Shadowrun als Stimmungsspiel*, soll einer sagen die Deutschen würden sich Kulturimporte nicht zu eigen machen.
SR4, ein bißchen wie ein cellular phone.
*: Jemand hat mit anderer Wortwahl den Kampf gegen das Stimmungsspiel wiedereröffnet. Weiter so!
Um nicht vollends zu verzweifeln, hier ein paar ARS-Spielleiterhinweise von keinem geringeren als Bill Coffin, aus dem Rifts Gamemaster Guide:
Pride: Railroading
A big part of being a Game Master is writing adventures for the players to experience. Writing an adventure is kind of like writing a story in that you need to have at least some kind of plot. Sometimes G.M.s will write out an adventure’s entire plot, soup to nuts. This is a dangerous thing, because it inherently contradicts one of the fundamentals of role-playing: the players should be allowed to determine the pace and direction of the adventure. The Game Master may very well be the referee and narrator of the adventure, and he might have written the fundamental aspects of the adventure, but when it comes to game time, if the players are to actually enjoy themselves, they should be given a little self-determination. They should be given the ability to go through the adventure more or less as they see fit.
Having said that, there are always times when the G.M. will need to step in and get the game back on track. Otherwise, how many times would entire adventures be devoted to player characters getting drunk and starting tavern brawls? But there is a difference between periodically prodding the players back into an adventuring groove and simply railroading them along the entire adventure.
Railroading occurs when the G.M. simply writes too much plot for the adventure and then expects the players to abide by that plot, even if they don’t know what the plot is. Inexperienced G.M.s do this a lot, probably because they get a great idea for an adventure and that spawns a host of other great ideas of how that adventure might play itself out. Before the G.M. knows it, he has crafted an entire adventure from start to finish that the players will surely love if only they have the sense to
go through it the right way. See the problem here? Somehow, the G.M. has basically robbed the players of their ability to play. Instead of taking their characters on a romp, they are basically relegated to going through the adventure, banging their heads on the wall until they figure out what the G.M. wants them to do and how the G.M. wants them to do it. This is just plain bad G.M.ing. It is zero fun for the players, and it’s usually pretty frustrating for the G.M. too. From the players‘ standpoint, they might as well ditch role-playing altogether and have the G.M. dictate to them the entire adventure. At least then they could relax and hear what might actually be a fun story without having the frustrating duty of figuring it out as they go along. From the G.M.’s standpoint, railroading is really frustrating, because the G.M. has a story he really wants to share with the players but chances are the players will have a hard tie figuring it out, and as long as they are stumbling in the dark trying to find the story’s true path, the story isn’t getting told. Again, if telling a story to the players is the G.M’s goal, he might as well ditch role-playing and simply tell them a story. Making the players figure the story out for themselves is tantamount to having something hidden in your hand and forcing your friends to guess ad inflnitum what it is, even after their desire to guess has long since gone away.
The best way to avoid this is to not pre-write adventures so much. A good approach is to set up the beginning of an adventure and then figure out three or four different ways it could go. Knowing how your players play and what motivates their characters will help a lot with this, since you can use that knowledge to roughly predict how the adventure might turn out. („If Karlo the Juicer takes the bait, which he probably will, the Coalition trap will succeed. But if Romulus the Scholar sees through the trap, the group will make it to Whykin in time to hijack the supply train.“) In the end, having a solid plot line is not nearly as important as being able to make up a decent plot line on the fly, taking the story elements you have already established, presenting them to the players, and playing off their reactions to them. If the course of the adventure and if the very storyline is „written in real time,“ based off the actions of the players, then the players are really driving the adventure, and they will probably have a lot of fun doing it. Now, this is not necessarily easy. You need to be familiar with the player characters and the playing
styles of the players, but if you can do this, you’ll not only get fun adventures, but writing the adventure will become more like a game for you, the G.M., as you must figure out where to take the story next after hearing what the player characters have most recently done with it.
Der Leser beachte, wie er im letzten Absatz Proto-Handlungsmaschinen beschreibt, ohne sie formalisiert zu haben.
Diskussion im O.R.K.