[Don't Rest Your Head] How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the System
ODDin:
I think the main thing that happened is that I come with much less expectations and intentions regarding where the game will go. My first "adventures" (if you excuse the term) when running the game were much more structured. Sure, there was still room for the players to contribute, but I had a pretty clear idea regarding what was going to happen during the game.
In later "adventures" I wrote, there's much less of that, and mostly there are general ideas regarding what's going on and interesting places to visit along the way, but very little in terms of where the game will actually go.
One aspect of the system that I was previously fighting with were the Madness Talents. Those talents are quite powerful things. When used fully, they can really change how things are going on - and having too solid ideas about what should be happening doesn't really let them work. Now I highly encourage players to interpret their Madness Talents metaphorically, and I also write them accordingly. ("My Madness Talent is to get behind things. I want to get behind the High School. I mean, to get to what's really behind it." - this being an actual play example.) So, now that I don't plan stuff, I can really let Mandess Talents shine. I have no idea what will happen in the next scene, and neither do the players, and I just go with it and see where it gets me.
Another aspect is what happens when madness dominates. That should indicate that things get more chaotic. When I have no strict plans on what's going on, I can really "go wild" with that. I don't always do, but when I occasionally do, it's fun and it helps.
And yet another aspect is worrying about spotlight, pacing and structuring. With a simple rule of "one roll per character and then we move to the next one" (not something stated in the game itself but something I've come up with), a LOT of the these issues are really very easily dealt with. Rolling the dice in DRYH is lots of fun and quite satisfying and gives players lots of spotlight, and also provides structure. Sure, there's still some things in this regard the system doesn't handle for me - sometimes dialogues drag out with no dice hitting the table and I need to cut things without rolling dice, or sometimes the group is unevenly separated and the spotlight considerations become somewhat different, but it's still not too much work.
However, I wouldn't really say that what happened is players contributing more; in the example I gave with the Madness Talents, I was the one who answered what really was behind the High School (which I improvised on the spot). I'm the one doing most of the narration (which, as I said, I mostly improvise.)
It's just that with a free form game I don't think I'd risk doing something like that - going with very little preparation and counting on my ability to improvise things and the players' occasional contribution. In DRYH, I feel the structure of the system drives the game forward very well no matter what happens, and thus it's a lot harder for me to get stuck and not know what to do and how to continue.
Elkin:
I've had the same moment of enlightenment about a month ago, when I GMed my first game of Apocalypse World to a group of adults.
AW does not state explicitly what the system does; instead, it states explicitly what are your goals as GM. Your goals are to (1) make the world seem real, (2) make the PCs' lives not boring and (3) play to find out out what happens.
The corollary is that it is not your job to make sure the players are entertained; it is not your job to take care of pacing and atmosphere; it is not your job to be fair or to challenge the skills of the players or the PCs. it is not your job to carefully ration information and set the game towards the big showdown or the big reveal. The game text also explicitly warns you, several times, that if you plan anything in advance other than "these are the various threats, and this is what they will do unless they are somehow foiled", you are not playing Apocalypse World.
Once I've started to apply these principles, I've been feeling underworked when GMing. It does takes a huge burden of your shoulders, especially when contrasted with the carefully-planned Exalted campaign I played with the same group a few months ago.
Callan S.:
But then it's just a board game! And why do you even need a GM then!?
Just joking! Just joking! I have some sick sense of humour in writing the very words I'd dread to read...
Well that and I'm outlining the method of critique that is often applied on these matters (thankfully not in this thread so far) of treating this as a binary. Ie, either the GM decides on and handles everything OR it's a board game. When really it's a sliding scale of how much a GM decides things and how much hard rules determine the activities progress and eventual outcome. With each game author deciding where they set the slider for each of their games. I think there's alot of liberty in realising the slider doesn't have to be pressed hard toward the 'GM handles/determines everything' end.
ODDin:
I don't think this is really the difference between RPGs and board games. Fiasco has no GM whatsoever, but I wouldn't really call it a board game.
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