May the Power Protect You: Jason Lee Scott (MMPR Dragonshield Red)

Every single time I've played MMPR Dragonshield I find myself wondering "Why am I playing without the re-roll?" And then that Dragon Dagger comes out. Or I tank a shot that would kill every other character in the game. Or I realize that my deck is pretty hale and healthy, and everyone else's decks are in shambles. Don't play DS Jason if you want something flashy, cause you'll be in for a bad time. DS Jason is not flashy, he's not sexy, and he's certainly not going to have any tricks that you can say to others "LOOK AT ME!" But DS Jason doesn't care about that. He's here to tank shots, support his friends, and walk out like a bad-ass. And he accomplishes all these things with aplomb.

Your hand starts with the Dragon Dagger and Shield. Given how much energy we start with at in the early game that means that DS Jason can begin the game with a true explosion. Don't hold back this card! Just throw it out there and kill two minions and revel in the slaughter! Heck, take a hit on purpose so you can use the Dragon Shield and then follow up with the Dragon Dagger. This is one of the few times you'll be flashy, so take advantage of it! It will create an opening for your players that they'll appreciate.

Now, part of the reason why I suggest going all out in the first fight is because one of your next actions needs to be Recovery, so that you can put those two cards right into your deck. And this is where DS Jason begins to actually shine. You now have more cards in your deck than anyone else, and not only that but you have tougher cards than anyone else in the whole game. This means that there is no one else in the game that should be taking shots, by default. If someone else doesn't have a fancy trick you really should be taking those hits. And even then, sometimes you should take the hit anyway.

You can do either the Tyrannosaurus or the Dragonzord. Whichever one you pick is based solely upon what you think you'll need. The Tyrannosaurs zord is more generally useful, but the Dragonzord can take a single roll and make it so efficient that you may not need the Tyrannosaurus. If you don't have anything that really boosts attack power I'd go with the the Tyrannosaurus. But if the other zords are able to boost attacks I'd go with the Dragonzord.

This is not a flashy job. It is not a nice job. You are not going to be on the front lines, by and large, except for enormous bursts of power as you realize that you have the Dragon Dagger and the Power Sword, and then you get giddy. And yeah, you're doing things like Lead the Charge and Team Tactics and whatnot, but you really are there for one reason: to tank the hits so that way your team doesn't have to. And, assuming you do some smart uses of Recovery, you will find that you are still faring better than everyone else. And that's when you carry your group as they hurt. And they will. Trust me, they will. At that point you will walk out and practically solo whole fights, burning through your deck at a rate that will surprise even you. The entire paradigm will flip as your group supports you; you certainly have the depth of deck to do it!

But the moment will end; your compatriots will recover, and you will be back to your support and punching bag roll. But that's OK, because you're about the group. Unlike regular Jason, DS Jason can pull through in spots that no sane ranger could, ever. It's not flashy, because there's no insane tricks, you're just a badass. But it's never about you, it's about the group. Trust me, they'll forget about what you did. Who could blame them? They've got all these cool tricks and things they did that are really flashy and everyone will think about those! No one will remember you. But you, the player of DS Jason, didn't play this character to be remembered. You did it so that the group will triumph. And they will, because you were there.

And you'd have it no other way. I mean, c'mon, you're a Jason player

A special thanks to Jonathan Ying, who convinced me to try DS Jason again (and who I still apologize to for underestimating this character), and Joseph Cpg West, who proved I'm not alone in loving this character once I came around. 

On the Road to Skywalker: The Last Jedi

WARNING

Like I said before, if you're a vitriolic hater of The Last Jedi, I moderate the comments on my blog with extreme prejudice. The Last Jedi is one of my favorite movies. Rian Johnson is one of my favorite directors, and he was before this movie.

I really do not get the TFA comparisons to ANH. I mean, sure, there's some similar plot threads, but the tone of the movie is somber, dark, and (sometimes!) wistfully nostalgic. And, again, I don't think the comparisons to ANH aren't totally inappropriate, just that people want ANH again and are willing to explain away whatever it takes to get it.

And that is never more evident than with The Last Jedi.

