Every heist movie has the moment. The guard opens the vault, finds it empty, and the film cuts back to three days earlier, when the crew swapped the shipment out from under his nose. Flashbacks let your table pull the same trick, and they solve one of the oldest problems in roleplaying: planning.

Most groups have lived through it. The team spends two hours planning a run, argues over every detail, and still misses the one thing that matters. Flashbacks let you skip most of that. Start the session at the front door and fill in the preparation when it becomes relevant.

The Heist Flashback

This is the big one, and it’s the reason flashbacks caught on. Blades in the Dark built its whole heist system around it, and the idea works in almost any game.

The job starts mid-action. When the team hits a problem, a player calls a flashback and describes what their character did earlier to prepare: memorizing the patrol route, copying the gatekeeper’s key, hiding a sedative in the guard dog’s dinner. If the prep was risky, they roll for it. Then play cuts back to the present with the problem solved.

Shadowrun is practically built for this. Legwork is famous for eating whole sessions, and a flashback lets it happen in the moment instead. As a house rule, let a runner spend a point of Edge to flash back to the legwork: the security tech they bribed, the maglock passkey they bought from their fixer, the floor plans the decker lifted last week.

Three rules keep it from breaking the game:

1. It costs something. Edge, stress, or a limited number per run. Free flashbacks solve everything.
2. It has to be plausible. Nobody flashes back to “I already had the vault code” unless someone could actually have gotten it.
3. It can go wrong. A failed roll means the prep happened but went badly. The guard took the bribe and then sold you out.

The Backstory Flashback

Players love writing three-page backstories that nobody else reads. Flashbacks get that history into play instead.

When a moment calls for it, a player can set a short scene from their character’s past that ties to what’s happening now. They say where and when, the other players take on the NPCs, and the whole thing lasts a couple of minutes. In return, the player gets a small bonus on the roll at hand.

The street sam about to take on a ganger twice her size flashes back to the first fight she ever won. The decker facing nasty ICE remembers the first system that nearly fried his brain. The table learns who these people are, mid-fight, at exactly the moment it matters.

Keep the scenes short and the bonus small. Players will limit themselves, since a flashback is only fun when there’s a story to tell.

The Life-Changing Moment

Save this for the big stuff. Each character gets one or two defining moments from their past, written down at character creation. When a roll would kill them, the player can spend one: play out the moment that made them who they are, and the failed roll becomes a survival. It’s rare, it’s dramatic, and the table remembers it for years.

The GM’s Flashback

GMs can use flashbacks too. Open a session in the middle of a firefight, then cut back to the meet with Mr. Johnson to show how the team got there. Or reveal a run’s real story gradually, one flashback per session, until the players realize the job wasn’t what they thought.

Be careful with the “this stranger is actually an old friend” reveal. It works once. After that it feels cheap.

The Stakes Are Still Real

A character can’t die in a flashback, since we already know they made it to the present. That doesn’t make flashbacks safe. A contact can get burned, gear can get used up, and a fear that wasn’t faced in the past can follow the runner into the present. Death isn’t the only thing on the line.

A flashback is like a fixer’s favor: you don’t need it until you really do, and it always costs something.

Try one next session and see what happens. You may never plan a run the old way again.

Chummers, the new rules-light take on the Sixth World is here. Shadowrun: Anarchy 2.0 hit DriveThruRPG this week as a PDF, and the print edition hits retail on November 11…

It was built by Black Book Editions, the team that has handled the French edition of Shadowrun for over 20 years, with Catalyst Game Labs publishing in English. It funded on Kickstarter earlier this year.

What you need to know:

• Standalone. The book and a handful of six-siders are all you need to run it.
• Newcomer friendly. It includes a setting primer, so you don’t need decades of metaplot.
• A big NPC gallery to fill out your sessions.
• A four-part campaign for beginners and veterans alike.
• Works with every edition. Shadowrun books from any edition can be used alongside it.

How it plays

Anarchy 2.0 keeps Shadowrun’s signature pools of six-sided dice, with 5s and 6s counting as hits. You build a pool from an attribute plus a skill, then roll against an opposing pool or a set number of dice. It’s built to cut bookkeeping compared to the full Sixth World rules. New to this edition are risk dice, where a 5 or 6 counts as two hits, but a 1 is a critical failure.

The bigger shift is how the story gets told. The GM sets the scene, then each player narrates what their character does, and the dice help decide how well it works. Players steer the story with a personal narrative resource, earned through legwork and spent mid-run to overcome obstacles on the fly. The group can also build a shared pool during planning. The default is classic GM-led narration, with optional rules for shared narration or even playing without a GM.

At the table, that means less book-diving and more “what do you do?” Expect fast action and loose scene structure. It isn’t exactly rules-light, but is a lot easier to learn than any of the core editions of Shadowrun, so think of it as the middle ground.

PDF: DriveThruRPG

We’ll be digging in and sharing more soon. Stay frosty out there.

In gaming circles we have something called metagaming – justifying character actions through player assumptions and game knowledge.  It usually happens when players make in-game decisions for their characters based on out-of-game reasoning.  Have you ever had a situation like this in your game?  If you’ve been roleplaying for any length of time, I’m sure you have.

