Foreword . . . .In July of 2020, a Bittergrey Legionnaire by the name of Thorn made the mistake of picking on the emperor of Atlas. This triggered a series of events that ended with Thorn’s unceremonial death at the hands of an Atlas kill squad. Because Thorn was a Legionnaire, he could not be cloned, and was instead permanently removed from the setting. . . . .Thorn was my character, and he was the last time I remember feeling like a player in Galaxy Citizen. Since then, my stints as a player character have been short, and the majority of my time has been spent in the gamemaster’s suite, pulling the strings for other people. This is a role I enjoy, and have been told I do well, but I can not ignore that being locked into only one role is beginning to get tiresome. . . . .A while ago, I searched around for a setting, or event, I could interact with. In that time, it seemed to me that there was no active hub on the server that I was not directly involved in running. This has gotten me worried about GC’s health as a community. I remember bringing this up to a group of my peers, only to be told that this is how it has always been. GC always has one main GM who pulls the most weight. Some of them even laughed. . . . .While I don’t disagree with that assessment, I think they were missing vital context. Back when, say, PrivateNomad, was the primary GM, we still had plenty of secondary storylines and settings players could invest themselves in. Off the top of my head, I can think of Atlas, the Forlorn Legion, the RPUI, Horizon, the Visitant, Renaize, Panopticon, and La’megoth to name a short few. Why We Need More GMs . . . .When I say ‘gamemaster’ in this article, I am referring to the type of community member who is interested in creating interactive experiences for others, not just those who run events or make settings. This includes players who create interesting backstory lore for their character, or have their character engaged in projects that gives others a thing to do. Broadly, anyone who creates interesting events proactively is a gamemaster here. . . . .Without a decent body of active and invested GMs, GC’s world continues to shrink. As it shrinks, it becomes harder for different types of characters to exist. It forces characters whose goals or personality don’t align with a given setting to interact with them anyways, simply to have something to do. If they don’t have something to do, they’re more or less forced out of Galaxy Citizen entirely. An already small community can not risk losing more players, I think. . . . .Right now, unless you are interested in the revolutionary war and leftist infighting on Renaize, or the slow-burn investigative scenes uncovering the secrets of isolated Hara Station, you don’t have anything to do in our galaxy. The same happens if you simply don’t like the GM or their playstyle, forcing contact despite the friction. I don’t think I can stand this for much longer. For these reasons, I’m hoping this article inspires people to create and help give our server more life again. Roles of the Gamemaster . . . .As the gamemaster, your first responsibility is to create and execute a story the players can get involved in. Ideally, this involves understanding the characters you are working with, and guiding the narrative in such a way that they may grow and develop through their triumphs and trials. To do this, communicate with the players. Get a feeling for their character’s skills and shortcomings, and utilize this information to create interesting moments in the plot. Everyone loves a cool scene where their character gets to shine, but every story needs moments where its characters struggle. . . . .Additionally, it is important to manage the players’ expectations, and make it clear what is expected out of them. This can typically be done through simply expressing the ‘genre’ of the thing you are GMing. Is this an investigative horror, an action hack-and-slash, or a dungeon-crawling survival game? Will they be expected to count their bullets, or are they free to do epic anime action scenes? . . . .Of course, this advice is mainly for GMs creating a setting or event. If you’re just setting up an interactive scene or having your character engage in a project, you’ll typically be engaging with a larger setting and involve the pre-existing collection of people already attached to your character. This means you can afford to run it more loosely, as it is more a collection of scenes than a rigid or demanding structure. Roles of the Player . . . .As a player, your first responsibility is to communicate with the GM so that you best understand the genre and tone of the setting or plot you’re introducing yourself into, and can act accordingly. Important information about your character, like their skills, shortcomings, and goals, should be obvious to the GM so they can make use of them in their storytelling. This is especially important if your character is high concept. Sometimes GMs will expect more information than this, and it’s typically for a reason; In a horror event, it might be good to know the characters’ deepest fears, for example. . . . .Once you’re actually playing, it is important to be as prompt in responding as your life allows. Try to proactively engage with what’s going on, rather than merely reacting. There’s nothing a GM hates more than a player who’s just going through the motions. It’s especially important to remember that, even in settings pitched as player vs player, it is bad form to seek out unabashed victory or get competitive over roleplay. You should always be looking to make the best story possible, rather than securing ‘victory’ over the other player. . . . .Lastly, if you think there’s a disagreement, misunderstanding, or confusion between you and the GM, it’s important to communicate this as quickly as possible to avoid potential issues. Almost never is someone being malicious, and most GMs simply want you to have fun. Very rarely will they react poorly to being asked something like ‘I think I misunderstand something, can you explain it to me in clear terms?’ or ‘I think I’m stuck here. Can you give me a hint?’ . . . .Don’t be afraid to ask GMs for lore reminders you think your character would recall better! Your character lives in this world twenty four-seven, you don’t. Finding Inspiration . . . .Before you create anything, you need a source of inspiration. Nothing can be made without that initial kindling idea, after all. When searching for inspiration, it’s important to be actively consuming media. Any kind of media will do; Books, movies, video games, and anything in between. A lot of the time, I simply scroll through image-gathering sites like Pinterest looking for a vibe I can bounce off of, or I get a song stuck in my head. . . . .Hara Station was originally created after I played Hardspace Shipbreaker and began brainstorming with Slither about how Galaxy Citizen didn’t really have any space station or spacer hubs, and how it was a missed opportunity. From there, it’s sort of gone wild. While it is important to differentiate yourself from your source of inspiration, this typically happens naturally while you mix different ideas throughout the writing process. Creating a Scene . . . .Easiest to do, you are the gamemaster in any scene in which you are the acting loremaster of the environment. The primary example of this is your character’s home or ship, though it is possible to do this on hubs like Haven, where you are given the trust to create minor bits of lore freely, such as stores, parks, or restaurants. . . . .Allowing yourself to GM a scene can make it more interesting, especially if you try to use it to exemplify something about your character, or just allow for opportunities where your PC’s friends can mess with the environment. Creating a Group . . . .Group’ is a purposefully generic term for any number of players getting together to make a new sect of people within Galaxy Citizen. Pirate crews, smuggling rings, paramilitary groups, dead-planet refugees, and spacefaring ethnicities would all count as a ‘group.’ Sometimes a group necessitates a small setting of its own. For example, Panopticon is a paramilitary group that has a planetary base that involved players are free to utilize. . . . .It is important to make sure a group is capable of generating interesting plot points without input from other players or settings, otherwise you run the risk of the group becoming defunct once it goes too long without interaction. Don’t be afraid to create scenes or events focused around them! . . . .For this reason, I recommend away from making corporations unless you have an interesting plan in mind. Much of the time, corporations become background details for characters, explaining where they get their wealth, instead of active elements in their personal story. Creating an Event . . . .Despite what the next section says, I consider events the hardest possible thing for a GM to do in Galaxy Citizen. This is simply because it depends on an amount of people being invested and prompt in responses for a prolonged period of time. I have seen supposed two-week events take up to four months to complete, and some events that started at least a year ago are still going on. . . . .When you create an event, make sure you have a decently complete plan in mind for what the players will face and what the plot will be. Whatever your idea is for how long it will take, double it. Most of the time, events don’t need any passing by staff prior, as they operate on the assumption nothing earthmoving will happen in them. If a technology you intend to implement seems like it might not have a precedent in GC, or you intend to involve anything anomalous or psionic in the event, those will absolutely need to be cleared by staff in one form or another. . . . .If you don’t know whether something needs an application, it never hurts to ask. Creating a Setting . . . .Creating a setting is one of the most daunting, yet rewarding tasks a gamemaster can undertake, requiring a lot of interest and follow-through. It is not a path to be walked alone; This guide heavily recommends grabbing a friend to talk to about your ideas, turning lore-writing into a collaborative experience. . . . .When crafting a setting, it is important to understand what kind of place you are trying to make, and what role the players take within it. Are you making a crumbling megastructure, in which the players are expected to shoot their way through the automated defenses, or a quiet and creepy town with a deep, foreboding mystery that the players need to crack? Remember that behaviour a system rewards is the behaviour it encourages! Players naturally follow the direction that has the most appealing scenes. . . . .I recommend avoiding any structure that makes the PCs integral to the motions of the setting. As shown in Haven, those sorts of structures are prone to creating interesting roleplay if the players are active, but quickly grind to