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15 - The Keeper Out Of Space
21 Plays3 days ago
James and Chuckie sit down with Mike Mason, Creative Director for Call of Cthulhu at Chaosium, co-author of the ENnie Award-winning 7th Edition Keeper Rulebook, Pulp Cthulhu, the Starter Set, Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy, and over 40 other titles! If you've ever lost sanity at a table, this is the man who took it from you!
What We Get Into:
- The biggest crime in every roleplaying game
- What makes a good GM? What sets a Keeper apart from other kinds of GMs? Mike's answer will surprise you.
- Sandbox vs. linear! Mike doesn't care, as long as nobody's talking to the librarian at five to midnight, when the cultists are already at the hill…
- Pulling strings: how tension in a horror game works like a slow build, not a jump scare
- Comedy and horror: why Evil Dead works and why your players' guard needs to come down before the scary thing hits
- Genres! Sci-fi, Westerns, Deadlands, and a Savage Worlds crossover you might not know about...
Love the first half of our chat with Mike Mason? The descent into madness continues! Catch the full, uncut second half of this episode - including Mike’s secret GMing techniques ! Exclusively for all member tiers on Patreon: https://bit.ly/4xmp9YF
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Transcript
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to the Good GM's Podcast. I'm E.E. Morris, and today's episode is The Keeper Out of Space. And now, here's Chuck and James.
00:00:47
Speaker
Good. So good. Mmm, good. So very good.
00:01:04
Speaker
Here we are. um so ah welcome to Good GM's podcast. I'm James. I'm joined with my co-host who goes by the name of Chucky T. Hi, everybody. Glad to hear. That's right.
00:01:16
Speaker
um We have ah an amazing episode today. um You know, we we we call ourselves Good GM's, but apparently once in a while we can bring on a a good keeper or a great keeper for that matter. um we We are blessed to have the one and only Mike Mason um been shaping the most influential RPGs like since 1981 this game came out and he's been working with with Chaosium for for like over a decade now. yeah um Am I right there? ah Helped write this book behind me here. um You know, any award-winning Keeper, 7th edition Keeper rulebook, the Pulp Cthulhu starter set and 40 more, ah more than 40 more. So if you've never heard of Mike Mason or you've never heard Call of Cthulhu, you're probably already in a cult maybe. um but But here we are. So thanks so much, Mike, for joining us today. Yes, thanks absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. My gosh.
00:02:08
Speaker
wo Well, Mike, um or Mr. Mason, I apologize. ah ah um Honestly, and for the whole conceit of the podcast is that James and I believe that we are okay GMs. but Good, good. We're not okay. We're better than No, no, we're okay. Because the only way you get good is by listening to and learning from other GMs.
00:02:32
Speaker
Absolutely. that's what That's why we're reaching out to anyone that's willing to come forward and, you know, just help support the community because it's a hobby we all love and hobby that we just thrive on. So thank you so much.
00:02:50
Speaker
um Mr. Mason, I guess let's start with ah for you, when you're when you get the opportunity to play, and the story is done, and you've walked away, what are some traits that you remember that make you look back and say, that was a good GM?
00:03:13
Speaker
oh ah Well, first roll first of all, let me say ah thanks for inviting me on. It's great to be here. um And also, i think i think, number one, the obvious answer is, ah did i did I have a good time? Did I enjoy the game?
00:03:30
Speaker
um And obviously that's not just down to the GM, that's down to everyone who sat around the table, you know, in real life or virtually with me. um But that's, you know, but the GM clearly plays a critical part of that.
00:03:45
Speaker
and And so I guess, number one, did I enjoy the game? Did I enjoy the game? and Number two, i think, is... is um
00:03:56
Speaker
There's probably going to probably going to be a moment in the game that kind of stays with me. Oftentimes that could be the climax, how it ended, especially if it ended in a kind of crazy way and it was kind of a lot of fun or shockingly horrific or whatever it might have been. Often it's the ending, but it could be sometime before then. It could be it could be that point in the scenario where the kind of the information finally kind of came through and the penny dropped. We kind of understood.
