How to GM better?

[Scowling Dragon]

Well a months long campaign over Star Wars Saga just ended. Im sad to say I think it ended poorly with allot of people mad at me. And I don't think its misplaced. But its something I gotta figure out in the generals of running the game:

Should I enable players when they do something, even if I think it should not work?

An example. Players managed to destroy a Droid sent to kill them. One of the players decided that he could send a signal through the droid back in the ship to tell the controllers that the target has been eliminated.

I would have thought that the time distance between the droids destruction (Thus the signal cutting out), and them turning it back on to send a different signal would be more suspicious then anything else.

But the player got very mad. And this got me thinking: The players didn't know all the details. The players didn't know the droid sent a signal continuously, and thus it might be suspicious. And so the player got mad with me because he "couldn't read my mind" as he said himself.

And even assuming I was right in this situation, how should I handle the situation in the future?

[nedz]

How did the player know his plan hadn't worked ?

There are different ways of handling this depending upon your play style — and that of the players. Groups rarely contains players all of the same play-style.

You sound quite simulationist, maybe he was expecting a more collaborative story telling style ?

It's hard to tell from one incident — and only one side of it too.

[ImNotTrevor]

It depends on how you deliver that information.

"I want to hack the droid and send back a signal saying the target is eliminated."

"Ok, but [character] knows that droids like this one are usually slaved to a larger droid control unit. Like an RC car. You can absolutely send the signal, but at best it would delay them finding you without halting their search. At worst, it doesn't fool them at all and just wastes valuable time. You can do it, but [character] would be well aware of the risk." That way you're doing two things:
1. You let them do it anyways. Point out possible consequences but ultimately let them do it.
2. It makes their character COMPETENT. The character knows a piece of information that the player may not be aware of, and that's ok. Sometimes characters know stuff the players wouldn't. In fact, that's often the case. (Do any of your players know how to fly a space ship? Ok then.)

In general, I follow the rules of:
1. If they are going to do something risky/stupid, let them know.
And
2. Let them do it anyways if they really want to.

Remember, a success at a stupid thing should be, fundamentally, a success. It should help them to some degree, but not as much as they are hoping for.

I would highly recommend picking up Apocalypse World and reading their "How to MC" section. It's great stuff for GMing any game, if you tweak the wording slightly in one or two places. (Such as swapping "barf forth apocalyptica" with "Send them to a galaxy far far away")

It has had a massive positive impact on my GMing, and I recommend it to others. It's the only system I've seen that actually attempts to teach the HOW of GMing. So I rather like it.

[thebluemusicbox]

As a rule of thumb, never say no. Especially to situations where there's a player-GM disconnect or where the character would have no way of knowing the outcome. If your player asks if he can reboot the droid to send a signal, let them. It doesn't have to turn out like they planned, but there's no reason to tell them it's a bad idea to try. I also find it helpful to pay attention to what other players say they think will happen and base what does off of that. It guarantees that it fits with what they believe possible and the person who suggested it gets to feel good about guessing what was going to happen.

[BRC]

In terms of enabling, I think it is the GMs duty to enable the players with information that the characters would know.

Which is to say, a player can make a mistake, but if the character would know that was a mistake, the player should as well.

I do not approve of GMs using any variation of "You didn't ask" to excuse not telling the players something that their character would know.

In your specific example, I would have prompted whoever was mucking around inside the drold for some sort of skill or knowledge check to recognize that there was a continuous signal being sent.
Generally speaking, players are okay with being screwed over, they just hate being powerless. Knowledge is Power. If they feel that you withheld information they should have had, they stop taking the loss in stride, and start blaming the GM, just as if you deprived them of all their equipment just before a crucial battle.


Regardless of your intent, players can end up thinking about things as "Rewards" and "Punishments", directed not at the character, but at the Player.

If a Player has their character take some great risk, fully aware of the risk, and it goes badly, the CHARACTER may be punished for that risk, but the PLAYER does not feel that they are punished. They went in knowing the odds, and the dice fell a certain way.

