Welcome to another installment of The Gamemaster. You can read past columns in this series here.

Welcome to another installment of The Gamemaster. You can read past columns in this series here.

This week, we’re going to talk about something we all know about: the time factor. Playing an RPG is a significant time investment. We’re all adults. We’re all busy, have jobs, responsibilities. Many of us have wives, husbands, families, etc. But we’ve decided this is something we want to spend our time doing.

How do you keep a group of busy players interested in a game where you can only play once a month, sometimes less?

My first suggestion is to create a private Facebook group for your game, including only the players involved. That way, you can all work in an easy way to coordinate the time you’ll be able to play. I know it sounds simple, or obvious, but it’s a big help, but for more reasons than just scheduling.

As a GM, giving them a space where they can talk amongst just their fellow players and GM will allow you to talk to them about where they want to go and what they want to do next. If they can make a few decisions over a discussion in the facebook group a week before the next session, that saves you a lot of time in preparation for the next game. Maybe you think a specific dangling plot thread is going to be what they’re going to go after and you spend hours preparing for that, but they get to the table and want to knock off a casino instead, you’re going to know about that beforehand and be able to adjust before the game even starts.

It seems like most people are on some type of social media a lot anyway. Creating a virtual scratch pad for your game where players and characters can communicate with each other and give you an idea of what’s happening next extends the game experience into the times when you’re not playing, it keeps interest up, and it saves you time in building scenarios.

The next thing I would say, to keep things moving quickly (aside from reading my piece on pacing) is to plan on games that last only a couple of hours. It’s much, much easier to schedule a group of people for a couple of hours than those two day and night marathon sessions you may have been used to in high school or in your younger days. Sure, the game might go over by an hour, two, or three, or what have you, but it’ll be the choice of the players based on the amount of fun they’re having there, not the external pressures and grinding of daily life.

The other thing is to be patient. I haven’t played in my world in more than a month. I was out of town every time everyone else could play during the month of February and we simply couldn’t get it to work. But persistence was key. I’ve offered to mangle my schedule in a hundred different ways to accomodate the players because two or three hours, in the grand scheme of things, is really not that much to spare. I spend that much time in a week spinning my wheels on Facebook and Twitter, trying to motivate myself to get to work. Why not forgo most of that and dedicate it to a game?

If you’re good at pacing your game and leave your players wanting more, then keep them interested and talking about it between the sessions, you’ll be able to jump back in, even after a month or two, and no one will feel like they’ve missed anything.

After all: they’ll be too busy having fun.

Be sure to check out other columns in the Gamemaster series!

I’ve been writing this column for over two months now (read past installments here) and I’ve been doing my best to document my journey to be a better GM, starting as a complete neophyte. In many of the comments I’ve read about this column, there is a common refrain I see that’s a little disheartening.

Many reading this space see what I’ve done and decry me for being an over-controlling game master, interested in my story over the enjoyment of the players. I’m a helicopter DM, hovering over my players every decision and making the game not fun at all. They’d never enjoy a game I ran.

None of this is true, and I wonder how much fun readers so quick to judge could have in a game.

The thing I’ve been trying to get across through the entirety of my column is that an RPG is a collaborative mode of storytelling for a group of people. Sure, I set the scene and determine what challenges the players come up against as a consequence of their actions, but they drive the story. But I’d be a terrible GM and a terrible storyteller if things weren’t going on in the background. How terrible a villain would Palpatine be if he waited to be in view of the heroes every time he wanted to set his machinations into motion? That would be downright mustache twirling.

When you’re a GM, you need to make sure you do two things: the first is deliver an experience the players want. If the players want you to write their backstories for them so they can be a more cohesive part of this world, give it a try. If they have a complaint about not having enough money, you need to try something different. If they want to derail all of your plans, role play past all of the battles you set up without a fight and do something else, you need to roll with that punch. They have their reasons for all of it. But as long as you can deliver a fun experience for them so that they don’t feel like the time they spend in your world isn’t wasted, you’re doing it right, no matter how differently you may be doing things from others who run games.

Which is what leads me to the thrust of this article: Try New Things.

There’s a clever acronym and a joke about throwing dynamite into your game to spice it up in there somewhere, but we’ll just skip that and move on to the meat of it. You need to try new things. Come at things from a different direction than they’ve ever seen. Respond to their desires and give them something that might fulfill them, but attach a cost to it.

No one likes to play the same thing over and over and over again. No one.

