A Letter to My GM

Dear GM,

I write for you this letter in order to help you make the game better. You see, I like SF, I really do, but as your player I must tell you that there's one problem within it that I must state so you won't make this fatal mistake that will make me running to take cover from the game.

The problem is quite common in your games, at least the ones you've GMed for me over the years. Your world is too far-fetched, too far from what I know, that I cannot relate to your game or to your world. I know you've put a lot of energy into it, that's why I'm telling you this, before the game begins, so you'll still be able to fix it before you'll see my face.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this feeling, but I'm also sure that most of your other players won't tell you this. It can be because they're too polite, but I believe that it's because they don't know the reason yet. I think so because I was in the same place as they do. I left this place not a long time ago. I'm glad that I've left it, 'cause now I can understand why I didn't care for this world of yours, a world that I appreciated it complexity and details but not its emotional state, a world that bears not empathy for itself or for the world's habitats.

Please, before it will fail miserably, help all of us and fix this little problem...

Yosi

You Need the Tower In Order to Destroy It...

There's a world around us, full of flowers and kittens and people and bandits and guns and nukes and... But there's a world first of all. I think that you've already know that I don't believe in a vacuum. You probably know that for me, the now matters the most. The now is the thing that matters, and the world is the thing that we fight for and strive for. 

The world is there waiting for us to make it bigger, richer, fuller, all in the goal of making it come alive. If we're supposed to fight for the world, the world should well deserve it, isn't so? Making the world come alive can manifest in many ways. It can manifest with our descriptions and with our mood and atmosphere and tone and... But it can also come alive from the single most overlooked element: Normal life of the world's habitats. If Ms. Lucy and Mr. Robert are there, doing what a normal newly-wed couple are doing, if on the other side of the city the lord Radolph is there giving a speech and if in the dark corners of the alley a little girl is stealing money to save her dying little brother from his death, the world will be much fuller and will naturally come alive. 

Look for example on the movie Paranormal Activity. It starts really slow, with the presentation of our 2 protagonists, and they're not fighting monsters when we first see them. They have, and that's important, a normal couple conversation. They fight about what a normal couple will fight about and talk to one another the way a normal couple will talk to one another. This is the whole thing we see in the beginning, and this is the most important beat in the story at this stage and many stages afterwards. You can go bump in the night if your characters aren't real (you can, actually, but it will be very very shallow and uninteresting...).

Truth is, these are the little details that matter the most; these are the things that deserve fighting for; most of all, this are the things that make an imaginary world come alive. Too bad they are mostly overlooked, don't let them be forgotten again, they need you as much as you need them...

Don't Be Afraid to Look Stupid...

Don't be afraid to look like a stupid human being. Don't be afraid to act it out, walking and speaking and making funny voices and sound effects. We all look quite funny when we play this, so there's nothing to lose, just to gain. 

Yeah, I'm talking to you, you pal who always sits in the back and talks calmly. Why won't you act like your fellow player, who raises his arm like in pain whenever his being hurt? Why won't you act like Mellisa, who roses from her chair and shows how she's walking to the king and how she bows for him?

I'm talking to you also, you mighty GM. Why won't you give your players an example? You're the leading storyteller, the one that everyone looking to see what s/he will do, so please give your players an example. It can't hurt you, you know, it will only make you feel more energised.

I'm not telling any of you to go and play like this is a LARP (although it can't hurt to do it once in a while); I'm only asking you to try to live the game a little bit more. Getting up from the table once in a while, shouting and screaming like a barbarian when your barbarian is fighting, whispering something when you wizard does its magic, making a gun noises when your character's gun is shooting, but most of all: Talking like your PC and gesturing like your PC...

The Beginning of Your Doom

I've watched yesterday the original Frankenstein movie (yeah, the one with Boris Karloff...). It's a nice movie, but what really caught my eye was the opening of it. You know, this movie has 2 openings. The first one being done by the Dr. who warns us from the movie, the second is a funeral. This made my brain engines work: "What is there, in these 2 openings, which is so spectacular?"

The answer didn't wait long before coming: They create interest and curiosity. More than that, though, they conveyed the mood of the story, of the movie all the way to me. Add to these 2 things that these 2 openings were far from normal, and we get a thing that just waits for an exploration into the dark mind and world of the story. So, let's look at a few openings, won't we?

"This story may even horrify you", or starting with a warning.

The first opening of Frankenstein is a warning from the Dr. about the movie: How frightening the movie is, what lies in the middle of the story, what is the experiment and so on. 3 things are achieved by this: The first one is the building of the expectations. We now wait to see what this movie is gonna be about, and how frightening it really gonna be. Will we be frightened? Horrified? Not affected? The expectations are already there, waiting for the story to unfold and to unravel the things that we expect.

The second is that we know to what we enter. The easiest way to destroy our horror movie is by bringing an audience which doesn't know to what it enters. So it is with our games, where we must make sure that the players don't only look forward for a few things but also know what type of story they're going to participate within.

The third one is the conveying of the mood. The dark tone, the costumes, the veil, the close-ups and the manner of speech, all give us a sense of the mood. This story is going to be dark and grim and terrifying, so beware. It's a great easy and dirty way to get the atmosphere that we need.

