I’m back to work on my The Secret World adventure module. I’ve re-worked the premise significantly, although I’ve kept the setting, some of the set-pieces, and ideally, the overall vibe. The trigger has changed and more “TSW-ness” has been brought into play so I’m feeling a lot better about the overall product than I did previously, but I’m still having the same mental issues that I had before.

Somewhere along the line, I became a “big picture guy”. I can come up with a broad stroke for the story, but when it comes to the details, I completely disassociate. I also have issues during gameplay, filling the blanks in response to player actions.

This is kind of the entire job of the GM, so naturally I Am Concerned.

As I write this, I’m trying to think outside the box to identify what my issue is or, if I can’t nail that down, to figure out a way around it. I normally try to anticipate player actions and to create “glue traps” which are mental scenarios designed anticipate some of the common PC actions or NPC interactions to pre-load my responses. For example, if players need to talk to an NPC about a specific even that just happened, I need that NPC to be true to their nature and give an appropriate response. The response either needs to be actionable, true or false, or completely unaware. Part of the purpose to this way of preparation is so that I give out info when relevant — ideally, not before it’s relevant — and to ensure that the info I provide now is the same info the players and I can act on later.

This doesn’t work most of the time, obviously, since players are really good at off-roading or asking questions I never anticipated. Whereas the general adventure plan assumes players are heads-down and following the narrative thread, everyone knows that in reality, they’re going to squirrel something completely off-script, forcing the GM to tag along and shout descriptions and explanations from the back of the tour-group as they race to catch up. Is this side-excursion relevant? Probably not. Could it be? Probably could. Should it be? That’s one of those “in the moment” questions I have a hard time answering.

But as I write this, seeing it on the page, I have to slap myself: why so rigid? Why should I care about minor deviations. The role of a GM is to respond to player actions in the moment and, when appropriate, find ways to connect these sudden changes in direction back to the main story. Those redirects don’t need to happen as soon as I start to panic when the players turn left instead of the planned right; they can happen an hour later, or even a week later.

What I really need is a set of tools that can help me generate new “medium” pictures. The big picture will always be the big picture, and the details will follow what the players do. Medium pictures are the definition of “side-quests” which, in this case, are just a bundle of responses to player actions. Whether that bundle should amount to a side-adventure is kind of the question; sometimes a traveling circus is just a good time and not a cover for some weird troupe of assassins and thieves who are looking to break into the nearby bank to steal a massive gem I’m calling dibs on that plot and writing it down. But if I wanted a side-quest to be a side-quest, I’d like some tools to help me lay down a foundation of that new “medium” picture.

I’m still unhappy with my seeming inability to respond off-the-cuff, but maybe I should somehow convince myself to roll with it, to make up a response which then becomes “law”, like if an PC asks about a town and the NPC responds that there’s a statue in the square which I never planned for, but now have to incorporate into the story. Again, does it need to be the lynchpin for the adventure? Maybe not. Could it be? Maybe it could. Maybe it could…