You can’t keep this game interesting just by endlessly trolling deeper and deeper into a dungeon with no end in sight and with monsters that just happen to match the challenge levels of the players descending. You need to have a mix of challenges, you need to listen to your players, and try new things.

But that isn’t to say you always have to give the players what they want. You need to treat their desire as an opportunity. Players, if they’re playing their character correctly, are going to have very obvious desires. And if they have them and communicate them to you, you need to help provide an opportunity to fulfill them.

In fact I’d say never just give the players what they want. Make them earn it, but set the scene and let them chart the course. If they bite on your story hooks, great. If they don’t, come at them from a different direction after they step out on their own path.

Adapt.

And work with your players to give them the experience they want. Don’t balk at them asking for something if it’s not usually done. I’m aware that the GM rarely writes character backgrounds for characters, and many people think it’s sacrilegious, but this group had a professional novelist GMing who had created a world from the ground up for them and wanted to play in it with character that fit together cohesively and sprang from my brain. That in itself is a bit of a challenge for them, a new challenge. It’s something new for them to take on.

It wasn’t me being a dick. It was them having the balls to want to try something new.

Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have such adventurous players. They’re enjoying it immensely.  I’m enjoying it immensely. How could that choice have been wrong then?

It’s not. There is no wrong answer when it comes to roleplaying games. Only consequences of actions. That’s what I love so much about it.

So, until next week, be sure to check out other columns in the Gamemaster series!

Welcome to another edition of The Gamemaster. If you’re a fan of gamemastering RPGs, be sure to check out our previous installments of the column. For those who are just catching up: a few months ago I started GMing a Pathfinder campaign (two actually). It’s my first experience roleplaying in 15 years and I’m finding I quite like it. I’m taking readers through my processes and journey toward being a better GM (or Dungeon Master, if you prefer).

I’d like today to discuss a problem I had that may or may not be unique.

You see, since I’m a writer, I gave up video games to help afford me the time I needed to write. It was a sacrifice I had to make to get things done. And it wasn’t that I wanted to give up board games, too, it just didn’t come up as often. I allowed myself one exception: when I was spending time with my kids and that’s what they wanted to do.

Well, I had no idea how much they were going to enjoy RPGs. We started with HeroQuest and BattleMasters, then moved to games like Descent.

When we made the leap to Pathfinder, I was a bit perplexed how I’d cross things over with my son. I knew he wanted to play, but I wondered how difficult it would be to play a game with a group of adults and a 10 year old. Would they find that he took them out of the game? Would he break character and truly get the concepts of playing a part?

I had to think of a way to make him an asset rather than a liability. I had no doubt that he’d get the mechanics of the game, and understand his abilities and which dice to roll when. He’s sharp and the math would be easy for him. The role-playing part was the only thing I was concerned about. Kids that age have a hard enough time figuring out who they are for themselves, let alone playing a part.

But I think I came up with a way to keep him consistently in character and it’s a joy to play with him. He adds a humour and a way of thinking to the game that is wonderfully out of left field.

Basically, what it came down to was determining his style of play and crafting a character’s personality and backstory to fit that, in a way that he’d be able to contribute his own unique way of thinking and have it be in line with his character in game.

After playing many, many HeroQuest adventures with him, it was easy to know what sort of character he would be. He was always the tank because he’d rush into battle, but the second the prospect of treasure or shiny objects presented themselves to him, he’d fly off on his own to obtain it.

And thus, the drunken, treasure seeking, fighter of a dwarf named Dodger Blackaxe was born.

Here’s a the backstory he and I brainstormed together to give his character flavor:

As a dwarven fighter, Dodger Blackaxe certainly earned his given name. In the lands to the North of St. Argon, he earned a reputation as a bodyguard and guide for all manner of expeditions into the caves and dark places of the Agna Mounts (or the Mountains of St. Michael as the human-folk call them.) But one too many times did he go on adventures drunk, distracted by the allure of treasure, and allowed his clients to become wounded or, in worse cases, killed.

After his reputation was ruined beyond repair and no one would hire him for any job and the name “Dodger” was synonymous with failure and the purposeful sabotage of a mission, he decided to head south and seek his fortune traveling along the coast. Perhaps, he thought, he could turn a new leaf in the world of men.

When he found himself enamored with the city of Argonan, the capitol of St. Argon and worked hard to find a place to accept him and his unique set of abilities but he couldn’t find one. Soon, he found himself on the steps of a temple, down and out, begging for help. Persea, a healing cleric at The Monastery of St. Alandra took him in, seeing right through his “desire” to convert to their religion. She knew full well he was after room, board, and booze, but took him in anyway.

