@AeriaNyx said in MU Things I Love:
To second @Sparks, when you have a reeeeally out there idea, and you spend days working it out and layering in things and really working hard to make things make sense. And you finally get to the day you have to run it, and not only are the players awesome, but they pick up on what you're trying to do and they just make it glorious.
Yeah. The moment when the story becomes clear, where the fog lifts and the road is visible ahead, and players realize "Oh!" and you can see them fall into sync with the plotline... it's the best part of GM'ing.
I love having a story unfold, player-side; discovering something ICly I didn't even know OOCly, especially when it involves my character directly or peripherally, is a joy. It's one reason I do love tabletop games; in the groups I've played in, the GM will often write secrets and plot twists tied into the backstory of various characters, which means you can sometimes end up seeing your own character's backstory—or character themself!—in a new light, after some twist or revelation the GM unveils.
But I love giving other people those same kind of moments even more, when I can. It's why I run a D&D campaign at work for co-workers. It's why I GM on MU*s.
When you see the players really engaging with the plot you've laid out in front of them, it's one of the best dopamine hits in the world.
@AeriaNyx said in MU Things I Love:
Now. If i could just get better at guesstimating timing. What I thought would take about 4 hours, ended up taking nearly 12. And kudos to them for sticking with it that long! It was probably the most fun I've had in months. It was all of the warm and fuzzies.
I'll note that keeping a plot to a specific length is an acquired skill, and has less to do with guesstimating timing and more to do with adjusting your GM'ing style on the fly.
If I've set aside 3 hours for a plot and the players are deeply into it and posing rapidly, I can drill down into details more. Let's say the overall plot is to get into this ancient vault, pass into the tunnels of that vault, and locate some ancient artifact (which will doubtless do something Unexpected when claimed). And let's say the NPC who has served as their guide and escorted them to the entrance of this vault needs them to perform a ritual to unlock it, before they can continue on.
If folks are zipping along in their poses, the explanation of the ritual can be drawn out over multiple pose rounds (allowing for the PCs to react as the steps are described "You need our tears, our sweat, and our blood for this? The blood kind of alarms me..."), and the ritual itself can be multiple pose rounds (to show the effects growing, and build to the moment when the ancient vault's door begins to move).
But if the PCs are being very thoughtful about their poses—or there's just a lot of PCs present—I start to compress; the ritual instructions might be described in one pose round instead, allowing one pose round for reactions, and then the ritual itself will probably also be one pose round (with, admittedly, one heck of a long and dramatic emit to describe the ritual). That way, we can keep moving on the meat of the plot—following the tunnels into the ancient vault, in search of an artifact with mysterious effects!—rather than being hung up trying to open the vault for an hour and a half, and have people have to bail on a plot before reaching the heart of it.
So it's less about guessing "how long will this take", and more about how you can tweak your own GM style/pace to try to fit the plotline as closely as you can to the estimated time.
We did good.