00:04:26
Speaker
the reality of our situation as the players and what we actually had to do. um And sometimes that can be, you know, that kind of like revelation kind of as a good moment in the game.
00:04:38
Speaker
and But often, as say, it's the climax. but and and And really, ah it's a kind of a combination of those things. And how did the how did the GM, the keeper,
00:04:51
Speaker
how did they make that work how did they make that happen how do i feel what was my relationship with them and obviously you know what was it like with the other people but clearly what was it like with me in terms of my personality on the game um do i feel that they they helped the game to flow do i feel that they they were that they were part they were they were part of the river of the game, they they were yeah they were making it flow, or were they or were they an obstacle to us having fun?
00:05:24
Speaker
i think yeah yeah And that can happen. That can happen. There's been plenty of stories and experiences where um unfortunately GM was not the river, they were wall.
00:05:38
Speaker
And the fun they they were the dam but and there was on the other side of the wall and there's no way we were going to get through to that fun, unfortunately. You live and learn. But but I guess that was that would be kind of what my initial reaction would be. Thank you.
00:05:53
Speaker
And would that be, would that be for you being that river? Like, I mean, I, I, I'm just continuing with the same question, but would would you say it's more about um like creating that atmosphere? Would you say it's more about the like, like sandbox or, or railroad? Like, like, does it matter? Like with call of Cthulhu, is it easier to run an investigative horror by,
00:06:21
Speaker
leading them by a, by a, by like, I see you have a pet carrier behind you. Do you let them pull or do you, you make them heal? um
00:06:35
Speaker
but These are big questions. I'm sorry. You're churning down into a, into a, into a certain way thinking. um And um all of those things matter and they're all irrelevant.
00:06:47
Speaker
Right. yeah Okay. the um Whether it's a sandbox or linear scenario, I don't care. i As long as you're fun. Then I enjoy the game. That's what I'm asking myself. Because I can enjoy a linear game just as much as a sandbox.
00:07:00
Speaker
And oftentimes, I can enjoy a linear game more because I know where the ending is. Right. Okay. Because I've played in games where they've gone on and on and on, well past well past the day the time they should have stopped.
00:07:17
Speaker
because the players cannot stop themselves wanting to find every clue available to them in the entire universe. When the clue clearly told us all that the cultist sacrifice was happening at 12 o'clock at midnight in the house on them on the house on the hill.
00:07:34
Speaker
We know this. We found it out. why are we going to the library? Why are we going to the library? Yeah, because... Yeah? So I have a problem with that, because it's like, no, no, no, let's...
00:07:46
Speaker
We're telling a story. Let's tell the great story. And the great story is we get there, we stop them. yeah that's like like yeah but ah We were late. We can't stop talking to the librarian. That's not fun. That's just boring. To me, the the biggest crime in any role-playing game is it being dull.
00:08:09
Speaker
If it's dull, yes I've lost interest and so has everyone else, to be frank. And go yeah and so that dullness can be the design of the star itself.
00:08:20
Speaker
It's very, know, isn't, isn't great. It could be the presentation of the scenario. This is coming through the, the GM that they may be not, you know, facilitating it in a way that's working. It may be the players aren't, aren't playing along. know, maybe the players being bit dull tonight and all of these things, you know, this is the kind of the magic of a role playing game. There's not one thing makes it work. It's the,
00:08:43
Speaker
The magic is making all these things come together in the right amounts and they kind of create this magic you got you don't get with any other hobby or pastime or entertainment media. It only works in role-playing because role-playing only works that way.
00:09:01
Speaker
Oh, wow. but's it I always think of it like when i was a kid, you know, ah I do it all by myself as an only child. I did a lot by myself. But like being able to create entire universes and play with these things with my friends and we just accepted the rules that like, yeah, we're knights today and we're fighting dragons or we're where ah soldiers and and G.I. Joes are playing and these are the rules of the game. And we all played them because we all had fun together. And that's kind of the, you know, a GM is is not...