The Last Jedi, as a movie, is classic Rian Johnson, down to the multiple visual puns that haters try to ignore in order to maintain their illusion that it's an idiotically put together movie. Trying to address this movie on its own terms is almost impossible, because of the sheer number of callbacks, references, and completions of lingering plot points. There is a whole lot going on in this movie that is impossible to fully appreciate without the other seven episodes.

I said almost impossible.

Never tell me the odds! GERONIMO!!!!

The Force Awakens promised us this elusive dude, Luke Skywalker. It showed us what his family felt and thought of him. And there was such a warmth there. They remember him fondly, and don't seem to hold a grudge against the Jedi Master for leaving them. I mean, sure, they want him back, but they clearly love him so much that their anger is overpowered by the longing to see him again. They don't think of him as a deserter. They don't think of him as a loser, they just remember Luke. If your'e not going to show a character the next best thing is to show everyone how much his family misses him. And TFA completely nails that longing.

Are we really that surprised that Rian Johnson, the maker of subversive masterpieces like Brick, did this in response?

You shouldn't be saying "Yes, I was surprised"

Rian Johnson's favorite two themes (pain and grieving) are put to excellent use here. We find out that everyone else had rose-colored glasses about Luke. He did leave them. He does not want to come back. He's honestly bitter that he was near them, ever, at all. Luke's failure is so total, in his own eyes, that he wants nothing to do with all the things that remind him of what he once was. He had become "a legend" and just wants to die so that way someone else can pick up the torch. He's an excellently written mess of a person, trying to kill what's good and noble inside of him, but still showing little bits of hope from time to time. He's not gone.

And yes, he was indeed going to burn those books at the beginning of the movie. Just let that sink in for a minute.

Anyway.

This is the situation that Rey walks into: not a hero, but a broken human being who has made the completely and utterly wrong decision. It's a slap in the face to everyone who loves this guy, and Rey's response of disgust and disdain is completely warranted. The rest of the movie is about Luke becoming that hero again, step by step, inch by agonizing inch.  And I'm sorry, but:

You can't have this moment without the green milk. It's not how people work.

This suicidal urge to destroy what made us so great is continued chiefly in Kylo Ren, as he grapples with killing Han in the TFA. The whole movie is him trying to figure out how he wants to align himself with the world and its history: will he burn the past down, or will he integrate its lessons? He goes for destruction.  Rey chooses to preserve what came before, and that's a choice that both infuriates and intrigues Ben. I love the interplay between these two at this point.

Continuing with the theme of preserving tradition, we've got Finn, Poe, and Rose, who are set up as a deliberate counterpoint. They disobey orders, upset the established order of Canto Bight... and almost lose everything in the process. Conservative vloggers like Jonathan Pageau and The Distributist (both of whom I have a great deal of respect for) don't quite seem to land their interpretation of this arc. To paraphrase Wolfe, people die so that way you can't repeat their mistakes, while then receiving what they did correctly. Finn, Poe, and Rose are what it looks like when you're doing it wrong, at least by and large. To preserve, to conserve, is the proper primary human response to what came before. Not striking out at the things that threaten it.

I have gone on. And on. And on. About The Last Jedi before. It's almost nauseating to me at this point, mostly because I feel like I'm just hammering a railway stake with a ball-ping hammer when it comes to how friggin' good this movie is. We meet Luke. We learn who he is, who he really is, way deep down. And he gives the galaxy the will to fight back. And Rey runs with it.

I find that to be a profoundly hopeful thing.

On the Road to Skywalker: The Force Awakens

Let's be perfectly clear about this. I did not want to write this blog post. Writing my original series of posts was a brain breaking experience. Finding out that others did not put even half that level of thought into... well.... most things... did not help. At all. But my brain won't shut up, so here we are. I'm writing about Star Wars again. God help me. No, seriously, may God help me. I was originally going to write about how I saw the whole series, a year and a half later, one movie at a time, but honestly not much has changed about my views of the rest of the series. It's the sequel trilogy that I've grown to appreciate more. So I'm going to just write about that. I'm going to write about the Sequel Trilogy as if the previous six films didn't exist, or at least try to, to see what these things are on their own. I know that's a bit... difficult... to do... but I think that a really important way to look at these films before their own finale is what they are, just by themselves. I tried to approach this the same way someone did with A New Hope, back in the 70's.

