GM Theory - Ideas to help run RPGs

MAKING MYSTERIES

The biggest problem with these is that GMs too often figure out one thing about their mystery that is, indeed, clever, but not enough to run a whole mystery from ("It LOOKS like the butler did it, but really it was the cute girl.") This results in Game Masters who refuse to give out any information because if they tip their hand at all, you'll solve the mystery and solve it all at once. And then you get a bad case of the head scratches as the GM constantly drops deliberately obtuse and cryptic hints, the players have no idea what to do with it, and then the GM starts complaining that the players aren't "figuring it out" even though he really can't give them anything to go with.

• Create layers. Several layers.
• In each layer, have several related mysteries:

• Each mystery has several components, so you flesh out those components, and give them some sub components.

• Approach the creation of layers in reverse:

• Start with the big reveal
• then work your way back to the smaller mysteries.

Using our one liner above as an example, ("It LOOKS like the butler did it, but really it was the cute girl.") two things stand out.

First, why would we assume the butler did it? Perhaps he WANTED us to assume he did it. Why? Perhaps he believed his son did it, and wants to protect him. There's a sub mystery right there. But how can we further develop that? Why would he assume his son would do it, and how can we make this less obvious to the players? Perhaps his son doesn't KNOW who his father is. Perhaps he believes the murder victim is. And perhaps the murder victim was going to screw the son over and when the Butler discovered things, he tried to cover it up, and when that didn't work, is trying to frame himself to protect his son (who didn't even do it. Won't he be relieved?)

What else? Well, why would the girl kill the old man? Maybe she was in love with the son and he spurned her. Perhaps she's much more spoiled than she let on, and so she was trying to talk the murder victim into writing the son out of the will (which explains why the Butler was afraid his son would flip out), and when that didn't work, got pissed and killed him, and then tried to frame the son (which further concerned the butler).

This gives us a slew of material to work with, mysteries within the mystery that lead us to greater revelations. First, we try to figure out who killed him: We can afford to give them plenty of clues, several of which will point them to the Butler. But further investigation will suggest the butler is covering up for the young man, and then it turns out that the young man is, in fact, the butler's illegitimate son. Revelations! It was all this adopted heir! And he killed him because he was being written out of the will! Except certain parts of the story don't add up, so before the heroes can wrap it all up, they realize the prim and cute girl was the one trying to persuade the victim to change his will, and that she'd tried to have a relationship with the boy, only to be spurned, and then bam, the final pieces fall into place, and we have a heckuva memorable mystery.

The same premise can apply to anything: What's the secret of the ancient manuscript? Where does the tomb of the final templar lie? Who is really behind the cattle mutilitations of New Mexico?

Role-Playing Non-Combat

Social roleplaying is a little more complicated. Generally, romance, drama and intrigue come down to hard choices. Whom do you betray? Whom do you commit to? How far are you willing to go? In alot of ways, I think this is the meat of a good RPG in any case, because choice is what RPGs are all about. If you're just fighting an endless stream of monsters, you're not doing anything you couldn't do better on a computer.

The core of drama is to make these choices as equally appealing (or unappealing) as you can. The rule of thumb is "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." There should be no "Right" answer (which isn't to say every answer is HORRIBLY wrong, unless you're playing a horror game, but those can be depressing). Every benefit should have a trade off, and if your players stop and see everything spreading before them and really can't decide, agonizing over each choice, you've really done your job well.

My favorite example of this is a spy scenario I dreamed up once: Imagine a soviety spy who has infiltrated an American base. While there, her life is saved a couple of times by an American captain, who falls for her and her for him. She finds herself growing content in her new life, but it cannot remain so forever: one the one hand, the CIA is begining to suspect that there's a spy in their midst, turning up the heat on her. The KGB begins to suspect she's gone to the other side, and sends an agent to "check up" on her. Making matters worse, the American captain is ordered to engage an attack on a soviet special interest, putting her into the final bind: she must decide where her loyalties lie. If she tells the KGB of the attack, her lover will surely die. If she does not, this special interest will fall and she'll be cut off from her country forever. If it seems to obvious, like the player would certainly choose the lover, we ramp up the consequences of that, perhaps putting some of her family in the line of fire if the attack goes off.

What matters is that we have a choice, it's a tough choice, and that this choice has consequences that will reveberate through the game.

The other half of social play is convincing and interesting NPCs. They need to have a good look, an interesting personality, and be simple enough that the PCs can sum them up pretty quickly if necessary. But they also need their own agendas and a reason to be in the game. All too often I see GMs who introduce love interests whose sole purpose in life is to be loved by the hero, or a rival whose sole purpose in life is to antagonize the hero. These seldom hold attention for long, and tend to feel railroady ("Look, it's a princess. You love her, right?"). So I ensure that all NPCs have a secondary role that ensures that, should a player dismiss them as a love interest or rival, I can shrug and keep them in the game for a completely different reason, clearly signaling that they do, in fact, have a choice in the matter. It also tends to ensure they're multi-dimensional. Perhaps the princess seeks to save her kingdom and has hired the heroes to help her do so. Whether or not the hero falls in love with her after that is immaterial (but interesting). Perhaps the rival seeks an alliance to the kingdom and the princess's hand and, completely paranoid, believes that the hero seeks to steal her away (the fact that she's crushing on the prince doesn't help anything).

Tough choices, interesting NPCs who exist for a variety of reasons and have their own desires, and consequences to your actions tend to form the basis, in my opinion, of any social roleplaying situation.