James has been watching movies. Specifically he's been thinking about what Kurosawa, Spielberg, Hitchcock, Sergio Leone, and Guy Ritchie figured out about storytelling — and whether any of it works at a TTRPG table. Spoiler: all of it does.

What We Get Into:

- Chekhov's Gun: put the rifle in act one, fire it by act three — and why not doing it is secretly training your players to stop paying attention to your world

- The Ticking Clock: Hitchcock's bomb under the table. Chuckie's live demo of running both sides of the clock simultaneously — the players prepping, the villain also prepping, tension building on both tracks

- The Delayed Reveal: the Jaws technique. The animatronic shark kept breaking so Spielberg shot a fin in the water. Your players' imaginations are scarier than your description.

- The Calm Before The Storm: James performs it live — dust settling on a battlefield, a beam of light through the clouds, one breath. Then hit them.

- The Rule Of Three: introduce, reinforce, pay off. Why the third beat is where the magic lives.

- False Victory: the Irish goodbye of horror — just when they think they've made it, one more hit. Use it once. Never twice.

- The Unreliable Narrator: one player is drinking sludge from a rusty can, completely convinced it's a glass of water. The other player just failed their sanity check.

FIND US!

Check out Chuckie’s Actual Plays at Savage Sessions on Spotify and Youtube

• Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/GoodGMsPodcast
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoodGMsPodcast
• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/goodgmspodcast
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61584454320344
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodgmspod/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@good.gms.podcast