I’ve just started a group in my Lepskin campaign. I trust that they’ll be playing to have fun and to try to tell a good story while working to bring what is cool to them to the table. They trust that I am making adventures that have direction to them, but also that I’ll let them go and explore the sector I have made up a framework for. I’ve advertised that the players are able to make a sizeable contribution to this campaign setting and, at the moment, I’m trusted to follow through.
There is an unspoken contract between the players and I as a GM. The expectation is that I’m going to be fair, that I’m going to adjudicate rolls in a fun fashion (trying to live up to the example put forth by Skill Monkey), that I’m going to be keeping things on topic, and that I’ll keep play moving. I’m trusting that my new players are going give me a bit of slack about being perfectly within (Legends) ‘cannon’ while also trying to create a better story than the meager things I put in front of them.
Within an atmosphere of trust, a system such as the narrative Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG flourishes. The abstract intentions of the rules fail to work without the trust that everyone is willing to go down the same path for similar goals. The thought that the GM is going to use tricks to keep the party on a specific path as they set out creates an atmosphere that is counter to the spirit of these rule sets. This fear can only be overcome by talking with the GM to come to an understanding.
When you sit down at the table the players need to know what the expectations are and how the GM is likely to react. Communicating what your expectations are is the basis of establishing trust and needs to be clear at the beginning of the group. There are some GMs who are very upfront about being gruff or exacting and you know you’ll have a challenging time at their table. There are other GMs who are a bit of a light touch, giving just enough impetus to get the party moving and then seeing where the wild party goes.
Acting outside of the rules on paper, but in a fair fashion, the GM uses that trust while at the same time showing they are able to be trusted. Fair doesn’t mean constantly ruling in the players favor. It means when the ebb of the adventure goes against the players it is being administered in a way that isn’t deliberately malicious and, conversely, when the flow of the adventure goes for the players it isn’t handed to them on an embroidered satin pillow.
If an action is house ruled the treatment of these informal rules must remain consistent. A rule that you only vaguely remember but has suddenly come up can be adjudicated after taking a quick look at the book or, if time and action don’t permit, it can be ruled off the cuff for this session with the promise to clarify it later. You maintain trust by following through and addressing the ruling later if need be and adjusting the results if it is warranted.
I’ve been in a situation where the GM at the table ran encounters and NPCs tactics exactly as dictated by the adventure as published. Even when those tactics no longer make sense for the situation at hand. In spite of needing to adapt to the new situation, the GMs inability to adapt the encounter ruined what was otherwise a promising session, a session in which no one felt good about the eventual outcome. Part of the trust between player and GM involves the idea that, while the spirit of a given encounter will be maintained, the actual tactics employed will make sense for what is really happening at the table and be fun for everyone. As part of learning to communicate with each other, I followed up with the GM after the game session and we discussed what did and didn’t work. Had we not had the discussion, neither of us would have known what was needed to improve the game or what to do about it. The ability to communicate with each other is part of not only establishing trust, but rebuilding it afterwards if you need to.
One very handy thing I’ve found is talking with the players after the session, finding out what they liked and what didn’t work for them. Every time I have asked for feedback it has helped me in figuring out what worked for that group and what didn’t. Hearing how the players saw what was going on and how they reacted to it after sitting back and mulling it over has shown me a great deal of what approaches I’ve been successful with and how I can change them to better communicate how I present what is there.
Communicating from a player to a GM allows for both being human and messing up to build upon that foundation of trust and allow for growth. Every starting GM has rough edges, and it’s only through communicating about those rough edges that we allow for them to become smooth. If we don’t want to communicate with the people we play the game with and build our own stories that are engaging and fun while still maintaining rules consitency and adaptability, there are always video games.
I’m looking forward to my players finding the things I’m going to lay out for them. I have set the barest part of a skeleton for the players to begin with, but I know that their version of what is coming is potentially very different from mine. How do you go about setting the expectations for your game, and, how do you establish the trust between yourself and the rest of the players at the table?
