This piece is a synthesis of bunch of idea that have been rattling around in my head. Some of them I've already spoken on. Also I have no editor and this shit runs long.
A Legend
An oracle once declared that the next man to enter the city on an ox-cart shall be made king. A farmer named Gordias was this man, and in celebration his son tied the ox-cart to a post with an intricate knot. As time went on more and more citizens of Gordium added to the knot, increasing it's depth and complexity creating "several knots all so-tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened."
Time went on and another oracle spoke as they are want to do, that any man who unraveled the knot would be the ruler of all Asia. many tried their hands at the knot but it proved impossible. Until Alexander the Great came to town. He was presented with the knot, could not find its solution and cleaved through it with his sword.
What an absolute asshole.
The tale of the Gordian Knot is ancient and I think most are familiar with it, or at least the euphemism it inspired, "to cut the knot". It's used to describe a simple, alternative solution to a problem. You will find it throughout all types of media and it's a great shorthand to have in your lexicon. However, something I think about more and more is how the people of Gordium must have felt. You have this thing, this cultural artifact that so many people have worked on- a point of pride. And this man comes up to it to solve it and that's fine, great even, he is engaging with your customs. And then he gets frustrated and just chops it in half. And his actions are cemented as an example of clever thinking. Of problem solving.
What an absolute asshole
Today, I want to talk to you about the preparation and work you put into your ttrpg campaigns, and what to do when your players decide to cut the knot.
Player Freedom and Collaborative Storytelling
Despite the places this essay will lead I want to start by praising player ingenuity. I think players thinking about solutions you never see coming is one of the greatest joys of the hobby. I think of my job as a Game Master as present my players with obstacles and threats as an open ended question that they answer through play. I'll tend to have some notions of where things might go, but frequently players surprise you. Sometimes they figure out a solution that is just an arrow to the heart- a weakness you forgot to cover in your design. Other times they might swerve and go in a direction you didn't see coming.
There is another version of the Gordion Knot legend, one where Alexander unhitches the ox cart and is able to slide the knot off it's post. It's a version that reminds me much more of the kind of solutions I see from players. Looking at the situation and finding a workaround.
But the version of the legend that caught on is the one with the sword. It is the destructive method that was deemed the more memorable.
I don't want to say players shouldn't be clever and think on their feet, ttrpgs are about collaborative storytelling. It's about respecting what others bring to the table and no one player should be more important than the others. But the GM is also a player. And there are times where the players will do something unexpected and you just watch all this work and effort you spent on the game just... unravel in front of you?
Frequently, I'll be happy to engage with my players on this. We can streamline the story being told and focus on what people find interesting. But I've had a few session where afterwards I felt a little heartbroken. When I thought about it I realized there were some games where I'd put dozens of hours of work into my sessions. Not just story and mechanical planning but working on setting up macros on roll20 and making the virtual tabletop look good for my players. And the thing I've realized its pushed me towards is not spending any time on prep. I'll have a rough idea of what we are doing and let the players loose. I'll earmark a few statblocks I might need and presto- I can make this a session. It can be hard to remain passionate and put your time and effort into something when you know it might all just.. get thrown away.
Player Imbalance
While the GM is a player at the table with an asymmetric set of rules... it's no secret that games frequently bend things in player's favor. The odds are frequently in their favor and the game will provide mechanics for them to prevail. And I have seen some people say "well yeah, the players are supposed to win." Which just kills me? Because then you are no longer playing a game. Now you are just the one player at the table who is never allowed to win- just sit there and smile.
I don't bring this up because I think players are doing anything wrong but because it can be a source of mental stress the GM won't even notice. When I first started playing FITD after PBTA games I had the hardest time when my players would resist consequences. Because I was so used to: when a player fails then you get to make a move. It's when you get to play. And FITD let's your players resist consequences, lessening their effects or negating them. It became something where whenever a player resisted I'd get whiplash because to me it was me contributing and being shut down. I was eventually able to get a grasp on the system and learn its rhythm of mechanics and narrative storytelling- but I remember the stress I was taking and how it eventually led to me feeling like shit.
We talk a lot about antagonism between players and the gm. To an extent that is necessary in some games, you are opponents in many cases. But there's a huge difference between the GM as Knockoff Dracula absolutely wrecking your shit and then taunting you and the GM themself taunting the player. Anytime I talk about GMing there will be someone who talks about trauma from past GMs and how the suggestions wouldn't work. GMs who don't want to be a player but are instead a tiny tyrant. GMs are given a lot of advice about how to play the game and do so without getting into shitty mindsets like this. "Be a fan of your players" is the big one to me. But...
Okay so I didn't expect this but I'm going to get personal with some relationship trauma that I realize is part of the reason why this affects me so keenly? I don't think this will need any CWs, but also if you are in a bad place around the topic, you can skip this paragraph. Game Masters are almost always expected to defer to the players. They are the protagonists, heroes, this is THEIR story. You want to keep them happy and you don't wanna be one of those shitty, abusive GMs... do you? I've had a few partners tell me that because of their own traumas they will always be afraid of me to some extent. Part of this is because I'm a dude over six foot and their own trauma marks me with a red flag. But even when they reassured me that they trusted me and knew I would never harm them... they couldn't do anything about that fear. I have heard this... from multiple people I loved. That because of my appearance and build that they could never fully... feel safe around me. So I did what you might expect, I tried to make myself as small as possible. Not physically but psychically. Folding in on myself, trying not to take up any space. Whatever you need, babe! ....fuck. So now I have my own trauma around this where when I feel myself having to just, bend instead of being heard, it makes me rankle. But worse than that is so often I don't even notice it in the moment.... I still just bend. Because I want to make other people happy even if it means cutting away some bit of me... even if it's just a story I made.
Sigh, so I've got a great group. We run really well together now after a few years but even then, I take emotional wear as a GM. And I don't think I have ever read a GM section that talks about that. What do you do when players just say no? When you have a story they aren't interested in? Because the thing is this doesn't go the other way. I'd say I am having to cut away some idea at least once a month if not every week. But how would the table react if the same thing happened to a player. Imagine a player comes to the session with their new character, they spent time and effort on them. While waiting for the rest of the party to get to the point of introducing them, things swerve in another direction and we wind up just going in another direction. The party meets an NPC and GM hands the player that NPC's sheet. "I guess you can just play them." God, I just remember this happened to me once in a GMless game. My PC had died last session and I made a new character but when I got there one of the players couldn't make it so I got pressured to just.. take over the character of the player who didn't make it rather than introduce someone new. I just tossed my character sheet. So yeah, from experience? That fucking sucks. I'd brought up this example to people when I was first talking this topic which I think is where the dichotomy hit for them. Because it's normal for the GM to cut things and abandon shit- it's part of the job. But forcing that on a player? You have to respect their agency as a storyteller! How could you? Hyperbole, but the differing expectations on the roles are very real.
How do we proceed? What do we do? First, I think it's just important to talk about this I think. That way people can take self inventory and go, hey is this a problem for me? But also for players I think it's important to be aware that this can be an issue. And just knowing that and letting it reflect in your play is important. I think even just checking in with your GM would be a huge step. "Hey, this is gonna let us just skip past all this stuff you have planned, you okay with that?" Your GM is almost always gonna be fine with it but it will mean a lot to just check in on them sometimes- to show you appreciate the effort put in. And it can also lead to conversation, maybe you can find a way to integrate what's there while still utilizing the solution you've come up with.
