~Beyond the Border~ > Rumia's Party Games

On storytelling, gamemastering, and the approaches thereto

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Fightest: The following section stems from a pet peeve of mine, and I would heartily recommend that everyone take the following in: Tools of the Trade: In Media Res. Literally meaning in the middle of events, In Media Res is a literary device that describes how a narrative begins. Specifically, such a narrative always begins in the middle of the action, explaining very little about the setup of this action, how its participants got there, what initiated it and what's even at stake. In this manner, In Media Res makes a few sacrifices in the short term to achieve something very important in the long term - pulling in the audience from the extreme get-go, only letting go when the author chooses to. The sacrifices are ultimately minor, as there are plenty of other devices that can be used to establish context - flashbacks and allusions are two such devices. Although mostly used for noninteractive fiction, there is no reason In Media Res cannot be used for an RPG. An exciting scene is an exciting scene, whether it's a tense courtroom drama or a ship-to-ship firefight, and it even gives the players opportunity to fill in the details for themselves, if you encourage them to, stimulating group interaction. In this case example, the PCs are holding off a boarding action from a pirate vessel, with the session starting just as the grappling hooks take hold. Players can help the GM by doing their own little flashbacks mid-action, whether it is to get the Stunt bonus for extra dice rolled in Exalted by describing them guiding the two ships into some dangerous reefs (what reefs? the GM didn't put them in, but they're there now!), or even to bring in some hitherto unrevealed allies or abilities in Spirit of the Century (the gambler who had just recently won half the crew's pay is ready to waive the debt if they help him with his crazy plan...). The scene comes together with gusto, everyone is involved, and adrenaline gets pumping to get the session to a dynamic and exciting start. Of course, In Media Res is highly artificial, and should be used sparingly in the middle of stories, but there is little better you can do than to start a whole new chapter on a surprise encounter with a nemesis, or a heated argument, or a fast-paced chase on horseback. And, of course, there is nothing stopping you from, after the scene is finished, from going, "several hours earlier..." It is an obvious railroad, but the masterful GM with confident and trusting players can make this setup work to an unparalleled degree of success. As such, this is my personal comment to everyone who starts a Quest on this forum. If I ever see a game start with > You awaken in (foo) covered in (foo). > You are (a man/a loli/a dog/a robot/etc.). > There is nobody around save for some (machines/scenery/buildings/etc.). > Your memories are hazy. > What do? I will personally kill a kitten.

