GMing to Break the Fifth Wall- A Finale

So, this is it, the last in the "GMing to Break the Fifth Wall" series. 8 days ago, I came with the announcement, and here is the finish line, it's here smiling at me and you...

So, what did we have? We had 7 emotion posts, each one discussing a main one and almost all of them some minor related ones.

I started with the most basic and important one- interest. Interest includes all the rest of the emotions in our stories, and as such should get the most of our attention and energy. I gave a few techniques for how to catch the players' interest, and I finished with 4 important points about conflicts: 1) Always think about the outcome of the conflict. 2) You should strive to come with a different conflict for every time. 3) The conflicts should be meaningful. 4) Conflicts are not between the characters but between a desire and an obstacle.

Then I've jumped to the next one- curiosity. Curiosity is the need to know, and is one of the main reasons for continuing to follow a story. My main focus in that post was about raising questions, and many of them. The goal was to not let the players have a moment with no questions rolling through their heads. I've discussed questions from the beat level to the act and story levels, each question bigger and more important than the one from the lower level.

Then, I've went to discuss the next one, anticipation. Anticipation is the feeling of looking forward to an event. Here I've made 2 points that I believe are very important: 1) Always has the characters (PCs and/or NPCs) want something, and don't ever fulfill a goal before giving the players and their characters something else to look for. 2) The MacGuffin doesn't have to be an object all the time. It's much more interesting when it's a place or even a person (fictitious or real).

The next post was about suspense. Suspense deals with what will come next, and when will it come. I've talked about probabilities of particular events and went all the way to dilemmas. I've made 2 points about dilemmas: 1) They should never be less than black and as almost as black, or there will be no dilemma. 2) The higher the stakes, and the more personal they are, the better the dilemma will be.

After that, I continued to surprise. Surprise was used there not to change the outcome, but to change the way to the desired outcome. The most important thing came, as always, at the end: There's no point in trying to surprise the players, if the setup is not good enough.

Then, I've moved to the next one- thrills. Thrills are the moments of sheer sudden sensation. I've went through violence and sexual tension and ended with battles, where I've stated 2 things to make them more thrilling: 1) making battles short, brutal and chaotic as a way to make them more thrilling, and 2) Making the situations more complex.

After that, I've finished with empathy for the NPCs. Empathy is what we feel when we care or like a character. I've stated three main ways for quick empathic bond between your players and the NPCs: 1) Victimizing the NPCs. 2) Giving the NPCs humanistic virtues. 3) Giving the NPCs some desirable qualities.

And that's the end of the series. Hope you've enjoyed it and have found it useful.

Empathy for Your NPC

So, here it comes, this moment when after all those many posts, comes the last emotion in our series. Today, it's empathy's turn. While in most other emotions the focus was on the plot, with empathy the focus is on the characters themselves.

Empathy is this thing that we feel when we care about a character. It's one of the more powerful emotions, and it makes the characters feel likable and more realistic. Usually, characters in our stories will "dance" between empathy and the opposite of it- enmity.

Empathy is connected to compassion, admiration and contempt.

There are a few ways to make for a more immediate and fast empathy bond between players and NPCs, which we can squeeze into three main groups:

1. We feel empathy for victims and weak persons, mainly because we feel sorry for them.
2. We feel empathy for characters that have some humanistic virtues, because we want to be as good as them.
3. We feel empathy for characters with desirable qualities, because we want these qualities and we want to be the characters.

What I'm going to do in this post, which will be a little bit different from the others, is that I'm going to look at these three groups and see how we can get them in our games.

We feel empathy for victims

We can't help it, when we see a victim, we immediately feel empathy, sorry and pity for him/her. It doesn't matter if the victim is good or bad, we just feel it.

The most common way of victimising a character, at least in movies, is by mistreating them. It can be by teasing them, or by humiliating them, but there's some mistreatment there. Think about Lester in American Beauty who is being constantly humiliated by his wife and daughter, aren't we immediately drawn to him and to his side? Mistreating a character can be far more powerful if the character is falsely accused (like in North by Northwest) of if the mistreatment is brutal (like in Interview with the Vampire).

