Secrets - the After School Special

There may come a time in your life as a GM where you want to run a game and the number of anticipated seats at the table is a sub-set of the total number of friends who would want to play. What do you do? Do you run a secret game and ask the players not to tell? Do you invite everyone and try and re-design the scenario to fit the numbers? And what if you want one of two players who don't get along with each other?

Surely this isn't the kind of problem that non-gamers run into is it? Maybe it is. Maybe sometimes you want to have a BBQ at your house but can't invite everyone who would want to consume your food and partake in your meal. But how to handle such a social situation?

I think the scenario can be exacerbated with gamers, because lets face it - most of us are trying to retain our childlike interest in games. And many of us have instead retained our childish interest in self-fulfillment.

I've got friends who would be offended if you didn't invite them over for an asparagus tasting party even though they can't eat asparagus. They want the invite and the (imaginary) prestige that comes with being invited to such an exalted event.

Then again I've got friends who are cut-ups. They only want to play funny characters and make jokes and recall things they've seen on TV. Perfect friends for playing TOON with, but not really the right player for that heavily researched Call of Cthulhu campaign I've spent two months preparing for Halloween.

And I've got friends who are fragile, whose egos aren't built for rejection by good ol' me.

And I've got friends who are tanks. They'd plow on through life just fine if I got caught under their treads.

I think I'll write an article about this and see if I can get it into Pyramid. If I succeed I'll like to it. If they reject it, I'll post it on GGO.