As a GM you lay the foundation of the gameplay and guides players through a number of core routines, and allows their decisions to matter in the story that you create together.
The Play Approach
Untethered offers two approaches to play – playing-to-find-out and a playset approach. At a glance they look the same, but depending on the chosen play approach, the gameplay runs a bit differently.
- Play-to-find-out – When playing-to-find-out, the GM provides a starting point with some loosely set prompts, goals and encounters, mostly based on character arcs, the collaborative worldbuilding, and some notes or ideas jotted down what could happen. Then, allowing players to flesh out the adventure out through improvised game facilitation during play. Keys for making this successful is centering on the player agenda, which means using the character arcs as a central theme and introduce character-centric problems. Make sure that all players have a say in the session zero, when the worldbuilding take place. Present dangers, threats or difficult choices tied to them, and let the actions of the PCs steer to what happens next. Use the gameplay cycle (narration, challenge, outcome) to your advantage, and let all actions change the fiction, all the time.
- Playset – When using a playset, the GM uses a predefined story structure from a scenario or adventure, relying on a plot with story hooks and predefined conflicts and problems. Here, you allow players to enrich the details within these bounds, while using the hooks and details from the playset. A session zero’s worldbuilding activity still means the players can collaborate and contribute to the shared creative process, but if you as a GM plan to run mainly playsets, then allow players to contribute to the worldbuilding within the frames of the playsets. For example, you might want to use cetrain elements in the game that the players could dicscover lately. In such a situation the players should not contribute to fiction around or near that, but rather focus on other aspects outside or next to those elements. As a GM running playsets, you should therefore frame the topics you want players to contribute to, and explicitly make clear what they can’t co-create fiction around.
But, regardless of the approach, the GM use the gameplay cycles the same way. You set scenes, challenge the characters during play, asking them questions what they do and how they react, letting them roll dice and facilitate the outcomes and integrating them into the narrative.
Setting Scenes
As a GM, setting scenes is crucial for running the game effectively. Each scene provides the context in which your players’ characters will act, react, and make decisions. It’s your job to set the stage by clearly describing the surroundings, establishing the mood, and hinting at potential challenges or events. As mentioned earlier, during this narration, highlighting any facets that might be present for the PCs to take into account.
A well-set scene can engage your players, immerse them in the narrative, and facilitate meaningful gameplay. Use one or more of the following when setting the scene:
- Surroundings – Anything in the environment, involving buildings, people, opponents, animals or beasts, events, strange or mysterious occurances, clues, and so on. Use it to frame Compare it to a movie shot from a camera.
- Sensory Input – Visuals, smell, sounds, taste, feelings, and so forth. Use it to create a more vivid image. Feel free to use sound effects or music. Compare in to a personal experience or memory.
- Events – Describe happenings important to the story hooks or character arcs. Or just narrate something that can trigger the PC’s into action.
- Leave Blanks – A hard part to master, but don’t describe everything all the time. Leave blanks for the players to fill in, or to flesh out during gameplay in the scene.
- Ask the Players What They Do – Encourage proactive engagement. Before the dice are rolled or decisions are finalized, ask your players for their characters’ actions, intentions, and strategies.
- Adjustments on the Fly – While you’ve set the stage and crafted the challenge, be flexible. Adapt to the players’ choices, ensuring that the challenge feel real in comparison to the narrative, and remains engaging.
Example…
Cutting and switching scenes are also important tasks for the GM. When a scene is played out or done, you something need to wrap up the fiction, cut it, and set up a new scene. Continuously, raising the stakes to the next upcoming so the tension and drama incresases until you all reach a climax in the story’s finale.
Describing Challenges
When a challenge takes place in a scene, you as a GM narrates who has to face it, and then, sets it up. This means you describe what happens up to the point the character must do something, and from a writer’s perspective, explain what facets in the surrounding situation affects the challenge, both advantageous and disadvantageous.
Then, you hand over the discussion the first player involved in the challenge, and the narration and decision-making. Depending on what the player narrates, you assess what skills or abilities could be used. Then, the players sums up it all into the dice pool, and rolls them to determine the outcome.
Any conflicts require additional facilitation depending on the outcome, such as:
- Scale Indifferences – During the challenge, determine if any scale facets affect the dice pool.
- Attack-Armor Comparison – How two combatants are affected when comparing each party’s attack type and protections type.
- Harm Calculation – Determine how the above factors affect the harm calculation in the end of the turn, before moving on the the next PC.
Facilitating Outcomes
Once the challenge is played out and the conversation between the players and the GM results in rolling dice to determine the outcome, the GM facilitates this through evaluation of the previous steps of narration and challenge. Facilitation means mediation of various opinions and statements, filtered through the achieved outcome. The facilitation of outcomes basically means:
- During Success or Better – Means the GM hands over the narrative control to the player by asking something like “Tell me what it all looks like,” who can then assess and describe what goes well, how that looks, and so on. The GM helps sort out mechanical aspects, such as harm or facets, together with the player.
- During Costly Success – Means you as a GM hand over a small part of the narrative control to the players, buy asking something like “Tell me what small piece of success you achieved” or something similar. Then, the GM states the cost, in terms of harm, new problems that occurred, and so on.
- During Failure or Worse – Means the GM instead narrates what it looks like, and what happens next.
- Describe Outcomes in the Narrative – When a challenge is resolved and an outcome is defined, its your responsibility to explain how that affects the narrative afterward for the next turn of actions.