When the revolution came and the monasteries and temples were being destroyed and the holy people and magic users were being killed, he vowed to help Persea escape with her life. After disguising her as a refuge and helping her get out of the city as a refugee (as well as an obnoxious gnome that found herself under the protection of Persea), he took it upon himself to lead them to the free city of St. Sebastian and provide for their further protection as long as they should need.

Obviously, Persea (and the gnome) are other player characters in the game and it was important for them all to have that connection. The first session began on the refugee trail as they escaped the city. And I printed out a copy of this and handed it to my boy. He referred to it constantly for our first few sessions, but now has it memorized.

In fact, with the help of the detailed background I’d printed out for him, he’s even started telling the story of the campaign in journal format from Dodger Blackaxe’s perspective.

But the way this story was crafted, it gives him room to match his play style exactly, but also allows him to mature as a player away from the drunken treasure seeking. As he matures, so too will his character, adding a realistic flavor for the other players.

And let’s be honest, it works well for me that any time things stagnate, a former client he’d wronged can come back for revenge.

We’re thinking about starting a Star Wars RPG and I’ve figured out exactly how I’ll work him into that as well. I’m in love with the idea of a game revolving around a Jedi and their Padawan on the run during the dark times. Casting my son as the Padawan would give him an age appropriate character and a veteran player could be cast as the master, acting as a mentor to both my son and his character. It will work out beautifully if we ever start that game.

My point with this week’s column is this: don’t be afraid to do the extra work to accomodate a younger player, especially if they’re your kids. For one, it’s great bonding time and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Secondly, it’s incredibly creative. Thirdly, because his character is crafted to match his personality so well, he adds such a fun dynamic to the group. Lastly, don’t be afraid to mix a kid like that into a group of seasoned players. They’ll be a seasoned player on their own in no time.

So, until next week, be sure to check out other columns in the Gamemaster series!

Welcome to another edition of The Gamemaster. If you’re a fan of gamemastering RPGs, be sure to check out our previous installments of the column. For those who are just catching up: a few months ago I started GMing a Pathfinder campaign (two actually). It’s my first experience roleplaying in 15 years and I’m finding I quite like it. I’m taking readers through my processes and journey toward being a better GM (or Dungeon Master, if you prefer).

This week, I’d love to talk about reading.

There is a lot of reading that needs to be done for a roleplaying game. And to be honest, I’ve been going a little nuts with the books I’ve been buying to read, both as inspiration and as supplements so I can learn the rules better and better flesh out the world in which my players reside.

Since the world is one of my own creation, it’s important to know what to think about, which is why I’ve found Pathfinder’s GameMastery Guide. The book is incredibly well written and really forces you to think about the choices you’re making as a game referee. It talks about things in the abstract, and more often than not just reminds you to think about things rather than tell you how they absolutely have to be. Chapters about world-creation, city structures, and even GMing techniques have been incredibly helpful and easily adapted into my game. I found it much more useful than the Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guides for 3.5 that I’ve read, which tend to air much more on rules and tend to be a little more focused on the pedantics of that specific world. The Pathfinder book seemed more interested in helping me adapt what was best for my game.

At a convention recently, I picked up a copy of the Gary Gygax written Advanced Dungeons and Dragon’s DM Guide and found that it had some tasty food for thought that I’m definitely incorporating into my campaigns, but it’s fascinating how each writer of these guides has a different take on the art of GMing. The Pathfinder model seems the most interested in helping me tell a collaborative story for the most amount of fun. Gygax seemed more interested in forcing me to count every single day of the year, mark every moment of the seasons, and weigh every ounce of equipment my character might be carrying. It functions, and carries many fantastic ideas, but it wasn’t as compatible with what I’m learning to be is “my style.”

Another great book I’ve spent a lot of time with is the Pathfinder NPC Codex. It’s saved me a lot of time in creating stat blocks for important NPCs, but peppered throughout the stats of each character are helpful hints and ideas from the writers about how characters could be used. Though I haven’t used any specific idea from these, reading the book has sparked untold embers in my storytelling imagination to discover what path I’m leading my characters down. It’s a very excellent book and I highly recommend it.

