Recently though I’m finding that the games that I play which demand a high level of player buy in and direction are the ones I’m enjoying the most. This doesn’t just mean “dirty hippie indie games” (or small press games, or shared narrative games or what ever you want to call them) but also more “traditional” games in which the players take an active role in trying to develop the plot, rather than just waiting for the GM to tell them what happens so they can react to it. This often means that I get disappointed as both a player (when a GM refuses any input from me into the outcome of an action or scene) and as a GM (when the other people I play with want me to tell them exactly what I want to happen, with no input from them) because I see this roleplaying thing we do as a a shared story telling experience.

I really enjoy shared narration games. I love how they promote more player buy in for their characters, especially in the compressed time frames of Con games. The fantasic play experiences the I’ve had with these games have made me expect more from the people I play with, and made me fight against the idea that as a GM I’m just here to “bring the fun”. Being GM doesn’t stop me from being a player, it just means I have a different role.

So what to do about this? How am I going to continue to play in and run games where I feel that I’m getting out of them what I want? Well for starters I’m going to write games where that kind of buy in is needed. Some times that means mixing more traditional games with shared narration ideas, like I did in a recent Mongoose Traveller scenario I wrote, Still to Come. Other times it will be to ask the players for the things they want to happen, and if they don’t focus on those who do. As a player I’m going to offer ideas to the person running the game and if those ideas are consistently ignored or  sidelined I’ll find myself another game.

All these things are easier said than done. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, so expect more posts of my random game related musing.

Luckily for me the group spoke and wanted to play 3: 16 – Carnage Amongst the Stars, so I grabbed a copy of the rules and Mike’s amazing set of props and talked people through the character creation. We had 5 marines in total which was a really great number is terms of banter and general camaraderie. While the players were working out what gear they wanted I rolled up the first planet.

Codename Reuben was a radioactive wasteland, populated by giant flying manta rays that shot bolts of lightening from their barbed tails which ignored the troopers armour.

About this time we had a last minute addition to the group so they made a character while the rest of the players roleplayed their more experienced troopers hazing the newbie and taking bets on whether he would even survive the first mission. I could tell this was going to be a great game.

There were so many wicked moments, and unfortunately I was too tired to take down everyone’s names but some of the highlights were:

• Svend’s character, Greenhorn making it through the mission, despite being dosed with two shots of the hallucinogenic combat drugs the squad were given. At the end of the mission he changed is reputation to “Lucky”.
• One of the troopers tinkering with the Sarge’s weapon, realising he’d broken it and then handed it right back. All with out the Sarge noticing.
• The Sarge managing to avoid a dose of the combat drug the squad had been chosen to trial, and then watching as the rest of the squad started to attack hallucinations of the aliens. It took him awhile to get through to them.
• The constant use of grenades, because of the opportunity to harm the other squad members.

We were running a bit early by the time they tidied up Reuben, so we went through the level up process, got some gear upgrades and shipped out to Codename Renoir. This was a helium gas planet, populated with giant eagle people who lived in floating cities. The squad were given the dubious honour of being recon for the planet, but on the upside they did get jet packs.

3: 16 – Assault on Reuben and Renoir was a great session of one of my all time favourite pick up games and got me pumped for the rest of the day to come.

After a lunch break to refuel the batteries with the traditional KapCon Sunday Burger Fuel I launched into the re-run of my Fright Night game, Still to Come. I had a great group to play with so I felt no issues with the slightly player driven element of the scenario.

The best thing about this run through, especially after Fright Night’s TPK after an hour and a half, was that the players took a totally different approach to the scenario than any of the others. This gave me a real kick, as I had been a little worried everything was too prescribed.

The highlights are too many to count, but some of them are:

• Liam, playing Lt. Cmdr. Fisher, hearing that there will be an orbital bombardment in an hour and not telling anyone else in the team… for another 45 minutes.
• The massive amount of note passing that went on. What a way to ramp up the paranoia!
• The Major, refusing to deviate from the mission. No matter the cost.
• Jon’s portrayal of Lexen, was just perfect.

All in all a very successful end to my GMing experience at this years KapCon. 4 Sessions was my utter limit I think, especially as there were so many games I would have been keen to play in.

Luckily however I had an in with one of my top picks for the Con, The Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon, and she agreed to run it after the dinner/prize giving break.

This game lived up to all my expectations and then some. It may have been exhaustion, it may have been the sugar, but it isn’t often that I’m laughing so hard I start to cry and need to leave the room and lay on the floor.

The basic premise for the game is a piss take of supernatural teen romance, a la Twilight. The group of 4 is divided into the supernatural love interest and best friend and the human love interest and best friend. In our group I was the supernatural love interest and between Carla and I was decided on being elemental goddesses. I was Fire, and after a mid game re-name was called Pheonix, Carla was Wind and called Autumn. We needed worship or in the high school way of thinking, popularity to survive, could transport any where in an instant and… There was something else but I can’t remember.

I could go on for pages about how awesome this game was, but I’ll just try to reduce it down to a few bullet points:

• Carla as Autumn as my really horribly mean, but super loyal best friend. She totally loved me.
• Jon’s awkward Callum, our love was doomed. But we tried anyway.
• Thomas’ deeply suspicious Jake. Terribly creepy but genius with his call on using an Earth rune to trap the Wind goddess.
• Callum not even noticing that Autumn existed, which caused her terrible pain each time he denied her existence. It didn’t help is case.
• The fraught Mexican standoff in Callum’s room, when Autumn had gone to kill him to make sure he stayed away from me. So much angst in such a small room.
• The final scenes of Autumn and Pheonix on top of Mt. Everest where they could no longer deny the love of millennia especially when compared with the fleeting love Callum offered, an Callum having set up a shrine to Pheonix in his room, worshipping her any way.

An amazing game, which ended an awesome Con. I still can’t believe it’s all over for another year, but am already plotting what to do at KapCon 20 in 2011.