Narrating woes

[FerengiFan]

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.

[AslanC]

Oh my dear lord can I relate!

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.

[Tarbas]

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.

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Star Trek Alpha Squad -
"United they stand"

[Roxby]

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).]

[Sarge]

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.

[qerlin]

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?

[SIR SIG]

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

[Chris Blanchard]

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.

I love this! I'm gonna start doing this in all my campaigns!

Chris



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God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.

[Liquidator Queeg]

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?

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

[Delta]

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

[Roxby]

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.

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?

[qerlin]

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.

[qerlin]

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.)

[Dan Stack]

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...)

[Roxby]

(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