 Gamemastering
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| Getting Ready | The Three Commandments of Gamemastering Overseeing Character Creation |
| Playing the Game | Running a Game Creating an Adventure |
So you've got the players together, their characters are all ready for the game, you know how to run the game, and every thing's going great. Now it's time to actually get an adventure together for your players.
Continuity[]
Even in the most episodic genres, there is still a certain amount of continuity between adventures, even if that continuity exists only thanks to the periodic growth of the characters' abilities. How much continuity and flow of story matters for your game depends entirely on how much your group likes to focus on the tale that's unfolding.
When you get ready to create a new adventure, you need to look at where the players' characters are in relation to other possible challenges in your world, and not just in terms of distance ("Oh, there's the Cavern of the Wraith Lord just a mile away from them! That'll do!"). Look at the flow of time too, and consider how other events might be moving forward. Maybe the ambitious prince they met months ago has made his move and is now king, so he's ready to send the royal guardsmen after the meddling adventurers who foiled his plans before. Or maybe the characters will be stuck out in the wilderness on the night of the full moon, leaving them at the mercy of some forsaken beast.
Things to consider while in this stage of planning:
- Where Are They?: What part of the world did the last adventure leave the characters in? On a mystic island they just saved from a fierce dragon? In a hidden city beneath the surface of the moon? Still safely in their hometown? Think about what could happen to them next in their current location, or where they could go from there.
- Who Else is Near?: What allies or enemies (or new potential friends and foes) are in the area? What are those NPCs planning? Will the Godwin Gang risk crossing the Rio Grande to help the characters as promised, or will the Rangers be enough of a threat that they'll break their word and leave the PCs to rob the train on their own? Is the voodoo priest who warned the PCs not to venture into the swamp be waiting for them when they venture back out with his black magic? Did the alien menace lurking in the belly of the ship really perish in the fire? Consider who might come to help (or come to maim) the characters next, what those friends and foes are working towards themselves, or what they want, and how the characters might fit into their plans.
- What Time is It?: Not just morning, noon, or night. Is it winter? If so, maybe the characters will find themselves held up at the airport as snow is dumped on the runway, leaving them stranded with a terrorist who's threatened to blow up the whole terminal. Or is it approaching the summer solstice, and the characters have only three days before the dread serpent witch sacrifices the blacksmith's apprentice to her dark gods? Or maybe it's election time, and the heroes need to be on guard against assassins seeking to kill a candidate who is unpopular with the megacorporations? Think about what events are coming up in your world which might catch the interest of the players. Even something light and simple, like a holiday adventure or a beach trip, can be appropriate and fun for the group.
You also want to consider what recent types of adventures you've run. If it's been awhile since you've had a good chase, maybe it's time for an exciting race through the twisting, narrow city streets. Or if you just wrapped up your second murder mystery in a month, maybe it's time to let the players just go splatter zombies for the night. Then again, if the players are clamoring for yet another mystery to solve, then so long as you can hack it, you shouldn't hesitate to run your third (jinkies!).
Starting a New Adventure[]
So now you've got ideas percolating from where you left your players last time. How do you get the adventure rolling?
The Recap[]
"Last time...". "Previously...". "When we last left our heroes...".
Sum things up for the group. Help them remember what they did last time, and cue them as to what the mood was before everyone left the table after the last game. This is a good way to help hint at things that were important in previous games, which they should focus on and remember for this one. It's also a good time to help the players get into character by praising their accomplishments or reminding them of their failures.
Keep this part of the game short, but be willing to answer questions. This is the time when players are likely to ask last-minute "Before we get started" questions, such as ideas for spending character points or clarifications as to who a certain NPC is.
Setting the Stage[]
The gameworld as it is before the adventure starts. The players need to know where their characters are, and what NPCs are around who they can interact with. In certain genres (especially classic High Fantasy), it might be a time for the characters to go shopping and buy new gear. Regardless, this is the first glimpse at the world the PCs get in a given game session, so it's an excellent opportunity to set the stage for the adventure.
The Hook[]
Once the characters are immersed in the world, it's time to get things rolling. Bring in the hook to draw your group into the adventure you have planned.
Designing a good hook, though, is easier said than done. It has to appeal not just to the players, but to their characters as well. The promise of gold in a nearby cavern might not excite a hermit wizard, but ancient tomes of knowledge might. And a group of ruthless space pirates are unlikely to be moved by the plight of a stranded ship of colonists who need to replace a part of their engine.