00:09:28
Speaker
you know, is is just a ah player, I guess. Yeah. I mean, the day they' obviously the kind of converse of what I'm saying is to GM who is following a script and normally it's a script that they've written and they will not veer from it.
00:09:43
Speaker
So, you know, in their scripts, you the players will go to A, B, C, D, You're not writing a movie. And the trouble is the players, when they get to A, they want to go to Z. because they've figured it out.
00:09:55
Speaker
um Chucky, that means Z. yeah you know Canadians and Brits have a different word for so but but that And often you know I turn that into that inflexibility. and obviously players can be that too. you know oh my play My character would never do that kind of thing. Well, your character is no longer in the game because you yeah then why are you playing exactly you walked out of the game, which is fine if that's what you want to do. But you know good go good bye.
00:10:21
Speaker
but um yeah so being flexible as a player and as your gm it's kind of key isn't it you want to roll with the punches you want to be creative you want to see the opportunities you want to go with them whether you're a bunch of players or they the the keeper saying hey the players are coming with this crazy idea it sounds great let's run with it you know let's see what happens happenss nice i love it um If if if I could, because my wife was tickled when she found out that you were going to be sitting with us. She truly was. um
00:10:52
Speaker
ah Because for the times that we've gone to Chaosium Con and in Ann Arbor, you know having an opportunity just to say, hi, you know that that that has really, sincerely, like she's like, oh my, are you serious? That's him?
00:11:05
Speaker
That was big. So when she felt you were sitting down, she was like, I wasn't joking. She like, i have questions. So one of the questions that she had was, you are, you know, notorious for Call Cthulhu and horror.
00:11:20
Speaker
Are there any other genres that you enjoy? That's a great question. No what no one has it ever asked me that question.
00:11:30
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you, dear. Thank you, honey. Boom! Obviously, I love horror. I love horror role playing, all the horror films and fiction and all that. However, before I loved horror, I loved science fiction.
00:11:47
Speaker
And um so I started as a a very young, young child reading science fiction before I got into horror. So I've always had a soft spot for science fiction, which I guess kind of came together in ah in a, in an unhealthy marriage with Warhammer 40,000 and,
00:12:08
Speaker
Inquisitor, which is kind of like horror sci-fi. So that kind of thing. However, you know, things like um systems ah or games I've always loved. um There's one, there's an English one called ah SLA or Slay Industries, which has been revived recently.
00:12:27
Speaker
Right, yes, yeah yes, I just saw a blip about that, nice. They have their own house system, but they're actually just, I think they're about to release a Savage Worlds version of the game as well. Yes. That'll be interesting to see. See, we have we have two loves. on we we love all games and we love all gamers, but Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu are the two systems that Chuck that check my talk about most. find it complimentary. that They're very different.
00:12:54
Speaker
And they do things yeah they do things differently for a really good reason. and but it But it also means that the two games it creates do their things really well, I find. And so I'm a big fan of of that stuff as well. so So speaking of Savage Worlds, the other one I would say that I love is Westerns.
00:13:11
Speaker
So ah you know I grew up with Deadlands, which was the you know four relative Savage Worlds and and so forth. Yeah, there you go. ah Yeah. Sorry, I'm showing, for those just listening, I'm showing the horror companion ah from Savage Worlds and Chaosium was good enough to share some of the mythos with them. Right.
00:13:31
Speaker
That's very good. Yeah. we are yeah yeah because I'm sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, we, you know, Chaosium has always been the kind of company that likes to get on with other games companies and the Savage Worlds team, you know, are good people. And so we like to support each other as we can. Nice. Yeah.
