Flesh for Frankenstein- Twisting what's Known

Some horror movies are scary, and some serve as some kind of a dark and twisted mirror for our lives, for our culture. Flesh for Frankenstein is one of those movies, yet it is so campy that I almost missed that; it is so gory that I almost threw the DVD out of the window (which is bad, 'cause it's a library copy). Yet, it does have certain merits to it, if (yet again) you look hard enough.

It is yet another strange spin on the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his unnamed creation, but it is taken to an almost Rocky Horror's extreme: The Baron creates the monster to join his earlier creation, "a female zombie", in order to create "a new human race". It adds to that a lot of very dark humor, much gore and sex. It also has the infamous line: " To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life... in the gall bladder!" Yeah, that's the movie we're talking about.

But still, there is something to learn from this movie, right? Rrrrrrright…

It's quite hard to find something in there, you know, social commentary, gore and sex aside. But we can learn from it something, though, or I wouldn't be writing this piece. And what I've learned is that one of the greatest ways to surprise the audience is to build a story on something that they know quite well, and then to twist and spin it until it is *almost* unrecognizable.

The almost is the most important part- if it is too similar, we won't be surprising anyone as we don't have enough playing space. Too different, though, and it will feel completely new and thus we won't be able to utilize the prior knowledge.

When one treats a story this way, the audience gets to feel a unique kind of experience: the surprise to see how different the events turned out to be change, with the anticipation to see those changes. That's the power of the Campaign Comics, for example, and utilizing it to our games can prove this much successful also.

Think about the possibilities of having an evil Snow White and a good Queen Regina, think about the character of the prince who climbed to wake the sleeping beauty- he's a necrophilia character, to a certain respect, and by utilizing it we get the whole relationship that our culture has with those characters.

And that's it for this movie, at least from me. How about you? What did you learn from this movie? Or did you use a twisted twist like this in one of your games? How did it go?

Start At Your Best, And Then Slowly Raise It up.

It's not a comeback if I don't write about improvisation or lessons from improvisation, right? Well, I'm here to fix that…

A few years ago I went to a great improve seminar. We talked, and practiced stuff and the like. And then, during one of the Games, this instructor says: "Be blunt, whatever cool and interesting stuff you have, bring it on upfront." Needless to say, it created some very different stories.

But you see, there's a lot of logic to it when one really thinks about it. I mean, from a story's standpoint, if I'll keep the good stuff for too long, the audience will get bored. If I'll start with it, though, I'll probably find a way to build upon it with "yes, and-ing" and I've got a better story.

If I'll translate it to RPGs, it is pretty much the same. If I want to ensure that the players 9including the GM) have a good time, I want to present the cool stuff upfront and as soon as possible, and then we'll all build upon it, whether players and/or GM.

In Israel, there's a nice saying that goes something like this: "Start at your best, then slowly raise it up." And apart from being great all by itself, it is far easier to accomplish it when you start at your best.

How about you? Do you use something like that in your games? Why, or why not?

Success with a Cost

Another week, another session. We finished the first story arc. None of us really know if the problem was solved or not, but as it seems, we won't tackle laughing books anymore. They came back in time and defeated the villains before the problems really begun, winning the "fight" against them before most of the books left the library. So it is a win.

But you know, winning wasn't the goal in the first place. I mean, maybe some of them wanted to succeed, but I'm not even sure of that. Looking at their favorite scenes' list from the arc, most of them are major plot points, or catalysts for major plot points. No challenge that they've overcame found its way to the list.

So what did we look for? My money is on story possibilities. And because of that, it is no surprise that the "success with a twist" idea is so powerful. The idea is quite simple- when the players roll a failure, they can sometimes still succeed, but it will not be a complete success, because something bad is gonna happen alongside the success.

It's not a new invention by me, but I must say that again and again I'm surprised by the possibilities it presents for me. And most of the times, they are the ones who describe/create the bad happening. They are the ones who bring their doom to join hands with their successes. And I think that this is the reason that this idea is so powerful: because they bring to themselves the bad events that hurt they're the most. And this crates the drama that we're all looking for.

When a group isn't looking to win, but to enjoy creating together a nice little (or not so little) story, it is only fitting that they will look to increase the drama level in the game. And if they can do it through successes also, it is only better. Especially if it lets them escape complete failures when it doesn't fit dramatically, I suppose.

