Failing Forward

My recent harrowing adventure with falafel got me thinking about how failure affects games.  I’m not talking failure as a GM or Player.  I’m referring to how a character's failures affect the narrative and how to keep it from being too damaging.  Some failure on the parts of characters is necessary in a game, being unable to fail is ultimately boring. I feel that failure is too common in most games.

In D&D, the standard has long been that failure should happen a little less than 50% of the time.  Your character should hit, succeed as a moderate skill check, or fight off a poison with the same consistency (assuming that you didn't specialize).  This ratio has advantages and disadvantages.  For an average character at a task there is tension every time the dice are picked up.  The strong possibility of failure makes every roll feel important.  This also allows the specialists to really shine. The archer that never misses and the expert climber who scales with ease stand out from the pack when their time comes.

There are significant drawbacks with the 50/50 standard failure rate, however.  With such a high rate of failure, your characters often won't feel very awesome. It gives the sense that they are stumbling through the world, getting by more on luck than skill.  Since the odds remain the same throughout the levels, this also leads to the feeling that the characters are static.  While you are adding higher and higher numbers to your roll as you grow in level, your odds remain the same. This can lead to the feeling of running in place.  There is also the issue of when multiple rolls are required for a single action and a single failure is all you need.  I see this most often when a group of characters is called to make stealth checks or a character is asked to climb a cliff or high wall.  The odds are so high that there will be at least one failure, it hardly seems worthwhile to roll at all.

You also have to look at the consequences of failure in your game.  A failed attack roll or stealth check is frustrating for the players, but ultimately serve the story.  If a character dies in combat, or the barbarian trips over a bunch of pots while escaping the prison, those scenes can become the highlight of an adventure.  When a character fails a Perception check or can't get over that wall, though, it can cause the story to stop progressing.  This seriously damages any momentum you've established at the table.

Many games have sought to solve this perceived problem.  Gumshoe takes failure out of the equation for your character's specialties, Fate provides aspects to undo a bad roll, and in Numenera players know their odds going in and can spend effort to improve them.  There is one solution though, taken from games like Leverage and Mouse Guard, that can be used with almost any game.  Practicing with it will greatly improve your skills as a game master.

I'm not sure who coined the term Failing Forward, but it is the idea that when a character fails at a check that failure should continue to move the narrative.  The Leverage RPG utilizes this concept best in my opinion, making it the central conceit of all skill checks.  In Leverage, you play elite criminals at the top of their game.  For obvious reasons the world’s greatest thieves should not find themselves at a loss for how to pick a lock and the brilliant con artist shouldn't have difficulty convincing the Prince that she's his long lost cousin.

Leverage doesn't however lack in tension when played, by simply redefining the stakes of a roll.  Rolling the dice in an RPG is an abstract action, so it can have whatever weight you want it to in the narrative.  The consequences of failed skill rolls don’t have to represent a character's incompetence, but simply that the character did not accomplish their ultimate goal.  Take for example a master thief trying to unlock a safe so he can steal the gold bullion hidden within.  When looked at in the traditional way, failing the open locks roll means that the safe did not open, that the thief couldn't do what he was trained for.

In Leverage and other games the GM is encouraged to step back and instead deny the goal without denying competence.  In this example a failed roll may mean that someone happens upon the thief before he opens the safe.  Another option is that the safe opens but the bullion is nowhere to be found because it was moved earlier that day.  In both of these cases, failure (rather than simply inspiring a request to try again), adds a new element to the story and keeps it moving forward.

I may revisit this topic in the future, as it is one that I am working on incorporating into my own games.  But next week I will be sharing with you a vegetarian take on my Turkey 'Chili' recipe that I've been working on.  Talk to you then.

Fate Accompli

Note: Last update from my phone, I promise.  It's Bernard harrowing experience and I'll be going back and editing these posts when I get back home.

