GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

[Alverant]

I've been part of a regular gaming group for a while. We alternate GMs and I've been behind the screen a few times. But it seems like in all the games the GM turns to each player in turn and spends about half an hour developing their own plot line then a fight pops up related to one of the plots and everyone does the combat. It's fun and everything, but it's like unless you're taking notes for the group (a necessary and thankless task) a player spends several hours doing nothing. They're watching other players take their turn most of the time. That doesn't seem fair. Sure, you can try to weave two or more plots together so those two players can actually role play longer. But how long can you keep that up? How many amazing coincidences can you use before it gets forced?

 

Maybe we've been doing it wrong all these years. I want to hear about what alternatives a GM has to "OK what do you do?"

[lapsedgamer]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

When I was GMing I always found it helpful when the players who weren't in the spotlight spent the down time listening to what was going on and planning their own actions. That way everyone took less time when it was their turn, and the game went faster.

 

There was nothing more irritating than having to recap everything every thirty or so minutes because one or two peple weren't really paying attention. Then these same folks would always spend an inordinate amount of time hemming and hawing over what they wanted to do.

 

When I was playing, I would generally listen in to the game in chief and write my next actions out on scrap paper so I could be organized while I was waiting for my turn to come around again, unless it was a big group scene that required everyone to chime in.

 

As a GM, I would sometimes want to do interesting things like run two plots simultaneously and cut back and forth, or play out things that happened to different people at different times simultaneously to compress the gaming session, but it never worked out. People would metagame. It seemed like people prefered just mobbing around together and wailing on stuff.

[Markdoc]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Simple, I run plotlines that involve all - or most - of the PCs. When I can, I hook their backgrounds and complications in, but that's frosting on the cake, not the whole thing. Occasionally a sub-plot related to one or other player directly takes the focus, but the group plays as a group, so the others are all involved. When you alternate GMs in a shared setting, it makes far more sense for a GM to run a story arc until it is finished and then let it lie for a while, so that all the players can pick up thread of the next game. Usually there's no problem in starting your next turn as GM with "Several months later..." and that means each GM can run a game which involves all the players.

 

cheers, Mark

[bigbywolfe]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

How many amazing coincidences can you use before it gets forced?

This is the line that really catches my attention. You ask how many amazing coincidences you can use, but I think the real question should be how many do you need? Aren’t the PCs a team? If so, don’t they ever go investigate things together? Why does there need to be a coincidence to get them together (other than for the first time or two if you want to have a ‘team origin’ as part of the campaign)? Don’t they communicate when something happens that’s relevant to recent events in the game? Don’t any of them hang out socially outside of combat/investigation?

 

Just some things to consider. In a superhero setting you can have a team do patrols in small groups so there are always at least a couple people involved at once. If one character gets asked to help someone he will natural contact his team unless it’s so minor he doesn’t feel the need to, and even then if they are a well organized team they’ll make contact anyway just in case something happens, even if they aren’t “requesting backup”. If one character is involved with a personal investigation they will likely rely on the team for assistance unless it involves some dark secret they don’t want revealed.

 

Maybe you can expand on why the GMs only involve one person at a time, or why they feel it takes some weird coincidence to involve more than one at once, and whether or not the players play into that by playing loner characters or just not being communicative…

 

As a GM' date=' I would sometimes want to do interesting things like run two plots simultaneously and cut back and forth, or play out things that happened to different people at different times simultaneously to compress the gaming session, but it never worked out. People would metagame. It seemed like people prefered just mobbing around together and wailing on stuff.[/quote']

Our group does this fairly often. Of course we’re a small group with usually only 4-6 players plus GM, so two groups of 3 or even occasionally 3 groups of 2, for a short time anyway, usually works just fine. We do have a pretty mature group though and all but one player is really good about not metagaming. Maybe it just boils down to play-style and personality…

[quozaxx]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

How many players do you have? (not counting the GM)

 

What are their main attributes? (Brick, mentalist, detective, etc)

 

What kind of main complications (or disad) do they have? (show off, DNPC, psychological, etc)

 

This info may be helpful. And also one small example would be nice. (Brick has an NPC that is involved with his secret ID. Which means the others wouldn't be there...)