So yeah, this is one of the tools that I use to increase the drama. How about you? What do you use?

My Players Created the Plot for Me

I opened a new campaign last Thursday. It's an MLP campaign, with the players playing Blank Flanks looking for their Cutie Marks, utilizing Erin Palette's wonderful UA hack. It started with books flying out of all of the houses in the city, laughing like villains should laugh.

The players then decided to search for info about this thing in the books. Long story short, they've found the book, and the page with the solution to this problem. Then I asked one of the players: "What's written in there?" and decided to roll with the outcome.

I think that it is no secret by now, fateful (and new) readers, that I love giving my players the power to decide about the way the campaign will unfold. The idea in this incident was that if the players like the story, they will invent something that will keep this "flying and laughing maniacally books" thing going. If they don't like it, they will finish it off.

What happened next kinda amazed me. You see, the player asked for help from his fellow friends (and players) and together they came with a prophecy. A prophecy about rebellious books, a prophecy that explains all that happened up to that moment, a prophecy that puts them as the ponies that will stop the rebellion before it's too late.

Or to put it in other words: they created together, in harmony, the plot of the campaign. Isn't it just pony magic? I don't have any lesson or thought for today except for this: give your players the opportunity, even just once, to decide about a thing like this.

You might end up like me, doing it all the time, addicted to the stories that they create together, with you and/or with the toys that you give them.

So, how about you? Have you ever tried to do something like this? How did it go?

3 Ways to Make One-Scene Characters Unique

When we think about some occupations, we immediately get an image: The uncompromising cop, the fainting lady... These stereotypes can be used to a great extent to create a sense of deepness, of a hidden layer, even in NPCs that the characters meet for a scene.

Let's look at this example scene and see how stereotypes can be used in different ways to enhance it.

The scene is quite simple: The characters arrive to the great market, and a preacher gives a speech about the power of belief, and about how to save one's soul:

And then, the lion will utter its name, and reveal its true nature, and the king and queen will have no choice but to surrender to the great true king, the creator of our land. And then! Then will the sheer power of our lion's very existence unravel all of the criminals and all of the murderers and all of the bad people, and the good and pure will prosper in the earth..."

'Till here, it's a normal speech. The preacher warns the commoners from bad things, and suggests that if they will do badly, he lion will reveal their true nature. The preacher here is probably a great person, very charismatic and stands probably above and beyond to the commoners' reach.

Let's think about something else: Let's give the preacher a trait that is against what we would accept from him: Our preacher is alcoholic. BAM! Immediately we've got a different picture, there's something stinky in this preacher, is not this good, he works against the people he's "trying" to save... It's still almost the same preacher, but now there's something deeper within him, something that makes him both more real and more humane. At the same time, this preacher just screams to be questioned by the PCs to get a greater understanding of him.

Let's think of another thing: We'll take one of the preacher's traits from the original stereotype, and we'll take it to the extreme. Our preacher is not only very charismatic and beyond the commoners' reach, but the commoners look at him like he's some kind of a holy person, a once in a lifetime person, one that... Maybe we'll change another thing: This preacher screams of daemonic powers. BAM! We've just got another preacher. The commoners don't listen to him because he's right, but because he's controlling them. It's like Sauron in the land of the Numenors.

The last way for today is by adding a random affection for something. Our preacher is obsessed with something, like flowers. He gives his speech, and he takes a break whenever a bucket or a basket with flowers moves in front of his eyes. Again, we're getting a different preach, one that has weaknesses, and that can be distracted by ordinary things and maybe even stumble in his words because of that.

What I was trying to show here, was that in all of the preachers we've begun with the stereotype and stayed quite close to it. It's still, after all, in a nutshell the same old preacher. But it's also a different one. The preacher became a different person when we changed a different thing in the stereotype. That's the whole truth. Changing a little thing in the stereotype can invoke magic in the way the character is being viewed.

And, that's it for today. How about you? How do you use stereotypes in your games?

When You Come to the Session Without Even the Slightest of Ideas...

Coming with an idea for today's post was hard; I actually needed a second cup of tea just to find it. Then, it finally struck me, an idea that just waited there to be explored: What do you do when you come to the session without even the slightest idea about what to do?