A warning: if you're a vitriolic hater of The Last Jedi please know that I moderate the comments on this blog. Just, y'know, something to think about. Something to consider.

So, when I sit down and re-watch the The Force Awakens with that in mind, the film begins with a really intriguing line.

Wait, who the hell is Luke Skywalker??

Bear with me here, I find this exercise interesting.

By the sound of this opening crawl, Luke Skywalker is the most badass person, ever. Ever ever. His absence is so seismic it allows an entire evil government to rise up, from the ashes of what Luke had (presumably) destroyed once before. Where's Luke? Why did he go? An entire story just pops, unbidden, into my mind. I begin to have questions, about what Luke did to this Empire and what would have caused someone so legendary as to be compared to a galactic entity to just vanish. But the movie promises that we'll get to that. Because everyone is looking for Luke.

Even without my knowledge of left-right for Star Wars, Kylo Ren's opening is weird. The way they shoot him is like that of a good guy, the protagonist. Abrams takes every opportunity to put Kylo in as favorable a shot as he can, even putting the clearly more heroic Poe in the "bad guy" frame so as to keep Kylo as the more "sympathetic" personality. It's a very, very, very weird thing to see. This opening scene screams "There's more to this story than you're being told!" And yeah, eventually we are told more, and it's clear that Ben has been duped by.. something. We're not sure what, but he's clearly bought a bill of goods and can't help but regret it, somewhere deep down.

Finn's intro is powerful. Within a few seconds you know everything that you need to about him, which is that he doesn't know very much about himself. The whole incident with his dying compatriot is a huge surprise to Finn. I love every second of him having his crisis of conscience, and how he is immediately zeroed in upon by Kylo Ren. The cinematography in this shot is just impeccable. It's not my favorite shot in this movie, but it's dang close. But we'll get to that.

OK, so three masks just can't be a coincidence. And, like the other intros we've had so far, Rey's is extremely powerful. She's a tough (how on earth you expect a young girl like that to not be tough and self-sufficient goes beyond simple misogyny into stupidity), independent, kind-hearted, and quite clearly expecting to leave any minute now.  Really, any minute now.

Well, not with Finn.

But any minute now!


The introduction of the previous generation of heroes is done extremely well. I buy that Han, Chewie, and Leia were the heroes who fought beside Luke. And they all worship this dude! All of them! There's such reverence for Luke, and you can begin to get a feel for who he was to these people. It's quite possibly the best way to show how much of a hole Luke left when he vanished, by focusing on the people who were his family. The shadow of Luke Skywalker (who I'm pretending I don't know anything about!) just looms over this movie, casting a melancholic shadow. The simple fact of the matter is that Ben was having trouble and somehow all of these people, who are otherwise great people, let him down.

It is notable that Ben only removes his mask for one person, without prompting, in this entire thing: Rey. He's this dark reflection of everything these other people in the movie say the legend of the previous generation is. And he has no absolutely no issue with telling Rey that the people she's coming to adore are really any good either. He also allows her to shake him and push back. The back and forth of this is revealing on both ends. The connection between them, despite their differences, is palpable in this scene. How many people have looked that deep into Ben's soul?

Rey's conflict is then resolved, while Ben's is deepened. Finn actually comes back for Rey, and there's this look of relief on her face when she sees him again that's amazing. She finally gets it, on some level, that she is worth coming back for. Finn, who had left earlier in the film, came back because he cares. And Rey makes the conscious decision that this is enough for her. Her question is answered. She doesn't need to do anything to have someone accept her, nor should she. Ben, on the other hand, is still buying into the idea that he has to prove his worth by killing his "baggage". And so he tries to cut himself loose.

My first child was almost nine months old when I saw this scene. He'd just learned to crawl, right before the movie was starting. I was wrecked.

