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Jazuela · 06-10-2009, 08:00 AM

I never enjoyed "running" events. My style, I guess, was usually to present the basic idea of a plotline, and let the players run it organically. Anything else always seemed too contrived for my tastes. An example of what I've done in the past:

I had an NPC I created, an old absentminded bawdy toothless fortuneteller woman. She was my plot-driver for a bunch of events. She'd show up sometimes for scheduled RPTs and sometimes spontaneously when I noticed a bunch of people hanging out together in the city. For scheduled RPTs she might present the people with a clue to a mystery, and sometimes I'd make up that mystery on the spot. Sometimes I'd have an idea of it in advance. When she showed up spontaneously, I'd often just do fortunes for people who were there. The funniest part of -that- was that the players assumed my NPC was there for a *reason* [tm]. And they'd always read into their fortunes significant clues to other plotlines, or try to puzzle how those fortunes fit into the other plotlines. And usually it was just nonsense and fun. A few of the players caught on and started really just digging in the silliness.

I had another NPC, a little girl, who got into mild mischief most of the time, and liked it when people told her stories. She had a sister, or best friend, can't remember now, made by another GM. Together they introduced a new area of the game, a haunted house complete with ghoul mobs for players to whack on. The story dated back to my own childhood - a hermit's hut in the woods near summer camp. The hut really exists, and it really was occupied by a hermit, once a long time ago. The myth was that the hermit used to kidnap kids and torture them in the basement and they were never seen again. The moral of the myth was to not go into the woods when you're at camp, without your camp counselors there to lead the group.

But I turned that legend into an area, with mobs, and NPCs driving the plot using the telepathic communication everyone in the game had, to have my little girl screaming and calling for help. Hillarity, confusion, and lots of ghoul-murdering ensued, with the PCs all scrambling to find out who this little girl was (it was her introductory event as well as the plot device driver), where she was, and what she was wailing about.

06-10-2009, 08:00 AM	#2
Jazuela Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: New England Posts: 849	Re: GM Style I never enjoyed "running" events. My style, I guess, was usually to present the basic idea of a plotline, and let the players run it organically. Anything else always seemed too contrived for my tastes. An example of what I've done in the past: I had an NPC I created, an old absentminded bawdy toothless fortuneteller woman. She was my plot-driver for a bunch of events. She'd show up sometimes for scheduled RPTs and sometimes spontaneously when I noticed a bunch of people hanging out together in the city. For scheduled RPTs she might present the people with a clue to a mystery, and sometimes I'd make up that mystery on the spot. Sometimes I'd have an idea of it in advance. When she showed up spontaneously, I'd often just do fortunes for people who were there. The funniest part of -that- was that the players assumed my NPC was there for a reason [tm]. And they'd always read into their fortunes significant clues to other plotlines, or try to puzzle how those fortunes fit into the other plotlines. And usually it was just nonsense and fun. A few of the players caught on and started really just digging in the silliness. I had another NPC, a little girl, who got into mild mischief most of the time, and liked it when people told her stories. She had a sister, or best friend, can't remember now, made by another GM. Together they introduced a new area of the game, a haunted house complete with ghoul mobs for players to whack on. The story dated back to my own childhood - a hermit's hut in the woods near summer camp. The hut really exists, and it really was occupied by a hermit, once a long time ago. The myth was that the hermit used to kidnap kids and torture them in the basement and they were never seen again. The moral of the myth was to not go into the woods when you're at camp, without your camp counselors there to lead the group. But I turned that legend into an area, with mobs, and NPCs driving the plot using the telepathic communication everyone in the game had, to have my little girl screaming and calling for help. Hillarity, confusion, and lots of ghoul-murdering ensued, with the PCs all scrambling to find out who this little girl was (it was her introductory event as well as the plot device driver), where she was, and what she was wailing about.