Narrative Based Timing

We've covered how to integrate Aspects into your Numenera game, and how Fate's character creation can improve  a Champions game.  Now let's look at how narrative based timing can enhance the experience when playing 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

What I mean when I say narrative based timing is Fate's system for tracking damage on character.  In Fate when a character suffers a significant injury it will be marked on their character sheet as a temporary aspect, called a consequence.  Most character can be effected by 3 consequences before they are overcome, a minor, moderate and severe wound.

These wounds don't heal like you see in most games, with hit points recovering in hours or days.  They instead remain for a given duration at the table.  A minor consequence will fade at the end of the next scene, moderate consequences last until the end of the next session and severe will be with you until the end of the next senerio.  That's no nearly all there is to the consequence system in Fate and I recommend you look at the game to learn more.

This system of tracking has a couple of interesting effects on a game.  When used for wounds it makes combat feel like a more real threat.  Characters in 4e need only wait a few hours to fully recover from anything and so quickly groups can fall into the one fight a day pattern in which so long as they don't die they are never at less than full resources.

There are ways that you can deal with this like putting time pressure on the characters but do that to much and it will begin to feel contrived.  This system however will remind the players that their characters are in real physical danger and will make them seem more badass for it.  

To use this sort of system I you game the first thing to decoded is what the would threshold will be.  With 4th Editon the easiest places would seem to be when a character reaches their bloodied value and when they drop below 0 HP.   I personally would also include when the character dies, allowing them to take a severe wound to stabilize, thus avoiding the need to resurrect. This last is sort of a olive branch to the players, you fights will have more long term consequences but you are now harder to kill.

When a character reaches one of these thresholds assign them a minor, moderate or severe injury and some penalty appropriate to the damage.  You can do this either with a table (the iCrit app has a lot of options for minor and moderate wounds) or you can just come up with them on the fly.  

For a minor wound the penalty should be mild, a -1 to movement or AC, a -2 to a single skill, or even a visible scar which could interfere with social encounters.  Moderate wounds can be more severe but still should not be crippling.  Halving movement, removing the ability to critically hit, a -2 to BaB or the inability to speak all seem like appropriate penalties.  Severe wounds of course should much more serious but shouldn't render the character unplayable.   Making the character slowed, preventing them from getting above their bloodied value or making whole sets of skills impossible all would carry the weight of their injury.

For the timing on these injuries I would keep them them similar to fate.  Sometimes defining a scene can be difficult in D&D but as a rule of thumb having it last until the end of the next encounter in which it was relevant will work.  The end of the next session of course is self explanatory, and the end of the next story should be approximately the duration of an adventure module or level if your game is more free form.  

In most 4e games magical healing is fairly common place and so of course has to come into play here.  Since the point of these injuries is to create a lasting effect you shouldn't allow them to be eliminated entirely by a Cure Light Wound or Inspiring Word.  I would allow a healer to reduce the duration of these injuries by one level of severity if they use enough powers heal the character 4 healing surges, thus reducing the penalty and duration.  The healing surges would have no other effect (although I would still allow and bonus healing the character provides to apply to HP) and I would only allow this once per injury.  Even if a Cleric can grow back your hand it's not going to be 100% right away.

Try this idea out in your game and see how it effects how your PCs approach combat, and how much more important their Leader becomes if they have one.

So that's it for breaking down Fate (for now), I hope that you found it illuminating.  Later this week I'll share with you a falafel recipe I'm trying out this weekend.  Talk to you then.

The Fate of All Mankind

Note: Sorry for the poor editing and formatting on this post friends, I seem to have overestimated my ability to update while on vacation.  Later this week we'll finish this discussion with narrative timing.

Today we return to our discussion of Fate and how to use elements of its rules for other games.  The week we'll cover the team based city and character creation rules, specifically those that appear in The Dresden Files RPG, and the narrative based timing Fate uses for wounds and healing.

