Welcome to The Gamemaster’s Arsenal, the column dedicated to arming GM’s everywhere with the skills, knowledge, and creative energy necessary to provide the best possible gaming experience for their players.  Regardless of rules, system, or genre, the Arsenal aims to give you a variety of tools designed to make your responsibility as a gamemaster easier, more enjoyable, and to leave you and your players inspired by the stories you craft together.

 

Last month in The Gamemaster’s Arsenal I discussed hints and techniques for reducing GM stress.  I touched upon four concepts designed to help a GM feel more at ease, in control, and creative while behind the screen.  All four ideas, at their core, were essentially shifts in GMing paradigm.  Over the next few months we’ll examine each concept in depth and look at specific examples of how to incorporate these ideas into your own game.  This month will take a look at how simply changing your focus can make the GM’s job easier and less stressful.

 

Paradigm Shift: Change Your Design Focus

 

Many GM’s follow a similar pattern when it comes to story and adventure design; they tend to come up with an idea and then begin immediately thinking about how the PC’s are going to interact with that idea.  New GM’s usually start thinking about how they are going get the PC’s to the adventure and how to reward the characters.  Experienced GM’s often look for ways to “hook” the characters into the story and how they are going to keep the players on track.  Advanced GM’s may go so far as to think of a few possible ways to manage unexpected PC actions.

 

All of these techniques are important and serve their purpose but each share a similar GM paradigm; they are all design methods that are player character focused.  Of course in many ways the PC’s are the most important elements of the game, but when a GM focuses on the PC’s while designing the campaign he forces himself into “anticipation” mode.  Trying to predict everything the players can do, or might do, inevitably adds stress to the GM’s job.  It also leads to a lot of wasted effort because in my experience I’ve found that no matter how many options I imagine, my players will always come up with a couple that I never saw coming.

 

These days when it comes to designing adventures and laying out my campaign, I’ve changed my focus.  Instead of spending time trying to guess what the PC’s may or may not do, I put my creative energy into the setting and what the antagonists do.  By shifting the focus I don’t have to worry about the hundreds of things the PC’s might do, instead I simply decide how the NPC’s will react to what the PC’s actually do.  I now longer need to scratch my head in frustration trying to be PC psychic.

 

So how do you actually put this into practice?  Changing your focus begins early in the design process but remember, the more up front work you do the easier it is.  First you need know your setting.  It’s not enough to just know the facts and mechanics; you need to understand the setting the way the NPC’s understand it.  Doing this allows you to better roleplay the antagonists and supporting NPC’s.  “Roleplaying” the antagonists will let you begin reacting to the PCs’ actions instead of perpetually trying to anticipate them.  Once you begin reacting you’ll find that the story begins to write itself and your players are doing a lot of the work for you.  And that, will take a lot of the stress out of your game.

 

Know the Setting, Understand the NPC’s

Whether using a published or home-brew setting, you need to have a solid grasp of the world in which the game takes place.  As GM you will be portraying every inhabitant of the entire world, so you need to understand the world at least as well as the NPC’s understand it.  Although any given NPC probably won’t understand the grand workings of the cosmos, or be able to view the world as an omnipotent GM, they will have at least a basic functional knowledge of three important things:

 

• Their role in the universe.  They may be predator or prey, free-willed or not.  For an intelligent humanoid this could manifest as knowing his place in society, be it a member of a tribe or the leader of a nation.  Their role may be racial, professional, or even political.  Animals also have a sense of their role, whether lone hunter, scavenger, or as a member of a pack.  Even creatures lacking free-will, such as constructs or robots, have programming and instructions that define their role in the world.
• Some sort of survival instinct.  A method to acquire the resources it needs to exist (such as hunting for food, or simply crying until fed), and a way to keep from being harmed (fight or flight).  Again, even creatures lacking free-will or simply possessing animal-level intelligence will still have some level of self-preservation instinct.
• A need for “something”.  All creatures will probably need something.  This “something” however may not be an actual item or physical thing.  It could be as simple as mere survival.  It may be a need for emotional fulfillment, like looking for love or belonging.  It could be a desire for power, revenge, control, or even justice.  Regardless of what “it” is, someone’s desire for something will drive both an adventure and the campaign as a whole.