Another way of victimising a character is through sheer bad luck. Think about the death of Rizzo just before they reach their destination after so much time spent in fighting the disease, or of George's uncle losing the money a minute before the inspection. We just can't stand it there, and most of us (I'm sure) would have rushed to help them if we could.

The last common way for this is through using deformed characters. Characters with some sorts of handicaps, whether physical or mental, are just more prone to our empathy. For some unknown reason, we just really like the underdog. Use it.

We feel empathy for characters that have some humanistic virtues

Virtues are a way of acting towards others, a good way to act toward them. Giving characters some humanistic virtues, like politeness, or generosity, are one of the ways to get empathy for the characters.

Remember our victims from the first group? A character that will help them will be considered a good one, and will draw both attention and caring from the players. Players tend to defend those people that are good, even when they play "not-so-good" characters. Think about George from It's a Wonderful Life, how he helps all those unfortunate souls, is there a wonder why we like him so much? Meet your PCs with a George Bailey and you'll notice it by yourselves.

Another thing is relations with children. Children are considered weak, vulnerable and innocent. A character that is good with them, and/or the children like him/her will get the empathy from the characters for the work that this NPC is doing. Think of Mary Poppins or of Dr. Crowe and you'll see it by yourself. As a side note, if you want a character to be hated from first sight, show this character mistreating a child.

A third and last in this aspect, for doing it is by fighting for a just cause. It is rightly considered a selfless act, and an act that deserves proper recognition. An NPC who goes even further and sacrifices himself/herself for this cause will be even better.

We feel empathy for characters with desirable qualities

Actually, the shortest of them all, as this technique is the most straightforward. We like people with desirable qualities, as simple as that. Give NPCs power, glamorous jobs, passion, beauty or the like, and they'll be much more likable and easier to empathise with.

Look for example on Schindler in Schindler's List: He's not a perfect human being, far from that, and he buys the factory because it's easy money, but the courage he encompasses, when helping the Jews and saving them, makes him so much better.

Think about Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love: He writes because of the lust for women that he feels, until he falls in love with her. The passion does all the rest, hooking us to him, pressing all those buttons that we keep hidden within.

It can work for evil characters also, like the humour that is used with The Joker, a sense of humour that makes him almost as likable as Batman, and far more fun to watch. 

So, this is it for today. Tomorrow there will be a conclusion post to conclude the series, but that's almost the finish line, with 41 kilometres of the Marathon behind.

How about you? How do you create empathy for your NPCs?

Can I Get My Thrill, Please?

Today it's time for our first before the last emotion in our series. Today, we're gonna talk about thrills. Although the name is similar to the genre of thrillers, there's no real connection between the 2. Thrills are the moment of sudden sensation, when all hell broke lost.

The main way to create thrills in the players is through spectacle scenes. Think about the sinking of the Titanic in the movie, think about the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Opening with a spectacle scene is one of the best attention grabbers there are. There are 2 things to remember when opening a story with a spectacle scene:

The first is not to overdo it at the expense of the story. If it's too much, or not important, or not connected, there's no use for this opening.

The second is to think about what place the PCs will fill in this scene. If there's no role for them there, maybe passing on this scene and opening with how it affects the PCs will be better. Think about the opening scene of The Matrix, part of why it's so great is that here we get Trinity and not just some kind of hacker who talks with her. If the scene can help to establish the characters, so much the better.

When speaking of the opening scene of The Matrix, we can't leave behind the sequence it's part of, the escape sequence of Trinity. Escapes are another great way to bump up the thrills in the story. En escape sequence done right can change everything. Make everything immediate, and the story and players will thank you.

But escape sequences don't have to be done by the PCs, as they can learn of an escape done by the villain. When the characters are there to investigate a crime scene, or an escape from prison scene, narrating their findings in flashbacks to the event itself can prove quiet useful. Always remember one thing when doing this kind of thing, though, it has to be short and it has to give only parts of the crime and not all of it. Strive to give only 50-60% of the crime and let the players fill the rest for themselves (and it's always better to let them fill the dirty parts by themselves).

