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indierpgnewsletter · 2 months

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There's Other Kinds Of GM Advice: Theatricality versus Transparency

(This first appeared on the Indie RPG Newsletter)

I find that broadly there are at least two kinds of GM advice – and they have a very different philosophy underpinning them.

The first kind of advice aims at all costs to maintain verisimilitude. It’s a solution that you can implement without breaking the players’ immersion in their characters. This can just be stuff like Matt Colville explaining that if your players are taking too long discussing plans, guess what, orcs attack! We’ve all probably played a game where people were going in circles and not able to decide what to do. If it looks like we’re not able to decide, we’re probably going to be relieved if the GM makes something happen to break the deadlock and prompt us back into the action.

(Historically, this kind of thing was taken to egregious lengths like Gary Gygax saying if players start acting uppity, have a rock fall on their head. It’s mostly gone now but reddit tells me that Cyberpunk Red which came out relatively recently still says something similar.)

The second flavor of advice involves breaking character and talking to your players directly. I know “talk to your players” is a mantra repeated so often that autocorrect suggests it as soon as you type the letter t. At its worst, this advice is vague and unhelpful. We’ve all considered talking frankly to people in our lives, we just find it awkward and hard and annoying. But, but, but – at its best, just describing the problem as you see it and escalating it from a character discussion to a player discussion will make it go away instantly. Like magic. (If you’re not sure what that means: In a previous issue, I discussed Jason Tocci’s excellent advice on escalating conversation in this way.)

And since the theatrical flavour of advice has the weight of history on its side and transparent advice keeps getting boiled down to mantra form, I thought I’d write down some examples of situations and some alternative ways to handle them:

Situation 1: The players are marines discussing whether to dive into the alien lair and recover their stolen engine (their main goal) or go and see if another missing team of marines is okay. There is only 45 minutes left and this is a one shot.

Theatrical: The other marines suddenly come on the radio and say, “hey we’re okay, please complete the mission.”

Transparent: “Hey, folks. There’s 45 minutes left. If we don’t do the alien lair now, we won’t be able to do it at all. Is that fine?”

Situation 2: The players are low-level fantasy nobodies who have a famous wizard friend. They’re about to tangle with some medium-level bad guy and decide to call in their wizard friend.

Theatrical: When the players try to contact her via a telepathic phone call / spell, she sounds breathless and says she’s busy doing something way more important like fighting a dragon.

Transparent: “Hey, folks. If we get the wizard in, she’ll absolutely make this fight a cakewalk. We won’t even need to roll initiative really. Is that what you want? Or would we rather have a fun fight?”

Situation 3: The players were having fun exploring when they meet a cool NPC (an android! an elf! an android elf!) who has this interesting backstory with an urgent, earth-shattering hook. They go along with the android elf because it seems more important but immediately look like they’re having less fun.

Theatrical: Narrate how the android elf meets a group of other android elves and have the elf say, “Hey, now that I have these folks helping me, you can leave it you want!”

Transparent: “Hey, folks. Talking to you as players here, do we want to stick with this whole android elf plot here? It does mean that we won’t do any open-ended exploration. Which would you prefer?” If they want to ditch the elf plot, you could just retcon it entirely or do the theatrical solution.

All of these situations have happened at my table. They’re all relatively low stakes and I think whichever way you handle it, it’ll probably be fine. But that said, some situations absolutely work better when done transparently so if you’ve never tried the transparent way, give it a shot. If immersion matters a lot to you, try it at the end of the session.

/End

PS. The theatrical options often still require the players to willingly suspend their disbelief and go with it. If a player didn’t play along, they might just say “I thought their radios weren’t working, otherwise we could’ve just contacted them before. Why can they suddenly contact us now?” or “Oh, the wizard is fighting a dragon right now. We can totally wait. There’s no reason we need to fight the bad guy right now.” And sometimes I can’t shut off that part of my brain either so I won’t judge. But if there’s a way to sidestep that situation even coming up, I’m going to take it every time.

