GM Opinions

[Peacemonger]

Joint Prologues

 

One thing I think I as a GM do very, very well are short, intense, dramatic prologue scenes to kickoff a game. It's something I've received compliments for, have gotten people invested, where I know I've let my creativity shine. I've also discovered recently that it might be a problem for my games. I mentioned before that sometimes what we think are our greatest strengths is where we have the most room for improvement. This is one area for me.

I discovered the problem in another game I'm in. In it, there was also a start of the game that was intense, dramatic, really pulled everyone in. There was romance, there was fighting, there was surviving against the odds. All of these were things I can and have done in the past. The difference? My prologues are split up individually whereas this game the prologue was shared by everyone. I loved the idea to have 5-6 different unique prologues, to really have each a different, unique flavor to let each PC stand out at the start, this game had everyone deal with the same conflict, in the place that was home to each of them. And in this I think I've succeeded. The game with the joint prologue? Although perhaps it didn't have the same variety, it had something much, much move valuable... group cohesion, a reason for the PCs to band together.

This is how something we think can be good or great, can end up being something we need to change. In my case, although I like my prologues I do, I found another way to do them that addresses a weakness in my games. Most my games do not have as cohesive of a group as I'd like. In fact, I think one thing that helped the the Pilgrimage was ensuring everyone is connected by a common purpose, have walked the same path together since the start. Now I know I can be more intentional. To try to make my prologues something a group shares to bring them together.

This doesn't mean I have to abandon what I've done in the past. There are options. I can do flashbacks. I can split the group up later in the story once they've bonded. I can spread out the variety over the game, and put those ideas into the game proper and let everyone experience each one. Just as it's a matter of making changes to what we love about the games we run, it's also finding ways to still keep some of our strengths, not completely abandon them. It's a bit of critical thinking, of humility, and of continue to learn slowly but surely. Hopefully this change can make the party of games I run stronger, and the games in turn be greater.

 

[Peacemonger]

Leadership

 

My favorite definition of leadership is paraphrased as "a relationship". One or more people lead, one or more people follow. Someone may not be MY leader, but they very well could be a leader, who have that relationship, to OTHERS. Many types of leaders, many types of ways to lead, and leading can be done very well or done very poorly. All still fall under leadership. I start with this to say that my interest with leadership in TTRPGs is less about identifying one singular type of leadership as there are many.

Leadership is also very, very difficult. Leaders often have to make tough decisions with limited information. They have to push people to take actions they normally wouldn't. What worked for a team a year ago may drastically change as the situation changes, as people change, as times change. The person who leads is often, rightfully, the first one blamed. For the sake of TTRPGs trying to be a "leader" is tough, and that's normal.

I'd say leadership of some capacity is needed to be a GM. I mean, after all, the GM arbitrates during the game. Fortunately, backed by rules, clear expectations, and the promise of a fun game, I think the stakes are much lower. For players and their PCs... that's a trickier. One can be a leader, but many (maybe even most) games don't have a "party leader" and are probably better for it. Still, wanting to be a "leader" can be something we aspire to for our PCs, I just started a game with that as a clear goal for my PC. However, to be successful it takes some flexibility and nuance.

• Leader =/= Great Leader: People make mistakes, people learn and grow into leadership like any other. For the game I'm in, my character asserted herself for one decision. Fight the monsters up ahead or check the noise in the temple first? One voted monsters, two voted noise, two were were busy IRL, and so had my character assert the choice. And then the monsters charged proving it perhaps the wrong choice tactically. The other two who hadn't weighed in turned out in hindsight preferred the monster option, and even one person who wanted to go noise changed their mind. A 2-1 vote for became a 4-1 vote against. And that's okay. At level one, first decision, it doesn't have to go well. One can listen, learn, do better next time.
• Leader =/= Always the Leader: We can pick our moments. We don't have to make the big choices every time, and really shouldn't. That's not going to be fun for most parties. It's about picking moments to assert oneself, to be the leader, check the box we're hoping to get out of the game, and then stepping back and giving room for others to do the same. In my case, it'll be testing the waters, and finding times for leadership that aren't stepping on others' toes.
• Leader =/= Make the Decision: Although often a leader has to make the decisive call, there's delegating, empowering, and even stepping aside to let others jump in and be a leader themselves. Leaders get things wrong like anyone else, and are usually wise to let others take the reigns when it comes to their specialization, their experience.