Metagaming can become very disruptive in your game, especially to the players who are of the immersive, roleplaying-heavy bent.  Not only does it completely break the roleplaying atmosphere, but if you play at my table it can also have disastrous consequences.  A couple of years ago one of my players led an entire party to a TPK solely based on the belief that “if the DM put them there then surely we can, and are supposed to kill them!” If you have gamers at your table that love being “in character” or who really enjoy “getting into” the story and setting, then metagaming can completely destroy their enjoyment of the game.  At the very least, it is distracting and annoying.

I classify metagaming into two broad categories: lesser and greater. Lesser metagaming tends to be more of a nuisance whereas greater metagaming can be downright destructive.  Both types can be a problem.  The following discusses each type in depth, and include suggestions as to how to manage them at the table.

Lesser Metagaming

Every gaming group has their own level of “table talk” that is acceptable.  I have no problem when my players say tactical things to each other in combat, like “Verick, push him toward me!” or even, “Verick, use Tide of Iron!” My justification for that is that any group of people who enter combat situations together on a regular basis are bound to develop certain hand signals, gestures, and short verbalizations to convey exactly that kind of combat information to one another.

For many players it is difficult enough just to keep player knowledge and character knowledge separate.  I think of this as Lesser Metagaming.  A good example of this is when a player acts on knowledge obtained during a conversation that occurred between an important NPC and a different party member, even though the first player’s character wasn’t present for the conversation.  As a GM, I usually assume that the characters share information amongst themselves when time allows.  But sometimes there just hasn’t been the opportunity for the characters to talk and catch up or the character with the information wants to withhold it for some reason.  This level of metagaming is usually pretty easy to deal with in any one of the following ways:

• Simply remind the offending player that his character wasn’t there or doesn’t know that.  I personally hate having to break game in order to remind players of this but sometimes it’s necessary.
• Conduct conversations and events that happen between NPC’s and a limited number of party members in private.  Step into another room or ask the players whose character isn’t present to step away from the table.
• Share limited information by passing notes.  That way the receiving player can decide when, or if, to share the information with the rest of the party.

Greater Metagaming

The greater level of metagaming, and the one I find very frustrating to have at the table, is the player whose character repeatedly acts upon knowledge and information that the character does not, or could not possess.  This ranges from the player who “knows” the game and confidently attacks the enemies because “they have half as many dice” to the player that completely neglects roleplaying and refers to everything in the game by stat, number, or mechanic.

This player can be much more difficult to deal with.  The lesser metagamer is frequently just “caught up” in the story and sometimes forgets where his character is, or was, whereas the greater metagamer is usually someone who approaches roleplaying games in a board game, card game, or miniatures game fashion where more often than not you need to speak from a rules-centric point of view.  Sometimes this stems from habits acquired with a different gaming group where metagaming was acceptable or even encouraged.

Over the years it seems like I have encountered this type of gamer regardless of game, setting, or group and each time the impact is the same – other players are pulled out-of-character, I’m forced to spend valuable time performing “player management”, and the story suffers.  Dealing with this situation usually requires a two-pronged approach.  First:

• Pull the player, or players, aside and discuss the situation.  If the metagaming habits are distracting the other players or interfering with the game let them know that.  Keep in mind you may need to give some examples.  I’ve found that many metagamers frequently have no idea that they‘re doing it or that it’s disruptive to others, especially if the player has gamed with groups where this kind of gaming is the norm.

The second part of dealing with this is usually the need to address the “gaming climate” at the table.  Every gaming group has a certain approach to the game.  If a metagamer is disruptive to your group’s approach, you can encourage behavior modification through your decisions as a GM.  Make sure metagaming isn’t rewarded and doesn’t contribute to success.  A few things that I do in my approach to campaign design that discourage metagaming include:

• Customization.  At least half of the opponents my players face are modified from their stock stats.  In fact, adjusting an enemy is easy even “on the fly”.  Customizing keeps your players guessing and downplays your metagamer’s knowledge.
• Mix it up.  Most of the players at my table know that just because something appears to be an encounter doesn’t mean it’s a combat encounter.  Many encounters I design are socially interactive, skills-based, or even investigatory in nature.  I don’t ever restrict the players in how they deal with a situation, but I also make sure that they feel the repercussions of approaching every situation the same way or at the very least make sure they realize that other options exist, and in fact, may have been a better alternative.
• Assumption.  Many RPG’s assume that as a gamemaster you will be designing encounters that are “level-appropriate” for your gaming group.  Although this approach is a good baseline to adventure design, your players are well aware of this and some will act based on this assumption.  Most of my players have learned (sometimes the hard way) that I don’t strictly follow this philosophy.  In the real world many people may subscribe to the thought that “god only gives you challenges you can deal with” but in my world this god is an uncaring bastard.  I won’t ambush a group of new characters with a patrol of paragon enemies, but when your party spots the patrol and decides to attack it you can bet the fight will be a short one.
• Information.  I’m a detail-oriented GM.  I try to always describe the character’s surroundings in ways that they can not only “feel” the setting but also potentially glean important information from it.  Before the characters get in over their head, or make a foolish decision, I’m always sure to have dropped plenty of clues and hints as to the nature of the peoples, places, and events around them.  Some of my players pay attention while others assume that “player knowledge” will trump “character knowledge”.