Perhaps the book I’ve spent the most time with is one written by a friend of mine, who seemed at least slightly embarrassed that I asked him to sign it at the convention we were both guests at over the weekend. Aaron Allston’s Dungeon Master’s Design Kit contains a story generator that I’d never use the way it was intended, but have combed through meticulously for its brilliance. The kit contains three books and the third is by far the best. It is a booklet that randomly allows you to generate circumstances and plot twists for your games and assemble an entire campaign with the roll of dice. But reading through each possibility a story turn can take that Aaron has so cleverly concocted. Aaron is a master storyteller and there is probably no better place to find inspiration to take your game. And don’t limit yourself to his RPG supplements. He’s just come out with a digital eBook on plotting stories and reading through it is pure creative fodder for writers, doing double-duty for those of us percolating campaign scenarios as well. Look for it on his website.

Which brings me to my next point: you’re going to be able to find inspiration for your game everywhere. It might completely take over your brain, but that’s half the joy, right? Go back and constantly re-read the books you have. Go through the Bestiaries and Monster Manuals constantly, between every session, and think of ways to spice up your campaigns in a logical fashion that makes sense for the story. Go through fantasy books and movies and think to yourself about how you can make your game just as exciting. Think about how you can invest your player characters into the story. You might think that once you’ve been through those books you don’t need to again, but your characters are constantly changing and evolving as they gain experience and something on one reading pass that seems like it wouldn’t fit might be exactly the right thing you’re looking for the next time.

I suppose the whole point of this column, other than direct you to some of the books that have provided me with the most creative nourishment to remains excited about my campaign’s story, is to tell you to keep revisiting the material in between sessions. If you keep reading and reading and reading and reading, you’ll unlock new ideas. Just be sure to write them all down. Even if you can’t use an idea soon, building up to it will make it all the more satisfying when it comes about.

I’ve laid the seeds for so many future adventures, I can’t even tell you how excited I am to have some of them pay off. And the only reason I’ve gotten this far is familiarizing myself with the material and then refamiliarizing myself with it. And the books above have been the most helpful, to me at least.

So, until next week, be sure to check out other columns in the Gamemaster series!

Welcome to another installment of The Gamemaster, where I take you through the things I’m doing in my Pathfinder campaign. As a writer and a new GM, I’ve been coming at things from a slightly different angle and have been encouraged to put these things down in hopes that they might inspire you in your games.

I’d like to talk today about throwing curve balls to the players.

I can see how easy it is to catch yourself in the pattern of a rut. Benevolent NPC has a job or mission, players take the mission, come back for reward, NPC has new mission. It’s easy, it makes sense, and once they’ve established a relationship with that NPC the natural inclination is to stick with him. But then the game gets competitive. Thankfully, I haven’t fallen into this sort of thing (which isn’t to say I won’t, but I don’t see it likely.) Part of it comes from my knack for saying things without thinking about them, simply because it will make a better story.

For instance, in one of my games, the players are part of a resistance cell in a massive city, working to establish a rebellion in the early days after a coup in the kingdom by a man in league with forces of the Underworld. There’s an alchemist they’ve been dealing with who has set them up on a mission or two and helping them craft their resistance cell. At the end of the last session, as they were coming back to report to him, I blurted something that seemed to be a natural complication to a story. “He’s not there.”

I had no idea why he wasn’t there. I simply said it. When they started asking questions of those who might now, my mind raced quickly to come up with the reason he would have left. “You were gone for so long, he went out after you.”

Has something terrible happened? Is this something for the characters to worry about?

They aren’t sure, because it happened right at the end of the session and gives me a chance to work out if this is something sinister or not. But the instincts of story told me that having them come back and having him just be there, waiting for them, as though time stopped while they were gone, would be bad storytelling. This way is much more interesting and gives me more time to work out what the complications really are.

This goes both ways, too. My players have thrown me curve balls that had my head scratching, but the best I can do is roll with it. At the end of our first session, every single one of them left behind the goal of their mission and an enemy mid-fight to chase another enemy with a map through a portal to parts unknown. Fortunately, it was the last encounter of the game and it gave me a good couple of weeks to figure out what the hell was in the portal, but in either case, I think the game was better because it took natural turns that made the story interesting and satisfied the characters.

So, my advice is this: Don’t be afraid to blurt things you don’t have a plan for as long as you think it would make a better story and a more fun situation for the characters. That’s the great thing about writing and the same is true for roleplaying: you have to put characters through the most horrible things so that we can see what they are made of. How boring would Peter Parker be if his life wasn’t so overly complicated on every level? Every time he came home or found himself coming to rest he would discover that things were far worse than he could have ever imagined.

Try to keep your characters on their toes in the same way. You can’t plan every complication and plot twist, sometimes, they just have to be blurted without much thought.

