Public gaming post, looking for feedback.
Primary question: If RPGs involve puzzles and investigation, to what extent is the GM responsible to figure that out in prep?
My short position is: Not at all. Prep as necessary work should be minimized.
Longer version: It depends.
That is, there are absolutely games that need things figured out in advance. I see this in a lot of larps, and in games with heavy system that the GM needs to figure out. I wouldn't try to run DnD without figuring out a bunch of the monsters and traps and whatever in advance.
But, in a lot of circumstances, I view that as a bug rather than a feature. That is, if I have to do hours of work to run a game, then the system is not valuing my time. Part of the job of an RPG system is to let us play a game; work and prep that I need to do are failings of the system. That is, part of game design is creating quick, easy to use tools for GMs and players alike.
I see this in various forms in basically all pbta games. Wrestling includes a "quick start", and says for the GM to figure out matches and such during a 10 minute bio break after the characters are introduced. Urban Shadows has this in the rumor mechanic; Apocalypse World (of course) has it with the Hardholder and Operator's start of session moves. Heck, AW2e basically has "pay upkeep or the GM makes a move" as a start of session move.
Compare to gumshoe, for example. We've got a game of Night's Black Agents, which is sort of spy competence porn with Vampires. I like a lot of things about this game; I adore the idea that Dracula was a redacted after action report. That's a great starting point. The GM has read a tome, which includes a few ways everything could go and is much longer than the Dracula novel. The rule book is huge, and the character sheet contained no directions. I helped rewrite it to make character creation quicker.
With the exception of the character sheet, none of this is meant as a bad thing; it is a different style than my preferred. This game stresses knowledge of a preexisting game world, and the expenditure of points to overcome obstacles. There's a lot of knowledge transfer. Instead of stressing improv, it stresses knowledge.
I feel like I could do spy competence porn with vampires without all that; that a pbta hack could get to about the same game play experience without an entire session on character creation and the necessity of reading Dracula. I have absolutely not written this, and don't plan to. But, much as Dungeon World does DnD without nearly as much prep, I feel like there's a way to do NBA without the tome.
That is: I want RPGs design to make playing the game as simple as possible. To stress the experience at the table, and to not rely on GMs and players to do work away from the table.
Am I right, or is there something important I'm missing?
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There's no right or wrong, but I can't stand prep any longer. Even Apocalypse World's level of prep chafes on me. If I spend time preparing Threats, I'm going to either be frustrated when all the time I spent on them doesn't pay off, or I'll feel a compulsion to railroad.
ReplyDeleteRobert Bohl Because you put time in, and expect your time to be valued. That makes sense to me. Maybe I'm just really bad at prep; I throw out huge chunks of it at the table, instead valuing the ideas and collective energy at the table.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the bad at prep part of your comment.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why I throw it out. Maybe I spend a shit load of time on it, and it is terrible so i throw it out. Maybe that's it.
ReplyDeleteOr it's terrible to put that on people running the game :).
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who I talk gaming with regularly, and one of the things he waxes rhapsodic about is games with "archeology" -- where there are rich layers of detail, and when you put together some bits and look at their implications, you discover that they either make sense with existing data you thought was unrelated, or point to a major concealed happening. Designing this sort of thing is a major source of his fun, and watching players figure it out -- or figuring it out in someone else's game -- is a UUUUUGE payoff.
ReplyDeleteI've watched a lot of frustration come out of this set of wants, but I'm informed that when it does work, it's worth it.
Robert Bohl Yeah, that's basically where I've come to. Fiasco solves this problem in a great way. So does Night Witches, and The Watch; pre-building a campaign is brilliant. I want to see more of that -- more of game design building as much of the prep as possible before the GM ever touches it.
ReplyDeleteI am and have been and will be a strong advocate of preparation. Not of plotting to the point of trying to second guess every player decision of action or path of activity, but having at least enough material to cover the planned for session and an hour or two more.
ReplyDeleteI also believe in widely fleshed out world material (more so than plot). Plot can be a basic starting hook and a few ideas for unique encounters/events (if you aren't running a detective story).
From a player perspective If I want to know at character creation how many countries there are and their names and something about them (language, government type, capital city name, some cultural hooks) to choose where my character comes from then you should at least be able to do that.
I find that GMs that depend on seat of their pants GMing will eventually find that they are missing their pants and looking embarrassed. Same with those that depend on random tables to do their work for them on the fly.
Random stuff is for when the players make a choice out of the blue to achieve a goal (We need a ship to get from point A to B. We need money to buy or hire one. We want to find a local money lender's shop to see if we can get a loan..... GM didn't have a Money Lender written up, has to do a quick generation of one and said shop and play out the scene, that's fine to do in improv.)