Another way to get this thrill we're so longing for is by using short intervals of violence. Short intervals that are brutal and dirty are far more thrilling than long tactical fighting. The villains ambush the players, and they have to get to a safe zone while bullets fill the air, the famous monster goes out of the water and advances like an unstoppable nature force into the city, destroying it like a hurricane... This kind of thing is far more thrilling than the orcs who come to kill the PCs and the battle in squares that comes afterwards.

Violence can be replaced by sexuality, though. Think about some of the horror movies we all like to see. Sex=death, and the thrill is in both of this sides of the equation. Now, I'm not saying make the story a porn story or something, but a little sexual conflict here or there does come with its merits.

A better way to use sexuality in the story is by combining it with violence. The sex=death is one way to do this, but there are also other ways to do it. If one of the characters goes to sleep after a wild night and wakes up only to find a dagger near his/her throat, you'll feel the thrilling atmosphere that controls the room.

Before I close for today, there's one thing that I can't discuss thrills and not discuss it, fights. Fights are one of the oldest aspects of the RPGs (and of stories also), but they stopped being this thrilling when they stretch for too long or become too tactical. Although I discussed how to enhance the battles here and here (and also in here), there is also one thing that we can learn from Unknown Armies: making the battles short, brutal and chaotic makes battles less common in the first place, but when they come... The thrills that come with it can challenge action movies.

Another technique is by making the situations more complex, like battling on a driving van, a flying carpet or on a train. If you'll succeed in making a battle between a motorcycle driver (probably the PC) to the villain on the roof of the train, with a chase scene combined with a fight scene, it's gonna be one of the fight scenes of the game.

So, that's about it for today, how about you? How do you thrill your players?

5 Tracks That Changed Everything

I GM with a soundtrack for 2 point something years, closer to three actually. I think that my style changed within those years, and... There are 5 tracks that I think that are something else entirely, level and all, tracks that changed the way I GM from the moment that I've heard them or used them.

Today, I've decided that it's the time to share them. I don't know if this post will be useful, but I hope that through this post you'll be able to decide better about whether GMing with a soundtrack can be useful to you, is good to you, or maybe that it doesn't.

It all started about 3 years ago; when I first gave a thorough listen to the famous theme of the X Files. At the time, I was GMing mainly D&D and I've decided to make a switch in style from dungeon crawls to something else. I didn't know at the time what will it be, I only knew that I want to change something. This listen changed about everything. It was the moment that I've decided 2 very important things for the rest of my GMing career: The first was that I'll GM mainly with soundtracks. The second was that I'll try to break out of the dungeon crawls to the darker places. It started small, with the little addition of moral dilemmas, but from there it grew bigger and bigger till today.

After this decision, I've found coincidentally the great site of Radio Rivendell. At the time, it was all I had, and I've went through all of the links from there to free music. Then, one day while I listened to this wonderful radio, came this theme. Needless to say, I was immediately hooked. I've listened to it about once or twice (or sometimes even trice) a day, looking forward to the point where I'll be able to use it. So simple, yet utterly powerful and evocative, it was another point where I've decided to stretch myself. This time, it was a little bit back into the light. Another thing that came to me from so many listens and thoughts about how to add it was the addition of dream sequences and party sequences to my games. Not regular modern parties, but more of the ball type of parties.

Not a long time passed, and I've found a band that created the exact music I was looking for, their name was Midnight Syndicate through this theme. Simple yet powerful, it was the point where I've decided 2 things. First: I'm going for horror games. Not a long afterwards came the second thing: I've can GM from one album. Until then, you see, I've had 4 CDs, which I switched when I needed a different emotion. It was this album that made me understand the power of not switching albums. I've still switched tracks all the time, but it was only from one album. You see, it was the first time I've connected albums to games.

Then came another click. I was asked to create a particular soundtrack for a Twilight game. As any sane person would tell you, I've went reluctantly into the work. It was a bad movie series, and I was yet to find any merits to it, but if I'm asked to do something, I try to do it. I went to devour the soundtrack album, and I've found the first merit. Too bad it was the only one. A theme so lonely, so sad, and my ideas started to roll, and not for that game, but to others. As my players will tell you, it was this theme that played when the characters killed the players or freed them.