I think everyone will enjoy the game better that way. And if you throw these curve balls at your players right at the end of the session, it keeps the game percolating in their brain. Like reading a good story and coming to a cliffhanger, they’ll want to keep playing just to see what’s going to happens next. And that’s good for everybody.

Be sure to check out other columns in the Gamemaster series!

Welcome to another edition of The Gamemaster. For those who may be new, my brief explanation: I’m new to the world of game (or dungeon) mastering. I hadn’t played any RPGs in 15 years at least and am now getting back into it. I’ve begun a campaign in a setting of my own creation using the Pathfinder rules.

This column is a way for me to explore what I’m doing, what’s working, what’s not working, what I can do better, and I hope it will be of interest to others as well.

Today, I’d like to talk about the importance of pacing.

Pacing is something that’s very hard in any medium, but throw seven people in a room together and try to get a cinematic feel out of things and you’re going to need a lot of practice. The Pathfinder books often refer to that feeling you’re working to capture as “cinematic” and I think that’s the perfect word.

The beginning of a session gives you a little bit of lead time to work with, where players are extra focused and willing to give you the benefit of the doubt to build to a climax. The same is true in a movie. More often than not, the first act in a movie is watching the main characters acclimate to their environment and the problem before them. They’re given the hook and they act from there. Movie viewers (like players) will grant that leeway as long as the information they’re being presented with is going to pay off later.

Then, things need to happen. That hook needs to pay off. It needs to lead somewhere. And once you’re there, the characters have to make more choices, and those choices have to have consequences. Let them try anything, but their plans shouldn’t always work.

But you don’t always have to start slow. The first game I GMd, I dropped the characters right in the middle of a chase, with them on the run. It kept the intrigue up. Then the middle part was catching up with the story. It works. The best stories always start with those experiencing the story asking questions and trying to catch up, putting the pieces together. You need to keep that in mind.

As you pace a game, the action needs to rise. The encounters need to grow bigger and more needs to be at stake as the game goes on.

But that doesn’t just mean, encounter number one is a couple of easy monsters, encounter number two is a couple of medium monsters, and encounter number three is a dragon. You need to pace the encounters, make them appropriate for the story, and work quickly to make the players feel the time crunch. Make them feel like time is running out for them.

When you’re running a chase sequence, make them feel like they’re on the run. Make sure you know enough about the stats of things involved so you’re able to make very quick actions and decisions and keep the pace up. Stand up. Talk faster. Use shorter sentences. You’re setting the pace for the game, you’re setting the mood. You need to make them feel it.

They’ll never feel it if there’s nothing at stake in the game besides treasure that might be had, and they’ll never feel it if you’re constantly skimming through the book for a rule or a stat block or something else. You need to have every possibility prepared, and come up with contingency plans in case things go completely off the rails. If you’ve got a bad guy they’re facing off against, for example a corrupt village mayor, establish all the things that character would have at his disposal. The city guards. The night watch. A wizard in his employ. A rogue to pick their pockets. A troll in the dungeon. And what places would he be located? His house. The town hall. The brothel he frequents. Make up a list of all of these assets and prepare stat blocks for all of them. That way, no matter what the players throw at you, the overarching story details can stay the same, you can throw whatever obstacle the situation the players call for at them quickly, and you aren’t searching through tons of books. It helps you to think about this character a lot, too. How would this guy react if his brute squad was vanquished and they used his favorite wench as a spy? Would he have them followed? Or send the wizard? Would he have the town guards come to arrest them?

There’s going to be a large degree of thinking on your feet, but if you have all of the tools for this character prepared, all the stat blocks ready, and all the possible locations mapped out, you’re going to be able to keep the pacing up. And don’t hesitate to ask them between sessions what they expect they might do during the next session. If they can talk amongst themselves online or where ever with you in view about their next steps and their goals for the next session, that gives you a huge head start in knowing what to prepare.

Everyone is there to have fun. No one wants to sit around and watch you flip through a rule book. That’s not to say you’re not allowed to. Inevitably the need to consult the books will come up. And inevitably the players will shatter your plans and you’ll need a minute to collect your thoughts and keep things moving forward. But you need to keep the action rising and everything moving forward.

That means you’ll also have to juggle all the players and what they want to do and keep them all engaged. If your party is split between rooms, run all the battles simultaneously on the same initiative rolls. Or run one situation for two rounds and then switch back to the other situation. But most importantly, make sure the players are all playing!