I have crashed games and GM plans by figuring out a shortcut around a puzzle they thought was all they needed to keep people busy for an evening. Always assume your players as a group will be smarter than you collectively or have an approach.
I've watched players badger a low prep GM into near tears... as easily as one who doesn't know the mechanics they are running in full. Never try to GM a game you don't know the rules for. even if it means you need to read and understand several hundred pages of material.
If you don't want to do prep, then the GM's chair, in my opinion, isn't where you should be. The GM job is 75% prep. Time for prep is a part of the price you will pay for GMing.
If you don't want to do the work of a GM then use a GMless Indie system and realize that you won't be in charge, and that it won't work well for nine out of ten players. If you luck out and find enough players it does work for, then you'll be fine and have a good time. But it could take years.
I think there are two things to consider: First, not all prep is the same, some prep in some games is intentional "lonely fun". Some "bad prep" is bad because it's poorly game-designed, but some seemingly bad prep is merely a taste issue and it's fun for some people but not others. Second, having things "pre-prepped" can provide some game-design effects that on-the-fly creation might not. The feeling of actually solving a real puzzle is something that a pre-prepped puzzle can give you, whereas on-the-fly techniques (whether using human creativity or procedural generation) can generally only provide the illusion of that (e.g. the "whatever solution the players guess to the mystery is the correct one" technique) or an emulation of that (e.g. "roll your 'clever plan' stat to see how good that plan you articulated is). Something like NBA wants to have a concrete, grounded techno-thriller vibe, and something like poring over actual maps and plotting out plausible ops is part of the fun that can get lost if a lot of concrete details get abstracted away or merely emulated.
ReplyDeleteJesse Cox Huh. I wonder if his players dig it? I've known GMs to do similar things, and I've seen their players get frustrated and walk away unsatisfied. Because, to paraphrase a rule from crypto, anyone can design a puzzle they think is clever.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want to do the work of a GM then use a GMless Indie system and realize that you won't be in charge, and that it won't work well for nine out of ten players.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about your numbers, but:
* There's no such thing as a GM absent context of a particular game. So you can't say "if you don't want to do the work of a GM" because the work of a GM is different in every game.
* You don't have to go GMless in order to have no prep. My game, Misspent Youth, doesn't have any, and I don't believe any Authority player in my game has ever been hassled to tears by players.
* Nine out of ten players is a made-up number based on your experience. In my experience, 6.8 out of 10 people like low-prep/no-prep games.
Joseph Teller I disagree philosophically and materially. I'm glad you are here to disagree with me.
ReplyDeleteI want a lower barrier to entry for GMing; I want new people to feel confidant to take the chair and GM without thinking they need to read 300 pages. I want their perspective.
For my own games -- for the last year, I've been running a Worlds in Peril game. I've done a couple hours of prep -- mostly lonely fun thinking about what large-scale challenges would be awesome. And when that stopped being fun, I stopped doing it and used it going forward. At the table, I'd come up with various advantages and shit the mastermind could bring to bear. It has worked out pretty great.
I've seen this style not work for some players, but generally we can get going and the creative juices flowing. And that's the payoff, for me -- a collaborative creative environment. As GM, I'll have a few things setup, but definitely don't know the geography. If you ask me about where you come from, I'll probably disclaim decision making and send the question right back, to either you or someone else at the table.
Being in charge isn't a thing I care about at the gaming table.
Dan Maruschak
ReplyDelete>The feeling of actually solving a real puzzle is something that a pre
I really want to talk about this! I think it is important, as an experience. Here's a thing I worry about, though, and why I've never gone after it: My players are always going to be smarter than me. If they aren't, then I'm with the wrong players.
As such, they will always think of the answers to a puzzle I come up with, and its a matter of how long until they beat me. And that is not a thing I actually enjoy; its the waiting game of giving players enough information so they feel its a challenge they can solve, but not enough so they solve it immediately.
I'm not sure how to do that! I don't think I'm smart enough to do it, either.
You're right Robert Bohl that I can only produce a number based on my experience over the past 4 decades of GMing, a few hundred people and many thousands of hours at the table etc. that is all anyone has to determine with.
ReplyDeleteThat said I have only seen one low prep GM succeed with people I have been in contact with, even during my years being the house GM for a game store back in the early 80s where I was the one who taught people basic GMing skills etc.
Some of this may be a regional bias thing, a venue thing, or a player experience/skill thing.
I have no experience with your game, so I can't use it as a measure. No one that I have encountered locally runs it. I can only judge based on my experience in groups, store sessions, and convention play.
