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GM Styles

   
GM Styles

Recently in the Game Discussion thread we have been talking about mentoring potential GM's and finding players that want to learn but have trouble taking that next step. I've seen some cool posts from current GM's willing to train up some new GM's as we all know that GM's are a hot commodity because everyone wants to play but there are never enough GM's to go around.

I thought maybe we could discuss GM styles here. I think there are many styles, and many of us are a cross between. I'll post my style and a couple of obvious ones. Feel free to add to the list.

TheRoot as a GM I love to plan out a story arc but I learned a long time ago not to plan too much because it can make players feel like they are forced through my storyline. So I invent a story and an opening scene, but let the players act from that point. Based on the players actions and role playing I like to let them help me build the story. I'll use their backstories to bring in elements that tie their characters into the plot and I'm never afraid to deviate from my plan to construct the story around the direction of the characters role playing. I've found that this helps the PC's feel more involved in the world and not just making choices in an arbitrary story.
This style means that excessive planning is not going to work. I love to be able to adjust on the fly, using the imagination of the players to spark my imagination to greater heights. I love to write and create in depth factions and political intrigue that happens behind the scenes for the players to discover as the game unfolds. In PbP format this style is even easier IMO because you have plenty of time to improvise based on the characters actions. I don't care much for Published adventures, not that I think they are bad, it's just my creative brain will explode if I cant create the story, so I shy away from them because they make me feel constrained creatively. With that said, I totally think that published adventures can be a great tool for new GM's to use for experience as most of the work has been done for them.

Other Styles
1. Uber Planner that plans every detail of a game
2. Seat of his Pants GM that starts an opening scene and rolls with it off the top of his head
3. AP guy, this is his comfort zone, stays inside the rails with no deviation.
4. Sandbox guy, has a great idea but wants his players to completely drive the story, with some direction.
5. What did I miss?

I'd probably make #5 something like "cooperative storytelling," but to be clear in gamer-speak, you'd probably need a better name.

It is sort of like #4 but instead of allowing the character's actions to completely drive the story, it invites the players to drive the story. Players help develop theme, mood, and plot for their characters, call scenes, even handle a lot of world building, NPC creation, and so on.

I'm running a Fate solo game right now that is like that, and our tabletop game, when I GM, is always like that. I'll hand out 3x5 cards with Aspects on them and have other players role-play NPCs in a scene with their fellow PCs. Often we'll start a session with the players all RPing NPCs to get the action going (who wants to hear about some NPCs that were killed by a fish-man when you can RP as the NPCs who are getting killed by the fish-man? --they call that the "kill cam" now). Anytime we are at a crucial point in a scene, I always ask the player to improvise an essential element (e.g. "You open the closet and find the gun you were looking for, but you also find something in the closet that almost makes your heart stop. What is it?"). And then that becomes a key part of the plot/mystery we are improvising. And relationship, relationships, relationships. The players create them with each other and with NPCs and the players continually invest in them. Then I snipe at their loved ones for dramatic effect.

Pretty much anything I can do to blur the lines between "GM" and "player," that's my jam. It ain't for everyone, but it works for us, mostly because half our players don't know any better and the other half are very, very patient.

Just posted a long ol' thread over in the original forum about how everyone is a mix but that being said...

When GMing, I rule my world with an iron fist. I'm sort of the opposite of what I think Butchern is describing above (sorry for any misunderstanding on my part.) To me, there is a dividing line between player and GM that borders on being an impenetrable wall.

How I roll is this: in my games, I make the world and all the NPCs. I post a rule in every game that basically says "hands off my NPCs," which means the players aren't allowed to describe their actions or words at all. The PCs control the main characters of that story and in their dominion, they have total authority. I don't tell them what their PCs do, they control that completely.

I do like story a lot but that isn't the player's problem. If they want to go off the rails then I can deal. They usually don't, though. Player's seem to like navigating the story, at least in my experience.

I set out tough challenges. I try to test the players and characters alike. In order to do this, I try to make things as fair as possible. Almost all of my rolls are labeled and visible. I post monster stats like HP and AC and defenses in combat as soon as it's possible for the PCs to know them. This way, if someone buys it, they did so in an informed way. Sometimes I worry that this will break immersion but no one has complained so far and that sense of fairness is so important to me that I'm willing to risk it.

