Getting back in the game!

Along with other RPG GMing bloggers, I was contacted by Role-playing Tips guru, Johnn Four this week to contribute to his next Newsletter. Not wanting to miss the exposition of being read by so many people, I happily accepted. Heck he even offered to let us use our submission as a post for our blog!

He asked us to provide a few tips for:

“GMs who have let gaming slide away from them, who might have had a group crumble on them in 2007 and need a nudge to get back into it, who have been out of gaming and read our sites to just keep the pilot light on, and gamers who are on the cusp of re-entering the hobby”

So here are the 3 tips on “How to fall in love with GMing again” that I’m going to be sending to Johnn! Regular or long-time readers won’t find a whole lot of new as this post is basically a distillate of what I’ve been rambling about these last 6 months.

Get to know your players better

No matter how long you have known your potential players, spending a little extra effort to get to know them better is one of the best paths to provide more entertaining games.

By observing the way they react to you proposing a new campaign, the type of PCs they want to create, the relative enthusiasm they radiate around the prospect of starting a new game can give you priceless clues as to what they are looking for.

As proposed by Robin Laws in his GMing Bible book (possibly the best GMing book ever written), try to learn the types of players your potential gaming group is made of. Then try to learn what are each player’s key motivation that makes them come back game after game.

A great way to find out is to meet each potential player one on one and discuss the future game (Characters, Campaign themes, etc). However, remember that in such a meeting your role is not to describe and explain (you’ll get plenty of that in the actual game), your role is to listen carefully to what the player wants.

One trick I love doing is the Rubber Ducky Test (if it looks like a Duck and it sounds like one, that’s what the person wants). You ask the player what would be the best possible game session for him/her. Note down what they tell you in point form and create a little chart that tells you a bit about each player.

Armed with that newfound knowledge, try to design your game sessions (or chose/modify the published adventures you plan on using) in a way to give each player at least one scene tailored for their tastes. I guarantee you’ll get awesome results!

Exploit the true secrets of Movies and Television shows in your games

It’s become a trademark in my writing, but I have seen on numerous occasions that the tricks that make people react strongly to a movie, a book or a TV show also work beautifully in tabletop RPGs. I’m not talking about borrowing plots and characters from your favorite stories (although that is a classic GMing tip). I’m talking about stealing the tricks on which the plots are built on

Having a Villain aways dress in black and cackle crazily all the time only to turn heel later in the campaign and join the heroes against that bigger and badder bad guy will elicit a reaction because your players have seen theses things before.

Having your PCs climb a mountain by jumping from stones to stones falling from an avalanche will be the talk of your gaming group for weeks!

Those theatrical “figures of Speech” are called Tropes. Clichés are tropes that have been used to death and often elicit more groans than interest. (Tavern Scene anyone?)

Having a look at the TVtropes wiki is a mine of ideas for role playing adventures. I wrote about 20 articles on that very subject and it’s helped me tremendously with creating adventures in my current campaign.

Apply the Rule of Cool over everything else

Discovering this on the TV trope site changed my way of DMing.

Roughly, the Rule of Cool means that if you can manage to make a story, or scene, or NPC cool enough, none of your players will bother with the little details that are incongruous or illogical. The glow of coolness will overshadow all the rest and leave a lasting impression. (Think about the 1st time you saw The Matrix).

Switching your efforts from making an armour-plated plot line and a finely detailed gameworld to a coolness gushing session will reward you instantly at the gaming table. Geeks have a soft spot for cool things, why not sprinkle it generously.

Examples of Cool things:

• Glowing things
• Selective Gravity
• Gigantic Machines
• Chainsaws!

Also, allow your players some access to the Rule of Cool. I’ve been surprising myself lately by telling my players who want to try dangerous or hard maneuvers “Forget the die roll, this is too cool to fail”. Believe me, they appreciate this a lot and try to come up with more cool ideas.

What about your cool tips that we could tell our Closet DMs to make them step forward and join us!