GM's corner: "Alright, how do you want to do this?"

Hey all,

I thought today I'd share a quick and easy gamemastering tip I've picked up in the last year. I can't remember which of my GM's first used this, or where they said they got it from, but it's a great way to encourage involvement and engagement at the table. I know it as "Alright, how do you want to do this?", and to explain it, I'll need to go a little bit into something called stunting.

Again, as far as stunting goes, I'm not sure where the term in this context originated, and I'm not sure when the concept became an aspect of roleplaying games. Basically, stunting is including cinematic details in combat descriptions. "I roll to hit" is not stunting, "I lift the sword, two-handed over my crippled foe, and grin as I drive it into him." is stunting.

Like I said, I'm not sure who first used the term stunting to refer to this aspect of play, and I'm not even really sure when this went from the expectation at the table to being nothing but an alternative to tactics-based "roll"-play. That-is, a night of "I move five squares to here, and activate this feat, then I'll roll to hit". Basically, when the dice results outweigh the storytelling, that's what you'd call "roll"-play.

There are many gamemaster techniques for encouraging stunting. Some are easily exploitable in ways that can bog down play, such as giving bonuses to rolls on checks you've stunted. That is, if every time a player does anything, they get a mechanical bonus for stopping to describe in flowery detail whatever they're doing. Some are hard to keep honest with, such as giving bonus xp at the end of the session for good stunting, and overall, there's few good ways to make stunting anything more than an option for players feeling the creative writing/theater itch.

That said, this technique, which I've been privileged to see in action, can do wonders for a game. What it is, is an expectation in the players that the GM will not say "you killed it" or "it died". Instead, after you've dealt lethal damage to a creature, the GM will pause, look at you, and say, "Alright, how do you want to do this?" What this means is, "How would you like to stunt the death of this enemy."

What this does, in a mechanical sense, is nothing. The creature that would die, still dies, and there's an understanding at the table that this type of stunting cannot draw other enemies into the attack, or gain any kind of mechanical advantage. What's more, the players get to add a bit of flavor to their characters and to the world being built. How this type of creature dies, and what can kill it, are, in most cases, not important worldbuilding elements to the GM's story.

Simply put, this is a technique to get your players more invested in the narrative elements of play, as well as spicing up the fights with more cinematic deaths. If nothing else, give it a go, see if this works for you. Feel free to share your experiences with stunting in general, this technique in particular, or your own GM tips in the comments below.

Happy gaming, all.