Narrating woes

Wow, I just had the SINGLE worst experience I've ever had with narrating. I can't believe just how bad today's session was. Right now, I'm just kind of sitting back with this shocked expression on my face, and all I can say is "Wow, that was bad."

I mean, I couldn't hold my player's attention. My plot was well thought out and planned about right, but my crew absolutely hated the episode. In the past couple of sessions, the crew really seemed to enjoy themselves and have a great time, but tonight just seemed to drag on and on.

I guess I'll have to use this as a learning experience. An example of exactly what not to do. Can anyone relate to what I'm feeling right now? Misery loves company.

Oh my dear lord can I relate! http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/smile.gif

I have had these days before and the only thing I can recommend is that you chill, sit back and strike back at it next time.

Trust me it can only get better. Crack a beer and shrug it off. http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/smile.gif

Sounds familliar to me.
I had one episode where I thought that everything was perfectly planned. I wanted to introduce a new enemy.
The problem was, that my players caught him after 10 minutes of gametime. I didn't know what to do and so he escaped and the whole episode became mixed up. It was a mess. After one hour of gametime, I declared the episode over. My players were not very amused about that and i felt bad.

That was one year ago, it never happend again, because I learned from that mistake.
So don't be so hard to yourself. http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/smile.gif

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Star Trek Alpha Squad -
"United they stand"

As part of my campaign prologue, We've been playing out the character's defining moments and events leading up to the 'first episode.'

One of those defining moments was the battle of Sector 001, which I divided into two segments: During the battle as portrayed on-screen leading up to the destruction of the Borg cube, and the aftermath.

Well, The *first* battle was a spectacular success: My First-Officer-to-be-then-Conn-Officer manages to deal the penultimate blow to the cube before the Big E shows up. His Akira-Class USS Katana is then swarmed by Borg fleeing the exploding cube, and, with the CO and XO dead, as ranking officer, he remains behind to help the crew evacuate the ship before blowing it up and taking the Borg with it.

The SECOND Battle was to introduce our PC Captain-to-be, and deal with the remaining vessels being assimilated, and rescuing survivors from them. (including another PC CMO-to-be.)

Well... Things went so deplorably that I actually made them play it over!!! I had to basically invent an adventure for our Doctor, because I thought he'd be rescued quickly, but wasn't; and things just went south from there... They managed to rescue exactly 0 ships, (the doctor had to get out by himself!) leaving most of the details to be handled by NPC vessels that consisted of the intact and surviving fleet.

So, next adventure, I had my captain demoted and shipped off to the armpit of the Galaxy, where he was assassinated by a member of TimeFleet. Strangely, he found himself back on the Bridge of his ship at the begining of the last adventure.

Of course, after that was over with, he spent the next five hours dominating the game because he was convinced the Timefleet guy (now, suddenly a member of his crew) was a Q that was F@%&*$ with him.

So, that was kind-of a disaster too.

R


[This message has been edited by Roxby (edited 01-20-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Roxby (edited 01-20-2001).]

Time to sit down with your players, say, "Hey, what went wrong with that last game?", and figure out how to make the next game better.

Of course, you have to take GMing advice from your players with a large grain of salt. If they say the game would be better if you let them be admirals with a fleet of Sovereigns instead of ensigns on an Oberth, they'll have to earn that privilege.

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:) <<<<

LUGTrek isn't really dead. Not as long as we remember it.

Hey, ferengifan, everyone screws it up occasionally. Sometimes it's you, sometimes it's you players, and sometimes it's sunspots....or hair loss, I dunno.

Had one where the entire campaign was collapsed because the one player just wouldn not budge on something & wound up shooting everyone else and himself. Niiiiice.

A cute thing that seems to work for me: on a 3x5 card write in big letters 'It's in the script!' When you start to have trouble, carefully peek it over your screen. That usually does the trick & most people are amused, if done right. Another good card is the HINT/CLUE card -- when the players are being obtuse take your 3x5 card with HINT on one side, CLUE on the other and put the appropriate side up over your screen. Works like a charm.

Roxby -- never let the prologue run totally at random. If the characters were created with a certain background agreed on by you and the players, run it with the main events (Big E killing the cube, the characters escaping in the nick of time) as preordained & the heck with the dice rolls. If the players object, see above paragraph.

