As a Gamesmaster, you can have a lot of fun building and creating stories and campaigns. It usually involves quite a bit of hard work, some of which never truly manifests in gameplay as it relates to behind-the-scenes planning.
What GMs may not appreciate in their early days running adventures and campaigns, are some of the pitfalls. This feature then aims to look at some of the key mistakes that could arise. Don’t be discouraged though if you are new to ‘GMing’, it can happen to the best and this feature hopes to help you on your journey as I look at some of the key pitfalls. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but more a focus on the more common issues.
Note: I will be covering how to create story arcs in another article, so I can dedicate more focus to that critical part of running campaigns. I have also covered the topic of ‘Hiding progress behind a dice wall’ in my Guidance for New Gamemasters feature, so I won’t repeat that here.
Avoid damaging party cohesion and common purpose
When players create their PCs (player characters), I usually give them a fairly free reign to build them as they wish, but it is important to note that in order to have longer-term success and stability, starting with a fairly balanced party is advisable.
A key mistake to avoid here is allowing a party to work together who realistically wouldn’t or where you have disruptive characters with no real in-game justification for their behaviour.
I have previously discussed the value of a Session Zero, and here I would give hints and tips about both what the players as characters would know but also some idea of how the campaign could evolve. This helps character creation to ensure PCs are relevant and so players don’t feel they don’t matter.
However, it is important to ensure that PCs have continued common purpose to ‘adventure’ together. That doesn’t mean free from conflict or disagreement. I would fully expect that and I might lay the seeds to allow it if the players were open to it, but rather I would try to avoid the scenario where PCs don’t have a realistic in-game reason to continue working together. Of course, there could be reasons they work together in the short-term, but for longer campaigns, this probably wouldn’t work. It could also cause conflict and dilemmas in-game where one PC carries out an act so totally against the beliefs or morality of another PC. This event alone could break up the cohesion and PCs may leave the group.
More damaging is when a PC is created that is a deliberate attempt to cause trouble, including simply for the amusement of the player; as a side issue beware of players who are not good team players as roleplaying is, usually, very much a team effort.
Once you are aware of this and others as a potential pitfalls, you can avoid them by having a good session zero and setting boundaries and expectations, but you will need to look out during game sessions and be comfortable addressing it, should the dynamics of a group change.
Cultivate immersion, don’t damage it
One of the joys of roleplaying games is to immerse yourself in a character and the setting. So, cultivate it and avoid damage to it.
It can be easier said than done, but some of the issues that can reduce immersion include being out-of-character and acting as the player, cracking jokes as a player not character, metagaming, interrupting other players in their stride, the list goes on and I’m sure you could add more examples.
The mistake here is to allow immersion to be broken deliberately and more importantly repeatedly. In the long-term it can deflate the whole campaign and potentially cause players to leave.
Immersion in a character can be and should be a lot of fun, embracing their personality traits and behaviours. Combined with an interesting party that works well together, it can be hilarious and very rewarding. You can create character voices and quirks and when the game session starts these can help switch into character mode.
Unfortunately (and it does happen to the best of us!), it can be so easy to crack that out-of-character joke to get a cheap laugh, or use knowledge the character would not have to influence your actions. As a GM, I feel it is important to be a little forgiving and flexible, but I also strongly recommend two things, firstly, try to avoid breaking the immersion yourself and setting an example and secondly, by reminding players to be in- character. As a GM, I have also sometimes reacted in-game to an out-of-game comment or behaviour and this can help jar a player back into character, or I might ask ‘do you really want to say that?’ which could be problematic given the in-game audience or witnesses.
In the ‘olden days’ in RPG sessions, we would sometimes as players get asked to speak with the GM in private in another room. It is still a sound idea, and recommended if playing in person, but it isn’t always practical. This method both helps keep some information confidential to those who would know, but it can help immersion, or trust the players to adopt the theatre of the mind approach and ignore information their character wouldn’t be aware of.
Ultimately, how to cultivate immersion and how you address maintaining it are up to you, although players contribute to this as part of the social contract of gaming. As a GM, the ultimately responsibility lies with you to manage it. Therefore, avoid allowing the bad habits and breaking of immersion. There could be in-game consequences or even reduced rewards. It is up to you, just promote immersion as much as you can and on a final note for this section, a gentle reminder about mobile phones; switch them off or put them on silent! If you must reply, do so discreetly, but best to avoid if you can.
