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I've always found DMing much more akin to improv acting than to storytelling or mastering... dungeons.... Ahem. Its sort of been mentioned above, but essentially, never say no, always say "Yes, but". "Yes you can climb the tower, but someone might see you and its fairly hard" "Yes you can beat up the bartender, but the guard might notice" "Sure you can attempt to find an Orc porn store, but you'll have to make a charisma check to not get jumped, its a bad neighborhood" "Yes you can attempt to construct a rudimentary lathe..." is much better than "No the tower is too hard to climb" "No hes an important NPC" "No thats dumb" "No thats not a skill in the skill list" Also, all of the best games have played in, have been incredibly character focused. Plot was a secondary element, the real meat of the gameplay was the interaction between PCs and NPCS, and PCs and PCs. One of the best DMs was incredibly good at this, and his games were great, even if the plot was a little stereotypical. Also don't be afraid to bend the rules. Don't break, but bend. Some of the worst games I've been in have simply been combat encounter followed by combat encounter. An occasional dungeon crawl is fine, but if I want to play a tactical game, I'll play WarHammer/Machine.
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Jun 17, 2009 05:09
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plarp posted:why doesn't the gold dragon finish off the black dragon if he is sufficiently weakened that level 3 PCs can kill him? Indeed. Or if you must go down this route, have the gold dragon give the PCs a magical item (such as an amulet or scroll or some other one shot item) that the PCs can use to weaken the black dragon. The gold dragon can then go off somewhere else, the PCs will feel it's their kill and not the gold dragons. Make it clear that the black dragon will not just let the PCs up and use the item on him, make them work some way to covertly use it on him.
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Jun 18, 2009 05:15
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I'm going to give some unsolicited advice, because that is how I role. I'm currently running ClockWorkJoe's (a.k.a. Ross Payton of Role Playing Public Radio podcast) New World setting. By far, the best setting I have had the privilege to run or play in. As an added bonus, its also free! http://slangdesign.com/rppr/RPPR_New_World_Primer.pdf A quick synopsis would be a new continent has been found, and you are on the first boat over there. My players like it because even at lower levels, they can have a huge effect on the world, and can greatly effect the growing colony. There are tons of great NPCs to interact with, lots of good plot hooks, and adventures to satisfy the hack and slashy, the roleplay nerds, and the kingdom building whatevers. Really a quality piece of work.
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Jul 30, 2009 00:59
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DeclaredYuppie posted:I really loved the setting as well. I'm pretty sure Clockwork Joe mentioned it somewhere, but they're doing another ransom for the second part of the setting. I think they're at ~70% of the ransom reached. If you liked the primer, it might be worth chipping in for the next installment... It's a sourcebook for a goblin ship that shows up at the colony, basically a giant townsized hobbled together massive hulk held together by luck and goblin shaman magic, plus other stuff. I have given my share of the ransom, and hope it gets enough. Just to tie this to GMing, what do you guys think is the "best" setting? Also I'm looking for a good setting/system for a space opera setting
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Jul 30, 2009 18:48
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Give them a moral choice they have to make (with consequences!) where the moral line isn't blackand white. Force them to make bargins with kobolds, an evil race who they could easily kill, but they'd be breaking their word. Make them choose sides between two both good sides who happen to hate each other. Also, if you feel comfortable with your group, try being an NPC whose a little dumb. A captured goblin, a lost child who doesn't know where their home is, etc. Make it cute and stupid, and the plays will hopefully have a natural tendancy to protect whatever it is.
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Aug 3, 2009 22:15
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Christo posted:I have a similar problem with the campaign I'm DMing; my players don't really interact with the NPCs beyond a "give me a quest or fight me" sort of mentality. We're playing through Keep on the Shadowfell right now and last session they met Sir Keegan's ghost/undead body. During the negotiation skill challenge I tried to coax them into giving me more then "I roll diplomacy" by giving a bonus to their rolls if they respond in character but they were still hesitant. After succeeding the challenge the book lists a bunch of information about the keep and Sir Keegan's past that the players can uncover by asking questions ("Who are you?" "What happened?") but they went straight for "Can have your sword?". I know that as DM you should provide what your player's interested in but, I don't know, I just feel like they're missing a lot of cool background stuff by "skipping the cut scenes" Don't give up! Part of the problem your having might stem from the fact that your running a module. Modules are great for certain things, but roleplaying is not one of them, simply because roleplaying ultimatly comes down to the PCs making choices and effecting their situation. Modules, limited by space and the imagination of the writter, simply can't provide enough options. If the players know there choices are limited, they'll react in a limited way, knowing that their choices, as long as they are reasonable, will find them through to a defined end. When I'm a player, my eyes kind of glaze over when we encounter box text. I know I can't do anything about it, so why try. When I run my campaign, usually at lunch the day of, I'll jot down 4 or 5 plot hooks, usually one for each character, so they can feel like a special snowflake, and one or two for the group as a whole. Then the major points I reasonably see hitting for each one. The PCs will pick some up and ignore others. From there it's made up on the spot. Remeber the rule of "Yes, but". If a PC wants to try something, either say OK, or "Yes, but...". Nothing will shut creativity faster than a "No".
