I used the Sutro Baths as the setting for one ‘go back in time’ scenario. The other version was a generic 1920’s amusement park, which was way too similar.
A couple weekends ago, I volunteered to run a spur of the moment game for some friends. I had Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space on hand along with the cast of PCs I had created for conventions and one-shots, so it was easy enough to hand them out and jump right into the game. Being spur of the moment, I didn’t have anything prepped, but I came up with an idea I thought would work. The PCs set about investigating a mystery, got zapped back in time, discovered an alien menace, solved the mystery by blowing up the alien spaceship, and were able to make it home.
When we were wrapping up, one of my players said, “That was fun, but I’m pretty sure I played through that scenario before.”
Dammit.
I know the scenario I had run for him before was different, but once he said that I realized that I had fallen back on familiar ideas and put him through a very similar scenario. Back then, the characters set about investigating a mystery, got zapped back in time, discovered an alien menace, solved the mystery by blowing up the alien artifact, and were able to make it home. There were absolutely differences in the specifics of the games, but the core concepts were the same, so it felt very much like déjà vu to the player.
Every GM that has run for any length of time ends up developing a toolbox of ideas they can fall back on when they need to improvise. Whether it’s running a game completely on the fly or adjusting mid-stream when the players go left instead of right, one of our most crucial skills is being able to improvise. When put in a tight spot, it’s easiest to go to concepts that are comfortable and familiar to us.
The worst part about me committing this mistake is that I’ve been on the other side. One of my GM friends runs fantastic games off the cuff with little planning, but after you’ve played with him a few times, you start getting that nagging sense of déjà vu. With slight adjustments, he uses similar situations, settings and plots to keep the game moving. Newer players to his games tend to rave about how awesome the game was, but older players start drifting away because they’ve been there and done that. No matter how much they enjoyed it the first time, by the time they’ve played through the same concepts three or four times, it’s gotten old.
More preparation and time thinking about the game before running it can help alleviate this problem, but sometimes we don’t have that luxury. What’s a GM to do?
Know Your Fallback Ideas: Know yourself as a GM enough to recognize when you’re resorting to a well-worn and comfortable idea and you’re already on the path to improving your game. Like a well-worn pair of shoes, that easy and comfortable idea might get the job done, but you’re not presenting yourself at your best. If a little introspection isn’t enough to recognize your standard tropes, talk to one or two of your trusted players and see what they feel might have worn out its welcome.
Actively Avoid the Familiar: Let’s say you recognize that you have a penchant for putting your players in the sewers. Right there you know you’ve got something you can actively avoid. Instead of sending them down into the sewers, find a reason to send them up into a shiny and pristine high rise. If all your off the cuff NPCs tend to be arrogant and upper crust, make sure the next time you improvise, your unplanned NPCs are easy-going and down-to-earth. Whatever your standards may be, do the opposite or at least something drastically different. It might not be comfortable, but it’ll definitely be different.
Expand your Toolbox: Nothing says you can’t add more tools to your toolbox. Unlike the one that holds your screwdrivers, there’s endless room inside the toolbox in your brain. If you’ve recognized the standards of your repertoire, you’ve got a good idea of the gaps and holes you could fill with some additional standards. Another GM friend recently told me how he spent several days wandering through TV Tropes and how it inspired him to try and introduce some new ideas into his games. They may not come easily at first, but once you start changing things up, your skill at improvisation will improve.
Déjà Vu can work in a time travel game, but this wasn’t how I wanted. (Digging the new Doctor, BTW.)
All of my players had a good time, but I still know I could have done a better job. At the very least, I need to stop sending my Doctor Who players back to the 1920’s. Hmm. Maybe I should send them back to the future the next time…
So do you find yourself falling back on any standard concepts that are starting to feel a little tired?
I absolutely second the idea of using TV Tropes as a goldmine for adventure ideas! Tons of interesting characters, situations, and plot-types, and fun, informative reading on top of it. It is also nice to know that one is using a particular trope, and using it toward a particular end, rather than sort of accidentally falling into a cliched scenario — being aware of one’s literary devices is the best fix for that sort of accident.
I absolutely agree that being aware of literary devices can only help improve a GM’s ability. There are points when you should just toss it out the window, but understanding the ebb and flow of the way stories work really improves a game.
Necromancers….. I always do necromancers. Its just so easy to fit them in and they are the perfect bad guy. I try to make who their daily public identity is (ie. Last time it was the ‘cowardly’ prince visiting from a distant land). Buts always Necromancers.
Maybe I should make the hero a Necromancer next time 😛
They do make a perfect bad guy, but it probably would be interesting to throw your players into a situation with one who is actually doing good things with a kind of icky power. 🙂
“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”.
Another interesting avenue is using you’re same tropes, but flipped:
Instead of attacking someone in the sewers, have them defend sewers inhabitants? Become the alien force invading a world with this world’s “heroes” coming against them. Sometimes, this type of twist puts a whole new perspective. The sense of déjà vu might stay, but new take on old idea is an interesting way out, as can be said in numerous movies, novels or video games.
Turning things on their head can definitely keep the players on their toes and make them question the status quo which can be a really good thing. 🙂
We did Master creation in My Life with Master last week, and came up with a beastial master, that I’d be running. Man, it was hard to turn off those “brainy bad guy” reflexes… evidently, brutally direct is a pretty good way to demonstrate a driven rather than smart villain. It was a fun challenge… and got me well out of my comfort zone.
I think this is where switching up settings comes into play. Also, playing a different type of game (gothic horror versus Indiana Jones style) lends itself to different types of adventures. Obviously the longer you play and the more often you play, the more likely you are to run into this.
But hey, we’ve all watched the same movie more than once in our lives. If you have fun, what’s the issue? 😀
Any kind of written adventure is a good source of inspiration for me. It’s good if it’s to the game system that I’m playing but it’s better if it follows the thinking of “how to play the game”. A dungeon crawl for Call of Cthulhu wouldn’t fit, but perhaps Dogs in the Vineyard?
And honestly, do you really play adventures by the book or do you fiddle with it to give it your own touch?
When I fool around with my game designs, any time anyone makes a remark of how it can be done differently, I feel that my game improves a lot. It feels to me like the game gets a fresh touch all the sudden. The game goes with an adventure. If you have fellow game masters to bounce ideas with, it will give that extra edge of your adventures.