Last Action Hero Part 4

Big thanks to Lisa for taking over blurb-writing duties:

A LESSON IN LISTENING

It's done! It's out there! It's over! ...For now....

What an incredible experience it has been taking the reins on a reroll. As many of you know, I was a listener to the podcast long before I joined the cast, so it is absolutely wild to me that I even get to be on the show, much less be in charge. It was listening to early episodes and seeing the complete and total off-roading that was possible while working within the constraints of a supposedly "known" story that partially inspired me to start running games for my home crew in the first place. Like, you can do that? With an RPG? Don't get me wrong, I love me some high fantasy elves and fireballs and liches (oh my!), but as soon as I heard Doc Brown tase a dude, my world was ROCKED.

Until now, I have specialized pretty much entirely in one-shots. Even more so than a reroll, which comes with prepackaged characters (mostly), plot points (sure, uh-huh), and a general tone and endgame (lol), one-shots are inherently pretty railroady. The players know that this is a succinct story meant to be told in about 3-4 hours max (and that's game time without the benefit of editing, usually), and that there's a specific story that has been planned and set out for them. Come this way, children, follow the crumbs to the ostensible doom which I fully intend on you averting, mwahahaha. A reroll is intentionally sandboxy because that's the whole point of the  show: "And thus, the story changes." IT CHANGES, LISA. This was a huge pivot for me and one that I struggled with. There was a story in my head (and on my TV screen) that *I* thought we were "supposed" to be telling. "We're doing Last Action Hero, that means blah blah blah..." No, you control freak, it means what the dice and the players want it to mean. That first episode was an incredible lesson in letting go, which is one of the most important things I think a GM can do, other than learning what Humphrey Bogart sounds like. Know your world, build in mile markers for yourself and your PCs, and trust your players to make choices that you can follow. As much as it's my job as a GM to plant threads for the players to pull on, it's also my job to follow the threads that they (knowingly or not) pluck from the fabric of this overindulgent metaphor. With the things they show interest in, the theories that they concoct, and the little details they sprinkle in on their own, therein lies the heart of the story. In my way of thinking about it, the GM builds the bones of the story, and the players build the meat. I create a framework on which the players can hang their brilliance, and then we flesh it out together. Did I, at any point in planning, think that a single shot of a background event meant more for flavor than anything else would have fundamentally changed the tone of this film? Absolutely not. Am I thrilled that I did, in fact, let Kara play a rabbi? Absolutely yes.

(To that end, an enormous thank you to Jacob Leggett for lending your name to what became a pivotal character in this story. It wouldn't have been the same without you. And you're welcome to everyone who didn't end up as Candy O'Malley.)

I came in to Episode 1 with literally pages of notes on the world, the lore of the ticket, and PLANS. I came in to the end of Episode 3 + 4 with literally one note that said "KIDNAP RABBI JACOB." And then Kara put him in a position where making that happen would have been incredibly forced and frankly nonsensical on the part of the NPCs. So I listened and let it go. And I'm so glad that I did, because the story that we told together was organic, fluid, and so far afield from anything that I could have imagined on my own. I keep reminding myself if I want control over what every character does in every situation, I should go write a book instead of playing RPGs.

I am now trying to listen to my players, who very kindly keep trying to convince me that I am not the disaster human being that I think I am, that the story needs no rewrites, and also that those are impossible in this format anyway, so suck on that, Imposter Syndrome! The story you're telling is the story that gets told, and regardless of the thousand other details or directions it could have gone in, this is the story as it's meant to be. (There is a button to Episode 4 that I wish I would have tagged on, but alas! Oh well! Paulo will have to forgive me, as it would have given him his panning zoom...)