10: TRUST
RPGs require a lot of trust between players and game masters. How to set difficulties, which numbers to sue and dice to roll or whatever, whether the GM should fudge, issues of cheating and the like, as well as what to include and exclude in sessions.
Safety tools for content can be a great help for the latter, even if they never have to be used.
I freely admit that I play fairly fast and loose with some systems, erring on the players’ side. A near-TPK in my first session and the general reaction to it was a formative experience.
And the players largely have to trust the GM for the information they have about the world as their characters experience it. I’ve seen some interesting GMing advice about fiddling with this, where you put a key point in a description to make sure it’s noticed, and inaccurate estimates in things like the size or number of monsters in a horror game, with the addendum that “there could be a dozen” is noting it’s vague - and adding “do you want to stop and check?” and smiling evilly if someone asks for an exact number. But on the whole, you have to flag this kind of thing up.
Being the sole source of information has its drawbacks as well. For one, it can be tricky to get across that an NPC is lying, because you’re making up all their dialogue so the tells for honesty don’t come through - indeed, tone in general can be hard to convey. I often add it in description to make sure, especially with subtext. “She asks ‘you’ve told her the rules?’ with a tone that suggest you had better have.”
Other trust issues include players who will not trust friendly NPCs. I knew one who avoided including an allied NPC... while also playing someone not generally trusted by the other PCs himself.
How much PCs can trust each other and their allies varies from game to game, with genre and tone. Some games with conspiracy themes have trust mechanics, where you benefit from the trust of others - and in some like Cold City you can gain a lot by betraying it. But the game makes that theme clear going in.
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| I remember when this replaced I WANT TO BELIEVE. Yikes. |
Bonus round:
Conscience - I have a hard time playing villainous PCs for long. As the saying goes, my consequence-free power fantasy is being able to help.
Light - I tend to run pretty light systems, and often pretty light tone games as well. Except when I really don’t, as my Vampire prompt series demonstrates. And even then, I generally keep the table pretty light-hearted, and only keep a serious tone in some games.
Advantage - I like advantages and disadvantages to customise player characters. Though I note that there are basically two kinds, mechanical and lore, and a lot of lore disadvantages are really ways to get more spotlight time. As with powers and skills, a well thought out last can say a lot about a game and its tone - Buffy has a lot of combat Qualities and emotional Drawbacks, encouraging characters who are good in a fight and bad in a relationship.
Runeslinger on Conscience
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