Know How To Manipulate Your Players

If you are the Game Master and you have a particular narrative you are trying to tell, the autonomy of role playing games can sometimes be its own hindrance. If there is a place you want the characters to go, but they feel like doing other stuff, you have a dilemma. On the one hand, you really want to tell your story; it's the whole point of the game. On the other hand, you don't want to put them on a plot railroad and strip them of their personal freedom.

The answer to this dilemma is in psychology. Remember always that characters have motivations. No matter how nonchalant a person is, there are things they want and things they don't want. If you want the players to travel to the next town over, then you need to make them want to do it.

Do your players want to save the day? Then tell them the bad guy or one of his cronies is there. If somebody is interested in wealth, then tell them about the bounty on that person's head. When one character only wants to read books, then maybe there are rumors of a retired librarian in the town who knows about a hidden stash.

There are other ways to manipulate characters. Spoony's best advice: Steal something from them. Players will trek across the globe to reclaim even the most petty item that was stolen from them.

A good storyteller should know how to tug at the heartstrings of their audience. They should be masterful weavers of excitement and suspense. You need to have some idea of how to make people want to read the next page of your book. When you can do this, you will be the pied piper of roll playing games, able to lead characters to hell and back, and always having them excited with every step.