GMing is an art, not a science. I have stated an opinion based on personal experience.
William Nichols Well, my guess is that puzzle-design is a pretty hard thing in the abstract, especially if you try to do it from a reverse-player-POV (i.e. things like "how long will this take to solve"). A lot of games try to construct things that aren't explicitly "puzzles" to sidestep the problem of asking people to solve a hard game design problem for each session, e.g. a town in DITV isn't exactly a known-solution-puzzle but still puts players in the "how do we solve this?" frame of mind with a sense of solving a real thing. Or for a Night's Black Agents kind of thing a GM might simply plot out security arrangements at a site and let the players plan against it -- if the game can orient the GM toward an "impartial arbiter" posture toward the game so they're not inclined to use their "GM powers" to help "their side" win then this can be a workable thing. As I understand it, this is also part of the OSR idea of building a dungeon rather than planning an adventure -- by simply not looking at the thing you're prepping from the POV the players will have you remove some of the temptation to stomp on their agency.
ReplyDeleteRobert Bohl , Joseph Teller ? Chill.
ReplyDeleteJoseph's experience is that low-prep doesn't work; I'm really interested in hearing about why that is and what systems he's been using. I have some guesses, but I want to know.
Robert's experience is the opposite, and is further towards the no-prep side than even I am. I'm really interested as to how that works for him, and what skills he and his players have to make it easier. I have some guesses, but I want to know.
But, and here's the thing: that's going to be hard if there are personal attacks. We're not there yet, but the tension is increasing. Rob, the snarkiness probably isn't helping. Joseph, your style often comes across as if you are stating fact when it is an opinion.
You're both great, and you both have had different experiences that lead you to different views. I want to understand both of them.
So, do please be nice to each other and we can all learn something.
Dan Maruschak So, in NBA, is part of the lonely fun of GMing enjoying building security systems, for example? That is, is that prep of thinking through the in-game-system and in-fiction systems of security and other arrangements meant to be fun?
ReplyDeleteJoseph Teller - My gaming resume is as vast as yours is. My experience is that most people enjoy Story Now gaming (systems that invoke the whole table's creativity to find out what comes next, freeing up the GM from having to prep, and producing a more-engaging story than what any one person is capable of coming up with) when they give it a try, and that they love engaging in participatory storytelling on a level beyond what traditional RPGs allow. Playing my game* hundreds of times as well as dozens of other RPGs for thousands of hours has taught me that. However, as I was saying earlier, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
ReplyDeleteAnyway the bulk of my point is that even within traditional gaming, what a GM's duties are are not the same from game to game. So I feel the essentialism of your initial comment on this thread is misguided.
I do maintain that games that require GM prep are going to lead to railroading. That is basically math.
* If you'd like you can familiarize yourself with MY for free at http://misspentyouthgame.com/see; not an ad per se, just a way for you to see that it can work
William Nichols I think so. I haven't GMed NBA (I've been a player, though the game eventually fizzled), but I think part of it is taking real-world places and looking at them through techno-thriller lenses. So you start with some real-world places, think about what sort of resources you'd have to work with (e.g. how many people, what sort of guns, whether they have to be open or covert, etc.), and how you'd arrange those resources to provide security -- not security against the particular team of hyper-comptetent agents, but what sort of security this organization "would have" if it was real. Then the players get to look at that situation through their techno-thriller lenses -- given this security arrangement, how do we achieve the goal we've set for ourselves with respect to this site? (And I think it's mostly meant to be in-fiction thinking rather than through-the-game-system thinking, but I'm speculating a bit there).
ReplyDeleteDan Maruschak Huh.
ReplyDeleteSo, its something like: I, as GM, think up what real world strategies would be used and give that information to the hyper competent characters through knowledge transfer from the GM to the players. The players then think about the problem and come up with a solution. By virtue of playing hyper competent characters, they basically will succeed.
And the fun part is in thinking about the genre and its interactions, right? So the magic of the game, for the players, is in thinking through how to overcome a problem. And the magic for the GM is in seeing that happen.
Is that at all your sense of it? Do I understand?
In my experience, the need for prep is really idiosyncratic. Some people wing this well, and some need heavy prep. For instance, we've played Gumshoe (Bookhounds of London) with a GM who runs pretty low prep, and the system is just fine for that. I can also see it working just as well with high prep. The special sauce in Gumshoe is being able to spend to find a clue even if the player can't find it.
