Yup. After they crush your hopes and dreams a few times you become way more flexible. And never do your crying in front of them! There's always break time in the garage behind the car.
"What your players expect out of the game is probably a lot less than you feel compelled to deliver." This is excellent advice to perfectionists like me.
It took me a while to realise how tired my players were from real life, and that they wanted a simple game that they could win for their fantasy experience...
Truly a missed opportunity to explore the "fall" dramatic arc. I've run games where players make these choices and live with the consequences. It gets very "requiem for a dream" very fast but it's a fun ride :)
Those last comments about playing around the actor player's really hit home. In one of my games one of the other players had a very specific goal in mind for his background and must have chatted with the DM about it because a story arch is slowly building just for that one character. Makes you realize how important it is to give your DM knives to work with.
I am blessed to have a group of players that WANT to create characters with interesting stories. There have been times where they've gone completely off the rails from my perspective but it was almost always because I misjudged what their own goal was at that point.
This is why Robert E. Howard is my main inspiration for my campaigns and homebrewed world. In fact, Conan novels and comics resemble much more a traditional D&D session than many D&D official novels.
I went in to this video with the attitude of, "Haha! Silly DMs who think their game is a novel!" Halfway through the video, my attitude changed to, "Oh God, I'm one of those DMs!" Sometimes I forget that my players' primary motivation is to get cool loot and level up, and not listen to me drone on and on about the awesome setting and plot I've created.
@Dungeon Craft There are no words to express how much I enjoy watching your videos on DM tips or how useful I find all the information you give on running the game. An immense thank you to your continued effort good sir.
You are welcome. I appreciate the compliment and will try my best to continue making the best videos I can. Coming up: Campaign update 4 (my personal favorite), a review of "Into the Borderlands" by Goodman Games, crafting an original monster with spare limbs, and an entire month dedicated to clerics. Stay tuned!
lest we forget God in the Bowl where Conan uses cunning and intellect to survive the situation he was in. He really isn't a two dimensional character as most think.
Conan is very cunning, despite his lack of education.. He continually uses his cunning and strength to out-maneuver highly educated wizards. He's not two-dimensional; his adventures are individual, unrelated episodes and he doesn't develop much. He's much like James Bond or Sherlock Holmes--an archetype.
this goes well with the advice of keeping your villains goals broad; work for the detriment of the lower classes, gain undeniable power. I would also advise if you want players to go somewhere give them multiple reasons they would want to, often a mixture of story progression, curiosity an power-gaming.
When ever players do something I really didn't expect I give them my evil smile and chuckle as if I had anticipated them doing that and say "Are you sure you want to do that?" If they look like they're having second thoughts I'll try and convince them that it really is a great idea and do my best impersonation of a grinning Cheshire Cat.
The blade strikes a metal plate Gandolf has under his robes. With a mystical word a glowing chain of blue wraps around the attacking hobbit. Gandolf shakes a finger and says tsk tsk tsk the chain weeks tighter till the hobbits eyes squeeze and pop out of his skull. The surviving characters well be much more in keeping with the program.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Lol was the first thing I'd think of. Ohhhh you little turd trying to screw up my much worked out plot I'll fix your little red wagon you hairy toed little freak. Really like your channel keep up the great vids. You remind me of Eagon off the original Ghost Busters very cool look.
That is absolute bullshit. He had to win an initiative contest and rolled a twenty on a robed mage. This is a disgusting example of God-mode DMing and Railroading.
I concur; if you play Amber or Dread--the story is the thing. I've had Dread players happily die in order to save the party. This advice is very D&D-centric. The narrative driven players tend to play other games.
That’s why I run my games like A Song of Ice & Fire. Larger events are nearly impossible to halt, but the players can do as they wish with what they can affect. I don’t expect them to follow a script I’ve written; instead, we write the story together.
I really enjoyed the video, Professor Dungeon Master, though my players are totally different. They are all about the story and having their characters fall in love, sometimes opening a successful business. I remember as a player one time, my group took over a bar.... by force, and the in game goals very quickly became all about making our bar the best one in the city. I'm also a sucker for having my characters fall in love. It's the best. I got into role playing as a substitution for acting though... so I might be a special case, but I hate leveling up or getting new gear. It bogs me down. I don't like having to relearn my character or how to play her. I just like playing the game. This doesn't mean I don't love combat though. I definitely do, especially as a melee character or a healer. (arcane mages have too much to keep track of) hahaha I think there is a shift happening in the gaming community right now though because of groups like Critical Role. People are seeing how story-centric these games can be.
I constantly remind my players that I don’t write stories, i write problems. They always echo, “and we either solve it or make it worse.” It is so much easier to make a local setting, give a down to earth character prompt, and make a problem that is THEIR problem.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Professor DM. This is why I prefer dungeon adventures. They allow player choice, but within a bounded area that the DM can prepare in reasonable time.
The most fun I’ve had as both a player and DM - encounters that were less than a whole narrative story, but more than hack and slash. We often strove to go beyond simple dungeon crawls for larger narrative plots of one kind or another. those always ended in campaign killers. Simply put, we’d fudge dice roles to fit the narrative and the excitement slowly oozed away. Hands down the most fun we ever had was playing an adventure from Dungeon magazine called Horrors Harvest. Unexpected. Half the party died, which added to the enjoyment. and I say that as a player whose favorite character died an unheroic death.
Good advice! Albeit depressing from the Dm side! Lol being a story focused DM Ivd struggled with this problem a lot with players. The dm needs to have fun as well, and I think when one finds that group that wants to play the game you want to write is when everyone is happy :)
Jim Heru It is a bit painful to see that as a former DM and overall thespian-focused TRPG follower. Thinking on it, I get excited to play D&D’esque games whenever friends who’ve never played pen & paper ask me to potentially run a game, enthusiastically start brainstorming ideas, thinking about the session zero.... and then I watch/listen to the DM videos that say “Players just want gold & gear, don’t care about story, and the DM should just cow-tow to those whims bc players must have fun how they want to have fun”. Then I‘m reminded of the competitive card game atmosphere of my very first D&D group and think, “Maybe I shouldn’t.”
@@holyordersol2668 I totally agree. I guess the key is to weed out players who don't follow the game you want. And don't play with close friends as you can't kick them out the game! Lol.
You have some of the best videos. I used your 3 steps for narrating and it made a huge difference. Thanks for the info. Keep making awesome videos while I share and make you famous!
Good one! I think that a game can be cinematic though but it can't just be DM-driven only of course. Before I moved to Korea, I was in this awesome D&D group in the Fort Knox, Kentucky area for about two years. Besides me, we had a couple of other players who were part "thespian" and enjoyed that aspect. The DM realized this and created recurring NPCs (not just the baddies) that really added a great dimension to the game. We even had a player--our group's "rules lawyer" and I use that term in a positive way--who created this cool spreadsheet. Each row was a PC. The columns were made up of things like race, class but also had things like greatest enemy defeated, moments of heroism, and things like that. Even though he was not one of the thespians, he knew the rules very well and was really into his character. These kinds of things made our game very multi-dimensional and really fun. I am trying to incorporate these kinds of things as a DM but, again, it is only good to do if the players catch on and go with it. Great video! You're like the Matt Colville I never knew about until now!
Thespians can elevate the game to incredible levels. I've played in those multi-dimensional games and they are the pinnacle of the RPG experience. You're lucky to have played in the group. As a DM, you should aspire to emulate that experience, but don't drive yourself nuts. It's rare to find a group like that. I appreciate any Matt Colville comparisons. He's brilliant and I don't speak (or think) that quickly.
"Their characters are superficial and their motivations are superficial. " Yeah, I guess. But what if you asked more of them and have some idea of who they are. Yes have a good time but I have been gaming since white box days and I see and encourage extraordinary groups with where character growth and arcs are the norm not the exception. But, it is their story, not mine. I make a sand box and give them things to struggle against, including themselves and their worst instincts. If they rise above then it is them rising above, but just killing orcs gets old. Murder hobos is boring IMO and most people I play with agree.
Their 'story' should be the adventure and not some preconceived background. Making adventures more dangerous removes the 'hack and slash' play because they can and WILL actually 'lose the game' and die. Plot armor for plot armor sake isn't roleplaying... It's story telling.
Hey, thx for the great video! I don't fully agree on character growth part though. My favourite sessions are when players develope their characters after some major event. For that type of stuff the group admittedly will have to enjoy the roleplay part of P&P aswell though :-)
You are welcome! Thanks for finding this video. It's one of my favorites and I wish I had this advice 20 years ago. Check out DC #68 (out now) and #69, airing tonight!
I love Matt Mercer's "Vestiges of Divergence" for this reason... each artifact becomes an enhanced version of itself once the characters have a milestone breakthrough, which is up to the DM, and he really uses it to encourage their roleplay.