If the players are adult enough to realize the amount of work you have to do to enterain them & appreciate it, they'll go along with you. After all, this is supposed to be an excuse for a social gathering, is it not?

This is where on-the-fly narrating comes into its own.

If a PC is distracted, work with what he's doing instead.

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

Quote:

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Originally posted by qerlin:
A cute thing that seems to work for me: on a 3x5 card write in big letters 'It's in the script!' When you start to have trouble, carefully peek it over your screen. That usually does the trick & most people are amused, if done right. Another good card is the HINT/CLUE card -- when the players are being obtuse take your 3x5 card with HINT on one side, CLUE on the other and put the appropriate side up over your screen. Works like a charm.

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I love this! I'm gonna start doing this in all my campaigns! http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/smile.gif

Chris



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God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.

Quote:

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Originally posted by qerlin:
A cute thing that seems to work for me: on a 3x5 card write in big letters 'It's in the script!' When you start to have trouble, carefully peek it over your screen. That usually does the trick & most people are amused, if done right...

If the players are adult enough to realize the amount of work you have to do to enterain them & appreciate it, they'll go along with you. After all, this is supposed to be an excuse for a social gathering, is it not?

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Excellent advice, qerlin! When a GM seriously boobs or screws up, it's usually best to fess up on the spot. In my experience, if it's done in an honest, creative or humourous way, players are usually more than willing to give you a break or call for a time-out so you can gather and collect your thoughts.

LQ

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"No one controls me. I'm uncontrollable. The only one who can control me is me... and that's just barely possible!" -John Lennon

As I understand you ferengifan, the problem you had with your session was that your players went too far off track?

Quote:

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Originally posted by qerlin:
Roxby -- never let the prologue run totally at random. If the characters were created with a certain background agreed on by you and the players, run it with the main events (Big E killing the cube, the characters escaping in the nick of time) as preordained & the heck with the dice rolls. If the players object, see above paragraph.

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Well not to shoot too many holes in your theory, there, qerlin, but we weren't portraying an agreed upon history, but rather post-history events leading up to the first adventure. Secondly, the dice had very little to do with it...

As I've learned, you can't force you Captain to be valiant, nor brave, nor save the day, if he doesn't want to...

or isn't smart enough to, I haven't figured that out; but that's a WHOLE different thread...

What do you do when your PC Captain is an idiot?

I usually prefer marinating him in a nice white wine sauce, then tossing a little cilantro and cayenne pepper on the bugger, and then fire up the grill.

Actually, we don't tend to invite the total boobs back for a second shot. So far, we've been lucky.

As S John can attest to, I'm a pretty selective gamer when it comes to my players. (BTW, S John plays a balls-nasty Centauri.)

Been there, absoultely. Like you said, it's really a learning experience.

However, from what you said, it sounds like one bad session, which we've all had.

To share, one such experience was one of my favorite FASA adventures, "A Doomsday Like Any Other". I had such high hopes for it. It wound up being an incredibly dull 3-parter, after which we lost one of our players, bringing the group down to 2 players and a GM (we're now up to 4 and a GM, which is mu favorite size). We survived the experience, though it was a long time before I was willing to run a published adventure again. (And, to be honsest, I now spend about as much time adapting a published adventure as I do making my own...)

(as a side note, before I even get started, I can feel a certain member of these boards cringing in the corner somewhere, as he's known said PC Captain since they were wee pups...)

Ths whole surprising thing is that this particular player is a VERY experienced role-player. Heck, he's been at it longer than I have, and is a former DM of mine.

Back in the day, I offered him the Captain position because he complained that he never got the opportunity to lead in the other D&D campaign we were involved in.

I would have expected him to know how to carry himself as a 'Series Worthy' Starfleet Captain.

Instead I got John Harriman.

Said cringing friend and I have had this conversation before; we are attempting to rectify the situation with a solo-adventure or two for him to get a sense of who he is; although any input from you guys is greatly appreciated.

R

BlueJeans,

I, and I am sure others, would love to see your bullet sheet. Do you think you might post it, or if it's size-prohibitive >tips hat to Don< then email it?

I know a few of my players that could use something like that.

Best,
R

Don't worry about it, Ferrengi, bad gaming sessions happen. It's in the odds. It's par for the course.

How much interaction did they have with the NPCs? Were the characters the center of the storyline?

Who knows? Maybe that was just a night for cutting loose. "Holodeck Showdown" is a little thing that I run. The players have a holodeck set out and they each take turns adding a feature to the deck. After that, they come in from opposite corners and try to take out each other.

