+Justin Aquino's talking about it, so I have an excuse to talk about it too. I've been avidly following +Collaborative Gamer's solo campaign for awhile now, and I think it's great, but for different reasons than Justin (that's not to say that he's wrong, just that we see different facets).
I'm a big believer in Failing Faster. The point behind Psi-Wars is to finish a campaign sooner rather than later, so I'm borrowing as much as I can from other works, including Star Wars itself and various GURPS books. The point is that the perfect campaign that takes ten years to never get off the ground is always inferior to the shoddy campaign that actually gets run.
Yet people complain that GURPS takes too much work to get up and running, and they do have a point. I've been working on Psi Wars off and on since January, and while I'm farther than what you see in my posts, I'm not much farther. I have been slowed, to be sure, by getting married and by the fact that I actually have to make all of my notes presentable, but it's still taking some time. How can we make it go faster?
Showing posts with label Art of Storytelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art of Storytelling. Show all posts
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Friday, June 28, 2013
GURPS Cabal: How Mailanka Designs a Campaign: Part 2b: the Rules Continued
As I discussed in the previous post, when I tackle a campaign, I tackle it in the GURPS Action model, which involves thinking about my rules, what I want my game to be about, how I want it to play, and then I use that to design my templates.
Well, let's imagine what a typical GURPS Cabal game might be about. First, something happens. Perhaps a creepy mummy slips out of its coffin at a museum and kills a dude and steals some artifacts, or perhaps someone inherits a creepy reality-shard journal that speaks of things that never happened but will, or perhaps your passer dies. Something happens, and being an occult game, you need to investigate what happened.
Once our Cabalists have uncovered the truth to the mystery, the conspiracy begins. We need to marshal Cabal resources to do something about it. We need to hide it from the prying eyes of the public. We need to manipulate those black ops soldiers to slow their progress and let us get to that mummy first, and we need to convince that mummy to join our side. At its heart, once you get past all the dry bookishness of the cabalists, they're spectacularly social people; they have to be, they secretly rule the world.
So where do we get the rules for that? Well, conspiracy comes in three, distinct elements. The first is about understanding power structures, their interconnectedness, and how a conspiracy needs to play out. Our go-to resource for that would be GURPS Illuminati, but that doesn't help us too much. Mostly it just offers GM advice and setting suggestions. Conspiracy is a mode and it discusses that for us. Otherwise, Action offers some suggestions regarding convincing organizations to do things for you ("Pulling Rank"), and we just toss in some rules about Administration and Politics.
Next, we need to persuade others to help us. GURPS Illuminati has some suggestions on what that will look like: You might manipulate people directly, but generally you're going to get someone, an agent, and he's going to do the manipulating for you. You manipulate one guy, and leverage him to manipulate someone else. For example, if we want to convince the Black Ops soldiers to back off, we could ask them nicely. Some Diplomacy or Intimidation checks might do it, but they're going to be really tough and they have an entire organization backing them. A better strategy might involve getting the organization itself to pull support for their mission. If we can control someone in their organization, that's much more powerful than confronting the soldiers themselves.
To do this, we turn to GURPS Social Engineering, which discusses dealing with organizations (surprisingly irrelevant, though could be useful for running a lodge), manipulating people (alright), recruiting people (there we go), blackmailing them (bingo!) and brainwashing (Do tell!). When I was finished researching this bit, I think that was the first time I really began to be afraid of the cabal.
Finally, we need to hide evidence of the supernatural. Deception. Remember how that mummy murdered someone? What if it got caught on camera? What if the police begin to investigate the murder? This could expose more of Cabalistic influence than we would like, thus we need to dispose of the body, alter the camera evidence and send the police off in some other direction. Monster Hunters has a sparse discussion of this, to my surprise, but Action 2: Exploits, always my hero, rides to my rescue. It has an entire section on "cleaning," hiding evidence, faking evidence, making up cover stories, disposing of bodies and etc. I could probably go into more detail, but this will do.
Now that we've hidden our mummy from the world and pulled the black ops team off the trail, we can walk right up to the mummy, help him with whatever he's doing, and get him to join the cabal. Easy. As long as everything goes smoothly, we'll have a new ally to the cabal and no muss or fuss. But when does anything ever go that smoothly? No, at least one black ops soldier is still on our trail, the mummy isn't interested in cooperating, and somehow the mafia got involved. What would a good game be without some pulse-pounding action?
The mode of our action will vary. We could treat this game as full-on horror, but I think if players are the monsters, they'll want something pulpier. We could go full-on action heroics, but that strikes me as overkill. Do we really imagine Cabalist assassins as charging a room full of enemy soldiers while firing round-after-slow-motion-round into their midst and back-flipping out of the way of bullets? I don't. They seem grimmer than that: Snipers, thieves, knives in the dark. If it comes to a fair fight, it's bloody and terrifying, and the only things that can do ridiculously inhuman things are inherently inhuman: Super-fast vampires, super-strong werewolves, and so on.
I didn't turn to anything for this, though both Monster Hunters and Action have some good rules on combat. I'll use more of Horror's rules, though, and I've been running combat-scenarios for awhile now, so this requires little investigation.
But those three parts together put together the core of how a game will play out, leaving only one last thing to worry about...
Magic.
So what do I want my GURPS Cabal to be about?
Well, let's imagine what a typical GURPS Cabal game might be about. First, something happens. Perhaps a creepy mummy slips out of its coffin at a museum and kills a dude and steals some artifacts, or perhaps someone inherits a creepy reality-shard journal that speaks of things that never happened but will, or perhaps your passer dies. Something happens, and being an occult game, you need to investigate what happened.
We already have a game that makes heavy use of investigation: GURPS Monster Hunters. Of course, the premise of GURPS Monster Hunters is that you're out to kill the monster while in GURPS Cabal you are the monster... but on the other hand, is it really so different? What's the difference between a group of Black Ops soldiers hunting down that mummy to put a stop to his rampage, and a Cabalist hunting down that mummy to ask it a few questions and/or gain access to its dark secrets? Or perhaps to put a stop to its rampage because it's growing inconvenient. So we simply rip those rules wholesale from Monster Hunters.
So where do we get the rules for that? Well, conspiracy comes in three, distinct elements. The first is about understanding power structures, their interconnectedness, and how a conspiracy needs to play out. Our go-to resource for that would be GURPS Illuminati, but that doesn't help us too much. Mostly it just offers GM advice and setting suggestions. Conspiracy is a mode and it discusses that for us. Otherwise, Action offers some suggestions regarding convincing organizations to do things for you ("Pulling Rank"), and we just toss in some rules about Administration and Politics.
