Gearing Up For Game 2

Flush with the excitement of a game well run, it’s easy for the GM to overthink things and dwell too much on stuff that’s already happened.  Last Saturday’s first game of Deadlands was a success, one that I feel I should definitely learn from.  That being said, it’s time to put aside the self-congratulating and back patting and get to work on the next session.

One thing that I like looking at when I review games is going over it in my head and looking for plot hooks that have already been generated for me.  NPC interactions and player choices all tend to spawn a great number of these things, and it just takes a little bit of thought to make the most of it.  Already I’ve got one in mind, but unfortunately I can’t disclose it here until I spring it upon my players.

The first few games of a campaign are where I lay my groundwork, getting the players to get comfortable with each other’s play styles, letting them see who is good at what challenges, and let the leader types surface.  It’s also where I start experimenting with the rules, applying all of them and dropping the ones that don’t make sense, or slow down the game.

Once the players are comfortable and I’m used to the setting, then I start moving, adding one or two additional plot twists, and start statting out a bunch of important Villains which will serve as a Nemesis or just a recurring annoyance to the players.

That said I’m already hard at work doing some research for game 2… and the evil GM gears are spinning in my head.