1) Ask the players to tell what happened the last session

Sometimes we just don't remember what happened, but usually we do, so why to ask for this rewind? Because the players see a picture of their own, that is quite close and similar to yours but not completely. I care more for certain points, they forget others and they'll tell you these things if you'll just listen.

Asking for this rewind gives them the stage and the limelight they need to tell you just that. They'll tell you what they like and what you didn't, if you know how to read between the lines, they'll tell what they want to see more and what not... All of these things will give you heavy doses of inspiration for the session.

2) Let the players run it without knowing it

Using "yes, and" responses, let your players build the "platform" for you. This will give you both a place and a few NPCs and also a routine that you can break. "When we last left you, you were in a bar. What do you do? -Is there a barmaid there? -Yes, and he's showing you his hand waiting for the money for your drinks. -Are there other people who sit in the bar? -Yes, and they have empty glasses and torn clothes..."

From here, it's easy to get a conflict inserted: "The barmaid refuses to get your money, but receives those poor people's money with a cynical smile"; "The poor people draw their swords and they look at you with anger, 'you should have invited us for beer when you had the chance'", and so on...

3) Bring 2 cultists with a gun

You didn't expect me to leave it behind, did you? It doesn't have to be cultists, or a gun (it can be 2, for example, one each...), etc. It can, and should be, a little bit more interesting: "Your sister enters with a gun pointed at you", "Your husband enters with a gun pointed at you" and so on...

4) Someone has been murdered

Another classic. Murdered people are always a way to bump up the excitement and it gives the players something to chew while you think of something cleverer. It can also be used to dramatic effect: The NPC the players wanted to meet was murdered 3 days before they've arrived to her castle; the villain the characters wanted to bring to justice committed a suicide moments before the characters got him...

5) Take inspiration from the last show that you've seen on TV

TV series is just like a campaign in so many ways, that taking a plot from a TV series is a sure way to get something that is appropriate to a campaign (well, almost a sure way...). Because it's the last thing that you've watched, it's the easiest one to apply to the game- it's fresh and new, after all...

If you've watched an episode of Buffy with Adam there, you've got a monster to unleash at the party. If you've watched an episode of Seinfeld, you've got a situation you can apply, and a few NPCs (you can get some NPCs from Buffy also, but they are usually already there, disguised as PCs...).

You can get this inspiration from a movie also, but it will be less appropriate usually to a campaign (and it is also quite longer than a single TV episode...).

And that's it. How about you? What do you when you come to a session without any idea?

What Do I Mean When I Say "Improvising a Game"?

So, I've been talking about this for quite a time but it always went out without saying, without answering this simple question: "What do I mean when I say improvising a game?" Or in other words, what does the GM do when the GM is improvising a game?

The truth is of course far simpler than it seems. When improvising a game, we don't come with a blank mind; we come with a few things for the start and roll from there. We don't forget what we've prepared because it can prove useful in a future thing. It doesn't mean to say the first thing that pops into our mind, although it sure can be useful sometimes. It means a simple thing: Going with the flow.

When we improvise a game, we usually come with a few dots of info, whether written or not, and roll from there. A great way to start an improvised game is by asking the players a few things about what they look for in the game (genre, scope, and the like) and then asking them a few questions about their characters' past. It is not mandatory, of course.

The most important thing, though, when improvising a game, is to go with the flow. It is made of three things:

1) Always say yes.

Not that surprising is the fact that saying no draws the game into a halt. Sure, there are things that deserve a no, but unless it is that far from normality, say yes. Say a lot of yeses, actually. The players will come with interesting things, very interesting most of the times, and letting them go with it will enrich the story.

Think about this situation: The characters are standing against a guard that prevents them from entering the castle to save the prince (princesses don't need to be rescued; they'll kill the dragon by themselves...). They have to find a way to get past the guard.

The GM may expect the characters to kill the guard, to persuade the guard or even to sneak past the guard. Another group will try to persuade the guard into joining their team ("we all know that Mr. Dragon doesn't pay you enough..."), teleport past the dragon (solving the problem without facing it) and so on. A railroady GM might stop the latter 2, as they destroy what the GM planned, but isn't it far more interesting if the guard will join them? Isn't creating a "no-teleportation-zone" like cheating?

2) Don't say just yes.

I've mentioned it once, and I'm mentioning it again. Adding the and/but spectrum to the answer will enrich the story with a little addition. A really little addition.