Next, we need to persuade others to help us. GURPS Illuminati has some suggestions on what that will look like: You might manipulate people directly, but generally you're going to get someone, an agent, and he's going to do the manipulating for you. You manipulate one guy, and leverage him to manipulate someone else. For example, if we want to convince the Black Ops soldiers to back off, we could ask them nicely. Some Diplomacy or Intimidation checks might do it, but they're going to be really tough and they have an entire organization backing them. A better strategy might involve getting the organization itself to pull support for their mission. If we can control someone in their organization, that's much more powerful than confronting the soldiers themselves.To do this, we turn to GURPS Social Engineering, which discusses dealing with organizations (surprisingly irrelevant, though could be useful for running a lodge), manipulating people (alright), recruiting people (there we go), blackmailing them (bingo!) and brainwashing (Do tell!). When I was finished researching this bit, I think that was the first time I really began to be afraid of the cabal.
Finally, we need to hide evidence of the supernatural. Deception. Remember how that mummy murdered someone? What if it got caught on camera? What if the police begin to investigate the murder? This could expose more of Cabalistic influence than we would like, thus we need to dispose of the body, alter the camera evidence and send the police off in some other direction. Monster Hunters has a sparse discussion of this, to my surprise, but Action 2: Exploits, always my hero, rides to my rescue. It has an entire section on "cleaning," hiding evidence, faking evidence, making up cover stories, disposing of bodies and etc. I could probably go into more detail, but this will do.
Now that we've hidden our mummy from the world and pulled the black ops team off the trail, we can walk right up to the mummy, help him with whatever he's doing, and get him to join the cabal. Easy. As long as everything goes smoothly, we'll have a new ally to the cabal and no muss or fuss. But when does anything ever go that smoothly? No, at least one black ops soldier is still on our trail, the mummy isn't interested in cooperating, and somehow the mafia got involved. What would a good game be without some pulse-pounding action?
The mode of our action will vary. We could treat this game as full-on horror, but I think if players are the monsters, they'll want something pulpier. We could go full-on action heroics, but that strikes me as overkill. Do we really imagine Cabalist assassins as charging a room full of enemy soldiers while firing round-after-slow-motion-round into their midst and back-flipping out of the way of bullets? I don't. They seem grimmer than that: Snipers, thieves, knives in the dark. If it comes to a fair fight, it's bloody and terrifying, and the only things that can do ridiculously inhuman things are inherently inhuman: Super-fast vampires, super-strong werewolves, and so on.
I didn't turn to anything for this, though both Monster Hunters and Action have some good rules on combat. I'll use more of Horror's rules, though, and I've been running combat-scenarios for awhile now, so this requires little investigation.
But those three parts together put together the core of how a game will play out, leaving only one last thing to worry about...
Magic.
GURPS Cabal: How Mailanka Designs a Campaign Part 2a: The Rules
The best supplement ever written for GURPS was GURPS Action 2: Exploits. Technically, the Dungeon Fantasy series got the ball rolling, but Dungeon Fantasy is too self-contained (witness all the DF fans whining about how there needs to be a "serious" version of DF, or how they need "official" monsters). GURPS Action 2: Exploits created a set of cohesive rules that could serve as a template for any similar campaign, and indeed, I think one of the reasons it isn't "better supported" is that generic support (like Gun-Fu or Martial Arts) work perfectly well with Action in a way that could suit a variety of campaigns. I used it as the basis for G-verse, for example. And it serves as an inspiration for how Cabal will work.
Let me take you aside and talk about how GURPS really works, for most people, and how Cabal was clearly designed, before I get to how I'm doing it and why. Most people approach GURPS as a vast whole. They grab the book, say "Like, make a character or something. Oooh, here's a few ideas!" And off you go. For example, GURPS Cabal lists the Scion template thus:
occult knowledge and raised to fight the secret wars have
guided the Cabal for centuries. The scion of such a family
may be an eager blueblood or a once-carefree student who got
a big surprise on his 21st birthday. Either way, you can’t
resign from your family.
Advantages: Heir, Secret True Name, Status, Wealth;
your family may have (or be) a Patron or Ally Group; if your
childhood was really strange, you may be Unfazeable or possess
Racial Memory (at the 15-point level).
Disadvantages: Almost anything, from Laziness (“The
Black School has to take me, I’m a legacy.”) to a grim Sense
of Duty.
Skills: Leadership, Savoir-Faire; depending on the family
tradition, History, Occultism, or even Politics.
That's not a template, that's a suggestion. Kenneth Hite clearly just thought you'd build "I dunno, something kinda magey." And then gave some additional suggestions: Build your mage with things like Heir, Secret True Name, Wealth, some Laziness, Savoir-Faire, and conjure up a back story of hoary, creepy old bloodline that has worked for the cabal for ages, like the Malfoys from Harry Potter or the Dresdens from the Dresden Files.
And that's fine, but it's not what I want. The above creates situations where people might end up with skills and advantages that never get called upon (like what if Politics is never an issue in an exploration-happy game?) and frankly, that's how most campaigns work anyway, especially in GURPS (which tends to rely on players leveraging their talents rather than passively waiting for the GM to call for them). But I prefer something tighter rather than a sprawling mess of "Sure, you can do that too." It works, but it's not for me. I want Action.
So what makes GURPS Action work? Despite the fact that GURPS Action 1: Heroes came out before GURPS Action 2: Exploits, I think the second is what defines the first. Sean Punch carefully skimmed over all the rules, skills and advantages, and pondered what sort of game he wanted to create, and then based on that game and the rules he devised for it, he created a list of appropriate skills, advantages and disadvantages, and from those, he derived his templates. This means that every last character only has skills and traits directly useful to gameplay in a way that Sean Punch (and anyone who reads his books) understands.
I'm going to do the same for Cabal (just as I did it for G-verse and for Cherry Blossom Rain). Is it overkill? Perhaps. I know plenty of people who run games the Hite way, and given my enormous respect for Hite, you'll never hear me criticizing that approach. But my approach not only works well for me, but it generates material that lets it work well for others too. My take on GURPS Cabal will let people hit the ground running.
Let me take you aside and talk about how GURPS really works, for most people, and how Cabal was clearly designed, before I get to how I'm doing it and why. Most people approach GURPS as a vast whole. They grab the book, say "Like, make a character or something. Oooh, here's a few ideas!" And off you go. For example, GURPS Cabal lists the Scion template thus:
Scion
Within the Cabal, old blood will tell; families steeped inoccult knowledge and raised to fight the secret wars have
guided the Cabal for centuries. The scion of such a family
may be an eager blueblood or a once-carefree student who got
a big surprise on his 21st birthday. Either way, you can’t
resign from your family.
Advantages: Heir, Secret True Name, Status, Wealth;
your family may have (or be) a Patron or Ally Group; if your
childhood was really strange, you may be Unfazeable or possess
Racial Memory (at the 15-point level).
Disadvantages: Almost anything, from Laziness (“The
Black School has to take me, I’m a legacy.”) to a grim Sense
of Duty.
Skills: Leadership, Savoir-Faire; depending on the family
tradition, History, Occultism, or even Politics.
