Describe your plans for your next game/How do you prepare for an extended campaign?

So, as you can see, day 16 is brought to you by the prompt for the day & an alternate question. ~ I’m involved in a lot of games right now. Most are slow movers. The Play by Email Mythos Mythras & play by private Facebook group Masks that I play in are slow movers by default. I’m also a player in a bunch of games that are on again off again via hangouts. I could be missing some, but there are at least Untold Adventures/Harn, HEX, B/X in Greyhawk, Edge of theEmpire, & Star Trek Adventures all ready to be picked up again. Rotating GM games on the books are All For One & The Veil. Games where I am the solo GM would be HEX & Lamentations of the Martian Princess. ~ The final one is going to be our example.

My “shelves of hope” contain a bunch of games that I “plan” to play or run at some time. I just don’t have any grand ideas at the moment.

I already talked about what I’m having to plan for my next session due to an alteration in the timeline. Here I really want to talk about how I plan or prep for an ongoing campaign.

I’m aware that I tend to run games that I would like to be a player in. ~ Not just what game or what system, but how it’s run. As I discussed earlier, I have found that the game has the most meaningful and authentic “stakes” when it becomes about what the player characters find important. I find it hard to have that same level of buy-in as a player when the GM tells me what the agenda for my character is. Plots or stories or adventure paths fall flat for me. Mission based gaming becomes tedious, & often I find myself going through the motions, & if I am honest with myself I realize that unless something has “clicked”, my character simply doesn’t care, (neither do I) ~ I’m simply having them participate because that’s what I’m “supposed” to do.

I tend to prefer run (or be a player in) more of a demented science experiment. ~ Take a theme, a scenario, some NPCs and factions, a set of upcoming events & a few wild card elements. Throw it all in a blender with the the PCs. See what happens. ~ It’s a bit like letting a bunch of mice (the PCs) loose in a cheese factory full of cats, mousetraps & maybe some friendly critters of some variety.

I give some things a fair amount of detail right away. What’s the scenario in the world right now? Who are these alien races? What events are coming down the road? Who is in charge of the city the PCs are in? What do the various factions want? Who is one important member of each faction? What are they like and what do they want? What friendly connections do the PCs have? ~ I don’t fill in all of the details any more than I fill in all of the details of a character when I create them. This emerges naturally during play. ~ As long as I have a good idea of the agendas and motivations of NPCs & organizations, this will inform my in game improvisation and we will discover more about them.

I try to establish connections between the NPCs and other players up front as well and have some rough timelines of events. Who is Javed the merchant that wants to hire them? What is his connection to Elim (rival)? Who is pressuring him (Grath)? What does Grath want? Who can help get more of what Grath wants (Syrus, but he’s nuts)? ~ Likewise I try to have some events happen early that let the players know that they are free to explore other aspects of this dynamic world (the Antha have a dispute with the leadership of the city, there are preparations for possible war, without their help there fear of being defenseless against Thark attacks, look at that strange Taelon magic ~ how do i get access to that?).

However, the real fun planning and prep happens once the game gets going. After each session I get to regroup & re-assess what’s going on. I don’t change what I’ve already established, but I bring it into sharper focus based upon what we improvised, what the player characters did, where they seem to be headed, what connections got established or became more nuanced, and upon what I have learned about the NPCs by playing them. ~ I spend a lot of time thinking about what the NPCs and groups might do. How their motivations have become more detailed. Who they are becoming. I think about what makes the most sense based upon what we have learned. I come up with ideas, play them out, discard some & build on others.

I bring a more refined and focused version of the game world to the table next session, much of which is becoming detailed because that’s where the player characters are choosing to spend their efforts. At the same time, I don’t ignore the elements of the world that they are ignoring or spending less time on. That army everyone in the city is afraid of? It’s still on the way.

The consequences and ripple effects of what the player characters have done guides a lot of my prep. They threw Elim to the Sleestack but left his aide Torvath alive? (I had to make Torvath up on the spot, they left him alive so he needed a name and a motivation). Well, it stands to reason that this guy would describe them to the authorities and also blame them for the Sleestack invasion. ~ The more that the players interact with the world, the more consequences (for good or ill) of their actions keep rolling down the track.