If, however, the player makes some decision that has consequences they had know way of knowing about, from their perspective it seems arbitrary, and they feel that the GM is punishing them.

From YOUR perspective, the droid was always sending a constant signal, and so the droid's controllers were aware the moment it went offline. From your perspective, this was perfectly logical. This is how you assumed droids of this sort worked.
Your player assumed that the droid was running autonomously, and would send a signal back when it completed its mission. From their perspective, there was no way to know that their plan was doomed, so their plans failure feels like you (The GM) are punishing them (The Player) for attempting a clever and creative solution to their current problem.

So yeah, my general rules for this sort of situation.

1) If The Plan would Fail automatically, either tell the players that, or give them some sort of way to learn that before they go ahead with it (a knowledge check, or something).
2) If the Plan WOULD NOT Fail automatically, make the players aware (at least to the degree that their characters are aware, erring on the side of too much information) what the risks involved are.
3) If the Plan would only fail due to some minor detail (Plan involves burning a building, that particular building is clearly not flammable), point that out, and prompt the players to amend the plan.
4) If the Characters do not have the information, then the Players should be made aware of the limitations on their character's knowledge (Unless overconfidence is a feature of the character).
5) Any decision of consequence should be an informed decision. Neither players nor characters should ever suffer due to a choice they were forced to make blindly.

[Scowling Dragon]

I think at least part of the dealio, is that it all happened in two sentences at the end of the session wrap up.

I think its those sorts of deals are when I rush it and cause the issues.

[AMFV]

I think at least part of the dealio, is that it all happened in two sentences at the end of the session wrap up.

I think its those sorts of deals are when I rush it and cause the issues.

I would avoid giving last minute rulings like that, especially if it's during the wrap-up. Basically the wrap up should be used to wrap up sessions. If you're introducing new stuff, you aren't wrapping up.

[goto124]

It also brings up another question: When should the player be 'punished' for not researching on the enemy?

In the GM's perspective, it's just running the world as it should be like, that the players rushing in to attack the enemy should come with appropriate consequences.

I suppose the best way would be to point out the possibility and advantages of researching the enemy, as well as how to go about the research?

[Quertus]

As has already been said, give the players reasonable+ ability to understand what is going on. Make their characters seem competent.

So, in this case, when the player declares their intent to send the signal, inform the player that the droid was sending a continuous signal... Or give them a skill check to realize this. Then, perhaps, they may ask for a skill check to have the droid send a signal that a) indicates that the targets are dead and b) explains why the signal was interrupted (damage to transmitter, inside a shielded area, etc). This could result in an opposed skill check against the operator/monitor, with some bonus or penalty... Which a skill check on the part of the character could tell them what their odds of success are.

If they fail to convince the BBE of the authenticity of the signal, however, I would not force the action to have some beneficial consequences. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, under me, it would be detrimental. For one, they lost time getting away to send the signal. Also, the BBE now knows that they are the type to fake signals - and has some idea how good they are at it. And, if I'm feeling particularly mean, the next assassin droid will come with a surprise - anything from a fake signal array, to a thermal detonator timed to go off in the middle of their next hacking attempt.

That having been said... If the droid was sending a continuous signal - a seemingly wise idea, the type I would use as a player or BBE - then this signal could be detected, or even hacked, by the players. While I would *not* give the players this idea, I would be prepared for what to do if they come up with it on their own. The only problem is if the players were already geared towards detecting the signal, and even had their gear active when/before the droid attacked. If they protest about the encounter on these grounds, you (as a group) may have to retcon a solution, like that this droid actually was autonomous, or its transmitter malfunctioned... Or even that the party should have been aware of, and gotten to ambush, the droid.

[Darth Ultron]

As a rule of thumb: Always Say No.

A game can quickly get crazy if the GM just lets players do anything.


Try to be as clear as possible when describing things. Slow down. Even take the extra minute to ask the players if they understand. You want to make sure the players are on exactly the same page that you are on. You really can't ''over describe'' something unless your going over like 5,000 words.