For the purposes of TTRPGs it's a matter of figure out what sort of leadership aspect we want for our character and to pursue that as opposed to be an "always great leader making all the tough choices". It's about carving out a niche as one particular type of leader, who stands up in the right moments, and who is still learning and growing along the way. The first leads to problems as it's usually unachievable. The latter leaves a lot more wiggle room both for ourselves and for others.

[Peacemonger]

Ludonarrative

 

Not too long ago I was introduced to the term "ludonarrative dissonance", which originally described video games, when the game mechanics pulled someone from the narrative. It can be when an invisible wall prevents a character from going out of a "zone" even when there's nothing in the game world to physically stop them. It can also be when despite the narrative of imminent danger in the main storyline, we can take our time with playful, silly-themed side quests. As games have become more advanced, letting people "choose their own adventure" has become more common, which in some ways gives more ways to sync the game and story elements, and in some ways can offer more ways to break the story as written.

My thought on this with D&D as someone who prefers a sense of emotional anchoring to my games, who despite being cool with over-sized weapons, with fantastical, magic geography, still prefer the actual people to act in ways that makes sense, this concept hits close to my own gaming preferences. This is at the root of many of my GM Opinions, such as which elements of anime I'm cool with or not, what kind of characters I like to accept and not, of my thoughts on storytelling. I accept that many great and critically acclaimed stories and movies do seek to be more random, quirky, add strange things, but even the best of those usually are rooted in some form of reality even if it's different than our own.

What it does also remind me of is the limits to games like D&D. Occasionally I've seen people who try to use D&D to farm story ideas. I personally think that at best, it should only be done in small doses. D&D games do not, and should not, operate like a novel. Part of the fun of the game is freedom, of the randomness of the dice that can make for unexpected moments that a decent author would not put in the story. Even as I've leaned more towards the "roleplaying" side of roleplaying games, as other posts have shown, I find myself drawn back to the "game" half. Sometimes that appeal is have a character drop to their knees and giving a dramatic scream. Sometimes the appeal is to catch the GM unaware with just the right spell that makes an otherwise dangerous foe slipping and fall on their butt.

For my own purposes, my goal is to try to keep both in mind, celebrate both, and to be cool when the game mechanics and player choices sometimes run counter to what a concise, connected, themed story might be. It is trying to expect a narrative that holds some structure, some anchoring for things within our control, and to not overly dwell on those aspects that are outside of it such as that natural 1 or natural 20 rolled. In other words, it's giving myself, and hopefully others a I play with permission to have fun and not to sweat the occasional strangeness in a game, but instead have that as part of the enjoyment.

[Peacemonger]

Pacing

 

As mentioned in other posts in this thread, play-by-post games are comparatively slow compared to playing real time. Very, very slow. What may take a few hours in real life can be months of a PbP game. And that's all right. That said, it does take some extra considerations. Levelling up faster, a more condensed story, fewer random encounters, or maybe just being there for a fun game while it lasts and not getting too worked up whether a game has a definitive beginning, middle, and end, all of these are more are valid.

For me, I feel the question of pacing is synonymous with investment. How often should we post (and in some cases how much should we put in each post) in order to get the investment that we want from the GM and/or players. As always, it depends. For me, I've found for a game to have a fighting chance at last for awhile and making at least some progress, games need to start with a higher pace. Enough story, enough events, enough hooks need to go into the game. From experience, I've seen about 3ish times a week minimally, up to and including multiple posts a day, usually does the trick.

Eventually things slow down. Whether it's two weeks or three months, games do slow. And at that point, it's a question of if people feel invested, if they want to see what happens next? Savvy GMs will place enough plot hooks at the start so even if the party only got through a single fight, they're sold on it. Otherwise, if there's promises that things will get "interesting eventually", the clock is ticking.

