One of the first conversations I want to have with my players at the start of a campaign (assuming that we've already talked about player types) is the "buy in". This is where we have a big discussion about what this campaign is really all about. That campaign premise is not something dictated by me if I'm the GM. It's a conversation.
I remember the discussion at the outset of my Gothic Fantasy Horror campaign (as I write this, it was the best campaign I ever ran) where one of the players asked, "Can there be gunpowder weapons?" I hadn't really thought of it but I immediately had visions of Church Inquisitors shooting Werewolves with blunderbusses. "Hell yes!"
The other part of the buy in is where I start hearing about the PC's and what makes them tick. This is yet another place where the campaign world can be built or enhanced. In the same campaign one of the players wanted to play an unusual spellcaster type. "I'd like my character to be the victim of some kind of ritual that has left him with a portal to someplace BAD in the center of his chest. And bad stuff comes out of that portal, over which I have some, but perhaps not total control." That little slice of brilliance, right there, became the near total basis for the plot which unfolded throughout the campaign.
That description wasn't just window dressing for the characters powers. It started a conversation about the character's entire motivation. He was all about trying to learn to control, and perhaps even abolish, the dark, horrible things on the other side of that portal. That struggle for knowledge and control defined the character and gave me a powerful tool as the GM.
When you have that sort of grasp on what a character's motivations are then you know what kinds of barriers that player is going to want to smash right through in pursuit of that which is core. And smashing down such barriers is what adventure is all about.
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” - Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)
We hit those kinds of walls all the time in our adventures. The ones we have around the gaming table and the ones we live in our lives. They frustrate us and repel us sometimes. Other times we see right away how they can be broken or circumvented. And sometimes they guide us away from the wrong path.
Years ago I worked as a Commercial Real Estate Appraiser. I started off as a humble researcher at an appraisal firm and worked at it until my boss thought I had the chops to be an appraiser. So I took the courses and tests to become a trainee and began doing my best to evaluate commercial properties.
The "gold standard" in that profession was to become an MAI or Member of the Appraisal Institute. That was the top of the food chain in that business and most banks required an MAI signature for commercial appraisals (pieces of raw land or improved property sometimes worth tens of millions of dollars). If you really wanted to be a big deal or run your own business as an appraiser, you needed your MAI.
As you'd expect, the requirements for getting your MAI were steep. It required lots and lots of hours of work, classes, tests and a giant sample appraisal that really showed off your best work. At the time I remember being daunted by what a seemingly impossible task it would be to accumulate all of that effort and knowledge.
And, for me, it was impossible. Thank goodness! I wasn't a great appraiser and was never going to be a great appraiser. My gifts and aptitudes and interests would have been a complete mismatch in that field. The day that I got laid off from my appraisal job was a great day in my life, even though it didn't feel that way at the time. I hit a brick wall and I absolutely did not want it badly enough.
At the start of my coaching career I had an opportunity afforded to me by my own coach to go and sit in a room full of really incredible people and learn about myself and how I was going to embark upon my mission in life (at least that's how I understand it in retrospect. At the time I just had a very strong feeling it was where I needed to go.). The problem was this room full of incredible people was 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles. And I needed to be there on Sunday. And it was Tuesday.
If it was going to happen for me then it would take some commitment and faith and frankly a chunk of money we could not easily afford at the time. It was going to take work. And I was going to do that work.
Right away I consulted the most important asset in my world: My wife. I called her at work because I knew that I didn't have time to wait for her to get back home to initiate this conversation. I was going to need a plane ticket and time away from the family. I was asking a lot. I scrambled that afternoon to find a friend in LA who just happened to live close enough to the hotel where we'd be meeting. I could crash at his place and he'd even let me drive his car. This was a friend I'd met through gaming. I owe him big time.
I will absolutely never forget my wife coming into the house that evening, putting her purse down just inside the front door and sitting down next to me on the sofa. "Let's figure out how to make this happen," she said. Boom. That was the sound of that wall crashing down. And on the other side I changed the rest of my life.
When we encounter those walls then it's time to ask what we've bought into. What sort of campaign are we signing on for if we get past that wall. Is what is on the other side really worth the effort it's going to take to get there? These are legitimate questions. And "No." is a legitimate answer.
I speak often to my clients about clarity and I try to remember to do the same with players in my campaigns. If they have clarity about who they really are and what they really want then the answers come quick and easy when they see those walls. With clarity, obstacles become mere speed bumps. But sometimes with clarity we realize that what looks like an obstacle is actually a boundary. It's not telling us that we should figure out a way past. It is telling us, "Hey don't bother coming over here. It's just not worth it."