ReplyDeleteMy spouse on the other hand likes to think very very deeply about a situation, and model the world intricately. Then the PCs come in and toss monkey wrenches into the gears. He sometimes sets up plans he doesn't know the solution to because he expects us to come up with something he didn't think of. The Temple of Elemental Evil campaign he ran was a tense arms race where the PCs and NPCs kept learning from each other and developing strategy based on innovations from the other side. The funniest thing about it is that we have a "wild plan" player who comes up with deeply edge strategies and usually gets shouted down. The deeper in we got, the better his ideas looked!
In the first case, the GM has a simple working model and a list of important NPCs and their goals. If we go off the map he extrapolates on the fly based on that model. The rules of improv do apply: he'll add twists that make thematic sense and heighten the story.
In the second case, he knows the world very deeply, and has a more mechanistic approach, but because it's a complete system it feels very fair, whatever happens.
Both approaches reward player innovation, if a little differently. An innovation that fits theme often as well in the first case (like when we got mad at someone for following us, but then because we knew he was following us two other PCs split off, tossed his place, and found an important clue).
In the second case, observing and playing off the environment really pays off, such as sneaking into an empty office with a dominating cushy chair behind the desk, set taller than any other place in the room.... What a perfect place to set a poison needle trap! (And we learned a lot about the personality of that crime boss without ever meeting him.... Since he later sat on the chair.)
William Nichols Yeah, that sounds about right to me. (And the "knowledge transfer" from the GM to the players is done through the players describing how they do surveillance, etc., and the GM describing what they see, i.e. even more engagement with the genre).
ReplyDeleteDan Maruschak Sure, knowledge transfer as in-genre fiction makes sense. One-way knowledge transfers, especially in RPGs, frustrate me. I don't want the GM to do most of the talking; the magic of RPGs for me is in cooperative imagination.
ReplyDeleteWhich is probably why such prep heavy games don't appeal to me much; I don't get an emotional payoff when information is delivered to me from the GM. Nor do I get the payoff as the GM delivering the information.
I can believe that other people do, of course! But, yeah, if the magic there is using in-genre thinking -- as the GM to create problems, and as the players to solve them -- then no wonder it doesn't strike me as my sort of fun.
Gretchen S. Thanks for joining!
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot there, but what strikes my brain the most is this: The special sauce in Gumshoe is being able to spend to find a clue even if the player can't find it.
I know this is the case; you spend and then win. I don't necessarily understand how this is fun. So, I spend a point and then the GM has to tell me things. I kind of want to yawn.
But, that this may work in low-prep games is really fascinating. Does this also work -- is the system set up -- such that if you spend you then answer the question? That is, does gumshoe work if the players answer the questions when they spend?
I don't know! I do know I'd find that a lot more exciting!
And that may point back to my original thought, now better understood: one way knowledge transfer seems boring. High prep necessitates one way knowledge transfer.
ReplyDeleteMany gamers view this as essential to gaming. I do not understand why this is, nor how to explain that, no, that is not necessary.
I also don't know of a heist-type system like gumshoe that isn't predicated on one-way knowledge transfer. I'm hopeful Gretchen S. will tell me I'm wrong about gumshoe!
"The special sauce in Gumshoe is being able to spend to find a clue even if the player can't find it."
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is exactly right. As I understand it, in Gumshoe you get "core clues" if you are in the location for it and have the investigative skill. The players are still expected to get their characters to the "right" places and do the "right" sort of investigating (this isn't an incredibly high bar, of course, but I think part of the point of the system is to give you payoff on your "character build" when you go to the places where your mix of skills is good, e.g. a doctor-ish character gets to be the star when he goes somewhere he can do an autopsy). I think part of the fun is supposed to be showing that you're genre-savvy enough to know the "right" things for the "right" characters to do.
"one way knowledge transfer seems boring. High prep necessitates one way knowledge transfer."
ReplyDeleteHere's an abstract question, so feel free to ignore it if doesn't seem relevant to you, but in a dramatic game isn't a player's roleplaying over the course of a game a form of "one way knowledge transfer" about who their character is (or possibly about who the player is)?
Dan Maruschak That's really interesting. I'll need to noodle on it. That'll probably form the basis of a whole other post!
ReplyDeleteMy initial thought is that who the character is ought to be informed by the other players and the situation at the table. That is, as a player I'll have some initial ideas, maybe a core conept or three, and a whole lot of other things -- and maybe even those! -- get modified as play continues.
That is, I learn about my characters through play. Or, to put it another way, they get invented through play. And it is two-way -- what the other players and GM do affects who my character becomes.
Does that make sense?