When describing things in the game world, be unbelievably over the top and obvious with things far past the point of any reason. Whatever you might think is reasonable, go like two steps beyond that.

Try to think ahead to the future and have the present reflect that. At least add ''random'' details that you can use later. Always add more, not less.

Try to get your players in the habit of asking questions. Far too many players just arrogantly assume they know everything for no reason. And they will arrogantly have a character take actions on what they think they know, or worse what they want the game reality to be like. So again, slow down. Get the players to ask at least a couple questions before they try and do anything.

Try to drag actions out. Avoid quick ones. Once again slow down. Try to make any complex action take at least a couple rolls: both action rolls and information rolls.

Make any ''important'' activity a challenge. Avoid one dice roll to alter time and space.

Always, always feel free to alter the game reality to what ever you want it to be.


So for the killer droid example:

1. Have the droid have a big antenna sticking out of it with a little red flashing light.
2. Have the droid constantly say things like ''status report: targets sighted'' and ''status report: targets engaged''.

See how both the above ones are insanely over the top of ''hey guys this droid is sending a live signal to someone''. Even my grandma, who dislikes Sci-Fi, would get the message that ''the robot is on the phone with someone''.

3. When the droid falls, it should of course say ''Mission failure! Transmission terminated!" right before it goes off line.

4. When the driod falls, add in lots of sparks and flames even a small explosion. If your thinking ahead, you can say the droid parts are damaged or destroyed...by a fail-safe built into it. But even if you did not think of that ahead of time, still have the flashy damage. You can always link back to the damage for a reason, even if you did not have a reason to do so when you said it.

5. So the character wants to send a signal. This should take at least three action rolls. Something like ''fixing the transmitter'', ''fixing the antenna'' and ''getting a power source'', plus ''figuring out the right code to send''. This will require a couple skill rolls.

6. Make fixing the droid and sending the message a challenge, that might take all of five minutes of game time. Have the player think of a way to power the transmitter, not just ''I rolls the dice and dos it somehow''. It can be as simple as ''I take the power pack out of my blaster''. They still make the roll to to the action, but add in a bit of role play.

7. And over the top, once again. If the character does send the signal make some ''strange galactic feedback'' where they here something like ''Static.....sir, Droid PK179 stopped transmitting at 01230 when it sent the mission failure message. But we just got at message from the droid saying mission complete'' Static fade out.

8. And, of course: Have the transmission say "Send a Death Squad to the location of the signal immediately !''

[nedz]

As a rule of thumb: Always Say No.

No ! Bad advice.

You always say "Yes", but then you make the rolls and enforce the consequences.

If the player is about to do something suicidal then you should ask them "Are you sure ?". I don't use this exact wording myself - I just point out the obvious.

A game can quickly get crazy if the GM just lets players do anything.

Embrace the chaos - it's more fun.

Try to be as clear as possible when describing things. Slow down. Even take the extra minute to ask the players if they understand. You want to make sure the players are on exactly the same page that you are on. You really can't ''over describe'' something unless your going over like 5,000 words.

When describing things in the game world, be unbelievably over the top and obvious with things far past the point of any reason. Whatever you might think is reasonable, go like two steps beyond that.

No !
Spewing out an info dump will just cause the player's eyes to glaze over. Eventually they will just Leroy your NPCs out of boredom.

Use Figures and Floorplans to give the tactical information.

Give out a general description to set the scene and then adopt a conversational approach to allow them to explore the scene. This way you can detect if they have misheard or misinterpreted anything you have said - which you should immediately correct; also it's interactive. If they fail to explore the scene then it's their loss.

You should pace your communication to create atmosphere and tension, not to paint extraneous décor.

Try to think ahead to the future and have the present reflect that. At least add ''random'' details that you can use later. Always add more, not less.

Decide whether you want to use Chekhov guns or not — I don't but it's a valid style.

Generally less is more, with a conversational approach you can add more detail later, without boring people.

Try to get your players in the habit of asking questions. Far too many players just arrogantly assume they know everything for no reason. And they will arrogantly have a character take actions on what they think they know, or worse what they want the game reality to be like. So again, slow down. Get the players to ask at least a couple questions before they try and do anything.

If you adopt a conversational style this will not be a problem, lecture them and it will be.

Try to drag actions out. Avoid quick ones. Once again slow down. Try to make any complex action take at least a couple rolls: both action rolls and information rolls.

No, see pacing above.

Make any ''important'' activity a challenge. Avoid one dice roll to alter time and space.

The more dice rolls you enforce: the less likelihood there is of success.

Always, always feel free to alter the game reality to what ever you want it to be.

Yes, until it's happened. Once dice have been rolled it's set in stone.

[Calen]

Yes, until it's happened. Once dice have been rolled it's set in stone.

I would modify/expand this to say: Once the players see it its set in stone.

GM has a large repository of knowledge about the world that the players don't know, Probably they don't even care about it. You can feel free to fudge and change this information as needed to drive the story.
Players kill your main villain thinking that it is a random encounter in the third session? No they merely killed one of the villains mooks.
But once it is moved to the players side of the screen it becomes truth until their informed action or inaction causes it to change.

[goto124]

I've seen the suggestion that players could have a set of 'Preparation Points' to retroactively say they've prepared in some manner. For example, if they encounter a guarded gate, they could say "My PC bribed a guard earlier on - how many points is that?"

The limited number of points is what prevents abuse.

[Scowling Dragon]

I guess its a case of what players and GMs want as well.

Some players may just want to goof off all day and just be empowered to do anything.

Others might want more of a challenge, or more of a story focus.

The preparation points are interesting. Might want to take that into account.

[Glimbur]

You're already taking the first step to being a better DM: recognizing a problem. Kudos for that.

I like a rule I lifted from improvisational comedy, called "Yes, and". As some other people have said, it can be boring and dis-empowering to just say no to player plans. But if you just say yes, then they have too much power and it can be difficult to plan and/or challenge them. Hence, yes and. Yes, you can hack the droid and send the signal, and... 1) you learn it is sending a continuous signal until you killed it, do you still send the signal? or 2) The person receiving the signal is suspicious because of the break in the signal; also they learned something about your abilities 3) The signal is not as tightly controlled because it is jury-rigged so someone else also receives it or... So either their character knows something and looks competent, or their plan maybe work, or it works with a hiccup, or... but just a firm 'no', as you have seen, can make the players less excited about trying things.

I could probably come up with a better example for "Yes, and", or I suspect Google could help.

[Jayngfet]

Player here. So from my perspective, the incident in question basically went like this:

We land on a planet using faked credentials so my name never comes up.

I use a fake ID to book hotel rooms away from the ship.

I'm in disguise under an alias when we go out.

The only pieces of paperwork with my name on it in the entire galaxy are essentially a birth certificate, a missing and presumed dead form showing the last time I'd been seen was about a decade ago, and a physical contract kept my someone else in hiding and presumed dead. The only other non-party people aware of this have it in their best interest to keep quiet and were doing so, and even they had no way of knowing where I was or where I'd gone.

Basically the moment I step out of the hotel room, then come the assassin droids, looking for me specifically under my real name and apparently knowing half my secrets already. The fact that they exploded violently with nothing leftover to either loot or signal if they're both reduced to 0 hit points AND thrown down the condition track basically meant nothing I did regarding them mattered. Even getting the computer core was a thing I basically had to fight the GM for and make a bunch of rolls towards.

Which is kind of where my problem comes in. I didn't need prep points because I cleared all my disguises and did all my bribery and aliases beforehand and it amounted to nothing, then there wasn't really anything I could do during or after the encounter to affect things. For all it basically mattered I could have walked down main street wearing a sandwich board with my name and social number right on it.

I mean, what's the point of playing a paranoid guy who's good with machines if literally nothing you do has an effect?

