It helps if you write some kind of script to follow. Not word for word, but the general ideas. I'm excellent at public speaking, but not so much at improvising (working on that).
metagaming as a dm 01:00 too much info about historic details 06:53 u need to know how to adjust your playstyle according to your group size and what is your favorite group size 11:00 putting a player to a pedestral 15:00 adapt vs invent 17:14
I mix Adapting with Inventing. Mainly because my players DON'T take interest in what I put forward. I describe whispers of dragons amongst the populace, nope... But that Gnome horse merchant? They want to know more about her! Now I need to invent a name, backstory, and even give her a quest that ties into the plot I want to lead but not FORCE them back onto. The moments they seem to like best and remember most dearly ARE the moments I had to wing it. I found the trick with winging it is... never be wrong. "Wait, the villain went and kidnapped her in broad daylight? Isn't he a vampire!?" to which I stroke my chin, lean back in my seat, and lay a hand across my chest and say "Yes, that is interesting isn't it?". Roll with your mistakes, make them apart of the world and story.
Mega Mawile I agree, I have to invent a lot with my group, also because they don’t care much at all about following a story, they like the npcs and the action. They are addicted to my game, so I can’t really just change it based on principles
you have to take notes though. Like when people do interesting things, you always have to take notes. In mine, the party just put expensive drugs forward as seed money for a bar for hooligans. I have to remember that people actually want a bar there and that the party has a stake of 3% of profits.
Two weeks ago I GMed my first ever game and of course I made mistakes but I really enjoyed playing those mistakes off as character quirks and overlapping plot points. The fact that it's a brand new system that's still changing every few months makes it hard to be super familiar with all the mechanics, even for someone who's been playing it since alpha testing.
Mega Mawile That’s awesome! “Yes, that’s interesting, isn’t it?” I am SO stealing that!! I wing a lot of the details, but plan large story arcs. I also think thru key points for each scenario per game, to make sure I have just enough details for the key location, a key NPC, and a couple of minions or critters to fight. That said, I agree, notes from each game are critical!! Prior campaign I ran for more than a year, I did everything!! I even wrote up each night’s game afterwards, including critical dialogue (!) & sent these to the players each week. It was crazy! As it progressed I realized it could become a script for a book I wanted to write, so I kept it up. Aaaaand, a few years later, that PC died hard & it was all lost. Now, I have a mysterious Benefactor who pays in gold & trades in knowledge for every logbook each char returns!!! I reward the chars who send me actual notes from each game!! They’re learning. ;-)
Late I know but I like to think that the NPCs have different information than what it entirely the truth. I've done it in my games and it has worked flawlessly every single time.
i once had a gm, who wanted us to jump through a portal, i outright refused, as i knew it would be a trap. He then had 1 npc jump through, and assured me irl that it was safe. I begrudgingly jumped through, before he laughed at how stupid we were for jumping through, as it was obviously a trap.
flint9 My fucking god, that's lying! I even make sure, that when players theorize about something I accidentaly forgot, about some plot hole, I make sure to fix it. "Hm, he doesn't seem to be affected by the curse" "(Oh shit) That's because he's a double agent!"
i promise you this is a true story, and although he has improved, he has done some things worse after this one. Also, what do you mean about theorising about stuff he forgot? When did I do that in this story?
@@flint9759 He's saying that the GM lied about how the NPC was safe when jumping through, and how he (PhilSwitch) tries to fix inconsistencies like that with plot twists or added story elements
A mistake I made in the earlier days of DMing is not properly describing rooms, areas, NPC's etc. I always imagined it in my head, but forgot to translate my thoughts to my players. When I started to implement things like scent and temperature my players RP'd a lot more, because they felt like they were in that very space. (edit) I learned a lot from watching Matt Mercer describing situations. He describes everything in the smallest detail so you can see it clearly in your mind. Also what I picked up from him is to act the combat. So instead of "you do 8 damage." stand up and act as if you got hit by an axe and look angry at the player who hit the npc.
To be honest, sometimes I forget objects in the room, but almost never the mood, the scents, the lights or temperature of it... Same problem, but in reverse, I guess :P
Chrysanthus in the very beginning my party arrived at a town and I said "the road is made out of dirt" that's it. So yeah, it was worse than forgetting objects and mood haha
If there are NPC's around, describing their apparent moods works perfectly. Some examples: "Somber, silent and serious robed figures are sitting around a simple wooden table, with maps and ancient looking books which smell of dust, with the poor light of the candles reflecting shadows all around, their faces pale and full of worry. You see some of them with their hands trembling in fear..." "As you open the door, people are singing and dancing at the tavern, saluting the party even before seeing who you even are, laughing and cheering!" That kind of thing. When there is no NPCs, just say things like you actually are affected by the mood. If the room is mysterious, make a mysterious voice, and so on.
