Following your own advice
We’ve been writing up thoughts on role-playing games on this blog for two years now. We have a few books on the subject of my role-playing style and what I’ve learned to improve my games. You would think that I wouldn’t make so many dumb mistakes… But in last night’s game, I couldn’t seem to follow any of my own advice.
Right, so which of my self-made rules or long-standing bits of RP wisdom did I blow off? A couple. My day leading up to game was difficult and I was already tired when we got online to start the session.
On one hand, I would tell any other Storyteller to be careful, to take some breaks, and to call the session off when they had enough. On the other hand, I have a wide stubborn streak. I’m a trooper, and I don’t like to let my players down. I run game even when I’m tired, when I’m sick. When my players beg to keep going, I’ll run for hours longer.
I thought we might be able to bash out the last combat scene and wrap up with some role-playing, but we were all too tired by that point and the dice really weren’t helping our heroes. We ended up playing late into the night, finally wiping the floor with evil and then quickly logging off.
I’m also usually better about scene-sequel pacing. That’s a writer’s trick we picked up working on our novels, but it applies to RPGs really well, or at least to how we like to play them. Basically, each event scene (the scene) needs a reaction scene to talk and digest (the sequel). But last night’s game ended up being little more than a dungeon crawl. We ended the first session before getting into a combat, so that’s where we started last night.
The player party stormed a ship that was trailing spiritual taint into the harbor, fought some monstrous sailors on the deck, climbed the con tower in a cinematic crisis, then fought the captain and bridge crew of the ship.
That part went really well, but the party still had to clear the rest of the ship. Going into another fight meant that there wasn’t a sequel — a rest scene to do something different to digest what happened, to do some role-playing. And I don’t just mean a five minute rest to recharge powers. The sequel is a rest-scene for the players.
I shouldn’t have put so many combat scenes back to back. I generally try not to have more than one of them in a given session, and certainly not this early in a campaign. I should have known better.
Ending the game at my first good stopping point would have been one way to rescue the session from becoming a slog. Even without making alterations to the chapter, we would be coming back fresh next time and the players would have the energy to dive into clearing the ship with gusto. We could have finished that combat with time left for the RP consequences, to follow up on the mission of taking the ship and stopping the spiritual taint.
But if I weren’t so tired, I could have even adjusted things on the fly. One of the characters was packing a bomb and the team did a bunch of distraction and maneuvering to provide cover while he snuck into position. I should have just let him bring the deck down on all the bad-guys in the hold and let them beat that combat scene with their clever self-made crisis.
But by that point I was worn out, and my stubborn streak turned against me. I resolved the bomb normally, then lowered my head and charged into the third combat that I originally planned. I kept us rolling dice for another hour past everyone’s bedtime.
I know better than to try to keep the game going when I’m tired, and I know better than to jam together scene after scene of combat without giving my players a chance to rest, recover, and do some RP. But it happened anyway.
There were a dozen points at which I could and should have corrected our course or avoided running into a quagmire, but I didn’t follow my own advice. I’ve been working on establishing firm boundaries and making my needs clear as a player — looks like my needs as a Storyteller are just as important. I need to stick to my own rules and boundaries next time — for the sake of myself and my players.
Addendum
This post is largely about the mistakes I made — and that I should have known better than to make. But I’m not stuck with them. Sure, I’ve got my eye on these issues going forward, but I also keep in close communication with my players. I can’t go back and not screw up, but I can reach out and touch base.
I emailed my player who’s in it for the RP, who wanted to push on in the hopes of making it to the next social scene. I let her know what was going on and reassured her that the whole game wasn’t going to be a dungeon crawl. She messaged back and said that she knew she should have followed my cues when I asked to end the session earlier. She was just excited to be role-playing again during the pandemic and she’s still looking forward to our next session.
One of my other players messaged me, asking to give critique and I said bring it on. Turns out he had the same issues with the combat pacing that I did, but he was really glad to hear that I felt the same way. I had already talked it over with Erica and had my eye on the issue for future sessions.
And my third player… Well, he didn’t seem to have any issues with game that I could tell, but he picked one of the special martial arts skills for this campaign. And in my opinion, it didn’t work very well. He’s a big weretiger and he just ended up shifting into his meanest form to bite lots of people. I talked to him a little about the maneuvers that he chose, how he used them and offered him a chance to tweak his character’s build a little.
Turns out he’s fine with how it worked and wanted to use it as character development — his young, angry shape-shifter is trying to control his fury and views falling back on his fangs as a personal failure. So the player’s going to use that to drive his character to greater devotion, to meditation and mastering his rage.
I’ll stick to my boundaries and listen to my own advice, but I’ll also trust my players. When things don’t work out the way I want them to, I don’t have to fix it alone. Role-playing is a collaborative experience. That means working with the group in and out of game to make it the best experience we can.
