This post is the last in the TurboPulp rules series. It could easily be the first post – GMing is important!
A new way of describing the role and duties of the GM was introduced in the game, Apocalypse World, and was followed in many other games after. It’s an extremely useful and powerful approach, so we’ll use much of that here.
GM Principles
A GM has a number of things they should be thinking about and doing while they GM, and they are the GM Principles. Let these guide your thoughts and decision-making while GMing.
In brief, here they are. The first four are kind of general, you could easily carry them to other games. The rest are specific to TurboPulp and games based on it.
- Be a Fan of the Players and Characters.
- Think about dilemmas, not plots.
- Invite players to take part in the act of creation
- Help players get immersed
- Introduce and Play Out The Interventions
- Look for Compels
- Think about How To Use Threat
- Come up with (or shepherd) a suitable climax
And in a bit more detail:
1. Be a fan of the players and characters
Remember that the players are people and have chosen to play in your game. They’ve surrendered to you the power to make their evening really suck, or really shine. Remember you want the real people to have fun.
But also, don’t just give their characters everything they want. Think about what they’ll find fun and challenging, and sometimes a certain kind of frustrating, and work towards that.
But also, you are playing a game. You can’t (and shouldn’t) control everything that happens – but over the things you do control, go all out.
Remember, in this game, characters are larger-than-life. Looking incompetent is not what they players are hoping for, so avoid things like fumble tables. If they are sometimes in over their heads – that is okay. When they win (and sometimes they will), they’ll feel like gods.
2. Think About Dilemmas, Not plots
This means don’t decide outcomes area of time. Don’t assume players will “win” or “lose” certain encounters – in fact, getting ride of the idea of encounters is a good idea for this game.
3. Invite Players To Take Part In The Act Of Creation
Trust your players, and remember that you are just one person – 4 minds can be better than one. When a player asks you to describe something, or asks what happens, there are moments when its fine to say, “I don’t know, you tell me.”
The buck stops with you, you make the final decision, don’t forget that. But if you want to encourage the players to be more involved (or in a pre-game discussion, you and the players have decided this is what the game should be like), it’s fine to solicit player input some times.
4. Help Players Get Immersed
You want players to live their characters and experience the world you create together. There are lot of GMing tips on how to do this – most articles on being a better GM are about this specific point, so you can find a lot of tips on how to do this.
For example – describe the world the players see in a s much detail as you can. You are their window into the world. Don’t be afraid to Invite Players To Share In The Acct of Creation – when they ask what something is like, ask them, “I don’t know, what is that like.” Or, “Gina, you study victorian industry – what would this kind of place look like?”
Also, try to avoid being too mechanical with your GMing. Don’t say what your move is called (unless asked), just describe what happens.
5. Introduce and Play Out The Interventions
Interventions are the primary mechanic that makes TurboPulp different from other games so you should make sure they are used. If a Chapter (adventure) is split over two or more sessions, all Interventions should have been introduced by the end of the first session.
Each intervention is a separate group with their own objectives. Later in the playtest, we’ll probably incorporate mechanics to encourage players to bring them into play more often (possibly at some cost or risk to themselves) – watch out for rule changes here.
The nexxt post in this series will talk more about Interventions (and Compels).
6. Look For Compels
Each player can be compelled once per Chapter, to gain the ability to use more Traits. See the next post for ore about Compels, but in brief, make a note of everything different about each character – for example, their Traits. Keep them in mind, and look for ways to incorporate them in the adventure.
In this way, adventures are made more about the characters.
7. Threat and the GM
Threat is your pacing budget. Use it liberally, and remember, players have the tools (Traits and Conditions) to counter it. You want players to feel challenged! You also want to spend all your Threat – the endgame cannot begin while you still have Threat.
8. Work Toward The Climax
This is very specific to each separate TurboPulp game, and we cant discuss it in much detail here. But the basic idea is that the adventure cannot be ended by you while you still have Threat –
GM Moves
The term GM Move is an acknowledgement that GMs are also a player in the game, but serve a different role. The term Move means you are doing something, and following some rule in doing so. You make a move – whether rolling a skill, using a Trait, marking a Condition, or whatever.
A GM Move is a set of special ‘moves’ that only the GM can take. There are two types of moves – soft move and hard move. Whenever players look to you to find out what happens next, make a soft move. This is standard GM narration. You can make a soft move before a roll, or a roll might be in response to a soft move.
A soft move might be a Decision Roll, or any time you ask the players for a roll (or interrpretating their narration as automatically leading to a roll).
- Player: I check if this vendor sells the item I want.
- GM: Hmm maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. Let’s see – “make a Flair roll, to represent your ptrestigae and celebrity. Can he get you that item, and does he have access to it now or will it take a while. Oh you failed, hmm a Miss mean I get to narrate pretty much anything and doesn’t have to be related to what you were rolling for, so, um, “As you are haggling with the vendor, you both see a panicked rush from other vendors. As they pass by, one of them calls, ‘Run, hide, the pirates of Westermark have landed on the East Coast!’ Also, you see the item you wanted being packed up by the vendor’s family. What do you do now?”
Whenever players don’t succeed in stopping a soft move escalating, or they fail an appropriate roll, make a hard move. Soft moves often threaten to escalate into something worse if nothing is done to stop that. Hard moves should usually make sense in the fiction, and are usually telegraphed. In other words, establish a danger with a soft move, then make that danger come true with a hard move.
- GM: The storm sweeps across the city, and buildings shudder and sway.
- The GM has established a danger with a soft move – simple narration – warning players that their allies within the city are about to suffer storm damage. If the players do nothing, the GM might narrate those allies being swept away or whatever – suitable foreshadowing has established and given permission for this hard move.
- The players now have the opportunity to rush to allies, harden their defences, get them out of the city, whatever. If they have multiple allies in the city, they might have to choose who to help in order. They might be called on to make rolls. But the important thing is, they are taking action.
Here are some ideas for GM Moves – note these are vague and may need some retuning and addition to fit the specific game.
- Move the player-characters – separate them or put them together
- Increase someone’s stakes, place them in greater danger
- Foreshadow upcoming badness, on- or off-screen
- Inflict harm like a Condition or take away one of their things (including allies) – on- or off-screen (Or threaten to do this, if not stopped)
- Demonstrate something’s bad side
- Give a difficult decision
- Have an opponent do something, like use one of their moves, achieve a goal, etc. This may sometimes be foreshadowing greater danger, if players do nothing to stop it.
These are all ideas for things the GM might do, when the situation seems appropriate.
