GM/Player Communication

Gnome Stew has a great article up on GM/player communication—or, more accurately, miscommunication that fits in extremely well with my take on GM/player interactions from our old articles. The idea in a nutshell is this: if your players are trying to do something in your tabletop roleplaying game that makes no sense to you, try restating the situation. Because it’s just possible that the players misunderstood something you described to them and are operating under a misapprehension about the situation. The example used there involves someone trying to pickpocket a noble because he didn’t understand from the description of the situation just how much scrutiny he, his friends, and the noble were under.

You also never know when your players are making different assumptions than you are or have a different meaning or background for a situation. When you say the noble arrives with his ‘retinue’, the player might imagine this means three or four disorganized hangers-on, while you know it’s twelve attentive lackeys.

This is a fabulous point to make, and one I wish I’d thought to make way back when, because it’s exactly the kind of problem/solution I love to highlight. So go check out Gnome Stew—clearly these folks are doin’ good!

In unrelated news, today’s review is of a yummy slow cooker cookbook. Well, it’s the results that are yummy, actually. Not the book. (Mmmm. Paper, ink & glue. Nom-nom-nom.)

Last night it was all stormy here and we had a tornado watch for a while. After our friends’ recent experience I take that sort of thing rather more seriously. I know they had quite a jumpy night for the same reason; in their place I’d have been a wreck. Our cats were pretty freaked out by the weather, but it was only harsh enough to send us to the basement for a short time, and luckily the basement is finished and quite comfortably furnished.