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Aug 4, 2009 18:42
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I confirmed something last night I had suspected all along. Pcs love building stuff. Let your Pc's build a fort and run a battle in it. This personalized and makes the fight important to them ("My walls held off the trolls for 3 rounds". "That chokepoint was a sweet idea"). Plus it takes the burden off of you to make interesting terrain. I ran a mass battle last night, letting the Pcs use Jenga blocks to construct a fort. They all had a blast. Pics below http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/41363558@N06/3811523170/
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Aug 11, 2009 15:28
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kerpow posted:If he just wants it for fluff then I wouldn't bother with making mechanics for it. Just role-play it as a baby young pseudodragon that hides when combat occurs.
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Aug 13, 2009 18:10
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What are the other players playing? It's a littlehard to offer advice without knowing who he's interacting with. That said, it's really cool he's playing off type and it's even cooler your encouraging him to do so.
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Aug 17, 2009 03:57
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Kemper Boyd posted:One thing I've never really seen a GM advice section in a book mention: the plot doesn't have to be about the players. I always thought that getting the players caught up in the plots of other people is just as good, as long as the players have a role to play in the plot. I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. The plot should be about the players. Otherwise, its just you telling a story. All the best games I've been in, plot has been secondary to character. A close second mind you, but what the players are doing and how they are fleshing out there character is what is important, not what some NPC is doing. Having the plot not be about the players kills the whole collaborative storytelling part of the game. It makes it about you, and not us.
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Aug 23, 2009 18:45
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quote:Larger plot verse character plot stuff I will concede the point that plot can be external to the players and that story should be the players response to the events of plot. These types of games can be good, and are often great and the stuff of grognard legend. However, and this may be personal opinion, the best games tend to be more character focused. This means interactions with NPCs and inter party interaction. I didn't bring this up before, but this tends to mean the gameplay is more sandboxy. Instead of the DM saying X is happening deal with it, the player says I'd like to make X happen, and the DM let's them go do that with varying degrees of success.
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Aug 24, 2009 12:44
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quote:Dark Heresy I can sympathize with trying to get players to try something new. It's like pulling teeth around here to get people to play something other than 4th or some WoD thing. I think a lot of them were burned when someone tried to run Earthdawn. Christ, that system is bad (the setting is ok though) Has anyone found a successful strategy to introduce people to different systems? I think sm
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Sep 22, 2009 16:12
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projecthalaxy posted:you make good points. I will probably go that route. Also be sure to provide multi level terrain to push people off of. Also fire/acid/spikes to push people into. Or rocks/bookshelves/anvils you can push onto people. 4th edition is much more fun when there is terrain you can use tactically for more damage.
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Dec 17, 2009 01:42
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tendrilsfor20 posted:Monster HPs in the MM1 (and to a lesser extent, MM2) are all hosed up. Reduce Solos by 1/2 and Elites to 2/3 of their listed HP value. All this, but wanted to emphasize the blank room thing. Players will have lots of powers that let them push, pull, and slide enemies all around. Make sure to have things enemies can fall off of, fall into, crash into etc. Also, just ask your players if their interested in that plot hook. That should give you some good feedback.
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Jan 28, 2010 04:54
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I'm a fan of what one Dm at our shop did. He levels as a number with two decimals. So you started at level 1.00, and in the first session you had 3 major and one minor encounter, so now your level 1.35. Kept the fill xp bar feeling with none of the math.
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Jul 31, 2010 14:10
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Yawgmoth posted:Don't stat out NPCs like that, you will likely never need to know how strong Steve the County Clerk is or whatever. nWoD is a really good model for this I think: just make a short paragraph, maybe two if necessary. Just give a description of personality, current motivations/goals, maybe a vice or hobby or something that the players might hook onto or discover, and then a couple things that NPC is good at that they might need to roll. Really you can make thousands of filler NPCs just by making a few archetypes and then altering one or more things about the above writeup to suit the occasion/area. To take it a step further, when your PCs ask for an interaction with a NPC you haven't thought of, if you plan on keeping him around, give each PC a chance to say a single sentence about him. Add your own, and ta-da, a fully fleshed out NPC, with the additional benefit that your players care a little bit about him, because they made him. Slightly different example, but... One time this worked really well for me was when the PCs were camping out in the wilderness. I had them tell a "ghost story" round robin style, with me starting with an opening detail about a monster of some kind. Everyone game the monster some attributes. I ended the story with a heavy handed "Of course, this is only a legend, no one ACTUALLY believes in the X". From then on, the players were on the lookout for it, and when they finally encountered it, it was a very satisfying encounter.
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Aug 7, 2011 15:23
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Maybe select two images in advance of the session. The first one is "This time on" and the other being "Next time on". Use them for establishing mood, theme, setting up cliffhangers, etc.
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Jun 5, 2015 19:55
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