The Michael Bay School of GMing: Say it with Rockets

This is a second guest post by reader Kitsune.  With the recent debate surrounding the Rule of Cool and Critical Hits’ take on the Rule of C4, I thought this would be a good time to post Kitsune’s experimental essay on GMing.  No doubt this will set some people’s teeth on edge while others may be tickled by the concept.

“When in Doubt, Blow EVERYTHING up!”

Hello, blogosphere, how I have missed you! It’s Kitsune again, self-styled apprentice of the dark side of RPG blogging, here to steal Chatty’s thunder until I can make my own. Like Thor. Thor’s cool.

Today, we blow stuff up up.

I’ve been thinking about explosions a lot lately, more precisely on how to use insane, out of this world destruction in a RPG.

I’m currently playing a Pirate captain in a 4E campaign once a week, and every time we leave an area, we are followed by wanton destruction, and we rejoice. I’ve figured if most players are like we are, they’ll enjoy the ridiculous epic-ness of exploding crap all over.

Basically, Michael Bay would be a freaking intense Game Master to play under, hence the Michael Bay School of GMing.

We’ve seen the  Rule of C4 (and here too), now let’s elaborate.

The theory

It’s a rather natural thing for game masters to  be protective of their settings. As a GM who puts way to many hours preparing my games (most often more then I spend playing) , seeing players wreck havoc in a carefully designed town where everyone is described to the shape of their knees would, obviously, feel both like a waste and a horrible turn of event.

The sad truth is that people love blowing things up, and we, as protective idiots, rarely grant to our players the simple joys of pyrotechnics.

That being said, the Michael Bay School of GMing teaches us new and simple way to make your players happier, but first, one must unlearn those pesky protective reflexes. With that simple shift, I guarantee you’ll have your small horde of players begging for more, and screaming how much they love you. With a rocket launcher!

The Michael Bay School of GMing is, simply put, GMing principles based upon the idea that destroying stuff is really fun. You’ll have to unlearn a few things and allow your players to get slightly bigger guns. Although it can be scary, I assure you you’ll get happy players. Well, unless your running a drama-heavy White Wolf campaign, in which case you really should dismiss this post.

Meet the Principles:

Chekov’s Rocket Launcher

The first rule of the Michael Bay School of GMing is Chekov’s Rocket Launcher. “Chekov’s gun” is a theatrical trope by which a loaded weapon in a scene should, nay, will be fired before long. (Chatty DM: I think the saying goes: A gun introduced in Scene 1 should be fired before the end of scene 4)

The idea is pretty simple : Without the means to destroy their environments, they players can’t destroy their environments. But if you give them bombs and missiles, they will obviously use them in the most spectacular fashion possible. The trick is to force yourself to allow the PCs to get the fancy pyrotechnics.

Of course, in a fantasy game, a wizard with a fireball spell will do the job just fine (especially if you apply the John Woo Principle, see below), but to put it bluntly, your first job is to give them to tools to destroy everything they touch.

(Chatty DM: I have reservations, I’ll add them in the comments)

The John Woo Principle

Watch any John Woo movie. Ever noticed what happens when a bullet doesn’t hit it’s target? It decapitates a statue, kills a bystander, hits some poor explosive barrel calmly hanging out in the background.

The John Woo Principle dictates that one should describe each attack, hit or miss, with destructive consequences. Why just make that hammer swing simply miss, when you could make it hit that statue over there. And obviously, if that statue’s hit hard enough, or more then once, it’ll topple and fall down (either on something or just crash on the ground). Even if it doesn’t do any damage, changes much to the battlefield (although it can), your player might just find some pride in the murder of a priceless statue of J’ania, the Goddess of Purity.

Also, no explosive effect (magical or mundane) should leave the battlefield unscathed. A fireball or a thermal detonator should change the battle field somehow, whether by destroying a wall, or making a crater where one could take cover. Make it so the enviroment feels maleable, and let your players amaze you with the use they will make of their world.

The Desecration of the Dungeon

I fear this principle myself as I am writing it. Since All-Father Gygax brought the game to us, we’ve been carefully building mostly architecturally aberrant dungeons with the utmost care, lovingly setting encounters in there to make for the most complete DnD experience in ages. We kept fleshing out our dungeons better and better, may it be with Gygaxian naturalism or just carefully balanced yet diverse encounters, since then.

It is, thus, understandable why we’d be bloody scared of losing the necromancer’s tower to a horde of mammoths (that was a plan a buddy of mine and myself had to survive a Second Edition game), or a carefully placed fireball. But it’s a must for the follower of this School of GMing to find ways to balance everything when your players just want to blow the crap out of the Tower of Despair or the Dead Forest of Sthrim.

It’s the idea behind this principle. The fact that if you give a way to simply destroy everything the players see, your going to have to find new ways to challenge them that doesn’t include an underground labyrinth (and one made out of adamantine won’t work, you want them to blow up the walls!). A war campaign, for example, would work great.

I can’t say I’ve devised a surefire way to make this one work (if not for the wise words of Chatty himself : “One-Shot!”) in a classic DnD game without completely destroying the mood of the game, but I’m thinking about it.

The last gunshot was an exclamation mark

Please note that all of the above is all very theoretical. I’ll see if these few principles maintain themselves decently in-game later this year (in a Traveller Sci-fi/Fantasy hybrid game, maybe)

Revel in the destruction, folks!