I think this duty is particularly interesting and important. I have a friend who GMs and is constantly looking for a system that will manage this for him so that he doesn’t have to track screen time and make more room for people.
I don’t know of many systems that help with this (anyone have thoughts?). But I do think it’s one of the most impactful thing a GM or facilitator can do to make sure everyone enjoys themselves. (It can also be challenging)
Prepare elements, not plots. (Elements = characters, items, locations)
Give non-player characters, at minimum, a drive or intention.
Ask players what aspect of their character they’d like to explore, at session start.
These came from watching other people run powered by the Apocalypse games.
Hard frame to get to the good stuff fast, then give your players plenty of space to try solutions you wouldn’t have thought of.
When a player asks about an in-universe logistical detail (“How far away is the dinosaur? How well-known is my mentor in this part of the world?”) ask right back “Why do you ask?” Usually, the question beneath the question is "Do I have permission to try something cool?"Answer the logistical question such that you can say “Yes” to the meta-question.
Talk to your players and try to build trust with them; It can be SUPER helpful just to have someone who feels like they can speak up and say “My goal is to X, but I don’t feel like I can pursue X because Y” because it can clear up misunderstandings or allow you to introduce additional elements to help with that issue. Being able to talk things through with your players as equals is incredibly valuable.
Read and play a lot of different games, and you will soon find one that fits your preferred play style. You don’t know it yet, but you will find it along the way. Better that, than trying to fit another play style into a game you don’t want to play.
Know motives.
Why is this useful? For the same reason that it is useful in any other undertaking. If gaming is not matching up with one’s “why?” then it is time to reassess.
For example, most gamers that this writer encounters think that RPGs are storytelling games when they are not. If one is gaming to “tell a story,” it is like that itch never quite scratched.
One can “do a story” with RPGs, at least in theory; this writer is not contending otherwise. However, being unaware of what each thing is, thinking that one thing is another thing when it is not by default is a recipe for disillusionment and walkaways.
This is pretty interesting, I definitely feel like different people get different kinds of satisfaction from RPGs and it gets difficult to describe how they differ sometimes.
I heard someone once describe their preferred style of play as “escape room play”, because they liked to focus on moment to moment decision making and problem solving. The phrase was evocative enough that I felt like I knew what they were talking about.
How do you describe you style of play to potential players who want to “tell a story” so that they know what they are getting into and don’t end up feeling disillusioned?
I recommend developing one’s instincts for when people are finished talking. Longer pauses than we would have in natural conversation are perfectly fine in RPGs. Giving people the opportunity to really think about what they want to contribute before moving on can really help everyone feel involved in things. If another player interrupts always come back to the first player and see if they have more to add.
Is “collaborative storytelling” too simple? I agree that there are definitely different style of DMing, and a lot of the immediate descriptors I think of aren’t mutually exclusive axes.You could describe your style as “reactive vs.proactive”, “antagonistic vs. cooperative”, “structured vs. sandbox”, “rules heavy vs. rules light”, and/or “narrative vs. crunchy” and any combination of those factors could be a valid style.
Assuming they’d already talked to you and got the ‘never ask the group’ advice, I’d lay down the general AW principle of ‘address the characters, not the players’. It’s the easiest trick to maintaining a foothold in the narrative and equally applicable no matter what system you’re using.
Your Players Don’t Know What you Planned To Run.
If you missed a part of the adventure, if you added a wrong modifier, if you gave a clue at the wrong encounter - your players don’t know. For them there is only the adventure at the table. They are not concerned with some Ideal Version of this adventure that you supposedly ruined. They only know what happened at the table.
btw sorry I had intended to post that as a response TeatroMensa but I’m still learning the interface here
I think “collaborative storytelling” would be clear to a lot of people and implies a lot about a game. I’m always looking for new ways people might describe what they want from play. Especially ways to describe it for folks who are maybe new to RPGs and don’t have as many points of reference.
But I think what you called out about these not being “mutually exclusive axes” is important. There’s no reason you can’t like all these styles for different reasons.