I'm not a slave to RAW, however. I do have a few house rules that I post in the game forums. I also will rule against certain interpretations of RAW if it seems like an exploit. Like I said, I rule my world with an iron fist.

I also involve players in an OOC way if I become unhappy with a rule and want to change it. I give them a vote on it. If they like it, I implement it, and we're right back to the iron fist thing.

That probably all sounds kind of grim and controlling, but it ends up being an immersive and fun story. Like Butchern said, "It ain't for everyone." I like having total control of a setting so that I can hang back and watch the PCs try to overcome what I throw at them. I genuinely admire how clever they can be and how determined. For me, that's a big part of the fun.

Aside from that, historically I've been an "AP guy" by the way of using a lot of pre-written material but I never held the PCs to it. They can navigate that story however they'd like. I suppose they could even turn away from it, though we'd basically be running a different game that that point. Recently, however, I've discovered how much I like designing custom adventures so I've been doing more of that. Right now I have an AP that I've been running since 2012 (they take a long time in PbP) that still has all four of the original players. I also have a brand new, custom game that I just fired up.

Well, it seems I'm somewhere between TheRoot and the Sandbox guy, I guess. Although sometimes I do allow things Butchern would like, depending on the game.

I like planing out a story arc, and then subverting it, when I write. I also learned a long time ago not to plan too much, because in an RPG, it's not my storyline, it's whatever we make of the elements presented.
To this end, I invent a situation, and an opening scene which attracts interest (usually based on the backstories, the genre, or whatever strikes my fancy), but let the players act from that point.
Based on the players actions and role playing, "the story" can go wherever it feels like. Really, a Traveller GM I'm playing with in the Citizens of the Imperium forum, has said it best (keep in mind the game began with my character having been kidnapped).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Referee at the CotI forum
As a general note, there are no 'one right answer' in my games. I create scenarios with people, places and circumstances and let you (the player) react to them. What you do often drives the story. So if you escape now, then THAT is the direction the story will go. If not, then there will be other events and other chances and other rescue parties looking for you. So there is no right answer, just the answer that YOU want to pursue.

The only thing to be careful of is Traveller combat is dangerous. Characters average 21-30 "HP" and weapons average 3D6 per hit.
Which is what I want as a player, and what I do as a Referee. Well, he doesn't know me from elsewhere, I got into his game by networking.

Like TheRoot, I'll use their backstories to bring in elements...but generally, I'd prefer elements that put them in an ambiguous situation.
You have an enemy from the lifepath? If I roll "ghosts from the past" on my random table, you find someone who's probably your enemy in a ditch, unconscious, probably robbed.
Do you help him, because helpless people should not be murdered? Leave him to his fate, hoping he'd die there? Call a doctor and leave, because you can't be bothered to do more for him, but wouldn't stoop so low as to leave him? Slay him and go off, happy to have dealt with one problem? Paint a bad word on his forehead before leaving?
It all tells me something about your character. And the story will go different places from this point.

And yes, "this style means that excessive planning is not going to work", as TheRoot said.
I like adjusting on the fly! If I have to do that, and it's not with a roar of "how can anyone be that stupid", odds are the PCs just did something interesting. Thus the imagination of the players grants me more food for the Refereeing mill.
I tend to to write and create in depth factions and political intrigue that happens behind the scenes. The players might discover it or not, but it's there. It informs my choices, and how my NPCs react, making them more real.

I don't care much for published adventures. Once I have a situation, and NPCs, and factions, the actions of the players will grant me the necessary momentum for a game, and it will be more satisfying to the players, because it would be related to their characters.
Besides, the "core" players of my home group resolve pre-written adventures with unexpected speed, and seem bored to boot! (That's not a joke. The record is cutting an adventure to 10 munutes of play with no dice-rolling, but resolving adventures
Once, I bought the "Knight's Tale" adventure for Dragon Warriors, because I wanted to try running my players through an adventure. There's a secret agent behind the scenes manipulating events.
The adventure includes three or four IC days, and it's assumed you'd find out the identity of the agent on the last day.
My players pinpointed the plot on the morning after the first day, almost yawning. Then they proceeded to destroy the plans of the antagonist.
Luckily the adventure has a sidebar saying, almost literally, "If you're playing with Sherlock Holmes..." which I then had to refer to.
I wasn't even surprised, either. That wasn't the first, or second, such experience. Maybe the years of getting used to my usual set-up, which tends to involve the plot of one NPC hidden within what another NPC is his or her plot, has trained them?
in one third the expected time is almost the norm).