A few months afterwards, when my AFI 123 project began, I've discovered again the soundtrack of Psycho. It was the first track that caught my ear. It was the first time for 2 things: The first was of using (almost) solely soundtracks from movies and not making soundtracks from both movies and ambients. The second thing was far more important: It was the first time that I've understood that I can get from soundtracks essences of stories, and that if I'll learn how to GM according to the movie soundtracks (and to make the games according to them) I'll be able to stop switching tracks in the CDs and get to the point where my players tell me that it's like a kind of magic. There's a trick to it that I've learnt from watching the movie: If you know to improvise and you know the soundtrack well enough, and the soundtrack essence is close enough to the story, your brain will make the connections for you between the story, game and soundtrack. When there wasn't a good enough connection, I've learnt how to pace things to get what I want. Although it wasn't the first time that I've GMed with a soundtrack for real time, adjusting myself to the flow, it was the first time that it was for more than 2-3 scenes.

Guess Who's Surprised at Dinner

4 emotions are already there, and only three are left to go. Today, in our series, we're gonna talk about surprises. Surprise is the thing we use to prevent our stories from becoming predictable. A predictable story will lose its appeal and interest much faster than would a surprising one.

Surprises need not change the outcome (although it's fine) but the way we get there. The heroes will ultimately defeat the adversary and restore peace into the realm, but the way they do it can be somewhat twisted and surprising.

It's important to remember, though, that in order to create surprise we have to first establish anticipation in our players' minds. Surprise is related to dismay and amusement.

So, how can we create surprise in our players' minds?

The first and most straightforward technique is by creating unexpected complications and obstacles. They should be surprising in where they are, and in what they are, but they should not stop the PCs completely, just hold them for some time when they try to cope with this sudden change of plans. They can be flooded roads or giant rocks, having to take the trip by car and not by airplane, etc. What's important is that they'll be unexpected, or in other words- no formulae to when, where and what.

Another way to create the surprise is by using secrets. They can be a secret that's kept for a scene or for an entire story arch, but they should be there and should be revealed. When the moment of reveal finally comes, and the secret goes public, there will be a surprise.

Another way of using secrets is with reversals. Think about Some Like It Hot, When Joe and Jerry appear at the train station dressed as women; or think about the moment when the nice fella who the characters always bought groceries from turned out to be the serial killer they've been looking for. If reversals are done right, there's no higher degree of surprise that can be achieved than that, but if done wrong it can really cause some problems. Take into account, though, that these reversals don't have to be character reversals but can also be an event (like when Lester in American Beauty bribes his boss instead of being fired) or when Louis tells to round up the usual suspects after Strasser has been shot.

Reversals are a particular type of revelations and discoveries. The main difference between revelations and discoveries is that discoveries are an active process, while revelations are passive processes as information is revealed to the characters and players. The reason that I'm making this distinction is that these 2 types should be balanced, and not too much to only one of them. Both discoveries and revelations are usually learnt by both the characters and the players at the same time, like when finding a clue. Revelations, on the other hand, also have the benefit of being able to learn only by the players with the characters unknowing. This benefit can be used to great lengths in horror GMing.

Discoveries and revelations can also come at the end, usually by using twist endings. These endings usually alter the perception on what we thought about the all game, and if done right can really change the way the players think about the game (an example of this in use can be seen in this post).

Another way to surprise the players is by shocking them. Hitchcock proved how useful it can be when he killed the main protagonist in the end of the first act. It's suggested to make the shocks completely unexpected, sudden and most of all extremish. Shock can also be used in non horror games, like in the comedy film Tootsie when we Michael in drag, or when at the end of Some Like It Hot the playboy says "well, nobody's perfect".

