Game Master Guidance: Not Everything Needs to be Connected

A storyteller will often find themselves tempted to create elaborate, overlapping stories. The current popularity of “cinematic universes” and other interconnected settings shows there’s a demand for them. However, it’s very difficult to pull off. Only a handful of settings manage to create a true mythology, Lord of the Rings probably being the best example. Even the more competent “linked” settings end up bogged down by confusing storylines, absurd retcons, and inconsistent mechanics. A regular lament of Star Wars novel and comic fans is that every other person across the galaxy apparently knows Han Solo. The simple answer is that having dozens of writers handling the same setting over the course of decades is going to cause some consistency problems. But the deeper issue, and the one that GMs should be wary of, is the urge to connect everything.

               As in any form of storytelling, that doesn’t mean nothing can be related. If the events of your campaign are entirely isolated, there won’t be a real narrative arc. Even worse, the game will feel like a Three Stooges-esque procession of isolated incidents. The inverse is just as bad. If every little thing the party does ends up being directly connected, it can quickly become contrived. Additionally, it will make the game’s world feel small and cramped. If everything the party encounters circles back to the main storyline, then it will quickly seem like nothing exists outside of the player characters’ own narrative. As with most things in storytelling, extremes are to be avoided. For a GM, that means being able to tell when to hold on to something and when to leave alone. A good rule of thumb is that the more removed something is from the main plot, the more likely it is that it should stay away from it.

               A story being long or elaborate doesn’t automatically make it good. Ray Bradbury might be best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 but most of his greatest works are his short stories. Similarly, the self-contained “monster of the week” episodes of the X-Files are more fondly remembered than the tangled, alien conspiracy focused “mythology” plotline that incorporated the entire show. There’s something to be said for a story that can offer a satisfying resolution in a relatively short timeframe. That brevity can lend it an impact a longer story might just lack. That’s why so many writers argue it’s harder to write a short story than a “regular” one. But that shouldn’t intimidate a game master. You have the players to help carry the story forward. In my personal experience, my group have most the “one and done” sessions the most.

On a more practical note, GMS of any experience level can attest that it’s much easier to plan a session than a campaign. Even the loosest groups will have to keep track of all sorts of elements, whether they be characters, events, enemies, or anything else. By letting certain plotlines end or fade into the background, you’ll save yourself a whole lot of time. It’s easy for storytellers to get caught up with crafting endlessly self-referential narratives. That’s doubly so for a medium as interactive as RPGs, where a GM fears removing something that the group might want to interact with later on. It arguably takes more skill and more effort to step back and decide what needs to be left alone or cut out altogether. It’s even harder for a GM, who likely has their “audience” seated nearby. Or at the very least, in the same groupchat as you. But a GM should realize that no matter how difficult it might be, they can’t let their campaigns turn out into an impenetrable Gordian knot. It will save everyone a lot of trouble in the long run.

Game Master Guidance: There's More Than Just Dungeons & Dragons

A common lament in nearly every online Roleplaying Game community is that people only seem to ever want to play Dungeons & Dragons. It’s not a huge surprise, considering that by all accounts, D&D is the de facto system. Just as to many people comic books are synonymous with superheroes, Dungeons & Dragons represents the entirety of the medium. How much the system “deserves” this position is irrelevant because no single genre, or game, for that matter, can encapsulate the sheer diversity of RPGs. Taxi Driver is a great movie but could you imagine only ever watching it? Similarly, a Game Master shouldn’t restrict themselves to a single system, no matter how comfortable you might be with it.

There are considerable benefits for the nascent Game Master when you experiment with other systems. The first system you discover isn’t necessarily the best one. By restricting your exposure, you can easily remain oblivious to a system more suited to your playstyle and sensibilities. Anyone who wants to get “serious” about RPGs, (whatever that constitutes) shouldn’t have such a limited perspective on the medium. Even if you end up going back to your old favorite, you’ll have picked up something from running an entirely different set of rules and another setting.

Game Master Guidance- Handling the Mythical "Total Party Kill"

In most RPGs, death is a constant threat for the player characters. In some games it’s nearly impossible for death to befall the characters. However, those systems are few and far between. In particularly lethal systems, there’s a good chance that the party that finishes the journey isn’t going to be the one that started it. Despite what social media might have you believe, total party kills (TPK for short) aren’t that common. As a player, I’ve never been o.n the receiving end of a TPK. As a GM, I typically try to set the limit at one death per encounter, as anything more than that is excessive. At least in my eyes. The campaigns I run prioritize the narrative, so being liberal with TPKs devalue character deaths, what should be important, rare turns in the narrative. I do make exceptions for moments like the climax or the final confrontation with the antagonist. Regardless of the circumstances, when the original party is entirely wiped out, the GM must ensure that turning point has the importance it deserves.