Conclusion

If you are like me and find metagaming to be disruptive, remember that there are many ways to subtly, and not so subtly, influence player behavior.  But the most important thing to remember is that roleplaying is a social group activity.  Different people with different personalities, habits, and behaviors are coming together for a cooperative experience, and like any group social dynamic, everyone will approach things in their own unique way.  If a player’s methods are disruptive, always start by just talking to the individual, more often than not simple communication is the key to a more harmonious gaming environment, and therefore a less stressful gaming experience.

Image by K.

Tip 3: Just say “Yes”

One of the things that more games are stressing to GM’s is the idea of saying “yes” to players instead of saying things like “no you can’t,” or “no your character wouldn’t do that.”  I’m a huge fan of this concept.  Nothing kills the illusion of free-will like saying “NO” to the players.  Don’t be afraid to let your players attempt anything. Remember, even if success is virtually (or even completely) impossible, it doesn’t mean that some fool (I mean PC) shouldn’t be allowed to give it a try.  It’s completely fair to let the players know that the chances for success are slim to none, but never simply tell them no.  Besides running the risk of making the game less enjoyable for your players, you are missing a golden opportunity to let the game grow on its own accord, instead of you always having to be at the helm.

Why are some gamemasters unwilling to say yes?  There are a lot of reasons.  Sometimes the GM hasn’t anticipated the character’s actions, so feeling the pinch, they say no.  If this is you, go back and read the first section Change Your Focus.  Others may not feel prepared for where a “yes” may take them.  If this sounds like you, go back to the second section, You Run the World, not the Other Way Around, and read that again. But for many of the GMs I know, they are afraid to say yes because they are unsure of a game mechanic or feel they don’t know the rules well enough.  Never let the rules get in the way of a good time.  In some cases rules aren’t even necessary, but if you feel they are, keep in mind that virtually every game out there has some sort of “core mechanic.” Use it.  Pick a stat, roll against it.  When all else fails, simply assign a percentage chance for success and roll away.

The important thing to realize is that saying yes actually makes your job easier by allowing your players to exercise their character’s free-will and being able to do virtually whatever they want – players love that.  It also helps build player/gamemaster trust.  In some campaigns the GM begins to seem like an unyielding authority figure, someone who is always telling the players no and forcing the story upon them.  When a group of players has trust in their GM, he becomes a partner in the story-telling, not a dictator, and he shares in the group experience.  This kind of relationship eliminates many of the problems that can come up at the table greatly reducing GM stress, and that is the key to allowing your best game to come forward.

Tip 4: Let the Players do the Work

One of the most stressful parts of being the gamemaster is the responsibility of continually providing new, thrilling, and creative adventures that characters are emotionally invested in and players are excited to go on.  In fact, the pressure to turn out great stories and adventures can easily cause GM burnout and make running a game feel more like a job than a beloved hobby.  The key to staying fresh and keeping your creativity up is remembering that most of us GMs do a lot more work than is strictly necessary when it come to creating great stories.  As GMs, we tend to forget that our #1 resource for inspiration and motivation are the players sitting around our table.

Earlier I talked about designing the campaign without focusing on the PCs.  Although this helps reduce the frustration of anticipating the characters’ actions, it doesn’t do much to “connect” them to the story.  This is where character hooks become the bridge between your story, and the characters’ stories.  Need to motivate characters into action, use an old friend or ally.  Want the players to care about a community, make it a character’s hometown.  Need an assassin for your arch villain to send against the characters, of course it’s an old enemy with a vendetta.  All of these NPCs may seem like a lot of work, but let me share a little shortcut with you; make the players do the work.

When I’ve finished laying out a few general aspects of the campaign (see Change Your Focus above), I sit back with the players while they create their characters.  I like to help the players come up with interesting backgrounds, character hooks, and ties to each other.  Among other things, I ask players to come up with some NPCs, at least three friends or allies, three rivals, three mentors or contacts, and at least one true enemy.  These don’t have to be more than a name and a one or two sentence description, but right away I have 20 – 40 custom made NPCs for the campaign that tie directly to the characters.  This, combined with a background consisting of at least a place of birth and two or three notable life events, and I have plenty of inspiration for dozens of great adventures.

In my campaigns, I usually have one or two primary plot arcs designed for the overall story.  Oftentimes however, that isn’t enough to carry an entire campaign, or they simply don’t dominate every part of the campaign level-to-level.  Enter the character hooks; they are an excellent resource to mine for adventure ideas and sub-plots.  These act as mini-stories within the greater plot line that help to tie each individual character into the campaign and make each of the players feel like they are part of something greater.  This not only takes some pressure off the GM by giving him some ideas to work with, but also helps build verisimilitude in the world.

Using your players’ own creativity to help fuel yours goes well beyond simply assisting you as the GM; it also makes the players “connect” with the world and keep them emotionally invested in the events that transpire there.  Once your players feel that their characters are the story and not just in the story, the game truly becomes a shared experience, and that motivates the entire group to work together to produce an excellent game.  Sharing the workload is another key to stress-free gamemastery.