#indie rpg #ttrpg #ttrpg community #ttrpg design #rpg #ttrpgsolidarity #game design

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theresattrpgforthat · 15 days

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Hi! Do you know any one session ttrpgs? Preferably space/sci-fi themed but that’s not strictly necessary.

What’s important to me is that it’s creative, that it has fun mechanics and that you really have to work together (it’s for a birthday party). Also I should probably mention all participants are beginners but I’d definitely set aside some time to get into understanding the mechanics beforehand.

Thank you for running this blog and thanks in advance for answering! :D

THEME: Collaborative Space One-Shots

Hello friend, I think I have a really neat mix of games here for you to check out. I think most of these will naturally lead to creative, collaborative solutions from your players!

This Ship Is No Mother, by New Madras.

This Ship Is No Mother is a game about people in space, working jobs that are probably going to get them killed. It's 50+ pages, fully illustrated with art by Justin Nichol.

Inspired by movies like Alien and games like Mothership and Dread, this is for fans of tension, creepy-crawlies, and general horror. Mechanically, it's a card-based Forged in the Dark game, first in the series of games currently called the Cardsharp Sonata.

In this game, players start with a full deck of cards and as you play, that deck will run down. When the deck ends, there is a climactic moment of panic as one of the characters is going to do something stupid and get themselves (and maybe everyone else) killed.

A space horror game, this is a great game option for folks who love Alien. It’s designed to play within a very specific time frame, because the game ends when you use the last cards from a 52-card deck. It’s a game meant for horror and suspense, and was designed to run with Mothership game modules, so I’d recommend looking up some Mothership modules on Itch!

24XX Unlikely Heroes - Space Questing, by FutureFriend.

All you wanted was a steady paycheck, a quiet life among the stars, and maybe a comfy closet to nap in. Action and adventure? "Mmm, no thanks. I’m good." The universe, however, isn’t taking "no" for an answer…

Time to grab some tools, buddies, and your brown space pants. Out here heroism may be less “epic deeds and grand destinies” and more “frantically pressing the right button before it all explodes!”

24XX Unlikely Heroes - Space Questing is a rules-lite sci-fi RPG that is distilled into just 4 pages that fit snugly on two sides of a sheet of paper. It is a hack of the awesome 2400 system, by Jason Tocci.

24XX is a pretty light system and is great for dungeon crawls. As with most games in this family, the rules and GM advice fit on one page, so they should be pretty easy to teach. This game is pretty goofy, as you are regular space-folk who find themselves pushed into a dramatic scenario. If you are running a game for the first time, I’d definitely recommend running this game with the help of a dungeon, such as Space Frogdom, a light dungeon with space frogs and a countdown towards the hatching of a dragon egg.

Holdfast Station, by Lampblack & Brimstone.

The rim of the known universe. A place so god-forsaken, so hostile and alien to life itself that only the mad go there—and only the desperate stay.

That’s you.

Holdfast Station is about asteroid miners surviving and holding their community together in the grim desolation of space. Regular folks in a rough spot, who hold to each other and their own. A place where survival means you trust each other, you fight like hell, and you hope for the best. A place where food and water and even air is scarce. Where the crushing emptiness and massive force of the void are only feet away. Where you live so close you know everyone by smell. Where one accident could spell everyone’s destruction.

It’s about the people who step up when disaster strikes. They aren’t heroes, just regular people—people with no choice but to risk it all for their home and those they love.

Holdfast Station is a "pick up and play" RPG—After you gather players, some dice, and the provided record sheets (physical or online), the book guides you through play, one step at a time. One player, called the Navigator, takes on the role of storyteller, narrating events, encouraging players to contribute, and moving the story along. Each of the other players takes on the role of a worker on the station, striving to survive at the edge of known space.

This game advertises itself as a “no prep” game, although if you are a first-time GM, it might still be good to read through the entire thing first, just to familiarize yourself with all of the pieces of the game. Holdfast Station is all about a terrible event threatening the station, so it naturally encourages the players to work together to try and solve the problem before time runs out. The game might run a bit long if the players need a bit of help putting characters together, but I enjoy the guidance and tools present in the game that help you stay on task.