Fightest: To actually run a game a GM needs a few things: a story in a setting, a system, some players and all those other abilities I've been talking about upthread. I will have a separate section to talk about the first three: So You Want To Run A Game: Story The first game of a first-time GM usually starts off with a thought process that goes roughly like so: "I have recently found out about this one pen-and-paper RPG (whether through purchasing a sourcebook or being a player in a game). I have some interesting ideas, so I'll get together some players, throw together some sort of story to connect these ideas together, and make a game out of it." Although it would be an exaggeration to say that this is a recipe for disaster, it is certainly not a very good start, as the first-time GM will often run into a brick wall when constructing this story, unable to stitch things together to his satisfaction. The worst case here is that the GM decides to pull off a half-arsed job, ending up with disappointment on both the GM's and the players' sides. Sometimes the GM will be able to worm his way through on instinct, putting together scenes that feel right, intuiting when an enemy should appear, and when the game needs a wind-down session, but it does not do to rely on this. Fortunately, we have the shoulders of giants to stand on when we decide on how to structure a story: the Greek Three-Act Play and Campbell's Hero's Journey. I will focus on the former, as the latter is more formulaic, and, whilst a wonderful device, is not a one-size-fits-all deal. Lemma: the Plot of a game is the all-encompassing setup that causes conflicts to emerge; the Story is the narrativistic description of such a conflict. The Three Act Play is well-structured and thus easy to remember: Act One: Exposition. During the exposition the heroes and setting are introduced. We find out about their strengths and weaknesses, their business, their troubles, the people they have a relation to. During this act there may be minor conflicts, but resolution is often quick to follow, and these minor conflicts are best used to really show off the characters individually, as well as establish a group mechanic. Act One ends on a plot twist - a major change in the established status quo that turns the story into a new direction, dropping new and exciting problems onto the heroes. Example: The PCs are a team of space merchants, operating a small trading vessel that just barely manages to stay out of bankruptcy by doing risky, but rewarding runs through dangerous regions of a galactic sector. The first act would introduce us to each of the PCs through little vignettes - self-contained, one-person stories that demonstrate what that PC can do, whether it's the shady fast-talk of the salesman getting double the price on some goods, or the expert shooting of the ex-soldier holding off some small-time pirates. The PCs would then go through a few runs, where it is demonstrated how they all stick together, and how the party works to take advantage of all the PCs' abilities. At the end of this act, the GM would spring the plot twist - the PCs get ahold of some strange, allegedly extremely dangerous cargo from an unknown dealer, only to realise that there is a living person in deep cryo-hibernation inside the container! The PCs realise that they are suddenly in the middle of something much bigger than they are. Act Two: Development The plot twist sends the heroes on a dangerous and thorny path, and they must overcome many dangers that now seem to surround them. Whether they wish to find a resolution, or merely to survive, Act Two is generally the bleakest time in the heroes' lives. They must use all their wits and their established group dynamic to succeed. Dangers can be manifold, whether it be a direct danger to their lives, or a more subtle danger of corruption or temptation and the ensuing fall. Tension builds up all throughout this Act. Act two ends with another plot twist that is almost always utterly tragic, with seemingly no hope remaining for the PCs. Don't forget to actually leave a light at the end of the tunnel, though. Example: Our group of space merchants are on the run from the Galactic Government's agents, having found out that their cargo is a prototype super-soldier made through inhuman experimentation on kidnapped children. They might have a break here or there to run a mission or two, but they must now always be wary - their faces are known on every law-abiding planet. They know that the only way to clear their names would be to expose the super-soldier program, but they quickly realise through the plot twist that the seemingly-benign Government controls any media channel that they can get to with an iron fist, and is quick to quell any dissent. All throughout, personal issues plague the PCs - the ex-soldier is haunted by PTSD, the salesman is entrapped by an agent, and the captain finds that he might not have cut off ties with the mafia as well as he thought. At the end of this act, the group is split, every one of its members facing an insurmountable challenge, with the government itself hot on their heels. The session ends with a gunshot. Anyone could have died. Act Three: Resolution Despite the difficulties that the heroes have faced, they rally and fight back against their enemies. This is where the heroics really come into play, where the mettle and character of each PC is tried to its limits, but, ultimately, each one comes through, having become stronger from adversity. With the aid of unlikely allies, they strike their enemy where it hurts most and finally bring about justice, and set things as they should be. Act Three continues the tension built up in Act Two into a peak - the climax, where the major conflics occur, where heroes meet their nemeses, where the grandest battles are fought. After the climax the tension decreases, everything is resolved one way or another. At the end of this comes the denouement, the time of peace, where the heroes rest on their laurels, enjoying the change they have brought to the world and themselves, where the audience gets to come to terms with the events of the climax, and the story comes to a satisfying end. Example: The PCs come into contact with a rag-tag resistance group led covertly by a member of the Government itself, which provides them with the co-ordinates of the superhuman research facility itself, deep in the most dangerous sector of the galaxy. There they rescue the kidnapped children, and use the resistance group's black-market channels to send out video evidence of this program in action. The group defeats the agents that are after them, and the PCs individually defeat their personal demons. The Government, of course, tries its best to hush up the incident, but the people in charge of the project are cast down and replaced in a massive PR move, and are now unable to threaten our heroes, who are cleared of all official charges due to some clever negotiating on their part. The heroes return to their business, where even the most grizzled of pirates do not seem like much of a threat, and can live out their lives happily. Those readers with any pop-culture awareness will realise that I have just, approximately, described Firefly and Star Wars in the examples and the descriptions respectively, and, of course, it is my point that both have excellent storytelling (for the most part). Of course, within one major plot we will have many stories, and each one can be structured using the Three-Act Play approach. In the example of Star Wars, the events of episodes 4-6 are just one story in the plot of the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire. Let me demonstrate my point through another series of examples: Act 1: Our hero faces an Orc! The two leer at each other, exchanging insults and demonstrating their weapons. End of Act 1 the Orc charges! Act 2: The Orc is a mighty opponent, with tough hide and strong arms. Our hero is on the defensive, unable to find an opportunity to attack, lest the Orc land a fatal blow! End of Act 2 the Orc sweeps our hero off his feet, helpless against the Orc's finishing blow! Act 3: Our hero remembers his loved ones, and is invigorated with a newfound strength! He sweeps away the Orc's blow and strikes at his enemy, bringing him down! The hero takes a moment to honor his enemy and to contemplate on his own shortcomings before continuing on his journey. The shortest of stories, but still entirely within the confines of the structure provided by the Three-Act Play. What I have described above is a heroic epic, where the heroes end up winning, but it is not necessary that this happens. All a GM has to do to change it into a tragedy is to flip the moods upside-down - Act Two then becomes the Rise to Power, where everything goes the Heroes' way, where their success is assured and their victory is absolute. At the climax, everything would come crashing down around them, and the denouement would change tone to match the ensuing events. As a final point,  the GM should not be afraid to vary the length of a story, and intersperse major, epic stories with small ones that give characters more time to play around, without having to worry about the consequences of their actions too much.