a halt otherwise. It’s also true that players do not live in the setting, and are sometimes prone to making mistakes that you would not, because they do not have as full an understanding of the world. . . . .Once you understand your setting well enough for it to make contact with the players, you will need a codex; This document should explain the overview of your setting in such a way that nothing important surprises the staff team. In most cases, the Notable Fringe Worlds template should be a good jumping off point for your codex. . . . .It is often the case that gamemasters want to leave elements of their settings hidden from the reader, to be uncovered at a later date in play. If that is the case, there are two precedents here; If the element seems suitably mundane for GC, or is appropriately realistic, it can usually be omitted from the codex entirely. If the element does not fit that description, it is best to create a second codex, which is only to be seen by loremasters and staff. This is typically referred to as a ‘staff codex.’ . . . .Staff won’t be upset if they did not know about the cryo-frozen soldiers beneath the capital city, waiting to take on their dead master’s task, but they might be upset if there is a slumbering god just beneath the surface of the city, whose dreams become reality! As a rule of thumb, anything dealing with psionics or anomaly carries a hefty amount of red tape and possible wait times. As a first-time gamemaster, I would suggest avoiding it altogether. . . . .When writing lore, it is important to remember that the hyperdrive was only invented around fifty years ago in-character, though the warp drive is much longer. GMing in Practice Tone, Gameplay Loop, and Questmaking . . . .If you let them, the players will turn your writing into a Marvel movie. Do not let them. It’s important for you to understand the tone of your world going into it, so that you can adequately display it for your players. Most people are observant enough to understand relatively simple hints from the environment, as well as your word choice in describing it, but every part of your setting is a tool that can be used to exemplify the tone. If all else fails, just talk to a player who seems not to understand what you are going for. . . . .Equally important is knowing your basic gameplay loop. Using Hara Station as an example, the intended play involves encountering knowledge gates, then having to investigate the setting in order to learn the necessary information. Often, this leads right into another knowledge gate. Action scenes or other specific skill gates are used to spice up this basic loop. In other settings or events, it might be expected that the majority of the loop involves physically confronting threats, or acquiring equipment required to overcome various obstacles. . . . .Furthering these concepts, consider using them when questmaking. If you know the player intended to get a certain quest, you can tune the given gates within so that they have moments that exemplify their talents or foibles. More broadly, it’s important to make sure you vary the quests you give out; Many gamemasters start off handing out quests that read as ‘Go to X, talk to Y.’ Consider that most stories are about the various hiccups between the actors and their simplistic goal. Adding a few problems in the middle of a quest can make it much more interesting. . . . .Another small bit of advice for questmaking: The players should not be able to misinterpret the goals given to them. Avoid confusing or nonspecific language when an NPC offers up a task. “Look into the local rebel groups,” is a lot vaguer than “Discover the local rebel leader and report back to me with their name.” Understanding Consent . . . .Galaxy Citizen has a robust set of consent rules regarding how much harm the player consents for their character to be in, and when that character’s actions cause them to give up another layer of consent. In general, there are three levels of consent: No consent given, severe injury (sometimes called ‘maim’) consent, or death consent. Most players understand that interacting in a dangerous setting removes their maim consent, but it is still a good idea to remind them when they begin interacting. . . . .Players should always be explicitly told when they’re in a circumstance that might lead to the death of their characters. It is pretty standard for areas to be noted as revoking death consent merely to enter. In general, I advise not even considering killing a character unless the threat is obvious to the player. No one wants to die by stepping on a hidden landmine. . . . .In addition, you should ask explicit permission when any action you wish to take would assume the actions of the player in a way that takes away their agency. The most notable example in my experience comes from asking tinypause for explicit permission to have his character, Dwain, get blackbagged. This involved assuming the character doesn’t manage to evade the attempt at all, and cutting to the next scene. In general, player agency should be treated as if it is sacred, and very seldomly interfered with. . . . .Lastly, there is a fourth level of consent; Irrevocable consent. This covers actions that can only be done on player characters if the writer is entirely willing. Typically, examples involve things that would permanently alter the character, or might be sensitive subject matter to the writer. This includes things like sexual assault, slavery, mind control, and