DB

There are elements of TTRPGs that lend themselves to multiple different domains. Improvised theatre, writing, game design, acting, music direction…prop making. There are a variety of supplements you can use to enhance your experience of your game at your table. As I have been taking improv classes (nearly for a year now!) and performing as an improviser, I couldn’t help but make connections between these beloved hobbies of mine: improvising at TTRPGs.

Immediately, I could see how the listening skills in improv apply themselves well to TTRPGs, or well, any setting in general. By listening to a scene as it develops, and listening closely to your scene partner, you can abstract a scene to some topics, themes, and elements that you can steadily build on. Is the relationship between our characters being addressed in this scene? Sure. Let’s build on that in a conversation, and in a scene. Is my scene partner referencing something else in metaphor? Excellent, let’s play with that idea and that game. I can also talk in metaphor to play with that idea in the scene, or address the topic directly to contrast my scene partner.

Listening is a vital part of improv, and also a vital part of any TTRPG. When you are properly listening to your scene partner, you are creating a story together. You acknowledge what is being shared, you build things together, and it’s great. As a player, when you make a decision and a game master or a fellow player acknowledges that decision and shows you how that decision has created change in the world, it’s an amazing feeling. However, listening as a skill does not matter if your players don’t feel comfortable to speak, or are intimidated to make a decision.

Let me explain.

Pick Up Games

As a game master, what I have noticed is that players in a pick up game setting enjoy a strong foundational story, or framework of a world. This is true in your random games in a game store, library, or a convention setting. The players and GM do not necessarily know each other, but each person in that setting is looking to play some games.

In one of these settings, I found myself in a community that was interested in TTRPGs. And by interested in TTRPGs, I mean that they were interested in D&D. Surprise surprise. It’s the biggest game, and the one that most people are familiar with. There are varying reasons for why people may not feel comfortable playing or trying other TTRPGs, but that is a topic for another day.

In this setting, I suggested running a one-shot of Lasers and Feelings, which is an excellent rules light game. I explicitly said that it was a sci-fi game, and in the humor and levity of Douglas Adams’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That was a strong enough framework for people to know what they were getting into, so they showed up and we played. It was largely improvisational, and the game is excellent at providing prompts to generate a conflict to center the story around, and it was a lot of fun. People were laughing at being spacers, dealing with space pirates, and breaking reality.

In that same setting, I proposed that I was interested in running a mostly improvised, rules-light game using Risus. I suggested building a city for everyone to play in using Microscope and i’m sorry did you say street magic. Then, when the setting was settled, people would be able to drop in and out of the game, and we could “play and find out” what sort of game it would be, depending on the characters and people that we had at the table.

I had no engagement with that offering.

It could be a couple of reasons, including not having an explicit date that would happen. But, let’s assume that nobody was interested in a game like that. Why could that be?

It could be because I was transferring a lot of the burden of a GM to players who wanted nothing to do with that process.

The (Perceived) Burden of GMing

People believe that GMing is a lot of work. It is, and it can be a lot of work, but it isn’t as intimidating as people go out to make it. I think that the monikers of both game master and dungeon master make it feel like that the job is to be on a pedestal. I much prefer titles like Facilitator and Referee, because that’s all you really are at the end of the day. You make the final calls of what is permissible, and you have great control of the camera in the game. That’s about it.

Sure, there might be some writing. There might be some prep work in designing a setting, a city, or in doing some reading to familiarize oneself with a game before running it. There might be some game design. There might be some acting. There’s going to be improvising, which will happen regardless of the situation.

Since there is so much perceived work on the GM’s part, people tend to not want to do it. There’s a lot of feelings that I could see that support the idea of avoiding GMing. They don’t want to feel like it’s their fault that a game wasn’t fun. They don’t want to create combat encounters. They don’t want to read a module.

And at the core of it, they want to play their character. For some people, this means embodying and creating a character to experience stories with. For others, it may just mean…making silly decisions. And then, not having to worry about figuring out what happens. That’s the GM’s job.

The GM’s job is to create the setting, respond to the player’s actions, dynamically represent a world…yeah.

I can see how that is intimidating to people who do not know the craft. It doesn’t help that many GMs refuse to give a peek behind their screen as to how they’re doing their job.

Magicians and GMs

My favorite magicians are Penn and Teller. It is because they are both talented with their skill in magic, and that they also actively show their audience how magic is done. They make a point that magic is not real. Magicians are constantly lying and deceiving you to give the illusion that they have supernatural abilities or powers. The same applies to a GM.

Many GMs lie and cheat and do not tell players what they have done to facilitate a game. That’s because for those of us who lean more on improv than explicit prep, we truly don’t do much except train our improv muscles. And well, like the small muscles in your back, it’s hard to train it without knowing that those muscles are there.

It goes back to listening. Improv is listening, yes-anding, maybe a little word association, maybe a little acting, and a lot of knowing your players. Knowing your team. It’s knowing good points to cut a scene, when to cut between scenes, and knowing how to build on and expand on singular themes–sometimes on a one word suggestion.

Anyway.

Enough Rambling, So What?

People are intimidated to be wrong and to take on responsibilities that are associated with a GM. It’s hard to be vulnerable if you have an ego. As a collaborative creative person, that was something that I learned to ditch very early. I’m not afraid of creating crap and throwing bad ideas out there. It’s part of the process, and I trust my team, I trust my players to have fun with it and to respect my decisions.

A lot of people don’t have this because they haven’t actively worked at it. If a player doesn’t feel like they have the support of their team, it’s hard for them to step out creatively with a new idea or thing. It would be hard to create a world if they don’t feel like they’re being supported. It would be hard to play a GM-less game, a game that didn’t have a story, because they wouldn’t know if they were being supported.

At my table, I would hope that my players know that they are supported and that I both support them, and that their fellow players support them. That feeling is why I love improv, and why I love TTRPGs, and why I have found it difficult to GM for pick up games.

My preferred style is improvised. And that can be a burden for players new to that sort of thing. And because I don’t like feeling like the “all-knowing-god”, I don’t like super strong frameworks. It feels too rail-roady to me.

It’s all preference, and perhaps my tastes just don’t suit a D&D pick up game group. I think it might be a complex problem, but at the end of the day…D&D, the D&D that people in those pick up grounds want, is not improv.

But the D&D and TTRPGs that I want to play is improv.

Huh.

I’ll figure it out, I’m sure.