Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 13 - Your Players Are Your Game

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Scared of the Number 13?  Don't be.  On this episode, Jeremy talks about the critical relationship between a GM and players and how communication is key.  He also talks about some techniques GM can employ to make the players and their characters feel important and part of the greater game world.

This episode of the Taking20 Podcast is brought to you by Triskaidekaphobia. If you have it, you're probably not listening to this episode. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 13 of the Taking20 Podcast, Your Players Are Your Game. First of all, please like, subscribe, and rate us wherever you happen to stumble upon this slightly drunken podcast. What does it mean that the players are your game? Well, let's start at a very basic level. If you have no one who wants to play in a game that you want to GM, you don't have a game. It's that simple.

The thing to keep in mind is that the table is never you versus them, the GM versus the players. Tabletop RPGs are collaborative storytelling at their heart. The players should be treated as equals. Just because you're the arbiter of the rules and you're the game master or dungeon master or role master or whatever your system happens to call it, that doesn't mean that you get to feel more important to them, that your role is any more important than theirs are. So treat your players with respect, you know, like normal human beings, and I think you'll be fine. Please note what I said earlier. The players are your game, not the characters. You as the GM, feel free to put their characters through absolute hell, but not the players. Many years ago, I just moved to a new town, and I was invited to

play with a brand new group. I only knew one person in the group. They knew I was interested in role-playing games and had played for years, so I was invited to play and I was excited to do it. When I sat down, I learned where the party was. We were trekking across the desert to go to a sunken temple that had just re-emerged from the sands. I sat down with a drink and the DM said, oh your character's in the desert so there's no drinks allowed at the table. After a brief pause, I said, are we method acting? Is that what we're doing? What's next? Are you going to poke me with a toothpick every time my character gets hit with a weapon? Are you going to burn me with a match when the imposing spellcaster casts fireball? Are you going to make me take meth when my character gets hit by a confusion spell?

Please don't. I have enough drama in my life without a meth problem. I mean, I don't know why the GM had a bat next to the table, but I'm going to head out before I find out. Thanks. That group really wasn't for me. I felt like the DM was blurring the lines between what your players go through and what your characters go through. So just because your characters are going through hell doesn't necessarily mean you put your players through hell too. So really it boils down to treating players with respect. I mean, whether the player plays a character who's a vile, wretched monster or an angelic saint, it doesn't matter. You treat them the same. They're still co-authors of you on this grand story that you're on. And so just be a good human being, yeah? I've said this before,

and I think it fits here as well. If you and your players aren't having fun, then you and your players are doing it wrong. I mean, you shouldn't be sitting there saying, well, I'm a damn magical DM. If they're not having fun, it's their fault. Or, well, the story's amazing if the players just weren't complete buttholes. Or, this is my favorite game system, and I know I'm running it right and having fun. So if the players aren't having fun, it's their fault. The focus of every game should be fun for everyone. So if you and the players aren't having fun. It's their fault. The focus of every game should be fun for everyone. So if you and the players are not having fun, then you need to change something. Plural, you need to change something. Constant communication really is key here. For example,

I've got a group coming in tonight that we're running a one-shot on Pathfinder 2E. An initial conversation with the players should be sufficient to make sure I know what the players are looking for as far as the one-shot goes. In this case, they're wanting to learn the rules, so I've made a quick little varying adventure that has social interactions, skill checks, and combat, so that they can learn the different aspects of the rules. But if you're doing a long adventure,

you need to check in with the players periodically, both with the players periodically, both with the group as a whole and one-on-one. Make sure each player is getting what they wanted out of the adventure. Make sure they're having fun. Give them the opportunity to provide feedback and voice any concerns that he or she may have. Some of my go-to questions for my players. Are you having fun in the campaign?

Are you getting what you wanted out of the campaign? What would you like to change about the campaign, if anything? What are your favorite parts of the adventure? And what are your least favorite parts of the adventure? And I make sure I give them leave to provide criticism, whether it's of me, the other players, the way the game's being run, any of it. I make sure those players know that there's not going to be any blowback if they happen to have criticism for the way I'm running the game. I want that criticism. I want to be better. Really, to understand this concept, it does require a little bit of emotional intelligence, and I'm going to use that term quite a lot throughout the life of the podcast, whether that lasts one more episode or a hundred. Emotional intelligence is the ability to read a room and read a player, to understand when

they're comfortable, when they're uncomfortable, maybe when they're having fun, when the talkative player suddenly gets quiet, what that means, when the quiet player suddenly gets talkative, what that means. Emotional intelligence is going to be a topic all its own, so I'll cover that in a later episode. I wanted to define it here so that we're all on the same page when it comes to definition. So use your emotional intelligence to read the table. Understand normal social conventions. Understand what you've been doing and how it may affect the player's change in reactions.

For example, are you using too much comedy? I used to have a player that would tolerate about a minute worth of joking around before you hear him mutter, all right. And once he muttered that, that was my cue I needed to start moving things on. Now eventually he kind of understood that I enjoy running more comedy-focused campaigns, so he eventually moved on to another table. He was looking for something different. Another thing you need to think about when you're reading your table, if the story gets scary, if there's a lot of horror elements that make an appearance, how much is too much? One of my players has a hard limit on the amount of horror and scary things that get thrown into an adventure. I've learned to read her reactions and I can dial it back as needed. I have another player who is fine with any sort of horror element as long as

it doesn't affect children. They just had their first baby not too long ago, so any sort of horror element that would affect children, they immediately think of their own, and I completely understand that. A lot of the horror elements that have bad things that happen to children, I dial that back a little bit. I'll make it a little bit of an older teenager, if you will, to soften the blow a bit. So be able to read your table. Understand when players are starting to get uncomfortable, They're starting to react differently than they normally

do, so that way you can understand when maybe you're starting to approach one of their hard limits. So your NPCs. Since your players are your game, the NPCs should be there to support the characters, not steal the spotlight from them. They should help the PCs perform in an action. They should help the PCs by providing information to them. Do not let NPCs become the decision makers for the party. They should not be the ones saying, oh, your plan? Yeah, that's garbage. You need to go here, go there, do this thing, kill that thing, and then invade this place. No, that's not should be the NPC's job. Your PC should be the one to decide what they are doing and when. The other thing, if your NPCs start

adventuring or spending a lot of time around your players, don't let the NPCs become super-powered Mary Sue characters that get to do all the cool stuff and be the heroes all the time. For those that don't know the term, a Mary Sue character is a character with no flaws, no weaknesses. It's an idealized character. It's adored by all. Just an amazing character that steals a lot of the spotlight and a lot of the focus for the campaign. So don't let your NPCs become Mary Sues. Let your PCs be the ones accomplishing all the great things. On the subject of planning, by the way, I mentioned don't let NPCs become the planners and the decision makers for the party. An offshoot of that is let the players come up with their own plan,

even if it's not what you intended. No, I'll change that. Especially if it's not what you intended. If the PCs come up with a plan and you think it's even at all remotely plausible for success, give it a chance to work. Adjust DCs if you need to. Listen, natural ones happen,

but give that plan a chance to work unless it makes absolutely no sense. I'm going to stop the comet from hitting the planet by eating a lot of cheese this week. Go on. I'm interested to hear how you think that's going to stop a comet, but I'm all ears. Go on. I'm interested to hear how you think that's going to stop a comet, but I'm all ears. GM 101. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. If the players come up with a plan that is different than what you expected, roll with it and see if you can make it work as part of the adventure of

the campaign. Another thing you should do is try to have different types of encounters so different players can get the spotlight and be the big damn hero. Should your RPG have combat? Chances are yes. The vast majority of RPGs out there have some sort of combat mechanics. Absolutely have those. But have two different types. Have straight up fights where the two sides stand toe to toe, slug it out. They're shooting laser rifles at each other from fairly short range. They're throwing knives, whatever their characters happen to do, but have a nice, good, straight-up, simple fight. But you should also have some fights where tactics are key, where there are elevation changes. Maybe there's lava flows. Maybe the encounter area itself changes. So maybe it's on islands that move, floating clouds that change elevation.

The environment itself changes as part of combat. That way tactics become way more important than just straight up slugfest. Now when I say encounters, one of the things I want to call attention to is it's not just straight up combat. It also could be hazards or traps or social interactions or what have you. While combat is certainly part of it, also start thinking of examples where your arcane and divine spell casters can make the appropriate roles to advance the story or be heroes or solve a problem. Design encounters or events where those spell casters can also take focus. Have social events and encounters where players with good diplomacy

or intimidate and their other social skills have the opportunity to shine, have the opportunity to be in the forefront. Should you have traps and hazards? Absolutely. That way the rogues and scouts or whatever your campaign calls them can save the party from that giant 5d6 stone crushing trap that's right in front of the door. Have problem solving encounters where the players have to either make rolls for their characters or allow the players to put their heads together and work to solve a puzzle as a unit. Have skill check encounters. Gives your skilled characters a chance to show off. That way your character that has a huge survival skill can use that survival skill to improve the party's

chance of success. By no means am I saying that every session needs a combat and an arcane and a divine and a social and a trap and and and. That's not what I'm saying. But every session needs variety. Recent session that I just ran had a magical puzzle, social encounter, and two fairly high level combats. Tonight's session that I'm actually preparing a magical puzzle, social encounter, and two fairly high-level combats. Tonight's session that I'm actually preparing right now has two skill checks, a social encounter, and about two to three combats, depending on how the players run it. So, three to four hours and we will be done. What happens when things go off the rails during your encounters? You design this encounter with a certain character in mind, and that character just does not perform.

This week I GM'd a session with a combat encounter that was really designed around one ranged character. It was his time to shine. He easily could have stood at the edge of a room and just peppered the entire suite of bad guys. Unfortunately, very early on, he had to make a saving throw, and he rolled a natural one on that saving throw. So that was the only way he could have failed that save,

and he found a way to do it. But because of that natural one, that saving throw. So that was the only way he could have failed that save, and he found a way to do it. But because of that natural one, that took him out of the fight. So this entire encounter that was designed around his ranged ability changed from a fairly simple encounter where he could be the hero to a fight for the party's lives. Behind the screen, I adjusted the fight slightly, changing the monsters that would show up, changing their abilities, and changing actually their hit points.

But still, by the end of the combat, three of the five PCs were unconscious. Two of them had taken poison damage and dropped unconscious from that, and one had dropped to negative one hit points, so she was out of the fight as well. They were down to two PCs. One actually had to wild shape into a fire elemental and tank, while the other one was magically throwing boulders at the bad guy because he was out of any other spells that could possibly damage it. Adjusting encounter is probably going to be a

topic for a later episode, so I'll talk more about this particular encounter then, but just know that things do go off the rails during these encounters whenever you design it for a particular character, and when they do, you need to be able to adjust on the fly. What else does that mean that your players are your game? That means if your player comes up with a really good character backstory, you should support that backstory. Try to find ways to weave that character's backstory into the game wherever you can. I mean, face it, one of the questions that any external observer would have is why are we focusing on these four or five or six characters in this story? There's value to making them important in some way without overdoing the, oh, I'm the chosen one.

No, I'm the chosen one. No, I'm the chosen one. Let's all get together and party up and kill everything. But still, try to find ways to weave the backstory into the adventure or adventure path as a whole because it makes that backstory feel important and it makes the events of a character's life before the game actually started meaningful. You'll remember one of my first rules of GMing is that fun is more important than story,

which is more important than rules. So if the players aren't having fun, change the story or change the rules so they can. Some DMs really play hard ass with the rules. You've heard me talk about this before. My honest belief is... These rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken. I'd rather have loose rules with happy players than the opposite.

Wait, no, that's definitely true. I don't want loose players. Loose players leads to sex and sex leads to dancing and we can't have that. So focus on the fun. Focus on making sure that your players are the focus of the game. You are in a lot of ways as a GM providing a service for these players that they can get together, have fun in a campaign, have fun in an adventure, spend some time together, and experience this wonderful story that you're

writing together. So focus on the player's fun. Focus on your fun. Together have fun collaborating on this story that you guys are on. Thank you so much for listening to episode 13, Your Players Are Your Game. If you have any episode topic ideas or you want to provide feedback, please head over to taking20podcast.com. Send me a message. I'll make sure I credit you if I wind up making that episode on that topic. I'll make sure to credit you if I wind up making an episode of that topic. We also have a Patreon.

If you like what you hear and you'd like to hear more of it, or if you'd like to hear me and a group of improv actors put out some live play episodes, head on over to Patreon and consider becoming a sponsor. I would greatly appreciate it. Lastly, we've got a Facebook group and a subreddit, so do a search for Taking20Podcast and please come join the discussion. Once again, I want to thank our sponsor, TriskaDekaphobia. I ain't scared of no number. 1313131313. I ain't scared of no number. 13, 13, 13, 13, 13.

I'm Jeremy Shelley, and I hope your next game is your best game.