Then, for the final encounter, after they’ve been bruised and battered, physically and emotionally, from the trials that have preceded them, the climax of the game should be an encounter or a puzzle that is the biggest and the best of the session, with by far the most at stake. The first two acts (to borrow a writing term) should be in pursuit of their goal, the last act or encounter should be them taking the steps to achieve or fail at it. Take that corrupt mayor once more. If their goal is to topple him in one one session, the first act should offer the hook and an encounter (if any) that will give clues to the players about the different ways they can approach the problem. Perhaps they find out about the wench, or they learn where his house is, or they capture a guard and beat info out of him, or they take hostages, or whatever. This first problem will lead them to the second place. Perhaps it’s the brothel where the bouncers don’t want a disturbance, but if they make it through that, they’ll have the last key to at least find the mayor and confront him.

It’s rising action leading to a confrontation. How the confrontation goes and what happens next session is entirely up to them, though. Then, for the next session, you have to start all over again.

As the gamemaster, you’re also the storyteller. You need to be receptive to the choices they make and the goals they have, adapt what you’ve prepared to meet their actions, and do it in a fluid way that makes them feel as though they couldn’t have done it any other way and you were prepared for all of it.

Otherwise, all you’re doing is sitting around watching a dude flip through a bestiary or NPC Codex for stats for four hours and that’s not fun for anybody.

Be sure to check out other columns in the Gamemaster series!

Welcome to another edition of The Gamemaster. For those who may be new, my brief explanation: I’m new to the world of game (or dungeon) mastering. I hadn’t played any RPGs in 15 years at least and am now getting back into it. I’ve begun a campaign in a setting of my own creation using the Pathfinder rules.

This column is a way for me to explore what I’m doing, what’s working, what’s not working, what I can do better, and I hope it will be of interest to others as well.

Today, I’d like to talk about the importance of taking notes and providing a continuity.

I know many GMs like to “just wing it.” I hear and read both wonderful things about them and horror stories. Personally, I’m not the sort who could just wing it. Everything for me in the world has a reason and I’ll explore that reason in writing before the game even starts. Before our first session, I wrote a 250 word piece on the world, and in concert with the players, 200-300 about each character. Then I made a list of cities and towns. I drew a map of the kingdom and the spatial relationship between the towns and the world. Then I made a massive list of names. Each lord in a keep in the kingdom has a name. Major generals they might encounter. Mayors. Officials. Police. Tavern keepers. I just made lists of names that fit into the tapestry of the world.

I keep that list with me when I’m GMing because it’s so much more engaging to have a name right there, ready for your NPC, than talk to the players about “this guy” or “that girl” or whatever.

But it’s important to remember that at this bar, the bartender was named Bertram instead of Roderick. Not because the characters care, per se, but if that remains consistent throughout the campaign, then maybe they will care. Maybe that barkeep, who’s character and name have been consistent will play a larger part in the world. Perhaps after talking to him a few times and interacting with him, getting good information, asking about his kids, etc. they come into the bar and he’s gone, having been abducted by the soldiers while the heroes were on their last adventure?

Do you think characters would be more or less invested in the plight of that character if I maintained him as a consistent personality through their many encounters with him?

For my money, I write up and prepare just about everything I can think of that the characters might decide to do (along with a few things I can’t even imagine them doing) in the next game beforehand. I write down things that are going on in the world around them, and I prepare statblocks, dungeons, and other encounters they might come across. One thing I’ve learned, too, is that you can multi-purpose this stuff. If I build a dungeon of the Orc overlord and they decide to go attack the Ratfolk instead, well, they coincidentally have the dungeon layout I designed for the Orcs.

After each session, I try to keep detailed notes and every scrap of paper and map layout I can from the session. In those notes, I recount which characters did what (at least the major actions, anyway), I put down the names and demeanors and personalities of all the NPCs they encountered, I put down what the characters seemed to think they were headed, and where the session ended. It gives me a reference document that allows me to go back to any session we’ve played and know what went on, who said what to whom, and I can look back to old story hooks I might have left that haven’t yet been followed up on.

I’m not sure if this is common practice for GMs. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I know it’s a lot of work but it’s so incredibly fun for me as a writer that I can’t imagine others wouldn’t do the same.

But what this does is it establishes a world of continuity for the players so they feel as though they’re coming back to a specific world every session as opposed to “Generic Dungeon Crawling Game #4.” I’ve had one player tell me that because of the way I’ve been telling the story, and the way his character is, he spends most of his free time thinking about my game and the story and the world that we’ve created together.

Another player got so into the story, he created the most amazing map of the kingdom and brought it to our last session:

 It’s been the most amazing experience to watch the players, in character, explain to each other what they know of the world and use the map as a tool to share that information.