A TPK, whether it be gradual or sudden, marks the end of the party’s original narrative. Though the players have new characters, the death of the starting group should still be treated with some sort of finality. The adventurers’ mission might be continued by their friends, allies, or just their successors but they are now incapable of striving towards their goal. If the TPK is just a lineup change, you risk violating the immersion of the campaign and reducing it to an overly video game like experience. You can’t save scum in an RPG and that gives death a weight that it lacks in all but the best games.

The TPK also gives their successors' journey a greater sense of importance and dread. Others have tried and failed to do what the new adventurers now set out to do. That could motivate them to fight even harder, to honor the memories of those who have died.

Game Master Guidance: The Joy is in the Journey

With “adventuring” being the central theme of most roleplaying game systems, travel takes on considerable narrative and mechanical significance. While planning out their campaign, a game master needs to decide how this will factor into the narrative they have in mind. Even if you confine the player characters to a single city, you need to capture a sense of travelling in some way. The players shouldn’t feel like their characters are instantaneously zapping to their destination. Unless that’s literally what they’re doing. Regardless, a GM should decently simulate the idea of traveling without negatively affecting the flow of the game.

After you or the PCs establish how they intend to get around, determine a way to integrate that into the narrative. No matter what option they’ve taken, it can offer an opportunity for an encounter. Cars break down, coaches get robbed, and starships get boarded.

Game Master Guidance: Creating a Mentor

The mentor, the older and wiser teacher that guides the protagonist along their path, is one of the most enduring figures in storytelling. It’s easier to list stories that don’t incorporate that element, one way or the other. A mentor can be indispensable for a science fiction and fantasy narrative, as they can be used to establish the rules and nature of the world in an organic way. Additionally, a student’s interactions with their teacher gives the story to show the former’s growth and development in a meaningful, tangible way. Like many archetypes, the mentor requires some work to fit in the context of an RPG but can nonetheless serve a vital role.

A mentor’s relationship with their student, regardless of whether it is positive or negative, should always be personal. As RPGs are an inherently social form of storytelling, it’s hard to find a place for such interactions. The mix of character types make it even harder. Someone who can expand a wizard’s magical prowess isn’t going to be much help to a bounty hunter or knight. Writing a mentor that can educate the entire group has its own problems. It can push the suspension of disbelief or force the involvement of players who have little interest in such an arrangement. Most importantly, having the mentor dispensing their services for the whole group undermines the close master-learner bond by spreading it thin.

Ideally, the mentor works best with smaller parties and with game masters that can handle splitting up the group. Basically, make sure you give the rest of the group something to do when the mentor is instructing one of their members. Of course, other player characters can sit in on the lesson, if they wish. In Star Wars, Luke’s blind duel against the training remote isn’t just memorable for Obi-Wan’s wisdom.

Game Master Guidance: Using a Setting's Major Characters

One of the trickier parts of using a preexisting setting is using its established characters. Even ones designed for tabletop games have major figures that drive the story forward. This topic comes up the most when roleplaying in well known properties like Star Wars. But a game master has to be careful how they use such characters. Or decide if you even should use them. Throwing in a setting's major character can disrupt the players' immersion in the story. In a particularly bad scenarios, it can end up completely overshadowing the player characters. A game master should approach these mythic figures with caution, assuming you want to use them at all.

A GM looking to use a preexisting major character should first build a story that can stand on its own. If the story you've written doesn't function without this character's direct presence, then you've deprived the players and possibly even yourself of agency. Going back to Star Wars, in most cases a player knows they won't get a chance to kill the likes of Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Unless it's an alternate reality game, which has its own sets of problems. If you're looking to incorporate a setting's big names, make a story they can logically fit into but don't dominate. Otherwise, you are taking away the group's influence over the story and giving it to another, more "important" character.

Then there's the matter of accurately representing the character. Established settings can potentially be as vast and varied as our own world. A GM can get away with taking creative liberties or ignoring the rules as long as the campaign "feels" like it takes place in the setting and they adhere to its fundamentals. Characters are more rigidly defined however. If you don't present a major character as being consistent with their established personality and traits, the players will likely notice. The more players interact with these characters, the bigger the chance that this will be a problem.

