A Conversation with a New Gamer: Player/GM Trust

Sitting down and discussing this new Mouse Guard RPG we’ll be playing soon, one of the players was confused as to how this whole RPG thing worked. I found it fascinating, as everyone I’ve ever gamed with in the past (besides my wife) has always already known about RPGs and how they work. This is how the conversation went.

Him: I’m confused.

Me: About what?

Him: You control all the monsters in an RPG right?

Me: Right.

Him: And the plot?

Me: Yep.

Him: So what’s to stop you from just sending a huge dragon up against a bunch of 1st level heroes?

Me: … Because I’m not a dick.

Now, he’s an MMO player, primarily World of Warcraft. In MMO’s, you have “zones”, protecting low-level players from high-level monsters. In a real RPG, there’s no such thing. MMOs have built in protections.  It  just blew his mind that he would have to trust me to not screw him over.

“Yes,” I had to assure him, “that’s how it works.” The player/GM trust thing is something so crucial to any game. I can’t imagine a game without it. When I’m playing, I trust my GM to not drop a ton of rocks on my character at a whim, and I do the same for my players. They all know that I’m not going to face them up against literally impossible odds, killing them because I’ve had a bad day at work. We’re all there to work together and craft a fun and unique story.

Steadily, my new player is starting to realize what it’s all about. We’ll get there. We’ll get there.