Preparation & Practices
Now we come to what can you, the GM do. If this is something that is causing stress than as in so much in our life, we must not just ask others to respect our limits but find our own ways to address them. To do that I'm going to examine some different methods of getting your sessions ready using the axes of Restraint and Complexity. Restraint is about the player's possibility space, their freedom of movement: a focused dungeon delve is going to have higher restraint than a sandbox. Complexity refers to how much work you need to put into session, this might be learning rules, table setting, plotting things out, etc. Learning the stat blocks for enemies in ICON before the fight is going to be a lot more complex then creating a 4 step clock when the guards show up in Blades.
The Gear
Restraint: Low - Preparation: High
There will be a part of your brain that tells you this is what you should strive for at all times, and you must kill that part of you. Perfection is a shadow on the fucking wall and only fools pursue it. A session like this means you are allowing your players a ton of freedom that is afforded by the amount of work you have put in. I have, infamously at my table, done a couple of murder mysteries inspired by F@TT's Consulting Detective session. Those games were absolute blasts and I am so proud of them. I also KILLED myself doing it.
The trap here is to try and see all outcomes, to be utterly prepared. To create a simulation. This can be great for when your players have a clever thought and you can then pull out a secret, they will feel attentive and smart. But it also means that if they really do swerve and cut the knot then everything will fall apart like fine-tuned clock. This kind of structure is inherently rigid and it needs to bend.
That being said, I don't think they are an unworthy goal... sometimes. I am really proud of those murder mysteries and some of the other shit I've pulled on my characters. (If anyone is interested, shoot me a comment or ask and I'll break down how I did those sessions.) But they also only worked because I also set my player's expectations, hey we are gonna be going into a certain mode. No one was gonna just leave town and not investigate, but also I had enough prep that there were multiple plot threads they could chase and I watched as players started following those to the end- something that this style of game really excelled from and would have felt really false if I was just doing it all on the fly.
This is The Gear because it relies on planning and precision. It's a delicate and beautiful thing and will wind away to uselessness if over-utilized. My advice for care with these sessions is to limit how often you do them. But you can also lessen the strain by prepping these over a longer period of time, plan an arc or two ahead or give the players a chance to do something else as you plan this. You can also cut down on the work by splitting it up with a friend. To often GMs view their work as a solitary thing but it you've got a friend who also does this sort of thing or even a friend who isn't playing in this campaign, ask them if they wanna help you plot. Bitches LOVE to plot. Not only will you be getting work done in less time, but you''ll be getting input and ideas you wouldn't otherwise. Also? Cohost is great for this, put out a post asking for help. I don't see anyone is using it so I am going to start following #GM Assistance, and maybe that can be an easy way to separate people giving advice or requesting aid? So yeah, if you ever want advice or collaboration- there's a tag for that.
The Hammer
Restraint: High - Preparation: High
You are spending a lot of time preparing and your players have limited freedom. Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons, baby. I joke, but this is an issue with certain styles of games and leads to things like Quantum Ogres. The GM HAS to spend time on the preparation making challenges and obstacles for the players, and when the players go another way then you LOSE all that time spent and are no longer ready for them. Let me cause some of you psychic damage.
So this is a Neothelid from Pathfinder. There are plenty of things here that are fairly self-explanatory: HP, AC, I know what Damage Reduction to Cold Iron is. However, this beasty has four non-passive feats that you should be aware of how they work. Two of which involve combat maneuvers with their own rulesets. It has 9 spell-like abilities it can throw out at will and you need to know what all of them do if you wanna play this guy well. And then it has three special abilities unique to it.
This is one monster. Now do this for every encounter leading up to it.
And hell, there are times I like this style of play, personally I prefer Lancer's approach to slamming templates onto foes rather than Pathfinder's.... approach, but it has it's place. It's just if you are expected to do this every week- burnout is expected. For those who don't know this me and my buddies in my early twenties would meet up and play 3x/Pathfinder for 6-8 hours, every week, for YEARS. The GM would be a ragged think of dust and smoke by the end of a campaign and we'd have to swap out who is running something just so they could have a chance to recover.