Ultimately I think The Force Awakens is a powerful story about searching for your identity in the face of conflict. Ending it on the cliffhanger of facing Luke Skywalker was a brilliant move, because that's exactly what the movie was about! Heck, I'm glad he doesn't talk. There's nothing to say. He's been found. He's clearly unhappy about it, and that's a completely different conflict.

The Last Jedi is tomorrow!

Arkham Horror LCG Review

As of the writing of this blog post, the town of Arkham is in serious trouble. Monsters stalk the streets. Cultists, who have infiltrated every aspect of regular life, are working toward an unknown agenda. And, right at the stroke of midnight, as the cultists are about to unveil their plan, the only man who had any idea of what was going on, Roland Banks, has collapsed into a gibbering mess on the ground. Turns out that the town government was in on... whatever is going on. And it's too much for Roland Banks, FBI agent, to take. Time is running out. Someone else has to step up. But who?

I'd been eyeing Arkham Horror the LCG for years. I mean, how could I not? I love narrative. I can't get enough of it. So, when I found I really enjoyed FFG's newest LCG, Marvel Champions, and when Arkham Horror's core set dropped to about half of what it normally was, I kinda figured why not? I really enjoy the gameplay loop of Marvel Champions, where you discard cards  from your hand to get your stuff out. I'm a sucker for loss and damage, and that game delivers that sorta thing in every move you make.

I got a hell of a lot more than I bargained for.

First off, the core gameplay is enormous, yet claustrophobic. You accomplish tasks in this game by doing a skill check, by and large. There are tokens in what's called The Chaos Bag (which for the moment is more like The Chaos Cup, no bag included in box), that can either give a bonus, penalty, or something else completely random. Cards in your hand can give bonuses to these checks, to help offset what's usually a bad draw from the Bag/Cup; you can certainly "commit" more of these cards, as you wish. There's four different difficulty settings to this bag: Easy Standard, Hard, and Expert. I tried my first game on Easy... and was disappointed. I didn't have to engage with the system all that much. So the next game I upped it to Standard and had a much better time. There's a tight system of choices in this game and, while it seems forgiving (at least at first), you'll find yourself in a world of hurt if you don't take the time to stop, think, and play the right cards.

The second thing that you have going on is the Agenda and Act Decks. Agenda decks are the bad stuff, Act decks the good. You are trying to get through the Act Deck before you get to the Agenda Deck, and may God help you if you fail. Interestingly enough, there is always the option to quit, so that way the big and awful thing doesn't happen. Doing things that further the Act Deck usually give you experience, which you can use to modify your character's deck. The Agenda always has a resource called Doom being generated, which reminds me of Threat in Marvel Champions, except this stuff can be attached to characters and it still counts to advancing the Agenda Deck. Yikes. And, at least from what I can right now, there's not much of a way to stop that advancing Doom, which is accumulating each turn.

And the third "important thing" (there are many) is the the fact that you are traveling between locations in the scenario, each represented by its own card. Now, this requires you to have some actual space to accommodate the locations, but so long as you're willing to bunch up locations that you're not using you can actually fit the game into a very small space, if need be. It's not ideal, but it can be done. Each location has a number of Clue Tokens (which are used to advance your Act Deck, by and large) and a Shroud Value, which is how difficult it is to get those Clue Tokens. Once you harvest that area Clues generally don't come back, so you're supposed to move on.

When you take these three primary elements and mesh them together you get a system of exploration, stress, and hard choices, with an actual release valve should things get stupidly difficult. With campaign play all these things coalesce into an engine that delivers pure narrative. Certain things carry over and inform the narrative. 

I'm currently sitting here, looking at the characters that I have to choose from so Arkham can be saved. I have to start all over. None of the goodies I'd gotten from using Roland transfer over. Instead of a triumphant attack on the cult, someone else is going to have to pick up the pieces and pull some amazing moves. Am I up to the task? Can Arkham be saved? Regardless of those answers, the ride is so much fun that I almost don't care.

Risk Legacy: War One

This is a series of play reports for Risk Legacy. There are SPOILERS. You have been warned

So we all decided we want to play Risk Legacy. This was something I had been wanting to do for a long time, so I was really excited finally play! A Legacy board game! The holy grail, as far as i was concerned. We sat down, picked factions and abilities, and this is what we got. Names not changed cause we're all guilty as hell.

