B. How to Play

I. No winning

Every rulebook will state at one point, that role-playing is not about winning. In my opinion this is rubbish. The whole life is about being better than the rest. Competition helps a lot in the game. Your players are much more under pressure and will try to come up with a good idea, instead of joking around. Just image, that the party has to solve a riddle. Without competition they will sooner or later begin to insist that they don't know the answer. When there is a minimum of competition everyone wants to solve the riddle first, even if just for getting the experience points. However do not use one player against the other(s).

What is correct is, that the competition in a role-playing game is different from competition is other games. The players are not playing against each other in the sense, that one wins at the cost of defeating the rest. Instead the competition is to be better than the rest, while not defeating them.

When I say that role-playing is about winning, I did not mean the GM against the players. Alas there are GMs out there that take self-esteem out of their bodycount. This is wrong. Try to provoke competition among the players, but do not play against them.

II. Neutrality and fairness

Probably the most important thing in game mastering is to remain neutral and fair - on the outside. The players must have the feeling that you do not change anything in their favour or disfavour. This does not mean that you should not cheat or give hints. It only means that you should not get caught while doing so. When your players suspect that your bend the rules or even ignore them, they no longer will take you serious. If you modify anything to their advantage, they will eventually feel almost like superheroes and behave accordingly. On the contrary, when the feel that you change things to their disadvantage, they will get frustrated and think that playing has no real sense or start cheating themselves.

When you begin to manipulate the world you will eventually experience what is called the God-syndrome. A feeling of omniscience and omnipotence. Of course the whole game is about manipulating the world, you are the GM after all. What I mean by manipulation is not to make the world as you want it to be, but to change the outcome of rolls and the consequences just as you want them to have. I know that your words are the final word, but do not stick to your decisions even if a player raises a reasonable point that they are rubbish. If you enjoy the God-syndrome, leave role-playing and become a bureaucrat.

Anything that your players do should have consequences, but these consequences should be reasonable. The should make sense. Your players may not understand them, possibly because they have an inferior knowledge of what is going on, but nevertheless they should agree in case they do have that knowledge.

Fairness also requires that you do follow the rules. The rules, no matter how stupid, where made to make actions and their outcome predictable. To achieve a certain degree of predictability you have to follow the rules. However you do not have to follow the rules by the word. But you have to follow the basic mechanics of the rules. When you do not like a certain rule, use your own common sense, but within the basic mechanics. This allows the players to follow your judgement and will make it predictable for them. When they have no idea how you handle the result of a roll, they will probably shun the risk. To use an analogy. The game mechanics are like a fence around the garden and the rules in particular are everything within the fence. You can trim the bushes in the fence, but you should never break down the fence and start wandering around. This causes more confusion than relieve.

Once you have gained experience in game mastering you should be able to come with a reasonable solution for any situation that is not included in the rulebook. To be able to do this, you need knowledge of the basic game mechanics.

Never hesitate to listen to your players. If you come across a situation not covered in a rulebook and you make up your own solution, one player may come up with a better idea or a modification of your own solution. At least listen to it. Both you and your players participate in the same game and you are the game master not the game tyrant. You do have to be sensible not to let your players run the game, but they should also not feeling as if they speak to a wall.

III. Strictness

Every system will state at one point or the other that the GM should not follow the rules when inappropriate. Well this is true. If you find a loophole or an inconsistency or even something you do not like, ignore the rule. This can only be done if it affects a single non-basic rule. Should this situation occur with a fundamental rule, better change the system.

In these situation replace the rule with common sense. However common sense has to do something with sense. Your solution should make sense. It must be plausible and reasonable, both to the players and to the system. If, for example, you play a fairly simple system with quick rules. You come across totally ridiculous rules for combat situation in which the victim is crushed beneath the hooves of a horse. You want to replace them. Fine! You should however not make up rules that require a hundred dices and table. This solution may be reasonable, but not reasonable in a system streamlined for quickness and simplicity. Think about it. The better your "feel" for the system, the more likely that you come up with a reasonable idea for the system.

What should never be manipultes are the basic game mechanics. If this becomes necessary think about switching the system. The basic game mechanics help to make a situation predictable.

