GM Challenges: Writing 5 Narratives for 5 Audiences that Have to Happen all at Once.
One of the most difficult challenges unique to tabletop gaming is the unique demands of narrative and the audience. In tabletop, the GM often assumes that they are just here to write a story for a single viewer and that it is then performed (at best) more or less as they had written it by their players for the enjoyment of all involved. This is also the first mistake that many of us make, myself included. Tabletops are an interactive medium with not only multiple actors looking to engage with the narrative in an often literal way that changes it, but also with multiple audiences, each with their own wants, expectations, and goals when they sit down to play. In essence, each player is not only your player, but a whole new audience and demographic in and of themselves. So instead of writing 1 story for you and your 4 players to enjoy, you're actually writing 5 stories,
that can all be wildly different,
and might all have to be running all at once.
This is a daunting task for anyone to take on, and one that no other medium has to really worry about, even with other interactive media like videogames, since here you have players who are actively able to change the whole world on a whim, and you as the GM/developer are on site to change things to match their whims and are to a certain extent, expected to. Now, all that said, this is something that you as a GM can accomplish, and with work and training can improve at. Below, I'm going to walk through some of the techniques I use to help create a story with potentially 5+ stories nested in it (potentially from 5 different genres!) running all at once and not drive myself insane.
1st.) Don't drive yourself insane: This system is hard, and don't let your expectations for yourself mislead you on this front. No other medium has to put up with a task quite as daunting as this one. When I play a video game or design one with multiple narrative paths the designer still doesn't really have to worry about all of them happening simultaneously, and potentially in view of the other players. This is our unique burden, and though it is a tool with potential to do some amazing storytelling that no other interactive medium could really hope to ape, it is still hard and often requires A LOT of practice to get good at. Don't be hard on yourself if you fall short, and don't be hard on your players when they break your carefully laid schemes. It's kind of their job and where most of the fun of this whole crazy ride comes from.
2nd.) I am not the only voice in the story being written: When I sit down to write for Pathfinder or really any tabletop rpg, I try to put my contribution to the work in perspective. The act of tabletop rpg storytelling is a cooperative and interactive experience, with I and my players creating a story through shared experience that wouldn't exist if we each tried to make it individually. The stories we tell at table and that we carry with us to the office or the school wouldn't exist at all without that cool spell drop the witch pulled or that spontaneous moment when the fighter broke into japanese to yell at the group or when the alchemist slams the door shut on escaping the fight out of nowhere to save the world, but potentially sacrifices himself in the process. All of those things exist because the players got to contribute equally at the table to myself as the GM, and designing a narrative that punishes them for coloring outside the lines of my prebuilt narrative as its default is a great way to kill the experience. So, I start there.
3rd) The spine of the story, the ribs of the body: So with all that said, what the hell does the GM do? In my experience, what my job is is to not provide the center of the narrative, the big moments, the moving moments that everyone talks about so to speak, but rather the potential places for them to occur. My story is like the spine at the center of the events that happen at table. The evil wizards plan to return to the world and reign anew are the motivating force, the energetic emotional wind that pushes on the players and their characters that triggers those big moments at table. To that end, I look to write situations that are big enough to make the chances they, the players and their PCs, won't act in some way as close to zero as possible. The events going on at table should be brimming with potential that they can clearly see, and more importantly that tempts them to act. This is important because if I not only want to tell a more structured story like the one above or like the ones we see in Adventure Paths (APs) or more traditional media, I need to not only get my players to follow the story in the direction I want it to go, but I need to make them WANT to follow it as well. Sit down with any GM new or old and start talking shop and sooner or later one of us will talk about that time a table got completely derailed because the party got distracted by something else in game, or threw up their hands and went and totally pillaged a town instead of hunting down the wizard, or a night ended with a big fight because the players didn't want to do the narrative you painstakingly built exactly the way you wanted it. To that end, the next thing to remember is...
