The only sure thing in life is change, as my last post demonstrates.
It's always interesting to go back and look at the ways I've run my games in the past. It's not always been a smooth transition, and not always an improvement. That's an important thing to remember.
I think my biggest "failed experiment" was using the Beat Chart that appeared in Dream Park as well as other products by R. Talsorian Games. On the surface, it was a pretty nifty idea: Mix up the types of scenes in your game so it's not just a series of fights, or endless talking or what-have-you.
The problem occurred because I was always planning too linearly. And maybe because I had at least one player who liked to push the story off the rails. And every session, every adventure, I would be sure that they would follow the steps that I had planned and everything would go like it "should." But it never did.
Before that time, my sessions were very loosely structured. I would go in with one or two good ideas and let my players react to what I put in front of them. Once I realized that the Beat Chart wasn't working for me, I tried to go back to that, but it wound up being too loose.
The next game I ran was the megadungeon, which was a complete break from the prior style of gaming. Which I've already talked about at length, so here's where we break off.
It's always interesting to go back and look at the ways I've run my games in the past. It's not always been a smooth transition, and not always an improvement. That's an important thing to remember.
I think my biggest "failed experiment" was using the Beat Chart that appeared in Dream Park as well as other products by R. Talsorian Games. On the surface, it was a pretty nifty idea: Mix up the types of scenes in your game so it's not just a series of fights, or endless talking or what-have-you.
The problem occurred because I was always planning too linearly. And maybe because I had at least one player who liked to push the story off the rails. And every session, every adventure, I would be sure that they would follow the steps that I had planned and everything would go like it "should." But it never did.
Before that time, my sessions were very loosely structured. I would go in with one or two good ideas and let my players react to what I put in front of them. Once I realized that the Beat Chart wasn't working for me, I tried to go back to that, but it wound up being too loose.
The next game I ran was the megadungeon, which was a complete break from the prior style of gaming. Which I've already talked about at length, so here's where we break off.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment