As I’ve been hashing out my notes over and over and working to polish the material to put together the alpha playtest draft, I’ve begun pondering the material for the Game Masters Handbook. I view the GM instruction as the foundation for good games using the systems, so I want to offer the best information that I can. This goes beyond the simple advice for making encounters interesting and the like. I want to provide a solid foundation for how the GM approaches play, how to string all the bits together into a coherent game.
The most essential loop in role playing is the basic interaction that governs play: the situation is laid out, decisions made as to what the PCs will do, and then the adjudication of that line of action. This loop then repeats endlessly to move play along.
Everything else in play then builds on that basic loop and puts it to use for specific endeavors. The classic dungeon exploration turn is but the basic loop expanded. The loop is considered to cover ten minutes’ time, to place it in the fiction. The situation gets described by the GM–where the PCs are, what they can see and such–then the players have to make choices about what to do. Move this way or that? Open this door? Flee from this monster? Parley with these goblins? The choice is made and the GM adjudicates the activity.
With that in mind, I think a foundational lesson for GMs is how to use the loops to structure play. I think of play as having the PCs always involved in a situation and the players always involved in a turn. With a firm grasp of how everything in play is a structured loop, then it becomes much less of a challenge to keep play moving. The GM notes what sort of turn the PCs are involved in (or will likely be involved in) and run the loops for that kind of turn.
It makes it easier to begin play, even–especially!–for new GMs. Take the typical pub start, for example. The PCs are all in a pub, having a pint, each present for personal reasons. Instead of wondering how to get the ball rolling, the GM considers this the first turn of the game and can use the loop to get things moving. The players aren’t going to have much to act on, at this point, so the GM knows that an interesting NPC will blow in through the door with Something Exciting to share, whether it be a raid happening on the edge of town or a vociferous call for parties interested in hiring on for a trip into the depths of the haunted forest.
There’s the situation. The players now get to decide what the PCs do, how they react. The GM can use a ten-minute turn for conversation with the NPC and adjudicate what the PCs want to do. Will they rush to help repel the raid? Will they simply step outside and watch the locals deal with it? Will they show interest in the expedition into the forest? Sort all that out and the campaign has begun.
Say that business with the NPC takes two turns. What then? Another turn or two with the PCs discussing possibilities and making general plans. The GM doesn’t even have to be involved with this beyond noting the time.
Next? Well, if the PCs have no activities planned until the next day, the GM notes that the PCs settle in for a night and the players have a watch to start the night (whether they actually have anybody stand watch). Nights spent in town may be largely quiet and devoid of play activity, so the GM then jumps to morning and drops the players into another turn to begin the day.
And so on.