My Style as GM
and the genesis of the company of fools game
Tends to be that of the story teller rather than any thing else I don't see myself as being in opposition to the players despite running their enemies and trying to challenge them when in that role its the story that comes out of that interaction and conflict that matters not the player body count.
I learned long ago that its rather easy to kill player characters off just throw at them more monsters than they can cope with and they are all dead is the easiest, but its ultimately rather unsatisfying and it will get to the players and drive them away as most decent players get rather attached to their character and it stings a bit when they die. It does with me and mine certainly and despite appearances to the country most players are human beings.
I also dont tend to rail road characters or to write fixed linear scenarios if I can help it as I think neither of these are fun situations in the long term. Granted on occasion the situations the players get into might tend to drive them strongly in a given direction they are in no way forced to follow that and can walk away and do other things
Given the chance I like to set up sand box style games where events are generated by the interaction of the players actions with those of the protagonist NPC's both enemies and allies. To this end I do very little scenario preparation and often to be honest wing it form a vague idea in mind as the game runs. I often draw maps on the fly and this was the way that all the ones of the goblin caves where created for example. I do do a lot of background preparation and try to generate character sheets for most of the protagonists and have them grow as the game progresses. In some cases I write a lot of background before I start I did this with my long running old world of darkness vampire game where there was a 100,000 words written before the game started and similarly with the subsequent Exalted game in both cases I have files of my crabit hand writing detailing the respective backgrounds.
For the company of fools game I started with a simple situation, giant rats on a farm and let the background grow organically form there. I did have the idea of a struggle with goblins and the purple paladin in my head and a large isolated inn floating round in a rather nebulous form. I added the temple of the wayfarer when I noticed one of the players had a priest of the Traveller and the dwarf hold grew out of a liking I have for including ancient mysteries an a reading of the entry on goblins in the Hakopaedia of beasts which mentioned a great goblin kingdom in a long lost "first city" of the dwarves as I recall. I also have a liking for dwarves and for twisting the tropes of the genre hence the dwarf wizard and the dwarf horse archers and cataphracts.
I learned long ago that its rather easy to kill player characters off just throw at them more monsters than they can cope with and they are all dead is the easiest, but its ultimately rather unsatisfying and it will get to the players and drive them away as most decent players get rather attached to their character and it stings a bit when they die. It does with me and mine certainly and despite appearances to the country most players are human beings.
I also dont tend to rail road characters or to write fixed linear scenarios if I can help it as I think neither of these are fun situations in the long term. Granted on occasion the situations the players get into might tend to drive them strongly in a given direction they are in no way forced to follow that and can walk away and do other things
Given the chance I like to set up sand box style games where events are generated by the interaction of the players actions with those of the protagonist NPC's both enemies and allies. To this end I do very little scenario preparation and often to be honest wing it form a vague idea in mind as the game runs. I often draw maps on the fly and this was the way that all the ones of the goblin caves where created for example. I do do a lot of background preparation and try to generate character sheets for most of the protagonists and have them grow as the game progresses. In some cases I write a lot of background before I start I did this with my long running old world of darkness vampire game where there was a 100,000 words written before the game started and similarly with the subsequent Exalted game in both cases I have files of my crabit hand writing detailing the respective backgrounds.
For the company of fools game I started with a simple situation, giant rats on a farm and let the background grow organically form there. I did have the idea of a struggle with goblins and the purple paladin in my head and a large isolated inn floating round in a rather nebulous form. I added the temple of the wayfarer when I noticed one of the players had a priest of the Traveller and the dwarf hold grew out of a liking I have for including ancient mysteries an a reading of the entry on goblins in the Hakopaedia of beasts which mentioned a great goblin kingdom in a long lost "first city" of the dwarves as I recall. I also have a liking for dwarves and for twisting the tropes of the genre hence the dwarf wizard and the dwarf horse archers and cataphracts.
.jpg/300px-Ancient_Sasanid_Cataphract_Uther_Oxford_2003_06_2(1).jpg) | |
| A Cataphract |
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