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!