Monday, March 21, 2005
GMing: The Analysis, Part One
I've been trying to analyze my game mastering style lately -- well, really ever since the Mechamorphosis session over a week ago. For the last few years, I've mainly run pre-packaged Dungeons & Dragons adventures, which generally have an emphasis on searching dungeons, bashing monsters, stealing treasure and solving minor intellectual problems. Unfortunately, since my D&D game has been of this fairly traditional sort, the amount of storytelling and roleplaying that has happened during sessions has been slim to none.
Enter Mechamorphosis. The adventure I planned out was based on certain events taking place, the PCs dealing with those events and some rewards thrown in for roleplaying and Transformers-ish dialogue. The first session was also based largely on running things fairly fast and loose. Things didn't go so well from my perspective. The kick-off of the session was lame and seemed cobbled together with rusty nails. The session maybe improved a bit as we went along, especially during the topsy-turvy trip through the white hole a couple of hours in. I think the white hole scene was the session's high point, and that part was actually fun for me. It helped that Logan had settled into the story element and was actually helping to guide things a bit (not that the other players didn't also contribute, but the spontaneous "starboard stabilizer" remark was a big help, even though he probably didn't realize it at the time).
However, I notice from that one session that there are some GMing points that I'm rusty on. Storytelling is one. Winging it is another. My dialogue was also pretty crappy, and most of my NPCs came off (to me, anyway) as one-dimensional morons. I think I have some solutions of my own, but I'm also going through the Roleplaying Tips Weekly for some ideas, too.
Storytelling isn't something that lends itself to an easy fix. Practice and planning are pretty much the only things that will improve my storytelling. I've got a Unisystem one-shot game coming up on April 10th that I'm looking forward to. The Unisystem kind of lends itself to adventures with a strong focus on plot (or so it seems to me). That one-shot, as well as other one-shots I have planned, will give me some practice. My D&D campaign really won't give me the right kind of practice, as it's basically a huge dungeon crawl right now. I'll also admit I want to burn through combat encounters in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil fairly quickly so we can make some progress toward the climax (and I don't want it to take years to get there).
For the Unisystem one-shot, I'm also planning as much as possible without entering railroad territory (but since it's a demo adventure, it's still a little railroady). I remember when I started my D&D campaign, I read, re-read and re-read again the first adventure. I don't remember how many times I read it, but I had it almost committed to memory by the time we started to play. Running it went so smoothly that it barely seemed like work at all. That kind of planning is tough at times, especially when I'm really busy, but I know that level of planning is important for a good, smooth game.
Winging it is something I used to be very strong at. From the time I started gaming through to the end of high school (and maybe even into college), that's how I played. I made a few notes of things I wanted to happen, and then I let the players guide the campaign's focus. I wish I could say that my plan was to let the players create the focus, but the truth is I was just lazy. As a lazy GM, I learned to wing it. I think I was actually half-decent at it, but the complete lack of story eventually got to me and I started running campaigns that were more focused. Winging it dropped by the wayside.
Now I think I want my style to take the best of both worlds. Enough scripting to be comfortable, but also enough flexibility to throw out the whole evening's preparations and go with the flow. It's not going to be easy. I'm almost thinking I might look to sit in on some other groups' games to see what other GMs do. I don't mean play with another group. I mean ask to be an observer for a session or two. Both Logan and Rich play in other groups, so it would probably be worth asking if their GMs would mind me observing a session one night.
Enter Mechamorphosis. The adventure I planned out was based on certain events taking place, the PCs dealing with those events and some rewards thrown in for roleplaying and Transformers-ish dialogue. The first session was also based largely on running things fairly fast and loose. Things didn't go so well from my perspective. The kick-off of the session was lame and seemed cobbled together with rusty nails. The session maybe improved a bit as we went along, especially during the topsy-turvy trip through the white hole a couple of hours in. I think the white hole scene was the session's high point, and that part was actually fun for me. It helped that Logan had settled into the story element and was actually helping to guide things a bit (not that the other players didn't also contribute, but the spontaneous "starboard stabilizer" remark was a big help, even though he probably didn't realize it at the time).
However, I notice from that one session that there are some GMing points that I'm rusty on. Storytelling is one. Winging it is another. My dialogue was also pretty crappy, and most of my NPCs came off (to me, anyway) as one-dimensional morons. I think I have some solutions of my own, but I'm also going through the Roleplaying Tips Weekly for some ideas, too.
Storytelling isn't something that lends itself to an easy fix. Practice and planning are pretty much the only things that will improve my storytelling. I've got a Unisystem one-shot game coming up on April 10th that I'm looking forward to. The Unisystem kind of lends itself to adventures with a strong focus on plot (or so it seems to me). That one-shot, as well as other one-shots I have planned, will give me some practice. My D&D campaign really won't give me the right kind of practice, as it's basically a huge dungeon crawl right now. I'll also admit I want to burn through combat encounters in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil fairly quickly so we can make some progress toward the climax (and I don't want it to take years to get there).
For the Unisystem one-shot, I'm also planning as much as possible without entering railroad territory (but since it's a demo adventure, it's still a little railroady). I remember when I started my D&D campaign, I read, re-read and re-read again the first adventure. I don't remember how many times I read it, but I had it almost committed to memory by the time we started to play. Running it went so smoothly that it barely seemed like work at all. That kind of planning is tough at times, especially when I'm really busy, but I know that level of planning is important for a good, smooth game.
Winging it is something I used to be very strong at. From the time I started gaming through to the end of high school (and maybe even into college), that's how I played. I made a few notes of things I wanted to happen, and then I let the players guide the campaign's focus. I wish I could say that my plan was to let the players create the focus, but the truth is I was just lazy. As a lazy GM, I learned to wing it. I think I was actually half-decent at it, but the complete lack of story eventually got to me and I started running campaigns that were more focused. Winging it dropped by the wayside.
Now I think I want my style to take the best of both worlds. Enough scripting to be comfortable, but also enough flexibility to throw out the whole evening's preparations and go with the flow. It's not going to be easy. I'm almost thinking I might look to sit in on some other groups' games to see what other GMs do. I don't mean play with another group. I mean ask to be an observer for a session or two. Both Logan and Rich play in other groups, so it would probably be worth asking if their GMs would mind me observing a session one night.
// posted by Chris @ 1:22 PM 
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