That's not a template, that's a suggestion. Kenneth Hite clearly just thought you'd build "I dunno, something kinda magey." And then gave some additional suggestions: Build your mage with things like Heir, Secret True Name, Wealth, some Laziness, Savoir-Faire, and conjure up a back story of hoary, creepy old bloodline that has worked for the cabal for ages, like the Malfoys from Harry Potter or the Dresdens from the Dresden Files.
And that's fine, but it's not what I want. The above creates situations where people might end up with skills and advantages that never get called upon (like what if Politics is never an issue in an exploration-happy game?) and frankly, that's how most campaigns work anyway, especially in GURPS (which tends to rely on players leveraging their talents rather than passively waiting for the GM to call for them). But I prefer something tighter rather than a sprawling mess of "Sure, you can do that too." It works, but it's not for me. I want Action.
So what makes GURPS Action work? Despite the fact that GURPS Action 1: Heroes came out before GURPS Action 2: Exploits, I think the second is what defines the first. Sean Punch carefully skimmed over all the rules, skills and advantages, and pondered what sort of game he wanted to create, and then based on that game and the rules he devised for it, he created a list of appropriate skills, advantages and disadvantages, and from those, he derived his templates. This means that every last character only has skills and traits directly useful to gameplay in a way that Sean Punch (and anyone who reads his books) understands.
I'm going to do the same for Cabal (just as I did it for G-verse and for Cherry Blossom Rain). Is it overkill? Perhaps. I know plenty of people who run games the Hite way, and given my enormous respect for Hite, you'll never hear me criticizing that approach. But my approach not only works well for me, but it generates material that lets it work well for others too. My take on GURPS Cabal will let people hit the ground running.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
GURPS Cabal: How Mailanka Designs a Campaign Part I: Inspiration
As inevitably happens with me, as school wound down and work eased up, all my suppressed creative energy comes bounding forth, and I suddenly had to run GURPS Cabal.
For those of you unfamiliar with GURPS Cabal, it is Kenneth Hite's masterpiece of hermetic magic, secret history, conspiracy and weirdness. Imagine Mage: the Awakening, only rife with rich details to its magic, and the actual oddities history would likely throw up at you, plus a very dark edge: You are not heroes fighting in the shadows to protect mankind, you are the puppet masters pulling on the strings of mankind while you delve into dark lore to expand your power.
So I know what I want to run, more or less. As usual, I have visions in my head about interesting characters: a bratty young witch with a cruel twist to her smile; a gentleman in a brown suit, cigar in hand, as he leans back in an overstuffed chair behind which rises shelves full of arcane tomes; an angel hidden inside the body of a man walking down a busy city street, the glass reflecting his hidden glory and expansive wings as he carries apocalypse behind him; forbidding, Sumerian runes full of the letters of their dead language and hints of a darker, cthonic reality lurking beneath the edge of the world; maggot-fleshed Molobrians, with their needle-mouthed squeals echoing off of the insides of a sewer.
But images alone won't get my game up and running. That'll take time and work and thought. Time and work require attention span, and attention span, especially with my ADHD, requires a way to deal with my constant distractions, and the best method I've found is to surround myself with things that constantly remind me of my task, and inspire me to do it. Thus, wherever I turn, I am distracted by things that bring me back to my course, and focus my attention, laser-like, on the campaign I want to build.
A soundtrack helps. I was initially inspired by Florence + the Machine's No Light, No Light
I've added more to my personal playlist, but whenever I need to think about my game, I just turn on my playlist and already I can feel myself flowing in the right direction.
Art helps a great deal too. When I have nothing better to do, I'll start hunting for artwork. Some pieces are pure inspiration, and some pieces are characters that I might use in the game.
Then, of course, books. Lots and lots of book. GURPS Cabal is, naturally, my bible, but no matter how deeply you dig into a book, it's never enough. It gives me a single template on demons, but mentions that there are dozens and dozens. It talks about lost magic and ancient eras, but it doesn't really give them more than a paragraph. It discusses the importance of Cairo and London, but there's no discussion of what interesting places or who you might find there. You can suck the marrow dry from a book, and still be hungry. So I must look elsewhere. GURPS Horror will give me more than enough help for fleshing out my monsters. GURPS Thaumatology will help me give my magic even more detail and depth. GURPS Magic will help me with Alchemy and Enchantment, and I'll use it to flesh out the magic a little more. Suppressed Transmission (and the second one, and the many pyramid articles I have) will help me ramp up the weirdness, occultism and historical depth.
Oh but we're just getting started. GURPS Illuminati and GURPS Social Engineering will both help me work out the conspiratorial angles to the game. GURPS Action and GURPS Monster Hunters will help me work out some of the rules, so we'll set them aside for now. And we'll dig out some fiction to read through, like the House on the Borderland, or the Dresden Files.
When I grow tired of reading and want a break, there's always the TV: the Dresden Files miniseries, the Craft, Nightwatch, Constantine, and whatever else I can find.
The idea, right now, is just to sink deep into inspiration, to soak it all in, and turn it into an obsession, because I'll need that energy for what comes next.
For those of you unfamiliar with GURPS Cabal, it is Kenneth Hite's masterpiece of hermetic magic, secret history, conspiracy and weirdness. Imagine Mage: the Awakening, only rife with rich details to its magic, and the actual oddities history would likely throw up at you, plus a very dark edge: You are not heroes fighting in the shadows to protect mankind, you are the puppet masters pulling on the strings of mankind while you delve into dark lore to expand your power.
So I know what I want to run, more or less. As usual, I have visions in my head about interesting characters: a bratty young witch with a cruel twist to her smile; a gentleman in a brown suit, cigar in hand, as he leans back in an overstuffed chair behind which rises shelves full of arcane tomes; an angel hidden inside the body of a man walking down a busy city street, the glass reflecting his hidden glory and expansive wings as he carries apocalypse behind him; forbidding, Sumerian runes full of the letters of their dead language and hints of a darker, cthonic reality lurking beneath the edge of the world; maggot-fleshed Molobrians, with their needle-mouthed squeals echoing off of the insides of a sewer.
But images alone won't get my game up and running. That'll take time and work and thought. Time and work require attention span, and attention span, especially with my ADHD, requires a way to deal with my constant distractions, and the best method I've found is to surround myself with things that constantly remind me of my task, and inspire me to do it. Thus, wherever I turn, I am distracted by things that bring me back to my course, and focus my attention, laser-like, on the campaign I want to build.
A soundtrack helps. I was initially inspired by Florence + the Machine's No Light, No Light
Art helps a great deal too. When I have nothing better to do, I'll start hunting for artwork. Some pieces are pure inspiration, and some pieces are characters that I might use in the game.