4th) Know your Players: On the webshow Gamemaker's Toolkit, Mark Brown once discussed the idea of the optimization of the player, that in the end, players will optimize all the fun out of a game in order to "win" at it, and that as designers, it is the development team's job to incentivize players to play the game not only as the designers intended, but to reward the players for it. Now, this idea is also true in tabletop design. It is true, that we as GM's have a lot of power at table once the curtain rises and the stories begin, but we are also at the whims of our players. No matter how much we might not want to admit it, all that god like GM power means nothing if we have nobody to play with. To that end, it is important to know what your players like and how they like to play before you start designing your game. This allows you to tailor your work to not only fit your narrative and game needs, but lets you build situations that enable your players to pander to their own wants and not get blindsided when they play in a certain way. Learn what shows they like to watch, what books are their favorites, what games they like to play and ask them why, then use that information to mold your stories to help scratch that specific itch while you are telling it. These influence don't even always have to be from other games, and using those influences to help personalize your stories to your players so they can get invested can have a real impact on not only keep your players coming back, but improving your own skills as a storyteller as you start having to figure out the world from the perspective of others and learn how to write and engage them in ways they understand.
For example, 2 of my current players are die hard light novel players. They like games like Dream Daddy and were totally glued to Mystic Messenger when it dropped and love games that pander to that itch. Now, I have never played either and have 0 interest in Mystic Messenger, but it gave me ideas on how to incorporate that into my game to get my story to reach them. It meant I could build stories around individual characters and how the stresses of life in the great frontier broke them into their stories because they would be enthralled. It meant that I could write love stories with major characters and even the antagonists as key actors because the romance angle would draw them into the story. For them, earning prestige at this festival wasn't about earning prestige, it was about appealing to their stoic chieftain friend so that he would respect them more and they could learn more of his story. That let me not only move the narrative along in the direction I wanted (becoming famous at the festival) but let me also tell cool stories about the chieftain that I couldn't have gotten out if I hadn't considered my players love of intimate character driven narrative.
And that's just one example. I've convinced players to blow off PC fingers because it would let them look cooler when they tell the story, I've used cool loot as a place to hide secrets that lead them to my prewritten adventures, and made up whole new NPCs to address problems that the players have seen so that we can move forward AND keep them engaged. The trick here is to learn what your players like to read, watch, and do for entertainment and their expectations of play at table as tools to better your story rather than just obstacles that might pop up. They are at the end of the day, your only audience that matters, and they are half the reason you are here. By pandering to them a little by incorporating their wants into consideration when you design, you will get exponentially more narrative and fun out of them.
5th) Design for the Emotions first, Story 2nd: Building on the previous tenant, as a GMs, it is important to remember the emotion of the story we are trying to tell. As an interactive and collaborative story with a lot of spontaneous narrative happening over our prepared work, it is often easy to forget that the point of stories and entertainment is to evoke an emotional response, and not just in ourselves but in our audience. It's easy to forget in the middle of building our GREAT FANTASY EPIC that our story is one we are performing for our players, and that what excites us and why is likely not exactly the same in our players and sometimes not at all. Nothing sucks more than laying out your big villains master plan and instead of shock and surprise your players are bored and disinterested, or when you introduce the cool awesome encounter and your player breeze through it and hate the thing. To that end, when designing your work think about what emotions do you want your players to experience when your event occurs, and how does this event or the ones around it help trigger that? To that end, it is important to remember those facts and talks you've had with your players before, and use those likes, mechanics, and facts to help build those moments to get your players right to the emotions you are looking to inspire as easily as possible.
For example, if I want players to fiddle with a new mechanic in my games like say, cybertech from the Pathfinder Tech Guide, I need to create system that tell them these options exist, I need to let them by or obtain the pieces I want them to try, and I need to reward the players for trying them and incorporate them into my world through avenues my players will want to follow. It's hard to sell a player on getting a cybernetic arm for his roman centurion inspired fighter, it's much easier when that metal arm is viewed as a sacred relic of the faith that puts his country in power, is bedecked in holographic runes, and the followers literally refer to him as "Reliquary" or "Hand of God". If you listen to your players and hear what they want and the emotional/narrative things they want to explore and why, you can incorporate anything you're looking for. Our jobs as GMs is to make our players as much a fan of our creative ideas as we are, and part of that is letting them be creative with you and pandering to them a little.