00:13:52
Speaker
Nice. Quick question. I guess what? We don't have to precursor every question with this. I hope it's okay if I ask. um Sorry. i'm still I'm still a bit nervous because we got... we It's funny because when I was asking, like, who should we ask ah to be on our show to talk about horror and talk about this and that? And people were like, oh, you should get Mike Mason and you should get John Hook. And you should get and I'm like, yeah, why don't want don't we also get, like, Wes Craven and George A. Romero? Like, yeah, that'll happen. um But, okay, so back to the topic, I guess, which is like, I mean, it's nice to interview Mike Mason as Mike Mason, and that's awesome, but we brought you on to talk about keyboring. So what i what I want to get to is
00:14:28
Speaker
What's the difference, do you think? like how How would you say is the biggest thing that sets a keeper of arcane lore aside from a GM, a storyteller, a DM? like Is there specific focus that you have when you're running Call of Cthulhu that you would think is is crucial? like If you were just starting out? um In a way, no. I think they're all the same.
00:14:51
Speaker
and ah But I guess with Cthulhu, what you are looking for that you may not be looking for in other games is you're looking for those pieces of string that you can pull on, that when you pull on the string, it kind of makes things weirder or more scary.
00:15:10
Speaker
which Nice. I mean, again, you know might in in in a fantasy game, those those strings you might pull on might be, you know, the the sense of adventure or exploration or, you know, or hey this is going to be a a major fight, so really get told of and you enjoy that kind of process.
00:15:29
Speaker
So ah every game's got its own kind of, like you know, call them them strings, don't know what to call them strings, but in Cthulhu, what you're specifically looking for is those things. Now, obviously, one of the things I've said a few times in different podcasts is it's a horror game, but just like Anything else that's horror, whether it's a film or a book, you can't have unremitting horror every second of the of your time. yeah know There's no horror book where literally every sentence is, oh, oh, you'd never get to the book. It's true. true i know
00:16:04
Speaker
Or you get bored of it. yeah and It becomes commonplace. So the same with so the horror movies. yeah Even the most scary movie in the world will have downtime there will have periods between a horror.
00:16:15
Speaker
And that's the same with ah with a horror role-playing game like Call of Cthulhu. You've got to set the tone and build up to the horror. And the thing is, horror. Well, the best horror comes when your guard is down. When the characters are in the house and they forgot that the zombie horde was out there. That's why comedy and horror work very well. The Evil Dead films and that kind of thing. They work really well because you lower your guard, you're having a laugh, and then you hit them with something actually scary. And it can have a better effect.
00:16:51
Speaker
But obviously, horror is very hard to manufacture. Which is why, as I say, you you find these strings and you you pull gently on them through the entirety of the game, pilot trying to punt the point. I guess if you you know think of my strings as tension, I'm pulling the tension and I start the game, it's very gentle.
00:17:12
Speaker
very gently work it up, work it up, work it up until we come to a climactic point in the game where I'm pulling hard on that tension and really driving it up and driving the players. and And that's, you know, i'm trying I'm trying to manufacture a kind of sense of horror, but I can't, I can't do that without the players and I can't do that. i said Well, you've got to get them to have the other end of the yeah of the becomes that kind of yeah the string. right Yeah.
00:17:37
Speaker
and um i love I love holding on to the string and letting them kind of go, where's this going? Let them walk into the danger. Again, I mean, with horror role-playing, horror GMing, the real secret to it is is is understanding horror movies and understanding how they work because that whole kind of thing about, you know, building tension, creating downtime so the so the horror is more ah is more essential. It's all part of that kind of mechanism and because you can't, you know, it's like, it's like i yeah I go to conventions and sometimes i get foolishly um scheduled to run Call of Cthulhu at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I tell the players, i can't I can't run horror at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning. It's not, you the sun's out. We're all a bit bleary-eyed from the night before. It's not a good time to run a horror game. So it tends those games tend to be a bit more horror comedy, if you know what I mean. Whereas Saturday night, nine, ten o'clock in the evening, the sun's up there the sun's gone down, the stars are out, and the eldritch piping in the air.
00:18:45
Speaker
then then yeah you're in the mood with the mood's better. is that People are more more ready to kind of get into the right kind of vibe for that. so so That's important too. You can't just turn it on. and you've got to You've got to try and create the right vibe to some degree. and That's not always possible.
