Player & GM Relationship – aka, Raising a Healthy Character
25 May 2011 2 Comments
When I first started playing D&D some 13 years ago, I played with my friend and her brother (who was our GM), and once or twice with my sister in the group as well. Now, although this GM had some good ideas and my friend and I enjoyed our interactions, he had a misconception about what D&D was. To me, it was a method of playing in and creating a story in tandem with players and my game master. To him, it was a competition. Survival of the fittest. He threw every nasty critter and trap he could at us until we were dead, dead, dead. We never stood a chance, never had a prayer.
Where the hell is the fun in that?
I am not suggesting that you take the fear or threat of death away from your players (and believe me, I have been guilty of that because I am too nice and I just don’t like killing people. Doesn’t fit with my “nice girl” image). That fear should always be there, because that prevents players from doing a few things: a) taking advantage of you, b) ignoring wishes of the other players and bringing them ALL heedlessly into danger, and c) doing something outright stupid.
…ok, well, sometimes the threat of death doesn’t even stop those things outright (just ask my friend Kristie about a certain red mage), but it at least helps most of the time! At least, we can all hope. At any rate, we must never forget – as players or as GMs – that role playing is really meant to be an effort made in tandem. The GM supplies the motion to the story, as well as the general outline, while the players bring in the real “meat and potatoes” of the story – the characters, the strife, and the triumph.
To create a character that works well for the story, I suggest that players sit down with their GMs before hand. GMs, make some time for your players and hear them out. Often just by listening to them tell you about their character ideas, you will get ideas for your game. When writing a backstory for a character, leave lots of holes and opportunities for your GM to interject NPCs or plot twists. Remember, while it’s good to be a little bit thorough about your origins, you don’t want to lock the GM in or out of something because you could potentially miss something really cool. And GMs, if a player doesn’t fit quite the mold you had in mind for the game, talk to them about it! Tell them what your game entails, communicate, and maybe work together to change some details and find a common ground that is happy for both of you. Don’t try to shove your players into a box to suit your needs, because both of you will end up being miserable.
In my next post this week, I’ll include a list of questions I think it’s helpful for GMs and Players to ask each other/themselves. In the mean time, remember that communication via player and GM is the most important thing for a happy game!
-Kristy
May 25, 2011 @ 16:50:07
I’ve actually had the opportunity to do some of this, myself, as a GM. I’m running a rules-lite system (Mecha RPG), and I worked with each of the players individually, fleshing out their character and working out ways they can fit into the world.
One side effect of this is knowing character weaknesses, and so being able to spin failure into interesting plot. For instance, one character is a socially inept mech nerd, in a setting where mech knowledge is highly restricted. He’s a technician, so he can be expected to know some, but when a member of the police force asked him to demonstrate his knowledge, in order to prove that he had a legitimate reason to be out late (working on mechs).
The player failed the roll, so I ruled that the mechanic had blurted out a little more knowledge than he had the right to know, so now a police force is headed for his place. Which will provide the action scene that is expected to arise later in the session.
Plus, it’s also terribly fun to watch characters build and slot into the world that you’ve got, and to figure out how they fit.
May 25, 2011 @ 18:54:50
Few things are worse than going into combat and finding that your character can’t get hurt. I don’t mind a reprieve, finding an extra health potion after the big battle that brings your character down to negative hit points, but don’t make the PCs never get hurt.