Group Character and City Creation

The Dresden Files RPG (DFRPG) focuses heavily around making the characters and their world feel deeply interconnected.  The PCs feel as though they have a shared history throwing off the clichéd trope of murder hobos meeting in a bar and becoming fast friends.  Additionally the game encourages making the city feel like another member of the ensemble, emulating stories like The Wire or (of course) the game's namesake.

The primary way it achieves this is by making character creation part of the game.  During  character creation players incorporate at least two other characters into their narrative, leaving you at the end of the process with an interweaving web of relationship on which to draw.  Before this happens though, and I think that it is very important that this happens first, the group as a whole work together to create the city the characters inhabit.

While the book calls this City Creation it's important to note that this process can be scaled up or down for the story.   The same principles apply if your describing a college campus or and multinational agency of super spies.

For our purposes though we're going to look at using this process to handle a superhero game.  My game of choice for supers is Champions but as this process doesn't have to interact with the rules it can apply to any system.  

The first session of your Champions game, sit everyone down and encourage them not to settle on a character yet.  As soon as you say superhero game ideas will have already started to form, but bring open minded at this stage is helpful. First, as a group decided which  city you want the game to take place in.  You can also at this point decide on a globe spanning game but the process remains the same.  The next step is defining important locations that the characters will be interacting with.

A useful way to think of this is like you were making a TV show, a fee key locations is all you have the budget for so you have to make them each have their own sense of character.  In our superhero game you may have the local PD, the city tabloid's office, the roof tops, the villain's corporate HQ, the here's base of operations and the city limits sign for example.  To save on effort make sure that each location you detail has a rule to play in the game and people other than the PCs associated with it.  Pepper Pots at Stark Tower, Commissioner Gordon at Gotham PD and J. Jonah Jamison at the Daily Bugle all breath life into what would otherwise just be set pieces. 

One you've established your locations and populated them you should define their expected impact on the story.  In the DFRPG this is done through aspects but even if your not using that rule module writing down a phrase or two here will help to cement the location in your mind. Going the examples I mentioned earlier you might note Stark Tower with "boundless wealth and innovation" and "everyone knows where to find you".  Gotham PD on the other could be described as having "a tense peace with heroes" and being "rife with corruption".  This descriptor will help you know the sorts of scenes to set at the location and give the players a sense of how to act there. 

Now that you've established the where of your Champions game you can get to the who of the characters, some of whom may be inspired by this process.  When you think about what really is the difference between Lexcorp and Stark Tower other than the association with a PC.  

Group character creation is an easy step to incorporate into your game that in my experience greatly enhances the experience at the table and the ultimate narrative that ultimately forms.  In the DFRPG this is tied directly to the Aspect system, but it doesn't have to be in your game.  

To bring this stage into you game all you have to do is get everyone at the table before the characters are made and have each player look to the person to their left  and the person to their right.  For a Champions game I would have the players use the classic types of superhero interactions.  The player to left's character is someone they initially fought with but then the teamed up to fave a bigger threat (let the players come up with the threat and that's one less villain you have to come up with a concept for).  The player to their right is someone who they owe their life to, either because they saved them or for some other reason.  Finally, after there's decisions are made, have the players switch seats at the table.  With the interconnected stories this will help prevent it from seeming silly, and will encourage other characters to get involved when these stories come up in the game.

To prevent me from having to type evenore on my phone for now I'm going to leave it there and we'll come back to narrative based timing later this week.  On Monday I'll share with you a falafel recipe that a great snack and vegetarian friendly.

Aspects in Play

In my recent Hack(Host) article, Unraveling Fate we started talking about Fate Core and the ways you can use it's mechanics in other games.  One of my friends pointed out to me that the mechanic in question, Aspects, can be a bit challenging to figure out how to use at the table.  Aspects are the central mechanic of Fate and one of my favorites so I wanted to give a couple of examples of them in play.  This is a bonus post and on Monday I will finish what I started in Unraveling Fate.


