Good Game Mastering Part II

Let's talk about being ready.  Or prepared if you like.  Running a game is and feeling prepared is completely different than writing out your night's events, drawing maps and putting stats to everything.  In fact, its completely different.  They can be related, of course, and doing so sure could help but its not the same.  I'm noting it because, frankly, a lot of people I've met confuse the two.  They think those plot variations and the interests, thoughts and delightful dialog they planned out makes them ready.  Nope.  Its wonderful and helps but it doesn't equate.

See, being ready means you know what the hell you are going to do.  Not just that night either but 10 games in advance.  Well, maybe not literally 10 games but far enough in the future that you can plant the seeds to develop plots later and foreshadow future events.  You need to know your major plots and have them worked out ahead of time.  Or you can forget about foreshadowing.  Not to mention plot development.  Its tough to plant that initial seed that grows into a dramatic plot outcome when you have no idea what the major plot is going to be.

Now since I hear some heckling from the peanut gallery over my statements, let me address their mockery.  Fact is, you can run a damn good game just impromptu, using whatever you pull out of your ass to do so.  Problem is, you weren't ready, as I defined it above, when you did so.  Did it work? Absolutely (or, at least I'm surmising so if you're sneering about your majestic extemporaneous game mastering ability) but its hard, dreadfully hard, to build a strong, consistent campaign that way.  It breaks down.  Consistency can't thrive in that environment and the minute you start contradicting and dropping major plot points you're out the window.  Not just for your players but for you too.  So you've got to lay it out, even if you do it in five minutes.  Its not the amount of time you spend here, its that you do it, even if you scribble it in the margins of a phone book or on a napkin at your favorite restaurant.  the key point is to be ready you have to know what the major parts of the plot are.  In fact, shove enough detail in it to know the major points without even trying to detail everything (or go right ahead...).  Or, consign yourself to a one-shot or just frustration.

So look, I'm not going to outline HOW to do that.  What tool you use is up to you and frankly, covered very finely on numerous web sites and in books.  Do a simple search.  Now, with that out of the way, I'll restate the point:  be ready to game master.  Be prepared.  Avoid winging it when you can and figure out, even if its in rough form, what your plots are going to be ahead of time.  It doesn't matter if you do it in 5 minutes while you are in the bathroom as long as you have the story lines roughed out.