[Escafarc]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Our group tries to stear people away from "Loner" type characters. It's actually written down as one of group house rules along with no Evil, assassins, anti-palaldins, and no races with pointed ears.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

I tend to encourage shared DNPCs, friends, contacts etc. and they do almost everything as a group even socialize. Pretty much the group does most activities as a team and plots involve everyone. if one PC has the hook , the others help him out. If ones character's daughter ( or great great granddaughter) comes for help the others are likely to be over for dinner or at the DNPC consultant's etc,

 

In short PCs are encouraged to develop connections beyond just "work" and so everything is interconnected so there is very little solo time in huge blocks where others sit idle.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

I'm blessed with five pretty easy-going (if occasionally paranoid) players. They allow each other to have the spotlight throughout the game, and I try to have something for each individual (whether in SID or hero ID). However, I try not to have that "individual something" take too long, unless it ties into the main plotline for that adventure.

 

My players also tend to have their characters gravitate toward each other even in secret ID. For instance, Serendipity's SID owns/runs a bar. A few months into the campaign, Styx's SID got a job as a bouncer at that bar. Currently, they are co-raising the orphaned daughter of an NPC from a prior plotline. And when a friend of Serendipity was getting involved with a questionable salon, Sentinel (in SID) went with Serendipity to the salon to check things out.

 

It helps a lot that, much of the time, one of the "individual somethings" each night tends to be involved in the main plot of the night, which inevitably involves the whole team. A given "individual something" might be directly involved with the plot, or it might just be a hook to lead them into the plot. But it happens enough that most everybody pays attention while someone else is in the spotlight (and often chimes in with ideas, which can be meta-gamey but I allow unless it's getting over-done).

 

Hope that helps.

[mattingly]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Since I run for a large group (over twelve for a good while), the currency of my campaign has become "screen time." This holds true for a large group, but should also apply to smaller groups as well. My players finally discovered that if they're flawed, and can fail, they get twice as much screen time. First, they fall down. Then they get back up. A lose-win becomes a win-win.

 

I try to pick two "costars" during each game. About half the time will be focused on those two characters for the session. Who those two costars are rotates each game.

[hfergus]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

My players rarely separate if I can help it. I try, and suceed fairly well to keep then together. When they do separate, I bounce back and forth trying to spend equal time on each. My players also pay close attention to what is going on in case it is important to save time, and they are very good at differentiating between what they know and what the characters know. As far as individual background stuff, I often talk to each away from the acutal game for stuff like that. Works out pretty well.

[mattingly]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

When they do separate' date=' I bounce back and forth trying to spend equal time on each.[/quote']

Same here, and I try to always "cut" on a cliffhanger.

[wick]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Some players you have to train. Like when I had a player with a DnD 3.0 theif that wanted to solo adventure him stealing stuff while everyone else sat around the table. I instead had him roll his skill to see how much money he earned and how much time he spent. Not the effect he was going for but he was not the only person at the table. Later on he went off by himself in the dungeon, despite my warning him that I had designed the encounters for a party, One encounter with a pretty large Tendrilicous later, and the party was without a thief.

 

I do like some of the methods that other GMs have used with Champions. Combining disadvantages seems pretty smart. I mean if one guy in the party is hunted: Viper and Viper agents attack him, the group won't just stand by, they will help the guy out and gain the eminity of Viper, so they may as well take "hunted: Viper" for a disadvantage (maybe to a smaller degree than the main hunted character) too. And it keeps them involved.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

I do like some of the methods that other GMs have used with Champions. Combining disadvantages seems pretty smart. I mean if one guy in the party is hunted: Viper and Viper agents attack him' date=' the group won't just stand by, they will help the guy out and gain the eminity of Viper, so they may as well take "hunted: Viper" for a disadvantage (maybe to a smaller degree than the main hunted character) too. And it keeps them involved.[/quote']

 

Yep. One campaign many years ago, in the 4th Edition days, two of the PCs were Hunted by Malachite, and a third left it up to me to assign a Hunted and work it into her origin. (The first session actually started with her as an UNTIL agent and ended with her being a superheroine.) So I arranged it so Malachite was involved in her origin. It really added a unifying element to the team.