Then, of course, books. Lots and lots of book. GURPS Cabal is, naturally, my bible, but no matter how deeply you dig into a book, it's never enough. It gives me a single template on demons, but mentions that there are dozens and dozens. It talks about lost magic and ancient eras, but it doesn't really give them more than a paragraph. It discusses the importance of Cairo and London, but there's no discussion of what interesting places or who you might find there. You can suck the marrow dry from a book, and still be hungry. So I must look elsewhere. GURPS Horror will give me more than enough help for fleshing out my monsters. GURPS Thaumatology will help me give my magic even more detail and depth. GURPS Magic will help me with Alchemy and Enchantment, and I'll use it to flesh out the magic a little more. Suppressed Transmission (and the second one, and the many pyramid articles I have) will help me ramp up the weirdness, occultism and historical depth.
Oh but we're just getting started. GURPS Illuminati and GURPS Social Engineering will both help me work out the conspiratorial angles to the game. GURPS Action and GURPS Monster Hunters will help me work out some of the rules, so we'll set them aside for now. And we'll dig out some fiction to read through, like the House on the Borderland, or the Dresden Files.
When I grow tired of reading and want a break, there's always the TV: the Dresden Files miniseries, the Craft, Nightwatch, Constantine, and whatever else I can find.
The idea, right now, is just to sink deep into inspiration, to soak it all in, and turn it into an obsession, because I'll need that energy for what comes next.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The Art of Storytelling Part 2: Rhetorical Techniques
We've already talked about what to say in our previous Art of Storytelling, but how you say it is as important as what you say. The Art of Storytelling is essentially the same as other forms of public speaking, other forms of rhetoric. An effective politician's speech uses the same techniques you should to capture your audience's attention, to hold their fascination, to carry them along with your words and bring them to a new world of your devising. Proper storytelling is a form of physical performance. Your players listen to you, like an audience listens to a musician, but they also watch you, the way an audience watches an actor. Done properly, storytelling becomes a multimedia presentation that engages several of your audience's senses at once.
Allow me to illustrate. At a recent Tea@Knight, we had a discussion of mysteries. The presenter sat in a far corner of the room, his shoulders hunched, his head low, and his tone rushed and mumbled. The listeners in the room sat awkwardly, looking at one another, unengaged and even whispering among themselves about other topics. When the presenter ran out of material, he essentially called out for help and I took over. I already sat in the center of the room, and it didn't take much for my low, loud voice to capture the attention of the players. Most people I know I have a lot of "presence" and "charisma," and those quickly turned the night into a productive one. But "presence" and "charisma" are meaningless words that refer to a skill at speech and rhetoric, an understanding of how to capture an audience's attention. I have no innate characteristics that help me in this regard (other than my height and the physical strength of my voice), just skill and understanding. The fumbling presenter in question could perform just as well as I did, with practice.
Rule 1: Command Attention
You can't tell a story if nobody is listening to you, period. Gamers are an unruly bunch at the best of times, quoting geeky films, chatting with one another, interrupting the game with jokes and so on. Allowed to run its course, most of these well-intentioned interruptions will ruin the game, eventually. However, if you learn to command attention properly, the distractions will fade away until you have a table of players who fixate their attention almost exclusively on you, and they'll become lost in your imaginary world space, which is exactly what you want.
Occupy the physical center of attention. If you sit on the edge of the room, out of eyeshot, then people won't know to look at you. They'll naturally look elsewhere. We've already talked about how powerful a human's sense of sight is. As they say, out of mind. Your players will find their train of thought wandering if you don't anchor it. I personally prefer to either sit in a unique chair (if everyone else is on the couch, I sit on the recliner), or at the head of the table, and I as well as several other GMs I know, prefer to stand when we really want to occupy the players' attention. Looking up at the one guy standing in the center of their field of view really holds their attention fast. Some other GMs use alternate tricks, like flashy GM screens, artwork, or video, and these work too, but be careful that they don't distract from you or the story you're trying to tell.
Your posture matters. Hunched shoulders, a stiff body and lowered head suggests that you don't want people looking at you, so they won't. Sit upright or stand tall. Lift your head and your chin slightly. Tighten your belly and straighten your spine as though balancing a book on the top of your head. In addition to improving your height, a tight belly and straight posture improves your breathing and the power of your voice. Also, such a stance suggests confidence, and a good GM must project a sense of leadership and confidence, because the players don't know what's going on and expect you to, and also because pretending to be elves in a forest is a little silly, but if the guy leading such a game doesn't blink once at the silliness, the other players will set aside their embarrassment and play more forthrightly.
Nothing grabs someone attention like eye-contact. Someone looking into the eyes of someone else is intense, but even looking at someone grabs their attention. Hiding behind your GM screen, reading off a description is basically the worst thing you can do because you're not looking at the players. Lift your eyes, look directly at the player to whom the description is most pertinent, and you'll find his eyes fixate on you in return. But don't let a few players dominate your attention (the danger of a pretty girl and a weakness of mine, I must admit). Spread that attention around. Every time a player realizes you're looking at him, he'll look back at you, and you'll recapture his attention.
So, you're standing tall, looking at your players, occupying their attention. Well done! But remember that running a game is a touch different than simply telling a story or giving a speech. Here, your audience participates with you, so you must learn to pass that attention from yourself to other players. Your actions bring the players into the game, setting the scene, and gathering all of their attention into a single place. Ideally, every player should invest their attention in you. Then, when it's someone else's turn, you have only to gesture to them, passing the baton, and all the players, as one, will turn to this other player. Your ability to gather attention becomes your ability to gather attention for someone else. Eye contact is important here too, not just to gain the attention of another player, but to see who is bored, or (more importantly) who is particularly engaged and wants to say something. If you're in the midst of a description when suddenly you notice one of the players squirming in your seat, you can stop and point to them and say "What do you want to do?"
Rule 2: Pace your speech appropriately
Once you have your player's attention, you can tell the story you want, but how you tell it shapes their perception of it. A mumbling monotone loses your players not just because they cannot hear you properly, but because a monotone fails to engage them. We must speak with vigor and emotion, and we must vary our tone. Doing so will not only engage our players better, but the pace and style of our speech can give the players additional information and manipulate their mood to better suit the tone of the scene. Music does something similar, and we'll use music as a metaphor for how one can tone and pace ones voice for best effect.
A normal pace, the one you'd use in everyday conversation, is generally informative and neutral in tone. Such a conversational tone tells your players that the information you give them is casual and not particularly important, such as discussing the weather or what one ate yesterday. This doesn't mean that it's a poor choice or that it shouldn't be used. It serves as the baseline for your story and represents common situations. A description of a homey tavern or an unimportant character (or just about anything that isn't urgent or emotionally charged) might be done in a conversational tone.
Music often uses a slow, legato (a musical term meaning flowing and without breaks, like the sort of sound one might associate with a violin) pace to emphasize tragedy or sadness. Very emotionally charged and depressing scenes should match that pacing. Sit back, take on a serious expression and then slowly, flowing describe the terrible, tragic events. The time you take to explain each painful detail resembles the slow, panning shots of a camera, lingering on each element. This pace also works very well for romantic scenes, and you'll notice many love songs have a similar pacing and tone.
