Melody [0:00]
Welcome back to the Game Master Certification Organization's interview excerpt podcast series! Right now we are interviewing ShauntelleB. Hi. My name is Melody Rainelle and I'll be your host! In this episode we will be talking with Shauntelle about rule systems, thoughts on the title of "Game Master" and Shauntelle's favorite worldbuilding detail. So let's get started!

In our first podcast episode with you, Shauntelle, you told us about the tabletop role playing game: Omen's Rising. Why don't we talk about some other worlds too. What rule systems do you use and what do you like?

ShauntelleB [0:39]
Rule systems. Me, I like any kind of... ah, it's a difficult question that one. Because it's specific, I can answer it, but it's difficult because I don't have an answer. I like every rule system, it just depends on what story I'm trying to tell. I'm, again, very intentional, so if I'm playing D&D, I know that I'm not specifically aiming to be deep into individual story. By that I mean, I'm not looking for the deep moral questions. I'm not trying to question whether or not it's okay to kill, whether or not it's okay to colonize, because those are the primary aspects of D&D. That's just what it is, and I'm not going to fight that. I'm not going to argue that. And I play D&D. Like, it's fine, it's just about being aware of what you're doing, and that is a psychological as well as a practical thing. If I'm playing Monsterhearts, I'm being incredibly aware that I am going to be touching on lines and veils. I'm gonna be touching on that safety system because I have to. Monsterhearts is designed, almost literally designed, to cross lines cross veils. For example The Vampire is designed around the idea of consent. People do not consent to be bitten by a vampire. Vampires bite. They have to work through that. They have to question that. Monsterhearts is the game that's designed to do that... I'm just looking at my game shelf... Um. Open Legend is a really nice game system. I like it because it is close to D&D, but it allows for those more open narratives to start to form. I started a game in 5E and then we ended up moving over to Open Legend because we as players were very narratively driven, and what we were finding was that 5E was holding us back. They weren't the right mechanics for us to be using, it wasn't the right system. Why was it not the right system? Because when you have a character who doesn't want to kill, necessarily, because morality. Having to announce: "I am aiming for non-lethal" before any kind of attack - that becomes a user error issue. That becomes me going, "Oh, I forgot to say it now my character's killed someone. She's going to feel bad about that. That's not good. Meanwhile, Open Legend - it's flipped. You don't kill unless you say you are trying to kill. Unless you have a weapon that has lethal attached but then, in that situation, you're specifically using that weapon, you know that what you're doing is going to kill someone, it's intentional. What else we got... Vampire the Masquerade. Fantastic game for social roleplay. Fantastic game to spend sitting in one room as characters, discussing politics. I... love that. I love it for that. Awful, awful for combat. Do not play Vampire for the combat - it's not designed for it. It's designed for social, it's designed for politics, it's designed to get into the nitty gritty of what it's like to be a villain, essentially. You're there to drop the morality that you experience in your day-to-day life. What else have we got... Blades in the Dark. Blades in the Dark - great. It is very much designed to help you score a hit. You go out, you do your thing, you get back, and you use all of the creativity that you have once you're already doing the job, which I find really interesting. The use of the flashback becomes a fascinating thing because it becomes more of a communication with your GM, DM, storyteller, MC... I cannot remember which one is used for Blades in the Dark, but it becomes a - much more of a conversation between the two. Hmm. Yeah, I could go on for a very long time. Ten Candles is a game I have not played, but I have had, and wanted to play for a very, very long time, where you tell story together and blow out a candle as things go by. The world is ending, the last candle is going to go out and it's how you spend those last moments that becomes really important. So, all of the focus goes onto the importance of tiny, tiny actions and how they can make the world, for you, like the world doesn't have to be a huge thing; the world can be any size. And that to me is a beautiful, beautiful concept and in fact I think I've said it to my players while we were playing Monsterhearts. There was a point where one of the PCs said to an NPC, "Why don't we just leave?" And so I said, "Yeah, okay, let's go!" And after the game, all of the other players were like, "Um. So what would have happened if the two of them had just gone?" "Yeah, they would have gone. Because we're in a school now, but like- and that's the world that they're in. All you're doing is making the world bigger, so then all you have to do is find a reason why they would either come back or reason why someone else would come out to them. Doesn't change anything. It's just making the world bigger or smaller as you need to." So yes systems - love them. Love all of them. They're all great. It just depends on what you feel like playing that day. Whatever you take off the shelf is going to impact how you're going to run the game and it's going to impact how you play the game, and it's going to impact the stories that can come out of it. I think that is something that people don't necessarily think about a great deal. I see a lot of people playing D&D and saying, "Well, it's D&D but we are playing a highly social game." "Is anyone rolling dice? Because I like rolling dice when I play D&D. If I can't roll dice, why am I playing D&D? We should play a different game that lets me roll the dice because it's a social game." That's generally my view on systems; just pick the right one for what you're trying to do.