 

It’s important to note that just because a creature has a functional knowledge of something it doesn’t necessarily mean they understand it, or are even capable of understanding it.  Some creatures may simply be acting out of instinct, habit, or even programming. 

 

Once you begin to understand the NPC’s you can begin thinking like the NPC’s, and that brings us to the second point.

 

Roleplay the Antagonists, React to the PC’s

Players are lucky, they only have to play one single role within the campaign, where as you, as the GM, must portray literally everyone else in the world.  As if that weren’t enough you are also responsible for portraying the world itself.  However it’s sometimes easy to forget that, just like the players, you too are portraying characters in a story.

 

As GM the characters you play run a much broader spectrum then the ones the players portray.  While each player takes on the role a single being of some sort, you need to portray not just individuals, but groups and organizations, animals and beasts, maybe even entire armies or countries.  Regardless of the scale or scope of the role it is still a role to be played like any other.

 

When you sit down and design your plot arcs and adventures don’t initially worry about the PC’s.  Don’t waste time thinking about what they will do, or how they will get to the adventure (at least not at this point).  Instead focus on the NPC’s, in particular the story’s antagonist(s).  Remember, from the GM’s perspective it is the antagonist that is the story’s catalyst.  It is the antagonist who sets things into motion and creates the need for adventures to do adventurer stuff.  Ask yourself a few questions about the antagonist:

 

• What does he want?
• How will he get it?
• What are the resources at his disposal?
• What’s he willing to do to get it?

 

As you begin answering these questions think about the three points listed earlier regarding the antagonist’s role, survival instinct, and desire.  Answering these questions will give you an excellent idea of how to portray the antagonist.  It doesn’t matter if you are dealing with an individual or an organization; these questions will give you insight about what the antagonist will do and how the antagonist will act and react.

 

This is where you knowledge of NPC’s comes into play.  Look at things through the antagonist’s eyes.  At this point in your design assume the antagonist will be successful in achieving the objective.  After all, the antagonist assumes he will be successful otherwise he wouldn’t be doing whatever it is he’s planning on doing.  No one aims for failure.  In your mind play out the antagonist’s entire story; what he will plan, what obstacles he will overcome, what goals he will achieve, and even what he will do once he succeeds. 

 

By now you should know who the antagonist is, what they want, how they are going to get it, and what the consequences of their success will be.  You (the GM) understand the antagonist’s entire story from start to finish.  Understanding is easy because at this point you are the only one telling the story; there are no random factors or unknown variables.  There is nothing for you to anticipate, assume, or guess at.  Most importantly you haven’t wasted any time trying to predict things beyond your control like what the PC’s will do. 

 

All of this information is exactly what makes roleplaying the antagonist easy and running your game stress-free.  Instead of constantly trying to predict what the PC’s are going to do, how to account for their actions, and what you are going to do to keep things on track, you just need to let the antagonist react to “whatever” the PC’s do.  And since you’ve already done the aforementioned work, you know how the antagonist will react.  Once you have shifted your paradigm you’ll discover that you are running your game in reaction mode instead of anticipation mode.  Not only is reaction mode less stressful, it’s also more fun.

 

Putting it all Together

You may be asking yourself; how does this all play out?  Let me illustrate this concept in action with an example from my current Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Dark Legacy. 

 

Dark Legacy is divided into three parts, following the classic fantasy trilogy model.  Part one (heroic tier for you D&D players) focuses around the plans and plots of an organization known as The Dragon’s Eye and is set in a region called the Seven Bridges Valley.

 

I began designing the campaign by laying out the valley, making a few notes about the settlements there, and outlining some broad geographical details.  I jotted down some ideas about the five settlements’ size, population, and organization.  Once having a rough idea of what the valley is like currently helped me create a broad overview of the region’s history.  A handful of historical notes lead me to several obvious conclusions about the people, politics, and important events in the valley.

