Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Well, I asked the question and now I have to answer it.

GMs can spend hours designing an adventure and have their players take off in an entirely unexpected direction. How does a GM handle this?try and steer the players back to the designed plot, or hang back and see where the adventure goes? How does a player handle this? Stay on target or go with the flow?

This question originally came up in a discussion I had with Cathy. We were discussing exactly how much planning you have to do for a game anyway, and what do you do when the players throw you for a loop. (Calling a bathroom break is always a good delaying tactic, especially as people tend not to disturb you.)

Personally, I like to have a plot outline. Events X, Y, and Z will happen at some point, but the details can be determined on the spot, as needed. This works because events X, Y, and Z are not GM goals in and of themselves, but a means to develop the plot. The nice thing about this trick is that it can work in a one-shot, a limited-term campaign, or an open-ended campaign. (Doug pulls this off amazingly well.) My favorite way of getting characters through a plot line is to appeal to whatever makes the character tick–greed, curiousity, thrill-seeking. (Failing that, the player’s curiousity is always a good target.) Of course, I’m a very lucky GM in that I can count on my regular players to run their characters consistently, even when it’s not beneficial to the character.

When it comes right down to it, I suppose it’s just that I like free will. I think that players should be allowed to attempt whatever they want. However, they should realize that the NPCs also have free will, and while the inmates may very well run the asylum, there are a lot of competing inmate factions.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2003 at 11:45 am and is filed under Games & Gaming, Gaming Memes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.