How do you share the action between players?
One issue that I have had in Masks is with players (ok, and GMs) who have come out of D&D, Champions or other turn based combat system RPGs. PbtA is a free flowing narrative combat system with rolling for major actions (moves) – and the GM is meant to flip back and forth between players when it is right for the narrative not because of an initiative chart.
However, this freedom means that it can feel very lopsided to players more used to a strict order of combat, especially as the NPCs get a move after every move a PC makes; sometimes players feel that their character are not getting enough screen time; and then “hey, when is my character going to get a go” becomes a common complaint (even if the player only just a minute ago made a spectacular move and other character are having the spotlight on them now).
My group of 6 – 8 players brain-stormed this idea after one game where I, as GM, felt that the spotlight was shining fairly evenly on the characters, but some of the players felt that in the combats their characters were not getting enough attention.
Our solution? Poker chips and an icecream bucket. Every player gets a poker chip at the start of the session and then, once we get into a combat type situation, when a player “makes a move” they throw their chip in the bucket. Once everyone has thrown their chips in the bucket, or the combat ends, we hand the chips back out to everyone and start again. We still get the narrative style free flowing combat feel of the game, but now when a player asks “Hey, when is my character going to get a go?” everyone looks at them and someone will respond “Where is your chip?”; if it is in their hand then the answer is can be “Now” or “soon”, if it is in the bucket is is after the other characters have had some spotlight.
And what do we mean by “makes a move”? Well, it has to be something the player does – so “take a powerful blow” doesn’t count but “directly engage a threat” would; however reacting to something, or defending/assisting another PC’s move… well, that we leave up the GM and players to decide. Our rule of thumb is that it has to be something big to use up your chip – and what is big? Well, that is normally up to the GM to determine, and I normally go by if you have to role the dice then it is probably something big.
It is not a perfect solution by a long shot, and I hope that after a while of playing we get more into the habit of sharing the spotlight but for now, it has removed the complaint of players feeling they didn’t get enough action in a game session and everyone feels like they accumplished something in the game.
What are some ideas other gaming groups have used to ensure that the spotlight is shared for players and GMs new PbtA type games?
If your players aren’t feeling focused on, then I’d say the error is on the GM side.
One thing to note is that you don’t necessarily get a move after every PC action – you get a move when the rules say so or when they look to you to see what happens.
So when the alien invader Grebulon storms into the local college quad, and the team confronts it, make Brickhouse storms in to Directly Engage and gets a six. Shit, Brickhouse gets blasted across the quad and crashes into a wall! There are students screaming and masonry collapsing – Cold Kid, you’re the closest, what do you do? … Sounds like an Unleash… Cool, meanwhile, while Brickhouse extricates herself, what are you other two doing?
Etc etc – you have to work to pass the spotlight around. If this looks like managing initiative, that’s probably correct. That’s how it feels as long as the 10+s aren’t coming. But when someone comes in and gets a solid hit in, you gotta be their fan and say “oh shit, now what?!” Let the others interrupt, too. Present new obstacles and ask “who’s gonna save that puppy now?” and zoom in on whoever answers.
* Waits to see what happens *
Every PbtA I played with had turns. It is the natural thing to do. Why do something else?
1of3 that would be a result of something the GM is doing, not part of the game. In PbtA games, they players should be active, not reactive, which doesn’t look like taking turns in order at all. Some phrases that make this possible:
– Brickhouse is stuck under some rubble, who is gonna help get her out?
– The enemy is getting away, but that bus full of children is still falling – who is going to give chase?
– After the tense moment, you’re all standing and staring at each other.who breaks the silence first?
You gotta give the players opportunities to act and let whoever decides to act do so. If/when someone hogs the spotlight, start excluding their character from the request (“While Thundercat is occupied with that, what are the rest of you doing about the fire?”)
RPGs are conversations. There is turn taking in conversations. When everyone is trying to give others there turn, there are turns. You even explained the method for enforcing proper turn-taking: “While X does this, what do you do Y?” Those ARE turns.
I don’t think being pedantic is helpful to someone looking for practical advice.
6-8 players is a lot for Masks! I think it may just be extra difficult to share the spotlight with that big of a team. Sometimes it gets tricky to balance when I have only 5 players.
One idea then: Be more okay with splitting the party and running two scenes in parallel, cutting back and forth at appropriate cliffhangers. I’ve found players to be more able to wait patiently when they’re not in the scene at all and are watching the other half of the team do something cool than when they’re in the scene and questioning why their character seems to be sitting idly by (because of the limitations of the spotlight).
As for managing spotlight in full group scenes, your system with chips sounds like a clever solution. Stick with it if you and your players are happy about it. My method has been an index card I keep with tallies of character actions, sometimes in parallel with a little list noting each move of the fight (including powerful blows and using Team, which don’t get tallied on the other card). This mostly helps me notice when someone hasn’t gotten to move recently and tells me to give them the spotlight.
When folks have brainstormed player principles for PbtA games (analogous to the GM principles most games come with), two that they came up with were “Share the spotlight” and “when the spotlight is on you, go big.” It might be worth chatting about these with your players and having a discussion about how to make sure they help each other shine in the spotlight.
You can also ask the players to pass it to the next character after they’ve done their thing. And as GM you do that, too. When you make a move and get the PCs reaction/result, you recap what just happened and look to a player that hasn’t yet gone and ask, “What do you do?”