Honestly, with this style of game and preparation... it comes down to talking with your players. It's not about saying "toot toot, all aboard the railroad" it's about asking "hey, whats the plan for next session?" I don't mind whatever you guys do and which plot threads you wanna chase down, but let me know so I can prepare for that one.
Also, fucking, give yourself breaks my guy. Not every session has to be a multifaceted megadungeon. Let them go hang out with friends at the tavern and have some stakes that aren't world ending for a moment. You can relax and let them build their bonds up with the characters in the world.... It makes it a whole lot better when you twist that knife five sessions from now.
Again, being a bit of a shit here, but I named this The Hammer because that's what you use to assemble a railroad. It is a heavy blunt tool and good for many tasks, it is also hard work to swing it and if you lost focus you are likely to hurt someone. So if your brain is fucked up in the same way as mine, the thing to do is just to do a ton of prep all at once and then coast. This was how I would run Adventure Paths with Pathfinder, I'd just read through it once, give a quick look up of the monsters and answer any questions, and then I'd be familiar enough to run it without doing a study session for hours each week or doing the thing when you are reading a room's description for the first time as you are reading it aloud to the players. And if you are playing a game where you need to do this level of prep it can be hard, so my suggestion is just to speak honestly with your players about what you need. "Hey guys this boss is fucking complicated, why don't we take a break and order some food while I refresh my memory". Hell, I've had a GM ask if it was okay to end early because they just couldn't keep going that night. And that is fine, healthy even.
When I was tutoring in college the worst students I would have were the Running Start kids, this was a program where high schoolers were able to start taking college classes early. And these kids were all so intent on perfection, on getting that 4.0 GPA. And I'd constantly tell them to just, find a pace for them, something where they can get a good grade but also still have time for themselves and not be burnt to the ground. Or hell, maybe just not take so many classes. None of them took my advice and about half of them wound up dropping out hard. If you don't wield the hammer responsibly you will become the nail. Learn your limits, learn how much time you can spend on the hobby. Break things down into what's manageable and if that still doesn't work then it's also possible to just skip a session. I'm sure your friends would be fine with the fact that every so often the campaign switches over to a GM-less one shot or board game night. As fun as running around and pretending to be wizards to be, its not worth treating your own health as disposable.
The Spring
Restraint: High - Preparation: Low
The kind of game that's easy to run but that doesn't really allow your players much wiggle room. Here's the thing... I fucking LOVE games like this. These are great one-shots where everyone shows up with the right energy of like, oh we are just running this fantasy tavern in Stewpot? This can be really great for weirder premade adventures or things like Alice is Missing. A game in which you are fairly free in describing your actions but everything is prescribed by the cards in a deck and the timer of the game itself. There's no chance someone will just decide to check place X on turn one and oh hey, there's Alice! These are more tailor made experiences but there is still room for free-form play here. I think of things like Trophy Dark where players quickly roll up characters and go in knowing they will all die to a horrible beast in this medieval slasher film.
In many ways these are how I recharge my batteries. It's a way to jump into something that doesn't take too much work and your players are restricted enough that you don't need to be concerned with things going off course into a ditch.
However, the issue comes in with how I described these excelling, one shot experiences. This would get frustrating as hell in a campaign where the players aren't allowed much freedom and the GM isn't spending time prepping. Because very quickly it can feel like the reason you can't do something isn't because the setting or system won't allow it but because the GM doesn't want you to because it would inconvenience them.
I call this The Spring because it can add that bounce back to the table, but the more it's used the less you get out of it. The simple answer here is just, don't overuse this tool. But the thing is that I am almost certain I've overlooked a type of table that plays this type of game regularly. This might be a group that focuses games on one-shots or just a GM running something they know so well it doesn't require much prep. And here is where I say something, not controversial, but perhaps opinionated. If you are going in with low preparation every session you are letting your table down, including yourself. You are bunting. And some of you might not know another way, but trust me if you don't use these muscles they will atrophy. I have mostly been warning against strain, against harm, but now I am warning against inactivity. I want to get better and improve, and while I speak about doing that healthily I also expect to strain myself. I want to play types of people I've never done before, I want take the risk and tell stories I hadn't dared to when I was younger, I want to keep making mistakes and learning from them. And I can't do that if I am not trying.