As somebody who writes novels for a living, who plays D&D with mostly stage actors, our sessions can get quite interesting, to say the least. In fact, I think our actors with the most education and experience are the most likely to take the game completely off the rails (gotta have a quick-thinking DM for this group).
My all time personal favorite... I was running a TDE game once and the group came across a book merchant along the road that had information about a way to solve a riddle the party needed later if they just talked to him. One of the players asked me "How many books does this trader have with him and I said like 30, he then asked how many people were with him and I said two. He stabbed the trader in the back and decided to steal his books because books are very valuable in those days. Later in the session, a different character was killed by the electric bolt trap at the obelisk that they would have been able to solve had they not killed that guy.
Read the Aaron Allston (RIP) Player Types section from the Strike Force supplement for Champions (Also copied into the Champions rules book later). It's one of the most insightful pieces on players you can read and take to heart as a GM.
I'm sitting down watching my DVD's of the old Get Smart comedy spy show. Half hour show, quick set up, often starting with action, then a few humourous and or tricky problems and encounters, leading generally to a big fight with a nice five minute resolution at the end. I'm trying to make my DND game like that, more Pithy, small story focused, more clear cut and more fun. I may eventually try to weave more into it, but I'm not starting with some huge conspiracy. Just a small group faced with a problem, a moral dilemma maybe , and see how it goes. If it works out something else pops up.
Gods prof, what players have you been playing with? The PCs are rooted in the world. It is normal for them to care. To risk for NPCs, to fall in love, to struggle and evolve. What kind of player are you if you don't do that? (not all at once, mind you) If you like loot, go play a looty boardgame like gloomhaven or descent. These are good for you.
This video has show me that i want to write a novel, no play roleplaying games. Thank you. I'll save it and watch it every time I want to narrate more than play.
This is gold star, A+ advice for any DM. I think things like Critical Role have seriously ruined expectations for a lot of people new to the hobby with the rise of 5th edition....that show is what it is...a show, not a game. Everything you said is spot on, you are now my DM spirit guide. Keep up the great work!
Thanks so much for the compliment. I like Critical Role. How have they ruined the hobby? Elaborate. I'm curious as to what you think they're doing wrong.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 in fairness they have brought a tremendous amount of people into the hobby, but those new players see CR as what they expect every tabletop game to be and that's not fair to a lot of DM's an potentially new DM's out there. It's a TV show and not at all what most tabletop experiences actually are.
@@thereluctanthireling Thanks for your reply. I'll keep trying to make the best channel I can. No uploads this week (Im prepping for a big game) but there is great stuff coming up.
Conan is not superficial, he's simple, and that's the point. Howard is extolling the honest simplicity of Conan in comparison to the decadence he encounters. Also he's hardly an idiot, see for example his philosophical conversation with Belit in the Queen of the Black Coast. But.. that said I agree with you re: running D&D games, and Hyboria is one of my all time favorite settings.
Thanks for commenting! Did I say he was superficial? I meant to say the STORIES were superficial. Most of them are a variation of "Conan gets captured by smart, arrogant evil wizard and escapes." And I love Conan stories, but they blur.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 .. fair enough. Love your content. Also, plot is over rated, there are really only so many anyway. I think a lot of Howard's middling stories (they all aren't great) can blur. However the memorable ones are quite distinct from one another. In any case, keep up the good work.
Perfect example I was running mines of phandelver for a bunch of teens and they started fighting with each other outside the goblin cave so I had goblins come out to check the ruckus and since they had already immobilized one of the other pc him and another got taken by the goblins and now they have to save dude and 2 of their party members
I remember a tale of a game master who thought it would be a great idea to run a Star Wars game through the A New Hope storyline. Things hadn't gone too terribly sideways, until the bored player of force ghost Obiwan contacted Luke, telling him, "Avenge me, Luke! It was Solo, Luke!" at which point Luke murdered Han, and then an enraged Chewbaca threw Luke through the cockpit window of the Falcon. Also, I noticed a mistake in the video - you misspelled "J. J. Abrams."
5:30 Some players do have that attachment and drive to make a great story, but it will rarely go the way you plan. Maybe Luke would've hesitated but killed his father anyway, or maybe he would've commanded him to kill the emperor, or maybe he would've just given up and ran, or maybe he would've ran at the Emperor with his lightsaber.
I totally agree that you can play D&D like this and even that some DMs have no choice but I've never felt forced to play in this style. Companies like Paizo and even WotC put out whole campaign books and most groups, I think, can play through them despite the fact that these campaigns only work if it is understood that you are not allowed to go completely off the rails and destroy the underlying story. Certainly my group would not undermine the campaign even though I make it clear that, to a significant degree, they are on rails and meant follow it through. If they did then I would step down as DM and none of them are all that keen to be the one that then has to step up. That does not mean that I don't, sometimes have to adjust to what they are doing but I can set ground rules. A big one in my current campaign is "you work for X NPC, she is the quest giver and a source of much of the rewards you are getting - you are free to devise your own reason why you work for her but you may not be attempting to undermine or subvert her intentions - if you do you become an NPC yourself". This is an unusual pill for PCs to swallow (working for an NPC) but I have relatively little trouble from my players. I do try and make at least a significant number of the adventures in my campaign open ended - "your job is to accomplish X and bring me Y and I don't care how you do that" type thing to give the PCs as much agency as possible but my larger point is that you don't actually have to (but you absolutely can) run a completely player driven campaign. The DM can set ground rules and if the players want to play in their game then they need to agree to those ground rules.
Setting framework for actions is acceptable. Lots of games start with a party in front of a dungeon. They have to have a character that has accepted the initial adventure. They are free to act within the bounds of the assumptions. The bounds just need to be clearly defined and accepted. I think the advice still stands though. You’ll be more likely to influence outcomes if you need results to get you to spot c in five sessions. With his advice you only assume the next session. Put all your energy into it and accept that you might have to edit later plans. Having a patron doesn’t break that advice. And his advice adds greater flexibility. If the players start on a path you’re not prepared for the session ends and you prep it. Every session starts with the assumption that the party are motivated to participate. They’re motivated because they choose the action last session. Directions from their patron can be used instead of player decisions. Weave both together to increase player agency and advance towards your goals. Just be open to ideas from the players and have your plans be made out of play dough not stone.
@@jeremymullens7167 I am certainly not arguing against the style of DMing you are suggesting but it does require one of two elements. Either the DM is a master of 'Lazy DMing' - and I am using this as a technical term here to describe a DM who can improvise the adventure on the fly and never miss a beat or the DM has to have a lot of prep time between sessions. For that it helps to be running a simpler system. I am not saying no DM mastered 'Lazy DMing' in 1st edition Pathfinder but I am saying that such a DM is pretty exceptional - especially if his/her players had a tendency toward munchkining and yanking monsters straight out of the various Monster Manuals without extensive vetting had a high potential to be either a blow out or a TPK. 5E is a pretty exceptional system for 'Lazy DMing'. Pathfinder and 4E are much less so. Alternatively you need a DM that has a lot of prep time between sessions. Certainly in my group the players are not going to be at all happy if a session ends well before normal because the DM is not prepared for there actions. I would also shy away from this option because while I often have lots of prep time I don't consistently have prep time between sessions. Sometimes I could find 10 hours and sometimes I have maybe 30 minutes. I think it is a good idea for every DM to be aware of each style of DMing and to be cognoscente of the reason they utilize the style they choose.
I'm of two minds on this one. I agree that you cannot try to railroad players down a specific path, the more you try to force them one way the more they'll push back, or worse just quit because they're not having fun at the table. I will say however that I try to foster an atmosphere of narrative storytelling and character development at my table, and I've gotten feedback that people are really enjoying themselves. I've been playing in other campaigns with these people for 3 years, but I ask them questions about their character's thoughts, feelings, motivations, and attitudes, at least once or twice a session so that they are thinking about those things and not just about how much treasure is waiting for them at the end of the dungeon. I got inspired to do more of this character introspection stuff after listening to Glass Cannon Podcast, and although they're playing Pathfinder, which has far more complex rules and could easily feel more "gamey," they manage to craft interesting and compelling narratives, all while keeping player choices very much intact and at the center of the plot. That said, it makes sense that you've gotta read the room. If people just want to kill stuff and do crazy stunts, roll with it. Pun intended :)
Just recently my characters ended up on the peninsula of chult, and first thing off the boat in Port Narynzaru(?) I gave them the penny tour, rolled out the purple descriptions, and their first response was "How long will it take to restock the ship so we can leave?" So, Nimbral it is, spelljammer might work. Or fish wars. I kind of laughed. Tomb of annihilation slowly gets tucked back into the backpack.
Hi profesor this last friday was mi third time dm'ing and this is what happened to me i got frustrated and dint knew how to continue, but you are rigth thanks for clearing this out now i can continue :)
If a module doesn't interest the players then don't force the module on the players. Be prepared to run overland travel instead, and maybe add a small adveture in there. Alternatively just run another module you have lying around. The players should be free to bypass the frog temple or the vampire castle or whatever.