[valadil]

The best thing you can do to improve your GMing is more GMing. Reading forums and blogs helps, but less than just doing it. If something doesn't work try and figure out where you went wrong. If something works well, see if you can make it repeatable. Ask your players for feedback, but accept that they won't always be able to provide it.

Well a months long campaign over Star Wars Saga just ended. Im sad to say I think it ended poorly with allot of people mad at me. And I don't think its misplaced. But its something I gotta figure out in the generals of running the game:

Should I enable players when they do something, even if I think it should not work?

IMO, PC empowerment is the most important thing in an RPG. It's what differentiates tabletop gaming from books and video games. When the players make a decision, you should honor that decision.

That does not mean you're obliged to make their decisions successful. The opposite in fact. If you offer them choice A, B, C, and D, but all four choices lead to the same victory condition, you haven't really offered them a choice. You let them think they made a decision and then nullified it by making it meaningless. Commit to whatever the players decide to do.

[goto124]

[snip] I didn't need prep points because I cleared all my disguises and did all my bribery and aliases beforehand and it amounted to nothing, then there wasn't really anything I could do during or after the encounter to affect things. [snip]

Oh, that changes a lot of things! Did you bring this up with the GM before posting here?

[SirNMN]

I've seen the suggestion that players could have a set of 'Preparation Points' to retroactively say they've prepared in some manner. For example, if they encounter a guarded gate, they could say "My PC bribed a guard earlier on - how many points is that?"

The limited number of points is what prevents abuse.

how do you assign Preparation points? Do they get set number for time skipped, or based on class, or is it from I spend X time preparing? it sounds like something that I might want to use.

[Earthwalker]

I think you need to find your style of GMing and run with that on this thread we already have disagreement on what to do when GM. I am going to tell you how I would handle the situation my style has change the last few years from picking up and playing so different systems.

I am about player empowerment these days, that doesn’t mean you don’t challenge your players by the way. Just you take queues from them.

So in this situation I think I would do the following.
When the player annouced he wanted to hack the signal and send out a confirmed kill order. I would ask for the following (DCs made up)

Ok if you roll a DC 10 driod engineering you can hack the signal and send a message back.
You would then need a DC 13 buff check (The sense motive of the guy on the other end) to convince the other side some reason for the signal disruption. I am also adding 5 to the DC. If you make it the other side think you are dead, at least until they try to recover the driod (in 2 days), if you fail they know not only was the droid was killed but someone tried hacking the signal.

The player rolls and if he makes it, he gets what he wants. If he fails he doesn’t.
It’s a case of letting the player know what he is rolling and more importantly what success or failure means generally before the dice are rolled.

Also this might drive the plot forward as the player is then working on how can I stop the droid recovery in 2 days time, driving the plot forward.

[Quertus]

Player here. So from my perspective, the incident in question basically went like this:

We land on a planet using faked credentials so my name never comes up.

I use a fake ID to book hotel rooms away from the ship.

I'm in disguise under an alias when we go out.

The only pieces of paperwork with my name on it in the entire galaxy are essentially a birth certificate, a missing and presumed dead form showing the last time I'd been seen was about a decade ago, and a physical contract kept my someone else in hiding and presumed dead. The only other non-party people aware of this have it in their best interest to keep quiet and were doing so, and even they had no way of knowing where I was or where I'd gone.

Basically the moment I step out of the hotel room, then come the assassin droids, looking for me specifically under my real name and apparently knowing half my secrets already. The fact that they exploded violently with nothing leftover to either loot or signal if they're both reduced to 0 hit points AND thrown down the condition track basically meant nothing I did regarding them mattered. Even getting the computer core was a thing I basically had to fight the GM for and make a bunch of rolls towards.

Which is kind of where my problem comes in. I didn't need prep points because I cleared all my disguises and did all my bribery and aliases beforehand and it amounted to nothing, then there wasn't really anything I could do during or after the encounter to affect things. For all it basically mattered I could have walked down main street wearing a sandwich board with my name and social number right on it.

