Pacing and Player Decision Making

When you are beginning your journey as a GM you have a lot to juggle.  

You have to keep track of your NPCs, deliver descriptions of the world, drop hints and rumours, bookeep, keep one step ahead of the players... Frankly it can be exhausting at times and it is easy to forget about pacing.

Pacing and Prioritisation in Player Decision Making

In real life we have to make decisions in real time and often those decisions are made under time pressure with imperfect information.  Naturally we prioritise those decisions to select the most urgent tasks first and this should be no different for players in your RPG.

Ask yourself how many times your party has meticulously planned a combat encounter.  The planning (or more likely the arguing) can often take longer than the combat itself and this can suck the life out of the game.

Putting your players under time pressure when planning will result in them throwing out many of their wilder options and selecting between two or three based on what they know.  I've seen many parties get bogged down in analysis paralysis because they just have too many options on the table or too many voices.

How you pace a game also affects the engagement levels of players.  If there are too many long discussions it can sap the will to live from some players particularly if there character's share of the decision making is uneven.  You only have to look at the Avengers to see how disengaged Hulk can be when the others strategise about attack plans.  Hulk just wants to smash like your typical tank PC.

Pacing also raises the stakes for players.  Rushed decision making increases the risk of failure and the players feel that there are consequences to that failure.  The tension rises, the action becomes more visceral.  Success following a tense battle is always sweeter and mixed with relief.

I said make the action "Intense" - Image credit Diary of a Croation Larper

Encounter by Encounter - A Nodal Design View of a Campaign

Nodal Design suits my way of scenario writing and I have explained the concept in articles before but maybe what I have left on the table is a real world example.  

In 2019 I ran a Judge Dredd campaign "Tales from Mega City" for a small group of 4 Street Judges using the Starblazer Adventures game system.  The campaign spanned 11 sessions and whilst everyone had a passing familiarity with the two Judge Dredd movies that was about all they knew about Mega City 1.  In this example each encounter is a node with multiple paths or options to their next encounter. 

Session 1 - Encounter 1 - Sector House Briefing

The first encounter does a number of things.  It establishes some characters (namely Judge Belloch) some world lore (weather control, sector 55) a location (Loop Plaza) and two future events (the super duper loop unveiling, the fidget spinner race) which the PCs should be aware of.

The players get to choose which of these events they want to pursue.  Which one they decide to follow is immaterial as whilst they are on their way there they will experience the next encounter.  Whilst some might misconstrue this forced encounter as a form of Railroading, when done in a sidetrek style, the GM has not removed any player agency just introduced another immediate encounter.  In D&D this would probably take the form of a wandering monster encounter or a sidequest.  

Session 1 - Encounter 2 - Roadblock

Whilst heading towards their chosen destination via Megway 5535 (location) they observe 2 Judges who have set up a temporary roadblock.  The PCs decide to stop and chat with them but could easily have passed them by.  The PCs all make observation checks but fail and get back on their bikes and continue on to loop plaza.  This was an opportunity for players to make their first skill check and learn a little bit about the game system.  In my experience if you let players go too long without rolling some dice they become disengaged. 

Further down the road they players all get to make another skill check, this time it a Law check.  Judge Holmes passes and gets rewarded with the info that Judge White's left knee pad was on upside down.  Once again it is up to the players what they do with that information.  Holmes decides it warrants further investigation and they return to the scene of the roadblock.  

Session 1 - Encounter 3 - The Security Guards

When they arrive at the scene the Judges are gone but their Lawmasters remain. Two security guards flag the Judges down and tell them that the Judges White and Greene requisitioned their van and sped away up the off-ramp to Meg 5527.  The guards also mention that they forgot to tell the Judges that they were carrying an explosive cargo which is sensitive to shocks.  This introduces a sense of urgency to the proceedings.   

The players also make a successful Law roll which gets them the hint that this feels like a case of Judge Impersonation and Road Piracy, both serious crimes.  However, the Judges bikes are the real deal which means that there are two Judges to be found and that could be the far more serious crime of Judge Homicide.