Generally, I think that published adventures can help new Referees by showing them a possible way to structure a session, or a series of events. They can also be useful by giving the party a "common stepping stone". During them the players get to interact with NPCs, act as a party, forge common bonds, and get common friends and enemies. So do I see using an adventure at the start of a sandbox game? Sure, I've done that. But tailor-made is better, IME.

That said, I don't want the players to "completely drive the story". NPCs get to have their own plans and goals, too, you know?
Now, the conflict (or the synergy, in some cases) between those and the players, is what drives the story.

Not sure where this puts me, but no matter where it is, I feel fine here! For one thing, I've learned both from indie narrativist game advice, as well as from hardcore simulationist game advice, and from old-school sandbox guys. The above doesn't contradict any of these styles (or at least, not much).
And that's the style I'm teaching to people - now online, too!

Now, would I allow "story-based setting editing", or simply put, players changing setting elements?
Well, depends on the system. If I'm playing a system that allows that, it's obvious I don't mind. If not, I'd have used a different system (or houseruled the one we're using).
Generally, though, that's something that I avoid.

Quote:
Other Styles
1. Uber Planner that plans every detail of a game
2. Seat of his Pants GM that starts an opening scene and rolls with it off the top of his head
3. AP guy, this is his comfort zone, stays inside the rails with no deviation.
4. Sandbox guy, has a great idea but wants his players to completely drive the story, with some direction.
5. What did I miss?
Number 5 was claimed by Butchern for the "cooperative storyteller".
I think you also missed 6: The Illusionist - an uberplanner that pretends you can make decisions outside his plans. I'd rather play with an open uber-planner, BTW, so there is a difference.

I'll chime into this, although I'm not too sure exactly where I fall in the categories.

Like cailano, I rule my worlds with an iron fist. I accept suggestions and requests (although I usually twist them to suit the world I've built), but I control every NPC (not that I find this to ever be a problem). However, I find that coming up with the situation and letting the players figure out a solution works out very well for me.



With all that said, I tend to lean towards a 'on the rails' approach to my plots - there's an expected outcome to everything (or maybe a few different ones), although I keep it loose so I can adapt as needed. Thankfully, my live group is content to ride the rails for the most part, as long as the problem solving stays unique to them.

However, at this point, I'm trying to expand my GM style to include more sand-box methods, especially since I'm about to run something like that for my live group. Which, the first step would to be acclimate my players to that story-style, since they're used to the rails...

If you want a single piece of advice, step one should be to talk with them and let them know what you want to accomplish. Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats communication between players and GMs when it comes to sandbox games.
Step two, ask them to have at least three goals for their characters, written down on the character sheet, award XP based on how much effort they put into chasing them, and ban "getting rich" as a possible goal!

Communication is always key, no matter what kind of game, or what kind of style, live game and especially PbP. Heck, communication in life is important, no, it really is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AsenRG View Post
Number 5 was claimed by Butchern for the "cooperative storyteller".
I think you also missed 6: The Illusionist - an uberplanner that pretends you can make decisions outside his plans. I'd rather play with an open uber-planner, BTW, so there is a difference.
I like that. Illusionists are a thing and I see recommendations for GMs to use that sort of technique all the time. I've never done it and reading about it always rubs me the wrong way. Give your players an actual choice.

Illusionism works only so long as the GM can keep the illusion up. Once the players realize what is happening, they either accept the illusionism and the game turns more into participationalism where the players accept the relative railroad, or the game crashes and burns. It's about 50/50 which happens, these days.

The way some games in the past (and still do) have encouraged illusionism has had a significant impact on the role and purpose of GMing overall. As a person who isn't a fan at all of the style, I do rather shake my head at it.




 

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