This is somewhere between Jeremy Strandberg’s guide to “Writing Up a Front” and Apocalypse World’s “Look Through Crosshairs,” but I wish I had learned earlier to build status quos that are in motion. I spent so many games afraid to let things change unless the PC’s were directly involved. Now I build precarious situations, factions at each other’s throats, families one week away from ruin. And to follow through on that motion. If the PCs don’t interact with these elements, I can still let them feel the ripples of those events in the background. If they do, the interaction between their characters and the status quo’s inbuilt tension leads to much more dynamic narratives than either alone.
I tell them that I aim to create what some call “Grand Argument Stories.”
Granted, doing so simply as an author is severe enough. Doing so with random variables, including human behavior, makes ending an RPG “campaign” or series of sessions resolve into a coherent story, even a bad one, improbable.
It’s not quite as “bad” as the universe coming from an ex nihilo explosion, but it’s up there.
In the interests of transparency, of late, my forays into the “GM” world have been few. Not many people want to do stories or, more to the point, they want to do stories and whatever they want in a game.
Can’t do both, and most players read that as “railroading,” when all but perhaps the most chaotic sandbox that permits almost anything could face the same charges for the same causes.
This isn’t a bad thing, however. You want your gun to fail at the gate, not in sector, and there’s no point in anyone joining that doesn’t want, or doesn’t get, what you’re trying to do.
“Win/win, or no deal.”
Expectations are a bear. Best to kill them young and small, unless they serve, or at least don’t obstruct, everyone’s purposes for playing.
I’d call it “fiction on the fly,” with the caveat that, like music, if one hasn’t learned to write and play first then one is far more likely to end with noise complaints, instead of accolades.
A few things come to mind for me which I haven’t seen other people mention (I’ll try not to be redundant here):
Play with honesty and clarity. Try to make sure that costs, consequences, and considerations are always clear to the players, at all times. Practice transparency of method and clarity of communication: there is enough murk and confusion in real life, human communication, and a fictional reality that working extra hard to be clear is always welcome. Do say, “if you do that, you might knock the Wookie off the cliff - we’ll probably have her make a Dexterity check - are you OK with that?”, or “if you fail this roll, you could lose some hit points, which will make it harder to use your spells until the end of the session”, or perhaps, “…you should know that if any of you decide to attempt the archery challenge, we’ll resolve it using a Long Contest where none of your Personal Traits will apply.” Also say, “John, I’m setting up a scary scene where you’ll have little say over the outcome - are you cool with that?”, as well as, “I’m really curious to see where Lando’s loyalties lie, so in this session, I’m going to lean on that extra hard. OK? Lando’s player, is it cool if the other players pitch in on that too, adding even more pressure to your character?”
Along the same lines, don’t be “mysterious” or put on an unreadable poker face. Cheer, boo, laugh at the stuff that’s happening and tell the players how you feel about it. Maybe it’s a case of saying, “Wow, I can’t believe Rogar pulled off that stunt! I never thought he could, and that was one of my favourite moments in this session!”, in order to celebrate a major success with a player. Or maybe it’s a case of saying, “Wow, Duke Dooku is such an asshole. Even though he’s my NPC, I will probably be dreaming about throttling him in my sleep. I hope he gets his just desserts in the end!” Share. Don’t be quiet.
Listen to your players even when you might not be supposed to, and take as much of their input as possible into the game. When they shout out suggestions, say, “Yes! That’s exactly what happens!” more often than not. Your games will be better for it and your players will be more involved and more invested. (But also know your games well enough to know the moments where you shouldn’t do so! Know the places and times where that would undercut the creative goals of your game.)
When prepping for a game, try to limit yourself to material that’s already been introduced by the players. For instance, if you need a “bad guy”, look through the character sheets first, and see if any character has a hated enemy or a nemesis or a father figure who died during the Clone Wars, and bring that in, rather than making something up whole cloth.
Some of my best game experiences have come from making a rule for myself not to introduce or prep anything that doesn’t come from or flow directly from something on a character sheet or that a player has said. It makes GMing feel so easy, and leads to such consistent quality!