Yesterday my players asked me about the changes in my style. I initially thought they were unhappy and said "im just trying out some advice from another more experienced person". It turns out they were actually enjoying the benefits of said changes not only in terms of being less unfairly treated by extreme outcomes of rigid adherence to the rules of the system we are using. No the experience of role-playing characters they thought they had already created but in fact came to get to know most intimately one peice at a time has made quite an impression on them. Whilst other influences have been involved you sir have been instrumental and you have the heartfelt thanks of my players and I. Much respect.
"Have your villain plan their traps, and then watch with glee as the players manage to work their way through them with relative ease or with some difficulty, but not that you designed it to thwart your players." Good stuff
One mistake that I fall into all the damn time and I think a lot of other DM's do as well is the utter *need* to hit the story "scenes" you've planned out. Making your rush past all the other things, the descriptions the interactions the player shenanigans. What I mean is when you have this GREAT idea for ending a session on a specific cliffhanger, or a specific scene but the game has already been going for 4 hours and you're not even half way done, you start rushing and pushing the players ahead. It's a mistake, if the session is going slow 1. See why it's going slowly, if it's something you can fix, do so 2. If it's just going slowly because everyone is having a lot of fun and interacting and role playing lengthy interactions in the tavern that's brilliant! Let it be, don't rush past it and if need be end the game at a different "story" point than you've originally intended.
I have experienced this so much as a player, so as a GM I have a world in mind that is a bit closer to something like Mount and Blade flow-wise than Pillars of Eternity / Balder's Gate / etc. Deeper than M&B of course, but it is pretty open with a lot of different story-undercurrents going on simultaneously such that no matter where the player is or what they are doing, one of those story-undercurrents will have an impact. What impact exactly, of course, depends on what the players do with it. I have about 7 or 8 different stories and I haven't even counted how many objectives players could set themselves on. But if the players wander off one, they will inevitably wander into another. If they get curious about the first one, the next step is generally going to be pretty obvious.
One thing I've learned is this (but I love improvising stories): your players don't know the story you've planned for them. Let them explore and somehow have them believe they're still vaguely following your tale.
In my main campaign we've openly accepted full-shenanigans sessions. We find they develop naturally when the PCs haven't had time to investigate rumors or even meet each other, as is often the case in sess1. It allows them to explore what interests them the most, further flesh out characters, and understand the world (and sometimes game rules). I will advise that this requires a level of patience. We don't meet every week and we play a lot of other games too so we're not rushing. But at the same time our game is developing very slowly. I have another campaign. That party's sess1 was a bit unstructured as well, but I do not think it is a good idea for that party to regularly do that.
@@daniels.9061 Oh yeah, in my group we have what we call "birthday games", that we do for someone's birthday and a few sessions after, which are over the top, short campaigns with totally decked out characters to try out wacky stuff. Gets really fun.
@@Kokorisu One of my players is working on a one-shot now, while I'm out of state for work. It's a modern super hero themed campaign, and he's rebuilt the world as this Communist distopia after Vietnam took over, and the heros have never worked together before, but all are well-known by what's left of the US.
The bit about not putting players on a pedestal. I so agree with you. I have a player who is always willing to talk to me about D&D and his character and always tries to think from his character's perspective. Makes me wanna reward that. And yea sometimes you forget the other players when you do that.
True that. As a GM i love my job. Letting my imagination spin, always planning this memorable moments for players. A lot of players take the effort you put into the game or the session as granted, altough they don´t do this on purpose or to insult you. These are likely to enjoy your game (thats the reason why they keep comming) - they may just don´t have the spare time to give those extra thoughts between sessions. When there is this player telling you how much of a great time he had and he´s giving you input or asking you questions about the game it feels kind of rewarding. It´s like a good padding on the back "Your did good. Thanks for the great time". Long storry short - i fight with the urge to reward my "favorite" players to much. hopefully i can resist that urge most of the time :-)
kyubii972 I think you do have to balance how much you interact with each player similarly, but if somebody puts in more effort I think sometimes rewarding can motivate other players to follow his example, while ignoring positive behaviour can cause a "Why should I even bother..." mentality
I have honestly never seen a GM do that, and I have been fortunate in that regard. There was a case where the GM knew one of the players for much longer than the other players, so I got the sense that he was more competent at making it interesting for that player, but I never felt that he favored that player intentionally. Of course, in that particular game there were only 3 of us.