And if I hadn’t made my cheesy, colored pencil map in the first place to keep things consistent and written down in my notes the name of every town and what was where, we wouldn’t have had this.

And each of those cities on the map have, at the very least, a loyalty and the name of the lord of the keep. For the cities we’ve been playing in, they’re much more fleshed out. But when it seems likely they’ll head to another city, then I’ll worry about figuring out what’s there. And once that’s been done, that’s it. It’ll make it into my notes and every time they come back the same things will be there…

…or at least the smoking remains of the same things…

Be sure to check out other columns in the Gamemaster series!

Welcome to the third installment of The Gamemaster. This is where I’ve been documenting my sojourn back into gaming as a first time GM in the game of Pathfinder. To catch up on the series, go ahead and check this out, but they are by no means necessary to enjoy this column, but you may well find them informative. The first installment was about getting back in the swing of things and the second was about character back stories.

Today, I want to talk about the two different “first sessions” I ran and offer some perspective on how I’d do it again if I could.

In the very first session I played, I struggled to find a starting point that made sense. But I’d gone over all of the backstories with the players, collaborating on that process so I knew exactly why each character was connected. And I knew they were on a refugee trail from one city in the kingdom that had fallen to the enemy to a free city still loyal to the missing King. But walking along a road toward another city isn’t all that exciting. My hope was that the players would roleplay with each other, getting to know their characters. This is the point at which they’d been thrown in together. Two characters were already part of a group that wanted to become the resistance and the others had globbed onto the group because they’d helped get them out of the city.

When it became apparent they weren’t exactly interested in roleplaying and the opening scene stagnated, I improvised.

Scouts of the enemy, running the opposite direction with a message, arrived.

A battle ensued and it set the pace for the rest of the session for the players. Everything went smoothly from there, but I knew that their characters interacting with each other was less important to them than interacting with me, with non-player characters, and the battle in front of them.

It was certainly not what I expected, but as I said before, this group was a lot more interested in combat as a strategy game than roleplaying. But having warmed them up with the combat, they warmed up to the roleplaying later in the session and it got to be great fun.

Word spread among a couple of the players after that and an entirely different group heard about my game and wanted me to GM another campaign with them. I agreed and I set out to carve out a completely different piece of the world I created for these new characters to inhabit. They figured out what sort of characters they wanted to play, we collaborated on the backgrounds of the characters and we were ready to play.

That’s when I asked if I could do something a little different. In the last first session I played, a battle was required to bring the players and their characters together and I wanted to skip that awkward bit at the beginning of the first session of this game.

I asked the players if they minded if I started them mid-encounter.

If you were to write a great opening hook to a book, you’d never start with the characters sitting around, waiting for adventure to call, you’d start it mid-adventure. Look at Star Wars. Sure it was the beginning of the adventure for Luke, but the opening shots were a chase between Vader and Leia with little context. She had the plans he was looking for, he captured her.

If they would indulge me, I’d set the scene for them and begin the session in mid-chase. Since the story we’d come up with for all the characters is that they were all reluctantly working together and barely knew each other, it would give them a chance to do that “getting to know you” roleplaying right in the thick of it from the get go.

Now, this second group is much more dedicated to the roleplaying aspects every bit as much as they are the combat, but combining it into a slightly challenging chase encounter from the first moments allowed them to really feel it. I had the map ready, the encounter set up, their characters ready to go. We didn’t spin our wheels at all. I explained they were carrying the body of a beaten and tortured member of the resistance that they’d rescued from the enemy and we’re escaping in the sewers back to their safe-haven. There were a number of guards chasing them, less than a hundred feet away, and unknown dangers ahead.

The difference in experience from the first game to the second was quantifiable. It made me realize how important two things were. First, players need a hook every bit as much as you do. Secondly, it emphasized how important preparation was. If you’re there, ready to go from the start, and you aren’t just spinning your wheels trying to guide them into the first part of the game, it sets the pace for the rest of the evening.

That’s something I’m still working on, though. Coming from a screenwriting and novelist background, pacing is very important to me, and starting with a bang is important, and I didn’t want to do it with them waking up unconscious in a new environment wondering how they got there. It’s a bit cliched, and they’d find ways to make that happen for themselves later.

So, think about that for your next session. Hopefully it helps you think of things in a different way that will make your game better.

Welcome to another installment of The Gamemaster. Last week we talked about getting back into the swing of things after an absence in play. This time, we’ll talk about setting up a backstory for your new game.