It's not "campaign official", the characters get to try new things "for free", and it really familiarizes them with the combat rules. The DM just puts on the zebra shirt and gives quick target numbers to settle disputes.

Of course, it is embarrassing when the Science Officer beats the living tar out of the Chief of Security http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/redface.gif

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dave Biggins:
Of course, it is embarrassing when the Science Officer beats the living tar out of the Chief of Security http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/redface.gif

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I can relate to that...in one game I was recently involved in, if there was a fire-fight going on, the rest of us hid behind the Doctor... http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/smile.gif

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"Just think of it - a blind man, teaching an android how to paint? That's gotta be worth a couple of pages in somebody's book." - Riker to La Forge.

My biggest difficulty in narrating my Trek game has always been remembering the limits of Federation Technology, and knowing when to apply them.

Players are so used to canonical characters being able to pull what seems like technobabble out of their bottoms that they get the idea that *any* technobabble or use of the computer is as valid as any other, forgetting that, somewhere, a writer has to 'make it happen' for the crew of Enterprise/DS9/Voyager.

One thing I've decided to do recently is draw up a 'bullet sheet' of the parameters within which Tricorders, Universal Translators, PADDs, etc., can operate, and have this passed out at the beginning of each game, as a generic reminder; and then create a more specialized sheet for each player detailing the special tricks he or she may know to extend the limits of shipboard personal technology (i.e., what nifty rules from Spacedock or these discussion boards they might know on an IC basis).

On a pure 'story' basis, I note that I, too, have had an episode or two in which players felt 'lost' ... the worst was the climactic two parter that ended the first 'Season' of "Star Trek: the High Frontier" and began the second season. The adventure concerned a network of over a thousand automated stations placed around an isolated star system by a Highly Advanced Civilization. They placed it there to keep a former slave race of theirs *penned in* to the system, not to keep others out.

I based the personality and powers of the AI strongly on 'Portcullis' from Dave Biggins' "Barbarians at the Gate" scenario -- he spoke with that same loud hysterical force that I imagine from that excellent piece of work, and the session ended with the PCs confronting the AI just as an armada of impulse-only ships (when you can't leave your system, the odds on you having warp drive are slim-to-none) from the pent-up-for-three-millenia slave race arrived at the site of the station to confront the strange forces which had shown up on their system sensors (the stations themselves were cloaked from their sensors).

Anyway, to make a long story short, that two parter depressed the hell out of me. The players kept relying on tricorder readings rather than their own senses, and I could tell that they were holding back angry out-of-character accusations that I was deliberately fudging their tricorders (I wasn't, but the AI was, ICly). When the final confrontation with the AI occured, and he screamed at them for their arrogance in assuming that they had some divinely granted mandate to crawl all over 'him' (the station) and pick it apart for the furthering of their scientific knowledge, the player of my chief science officer made a side comment about how they were about to be on the receiving end of a very boring anti-Starfleet-values lecture.

When Part II began, opening the second season, the following week, it was ... an anticlimax; the players, without any moral debate or quibbling between them, agreed to acquiesce to the AI's authority and accept its "right" to hold an entire race captive within the system boundaries. I had deliberately left Starfleet policy on it vague -- I don't feel that, even canonically, Starfleet has the self-granted mandate to liberate *every* species it encounters, and since a neutral, independent, warp-capable civilization clearly considered the system 'their' system, and Starfleet clearly allows the Orions to have 'slave girls', I couldn't very well justify that Starfleet would automatically have a 'free those people' policy.

But, you know, I somehow expected my players to at least *debate* the issue.

Nope.

Not a single word. Not even when prodded by an NPC or two.

Blah. It thoroughly depressed me. But recent games have pulled us out of that slump, thank goodness.

BJ,
customarily long-winded

My players were flung into a far-away star cluster, where they were supposed to discover relics of an ancient war, between two powerful civilizations, big enough to have affected the orbits of planets and such.

But their long-range sensors were down, and they weren't in any big hurry to fix them (They thought the phenomenon which flung them there was an attack, and were concentrating on shields and weapons) so they couldn't get a clear reading on the distant systems, and all I could tell them was that they were getting "anomalous" readings.

