Make the BBEG the Side Quest · Game Master's Laboratory

Make the BBEG the Side Quest

When commenting on

's Post I had a Jimmy Newton style brain blast about this graphic.

I'm not a graphic designer so I am not sure if it gets my point across, but I think I unlocked why I like this style of gming so much. I think there is the explicit idea of making sure that the story is developed by the players as much as the GM, but I think another implicit or perfect accident is making sure that the story is created by each of the players, not just the loudest in the room (speaking as the loudest in the room in most cases). It is really easy in the traditional model to fall into the trappings that the players can only propose side quests that are just set dressing. In this side quest mentality, eventually you have to address the "real problem" and often a player gets cut off during their arc, or even before. I am running a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game right now, and I think I am going to be very intentionally making the main plot a source of obstacles of their goals, rather than the core driving force.

With a player that wants to have his character romance another character (its cute because they are married, he wants to them to fall in love all over again), and two others who are dealing with the hole left if their lives by their missing mothers (one of whom inherited her families werewolf powers and the other who is dealing with being the slayer), I feel like I've got some good (heart) Strings to pull on.

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