Music often uses a fast, staccato (a musical term meaning sharp and short, like the snap of a drum) pace to emphasize happiness and excitement. The rapid patter suggests a bounciness. It's fun, it's quick, la la la WHEE! This pacing is ideal for comedy, and you'll notice many comedians have a rapid patter punctuated with awkward pauses. It's also good for parties, flirtation, or anything that is enjoyably exciting without relaxing the players (as a normal, conversational tone would do).
A fast, legato pace is the bread and butter of rock-and-roll, with wailing guitars, howling singers and a very quick pace. This is the tone of dramatic excitement, danger, epic drama. You describe war and duels quickly and breathlessly, with few pauses and little time for the players to stop and think. Every moment flows into the next. This is a powerful rhetorical style, especially for role-playing games as combat tends to dominate RPGs, and the worst thing most novice GMs do for battle, in my opinion, is sitting back and letting players think. Keeping up a rapid, fluid patter will enhance the sense of excitement, reminding the players that they battle for their lives.
Allow me to illustrate. At a recent Tea@Knight, we had a discussion of mysteries. The presenter sat in a far corner of the room, his shoulders hunched, his head low, and his tone rushed and mumbled. The listeners in the room sat awkwardly, looking at one another, unengaged and even whispering among themselves about other topics. When the presenter ran out of material, he essentially called out for help and I took over. I already sat in the center of the room, and it didn't take much for my low, loud voice to capture the attention of the players. Most people I know I have a lot of "presence" and "charisma," and those quickly turned the night into a productive one. But "presence" and "charisma" are meaningless words that refer to a skill at speech and rhetoric, an understanding of how to capture an audience's attention. I have no innate characteristics that help me in this regard (other than my height and the physical strength of my voice), just skill and understanding. The fumbling presenter in question could perform just as well as I did, with practice.
Rule 1: Command Attention
You can't tell a story if nobody is listening to you, period. Gamers are an unruly bunch at the best of times, quoting geeky films, chatting with one another, interrupting the game with jokes and so on. Allowed to run its course, most of these well-intentioned interruptions will ruin the game, eventually. However, if you learn to command attention properly, the distractions will fade away until you have a table of players who fixate their attention almost exclusively on you, and they'll become lost in your imaginary world space, which is exactly what you want.
Occupy the physical center of attention. If you sit on the edge of the room, out of eyeshot, then people won't know to look at you. They'll naturally look elsewhere. We've already talked about how powerful a human's sense of sight is. As they say, out of mind. Your players will find their train of thought wandering if you don't anchor it. I personally prefer to either sit in a unique chair (if everyone else is on the couch, I sit on the recliner), or at the head of the table, and I as well as several other GMs I know, prefer to stand when we really want to occupy the players' attention. Looking up at the one guy standing in the center of their field of view really holds their attention fast. Some other GMs use alternate tricks, like flashy GM screens, artwork, or video, and these work too, but be careful that they don't distract from you or the story you're trying to tell.
Your posture matters. Hunched shoulders, a stiff body and lowered head suggests that you don't want people looking at you, so they won't. Sit upright or stand tall. Lift your head and your chin slightly. Tighten your belly and straighten your spine as though balancing a book on the top of your head. In addition to improving your height, a tight belly and straight posture improves your breathing and the power of your voice. Also, such a stance suggests confidence, and a good GM must project a sense of leadership and confidence, because the players don't know what's going on and expect you to, and also because pretending to be elves in a forest is a little silly, but if the guy leading such a game doesn't blink once at the silliness, the other players will set aside their embarrassment and play more forthrightly.
Nothing grabs someone attention like eye-contact. Someone looking into the eyes of someone else is intense, but even looking at someone grabs their attention. Hiding behind your GM screen, reading off a description is basically the worst thing you can do because you're not looking at the players. Lift your eyes, look directly at the player to whom the description is most pertinent, and you'll find his eyes fixate on you in return. But don't let a few players dominate your attention (the danger of a pretty girl and a weakness of mine, I must admit). Spread that attention around. Every time a player realizes you're looking at him, he'll look back at you, and you'll recapture his attention.
So, you're standing tall, looking at your players, occupying their attention. Well done! But remember that running a game is a touch different than simply telling a story or giving a speech. Here, your audience participates with you, so you must learn to pass that attention from yourself to other players. Your actions bring the players into the game, setting the scene, and gathering all of their attention into a single place. Ideally, every player should invest their attention in you. Then, when it's someone else's turn, you have only to gesture to them, passing the baton, and all the players, as one, will turn to this other player. Your ability to gather attention becomes your ability to gather attention for someone else. Eye contact is important here too, not just to gain the attention of another player, but to see who is bored, or (more importantly) who is particularly engaged and wants to say something. If you're in the midst of a description when suddenly you notice one of the players squirming in your seat, you can stop and point to them and say "What do you want to do?"
Rule 2: Pace your speech appropriately
Once you have your player's attention, you can tell the story you want, but how you tell it shapes their perception of it. A mumbling monotone loses your players not just because they cannot hear you properly, but because a monotone fails to engage them. We must speak with vigor and emotion, and we must vary our tone. Doing so will not only engage our players better, but the pace and style of our speech can give the players additional information and manipulate their mood to better suit the tone of the scene. Music does something similar, and we'll use music as a metaphor for how one can tone and pace ones voice for best effect.
A normal pace, the one you'd use in everyday conversation, is generally informative and neutral in tone. Such a conversational tone tells your players that the information you give them is casual and not particularly important, such as discussing the weather or what one ate yesterday. This doesn't mean that it's a poor choice or that it shouldn't be used. It serves as the baseline for your story and represents common situations. A description of a homey tavern or an unimportant character (or just about anything that isn't urgent or emotionally charged) might be done in a conversational tone.
Music often uses a slow, legato (a musical term meaning flowing and without breaks, like the sort of sound one might associate with a violin) pace to emphasize tragedy or sadness. Very emotionally charged and depressing scenes should match that pacing. Sit back, take on a serious expression and then slowly, flowing describe the terrible, tragic events. The time you take to explain each painful detail resembles the slow, panning shots of a camera, lingering on each element. This pace also works very well for romantic scenes, and you'll notice many love songs have a similar pacing and tone.
Music often uses a fast, staccato (a musical term meaning sharp and short, like the snap of a drum) pace to emphasize happiness and excitement. The rapid patter suggests a bounciness. It's fun, it's quick, la la la WHEE! This pacing is ideal for comedy, and you'll notice many comedians have a rapid patter punctuated with awkward pauses. It's also good for parties, flirtation, or anything that is enjoyably exciting without relaxing the players (as a normal, conversational tone would do).
