On Misdirection

When it comes to GMing, I’m a magician at heart. I love the reveal, that moment when the curtain is pulled back and the whole adventure snaps into focus for the players and it isn’t what they thought it was. The twist, when the villain’s hooded henchman puts a bullet in his back and smashes the reliquary they were chasing because they hold the keys to an ancient Prussian war machine hidden beneath the castle. If horror is about hiding something under a sheet and daring them to pull it off, adventure is about whipping off that sheet to gasps. Better yet is when they’ve figured it all out but don’t trust it, waiting for that last piece of evidence that confirms their theory and let’s them go “Aha! I knew it!” Everyone wins. But getting there can take a bit (or a lot) of misdirection and this is the month to talk about it.