So I’m always planning for the next session. Prep before the game ever starts can be a bit of a drag for me. I can get excited about an idea, but until the players get involved with the world, it can seem a little lifeless and like a facade. However, once the sessions start, thinking about the game and preparing for next session by filling in the details and considering what would logically happen next based upon events and the motivations of all involved becomes very fun indeed.

Describe a tricky RPG experience that you enjoyed.

Now that’s a tricky question…

This is one of the questions in RPGaDAY that I had been dreading a bit as I was unsure how to answer it. “Tricky” implies intention. Something is challenging or difficult, and what that “something” is would be ensuring a desired outcome, (or avoiding an undesirable one). ~ There a lot to choose from.

We could interpret tricky to apply to in game events. It really doesn’t matter if you’re coming from the viewpoint of the character or the player, or some amalgam of both. ~ The tricky situation could be a challenge or encounter. It could be the logistical challenge of pulling off a heist or caper. It might be planning and executing an ambush, or an investigation, or a negotiation. It could be any number of puzzles to solve or goals to accomplish.

However, the tricky situation could be completely out of game. Whether we live in the same town, or across the globe, the logistics of getting 3 to 6 adults together for a game ca be quite daunting. As I’ve discussed recently, it can be just as tricky to manage that many people with differences in preference, bias, intentions, & expectations. Session Zero and a social contract can be harder than one would think. ~ Sometimes the in game challenges are a cakewalk compared to the real world ones.

As a Game Master it can certainly be challenging to provide a certain experience. Maybe you’re focusing on ensuring a specific outcome, or perhaps you’re working hard to make sure that you don’t force one. Maybe you’re focused on managing the story. Perhaps you’re focused on creating and maintaining a certain tone, or feel or genre. Or maybe you’re working on meeting the needs of a diverse group of people, each of whom want a different thing.

Just learning a new game and learning how to play it well can be tricky. Especially when you want to let it stand on it’s own without infecting or poisoning it with the desire to have it be like other games you have enjoyed in the past. Learning to implement this new system & role play in character at the same time can be daunting. ~ Likewise, when things need tweaking, it can be uncomfortable to have discussions where you are willing to give and to accept feedback.

Realistically, learning & mastering any technique can be tricky. In fact, I’m a member of a group that  focuses on that. (Well, we talk about other stuff, but I digress) 😉

But what about my answer? ~ Glad you asked.

In my Lamentations of the Martian Princess game, I got thrown a curve ball. in the most recent episode, two elements converged that I had not anticipated. ~ The PCs were seeking relics from before “the great war” that they could sell for a quick profit. Led to an old ruin by a half insane NPC, the group happened upon a machine which opened gates to other places & times. Being astute players, they quickly realized that the vision of their city they could see on the other side was most likely from the past before the war that devastated the planet. In my mind it was just a dangling carrot. Would they be tempted to travel back in time to a world where technology was commonplace, but humans were mostly enslaved?

However, another element of the ruin was the random encounter table. One NPC they might encounter was a member of a former expedition who had been there about a month, even though all other members were dead. Why was he still alive? Without giving away too much, there was something different about this NPC, & it would have been interesting had they decided to hang out with him…

What I hadn’t considered was what would happen if this NPC was confronted with what looked like a way to go home to his city. It only seemed logical that he would try, & I made up a chance on the spot that he would try to “go home”. The roll dictated that’s what he would do, & no one tried to stop him.

The tricky part? ~ Realizing and expanding upon what would happen if that rather special NPC were to go back in time to before the war.

The long & short of it was that I had to drastically change the makeup and reality of the world to account for a rather large butterfly effect. (a Mothra Effect in this case). This has been both tricky & enjoyable. How well I pull it off remains to be seen, but essentially I had to scrap a large part of the scenario because the history that lead up to it didn’t happen. ~ The neat part is that we have an opportunity to make the world a little more “sword & planet”, which is cool as we realized it was a little too “fantasy”.

Time paradoxes ~ Tricky.

Describe a failure that became amazing

Looking at this question at the beginning of the month i saw that it might cause me some trouble. ~ Amazing? As in “I can’t believe he screwed that up! What are the odds?” Or maybe “amazing” as in the really epic spell failure where Lee’s character Hans managed to open a rift in between worlds & let out an unspeakable horror in session six of Lamentations in Prussia.