Fightest: So You Want To Run A Game: System Now we get into the nitty-gritty of actually getting a game together. Most RPG sourcebooks will go on in their introductory section about how rules are what make a game, and they are completely right. However, it is up to the GM to choose which rules he follows. The system then becomes a very important choice, as it will shape how a game runs and feels for its entire duration - heroic and all-encompassing, or down-to-earth and gritty, or anything in between. In that sense, if a story and a system match each other well, the synergy will make the game all that much stronger. If they do not match, the dissonance can potentially tear the game apart (or, in rare cases, allow for an interesting deconstructionist game). In the modern age of RPGs, with the emergence of niche genres and indie developers, a wide variety of systems is available for the discerning GM. In general terms, RPG systems are loosely-defined by the genre or type of game they wish to facilitate, hence a good awareness of one's own game will allow the GM to make a quick and educated choice of system. Typical RPG genres and types are (but not limited to): - High Fantasy - intricate settings with a good degree of simulationism to explore the deeper mechanics of a fantasy world - politics, economics, trade, relations between major nations. - Sword and Sorcery - strong focus on personal or small-unit combat against immediately-dangerous foes, with exploration, dungeon-delving, and adventuring often expected. - Cyberpunk - the exploration of the human interaction with the machine, the new dangers and changes brought upon society by technological development, action often expected. - Horror - the demonstration of the weakness of one ordinary person versus a greater foe, the exploration of the drive and nature of a person as they are pushed to the utter limits of their capacity. - Pulp Adventure - over-the-top campy action, generally light-hearted, with its own genre expectations: dinosaurs, zeppelins, steampunk, British gentlemen and scrappy archaeologists, they all belong here. - Supers - great perils and awesome enemies, but those who fight against them are formidable forces in their own right, explores the question: when one man has the powers of a god, what will they do? - Urban Fantasy - a modern, recently-emerged genre, where magicians and monsters exist in the modern world, but are a close-lipped secret, where the fantastic hides just around the corner from the mundane, and only those in the know can cross the border between the two. Each of the these can be additionally modified by a few keywords: Space, Western, Heroic, Gritty, Lovecraftian, varying by applicability. In addition, very specific games exist for very specific applications, e.g All Flesh Must Be Eaten for zombie survival and Maid for... whatever it is Maid is for. Most mainstream modern systems tend to mix genres, allowing for more than one type of game to be run in them. One that somehow manages to mix all of them is known as a kitchen-sink game. There are very few of these in existence. I will go over the most common (read: those that I am familiar with) mainstream games and their systems: Fightest's note: I really welcome other experienced GMs to talk about systems that I have failed to cover here, especially the plethora of White Wolf stuff and Call of Cthulhu if possible. Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition What most of you will have been introduced to the RPG world by. A highly-complex (or, as we say in the vernacular, crunchy) game, it uses the generally widespread d20 system with a lot of modifications. It handles the progress of power from lowly peasant to epic hero quite well, and its variety of applications keeps people coming back to it. With a highly-detailed combat system and few details on anything else, it is best used for Sword and Sorcery games, and should be quickly discarded if the game being planned does not fit into that genre. Pros: Popular, lots of support and first-party material. Cons: Overly complicated, unbalanced, slow, steep learning curve with limited rewards. Fightest's note: Do not run your first game using D&D. It is a terrible idea. There are better games and systems out there. Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition The new kid on the D&D block, 4th edition is the epitome of gamist design, approaching every obstacle as something to be solved, providing methods and numbers to everything from killing a goblin to sneaking into a treasury. If possible, it is even more focused on combat than its predecessor, with as many options available, and is thus also best for approaching Sword and Sorcery, with the additional appeal to tabletop wargamers from the game's strong focus on grid-based combat. Once again uses the d20 system, with lots of modification for streamlining and ease of use. Pros: Well-designed for a specific function, balanced, clean, lots of support. Cons: Niche appeal, narrow design. Exalted 2nd Edition Intended to be the ultimate high-fantasy kitchen-sink game it nearly completely delivers: vast setting with a plethora of factions, characters, nations and locations, all waiting to be thrown into turmoil. Characters are expected to be extremely powerful players in the world, and the game promises - and, indeed, allows - a freshly-minted PC the ability to subjugate a small nation without a GM's facilitation. It is a crunchy game, rewarding a well-planned character design. With separate systems presented for as much talking people to death as well as stabbing them, whether by yourself or with a million-strong army, Exalted is a strongly versatile game with a few glaring flaws stemming from its World of Darkness roots. Pros: Well-crafted setting, a feeling of power for the players, versatile. Cons: Glaring and unexpected issues, potentially gamebreaking. Hard to run for a novice GM. GURPS: 4th edition Designed from the start to be ultimately modular, GURPS approaches games from a systematic point of view, presenting accurate data from which a GM can construct his own world. Exhaustive detail is provided on every aspect, whether it be the damage of a sword based on its component materials and its weight, the acceleration of a rocket related to thruster capacity and fuel type, or the range of a fireball based on its specific potency, the arc of its flight and the mystic energies in the area. Fortunately, a lot of pre-prepared materials are also available in the form of additional books (splatbooks in the vernacular) that are geared towards a specific type of game. In that sense, GURPS can be used to run any of the above genres and genre subtypes presented above, given that the GM has enough familiarity with the system and the patience to make it work. Pros: Ultimately versatile, easy to run once everything has been prepared. Cons: Highly front-loaded, requiring a lot of preparation before the game starts. Generally quite dry. Shadowrun Presented for a peculiar mix of Cyberpunk and Sword and Sorcery, Shadowrun is a crunchy game with combat, hacking, and magic systems that lend a good amount of immersion into the game for their detail. There is adequate support for any character type expected from the cyberpunk genre, with a few unusual twists thrown in that allow the game to stand out with its own brand of uniqueness. Its premade setting presents the world in a good amount of detail, but is modular enough that a GM is able to play around with the world to their whim. Pros: Surprising degree of realism in combat situations, from bullet ricochet to explosion reflections, to add immersion. Unusual setting flavour makes it stand out. Cons: Front-loaded, requiring GM and player preparation before everything starts to flow smoothly. Systems not immediately intuitive. FATE and its derivatives A strong example of what is called a cinematic system, FATE rather focuses on what makes a character a character, rather than expressing them through numbers. PCs gain strength from their quirks and curiousities, and the game is designed to allow the GM to direct player characters by rewarding them for behaving in-character. Very little crunch is present, and games run in FATE tend to be much more light-hearted and party-like than the more typical D&D, for example. The FATE system is highly versatile due to its focus, and can be used to run, for example, Pulp Adventure with Spirit of the Century and Urban Fantasy with The Dresden Files. Pros: Easy to run, encourages player buy-in, versatile. Cons: Can get repetitive, characters can lose uniqueness due to singular resolution system. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition (WHFRP, pronounced woof-ruhp) Almost legendary for its grittiness, i.e. the degree to which everything is simply difficult for a player character, WHFRP nevertheless boasts a versatile and intuitive character advancement system that should, in theory, allow a PC to grow from a simple peasant into a wandering hero, into a slayer of demons, into a corpse gloriously burning on an ancestral pyre. More likely they're going to end up bleeding out in a ditch with a severe wound infection, however. A solid system with a mostly-intuitive resolution mechanic gives the player just enough rope to hang their PCs by. Pros: A generally-realistic approach to a medieval high-fantasy setting, solid resolution mechanic, excellent progression system. Cons: Very specific brand of gameplay, bordering on the fetishistic. A pro in certain circles, like anyone who plays Dwarf Fortress. Again, I invite other GMs to present other games/systems they're familiar with.