Removing agency (the damaging Quantum Ogre)
A key highlight in playing roleplaying games for many is that sense that you can create a character, that comes to life through roleplay, they face challenges, they make decisions and accept the consequences, good or ill and enjoy the rewards where they find them. A good balance is for challenge and risk to balanced with an equivalent level of reward and development.
A key mistake for a GM is to forget that player agency lies at the heart of this and take steps to remove or bar a player from using their agency.
There are times when characters have little choice open to them, there are times as a GM you need to move the campaign along, there are times where as a GM to ease the pressure of preparing for your session, you set up encounters in advance that will be faced regardless of character choices.
The main risk to player agency, is the tendency as a GM to either force or railroad the character down a path where their choices don’t matter (because they will face the same encounter or end up at the same destination regardless) or worse the players don’t get to influence the scenario at all (which is more about the GM narrating his/her own story. This refusal to allow player agency can manifest in a variety of ways such as players not being allowed to take a reasonable choice, not being able to utilise or incorporate their backstory in any meaningful way and effectively the players don’t then influence the story.
This has the serious risk of leading players to either bail out of a campaign or continuing in a reluctant almost non-co-operative way, especially if their roleplay, backed up by good choices and successful dice rolls leads to no reward and is effectively ignored. Player agency must be allowed and actively encouraged if you want players to feel that satisfied feeling as they create, develop and have fun with their creation.
Denying player agency is also known as a Quantum Ogre, which in essence is an act of denying agency and robbing players from meaningful choices. Having prepared encounters is acceptable and often a good idea. Having the party arrive at a destination or experience an encounter regardless of choices can still work, if the players feel their choice still mattered in some way, like they avoid a harsher route or they learned some valuable lesson as a result of their choice. This is especially useful if the players had some clues to make an informed choice.
There are times a GM should move things along (I will cover this again in my article on story arcs), but suffice to say now, ultimately, for that greater feeling of agency and satisfaction, avoid situations where success or failure happens regardless of choices and player actions, because making a habit of killing player agency can kill a campaign.
Denying due reward
A fundamental principle of a good campaign, one which is satisfying and memorable, is that what you put in is what you get out of it. This applies to a range of aspects such as the prep you do as a GM (the better prepped sessions are often the better ones) to the effort put into immersion, both as players and the GM.
The mistake to avoid here as a GM is forgetting that the reward for achieving and learning is both for the character and player and not rewarding appropriately.
This issue can manifest in a variety of ways. In simple terms, it can mean not enough experience points are given for the success and effort put in. Different RPG systems have different methods of allowing character development, but usually there is some way to represent the ‘experience’ gained. Give too much and players can become overpowered and not feel satisfied with gains they have not truly earned. Worse still is not rewarding enough, especially if routinely. The danger is players will feel disillusioned and in the long term, not put in the effort and characters may end up being underpowered if placed in a higher-powered encounter.
Rewards though can take many forms. It isn’t just about experience points or in-game currency. A reward can take many formed, such as improved reputation, status, influence and prestige in a community or society group (influence that could be leveraged at a later point to gain help, equipment, information or even an ally; but note that abusing such influence can reduce or even destroy it!)
Improved status etc could lead to roles within a community, a promotion to a more senior authority in a faction, becoming a leader or even a ruler.
Rewards could be in the form of equipment, magic items, access to specialist or restricted learning, gear not normally available to buy, property and land, information, and favours. The scope is wide and understanding what motivates the players and characters alike can help determine a suitable reward.
Reward is also relevant when character die or otherwise leave the campaign. If a player introduces a new character, how do they measure up to the other characters? In my opinion, it is best to look at rewarding the player. How much time and effort have they invested in the campaign? In essence I usually allow a character to be created with a comparable if not equal level of experience and development as well as cash, equipment etc. It might seem a little artificial, but as a GM you are rewarding the player.
Ultimately, it can be difficult balancing rewards and there is nothing inherently wrong in either reducing the power early on or even giving a little more to then allow for greater chances of survival and greater scope for more interesting encounters, but ultimately the principle to remember is that the rewards should be commensurate with the challenge and risk and ultimately the investment by the player. Forgetting this can leave players feeling less invested in the campaign.
Summary
Being a GM can be hard and it invariably involves a lot of time to prep a session, but hopefully, this article has given you some food for thought and will help you create memorable campaigns that you will remember well too.
