The pace of a tabletop game is often pretty fast. Big decisions are made in relatively short amounts of time, and this especially goes for the GM. Experienced GMs know that you are called upon to instantly have the answer to everything, and that means making snap decisions. But no one is perfect. Sometimes, those snap decisions were bad ideas. And that's totally okay! It happens to everyone, and there are two reliable ways to resolve it. I'll tell you how to best utilize both in this guide.
The two methods I'll discuss--immediate retconning and writing around it--lend themselves especially well to when you notice the problem. Retconning is best when you immediately realize the mistake, and writing around it is best when you've only realized the mistake later on, especially after the session. But they both work in either situation, so consider the one that works for you.
The first method is immediate retconning. "Retcon" is short for "retroactive continuity," meaning revising the timeline so that something matches the new understanding of the situation. It's a process that is conceptually a little vexing, but it's not terribly difficult with a bit of creative problem solving. Here's how it works: you realize your mistake. Let's use an example.
I was running a campaign, and the party was transporting a group of NPCs. At the end of the session, we about to start combat. When we picked up the next session, we all kind of forgot about the NPCs as the players fought the enemies. When combat was over, one of the players said, "Hey, why didn't the guards in the caravan help in the attack?" Oops. It was a pretty clear mistake. That's what the guards were there for. I had to make it right for my players.
So the first step is take a moment and consider the situation. You want to understand specifically what you need to keep about the situation and what you can change. Look at the problem and ask yourself how it could be fixed with the least changes to what you've already done. Smaller mistakes will be easier, and larger mistakes more challenging, but they're all solvable problems. In this example, I wanted to resolve the negative feeling my players had from not being supported by the guards. I could change the way combat itself went with a retcon, or I could come up with some valid reason that the guards would have not supported them.
The next step is to find a specific change to make. Again, you're looking for as few changes as possible to make this work. Once you have a general idea, try to give it detail by imagining it fully in your mind. You will be narrating this and trying to sell your players on its validity, so you need to have a real idea in your mind of it. In my example, I had a couple of options. I could have rolled attacks for the guards, subtracting their damage from the enemies' hit points, and adding back hit points to players who lost them in the resulting extra rounds. (You might be thinking, but that kind of thing happens all the time in tabletop games. You're right. It does. But it's a little retcon nonetheless. I mention this specifically because it illustrates how fundamental to games like D&D is the retcon, so don't be afraid to use it.) My other option was to narratively deal with it: the guards had agreed that this attack didn't constitute what their contract bound them to do, so they withheld their support in the clash. Either of these situations would resolve the issue well, and give a benefit either way: reinstating lost hit points gains you the trust of your players, and creating tension with the guards makes the trip they were on more interesting.
The final step is to actually deliver the change. In my experience, retcons only enter the equation when something is going to prevent fun from happening. And that means that your job is to tend to your players as much as it is to narrate the game. Be gentle and warm in your manner, and remember to treat them like your friend. I like to pose my proposed retcons as matters of debate: "This is my plan. Does it seem fair to everyone?" As I said, if the problem is that players aren't having fun, you want to check in and see if your action is going to help that. Otherwise, you'll need to do something else to try to help solve the situation. In my example, my players had cultivated a slightly competitive relationship with me as DM; they posed the inconsistency to me as a playful jab, and I responded in kind by surrounding them with antagonistic guards. It was more appropriate in that situation, even though that's absolutely not how I ordinarily DM. I did this without posing it as a question, just as a statement of the new direction of the game.
The other method for dealing with a mistake is writing around it. The goal here is to change parts of the story so that there need be no retcons. The guards not supporting the player characters because of their own motivations is an example of this. To further explore this method, I'll use another example. An easy mistake to make is when an important NPC says something you didn't mean for them to say. This is a more dramatic issue than before, though: the guards not attacking is a combat issue more than a narrative issue, but this only impacts the story. So writing around it is our best bet.
Let's consider a hypothetical that fills out our example: the players learn a crucial bit of information that advances the plot, and an NPC they're with says something that implies they know more about the situation. The players immediately notice this and demand more information. But it was a mistake, and now you have to deal with the situation. It's entirely possible, and notably very easy, to immediately retcon this: "Oops, I didn't mean to say that. That NPC never said that." But maybe, like me, you notice the thrill in the players when they think they've caught on to something big. I want to keep that going. So I go with writing around it.
The first step in writing around it is to assess what this new information (your mistake) changes about your world. What details are complicated or made impossible by this new change? We don't need to think of solutions yet--just figure out what has been affected. Let's say that in our example, the NPC who revealed they know something has never said anything that would indicate that they would have known something like they know--let's say, they are well-acquainted with a specific person working closely with the king who the message is from, and they have never revealed they're close with the king or his circle. By revealing this, I need to come up with a new past for the NPC and a reason that they would have kept this from the party.
The second step is brainstorming possibilities. Don't stop at one idea--try to come up with a few possibilities. Your goal is to consider the different advantages of each possibility after you have a few ideas. For our example, we have some possibilities. Perhaps the NPC is a quiet or dishonest character who is keeping other things from the party as well. Perhaps the NPC felt that they would be judged for being close with royalty, or taken advantage of. Or perhaps the NPC was waiting to reveal that they actually work for the king and have been reporting back to him. The first possibility--they're shady--allows us to create tension in the party as an NPC becomes more of a villain to them. The second possibility--they're afraid of being taken advantage of--might comfortably explain the situation away while keeping the NPC relatively likable. The third option--they're working for the king--introduces its own mini-storyline, as the party will now have even more questions about the NPC. Now we have a wealth of good information to choose from.
The last step is choosing and implementing the decision. You want to choose the possibility that maximizes what you want from your game. In the example above, let's consider it from the perspective of how much I wanted to be derailed by the mistake. If I wanted to just get back to the story, I would choose the fear of being taken advantage of option so we could get moving again. If I wanted a dash of intrigue but not a whole conversation, I would choose the shady character option and give it its moment to shine before getting back into it. If I wanted to let the players go wild with roleplaying, I would choose the working for the king option and open up a new story with them. Once I've chosen it, take just one moment more (having taken a pause to deliberate through these steps) and find the narration you specifically want, then go for it.
These are the two most tried-and-true options for fixing a mistake in a tabletop top game, and the longer you play, the more well-versed you will become in using these methods. The great thing about pulling these techniques off right is that it doesn't even look like a mistake to the players, especially if you're writing around the situation. That's a fantastic boon to any GM, so practice these skills when you can.
That's all for now. Coming soon: a branching path mystery one-shot, a free spell slot tracker, and a time loop one-shot. Until next time, happy gaming!
Back to the homepage (where you can find everything!)
No comments:
Post a Comment