At their core Aspect descriptors which give what they are attached to story significance.  They can be applied to anything in the game from objects to environments, or even to the story itself.  The most common type of aspect you will interact with in the game though is Character Aspects so that is what we're going to focus on.

Character Aspects can be used to describe just about anything  the player wants to be important to the story.  A well written aspect will be both an advantage or a disadvantage dependent on the situation and will give anyone who reads them a sense of the character.  The number of aspects your character will have will very from game to game, as will the importance of those aspects, but the core mechanic remains the same.

There are two broad ways aspects come into play, Invoking and Compelling.  Invoking is when a player or the GM uses an aspect to modify an action they or someone else is taking.  In Fate this is represented with a +2 to the roll or effect, if your porting it to another game that will change but it always should be a significant bonus.  Compelling is using an aspect to limit a character or NPC's options or abilities.  Invoking costs a Fate Chip for the player doing so and in the case of a compel the player or GM who suggests the compel pays a Fate Chip and the character effected by it receives that Chip.

Let's look at a scene between three characters to see how aspects work in play;

James is player 1's character, a star ship captain with; Encouageable Lady's Man, Always Ready for a Fight and Loyal to a Fault.

Pavel is player 2's character, Kirk's subordinate who as the aspects; Talented but Inexperienced, Charmingly Meek, and Funny Accent.

Kado is an NPC who runs the bar the characters are currently patronizing.  Since he's just an NPC the game master only gave him one aspect No Fan of Trouble.

In this scene James and Pavel want to learn from Kado where some stolen goods that passed through the bar ended up.

GM: You enter the bar and you can see it's not a place that takes well to military types.  Loud and dark this is the sort of place that shady deals can happy right out in the open.

Player 1: James looks around the bar for someone in charge.

GM: Well, all you look around the room you see a number of women dancing and sweet talking patrons.  As an Inveterate Lady's Man you think that getting close to one of them is a pretty good idea.  Pavel needs more experience anyway right?

(The GM offers a Fate Chip to the player.  Here James' player has the option of accepting the Fate Chip, there by letting Pavel be the player who first approaches Kado.  James is far better equipped for interrogating the bar's owner, but to refuse the compel he must give the GM one of his own chips.)

Player 1: Yeah, Pavel should learn to take the lead more often, and that green dancer looks particularly appealing.  James tells Pavel to ask that the bar while he goes to interrogate her.

Player 2: Great.  Pavel goes to the bar and asks to speak with the owner.

GM: A very tall man from Bathar 6 by the looks of him eyes you suspiciously.  He introduces himself as Kado and asks what you want.

Player 2: Pavel says "We are looking for a case of Veridian igniters that were seen here in the past couple of days."

Player 1: Don't you mean Weridian?

GM: Kado chuckles at your accent and says "Don't know what you're talking about."

(Player 2 looks at their sheet and realizes that they aren't well equipped to talk this guy into giving up the info.)

Player 2: Can I invoke Charmingly Meek to give me a +2 on my roll?

GM: Kado isn't really impressed by meek people.

Player 2: He laughed at my accent though, can I invoke Funny Aspect, everyone likes to laugh.

GM: Yeah, that will work, roll your Rapport with a +2.

Player 2: So Pavel keeps pestering him "Look, we know the Weridian came through here.  This is wery important we need the Weridian to restart our wessel. "

(Player 2 rolls, but still fails.  The GM decides that Kado likes Pavel but that telling him would cause more trouble than it's worth)

GM: Kado says, "Look, I don't want no trouble in my place.  You military types bring all manner of problems with you."

Player 2: I want to see if I can discern one of his aspects.

(Player 2 rolls his Empathy skill, succeeding)

GM: Kado is No Fan of Trouble, right now you don't seem like trouble though.

Player 2: Pavel will keep pressing him, indicating back to James to emphasize that they are together.  I want to compel James' Always Ready for a Fight to get him to start an argument with another patron.

