Melody [00:00]
The Game Master Certification Organization welcomes you to our interview excerpt podcast series.  Hi, I'm your host, Melody Rainelle.  We are currently interviewing Jay and Jon from Kanka.io.  In this podcast episode we will be chatting with them about how we get players to start playing, how to handle mistakes, and how to know if you did a good job or not as a GM.  So without further ado, let's get started.  So Jon and Jay, how do you get players to start playing? 

Jon [00:31]
Bat them.

Jay [00:33]
With a stick. Beat them into it. “Play your character!” Um. No, do you mean playing, like getting people to play role-playing games or getting them into character or…?  

Melody [00:48]
As I said in the last podcast episode, the questions are intentionally vague. 

Jay [00:55]
Okay, so getting people to play, it should come from them because you can't really force- like you can't force a child to eat a soup it doesn't want to eat.  You can't force someone to play role-playing games if they're not interested.  And a lot of times it's just like talking about it and showing them how excited you are about it.  Like I travel a lot and I love talking about Kanka and worldbuilding and Dungeons & Dragons to people I meet. Everyone’s like, “Wow, I've heard about Dungeons & Dragons or role-playing games,” but when they see me get really excited talking about it and how much fun I have, they're like, “Oh, I've never tried it, but now I need to find people to try it with.” So I guess it's part of like a sales job or marketing. You want to get people hyped for something or for an idea and that will nudge them into trying something new.  And then more specifically getting in character that again has to come from your players. As a DM, you can try and be in character and it depends a lot on your players. There's player archetypes, like there'll be someone who's really into role-play, someone who wants to min-max, someone who's just an observer who's there to have fun.  And if one of your players is just there to have fun, that's totally valid.  That doesn't mean they're playing role-playing games wrong, it's just that's how they enjoy  it.  And if everyone else is fine with that at a table, that's fine, because they're not  diminishing someone else's fun at the table.  And those players will also sometimes, if you just give them a few chances, put them in the spotlight, not too often, but from time to time, they'll surprise you and spend 30 minutes in character  showing you a side that you didn't imagine they'd be able to.  I guess it's a lot of, again, a lot of mind tricks and trying nudging your players, seeing what sticks, what doesn't.  I guess it's like in a relationship, you just want to listen to your partner, in this case your players, and see where is there positive feedback coming back when you're introducing a role-play challenge or situation.  Does this player get into role-play when there's a chase or when there's a dramatic situation or when they’re in the spotlight?  Yeah, I'm not sure if this is any helpful information, but basically time. Time and just observing your players, seeing what sticks, what doesn't, what makes them switch into role-play. And also there's systems of reward.  You can reward your players who are more often in role-play.  You can reward your players into role-playing with different mechanics in the game, like more NPCs will come to them or more quests or solutions will- they'll advance faster in a storyline if they're role-playing.  It's also talking to your players, saying, “Hey guys, I see you're not role-playing as much as I imagined.  Do you not enjoy it?  Should we role-play differently?  Is it the NPCs?”  Like again, observation, asking for feedback, because some players will just be like, “Nah, I'm just here to kill some goblins and loot some dungeons.”  And that's totally fine. 

Melody [03:39]
Those are some great tips to get players to start playing, Jay.  Thank you for sharing them.  So moving on, how do you handle mistakes? 

Jon [03:49]
I'm guessing, again, this is a very open question on purpose.  As a dungeon master, I've made many, many mistakes.  In my first campaign, I killed off a player at the end of the campaign just because they couldn't be at the session, and I thought it'd be funny to make the character jump into a flame and then try and retconned it into it being a portal to another dimension.  And yeah, you can't stop mistakes and you will paralyze yourself in playing if you always think about mistakes.  Mistakes are just part of doing anything really, and especially when you're playing role-playing games where it's all make-belief and in your head, mistakes don't have as many consequences.  So, it's not about stopping them, but just embracing the chaos. Like you will make poor judgments, you will forget rules, you will misremember rules, you will misunderstand what the player says.  And that's fine as long as there's open communication and your players will also sometimes make mistakes.  And it's like mistakes in role-playing, that’s… is also a different thing than mistakes in rules.  Like my players will sometimes make a mistake or I'll make a mistake and then just retcon it.  Like if I suddenly realized, “Oh, the monster should have done 2d8 instead of 2d6 damage.” I'm like, “Ah, I'll just remember for the next round.”  If a player tells me, “Sorry, I couldn't have cast that spell because I'm out of spell slots.” I'll be, “Ah, just move on.”  Because especially in combat situations, depending on the system, but in the 5th Edition can be a slog at times in combat. So usually just move on or just try and make a mental note or try and remember the next time.  Role-play mistakes, usually for me, this is when a character misunderstands an NPC's intentions and then treats it in a way which I didn't expect.  I can think of a situation recently where I was introducing this NPC, which I plan to have as an important NPC to make the story move on.  And one of the players didn't understand that this was an important NPC and ended up making the NPC cry.  And we laughed about it and it was a weird situation on the spot, but then I talked to the player and it was just a misunderstanding of this NPC, if it was a random NPC or an important NPC, and also the player discovering her character, which was fairly early on in the campaign.  So again, communicating with my players.  Most mistakes you can generally just gloss over and make a mental note.  Mistakes where I still think about, like, “Why did I name the city like this?  This makes no sense based on the context of the worldbuilding in this area.  This city shouldn't have this name, or this city has a stupid name.”  But these are minute details which only interest me as the worldbuilder and the Game Master, but they're not important enough for me to go and tell my players, “Hey, in your notes, whenever this location is referenced, actually this place is now named XYZ,” unless I make it into a story in the game.  “Ah, there's a new king, the king has moved the capital to this city and decided to change the name of the city.” Okay, then it makes sense.  But otherwise, like, worldbuilding mistakes, usually not worth- their nice little brain teasers for at night when I can't sleep, but otherwise, they're not worth spending too much time on. 