TL:DR It's worth knowing explicitly what your PC's want and why. I wonder if having players commit to goals and motives, even base motives, and tying rewards to them would kill Murder Hobo syndrome and But-it's-what-my-character-would-do syndrome with the same stone. A simple questionnaire: 1. What does your character desire above all else in the world? 2. Why? 3.What are they absolutely unwilling to do to get it? The problem is getting players to actually commit to these things. They might say something in a fit of creativity or moral uplift that will be easily dashed against their default playstyle unless there's a mechanic that ties into it, potentially tied to XP or inspiration or anti-inspiration (roll at disadvantage to act against your stated goal or motive.) That may or may not be a good idea depending on your group. I may just be reacting to my own assumptions about character motives and which are always nobler than those of my players. Making assumptions about player and character goals and motives is a big part of the DM-as-not-a-very-good-auteur syndrome. Here are the advantages of making goals and motives at character creation: If you know the characters desire power above all things, even as humble hobbits you won't be taken aback when they off Gandalf. You won't even show them the Ring, if you can help it. If you know they desire freedom for the people of Middle Earth, then you have a leg to stand on when they try to off Gandalf so they can have the Ring and you say "roll with disadvantage to work against your own motives. Also, are you sure? Because you know that 1. he's Middle Earth's premiere champion of freedom and 2.The Ring will corrupt you and you'll become forces of oppression and 3. he's going to eat your lunch if he survives this round." Character goals and motives are essential to stories. Conan has goals and motives: take as much as possible so he can slake his lusts. He never grows beyond that; he has no dramatic arc. Those goals and motives are ever-present in his stories, thought, and they drive his behavior. If it's good enough for Conan, it's good enough for D&D characters.
Its not a crime to look at your Ttrpg campaign as a novel.. as Long as you don’t get mad when Gandalf gets stabbed.. I guess. Very good advice as always.
"That is most peoples' Dungeons and Dragons game. Their characters are superficial, and their motivations are superficial. And as a Dungeon Master, it's going to be a lot easier on you if you just embrace it." While I agree completely with the point of this contextual observation, I'm a bit shaken by my own observation that with a not-so-subtle noun substitution here and there, this pretty much describes the present state of civilization 😐
I´m not a Conan scholar or anything, but I would argue the character that stars in the "Phoenix in the Sword" is a much more polished man than tthe one that stars in say "The Frost Giant´s daughter". I think Robert E, Howard envisioned an arc for the character, a domestication of sorts.
"I kill Gandalf." Yeah right. How did that work out for the Balrog, puny Baggins? (btw I love Dork Tower. And Knights of the Dinner Table too, specifically because they always run roughshod over the DM's plans, and every once in a while, he gets a little sweet revenge. Required reading for sure.)
"What your players expect out of the game is probably a lot less than you feel compelled to deliver." - This is absolutely true, but when your players won't tell you any of their expectations or character backgrounds what do you do? For me it's plan out the next session the way I had intended it in my mind because I've had to build the entire game that way, but I don't feel that is appropriate. How do you get a read on tight lipped players?
Upper, middle or lower class? Urban or rural lifestyle? Is there a movie or book character your character is like? If they answer you fit them above. In a medieval setting those two questions cover almost everything. Their class and race cover the rest. If you need to know about family members, ask them. If they say nothing, tell them. The DM can make character backstories. I would just allow player approval. You can also take those things and put them on a random table. Have everyone roll and make backgrounds a surprise to everyone.
You can also test things like in burning wheel. Put different things in peril. Dangle different things in front of the player and see their actions. Put a hard choice in front of the character and see what they choose.
I ran a homebrew campaign/system/setting last night for my normal gaming group, plus nephew and daughter (her first time, his second). After everyone rolled up their characters, she reminded me she wanted to have a pet cat. Okay. We get to the inn, people sit down, i describe the scene, including the inkeeper. I ask: what do you do? Her first action in character was to throw her cat at the inkeeper. She rolls, hits, and they call the city guard to come give her a talking to about disorderly conduct in their town. Right before the action starts, she gets bored and goes to play in the other room. Ahh the challenges of playing RPGs with an ADHD preteen.
Raymond E. Feist who wrote the Magician books and many other based his stories on role playing games that he played and the Thieves guild collections edited by Robert Aspirin were based on Role playing games. As for Conan? he goes from being a thief to a King via pirate mercenary, war chief and many other careers that is growth also Conan is cleverer than the average barbarian and he does have a sense of humour. you may not write an entire novel from D&D or other role playing games however you can use them to inspire you and generate new ideas. in fact the very unpredictability of which you speak might bring up several ideas -- the very one you discuss . Gandalf is killed by the hobbits? perfect opportunity to take Frodo Dark and side with either Saruman or Sauron and to explore what would happen to middle earth if the bad guys won? Writers are only limited by their imagination. if something is unpredictable it avoids the usual cliches
I agree with all your comments. I'd add Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch was also based on an RPG (Star Wars). Dark Frodo WOULD make a great RPG--if the DM felt like running it.
In running my own games, regardless of genre, I have always looked at encounters not as sequential events but rather as individual venues (mini dungeons or what have you) that I can place in front of my PCs no matter what direction they happen to decide to travel (as in the scene from "Yojimbo" where the main character at a crossroad tosses a stick into air and take the path that the stick points toward on landing). This way I can pre-plan all my encounters, avoid all the headaches of 'railroading' the PCs (and hearing the moaning for hours over it) and still have a fast flowing game because I am not caught unprepared because the snotty-nosed lil murder-hobos decided to go left and not right at the twisty fork in the road.
That saps player agency. Why have a cross roads if the choice doesn’t matter? You have the crossroads at the end of the session. With actual consequences tied to it. Ask the players what they’re going to do. And prep the areas you need for the players decision before the next game. I think having a folder of encounters you can pull out is fine but a quantum ogre scenario isn’t optimal. Just have one path. If you need players to do certain things, just tell them. A game can have assumptions. Maybe the players have a patron who gives orders. Anyone who doesn’t follow orders is expelled. No Characters are free to act within the frame work. It’s almost the same as me plopping the party down in front of a dungeon and making up motivations for them to go inside. If a character doesn’t want to explore the dungeon, they leave and live a quiet life in the village. This is about exploring the dungeon. The characters are free to operate within the bounds of the dungeon. No scenario should be forced. Everyone should be in agreement. Not every table is for every person.
In my group, I have 4/5 players who just follow the leads I give them and never really surprise me to the point of breaking the game. and 4/5 (diffrent distrubution) always bring characters with goals and motivations. this allows me to plan really far ahead. At least in terms of knowing the chapters, I planned out our campaign for months to come. I just do the details from session to session. But this way I avoid writers block.
I noticed this quickly with the Dragonlance modules. They were masterpiece's of art, background, large encompassing stories, rich NPCs, etc. and my players hated playing them. Having to play pre-gen PCs was awful as was the fact you had to have like 6 friends or play multiple PCs, or have the DM run them. My players never liked that. If they made up their own PCs, it still felt like a book after the first module as was just too easy to get off the rails. Eventually, we just tried playing in the setting and it was dull. Despite all these 'amazing' modules, we keep going back to Greyhawk -- either modules or our own campaigns. It was far better just picking a random starting location and playing with that than trying to shoehorn players into a pre-written book.
sounds like it was far better for your group. RPGs can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people, tools and guidelines to create a shared experience. I reset videos like there where this guy has decided that his way is the right way, and then swarms of people congratulating him for it. it's sickening.
PIayers hardly ever do what I expect them to do and I LOVE IT when players don't do what I expect them to do! I DM because I love to see the ingenuity of my players and I love to improvise!
Conan starts of as an Anti-Authoritarian loner with trust issues, and ends up as an authoritarian king with trusted companions. Conan does indeed grow. Oh wait, your talking about the OG books, well ok, fine.
I find the random insanity of players very inspiring when weaving the narrative of an adventure. Running for mayor, the magic potato peeler, "robo jesus". One entire campaign was just trying to circle the globe. That may not sound interesting but it was a post apocalyptic setting with some extreme differences between regions.
I disagree. I have been playing D&D for 35+ years. There is only so much dungeon sweep and clear you can put up with. I enjoy the story and role play way more than finding treasure and "leveling up" If the story isn't good, treasury and power will not keep me interested. We'll move on to something else. It's a role playing game. It's not Monopoly.
I agree with your general point but not as extremely as you've put it. I've never had such heartless players that wouldn't care about killing their father lol. Maybe I've had good luck and my friends are just exceptional? Or maybe you haven't set up the narrative well enough for them to be invested in it? You should always combine game payoff with narrative payoff too, whenever possible. Maybe since early in the game, the character has known that their father once hid and buried a powerful magical artifact. Now their father turning out to be the BBEG surprises them, but they know they need to keep their father alive in order to get the information out of him and find where the loot is. Or maybe they kill him anyway because they are a lawful good cleric and don't want the point towards chaotic, and so choose to give up the potential loot. Either way has good narrative payoff supported by game mechanics.