Now, this is not an exhaustive list, but is a start towards getting a GM's mind ready for writing campaigns that are fun for both themselves and their players. If you are interested in hearing more about this feel free to message me in the comments below.
that can all be wildly different,
and might all have to be running all at once.
This is a daunting task for anyone to take on, and one that no other medium has to really worry about, even with other interactive media like videogames, since here you have players who are actively able to change the whole world on a whim, and you as the GM/developer are on site to change things to match their whims and are to a certain extent, expected to. Now, all that said, this is something that you as a GM can accomplish, and with work and training can improve at. Below, I'm going to walk through some of the techniques I use to help create a story with potentially 5+ stories nested in it (potentially from 5 different genres!) running all at once and not drive myself insane.
1st.) Don't drive yourself insane: This system is hard, and don't let your expectations for yourself mislead you on this front. No other medium has to put up with a task quite as daunting as this one. When I play a video game or design one with multiple narrative paths the designer still doesn't really have to worry about all of them happening simultaneously, and potentially in view of the other players. This is our unique burden, and though it is a tool with potential to do some amazing storytelling that no other interactive medium could really hope to ape, it is still hard and often requires A LOT of practice to get good at. Don't be hard on yourself if you fall short, and don't be hard on your players when they break your carefully laid schemes. It's kind of their job and where most of the fun of this whole crazy ride comes from.
2nd.) I am not the only voice in the story being written: When I sit down to write for Pathfinder or really any tabletop rpg, I try to put my contribution to the work in perspective. The act of tabletop rpg storytelling is a cooperative and interactive experience, with I and my players creating a story through shared experience that wouldn't exist if we each tried to make it individually. The stories we tell at table and that we carry with us to the office or the school wouldn't exist at all without that cool spell drop the witch pulled or that spontaneous moment when the fighter broke into japanese to yell at the group or when the alchemist slams the door shut on escaping the fight out of nowhere to save the world, but potentially sacrifices himself in the process. All of those things exist because the players got to contribute equally at the table to myself as the GM, and designing a narrative that punishes them for coloring outside the lines of my prebuilt narrative as its default is a great way to kill the experience. So, I start there.
3rd) The spine of the story, the ribs of the body: So with all that said, what the hell does the GM do? In my experience, what my job is is to not provide the center of the narrative, the big moments, the moving moments that everyone talks about so to speak, but rather the potential places for them to occur. My story is like the spine at the center of the events that happen at table. The evil wizards plan to return to the world and reign anew are the motivating force, the energetic emotional wind that pushes on the players and their characters that triggers those big moments at table. To that end, I look to write situations that are big enough to make the chances they, the players and their PCs, won't act in some way as close to zero as possible. The events going on at table should be brimming with potential that they can clearly see, and more importantly that tempts them to act. This is important because if I not only want to tell a more structured story like the one above or like the ones we see in Adventure Paths (APs) or more traditional media, I need to not only get my players to follow the story in the direction I want it to go, but I need to make them WANT to follow it as well. Sit down with any GM new or old and start talking shop and sooner or later one of us will talk about that time a table got completely derailed because the party got distracted by something else in game, or threw up their hands and went and totally pillaged a town instead of hunting down the wizard, or a night ended with a big fight because the players didn't want to do the narrative you painstakingly built exactly the way you wanted it. To that end, the next thing to remember is...