For some gamers failure seems to be anathema. Personally, I love it. Not that I go looking to fail, far from it. However, I love to “play to find out” what happens. While there are many things that contribute to this discovery, having the intention to do something & having things not go as you planned certainly lets you “find out” what really happens in a hurry. However it looks, a failure to achieve a specific outcome may close that door, (metaphorically or otherwise), but it always opens another door of possibility (or two or three).

My runner up is a silly failure, but a fun one. In an Iron Falcon Game that Jason Ran last year, I had a double failure that became amazing. Rolling up my first character gave me a 3 Wisdom. This is not good in that game. This is the guy that tries to pet the skunks because they’re cute. (I feed the skunks near my house and go out to watch them, so it’s possible I rolled myself). I rolled up a more suitable character named Sir Vantes (remember my thing for stupid names?), & Jason let me keep “Dim” as the torchbearer. Opening the dungeon door we were set upon by goblins, & my second failure was losing initiative. Sir Vantes was run through and died on the spot. I took over the torchbearer with the 3 wisdom & the rest of the game was about this normal man with no common sense avenging the death of his master. ~ It was silly & stupid, but none of us will ever forget it.

However, my real answer is from All for One ~ Nights to Remember where we experienced several failures. The most crucial one was during an encounter with “Alice”, a vampire we had thought we defeated many sessions ago. Phillipe found himself having to defend a nearly helpless Brisecouer & a quite helpless Eugenie. Phillipe gallantly attempted to wrest the damsel in distress from the vampire as Alice levitated Brisecouer’s former lackey to her certain doom, but alas! I failed.

At this point I became willing to negotiate with the Nosferatu, and this seemed to intrigue her. The end result is that my musketeer has promised to eliminate her rival and usurper, one Oliver Durand, who is about as dangerous of a human foe as you might encounter, (not to mention that he would be surrounded by a multitude of capable guards & minions). This is only slightly less disagreeable than working for an instrument of the devil himself.

None of us could have predicted this turn of events, but failure made it possible.

What will happen? ~ We must play to find out.

Describe how your play has evolved.

After the brief light & fluffy respite that the weekend’s questions brought, week three opens up with a deep one. (No, not those Deep Ones). At least it’s a complex one for me. So strap in & hang on.

Despite starting gaming in 1981, my experience does not represent 37 years of continuous play. I wish it did. But, my experiences are my experiences. So, first up in looking at my evolution is my choice of games. ~ If you’re late to the party, despite other games being around when I started the hobby, no one I knew was playing them. We were lucky if we got together to play AD&D or Basic, so I simply didn’t have exposure to other systems. I knew they existed, but the people in my circles weren’t playing them.

In the past few years, I have been trying out new games & new systems. I’ve been reading a ton more. A lot of the games include systems, procedures, or mechanics which are quite novel or downright odd. Some of them sound neat, and some I’m not so sure about. ~ Part of this evolution isn’t just about trying new games, but rather about discovering how these different systems shape & inform the game experience. This has been quite fascinating.

That ushers in the next facet of my evolution. ~ Over time, my approach to gaming has become far more analytical. When I was young there was very little analysis involved except for the occasional attempts at “realism”. These were met with mixed success. ~ When I returned to the hobby in 2010, I indulged my analytical nature with deconstruction of mechanics & probabilities. Something that I still do now. I like to know how the moving parts work. However, as time has gone on, this penchant for analysis has spread to include an interest in the bigger picture. What does this game do? How well does it do it? What does it not do, or not do well? Does it really create the experience that it advertises? What kind of feel does the game produce? How? How competent are the characters?

But, as I frequently discuss, this bigger picture includes an interest not only in the games themselves, but in our own intentions for play. Some people resist the idea of categorizing people or where they might lie on a particular spectrum. I’m not one of them. It’s not a value judgment. People are just different in some areas. Making sense of this diversity and recognizing when our intentions align or conflict has helped a great deal in my understanding & appreciation of the complex nature of the RPG hobby. Coming to understand that subtle (or drastic) differences in intention or expectations can lead to friction, & that we can avoid or alleviate these conflicts when we are mindful of these variances.

And that leads me to the next area in which I can finally talk about how my actual play has evolved.

In the beginning, it was all about the adventure. Getting things done. Overcoming challenges. Completing the next mission. Characters, real characters, characters with personalities & drives & flaws showed up from time to time, but they weren’t the actual focus of play. Except.. they were enjoyable. Somehow the sessions felt more satisfying when we felt like our characters were real people and the world was a real place. Like the situations were real & that they mattered.