Melody [07:11]
I like how you put that, embracing the chaos.  Nice.  And as you mentioned, communication is definitely a key ingredient.  We appreciate your insights on handling mistakes.  Okay, how do you know when you did a good job? 

Jay [07:30]
Oh, easy.  My players usually say, “That was awesome.  That was amazing.  I had lots of fun,” or say, “Let's schedule the next time we play.”  Or “Can you send out the scheduler for next session?”  That's usually an indication.  My players are usually very good at telling me… not very good, but they'll always tell me they had lots of fun.  Or at least that's what I like to tell myself.  That's how I remember every session.  I don't remember the details.  I just kind of imagine them having fun, because we've been doing it for six years.  And it's motivated them all, most of them now to also run their own campaigns.  So yeah, that's another one. Like when your players also start, they enjoy playing so much.  And we don't pay enough that they start their own campaigns. That's when I know, okay, I motivated this person to start worldbuilding.  And then they come to me and say, “Jay, how do you start with worldbuilding?”  Or, “How do you start with worldbuilding at Kanka?”  Or, “How should I start an adventure?”  Like, that's when- that's for me the best thing, when my players start coming to me for worldbuilding advice because I love thinking about worldbuilding and ideas and campaign ideas.  And having people come to me and throw ideas and I throw ideas back; I love that exchange of ideas.  It's a great feeling. And as one of my players - it's amazing. 

Melody [08:43]
Awesome.  How are you improving as a game master, Jay? 

Jay [08:47]
I think one thing which I touched on before, again, is communications, listening to your players, seeing what they enjoy, also taking breaks.  I've had this big campaign running six years, and usually we'll spend a couple of months playing a session every two weeks.  And then I'll do a six month break.  Because I just am at a point in the story, I'm like, “Ah, I have to think about lots of things and what makes sense and what is fun, or I'm just not having as much fun anymore.”  So I'll start another campaign or not play for a while.  So, taking breaks, allowing yourself- allowing your ideas to mature in your head is a big one and not rushing into ideas.  Like I have a million and one quest ideas, which I want to throw at my players, but sometimes just none make sense.  And also, my players, I know through playing them for so many years, they want to have one goal to work on and that goal being clear. They don't like if it's kind of, “Oh, you can do whatever, you can speak to whoever, you can go to whichever place you want.”  So, it's listening to my players.  What do they enjoy?  What's the kind of game they want to play?  And luckily it coincides with the kind of game I want to run.  I like being able to think like, “Okay, in 10 sessions, they'll be hitting these key story points and it will culminate if I'm lucky because they'll derail everything.” But if I'm lucky, there might be this information I can start thinking about, which will be relevant in 10 sessions.  So, listening to your players, taking breaks, also being okay with some sessions.  Not every session will be a banger and that's fine.  Some sessions will be slow.  Some sessions will be just them shopping for three hours straight.  Some sessions will be fights, which after two hours, everyone's just mentally exhausted and you're like, “Okay, well everyone's exhausted.  Let's just end the session there.”  Or sometimes it's just after two hours, your players went through everything you prepared, and they teleported to a city you didn't expect them to.  So, you're like, “Okay, well, we will stop the session there because I don't feel confident with improvising this next part of the story because again, the ideas haven't matured. Or I haven't noted them down in Kanka in a way, which allows me to figure out quickly what makes sense now.”  And also, I guess, watching other people play, like for me, it's Critical Role. It’s always interesting to see, even if it's a very different kind of role-playing and adventure than what I run, it's just always interesting to see how other people play or now in our own community.  We have Tales of Everywhere, which is where members of our community run games for other members of our community and being able to see how they DM, how they handle situations.  Also everyone's using different systems of play.  So, it's just really, really cool to see- yeah, to get inspiration from other people, other ways people DM. 

Melody [11:33]
Wonderful.  Thank you so much, Jay, for sharing all this good information with us.  We're going to wrap up this podcast episode here, but don't worry, Jon, we're going to hear from you more in the next couple of podcast episodes and we look forward to it.  Thank you both for being here with us.  To our listeners, please check the podcast description for a link to Kanka.io and how you can connect with Jay and Jon.  In our next podcast episode, Jay and Jon will be telling us all about Kanka.io and its administrative uses for tabletop role-playing games, so stay tuned for that.  Follow us to receive notifications when new podcasts are released.  For more podcasts and information, check out our website, gamemastercertification.org.  If you liked what you've heard in this episode, please hit that share button and help us spread  the word.  Thank you for listening.