Nathan- Imperial Balkania: when recruiting troops round up, not down, began in Argentina.

Logan- Saharan Republic: when maneuvering the territories need not be connected. Began in Ural.

Ben- Khan Industries: at the start of each turn place one troop in each HQ you own. Began in Indonesia (and goes first).

Matt-  Enclave of the Bear: on the first battle against an opponent they have a -1 penalty to their lower defensive dice roll. Began in Northwest Territories.

The following resource cards were upped to two resources apiece:

Madagascar, Yakutsk, Ural, Mongolia, Brazil, South Africa, North Africa, Russia, Peru, Siberia, Alaska, Egypt

Years One and Two Saw each of the factions expanding as fast as they could. We got the rules wrong in these first two rounds and thought we could only expand one territory per round.

In Year Three we realized our error. But by that point Khan Industries had become a monstrosity. They expanded acrost Europe and all the way into Africa. Enclave of the Bear charged the Imperial Balkania in Venezuela, who had taken all of South America. Despite being outnumbered two to one Enclave conquered Venezuela and Brazil. Imperial's counter-surge was powerful, pushing up into Central America. Saharan Republic did not take advantage of Khan Industries' overextension and expanded into Europe.

Year Four's carnage was total. Khan, ignored and thus a true force to be reckoned with, charged through Africa and took Imperial's HQ, stopping short of completely wiping them out, leaving them a foothold in Central America. The Enclave did that for them, wiping Imperial off the map and taking their resources. They didn't go down without a fight, however. Imperial salted the earth and destroyed all the natural resources of Central America, creating an Ammo Shortage and making the place much harder to defend. Imperial Balkania reformed in Greenland and kept their heads low. The Saharan Republic finally attacked its neighbor, Khan Industries. They pushed north from Ural, and rooted Khan out of Australia. They then retreated back to their HQ in Ural.

But the damage was done. Khan had more than enough forces to completely wipe The Enclave out of its HQ in Year Five, grabbing its resources. All they had to do was survive long enough to capitalize them. A formal alliance with Sahara ensured their victory. They then tried to wipe out Imperial Balkania in Greenland, even going so far as to salt the earth in Greenland, creating an Ammo Shortage. But Balkania could not be budged. They completely wiped out the attacking force, at the cost of losing almost all their troops. The Enclave reformed in Eastern Canada, hoping to survive a little bit longer. Imperial Balkania only reinforced their troops, not daring to leave Greenland. Sahara finally eliminated Balkania, who were too worn out with their war with Khan to fight back. Sahara then eliminated The Enclave.

Khan used its resources to make its hold on the planet total, for the moment. The people of Australia, even though occupied by a foreign force, named themselves the Baby Guns, after the two things Khan mass produced. Sahara founded a city named Phillipines in Yakutsk. Balkania and Enclave went to ground, planning their revenge.

The war would continue, even if it took decades to get there.

The Undertow: Session Three

Mikansia: The female elven Sword Singer, played by Lena. Mikansia was pushed off of their floating island by her friend, Jabez, so that way she could go and find her father, the evil Krakeru, without breaking her oath to The White Tower. She's currently on an elven ship that is commandeered by smuggler humans. Oh joy.

Firstsword Yngvar: Mikansia's first-line officer, present at her disciplinary hearing. Silent guy.

Lore: The Iron Forest, which is where Elfharrow is, is an actual forest of trees that are made of living metal. The ecosystem has adjusted. It's not a nice place.

The smugglers flew their stolen ship almost as well as any elf. Belting out line after bawdy line, they flew the ship with an enthusiasm that was as endearing as their singing was disturbing. Even the bawdiest of elves would not have thought of some of the things that these... humans... were proudly singing at the top of their lungs about elven anatomy, as well as how their melancholic nature prevented them from truly loving the... finer... things in life. Essentially, the smugglers left Mikansia alone. They flew the vessel and sang. And she sat in the back and wondered what the hell was going on.