00:19:02
Speaker
Some days you just have to play the game, enjoy the game for what it is, but but every now and again, that kind of magic all comes together. And the players are the ones who scare themselves, really. You provide the information and that then kind of you know reach the conclusion and and let the penny drop forever. They find their own horror in it.
00:19:22
Speaker
Right. Oh, I love that. I love that. So ah james James has been going through and he's been running us through Mask of Nile Thetip.
00:19:33
Speaker
And um so when, when because you you mentioned conventions, which is one shots and things like that. ah And so when it comes to like the, um this because Call of Cthulhu, one the big draws for Call of Cthulhu is the sanity mechanic. Yeah. um And so there's there is that that that change from a one shot to a campaign. Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker
I was just wondering, could could you could you could you help us out with helping to and separate the mechanic from the narrative?
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah. Like, cause yeah. Cause when you got a character that is like in a one shot, it's just ping ping, ping, ping, you know, it can, cause it's a one shot, yeah you know? Yeah. You're doing the haunting. You're going to get the big scare when you walk into the house and see the the exactly statue at the end of the hall, or you're going to get a scare when the bed attacks or whatever. no spoils um It's been out 40 years. Yeah, fair it's fair to spoil it. Yeah, but... but yeah I'm sorry, go ahead. that i let you Unless you're new to the game, then it's brand new. And that's yeah cool. However, yeah. So I'm just going to yeah be very lazy and say like but it's like horror films. yeah So if you're playing a one-shot, you are literally playing a horror movie where your character is unlikely
00:20:59
Speaker
to see the dawn in the morning. You know, they make it if they make it to sunrise, well done, you know, you have a gold star. But everyone is like alien. Everyone's expendable. and And that's the joy of a one shot because you can literally, you know, drive it like you just stole it kind of thing, the analogy.
00:21:16
Speaker
um Amen. However, a campaign is different. You're absolutely right. One of my issues having, having, you know, worked and and written and rewritten and developed the,
00:21:27
Speaker
well, it's now the current edition of Masters of Mathotep. One of my issues with the original version was um it just is this unnecessary character death that came all the way through it.
00:21:40
Speaker
yeah You get to climb a wall, and you know in real life, if I climb a wall and fall down, I might you know hurt my leg. um yeah I could break my leg maybe. I wouldn't necessarily, depending on how high i go, i'm not going to kill myself because I won't climb that high without a rope.
00:21:55
Speaker
So in in early maths, it could be, oh, you've got to make a climb. Oh, you fell in the car, but you're dead. The end. It's like, well, that's very unsatisfactory. That's just an example. you know But it could be just you know you um you know you and a fell down this.
00:22:10
Speaker
yeah you' both you de You get one role. If you fell the role, your character's dead or near enough dead. and And so... I call that very dull, and I think that's very dull for players. I find it i think players get very frustrated. I do. as Even though I'm just reading it, let alone running it or playing it, I get very frustrated with, um with um what's the word, with with character deaths that are are meaningless.
00:22:36
Speaker
Meaningless, yeah? Agreed. ah A meaningful character death, but ah specifically in a game like Call of Cthulhu, where it is about, you know, taking a heroic stand against the forces of darkness in what however way you look at it.
00:22:50
Speaker
um like A meaningful death can be can be an ultimate ending. It can be ah a real high point for your game, your character. You you' as a player, and your character sacrificed themselves to save the world or whatever it is.
00:23:03
Speaker
And it becomes very meaningful and very very poignant. However, ah just because they failed the dice roll and they you know they they poured poison over their hands and now they're dead like that,
00:23:15
Speaker
is is not poignant, is not fun, and is and is frustrating. so So with masks and and campaigns, it's very important to think about how about the longevity of of the campaign and and how your players are going to go through it. Because you know you you are as as a GM, you're complete control of that.
00:23:34
Speaker
Now, it might be if you're playing a written campaign, that it says, oh, here, if they do this and they fail this, it means they've got to take this damage. Well, that's that's what the guide book says, yeah?
