Endy's RPG Stuff

Alright, this follows directly from a comment made on my 1/13 post, which was in response to rereading Robin’s Laws and This post on Misterecho’s “Blog of a New RPGer”.

That comment from him was:

I the idea of involving your players more in the development of the story is an interesting one. Although it could be hard to pull off.

Personally, I don’t see that it should be “hard to pull off” at all. In fact, let’s look at an ordinary game, shall we? We have a GM, a set of books, and anywhere between 3 and 6 players. The GM should be there as a Judge, to set out the rules and keep the players to them along with a skeletal story. Otherwise, it’s really just a railroad plot – you might have hidden the rails well, but they are there. Now, that’s not to say that providing direction is a bad thing!

After all, if we didn’t have the GM to provide direction, every game would end up in a situation like Eric and the Dread Gazebo. Long story short: Paladin’s long on courage but seriously short on brains; DM doesn’t elaborate. Communication falls apart. For posterity it is hilarious, at the time, I’m sure it was infuriating. So, we need to provide a balance. Maybe it seems strange to hear me talking about keeping a balance in a game, but we can see what happens when one side or another simply stops listening. It becomes Bad Gaming. And I agree with Old Geezer on RPG.Net – “No Gaming” is better than “Bad Gaming”.

So let’s look at what we can do to extend player controls. We already have Dungeon Crawl experience. That’s groovy. But not all games are about dungeon-crawling. Let’s talk about a G.I. Joe inspired game, either using Jay Libby’s ruleset, or just cribbing them into your favorite superhero/modern game. After the players create (or pick) their Joes, they can act on the slogan, “Knowing is half the battle”. You, the GM, set out the basics of the Cobra plan (evaporate the ocean, hypnotze the world using TV, you name it). But they’ll tell you who’s working for you, who’s on the field. Maybe even more. All in all, it’s a matter of emotional investment. It’s a point of feeling that this is a story everyone in the game shares in.

In a superhero game, it’s really pretty simple. Don’t go out of your way to give each character a nemesis. I was reading a comic lately, possibly Justice, wherein the foreword pointed out that villains have to have believable reasons to exist. Lex Luthor is a villain only because he opposes Superman and the Martian Manhunter. If instead he spent his time working against Starro and other villainous aliens, he’d be a hero. Spider-Man’s enemy “The Lizard” has been mutated by his own desire to regain a limb – and in the doing his reptilian brain took over. Just create the villains, have them do what they would do – play them as if they were PCs under your control. Don’t pull the GMPC nonsense of “sit back and watch the awesome”; that’s stupid. You know they’ll probably lose – don’t throw the fight either, though. But they’ll return someday. And when they do, they’ll be ready for those pesky PCs.

It’s all a matter of communication, that’s what it boils down to. It doesn’t matter if it’s IC or OOC, it just matters that there are open lines between everyone at the table. Everyone is there to have fun. Everyone. If everyone kept that in mind, the games would all go much smoother. Plus, there’s another slogan I heard once that I quite like.

“Say ‘Yes’ or roll the dice”.

Essentially, it comes down to that. If the idea is a good one, and comes to matter to the story – whether it’s the story you intended to tell in the first place or not, mind you – say yes. Otherwise, start rolling dice for the upcoming conflicts. And don’t be afraid to say, “yes, but…”.

And really that’s all it is. In my eyes, the GM creates a setting, ranging between rough strokes and really specially designed places. But it only stops being the GM’s story and starts being a game when the players are the ones who decide what to do with that setting. When you allow the players to tell the story, they invest themselves emotionally in it. You have given them a reason to care.

Okay, that’s all I can say about that right now. See you later!