DM's Leak
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DM's Leak?
DM’s Leak? Is that what happens when we’re in the middle of the boss encounter, and the multiple liters of Mountain Dew finally catch up with our fearless leader? As tempted as I am to say yes, the answer is that I define the DM’s leak as that one player in a group who the DM entrusts with vital in/formation long before the game ever takes place. This person is often a trustworthy individual, one who has omitted ‘metagame’ from his mental dictionary, and one who oftentimes is a veteran gamer who has some DM experience of his/her own. I wish to argue the importance of this individual to every DM. I would go as far to say that the DM’s leak makes the difference between a mediocre game and a fantastic one.
I’ve played both sides of the fence. My gaming group back home just reached 17th level in a campaign that has been ongoing for nearly 4 years, starting at level 1. Since the first few steps of the campaign, I myself have been the DM’s leak, his confidant, and oftentimes a manager of sorts. He would run ideas by me, ask my opinion on the facets of the game he wished to implement, keeping himself in check (something I know all of you wish your DM’s would try once in a while). In fact most recently, the DM and I conspire on most of the events happening in-game. Some may say this ruins the element of surprise, and the thrill of uncovering the event that splits a plotline wide open. I can honestly say that helping sculpt the adventure in no way took away from the epicity of the combat and roleplaying that ensued. The scene was no less cinematic and exciting for me as a player.
In my DM experience I have also found the leak as a useful tool. The leak is a secret represenative of the party. If an encounter, storyline, or scenario is too ridiculous, difficult, or unrealistic, you can trust your leak to let you know. I, myself, just have the simple issue of not being able to keep my mouth shut. If I come up with an awesome idea, or a thrilling plot device, it is sometimes too much to restrain myself from telling someone. And what better way to vent this excitement than discussing it with a player who you know you can trust?
Well I’d like to hear what you guys think of this concept, I’m hoping I’m not the only one, but if so, then I hope that maybe you will consider the idea for use. Take care, my friends.
Wow! Seriously, this is the first time I have heard about this concept and I don’t know if I can ever trust my players enough not to metagame with that kind of information.
I’ll give it some thought but I’m not really very doubtful that it will work for my group.
I’m lucky enough to have enough gaming friends that I can do that kind of double-checking with someone who is not involved in the scenario or campaign in question. I could probably trust one or two of the guys in my current 4E DnD game to not metagame if I divulged something, but I think both would prefer to keep their knowledge pristine.
For a while, I was one of the go to guys for a couple of our new GMs with regards to rules questions and sanity checks, but now those GMs have gained enough confidence that the questions are usually few and far between.
I am also one of these leaks in a campaign I am playing in…mostly because my character has to do a lot of stuff out-of-game to accomplish his objectives without the rest of the party knowing…
I myself tend to do the same thing…I’m not very good at all about keeping my mouth shut, so I try to vent to my most trustworthy players…
I think this is a good idea. There are plenty of times when DMs that I have worked with have benefited from ideas coming from players, not necessarily using the exact ideas but helping them bounce ideas. I don’t particuarly agree with Questing GM, I think that you should give your group credit. You not trusting them can limit your game severily.
Tell that to the guy who just kicked me out of his tri-stat game because I’m too good at GMing tri-stat, and he’d rather have my advice than my character!
I think that every DM should have someone to talk about their campaign with. For me, it’s a guy who lives too far away to be in the game. I get to discuss things with someone, and know my players will never find out. I try to get feedback from my players in other ways.
I think a DM leak might be a good idea for some DMs and some campaigns, but I can’t see myself using it. I trust my players, I just don’t want them to know quite how much seat-of-the-pants improv goes into my game. It ruins some of the wonder of a living, breathing world when you find out that those dragonborn weren’t in the ruins until five minutes before the party was.
I’ve been doing this for a long time and have found that it works great. I don’t do it all the time, but for the occasional big scenario I do this. As a matter of fact, i did this for the last game where everyone is still 1st level and they were going to be going down into the Underdark. I let slip about the potential of running across a Drow NPC party and that it might be better to RP than fight.
The funny thing was I forgot that he was the only one that could speak Deep speech.
Ah. Yes I use the same trick in my games. Though I usually used the term “Partner in Crime” (PiC) as a sort of official station.
For that matter, I actually have several “DM leaks” in my group. Though since my groups are of a variable size I’m never really sure who’s coming till they do. While only 1 of my three Partners is a DM, they are all entirely fixated on the storyline & wanting to see its conclusion. Once guy who used to be a combat monkey has totally done a 180 on me since I started making him my sounding board for the recent storyline ideas and getting his imagination involved.
Once in a while I even take it a step further & mess with all of them by giving them each contrary story ideas and tell them to try to make theirs come to pass.
It allows me to add party friction without really adding any friction at all.
I also like how it gives them a personal vested interest in the conclusion of the storylines despite the fact that it might mean their character’s death. The heroic death has come to be something of a reward in such games. When you know death is inevitable you become more concerned with making your death mean something to the rest of the story or players.
[...] This post originally appeared on November 18, 2008 [...]