The more I read from others who run games, it seems like going into your first game having created your own world and scenario is a big no-no. I can see why: it’s easy to get carried away and the more rigidly you plan your world, the less likely you are to be flexible when the players encounter something you hadn’t planned on. The more you work on it, the more it becomes your baby, and the more your players alter its features, the less it resembles the thing you fell in love with.

I get it.

It makes perfect sense.

But I’m a writer. I couldn’t just play in another sandbox. I wanted to create my own world for a number of reasons. First is that I came up with all the ideas for these roleplaying scenarios as stories I wanted to tell in a serial format anyway. One of my weaknesses as a writer is thinking on that massive epic scale that is required for fantasy storytelling. The genre has been seducing me to dabble in it for a while, but I hadn’t cracked the code until I started thinking about the story in smaller chunks, like you’d experience in an RPG. So, the Pathfinder rules were a perfect start, but I needed something I could make my own, but not so detailed that I would either bore the players telling them about all this rich history. I needed to come up with just enough for the world to feel lived in, but not enough that things felt too strict.

I set out to create a single kingdom in turmoil. I mapped the Kingdom of St. Argon and described the political situation that is causing all the strife they’re reacting to. It instantly gave me something to hang the story on and add an instant layer of intrigue. But they need to be able to change it and I need to let it morph into something more detailed as they explore, and they are every bit a part of that exploration.

The other thing that was very important for me was tying the players together before we started playing so we could jump right into the game. I was never a fan of the school of fantasy roleplaying where six guys show up in a bar and decide to go questing together. I always wanted to know what drew the characters together. And since I’m selfishly going to be writing these stories, I asked all the players if they minded if I wrote backstories for the characters.

I gave them some minor restrictions in classes and races they could choose, but not so restrictive that they felt they were being railroaded into a decision. In fact, when they asked about classes that had been “restricted” I came back to them, explained the world, told them they were more than welcome to make that choice, but that the game might be a little harder for them at the early stages. Some of them nibbled at the challenge, others went with the original restrictions.

Once I had the races and classes of every character playing, I set out to write a few hundred words about each character and how they got to be at the starting point of our game. As a writer, it’s something I’d need to know before I wrote anything in the world anyway, but it also gives me a fallback position if I run out of ideas for adventures (which doesn’t even seem likely at the moment.) Hidden inside each characters background are multiple story hooks that could be followed up on at a moments notice. Missing siblings. Duties from a past obligation. Running from reputations. Dead loved ones needing avenging. Character motivations that shape them. What their job was before being called to adventure, etc.

Before the first session began, I sent the character backgrounds to each player to make sure they would be able to capably roleplay the character, and it fit with their vision for the character and how they wanted to play. (See! Be flexible!) Sure, some tweaks needed to be made here and there, but, for the most part, this got them all really excited to play. They wanted to inhabit this world every bit as much as I wanted to create it.

I had an advantage in that most of the players I’ve been playing with don’t usually focus so much on the story aspect. Pathfinder (and most RPGs they play) had become more of a tabletop strategy combat game. I get the feeling that with many of the seasoned players in my campaign, they’d almost forgotten what the feeling of being invested in a story was like.

And I can’t emphasize how good it feels knowing that I have story hooks laying in wait in the backstories that I can fall back on if I ever need to. It adds a layer of confidence to my playing, and it allows me to buy time if they head off into an unexpected direction that I still need even 10 minutes of prep for.

Here’s one more bit of advice with the character backgrounds: give them a secret that the others don’t necessarily know. Give them things to keep to themselves. Let them dole out the information to the other characters as they see fit. If one of them wants everyone to know about all the wrongs they’ve done, or the detailed history of their family, or whatever, that information is theirs to do with it what they will. I believe it makes them feel in control of the character and universe and invests them better.

This is absolutely something that will need to be negotiated with your players. As I said last week, your biggest job is setting the scene. Coming up with an engaging backstory, for the world and your characters, is the single best tool you can give yourself. If your players are interested in the world and their characters before the first game even starts, imagine how much they’ll love it three sessions in.

My players told other players about the game, and they somehow convinced me to run a second game in the same world with a different set of players and characters. So I started all over again. Since I had a map and a world, I could create a game with a totally different flavor, but still working on the overarching story of the kingdom and its strife.

As I get the first part of the serial story written as prose, I’ll release it with all of the backstory used to start running the first sessions, with all the monsters, maps, and stat-blocks I came up with. Hopefully I won’t be the only one to fall in love with the plight of St. Argon and the growing rebellion against the usurper.

Be sure to check out other articles in The Gamemaster series.