I’ve recently been thinking about how different GMs run a game. As someone in the community whose job is to run games and talk about games, I try to listen to many other creators and what advice they bring to the table.
While a lot of good advice tends to be very similar, occasionally, someone will say something or view something in a way I’ve never thought about. Over 25 years at this, and I’m still learning new ways to play and improve. You’re never too good that you can’t get better.
One thing I am beginning to notice throughout this process is that some people play a very different version of specific RPGs from me. Their process for prepping, running and reacting during a game are based on a different paradigm.
This isn’t a big deal, to some extent I think it’s necessary for the hobby to be vibrant. But what amused me is as I went through, I could kind of divide approaches down a line of ‘Lawful GMing vs Choatic Gming’. While I’m pretty sure this approach oversimplifies that, in reality, people fall at different points on the spectrum for different game elements, I think looking it as a binary does show a series of different approaches to the business of running games.
This might help you find your way to your own style, a sort of neutral position between the two extremes. So let’s take a moment to look at this over a series of elements.
Preparing A Session
The Lawful Approach: Viewed through a lawful lens, a session in a campaign is something that has a place within a sequence of events. It needs to move a plot forward and give each player a chance to contribute something. Preparing for a session involves making maps and resources which you know the players will encounter. A lot of time is spent in advance solidifying details that are going to come up, constructing encounters and NPCs.
The Chaos Approach: What happened last time? Where might that lead this time? Don’t worry about a big picture right now because whatever is planned, the players will do something else.
If you give them enough freedom and are ready to respond, the session is likely to surprise everyone. Preparing for a session tends to be a situation where you think about the environment the players will be in and how it feels to be there. Maybe pick an idea that could turn into a hook or violence, something that serves the mood of this piece of plot.
Things to think about: Does it comfort you to have a lot of prepared material?
I know that for me, I long ago abandoned the idea of having everything ready in advance. I know for some people doing a lot of prep can be comforting, but for someone like me, it tends to end with forgetting something, losing a note or over-relying on the resource I made.
So I tend to never make more than a handful of notes about what is going to happen in a session. I also take steps to avoid making too much, in order to avoid locking my thinking into ‘one path’ for a session. For others, that amount of content is a thing they need to function. Working out how much prep makes you feel comfortable to run is vital to maintaining a feeling of comfort.
Running A Campaign
The Lawful Approach: In this, a campaign is a series of interconnected events that tell a longer-term story. Perhaps there is an end in sight. Events and information in the campaign are structured to trigger after certain player actions or time limits are met. It’s a moving, working construct that has a destination. You don’t know how you are getting there, but there is a plan in place.
The Chaos Approach: You’re following what sticks and delivering consequences to actions taken by the players.
Sure there was an idea you had for the end at some point but that point has changed so many times, the one you have now no long resembles the original idea. It’s a beast of sound and fury, falling down the stairs towards a conclusion.
Things to think about: It’s important to know how your campaign exists as a whole. This is really a question of how much you want to have planned ahead and how flexible you are with that plan. How much do you want players to have agency to affect the direction of the long-term narrative, particularly the outcome? How consistent do you want the end goals you set at the beginning to be?
Player Interaction
The Lawful Approach: Session zero is likely to involve a detailed overview where players learn how their ideas can fit into the world/story. Backstories are tied to the plot and will be introduced over time, when the narrative could be heightened by them.
Going forward, the GM works out where that character might be going and works with the player to get there.
The Chaos Approach: Session zero is likely to be about finding out what the players want to play and not having a set idea, instead making the game around what is generated during that session.
Backstories are likely to erupt as moments of personal story that can force the players to deal with them rather than main plot and can go off at any time. The GM is interested in how the characters develop and change in reaction to the game events and doesn’t expect players to have a plan.
Things to think about: Like both of the above, this is less about pigeonholing yourself into an approach and instead think about how you’d prefer to develop and the ways your players prefer.
Are you more bothered about backstories being a thing players have locked in when they start, so that you have a signpost as to what they want to explore? Would you prefer they come with a small vague idea and find out who they are during play? How wide or narrow-focused is the story you are telling? Is it defined by that focus, dictating the choices players can make about who they are playing?
As you can see, thinking about the game and GMs in this way has revealed the decisions we make during play. It’s important to occasionally deconstruct our thinking so we can be sure that we haven’t become fixed in a certain style or way of playing by habit rather than by what works best for us. I hope you find this division as useful an exercise as I did.
Next, I’m going to go back and look at where these approaches are strong and where they can fall down.
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