 

At this point I had only created a name for the antagonists’ organization “The Dragon’s Eye”.  However, once I began to create and understand the world it became obvious to me that the eye was made up of goblinoids who once ruled the valley looking to reestablish their dominance over the region. 

 

So now, looking at the world from the viewpoint of the Dragon’s Eye and knowing what they want, I ask myself; how are these creatures going to succeed at their plan?  Knowing the antagonists and understanding the setting allows me to quickly realize how they will go about their plan.  Now I’m at the point, before the first character is even rolled up, where I can see the sequence of events leading to the Dragon’s Eye conquering the Seven Bridges Valley.  If only there were heroes to stop their foul plans.

 

Enter the heroes.  Now I’m in Reaction Mode.  The only non-reactionary thing I do is kick things off by having the local city council send the able-bodied adventures to investigate some mysterious attacks along an old road.  That is the catalyst that sets the campaign into motion, at least as far as the PC’s are concerned.

 

What follows are several examples from different parts of the campaign illustrating reaction mode in action:

 

PC Action: PC’s travel along Old North Road.

DM Reaction: Goblins ambush the PC’s.  I know the goblins are patrolling the roads to keep people away from the village of Cinderhill, which in a few weeks they will take over and occupy. 

 

PC Action (in this case inaction): They allow one goblin to escape. 

DM Reaction: Thinking in terms of the antagonist I react by having the goblin report to his superiors.  Now the Dragon’s Eye knows about the heroes and will begin making a plan on dealing with this unexpected threat to their plans.

 

PC Action: Heroes foil the plan to release a cyclops war band from another plane.

DM Reaction: Tired of the heroes’ interference The Dragon’s Eye decides to send an elite group of assassin’s to strike at the PC’s directly.  The enemy knows where to strike the heroes because the PC’s have made no effort to be discreet about where they go or when. 

 

PC Action: The PC’s decided to strike directly at The Dragon’s Eye in the dwarven ruins of Khzahd-Nar.  They think the best strategy is to take the fight to the hobgoblins and their allies.  The heroes are successful in killing several important members of the eye.

DM Reaction: Realizing that the heroes have dealt a serious, but not fatal, blow to the enemy I put myself in the position of the Dragon’s Eye.  They still have a goal.  They still have resources at their disposal.  They decided they’ve had enough.  The Dragon’s Eye tricks an old ally of one of the heroes into luring the PC’s away on an errand (the ally was someone a player mentioned in his character’s background).  The errand keeps the heroes away from Cinderhill long enough for the Dragon’s Eye to put their next plan into action.

 

Basically throughout the campaign I continually repeat this process; PC’s take an action, bad guys react, PC’s react to the bad guys’ reaction and so on and so forth.  Regardless of the actions my PC’s choose to take, I simply apply my knowledge of the Dragon’s Eye, there resources, intelligence, and abilities, to the situation and it almost always becomes immediately clear what their next action would be.

 

Of course throughout the process I have to modify my vision of how the antagonists are going to succeed at their plans.  But that is where the game moves from someone (the GM) simply telling a story, to a group of people creating a story through an interactive experience.

 

Conclusion

Although shifting your paradigm and changing your GM style can be tough it can also be very rewarding.  In the case of changing your design focus three benefits tend to emerge:

 

• You reduce the stress of trying to anticipate the PC’s actions.
• You strength verisimilitude by having antagonists behave in a logical and consistent, although perhaps not predictable, manner.
• You as the GM can have some fun “playing a role”.

 

The last point is important to remember.  These days I have much more fun plotting and planning ways for  The Dragon’s Eye to “take care of those meddlesome heroes”, then I ever had trying to guess what the PC’s were going to do and try and plan around it.  The change in design focus has made the game more fun for me (as the GM) because now I feel as though the future is uncertain.  I no longer feel like I’ve read the last chapter of the book and that the players are just along for the ride, instead I feel as though together, my friends and I are telling an epic story.  And to me that’s what roleplaying is all about.