There are few moments worse for a game master than, when running a lengthy campaign exploring the innate darkness of the human soul, one of the players announces that he has purchased chicken suits for the entire party to wear. Worse yet is when the party accepts the suits and then decides to become a band of pirates with a cringe-worthy name, such as the Fowl Bandits.
This sort of disconnect between the game master’s expectation for what the campaign is supposed to be and the players’ curiosity about what the campaign could be is every unprepared game master’s nightmare. However, there are a few easy tricks to sidestepping this issue entirely. With a little initial work, any campaign can (mostly) stay on track with the intended idea. Below are a few suggestions for how to set a campaign up for success.
Explain what sort of campaign you want to run.
The last thing a Game Master should have to do is run a campaign for which they have no passion. A Game Master who wants to run a detective mystery story is setting up very specific expectations. What happens when those expectations aren’t communicated to the players? It’s possible that the players will create characters entirely unable to detect clues, question suspects, or engage in small shootouts while avoiding heavy collateral damage. Not explaining that the campaign is a detective mystery is just asking for frustration on both sides.
A GM should sit down with the players immediately prior to character creation and lay out the foundation of the story. This does not mean that they have to share spoilers or remove the mystique from their campaign. Neither does this mean that the GM must be a tyrant and crush all who do not properly toe the line. A story is a collaborative effort created by the Game Master and fleshed out by the players. A GM should make sure to explain where the story is coming from, so everyone is on the same page.
Give the players some control over part of the game, no matter how trivial
One thing that many GMs do is attempt to maintain absolute control over every aspect of the world and campaign. This tends to set up an antagonistic relationship with strong-willed players. Creating a small list of options, perhaps two different cities in which they could choose to begin, is one way to give them some control. Another way is to designate each player the keeper of something: party and enemy health, initiative, kill count, resources including finances, or contacts and allies are just a few.
Giving players some level of control and giving them a job to focus on helps them feel trusted and engaged. Later on, when something happens and the GM wants to make a change or a difficult ruling, players will be more open because they’ve been part of the process from the beginning. Players in this setup won’t feel like they need to wrestle for control of the game, because they already have some control.
Keep your story flexible enough to adapt to player actions
A GM’s story begins life as a beautiful painting, a possible opus. Suddenly, several armed strangers kick in the door and begin hacking, pillaging, and impregnating everything in sight. In the aftermath, the GM is left on their knees, clutching the ashes of the story. The first casualty of gaming is always the story, and no story survives contact with the enemy.
It doesn’t need to be this way. Any GM who writes a story as if they’re writing a novel is setting the campaign up for frustration and frantic rewrites. Keep the story points open enough that they can be easily adapted into a modified version. The video game Skyrim serves as an excellent example here. The creators of the game let it be known that, if a story character is killed, the quest will pass to the next connected character, preserving the quest line. What’s more, they let this be known before people actually received the game, in order to set up the expectation that players do have some power over the world.
A GM should let their players know that they’re going to try to keep the world flexible. Telling them that they have the power to change the world is a good way to keep them from blowing up a necessary planet as a show of protest.
Set the expected seriousness level of the campaign
Dark fantasy does not pair well with clownish behavior. Similarly, bleak and murderous characters in a lighthearted campaign can spoil the fun. A Game Master should explain the level of seriousness sought. The GM should also make sure that the players all agree to it beforehand. Finally, the GM should leave a bit of acceptable leeway. Draw the line at chicken suits and parody reskins of famous characters, perhaps, but allow some humor even in a dark setting. Otherwise, the players are going to go completely crazy, and the campaign will derail for being too stuffy.
Ask your players what they want
A detective mystery can contain plenty of combat and violence, if that’s what one player wants. If no one wants combat, that is also possible. Most likely, the game master will be aiming for a mix of combat for the brutal player, mystery and parties for the social player, and puzzles and clues for the clever player. The point is to make sure to elicit responses from each player, so they feel heard. Custom scenes written just for them go a long way to creating good will.
As the reader has probably noticed, much of this article encourages the GM to communicate openly with the players, and to make sure they feel included. Remember the foundation of this game: collaborative storytelling. Work together with your players, loosen up on the reins a bit, and learn to roll with the punches. Setting these expectations up from day one means players will know what to expect, and can go into the campaign with the proper mindset to enjoy the world.
There are plenty of other ways to set up a campaign for success. Let me know in the comments below what you’ve done for your own campaigns.