Tip 5: Sit Back & Enjoy the Ride

All of the ideas presented here were designed to help you, the gamemaster relax and have more fun while running the game.  By using the tips and techniques presented above you should find the stress and anxiety that sometimes comes with running a roleplaying game to be greatly reduced.  With time, you may even find yourself feeling more like a player and less like the person in charge.  Hopefully, you will be able to shift your role as gamemaster from director, needing to control everything and keep the players on track, to story participant, watching events unfold around you and being pleasantly surprised by where “your” story takes the group.

These days when I run a game, I do it with the confidence that nothing is going to throw me off or derail the game.  I’m ready for whatever the players want to do and wherever they want to go.  I’m ready to tackle whatever the players throw at me.  So what’s the secret to running the stress-free game? How do you approach your game with this level of confidence and self assuredness?  Well, the answer is simple, really.  Do what I did – run games for thirty years and eventually it will get easier!  However, for those of you who’d prefer some advice that can help you tonight, I’ll let you in on the secret: relax, be flexible, and don’t stress… But since that’s easier said than done, I’m here to offer the following tips and techniques for making your life easier and for making the game as fun for you to run as it is for your players to play.

Tip 1: Change Your Focus

In the past, when I would begin laying out a campaign I found that I was very player character-focused.  My mindset had me thinking about how the PCs would do something, or when an event would happen to the PCs, or what the PCs would do.  Although it is critical to remember that the players and their characters are the focus of the story while actually playing the campaign, they are not necessarily the focus while designing the campaign.

These days when I begin designing a campaign, I start by focusing on the setting and the NPCs.  I develop a feel for the people, places and events that are going to be important during the campaign.  Even before I have a theme, a primary antagonist, or plot line in mind, it’s critical for me to know the setting, to have an understanding of how its components work together without interference.  I get a feel for the setting and then begin thinking about the people within it, more specifically, who they are, why they are there, and what they want.  Once I have some idea about the people in the setting I move on to thinking about my antagonist(s).  I don’t need to think about goals or motivations yet, just what type of antagonists the campaign will feature.  There could be power-mad despots, a criminal organization, psychotic serial killers, or even the environment itself working against the heroes.

Having an idea about the campaign’s antagonist, I beginning thinking about what they want and how they are going to get it.  In my mind I begin telling the story from the villain’s point of view.  I think about where the villain will go, who he will ally with, what he’s going to do, and what he’s already done.  I have found it is much easier to envision the antagonist’s plans at this point without thinking about how it will interact with the PCs.  In a nutshell, I imagine how the campaign will evolve for the antagonist without any influence or interference from outside sources or random factors. Enter the PCs, or as I like to call them, the random factors.

Changing your design focus makes it much less work to remain flexible and adapt to the infinite variety of unforeseeable things that your players and their characters do.  Reacting to the characters’ actions is much easier than anticipating them.  Once you begin thinking from the antagonist’s and the world’s points of view, it usually becomes self-evident what will happen in response to any course of action the PCs choose to take.  A clear understanding of what the bad guys are trying to achieve makes it easier to figure out how their plans will change when they’re interfered with.   When you eliminate the need to anticipate the actions of the player characters your life as a GM becomes much less complicated.  Remember, focus your energy on the characters you control, not the ones you don’t.

Tip 2: You Run the World, not the Other Way Around

As GMs, we continually design and create worlds – even when we use published settings we still take great liberties with the design for our individual campaigns.  However, in an effort to design a realistic and exciting setting, many GMs frequently back themselves into a corner. We do this without even realizing what we are doing every time we place a dungeon on a map, when we pick a specific location for some climactic battle, or even when we decided when an event will occur.  Once we commit to some specific time, place, or event within the campaign, we often become completely inflexible about it.

I use to do this all of the time.  I would design a great location for some fantastic encounter, make it the scene for the final confrontation with some arch-villain, and then I would place it somewhere on my map.  The only problem was the minute I placed it somewhere, whether on a physical map or in my mind’s eye, I felt committed to its location and its circumstances.  I would place myself in a position where I was forced to find a way to get my players to that location or to make those circumstances occur.  By doing this, I allowed the world to control my game and dictate the things I needed to do to make my story work.  The secret to overcoming this is for the GM to not fear having a lack of commitment. I know this goes against everything your parents, boss, and significant other has been saying to you, but it is one of the secret keys to stress-free gamemastering.  I like to think of it as the Schrodinger’s Cat Theory of campaign management.

For those of you unfamiliar with Schrodinger’s Cat (and if you call yourself a geek you should be familiar with it), it is a thought experiment in which a cat is placed into a box wherein there is a 50/50 chance of the cat being killed.  How the cat might die is irrelevant here (maybe it’s a one hit point minion) but Schrodinger suggested that until we actually look into the box we don’t know the cat’s fate, and furthermore the cat’s fate may, in fact, be undetermined until we look into the box.  So what does Schrodinger, his cat, and your lack of commitment, have to do with being a better GM?  Simple, be flexible.  Remember, only the part of your world that the characters are actually interacting with, needs to be in solid, sharp focus with a sense of permanence.   Many of the aspects of your world can be safely tucked away in the box with Schrodinger’s Cat.  They can exist in a state of flux, ready to be used when and where you need them until the characters open the box and “reality” is forced to take shape.

When I gamemaster, there are many “static” features in my campaign – most of the villages, cites, and geographic features of the world are fixed and in permanent locations.  However, there are still many aspects of the campaign area I leave “in the box.”  Say for example, I design a haunted tower. I won’t commit to it’s location until I’m forced to.  Then when I need to use it I can place it in the characters’ path.  Of course, it won’t appear in a place in which the characters have actually been and they know there has never been a tower there (unless it is some sort of “ghost-tower” or something), but it will appear when I need it and once the characters “look in the box.”  This reduces GM stress in a couple of ways – first, I don’t have to worry about how to get the characters to the tower.  I don’t have to drop a bunch of “subtle” hints or worry about “railroading” the characters.  And secondly, it helps maintain the illusion of free-will for the characters.  This approach works for events, locations, NPC’s, almost anything.  Many of the elements of your campaign are things that can remain in the box until you decide that it has been opened.  Remember: flexibility is the hallmark of the stress-free GM.

You can read part 2 here.

]]> https://stuffershack.com/gamecraft-the-stress-free-gm/feed/ 9 https://stuffershack.com/con-games-1-shadowrun-2/ https://stuffershack.com/con-games-1-shadowrun-2/#comments Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:11:12 +0000 http://stuffershack.com/?p=6013 Note: A few years ago, I went to a gaming convention somewhere in Connecticut with my dear friend Dave, and had the opportunity to play a few games I’d never played before, which is why conventions exist. If you go to a convention and only play inside your comfort zone, you are totally missing out.

In the Shadowrun game, I played Samson, an enormous rock-headed troll who was about 90% metal and carried a large pistol, a large rifle, and something called a laser crescent axe, which sounded delightfully vicious. The rest of the group was Andy, a dwarf who liked shooting people and fixing stuff; Francis, an orc thug who liked shooting people and breaking stuff (especially when people called him “Frank”); Lee Chan, an elf punch n’ kick specialist; and Bobby, a zip-zowie-bang spellcaster.

First, the setup: We were involved in a scheme both lengthy and complicated, which included such things as the mean old company Wolfur & Sons, some doctor named Johnson, a stolen serum we had to recover, and a happy little business called Stubbs Medical Corporation who conducted research, explored scientific boundaries, and dabbled in human experimentation. Most of the folks there were just your average work-a-day data entry clerks and secretaries, and for some reason, that meant we couldn’t drive through the front door and fire high-caliber, explosive-shelled, glaser mega-rounds into everything that so much as winked in our direction.

So that night, a-sneakin’ we did go, through the first floor, then down some stairs to the basement, bonking the heads and tasering the dreams of the minimum wage security guards we met. Easy beans. We went down an elevator to the sub-basement, where we found the desired serum being injected into a sallow-faced street girl. We got the girl, and then everything went splat. Or more accurately, budda-budda-budda-budda, as a pair of nasty looking swivel machine guns popped out of the walls and started stitching new and exciting patterns through our brave group. Our clever computer girl went offline permanently, and our brave leader was reduced to grated cheese just after ba-banging one of the machine guns with a grenade. And here came some guards from the elevator, a trio of unhappy looking fellows, orc, troll, and human.

(COMMENCE PLAY): So began the firefight in the research bay, as Lee Chan hai-yahhed into combat, firing her gun and slashing with her mono blade, Andy the dwarf and Francis the orc engaged a little more cautiously, and Bobby the mage cast a few spells and nearly fainted from all the excitement. As only a true rock-headed troll can, I grabbed the barrel of the remaining swivel-gun and directed it at those party-pooping guards, but it refused to fire, so I tore it out of the wall. Shortly, the three guards were dispatched and we were discussing options on how to get the heck out of the building.

Air ventilation shaft? Nah, not big enough for the big-as-a-nightmare troll. Climb up the elevator shaft? Ride the elevator? Ride on top of the elevator? Form a barbershop quintet and tour the country? All excellent suggestions, but after exhaustive discussion, we settled on Francis the orc riding atop the elevator with Serum Girl, while the rest of us rode inside the elevator, humming along to “The Girl from Ipa Nima.” It was quite soothing.

In the basement we discovered our remaining team member sporting the latest in large bullet holes through various body parts. He had gone down fighting, polishing off the guards who surprised him there, but not in any shape to attend our after-mission party. Francis went into the security office and found a bank of monitors displaying all corners of the building, including the corners upstairs on the ground floor. This was how he spotted the armed guard hiding up there, waiting for us to come up the stairs so he could leap out and shout, “Surprise!” Instead of playing along, I tossed a concussion grenade into his immediate vicinity, and completely ruined his day. No, it didn’t kill him, but it made him very sad. We took him hostage and introduced him to Serum Girl, and the two hit it off famously.

Andy called up our ride outside, an excitable fellow with a name like Transit or Ransom (Transom?), and found out that he had been set upon by a couple vans as he waited outside to pick us up. Currently he was tearing all over town with the two vans pursuing, trying to keep close to the building while avoiding getting his body riddled with bullets and his sweet ride all dinged and scratched.

