All Part of the Plan

[tashiro]

I have a confession to make.
I don’t think I’m a good game master. At best, I consider myself a passable game master - I have years of experience running games, and I have played in and refereed more games than I care to remember, but a lot of what I do is smoke and mirrors. I know my faults, and I try to conceal them as best I can, while

Comments

[mikepictor]

For what it's worth, I think you're better than you give yourself credit for, but not perfect (who is?). If you want my breakdown, I'd say the following.

Pros:
-Honestly, you're probably the best I've seen for thinking on your feet. Nothing stumps you (or you don't let it on)
-You're better than many at meta story. You put a lot of thought (maybe on-the-fly, but still) into the greater setting, overarching NPCs (I suspect you think of these as "your" characters), a greater story beyond the here and now.
-You are pretty good at giving NPSc life, making players feel like they are actually talking to someone.
-You can track a lot of details at once. You miss some, but mainly because you heaped so many details on your plate, that no one can track them all. :)

Cons:
-Your games often climb too quickly to power gaming. You can be very free with letting the players aquire power, influence, loot, etc.. and then you scale the challenges to match. The problem is that this can leave the player's frame of reference faster than they expect. They might aspire to rule a nation of kill a God, but not get there that quickly. I remember a Torg game where we were fighting the cyberpope in session 2 or 3. Sometimes people want to be closer to normal. Sometimes the reason people enjoy a setting is because that kingdom or God exists, and is for now untouchable. It gives them a reference point. It matches the lore they have read, and the vision in their head. Mordor may fall eventually, but they want to spend some time with it being an ongoing presence in their understanding of the setting.

Neither pro, nor con:
-You probably know this one, but you don't always connect with players on how a game "should" flow or evolve. You have a let the chips fall where they may, no matter what comes, vs many people that want an evolving story (and stories are expected to behave a certain way). This is purely a style thing, you have an approach, some players envision another approach. You aren't wrong...however it might sometimes get in the way of connecting with players and everyone feeling they had a satisfying game session.