Become: The Story Guide _ r:01
Start Now, Shine on your Players
Becoming a true Story Guide takes time and practice. In the beginning many think of themselves as Game Masters. It is an apt description, but it comes with an illusion of a misleading quality. The Story Guide is a narrator. We set the scene and provide our audiences, the players and observers, with the story at large.
We are only one of the storytellers at the table. Growing from Game Master to Story Guide is a simple step in the right direction. Be humble even if your world is cruel.
The overbearing Game Master stubbornly enforcing his own rigid idea of your character, unwilling to consider any alternative interpretations or creative decisions. “That’s not what he would do? No, I’m afraid those are my character’s actions, and my expression takes absolute precedence over any other possibilities.”
Don’t spare your players the trials you’ve prepared for them. Consequences are the ultimate entertainment. Let’s keep the pages turning. If you prepare deadly content, play the deadly content. Stick to your table’s theme. If we are tragic, we are tragic. If we are melodrama, then we are melodrama. If we are comedy, then we are comedy. Sticking within the writing guides for your established genre will keep your players on track, returning session after session, and living it up.
Becoming The Story Guide
As the Game Master we have responsibilities! Tons of them. As we grow into Story Guides we cultivate the broad range of skills necessary to run a table. From setting the scene to making judgement calls. Improvisational skills and narrative redirection to keep our Players, our Co-Writers, moving in the plotted direction. We have many tools to make things work, and we have nearly unlimited resources to review to sharpen these skills.
The Story Guide:
Whatever title you choose to play around as whether it is Game Master, Dungeon King, Joe Wrote It, The Wall that has EYES… Remember, you are The Story Guide, in the most plain of terms, the most humble terms. Treat your Players to the spot light. Give them the power to shape the world you made through their actions. Encourage them to face their demons, and the demons you throw on the board.