A fast, legato pace is the bread and butter of rock-and-roll, with wailing guitars, howling singers and a very quick pace. This is the tone of dramatic excitement, danger, epic drama. You describe war and duels quickly and breathlessly, with few pauses and little time for the players to stop and think. Every moment flows into the next. This is a powerful rhetorical style, especially for role-playing games as combat tends to dominate RPGs, and the worst thing most novice GMs do for battle, in my opinion, is sitting back and letting players think. Keeping up a rapid, fluid patter will enhance the sense of excitement, reminding the players that they battle for their lives.
A slow, staccato pace is very powerful, pronounced and majestic. You often hear it in national anthems or other regal songs or, in a minor key, in horror movie soundtracks. Rhetorically, slow, pronounced words punctuated with pauses emphasize every word, like the Simpson's Comic Book Guy ("Best. Example. Ever."). You can use it to simply emphasize what you're saying, to suddenly grab the player's attention, to show them something in startling clarity, but it also builds tension. Use it when you want something to be stately or horrifying.
Real mastery comes not just from understanding these five paces, but using them in conjunction with one another to create a narrative not just with words, but with the pace of your voice. A scene begins in a conversational tone as you describe the circumstances, casually and at a normal pace, when suddenly! Enemies attack, a battle described in a a faster, legato manner that keeps the players on their tone, words flowing together as you rapidly string them together. But the players are winning! You describe their victory in short bursts! They're happy! They're going to survive! Then... horror... of... horrors! A valued NPC... struck down... and your words slow, punctuate each moment, in a staccato manner, as though the battle itself slows... as though the players... gain clarity. And then... you slowly blend your words together as the players bow their head to respectfully send their ally off to the great beyond, a terrible loss for everyone involved.
Likewise, using the wrong pacing for the scene can be interesting too. An NPC who uses a clinical, conversational tone to describe a murder instantly implies to the players that he's crazy and that he doesn't see murder the same way he does. Describing something utterly mudane (like button collecting) in a slow and stately manner to exaggerate its importance can suggest that someone takes something a little too seriously, and so on.
Rule 3: Gesture for emphasis
People don't sit around, arms at their side, face rigidly forward telling their story. Even if you do all of the above, unless you move, unless you prove to your players that you're alive, your story will come across as stiff and unreal, just like you do. People like motion. We're conditioned to react to it. It attracts our attention. Moreover, people naturally move when they speak. They nod, they smile, they wave their hands around. You need to do the same.
Gestures, by and large, break down into two broad categories. First, you have the descriptive gesture. A descriptive gesture shows the audience what you mean. When a guy crudely describes a shapely woman, his hands outline her figure, for example, or when someone is describing a friend's tendency to drink too much, he might mime a drinking motion with his hand. Of the two forms of gestures, this is the most important for role-playing. You need to show your players how things look, or where they lie in respect to their characters by pointing our outlining. You can also show characters how the NPCs react by imitating their expressions and actions. A shy girl would huddle up and bring her hands to her face, so you can do the same. A big, dumb barbarian would sprawl out with a big sloppy grin on his face, so you can do the same. Show the players your world through your hands.
The second kind of gestures emphasizes what you say. These are abstract gestures not meant to show the players something, but to attract their attention and add a little something to what you're saying. When you're using a legato pace, keep your hands low and roll them, like you're unspooling your speech. When you're using a staccato pace, point and jab to emphasize your points and drive them home. You don't need to constantly do this, only at the moments that matter the most, since the motion attracts your audiences attention.
Be careful that you don't distract from what you're saying. If you point in a direction, players will tend to look in that direction... which might mean they're not looking at you anymore. You might want that if you want to emphasize the beauty of a grand scene, or if you want to draw the player's attention away from you and towards another player. Likewise, being excessively animated might make players wonder if you're nervous, and they'll begin to notice the gestures rather than focus on the words they're meant to emphasize. Use gestures when you need them. Don't be afraid to neglect them during scenes or moments that demand emphasis.
Gestures should come naturally. People use gestures when speaking with their friends. People tend to lose them when giving speeches because they are nervous. Stagefright is a natural response to being put on the spot, which a GM is, but you have to set it aside. I often suggest that people plan extensively not because they need to plan, but because I know such planning tends to relieve nerves, and a relaxed GM is one that uses gestures effectively. More than anything, focus on relaxing and growing comfortable at the front of the table, so your gestures come naturally.
If you watch me when I run a game or when I give a talk, you'll note I use these three rules, often without noticing it. Most skilled GMs do. Practice them, and you'll have the same "charisma" or "presence" that I do: the ability to keep your players' attention and draw them into a world, not just with what you're saying, but how you're saying it.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The Art of Storytelling Part 1: Dynamic Description and Active Voice
Some of my fans (I have fans!) have prodded me because, after my initial burst of posting, I haven't said anything, so perhaps its time to take some of the thoughts floating around in my head and put them to paper. So to speak.
Different people run games differently, and I won't complain about that fact. Role-playing is a craft, not a science, and so multiple approaches can certainly lead to success. However, I do think role-playing does contain within it certain, immutable gospels, certain approaches that are inherently superior to others, and proper storytelling is one of them. When I use the term "storytelling," I'm not using it in some pretentious manner that suggests such noxious memes as "role-play, not roll-play." Nor am I discussing the art of storycraft, though the art of putting together a proper plot is certainly a worthy topic. No, I mean the actual art of exposition, the art of telling the tale, communicating the scene and the world to your players. Role-playing games lie at the nexus of social activity, wargame, and storytelling, and you need all three to succeed... but I want to note that while a good system can cover your weaknesses as a referee and wargamer, no system will cover a lack of skill in communication, in painting a picture. So, that's what I'd like to talk about today.
(I'm a Raven at the Knights of the Kitchen Table, one of the "mentor" gamemasters who guides other novice gamemasters and improves them. This blog post will likely turn into a future Tea@Knight topic, so don't be surprised if you these words later).
I know some people treat RPGs as an extension of a board-game. They focus exclusively on mechanics in the abstract, and they roleplay by outlining basic scenarios and then stating their response. I cannot countenance this approach. I can understand it as a way of understanding how the mechanics work or when playtesting, but for actually playing a game, I believe a certain level of immersion is necessary. As proof, I point to the enormous success of multi-media games over their text-based counterparts, or the success of movies and comic books over literature (and the success of vividly written literature over beige prose). People are sensual creatures, and we can only enjoy abstract discussions so deeply before they lose their power to compel our hearts and minds. If you disagree, then the rest of his post will do nothing for you.
I find that, in fact, most people agree with me. When a GM lacks vivid description, it is typically not a question of philosophy, but a question of skill. How does one go about describing things? How does one translate the visions in one's head into poetic words at the tabletop?