That was really great but sad insight, after I just spent 100 hours mapping the Mega dungeon Barrow Maze with all 459 rooms In dungeon Draft , and found a way to map the surface out doors map of the Barrows, at a 5' resolution using gimp on a equally mega scale of a 2 mile square area.... to explore via Foundry using DCC . The idea here is to game resources at hand as appropriate. And then: lets go back to town and see what trouble we can get involved with there...... Right, so I invite players to this mega opportunity of fun, and they dodge this dungeon? Am I gonna worry about their agency Being compromised after spending all the work to setup a mega dungeon..... Nope, because the players are Mercs, and are locked into taking orders to full fill a contract their mercenary company took on in, 'supporting the recon and excavation of the Barrows to conclusion'....
The Passions mechanic from Runequest does mitigate some of what you are talking about and gets people to do in character actions to some degree but yeah for the most part players are out to beat the game. This is sort of weird though because you can’t beat D&D when the GM is essentially god, but players still have this illusion.
While I do agree, the gm also is a player and their fun is just as important. I once had a player purposedly sabotage my campaign at every opportunity, even went against the rest of the players to pull the story in the opposite direction just to not follow the story. After a couple sessions of this I approached the player politely asking what the fuck man? I was then told I was tying his hands and not giving him all the freedom he wanted. I explained to him that its normal for the world to be filled with hooks that unravel in the background even if the team chooses to ignore them. He then threw a tantrum and "explained" to me that I was doing a shitty job and that his xx years of experience playing dnd blablabla at which point I went: look, the rest of the players aren't happy with the way you "play", as the guy that spends x10 more hours than you on this "shitty" campaign I wish you a happy continuation and you won't have to "feel neutered" any longer. You're out. The guy had been told by previous gms that he was a problematic player before. Says he's a good gm yet nobody wants to play with him. All this to say, sometimes, its not you, its them.
[Paraphrasing] Most players play their PCs with superficial characters and superficial motivations, and the DM should just accept this and embrace it." RIGHT. ON. TARGET. I get enough reality in my reality! I do *NOT* want it in my fantasy. I do *NOT* play AD&D (at least monthly since 1978) to recreate reality and a realistic human being, role playing romantic and familial relationships, and not even to FACE MORAL QUANDRIES. Also, the less I at least realize I'm being railroaded, and the more I at least think I'm in a sandbox, the better.
As a DM, relationships and moral quandaries are story fuel. On the other hand, it's easy to run games for someone who just wants to eat pretzels, drink beer, and kill orcs. The DM needs to know their audience. Come to think of it--that's probably a show!
Because players do the stupidest things... 3rd level thief - I backstab the dinosaur So I gave the dinosaur infinite HP This really happened by the way
5:27 This hurts to think about... personally Its what I want. yet over a decade playing and I just dont get to build this sort of connection with an npc, it doesnt have to be romantical, just caring. Its often already set in stone, or just not going to happen in my experience because theres some big monster or bad guy that needs to be offed first before I can even have a sit down talk with that npc.
While I agree with you that running the campaign like a novel if the dungeon master is so narrow-minded as the only live within the confines of his own novel is a very bad run the campaign. I have always run campaign as a novel but a fluid ever-changing novel. Yeah I have One Direction I'd like them to go in and there are times I have to change what I have to do because they go in a different direction than what I want to do but I still consider it one cohesive story that's kind of writing itself as it goes. I just try to keep the general background themes running about the same such as the world conflict doesn't suddenly changed because of something they do but it may change whether there's ever even a goal at the very end. If that makes any sense :-) I recently spent an entire month setting up an encounter answer one move of one of the characters it completely made that entire encounter pointless. sure they won the encounter but none of what I thought was going to happen happen. So all of my background that I had written for the encounter was useless but I had to move on and I allowed the novel to continue to write itself
I never understood why the one ring was considered such a powerful artifact. It was a ring of invisibility that basically turned its wearer into a crackhead.
I feel kinda sorry for your games, my games are all about role-play, characters have arcs, they have relationships, they have kids, and they embark on world saving adventures.
Dungeon Craft Yes. The problem isn’t that players want their character to be the hero of their story. The problem is that they want their character to be the hero of THE story. They pick classes and spells and feats that don’t fit the campaign, and they create backstories and goals that don’t fit the campaign or mesh with the other characters’. They need to keep some emotional distance from their characters. They should be taking part time n a collaborative story - not an ego trip. But the DM needs to realize that it’s not the characters who are the center of the story, but the players. You’re trying to create characters and storylines that reward and challenge the players, not just the characters.
Dungeon Craft For the same reason I don’t want in-character roleplaying. Aside from the fact that I can’t do it well, and it is so frequently pointless and a waste of time, it just feeds that same ego trip.
Players only interested in gaining levels and "winning" D&D are nowadays considered bad players. They will most likely ruin the game not only for the DM but for the rest of the group as well. Things have changed in recent years and D&D has gotten more and more popular thanks to its roleplaying aspects rather than the ones related to statistics and powerplaying.
I kinda don’t like this mentality. Those players “trying to win” are the types of people that started the game. There is no wrong way to play and those players aren’t ‘bad’. Not every table is for every player though. Even an ‘actor’ can be off putting and unliked. They always hog game time and make every thing about them. Those types of remarks are reductive. Players and DM’s should manage the tables amongst themselves. People should be willing to make reasonable compromises. Someone that sees DnD as a tactical exercise needs to be considerate of others just as much as some who sees DnD as a improv exercise.
The sad thing is be and another player wanted these close bonds with other NPCs yet the DM only wanted the players to RP with each other... All to serve his story And then he's surprised when I tell him I don't care about his story... He took it very negatively but it's the truth. I could've cared but we weren't ALLOWED to grow close to anyone
Very good advice. I've seen a lot of players and DMs making the mistake of putting narrative first in dnd. If they want a game about characters growing, and telling a story as a group there are hundreds of other ttrpgs out there. Dnd is at its core a combat-focused dungeon crawler.
you get around it by explaining the relevants part of the campaign world, providing a framework within which they roll the character and create backstory. Backstory you incorporate and further develop with the the player throughout the campaign.
Im surprised you are actually covering this topic. ... Now, in the campaign I play in, we went against the DM's expectations in the opposite way. Instead of being murderhobos, we try talking first.
Yup. After they crush your hopes and dreams a few times you become way more flexible. And never do your crying in front of them! There's always break time in the garage behind the car.
Lol.
My wife understands this all too well. She doesn't play but she commiserates with me. I love her.
@@GuyTayler I want a marriage like this when I'm older
DM: What is good in life?
Players: To crush your encounters, see the DM driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their NPCs!
DM: ...
Most underrated comment ever.
"What your players expect out of the game is probably a lot less than you feel compelled to deliver."
This is excellent advice to perfectionists like me.
SERIOUSLY THIS
my psicologist says that to me every session...
It took me a while to realise how tired my players were from real life, and that they wanted a simple game that they could win for their fantasy experience...
“OK one of you becomes a ring wraith, the rest become minions of Sauron and you live unhappily ever after. Would you like to try again?”
Truly a missed opportunity to explore the "fall" dramatic arc. I've run games where players make these choices and live with the consequences. It gets very "requiem for a dream" very fast but it's a fun ride :)
Those last comments about playing around the actor player's really hit home. In one of my games one of the other players had a very specific goal in mind for his background and must have chatted with the DM about it because a story arch is slowly building just for that one character. Makes you realize how important it is to give your DM knives to work with.
I am blessed to have a group of players that WANT to create characters with interesting stories. There have been times where they've gone completely off the rails from my perspective but it was almost always because I misjudged what their own goal was at that point.
You are blessed indeed. I'm eventually going to have an episode about when players go off the rails. Stay tuned!
This is why Robert E. Howard is my main inspiration for my campaigns and homebrewed world. In fact, Conan novels and comics resemble much more a traditional D&D session than many D&D official novels.
"By the Sacred Jock-Strap of Robert E Howard, you'll pay for that hellspawn!"....attributed to Thrud The Barbarian. 😂❤
I went in to this video with the attitude of, "Haha! Silly DMs who think their game is a novel!"
Halfway through the video, my attitude changed to, "Oh God, I'm one of those DMs!"
Sometimes I forget that my players' primary motivation is to get cool loot and level up, and not listen to me drone on and on about the awesome setting and plot I've created.
"You ruined everything Ryan Johnson... Everything."
Good job on getting that thumbs up from me.
Great advice! Your channel is one of my favorites
Thank you for your support!