Part of my evolution was simply noticing that this was the common denominator in games which felt enjoyable, and when it was missing the game just felt unsatisfying and hollow. I love getting together and rolling dice with friends in a lighthearted manner every once in a while, but I started to realize that this wasn’t enough. Likewise, I started to notice when various system elements & areas of focus were enhancing or detracting from my experience. I even paid attention to how the behavior of the other people at the table affected my experience.

That insight eventually led to me deciding to “play on purpose”. I wish I made that phrase up, but I had to steal it. While I’m still actively trying other forms of play & games that I have various levels of interest or misgivings about, I also have a much better idea of what my intention for an RPG experience is. As such, I can choose what game I want to play, with whom, and in what manner. ~ I know that I like an experience as the character, with other “real” characters interacting as free agents in a dynamic world. Sometimes I want this to be over the top cinematic pulp, & other times I want it to be much more grounded & realistic, but whatever I am after, I am much more focused on actively pursuing it rather than leaving it up to chance. (We’ll let the dice determine the particulars).

Wildest Character Concept?

It’s funny. I like names with a twist, but I tend to play vanilla characters. That doesn’t mean that they don’t develop a personality over time, but often I come in with a bare framework of who they are & I see who emerges.

I’m sure a lot of that is from my roots, when characters & their lives were cheap, & five minute character generation was the rule. However, I’m not a huge fan of the wild & unusual character with the 12 page backstory, or the sworn oath for revenge, or the half dragon samurai enchanter necromancer. ~ I’m more of a “This is Gork. He knows how to fight and he’s a bit melancholy. Let’s find out what happens.” sort of fellow.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t like an interesting character right out of the gate. I really do. Often I’m impressed by the stuff that other gamers come up with & wonder why I don’t seem to be able to come up with that sort of stuff as easily. ~ These days I try to bring a bit more to the table in terms of who the character is, but I’m getting ahead of myself. This isn’t day 13 yet…

So, I’ll give two runners up & then my “final answer”. Actually, the final answer will have two kind of extra runners up. But it shall be mercifully short.

In the past year I had two really fun characters in one shots. When Jason ran Hollow Earth Expedition I created a character called “Bruce Mulligan” ~ an Australian WW1 veteran gone a bit crazy. Known as “the musician” by the folk of Cairo, Mulligan carried a good deal of firepower in various instrument cases. Not content with the standard violin case, I seem to recall a french horn case stuffed with dynamite. Loosely inspired by John Malkovitch’s character in “RED”, Mulligan was a blast to play. I’d love to play that trio of characters again sometime. It was magic.

The second runner up was a pregenerated character that I got to name. “Montgomery Q. Linkspan” was a character I played with last minute warning in Anthony’s Aethercon 6 Leagues of Gothic Horror one shot Death where is thy sting?. A member of the society of antiquarians, Montgomery found himself summoned to a mansion following the death of a father he did not remember. In fact, all of his childhood memories were missing. While his siblings were similarly off balance (not even being aware of each other’s existence), Montgomery also came to the table with some interesting flaws, including missing one arm which I decided he had replaced with a wooden one. (This had a fun effect in the last scene). ~ While all of the characters had a similar setup, one of the things that made this character so fun was that he had already sustained some corruption from the past, (which is mechanically represented), and that he came to the table poised for another descent into corruption. All it would take was one immoral action, & it was too tempting to pass up. ~ The eventual breaking point for that character was a favorite gaming moment.

However, the wildest character concept isn’t one of mine. All three of the characters in my Lamentations in Prussia campaign I ran last year were quite wild and fun concepts. Jason’s Jurgen the Zealot of Zod ~ sincere but misguided witch hunter was a tortured soul who struggled with his beliefs and with what to do. Lee’s Dr Hans the dabbler in the dark arts was equally tortured, and it’s hard to think of someone exposed to more horrific events, most of his own doing.

But the winner is Josh’s Heinrich. The Dim witted son of a baker who as a specialist had some unusual skills. On paper this character should not have worked, but how Josh brought him to life, and how he ended up fitting into the unfolding “weird horror” campaign was just perfect. ~ The fact that I helped it along by introducing a consequence of exposure to a certain something which left Heinrich vacillating between his original pre-injury intelligence, his dim witted self, and mental states which included the personalities of his dead parents and an inhuman “entity” just made that more fun. ~ Josh ran with that once I let him know what was up.

