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A Guest Article by Jack Hank
You’re a GM in charge of new campaign featuring a group of novices that aren’t quite sure how to assume the guise of a character. So what’s your next move?

Ingratiating new players into a game in the hope of building a successful campaign is never easy and there are myriad of reasons why a novice might not be able to gel with their teammates.

When we explored the idea of overcoming a mental block and getting players to go against something they believe in (such as supporting the KKK in the Sons of The Serpent plotline of the Adventurer’s Club campaign), the solution was to think around the situation, and look at aspects of the history of patriotism which could be used to justify the support of white workers in the Deep South (You can read more about that problem and solution at ‘There Is A Hole In Your Mind…’: Solving Mental Block).

Similar principles can be applied to the problem of teaching new players how to step into character.

July Midnight by Myles Birket Foster, used in 1858 to illustrate “The poetical works of Edgar Allan Poe”.
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Become a More Poetic GM

Having the ability to look beyond the scenario and come up with a creative way of building it into a game is a crucial skill every GM needs to hone. In fact, when we outlined our top tips for improving your descriptions of locations and scenes, I advised you to add a poetic element into your descriptions and keep them as concise as possible.

Taking this approach will not only add a new element of entertainment and depth to any game you control, but allow each player to become more immersed in the action. This will make the players more invested in the game, and in turn elicit more emotional responses from them. This is crucial when you’re playing with novices as they often tend to look at scenarios in a literal way and fail to fully embrace the fantasy element.

Indeed, the concept of hyperreality is one that’s been kicking around for a while in the RPG world. It basically refers to how fine the line between the game and a person’s perception of reality is. As a GM your goal is to thin that line as much as possible, but it’s not easy. Props, miniatures and visual media, such as photos in the Adventurer’s Club and Zenith-3campaigns, can all be used to make your games more immersive.

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Using Gambling Games to Enhance Immersion

But what about when this isn’t enough? One technique that’s useful when it comes to helping new players sink into their roles and play as their characters and not themselves is introducing mini-games.

One gaming arena where persona is king is the casino world. Games such as poker, blackjack and craps all require a certain mindset and, for the humble novice, this mindset is often guided by suave gamblers such as James Bond. Taking the psychological elements from the gambling world, you can actually enhance your own GM skills and, moreover, the experience of your players.

Of course, if you’re going to initiate a mini-game of blackjack in attempt to make players more immersed in their characters, you need to learn the rules of the game first. Even if you’re familiar with the game, you need to do your session preparation, as you will be acting as a croupier or inn-keeper who guides the characters and manages the game. Make sure you know about options like splitting and doubling down, which allows for doubling of a player’s initial wager under specific circumstances.

Do make sure you read up on the basics of blackjack, as you’re going to be embodying a NPC who is already very seasoned in this game. If you are not that cruel a GM, you might even want to give players a chance to “surrender”, a blackjack mechanic which allows for a player to forfeit their hand to take half their initial bet back.

(Image: Blackjack 2 by FreeImages.com / Tracy Scott-Murray)

Become a Better GM with Casino Games

Let’s take a look at a few scenarios from the gambling world that you can use to improve your GM skills when you’re playing any one of theleading tabletop RPGsor even their less massive counterparts.

The natural starting point for any GM wanting to host a mini-game is craps. Because you already have dice at hand, you can set up an impromptu game and encourage your players to compete in a way consummate with their character. In a nutshell, craps is a casino game that requires the player to correctly predict the outcome of a dice roll. So it’s a sweet and simple mechanic to introduce, while you’re encouraging your newbies to take active part in the storytelling, role playing experience as their characters rather than themselves.

Prepare the setting: An inn they visit after an adventure is a classic, for good reason. Someone challenges them – the innkeeper, another patron. Make him or her a well-rounded character with his own mannerisms. Now, the bets the players place have to be consistent with their character. If someone is supposed to be a courageous Warrior, they have to place bold bets such as hard totals. In contrast, a Half-Orc who was naturally drawn the short straw when it comes to intelligence should make unreasonable bets, for instance staking 45 gold on single roll when they only have 50 gold available to spend.

(Image: Roller coaster 2 by FreeImages.com / Vicky johnson)

Excitement Creates Better Characters

Because of the way our brains react to situations where the outcome is uncertain, we naturally attach a greater significance to the thought process that precedes any action we make. When we gamble, it creates a sense of anticipation and excitement and these natural highs produce certain physical responses.

As the endocrine system kicks into life it increases oxygen and glucose to the brain and this creates a sense of arousal that makes us more likely to act on an instruction. By creating a mini-game that focuses on gambling, you can stimulate this excitement response which, therefore, makes players more likely to follow your instructions and lose themselves in roles they (or you) have created.

Taking this a step further, you could take the game of blackjack and apply a similar process. After outlining the rules of the game, you can then instruct your players to assume their character’s persona and play as they would.

An intelligent mage could therefore study the odds, take note of the dealer’s face card and make moves based on solid game theory. Conversely, a reckless rogue could abandon all sense of logical strategy and simply play on impulse (i.e. relying on luck), or a seasoned fighter might rely more on his ability to “read” the opposition’s facial expressions and body language. The process of fusing gambling excitement with role playing should help put the players in a more malleable state and, therefore, more likely to sink into their roles, especially if said roles are new.

Role Playing Gamers at the Burg-Con in Berlin (Image: Sargoth, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Embrace Risk in Your Next Campaign

As you can see, gambling mini-games are a great way of helpingWorld of Darknessor Fate players improve their role-playing skills. It can also be a very enjoyable experience, if we judge by spinoffs such as The Red Dragon Inn, which bases much of its action on gambling, with its 5 games and 16 expansions that have inbuilt gambling games and have proved popular in recent years.

Operating on the principle that an in-game element of risk and uncertainty are can enhance a campaign, gambling games can be introduced at any time to make players to sink deeper into their roles; gambling has the effect of pushing players into a new state of mind. Accomplish that by hosting your own mini-game or having your players participate in mandatory in-campaign games.

You’ll find that games such as blackjack and craps are a great way to help beginners become better players.