How to Run a Game (Part 5) - The beginning of play
Here's where things get fragmented. However, a lot of the same concepts still generally apply.
If you're running a game at a local game store, or at a gaming convention, you want to make sure you attract the right sorts of players to your game. If you're running a game at home, you want to make sure everyone understands what you intend to do with the game so people can decide if they want to participate in your sessions or not. I've spent a lot of time doing both, and have seen a few differences in the way each of these needs to be considered.
This probably also fits under the idea of getting everyone on the same page in a game, or at least understanding where everyone is coming from when they approach the game and explaining where you'll be heading as you run the game. This is where I'll be deviating away from the Forge terminology, and probably drifting back to some of the Vector Theory terminology that I developed here on the blog back in 2010.
Conventions and One-Shots
Before the Session
By it's nature a one-shot is a single event, which means there isn't really much time to get everyone on the same wavelength as they prepare for the communal storytelling about to unfold. Traditionally, a one-shot session has players presented with pre-made characters, in a pre-written storyline or predefined setting that is well-understood by the person running the game. If you're going to be the person running the one-shot you need to realise that you don't have time to waste on looking up rules or looking up setting information. There are three ways you can do this; either have really good memory about rules and settings, really good notes that you can quickly reference, or be really good at improvising (and take notes on the fly to ensure consistency as the story unfolds).
Elevator Pitch
At a convention or one-off session at a game store there is often a blurb designed to lure players in. It is a short paragraph, maybe three or four sentences that encapsulate what can be expected in the session. Imagine that you've got less than thirty seconds to sell the session, where you're trying to narrow down the players who will engage with what you're offering (and how you're offering it), and you're trying to get those players excited by what they can expect. A few key questions are generally answered in this might be...
- What game system is being used throughout the session?
- What sorts of characters are a part of the story?
- Where is it set? (and when)
- Do you expect the players to have prior knowledge of the system or setting? (or is it simple enough that players will get it without too many problems)
- Are there expected to be any mature themes in the game? (and what might they be)
You don't need to lay out the whole story, because you might have an open play style where the story develops organically, or you might have ideas for twists in the narrative to keep play interesting. Think of enough at this stage to hook the bait, once the bites take hold, that's when you can reel in the players with more details about your intentions.
At the Beginning of the Session
If you have premade characters, give the players a few minutes to read them over before the proper story commences. If you allow the players to make their own characters at the start of the session, offer suggestions for the types of characters that will fit best with your intentions for the story (and if it's a complicated character creation system, you'd be recommended to give the players partially created characters or pre-defined templates to speed up the creation process). If you allow pre-generated characters, give yourself time to read over them, and make sure to ask the players what their characters goals and motivations might be. If you allow these pre-made characters, you might need to modify your story intentions to fit with their aims and agendas. If you're pulling the story one way, and players are pulling the story another way, one of the parties (either you or them) will end up unsatisfied with the outcome... and it's actually more likely that both parties won't be happy. That leads to broken game sessions and disjointed stories.
Before play begins, remind players about any mature concepts that might arise in the stories. I've seen players walk out of game sessions because suicide was used in a scene to evoke an emotional response from the players, I've similarly seen players walk out because they expected intense characterization in a game session but were instead presented with light-hearted fantasy. You can never be sure what is going to turn a player off, but having them aware of potential of session intentions at the start of play allows everyone to understand what might happen before too much time is wasted in an unsatisfying situation.
Campaigns
Gathering the right people
The first few posts in this series spoke about gamism, narrativism, and simulationism, and the types of stances that different players might use to engage with the collaborative storytelling.
The first way to look at this is from a top-down perspective.
If you're planning to tell a confrontational story where you are pitting characters against monsters and situations where they will need a knowledge of game rules and logic to overcome the obstacles you throw up against them, you probably want to avoid too many players who like a narrativist style of play, or players who get too emotionally attached to their characters through regular use of actor stance. If you're aiming for young adult melodrama, a gamist might be a terrible fit, and instead you might want narrativists who love the twists and revelations as stories unfold. If you're planning to weave a tale of romance and political espionage among the courtiers of Venice, you might want gamists who take a cold and calculating perspective, you might want narrativists who want to delve into the secrets and motivations of the world, or you might want simulationists who want to immerse themselves in a rich and dangerous world. Think about the types of stories you want to tell and the types of players who might facilitate those types of stories.
The other way to look at it is bottom up.