That’s a game I miss. Even though Jurgen has gone on to the great temple of Zod in the sky, I hope that we can return to it sometime.

Wildest Character Name?

After yesterday’s question, I’m ready for some light and fluffy ones. ~ The trouble with questions like the “wild” ones for days 11 & 12 is that they’re like inside jokes or talking about a campaign. Those who were involved tend to find it interesting, while most other people smile politely and wait for a subject change. I thought about answering an alternate question, but so far none of them have really jumped out at me.

I have a confession. ~ I like stupid character names. Unlike some of my friends who shall remain nameless (cough, Anthony, cough, Jason), I get a broad grin when a character or NPC has a ridiculous name.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a serious tone just as much as them. Sure, a fun lighthearted game is great for a while, but it’s not my favorite way to play. However, even in a game with gravitas thicker than molasses, I love a name that is a bit off, even if it’s a reference not many will catch.

I suppose part of that is from my old 1981 D&D roots, where everybody had a character with a goofy name. Hell, we learned that from Gary & Co. I recall that my friend Jim  (or was it Tom?) brought “Capstan Dolby” to the table right around the time I was playing “Leviticus Strauss” (we called him Levi for short).

I think that there is another reason that strange PC and NPC names come out. Well, two reasons. ~ First, I’m terrible at coming up with names. Especially names appropriate for a location or period. An British name suitable for 1895? Ringo? Forget fantasy or science fiction names. Gregnak? Zv’varvedd? Jo-Jo MaGoo? And well, that ushers in the second reason. It’s a circus in between my ears. Protective gear is required. The oddest things go through my head and next thing you know I’m naming someone “Gelding the Clumsy” or “Penelope Featherbottom”. ~ (Yes those are real NPC names).

I’ve been pretty well behaved lately when it comes to naming my characters (mostly). ~ Back in 2010-2012 There was Brother Warner (a short lived cleric who was loony toons crazy), Echinacea Lupus Tularemia (AKA Lupus Gangrene), and my Fighter in Greyhawk, Aprax Ia, who spoke much better than you would think.

However, my vote is going to have to go to another player’s character.  Francois Letarte’s character Alphonse Ruolt’s better known moniker of “Brisecoeur” (heartbreaker) still makes me smile every time we play. The fact that his portrayal of this larger than life womanizing bon vivant lives up to the name just adds to the mirth that this character instills in me every time we have the fortune to run across him. ~ David Lee Roth wishes he was that cool.

How has gaming changed you?

This is not an easy question to answer, & it gets personal. But, RPGaDAY encourages us to open up and share a bit with others, and this is a good thing. Forgive me if parts of this seem a little cryptic, but there are some things that I don’t share publicly on principle. The astute, observant, or initiated among you may be able to fill in the blanks. Many others will surely think they have guessed correctly, but will be way off target. Many others simply won’t care, but I can’t imagine why. Surely I am the most fascinating thing on the planet?

But I digress…

I actually have three periods in the RPG hobby, but don’t worry, this shan’t take long. In 1981 at the tender age of 13 I was first exposed to RPGs and was enthralled. I don’t think that my involvement changed me in any fundamental way. at that time. Sure, I was the typical introverted nerdy kid with not a lot of friends, but I was the same before and after RPGs. They were just another outlet. By 1990 I had put them on the shelf and was getting on with adult life ~ marriage, kids, etc.

My second entry into the hobby was in 2010. That time period, from then until mid 2012, that was the tail end of an extremely dark period in my life. Gaming, online forums like Dragonsfoot, and making YouTube videos were an outlet at that time. A sort of an anchor or stable point. Once again, I don’t think the gaming experience fundamentally changed me at that time, but it gave me something to hold on to. I didn’t have many relationships left by that point, and those that still had connections to me were fleeing in self defense. ~ The online world didn’t have the same exposure to what contact with me could produce at that time.

In mid July I vanished off of the gaming grid & off of the internet entirely.

July 11th, 2012 was a pivotal moment in my life where I made a decision to make a fundamental change in how I navigated life. Best thing I ever did. ~ No, quitting gaming had nothing to do with it! I simply had more urgent priorities at that time. (And I couldn’t afford the internet, but that’s a detail). Well, actually, now that I think of it, not participating in sessions with the local gamers I knew did actually have a bit to do with the changes I had to make, but it had nothing to do with gaming.