"Midnight, a funeral, the priest is blessing", or starting with the funeral of one of the characters.

This one is far more interesting than it seems. Starting with the funeral of one of the characters gives us so many things to play with, from the sense of dread to the ability to use flashbacks and to the knowledge that no one is safe from death. 

The sense of dread comes naturally. We Begin with the death of one of the characters, and the macabre is there, dancing between the graves and tombs. There's almost no work that needs to be done here, as the prayers and the tombs does their work almost by themselves.

So is the knowledge that no one is safe from death. Starting with a funeral makes it justified to kill characters in the game, 'cause after all, it's gonna happen or there won't be any funeral. Starting with the funeral of a minor character, like the mentor of one of the characters can be proven useful too, as it can be considered a foreshadowing if we plan to do something with the dead mentor's body for example.

The ability to use flashback is important. Going for a nonlinear game can be proven quite hard and demanding, but it's far easier this way. It also gives an excuse to skip all the uninteresting stuff. "What, when telling legends, we never learn what the protagonists did between adventures or during their trips from one place to another..."

"Once upon a time, in a world not unlike our own", or starting with a storyteller that tells the story.

This is also very interesting. It is very similar to the funeral example, but creates a lesser sense of dread and a greater sense of innocence and epicness. It means, after all, that a legend is being told. If it's done by one of the PCs, who grew old since the adventures, it's even better. A few things to consider:

It means that (at least) one of the characters will survive the adventures, so it's preferred to not reveal the storyteller 'till the end of the story arch. Otherwise, there will be no sense of wonder about who is the storyteller. If it's being told by a storyteller that is not from the group, this problem is solved but it will be less powerful.

Another thing is that it gives an epic or a fairy tale feel, mainly due to its connotations, so it might not be always useful to horror gaming (although it can surely be useful to other types of games).

And, that's about it. How about you? How do you open your games? How does it affect the mood? The game itself?

One Reference to Kill Them All

A few days ago I've made a mistake. It was during a game that I've GMed, an "Avatar: the Last Airbender" game. I had 4 players, three of which watched the series, one did not. The game went smoothly, with a few big action scenes where they defeated a few Dai Li agents. During one of the fights, a cabbage fell on one of the characters. The three players who knew the series, and me of course, started to laugh 'till we fell on the floor. The one who didn't looked at us like we are conspiring something against him.

This brings me to my point: References are a great way to bring the feel of the original story, of Avatar in that example, but it can also be used of course to bring the feel of such stories as Star Wars, LotR and so on...

There is one problem with references, though, which is the bad reference. A good reference is a reference that is good by itself, but makes the story better if you know the original place that the reference came from. A bad one can be bad in 2 very different ways:

1. If you know the original, it detracts from the game. The easiest example of this can be with cliches: If you don't know that it's a cliche, it can be very good. If you know that it's a cliche, and you've seen it in action, you know what will come and there's no sense of wonder. Think about the person who says "I'll be back" in a horror game. If you know where it comes from, you'll know that this speaker won't come.
2. It's good only if you know the original. That's what happened in the example from above. Three players and me knew the original Cabbage Merchant, and laughed straight away. The one who didn't, on the other hand, probably thought that it was very silly. 

And that's the whole thing: If the reference is not good by itself and better when the original context is known, don't include it. If it is, though, why don't include it? One extra thing to remember, though, is that the context in which you give the reference is important too, and can destroy even the best of them all...

How about you? Have you made such a mistake in one of your games? How did it manifest within it? How did the players react?

Normality Became the New Originality

You don't have to be original by force. You don't have to be this uber half elf/ half orc/ half monkey/ half dragon hybrid, who is also 5 levels of wizard, 4 levels of warrior and 12 levels of rouge. You don't have to be Superman in a CoC game and don't have to be a coward in a D&D game. You don't have to be that special and original, you know.

Have you tried to be the normal once? Have you just tried to be this dwarf fighter or half elf diplomat? Have you? Was it that boring that you had to try to be that special for the sake of being special? Isn't being a half elf in an elfish society hard enough that you have to be half orc also, just in case?

Please, for god's sake, try to be normal for once. Normality became the new originality, retro is back as the new kid in the block.

Oh, and just in case, try to look in the net for this hybrid that you so wanted to be. Probably, someone has made it already, and the maker had a little bit more experience so it's probably even better than what you did try to achieve...

Don't Be a Coward...

You don't have to cower in the back of the room. The fact that a monster from outer space has came to earth and is now tearing the world doesn't mean that you have to hide under the tables and play dead. The monster won't like it, and so would none of us.

When you've created your character for the game, although a horror one, you created a character that is beyond the normal person. You created a character, you casted a hero, and now you're playing a hero. It might be not much more than an ordinary person, but sure the character is. Otherwise, it was an NPC.

So, please, for god's sake, when playing in my horror game, don't be a dick and cower in the back but try to do something far more interesting.

After all, it's not interesting to play the coward. That's a GM job, a dirty job. Instead, try to play the one who tries to cope with his/her fears, and we'll all benefit...