If you're playing in a setting like Ravenloft, Worlds of Darkness or really any game with vampires you should give the stakes a bonus to damage and make them hard to get. Maybe they need to be blessed or made from a special type of rare wood...oh, not those kind of stakes...
How can the GM make the other kind of stakes important? The players have to have some "skin in the game" as our IRL saying goes. The epic story that you've written or the awesome module--do we still cal them that?--that you have found and want to run may have plots and villainous schemes with universal implications for your entire campaign world...But: What does a pirate care about that? He wants treasure, rum and a lady....What does a punk street urchin care about the big corporate war? She's already living at rock bottom and just wants her next fix and to survive another day...No matter how good of a job Jeremy Irons does at chewing the scenery, what does a barbarian half-orc care about warring factions of mages fighting among themselves to see who can control badly animated CGI dragons? Even if your story is actually good and had less Wayanses in it, this half-orc only cares about what's in front of him. He's not on real good terms with any of the political powers that be and couldn't care less which side won.
How can you make the players care about the epic badness going on? It has to affect them on a personal level. Have the self-righteous mayor impound the pirate's ship and close all brothels and taverns. Show the unfair, overly harsh treatment for criminals caught smuggling. Have the greater of the two evil corporations start cleaning up the streets of undesirables...by disposing of the "dregs" of society with extreme measures. Once some of her contacts are dead or these street sweepers come after her, then she'll have a reason to care. Maybe corporation X sucks, but at least they aren't lacing drugs with cyanide. As for the half-orc, maybe the only village that ever showed him any kindness is burned to the ground by that bald headed guy with the blue lipstick. Very few people can live their lives in a complete vacuum, even a savage, barbarian half-orc may have people he cares about...and if those people are taken away, then he'll be going on the warpath even if it means a trip to the big city.
Obviously, there are limitless ways that the GM can get the players to say, "This time it's personal", and that's really all you want. Find out what the PCs hold as important and then threaten that or take it away. Once they're motivated, you can then go into all those awesome details that you wrote or read that were so cool in the first place.
How can the GM make the other kind of stakes important? The players have to have some "skin in the game" as our IRL saying goes. The epic story that you've written or the awesome module--do we still cal them that?--that you have found and want to run may have plots and villainous schemes with universal implications for your entire campaign world...But: What does a pirate care about that? He wants treasure, rum and a lady....What does a punk street urchin care about the big corporate war? She's already living at rock bottom and just wants her next fix and to survive another day...No matter how good of a job Jeremy Irons does at chewing the scenery, what does a barbarian half-orc care about warring factions of mages fighting among themselves to see who can control badly animated CGI dragons? Even if your story is actually good and had less Wayanses in it, this half-orc only cares about what's in front of him. He's not on real good terms with any of the political powers that be and couldn't care less which side won.
How can you make the players care about the epic badness going on? It has to affect them on a personal level. Have the self-righteous mayor impound the pirate's ship and close all brothels and taverns. Show the unfair, overly harsh treatment for criminals caught smuggling. Have the greater of the two evil corporations start cleaning up the streets of undesirables...by disposing of the "dregs" of society with extreme measures. Once some of her contacts are dead or these street sweepers come after her, then she'll have a reason to care. Maybe corporation X sucks, but at least they aren't lacing drugs with cyanide. As for the half-orc, maybe the only village that ever showed him any kindness is burned to the ground by that bald headed guy with the blue lipstick. Very few people can live their lives in a complete vacuum, even a savage, barbarian half-orc may have people he cares about...and if those people are taken away, then he'll be going on the warpath even if it means a trip to the big city.
Obviously, there are limitless ways that the GM can get the players to say, "This time it's personal", and that's really all you want. Find out what the PCs hold as important and then threaten that or take it away. Once they're motivated, you can then go into all those awesome details that you wrote or read that were so cool in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment