Roleplaying game mechanics come in all shapes and sizes. There are rule sets that fill massive books and account for nearly everything player characters might ever attempt, and there are game systems that stretch to fill a pamphlet, claiming anything you can imagine is possible with only a couple of die rolls.
In every case, the effort to codify a hero’s actions is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, a good set of rules keeps the action rolling forward and keeps expectations clear. On the other hand, they can really muck up a great theatrical opportunity by preventing the perfect event from happening at the climactic moment. In other words, sometimes the dice (and even the players) get in the way of telling a terrific story. But they don’t have to.
Tell a Compelling Adventure Story While Winging It
You can bend the rules to your will, and even break them from time to time, to achieve a campaign that feels more like a novel. And you can do this kind of GMing with a bit less preparation, too. All it requires are players willing to try it and some understanding of how fiction writing works, plus a little bit of trust in yourself to execute on the fly (and it’s not as hard as you might think).
With those two elements in your pocket, you can be on your way to a style of game that is faster-paced and more satisfying, without some of the frustration of mechanics getting in the way or the drudgery of over-preparing for the wrong outcomes.
How Does This Work?
Running an RPG campaign like an author isn’t very different from running a more traditional campaign. In both instances, you create a world where your characters live and explore, set up conflict, and prepare scenes where that conflict is ratcheted up and/or resolved.
As the author or GM, you know roughly where you want the plot to lead and what the climax will be. The difference between writing fiction and running a “standard” RPG campaign is that the author decides exactly when everything happens, while the GM must wait for the dice and the players to reach a plot point—or derail it. It’s good to be ready for both outcomes!
Running a game more like an author means not waiting for pieces to fall into place. Instead, you get to dictate the pace, the order of events, and sometimes, even (gasp!) the outcomes. There’s a school of thought in RPGs that condemns a GM putting their thumb on the scale. Planning outcomes is called “railroading,” and it’s looked down on. But people buy train tickets for good reason. They want to know where they’re going and they trust the engineer and conductor to get them there.
Making room for player agency along with a planned outcome is doable and sometimes preferable. You get to maintain a high level of excitement, trepidation, and satisfaction that can get lost in a game devoted to following the dice. In other words, you get to tell a story the way it should be told.
I’ll get into the nuts and bolts of this approach more next time, but for now, the tl;dr is, arm yourself with the setting, some major NPCs, and some prepared events, and keep them ready to drop in at the right moments. Even when your players have hared off in some unexpected direction—especially when they’ve hared off—you’re ready. That’s when it’s the perfect blend of your preparation, their sense of free will, and the delight of amazing twists and turns in the story you’re collectively telling.
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Get Buy-In from the Players
Before you can start down this path, you have to get buy-in. The most important element of running a campaign like an author is making sure your players are comfortable with you “cheating.”
Let’s be clear: you are going to be railroading your players’ characters down a path of your choosing. Not every player is OK with that, at least not initially—and sometimes never. That’s fine! This might not be right for your group.
So you have to set expectations at the beginning and be clear about what you intend to do. Tell the players that sometimes you will fudge things behind the screen. Sometimes, you will throw things at them that their characters can’t handle. And sometimes, you might shove them into an outcome that you designed to happen. It’s OK, because the payoff for them will make it worth it.
You have to get buy-in for two reasons. First, you must ensure that the players trust you and continue to trust you, even when it seems like things kind of suck for their characters at a given moment. By telling them at the beginning bad things will happen—but it will be worth it in the end—you’re letting them know that you want them to enjoy this campaign. If they trust you to deliver, you will deliver.
The second reason to get buy-in is to dispel the notion of fairness. You are not going to be fair. You are going to screw your players over sometimes, even if they don’t see it, and they need to be comfortable with that. Explain to them that they are running characters in a novel, and wretched things will happen to characters. They are going to get knocked down, and they might not feel powerful—for a while. Their cool character abilities won’t always work like they expect (and want) them to. Just like in the first half of a novel, a lot of things will happen to the characters, before they get the chance to start fighting back and conquering the obstacles in their way.
However, if your players are willing to place their trust in you and allow you to run a campaign in this fashion, they might very well have a blast and come out of the other side more satisfied with a campaign arc than they have been in a long time.
Next time, I’ll get into what it means to wing it, and why it doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds.
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