Rules Index | GM Screen

Tone and Maturity

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 10
Players come to games to feel larger than life, and each brings a character that has aspirations, desires, abilities, and unique ways of looking at the world. The Game Master’s job is to help guide the story and involve each character in a way that makes her actions feel meaningful. This means listening to the players while simultaneously keeping your own preferences in mind. No two gaming groups are the same, so groups that discuss their preferences for styles of play, tone, and group dynamics are more likely to enjoy long-running, trouble-free games.

Style of Play

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 10
Finding the right fit with a group depends on a shared preference of styles of play and the willingness to compromise. Does your group prefer to focus more on combat or roleplaying? The former style moves quickly through the story and centers primarily on fun tactical situations. If it’s the latter, games should highlight character development and storyline, and it wouldn’t be unusual to have an entire session pass without combat. Most groups fit somewhere in the wide middle of this spectrum, but knowing what your players enjoy most is crucial to keeping everyone entertained.

Tone and Setting

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 10
Once your players decide what style of game they’re looking for, it’s time to consider tone and setting. A group that’s more interested in lighthearted silliness will disappoint a Game Master wanting to run a creepy horror campaign. Setting and tone determine whether you’re running a complex, gritty political game in which the PCs unravel conspiracies or a high-magic and high-action fantasy epic involving bizarre monsters and divine mandates. Setting encompasses the central themes and tropes of your world, and tone is the feel, whether that’s gritty realism or fairy-tale derring-do. The desired magic level is also worth discussing early on, as some players like readily available magic, while others prefer it to be exclusive and rare, only finding a handful of magic items throughout their entire career. A short meeting before launching the campaign allows you to tailor the experience for your players, and most players appreciate the effort to satisfy everyone’s tastes.

Group Styles

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 10
In addition to focusing on the game-specific themes and styles, consider the group of players sitting around the table. Are they looking for a casual “beer and pretzels” game, or are they committed roleplayers looking for a deeply immersive campaign? Have you been playing with the same group for years? Is everyone at the table a complete stranger in a session you’re running at a convention or a game store? Each of these different group styles requires a different performance from the Game Master. Casual groups require less focus and can often be more forgiving of mistakes, glossing over problematic situations in favor of hanging out and enjoying a shared hobby. Committed roleplayers can demand significantly more focus and attention, as each player brings a complex and interesting character in need of development within the game. Some Game Masters find convention play or hobby store play difficult because they lack a point of reference for the newly formed group. In these cases, a bit of small talk before the game begins often offers cues as to players’ interests. Use time before play begins to ask a few focused questions about not only the players, but also their characters.

Retaining Interest

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 10
Listening to your players is important not only when looking to start a new campaign but also during the course of the story. From your seat at the game table, you can tell who’s engaged and who’s not. The goal should always be to figure out what’s going to grab the bored, distracted, or annoyed players and get them back in the game (without sacrificing the fun of the others, of course). If during the last game session a particular player seemed bored when it wasn’t her turn at combat, make a point to chat with her about the reasons why. Maybe she doesn’t feel like her character is performing well or getting enough of the spotlight outside of combat. It often only takes a slight tweak or a single encounter tailored to her skill set to make a disenfranchised player feel like a valuable part of the group.

Always be open to switching things up. Players inevitably throw wrenches into the Game Master’s plans, despite how obvious a lead seems or how convincing a hook sounds. Don’t be afraid to play off their creativity the same way they do with yours. If you have a plot the characters are trying to unravel, and the solutions they come up with make more sense than your prepared ones, try ignoring the original resolution from your notebook or a published adventure and turning the story in a new direction—the players never need know about the original version, and you can take full credit for their enjoyment. Similarly, if the players keep going off track and getting involved in events outside of your planned story, that might be a sign that your players are interested in a different sort of game than you originally crafted. And even if you have great empathy with your gaming group and give them everything they want, remember that tastes can change over time. Remember what your players enjoyed and try to perform in that way again, but realize your players likely have varied palates and can enjoy a wide range of game types.

Sensitive Topics

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 11
Mature themes like cannibalism, drug use, gory violence, profanity, prostitution, and various forms of sexuality sometimes come up in the game, and not every group deals with them in the same way. Knowing the group of people you’re playing with and accurately gauging their comfort zone is crucial to keeping a session enjoyable. If you anticipate anyone at your table being uncomfortable with certain mature themes, talk to your players beforehand. Determine their preferred treatment of the issues, and respect their preferences when deciding how heavily you want to play up those themes. If your group openly discusses sexuality, fondly recalls the gruesome scenes from a favorite horror film, or makes frequent off-color jokes, then it’s probably fine including those themes in your campaign (though not necessarily—the player with the filthiest mouth or biggest slasher-movie collection might still be sensitive to certain issues). Instead of deciding everything ahead of time, you can also seed given elements into your adventure bit by bit to determine players’ comfort level. For example, if you have a lecherous nonplayer character attempting to seduce a player character, drop a few hints, subtle at first, and see if the character takes the bait. Watching the player’s reaction indicates their comfort level with the topic and lets you know how close to the boundary you can play. And of course, there’s a difference between dropping hints and innuendos and graphically describing the dwarven lovers’ sweaty embrace. A little mature content goes a long way.

Because combat is a core element of the game, violence happens. But just as children’s TV shows can provide action without gore, so too is there a spectrum in roleplaying. Violence, or rather how graphically violence is portrayed, is one element in determining how appropriate movies and video games are for different ages and sensibilities, and a similar determination can be made for different styles of roleplaying. Depending on the context, you can describe the same combat with a simple “you hit him with your sword,” or create a more visceral description of the same action: “Your blade slashes across his stomach; his skin parts like thin lips and vomits his entrails onto the floor.”

Adult themes can be an excellent way to get the characters to react to a villain or event. A foul villain who uses men and women as sexual playthings before strangling them in the carnal act can produce fear, anger, and a thirst for vengeance in even the most peaceful of characters. The level of comfort regarding violence can also change depending on the victim. While it may be perfectly acceptable for some groups to murder a bugbear villain, murdering a child—even for the greater good— is probably pushing the boundaries too far. In fact, involving children, animals, or other innocents at all can be a dangerous game—you might think that a villain who abuses animals is the ultimate example of depravity (and hence a great antagonist), but your players might not be prepared to talk about such things, even in the context of fighting against them. It’s also important that, if you enjoy a game involving a lot of questionable morality and “lesser of two evils” plots, your party has similar inclinations. Allying with an obvious evil character in pursuit of mutual goals might feel like gritty realism to you, but others might see it as in poor taste, or completely against their characters’ alignments. If you design an encounter that strains your paladin’s commitment to his beliefs, make sure the player enjoys that sort of thing. In all situations, be mindful of the group’s sensitivity and design your games accordingly.

If you feel certain styles or topics might turn off your players but still want to include them, consider testing the waters with your group by running that style of game as a one-shot and not something destructive to your regular campaign. When playing with strangers, young people, or with other potentially sensitive players, or when playing in a public place, it’s best to keep any adult content out of your games. While society tolerates violence to some extent, other adult topics better suit more private, mature groups. Remember, some players might not want to see gritty real-world topics in their lighthearted weekly game. Above all, know your players— the better you know the preferences of the group you play with, the more enjoyable the game will be for everyone involved.