Melody [6:17]
Great! Thank you for your thoughts and insight on several of those tabletop role playing games! Given the variety among the games and the different titles used, what are your thoughts on the title of "Game Master"?

ShauntelleB [6:30]
I find it interesting that we have titles at all. But of all of them, I like storyteller. That said, I feel as though everyone is the storyteller, so I am not sure, maybe lead storyteller or something; I have no idea. GM is an interesting one because the concept of a master means that everyone else has to bow before them or obey. We're all sitting around a table, rolling dice and playing games. This person's just at the head of the table and they have all the other characters in their head, and that's not a master. If anything that's the servant. Well you know, that's the game sevant. You're holding out characters and saying, "Hey, do you want to interact with this one? ...No? ...Okay, I've got another one for you." I think, Games Master, Dungeon Master... They are what they are. The metaphor implied in them tells me all sorts of things but they are what they are I don't actually think people think too deeply into it so I don't necessarily either.

Melody [7:28]
You make some nice points and we certainly appreciate your perspective. Okay. Here's my last question for this podcast episode: What is your favorite worldbuilding detail?

ShauntelleB [7:40]
My favorite world building detail is any detail that comes from the players. As soon as one of my players tells me something that they believe about the world that thing becomes true. It doesn't matter what they say. It doesn't matter what they decide. It doesn't matter how silly it is or how unexpected it is for me or whether it contradicts one of my views or whether it contradicts one of the narratives that I have. It's now my favorite thing, it's the best part, because what it means is if my players are contributing to the world and saying, "Oh, this is something that my character will have experienced or this is something that I would like to encounter because this is what I see in the world." They're engaging, and I'm happy. I don't care what that detail is. I've had players say to me, "Oh, yeah. So I think that that thing that you said, that doesn't fit with what my character said." And so I said, "Okay. What do you want instead?" And they said, "Ah, I want this." And I was like, "Okay, cool. That's the world now. I am going to now go away and find a narrative reason why that is actually now true. Instead of what it was that I had in the first place, because what you come up with makes the world better, and it goes- I suppose it goes back to the diversity thing really. I am one brain. I have one head and one brain and anything that I come up with is simply not going to be as interesting in the long run for me or them as a combined collaborative storytelling experience and that to me is the most important part of a role playing game. Because if I just wanted someone to lay a world in a story out in front of me and tell me where to go and what to do, I'd play a video game. My favorite world building element is when I reach out to my players and say, "What do you think of this?" and ask them what that is... with sometimes as much vagary as these questions here.

Melody [9:32]
Fantastic. Those are some lovely sentiments and we certainly appreciate your patience with the questions. Well, we'll wrap up this podcast episode here. Thank you so much Shauntelle for being with us.

To our listeners: Please see the podcast description for details on how you can connect with ShauntelleB! In our next episode we'll be chatting with Shauntelle about how to get players to start engaging, handling mistakes and interpersonal conflicts between players, evaluating performance as a game master, and some of Shauntelle's thoughts on milestones you might see along the way as a game master, so stay tuned. Follow us to receive notifications when new podcasts are released. For more podcasts and information check out our website: https://www.gamemastercertification.org/. If you like what you've heard here, please hit that share button and help us spread the word. Thank you for listening!