GM Lessons From a Bar Fight
Extracting from a fun session of 5E from the player's side of the screen...
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Introduction
Though I spend the majority of hobby time outside of playing delving the old-school ways like a gnarled old wizard searching for the one secret to illuminate the cosmos, I am still fortunate enough to have a group that lets me play regularly on the player's side of the table. I don't see myself running 5E again any time soon, but I am usually up for any game someone else is willing to run. When I find myself piloting a PC, I am there to help push the story, invite my fellow players to RP, and advocate for biting onto those hooks the GM is laying out there for us to explore. Part of my goal is to just make life easier for a GM that has to do A LOT of heavy lift for the modern traditional game and part of it is trying to really understand the player's mindset so that I can better run my own games. So this entry we are mining what was an enjoyable player session for me in a 5E game.
The Thing
Firstly we need some context. Arcane Trickster Rogue, Paladin/Fighter Multiclass, Lore Bard, and myself a Circle of the Land Druid all using PHB 24 rules at level 7. We are following the backstory of the Rogue who's father figure runs a Thieves' guild and has asked us to investigate the high council of the largest city on the continent and figure out which member of the council is a rat that is selling out the people for personal gain.
Cool.
The party has been focused on picking locations of interest to investigate and looked into two locations linked to high council members. We needed to check back in at the thieves' guild hideout which is a double speak-easy bar behind a bar. Upon entering the first speak-easy front, we are met with a character we haven't seen before and the bar tender starts spouting thieves' cant. This is where some hilarity ensues and I noticed I was really interested in what was going on.
Apparently the GM had asked the thief player to come up with a word map key and was using it to try to communicate with the thief player who was then trying to parse the words to receive the message. I myself have fallen into doing this before because on its face the idea seems really fun. The Thief player and the NPCs can have some secrete parlance going on, and if it were possible to do it quickly like in a movie it would be really cool, but it doesn't really work unless the player an the GM make a secret code that they are speaking fluently and quickly. This is still excellent to mine for info though, because this definitely was not reducing the fun for me. As a player at the table who had no idea what they were talking about - it felt kind of like being there. I wasn't sure if we were going to need to kill this new person or if they were going to end up being a friendly. And the suspense was real, even if a good part of it was manufactured by the clunkiness of the GM and player not being able to communicate effectively.
As usually happens in this case, they tried for a while and then had a mix of "above the table" discussion about what was being said and some RP. What I take from this is that if your players are bought in on the premise, it takes more than you'd think to jar them off of it and ruin the vibe. I've been worried many times in games I've run that trying something new that seems fun on paper and then falls flat was a cardinal sin. Very few times has something blown up in my face badly enough for this to be real. In this case I was rooting for them to figure it out and it really didn't take much away from what we were trying to do.
We figured out the singleton had to go and was dispatched, then we were told there were a number more inside the first speak-easy! Now we are running down a stairwell and planning on the fly. This felt like we were really in some suspense and trying to figure out who needed to go. I got to try out something I'd been wanting to, I shape-shifted into a rat and hid in the coat pocket of the thief. I also found this rather engaging. I was doing as little or less in the scenes playing out as I was before with the GM and the player trying to cant to each other, but I was keyed up just constantly waiting for the right time to pop out and unleash devastation. My take away from this experience is keeping upkeep touches on every player as things are unfolding really is influential on the overall table vibe. Of course it's up to me as a player to be excited and buy in and jump in to create this for myself, but I know there are always going to be times when the player excitement is at a lull and they're leaned back. This is fine, as the ebb and flow are a wanted effect of building and releasing tension - BUT when you want to really have a suspenseful or thriller of a moment, and this is something made more difficult with strict traditional game initiative - an increase in frequency of movement certainly seems to build up that suspense. I don't think it was anything the GM was doing in this moment, but I felt the suspense, and I think the others at the table did to, because they were taking their turns faster and making more decisive actions.
It felt great. There was story being written here.
I am one of the first to say that the focus on the pillar of combat for modern traditional games like 5E and Pathfinder is too much, and I will always choose to run a more OSR style game, but this was an example of something those modern traditional games can do really well: Tell a great bar fight story.
In a matter of minutes our small group of super-hero adventurers had skulked into somewhere dangerous we needed cleared out, used clever conversation to discern friend from foe, and then used some gonzo tactics to trade blows with and ultimately eviscerate the enemy. It was dangerous, it was stupid, it was exciting, it was fun.
I'm still sifting through it. But it was one of those game sessions that makes me thankful I have a GM willing to put in the work asked for from them by 5E to give us a playground to blow up.
Till next time!
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