Even when the game slows down, I've seen that roughly once a week, most weeks, seems to be about as slow as a game can get before it's dwindling. If we think of a game like a house plant, it needs a certain level of water and sunlight to grow, maybe every now and then a quick injection of some house plant fertilizer. Similar, games need a certain level of posts with that occasional really cool moment to get extra life into the story. PCs who post less often end up as more or less dead weight, end up as backup characters. GMs who post less are generally borrowing form the investment and goodwill built by the game so far. And of course this is also acceptable. We get a busy month, season, I've seen games on hiatus for months come back (though usually such games have been running for a couple years or so prior). It is though about not getting into "debt", of not expending more delays, more slowdowns than the interest in the game has built up.

Once a week, most weeks, is the minimum though. For anyone that wants a game that is deeper, more epic, getting from level 1 to level 10+ game, the aim should be higher. If that's what we want though. Just as games need investment to last, so too do players (and the GM) need to be able to invest what's being asked for. Most players can't do a post every single day. Most GMs can't either. If the bar is raised too high, although hypothetically could make for a great game, won't be if there's no one to play.

With all this said, I think the biggest lessons for a GM is to 1) consider how often we need to post to have the kind of game we want 2) double check that we and our prospective players can post that much or if we're getting in over our heads and 3) communicate it so everyone's on the same page.

[Peacemonger]

Paths to Resolution

 

I've put in a few posts here about conflict resolution, debates, arguments, etc. One thing I've hinted at, but haven't be explicit about, is the underlying philosophy. The problem that many of us run into is when there is a disagreement, when there is a problem, we focus on the wrong questions, we lean into the wrong goals. Then we get confused and annoyed when it doesn't feel like we've been heard, or when even if the GM and/or players rule in our favor it doesn't feel satisfying. It's because we've been having the wrong conversation.

For the most part, in TTRPG the resolution should be "we continue to play/go back to playing a fun collaborative storytelling game". That's the whole point. To play in a game, that is collaborative and storytelling in natures, whether it leans towards one of these aspects or is shared equally among game - collaborative - storytelling. Being "right" or "correct" usually has little to do with the game, and more with a player or GM's own ego. Too often our ego gets intertwined with our fun in the game, and though it's not an automatic killer to a game, it does set up conditions that could, if our ego gets too wounded, can indeed ruin the game.

This is probably the root of a lot of what has worked well for me as a GM, and even as a players. It's not that I don't make mistakes or offend anyone. It's that when someone calls me out, I aim to resolve it, which is never to get into a debate. On the rare occasion I really feel like someone's roleplaying is a problem, one more the goal isn't to debate them, isn't to tear them down, but to resolve the specific issue(s). Personal attacks true or not, harsh or mild are not just petty, but ineffective. So long as "how do we reach a resolution?" is front of mind, it's hard not to be genuine.

There's two things I think are worth keeping in mind with this. The first is discipline. It's one thing to say to focus on resolutions, to work things out, to admit we're wrong, or just let it go when someone else is, it's another to put it into practice. We all get frustrated. We all get annoyed. We all at some point wished someone else would've done something differently in a game at it's bothersome. Part of it is to keep in mind that's real life too, why should our roleplaying games be any different? Part of it is to resist the temptation to get sidetracked. Cause it's tempting. What's tempting will be different for each of us. For some, it's tempting to get into that flame war, for others it's tempting to step onto the soapbox with alignment and morality, and for others still it's tempting to try to take control of a situation that's not ours to take the reigns for. Step back, eye on the prize, course correct.

The other thing is priority. The death of games is when having a fun time, of putting in energy and care falls too far down on the priority list. As said, roleplaying games shouldn't be someone's top priority. Even for professional DMs, there's still loved ones and other life stuff too to put higher up on the list. Just as when someone just can't post any more, can't sit down for 15-45 minutes to knock out a post, the game is essentially over, so too is it the case when the priority is to focus and fuel some sort of problem. Whether it's hating a fellow player, whether it's being mad at the trajectory of a story, or a rule decision, or anything else, the more effort we put into being upset pushing resolution further and further away, and it isn't sustainable. As always, maybe a problem is too big, and the game is ruined for us. It happens. At that point, the resolution is to walk away.