(Player 1 offers one of his Fate Chips to James)

Player 1: Not very Captainly of me, but I might need the chips later.  Sure, me and another patron get into over the green skinned woman.

Player 2: Good, can I now compel Kado's aspect, since getting me out of there will get James out too?

GM: Makes perfect sense to me.

(Player 2 hands the game one of his Fate Chips, Kado spills the beans and the story continues).

So ask you can see, Fate Chips allow characters to really make a scene about who the character's are and can give them some influence over the story that other games don't allow.  For a fuller explaination on the use of Aspects I highly recommend looking through Fate Core, it's a great game and is pay what you want on Drive Through RPG.

Nose to Tail Gaming

Two weeks ago we talked about how to use the timer based powers in 4th Ed in a game of Pathfinder.  Today we'll tackle the other two pieces of 4e that I think are particularly interesting: role protection and skill challenges.

Role Protection

Role protection is the division of characters between Striker, Leader, Defender, and Controller.  D&D 4e doesn't just talk about the rules, but includes rules to help solidify them.  Almost all Strikers have the ability to add extra dice of damage to their attacks. Nearly every defender uses the Marking mechanic which makes them more 'sticky' (able to draw attacks to themselves).

I would caution you in bringing this rule module into another game because it's going to have a lot of effects on how characters are created and how the story is told.  Once these roles (or whatever roles you feel are appropriate for your game) are laid out, they will make your combat much more tactical. This will make some of your players feel they have to fill certain holes that exist in the party’s abilities.

Generally role protection is best for games which emulate the heroic fantasy, superhero, or heist genres, as those genres tend to include this idea anyway.  The roles won't always be the same; the four D&D covers are common in fantasy, while in superheroes you will often see the tank, the blaster, the psychic, the tactician, and the brawler.  Heist stories similarly will often see the fighter, the con, the thief, and the tech (see Leverage for a very clear example).

In Fate Core there are no rules for role protection, but the genres it emulates often fit well with the sort of crafted team that defined roles encourage.  If you want to introduce role protection into Fate Core you can try adding it to the aspect system.

Aspects are phrases and ideas that describe your character and affect how they spend resources.  Simply inform your players of the traditional roles in a superhero team.  Tell them that one of their aspects has to include reference to the role they've chosen.  During the game allow the players one free Invoke of that aspect each session.  Your players will quickly tailor their strategy to their place in the team.

Another more complicated, but more flavorful, option would be to create a special Invoke for each of the roles you define.  Each Invoke providing an extra action but one that has to fulfill their role in the team.  Allowing your blaster to perform an attack, your bruiser to block for an ally, and your psychic to read an opponent's mind at the cost of a fate chip will add a more dynamic exchange to your fights.  This will encourage your players to pay attention even when it's not their turn.  This does come with a cost though.  You'll have to put in a little more work to balance the encounters but it will add a more super heroic feel.

Skill Challenges

In 4e, skill challenges represent a way of playing non-combat encounters while still providing a real mechanical challenge to the characters.  There are a lot of situations these can be used to represent, from a debate with nobility to tracking across an open desert.  Where I've found the most success in the skill challenge is in emulating the film montage.  When your players have some task to complete and you don't want to just roll the dice, a skill challenge is a good way to keep it tense.  The basic idea of a skill challenge is creating a variety of tasks the players must complete.  They can choose how to complete their tasks with the skills they have available.  If they get a set number of success before they get a certain number of fails, they succeed.

This is an especially easy piece to use in other games, as it will work with anything that already has a skill system.  Let's look at an example situation in Shadowrun.  In your game a group of runners need to infiltrate a swank shindig at Mitsuhama.  You've decided that you don't want to make this a simple request from a contact.  Instead you can make getting access to the party a section of the game itself.

