Numenera and GM intrusions

Numenera is a roleplaying game by Monte Cook Games. The unique flavor of science fantasy within the Ninth World can be a refreshing break from the medieval fantasy tropes of Dungeons & Dragons. When I ran Numenera, however, I was surprised at how much the game challenged my improvisation skills as a GM. It’s a great game to play in a world where magic and ancient hyper-advanced technology coexist, and it’s a great game to run if we want to practice our improvisational skills as GMs.

The best example of how Numenera forces GMs to improvise during a session are GM intrusions. GM intrusions are the permission for GMs to introduce complications and drama into a scene while rewarding players with experience points for accepting the intrusion. GM intrusions can be anything: a monster regaining some of its hit points, an NPC getting wind of the characters’ lies, or the floor breaking away while the characters sneak through a monster’s lair. Most importantly, they are not prepared—but improvised.

GM intrusions happen frequently, so they continually force us to come up with dramatic twists and turns. They happen whenever a player rolls a natural 1. And they grant XP to the players, so we should use them to advance the characters.

GM intrusions are a pacing tool

There is a big overlap between GM intrusions and proper pacing of any game session. Introducing obstacles and dramatic twists in a situation can help us keep the attention of the players, and keep the game flow moving. Numenera encourages us to repeatedly come up with these points of pacing through GM intrusions—again, fantastic improvisational practice which can improve our pacing in any game we run.

The key to improvising GM intrusions contains the same aspects as basic pacing: know the situation, and keep an eye on the table. Knowing the fictional situation well, in which the characters are in, allows us to quickly and coherently improvise a GM intrusion. If we know there are 12 guards on the wall, a quick GM intrusion might be that three guards show up and surprise the characters.

Then, secondly, we need to keep an eye on the players and their general mood. Have they just had a tricky combat encounter and are somewhat exhausted? Maybe the guards want to question the characters instead of immediately fighting them to the death. Or are the players somewhat bored and distracted? The guards attack, and are about to raise the alarm in the entire castle, injecting excitement and drama back into the game.

Using GM intrusions in D&D and other RPGs

Is there something we can take from GM intrusions to bring into our D&D game? Yes, if we think of GM intrusions more broadly as complications with a reward. That principle can be useful in any RPG, and we can use it to help us with the pacing of our game.

Complications …

When we’re running the game, we have an eye on the level of concentration and general mood at the table. If we notice players are disengaging from the game, we can look for an opportunity to throw in a complication, just like I described for GM intrusions above.

We might even want to prepare a list of complications for a specific situation. For example, if we know the party is going to sneak into the goblin hideout next session, we can jot down ten complications which might happen in the hideout. While the party is in the hideout, we can roll on that list or pick a fitting complication whenever it would help the pacing of the game. Each complication on our list can be a short bullet point. Sometimes a keyword like “mud slide” or “patrol” is enough. Even though we don’t do it for GM intrusions in Numenera, preparing some complications can help us improvise to keep an engaging pace going at the table.

… with a reward

But the GM intrusions teach us another important aspect of complications: the reward. In Numenera, the reward (in the form of XP) is instant. We can also hand out XP as a reward in our D&D game, or even better, inspiration. But we can also generalize the concept and reward the player characters after they’ve overcome the complication. Have they survived the mud slide? Perhaps, a previously undiscovered hidden passage has opened up as a result. Did they quietly deal with the goblin patrol? Perhaps the patrol had some potions on them, or a note, containing information about the hideout.

GM intrusions in D&D: Complication + Reward

The basic principle of GM intrusions, a complication with a reward, can be used in any RPG. We can prepare complications ahead of a session, or improvise them entirely. In either case, we use complications to manage the pacing of our game. Then, to soften the blow of a dangerous complication, we provide a small reward to the player characters after they’ve overcome the complication.