permanent character alteration. Other, similar sensitive subjects don’t necessarily involve consent, but should be made aware to the player beforehand. This includes stuff like torture, body horror, detailed gore, any type of abuse, and so on. . . . .If an issue comes up involving such triggers, it is best to err on the player’s side. A player should never be forced to engage with such content. Guiding Players . . . .Part of being a gamemaster is guiding players toward content you have prepared in ways that feel natural to the scene, while giving them the information they need to properly understand what is going on around them. Most of the time, this can be done subtly, using the words of NPCs, or environmental details. Sometimes, however, it is useful to just tell the players outright what is going on, especially when there can’t be a hint of confusion in the scene. . . . .For example, having a dangerous enemy purposefully miss their first attack, and then notate that “if their weapon did land, it would have carved a clean hole through you, killing you instantly. This threat is best engaged with stealth, or trickery, direct attack is almost certain death.” is a useful way to clearly explain the threat posed and how to handle it without leaving any uncertainty. . . . .This isn’t always necessary, however, as plenty of events or settings rely on the players being naturally inquisitive about the situation around them, and as such allow the players to freely self-regulate. Other situations purposefully narrow the player’s options in such a way that they can only progress as intended, with this option being especially useful for events where simplicity can be a very useful tool. . . . .Throughout all of this, one thing must be kept in mind; Players must have agency. As was noted in Understanding Consent, agency is the sacred tool which separates roleplaying from writing. Without the ability to change how things progress, the players have effectively no role in what is going on. Give the players repeated places to make decisions and give their own input on what is going on. This can be as simple as deciding how to approach the next combat encounter, or deciding where to go next out of a pool of options, to things as big as deciding who gets the plot-important McGuffin they’ve been sent to retrieve. . . . .In most situations, this is done easily. Players are exceptionally willing to make decisions and try to influence their circumstances. As long as you give them space to say and do things, you should be right as rain. . . . .One place where player agency is a double-edged sword is surrender. It is against every bone in a player’s body to surrender or retreat. They are used to being heroes, and pushing through obstacles to see progress on the other side. Unless they are in a situation they explicitly understand to be about evading an overpowering danger, they will not back away of their own volition. Do not attempt to make them surrender unless you’re absolutely certain they will. Otherwise, it is a good way to get them killed, or back yourself into a corner where you have to let them kill your supposedly overpowering threat. . . . .Next, we talk about failure. Depending on your players, they may not like to fail; It’s a normal thing to be upset about, even if it is important for stories. In these times, it’s important that failure leads to an interesting scene. That’s easy, most interesting scenes involve failure in some way. One of the easiest ways is to use the failure to increase the stakes without leading to an intensely negative outcome. You let your accent slip, and the investigator suspects you might be from off-world. You fail your parry, and your sword goes flying into the nearby underbrush. When the failure is due to the player’s own mistakes, I advise using a three-strike system, where players need to mess up three consecutive times to achieve whatever the failure state is.- The investigator arrests you. Your foe leaves you bleeding out in the ditch. . . . .However, sometimes the GM enforces failure on the player. This is typically done to set facts straight, achieve a desired outcome, or increase stakes. In this case, the player has probably done nothing wrong. A good player can roll with these punches, knowing it’s all to make a good story. It’s important that this type of failure is rewarded directly with an interesting scene or opportunity to display their character’s skills, even if not right away. . . . .Lastly, sometimes players will get ideas in mind that are simply impossible within the scope of the scenario you have created. Typically this is due to misaligned expectations, and can be corrected through subtle hints. If this fails, it is best to correct the misunderstanding with the player immediately. No one wants to feel like the thing they have been working for was all for naught. Challenging Players . . . .The counterpart of guiding the players, it’s also important you are able to appropriately challenge them. The most basic way is through combat, though there are also knowledge, item, or skill gates which can be easily deployed, to name only a few options. . . . .In combat, players should know what they’re up against. Even if characters aren’t able to adequately tell what the enemies are specifically equipped with, the players should be aware. This allows them to feel like they have enough information to tactically approach the scenario, and are on equal footing to you. If you ever obfuscate