What will be more interesting, "you get to the place just in time" or "you get to the place just in time, but the place is crowded with many many cultists?" Adding a little and/but to every answer will make you seen like a master GM (s/he always has cool ideas and stories) 'cause everything will become far more interesting.

3) Understand that you're not the only storyteller

This is important, really really important. If you want to improvise well, you've got to understand that you're only a part of the group, a very important one, like a director, but not more than that. When improvising, the GM is more the one that shows the direction, and the players are more the ones who create the story.

The idea is to make it seem like a story of your own, but it isn't the truth. You show the direction by the way that you speak about things, by the way that you describe or play NPCs or anything else, but the players are there to do the real thing. Morpheus described it well: "[I] can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."

Sitting like My Favourite Character...

A little thing for today: A quick and dirty way to connect with a character is by sitting (or walking, or talking, etc...) like the character. If, for example, I'm playing a character that is shy and quiet, sitting with my shoulders hunched will help it. It will make me look always up when talking to other players or the GM, It will make talking harder and much more tiring, and I'll talk less.

It's a simple thing, that just changes everything in the way that you talk or sit or walk or whatever when you game. It helps you, especially when improvising, to switch between characters quickly and effectively. It can help you to switch standings in society, genders, and fantasy races and so on...

I, personally, use this technique whenever I get to play an NPC, and for every scene when playing as a player (like lying down when my character does it, or putting my hands aside without moving them when I'm tied).

How about you? If you had to choose such a technique, what would have been yours?

"He Pulled a Lion from his Hat..."

A little trick for the day: When improvising something, think about a normal thing and then bring to it a little twist. "You get to the show, almost too late. The magician is at the end of his show. He shows to the audience the hat, which is empty of course, and then he puts it on the table and his hand circles all around the hat. When he pulls it out of the hat, there's a lion's mouth held in his hand. He raises the hand, 'till the entire lion is out..." Not spectacular, just a normal magic trick, 'till the magician pulls not a rabbit or a bird out of the hat but a living lion. In a moment, with a little addition, we have a unique magician with a unique magic trick.

    It can be used, of course, to more than just portraying NPCs. It can be used to paint the scenery (the clouds look like tears, only painted green"), to make a building stand out ("The west wall has 43 windows in different sizes"), or even to pitch a game ("it's like Star Wars, only you play a group of Chubakas...").

"And the Villain Opened a Competing Pizzeria to Yours..."

About a year ago, in the beginning of April last year, I was in one of the most important gaming lectures I've ever been in (a lecture by מיכאל אלבוים Michael Elboym). It was, as the headline of that particular lecture implied, about improvisation in RPGs.

One of the most important lessons I received from this eye-opening lecture was from the example the lecturer opened with: the characters were at the end of the dungeon, ready to face the dark and evil sorcerer, and one of the players suddenly said out of the blue: "To hell with that, let's go back town and open a pizzeria!" Unlike every normal GM, he went on with it. An idea, you see, came into his mind, and when a few minutes passed and they opened the pizzeria, a new pizzeria was being opened, by the infamous dark and evil sorcerer, a pizzeria which competed with the PCs for the same customers.

This story became one of those lessons that I came back to, every time I was stuck or surprised by the players. I learned to almost never say no, and to always find another way to get out of a halt like the one that was supposed to happen from the pizzeria story. More importantly than that, though, I didn't break the game, called the players out or anything similar.

There was another lesson, though, that I learned from this example: No matter what I want to say or what I feel about my players (at particular times, of course...), I should always look at them and say to myself "how lucky I am", because after all, They're surely way better than the players of that pizzeria example.

Recurring Motives and Improvisation

A little late thought for today: When improvising a game, using recurring motives makes the game feel more sophisticated and better planned. It helps to create foreshadowing for the continuation of the game, while also creates a way to bring the story back to normal when internal consistency is broken. Motive also has the connection to higher degrees of prepared storytelling, and using it while improvising helps to create the illusion that the game is not improvised.

It doesn't have to be complicated or fancy or anything, though. It can be as simple as a kobold army that brings the forsworn doom, which comes whenever the characters failed in something and as sophisticated as a knight in rotting armour who says "the time is coming" whenever something bad is gonna happen that has an influence over a major NPC.

What about you? Do you use recurring motives when improvising? How?

