Don't Bluff as A Game Master!

Being a game master is hard! No one said it wasn't. There are so many things that you need to keep track of during the game while remembering all the prep you did before the game. It's easy to get mixed up, especially if you're not experienced. Today, I want to help you avoid a big awkward mistake as a game master, and that is bluffing the danger in an encounter. 

So, what do I mean by "bluffing the danger?" In any TTRPG there comes a time when your players face a challenge or danger that carries consequences or benefits depending on how successful your players are. Let's imagine a scenario your players have become wanted by authorities for any reason. They are now on the run. You want to turn up the tension, so you send in cavalry and put your players up against a formidable force who are under shoot to kill orders. The dilemma comes when your players fail some important roles and their chances of getting away turn to near impossible. Maybe they've run out of stamina, powers, or supplies and they're now virtually helpless. Now you have the PCs surrounded with virtually no reason to not gun them down or at the very least capture them, except you're not prepared to give them these consequences. You have three options: 1. let them have the consequences 2. make up a radical (and probably unbelievable) event that stops all the troops or 3. have a never-ending chase sequence rolling dice for 20 min until your players get something favorable. 

I've seen a lot of GMs present a certain consequence (death, loss of powers, capture, etc) to raise excitement, but are not willing to follow through and have no plans for PC failure. This is called bluffing the danger, when you're a GM that won't hurt the PCs. It's not always as dramatic as death of a character. It might be injury, loss of a quest item, death of an NPC, bankruptcy, etc. If you present the consequence and you significantly alter events to avoid those consequences this is bluffing the danger. 

You may have thought that deciding never to hurt the players was a good thing and everyone will be happier, but this usually isn't the case. A lot of players don't like this type of intervention from the GM and they don't like a game that is free of consequences. If I know that you'll change the story every time I'm in trouble, then I'll ignore danger in my plans and act in ways I never would before. Personally, I feel that the fun is sucked right out of the game if you don't follow through on consequences. So, does this mean that you should be TPKing players every other session? NO. 

If you think back and find that you're a GM that finds themselves in these positions often, there a few lessons to learn here. Bluffing the danger comes with lack of experience, and I see it in games all the time so don't feel bad. 

The first lesson to learn is about planning adventures. I wrote a previous post called "How To Create A Quality Encounter," and if you have this problem then definitely give that a read. When it comes to planning and danger you always want to keep two things in mind: Fantasy and failure. The fantasy is how amazing your players can be at their best, and how they could handle impossible odds like in the movies. Failure is the worst scenario, closer to a realist view, where a few bad rolls could end it all. You should plan your encounters in a way that a complete failure won't mean instant death, that means leaning toward low danger. You add in the fantasy in your descriptions AFTER the PCs have succeeded at something. AFTER they've succeeded on some stealth roles and snuck away, describe the city as being swarmed with guards that are ripping apart everything in sight. Don't plan on surrounding them with the entire city guard and hope for amazing rolls to escape. 

The second lesson from this is that you should always have a contingency plan for player failure. This may be as simple as the guards aiming to capture instead of kill, or have a reasonable chance for escape later, or planning for an NPC to save them, letting a third party interrupt the danger, or anything else. Make failure a regular part of your planning process. 

One last lesson, keep spontaneous role playing tame. Obviously, everything can't be planned for and players get into wild situations all on their own. That's all well and good, just make sure that you're thinking ahead and not letting the danger ramp up so high that you might have to ruin the story to get them out of it. Try to set them up for consequences that they can suffer and still move on from. This is really important for GMs that find themselves pulling players out of danger all the time. Good preparation and thinking ahead in game can prevent bluffing the danger. 

    As usual, you can contact me if you have any further questions or if you'd like to see me write a post on a specific topic. I am now writing general TTRPG supplements and creating maps. You can find them on my Ko-Fi page! 

You can find me on Twitter @flayer85

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