Yes, it's enlightening
@Dungeon Craft There are no words to express how much I enjoy watching your videos on DM tips or how useful I find all the information you give on running the game. An immense thank you to your continued effort good sir.
You are welcome. I appreciate the compliment and will try my best to continue making the best videos I can. Coming up: Campaign update 4 (my personal favorite), a review of "Into the Borderlands" by Goodman Games, crafting an original monster with spare limbs, and an entire month dedicated to clerics. Stay tuned!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I will definitley be watching! 😄
lest we forget God in the Bowl where Conan uses cunning and intellect to survive the situation he was in. He really isn't a two dimensional character as most think.
Conan is very cunning, despite his lack of education.. He continually uses his cunning and strength to out-maneuver highly educated wizards. He's not two-dimensional; his adventures are individual, unrelated episodes and he doesn't develop much. He's much like James Bond or Sherlock Holmes--an archetype.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Exactly, he might not have a high intelligence score, but his player did decide that he didn't want wisdom to be a dump stat.
You're right, he isn't a two-dimensional character, he is a one-dimensional character.
So cunning = character arc?
@@lapidations Knowing Conan since 1991, and having a ton of his comics on my shelves, I can most certainly say: you are wrong.
this goes well with the advice of keeping your villains goals broad; work for the detriment of the lower classes, gain undeniable power.
I would also advise if you want players to go somewhere give them multiple reasons they would want to, often a mixture of story progression, curiosity an power-gaming.
Great comment. You'll see how I do that In January's campaign update.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Well schux thnk you, keep up the good work
Or use the xanatos gambit trope.
When ever players do something I really didn't expect I give them my evil smile and chuckle as if I had anticipated them doing that and say "Are you sure you want to do that?" If they look like they're having second thoughts I'll try and convince them that it really is a great idea and do my best impersonation of a grinning Cheshire Cat.
The blade strikes a metal plate Gandolf has under his robes. With a mystical word a glowing chain of blue wraps around the attacking hobbit.
Gandolf shakes a finger and says tsk tsk tsk the chain weeks tighter till the hobbits eyes squeeze and pop out of his skull. The surviving characters well be much more in keeping with the program.
LOL! Most DMs can't think that fast on their feet. I know I can't!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Lol was the first thing I'd think of. Ohhhh you little turd trying to screw up my much worked out plot I'll fix your little red wagon you hairy toed little freak. Really like your channel keep up the great vids. You remind me of Eagon off the original Ghost Busters very cool look.
# Chris:
Gandalf should have beaten the crap from those hairy bastards.
He should have made drinking chalices from their skulls! Evil Gandalf rules!
That is absolute bullshit. He had to win an initiative contest and rolled a twenty on a robed mage. This is a disgusting example of God-mode DMing and Railroading.
The people who plays narrative driven RPGs would disagree about that, but I understood your point of view and agree with most of it.
I concur; if you play Amber or Dread--the story is the thing. I've had Dread players happily die in order to save the party. This advice is very D&D-centric. The narrative driven players tend to play other games.
Another reason why Session 0's are so important.
That’s why I run my games like A Song of Ice & Fire. Larger events are nearly impossible to halt, but the players can do as they wish with what they can affect. I don’t expect them to follow a script I’ve written; instead, we write the story together.
This is solid advice and does take the pressure off of making an epic story with crazy plot twists
I agree.
I really enjoyed the video, Professor Dungeon Master, though my players are totally different. They are all about the story and having their characters fall in love, sometimes opening a successful business. I remember as a player one time, my group took over a bar.... by force, and the in game goals very quickly became all about making our bar the best one in the city. I'm also a sucker for having my characters fall in love. It's the best. I got into role playing as a substitution for acting though... so I might be a special case, but I hate leveling up or getting new gear. It bogs me down. I don't like having to relearn my character or how to play her. I just like playing the game. This doesn't mean I don't love combat though. I definitely do, especially as a melee character or a healer. (arcane mages have too much to keep track of) hahaha I think there is a shift happening in the gaming community right now though because of groups like Critical Role. People are seeing how story-centric these games can be.
Woohoo! Another Dungeon Craft video! THANK YOU for this. This NEEDS to be said more.
Trying to get them out every week. Send me some ideas for topics, Jim!
I constantly remind my players that I don’t write stories, i write problems. They always echo, “and we either solve it or make it worse.” It is so much easier to make a local setting, give a down to earth character prompt, and make a problem that is THEIR problem.
Thanks for sharing! New Caves of Carnage episode drops next week. Stay tuned!
and thusly their solution. how'll they survive? idk.
Well now I have another thing to be thankful for today. Thanks Professor Dungeon Master.
Thanks so much, Keith. I'm very thankful that people are watching this channel and it has been of use to them!
One of the best RPG Game Master advice videos out there!
Couldn’t agree with you more, Professor DM. This is why I prefer dungeon adventures. They allow player choice, but within a bounded area that the DM can prepare in reasonable time.
YES! They are especially useful for newer GMs, but so many of the kids I play with don't run them. Why?!
solid advice and as Dungeon World says it ...play to find out what happens.
Great quote! Thanks!
The most fun I’ve had as both a player and DM - encounters that were less than a whole narrative story, but more than hack and slash. We often strove to go beyond simple dungeon crawls for larger narrative plots of one kind or another. those always ended in campaign killers. Simply put, we’d fudge dice roles to fit the narrative and the excitement slowly oozed away. Hands down the most fun we ever had was playing an adventure from Dungeon magazine called Horrors Harvest. Unexpected. Half the party died, which added to the enjoyment. and I say that as a player whose favorite character died an unheroic death.
I often get sidetracked by plot twists and hooks. This Is a sobering perspective. As always, thank you for schooling us professor!
You're welcome!
Good advice! Albeit depressing from the Dm side! Lol being a story focused DM Ivd struggled with this problem a lot with players. The dm needs to have fun as well, and I think when one finds that group that wants to play the game you want to write is when everyone is happy :)
Jim Heru
It is a bit painful to see that as a former DM and overall thespian-focused TRPG follower.
Thinking on it, I get excited to play D&D’esque games whenever friends who’ve never played pen & paper ask me to potentially run a game, enthusiastically start brainstorming ideas, thinking about the session zero.... and then I watch/listen to the DM videos that say “Players just want gold & gear, don’t care about story, and the DM should just cow-tow to those whims bc players must have fun how they want to have fun”.
Then I‘m reminded of the competitive card game atmosphere of my very first D&D group and think, “Maybe I shouldn’t.”
@@holyordersol2668 I totally agree. I guess the key is to weed out players who don't follow the game you want. And don't play with close friends as you can't kick them out the game! Lol.
You have some of the best videos. I used your 3 steps for narrating and it made a huge difference. Thanks for the info. Keep making awesome videos while I share and make you famous!
Good one! I think that a game can be cinematic though but it can't just be DM-driven only of course. Before I moved to Korea, I was in this awesome D&D group in the Fort Knox, Kentucky area for about two years. Besides me, we had a couple of other players who were part "thespian" and enjoyed that aspect. The DM realized this and created recurring NPCs (not just the baddies) that really added a great dimension to the game. We even had a player--our group's "rules lawyer" and I use that term in a positive way--who created this cool spreadsheet. Each row was a PC. The columns were made up of things like race, class but also had things like greatest enemy defeated, moments of heroism, and things like that. Even though he was not one of the thespians, he knew the rules very well and was really into his character. These kinds of things made our game very multi-dimensional and really fun. I am trying to incorporate these kinds of things as a DM but, again, it is only good to do if the players catch on and go with it. Great video! You're like the Matt Colville I never knew about until now!
Thespians can elevate the game to incredible levels. I've played in those multi-dimensional games and they are the pinnacle of the RPG experience. You're lucky to have played in the group. As a DM, you should aspire to emulate that experience, but don't drive yourself nuts. It's rare to find a group like that. I appreciate any Matt Colville comparisons. He's brilliant and I don't speak (or think) that quickly.
Among of the best advice I ever found on youtube ! 👍
"Their characters are superficial and their motivations are superficial. " Yeah, I guess. But what if you asked more of them and have some idea of who they are. Yes have a good time but I have been gaming since white box days and I see and encourage extraordinary groups with where character growth and arcs are the norm not the exception. But, it is their story, not mine. I make a sand box and give them things to struggle against, including themselves and their worst instincts. If they rise above then it is them rising above, but just killing orcs gets old. Murder hobos is boring IMO and most people I play with agree.
Their 'story' should be the adventure and not some preconceived background.
Making adventures more dangerous removes the 'hack and slash' play because they can and WILL actually 'lose the game' and die.
Plot armor for plot armor sake isn't roleplaying... It's story telling.
@@swirvinbirds1971 Agreed
Hey, thx for the great video! I don't fully agree on character growth part though. My favourite sessions are when players develope their characters after some major event. For that type of stuff the group admittedly will have to enjoy the roleplay part of P&P aswell though :-)
You are welcome! Thanks for finding this video. It's one of my favorites and I wish I had this advice 20 years ago. Check out DC #68 (out now) and #69, airing tonight!
