Although I have played a lot of roleplaying games, and I
usually am the Game Master in these games, I probably have more experience
writing fiction. I really enjoy writing, and I’ve written a lot of short
stories. Recently, I’ve found that my expectations when it comes to pacing in
an RPG I’m GMing have been frustrated. I think the reason is my approach to
writing fiction.
When I write fiction I tend to be very efficient in how I
tell a story. I try not to waste words, and I definitely don’t waste a scene.
When I write I try to have every scene advance the story in some way.
Sometimes, that just means that the scene helps to flesh out a character or a
relationship. It doesn’t always have to advance the plot, but it does have to contribute
something. If I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish with a scene I have a
really hard time writing it. And if a scene seems to be floundering aimlessly,
I’ll cut it.
This works well when I’m writing fiction, because I am in
control of the protagonists. So I can make them pick up on the clues, jump to
the conclusions, and pursue the plot hooks that they need to in order to
advance the story. In an RPG I can’t do that. I have to let the other players
decide what their characters will do.
Not too long ago, I had a scenario in our Star Wars RPG
campaign that I figured would be wrapped up in a session or two. It ended up
taking four sessions. The scenario involved an investigation. I expected the
players to pursue certain clues right away, but instead they chose other lines
of investigation. Their ideas were good, and they lead to some interesting
scenes. It just took a lot longer for the characters to finally get around to
where the action was really going to take place.
Probably the best solution to this problem is to simply
adjust my expectations. I realize now that players aren’t generally going to
approach a scenario the same way that I would. And this shouldn’t be a game of
them trying to guess what I want them to do in a given situation. Players
should be free to move in their own direction and at their own pace. It might
be best for me to ditch my expectations about pacing and simply focus on making
each gaming session as fun as possible for everyone involved.
Another thing I should keep in mind, is that I can always
change the “facts” to better fit what the players choose to do. Just because I
expect the players to take a certain course of action and run into a specific
encounter, doesn’t mean that’s how it has to take place. Maybe I’m planning on
having them find the culprit at a club where I’ve hinted that he hangs out, but
they decide to investigate the docks instead. Is there any reason he couldn’t
be at the docks? Probably not. Being ready to change things up on the fly might
be a good way to maintain pacing and reward players for coming up with their
own ideas. The only problem with this is that it requires greater
improvisational skills on my part. That’s something I can work on, though.
I remember when we first started playing Serenity you said that the idea was to cover what might happen within a single episode. And I thought that idea gave set a good standard for how pacing should go.
ReplyDeleteA more praxtical suggestion might be to bring back that count down type thing we used to have in some scenarios. With the little marble thingy and the index card with the numbers counting down. For instance with Ben questioning that girl he could have had five attempts to extract information and if still unsuccessful Lunessa (or however you spell it) could have still burst in and tried to eliminate him for his failure. But it might not have taken so long. That is all I can think of at the moment.
Yeah, I do remember that from Serenity. I seem to remember having less trouble with pacing in that game. Perhaps it was because the game itself was less technical, or perhaps my memories are just distorted by nostalgia. ^_^
DeleteYeah, it could help to put more of a time limit on some scenes. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks!
Could be nostalgia for me as well but I am inclined to think we stuck pretty well to it. It probably helps the storylines we played were more episodic in nature versus an ongoing arc/campaign. Might be helpful to look at the pacing of Clone Wars episodes since that is definitely an ongoing telling of the Clome Wars.
DeleteYeah, I think the episodic nature of that game did lend itself better to that kind of pacing. I like how Clone Wars is done. One of the things I find interesting though, is that most of the stories in that show are stretched across two or three episodes. A season is almost more like a series of mini-movies. But that's just an observation I thought was interesting. It has very little to do with pacing in a RPG.
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