A problem facing new GMs is the information overload needed to run a session. Often, this results in them over-preparing and the game falling flat anyway, as npcs are stale or the GM isn’t prepared to go off the rails. My proposal is this comes about from the lack of an important memory tool:
Chunking.
People can only hold a certain amount of objects in their memory at one time, varying (depending on what you read) between four or seven “chunks” of working memory capacity. Chunks are numbers, words, or other mental objects that can be represented as singular, unique representations. These chunks, however, can be decomposed into smaller chunks, and can be retrieved much quicker through this link than by racking your brain trying to find it. They act as briefcases for organising your game tools, and each briefcase has trays, each tray has modules. By using top-level chunks as pointers, you can find the information you need much faster and with much less brain-draining effort.
Some examples of these top-level chunks may be:
- Game rules: The rules, both their interactions with players and their limitations. This may take more thought in especially complicated rule sets.
- The players’ group’s reputation, goals, and composition: When NPCs deal with the group as a whole, they deal with the group’s reputation and their history. Often combined with knowledge of the party face, this module keeps the information content low enough to use.
- The group of players: Instead of the group, this is used for quick retrieval of individual character’s information. Keeping full information about a player’s character ready for access can be very useful during more intimate roleplay, when a character is singled out, or when there are only a couple of player characters present.
- A single NPC: chunks for NPCs should be kept singular, to keep them responsive and interesting during interactions. While this may not apply to the lowest of npcs (basic soldiers/servants), any NPC that merits more than a one line response should have its own module.
- A Crowd: Crowds generally act as a single NPC, but enough mental capacity should be given to make them believable and responsive.
- World details: Generally referring to the current locale of the world, including its local map, laws, population, and other details. These details are referred to fairly sparsely, but frequently enough to keep them in memory.
- Game Direction: Major plot points, near future events, and consequences of current player actions.
- Mood Lighting: Theme, tone, and mood are kept here and used to modulate your responses. Without mood lighting games tend to feel inconsistent as the feel varies wildly. This is of course not saying the mood must always be the same, but sudden silliness during a high point can feel anticlimactic.
Let’s assume for the moment that starting out, you can hold the smaller four items in your mind at once (this will increase through practice). You change your current chunks with scene changes, swapping out unneeded chunks with the ones which will be immediately useful:
- During a combat, you will need one chunk for rules, one for world details (the local combat map and details), one for enemy behaviour, and one for the party.
- Combat ends, you clear things out and load chunks for Mood Lighting, Game Direction, a single surviving NPC, and the player who is interrogating the NPC.
- The group gets information of a local bandit lord, which they decide to clear out. Surveying the lord’s hideout, you choose Mood Lighting, World details, Game direction, and the bandit lord NPC (does he require discipline in his men? Is he paranoid and have the place well fortified? Does he pay his men well so they’re well equipped or are they in rags and salvage?).
This should also demonstrate why some GMs get burnt out: searching for information not readily at hand is mentally intensive, especially if the GM is having to do this during preparation work. Multiple hours of searching their minds for creative links, then spending hours running the game quickly becomes exhausting. Having the required chunks close at hand reduces brain usage, allowing more responsiveness, control, and pacing of the situation. With practice, a GM will hold more chunks in memory, and access them faster, allowing for more responsive, quicker, but most importantly fun games.
None of this is my fault 