Anyhow, I was at this point where I had very few relationships left, and it became apparent that it was a bad idea to hang around with most of the people that I had left in my circle. Fortunately, I was exposed to a group of people that became my new social network. Not bad for someone who had become quite antisocial. I count some of these individuals among my closest friends today, & the relationships that we have are deep & profound. The bonds we share are unique and meaningful.

Now if this was my YouTube channel, it would be time to say “But this video isn’t about that…”

So, for a while I re-learned how to make connections with other people in this “safe” community. Eventually those with a lot more experience than I encouraged me to go pursue interests and other relationships in the world now that my thinking and behavior had been restored to some level of sanity. ~ In late 2015, I started looking into RPGs again, and it wasn’t long before I made a video. Over time, I began to meet gamers online and found out that I had missed when things like the “RPG Brigade” and similar communities had started & been in their heyday, but there were still plenty of opportunities to make connections.

So, slowly by little, I began to develop relationships, I started play games with other people around the world, and I became a member of the RPG community. Connections with other people were never easy for me to make or maintain, but I was able to take what I learned elsewhere & apply it here. In a very real way, this round of gaming has changed me as it has afforded me the opportunity to build real connections with people in a community not based entirely upon support.

Likewise, the diverse nature of the hobby I alluded to in my answer to Day 9 has allowed me to practice some spiritual principles. Which is fancy talk for the idea that I have been challenged to seek to understand rather than simply to be understood. That I’ve slowly learned to recognize and accept the differences that we have, and to actively seek common ground. That the bonds & friendships are worth more than the  disagreements or than “being right”.

Not only has gaming allowed me to see the world through the eyes & the perspectives of my character, but the community has challenged me to try to understand and accept the positions & perspectives of the other members. ~ It has helped me to become a better person.

How has a game surprised you?

I like surprises. Not all the time, but I like them in my RPG sessions. Playing to find out what happens is a big deal to me. I thought about making my answer about about some of the most surprising moments I’ve had during a game. Maybe the emotional reaction and “bleed out” I’ve experienced in our All For One Campaign during some of the more moving moments. That was surprising. Maybe something more mundane like what happened two weeks ago in my Lamentations of the Martian Princess game when two elements of the world intersected in a way I hadn’t forseen & the logical consequence was a complete upheaval of the foundations of the game world backdrop. “Never cross the Streams!”  But I decided that wasn’t really the direction the question was leading me.

I considered focusing on how games themselves have surprised me. Novel mechanics, nifty methods for doing something in a new way that makes it fun again, a super compelling setting, a system i thought I’d hate that I ended up loving, etc. Hard to choose among those. I get surprised a lot, and I get what I expected a lot.

I even considered talking about players that surprised me with their creativity or willingness to roleplay. You know, that player you weren’t expecting to “bring it” like they did. Always a wonderful thing to watch and be a part of.

However, after a really difficult time trying to figure out what to do with this prompt, I decided to take a tangential approach and talk about something I’ve been reminded of by RPGaDAY & that I was planning to talk about after August drew to a close.

Gamers are a diverse bunch. I knew this before, but I really had no idea just how diverse. We all have a lot in common, but I’ve come to discover and be surprised by the differences we have. ~ Each day I try to read and watch as many RPGaDAY answers as I can. Without fail, I start to discover that some of the participants and I are really close in our perspective in one area, but on another day we’re miles apart. This experience get repeated during the rest of the year as I interact with others in the hobby.

Some of these differences are large scale, and our biases, preferences, intentions for play, and expectations of the game experience clearly place us into groups or “types” that are either compatible, or akin to oil & water. However, some of these schisms are more subtle and can blindside us. We can seem to agree on just about everything, but one day we find ourselves at loggerheads over some aspect of the RPG experience.

Over time I’ve come to think of these various intentions or preferences as axes or spectra. How much space to you want in a setting for creativity? Rule of cool or verisimilitude? Rules as written or is it flexible? Story arcs or play to find out? In character or out of character? Abstract or granular? What kind of genre? what kind of tone? A fun lighthearted time with friends or a serious game? Published games only or use your favorite system in a different way? ~ The list goes on and on, and each one of us finds ourselves on a point on each spectrum. Very often they move depending upon circumstances.