4th) Know your Players: On the webshow Gamemaker's Toolkit, Mark Brown once discussed the idea of the optimization of the player, that in the end, players will optimize all the fun out of a game in order to "win" at it, and that as designers, it is the development team's job to incentivize players to play the game not only as the designers intended, but to reward the players for it. Now, this idea is also true in tabletop design. It is true, that we as GM's have a lot of power at table once the curtain rises and the stories begin, but we are also at the whims of our players. No matter how much we might not want to admit it, all that god like GM power means nothing if we have nobody to play with. To that end, it is important to know what your players like and how they like to play before you start designing your game. This allows you to tailor your work to not only fit your narrative and game needs, but lets you build situations that enable your players to pander to their own wants and not get blindsided when they play in a certain way. Learn what shows they like to watch, what books are their favorites, what games they like to play and ask them why, then use that information to mold your stories to help scratch that specific itch while you are telling it. These influence don't even always have to be from other games, and using those influences to help personalize your stories to your players so they can get invested can have a real impact on not only keep your players coming back, but improving your own skills as a storyteller as you start having to figure out the world from the perspective of others and learn how to write and engage them in ways they understand.
For example, 2 of my current players are die hard light novel players. They like games like Dream Daddy and were totally glued to Mystic Messenger when it dropped and love games that pander to that itch. Now, I have never played either and have 0 interest in Mystic Messenger, but it gave me ideas on how to incorporate that into my game to get my story to reach them. It meant I could build stories around individual characters and how the stresses of life in the great frontier broke them into their stories because they would be enthralled. It meant that I could write love stories with major characters and even the antagonists as key actors because the romance angle would draw them into the story. For them, earning prestige at this festival wasn't about earning prestige, it was about appealing to their stoic chieftain friend so that he would respect them more and they could learn more of his story. That let me not only move the narrative along in the direction I wanted (becoming famous at the festival) but let me also tell cool stories about the chieftain that I couldn't have gotten out if I hadn't considered my players love of intimate character driven narrative.
And that's just one example. I've convinced players to blow off PC fingers because it would let them look cooler when they tell the story, I've used cool loot as a place to hide secrets that lead them to my prewritten adventures, and made up whole new NPCs to address problems that the players have seen so that we can move forward AND keep them engaged. The trick here is to learn what your players like to read, watch, and do for entertainment and their expectations of play at table as tools to better your story rather than just obstacles that might pop up. They are at the end of the day, your only audience that matters, and they are half the reason you are here. By pandering to them a little by incorporating their wants into consideration when you design, you will get exponentially more narrative and fun out of them.
5th) Design for the Emotions first, Story 2nd: Building on the previous tenant, as a GMs, it is important to remember the emotion of the story we are trying to tell. As an interactive and collaborative story with a lot of spontaneous narrative happening over our prepared work, it is often easy to forget that the point of stories and entertainment is to evoke an emotional response, and not just in ourselves but in our audience. It's easy to forget in the middle of building our GREAT FANTASY EPIC that our story is one we are performing for our players, and that what excites us and why is likely not exactly the same in our players and sometimes not at all. Nothing sucks more than laying out your big villains master plan and instead of shock and surprise your players are bored and disinterested, or when you introduce the cool awesome encounter and your player breeze through it and hate the thing. To that end, when designing your work think about what emotions do you want your players to experience when your event occurs, and how does this event or the ones around it help trigger that? To that end, it is important to remember those facts and talks you've had with your players before, and use those likes, mechanics, and facts to help build those moments to get your players right to the emotions you are looking to inspire as easily as possible.
For example, if I want players to fiddle with a new mechanic in my games like say, cybertech from the Pathfinder Tech Guide, I need to create system that tell them these options exist, I need to let them by or obtain the pieces I want them to try, and I need to reward the players for trying them and incorporate them into my world through avenues my players will want to follow. It's hard to sell a player on getting a cybernetic arm for his roman centurion inspired fighter, it's much easier when that metal arm is viewed as a sacred relic of the faith that puts his country in power, is bedecked in holographic runes, and the followers literally refer to him as "Reliquary" or "Hand of God". If you listen to your players and hear what they want and the emotional/narrative things they want to explore and why, you can incorporate anything you're looking for. Our jobs as GMs is to make our players as much a fan of our creative ideas as we are, and part of that is letting them be creative with you and pandering to them a little.
Now, this is not an exhaustive list, but is a start towards getting a GM's mind ready for writing campaigns that are fun for both themselves and their players. If you are interested in hearing more about this feel free to message me in the comments below.
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