[Prestige]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

All the advice is great so far.

Another thing you can do is let the other player RP among themselves while you are dealing with one person. One of the things that amaze me about most RPG is groups that they is sooo little RP between the players in most groups.

 

Another thing is you encourage them to deal with the paper work of their characters while you are doing this.

[mattingly]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

I further involve my players by having them roll and count all the dice. As a GM, my time is far too important to waste on rolling my own dice. When a bad guy attacks PC X, I'll tell player X, "He has a 9 OCV, and does 12d6 of electrical damage." The player rolls the dice, adds the damage, applies it to his defenses, rolls the knockback... While he's doing that, I've already gone on to PC Y. After Y has rolled the dice to hit himself, I go back to X, to see the result of the attack.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Depending upon the situation and the foes, I've occasionally dragooned players into acting as one or more of the NPCs for various (usually non-combat) encounters. Unfortunately, my players don't seem to get too into playing characters other than their own. But when they do play along, it helps get them more into the plot, even if it may give them a little out-of-character knowledge.

 

I've even had them all play NPCs for "cut scenes" that set up the main adventure. That *really* gives them out-of-character info, but generally their normal PCs will later encounter the NPCs that they played previously, which then justifies their PCs learning the info. And they remember it better, because they experienced it rather than just hearing it second-hand.

 

An upcoming adventure involves some teen NPC heroes uncovering a long-dormant mystery, including a powerful 1950s villain in stasis that the PC heroes will then have to deal with. I'm going to have the players run those NPC teen heroes for that first part. And since those teen heroes tie into the DNPC daughter of one of the PC heroes, the whole situation may very well have long-term effects on the campaign.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Another vote for keeping them together where possible. Form a team as early as possible, and toss in freebies like radios and a basic HQ if necessary to keep them in contact. Player A may be the focus for the intro to the scenario, but should quickly realize they need help and call in the rest of the team. Captain America may bust up the initial robbery, but then he calls in Black Panther to help understand why they wanted the McGuffinite in the first place and to help track down the Hydra base, then they call in Thor, Vision and Scarlet Witch to help bust the place. Rotate whose thread leads to the big plot in different sessions.

[Pól Ruadh]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Of course, besides all these excellent ideas about how to keep characters together, it's important to add that, if you ARE dealing more with a single player, you should,

(a) Try and make it interesting. Even if the other players' characters don't have the spotlight at the moment, the interplay between the PC and NPC's/GM should still be interesting and fun,

( Not let it drag on. Sometimes you HAVE to split the party. That's cool, but games are for having fun. If you're doing it often enough/for long enough that people are getting bored or fidgety, it's probably gone on for too long, and,

© Make sure EVERYONE gets a turn in the spotlight. Players are much, much more willing to let someone else have a scene or two to themselves if they know they're getting one later.

 

There are some players who can't stand not to be in the spotlight all the time. You can see them wandering around, looking at the DVDs on the shelves, picking up a book and reading a couple of pages, waiting for the clatter of dice to let them know 'something's happening'. It's almost impossible to cater to this sort of player without running what amounts to a D&D Dungeon Crawl where the entire group wanders around like clumped rice 24/7.

In short, there's nothing wrong with splitting the party sometimes, when the adventure calls for it, just as long as everyone's still having fun because, in the end, that's what we play games for.

[casualplayer]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

I like to plot sessions to movie length, an hour plus 15-45 minutes. I've found that is the functioning attention span of the average gamer, before the Monty Python/Princess Bride/I Attack the Darkness impulses take over and make role-playing less and less possible, although still a good time spent with friends yukking it up. That doesn't mean that I won't run 2 or even more sessions in a sitting, just that I plan a cliffhanger or denoument leading to an intermission at about that window. It's not such a long window to cool your heels if you happen to get cold-cocked or seperated.