The first thing to do is decide what needs to be done to complete the task.   They need to find out where and when the party is.  To get in, they need their names on the guest list or for the bouncer to let them pass.  Finally because it's Shadowrun, they need to stash their weapons somewhere they can access at the party.  For this situation we're going to say that the runners need to get 6 successes on these tasks, with at least one each, before they get 3 total failures.  Dependent on how challenging you want this to be you can play around with the numbers. 

Each attempt will be a simple skill check, and here I will generally adjust the threshold based on how interesting or creative the character's attempt is.  A good level for a group of runners that will make a check risky is threshold 4, so I would start there and then adjust as needed.  By using this method rather than the standard, you can get your players more involved in the process.   It will take longer but will  make even the generally boring parts of the game more interesting.

Like the Native Americans, you should use every piece of the game

Hacking D&D4e Part I

In my years as a gamer and GM, it seems that games I’ve been in almost always end up having house rules.  Most that I've seen are slapped together to solved a problem mid-game and ended up sticking.  If you're looking for how to solve a problem in your game though, I would suggest you listen to the experts.  Guys like Monte Cook, Kenneth Hite and Rob Heinsoo know game design inside and out and have playtesters to back them up.What I mean is, if you find some hole in your game, patch it with a piece of a different game.  If there's a rule that improves your experience, bring it with you and see where it fits in other games you play.  Today I want to talk about Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition.  I chose this first because I suspect that most of you have played it, and whether you like it or not there are some great pieces to work with.

When looking at games I tend to see them in component modules, each part of the game a separate system that can be modified, moved or discarded as necessary.  Here are a few of the more interesting pieces that make up the current edition of D&D (although 5th Edition is now just over the horizon).

• At-Will/Encounter/Daily Powers
• Strong Role Protection
• Skill Challenges

Obviously the game is made up of more components than this.  Some, like the Yes/No skill system don't move between games well.  Others, such as Action Points or Feats are already used to one extent or another in games you'll come across.  However, these three components can find a place in pretty much any game you play.  This week let's talk about the At-Will/Encounter/Daily Power, or timer based powers, and we'll cover the other two next week.

The timer based powers in D&D often draw a lot of hate from the game's detractors. Their argument is that that it makes the game feel like World of Warcraft or similar games.  I'm not interested in addressing that argument and would prefer to point out the places where it can be a benefit instead.  The first is that this system allows for an additional balancing mechanic when creating abilities.  You can safely make a Daily Power several times more powerful than an At-Will without worrying about it unbalancing your game.  Second, it promotes variety on the encounter level by ensuring that no one spends the whole fight only saying “I attack" until it's done.  Lastly, it adds a tactical element of resource management, forcing the players to consider if they should use their big guns right away, or hold them until a more challenging fight.

There are, of course, drawbacks.  Players thinking tactically may not be thinking narratively and it is more details to keep track of which can get cumbersome.  That being said, if you're looking to play a game where the fights play out more like action movies, then this type of set up will help you on your way.

This ability is one of the tougher ones to move to other games, because doing so always requires building new rules around it, specifically creating powers that take advantage of its opportunities.  An example of this is Pathfinder, currently the best selling RPG in the US.  In Pathfinder this structure works best when slotted into the Feats system.   By designating a feat as Encounter or Daily you can improve their power substantially while maintaining game balance.  Another option would be to apply it to existing feats thereby reducing their level and prerequisite requirements (the Whirlwind Attack feat, for example- see below).  There are a lot of requirements to the Feat. Some of them may not make sense to every character, so you can use the timed powers system to balance it instead.  

Here is the original Whirlwind Attack feat.

Whirlwind Attack (Combat

You can strike out at every for within reach.

Prerequisites: Dex 13+, Int 13+, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Base attack bonus +4

Benefits: When you use the full-attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your highest base attack bonus against each opponent within reach. You must make a separate attack roll against each opponent.

 

When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities.

