Playing an epic story is much more difficult than telling a story, unless your players are just passive observers. Making your story amazing is about hitting the right story beats with an interactive audience, people who might tell you the things they want, and might want the things they tell you that they do.
So what are the steps you need to follow? I like to get everyone building their characters ahead of time, usually texting with my players back and forth over the week or so preceeding, to get some ideas flowing. I want ideas I can spin off- not a fully-written story, but an idea I can take and run with, along the lines the player wants. If they tell me that their character is the bastard child of the king, then you'd better believe that's coming into play somewhere along the line, maybe not where they expected, but somewhere. If their character dies, then that's sad, and that means I need to think on the fly- how are their parents going to react when they find out, how do I incorporate the new character, how does that affect my ongoing storyline? It takes a lot of thinking on your feet to do this well, and really the only way you can do it, is by doing it. If it doesn't work, then work through that, talk to your players and be transparent. Try asking them what they think would work best, like a writers' room of a TV series. Remember that even though you're the GM, they're part of this process too, and good players are often experienced players and GMs themselves. So remember to include them in decision-making, and in your storytelling. They're a part of this, and epic stories can't happen without them! Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 22 August 2020. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
May 2022
Categories
All
|