| The Importance of GM and Player Dialogue |
[Jan. 2nd, 2012|09:24 am] |
After a conversation on New Years Eve I came to the realisation that for me the central dynamic of roleplaying is the dialogue between GM and player. The process where a player acts and reacts in character and the GM introduces things for the player to act and react to. At its best, each iteration communicates something to the other and should refine and inform the next iteration. This ensures a growing relevancy and builds engagement.
In terms of scenario construction, this ties into the idea of the GM creating a story spine which provides initial momentum, a group story and a source from the GM can draw out NPCs, events and ideas to present to the PCs. This story spine is the catalyst for creating individual stories for each PC that are complete, relevant, and comprehensible in and of themselves.
The result is that these PC stories are independent but become reflections of the story spine through the lens of the PC as created by the player. The exact importance given to the story spine and PC stories can differ by game and within the same game. The key to success is building a common expectation that everyone at the table is most comfortable with.
I often like to refer to this dialogue as throwing a ball back and forth between GM and player. Just as with a thrown ball, you never know quite where it will be thrown and this interaction is what creates the fun of RPGing for both sides. Being a player, I dont want to be an author of my PC's story (something I agree with Mash on). As a GM, I love to see how my PCs act and react and surprise me. I don't want to orchestrate this or limit player freedom. Being handed a ball is not fun in comparison, nor is just having a ball. It's all in the throwing.
This also explains a number of other things. In general, I am less of a fan of LARPs because this throwing is less prominent. You get handed some balls at the start of the game. You may also get a ball thrown at you by another player during the game, but IMO this is more random than with a GM as the other player has (rightly) their own PC forefront of their mind. It's like someone throwing a ball at you with no real interest in whether it's caught or not. It may well be out of reach or you may need to bend uncomfortably to catch it. Most people react to this by taking on a level of GM like consideration as a player for other players, but this undermines the player experience.
It also underlies some of my issues with the collaborative story creation process commonly associated with indie RPGs. This process makes the throwing of the ball more prominent, but I find that I barely have time to catch and then throw it back. It feels like being in front of an automated tennis ball thrower and you are left standing nervously, hoping not to get hit, and end up leaving a mass of balls on the ground. This is especially true of such games in a limited time environment like a Con. I barely understand what is thrown at me in three hours and as a result feel like I haven't thrown back my best pitches or really pitched at all.
This also informs my Con scenario design quite a bit. Most Con scenarios make one throw from the GM to player and back in three hours. Here is the PC, here is a situation, what do you do? Those that do this basic interchange tend to be good experiences as you feel you got into the PC and played them out.
However, I feel that a very good scenario needs to do this two or three times for each PC to provide that essence of RPing fun and show the development of the PC under the circumstances. In order to do this in three hours, pretty much everything else must get sacrificed. But if I am right in this being the essence of RPing fun for me, then this prioritisation seems sensible.
My scenarios tend to be relatively limited in terms of what the PCs do and the story that is told. Scene framing is aggressive. But what the scenarios achieve, which I haven't seen in many other Con scenarios, is that each player and the GM get to catch and throw the ball a few times. After each pass, the GM and player adjust to make the next even better achieving a satisfying dramatic arc and climax in many cases. The result should be that each player feels like they have just told a complete and seperate story in which their PC was central.
Tears of Vykyris is all about this above process and I have pushed the boundaries of the Con scenario to their limit in this regard (and it may well have pushed beyond that limit). I am extremely excited and nervous about running it at Kapcon :) |
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