Make NPCs people

Just a quick note today.  This is a follow up to some of the good gamemastering tips from earlier.

Spend the time to make NPCs seem like people and not cardboard cut outs.  It makes the game that much more realistic and helps with suspension of reality.

The simplest way to do so is to give the NPC a quirk.  It helps define the NPC to the players.  Still its overused.  After the ninth barkeep that twitches/stutters/is annoying when he talks it gets old.  How about something a little more detailed?

How about the man who always seems cold?  Keeps turning up the heat or wears furs in the summer?  Seems to always have pinkeye or a cough?  Make identifying marks those that only marginally involve the players but is still noticeable and attention getting.

When to montage actions and time

Sometimes you just need to let time pass.  Like when you have players who like to shop.  Unless the majority of your group is into that don't spend three hours doing it.  Save it for inbetween times or offline where its not in the way.

Of course if that's the focus of your story then roll with it.

Do the same for travel and even some times for fighting if the situation is right.  Gauge the mood and don't be afraid to tie something with a cinematic montage.  Pull the players in to make it stick.

Listening to players

A GM should listen to their players.  Not obviously, and not in the "I'll hear everything you want to say to me" kind of way either.  Listen nonetheless, though.  Of course, when I state this I mean to drop some eaves, of course.  Players will chat and in that chatting is where you will find some very important things.

Players, given the chance will tell you everything they want to do, their hopes, dreams and desires, for their characters and for them too.  You can use it to turn the game and so can they too, if you are not careful.  Players who catch on to what you are doing, and yes, they will catch on if they've any sense may seek to abuse it.  That is when you play the game of balance -- to make sure the game is turned and moves the direction you want it to go.

Simple advice but important if it fits your game philosophy.  Some GMs run a game like a leader runs a military unit: they are in charge and none shall say otherwise.  If this is your style, think of the players' chatting as asked for advice: you'll find pearls of wisdom you'll like within it.  If you are more involvled with your players then its a welcome sign that will point the way to success.

Bad guy speeches and monologues

Oh I used to be bad about doing this.  See enough hollywood and you would think its the norm.  Life, though is much gritter.  While I have npcs brag once and awhile I omit the monologues.

I encourage you to do the same.  Players don't want to hear it.

How Not to overload the game through plots

Probably my worst vice.  I like a vast possibility of actions and tend to provide the same for players.  The problem is keeping track of them - both for the player and the GM. 

Of course its more than just flooding your group with quests.  It's also about knowing when to hammer the players with all that they have going on and when not to hammer the players.

In fact I'll provide an example to illustrate.  At one point a group in the past, had been chasing a spy Master for the king.  During the pursuit I threw a number of random and scripted obstacles in their path.  The downside to this was I overwhelmed the reason why they were chasing the spy master in the first place.  The chase scene that should have taken a game or 2 stretched to 10 and then was never finished.

The point was I overwhelmed the original base reason.  You can add too much if you're not careful.  It's a matter of balance.

Hinting and building suspense

Sometimes as a Gm you will want to roll something out or present a situation whose intent is to cause an impasse.  Or a situation where you know the players cannot the challenge but you need to include it for story reasons.  Sometimes it's not so much a situation - its an it.

A good example of this would be when my players opened up a rift in time and space.  I described something large and powerful coming through the rift.  The players had no chance against it, but it's inclusion in the game was necessary for the story.  I put hints and lots of foreshadowing to make this clear to the players.  In fact they were so captivated with the description, that they quite literally listened as I described the creature exiting the rift.  1 of them caught on that it wasn't here to be nice and play friendly with them.  He got the rest to run.  My point in describing this is to show that giving hints and foreshadowing can be a useful tactic when presenting situations or in this case something, that should be avoided and not fought.

The key in doing this is to make sure that you do not present the situation in a way that frustrates the players.  A sense of escape, avoidance or that they could attempt to tackle the problem should exist even if it's not true.  The goal as previously discussed is to present a series of options for the players to take that end in a result that you want.  At the same time preserving the players sense of freedom to choose the option that they want.

In this case I wanted them to confront the creature coming out of the rift.  What I did not want them to do is to try to fight it.  By using voices of people in the game, NPCs, I was able to communicate that it was unbeatable, at least to physical combat, and had to be confronted another way.  This led the players to where I wanted them to go and let them think of creative ways to overcome it.  Additionally I was heavy handed in foreshadowing that it was something that could only be handled through a device other than combat.

I do the exact same thing in other situations.  For example the other night I was not as prepared as I normally am.  In fact I had only detailed out a portion of the area the players were gaming in.  To prevent the players from going to the areas I had not detailed I completely ignore the fact they were not done and instead referenced them often in game.  I made them seem mundane and more the same that they had already seen.  I also made sure that the general flow the game pointed away from them.  When the players went towards these areas I used encounters, situations and NPCs to steer them into areas that I had detailed.

The key is to do this without clueing in your players what you doing. They have no idea what you have or have not ready.  Presenting an even open front that says you are completely prepared keeps them from finding out.  As a rule I lock out very few locations in my game.  In fact players can go anywhere even if they shouldn't go there.  I make it very clear that I do not as the game master scale encounters to their power level.  Instead I put the world together and then let it run.  It is full of things more powerful and less powerful than the players.  Common sense and hints from the game master usually keep players from places they should not go.

Variety and Interest

In the late 1970's when I first started gaming and opened up my first Arduin Grimoire, I stumbled across something unique in my world perspective.  It had a series of charts that provided small (and sometimes large) impacts to game play.  Most were little more than an edge here and an edge there but they all added to game play.  It was my first experience with putting some bite behind the colorful backgrounds I envisioned for my characters.

Who hasn't desired to emulate a character from a book or movie and found their chosen system to fall short?  In those days my system was add&arduin, usually mixed as the two were heavily dependent on one another.  It fell short, powerfully so.

Still that thought never left me and I went on to further in my games experiments on how to implement the idea without overwhelming the mechanics or roleplay.

In the end, after 30 years of game play I have found the best way was to build in colorful options to allow the player to create something unique each time.  Sometimes it would be cultural or social and other times it would be via some unique ability that only they could do.

In fact, my gaming history and the hundreds of players I have gamed with have provided a rich panoply of choices for people to select from.  Not to mentioned played tribute to the characters that birthed those unique backgrounds.

It provided the means to make this idea bear fruit.  The fact that they do not seek to convey superpowers or replicate abilities built elsewhere is their strength.  Just like how they revolve around a role playing idea stimulates the mind and player.