GM as God Part 3: Shatner on the Mount
Oh boy.
This one was inspired by a Youtube video. It’s extremely silly and incredibly nerdy, and I may not be able to communicate my message because of it, but what the hell: at least it’ll be good for a laugh.
I want you to watch a video where William Shatner talks about Star Trek V.
Are you done laughing? It’s pretty funny. It’s important, too. Not Shatner’s specific thoughts, but the fact that he articulated them.
He was at the height of his power. V was his movie. Kirk was his character and nobody could take that away from him. So the video above probably represents the apex of self-indulgence — but think about this: William Shatner could have sleepwalked through this part (who else was going to play Kirk back then?) but he didn’t. He actually prepared a deep motivation for Kirk despite the fact that it’s a silly film with a silly character in a bizarre situation, and there were no penalties at all for not preparing. Say what you want about William Shatner’s acting chops, but you can’t accuse him of laziness.
I’m not. Talking. About dramatic. Pauses. Players have very Shatneresque privileges because you need them to commit to the game. You trust them to play their characters as they see fit and for those reasons, it’s very easy for them to sleepwalk through the part instead of developing it. Fight that. Raise the inner Shatner on the Mount, and then bind it.
Raising the Shatner: Push the players for meta-reflection on the game constantly. You know the off-topic punning and and crap that happens in tense scenes? That’s you and your group doing it wrong. You’re reflexively seeking that meta-reflective (beyond the in-world perspective – and isn’t that phrase back there a mouthful?) space to get a handle on things, but without an articulated goal you just spin your wheels. You can use humour here, by the way. Instead of Monty Python, topical political satire. Instead of puns and impressions, cultural references designed to speak to who the character is. In all cases, You have to force the players to back up for a sec and consider motivations.
Funny thing: You will effectively end up breaking in-world narrative progress all the time by asking players about character feelings and stances, or riffing off OOC moments to dig deeper. But post-session players will often report that they felt more immersed and in more of a flow state. As I said, Raising the Shatner works best when we piggyback off of cyclical micro-retreats from focus that naturally occur in the game. Open these up into a new, free space for exploring the game, where you prepare like an actor in the moment, instead of doing the heavy lifting before play. You want them to feel as free to elaborate on their roles and as unsself-conscious as Shatner himself.
Binding the Shatner: You may want players to use their power to feel free like Shatner does, to wax poetic even about being an elf, which on another level is Trek-silly, but you don’t want them to go too far and be Star Trek V silly. That’s the danger. Don’t just veto or name-call stupid ideas. Challenge, challenge, challenge. Your job is to turn even crap characters into gold be assailing them with condistions under which they must evolve into something better. Challenges can either come from within the world or from the metagame level.
Give brooding loners brothers. Tell people with Mary Sue concepts to justify their combination of competence and lack of formal social power (Mary Sues are awesome, but usually not in charge). Does Mary Sue have an enemy? Is she incredibly unpleasant in a couple of key situations (and not just by being annoyingly awesome, since you want to fix that). Toss out life-changing ordeals, strange, fictional social mores. Bind the Shatner.
Find a balance. Tell players to take charge of the Shatner within – but carefully, carefully now.
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