Reducing GM Pressure: Phase In Your Jobs

Reducing GM Pressure: One Thing Added, One Removed

Go easy on yourself. And keep it simple behind the screen.

I ran Night’s Black Agents for the first time on Sunday. We did the chase scene with the nuclear briefcase. Great game. Tricked my players to play again in March.

The PCs are super agents. The best from Mossad, CIA, MI5, IRA, and clandestine operatives in a 1992 world that’s Monster Hunter International meets X-Files (that’s my slant on it).

So now I’m prepping a conspyramid and noodling on possibilities for foe at the top.

What kind of vampire do I want running the show? And what does he want? I was thinking of using Dracula Dossier. But I’ve been in a homebrew mood. So the TPK will entirely be my fault. 🙂

Two quick tips coming from the session.

First, Phase In All the GM’s Jobs

My situation was being rusty, new game system, new characters, new tech, and having just a single published encounter to run from.

My session goal was to run a chase, run a combat, and then a period of investigation.

I kept tech dirt simple with just a couple of player handouts via screenshare. Otherwise, it was audio/video on Discord the whole time, with no maps or tokens, and we rolled our own physical dice.

I sent out a PDF with pre-gens. Players picked characters in order of who arrived at the session. Then we started in medias res with the party barreling through the streets of Krakow in a Mercedes W124 chasing after a Russian spy with a nuclear briefcase.

My goals were not to be at the peak of my game. Got a ways to go for that previous high tide line. I didn’t put a lot of expectations on myself, the players, or the game.

Next session, I’ll have a campaign outline and a pointcrawl prepped. And some additional world details tables for the year 1992.

I thinking this campaign will be a Monster of the Week set up with pointcrawl up the conspyramid until we hit #1.

Anyway, that’s my first tip. Keep it simple behind the screen. Remove pressure of being the sole stage designer. Let players make it complicated.

Second, Let Players Paint the Scene For You

In Night’s Black Agents, investigation is an automatic success. No rolls. The game is not about getting clues, but in figuring out what to do with them.

From the room you took over across the street, you get your tradecraft on. The night club is a hub of activity day and night. Limos, Lambos, and lorries hit front and back every hour. CCTV all around. Muscle outside, muscle in. All packing. Everyone’s relaxed. Business as usual. What do you do?

In NBA investigations, players simply ask questions. The answers are guaranteed but sometimes cost world resources such as connections and clocks. Their characters are considered best in class worldwide for tradecraft. So a GM’s job is prepping to deal out details.

The two best ways I handle information, and this is where I felt the most friction in session #1, were in setting details and characters. So I’m making more lists of 1992 details, with tradecraft gear at the top.

But I’m also simplifying by removing something.

In session #2, I’m removing pressure to be sole stage designer.

I’ll be asking players a lot more for world details during scenes. We started doing that when the party staked out the night club and it worked well.

In addition, NBA has mechanics for contacts, disguises, agencies, and even trust factors between the PCs. So next session I will pick one unused part of the character sheets and prep and GM that to learn it. The Contacts subsystem, perhaps.

I consider such things a type of reward. They are tools for the characters, options for players, and design choices for the GM.

So that’s what I’ll be adding next session.

One thing removed, one thing added.

Take a look at your prep for this week. What is one complex GM job you can remove, share, or delegate to free up mental bandwidth? And what is one specific mechanic you want to focus on learning?

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

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