The role of the Game Master is creator of scenarios that allow the players to play the game in the first place. They are also a cast of characters, a referee for the rules, and the lore master for all the places the players may go. This is no doubt a huge task for one person to take on, but this doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task to achieve and not everything needs to be done all at once. Some of these may be achieved with simple writing prompts and formulae, or tables that can be rolled for randomization.
Creating Scenarios
When attempting to create a scenario for players its best to focus on the most relevant details of the setting the players are exploring, keeping things as local as possible. Though its easy to get lost in the details of building an entire world and all the “what ifs” that happen in between, but without a scenario to hook and attach the players to the world, there’s not much use in all the nuances of the world you’ve made. Creating a scenario is much like creating an Act in a story and can be done many different ways.
Flexibility & Collaboration
When creating a scenario, don’t assume outcomes, instead prepare for the result of the resolution rather than how it happens. This allows the players to tackle the challenges you provide in a manner of ways that would result in success. This also can make the tasks of the GM much easier and potentially cut unnecessary preparations. This may require some improvisation on the GM’s part, but just remember that the world building is meant to be expanded upon and is a part of the game.
Cause & Effect
An often effective way to add a driving narrative is to not have the conflict occur “and then”, but instead use “but” or “therefore” to help construct a cause and effect. For example, “The kingdom was a prosperous nation, but then a dragon moved in, therefore the capital is in dire need of heroes.”
With this scenario the heroes have a call to action to make their way to the capital, but that’s days or perhaps weeks away, therefore they’re going to need to prepare for a long journey. With this formula you can iron out the details of this scenarios to cater to the game you would like to design and that your characters would like to play.
5 Ws & H Questions
When world building, scene dressing, and creating scenarios answering some of the most essential questions can help create the finer details in your world. With the established example we can already answer some of the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How questions that are essential for a story. What is the conflict? Who is involved? Where and Why did this happen? How can we resolve it? Beginning a question to answer the essentials can help you to establish the relevant characters, current and historical events, places, and even more as the plot expands and the world gets bigger for the players.
Narration
The delivery of what the player characters are experiencing is one of the most crucial and essential assets of being a good Game Master. Using basic writing tools we can highlight key details for players to drive them to explore and engage. Important items should have some amount of detail for the Five Senses to draw intrigue for the players. If the players catching something they can see, hear, touch, smell, or taste within your description it can not only keep your players engaged, but this tool can be used to give characters direction, or to give a place it’s own charm. For example, describing a town’s main street as having a wafting smell of fresh breads can establish that this town is well known for its high assortment, high quality baked goods. If your characters are traversing a cave you can describe the damp smell, the stickiness of their skin, and the earthy taste of the mossy spores they’re breathing.
Encounters
Encounters will be the building blocks of establishing pivotal plot lines and raise the stakes for the characters in challenging and creative ways and would be described much like scenes in a story that fill in the details of Acts. Taking the example from Creating Scenarios, perhaps your world has a railway. If your players could make a three days travel they can cut down on the time, but things don’t have to be so simple. “The players make it to the train station with no perils, but the train station isn’t running because one of the dragon’s children has taken over the coal mines that the train relies on to run, therefore the mines need heroes to deal with the young drake.”
Difficulty Checks
The success or failure of the dice roll is often determined by matching or exceeding a Difficulty Check (DC). DCs have a number of difficulties with several variables, but can generally be categorized and applied appropriately;
| Difficulty | Target |
|---|---|
| Trivial | 3-9 |
| Easy | 10-12 |
| Moderate | 13-16 |
| Hard | 17-20 |
| Very Hard | 21-25 |
| Near Impossible | 26-30 |
| Impossible | 31+ |
Deciding on a DC for a player to roll should be a fairly reasonable number for the action required, and remember that if there is a situation that makes the action difficult it should not effect the DC as long as a Disadvantage is imposed. A further penalty by increasing the DC may make for a more challenge situation than intended.
NPCs & Creatures
Non-player characters and creatures are one of the many tasks a Game Master will fill their game for the characters to interact with.
When creating an NPC its best to focus on the character’s intent, from there a lot of the general details will be met. Taking the above examples and expanding upon them, if the players should look for employment to deal with the young dragon in the mines they may need to talk to the mine’s foreman. It’s assumed he himself is a miner, or at least has the experience of operating a site. It could be as simple as him being a gruff old man who has lived in mines most of his life, or he could be a master tinkerer with advanced mining tools and a book’s worth of knowledge for the characters who may also be interested in metal-craft or tinkering. Either way, start small and don’t worry about preparing a life story. With more complex characters, whether established or improvised, the tools provided for creating scenarios are also good guidelines to follow for creating more depths.
Creatures can not only be great challenges for Encounters, but can also be used as a tool to establish the setting details such as terrain, the type of flora and fauna, as well as how society develops with these creatures around them. Are they prey or predators? If prey, then who are their predators? If predators then who are there prey? Are they herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores? Do they benefit society in some way or hinder it? As these questions get answered the region with which you’re preparing for your scenario will begin to come alive. As characters begin to expand their playing field this formula can be repeated, adding more creatures into the world as the geography starts to shift from one location to the next.
Creating Creatures
Though there are many methods to creating creatures and game mechanics for those creatures, a structure for Creating Creatures is provided here. Although, this is not an end-all-be-all to creating Creatures and the tables provided could be ever-expanded upon (and should be).
Balancing A Creature
The balance of the creature is entirely based on each table to consider the party’s capabilities and the creature’s purpose. Are they a swarm of push-overs meant to bolster the heroes’ confidence, a burly and large beast that requires strategy and brawn to match it, or is this a boss to the end of an act? Knowing your player’s typical combat options like weapons, Combat Maneuvers, frequently used Conditions and spells will help you to find different traits to create a difficult encounter.
This isn’t to say that if a player is very good at knocking enemies Prone then make every enemy Immune from Prone, but that a consideration for these abilities will help you create all manner of creatures from the ones that are made for the characters to tear through for a nice warm up, to the final bosses for your game that’s meant to be the imposing doom they’ve been made to be.
World-building
While we’ve established a lot of world-building with our initial problem of needing something for the players to achieve, we’ve established a region at most. However, with the same tools we can begin to map out surrounding regions. After the players take care of the young dragon in the mines the players could have some Downtime while the mines are able to supply again, then the train can take them to a town where they must take a different track to the capital. In this town the players may take this time to do more Downtime activities, spend any money they may have made from their victory, or potentially have another lead for quests.
Settlements
When creating a settlement such as a town or city we must again think about purpose. If this stop is meant to provide supplies and other provisions, prepare with what types of equipment you’d want to provide them. If the players need weapons or armor then have a small list of items that the smith would have in store. Say you’d like to extend the game and you put a smithy with a master craftsman who could work with the dragon scales that the party were able to get from the young dragon. The smiths could work with the scales, but he’ll need a flame hotter than most, therefore the players would need to tread dangerous grounds to gather him something in particular for the forge.
If provided, the players would need to prepare for that quest as well, which gives way to more local world building. What would help the players achieve their goal and how available would it be? Another route to expanding this town is to think about how these quest providers are able to make their living as masters. It would be a place rich in metal, or have close allies who export materials to them. The train is already a good means of this problem, but we could also provide more local detail by adding a mountain, something that could also lead to the source of our new quest’s item.