Game Master Guidance: Scheduling, the Hardest Part of Playing RPGs

As important as the storytelling and mechanical responsibilities are, you can’t have a game without players. One of the most consistently difficult parts of running roleplaying games is getting all the players together. People have busy schedules and even the simplest RPGs require a significant amount of time and effort on everyone's part. It falls to the GM to set up the game and that it happens at a t time and place that works for everyone. Getting a game together might seem like a daunting task but it’s easy enough as long as you regularly communicate with your players.

First things first, set up a dedicated channel of communication for the RPG. Individually messaging everyone or putting it in a larger group chat will only make things unnecessarily difficult. Make sure to establish with your players how long you intend for the campaign to last. They’ll need to know if they’re volunteering for a few sessions or committing to something much larger. You don’t need to know exactly when the campaign will end, you just need to have a general idea of its length. Some of the players not might be able to work with what you have in mind, so you’ll have to make adjustments accordingly. Don't be afraid to scale back or otherwise modify your plans if it will make the campaign easier to see to its conclusion.

Next, schedule the game. As the GM, you should be the one who initiates this. While this depends a lot on what the players’ schedules are like, I find one method has a lot of success. Ask everyone what dates and times they’re available to play a session. Try to do this at least a week beforehand, if you can manage that.

Game Master Guidance: Using a Preexisting Setting

While one of the major appeals of roleplaying games is the creative freedom they offer, most of the prominent systems rely on preexisting settings. The most notable RPGs, specifically Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and World of Darkness have built up elaborate backgrounds over their decades of releases. Some even have alternate settings and time periods in addition to the normal ones. Licensed RPGs, adapted from TV shows, movies, and more, have also been a mainstay for some time now. A new GM will find themselves surrounded by preexisting settings. Before committing to them or making your own, it’s important to consider how your choice will aid your story in some ways but limit it in others.

A preexisting setting, even a particularly loose one, will always have certain constraints. They carry a specific tone, atmosphere, and set of rules. By not making your own setting, you’ll have to adhere to certain expectations. This does somewhat depend on how well acquainted your players are with it. But even if they’re completely ignorant, the background might not be able to handle the revisions you make to it. Certain things might just stop making sense and each major change will be accompanied by countless others.

Game Master Guidance- Writing a Good Twist

In the realm of storytelling, there are few narrative elements with as high a risk and reward as plot twists. The Twilight Zone is remembered in no small part due to its great twists. And its bad ones. Similarly, M. Night Shymalan’s career has been mired by more than just bad movies, as the average viewer now sees his director trademark as being terrible, last-minute plot twists. Part of why storytellers are so committed to such a difficult concept is because when it’s pulled off, it will often elevate the work. Making a plot twist work in the context of an RPG is a challenge for any game master. But if executed properly, your players won’t forget it.

Before all else, it’s important to establish what a good twist is. It will be shocking but not unprecedented. A twist shouldn’t be too obvious nor should it come out of nowhere. With every great example, half the fun is the audience wondering how they didn’t figure it out themselves. Even a twist that’s easy to guess can still be good if presented properly. An audience can see it a mile away but if they care enough about the characters and groups involved, they’ll desperately wish they’re wrong.

Game Master Guidance: Everyone Should Have a Story

Regardless of the genre or system a GM chooses, the players are going to be running into a number of characters. The inhabitants of a given area are what stops the game’s world from feeling like an endless, formless wasteland populated only by monsters. Even if that is the setting, a few supporting characters would liven the story up a little. But since an RPG can have a cast large enough to rival any TV show or comic book, a GM has to determine which characters get developed and which ones are there to populate the world. My advice is to make sure that every character has some kind of larger narrative, no matter how small their role might be or if the players even notice it.

With so many characters to handle, it’s easy to reduce minor adversaries and allies to stat blocks. For sanity’s sake, limit yourself to fleshing out characters that speak more than two lines to the players. If a character plays a notable role in a narrative, make sure they’re more than just a plot device. Give them some sort of background or personality quirk to distinguish them. Even if your notes for them end up only being a sentence long, that’s at least better than what you had before. A good example of this in practice is James Robinson’s comics, particularly Starman and JSA: The Golden Age. Characters that show up for less than a page are often given the hint of a narrative, mainly through internal narration. Something similar is done in the newest Halloween movie, where almost everyone butchered by Michael Meyers has a modicum of personality or a defining moment before the deed is done. No matter how small these additions might be, it adds a human element the story would otherwise lack.