With attribute, bab and feat requirements this is one of the more difficult feats to take in the game, and its prerequisites point to a specific fighting style.  Someone who takes this feat is a mobile, agile fighter focused on defense and who fights with wit rather than brawn.  It seems to me though, that the barbarian spinning with his axe would fit well with the effects of this feat.  By putting the balance onto timing you can allow it to be a character's central tactic at the out set.  Here is my proposed alternate version.

 

Whirlwind Attack (Combat)

You can strike out at every foe within reach.

 Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +1

Benefits: Once a day, when you use the full-attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your highest base attack bonus against each opponent within reach.  You must make a separate attack roll against each opponent.  These attacks cannot receive bonuses from other feats, spells or abilities and you may not take any additional attacks grated by feats, spells or special abilities this round.

Special: You may take this feat multiple times, no more than once a level.  If you take this feat twice, you may use it once per Encounter.  If you take this feat three times you may use it at-will.

This version of the feat allows a fighter, or similar class, to use Whirlwind attack straight from the beginning of the game. This gives them full access to the feat one level sooner than they would have otherwise, but it also denies them the benefits of two of their feats.  In this way it balances itself out.  This design also has a narrative advantage, allowing warriors who aren't interested in defensive fighting styles (like the classic raging barbarian) access at a cost.

This will continue two weeks from now when we'll go over how to use D&D4e's rules for role protection and skill challenges in other games.  Next week though I’ll share with you my experience running a Shadowrun game set at a medieval themed restaurant and my recipe for delicious if anachronistic turkey legs.

GMing, like cooking, is all about preparedness

I wanted to take some time today to talk a little about how cooking and gaming relate to each other so you're getting an extra post this week.  One of the things that really got me thinking about starting a blog is noticing the little areas in life where the skills of being a GM and a player relate to the skill of cooking and vise versa.  Some gaming traits have proven useful as I learn to cook, but there is one big way cooking has helped my gaming.  That is the fun little French term 'mise en place'.  

Mise en place literally means 'putting in place' and it is a term that you've probably heard if you watch cooking shows or read books on the subject.  It's the practice of doing as much preparation as you can, before you start cooking. This ensures that once things get started they run smoothly.  It's also a fun phrase to pull out if you want to sound like you know what you're doing (note: it's pronounced me zahn ploss).  

Don't start cooking when things still look like this.

Ahh, much better.

This practice of preparation makes a world of difference for me when I cook.  I'm not a great improvisational cook (someone who can throw a dash of this and a handful of that and end up with something amazing).  If I start to get behind, don't chop something quick enough or forget to shred some cheese, I start to get panicked and the whole thing goes downhill from there.  But if I have a chance to set up my kitchen beforehand, I can make some delicious meals while blithely chatting with my wife and our guests.  I can't stress this enough: if you don't think that you're a good cook, find a recipe and just follow these steps. You'll feel like a pro.  

1. Read the whole recipe before you start
2. Chop up everything that needs to be chopped
3. Measure out every spice, oil and ingredient you need
4. Lay out everything in the order that it's used before you start

If you stay calm and move through the steps, you will successful.  Here's my setup for the Turkey 'Chili'.

Since you're clever, you've probably already figured out how this relates to GMing.  Running a good game is about 70% preparation.  As I said in the game prep entry a couple of weeks ago you want to have as much as you can laid out before you ever sit at the table.  This will help limit your need to invent things on the fly, and drastically reduce panic at the table.   If you already run games this way, you can now use these skills in your cooking.  

If you don't, the next time you run a game try to identify the places where your table falls apart.  When you lose control of the players and things go off the rails you'll find that it is usually caused by some small failure of preparation.  The players lost interest while you were looking up a monster, figuring out an NPC name, or trying to remember what a cubicle farm looks like while they are getting ready to raid an office.  Write down what you learn from these situations and look over your notes a couple of hours before your next game. You soon find things running much more smoothly.