[Alverant]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

How many players do you have? (not counting the GM)

 

What are their main attributes? (Brick, mentalist, detective, etc)

 

What kind of main complications (or disad) do they have? (show off, DNPC, psychological, etc)

 

This info may be helpful. And also one small example would be nice. (Brick has an NPC that is involved with his secret ID. Which means the others wouldn't be there...)

 

I'm not sure how much info would be helpful. We have 6 players (self included) made up of 2 married couples, the brother of the wife of one of the couples, and myself. But we're pretty independent and like having complete freedom in designing our characters. As such in all our campaigns no characters have ever been connected before teaming up (even when requested by the GM). The backgrounds are too diverse to forge any real common points of interest. The teams function more like a business than anything. There's very little teamwork in and out of combat and non-hero business.

 

That makes things extra tough. My first real GMing in years is a Dark Champions campaign and I did ask that the other players take it easy on me and try to write characters who could connect with each other. No such luck. The characters had NOTHING in common and the players were too busy IRL to try and rework their backgrounds so there were some links. That's what made me want to come here and ask for help. At the end of one session one character was seriously wounded and effectively out of action for the next session (I flirted with trying to stick to a calendar). I tried to engage him but he didn't want to do anything but rest and recover. Can't blame him when you're at 2 BODY.

 

I like all the advice so far. What I really need is a way to get the players to participate more. I like the idea of a player who's "off camera" take over the role of NPC. I would have to see if my group would go for it though.

[dmjalund]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Then you may need to get a bit heavy handed - threaten to rewrite their characters for them. It sounds like they may not fully understand the concepts involved (are they new to RP?). A GM can't afford to be a wimp. In some ways he has to take a leadership role - all in the interest of making it enjoyable. A football game doesn't work if there is no teamwork.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

I'm not sure how much info would be helpful. We have 6 players (self included) made up of 2 married couples, the brother of the wife of one of the couples, and myself. But we're pretty independent and like having complete freedom in designing our characters. As such in all our campaigns no characters have ever been connected before teaming up (even when requested by the GM). The backgrounds are too diverse to forge any real common points of interest. The teams function more like a business than anything. There's very little teamwork in and out of combat and non-hero business.

 

 

 

I pretty much give my guys complete freedom but they understand that they need to functions as a group so take shared enemies, DNPCs etc. You need to explain to them how much easier things would be and frankly more fun if they were more connected.

 

Heck! Put them through the wrings a few times with some likable and sympathetic NPCs and see if they can connect. Sometimes that's been the only common thread at first.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Heck! Put them through the wrings a few times with some likable and sympathetic NPCs and see if they can connect. Sometimes that's been the only common thread at first.

 

This is a good idea, and repped. An NPC that can connect with different PC's due to similar tastes / outlooks / backgrounds could be a way of linking the PCs. For instance, if PC#1 is former military and PC#2 is hunted by VIPER... the NPC could be a former squad member of PC #1 who did something to get VIPER mad. Don't make any one NPC directly connect to too many PCs, but 3-4 NPCs with connections to 2-3 PCs each could help tie things together and enough joint character plotlines to move things along.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

This is a good idea' date=' and repped. An NPC that can connect with different PC's due to similar tastes / outlooks / backgrounds could be a way of linking the PCs. For instance, if PC#1 is former military and PC#2 is hunted by VIPER... the NPC could be a former squad member of PC #1 who did something to get VIPER mad. Don't make any one NPC directly connect to too many PCs, but 3-4 NPCs with connections to 2-3 PCs each could help tie things together and enough joint character plotlines to move things along.[/quote']

 

especially if said NPCs connect with each other.

[Ragitsu]

Re: GMing style, what else apart from 'Round the Table'?

 

Funny, but oh so true.