Before we'll finish for today, a little thing to take in mind: All of the surprises should come with the appropriate setup. It shouldn't reveal the surprise, but it should make the surprise seem logical. A good setup is a one that, when the players look back at it, the surprise is seen as a logical continuation. Think about the Boxer who fails to lose a fight on purpose and has to skip town because of that (in Pulp Fiction), the decision to skip comes as a surprise, but it does seem like a logical continuation considering the situation.

So, that's it for today. How about you? How do you surprise your players?

Thrillers Inc Home Edition

And here comes the time to yet another instalment in our series. Today, we're discussing the feeling of suspense. Suspense deals with the unpredictable, with the "what comes next" as well as when will it come. Suspense is made of three main things: The character and how much we care for it; how likely a particular event is; and lastly, how uncertain we are about the outcome.

Suspense is related to tension, anxiety, concern and doubt, and to a certain extent, curiosity. There is one major difference between curiosity and suspense: curiosity deals with not knowing what our protagonists want, while on the other hand, suspense deals with the fulfilment of our protagonists' goals.

So, how can we bring suspense to the gaming table?

The first technique is by controlling and changing the likeliness of success or failure. If the characters will always succeed, or always fail, there will be no pint in telling the story. If the characters always emerge from battles victorious, why playing battles? Isn't it better to just say: "You fight hard, but win this battle and all the orcs are dead"? If we change the probability of outcomes, the suspense will naturally rise, and every dice roll comes with great tension.

Another way is to control the pacing of the game. Make things in the "now" and things will get tenser, space the time before a major event, and you'll see the sweat on your players' noses. Make your descriptions a little bit longer when trying to cut the right string of the bomb, and it will be a lot more suspenseful than, like going over it quickly.

Another way to control the pacing, and thus bump the suspense level, is with meanwhile scenes. Whether it's meanwhile to other PCs in time of a split party, or to the villain actions, stopping at a minor cliffhanger and going to another place makes the particular player's whose character is left hanging in the air to look forward to see how his action will turn out. Other way to create the meanwhile is by the "parallel scene" technique, like the one used in The Silence of the Lambs. If you can make it into a game, you'll surely benefit from it.

Another way is to put PCs out of their comfort zones (or better yet, putting the players themselves out of it) will make every act tensful and will bring doubt back to the player's minds. Think about something, ability, a trait, or anything else that the character is adept at using, and then put the character where s/he can't use this ability (or the ability harms more than it helps). The player will have to come up with a new way to do stuff, doubting every action and concerned about whether s/he'll do it "right".

Putting a character out if its comfort zone can also be used in another way: with contrasting characters. Think back, for example, on the evil twin act or when David Huxley encounters Susan Vance. Although it's being used mainly in comedy, this trick surely enhances the tense atmosphere of the situation.

In most games and stories, there's this moment of big revelation, when the big and important thing is being told. It is usually one of the most suspenseful moments in the story, as we learn the ugly truth and we have no way to escape from it. This revelation is one of the most important moments in the story and should receive the right amount of energy. Think about the suspenseful atmosphere after Darth Vader tells Luke that he's his father, this is what we strive for.

2 last techniques for today: The first is by controlling the stakes. Higher stakes means higher level of suspense, and raising them can help you raise the level of tension in your game. If you start with a single family's life at stake, and then go all the way to risking the whole country, they'll feel it. But raising the stakes is not enough, as you should always make sure that the players remember the stakes. It doesn't matter if the whole universe is at stake if no one notices it.

The second is by using dilemmas. A dilemma is the formal name for the Bang, a choice between 2 unwanted consequences. It can be a small dilemma or a big one, but there are 2 important things to remember:

1. It shouldn't be black and white but black and (mostly) black. The love of one's life or the standing in society; the morality of oneself or the family. If there is a clear right answer and a clear wrong answer, there's no dilemma at all, but another not that important and unique conflict.
2. The higher the stakes, and the more personal they are, the better the dilemma will be. Which one of Sophie's children will live is a lot more personal and important than which city will I let fall first. Personal stakes are almost always higher than the non personal ones, and they carry a bigger emotional impact.

How about you? How do you use or create suspense in your game?

To yesterday's post

When We Look Forward to...