William Nichols It sort of makes sense, but I think the "does the character get modified over time" isn't necessarily the right thing to look at if the question is about the direction of information travel. My experience of RPGs is that the way it works (or ought to work if I don't want to get frustrated with the game) is that as I discover a character through play the main mechanism for achieving that is me being in their shoes and feeling what it's like for them to deal with the situations/decisions they're faced with. Obviously a character is shaped by their experiences and other players' contributions to the game affect the situation and experiences the character faces, but it seems to me that the person who is in their shoes and is deciding what they do is the person that's going to "know" them in a way that nobody else can, and that's what makes it a meaningful contribution. And having that character do things in the world is a form of sending signals about who that character "is". (And I think there's some parallelism here between what we frequently distinguish as "player" and "GM" stuff; gameplay is about interacting with and exploring the character/dungeon/etc. that other players brought to the table through the lens of what I brought to the table). But, as I said, this is somewhat abstract.
ReplyDeleteDan Maruschak I think we're actually saying very nearly the same things.
ReplyDeleteLet me give a more concrete example. I'm playing Percy the vampire. Percy's a young pretty boy, who is incredibly emotionally manipulative. I the player loath Percy, but he's a lot of fun to play. I check in frequently with the other players to make sure no lines are crossed.
A situation arises that Percy has to deal with -- maybe he winds up in a cemetery at night with Tain the Witch. While I've had some preconceived ideas about how Percy views Tain, this can all be changed in a heartbeat if it makes sense.
That is, by putting on the skin of Percy and playing to find out who he is in those circumstances, I simultaneously create his reactions and learn about them. This is at least in part based upon how the other charactes -- like Tain -- responded.
So that's what i meant -- I learn about Percy not because the other players tell me, but because I learn about his reactions as we go along. Ultimately, I've got the ownership and -- sure! -- the knowledge transfer about Percy is from me to them. But -- and this is what I was fumbling towards earlier! -- who I decide Percy is, and his actions, rest upon what the other characters have done, too.
Maybe I made that point now. Though, I've used too many words to do it!
William Nichols Yeah, that seems similar to what I was saying. But couldn't you do a conceptual-search-and-replace and create an analagous example about a traditionally-GM-prepped thing? You can play a dungeon to find out what happens, too. "While I've had some preconceived ideas about how Percy views Tain these goblins would deal with intruders, this can all be changed in a heartbeat if it makes sense." Couldn't you also learn about your dungeon (or vampire conspiracy, etc.) by seeing how it plays off of the things the other players are doing? I'm not sure I see an obvious bright-line distinction between these types of contributions in terms of how "one way" the direction of information flow is.
ReplyDeleteThis is all part and parcel of the same issue: I want those decisions made at the table.
ReplyDeleteAs the GM, there's a class of decisions that I am responsible for that players are not. Everything from NPCs to traps to puzzles and all that other good work. Prep may involve stating monsters, figuring out towns and NPCs, or even the long history of a world.
As a player, there's a class of decisions that I am responsible for, as well. Everything about my characters -- thoughts, feelings, and -- most importantly -- actions. Prep may involve figuring out the history of my character, her relationships and loves, or even how she'll react in dangerous circumstances.
Prep is making those decisions ahead of time, without seeking the creative input of the table. Sometimes that's absolutely the right thing to do, but its not usually what I am interested in.
Crosspost, Dan Maruschak !
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols For me, because it's a resource, it's fun to try to figure out how to finesse the clue without spending research points, or when using them, to come up with some interesting place for the clue to be. I had thought it would feel weird or forced (I actually enjoy systems that are kind of crunchy/simulationist), but in play it works for me but in a way that engages me in a different space from verisimulitude. It's the genre-fitting, maybe.
ReplyDeleteI feel like it may work better in low prep than high prep; basically the player is collaborating with the GM on world building, and using their spends to have the world make sense to them. So as an example, "Hm, this is a very small place.... I'll check the wastebasket first, of course, but then see if he has anything stashed under a loose floorboard.... (I spend from the appropriate skill.)"
In practice you don't end up with as many frustrating dead ends, but there's still a lot of ways for the GM to add twists, so it's a give and take.
Gretchen S. In that example, is there something under the floorboard because the player declared it so while spending?
ReplyDeleteWe actually got kind of bored of heist planning in Shadowrun (and I got super sick of it in D&D) so started doing things like starting a session halfway through the run right after things went pear shaped, so we just made stuff up to recriminate with each other about as we fled. ("You said the blueprints were up to date!") That doesn't work as well in D&D, but there are ways to do a scout, then assault, that still have good twists. I know Leverage is supposed to be a good system for heists, and Fiasco for heists gone awry, but haven't tried either yet.