00:23:46
Speaker
But you know your players, you know their characters, you know what like where they are. It may be, the book doesn't know that last session, one of the characters set fire to something and burnt themselves, and they're down six hit points, so they're not on full.
00:24:00
Speaker
So you know if you make the role as in the book, Well, there's a good chance they're going to die over nothing. Again, it's going to one of those meaningless deaths. Exactly. But you as a gen, you're going to mitigate that. You're actually just going to take two points of damage or no damage at all. Because you are grading that. You're tailoring it to your gaming session.
00:24:18
Speaker
And so, well, and yeah, I was going to say, and that's, and that's, that's something i I promised my players right at the beginning. It was one of the rules I set aside when we first started was you, like, I will not let your character die unless you say, yeah, no. Yeah.
00:24:34
Speaker
it's time. Like we've had it happen almost a a few times. We're one of our, like nobody's died yet. yeah Like, like we, it's funny we're taking our long time. We're taking the roundabout route. Cause we, we started over just over a year ago and we're now in London. Like we're now in the third chapter. So, so, but, um but that's fine. Cause we're loving it. um But, but we had somebody ah gets like, I had, I had somebody with, snake person told told one of the players just to kill another player they stabbed them and they rolled extreme success so they did maximum damage and and the the character would have just died um but it didn't feel right and so like you know somebody was lucky enough to remember well i i remember i created that charm from that thing and maybe that can save her life and i was like yep done that's how that saved her life like you get to like i'm not going to kill a player character But like, if there's a moment where you didn't even take that much damage, but if you feel like, can I grab the, the, the ghoul and jump off the cliff with it?
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah. I know I'm going to die, but I feel like this is a moment to save the rest of the group. Then yeah, please. That's the one that's the way to go. you know Yeah. No, I think, I think, yeah the hope I mean, back in 1983,
00:25:45
Speaker
nineteen eighty three um the term player agency didn't exist. yeah And so yeah we we kind of grew up with the idea that... No X cards, no... I mean, I grew up with the idea of yeah from D&D onwards that you know it was kind of us, me versus the players as ah as a GM. oh yeah yeah My job was to try and kill them off as quickly as possible and have fun. yeah um and And that kind of worked 50 years ago. But I think we've come a long way since then. And I think now...
00:26:13
Speaker
we get we all leave some power yeah We get a lot more out of it by having the players um have some role in the game. And it's not adversarial. It's about actually know the the role of the GM is is is is like a facilitator. you know I'm a player too, so i'm but i'm I'm helping the other players facilitate their game.
00:26:31
Speaker
And so I you know i um you know i want to cheerlead the players, the characters. I want them to succeed because yeah i mean you know but but but if I put it down in the most basest way of expressing this,
00:26:43
Speaker
I just spent $100 on masks, yeah? I want the players and me to get my money's worth out of the book. i don't want to This is my third time trying it, and this is the first time I've made it to London. In scenario one, because I've got $90 less worth from that book.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah? Yeah. Exactly. i want yeah I want to enjoy the dang book. Yes. Yes. Yeah. ah Follow up on a sanity question, just because there's another another question I had. um yeah And again, as the keeper of arcane lore in a major campaign like this, I have been struggling with this idea. So, you know, we know what happens when you have a mental break. You know, it creates these these. personality traits it creates these these things that happen but how do you handle like let's say over several sessions several weeks in game they've lost 10 sanity points one two yeah three at a time how do you um i don't want to say like how do you how do you remind the player like how do you encourage the players to play that sanity right this like i
00:27:43
Speaker
I had a good example of a player who just got cold as time went on, but, but how she did that on her own. if If she hadn't done that, then how do I do it? as a yeah okay there There's two things to bear in mind.
00:27:55
Speaker
Um, there's, uh, in terms of sanity loss specifically for Cthulhu is ah there's the drip drip kind of gradual erosion, which is what you're talking about. And then there's a kind of big sudden loss where you may have a more dramatic kind of immediate effect on the character.
