I am a gamer. I have been as long as I can remember. I grew up on board games. My family had a fair collection. Family gatherings involved card games. Video games slipped in: first an Atari, then an NES, and so on. In high school I started tabletop roleplaying on a Star Wars system. We would meet in the art room at lunch time and game. The only thing I remember was shooting some spare parts for target practice.
The DM graduated a few years before me so gaming stopped. I didn't game again for a long time, mostly because I didn't know anyone else to game with; I lived in a small town. At college I was more interested in other types of gaming. However, in 2007 I came back to gaming as the Dungeon Master (DM) for a D&D 3.5 game (Nerd speak. If you don't understand, it's not important). This challenged me. I needed to learn the rules (several books worth--one of my players wanted to be a Warlock). I had to plan the story. I had to teach most of my players the rules I had just learned.
While the rules were fairly simple, because of my deep and abiding love or rulebooks, telling the story was more difficult. This is because there is no set way to tell a story. There are few rules for story creation. There are lots of ways to do it, and a lot of ways to do it poorly.
In D&D the major obstacle is too many storytellers. If the game is running correctly it should be a collaborative storytelling process. Each players gets a say in how the plot develops. This is a big deal for me. As a writer I like to develop plots, create likely scenarios, and guide everything towards a specific ending. Things should tie together. Nearly everything is important. Players often seem to care less about the story and more about what cool things their character can do. They generally blow stuff up. Note: I know that is a huge generalization and there are some great players out there who want to advance a cool story.
This means you have two possible outcomes. The first is holding to your plot against all odds. You remove options from the players, explain why what they want to do doesn't work, and drop hints about "acceptable" behavior until they get the hint and play along. This is appropriately known as "railroading"; players hate it.
The other option is letting the players do whatever they want. You throw your plot out the window and make up consequences for their actions as you go along. After the players leave you cry into your notes and then attempt to pick up the pieces. The players might love this at first, but it generally makes for a horrible story and the players will eventually lose interest. The campaign dies. Also, before the campaign dies the Game Master (GM) stops having fun. If he's not enjoying the campaign, no one is. They are part of game just like everyone else. Their enjoyment is important. So you need to find middle ground.
I'm learning a lot about this from my friend David. He's been a GM for two decades (or thereabouts). I am currently a player in his campaign and it has been illuminating. I wish I could tell you about all the insights he has given me, but many are still sinking in.
One of the great things that I've learned from him is the idea of treating the campaign as if it is a television show. The story comes in seasons. Each season has a central story arc. Within that arc you have episodes. Those episodes are a single night of gaming or two nights as an occasional "to be continued" happens. The episodes advance the story.
You also plan filler episodes. These are episodes that generally aren't about the central story, but allow the players a lot of freedom. They can get out craziness, but then they are generally ready to get back to the main story. Even better, if you can later find ways to tie the filler stories into the main story you will seem like a genius in the eyes of the players. It also adds a lot of depth to the campaign.
Another idea I've learned is that you treat the episodes like television writing. Good series don't write one episode at a time, they write all the episodes so they connect together better. Take time to plan the campaign, not just a session. If you plan episodes in advance then you can have a game plan for how unexpected player actions change the world. You'll have more time to anticipate what the players might do. For example, in my next campaign (Pax Malio Season 3) the players will (hopefully) choose to engage in a specific action. Time of day will affect the outcome. Not engaging in the action affects the world. Are there other things the players might do that I have considered? Sure, but the better prepared I am the more it will seem like reasonable repercussions to player actions and not just punishment for not following the script.
This is really the crux of telling a story as a group. You can't force the group to tell the story you want. You also can't them do whatever they want. Good GM's give players options to choose from and know how those options will affect the story. Some options will be more or less attractive. Mysteries, good mysteries, will keep the players within the boundaries because they want to solve the mystery. You can't plan an ending to a campaign (or sometimes even a single session). You have to plan several and see which one you end up at. Good GM's should read Choose Your Own Adventures regularly to get the idea of options in roleplaying.
In the end, I think the thing that makes this easiest is knowing your group. The more experienced a GM is with a group the more they'll have a good idea of what will happen. Then they can plan accordingly.
My campaign has me excited. My friend David's campaign is ending. We have about 6 episodes left. This will probably take us through 2013. 2014 is my year. This has given me more time to plan a campaign than I've ever had. I am currently planning about eight episodes. I have a small handful of them rough sketched. I don't have an order for how this happens. In the end their won't be one. I'm just going to present problems to the group and see which ones interest them. However, problems not dealt with will have consequences.
I have never been so excited for a story and as the game happens I will be blogging about how it goes. I see this last season being the most successful story I've ever played. I hope my players end up enjoying it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
Last words of advice then. If you have a great idea for a campaign start planning it now. Plan it as discrete episodes. Make options. Make several endings. Don't wait until your group is ready for a new campaign. Don't even wait until you have a group. Rough sketch it (don't finalize anything) now and you'll be better able to tweak in the details as your players hit the field and all your planning is for naught.
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