Ok, because my players read this, I'm not going to go completely behind the curtain, but want to shed a little bit of light on the things I try to do as a DM. For current players, it might take some fun out of the game if you read this post, so you might want to skip it. I rather recommend that you do.
1. Don't give the players time to settle down. Force them to make their decisions quickly. See below, where "Urik Rorham" made Kal and Sol decide right now whether to accept his offer.
2. Force conflicts regarding their beliefs, associations, and allegiances upon them. See below; Kaloei d'Phiarlan has agreed to work for/with Urik in direct opposition to orders from her father, who is also her superior within the house. Which allegiance will win in the end, house, or country? (If, indeed, Urik IS representing Aundair. He says he is. He hasn't proved a thing.)
3. Make your NPCs memorable and cool, and even let them be heroic, but don't make them cooler than the PCs, and don't let them outshine the PCs. If you need to bring an NPC in as the cavalry in order to save the day and prevent the dreaded TPK, you should only do that if you have to.
4. By the same token, I strive to make my NPCs memorable and worthy of the PC's time and interest; I come up with backgrounds, motivations, plans, families, skeletons-in-the-closet, etc., for my NPCs just as if they were a PC I was going to play (the important ones, anyway). I may do this after they've entered the game; many just start as a name I tossed out there. But once you've got all that stuff, it makes the character that much more interesting for you to play, and for your PCs to play with. I'd talk more about this, but I think I'd like to later on devote an entire post to NPC making and keeping (and recycling- once you have a good character in the bag, never be afraid to bust him out for a different campaign, group, world, setting, etc).
5. Make the players believe that you don't pull your punches or fudge your die rolls, even if you occasionally do. They aren't heroes without the serious threat of danger and death. Make them believe that you and your monsters and evil NPCs are that threat.
6. By extension, don't be afraid to wax a PCs if you have to. See that whole "threat of death" thing. If a character does something monumentally stupid, fails to prepare, or gets overconfident, he should face the consequences. This is a hard line to walk; kill too many characters and your players will stop caring about them. If your players believe that you'll never kill a character, they'll know that no matter what they do...no matter what risk they take, what corners they cut, or mistake they make...they're deathproof, and it won't matter.
7. By further extension, I believe that the game...and me, as the GameMaster...should reward risk-taking. The characters should be heroes. Heroes are risk-takers. Heroes do foolishly brave things because they're the only people who can, or because it's the right thing to do, or because they jolly well feel like it. Popular culture examples of foolish risk-taking fantasy/sci-fi heroes abound; Mal Reynolds of Firefly, Han Solo, and Captain Jack Sparrow are just three of the most prominent, but hell...even that whole "Fellowship of the Ring," we'll march right into the enemy's teeth to destroy his super-weapon thing was pretty damn foolish, wasn't it? And it's the undisputed archetype of the epic, party-dynamic fantasy story/campaign. The point is, let your players succeed when they attempt something whacky and foolhardy, so long as they do so with the proper intentions, motivations, and goals.
8. If you're playing an "heroic" game (and I prefer to, as a GM and a player), in order for your players to be heroes, evil has to be evil. Evil with a capital 'E.' Evil may do any of the following, and should: kill, rape, maim, steal, kidnap, bribe, cheat, torture, and lie. And they shouldn't just do that to anyone; they should kill or kidnap people the PCs hold dear. They should try to arrange confrontations on their own time, their own ground, in their favor. They should tell huge and horrendous lies. They should steal from the vulnerable. They should never hesitate to be absolutely as evil as you can make them. Employ dark magic. Make pacts with demons. Use vile magic items. Torture a PC or prominent NPC if they get the chance. But they shouldn't do it without purpose; all these acts should be done to advance some agenda, unless you're villain is just some crazed madman, in which case he might very well act randomly. The bigger the villain, the bigger the hero who finally brings him down.
I think that's a good start at a look at my thought process as the DM. Please share your own thoughts.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
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5 comments:
This is a great post and could easily be what I strive for as a GM.
In an effort to add value, let me also point out that these are lessons you and I have both learned over trial and error/experimentation playing the game. There are games out there that encapsulate exactly what you're talking about in their core mechanics.
I can give an example for each, and I'll use different games (even though Burning Emipres has a mechanic for every single thing you just listed, I'll try to deviate a little bit):
1) Burning Empires has a "scene economy", which limits just how much players can accomplish in a segment of play. That means there is no time for dicking about with what essentially amounts to pointless chatter and milling about by PCs. One of the things that drives me batshit crazy in a game is talking to every last NPC in a bar or a town when it doesn't really matter. Defining intents in the context of the scene economy in BE makes things cook at the table.
i.e. "I'm going to go talk to this guy."
"Why? What exactly are you trying to accomplish?"
By asking this, if you don't get a satisfactory answer it reveals that the player is essentially wasting time. Only spend time on stuff that matters.)
2) Burning Wheel (and BE) actually has a "Beliefs" system (Burning Wheel is the precursor to BE, and is set in the standard Tolkien type fantasy setting, you could literally play BW in Eberron quite easily).
The way this works is each major character (PC or NPC) has 3 Beliefs. They should contain a "What" and a "How": I believe X and I intend to do Y about it.
The cool thing is that Beliefs tie directly into the rewards system (called "artha"). Working towards your beliefs in game gives you artha. Achieving a belief gives you artha.
If you want to be rewarded in the mechanics, you need to bring your beliefs into play. It forces characters to focus and discover what is really important to them, again, driving crisp play.
3. D&D does provide some nice mechanisms (such as CR) to helpfully make sure your conflicts are balanced. Problem is that means you can expect to fight kobolds at level 1, orcs at level 2-3, etc.
A system like Dogs in the Vineyard makes stats not as important as narrative clout. For example, I could take 2d8 in "riding horses", or 1d4 in "respect for my brother".
So when you get into a conflict, and it involves something that is important to your character (i.e. I'm trying to escape on horseback with my brother), I'm going to have more dice to use in the narrative negotiation process. I may lose, however, if I'm trying to put a bullet through a playing card as part of a bet (unless I had something like "1d6 trick shots" or whatever).
Like BE's belief system, this allows you to define what is important to your character, but different from BE, your character will also be good at this stuff and will be able to influence the story and outcome of conflict with it. Same goes for your NPCs.
4. Some interesting BE mechanics: the GM creates full characters right away before play starts, one for each PC at the table. That is not a suggestion, it is a requirement by the rules.
What is interesting is all the NPCs that get brought in through the course of normal play. All characters have a "Circles" attribute, which they use to make contacts in their affiliations. If a PC wants to contact "a buddy from the force", he can roll Circles to do it. If he succeeds (the Obstacle is based on what he wants/how badass the contact is), he gets it. On success he can also give the NPC a name, which provides a bonus to future Circles tests. Enough tests makes the NPC a full fledged "relationship", meaning no circles required.
Here's where the awesome happens from a storytelling perspective. If the PC fails, the GM can offer the "enmity clause". That means the PC still makes contact, but the NPC is either neutral or on the side of the GM.. in other words the PC has done something to piss this NPC off in the past. This is great because the PC still moves the story forward and gets his contact, but the GM has a potential future villain/conflict. Again, through play the NPC may end up on the PCs side eventually anyway, but enmity clause states he starts as neutral or against him.
5. I'm always torn on this. I've always felt slightly that any mechanic that has the potential to result in meaningless PC death just might be broken. With D&D I almost always fudged or strongly considered fudging when the end was just too ignominious to be contemplated. Sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn't, but it pains me greatly that D&D does not really guarantee some kind of meaningful character death. Even Shadowrun (basically a D&D clone that uses d6s in a futuristic sci-fi world) allows characters to permanently burn a point of "Edge" to stabilize themselves if they got shot to hell.
A game like Polaris ensures this type of crappy death is impossible. The entire game is crafted around the idea of "chivalric tragedy", which means your character will eventually either a) be killed defending what he believes to the last, or b) succumb to darkness and despair as he realizes the futility of his fight. The mechanics make it explicitly impossible for anyone to get railroaded, and since there is no GM, there is no one person who holds the final decision of "should I fudge or not?" in his/her hands.