IV. In-time and not

Clearly differentiate between in-time and out-time. In-time is what is happening within the game. Out-time is the time not in the game, but in the real world. If someone asks for the way to the toilet, this is out-time. Unless otherwise clearly noted, everything that a player says is in-time. This helps a lot to discipline the players. When they begin joking around about pulling someone's leg, they should be met with mistrusting eyes by the inhabitants of the world. The players should of course have the chance to discuss certain things without getting into trouble. This can be done by crying "time-out" or something similar. You also have to remember that a strict execution of the above mentioned rule is likely to hinder gameplay considerably. Give the players enough freedom to plan and plot, but try to make the players feel as if they are in the world. Keeping the balance between the two is challenging and difficult. But nevertheless it is a task necessary to accomplish. It is important that the players are aware that their discussions may be overheard by the people around. Do not trap them.
For example if the PCs are standing on a street and plan to break into a house, they should have given the possibility to do so. Only when the discuss it in great detail and for a unreasonable long time, should you interfere with sending a few interesting looking guards.
If you are lucky with your players they will try to behave as if they were actually present in the game world. They will try to avoid discussing things that would bring them into trouble in a tavern. However few are fortunate enough to be blessed with such players, most need a reminder now and then.

One thing not necessarily fitting here, but I know of no better place, are to avoid discussing statistics. It wastes an atmosphere if the PC attend a royal banquet where they want to extract some information from the prince or princess who has romantically fallen in love with one PC and the players begin discussion who has the highest chance, given his or her skill in seduction. This is not the way the world works. Any characteristic an skill should only be revealed to the GM, that is you, and of course the player, but not the rest of the group. Try to motivate your players to say that their character feels pretty bad, has a bleeding wound on the head, a strained ankle and is generally not in good shape, instead of saying: "I got seven hitpoints, if I loose two more I get unconscious". If someone is good at climbing, he can say so. But he should have only a vague idea if he really is better than someone else from the party. This helps to keep the players much more in their role. I remember a situation in MERP. I played a Black Numenorean and had an excellent skill in jumping and acrobatics. Far better than the rest of the group. Unfortunately every time I had to roll, I fumbled. In the end the rest of the party was pretty sure that my character was merely showing off. This lead to some interesting in-party discussion, especially since Black Numenoreans are extremely proud.

V. Speech

Another important point: free speech. You have to be able to talk without any "ahms" and "ohs", any "wells" or "you knows" for at least an quarter of an hour. Some people have problems with it, but it can be learned and the more often you play the better you get. It helps a great deal if you are aware of what is going on. The better your knowledge of the adventure, the better your performance. Don't get nervous, you are not giving a speech in from of a committee that decides on your future. You are standing in front of your friends and they will not make fun out of you, just because you stuttered or went red. If they do, look for new friends.
Anything that a PC says should be delivered in active and not passive voice. In the best of worlds a player does not say: "I stand up.." or even worse "My character stands up, walk to the bar and ask if the bartender has heard of someone called Luigi". Better: "I stand up and walk to the bar. I address the bartender: 'Do you know someone called Luigi'". This has many advantages: First and foremost it creates atmosphere. Secondly the players get the feeling as if the actions lead to a more direct reaction from the environment. Thirdly they begin to think about what they are saying, because there is less room for reinterpretation.
Some GMs want that their players use two ways to speak. The first for anything that the players say and the second for anything that their character says. This can be done through a pitch in the voice an accent or something similar. This helps a lot to clearly differentiate between the two. However it always runs the risk of being just ridiculous. Some people are also pretty bad at doing this kind of thing and they provoke laughter where the wanted attention. Discuss it with your players and do not force it. Some, including me, feel very uneasy to do something like this.

VI. To speak or not to speak

Another delicate issue is whether you should help the players or not. All in all I say no. As with most "nos" there is a big but following. In this case, you should help them by pointing them a little bit in the right direction, but not by giving crisp-clear answers.

Players will only enjoy gaming in the long term, if they succeed. Success however includes work by yourself. Say for example that you replay the lord of the rings-novel. None of your players have read the novel, for whatever reason, probably they are all illiterate or you live in a very exotic nation with a very exotic language into which the book was never translated. Anyway, the reach the eastern gates of moria. The inscription was something like: Speak friend and enter. The solution to the riddle is that someone has to speak the word "friend" in some dwarven dialect. This is exactly what the inscription says. Most players, and I speak from my own experience, tend to think in very complex terms (just like the fellowship in the novel), rather than start with the basic meaning of the words. You could just say what the solution is. This is what we call bad game mastering. A good game master would, is necessary, only point the players in the right direction. Probably by saying that they should think more simple (something generally very familiar to most humans beings).

