My last post in the GM as God series was a little too abstract so I want to elaborate a little by talking about an example of it succeeding in one of my own games. So:

Bang!

I said this one word in 2002 to depict a critical event in one of my Mage: The Ascension sessions (one of the ones that playtested the adventure in Manifesto, “Alien Avatar”). No description happens in isolation, but this one’s notable because of its brevity and pivotal impact on the session. Bang! marked the point where everything went straight to hell, in a good way. It worked because of two elements:

The Plan’s the Thing

The cabal (the players’ group of mages) was given the task of infiltrating a Technocracy base at Alert. They knew the Canadian Forces installation was a cover for a research facility guarded by dozens of Sleeper troops. The PCs wanted to minimize Sleeper (normal person) casualties. They cabal needed a plan, and that gave me an opportunity to elicit detailed information about what mattered to them about the site and opposition.

Getting the players to stop and plan is a double-edged sword because it can disrupt story momentum, but it’s a great way for GMs to gather information. I typically leave much of the adventure loosely designed to harness the information that comes out of in and out of character discussion.

But it’s not just about learning what they want to know – you have to invent answers, share some of them to provide feedback on the plan, and keep the rest to unveil over the course of the story. In the last article I said that planning often slows down because players are unsure of the world. Counter this by providing clear information that’s not only about the issue at hand, but about things common to other situations.

For example, I let them know exactly how the Traditions view killing Sleepers in the course of operations (excusable, not the first choice, some radicals don’t care and said radicals may interfere if things go south – so their cabal better get it right to save those ignorant soldiers). They wanted to know about the usual countermeasures Technocrats use (Correspondence bans and advanced materials science, among other things).

This is why the gajillion books in a traditional RPG are theoretically useful, but why many of them don’t get it right. They describe facts, not expectations and norms. Vampire succeeds across multiple media (online, tabletop, LARP) because it generates these expectations. Individual characters may go “screw the Traditions/Camarilla/Invictus/Jedi Council” but they can’t navigate a social milieu even to rebel effectively without those customs.

The players wanted to know who the soldiers were (to use magic to impersonate them) what their patrol habits were and what the weather was like. All of these provided fuel for the Bang! moment. They decided they would use Life magic to impersonate some soldiers and slip in between snowmobile patrols.

The Guns

Steve’s character Phil Marlowe (I know, but that’s Hermetic Shadow Names for you) was a Thig technomancer. Long before the cabal set out on this mission he decided to make some guns that shot really well. One of the great things about Ascension is that you spend a lot of time hashing out the process of magic. Phil had enough Spirit magic to awaken the spirits of his guns, but not enough to bind them. He cast the sigil and created guns that like to shoot. When Phil wasn’t thinking about it and holding his guns, they would shift over in the direction of human targets. Steve and I discussed the potential pitfalls in depth – but having 3 extra Firearms dice was very, very appealing.

So Steve (and Phil) knew his guns were dangerous. Better yet, Steve effectively assented to this fact. If he wasn’t okay with it he could have changed his mine and gone with a different method.

It All Falls Together

The cabal teleported a few kilometers from Alert, avoiding possible sensor nets and bans. They trudged in, but suffered a delay when a local spirit – a god of snow – demanded their attention. They managed to turn the encounter to their advantage because the spirit wasn’t too pleased with the base and its warped spiritual presence. They asked it to hit Alert with a storm; it agreed.

Unfortunately, the delay also put them in the way of a snowmobile patrol. Their impersonation gambit wasn’t going well (they had the look, but not the attitude – only the Akashic had altered his own mind to babble military slang) and the temptation to just kill them was on the table – approved, though not encouraged by the ragged remnants of the Council of Nine.

They hid the soldiers’ bullet ridden bodies in the snow and took their vehicle in. They kept their parka hoods on, though they figured that as they’d used Life magic to change their appearances to those of troops serving on-base they’d be able to slip past casual attention.

I’d mapped and defined several buildings – less secure areas the characters knew about. The cabal decided to get their bearings by heading to the mess hall first – but the building’s guard had Phil’s face, as it was the guy he was doubling. Phil pistol-whipped him and dragged him with the cabal into the mess’ kitchen. Other soldiers noticed their absent comrade and followed the cabal in.

Phil spun the guard around to hold him hostage as six elite soldiers, half-unknowing servants of the Technocracy, took position with their weapons. He jammed a gun into the guard’s throat, and Steve mimed this action.

“Okay,” he said, “Let’s just calm down and –

Bang!

I didn’t need to say anything else. Steve knew Phil’s gun had just blown his hostage’s head off.

Punctum.

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