to do it in one of my games and I’m not going to bother figuring it out till someone wants it).

But it’s important to give your players some sort of reward for their actions.  Especially in a greedy game like Dungeons and Dragons.  I blatantly ripped off Fate Chips from Deadlands to use as a D&D reward.  They’ve been very popular, or so my players tell me.

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So far in this blog I’ve been trying to show my answers to common GMing questions. I’ve come across with a much more elitist tone than usual because of it. I’m sure I could preface each of my sentences with “in my experience” or some such, but these posts have been lengthy enough already.

At any rate, I called this site game mastery, not because I feel I’m a master GM spreading wisdom as a Dunkin Donuts employee spreads delicious low fat veggie cream cheese on my onion bagel every saturday morning. It’s because I want to achieve GM mastery. I think I do some things very well, but others come off extremely poorly. It’s time to examine one of those factors. It’s a biggie. I’m talking about my flat and lifeless non player characters.

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This is a D&D specific post, as it deals with the topic of alignment.

Last night our game ended and it was time to discuss what to run next. The new guy asked what we thinking of evil characters and accidentally triggered a well rehearsed and lengthy rant from yours truly. The topic comes up fairly often. My thoughts on the matter are well refined from rehashing them over and over. Since this blog is a central repository for RPG issues that keep resurfacing, I figured this topic was post worthy.

First off, let’s talk evil. One of my favorite topics. Evil (and chaotic for that matter) often gets misplayed. I’m talking about the sort of evil that wonders off from the rest of the group to go barbecue an orphanage for shits and giggles. Sometimes it’s one character seeing how much carnage he can get away with. Sometimes it’s a whole party taking part in a verbal depravity contest. Characters like that aren’t evil, they’re monstrous. They’re beyond the brink of sanity. You can’t roleplay something like that, you can only perform a freakshow of disgusting acts.

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Welcome to part 3 of my Why Won’t They Roleplay series. If you’re having trouble with your current game, you may be a little late in reading this post. However if you’re looking for ways to fix your next game, this one’s for you. It’s about setting expectations and inviting players. (continue reading…)

Alright, so last time we discussed players that really, truly do not want to take part in roleplaying. This part of the article isn’t for them. It’s for the players who are potentially interested but don’t know how to roleplay or won’t come out of their shell. The best advice I can give here is to make it personal. The character needs to care about the plot he is involved in. This is why I’m not a big fan of uber save the world quests where the players are the only ones capable of standing up to overwhelming evil forces. Those quests aren’t personal, they’re right place, right time. Whenever I run a game I require a character backstory. No exceptions. Period. End of discussion. Players who object don’t get to play. And in all fairness players who don’t want to write a page or two about their character probably wouldn’t enjoy my style of game anyway.

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This is hopefully the start of a longer series wherein I discuss how to get your players more involved in the roleplay aspects of the game. Many GMs get frustrated by players who don’t bother getting into character and I see a lot of forum posts about the topic. I feel that one of my biggest strengths as a GM is in drawing players out of their shells, and I’d like to share my methods.

Before I begin I need to make clear that you can’t force players to roleplay. RP isn’t fun for everyone. Many have tried it and decided that it’s just not for them. Some of these players show up for a beer ‘n pretzels style hack and slash fest. Others like building and optimizing characters. Some people just show up to game because it’s where all their friends are. (continue reading…)