Whether you want to give hints or not, never ever give them right away. Only give them when you have the feeling that the party is really stuck. They should torment their grey cells before you help them. And give vague hints. When fighting an almost invincible enemy do not say that they need to hit him real hard under the knee-cap, rather say that they should observe the enemy more closely and then give a hint that he walks very sluggish or tries to keep his knee-caps out of the fight. Common sense is important here.

When players directly address you and ask for hints ignore them. Even when they offer sexual attention to you it is generally better not to consent. You have done it right, when the players have the feeling as if they have triumphed over the problem themselves and not only through your help.

VII. Ways to game

There are hundreds of possible ways to game and it is your decision on which you choose. What however is important is that the players are aware of your style. I remember a session when we introduced a new member. He had only gamed AD&D before. Unfortunately we were playing Harnmaster. The - pretty quick - result was that he hurled himself in a rather unnecessary battle and was killed by an ordinary city guard, something that had never happened to him in AD&D.

It is a common misunderstanding that the system predetermines the way of gaming. When someone wants to play high fantasy he will choose AD&D, if he wants realism the Rolemaster book is taken from the shelf. This is wrong. If you want to play in a high fantasy environment, you can choose whatever fantasy game system you like. You and your players are responsible for gaming and not the system.

I want to name a few possible ways of style. The list is far from being complete and there are many forms between those mentioned below. It is not meant to tell you what style is better or not, however I will try to work out some of the advantages and disadvantages of each style.
The first style I want to mention cinematic. This is a very imprecise term, but the best I could come up with. Cinematic styles always, in one way or the other, put the PCs in very singular positions. They are the heroes. Defender of man-kind, saviour of the world. They are the knights in shiny armour sitting atop their white steeds in the morning sun. The PCs are special and even in their first level able to defeat the ordinary people of the world. The peasants and farmers are no match for them and even the city watch is nothing but easy prey. Another characteristic of the cinematic style is that the heroes will eventually safe the world by the glimpse of the second. James Bond and Indiana Jones are examples of cinematic heroes. The plotline of adventures almost always evolve around big things: saving the world, defeating a god, finding a powerful artefact. No matter what it is, it has to be big. One advantage for the players is, that this style is actually entertaining. These are stories with great drama and lots of black and white. They are nice to remember, at least nicer than struggling three hours to crawl out of a swamp hole in a forest at night (something that actually happens). The main disadvantage is that some of your players may feel bored over the time. How often can you safe the world without getting boring. Also the range of possible adventures often shows certain parallels and a lot can be anticipated after a while. Don't get me wrong I like this style of gaming, especially as a player, it is just that it tends to come in big packages and may begin to be boring.

The opposite of a cinematic play is a realistic. This is not necessary a world without heroes, they difference is more that the game does not put the emphasis on the big things, but more on the details. The PCs may or may not be heroes, in any way there is an elaborated sociological system behind it. Harnmaster and Pendragon can be said to be realistic. Realistic games often have great conspiracies and the style is often less battle-oriented. Big dramas are the exceptions, but they do occur. The downside of this style is obviously that the players do not want to replay their own life. Realistic style has the tendency to be tiring over the time. The advantage however is that the players are often, but not always, more tied into the game. There is no stopping of a bomb one second before explosion.

The other pair I want to mention is serious and comical style of play. To begin with serious style, this involves that the world presented is generally hostile. Warhammer FRP and Call of Cthulhu can be used as an example. Any combat is deadly and their are enough people to cross in every village. Serious-style games tend to be low on combat, although it does occur. The PCs are often not heroes and there are more shades of grey than you can think of. Such a style is good for detective kind of adventures. The disadvantage however is, that it is hard to keep a constant atmosphere of hostility. This feeling wears down much too easily and when you have reached this point the players are likely not to take the whole world serious anymore, something that ruins every adventure. Probably the best way to avoid it, is to differentiate between the world in general and the current actions in particular. The two often overlap and influence each other. However a single adventure or encounter can release much of the "pressure" and the players will be more involved in the world later.

The opposite of this is of course a comical-style. This does not have to be like Paranoia or Tales of the Travelling Vagabond. It is more that the play allows the players much freedom to joke around. Pressure is almost unknown. This style is, with the exception of the aforementioned games, very rare. The main reason is that it is extremely hard to keep up a comic atmosphere all the time. Just as a hazardous feeling wears of, so does a comical.