I am a big advocate of the idea that GMs don't just take responsibility for in-game narratives and smoothing out which mechanics actually get used, they also have social responsibilities.

One area where those responsibilities have bite is that I make concessions to what different players like doing. I like running quite socially dense crime stuff but people in the group love magic, puzzles, and... Dungeons.

I am a big advocate of the idea that GMs don't just take responsibility for in-game narratives and smoothing out which mechanics actually get used, they also have social responsibilities.

One area where those responsibilities have bite is that I make concessions to what different players like doing. I like running quite socially dense crime stuff but people in the group love magic, puzzles, and... Dungeons.

Problem is that designing dungeons activates my ADHD in a way that reminds me of being at school. Full-body physical discomfort boredom.

I don't mind running them, but making my own? Awful. Given a choice between stacking shelves and designing osr adventures for a living I would stack shelves every single time.

I did spend some time trying to find modern adventures that work for me but I gave up. I have had more luck with TSR modules because they are more static and that gives me more room.

@Taskerland Related to the storygame concept of flags where the game should be about things the players want to explore. E.g. if a D&D player wants to be a thief there had better be a trap and some sneaking in the next three hours or you have fucked up.

My charming partner, being the group's resident chaos goblin, found a way to detonate my current game by finding a crack in the world, prying it open and then forcing the entire group to jump through it.

This leaves me in the weird situation of having a game but the group stepped off the edge of the map and I have nothing prepped at all.

So... I am actually going to test my impression about the greater hospitality of TSR materials and run Keep on the Borderlands for a few weeks.

@sbszine Exactly. When a player creates a character who is a dildo salesman, you should make sure to have a couple of sessions about selling dildoes.

Reading it has been interesting as there are a lot of assumptions made about context but they're barely stated and aren't supported.

I am intrigued because a) I have never run it before and b) the lack of a properly developed social layer invites re-interpretation.

I feel like, at this point, Keep is almost like a folk or jazz standard. It is there to be adapted and re-worked.

@Taskerland I am still learning this stuff and after 35ish years of GMing I hope to one day get it right.

I'm not sure that "choice/allocation" type thing is actually true if your table don't expect it. I mean my old table never assumed anything was "for them" except in a getting equality of face time with the GM. I have zero problem with a dildo salesman ending up on Skaro running around pursued by Daleks. Indeed if anything most of my games are characterised by everyone being the wrong people, trying to solve situations the right people turned out to colonial scum about.

@sbszine @Taskerland

@Printdevil @Taskerland GMless solved this for me; everyone does the obvious thing or the unexpected thing as they wish on the night

@Printdevil @Taskerland GMless solved this for me; everyone does the obvious thing or the unexpected thing as they wish on the night

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@Taskerland Have you Return to Keep on the Borderlands. I had quite good fun running it with a heavy implication of "that wish has gone before" constantly to a group of players who'd never done KotB. It gave it all a totally undeserved gravitas and I kept making whistling "oooeeeeoooo" noises whenever there was a call back (to a scenario none of them knew)

GMs can be chaos goblins too.

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I am a big advocate of the idea that GMs don't just take responsibility for in-game narratives and smoothing out which mechanics actually get used, they also have social responsibilities.

One area where those responsibilities have bite is that I make concessions to what different players like doing. I like running quite socially dense crime stuff but people in the group love magic, puzzles, and... Dungeons.