It's alright to get overstressed and fall down. It's alright if it's something as unserious as running games that does that to you. No one here is judging you. Take your time and the spring is a great tool to get back up. But once you are back on your feet, then you should ready to run. Because we came here to work.
The Lever
Restraint: Low - Preparation: Low
I know some of you live on this end of the spectrum and can't imagine how the other half lives. This is where the pure improv roleplay lives, the motherfucking theater kids. That isn't to say this is all mechanics light rpgs. I alluded earlier but this is how I run most games of Blades in the Dark, I don't need to have any grand plans or dungeons crafted. I can just let the players and I have a constant back and forth of reacting to each other. And this, too can be incredible exhausting. In the same way memorizing rules and stat blocks can tax you, so too can just leaving everything to be figured out on the fly. I have run six hour sessions where I was mostly just doing improve and reacting to player choice as multiple characters. THAT IS A ONE MAN PLAY MY GUY. And you are gonna do that for weeks at a time? Without a script? Without repetition? And you are gonna keep trying to be original keep the narrative ongoing?
Yeah, sure. That sounds easy.
This is called The Lever because it is focused on back and forth play, and while it seems simple, that simply makes it easier to miss the wear and strain being caused. Hey, champ, has anyone told you that you don't need to do it all? I've been telling the others that the GM is also a player. But you know that too right? You don't need to be the one wearing every hat. Even if you play GMless games, you don't have to host, to facilitate, to ensure everyone is having a good time. You don't have to be the first to raise their hand when the group needs an idea or someone to voice an npc.
And for those feeling keenly called out here, trust that this blade cuts me as well. But here's the really hard part. Sometimes its not enough to ask the table, hey can we divvy up duties a little more fairly. There are times when you have to insist, to say that this is something you need. To speak up and say that you while you are willing to give of yourself, you need the others to give equally. (And for those of you who think I am still speaking about my past relationships, congrats on the reading comprehension.)
The reason we do the preparation, so that we don't need to do it all at once. I spoke about how I'd do cram sessions before hand with my mechanically heavy games, it would be a lot of work. Here, I am expecting myself to do all the work with zero preparation. Improv can be fun but god, sometimes you just need a script. This can be as simple as thinking of where you want to go, talking with the others in advance about scenes you want to do. Hell, me and some others will write, if not scripts, exchanges we like before hand. When I am thinking up characters I will try and figure out some lines that really hit the core of what I'm trying to do with them and then see if I can work them in during the campaign in a dramatic fashion. And all my shit about about low prep being bunting is also true here but I do have one thing to say about people who rely solely on the lever.
If you are someone who isn't willing top branch out and try other kinds of games. If you have found your niche and want to stay there because you are warm and safe. Then you are just as much a coward as the people who refuse to try anything but Dungeons & Dragons.
The Point
God, I already wrote all of this and now I need to do a fucking conclusion? uhh....
In summary, the oxford dictionary defines preparation as-
((Some jokes you make just for yourself and others who tutored english))
Look, I haven't been able to escape talking about my trauma with past relationships while discussing this because you have a relationship with your players. Beyond being friends, you have a bond at the table, and I think it is a wonderful thing. But just like any other relationship it needs to taken care of. And that means taking care of yourself, of taking self inventory and asking if you are hurt, of not allowing yourself to stagnate and drag the people you care about down. It requires care. None of this can work if we do not care.
Be honest with the people you care about. Be open with them about the things you care about. And most of all, include yourself in the people you care about- because sometimes no one will be able to speak up to what you feel but yourself.
Take care. Because it isn't just something to be given.
