8
« on: November 30, 2009, 01:31:12 PM »
1.) Notebooks are your friend. Writing out and preparing all you can before the game really helps with the flow and progression of the sessions, as well as knowing the greater Giga-plot with all the clues, advice, tidbits, trivials and blatant bashings with the plot hammer. Knowing where you want the game to go before you start, helps greatly in getting you all there. Also, its a good place to have access to all your NPCs, notable locations and everything else you need to keep track of and remember. Leave some space as you go, and don't try to fill in every single detail. Things will come up that you need to remember and things won't always work out the way you intend, so always try to write those things in as they happen.
2.) Know your NPC's. Not every NPC needs a full character background, stats or even a name but they all do need some sort of motivation. That one little thing that can flesh out their reasoning. For many it is something simple, like a merchant is usually motivated by making money and a politician is motivated by power. For those NPS'c that are important, do flesh them out as much as possible and give them some semblance of life. The more important they are to the plot, the more information you should have on them. Any NPC that the players deem important should get fleshed out as well. Once they latch on to someone they like, or absolutely hate, they are going to keep going back to them so keep that NPC interesting.
3.) Props and maps. Anything they can hold in their hands, they will and will keep it there until you pry it from them. Every session have a couple handouts for them, either typed or handwritten that has to do with the session's plot. Lists, articles from a newspaper, notes hastily scratched and left in a book, all generally make good handouts which can either just be taken at face value, or can be riddled with clues and secrets for the players to discern. (Or they can just be at face value and the players will torment themselves trying to find the hidden meaning.) Maps can be as basic or as detailed as you want to make them, but either way both the GM and players will find them useful for a quick reference to where things are, how vast a distance a quest will take or getting a feel for their environment. Be ready to update it as things happen, (players burning down a shop, mudslide takes out a high traveled road or a bomb takes out thirty blocks of a large, industrial city) so the players see their effects on the environment and the GM remembers that the nice little old lady NPC's shop burned to the ground.
4.) Communicate early and often. Give the players as much information as possible before character creation begins. Tell them about where the majority of the game will take place, and any common knowledge that everyone would generally know. Let them know what the style and tone of the game is going to be and give them as much of a feel for it as possible so they can keep everything in mind while they make their characters. Try to have everyone build their characters together, and have them talk about them while that is going on. Let the players work out their own sense of balance and roles to fill, and give them that sense of teamwork before things start rolling. After sessions, ask them how they enjoyed it, what things they liked and what things they didn't and then plan future sessions accordingly. If something you love in the game is something that just doesn't work with the group, either try to modify it so it works or just let it die a gruesome death.
5.) Follow John Wick's advice, "There are no rules. Cheat anyways." Always remember that a game is supposed to be fun and that your players are the arbitrators of that fun. (If that were to be decided by the GM, they would be spending all their time playing with themself.) Fun doesn't mean easy, and no game should ever be too easy. There need to be challenges, puzzles or fights that take on epic proportions, but all of them should be within the player's grasp, even if it is a distant grasp. Keep things moving and interesting, and from time to time be willing to fudge your dice rolls. Nothing should ever really be impossible for the players to achieve, but they can be really difficult. Handle character deaths as a case by case situation, fudging their damage rolls to just knock they out when they are fighting a group of grunts or give them an epic and brutal sendoff that will effect the rest of the players for sessions to come. Either way, know your player and know your game. The GM sets the tone, and never forget after everything else it is your world. The players just happen to live there, so make sure its a world in which they enjoying living in.
(Thanks to Shallazar for bringing up a point of clarification, and no you aren't a donkey sombrero.)
Show Posts