ReplyDeleteI've spent a lot of energy trying to perfect low-prep approaches to games like Traveller, Dungeon World, and Fate, and my sense is that these games live or die based on the strength of the fictional situation that's presented to players (Misspent Youth actually does this really nicely, Robert Bohl). But with games that don't make you build situation together at the table like MY, it's easier to stumble, as Joseph Teller implies.The trick for the GM is to keep pushing interesting choices at the PCs. In general, the more you're listening hard to player input and responding to what you hear there, things can't go too far wrong, which I take to be part of what William Nichols is getting at when he talks about relying on the energy at the table. But how information is initially distributed and then revealed or created in play is actually an interesting design space to play around with, albeit one that implicates players' deep-seated preferences and ideas about immersion, as my friend J. Tuomas Harviainen points out in his dissertation here:
ReplyDeletehttps://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/66938/978-951-44-8914-3.pdf?sequence=3
Gretchen S. You should absolutely play Fiasco if you haven't. It is glorious.
ReplyDeleteGretchen S. More to the point: I adore the idea of making up what the heist was as it is going wrong. Start at the twist point, in media res, and go from there. Don't do any leadup, and go go go.
ReplyDeleteMaybe start with an amount of heat that needs to be fixed before you can hide. Maybe against a countdown clock of when the cops find you. And have moves like:
-- When you accept a recrimination to how the mission failed, reduce heat by one.
-- When you run from the fuzz, roll 2d6. On a 10+, erase one heat. ON a 7-9, erase a heat but increase the clock. On a 6-, increase the clock. The GM will say how.
-- When you fight back, roll 2d6. on a 10+, reduce the countdown clock by one. On a 7-9, decrease it but the GM will add a complication (maybe a second clock?). On a 6-, something awful.
I'm not sure how much more I can really provide in way of input in this discussion. A number of good points have been made along the way.
ReplyDeleteSince it was asked:
I will say that a lot of the games I run are based in Variant Historical Points, where you take the real world at a historical point and then interlace elements into it (ex; Napoleonic Paris where you have a number of ongoing conspiracies and a supernatural influence affecting events where the players have a singular group goal) where knowing the history of the era and the historical figures and dropping them into the events and interactions with such is pretty much the expected prep from the GM.
I also have run a fair number of investigative games (ala Call of Cthulhu) where events are occurring and the players have to go the procedural route to find out what is going on and whether they want to interfere and how etc.
These are not the sort of games that work as seat of your pants play as that's not what the players want from such games.
I don't do OSR style gaming... haven't done that since the 80s (I cut my teeth on T&T and CoC and later OD&D, AD&D and original Traveller) .
I do heavy character development games, ethical/moral challenge games, exploration games and occasional puzzles within games depending on venue.
I've only done a few one-shot kind of games (mostly for convention play) but I have done some short run (4-6 session) games when it fit the basic idea for a hook or setting.
In the short (single session) Indie game category I've played things like Dunjon and My Life With Master. (Note played, rather than run them).
Mechanically I've played all over the landscape, from GURPS and HERO to Tales of the Floating Vagabond, Cosmic Synchronicity, to CoC. Old style Runquest (the Avalon Hill edition), Psiworld (a fairly light system), T&T, and probably have another good 30 or 40 systems sitting on our study shelves. Some I've only played for one short campaign, or in playtest with the designer, others I've played for 3-5 years at a stint.
I've also kept up on a lot of what are considered innovative or unusual games, and played in a lot of homebrews and test games of things that never made it into the public.
I've done some proto-Larping (that is LARP before there was a word for it, where 40+ people were involved and cards or dice were still used for some elements in play, rather than RPS or boffer conflict etc.)
Anyway, as I said, I don't think I have anything to add that will be helpful. I don't have the patience to try to paraphrase things I spent years doing or writing about.
I will pose you a question, instead - What do you think the job of the GM is?
The traditional response is the GM is supposed to be presenting the world setting to the players, portraying the personalities and events that are not that of the players themselves to control, facilitating the flow of action and story, and interpreting the rules to ensure everyone at the table is having a memorable and enjoyable experience without favoritism.
If your choices are achieving this effectively then you're doing fine. If you're failing on them then you need to look and see if its you not doing your job in some way or if there is something in regards to style or chemistry between you and the players and each other that is causing the problem and find a viable compromise or solution that helps it occur.
Sometimes its you, sometimes its them, sometimes its the system, sometimes its the setting, sometimes its unrealistic expectations, and sometimes you have a couple of them who are irritating or instigating each other into disrupting the fun.
Prep is one piece of the puzzle. I consider it like the foundation of a house, vital to keep the whole thing from falling down. You can use a prefab and get away with it with many players (many game systems basically do this for you, giving you a complex pre-existing world base that you can read and use, but reading it is prep still). Some want originality or just something they never have played with before.
