Occasionally, things don't go the way we plan. While it's excellent to talk about our successes, it's also equally important to acknowledge our failures and be able to discuss them.
So, here's a story about my last game, and some musings on how it could have gone better. In my home game last night, the party had gathered their treasure after rescuing a bunch of kids who had been kidnapped by an evil mage and his goons, in a city established as corrupt and petty. I had the party confronted by a tax collector with a warrant from the City Council, demanding 10% of their loot. The party was understandably not terribly on board with this plan, and the tax collector went away with a threat of "I'll be back tomorrow at noon". From my perspective, this was an encounter to reinforce the corruption and pettiness of the town, but something that could be avoided by making a deal, turning over some of their gear instead, or just paying the bill up front. From the party's point of view, they would be giving money to a corrupt government which hadn't rescued the kidnapped children, and which would probably waste it. This led to the party deciding to noisily decamp from town, which meant that the guard stationed outside went off to tell his superiors, who returned in force with a warrant for the party's arrest. This escalated quickly, and members of the party were just about ready to slaughter their way out of town until one member decided to pay the party's tax bill out of her share. It de-escalated the situation, but it led to the pary members being very unhappy, in and out of game, with how it had all gone, and with one party member substantially down on her money, compared to the others. In addition, tension at the gaming table was really high, and I wasn't happy with how I had done as a Game Master, overall. So, how could I have done that better? - For a start, being able to bribe the tax collector, or letting the players bluff on how much loot they'd made, might have helped. Giving players and their characters an 'out' that still leaves them with dignity intact is much better than escalating to open conflict. This also reinforces what the players already know about the town, meaning their understanding isn't challenged. - Letting the players negotiate with the Lord, the City Council, or the tax collector for the services they'd performed (rescuing two dozen kidnapped children) would have been good. In hindsight, framing this as the encounter might have been better than having the tax collector track them down. - Letting the players leave town without a guard spotting them (or letting them roll to evade the guards) could have made this a situation of fun hijinks, rather than an IRL tense moment that left everyone stand-offish. This could have let the stealthy characters take point, let the social characters do some distraction, and allowed everyone a bit more fun. Sometimes, this is just going to happen. As a Game Master, you need to be able to roll with unexpected reactions and accept that not everything you do is going to work. Talking about when we fall down, and how we could have done it better, is how we all learn. So if you've got any other ideas about how that could have gone better, throw 'em in the comments below! We can all learn from others' ideas. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 4 May 2019. Comments are closed.
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AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
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