When the Door Finally Opens...My Way of GMing

After a week of waiting, the players, +Chris C. and +Ken H, got to see (or in this case hear) what was beyond the opening door.  But wait, let's back up.

Ending a game on a cliff hanger, something as simple as an opening door, leaves the players with something to think about for a week.  Their own imagination will create a dozen or more wild scenarios you as a GM hadn't thought of.  When I end a game session on a cliffhanger I sometimes know what will be on the other side.  Most times I don't.

The way I process the situation is I consider what occurred during the last couple of sessions and the first two or three ideas that come into my head I toss out right away.  The first thing I think of is always too easy, too obvious.  If I'm not surprised, the players aren't going to be surprised.  When you wait for the door to open for a week, I want it to pay off.  I want it to be worth the wait.

My first thought was to have the shadow creature they encountered in the very first session leap out.  Tossed.  Then I thought they would see one of the main NPCs walk out and say something important.  Tossed.  Both were playing on visual reactions.  But instead, after thinking about it, they players heard a noises.  A creepy symphony of millions of damned souls screaming out in agony.  Bam!  Keeper.

Not only does this surprise me, but it allows me as a GM to engage another sense of the players.  RPGs are often focused on the visual aspects of the game, but it is a lot of fun to engage the sense of hearing.  I'm not a fan of engaging the sense of smell.  No need to go there.

In the end, the opening scene from my Exoterrorist game creeped the hell out of my players.  Mission accomplished. 

GM Lessons: Mega-Dungeon Map Confusion

I hope you don't mind if I don't get into the recent announcement of the covers and content of the next wave of D&D.  While I might not understand the philosophy behind it, I'll be buying them none the less.  My group will probably give it a playtest for a few sessions and then we'll go back to playing whatever system we prefer.

But I digress. 

+Ken H runs his Monteport mega dungeon campaign on Monday nights.  We've been playing it on and off for over 18 months now I believe.  Here's what I learned from Ken that I think can be invaluable to those of us who play on-line.  Mapping a mega dungeon while on-line is a near impossible and frustrating task.  Some my argue having the virtual map in front of you is a cheat.  Well, Ken has a technique that work effectively when we are plodding along.  If we go into an area where it twists and turns and players would have trouble know north from south, he rolls a die to determine a random direction to turn the map.  Simply flipping the map makes the place look completely different.  Our group doesn't mark anything.  We've sorta become part of the eco-system.  We move ahead and see what's next.

He is able to do this with several mini-maps and the fact none of the room are numbered.  Dungeon features are sparse so there are very few to no visual tells.  I was going to give examples, but I am hoping this will prompt Ken in doing his own post because he'll do a post on his blog.

It's been very interesting having a round table group of GMs.  Over the past couple months, four out of the five of us have GMed.  I've did a couple sessions with my home campaign and system, +Rob Conley a couple of sessions using his FUDGE version of the Majestic Wilderlands, Ken continues with Monteport and +Chris C. GMed a handful of sessions using S&W Core rules in his home campaign of Ephemera.  After a batch of years of doing this it's fantastic to see what other bring to the game.