I mean, what's the point of playing a paranoid guy who's good with machines if literally nothing you do has an effect?

And this is why I never like GMs to try to use my backstory. "Oh, you're hunted? I'll introduce an NPC (organization?) that is better than you, that is hunting you. It worked for Han Solo, it should work for you, too"

Sounds like y'all need to sit down and have a little chat, and try to get on the same page - both about your character, and how to give you the ability to influence the world and the story in a satisfying way. And about how that last season could have possibly happened in the first place. Come to the table with ideas.

Also, you should probably do the whole billboard thing - but recton that you a decoy - you are not, in fact, the one the droids are looking for. ;)

[neonchameleon]

An example. Players managed to destroy a Droid sent to kill them. One of the players decided that he could send a signal through the droid back in the ship to tell the controllers that the target has been eliminated.

I would have thought that the time distance between the droids destruction (Thus the signal cutting out), and them turning it back on to send a different signal would be more suspicious then anything else.

But the player got very mad. And this got me thinking: The players didn't know all the details. The players didn't know the droid sent a signal continuously, and thus it might be suspicious. And so the player got mad with me because he "couldn't read my mind" as he said himself.

And even assuming I was right in this situation, how should I handle the situation in the future?

Player here. So from my perspective, the incident in question basically went like this:

We land on a planet using faked credentials so my name never comes up.

I use a fake ID to book hotel rooms away from the ship.

I'm in disguise under an alias when we go out.

The only pieces of paperwork with my name on it in the entire galaxy are essentially a birth certificate, a missing and presumed dead form showing the last time I'd been seen was about a decade ago, and a physical contract kept my someone else in hiding and presumed dead. The only other non-party people aware of this have it in their best interest to keep quiet and were doing so, and even they had no way of knowing where I was or where I'd gone.
...
I mean, what's the point of playing a paranoid guy who's good with machines if literally nothing you do has an effect?

*Bangs heads together*

OK. Some pretty major basic mistakes going on here. I'm going to set these as rules; as ever experts are invited to break them all when they know what they are doing.

Rule 1: You do not deny the PC's character after accepting it. Once Jayngfet's character had been accepted then they had been accepted as a paranoid computer hacker with no known identity. What happened after that was the equivalent of the GM accepting a wizard into a D&D campaign then setting the entire thing in an anti-magic field. The GM gets the rest of the world to play with - you don't deny the player the schtick they have chosen. (This doesn't say you can't say "I don't want that character concept as it doesn't fit" - just that once you've accepted it you've accepted it.) The same would go for someone wanting to play a smuggler with their own ship - if you ground the ship immediately and drop them into the Rebel Alliance then they can't do what their character was intended for.

(You can of course occasionally use anti-magic fields in D&D or have the players have to hijack the ship back once in a while. But not in the first adventure, and not more than once in a while.)

Rule 2: Teflon characters are no fun. Don't lock off entire avenues of play if you don't have a character about to collapse on another flank.

Rule 3: Give the PCs their rewards. "The fact that they exploded violently with nothing leftover to either loot or signal if they're both reduced to 0 hit points AND thrown down the condition track basically meant nothing I did regarding them mattered." is a huge red flag. Exploding the computer cores would be one thing (and a sensible precaution). Exploding absoultely everything is petty and mean - with no good reason in character.

I honestly think both of you should give Apocalypse World a shot - played exactly by the rulebook. It would go a long way to dealing with the causes of the problems being talked about.

[Scowling Dragon]

I have learned allot but I think its a good time I explained myself.

My side of the story:

A BadMan Hires a bunch of Thugs, to eliminate evidence of his wrongdoing, and by coincidence, the players are there to RETRIEVE the evidence of wrongdoing (But they don't know about it). The characters manage to defeat the thugs after them and claim the thugs superior ship.

The Badman receives no notice from the missing thugs regarding the dispersal of evidence. So this gets him suspicious.

Sending more people to inspect the missing thugs, he finds out that they where killed, and the evidence was retrieved. And that his brother whom he assumed dead was alive.

