Although the week involved a goodly dose of illness, I was able to deliver the first session in The Hollowrim Saga, to which I alluded last time.
This post summarises three key lessons from my first “by the book” attempt to use Brian Jamison’s “Gamemastering“.
1. Upfront Effort Pays Off
I spent around 5 hours processing the details from player character sheets and 4-List sheets into hand-written 3′ x 5′ index cards. To be honest, I wasted a fair bit of time trying to avoid using hand-written cards, but in the end the cards were easier than electronic methods. So much for trying to be clever.
In addition, I spent around 5 hours preparing the first adventure and all the other things I needed for the first session. That said, the previous 5 hours work meant that this task had clear focus and produced and adventure which seemed like it would interest the players. At the end of this time, I was ready to play.
After the first session, it’s fair to say that:
- The players enjoyed the game, stating that they all got some “moments of cool” and had reasons to be involved
- I felt in control of the session and had confidence to run all the obstacles created
- It was easy to shift between the various obstacles I had set up
Additionally, sitting down to review the session yesterday, I feel that the next session will require no more than 1 hour of prep. THAT is a major benefit going forward!
2. Harnessing Player Creativity Pays Off
The players all created a handful of Gamemaster Characters (GCs) as part of their character interview (see the last post for details). This turned out to provide me with 23 (twenty-three) GCs to use in the game. I felt the need to create only one GC during first session prep.
This lower creative effort from me freed me up to spend time on relationships between those GCs and the characters, and to weave those GCs into the obstacles that I was setting up. It was actually trivial to find ways to connect the GCs to the adventure I was crafting… and made everything loads more fun!
It’s a lot more fun to spend time creating the relationships, schemes, and goals of the GCs than it is to come up with cool GC ideas. In this case, the players came up with the cool people they wanted to involve in their story; I got to weave those people into the action.
Yes, each GC needed to be fleshed out a little… but that was easy compared to coming up with 24 cool character ideas! Thus, what the players provided was way better than anything I’d have created because:
- There are already more GCs in the setting than I would have had time / will to create
- The players each smiled knowingly as their GCs entered the story – a clue that they appreciated the effort
- The players immediately knew some of the people they could trust or not trust, making life easier to roleplay allies
In the end, using the ideas of my five players produced something richer than I would ever have imagined alone.
3. Obstacles & Goals Are Fun
Each player character has goals – short, medium, and long term. So do the GCs. The interaction of characters as they seek to achieve their goals is the beating heart of a fun story.
The other half of the equation is found in the concept of Obstacles: what gets in the way of those goals?
Writing each session as a series of Obstacles, each with its three stages of resolution (Jamieson, “Gamemastering”, Chapter 7), is genius! In play, it’s easy to run the session and in prep it’s a cinch to set them up. And the players seemed to love every step of the journey… even if they did “miss” some obstacles in the particular route they took.
What I really enjoyed was the way in which, as GM, I knew what would come next without really knowing how each obstacle would pan out. Jettisoning all the baggage of “plot” was really liberating, allowing me to enjoy the unfolding story almost as much as the players: I couldn’t predict the outcomes, but I did get to serve up the consequences.
Perhaps the best example of this was seen in the last obstacle the players faced on Friday: breaking into a warehouse to rescue a kidnapped ally… but doing it really badly. The consequences were that the party’s recklessness cost them the ally’s life… an outcome I had not foreseen. Despite their apparent victory in defeating the thugs in the warehouse, something that proved much harder than they (or I) expected because of the approach taken, the game was all the richer for that outcome.
There was a genuine poignancy in losing Brother Luth (the ally) which spurred the group to stay together and decide to track down his killer next session. I never could have predicted that when I wrote those obstacles… but I am so damn glad I wasn’t constrained by some misplaced idea about what the “plot” was going to be.
This way was more fun than I’ve had as a GM in many, many years.
Parting Thoughts…
Overall, the effort required by Jamison’s method was large to begin. It looks set to decrease going forward, however, because the big one-time stuff is now done and each session simply requires a new set of obstacles for the goals the players choose to follow. From here, it’s just one session at a time… at least until something larger begins to coalesce from the action of the game; this, when it comes, will be the campaign.
I really am keen to keep playing, if only to find out where the campaign ends up taking us.
Game on!