This may seem like unnecessary work to add to the already full plate of a GM but it adds a genuine atmosphere to the narrative. If the players pick up on it, the narrative will feel more “real,” to them, as it shows that things exist outside of the PCs’ stories. Even if the players don’t appreciate it, it will put you one step closer to a more fleshed out narrative. You’ll find it helps you develop the story, as the parts used to build it are closer to people than set pieces. However, it’s considerably more important to build up recurring characters. Defining minor characters is nice but if one of them plays a major role in the narrative, they need a personality.

Think about all the great “lieutenants” in fiction. Most people who’ve seen Total Recall probably remember Michael Ironside’s revenge driven goon, who seeks to kill Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character for unknowingly murdering his wife in self-defense. They’ll also probably have forgotten the actual antagonist, outside of his gruesome death scene.

Game Master Guidance: Someone Has to Clean Out the Stables

One of my favorite pieces of Warhammer Fantasy art ironically features one of the weakest parts of the setting. Illustrated by the immensely talented Karl Kopinski, it depicts Archaon the Everchosen, Warhammer’s dull anti-christ figure, triumphantly beseeching his dark gods while offering up the skulls of slain foes. As he surges with arcane power, anonymous hooded figures toil in the midground, restraining his demonic steed and carrying his belongings. In the background, the rest of his army waits for him to finish up. Like all great tabletop game art, Kopinski doesn’t just depict a figure from the setting. He provides a glimpse of how the world they inhabit functions and that even harbingers of the apocalypse need workers. The lesson to be learnt from this as a game master is that nothing in your stories, no matter how fantastic, should exist in a vacuum.

Even the most miraculous figures have underlings and some sort of logistics to back them up. If a spellcaster hardly ever leaves their tower, who gets the tomes and supplies needed for magic rituals? Who builds and maintains the dictatorship’s superweapons while its leaders are running the galaxy with an iron fist? Who cleans out the stables of an exemplary knight, busy earning the favor of their patron deity? Even the most alien and distant figures will have some sort of network to sustain their activities, often in the form of worker drones or even specialized organisms. A being that exists outside of whatever reality your game takes place in needs something keeping it tethered. And odds are it has a boss or servants back in whatever hellscape it calls home.

Game Master Guidance: Have Some Kind of Plan

While my first article advised against game masters having too concrete of a plan, it's equally disastrous to go in without any sort of preparation. Certain roleplaying game systems, primarily storytelling ones, are entirely reliant on improvisation and written as such. But more traditional systems are written under the assumption that you have larger plan in mind. Even the best game masters are going to need something planned, as the players are likely to notice if they’re just making it up as they go along. Outside of systems and games where that’s the point, that level of improvisation will sink any hope of building an in-depth or serious narrative. The question is, what should your plan look like?

First off have it at least partially written down. It’s easy to forget your ideas in between managing the players and shuffling books around. However, these notes should look more like a power point than a movie script. Make quick summaries of important characters' appearances and personalities. Resist the urge to write down specific lines for them, as the players will likely notice the difference between scripted dialogue and off the cuff responses.

Game Master Guidance: Adding to Your Armory

There’s a temptation to start adding your own weapons to a roleplaying game system, regardless of which side of the table you’re sitting on. In a well-crafted system, this might throw off its carefully implemented balance. In a poorly-made system, such additions might be necessary just to enjoy it. Alternatively, someone might be trying to exploit the system through their creation, at the expense of everyone else. That sort of behavior needs to be stamped out early on, as soon enough only that player will be enjoying the game. On the game master end of the spectrum, adding weaponry might be more understandable. There’s only so much an RPG book can contain, so it could very easily be lacking the weapons of war you envisioned your adversaries wielding. Alternatively, you might decide to distinguish an encounter or a whole session with a new element, something that even seasoned players won’t expect. Regardless of how complex your preferred system’s gear might be, I’d advise keeping your additions limited.

Before going on, it’s important to establish the role equipment plays in most popular RPGs. As the majority of Roleplaying Games are combat driven, weapons, armor, and similar items are unsurprisingly a huge component of the medium. For many people, how good the gear the system provides will make or break it for them. Science fiction and fantasy games have a particular obligation to provide exciting toys for the GM and players to mess around with.

Game Master Guidance: The Characters Have Five Senses- Possibly More

How you present the world and its contents to the players is one of the most important parts of being a Game Master. Besides understanding the actual plot and circumstances, the players’ sense of immersion rests on the details you present them. There’s such a thing as too much information, so it’s best to be conservative with your descriptions. Less is more, as they say. But the question is, what sort of information you should prioritize? A quick, profound way to define a scene is to provide sensory information.