With that in mind, you should be willing to come up with alternative hooks to get the characters interested. Know which characters (and which players!) you can motivate with promises of gold or loot, and which ones will be motivated to do it out of concern for others. Try to get a feel for how much of a hook you'll need for certain kinds of adventures. Your players might not need to know much more than one of their favorite NPCs is in trouble to go charging off to the rescue, but you might need to dangle a nice gold reward in front of the party to get them interested in order to convince them to do something they're less thrilled about.
The New Challenge[]
While or shortly after introducing the hook, you'll be exposing your characters to the latest challenge they must face. In general, there are two kinds of challenges: the kind which come seeking the characters out, and the kind which the characters must venture out to find.
The Menace[]
The first kind of adventure, where danger comes to them, is a staple of more modern or futuristic genres, especially superheroes (where some villain threatens the city every week) and space opera (where alien invaders threaten the ship/homeworld often), though it exists in all genres of gameplay (a rampaging goblin warband in a fantasy game, a covert attack on headquarters in a military game, a new gang riding into town in a western game, etc.). The characters don't need to do anything themselves: so long as they remain in position, the new menace will show up and cause problems for them, problems which they'll naturally need to fix if they want to maintain the status quo.
Since the menace is often intruding, the menace will rarely bring with it an adventure site. Rather, the menace and the characters will be on roughly equal footing (except when the menace tries to attack the characters' base of operations, in which case the players' characters likely have the advantage). Keep this in mind when building battlefield environments and try to leave the battlefield open enough that both sides can take relatively equal advantage of zone areas if they try.
The other thing to keep in mind with the menace is that victory is almost more likely to be achieved by driving off the menace than it is to wipe the menace out. Most intelligent menaces will retreat if they find more resistance than they expected, and even bestial menaces will run from unexpected pain. This may indeed lead to the characters chasing down the menace as part of a brand new quest (see below) to end its threat once and for all.
The Quest[]
In the second kind of adventure, the characters go out to seek danger (whether to defeat that danger or for potential reward). For years, this all but defined most fantasy genres, where the heroes ventured forth into dark dungeons in search of riches, and is still very much a staple of that genre. It is still seen in practically every genre too (including soldiers being sent to another country on a search and destroy mission, a spaceship's crew landing on an uncharted planet to see if it's suitable for colonization, or occult investigators going globe-hoping in search of some ancient artifact to prevent the coming doom). In this scenario, unless the characters are motivated to venture forth and complete the adventure, the adventure may well never happen (though its consequences might).
With the quest, it'll most often be the characters who are intruding, and will encounter foes more likely than not to be in their element, and thus even more of a threat. Traps and security systems are common features of this genre, especially when quests include infiltrating ancient temples or inhabited military complexes. It will likely be the enemy who has the environmental advantage, using environments against the characters to great effect (though you shouldn't expect the characters to ignore the environment either).
Unlike menaces who come seeking out trouble, foes who the heroes will encounter on a quest are likely to be in their home, or at least their base of operations, and may fight fiercely to defend it from intruders. Wiping the enemy out (or at least capturing them) becomes more important and likely in this type of adventure. Some foes might flee (whether just down the hall to hide and recover from injuries, or to blast off in an escape pod to live to fight another day), but not as often as a wandering menace might.
The Flow of the Adventure[]
Once the adventure is under way and the players have taken the hook, the rest of the adventure will call into practice all of the GMing skills you've developed so far. You need to arrange encounters in such a way that players will have plenty of room to exercise their discretion and planning to proceed through the adventure in the way they want to, without feeling like they're locked on a railroad for the duration of the adventure.
It's a tough balance. You don't want to go in with no idea of how the adventure will progress, but you also don't want to force the heroes to follow one pre-determined path.
Usually the best compromise is to allow for multiple different paths to reach any given encounter, and to accept that some of the encounters might never come up, depending on which path the characters take. Also consider making encounters in which the location is less important fluid enough that they can happen in multiple different areas. For example, if the characters in a horror game are exploring an old farm house where the family mysteriously went missing, you might have plans for an encounter where all the tools in the barn suddenly come to life to attack the heroes. But if the heroes avoid the barn and go to the kitchen instead, maybe the kitchen utensils can come to life instead! Same encounter, different environment.
The Encounters[]
Generally speaking, there are three reasons for including a given encounter in an adventure:
- The encounter furthers the adventure's plot, providing an opportunity for the characters to learn more about their challenge and to move closer to overcoming it.
- The encounter serves to flesh out the world itself, whether by providing insight into some outside NPC, event, or group, or by giving the characters themselves some time in the spotlight.
- The encounter is what the game needs to be fun.
Naturally, the best encounters incorporate all three elements to varying degrees. A great encounter will let the players have a good time, learn more about the world they're adventuring in, more about one another's characters, and move closer to completing the current adventure.