And they figured out the way to get back before they even bothered to investigate their surroundings... despite it becoming obvious that planets were where they shouldn't be, and weren't where they should be, etc... so I had to change the conditions on them. I left a "booby trapped world" around a star that I FINALLY convinced them to investigate... and they landed before scanning it (which was to trigger the boby trap). BOOM.

SO, since I didn't want them dead JUST yet, I had to turn it into a Q-test, that they'd failed.

Rather quickly, "Anomalous anomalies" became their favorite catchphrase.

I remember having a session where everybody (including me) was like chasing flies instead of concentrating on the story. We decided to stop at half session by complete consensus. We never played that game again.

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Hoping You'll understand all of this :)

Well, some long years back I had the tendency to plan my scenarios like an adventure module. Only one way, no deviations please. That led to the "Express Deserter" and to me quitting as a GM for about two years.

After that I came back with less planning. Basic plot line + pre generated plug in scenes and pre-planned key scenes. So if the players don't get the clues, we either go of in a totally different direction or put additional clues in.

I still can not "wing" a scenario totally. But given an idea and some players willing to interact, I can generate one with pre planned plugins and listening in to the players. So I suggest stocking up on snippeds and short scenes (either mentally or on cue cards) and if the players don't interact with the scenario, excuse yourself a few minutes and then play in a direction they want to play in.

Some useful scenes/devices/emergency scenarios are:
[li][*] Various bars/cantinas, some high class, some seedy with a rough idea on who's in there.[*] New planet, group ordered to search for crashed shuttle in pre-stellar civ. Choose background (We had Xena, MiddleAges and a little revolution by now)[*] A sleeper ship / ruin from some old war[*] A common rescue us, ships sinking scene to generate action without guns[*] Some frighter passing by, specially in a way out region[*] Superiors requesting the crew performs a training scenario[*] Superiors sending the crew on a mission because they are "available, capable" ("and expendable" as my players imply)[*] A little village in the woods with some proplem. (We played 7 Samurai with AD&D once http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/smile.gif )[*] Pirats / Maquis if the group is bored by puzzles[*] Alien robot spaceship requesting answers to a number of questions in exchange for knowledge. Works best with BS5 äh DS9[*] Plunder films. We had "Aliens" and "Jurassic Park II" recently (My Wiesel got dented by a TRex). When the Players start recognising, change some parameters of the thread species[*] Wild West translates nicely to DS9[*] Some magic simulation / holodeck scenario like "A fistful of Datas", consealed as a training excercise in team building.[*] A thief stealing something important[*] The Pakled. Or something posing as a Pakled.[*] Q.[*] Q. No wait, it's R now. He just has a little test / new prototype. Remember what happens to the lab assistants. Can be as funny or serious as you like[*] Give them what they want. Well, kind of. They will play with it and generate scenario ideas. (Group wanted to hire a headhunter. Got the Gunsmith cats. "What'ya mean, sneak in?")[*] Have higher ups deliver a computer upgrade. (Say Hello, HAL)[*] Have an alternate scenario ready. Easily done by playing a week in advance[*] Feeding them incomplete information and playing on cultural differences and unknown local knowledge can lead to player generating scenario.
(Scene:Group of US-operatives in a German IC3. Train has it's daily breakdown. Group sees a big, high speed inflatable coming near, men disgorge with big back [Some maintenance divers working the bridge ahead, asking if they could help their colleague] Group expects an attack, leaves train and steals boat => hunted by police)[*] Listen to what the players plan. Use as idea for what baddies do[*] Play with players (not character) cognitive networks. A fat guard is seen as harmless Uncle Gus (was a cyborg), a blonde petite teenager is harmless (Buffy, anyone) and that computer nerd with the strange accent is a burden in a fight (It's a german nerd. Just ad MG3) Or as we had it in a 2300AD(mod) game. (A disc-shaped frighter hunted by fighters shaped like balls with solar paddles leads to the players UNSP cruiser firing at the fighters. Beeings was the German Imperial space navy pissed. http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/smile.gif )
[/li]

Further more I do not gather the SC in the first scenario but during character generation. Often the basic character ideas are generated around the table and only certain "secret parts" added later. Makes for a smother group without killing all inter-group scenes.