Think about the types of players you've got access to and the types of stories they enjoy. Instead of choosing players who will fit the types of stories you have in mind, choose stories and game session ideas that fit the intentions of the players. If you know that you've got a group of players who are amateur theatre participants, it's probably going to be better to run a lot of social scenes and dramatic storylines rather than a sequence of combat encounters. Conversely, if you've rounded up a group of miniature wargamers they might feel uncomfortable taking on Actor stance and interacting in character with the story's supporting cast, they might be happier with a string of combat encounters. Remember that if you run the type of game that your players enjoy, your players will keep wanting you to run that style of game...if you don't give players what they want, they'll go and find another person t run a game for them, or leave the hobby all together.
Session Zero
A campaign has more breathing room than a one-shot. this means there is more opportunity for everyone to help set things in motion than a 30-second elevator pitch.
I like to think of a session as a three-way tension. I'm sure I've mentioned this idea on the blog before, but a quick search isn't showing any results.
Knowing how the different forces will be pulling on the story at the core of the session is an important part of understanding how the play experience will unfold. Some players like to watch things develop around their characters, some will want to be more directly involved in choices that will shape their character's world. Understanding expectations and playing to them will improve the experience for everyone involved.
Sometimes a player will have a favoured type of story or scene that they like to see in the stories they are a part of. They might love cats and always have their characters look for them in the session. If you get a player like this, they might be a distraction to the rest of the group as they continue to make attempts to feed their obsession. On the other hand, you can use this to your advantage, luring them along with your story by hints that their obsession might be found in clues that happen to align with your intended story goals. You don't want to focus on this player all the time, but it might be a useful tool to keep this player heading in the right direction. Maybe they're a gamist who likes to show off their combat build, or the specific magical abilities they've developed for their character, try to tie these ideas into the story, try to find the player a way to show off their character's abilities that will further the story, because otherwise they'll probably end up trying to play a confrontational game against you which will disrupt the intended story you have in mind. (Yes, I've seen this happen many times).
Sometimes a player will have a no-go zone. A player who has lost a family member to cancer will probably react badly to a storyline where townsfolk are dying of a horrible wasting disease. A player who has seen relationship trauma, or even abuse in their life will probably react badly to storylines involving torture, rape, or slavery. Avoiding the topics that might cause stress for your players isn't "political correctness", it's common decency. As I said earlier, a lot of people engage in roleplaying for escapism and a bit of empowerment fantasy, introducing the kinds of elements that put them in difficult emotional positions basically victimises them, and this should never be done without explicit consent. Talk to your players first, find out if there might be any issues that they want to avoid in a story, and if they tell you that they feel uncomfortable with a specific type of scene or storyline, respect that choice.
The narrative should begin to take shape once you know the directions that players will want a storyline to go and directions that they cannot abide, and maybe you'll even get some new ideas that will make your original story plans richer.
The session zero is the time when all of this is established. It's probably also the time when the starting players in a campaign make their characters, when they work out how their characters are connected to each other, and how they link to the world around them. Each of these connections is important to the ongoing storyline, serving as tools that can be used as leverage throughout the campaign. At this time, players will get to know who each other's characters are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they might pull on the flow of the storyline.
In addition to laying out the ground rules for a campaign, this is also a good time to establish character background details and provide preludes to the proper campaign. This can help to give players motivations to follow the story you have in mind, or help you to adjust campaign goals to better match what the players might want out of the story.
Beginning Play
After the session zero has established the guidelines of play, the connections of players to each other and the outside world, the campaign has an immediate drive. There are tensions that will pull and push the campaign, and the starting flow will be known. The narrative will twist and turn as new elements are added in, but that stuff will come later. The aim at the start is to make sure things don't stagnate before they've had a chance to even begin.
If you've done this well, characters will have built-in agendas that push them toward the goals you have in mind for the campaign, or you'll have a campaign built up out of a combination of the various agendas that the players have chosen for the characters. Collaboration is key.
General rules of thumb
Good
- Things will usually go better if you know your players
- Things will usually go better if you know their characters
- It helps if you know where you'd like to see the storyline go, but be willing to adjust things to fit player desires and expectations.
- It helps if you know the rules, or know how you're going to modify the rules (and why you're making those modifications)
Bad
- Things tend to go wrong if there are tensions between players in the group
- Things tend to go wrong if characters have agendas that put them at odds (but if everyone is on the same page about this and is happy to have tension within the group, or outright conflict, then this can actually make some really dynamic and interesting stories)
- It doesn't help if you aren't prepared for where the story might go, or if you are too devoted to a specific storyline to the point that the players decisions become meaningless.
- It doesn't help if you aren't sure where the characters are heading in their personal stories or what their goals in the world might be.
.png)
Comments