@Scott: I have trouble following my own advice. I’ve definitely run sessions in my current game where I didn’t put in the time to make sure everyone had a spotlight moment, or where I couldn’t find a way to do so. I always feel guilty, but sometimes it’s just not as easy as it sounds.

In other games, I’m not good about prepping a spotlight moment for each character in each session. Some of the players in the D&D group are worried about the characters overlapping roles and lacking personal spotlights. So far the battles have been more “what’s reasonable” than consciously considering the spotlight– which has exacerbated the concern that the characters are overlapping too much. A good sneak scene hints at the rogue, but if you’re in the wilderness it also hints at the ranger, and anyone who dumps lots of points in hide and move silent might do OK… The “claim” on spotlight moments is less clear that I’d like.

This post is right on top of the whole point of role-playing gaming and gamemastering too. Your game is about your player characters (and little else). I take that a step farther; I treat it like nothing else exists. (But I don’t let the players know that.)

Unless they’ve said it, heard it or remember it, it doesn’t exist…yet. This gives me an inordinate amount of flexibility. And I’d rather be flexible than creative (when I can’t be both). If I can’t improvise something (even though I use an improv style), I grab something I’ve already thought up, file off the serial numbers and present it as if I’d planned it to be there all along.

The secret is the illusion of control rather than the control of illusion.

That means whenever a player starts a scene by saying what they want to do, I jump right to the spotlight time. (I cut the scene’s beginning so close that it bleeds just a little.) The biggest and most important challenge to running this way is what to do with the other players. I’ve seen a lot of advice on how to involve them, but it all comes down to what is written in this article. If the other players aren’t hanging on the spotlighted players every word, you have to bump up the tension.

So the players know that the key is ‘thataway’ and the thief elects to go it alone, what would have been a simple hallway for the party to traverse becomes the trap-laden hall of death described above. The locked door now emits the sound of ogre snoring (where no ogre was listed before). Now the whole group is hanging on the actions of that one player. Does it make sense that an ogre sleeps at the end of trapped hall? Probably not. (What about sleepwalking?) Does it work? You bet it does.

Signposts are also a fabulous idea. You should take it farther. I clumsily named my take on this a character’s Sine Qua Non (which means, ‘without which not’). On the practical level, this means when a player gives me a very brief PC write-up (lacking in all but the most minimal signposts), I ask them what ‘three things’ they want me to never forget about their character. When presented too many signposts, I ask what are the ‘three things’ I should think of first about the character. These are my primary signposts, writ large. I also take notes while I run…but only potential signposts for the future (and nothing else).

So that’s how I handle spotlight moments. How does everyone else do it?

Fang Langford