Make and play a fun game.
You can be prepare, be attentive and reactive to players and all the other things but if the game is boring who is going to play it? Also be unique. As original as you can. I'll never forget the first time someone snorted at the plot I was rolling out. It both startled and angered me. Still, its point was one I never forgot. I was running something they had played a hundred times and my version wasn't much different the original idea. You have got to experiment and strive for originality.
Avoid cliches like the plague.
Stereotypes are the kiss of death.
Don't start your players in a bar or tavern. Ug. Or, in a little town with a set of ruins or convenient hold of soft and squishy monsters... ARGH! MMORPGs are full of this drivel and it drives me bat shit crazy.
Look, nothing should be as it seems. Everything should be plotted at least three levels deep and that should be just scratching surface. Spin plots and stories within one another so that they are like the little Russian dolls, one with another, ever smaller but seemingly endless.
Twist motivations, surface impressions and the truth. Everything should be gray and the reasons for the players to be, well, possible. Not that I'm telling you to do their work for them - this ain't a plug for the GM to do their back story. Its tough to be a hero, villain or just plain coward when someone else is playing the role. Of course, that could be your plot. Why the hell are the players where ever they happen to be in the first place? Maybe the hero is a villain though really the hero just cast as the villain; who is really a coward, you see, and the real hero is the one who willingly chose to be the villain so the hero-coward-villain could, well, be the damn coward in the first place. Maybe they did it for love, friendship or misguided loyalty - who knows?
That's your job.
I'm just looking forward to finding out.
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