While often we can find individual people who match up with us on most of these axes, generally two gamers will find at least one point they disagree on. Get five or six of us together, and as I recently found out, it’s impossible to decide upon a decade to play some “this world with a twist pulp action”.

Perhaps the most daunting thing about these differences is often our perspectives seem completely incomprehensible and baffling to one another. It is always jarring when I run up against that. Sometimes we can learn to understand each other, but often the best we can do is simply accept that the other person has a very different set of intentions or priorities in that area.

So the biggest surprise? Despite all of these differences, sometimes it’s amazing that we can get 3 to 6 of us together to play a game and actually have a great time! Fortunately, I have been lucky enough to meet enough mature gamers that we are able to discuss our similarities & differences, find common ground, & enjoy the hobby together.

How can a GM make the stakes important?

The short answer is that you can’t. Not by yourself. ~ But, the good news is that you can make the stakes very important if you’re willing to let go of control of the world and the “story”.

No one likes a boring game. Games can become horribly boring if there are no real stakes, or if nobody really cares about the ones that have been presented. Unless the players have some skin in the game, they aren’t likely to care no matter how compelling you make the pitch sound. “We’ve just got to get that Yellow Fever serum to Carson City!”

This sounds like it’s the responsibility of the players to buy in to the scenario that the GM cooks up, and that’s partially right. Like I said yesterday, players can make the world seem real by acting if it’s real, & that includes acting as if the stakes are important. But that’s only half the battle. Until the players feel the stakes in their guts, until they squirm when the dice come out, until they make involuntary cries of despair when that awful NPC comes down the hall, the stakes just haven’t crossed that boundary into the land of what matters most. ~ That’s where games become exciting.

This next points isn’t at the heart of the matter, but it’s important. When the dice come out, let them speak. Don’t fudge rolls. And when they come out, it should be for a reason. It doesn’t always have to be epic or incredibly meaningful, but if there’s a chance of failure, if that failure would have consequences, release the plastic hounds & stay out of their way. Let them do their job. You’ll know if they’re doing their job, because the players will be sweating it out. That’s it. Good dice.

Still not the real answer, but have stakes that make sense for the fiction. Not just for the genre, but for the specific situation. Always ask yourself “What would happen if they did that?” ~ But don’t always keep this to yourself. If it makes sense that the characters would know the potential consequences of a situation, tell them! Remember the wisdom of Doctor Strangelove as he admonished Soviet Ambassador de Sadesky ~ “Of course the whole point of a Doomsday Device is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn’t you tell the world eh?

All of that is important to making the stakes seem important, but the real answer is much simpler. ~ It doesn’t matter what you (The GM) think is important. What matters is what the players & their characters think is important. Those are the real stakes. ~ This is one of the reasons that I shy away from “The Story” or “what the players are supposed to be doing” or such approaches. I’m a big fan of scenarios and dynamic worlds where the characters become interested in things and we all “play to find out” what happens. In a very real way, the GM plays to find out what matters to the characters, & then the fun begins.

So, pay attention to the characters. Find out what they want, what they value, what they are afraid of. Look to see what relationships they develop, what they become interested in, how they interact with the world. ~ Instant stakes. Dangle some carrots based on what they’ve shown you that makes them tick. See if they take the bait.

Then hit them below the belt. ~ OK, not all the time, don’t be a jerk GM, that’s not the point. However, if you want a game that’s not boring, where the stakes seem important, where it’s not some ho-hum “is the pizza here yet?” excuse to kill a couple of hours, find out what’s important to them and then hit them with it. You have to adjust for the tone of the game, but If even if you never want to play it, looking at Vincent Baker’s instructions for how to GM Apocalypse World is worth the look. It’s all about paying attention to the players as they tell you what’s important to them, & then screwing with it. One of my favorite sessions as a player was in our All For One game where Francois Letarte of the JdrD30 YouTube Channel ran a two part session for me called Not how it used to be where he beat the crap out of my character by bringing in all sorts of elements meaningful to young Phillipe and forcing some difficult choices with lasting consequences.

These difficult choices, where players are faced with having their characters torn between motivations or risking consequences to get what they want (or avoid what they don’t want) are where RPGs become the most exciting and compelling for me. The stakes are never higher, and the players defined them for us. All we had to do was listen.