00:28:10
Speaker
It's easier for the player to forget it when it's joke. Yeah, exactly. so But I think the kind of answer, kind of you can use the same answer for both, is like ah I guess what I'm trying to say, is um often the player is the answer.
00:28:25
Speaker
Often it is to say to the player, okay, hey, you know you've been you know, you've been having this kind of... um gradual loss of sanity over over the last you know month of play or whatever it is. Remember you found that book and then you ran into that that strange looking thing in the swamp and and then then that happened. Do you remember all the end-day players? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What effect is that having on your character now?
00:28:52
Speaker
yeah What are your dreams for the place? Ask the to kind of, again, you I'm trying to throw to give the player agency so they can determine their own fate, but youre but because you're prompting them and you're reminding them of what they lost sanity for, because it may be when you say that, they they they go blank and they can't really think of anything. say, well, what do you think of the of the of the three things I just mentioned that happened to you where you lost sanity? Which is the one do you think your character remembers the most?
00:29:23
Speaker
What do they see when they close their eyes? Yeah, the one they keep dreaming about, yeah? And then and then focused on that. And let's just say it was the the thing in the swamp. Yeah. And just say, yeah. So, so maybe, um, yeah, as an idea, maybe you can't stop seeing that thing when you go to sleep or, and the trouble is that smell of the swamp has never left. Every time you look into a dark room or down an alley, you, you get the sense of something moving down the end. Yeah.
00:29:48
Speaker
And it's like, and then maybe you're going be a bit cautious about going down there. Maybe that you're feeling, there's something horrible down there. And so quite naturally, you don't want to go down there. So maybe if, you know, that's a situation, I'm going to say, hey, if you make a power roll, you can kind of overcome it and you can go there. But until you make that, you kind of back on the way. Ooh, I like that. I love that. how to But it kind of just builds off And it may be the player doesn't need that. and they'll just, they'll just say, Hey, you know what? um'm I'm going to do my character, you know, decided to start eating flowers every day or whatever it might be. Yeah. No, that's it. And it's like, you can do that with one player and then maybe the other players start going, well, I want, I want to have a weird thing. i mean um I've often found, um, and I know Paul Fricker, uh, my kind of writing colleague has often said this same thing as he's with his groups is, um,
00:30:40
Speaker
you if you You set the tone as the keeper. So if you if you do voices or accents for your NPCs, it's more likely your players will feel comfortable enough to do an accent for their character.
00:30:57
Speaker
If you're not comfortable doing that as a keeper, it's probably unlikely that your players are going to do it because they will take the tone and the vibe from you. And that's fine. You don't have to do that, but you set the tone is what i'm trying to say. So if you set the tone in terms of, you know, that kind of asking the players know for their input on on a semi-regular basis, they'll get into the habit of it.
00:31:23
Speaker
And between sessions, they'll start to think of ideas to bring to the game, not just be reacting to you. um Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because because they there's there's that trust.
00:31:35
Speaker
You're building that trust, and they know that they can come to you And say, you know, oh, hey, remember we were talking about that swamp thing? Yeah, the smell was great. The back alley was great. But I thought about this other thing.
00:31:49
Speaker
Because they know that you're not going to relentlessly punish them for it. You're going to bring it into the story. and it's going to entertain everybody at table. love that. I want to do ah i want to do ah an episode about the knife theory, which is we'll get into, but it's basically your character when you're character you're building a character, you you're creating little points in the backstory that you're handing basically handing knives to your GM to stab you with later. I was literally about to say the same thing. and say but is when you When you can start with a player at a certain point in the game where where they start to kind of
00:32:24
Speaker
help to define what is what is changing in their character. Yeah. That also helps you to then have conversations, maybe out of game or on the side, saying, hey, you know what?
00:32:38
Speaker
you know If your character you know does end up meeting Cthulhu, what do you think it's going to be? Are you going to like you know go all out with this swamp thing? Are you going to become the thing in a swamp? or you're going to ah yeah what where' rich ah Where do you think you might go? and Not to say that that is exactly what will happen, but you are helping to guide the player to what might be the end of their character in a sense. yeah what How do they think their character might end if it all goes to hell?