And the third instalment of our series is finally here. Today, our topic is the dreaded anticipation, or the feeling of looking forward to something that will happen in the future. It can be a good thing, a bad thing, or even a certain flashback scene.

Once we set the information, the anticipation engines start to propel as we look forward to the next bit of info, to the time when it will be useful. A higher level of this can be seen in the famous Hitchcock's movie "The Man Who Knew too Much", where we know that the murder will be done during the cymbal note. He's the one who said that "there's no terror in a bang, only the anticipation of it".

Like with the other emotions, there are a couple of others that are connectod to anticipation: Hope, worry and fear.

So, how do we create and use anticipation in our games?

The first technique is by establishing the traits of our characters, whether they are NPCs or PCs. Establishing these traits helps us to anticipate certain courses of actions or events. More than that, it can make us want to meet someone, for example. Look for example at 2 examples from The Silence of the Lambs: The first is the famous escape scene of Lecter. We knew by this stage that he's a fearful cannibalistic maniac, and that there's no limit to what he can do. When he gets captured, we want to know how he will escape, and when he does escape, it fulfills our anticipation. The second is when he says at the end "I'm having an old friend for dinner" we anticipate what will happen, and how he'll try to eat this fella.

Another example is by talking about the future. When we talk about the future, we create anticipation for a future event. It's the knowledge of what will happen during the cymbal crash that makes us look for the cymbal clash, not the clash itself. Take into account, though, that this future doesn't have to be a chronological future. It can also be a future of a flashback, like in the movie Sunset Boulevard, where we begin by being told the story of our dead protagonist, told by him after he died.

The third technique is by plans and daydreams. When Ugarte says to Rick that "after tonight, I’m through with the whole business" we anticipate to the night when he'll finally set himself free from the dreaded city of Casablanca. Secret plans are even more useful to creating anticipation. It creates a double anticipation, one for knowing what the plan is and another to know how it will turn out. But don't make every plan secret, or it will feel like a parody of spy movies...

Another way to create anticipation is by setting up goals. When we do that, the players anticipate the event of the goals fulfillment. If one of the characters has a goal of becoming the new prince of the vampire society, he looks for the event of his coronation. Goals make us look for a certain event, or the other way around of not looking forward to a certain event, feeling us with fear and worry for our beloved characters. If we know that the villain plans to kill Robert Geldof, we fear for Robert Geldof's life, thus making us anticipate this event to see him emerge victorious.

Always have the characters (PCs and/or NPCs) want something, and don't ever fulfill a goal before giving the players and their characters something else to look for.

As you've probably guessed, most of the techniques here are connected in one way or another by making the players want something for their characters (goals) or fearing for their lives from a bad thing that is gonna happen. This is no mistake, and it can be further developed to contain omens, warnings, appointments and so on. Also the MacGuffin fills this spot- the characters and/or the villains are trying to get something, and we look forward to the point of finding it.

A little trick with MacGuffins: The MacGuffin doesn't have to be an object all the time. It's much more interesting when it's a place or even a person (fictitious or real).

2 last techniques for today: The first one is to state the mood of the game from the very beginning. This way, we give the players a suggestion: Stay with me in the game, and you'll get more of those. If this thing is something that this particular player really likes, he will probably stay within the game and will look forward to these moments.

The last technique is by using dramatic irony. This is revealing info to the players that the characters don't know. An example of that can be seen in my Yale Hotel mini-campaign, where the last player knew that Bob Luchiano can be in a few places at once, and that he'll lie and tell her that the other characters released him. Another example of this can be seen in North by Northwest, when we the audience discover that Kaplan is a fictitious character, but Thornhill and Vandamm are unaware of this fact.

Another way to create this is in the opposite way: The characters know more than the players. Using this way makes us look forward to the point when we'll discover the truth behind it. Think about Chinatown for many examples of this in action.

Dramatic Irony can be created in 2 main ways, deception and misunderstanding. Both of this ways make us anticipate the moment of truth to come, when we'll discover what really happens, what was hidden from us, and what did we misunderstood.

And... That's it for today. How do you bump up the anticipation levels in your players?