that information, it should be an intentional tool used to disadvantage the players. This also goes for information like number of enemies, or environmental hazards. I gesture again to the hidden landmine example in Understanding Consent. . . . .As long as you have a reasonable understanding of the players’ abilities, you do not need to perfectly design a solution for all of your challenges. I argue you shouldn’t, even. Getting too fixated on there being one specific solution can make creative problem solving feel like cheating. In most cases, the players can be relied on to find their own way through a given problem. . . . .Even if not, remember that your encounter doesn’t stop being designed when the players see it. Most mistakes made during the planning stage can be course-corrected during the execution stage. Players almost never notice. They might think that the hacker you introduce to the party was something you had planned from the start, and not just a hastily thrown together way to get them through that triple-encrypted door you assumed they would be able to open. If something turns out in the player’s favor, they almost never argue with it. . . . .You should also be aware that your players will be both the smartest and dumbest people in the world. Be ready for them to easily solve a puzzle you expected to stump them for a while, and then immediately try to push open a pull door for an hour and a half. This can typically be solved by a small nudge, either through details in the scene, or out-of-character hints. . . . .Lastly, a lot of new gamemasters are under the assumption that ‘loot’, as in, physical rewards the player characters can get their hands on, is the reward for proactive play. This should not be the case. The reward for proactively engaging with your writing is interesting scenes and potential character development. Loot is handed out whenever you think it should be, and there are really no wrong answers. . . . .…Though you should remember you’re not the only gamemaster on the server. Loot that makes characters more powerful outside of your setting should be more carefully handed out than loot that makes them more powerful within it. In this way, power armor is more dangerous than a remote-controlled orbital laser. Lore, NPCs, and Politics . . . .‘Politics’ here refers to the inter-party politics in a given setting or plot line. I find it exceptionally easy for people to make their most powerful characters into strategically minded individuals who care only about what is factually best for their case. I advise against that; It can be useful when making someone intentionally heartless, but most people have eccentricities that lead to clashes of personality with individuals who could be their friends if they were both purely logical machines. . . . .For example, people who get power tend to be people who want power, and those people do not play nice with others who view them as ‘peers.’ Others might be too proud to bow their head to another, or work beside someone they can not physically best. Others still might be paranoid, and only work with those who they know are perfectly loyal, lest they stab their allies in the back before they can be betrayed. These sorts of disagreements lead to interesting characters with complex relationships, making a world feel more whole and giving a setting more interesting conflicts. . . . .Of course, NPCs have uses beyond being powerful leaders or influential members of the upper class. Most people the players meet are NPCs. As such, it’s important to understand the multipurpose tool that they are. Utilized properly, NPCs allow the players to see the full depth of what is in your mind, giving them a window into what it is like to be a participant in your made-up world. Most dangerously, sometimes the players will befriend an NPC. When this happens, it is sometimes the players’ instinct to rely on that NPC, using them as something like a cheat guide to your plans. This is where it is important to remember that NPCs are their own people with their own views. Very seldomly should they give unbiased information, and even more rarely should they make decisions for the players. . . . .If you are having trouble characterizing your NPCs, particularly important ones, don’t be afraid to steal from characters you enjoy in media. It’s almost never going to be noticed, and even when it is, it’s no big deal. If you need a shifty, not-quite-trustworthy agent of some greater power, there is no reason why you couldn’t take some of G-Man’s mannerisms. No one is going to stop you, and oftentimes it results in more memorable and fun NPCs. At the end of the day, don’t stress about it. . . . .NPCS are also one of the most useful ways to deliver lore or plot details to the player, though if you wish for the players to engage more in your lore, it is useful to give them some stake in it. By making it directly useful to them in some way, you reward them for being curious. Mordor is not just some place Frodo is interested in, but a central part of his quest. . . . .Lastly, it is important to know the boundaries of improvisation. While it’s critical to roll with a lot of the crazy things players may throw at you, there will be times where they attempt to find or do things that make no sense in the setting. When this happens, I recommend erring on the side of the setting. Doing otherwise comprises your lore, and risks implying things you don’t want to. There might not be a weaponsmith in a peaceful, rural village, no matter how much your players would like to get their guns repaired. Interesting Answers All the Way Down . . . .An important note I have taken from Failbetter Studio’s Fallen London, and other associated games, is that knowing the answers to questions in advance can allow your lore to be interesting and multifaceted in the way real life is. It’s easy to take the simple route, and say that the foreign general is attempting to invade the country for its material resources, but it’d be more interesting to say he was doing so in an attempt to enact his father’s dying will, and make sure his life was not for naught. . . . .