This is a lot of exposition but it is vital information which might influence the choices that players make now the are faced with multiple options.  Do they protect the public and chase down the van?  Do they try to find the real White and Greene? Or do they take the bold step of splitting up and doing both at the same time?  

One player asks if they can put out an All Points Bulletin (APB) on the van and is rewarded with a solid YES.  They can now focus on the immediate task of finding White and Greene.

Session 1 - Encounter 4 - The Tyre Tracks

A cursory search of the nearby roadside shows a set of tyre tracks leaving the road and entering an overgrown patch of vegetation.  Buried in the undergrowth, out of sight, is a small town car.  Muffled cries can be heard from inside the trunk.  Opening the trunk reveals Judges White and Green bound, gagged and stripped down to their regulation underwear.  The Judges reveal that they were taken by suprise by 2 assailants and knocked unconcious.  

Meanwhile one of the PCs investigating the undergrowth spots a rustling in the bushes and goes to investigate.  Parting the branches of a shrub they briefly spot a flash of yellow but the area behind the bush is empty.  This mini event is a piece of foreshadowing and introduces a potential sidetrek involving Pokemon which that PC might choose to investigate at a later date.  Giving individual players their own sidetreks is a useful way of keeping them engaged in the game especially in a "Detective" style scenario where one or two players may be actively questioning Non Player Characters and others are just standing around.

The encounter ends with a call from Sector HQ informing the players that the van has been spotted entering a Through-Way near Thatcher Towers.  With Judges White and Greene found the GMs job is now to get the players back into urgency mode and on the trail of the Jimps and the explosives.  Keeping the players "on plot" by using things such as radio comms or telephone calls is a perfectly legitimate way of reminding them that events they had the choice of following up are still unfolding and now need their attention.

Session 1 - Encounter 5 - The Throughway and Thatcher Towers

When the players arrive they find the van parked awkwardly on the roadside.  The cargo hold is empty apart from 2 Judge uniforms.  Successful observation checks from the players (it's been a while since they rolled some dice) reveals 4 CCTV cams belonging to Thatcher Towers block with good views of the van.  This naturally leads them to make their way to the block security station and the CCTV recordings. 

When they enter the block at level 250 (GM: establishing the scale of Mega City buildings) they encounter the BREXIT political rally and that there is someone called Nigel.  This is another piece of foreshadowing of the real plot to the scenario but it is intentionally glossed over as just a bit of scene setting.  If the players get involved and try to break up the rally then I would have let them do so. 

When the players get to the security station and demand the tapes, the security guard tells them that they weren't covering the through-way because they were focusing on the BREXIT rally.  Whilst this is the GM effectively saying "No" to the players, it is the first time and it is backed up with a solid reason.  This is also an example of an event which Must Happen.  The trail of the missing explosives must go cold at Thatcher Towers because their recovery and the possible arrest of the Jimps might lead to future events in the plot timeline not happening. 

Before any of the players can react to this Judge Belloch's voice shouts at them through their radios demanding that they get to Loop Plaza pronto.  This ends the session nicely but also reinforces the idea that events are going on around them which don't stop happening because of the choices that they make.  These Timeline Events are always going to be experienced from the perspective of the PCs so you will need to be either flexible about when they happen or the way in which the PCs experience them.  This might in real time, via a news report or in third hand witness statements.  The event still happens irrespective of the players actions.  Similarly if the players had chosen to patrol the Fidget Spinner Race then the message from Sector HQ would have been to attend the race.    

When all put together the nodemap for this session looks a bit like this:

When designing the scenario from scratch you may go through this process multiple times as you focus in on what is important for each session. In fact having a node map at the macro level is useful.  What I like about this particular style of scenario design is that you only need to do the detail work for the encounters that are highly likely to happen.

For example, I knew that there could be a potential shoot out if the PCs chose to "chase the van" and so would need a stretch of Megway battlemap and a few vehicles.  However, this didn't take place so there wasn't much effort wasted and I could always reuse that battlemap another time in another session.  

The Vast of Night - A Spooky Tale in 50s America

With a dearth of hollywood movies being made in 2020 thanks to COVID-19, the discerning sci-fi fan has had to look high and low on the streaming services to satisfy their need for entertainment.