Stuffman: Savage Worlds: A fairly clean and concise system, mostly for pulp games. Options for making characters with supernatural abilities are there but somewhat limited. Also, oddities in the dice system makes it so that having low stats occasionally increases your chance of success. It is very easy to pick up and play, however. Mutants and Masterminds: Designed for a game focusing on superheroes but I can see it working for any game involving high-powered characters in a fairly modern setting. Another d20-based game, this one uses a point buy mechanism instead of levels, allowing for greater freedom in character creations; it also offers several templates for easy character creation and benchmarking. Haven't gotten the chance to play it but I think it looks rather promising. HERO System: Similar to Mutants and Masterminds, this game is built with superheroes in mind. It has considerably more depth and variety, but it is also very complicated, making it rather off-putting to those inexperienced in tabletop RPGs. The rulebook can apparently stop a bullet! BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth): Stems from the generic Tri-stat system. Probably the best of the anime-themed games, this one is fairly simple as far as freeform point buy character design goes. It makes it pretty easy to build any kind of ridiculous character you could want. However, it is entirely devoid of balance and requires heavy handed adjudication on the GM's part due to some unclear rules. Fun, regardless! It is worth noting that you will want to choose between second and third edition; second is simpler, third has a bit more content but is more complicated. (A d20 edition also exists; avoid it like the plague.)

Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin: I believe FATE is itself derived from Fudge, which ... well, they're a bit different, but Fudge has pretty much the exact same set of pros and cons, really. I've also never personally seen a singular action-resolution system referred to as a "con" before, but I kinda see why it would be. I keep poking at a 3/4-complete Demon-Slayer RPG I started working on after being inspired by Devil May Cry, and with a system based on Fudge except with numbers 3-18 (and 3d6) instead of the adjectives. I'm vaguely worried that it wouldn't be the right system, but, um, I don't even know how to look for a better free flexible system for a hack-and-slash-and-shoot modern-fantasy with veritable supers ...

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