Chris Carter GM Style

This idea named after the mind behind X-Files and was originally written for role-playing games, but I was recently informed that this would work equally well for a serial story, blog novel, an ongoing television series, and so on. In fact it was suggested to me that this might be how 'X-Files' was written.

When I was running a horror RPG years ago, I discovered that I didn't need to d esign adventures if I did two things. The first thing I did was to base the game in a fully fleshed out setting. In most rpgs that would be the preset campaign world- Shadowdale, or Middle Earth, or wherever- complete with maps and character bios. I cheated. I simply used my home town, and designed a few significant NPCs.

The second thing that I did is the subject of this idea entry: The Hint File. The Hint File was a file that I kept on anything weird that happened. I would throw out little things without any idea what they meant. The players would be tracking a vampire, I would arbitrarily have them here a roar like a lion in the night-without any idea on my part what was causing it. But I would write it down in my file, and the next time they were out late at night I might have them hear it again. I might also have them see floating lights like willow-the-wisps in the swamp outside town. And so on.

Sometimes I might know in advance what the idea was, and other times I would have no idea. Since these things generally happened while they were on other missions, the players would remember them and generally investigate a little the next day, daylight was safer in horror games after all. I would give them some little clue, and little by little I would flesh out the sub-plot in my own mind just as they were investigating it.

The trick to the Hint Files success is twofold. Always have a central plot that is threatening their lives or the lives or their loved ones- or some other means of grabbing their attention and holding it firmly (with one party I Game Mastered for this meant grabbing their wallets). And always drop hints for multiple subplots, so that they can't follow them all. These two trick done together allow you to develop additional stories as you go along without having to have everything planned out in advanced, but so that it will end up like you did have everything planned when the story finishes.