“How do you want me to come in?” Transom asked.

“Straight through the front glass,” Andy said. So that’s what driver-boy did.

CRRRASSSHHHHHHHHH! went the front of the building, and Transom skidded around in a tight circle and the side door slid open. We were in, and then we were gone.

We returned to our safe house where we dumped our prisoner and considered our situation. Dr. Johnson told us to meet him with the serum (now in girl form, with Retsin!) at Pier 17. We’d pile onto his yacht and all leave together for a new and better life, a life where the food is sweet, the drink is plentiful, the cartoon birds land on your shoulders, and nobody ever shoots you in the eye. Sounds great, except hardly any of us had been born the day before, so we made other plans.

We placed Serum Girl in Transom’s handy hands, and, after loading up on My-Tee Kill-Deth weapons and ammo, we secured our very own set of wheels, a large and muscular Humvee, and drove to the pier. It was located in the middle of a dreadfully run-down wharf, with abandoned warehouses, twisted chain link fences, and not the slightest sign of cartoon shoulder birds. Down at the end of Pier 17, we could see a town car idling beside a big old boat, and figured this must be the place.

Francis the orc exited the Humvee early and scampered towards one of the warehouses, and Lee Chan hopped out right after that, running around the other way. Andy the dwarf, Bobby the mage, and trolled-out me kept riding.

We all heard the gunfire from inside Francis’ warehouse, and I suggested to Andy the dwarf that he encourage the town car off the pier and into the water. Of course, I said it more like, “You smash, make boom,” so he did, stomping on the accelerator and roaring towards the town car. Two fellows who were definitely not Dr. Johnson dove out right before we hit, and the battle was joined.

I burst from the side of the Humvee and buried my axe into the side of an elf, who responded by blowing off most of my face with a pistol that fired a silent storm of razors. Yee-ouch! We exchanged blows for a while, me consistently missing, him consistently hitting me in the head area. Andy the dwarf and Bobby the mage tangled with the other guy, another spellcaster, who wanted to do something really nasty but couldn’t because Francis in the warehouse had found a sniper rifle and evaporated most of the spellcaster’s head. Lucky for me, the rest of the team shot, blasted, and slashed the elf before he was able to fatally razor me.

Lee Chan and Andy the dwarf examined the boat and discovered a trip-wire by tripping over it, and it blew in a massive explosion that nearly killed them, so we decided it was time to leave. There was a little bit of wrap-up and explanation, but suffice to say that we were

• double-crossed
• didn’t have the serum
• there was no Dr. Johnson
• and most of my face was missing

But, the street girl wanted to join our group. So, it wasn’t a total loss.

To get you started with some inspiration, here are a few of the best lines of dialogue ever delivered by an antagonist.

“Welcome to my home; enter freely and of your own will.” –Dracula

The hospitable villain is a truly frightening force; if things are played right, the heroes won’t realize that they’re dealing with the Big Bad until they’ve already enjoyed his hospitality for some time.

“Let die the woman you love… or suffer the little children. Make your choice, Spider-Man.” –The Green Goblin, Spider-Man

It’s the oldest move in the playbook, and it’s still as effective now as it was then. Two outcomes, both bad for the PCs, and supposedly there’s only time to pick one. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the heroes will be properly heroic and come up with an out. Sometimes that’s good, especially when the villain is a monster rather than an intellectual giant. Sometimes, however…

“How very predictable. I anticipated you would try to create a third, more favorable option.” –D.A.V.E., The Batman

It’s hard not to respect a good Xanatos Gambit; any villain smart enough to structure a plan in such a way that every possible outcome, including failure, works toward his goals is worthy of respect and recognition… or at least undying hatred on the part of the PCs. Sometimes that’s good enough.

In a long campaign, this might work like pretty much everything Darth Sidious/Palpatine does in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Conveniently, as the GM, you don’t have to know all the possibilities ahead of time. You only have to be able to improvise if the players do the unexpected, and continue moving the plot forward. If you do it right, you look like a genius, or at least your villain does.

It should be noted that if you can ask, “But what if they do this?” and the answer would mess everything up, you have a Batman Gambit instead. For villains, that’s a plan which relies on the heroic tendency to behave in the most heroic manner, or otherwise assumes and manipulates a certain response based on known facts about the “victims.” Sometimes leaving a flaw in the plan on purpose isn’t a bad move. If the heroes find it, they feel great because they “outsmarted” the GM; if they don’t, you have something for your villain to monologue about during his getaway. Assuming he gets one.

“I can’t think of a morning I haven’t woken up with the thought of strangling you… Because I know evil.” –Lex Luthor, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

This betrays a hatred that has completely distorted the villain’s perception of morality. To create this effect, operate from the assumption that the majority of antagonists aren’t card-carrying villains and will develop some kind of rationalization that explains why they’re right and everyone else is the villain for trying to stop them. Create a villain who believes that he’s the hero of the story, trying to “save the world.” If your PCs are heroic sociopaths, this can be easy, but for truly sanctimonious heroes the rationalization might take a little more work. Invariably, this kind of villain is the most interesting.