I love Matt Mercer's "Vestiges of Divergence" for this reason... each artifact becomes an enhanced version of itself once the characters have a milestone breakthrough, which is up to the DM, and he really uses it to encourage their roleplay.
Death Bringer - terror of the free lands and slayer of men
And friend of hobbits
As somebody who writes novels for a living, who plays D&D with mostly stage actors, our sessions can get quite interesting, to say the least. In fact, I think our actors with the most education and experience are the most likely to take the game completely off the rails (gotta have a quick-thinking DM for this group).
My all time personal favorite... I was running a TDE game once and the group came across a book merchant along the road that had information about a way to solve a riddle the party needed later if they just talked to him. One of the players asked me "How many books does this trader have with him and I said like 30, he then asked how many people were with him and I said two. He stabbed the trader in the back and decided to steal his books because books are very valuable in those days. Later in the session, a different character was killed by the electric bolt trap at the obelisk that they would have been able to solve had they not killed that guy.
Lol. Good for them.
Read the Aaron Allston (RIP) Player Types section from the Strike Force supplement for Champions (Also copied into the Champions rules book later). It's one of the most insightful pieces on players you can read and take to heart as a GM.
Kudos for quoting Dork Tower!
I'm sitting down watching my DVD's of the old Get Smart comedy spy show. Half hour show, quick set up, often starting with action, then a few humourous and or tricky problems and encounters, leading generally to a big fight with a nice five minute resolution at the end. I'm trying to make my DND game like that, more Pithy, small story focused, more clear cut and more fun. I may eventually try to weave more into it, but I'm not starting with some huge conspiracy. Just a small group faced with a problem, a moral dilemma maybe , and see how it goes. If it works out something else pops up.
Gods prof, what players have you been playing with? The PCs are rooted in the world. It is normal for them to care. To risk for NPCs, to fall in love, to struggle and evolve.
What kind of player are you if you don't do that? (not all at once, mind you)
If you like loot, go play a looty boardgame like gloomhaven or descent. These are good for you.
This video has show me that i want to write a novel, no play roleplaying games. Thank you. I'll save it and watch it every time I want to narrate more than play.
This is gold star, A+ advice for any DM. I think things like Critical Role have seriously ruined expectations for a lot of people new to the hobby with the rise of 5th edition....that show is what it is...a show, not a game. Everything you said is spot on, you are now my DM spirit guide. Keep up the great work!
Thanks so much for the compliment. I like Critical Role. How have they ruined the hobby? Elaborate. I'm curious as to what you think they're doing wrong.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 in fairness they have brought a tremendous amount of people into the hobby, but those new players see CR as what they expect every tabletop game to be and that's not fair to a lot of DM's an potentially new DM's out there. It's a TV show and not at all what most tabletop experiences actually are.
@@thereluctanthireling Thanks for your reply. I'll keep trying to make the best channel I can. No uploads this week (Im prepping for a big game) but there is great stuff coming up.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 no worries, been spamming watch your entire play list, great stuff!
Conan is not superficial, he's simple, and that's the point. Howard is extolling the honest simplicity of Conan in comparison to the decadence he encounters. Also he's hardly an idiot, see for example his philosophical conversation with Belit in the Queen of the Black Coast. But.. that said I agree with you re: running D&D games, and Hyboria is one of my all time favorite settings.
Thanks for commenting! Did I say he was superficial? I meant to say the STORIES were superficial. Most of them are a variation of "Conan gets captured by smart, arrogant evil wizard and escapes." And I love Conan stories, but they blur.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 .. fair enough. Love your content. Also, plot is over rated, there are really only so many anyway. I think a lot of Howard's middling stories (they all aren't great) can blur. However the memorable ones are quite distinct from one another. In any case, keep up the good work.
@@grailcountry Plot IS over-rated. Hey--that sounds like an episode!
Perfect example I was running mines of phandelver for a bunch of teens and they started fighting with each other outside the goblin cave so I had goblins come out to check the ruckus and since they had already immobilized one of the other pc him and another got taken by the goblins and now they have to save dude and 2 of their party members
I remember a tale of a game master who thought it would be a great idea to run a Star Wars game through the A New Hope storyline. Things hadn't gone too terribly sideways, until the bored player of force ghost Obiwan contacted Luke, telling him, "Avenge me, Luke! It was Solo, Luke!" at which point Luke murdered Han, and then an enraged Chewbaca threw Luke through the cockpit window of the Falcon.
Also, I noticed a mistake in the video - you misspelled "J. J. Abrams."
5:30 Some players do have that attachment and drive to make a great story, but it will rarely go the way you plan. Maybe Luke would've hesitated but killed his father anyway, or maybe he would've commanded him to kill the emperor, or maybe he would've just given up and ran, or maybe he would've ran at the Emperor with his lightsaber.
You do a really great job, PDM. Keep it up.
I totally agree that you can play D&D like this and even that some DMs have no choice but I've never felt forced to play in this style. Companies like Paizo and even WotC put out whole campaign books and most groups, I think, can play through them despite the fact that these campaigns only work if it is understood that you are not allowed to go completely off the rails and destroy the underlying story.
Certainly my group would not undermine the campaign even though I make it clear that, to a significant degree, they are on rails and meant follow it through. If they did then I would step down as DM and none of them are all that keen to be the one that then has to step up. That does not mean that I don't, sometimes have to adjust to what they are doing but I can set ground rules. A big one in my current campaign is "you work for X NPC, she is the quest giver and a source of much of the rewards you are getting - you are free to devise your own reason why you work for her but you may not be attempting to undermine or subvert her intentions - if you do you become an NPC yourself". This is an unusual pill for PCs to swallow (working for an NPC) but I have relatively little trouble from my players.
I do try and make at least a significant number of the adventures in my campaign open ended - "your job is to accomplish X and bring me Y and I don't care how you do that" type thing to give the PCs as much agency as possible but my larger point is that you don't actually have to (but you absolutely can) run a completely player driven campaign. The DM can set ground rules and if the players want to play in their game then they need to agree to those ground rules.
Setting framework for actions is acceptable.
Lots of games start with a party in front of a dungeon. They have to have a character that has accepted the initial adventure. They are free to act within the bounds of the assumptions.
The bounds just need to be clearly defined and accepted.
I think the advice still stands though. You’ll be more likely to influence outcomes if you need results to get you to spot c in five sessions.
With his advice you only assume the next session. Put all your energy into it and accept that you might have to edit later plans.
Having a patron doesn’t break that advice. And his advice adds greater flexibility.
If the players start on a path you’re not prepared for the session ends and you prep it.
Every session starts with the assumption that the party are motivated to participate. They’re motivated because they choose the action last session.
Directions from their patron can be used instead of player decisions.
Weave both together to increase player agency and advance towards your goals.
Just be open to ideas from the players and have your plans be made out of play dough not stone.
@@jeremymullens7167 I am certainly not arguing against the style of DMing you are suggesting but it does require one of two elements.
Either the DM is a master of 'Lazy DMing' - and I am using this as a technical term here to describe a DM who can improvise the adventure on the fly and never miss a beat or the DM has to have a lot of prep time between sessions. For that it helps to be running a simpler system. I am not saying no DM mastered 'Lazy DMing' in 1st edition Pathfinder but I am saying that such a DM is pretty exceptional - especially if his/her players had a tendency toward munchkining and yanking monsters straight out of the various Monster Manuals without extensive vetting had a high potential to be either a blow out or a TPK. 5E is a pretty exceptional system for 'Lazy DMing'. Pathfinder and 4E are much less so.
Alternatively you need a DM that has a lot of prep time between sessions. Certainly in my group the players are not going to be at all happy if a session ends well before normal because the DM is not prepared for there actions. I would also shy away from this option because while I often have lots of prep time I don't consistently have prep time between sessions. Sometimes I could find 10 hours and sometimes I have maybe 30 minutes.
I think it is a good idea for every DM to be aware of each style of DMing and to be cognoscente of the reason they utilize the style they choose.
I'm of two minds on this one. I agree that you cannot try to railroad players down a specific path, the more you try to force them one way the more they'll push back, or worse just quit because they're not having fun at the table. I will say however that I try to foster an atmosphere of narrative storytelling and character development at my table, and I've gotten feedback that people are really enjoying themselves. I've been playing in other campaigns with these people for 3 years, but I ask them questions about their character's thoughts, feelings, motivations, and attitudes, at least once or twice a session so that they are thinking about those things and not just about how much treasure is waiting for them at the end of the dungeon. I got inspired to do more of this character introspection stuff after listening to Glass Cannon Podcast, and although they're playing Pathfinder, which has far more complex rules and could easily feel more "gamey," they manage to craft interesting and compelling narratives, all while keeping player choices very much intact and at the center of the plot.