Guidelines for creating individual encounters can be found in the section on NPCs. Within the context of the adventure itself, though, it's up to you. How will the adventure progress? Will the characters encounter greater and greater threats until they fight a final climactic battle with the enemy leader? Or will they be dealt a crushing blow right from the start and forced to spend the rest of the adventure catching up with the enemy?
Regardless of your choice, there are a few basic tropes to keep in mind when laying out encounters:
New Enemies Are Stronger Than Old Enemies[]
Put another way, an enemy (or a type of enemy) that you've never fought before is more likely to be a threat than one you've fought before a half-dozen times. To that end, an easy trick which a GM can use is to use creatures which would normally be minions in the adventure as normal NPC enemies the first time the players encounter them. New enemies should be big and bad and scary, even if later in the adventure, the PCs are going to be splattering them left and right.
Encounter Difficulty Increases as the Adventure Progresses[]
While the individual enemies may not be any stronger in subsequent encounters (especially the ones who have been relegated to minion status after their first appearance), the overall difficulty of encounters generally increases steadily as the adventure goes on. That's not to say that there won't be outliers in difficulty in the game (such as an encounter with a lone hit-man late in an adventure). The idea is to build towards a big climax in the final encounter of the adventure, making each encounter more and more trying, and each one more and more exciting.
Unfold the Plot Slowly[]
The players don't get to learn the whole story behind the adventure right away. However, with each encounter and each scene, the characters should find out a little more about what's going on. They might learn another piece of the villain's plot to destroy the city, or the reason the orcs are raiding villages in the valley, or why the alien temple was really built in the first place. Let them learn it bit by bit, step by step. And most importantly, listen to their speculations and thoughts on the story so far. Who knows? They might come up with something even better than what you had planned, and you can steal it for yourself and claim that you had been planning it all along!
Connecting the Encounters[]
While each encounter you create might be exciting, you also need to be sure that the encounters connect to each other logically. One encounter needs to flow into the next, providing a way for the characters to know how to progress.
One good way to decide on how to connect different encounters is to look at it through the eyes of the enemy, and the enemy's plan. How will the enemy have things arranged? What's the goal? And more importantly, how will the characters try to disrupt it. Figure this out, and you'll have a good idea for how to lay out and connect the different encounters of the adventure.
Another good way to look at it is from the layout of the adventure area. Especially for site-based quests, the characters might need to explore an entire maze, going from room to room, before they can finish the adventure, so the adventure site itself literally connects the encounters for you. Indeed, there's a reason that the first roleplaying games used labyrinthine dungeons and caverns as their primary (if not exclusive) adventuring sites!
The Climax[]
As you approach the end of the adventure, you want the encounters to lead to an exciting climax, in which the players finally finish the adventure and learn the whole story behind it, often while fighting the most exciting battle in the adventure. This might be the fight with the mastermind behind the adventure, the dragon in the depths of the cavern, or the showdown with the king of space pirates. The climax has to be big, and it has to be enough of a challenge to make the players sweat. This will likely be the one where the biggest opponent of all is accompanied by a squad of elite warriors and a few teams of weaker minions. The environment will probably be at its most important in this fight, and things will likely get hairy pretty quickly for the characters if they're not careful.
This is the time when the PCs' actions will decide the difference between victory and defeat, if the bad guys will win, or if the characters will save the day. Be sure to emphasize this to the players by reiterating that everything comes down to this encounter, and that they need to be on the top of their game to win.
The Finishing Touches[]
When the climax is complete, and the adventure is coming to a close, it's time to give the characters their well-earned rewards. Start with the in-game ones, especially any loot they might find after the climax (such as the dragon's hoard of gold). Give the players a little bit of time to rest on their laurels and enjoy their victory.
This is also the time to start preparing things for the next adventure, dropping hints or clues as to what's coming. You might have characters find an ancient, crinkled map in the pocket of the villain, or overhear the codename to some insidious operation that's coming. Whatever it is, it lets them know that while this adventure is over, there's still more to come.
And of course, you want to use this time to tie up any other loose ends. The bad guys who the characters didn't defeat might have run away, or the medicine they recovered will be what's needed to heal their sick friend. This is when the characters get a little bit of extra incentive, whether from new adventure hooks, or from the pride of seeing their important mission accomplished.
The Cliffhanger[]
And if you really want to make sure that the players come back hungry for more, you want to learn how to end the adventure on a high note, with a reveal that gets everyone excited for the next game. A good cliffhanger gives the players a glimpse at something awesome and shocking, a scene which they're eager to take part in. It gets them really pumped up for the next adventure, and helps give them something really memorable to keep in mind until the next game session.
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