First, one must have a vision to translate. Your output can only be as good as your input. You must feed your creativity. Step outside of your role-playing books for a moment and feast on the world around you. Have you ever walked in a forest, felt the mossy texture of the ground beneath you or spelled that earthy scent, or scene the way the shadows of the canopy shifts on the forest floor? Do you know that smell that comes in autumn, that chilly, sharp scent of coming snow? Have you ever listened to the click of a woman's heels, or the murmur of conversation in a bar? Many authors spend time just sitting in public places, scribbling notes on the people they see in passing, on the sights and smells around them. I personally recommend watching movies, anime, TV shows, and hunting for art on the internet. I include pictures in my NPC gallery precisely to inspire people with different looks than they might normally consider. By absorbing all this detail, all this sensual beauty, when it comes time to conjure a scene, your well-fed imagination will be up to the task. And you'll need to repeat this again and again. Most writers say that if you want to write, you must read a great deal. I say that the same applies, in principle, to GMs.
So, you have an image in your mind. You can see the character or the scene that you want to describe, but how do you translate that into something you can explain to the players in a way that will fascinate them, bring them on board with your inner fantasy world? Let's break a scene down, a serving girl at a tavern (a common sight in most fantasy games).
The strongest human sense is sight. We think in color and images, and even when we tell others to imagine a scene, we say things like "Can you picture it?" So, what sights do we see? What colors might a tavern girl have? Perhaps a spray of red hair, or her soft green dress, or her equally green eyes, the tan of her skin with a hint of freckles, the blush of her cheeks and the cherry-red of her lips. What about shapes? Perhaps she is tall, rounded in the right places, with her long skirt obscuring the outline of her legs, but her corset bring her rounded cleavage into view, and her hair curls and bounces. What about light and shadow? Perhaps her eyes sparkle, her lips gleam, and the perspiration on her brow glistens. Does she cast a shadow over the players, or does her skin glow? Remember, by the way, that light comes from someplace. Perhaps her eyes glint in the light of the fireplaces. Perhaps her eyes reflect the candlelight of the room.
So we have sight, but humans have four other senses, often neglected by novice game masters. What about sound? What does her voice sound like? Perhaps she laughs like the tinkling of bells. Maybe her skirt swishes around her long legs and a small set of bells jangle around her bare feet as they whisper across the sawdust floor. What about touch? Touch is a highly erotic sense, so most people neglect it out of fear of sounding a little dirty, but texture and temperature matter and can be dealt with delicately. Perhaps her dress is coarse but her skin soft. Perhaps she is warm when she brushes past a player. Finally, we have smell and taste, which I bundle together for simplicity. Everyone forgets these, but they matter a great deal, for smell strongly affects our sense of memory. If you can remind someone of a scent, you bring them there more strongly than any other sense. Thus, how might she smell? Perhaps she has the scent of clean, feminine sweat from a hard-days work, with a hint of the kitchen's scents clinging to her clothes, and her hair smells of soap and flowers.
Finally, importantly, we must remember that this girl is alive. She moves, she interacts with people, and we must present the illusion of her existence convincingly. Perhaps she wrinkles her nose as she laughs, or steps lightly and delicately as she flits across the floor, carrying a too-wide tray of drinks and dodging the grasp of lonely, drunk men. We already know her skirts swish and that her hair bounces, but what expression might she have, or how might she cock her hips as she stands there, waiting for your order?
Once we have those details, it's not enough to simply stitch them together into a paragraph. You'd get something like this:
Different people run games differently, and I won't complain about that fact. Role-playing is a craft, not a science, and so multiple approaches can certainly lead to success. However, I do think role-playing does contain within it certain, immutable gospels, certain approaches that are inherently superior to others, and proper storytelling is one of them. When I use the term "storytelling," I'm not using it in some pretentious manner that suggests such noxious memes as "role-play, not roll-play." Nor am I discussing the art of storycraft, though the art of putting together a proper plot is certainly a worthy topic. No, I mean the actual art of exposition, the art of telling the tale, communicating the scene and the world to your players. Role-playing games lie at the nexus of social activity, wargame, and storytelling, and you need all three to succeed... but I want to note that while a good system can cover your weaknesses as a referee and wargamer, no system will cover a lack of skill in communication, in painting a picture. So, that's what I'd like to talk about today.
(I'm a Raven at the Knights of the Kitchen Table, one of the "mentor" gamemasters who guides other novice gamemasters and improves them. This blog post will likely turn into a future Tea@Knight topic, so don't be surprised if you these words later).
I know some people treat RPGs as an extension of a board-game. They focus exclusively on mechanics in the abstract, and they roleplay by outlining basic scenarios and then stating their response. I cannot countenance this approach. I can understand it as a way of understanding how the mechanics work or when playtesting, but for actually playing a game, I believe a certain level of immersion is necessary. As proof, I point to the enormous success of multi-media games over their text-based counterparts, or the success of movies and comic books over literature (and the success of vividly written literature over beige prose). People are sensual creatures, and we can only enjoy abstract discussions so deeply before they lose their power to compel our hearts and minds. If you disagree, then the rest of his post will do nothing for you.
I find that, in fact, most people agree with me. When a GM lacks vivid description, it is typically not a question of philosophy, but a question of skill. How does one go about describing things? How does one translate the visions in one's head into poetic words at the tabletop?
First, one must have a vision to translate. Your output can only be as good as your input. You must feed your creativity. Step outside of your role-playing books for a moment and feast on the world around you. Have you ever walked in a forest, felt the mossy texture of the ground beneath you or spelled that earthy scent, or scene the way the shadows of the canopy shifts on the forest floor? Do you know that smell that comes in autumn, that chilly, sharp scent of coming snow? Have you ever listened to the click of a woman's heels, or the murmur of conversation in a bar? Many authors spend time just sitting in public places, scribbling notes on the people they see in passing, on the sights and smells around them. I personally recommend watching movies, anime, TV shows, and hunting for art on the internet. I include pictures in my NPC gallery precisely to inspire people with different looks than they might normally consider. By absorbing all this detail, all this sensual beauty, when it comes time to conjure a scene, your well-fed imagination will be up to the task. And you'll need to repeat this again and again. Most writers say that if you want to write, you must read a great deal. I say that the same applies, in principle, to GMs.
So, you have an image in your mind. You can see the character or the scene that you want to describe, but how do you translate that into something you can explain to the players in a way that will fascinate them, bring them on board with your inner fantasy world? Let's break a scene down, a serving girl at a tavern (a common sight in most fantasy games).
The strongest human sense is sight. We think in color and images, and even when we tell others to imagine a scene, we say things like "Can you picture it?" So, what sights do we see? What colors might a tavern girl have? Perhaps a spray of red hair, or her soft green dress, or her equally green eyes, the tan of her skin with a hint of freckles, the blush of her cheeks and the cherry-red of her lips. What about shapes? Perhaps she is tall, rounded in the right places, with her long skirt obscuring the outline of her legs, but her corset bring her rounded cleavage into view, and her hair curls and bounces. What about light and shadow? Perhaps her eyes sparkle, her lips gleam, and the perspiration on her brow glistens. Does she cast a shadow over the players, or does her skin glow? Remember, by the way, that light comes from someplace. Perhaps her eyes glint in the light of the fireplaces. Perhaps her eyes reflect the candlelight of the room.