ReplyDeleteBill White I'll try to read that dissertation, but its a dissertation so it is unlikely.
ReplyDeleteI think you point towards a thing I care about: designing to make GMing more accessible. To make that not seem so damned mystical, and lower the bar. I think that's altogether a good thing, and building tools to do so is fantastic.
I'd love to see some 101-level tools. I've tried to build some, with marginal success. I'm going to keep trying, and would be interested if you've done any of that, of course.
Joseph Teller
ReplyDelete> I will pose you a question, instead - What do you think the job of the GM is?
This is a great question, but more for what it says about the framing. I think it varies greatly based upon game system. A Dungoen Master is different from a Storyteller is different from a Master of Ceremonies is different from a GM.
And a Chillmaster does different things from a 4E DM.
ReplyDeleteBut, to answer with a bit less snark: to guide the conversation. And the player's job is to actively and awesomely participate in the conversation.
ReplyDeleteThat's a cop-out answer, fellas! We know there are different practices that count as GMing in different games, but they nonetheless draw upon the "fuzzy set" of things that Game Masters do across all games. And since William is talking about developing his personal style of GMing, that leads pretty naturally to the question Joseph is asking. If you think there are "GM 101" tools that can be developed in an unproblematic way, then you believe in a particular vision of GMing, and outlining that vision might move the conversation forward.
ReplyDeleteETA: Cross-posted with William.
I'm not being a dick here. I think it's very important you go to each game as open as possible and do what that game says to do. All players of the game should do so. And a failure to make that work is a failure in game design.
ReplyDeleteAnd the solutions I'd give for dealing with failed game design are highly specific for what the failure points are and who's playing the game.
That's an interesting answer, because it restricts itself almost entirely to the social level of the players around the table, and doesn't tackle the fictional world of the characters at all, except perhaps incidentally. There's something admirably self-abnegating about it--don't you want to be awesome, too?--but you could build a system out of it. That system would respond better to particular player (information) preferences than others, and therein lies the design problem you are faced with.
ReplyDeleteIts an interesting point, Bill White , that GM 101 tools may need to be system focused.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably true of, say, 201 tools. Or even 121 (where I went to school, the middle digit indicated a specialty. Whether that was calculus in the math department, or epistemology in the philosophy department.).
I've put together those 121 tools before -- last week, I did so for Star Wars World, an AW hack where I thought some stuff on "building an adventure" would make things easier. It may even have been 201, but that's not important.
The 101 work, if not scattered across various disciplines, would involve figuring out the 5-paragraph essay of GMing. That is, the standard, translateable work you do anytime you're a GM.
I'm pretty sure that work is leading the conversation. So, its explanations of what "ask provocative questions" really means. I know people who thinks they couldn't GM because GMs seem to have unlimited imaginations. Which is the problem -- and building up tools to transition from player to GM is key to having more people run games.
GMs are often responsible for a few things, which the system can support/constrain or leave up to the GMs raw brain, either with prep or on the fly.
ReplyDeletethere's having a stream of new things to talk about -- scenarios, puzzles, things characters and players need to engage with.
There's facilitating. The GM and the dice are often called on to define uncertainties, and to say what is when we'd otherwise get bogged down in unresolved questions. The first part of this is expectation setting about the, er, setting.
There's consistency management. How much inconsistency and retconning people tolerate varies wildly, and it comes in different flavors -- characterization, physics/science/established magic, at-table history, historical background, emotional tone.
There's hosting...a vague word which here means making sure everyone gets a reasonable share of the spotlight and doesn't feel too uncomfortable, physically, emotionally, informationally. This may involve making sure there's something for every character to do in most scenes.
Any major bits I'm missing?
"Just winging it" can lead to one or more of these failing, and that can be scary as it can make you feel you've ruined everyone's fun.
(Six paragraph essay, not five, but whatever. Also note that the GMs role is a lot like the producer of a play -- they don't need to do everything, but they're on the hook for making sure everything gets done.)
ReplyDeleteIf you like puzzles and want puzzles in your game, then you create puzzles and bring them into your game. There's no "responsibility." In this respect, a GM is just like the players: you do what you love, not what the game demands. Fuck the game.
ReplyDeleteAs far as prep goes, I think that's a personal decision, and a fluid one at that. My current "thing" is what I call a "jab session." We make characters and I take notes on what kind of characters they make. Then I throw them into a fairly broad situation...my favorite is finding a missing person...and I listen to how the players discuss the situation and take notes about their thought process and preferences. Then, with all those notes, I generate the real adventure for them. Sometimes, I'll do this on the spot; other times, I'll play the jab session to its conclusion and prep that real adventure for session two.