New Meat is always Neat

In my years of GMing, I've been able to bring a couple of new players into this wonderful hobby. Some of them had earlier experience, but for one reason or another they left this hobby, while others were completely new to the thing. Today, I want to go over how I present this hobby to new players.

1. First of all, I say it's an RPG game. I don't believe in pretending, and so I just say it plainly and proudly. "Yes, I play some RPGs, it's like reading a novel or watching a movie, but you play the hero." I'm try to answer their questions, no matter how foolish they are, as patiently as I can. This is the point that should show that "hey! I may be a geek, but I'm not that strange or anything".
2. Then, I suggest to them a quick example, about 15 minutes of time, an example of what it is like. I always start by letting them choose what genre they want. I give some examples, sure, but they are diverse enough that it won't seem like a fantasy/sci-fi only activity. "Do you want an historical game in the French Revolution? How about a Mafia Game? Politics? Star Wars? Something else?" This point should show how diverse this hobby can be.
3. Then we go over a quick character creation. I help each player get a concept, and a little bit of background, like a very important and life altering event. This is a quick part, which should help them feel that they are playing something else, and that it can be a very different person. "Oh, I always wanted to be a crime boss!"
4. Then we start the game. The first scene is one of the 2 most important ones, and I usually try to bring a grandiose thing. The fall of the Bastille, the explosion of a spaceship etc... You need to catch their attention from the first word. Something big with a lot of enthusiasm (but not too much, or nothing will be left to the end of the game) will do the job.
5. Then we play a few scenes leading to the end. I try to never say no, and to let them roll the dice a few times. This is where they should understand that the only limitation is their imagination, while also learning why and for what we use dice.
6. Then we get to the twist. This is where they should feel like this is a movie or a book. It doesn't have to be big, but unique, special, and unmentioned in books or novels. After they become the new queens of France, Napoleon arrives and frees the original king. The Robot they tried to kill pulls out the nuke weapons...
7. Then we get to the big end, the climax. This is usually the point where I raise my voice and bash on the table. All the enthusiasm should be utilized to here. The goal is to catch them with the same enthusiasm. I usually finish with a BOOM.
8. Always ask at the end if they had fun. If they do, suggest a few ways to play RPGs at home: where should they start, prices (if they ask), etc... If not, thank them for trying and remain polite, at least till they are gone.

And that's how I do it. Nothing spectacular or too big, just what you'll find in a good story. One thing to note, though, is that player input is a really important thing in here. That's why it's improvised, and short: That way, there's no need to deal with consequences.

A few examples from my own games:

• Female wizards during the French Revolution, trying to help the poor people against the nobles.
• Last survivors of the starship Enterprise, after a computer virus destroyed all of it (based around the Exsurgent concept from Eclipse Phase).
• A fantasy game where the characters tried to catch a serial killer inspired by Jack the Ripper.

How about you? How do you present this hobby to others?

This Improvised Game is Brought to You by...

I talk a lot in here about games that I improvise, and today I want to tell you how I do it, 'cause I believe that maybe, it might help you to advance the game when it's stuck or to GM a game spontaneously.

The first trick that I use is to know the genre and style of the game I want to GM. If it's a horror game, I start to go through horror plots and motives that I know well. If it's a high fantasy game, it will probably be close to books like LOTR or Dragonlance or the like. The genre is a place to both draw inspiration from, and a place to go back to when something goes wrong. Knowing the genre well also helps to get the feel of the game right.

The second trick that I use is to know the PCs well. If one of my players wrote in his/her character's background that this character's parents were killed by orcs and I need and enemy, I can use orcs, or I can connect the dead parents to a different monster, as a twist ("they only pretended they were orcs. They are, actually, a kind of evil vamps..."). When improvising a game from scratch, it's usually a good idea to ask the players a few things about their characters, to get the imagination engines rolling.

Another trick is to never say just a regular yes/no, but to add the and/but at the end. "I try to hit him. -You hit him, and he's now on the floor, calling for help..." Or: "I try to break the door. -It is broken now, but you made a lot of noise while breaking it and footsteps are heard from afar..." With adding a simple word and a sentence, an entirely new situation is now created.

This concept can be further advanced: You can let the players give you the ideas. "Is there a barrel? -Yes, but its 20 feet away." The players are now creating the scene, adding the little details and letting you concentrate on other things, which may be far more important.