“No. I am your father.” –Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back

…or mother, sister, daughter, cousin, evil goatee-sporting clone or alternate-universe variation… Even if the villain is lying (and let’s face it, they probably are), this is a great moment.

“You lose, Tony Stark.” –Whiplash, Iron Man 2

The villain has planned ahead so effectively that his own death is factored into an ideal condition for victory. Maybe the villain’s death is broadcast to the general populace and makes the heroes look like murderers. Maybe death unleashes the villain’s spirit to wreak havoc. Maybe death transforms him into a vampire. Alternatively, the villain’s death might just trigger the bomb and leave the hero with only seconds to evacuate the area.

“I did it thirty-five minutes ago.” –Ozymandias, Watchmen

…or any credible variation on the theme of “You’re far too late for it to make any difference.” This specific example is my all-time favorite. To this day, I can’t read this part of Watchmen without my jaw hitting the floor, even when I know that it’s coming.

There are far too many great lines to count, and these are only a few of my personal favorites.

Image by Yusuf Celik.

Sadly, we carry our real-world wounds into the games we play, which transforms our characters, first imagined as sweetly smiling pure souls with cartoon birds lighting on their shoulders, into gritty, hard-bitten, heartless, soulless bastards.  This may be because of experiences with a DM that shattered hope and trust like a cinderblock on a crystal ornament, and we have decided we cannot allow ourselves to be hurt like that again.

Players who are young (figure under 14 years old) or brand new to gaming can be unspoiled by distrust and doubt, which means they might actually release the defeated kobold chieftain, and might actually touch the faintly glowing altar in the middle of the cobwebby temple, and might actually believe the exotic beauty needing an escort back to her underground city.  The paragon level cynic cries, “Kill the chieftain!  Avoid the altar!  Ignore the beauty!” Each of these situations is obviously a trap.

And here’s my question:  So what?

When I first started gaming (many lifetimes ago), when I was young and dumb and full of… um… foolishness, I regularly blundered into regrets and traps and betrayals, and these were in games riddled with DM statements like, “The room appears empty,” and, “The wardrobe appears safe,” and, “The woman appears honest.” Naturally, all of those “APPEARS” rang my alarm bells, but I still got caught, hurt, nailed, and crushed.

Every villain that got away always came back, more dangerous, better equipped, and insane with the need for revenge.  Every time I didn’t obsessively prod the floor with a 10′ pole, I fell into a deep pit with poisoned spikes at the bottom.  Every femme I trusted turned out to be extremely fatale, usually working with the escaped villain and often the architect of all those spiked pits.

And despite all that pain, despite all those times I was burned, I had some real fun in those way-back-when games.  I am so careful and worried and neurotic in the real world, I could really enjoy being reckless in a fake one, rushing ahead, devil may care, and let’s see what happens.  I’ve seen it in so many games, where the party is skulking fearfully around a chest as though it were an unexploded bomb (which sometimes, it is), and then somebody grunts, “Ah, screw it,” and kicks the chest open.  In the moment that this happens, there’s always a look on that player’s face, a look of relief, a look of release, a look of freedom.

What I’m calling for here are more “Ah, screw it” moments.  And why not?  What is at risk exactly?  I’ve placed several of my characters in dangerous circumstances, and even watched sadly as a few of them died, and outside of some mild razzing from other players, I never personally suffered from the outcome.  The DM often rewarded such brash action, or, failing that, didn’t overtly punish it.  Usually, I wound up with a funny, wild, loopy story with which I could bore friends and family for years afterwards.

Happy Ending Example: In a post-apocalypse game, our group was under assault by metal-heads inside a sprawling mansion, and Steve and I needed to get across a wide hallway that ran north-south along the mansion’s spine.  We knew there were leather and spiked killers waiting for us to show our faces, so there we were, crouched and dithering inside the laundry room.  Finally, I stood up, turned to Steve and said, “Cover me,” and made my dash.  I was two strides across the hallway when a metal-head leaned from a nearby room, leveling his rifle on me.  I dove, snapping up my .357 and firing… CRITICAL!  I vaporized the top of his head from the eyebrows up, then curled into a tight ball and rolled into the room across the way.

At the table, my heart was going thumpa-thumpa-thumpa and my hands were slick with sweat, but I had my moment, all because I was willing to say, “Ah, screw it,” and try something extremely stupid.  But what if it hadn’t gone my way?  What if I fired and missed?  What if the metal-head fired and hit?  I’d still have a great story (“Remember that time you ran out into that hallway and got shot six times?”), just without a great ending.

No-So-Happy Ending Example: In our D&D game, Kevin was the quintessential “ah, screw it” player, and always acted without thinking, kicking down doors, charging into combat, and chugging unidentified potions.  He found himself lots of feet up a tree when an orc shambled into the clearing underneath him.

Immediately he said, “I jump onto it.”
We all stared in horror, and the DM, grinning in bemusement, asked, “How many hit points do you have left?”
Kevin looked down, then back up and said, “One!” He didn’t seem remotely concerned.
“How do you expect to survive the fall?” the DM asked.
“I don’t know.  But I should hurt the orc, right?” You can’t argue with that kind of logic.
So he leapt from the tree, rolled to hit… and got a natural 1.  Ker-SPLAT!
Once we had all stopped laughing, Kevin asked with a sniffy kind of pride, “Any chance my 20 oil flasks explode?”