So we have sight, but humans have four other senses, often neglected by novice game masters. What about sound? What does her voice sound like? Perhaps she laughs like the tinkling of bells. Maybe her skirt swishes around her long legs and a small set of bells jangle around her bare feet as they whisper across the sawdust floor. What about touch? Touch is a highly erotic sense, so most people neglect it out of fear of sounding a little dirty, but texture and temperature matter and can be dealt with delicately. Perhaps her dress is coarse but her skin soft. Perhaps she is warm when she brushes past a player. Finally, we have smell and taste, which I bundle together for simplicity. Everyone forgets these, but they matter a great deal, for smell strongly affects our sense of memory. If you can remind someone of a scent, you bring them there more strongly than any other sense. Thus, how might she smell? Perhaps she has the scent of clean, feminine sweat from a hard-days work, with a hint of the kitchen's scents clinging to her clothes, and her hair smells of soap and flowers.
Finally, importantly, we must remember that this girl is alive. She moves, she interacts with people, and we must present the illusion of her existence convincingly. Perhaps she wrinkles her nose as she laughs, or steps lightly and delicately as she flits across the floor, carrying a too-wide tray of drinks and dodging the grasp of lonely, drunk men. We already know her skirts swish and that her hair bounces, but what expression might she have, or how might she cock her hips as she stands there, waiting for your order?
Once we have those details, it's not enough to simply stitch them together into a paragraph. You'd get something like this:
There is a tavern wench. She has curly red hair, a green dress, green eyes, dusky skin,freckles, and she's barefoot. She has a corset that emphasizes her cleavage. Her skirts make this swishing sound when she walks, and there's this ringing sound from the bells on her ankle. She looks warm and soft, except for her clothes, which are coarse.She move delicately, and her hair bounces and she wrinkles she nose as she laughs, which sounds like the tinkling of bells. She's graceful, which you can see from
how she carries the tray of drinks and avoids the unwanted touch of the drunk men. She's come to your table and she's waiting for your order.
This works, and no doubt, you can picture her, but we've used what us Writer-types call passive voice. She HAS red hair. She HAS a corset, which EMPHASIZES her cleavage. Her skirts MAKE a sound. She LOOKS warm and soft. She IS graceful. While accurate, it sounds like a list, and doesn't engage us. This is because passive voice tells us what things ARE, not what they DO.
To grab your players, you must use active voice. You must replace those verbs above with verbs that do something, verbs that leap off the page, grab the reader and say "Look at what's going on." Remember how I said that we need to remember that the girl is alive, that she moves and lives and breathes? Active voice does that. It tells what she DOES, not what she IS. Her hair BOUNCES. Her skirts SWISH. Her nose WRINKLES. Her soft skin GLOWS in the firelight.
I understand: Most people don't think this way. Normal people do not speak this way. Nevertheless, this lesson is vital. Active voice separates the novice from the master. Mastery of active voice for a storyteller is akin to mastery of salt for a chef or timing for a musician: Under appreciated, but vital. Practice it. Write it. Speak it. Excise "is" from your vocabulary as much as you can. When you do, you get paragraphs like this:
The tavern wench sweeps into the room carrying a large tray of drinks. Her long, green skirts swish around her bare feet as she deftly dodges the unwatched touch of drunk men, all without spilling a drop of precious beer. Her bright green eyes sparkle in the firelight, and her curling red hair bounces around her dusky, freckled face. She pauses for a moment by your table, her warm hip accidentally brushing your shoulder, her rounded, soft cleavage rising and falling in the confines of her corset. With a flash of a smile, she stops and asks if anyone would like anything.
Can you see the difference? Do you see how the latter grips the reader far better than the former? Active voice: Live it.
But we're still not done. You'll notice I left out many of the details we came up with before (How many you include in a given description is up to you. I suggest you base it on how important the character is and the pacing of your story). I did this on purpose. You see, a role-playing game isn't like a book or a movie, where you simply present details to your audience. No, in a role-playing game, people respond to you, interact with you, and interact with the scene. They don't want to wait forever just to hear about this girl, however pretty she is, but more importantly, they need to be reminded constantly of who she is, what she looks like. Books, incidentally, do this all the time. Read any book and you'll note that you get an info dump the first time you meet a character, but that the author also dribbles details throughout the text, constantly reminding you about the color of a girl's hair, or the dark glower of a hero's eyes. We have to do that in an RPG as well, constantly reminding our players of the scene and the characters within it.
We must do this in a dynamic manner. I have seen too many GMs simply read off a paragraph of text. Perhaps you like my tavern wench and find yourself tempted to simply read off the paragraph above. Don't. While a skilled reader might still bring it to life, the paragraph above is static and won't address ongoing interaction with her. Nowhere does it mention that she wrinkles her nose when she laughs, or what that laugh sounds like, or how she smells. We might need to sprinkle these into our session, depending on what players do, or to remind them of the character.
Nowadays, I can simply hold these details in my head, but when I was younger, I wrote lists that included luscious adjectives and notes sorted by sense-type. Our tavern wench might look like this:
- Sights: Red, curly hair; Sparkling green eyes; Green dress; Rounded cleavage; Gleaming, cherry-red lips; Dusky, freckled skin; Glistening persiperation on her brow.
- Sounds: Bright, tinkling laughter (Wrinkled nose); The swish of her skirt; The jangle of the bells at her ankle; The whisper of her bare feet on the floor.
- Touch: Warm, soft skin; Coarse dress;
- Smells/Taste: Hair smells like flowers and soap; Clothes smell like the food in the kitchen; She smells clean and feminine;
When you have a detailed list like this (which might be too much for every NPC, of course, but is certainly worth your time for a setting, such as the bar itself: Remembers, places "live" too. Give them plenty of details), and we need to describe the character, we only need to glance at it to come up with some elements: Her nose wrinkles as she laughs -- bright, tinkling laughter -- at your suggestion, or Her sparkling green eyes widen as you draw her close, her clean, feminine scent wrapping around her, mixing with the flowery scent of the curling, red hair that brushes your shoulder as she shakes her head. At a moment's notice, we can draw up some vivid, descriptive one-liner at the drop of hat. This matters. We must create a living, constant world, with a continuous sense of sensory input, just like the real world has. A computer game doesn't show you a graphic of the enemy you fight once, and then turns the screen to vector depictions of spatial positioning. Now, it constantly feeds you sound and sights. You must do the same for your players.
I know this lesson is a great deal to take in. It may seem simple on the outset, but, believe me, it took me some years to master. Consider it a goal to achieve, an ideal to pursue, or a path to walk. Hopefully, at least, I've given you some food for thought. Try to make your session more vivid, try to make your world come alive. Just remember that you're playing with people, not telling a story AT them, and use your descriptions like spices: Enough to make things interesting, but not so much that you dominate the dish.
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