They finally got to the snow-covered surface and Mikansia hopped out. The captain bowed to her and thanked her for being such an easy cargo, given the payment. One of the smugglers held up Jabez's sword. The captain thanked him for catching it as they flew through the air. Taken aback, Mikansia asked why they had Jabez's sword, which he had intended to turn in to become an officer. The captain told her that the sword would sell for a small fortune for them, being that it was elven work. Mikansia found herself asking if she could swap her sword for Jabez's. They were both elven work, so how would that affect the selling price? The captain reflected a moment, and said the buyer certainly wouldn't know the difference. He grabbed Jabez's sword and came back to her. They exchanged swords as the exact same time, at his insistence. With a tip of his cap jumped back aboard his ship. They were off, starting that ridiculously bawdy song all over again.

Mikansia smiled, shook her head, and began to take stock of her surroundings. It was a clear, dry, cold night. The moon shimmered on the iron trees and leaves, with a soft glow emanating off of the forest. The forest cut behind her to the south and went to the northwest. The east and north was an open snow plain, receding into the dark. Somewhere in the forest Mikansia could hear a metallic cough, followed by a belch. It repeated itself a couple of times. Soon after Mikansia heard another cough and belch, in response. They went back and forth for a long time. Looking to the north Mikansia saw campfires, probably ten miles out. That was probably Elfwatch, the human fort  that Mikansia had heard of in her briefings on Elfharrow. They would probably be a good resource, she thought.

Mikansia crept north slowly, carefully, painstakingly, until the morning light crept over over the horizon. She was in sight of the fort. An elven ship came flying lower over the forest, the emblem of the White Tower emblazoned on its side. Mikansia crept along under it, towards Elfwatch. The ship flew off, over the forest.

When she got to the gate of Elfwatch a warning shot was fired from the wall. Mikansia was ordered to halt. She obeyed, and tried to explain her situation the best she could, but it was useless. She was an elf. They were not going to listen to her. A group of soldiers came out and knocked her out. Mikansia did not resist.

She woke up a few hours later. She was unarmed and in a cell, with no one in the cell with her. But she wasn't alone. Outside of her cell sat a man, staring at her. He didn't say anything. He just gazed at her. And Mikansia tried to ignore it.

Someone eventually came into the jail area, snorted in derision at "Lerance", and told him to get out, shoving him out the door. He sat down, apologized, and introduced himself as Pierre, the man who had disobeyed orders and not shot her dead when told to. He wanted to hear her story, now that she as no longer in danger of being shot. But he'd better be straight with her, otherwise he'd let Lerance back in, open the door to her cell, lock the jail door, and try not to mind the screams of yet another dark elf. Giving the name "Miekonnen", Mikansia told Pierre about her quest to Krakeru, the elf who had destroyed her family. She wasn't a dark elf, she didn't want to harm anyone at the fort, she just wanted Krakeru.

Getting up, Pierre put his chair under the knob of the door. Looking back at Mikansia's concerned expression he chuckled, apologized for how that looked, and took the chair away. He came up close to the shell and pulled up his shirt.

The ugliest scar Mikansia had ever seen stared out at her.

It had healed over, but it had a bubbly texture to it, even now... Pierre told her that Krakeru had done that, right on the field of battle, as if he'd just stopped for a little break. The things Krakeru had done to get that scar to look how it did would haunt Pierre for the rest of his days.

The shouts that a flying ship was coming into the fort leaked through the door. Pierre went back outside. Mikansia smiled as the soldiers talked about what legendary warriors those of The White Tower were. After a few minutes Pierre came back in. He explained that a certain Yngvar was looking a "Mikansia", but since the guards didn't know of a Mikansia they'd sent him packing. Pierre said he realized how personal this was for now, and that it was just as personal to him. Pierre was going to break "Miekonnen" out of prison, and they would go off to kill Krakeru, because Pierre knew where he was. And he was excited to get them there.