And, as high-nosed as it may seem, be ready to "wing" it. If the players don't get the clues, change the scenario (unless they do it on purpose). Always expect players to find a solution you did not cover

Some of the worst twists I had thrown as a GM or threw as a player:

[li][*] Plan: Group's fightes participate in turnament. At least one should win, get a chance to talk to target person (extraction). All fighters score 2nd or botch. Barbarian warrior also participates in bard contest, wins hands down. ("What do a barbarian need Acting-15 for? Well, guards like barbarians simple. So I play simple")[*] Buffy-style character, officially kidnapped by SouthAm terrorist (really terrorists plaything) planned to give players some proplems during escape. Players fears Stockholm-syndrom, approached with care. When she attacked, the SpecForce guy (190cm/105kg all muscle and bone) was ready. Ouch.[*] Same scenario: Weakling terrorists were a SpezNaz commando. Players approached the camp under the "Mil Intel said they are harmless. So let us expect tanks" plan, lot's of recon. Didn't recognise them but devised a plan to "eliminate them if the might pose a thread". Let's just say the chase scene died...[*] Ships engineer build a robot bird. Used it later as a spy device while running around crying "Me poor birdy flew away..." While the "bird" did some spywork[*] GM wanted us to surrender. 20 bandids vs. two fighters, two mage & a prist. Barbarian warrior decides (IQ 3 of 18) "Good fight" and attacked. Paladin had to join. Bandids did panik. Oh, a gnome mage makes a good gun turret for a stagecoach.[*] A hate measurment tapes. PC saw a certain space travelling device, measured high/width, pulled a JANES out of the bookshelf, ordered a Wiesel weapon carrier.
(What do you mean, the earthlings have tanks...)[*] GM plans all guns SR scenario. KiAds and Shaman eliminate all guards stealthily.
[/li]

Michael

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[P/Andorian eng.] Okay, I choose military technologie of the 20th century as a hobby
[GM] Sure, if you like it

Let's just say the combination of that hobby and mine (players) causes the GM to have panik in the eyes when I start with "I have and idea. All I need is..."

The worst game I ever was involved in was as a PC in 1990. Normally my brother and I are the GMs, but we let one of our friends GM a game within our existing SF campaign.

It was aboard the USS Mark Jameson. My brother played the Captain, I was the first officer, and my brother's wife was the Chief of Security.

The game got off to a good start in which we were supposed to track down several missing SF vessels allegedly stolen by a criminal organization. After some time, we apprehended three criminals. As we interrogated them, suddenly for no reason a temporal rift opened up. Out came a starship from the 34th century, the USS James T. Kirk. The game went off into a totally different direction as we tried to figure out what a ship from the future was doing in our time. But before we could accomplish that goal, the ship suddenly re-entered the rift and was gone. My brother was so pissed, he destroyed the rift with a volley of photons to prevent the vessel from returning. Then as we started to get back to our original mission, the GM's girlfriend called and he suddenly left.

We never finished the story and we never allowed him to GM again. So as not to mess up our campaign's continuity, we decided that the entire adventure was a dream the captain had when we began our next adventure.

FerengiFan - sorry you had a bad outing. I can't help too much on this one, but there's a site which I enjoy a great deal which has all kinds of advice for Narrators/DMs/GMs/whathaveyou. It can be found at http://www.roleplayingtips.com/. Check out the archives and articles for lots of good stuff.

Better luck in the future (real and imagined).

- Daniel

[This message has been edited by Sho-sa Kurita (edited 01-28-2001).]

Kurita-san:

I checked out that site you recommended, and after spending an hour or so reading the articles, may I say this --

A million blessings upon your house!

That site is a work of genius!



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"Now then, pendejo, let's see what kind of swordsman you've become." -- Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez

As per BlueJeans, I also made a point early on of defining certain aspects of technology, the universe, etc... The replicators can only do so much, the transporters can only work under certain conditions, the deflector dish can't be turned into this week's super weapons, kids don't leap to the controls and save the ship, and NO time travel.

Also I made a point of thinking out the politics of the Federation and the other major governments, based off of what happened...and more importantly, using common sense. that means sometimes I go against cannon, because cannon is just being dumb or it doesn't work for the RPG.

My biggest beef is Trek's tendency to always return to status quo: kill Spock, now he's back!; Klingons are our friends, but now their our enemies...I mean our friends; Genesis works. Now it doesn't. Basically, the writers ALWAYS return the universe to an antebellum state. My goal was for the players to be able to change their surroundings. No point in being the heroic starship captain if your influence on the galaxy is nil.

But, of course, that's just an opinion.