…But why was his father so interested in these resources? Well, he wasn’t. He was in love with a lady from another province, and knew the only way for them to wed was if he owned equivalent amounts of land. His son never truly realized this motivation, and has been enacting this plan despite it all. . . . .…But why was that the only way they could be wed? Because that province views social class simply through the amount of acres under one’s control, owing to a history they have as conquerors and their former control over nearly all the planet under some Alexander the Great-type leader. . . . .You can go on like this for a while, introducing interesting bends at every question. Things aren’t as simple as they seem in real life, and there’s no reason your lore should be any different. This is particularly useful for stories where the lore of the world is highly involved, and the players are expected to figure out a good deal of it, but having a fuller understanding of your world in general can allow for more interesting plot points and events. You can imagine a story where a player gets their hands on a collection of the general’s father’s love letters, and can utilize them to sway the war, can't you? Scene Setting . . . .A natural part of roleplaying, it is still important for gamemasters to understand how to write scenes in such a way that players are immediately aware of what is going on, what the tone is, and what their options are. For this, I recommend conceptualizing what the scene might look like if shot on film, and translating that as best you can into the written words. At times, I have literally described where the ‘camera’ is in a given post, describing as it ‘pans’ from the sky down to the street view. . . . .Sometimes, it’s a good idea to start a scene in medias res- in the middle of something that has already been going on for a bit, recapping the situation throughout the starting post and following posts. This can be exceptionally useful when skipping the exposition given to the characters, instead catching up the characters in short-form within the narrative text. Finding Your Style . . . .Finding your style in any medium is about experimentation. Don’t be afraid to try out different writing voices, or new methods of approaching things. I, myself, have found a lot of luck gamifying certain aspects of play, allowing them to be included on top of the rest in any given scene. For example, in Hara Station I have been using a Disco Elysium-inspired skill system, allowing the players’ personal talents to chime into scenes with different bits of information or thoughts. It’s worked out exceptionally well, and I only know because I tried. . . . .Of course, not only the GMs have a style. Most players also have a style of play they enjoy most, and it is possible for that to clash with the GM’s style. In most situations, this can be fixed through simple communication with said player, though sometimes it is inevitable that you might need to go your separate ways. Watch Matthew Colville . . . .A lot of the content of this article has been uncomplicatedly lifted from the words of D&D creator and game designer Matthew Colville, who I have been watching for some odd years. If you enjoy this, I highly recommend you check him out, especially his Running the Game series. Most of his content is specifically aimed at Dungeons and Dragons, though a lot of what is said within it is evergreen advice that can be applied anywhere. Conclusion . . . .Hopefully, through the process of reading this, you’ve gotten interested in the idea of running something of your own and helping to expand out the world of Galaxy Citizen. If you’ve managed to read this far, and are intending to give this gamemaster thing a try, my DMs are open. Whether you need a veteran GM to help plan events with, a partner to bounce ideas off of, a long-term knower of the lore, or just the opinions of a staff member, I am more than willing to provide my aid. . . . .Otherwise, please take everything you’ve read with a grain of salt; These aren’t hard rulings, just advice from someone who has done this a lot. I hope this has been helpful, and I thank you for taking the time to read this thinly veiled cry for help. Glossary . . . .The following is a small glossary of the terms used in this article that the reader might not know. Gameplay Loop - A term used to describe the bulk of what a player will engage in during their playtime of a video game. Knowledge Gate - A challenge that requires a prerequisite amount of information to overcome. Item Gate - A challenge that requires a specific item or tool to overcome. Power Gate - A challenge that requires the players to be able to physically overcome it. Skill Gate - A challenge that targets the players skills, requiring them to be talented enough at a specific skill to overcome it.