How to GM: Pacing

One of the hardest parts of running a game is trying to make sure the story is paced correctly. Unlike a novel, board games, or video games, TTRPGs can be incredibly collaborative, and are thus harder to pace. This is because of the number one problem (and advantage) in most RPGs: the GM.  RPGs are entirely relational constructs, which means that everyone at the table has to be in sync and capable of bending to each other. The GM, being (usually) the designated director of the narrative, has the unenviable position of making sure that everyone acts in concert, all the time. Fortunately there's a few good ways to make sure this happens: stick to your themes and genre, know what the players expect, respond but don't react, and feed as much as you can back into the mechanics of your game. All of my advice comes from the assumption that you are trying to do a collaborative narrative.

The first point is vital: stick to your thematic and genre guns.  Role-playing games are an interpersonal exercise and you, as the GM, are the designated point of unity for your group. It is for their own good that you stick to what you set up for yourself. It is the player's duty to bend, but not break, in the direction of your themes and the genre. And it is very important that they only bend. The GM is not there to take away choices; a GM'd game is meant to have him be the lightning ground of the group. But the GM needs to incorporate player input. He cannot run the players over. Take what the players do and weave it back in. Draw straight with what you think are crooked lines, but do not erase them.

Player expectation is only second to sticking to your guns because the GM has to know what he wants before he's able to communicate it. But, once the GM knows what he wants, he has to communicate it.  You cannot run a narrative game without player feedback and communication.

No, I'm not going to bend on that.

Interpersonal rules of communication and trust will always be hard and fast rules, in any game, and if you're blindsiding players (as opposed to surprising, which in this case means playing inside the bounds you and the players set up) you have made a critical error, one of which I heartily recommend stopping the session to talk about. And yes, if you blindside your players, you should be fully prepared to change what you did. It's not fair to them to go outside what they agreed to, not without warning.

With those two guidelines (stick to your guns and know what the players expect) we come to the third point: feed it all back into the mechanics of your game. Mechanics are the medium through which all decisions go. Even denying "but this doesn't need mechanics" means that you've made a mechanical choice, in the form of denying existing mechanics. Now, that's not necessarily a bad decision, to jettison the pre-established mechanics of the game. Sometimes things happen and you find yourself in a weird spot where your game just cannot cover what you want need it to. Mechanics are tools, not straight jackets, after all. But if you find yourself constantly making new tools to add to the box then why not just play a different game? If you're constantly getting into world-ending arguments, where people want to be able to nail the nitty-gritty of negotiations into something mechanical , then why are you playing a game that doesn't have that in the toolbox? Anyway, whatever thing does wind up happening, plug it back into the mechanics of your game as fast as possible, where the players can address it on even ground. Always try to tie your plans into the mechanically rich and enticing bits for your players. Let those mechanical interactions guide your plot, that's what they're there for. Think of the mechanics kind of like a calculator: you plug your equation in, but you can't expect the calculator to do the work of figuring out the equation in the first place. You don't bring half an equation to a calculator, but once you plug that sucker in sit back and accept the results.

All of this requires being able to think on your feet, to respond instead of react to the players. Part of responding to players means to not let emotions get in the way. This is because players can really surprise you. If you need to take a second to say "Holy crap, I did NOT expect that" then do it! It's fine! You get to sit back and laugh in disbelief! Hell, congratulate the person who threw you for a loop. Whatever not-toxic thing that lets you get the reaction out of the way so that way you can respond is what should be done. A GM usually has his hands into so many pieces of the game that a flippant response is almost always a bad move, as he sits at the center of the narrative. You get to have that moment to go "Wow, I have no idea what the hell to do". The additional vulnerability also gives you more leeway for when you do make a mistake, because you have communicated to the players that you are not above them. Granted, you've got a few more responsibilities, but you are not God. That means that, whenever you do respond, they will get to see someone doing the same thing as them: a dude playing a game and having a blast.

It sounds a bit abstract, but if there's anything I would tell a new GM about pacing it would be to stick to their core themes and genre, corralling the other players into the fold as best you can (and should), stay within player expectations (don't kill puppies in a silly game about pound puppies), respond but don't react, and always put things back into the mechanics, so that way players can interact with it and thus morph that situation into something new. If you keep these principles in mind your ability to keep the game moving at a good clip, not too fast but not too slow, will improve pretty significantly.