Deciding not to strike then, because of a belief that it would cause too much trouble, he decided to ambush them in space, however he misses them, as the characters go to do business on a different Planet.

Meanwhile, the Badman decides to take care of business elsewhere, looking for a valuable black artifact. However he notices the ID signature from an Arriving ship and realizes that it belonged to the crew of people he hired. Realizing that it contains the people his brother hired, an hoping that they could lead him to his brother he watches them.

When they are alone, and at night, he sends droids rigged to self destruct in case of failure (As to not lead a trail back to himself), to ambush them.

The PCs overcome, and by my failure, I should have cleanly implied that the character probably couldn't disarm a beeping, locked access bomb in 12 seconds, and this would lead to his death. Instead however I decided that the player could partially disarm it, leaving some scraps to trace.

In the last moment, I did panic, and I probably should have slowed the player down and said the details of the droid instead of just saying that this would result in tracking once the player decided to send a message that the target was dead.
I don't deny my mistakes, but I want to explain myself, and some examinations.

For one, I did not take into account as a GM what I wanted to do. For low effort fare like D&D, Im fine just being in charge of a linear succession of monsters that the players take out in a linear succession, down a linear succession of dungeons whilst feeling empowered.

However for the more complicated Star Wars game I wanted something more classically Star Wars Themed, and In hindsight I should have realized that this was what I wanted rather then have it influence my decisions subconsciously.

Star Wars (At least the OT), is an non-linear adventure. The characters bypass some obstacles, but more often then not have to work around situations that they could not normally overcome, retreat, and try those obstacles from a different angle.

Even in the 3rd movie, at the height of Lukes "Power" Luke never carves a bloody path through the DeathStar and slices the emperor in half. He does however get himself out of Jabbas Palace, but thats something else.

For a more complicated story, with allot of effort I was putting into my own assets, I was not entertained by just linear empowerment. Perhaps this shows my fault as a GM, and aight.

Star Wars is screwy, and lots of things happen because of coincidence and "Destiny" (Da will of da forceh!). Otherwise the plot doesn't happen.

[nedz]

You should have explained less - until the game is over - not more.

OK, so the player complained because of some false assumptions on their part about how they were tracked. This is quite common, but can usually be answered with something like "Er, nope - that's not what happened".

I frequently run far more complex plots than this, in D&D too FWIW, and I usually just say something like "It does all make sense - to someone".

[Madeiner]

*Bangs heads together*

OK. Some pretty major basic mistakes going on here. I'm going to set these as rules; as ever experts are invited to break them all when they know what they are doing.

Rule 1: You do not deny the PC's character after accepting it. Once Jayngfet's character had been accepted then they had been accepted as a paranoid computer hacker with no known identity.

Sorry, i totally disagree with this.
A GM can accept a paranoid hacker character, but still it does not mean that you can NEVER be found/outsmarted/prevent from hacking.

What it does mean is that while you are normally very good against these kind of threats, it takes something special to track you.
If the DM says the assassin droid comes for your specifically, and he's a good DM, it probably means that:
- the story he has in mind required you to be tracked regardless of your background
- this is an exceptional circumstance

Your character probably knows that something very powerful REALLY wanted you dead. If it can track you after all your preparations, it surely must be something big. You can work around that an enrich the story, instead of throwing a fit. If you trust the DM, you should think he has a good reason for this to happen. There's probably something happening that you don't know about, and now you have a reason to suspect it.

What a good DM would NOT do is send mook after mook that can track you, or other background related affairs that are easily able to track you. That is negating the character concept.

In a story, especially in star wars, what's the point to have a character trait that is NEVER questioned? As he was introduced to the story, Han solo was talking about how good he is at evading empire patrols. That's the background of the character. What's one of the first things that happen to him? You guessed it, he fails at what he's good at. This marks exceptional circumstances and sets the tone of the story.