Of course you’re going to describe what the characters see, that’s almost a given. But it’s easy to get so caught up in the visuals that you forget the rest. While it is important, it shouldn’t necessarily take priority. If you watch a movie, notice how much sound is used in place of actual imagery. What is implied can be just as, if not more effective than what is shown. Even if you’re just establishing what an area looks like, consider if there's any ambient noise. Do the characters hear an industrial hum, howling wind, dripping water, or the skittering footsteps of vermin? Sound can be a vital component in selling a scene to your players.

Game Master Guidance: A Map to Adventure or a Road to Nowhere?

Maps are just one of the many points of contention in the RPG community. Depending on who you ask, they’re either vital, a hindrance, or anything in between. Like most things discussed in this column, it really comes down to your personal approach. That being said, I question how necessary maps actually are. Most aspects of roleplaying happen in the minds of the GM and players anyway, so why even bother with them at all? One of my major issues with maps is that they end up being too distracting. They slowly pull the game away from the player’s imagination and trap it within the more easily quantifiable, less exciting confines of the map. I’ve also found that they just complicate combat, as it makes the player analyze the situation a little more than they should. There’s a reason one of the major points of criticism directed at Dungeons & Dragons 4^th edition stems from its perceived overreliance on maps. I just don’t think maps are a good fit with RPGs. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have their place.

The games I run end up prioritizing the narrative and social elements over the mechanics of the system. But I acknowledge every GM runs their game differently and it depends a lot on the system used. Even if I find maps to be cumbersome, a more gameplay minded groups might find them to be a necessity. They might end up needing the rigid, easily identified boundaries offered by a map. Admittedly, I find my players frequently asking for maps.

Game Master Guidance: The Curse of the GMPC

The "Game Master Player Character," or GMPC for short, is a roleplaying game faux pas rivaled only by railroading in most circles. While the game master has control of their campaign's world, they still exist apart from the party and their interactions. While a good GM will offer a cast of developed characters, these figures will almost never have the prominence of the player characters. In comes the GMPC, an apparent solution to the issue. The term has come to mean a number of different things but generally it’s a character the GM inserts into the party. On paper this might sound fine but those with first hand experience know better. The GMPC will often end up dominating the plot, pulling the story out from underneath the players’ feet and putting it solely in the GMs control.

More than the story can fall victim to a GMPC. These characters will often be created with the same rules used by the players, for the sake of fairness. What this really means is that the GMPC has all the complexity of a regular PC. Aside from bogging down combat, they’ll get advantages regular players won’t, on account of being controlled by who dictates the dice.

Game Master Guidance: Where Have All the Traps Gone?

Previously a hallmark of adventure-centric media, traps have become something of an anachronism. Movies, TV Shows, and books no long feature the death dealing contraptions that once targeted their protagonists. Even the last James Bond film lacked anything close to the iconic traps that filled previous installments. Admittedly there are always exceptions to this. But typically they center entirely around the concept, like Saw or the soon to be released, fad chasing Escape Room. The last holdout is video games but even then they're presented as a challenge to the player rather than an actual threat in the narrative. Role-playing Games are among the mediums that have largely turned their backs on traps.

Previously, traps were a big deal in RPGs. Open up an older rulebook and there’s a good chance it’ll have a section, if not a whole chapter on different traps for game masters to throw at their players. They were a hallmark of dungeon-centric games in particular, forcing characters to survive not just the area’s occupants but the environment itself. But traps have been slowly de-emphasized over the years. Now, rules for them will be consigned to a supplement, if they show up at all.

Game Master Guidance: Going Off the Rails and Embracing it

Role-playing games offer a nearly unrivaled level of interactivity. Most forms of storytelling have their narratives unfold in rigid paths that are observed by its audience. Even the most immersive video games can only offer the player a small set of predetermined options. Meanwhile, the only real limits in an RPG are set by the dungeon master, game master, or whatever term the system in question uses. Even the boundaries established by the system are only as restrictive as they are permitted to be by the group. However, the GM isn’t some kind of messianic god even in their own game. At least, not in a fun game. Regardless of how meticulously made their plans are, that narrative has to be enacted by the players first. And the players will always have different ideas from the GM, regardless of their preferred style of storytelling.

The whim of the dice can be quietly altered by a GM, if they're subtle enough, but the whim of the players is much more resilient. If you need them to be trapped in a building, they’ll hurl themselves out a window to escape. Confront them with a jungle full of foes, they’ll try to burn it down. Their general orders them to head to a fortress world, they’ll insist on stopping by a nearby frontier world first. Many GMs first instinct is to outright tell the player “no,” for the sake of their story.