Principles

Here are some principles that will help you stick to your goals:

Draw maps, leave blanks

For the most part locales live in the imaginations of the people playing, but maps can help everyone stay on the same page. You won’t always be drawing them yourself, but any time there’s a new location described make sure it gets added to a map to keep the game fiction consistent.

When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change.

Address the characters, not the players

Addressing the characters, not the players, means that you don’t say, “Dave, is Rajok doing something about that Kobold?” Instead you say, “Rajok, what are you doing about the Kobold?” 

Speaking this way keeps the game focused on the fiction and not on the table. It’s important to the flow of the game, too. If you talk to the players you may leave out details that are important to the actions of characters. You need to think about what’s happening in terms of those characters, not the players portraying them.

Embrace the fantastic

Magic, strange vistas, gods, demons, and abominations: the world is full of mystery and magic. Embrace that in your prep and in play. Think about “the fantastic” on various scales. Think about floating cities or islands crafted from the corpse of a god. Think about village wise-men and their spirit familiars or the statue that the local bandits touch to give them luck. The characters are interesting people, empowered by their gods, their skill at arms, or by mystical training. The world should be just as engaging.

Choose a consequence that follows

When you decide upon a consequence what you’re actually doing is taking an element of the fiction and bringing it to bear against the characters. Consequences should always follow from the fiction. They help you focus on one aspect of the current situation and do something interesting with it. What’s going on? What consequence makes sense here?

Never speak the name of the consequence

Consequence names are prompts to you, not things you say directly. You never show the players that you’re picking a consequence from a list. You know the reason the slavers dragged off Omar was because you chose the “put someone in a spot” consequence, but you show it to the players as a straightforward outcome of their actions.

Give every villain life

Villains, simple or complex, have their own motivations. Give each villain details that bring them to life; smells, sights, sounds. Give each one enough to make them real, but don’t cry when it gets beat up or overthrown. That is what player characters do.

Name every person

Anyone that the players speak with has a name. They probably have a personality and some goals or opinions too, but you can figure that out as you go. Start with a name. The rest can flow from there.

Ask questions and use the answers

Part of playing to find out what happens is explicitly not knowing everything, and being curious. If you don’t know something, or you don’t have an idea, ask the players and use what they say.The easiest question to use is “What do you do?”

Be a fan of the characters

Think of the players’ characters as protagonists in a story you might see on TV. Cheer for their victories and lament their defeats. You’re not here to push them in any particular direction, merely to participate in fiction that features them and their action.

Think dangerous

Whenever your eye falls on something you’ve created, think how it can be put in danger, fall apart or crumble. The world changes. Without the characters’ intervention, it changes for the worse.

Begin and end with the fiction

Everything you and the players do comes from and leads to fictional events. When the players take action, they get a fictional effect. When you assign a consequence it always comes from the fiction and adds to it.

Think offscreen

Just because you’re a fan of the characters doesn’t mean everything happens right in front of them. Sometimes the best consequence is in the next room, or another part of the dungeon, or even back in town. Assign your consequences elsewhere and show their effects when they come into the spotlight.

Your principles are your guides. Often, when it’s time to assign a consequence, you’ll already have an idea of what makes sense. Consider it in light of your principles and go with it, if it fits.