Survivors, by Alexander Schneider.

Survivors is a science-fiction role-playing game designed as a one-shot cosmic horror scenario where players are faced with survival questions while also encountering an unknown alien force which threatens their very lives. Together they may find ways to survive (or at least hope to) but they will hardly escape the psychic horror they pose themselves. Is it the desperate situation or something else which drives them mad to a point of no return to their former selves?

If you want a horror one-shot, you might be interested in Survivors. It has a very specific opening premise, and each event that the players encounter gives them roleplaying prompts that encourage them to replicate paranoia, fear, and a deterioration of emotional stability.

This is definitely a game you have to clear with the group beforehand, as the way the game has a lot of representations of different forms of mental illness, most of them inflicted upon the players the further they delve into the adventure.

Koboldly Go!, by CoffeeSnake Studios.

Calling all Kobolds!

Gather your crew, assemble your ship, and take to the depths of space on a mission to discover strange new worlds. To seek out life and new civilizations.

To Koboldly Go where no lizard has gone before!

This game is exceptionally humorous and lighthearted, and works really well for groups who have some appreciation for the inherent goofiness of early Star Trek. You create your kobolds by rolling for your job, colour, and your stats. You also spend time designing your ship by drawing from a regular pack of playing cards. The biggest downside for this game is that it doesn’t come with an adventure - you’ll have to create one yourself. I’d recommend drawing from Star Trek to create a planet or star system that has an anomaly that directly affects the ship, since you spend a lot of time creating it.

Greenhorns Quickstart, by Spicy Tuna RPG.

In Greenhorns your crew will create planets and fill the cosmos with new incredible life. Survive anomalies that spawn from these worlds and stabilize the planets for long term life. Define the planets’ histories and futures through the loot you retrieve and return home to a heroes welcome. You are Kruxian. You are chosen.

The full game of Greenhorns is good for a multi-session experience, but the Quickstart is suited to one-shots and is also free! Player abilities are mostly focused on combat, with each character class contains skills that guarantee success - but can only be used so many times. This is a game that depends on players coming up with creative solutions to problems, so I think collaboration will come pretty naturally.

The setting is kind of gonzo, with a mix of space fiction and fantasy tropes. If you want a unique setting that might inspire more games in the future, I recommend Greenhorns.

ATMA, by Meromorph Games.

Welcome to a world near our own. The volcanic mineral atma empowers the living and entwines the dying, while artificial intelligence and alien titans join humanity in this daunting new century. Yet in the Restless Zones, beyond society and law, trouble lurks. Gather your fellow adventurers and prepare to test yourself against the world’s most dangerous frontiers. The sky’s getting darker…

ATMA is a complete roleplaying game system in a tiny package. It's portable, quick to set up and teach, and plays in just 2 hours — perfect for game nights or pop-up sessions! A Game Master and 1-4 players use illustrated tarot cards to fuel RPG gameplay focused on creativity and quick thinking. ATMA excels as a tutorial for first-time GMs who've always wanted to run an RPG, while allowing limitless creativity for roleplaying pros.

This is probably the closest to what you’re looking for, I heavily recommend that you check ATMA out. It’s self-contained and super-fun to pull out and show off the the group. I don’t know if you have enough time to order the physical version, but there is an online version of the game and free print-and-play downloads if you just want a quick test of the game! I love the art and abilities presented in ATMA, and I think it’s definitely very beginner-friendly. It feels part-way between a boardgame and a roleplaying game, so if your friends are familiar with board games, this is a good bridge.

I’d also recommend…

Mothership has really quick and easy-to-understand character creation, and the game is designed to run small adventures that work as space dungeon crawls. This content is great for GMs because it gives them a location with a bunch of information to present to your players, which means that you have a lot to work with if you haven’t done something like this before. I’d recommend checking out There is A Goblin on Icarus Station if you want a Mothership adventure that has something for horror fans and comedy lovers.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #dnd #asks #space #space games #one shot

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