That said, it makes sense that you've gotta read the room. If people just want to kill stuff and do crazy stunts, roll with it. Pun intended :)
Just recently my characters ended up on the peninsula of chult, and first thing off the boat in Port Narynzaru(?) I gave them the penny tour, rolled out the purple descriptions, and their first response was "How long will it take to restock the ship so we can leave?" So, Nimbral it is, spelljammer might work. Or fish wars. I kind of laughed. Tomb of annihilation slowly gets tucked back into the backpack.
You should do a video about why "Your novel is not a RPG campaign".
That's a pretty good idea.
Hi profesor this last friday was mi third time dm'ing and this is what happened to me i got frustrated and dint knew how to continue, but you are rigth thanks for clearing this out now i can continue :)
Great video! Solid advice as always, sir!
Lots of sound advice. Great video.
If a module doesn't interest the players then don't force the module on the players.
Be prepared to run overland travel instead, and maybe add a small adveture in there.
Alternatively just run another module you have lying around.
The players should be free to bypass the frog temple or the vampire castle or whatever.
Great advice 💘 I love this channel!
TL:DR It's worth knowing explicitly what your PC's want and why.
I wonder if having players commit to goals and motives, even base motives, and tying rewards to them would kill Murder Hobo syndrome and But-it's-what-my-character-would-do syndrome with the same stone. A simple questionnaire: 1. What does your character desire above all else in the world? 2. Why? 3.What are they absolutely unwilling to do to get it? The problem is getting players to actually commit to these things. They might say something in a fit of creativity or moral uplift that will be easily dashed against their default playstyle unless there's a mechanic that ties into it, potentially tied to XP or inspiration or anti-inspiration (roll at disadvantage to act against your stated goal or motive.) That may or may not be a good idea depending on your group. I may just be reacting to my own assumptions about character motives and which are always nobler than those of my players. Making assumptions about player and character goals and motives is a big part of the DM-as-not-a-very-good-auteur syndrome. Here are the advantages of making goals and motives at character creation: If you know the characters desire power above all things, even as humble hobbits you won't be taken aback when they off Gandalf. You won't even show them the Ring, if you can help it. If you know they desire freedom for the people of Middle Earth, then you have a leg to stand on when they try to off Gandalf so they can have the Ring and you say "roll with disadvantage to work against your own motives. Also, are you sure? Because you know that 1. he's Middle Earth's premiere champion of freedom and 2.The Ring will corrupt you and you'll become forces of oppression and 3. he's going to eat your lunch if he survives this round." Character goals and motives are essential to stories. Conan has goals and motives: take as much as possible so he can slake his lusts. He never grows beyond that; he has no dramatic arc. Those goals and motives are ever-present in his stories, thought, and they drive his behavior. If it's good enough for Conan, it's good enough for D&D characters.
Its not a crime to look at your Ttrpg campaign as a novel.. as Long as you don’t get mad when Gandalf gets stabbed.. I guess.
Very good advice as always.
Thanks for commenting!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 hail to the algorithm!
Buying dork tower. Thanks for the recommendation!
"That is most peoples' Dungeons and Dragons game. Their characters are superficial, and their motivations are superficial. And as a Dungeon Master, it's going to be a lot easier on you if you just embrace it." While I agree completely with the point of this contextual observation, I'm a bit shaken by my own observation that with a not-so-subtle noun substitution here and there, this pretty much describes the present state of civilization 😐
I´m not a Conan scholar or anything, but I would argue the character that stars in the "Phoenix in the Sword" is a much more polished man than tthe one that stars in say "The Frost Giant´s daughter". I think Robert E, Howard envisioned an arc for the character, a domestication of sorts.
"I kill Gandalf."
Yeah right. How did that work out for the Balrog, puny Baggins?
(btw I love Dork Tower. And Knights of the Dinner Table too, specifically because they always run roughshod over the DM's plans, and every once in a while, he gets a little sweet revenge. Required reading for sure.)
Indeed.
"What your players expect out of the game is probably a lot less than you feel compelled to deliver." - This is absolutely true, but when your players won't tell you any of their expectations or character backgrounds what do you do? For me it's plan out the next session the way I had intended it in my mind because I've had to build the entire game that way, but I don't feel that is appropriate. How do you get a read on tight lipped players?
Upper, middle or lower class?
Urban or rural lifestyle?
Is there a movie or book character your character is like? If they answer you fit them above.
In a medieval setting those two questions cover almost everything. Their class and race cover the rest.
If you need to know about family members, ask them. If they say nothing, tell them.
The DM can make character backstories. I would just allow player approval.
You can also take those things and put them on a random table. Have everyone roll and make backgrounds a surprise to everyone.
You can also test things like in burning wheel. Put different things in peril. Dangle different things in front of the player and see their actions.
Put a hard choice in front of the character and see what they choose.
Enjoyed the video, loved the comment about the good star wars movies. we can now be friends.
May the Force of episodes 4,5,6 be with you!
I ran a homebrew campaign/system/setting last night for my normal gaming group, plus nephew and daughter (her first time, his second). After everyone rolled up their characters, she reminded me she wanted to have a pet cat. Okay. We get to the inn, people sit down, i describe the scene, including the inkeeper. I ask: what do you do?
Her first action in character was to throw her cat at the inkeeper. She rolls, hits, and they call the city guard to come give her a talking to about disorderly conduct in their town. Right before the action starts, she gets bored and goes to play in the other room.
Ahh the challenges of playing RPGs with an ADHD preteen.
95% would kill Gandalf and keep the ring?! Really?!
I know. It's more like 99%. At least mine would!
Only 5% would crit though!
Raymond E. Feist who wrote the Magician books and many other based his stories on role playing games that he played and the Thieves guild collections edited by Robert Aspirin were based on Role playing games. As for Conan? he goes from being a thief to a King via pirate mercenary, war chief and many other careers that is growth also Conan is cleverer than the average barbarian and he does have a sense of humour. you may not write an entire novel from D&D or other role playing games however you can use them to inspire you and generate new ideas. in fact the very unpredictability of which you speak might bring up several ideas -- the very one you discuss . Gandalf is killed by the hobbits? perfect opportunity to take Frodo Dark and side with either Saruman or Sauron and to explore what would happen to middle earth if the bad guys won? Writers are only limited by their imagination. if something is unpredictable it avoids the usual cliches
I agree with all your comments. I'd add Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch was also based on an RPG (Star Wars). Dark Frodo WOULD make a great RPG--if the DM felt like running it.
In running my own games, regardless of genre, I have always looked at encounters not as sequential events but rather as individual venues (mini dungeons or what have you) that I can place in front of my PCs no matter what direction they happen to decide to travel (as in the scene from "Yojimbo" where the main character at a crossroad tosses a stick into air and take the path that the stick points toward on landing). This way I can pre-plan all my encounters, avoid all the headaches of 'railroading' the PCs (and hearing the moaning for hours over it) and still have a fast flowing game because I am not caught unprepared because the snotty-nosed lil murder-hobos decided to go left and not right at the twisty fork in the road.
Solid advice!!
That saps player agency. Why have a cross roads if the choice doesn’t matter?
You have the crossroads at the end of the session. With actual consequences tied to it. Ask the players what they’re going to do. And prep the areas you need for the players decision before the next game.
I think having a folder of encounters you can pull out is fine but a quantum ogre scenario isn’t optimal. Just have one path.
If you need players to do certain things, just tell them. A game can have assumptions. Maybe the players have a patron who gives orders. Anyone who doesn’t follow orders is expelled. No Characters are free to act within the frame work.
It’s almost the same as me plopping the party down in front of a dungeon and making up motivations for them to go inside. If a character doesn’t want to explore the dungeon, they leave and live a quiet life in the village. This is about exploring the dungeon. The characters are free to operate within the bounds of the dungeon.
No scenario should be forced. Everyone should be in agreement.
Not every table is for every person.
In my group, I have 4/5 players who just follow the leads I give them and never really surprise me to the point of breaking the game. and 4/5 (diffrent distrubution) always bring characters with goals and motivations. this allows me to plan really far ahead. At least in terms of knowing the chapters, I planned out our campaign for months to come. I just do the details from session to session. But this way I avoid writers block.
I noticed this quickly with the Dragonlance modules. They were masterpiece's of art, background, large encompassing stories, rich NPCs, etc. and my players hated playing them. Having to play pre-gen PCs was awful as was the fact you had to have like 6 friends or play multiple PCs, or have the DM run them. My players never liked that. If they made up their own PCs, it still felt like a book after the first module as was just too easy to get off the rails. Eventually, we just tried playing in the setting and it was dull.
Despite all these 'amazing' modules, we keep going back to Greyhawk -- either modules or our own campaigns. It was far better just picking a random starting location and playing with that than trying to shoehorn players into a pre-written book.
sounds like it was far better for your group. RPGs can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people, tools and guidelines to create a shared experience. I reset videos like there where this guy has decided that his way is the right way, and then swarms of people congratulating him for it. it's sickening.
