Blind spots

Ya know, I'm finding that I have weird blind spots when it comes to GMing. It occurs to me after the fact, that I really should have had the "brain" of the thing be a tough monster instead of defenseless. (They were invading a huge, living plant-hive-thingy to destroy it before its evil plans came to fruition.) But I had this "picture" in my head and didn't think to modify it to deal with the fact that things weren't working the way the picture expected them to.

I also find that while I plan plot threads around characters and their backgrounds, I tend to neglect characters' specific abilities when I plan the low-level details. I had, blindly, never really considered what Fastlane's powers (time manipulation) would allow in the "plant monster dungeon." Funny, considering how much I fretted over Fastlane's powers when trying to figure out how he'd interact with the secret military base… but even with my fretting, I still missed some rather obvious things. I think the problem there is that Fastlane's powers don't quite work the way I "picture" them in my head. I don't think of them as being as flexible as they really are.

My wife, Karen, commented on my indecisiveness as a GM in a follow-up conversation after the game. I find I have two levels of indecision… one is on the small scale, when the mechanics+dice don't make a decision for me and I don't really care about the outcome, and therefor can't make myself choose. But I'm GM-milquetoast, afraid to do anything that looks like, or even smells like, intentional screwing over the players. Blah. That's where I run into the problem of "I want freeform, but I can't seem to do it." I'm too worried about running over the players, and I want mechanics as a go-between and scape-goat. "Hey, man, it wasn't me that maimed your hero, it was the dice. Yeah."

Man, when they planted all the Round-Up bombs™, got clear of the plant hive, and pressed the detonator, only to hear just one of the bombs go off… they all sat and stared at me. I thought I was done for… they had planned and planned this bit, and it had mostly gone off without a hitch until it was time to deliver the payload, and I screwed it all up for them. I had a perfectly good reason for it, but I saw nothing but players who just knew the GM was screwing them over because he could ("railroading!"), and I thought I was going to get lynched. I reveled in the moment, despite the fear of lynching… and I think it was probably the coolest moment of the whole scenario, and not just for me. I can say that now that I know nobody is going to kill me.

The other indecision point is the "big ticket" item… the heros do something very unexpected, and I'm off on the chess-move-analysis rabbit-trail, trying to see as deep into the plot as I can to figure out all the implications of the various responses. "If I let this happen, will it short-circuit the action? But the plot will be boring if I deny it flat out. Will it catch me in an awkward situation, like having to explain why the sewer doesn't drain into the subway tunnel?" Those can paralyze me, because, as in chess, I just can't see very far. (I'm a sucky chess player and take way to long to make the losing moves.) And I'm a perfectionist. I worry about my ability to deal with my screwups further down-stream in the plot, so I bog down the game trying really hard not to screw up at each decision point. This wouldn't be a big deal if it was once or twice a game… all GMs have to deal with this. But I do it constantly, over what looks like little stuff to the players. But I see all these webs of cause-and-effect, and I'm trying to keep the game on the path of the "most interesting and exciting."

I was reading this Treasure Tables [[http://www.treasuretables.org/2005/11/interview-with-luke-crane|interview with Luke Crane]], author of [[http://www.burningwheel.org/|The Burning Wheel]], and thinking how his described gamemastering (minus the profanity) provides a stark contrast to how my games have run lately. He's all energy and goofy voices, and I'm all brooding chess master on the losing end of the match. I'm not a fun gamemaster.

And I realized that a really large part of my problem isn't with the system, it's with my skill as a GM. I'm suck no matter what the system is, and I need to quit dinking with trying to find the "right system" and concentrate on learning to overcome my personal suck.

What's funny is, Luke wrote The Burning Wheel to combat his flaws as a gamemaster… namely being a "dysfunctional railroader." So maybe at one level, using the right system will deal with the first level of indecision, while I have to find a non-system way to resolve my problems with the second level.