One such lockdown sleeper I discovered was The Vast of Night (2019) available to rent on Amazon. 

 

Everett and Fay listen to the mysterious story of former soldier Bill

Through the premise of a "Twilight Zone" style television the viewer is transported to the rural New Mexico town of Cayuga in the late 1950s.  Using fly-on-the wall cinematography we follow our protagonists Everet Sloan (Jake Horowitz), a local radio DJ, and high schoolgirl Fay Crocker (Sierra McCormick) as they move around town trying to piece together the story of mysterious and spooky goings on.

The Midnight Hour DJ style of this tale reminds me very much of the excellent animation The Kirlian Frequencies (2017) and of course the classic Kolchak: The Nightstalker (1972)

Much of the detail of the story is delivered through intense monologue where your attention hangs on every word and sound.  The acting is top notch from the entire cast and you are immediately engaged with their story.  Pacing is excellent with just enough "action" to give you that sense of urgency and panic that there is genuine fear going through their minds.

All in all a fantastic little low budget movie with a well handled finale which some Hollywood directors could learn from. 

First Painted Minis of 2021

As we start a new year full of hope but low expectation (thanks 2020) I can showcase the first bunch of painted minis to roll off the workbench.

Arabian Bandits

This is the first half dozen of my desert warriors which I am building up for use in upcoming Al-Qadim adventures.

Al-Qadim is the vintage AD&D setting released in the 80s for exotic Arabian style adventures in the style of Sinbad the Sailor.  It's probably my favourite fantasy setting.

These are versatile minions and could quite easily be repurposed for use in a pulp game or Call of Cthulhu.

These minis are from the excellent Wargames Foundry Darkest Africa range and are Baluchi Swordsmen

Why Saying Yes is the Secret to Great Games Mastery

Possibly the hardest lesson for a new Games Master to learn is how to say Yes.

The temptation to keep your players on the path of destiny you have spent many hours writing for them is very strong but belies a fundamental failing in your thinking.  RPGs are not books, they are not linear plotlines where you control every aspect of the story.  

Remember that RPGs are collaborative stories where the agency and actions of players help to create the storyline.  Once you say No to a player, once you remove player choice you remove player engagement and the fun goes out of the window.  This is commonly referred to as Railroading and will lead to far bigger problems further down the track.

The GM must always consider what the essential elements of your overarching plot are and ensure that you spend all your energy preparing multiple ways that the players might achieve them.

Essential elements of plots

I have written previously that my favourite way of writing plots is by using Nodal Design.  This approach is most commonly found in the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks such as Fighting Fantasy or the Tunnels & Trolls solo games made popular in the 80s.

My approach is to break a plot line down into a series of encounters.  The most important of these are going to be the Must Happen encounters.  These are the events that have to happen to further the plot and the ones which you should spend the most time considering all the possible eventualities.  

You should always consider that: 

• the players might fight their way in and out of an encounter even against impossible odds.
• the players may run away
• the players may never find this encounter in the first place.

The rule of three

When considering these Must Happen encounters you should always have at least 3 ways that players can find or enter the encounter and 3 ways that they can exit it whilst furthering the plot.

Finding the encounter in Nodal Design is easy.  You just have to make sure that there are 3 connections to the encounter from three other encounters.  

Exiting the encounter is a little bit harder but not impossible.  In a typical conflict encounter there are the usual outcomes:

1. PCs win the fight - this is your everything goes according to plan exit
   
2. PCs lose and get captured 
3. PCs lose and escape or run away 
4. PCs stealthily go around or avoid the encounter

However, if the PCs need to acquire some object or information then outcomes 2,3 and 4 are going to pose you with a problem.  Careful consideration of the potential outcomes of your Must Happen encounter will lead you to preparing plausible solutions.

PCs lose and get captured

Getting captured can often be a blessing in disguise as the PCs might be taken inside the enemy stronghold.  Here they will learn much more about their enemies strengths and weaknesses, the location of the big bad guy, location of an uber artifact or they might meet other prisoners who can join them in their quest or help them escape.

You also get the additional free bonus breakout encounter which are always fun and stressfull for PCs.

