Gamifying GM Prep

The Wicked Ones KS (you’re gonna have to hurry if you want in on it) is a FitD RPG that reminds me of Dungeon Lords. It generates a dungeon as part of play. One of the last stretch goals included a solo mode that creates a dungeon as its output. I imagine that I would love to generate the dungeon as a solo game (or you know, in regular play) and then use that dungeon for a more traditional crawl (probably with another group but maybe it would be so meta the group would get a kick out of it?)!

This is exactly what I’m working on for one of my side-projects, and it’s how I was able to run 50 sessions in about 3 months. My goal the whole time through was to treat myself, the GM, like a player and design accordingly.

For me, I modeled my fun less off a strategy game and more off the fun of an adventure boardgame like Tales of the Arabian Nights, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Eldritch Horror and similar, mixed with a narrative-based game experience (similar to a player’s experience in dungeon world, or even something looser like fiasco).

My experience was in drawing cards and rolling on tables during the session, discovering what event the players walked into just as they did. I had no idea there was a mad witch with a split personality in my world until moments before the players did. The moment she came into the setting, she was there to stay. Just as I enjoy an adventure boardgame by going around the board, drawing cards and seeing what happens - I get to do this for the events my players roll. Then I get to use that event as an improv prompt to create a story-rich scene for them (similar to a player’s experience in a narrative-based, story-building RPG).

At the end of the session I generally build my new “characters” as threats - inspired by the threat packs in Beyond the Wall: Further Afield. At the end of each session I can choose to activate one of these threats, activate multiple ones at the cost of giving players advantages or opportunities, or roll to chance activating various threats (as beyond the wall does).

This mix of discovering-as-we-adventure with discovered-event-serves-as-basis-for-story-improv works great. I get to basically play the equivalent of a narrative story-building RPG while GMing for a group of tactically minded players.

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That’s really really cool. I think it’s super interesting that you brewed up a narrative-centric system to help run a more tactical game.

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Thanks. It’s been a lot of fun. I feel it’s a great way to address multiple player types at the table too. You can basically play a narrative-centric game by GMing for a group of tactical players. So if you’re the one guy in the group that likes that experience while the others want to go hack and slash in D&D or a more tactical OSR experience you can still get the experience you want.

You could certainly use Mythic GM emulator for this. You as the “Player” ask the system Yes / No questions about the environment and antagonists. The odds change to more likely to a yes after every No and less likely for a yes after ever Yes response. Assuming you don’t ask about PC level conflicts this would work great.

There are also several GMs that use Rory’s story dice for inspiration on Youtube.

Along the lines of Microscope, Kingdom works well to create histories. Possibly it could be rigged to work 1 player.

I suspect that you could play some single player Ironsworn and use your story to create interesting prep for a multiplayer game. You could even have the players follow / eventually rescue / avenge / destroy your single player character as an NPC!

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@Rickard, FYI…there is another thread on here that mentions The Murder of Mr. Crow as a great go to one-shot game in and of itself!

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Did you mean my own post? :slight_smile: I know my game have been featured in a pod cast (awesome discussion around the game) and people have added the game to GameboardGeek, and even played it on their forum without any influence from my side. Quite cool, actually.

Palm to face. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:Yes. Sounds cool though. I have downloaded it myself

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