I am issuing a challenge to every DM who runs games for me, and it is this:  bring it.  Bring your enemies, bring your traps, bring your double crosses.  I’ll buy into it all, swallow it hook, line, and spiked chain, and still want more.  I am going to live (and probably die) dangerously.  And after it’s all done, I’m going to have some stories to tell.

Step by Step

1. Why do you need this NPC? What is she there to do? Every NPC in your game should have a purpose, even if it’s just to help round out a town’s population. Write down the character’s purpose. Usually just a sentence (two at most) is more than enough.

2. What abilities does your NPC need in order to fulfill that purpose? If your NPC is to be the king’s bodyguard, then he’s going to need fighting skills and probably some etiquette as well. A high Strength or Dexterity would also help. List any stats, feats, skills, advantages/disadvantages, etc., that the NPC would need to successfully perform their function. In the interest of streamlining NPC creation, list only the abilities required; you can always go back and add more as your time and interest permit.

3. How will the PCs interact with this NPC? Are they just going to receive a message from her, or will she actually accompany them, perhaps as a vehicle mechanic or in some other support position? Is she the PCs’ boss, or someone they’ll pass in the street? Writing down what relation the NPC has to the PCs will also suggest abilities she may need.

4. How much “screen time” will this NPC have? Do the characters only speak to him once, or is he going to be a recurring character? The more often the PCs encounter the NPC, the more developed he should be. Add something each time the PCs encounter him, but make sure these details fit together. Maybe the first time the PCs meet him, you point out that he has long fingernails; the second time they meet him, you mention that he tends to look slightly over their heads when he talks to them. Both details start to give the impression that this NPC may consider himself a gentleman, someone who feels he’s above people who perform manual labor (such as adventurers). This way, the more the PCs interact with this character, the more fully developed he’ll become.

5. What are the NPC’s quirks? What makes him distinct? Jot down a quirk or two. It doesn’t have to be big or even terribly noticeable, just something that gives the PCs a sense that they’re actually talking to a real person. Maybe he bounces his knee up and down when sitting at a table, or maybe he tends to look at his hands rather than at the person he’s talking to. Something small. You could even keep a list of quirks on hand and choose one when you need to create an NPC on the fly.

That’s all it takes. Save your fully crafted, well-developed NPCs for your main characters. You can create a seemingly unique person with only a minimal amount of time and effort.

Image from Arctic Qu.

Then the team takes fire from every direction, including a heavy weapons team on top of the guard tower (okay, that hurts). So you sprint inside the tower’s base, slap a breaching charge on the main support, and set it to blow at the end of your next turn. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. Except right then, a wave of security floods the ground floor and boxes you in. What do you do?

Sure, you could shoot your way out. Or you could ask your GM if you can fire your grapple gun straight up the stairwell, ride the line to the roof as the charge goes off, plow through the weapons team, and leap off the crumbling tower onto your rigger’s passing rotodrone. You’d be dangling fifty meters over the compound, the tower collapsing beneath you, looking like the Angel of Mother-Effing Destruction.

I don’t care who you are, that’s cool. The rules might not cover it exactly. So what? Here’s how a GM ruins it:

• “No.”
• “Hang on, let me check the rulebook.”
• “Okay, roll Athletics with a threshold of 5, then Perception, then resist the blast, then another Athletics test for the jump.”

Really?

Here’s how you handle it as the GM: “Abso-frakking-lutely. Roll Body to see how banged up you get on the way through.” That’s it. Now the whole table is talking about that run for years.

You’ve probably read articles telling GMs to just say yes. Maybe you agree, maybe not. All I can say is that the game is more fun for most tables when the GM looks for a way to say yes. I’m not saying cater to the players at the expense of balance or story. I’m saying story trumps mechanics in any roleplaying game.

Wargaming is a different beast. When you’re playing BattleTech, mechanics are the whole point, so play them like there’s no tomorrow. But a roleplaying game is the GM telling a story with the players weaving their runners’ stories into it. When a player asks for something the rules (or the GM) aren’t ready for, find a way to make it happen. And remember that failure doesn’t have to mean a dead end. A missed roll or a glitch can just mean the plan gets messier: the runner still reaches the roof, but now they’re bleeding, out of ammo, and someone saw their face.

Players, This Part Is for You

When the GM throws something at your runner that feels unfair, don’t always fight it. Chances are they’re doing it for the story.

Go ahead and give your runner a kid, a sister in the Barrens, or a fixer they’d take a bullet for. Yes, that person will get snatched by a corp extraction team someday. It’s a cliché, but it beats another runner with no friends, no family, and no reason to care. Take the hook. Or maybe the GM wants your runner under a Control Actions spell for a scene, no roll, because it makes the story hit harder. Trust them on it. (GMs, a quick heads-up to the player beforehand goes a long way.)

Saying yes makes the game run smoother, cuts out the rules arguments, and makes everyone, GM and players alike, want to come back next session. Take the challenge.