I remember the discussion at the outset of my Gothic Fantasy Horror campaign (as I write this, it was the best campaign I ever ran) where one of the players asked, "Can there be gunpowder weapons?" I hadn't really thought of it but I immediately had visions of Church Inquisitors shooting Werewolves with blunderbusses. "Hell yes!"
The other part of the buy in is where I start hearing about the PC's and what makes them tick. This is yet another place where the campaign world can be built or enhanced. In the same campaign one of the players wanted to play an unusual spellcaster type. "I'd like my character to be the victim of some kind of ritual that has left him with a portal to someplace BAD in the center of his chest. And bad stuff comes out of that portal, over which I have some, but perhaps not total control." That little slice of brilliance, right there, became the near total basis for the plot which unfolded throughout the campaign.
That description wasn't just window dressing for the characters powers. It started a conversation about the character's entire motivation. He was all about trying to learn to control, and perhaps even abolish, the dark, horrible things on the other side of that portal. That struggle for knowledge and control defined the character and gave me a powerful tool as the GM.
When you have that sort of grasp on what a character's motivations are then you know what kinds of barriers that player is going to want to smash right through in pursuit of that which is core. And smashing down such barriers is what adventure is all about.
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” - Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)
We hit those kinds of walls all the time in our adventures. The ones we have around the gaming table and the ones we live in our lives. They frustrate us and repel us sometimes. Other times we see right away how they can be broken or circumvented. And sometimes they guide us away from the wrong path.
Years ago I worked as a Commercial Real Estate Appraiser. I started off as a humble researcher at an appraisal firm and worked at it until my boss thought I had the chops to be an appraiser. So I took the courses and tests to become a trainee and began doing my best to evaluate commercial properties.
The "gold standard" in that profession was to become an MAI or Member of the Appraisal Institute. That was the top of the food chain in that business and most banks required an MAI signature for commercial appraisals (pieces of raw land or improved property sometimes worth tens of millions of dollars). If you really wanted to be a big deal or run your own business as an appraiser, you needed your MAI.
As you'd expect, the requirements for getting your MAI were steep. It required lots and lots of hours of work, classes, tests and a giant sample appraisal that really showed off your best work. At the time I remember being daunted by what a seemingly impossible task it would be to accumulate all of that effort and knowledge.
And, for me, it was impossible. Thank goodness! I wasn't a great appraiser and was never going to be a great appraiser. My gifts and aptitudes and interests would have been a complete mismatch in that field. The day that I got laid off from my appraisal job was a great day in my life, even though it didn't feel that way at the time. I hit a brick wall and I absolutely did not want it badly enough.
At the start of my coaching career I had an opportunity afforded to me by my own coach to go and sit in a room full of really incredible people and learn about myself and how I was going to embark upon my mission in life (at least that's how I understand it in retrospect. At the time I just had a very strong feeling it was where I needed to go.). The problem was this room full of incredible people was 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles. And I needed to be there on Sunday. And it was Tuesday.
If it was going to happen for me then it would take some commitment and faith and frankly a chunk of money we could not easily afford at the time. It was going to take work. And I was going to do that work.
Right away I consulted the most important asset in my world: My wife. I called her at work because I knew that I didn't have time to wait for her to get back home to initiate this conversation. I was going to need a plane ticket and time away from the family. I was asking a lot. I scrambled that afternoon to find a friend in LA who just happened to live close enough to the hotel where we'd be meeting. I could crash at his place and he'd even let me drive his car. This was a friend I'd met through gaming. I owe him big time.
I will absolutely never forget my wife coming into the house that evening, putting her purse down just inside the front door and sitting down next to me on the sofa. "Let's figure out how to make this happen," she said. Boom. That was the sound of that wall crashing down. And on the other side I changed the rest of my life.
When we encounter those walls then it's time to ask what we've bought into. What sort of campaign are we signing on for if we get past that wall. Is what is on the other side really worth the effort it's going to take to get there? These are legitimate questions. And "No." is a legitimate answer.
I speak often to my clients about clarity and I try to remember to do the same with players in my campaigns. If they have clarity about who they really are and what they really want then the answers come quick and easy when they see those walls. With clarity, obstacles become mere speed bumps. But sometimes with clarity we realize that what looks like an obstacle is actually a boundary. It's not telling us that we should figure out a way past. It is telling us, "Hey don't bother coming over here. It's just not worth it."