00:33:08
Speaker
That's a good question. And, and, and and they have the reward for that. You know, they have, they walk away from the table. They like, well, what happened? Oh, I went crazy.
00:33:19
Speaker
But yeah if this is what happened. if You're helping to define this character arc and and you're getting them to, you know, def define it themselves and be best in it. And so, and as you say, if you can reward them in play um by saying, Hey, that's,
00:33:33
Speaker
yeah yeah as an aside you're playing into your character art that's really cool i'm gonna give you five luck points just because i think you're doing a really cool thing here's here's a couple of sanity points because in the nature of the game you've taken it yeah you're taking the afternoon off and you had a breather and you're feeling a lot better about yourself i don't know whatever it may be but you can give it might just be i'm going to give you a bonus tie to use whenever you like during the session these are all oh that's good i like that i like that i like that rules you know these these aren't written into the game. No. But, you know, we're we're all role players. We all tinker with the rules and you make the game work for you. And so if you can find a way to reward your players so they increase that investment, and then why not? You know it doesn't hurt the game. Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker
That's fantastic. we we have ah We have a character, a player a player whose character has been, it's the biggest the biggest thing you can do wrong in Call of Cthulhu is have a character with lots of intelligence and low sanity. um But he has he has lost a lot and he's kind of already kind of, he's starting to ask me questions like, so like, if I lose all my sanity, like will will my character be like a really cool bad guy after that? like Can he like start his own cult? I'm like, sure, man, let's talk about that. That's cool. like Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:48
Speaker
see That's fantastic. I was... Oh my God. There's so many questions. Maybe it's like, it's all there. like, Oh my God.
00:34:59
Speaker
well If you got one more, let's go for it. I don't know if we want to, I mean, I'm happy to talk with Mike for another hour, but I just want to make sure we are coming up on time though. That's a good point. Well, we can always do a two-parter, but let's, let's just maybe call it soon. I like that. It's gotta late, late over there and across. I'm good for a bit, a little longer. Carry on, carry on.
00:35:20
Speaker
Okay. Hello, gentle viewer. Thanks so much for watching that episode. Wasn't it great? Mike is such an amazing dude. He did stick around. We did continue for another 20 minutes of conversation, um which we have available for our Patreon supporters at the $0 level and above. If you want to support us at at the $5 level, that's Canadian dollars, by the way. So whatever that is in American or British pounds or wherever you support um and you get access to more stuff too we also played a game with mike that we've been playing with a bunch of our guests that's going to start launching in uh in september um all kinds of fun stuff uh we've got patreon uh we've got if you're a member of our patreon you get to join our discord if you're at the good or gooder or goodest level you get to also join the good place which is a spot just for patreons to talk about how much They love me and hate Chuck or vice versa. I'm just kidding. We love you both. um
00:36:10
Speaker
We both love you. That's what I should have said. Anyway, patreon.com forward slash good GM's podcast to watch the rest of this episode. And stay tuned because coming up in the next little while, we have John Hook in the next couple of weeks. We've got Kelly Clark from Dork Tales. We have... um We've got Carl Kiesler coming up. If you know Savage Worlds, you know Carl Kiesler. We have a bunch of other stuff coming up. More Chuck and James. We've got interviews with more people. and So stay tuned. Be with us. Be good. What do you have to say?
00:36:41
Speaker
Anything else? No. Okay. Be good. Bye.
00:36:46
Speaker
Thank you for watching. If you like or dislike what you heard, let us know. If you want to suggest an idea for an episode, ask the host a question or just tell Chuck and James what you really think of them.
00:37:04
Speaker
Join our communities at patreon.com forward slash good GM's podcast or find us on the usual social media platforms.
00:37:15
Speaker
For now, I'm E.E. Morris, and you're all good GMs.
00:37:33
Speaker
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00:37:50
Speaker
Yes, E.E. Morris. I put my own money to back our projects because we're all good GMs.