6. Again, sometimes a character just needs shooting. But I would argue that it is potentially damaging to a player to have a PC die in a shitty way even if they did something stupid, especially if they care about the character. Sometimes they realize they did something dumb and just move on without too much problem (and sometimes that behavior was symptomatic of them not caring enough/being interested in the character anyway), but like point 5 I feel the players need more say in this than D&D explicitly provides.
7) Here's a mechanic you're going to just love in Burning Empires.
The way you advance your skills and attributes if by earning tests. Note I said "tests" and not "successes".
Example: I have an infiltration skill. I want to sneak into some base. GM sets an obstacle, I roll. No matter what, I just earned a test for infiltration.
Here's the genius: you need both "routine" and "difficult" tests to advance. Routine tests are easy ones (Obstacle is lower than the number of dice you are rolling). Difficult and challenging tests, however, you may very well fail. As a player you have a lot of ways to jack up the number of dice you roll (using help from your friends or Fields of Related Knowledge), but the more dice you roll, the easier the test gets... do you make it challenging on yourself to advance your ability and potentially fail, or is it important enough for you to get every last die you can?
The choices this makes for the player are absolutely awesome and make the job of "challenging" the player much, much easier, since it allows them to do it themselves.
8) I don't think this requires any particular system to remain true. If the players aren't enjoying being screwed over at every turn and the GM doesn't enjoy being shocked that the players will pull every trick they can to beat him, I have no idea why you're playing a tabletop RPG.
Dan, your post was awesome, as was Yeager's response. After playing BE for one session, I have to say there are some really interesting aspects from tangible rewards and mechanics for RP to economizing session play. You really have to think about your actions and desired outcomes before you commit to them.
That brings me to the most important two aspects of BE: beliefs and instincts. Beliefs for PCs truly help move along the game. Yeager talked about the players looking doing things like speaking to every character in a bar. From a PC perspective, the players are looking for that "trigger" or "clue" as to the direction the GM wants to go with the story. This could theoretically take hours, as we've all seen. As someone who's GMed before, I know how frustrating it can be when you're dangling the old plot hook out in front of everyone and people still want to talk to the bar wench lol. Beliefs let the players take the story into their own hands and make actionable decisions rather quickly. I promotes flow and direction on all sides of the table.
Instincts, I believe, were developed to prevent GMs and players from killing each other. Players in BE have the ability to make three gameplay "macros." Things like "when I'm out and about, I always have my sidearm" or "I never leave the ship without my first mate." There is no more "I said I have all the components for my spells to I cast Mordenkainan's Faithful Hound!!!" You either have it written in stone that that damn spell is always cast or it's not. Players can chose to go against their instincts to challenge themselves and try for more rewarding outcomes, but the point seems to be smooth and frustration-free gameplay.
Regarding: Stupid Character Deaths
Ignominious ends are not to be wished for by anyone. Sometimes, though, the player deserves it for doing really stupid things.
Like, say, trying to trip a Frost Giant...
Granted, he was spared THAT ignominious death because Severus was there to save his ass, like Severus always was. But even that near-death resulted in giving another PC a chance to shine.
However, Eberron, unlike other D&D settings includes a mechanic to help prevent stupid character death: the action point. It may not be as powerful as Edge, but I think it adds a great element to the game.
Agreed, the action point is an excellent tool in the Eberron setting. I also agree that some characters just deserve to be killed.
However, an counter-example of where I feel like some kind of mechanic would have been extremely helpful would be Ishmael. There was a great character that was done in by something that wasn't remotely his fault. With some of the other systems I have mentioned (Dogs, Polaris, etc.) that death never would have happened.
Sometimes the timing just works out nicely though, like with Straten (sp?). But in that particular case the unspoken social contract between players who have played together a long time led to it being awesome: the other players intuitively knew this was his fight, for better or worse. But the emphasis is on intuitive, and there are some systems now that make these types of things part and parcel of the game.
No mechanic can save anyone from the PC-slaying incompetence of a certain player who shall not be named (but who might be reading this in the future, so let's all wave to him. We kid because we love). But your point is taken- however, with action points, Ishmael might've been able to pull out the necessary ride/handle animal check.
Damnit, I really wish that character hadn't died. I still haven't gotten the chance to play a Ghostwalker since. Ah well.
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