I don't want this comment to run too long but one last thing: the jab session is for the game, too, not just the players. Typically the only thing I study hard in a new roleplaying game is the core mechanic. The jab session pretty much exclusively only uses the core mechanic. I take notes on anything I'm uncertain of, any rules I'll need to learn cold to accomodate the players and what they want, and then I deliver that on session two.
You can't just say "fuck the game" about some games prep-wise and have some players be happy. You could wing a dungeon, but there are certain kinds of challenge-focused players who are going to have a problem with that. Feel like the game is being ruined for them. "Kill my character, don't make it easy on me!" I've played with people like that.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are people who want to play by the rules of the game they're playing. If someone said "fuck the game" to me, I'd way less interested in and quite unlikely to play with them.
Jesse Cox Let's talk about responsibility, actually.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm running AW for, say, Robert Bohl , Edd Gibbs , and Bill White ,and you, then I may be the worst player at the table. (maybe). If I am -- and if I'm running because that's what I feel like doing and the rest of you feel like playing ... then do I have all the responsibility for ensuring a smooth game at the table? (You were the most recent posters. Feel free to think of this as Meguy Baker, Sage Latorra, and Jason Morningstar. Whatever. The illustrative point is people who've thought about games and gaming.)
Edit: Damnit, all my examples were male. I'm editting.
I say no. Instead, I suggest that, at every table, we are all responsible. The GM is, sure, responsible for keeping things moving. But, at that table? I'm mostly responsible for throwing interesting challenges at them.
The players, though, are also responsible for their creative inputs. And for helping to push things along. My expectation would be that they bring the energy at least as much as I do. I no longer need to be explaining the rules so much, and a lot of the other stuff also disappears.
That is, much of what we hang on the GM we actually hang on "most responsible person at the table", and I am pretty sure a lot of that can drop away if we can trust players. That is, to trust that everyone has on their creative hats and is engaged.
I can totally understand that, William Nichols. Totes cool with that.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when I run a game, I do take all that responsibility. I wear that shit like a backpack. If someone isn't having fun, the first person I look at is myself. And if I happen to believe that I did everything right, then I start looking at other players, at other expectations, and at the game itself.
Edd Gibbs I actually fundamentally disagree with the notion that there is no responsibility.
ReplyDeleteby saying "I am running Dungeons and Dragons", one is making a verbal contract about what sort of game will be facilitated. It involves dungeons, d20s, and maybe a dragon. It involves to-hit modifiers (whatever they are called now), classes, saving throws, and magic. It involves Tolkein-inspired races, and hit points. Prep is vital.
To ignore those things is to no longer play the game. You're playing a hack. And if you haven't told the players, then you are violating their expectations. You are setting the game up for failure through a lack of communication.
Which I'd view as a serious fucking problem.
I'm not really sure at what point I said that. Of course I'm going to use all that shit in a D&D game. When did I say I wasn't?
ReplyDeleteEdd Gibbs Here's what you said:
ReplyDelete> you do what you love, not what the game demands. Fuck the game.
If that doesn't mean "do what you want, regardless of what the game says for you to do", then I think you clarify. As that's exactly how it comes across.
Here's that quote again, with all the context:
ReplyDeleteIf you like puzzles and want puzzles in your game, then you create puzzles and bring them into your game. There's no "responsibility." In this respect, a GM is just like the players: you do what you love, not what the game demands. Fuck the game.
I was talking specifically about puzzles, as your question was specifically about puzzles. I even say in the third sentence "in this respect", implying that there are other respects where this whole line of thought is not valid.
Honestly it kinda disturbs me that in that entire paragraph "fuck the game" is all you seemed to have focused on. I shall refrain from commenting further.
Edd Gibbs Ed, again, I still take that to imply a certain callousness with regards to the expectations of how the GM chair varies from game to game. If that is not how you feel, do please let us know. As is, I cannot tell what else you might mean.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols
ReplyDeleteI interpreted it as a "players before systems" mentality -- if a system expects a certain arc or a certain amount of combat, but the current table expects something different, the desires of the people should win every time.
But that's not even the most interesting part here.
The statement "f the game" provokes a strong reaction for you, one where you feel something important to being the GM is disregarded.
Articulating what that important thing is might shed some insight on the question of what it means to be the GM.
Jesse Cox The important thing, i think, is you are playing a game. There are rules. To simply disregard them is to play a hack. To do so without informing the players is to violate the contract.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols "There are rules. To simply disregard them is to play a hack. To do so without informing the players is to violate the contract."
ReplyDeleteOn this we are in full agreement. :-)
Which, of course, is why I am choosing about what games I run.
ReplyDelete