To answer the OP:
if you want to be a better DM, remember the character traits and background. Be sure to include them in the story in a way that even if is not clear at the beginning, eventually it becomes clear and important.
Also, you need trust from players in order to do this. Good players trust their DM, if he's worthy of that trust.
To build that trust, reinforce the idea that you remember the character concept and are building on that. "These assassin droids are targeting you specifically and they exploded as soon as dead. Someone, clearly powerful, has somehow recognized you, which is not an easy task, and probably prepared against your specific abilities. Looks like you are in trouble, and you are missing critical information"

[JAL_1138]

Unless the PC is the villain's brother (and personally I try to really avoid doing such things without the players' say-so, especially in Star Wars where "your long-lost family member is secretly TEH EVUL" is really overdone, and because using backstory elements against a PC gives rise to orphaned murderhobos, and I especially wouldn't add a relative in that the player hadn't mentioned explicitly, because it's their backstory, not mine), that doesn't explain how the assassin droids knew the PC's real identity. Have them looking for the assumed name, the name he was hired under, so that the precautions to burn his identity seem to have paid off.

If the characters would know something or plausibly guess something, tell the players that. If a paranoid character should know to futz with the ship's IFF and conceal its identity, and seems to be missing it, ask if they want to do that. Err on the side of giving the players information.

If the droids have a self-destruct, the gadgeteer should still be able to salvage something. "The 'droid fried its memory banks, but you think you can salvage quite a few spare parts for future use" or something. "Your character would know these sorts of droids are usually in constant contact with their commander, and that the signal disruption will be suspicious." Note--suspicious, NOT an automatic failure for the bluff attempt.

As another poster mentioned before, the bluff could be something like damaged communication, e.g., "Communications damaged when target shot YW-866. YW-867 destroyed by target. Commlink repaired following mission completion. Target eliminated. Entering standby self-repair mode. YW-866 out." That might work. Roll for it, don't just declare it can't be done.


Also, don't plot. Create scenarios. React to what the players do with that scenario. Do not assume any particular outcome. And don't be overreliant on coincidence, if it gets to the point it strains credulity and nullifies player decisions. Because if it *does,* why are they making any decisions, when regardless of what they do there'll be a screwy coincidence Because Destiny anyway? Don't fall prey to the Quantum Ogre with it.

[LnGrrrR]

Star Wars is screwy, and lots of things happen because of coincidence and "Destiny" (Da will of da forceh!). Otherwise the plot doesn't happen.

I think you define "linear" differently than most people. A New Hope and RotJ are both pretty linear plots. Bad guy building a Death Star, heroes blow it up. How they get there may vary, but the plot is pretty basic.

The problem with "coincidence and destiny" is that, from a player standpoint, they both suck. If you got a raise at work, how happy would you be if your friends say, "Hey man, happy coincidence!" or "Wow, I guess it must be fate!"

ESPECIALLY in a game, a player wants to feel like HE was responsible for the actions his character takes, that SHE is responsible for her character's growth. No one wants to feel like they saved the galaxy on accident. I'm sure Luke didn't see it that way.

Here's the thing... Luke COULD'VE blazed a path through the galaxy, but didn't. He won, in fact, EXACTLY HOW HE WANTED TO. He didn't kill Darth Vader. Darth Vader turned good and took down the emperor. Luke didn't give in to the dark side.

I think your view of what the movies presented isn't what I took from them at all. The Force doesn't just "happen". It's utilized by people with agency. It's a tool. It doesn't have a mind of its own.

[Flickerdart]

Well, first you want to have about 200-300 players. Then you want to kill off a dozen characters every session.

Oh wait, I must have misread the title. I thought you were asking how to GRRM better.

[Scowling Dragon]

Well so far I have learned that there is no singular answer because there are a million GMs and a Million Players.

Anyway, I will say that Star Wars plot is non-linear as an adventure story.

Most D&D stories I know Go Like this Success->Success->Success->End

But Star wars has twists and turns, and its not fair to say that its so linear as to be a Point A-B shoot em up.

[themaque]

Re: How to GM better?

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

(Couldn't resist.)