So true Prof. So true...
Very very good advice :-)
PIayers hardly ever do what I expect them to do and I LOVE IT when players don't do what I expect them to do! I DM because I love to see the ingenuity of my players and I love to improvise!
Conan starts of as an Anti-Authoritarian loner with trust issues, and ends up as an authoritarian king with trusted companions. Conan does indeed grow. Oh wait, your talking about the OG books, well ok, fine.
I find the random insanity of players very inspiring when weaving the narrative of an adventure. Running for mayor, the magic potato peeler, "robo jesus". One entire campaign was just trying to circle the globe. That may not sound interesting but it was a post apocalyptic setting with some extreme differences between regions.
I disagree. I have been playing D&D for 35+ years. There is only so much dungeon sweep and clear you can put up with. I enjoy the story and role play way more than finding treasure and "leveling up" If the story isn't good, treasury and power will not keep me interested. We'll move on to something else. It's a role playing game. It's not Monopoly.
My wish is to have more players like your line of thought.
I agree with your general point but not as extremely as you've put it. I've never had such heartless players that wouldn't care about killing their father lol. Maybe I've had good luck and my friends are just exceptional? Or maybe you haven't set up the narrative well enough for them to be invested in it? You should always combine game payoff with narrative payoff too, whenever possible. Maybe since early in the game, the character has known that their father once hid and buried a powerful magical artifact. Now their father turning out to be the BBEG surprises them, but they know they need to keep their father alive in order to get the information out of him and find where the loot is. Or maybe they kill him anyway because they are a lawful good cleric and don't want the point towards chaotic, and so choose to give up the potential loot. Either way has good narrative payoff supported by game mechanics.
Great stuff! Makes perfect sense
Happy Thanksgiving PDM!!!
You as well!
That was really great but sad insight, after I just spent 100 hours mapping the Mega dungeon Barrow Maze with all 459 rooms In dungeon Draft , and found a way to map the surface out doors map of the Barrows, at a 5' resolution using gimp on a equally mega scale of a 2 mile square area.... to explore via Foundry using DCC . The idea here is to game resources at hand as appropriate.
And then: lets go back to town and see what trouble we can get involved with there......
Right, so I invite players to this mega opportunity of fun, and they dodge this dungeon? Am I gonna worry about their agency Being compromised after spending all the work to setup a mega dungeon.....
Nope, because the players are Mercs, and are locked into taking orders to full fill a contract their mercenary company took on in, 'supporting the recon and excavation of the Barrows to conclusion'....
The Passions mechanic from Runequest does mitigate some of what you are talking about and gets people to do in character actions to some degree but yeah for the most part players are out to beat the game. This is sort of weird though because you can’t beat D&D when the GM is essentially god, but players still have this illusion.
While I do agree, the gm also is a player and their fun is just as important. I once had a player purposedly sabotage my campaign at every opportunity, even went against the rest of the players to pull the story in the opposite direction just to not follow the story. After a couple sessions of this I approached the player politely asking what the fuck man? I was then told I was tying his hands and not giving him all the freedom he wanted. I explained to him that its normal for the world to be filled with hooks that unravel in the background even if the team chooses to ignore them. He then threw a tantrum and "explained" to me that I was doing a shitty job and that his xx years of experience playing dnd blablabla at which point I went: look, the rest of the players aren't happy with the way you "play", as the guy that spends x10 more hours than you on this "shitty" campaign I wish you a happy continuation and you won't have to "feel neutered" any longer. You're out.
The guy had been told by previous gms that he was a problematic player before. Says he's a good gm yet nobody wants to play with him.
All this to say, sometimes, its not you, its them.
[Paraphrasing] Most players play their PCs with superficial characters and superficial motivations, and the DM should just accept this and embrace it."
RIGHT. ON. TARGET.
I get enough reality in my reality! I do *NOT* want it in my fantasy.
I do *NOT* play AD&D (at least monthly since 1978) to recreate reality and a realistic human being, role playing romantic and familial relationships, and not even to FACE MORAL QUANDRIES. Also, the less I at least realize I'm being railroaded, and the more I at least think I'm in a sandbox, the better.
As a DM, relationships and moral quandaries are story fuel. On the other hand, it's easy to run games for someone who just wants to eat pretzels, drink beer, and kill orcs. The DM needs to know their audience. Come to think of it--that's probably a show!
Thank You, I needed that.
Because players do the stupidest things...
3rd level thief - I backstab the dinosaur
So I gave the dinosaur infinite HP
This really happened by the way
5:27 This hurts to think about... personally Its what I want. yet over a decade playing and I just dont get to build this sort of connection with an npc, it doesnt have to be romantical, just caring. Its often already set in stone, or just not going to happen in my experience because theres some big monster or bad guy that needs to be offed first before I can even have a sit down talk with that npc.
While I agree with you that running the campaign like a novel if the dungeon master is so narrow-minded as the only live within the confines of his own novel is a very bad run the campaign. I have always run campaign as a novel but a fluid ever-changing novel. Yeah I have One Direction I'd like them to go in and there are times I have to change what I have to do because they go in a different direction than what I want to do but I still consider it one cohesive story that's kind of writing itself as it goes. I just try to keep the general background themes running about the same such as the world conflict doesn't suddenly changed because of something they do but it may change whether there's ever even a goal at the very end. If that makes any sense :-) I recently spent an entire month setting up an encounter answer one move of one of the characters it completely made that entire encounter pointless. sure they won the encounter but none of what I thought was going to happen happen. So all of my background that I had written for the encounter was useless but I had to move on and I allowed the novel to continue to write itself
I never understood why the one ring was considered such a powerful artifact. It was a ring of invisibility that basically turned its wearer into a crackhead.
only in the hands of a hobbit my friend...only in the hands of a hobbit
I feel kinda sorry for your games, my games are all about role-play, characters have arcs, they have relationships, they have kids, and they embark on world saving adventures.
Mine do to. I just don't plan it all out in advance. The players have the agency. Cheers!
My characters have arcs, also. The arcs are short and usually end in a bloody way.
Why DMs should create the characters - and talk to the players to see what their goals are
Not following. You think DMs should create the characters?
Dungeon Craft Yes. The problem isn’t that players want their character to be the hero of their story. The problem is that they want their character to be the hero of THE story. They pick classes and spells and feats that don’t fit the campaign, and they create backstories and goals that don’t fit the campaign or mesh with the other characters’. They need to keep some emotional distance from their characters. They should be taking part time n a collaborative story - not an ego trip. But the DM needs to realize that it’s not the characters who are the center of the story, but the players. You’re trying to create characters and storylines that reward and challenge the players, not just the characters.
Dungeon Craft For the same reason I don’t want in-character roleplaying. Aside from the fact that I can’t do it well, and it is so frequently pointless and a waste of time, it just feeds that same ego trip.
Sell the Helmet!?!?! That armour is probably super useful. Improve your armour class by 4 or 5 points. I think he can breath with it under water.
The good ones 4,5,6 😃
Players only interested in gaining levels and "winning" D&D are nowadays considered bad players. They will most likely ruin the game not only for the DM but for the rest of the group as well. Things have changed in recent years and D&D has gotten more and more popular thanks to its roleplaying aspects rather than the ones related to statistics and powerplaying.
I kinda don’t like this mentality. Those players “trying to win” are the types of people that started the game. There is no wrong way to play and those players aren’t ‘bad’.
Not every table is for every player though. Even an ‘actor’ can be off putting and unliked. They always hog game time and make every thing about them.
Those types of remarks are reductive. Players and DM’s should manage the tables amongst themselves. People should be willing to make reasonable compromises.
Someone that sees DnD as a tactical exercise needs to be considerate of others just as much as some who sees DnD as a improv exercise.
The sad thing is be and another player wanted these close bonds with other NPCs yet the DM only wanted the players to RP with each other... All to serve his story
And then he's surprised when I tell him I don't care about his story... He took it very negatively but it's the truth. I could've cared but we weren't ALLOWED to grow close to anyone
Very good advice. I've seen a lot of players and DMs making the mistake of putting narrative first in dnd. If they want a game about characters growing, and telling a story as a group there are hundreds of other ttrpgs out there. Dnd is at its core a combat-focused dungeon crawler.
Quality advice :)
you get around it by explaining the relevants part of the campaign world, providing a framework within which they roll the character and create backstory. Backstory you incorporate and further develop with the the player throughout the campaign.
If all our rolls were 20s, the campaign would be painfully boring....
The Rian part earned a like and a sub from me
Im surprised you are actually covering this topic.
...
Now, in the campaign I play in, we went against the DM's expectations in the opposite way. Instead of being murderhobos, we try talking first.
Either way, the players are always in the driver's seat. Thanks for watching!