PCs lose and escape or run away 

This outcome presents the greatest challenge in that they may not learn or aquire what they need to progress.  This is where the rule of 3 comes in.  For something to be an essential Must Happen there must be at least 3 ways of achieving it.  If it's information the players are after then this can be heard during scouting or in combat.  If it's an object then it might get lost by the enemy or found by the players during the confusion of melee.  Perhaps it gets dropped into the river and the players find it later whilst licking their wounds.

PCs stealthily go around or avoid the encounter 

Whilst this sounds like a worse case scenario from an encounter preparation perspective, it is often the easiest to compensate for in the planning stage.  Whilst going around the encounter they might overhear the vital piece of info they need, they might see or find the item they need unguarded.  

Evil minions tend to be left out out of the loop on the overarching plot, they get told the bare minimum to get by.  Guard that door, go get that box rather than what's behind the door or what's in the box.  Use this to your advantage and convey some info which is meaningless to minions but useful to your PCs.

Insurmountable odds and revealling the big bad guy too early

One of the fatal mistakes I have seen new GMs make is to introduce an encounter with the Big Bad Guy too early.  Big Bad Guys are usually way too powerful for the PCs to handle early on in the game and a critical element of RPGs is that PCs need to gain experience and become more powerful in order to defeat the Big Bad Guy.  

Pitching your heroes into a battle with the Big Bad Guy too early risks them getting killed or worse that they might damage your Big Bad Guy.  The temptation to say "No you can't do that" is great and leaves you needing to construct a plausible explanation as to why the PCs wouldn't be slaughtered in an instant.  This is just poor storytelling from an RPG standpoint and means you have unnecessarily backed yourself into a corner.  Time to look at other ways to let your players know about the Big Bad without them confronting him early on.

The third party reveal

In other types of fiction the power of the Big Bad Guy is often witnessed by third parties who get killed early on and their only role in life is to illustrate that power.  For example a Big Bad Guy might attack a village or sack a town and in a film or a book you might witness this encounter from the eyes of an NPC.  

The fate of the NPC is irrelevant as the object of the scene is to convey this information to you the viewer.  However, in RPGs it is more than acceptable for that NPC to live just long enough to share what they saw to the players before they die.  

Rumours are another great way to seed knowledge of some power sweeping across the land.  The PCs may encounter refugees fleeing a besieged city, a trader who just got through a checkpoint or left a neighbouring town before the horde arrived.

How you achieve the reveal is entirely down to you but my advice is to dribble the information out a little bit at a time.  Give your PCs enough time to grow as a party and as individual characters so that they are ready to face off against the big bad guy in the finale.   

Don't forget the backstory

The PCs might also have acquired first hand knowledge of the Big Bad Guy through their backstory.  For example in the classic fantasy movie Conan The Barbarian (1982), the young Conan witnesses his tribe slaughtered and he is enslaved by the forces of Thulsa Doom.  It is only many years later once he has gained his freedom and become a mighty warrior that he faces off against the evil sorceror and avenges his family.

PCs need time to become a thorn in the big bad guy's side

A common trope among big bad guys is that they often overestimate their own power and underestimate their foe.  Many of the best fictional showdowns come after a long protracted series of small skirmishes and defeats for the big bad guy until he really does have to deal with the threat personally.  How many times have you heard them say...

"Do I have to do everything myself?"

Take Darth Vader for example, in Star Wars.  He takes charge and jumps in his TIE Fighter to personally see off the threat of the X-Wing attack on the Death Star.  Perhaps he senses the presence of Luke or perhaps he recognises that although the chance of success is remote in the face of overwhelming odds, the chance still exists.

Flipping this encounter on its head, the Death Star exploding is a Must Happen event and only a bad storyteller would have the bad guy he has spent the last hour and a half setting up die.  That happens to Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and we all know what we think of that movie.

Embrace Player Agency

One of the most frustrating but fun things in RPGs is that players often come up with creative solutions to the problems that you set them.  This is a fundamental aspect of RPGs and will necessitate that you change and modify your story to accomodate the players.  

Embrace this.  Learn to be fluid and to react to your players.  Be the Leaf on the Wind.  Let go and enjoy the unbridled chaos...