How we handle that in our group is we vote on who gets inspiration. If you value story you vote on the best rp player, if you value combat you vote for the lifesaving battle changing plays. If comedy is your thing, you vote that. Everyone voted for get either 25-50 xp or an inspiration for each vote (Inspirations capping at one) It makes us all feel rewarded and helps us all try a little harder
While I agree in principal, what if that player is the only one carrying the story? I've come across far too many a player that want to be railroaded through the story, and I have lost some 'open world' campaigns because of it. The frustrating part is the fact I sit down with players and explain the core concept of these type of campaigns, explaining how the group is on the frontier and will need to find a safe place to build a house of their own... clearing out bandit camps and exploring ruins along the way. Yet so many groups just sit around the starting trading post, waiting for people to come along begging for help! When a single player begins to choose every response, and no other player has any interest in leading.... Yet... she was one of the most gifted role players I have ever played with! If you ever have a player come to you and ask 'how evil can I be' give the same answer I did: As evil as your party will let you. There can be fun, insanely so, at watching a party of semi-good characters seeking to bring law to the frontier slowly slips towards a complete genocidal* take-over as they are played by one skilled manipulator. Murderous, yes, but Hobo, no: She earned that crown! . *Not kidding, I called the game after she successfully pulled off a 'night of the long knives' that involved killing a majority of her own people with a carefully grown cult of Red-Mantis fanatics... replacing the government with an evil theocracy. Where do you go from there?!
My parents told me a story about how a big bad they faced had an antimagic field. They thwarted them by shrinking boulders and then throwing them at said big bad.
I'm sorry, I just need to be sure I understood the unstated fact here correctly: Your _parents_ are/were both roleplayers and played in a group together before your birth? You're a second generation roleplayer?
Djaevlenselv I GM a game with my friends and my daughter and her friends twice a week and My son runs a campaign at college. So ,yes ,RPG generations do exist. ( and its really great!)
My dad also played RPGs when he was young. He told me a story about how his party got around not having silver weapons when a werewolf attacked by beating it to death with silver coins. He also told the story about one of his old friend's paladin characters getting into a stalemate with a greater devil in hell. The greater devil kept summoning minions but the paladin was so strong that he couldn't be worn down by lesser devils. The GM eventually gave up trying to determine a winner.
A huge mistake I've seen is a GM who GMs a story they hate. If you don't even like your story, just stop. Reevaluate the game and have someone who loves the story take over or start a new game with a story everyone enjoys.
I had this happen once but it was more to do with the engine. We ended up scrapping that game and doing an engine that I was already kind of an expert with and that some my players had experienced and enjoyed and the whole group started having more fun.
More like a GM who loves the scenerio but hates the 5e rules after converting it from AD&D to 5e and then complaining that he can't kill our PCs because the HP is too low in the 5e monster manual while throwing in tables from AD&D and percentile tables for rogue abilities. Then, have a hissy fit because one player was unsatisfied with how the GM was running the game because of the shouting match that happened and completely throwing out flanking in the middle of the game because the players exploited the rules that could also work for the enemy.
+Adalaide Kahless Sounds to me like they don't know how to properly modify a system or monsters. I feel like my encounter I'd going bad, I throw in reinforcements, or "they seem a bit tougher than the rulebook states" HP, stats, etc. Usually I don't have to do that, and I wouldn't, unless the players were enjoying combat; gotta read the table (or in my case the call), and judge from there. If you don't like flanking, just make it where it's difficult to flank your goons; don't REMOVE flanking! There's an in universe solution to every situation... Great video, great comments. Have a great day everybody, best wishes ;)
Yeah my group has that problem right now. we are playing a campaign that was stated to be played over 5 years, we are 3 years in and only on adventure 3 of 7. But the adventure we are currently running is apparently pretty bad and our Gm has to do a lot of work to make it playable, and it kinda starts to show, he isn´t having fun anymore but with a campaign like that you kinda can not leave out adventures like that and still have it make narrative sense
Ah - bodily integrity is way overrated. Also my speakers commitet sepuku, just before my lung ruptured. Soooo, everything is fine i guess... If just those annoying beeping in my ear would cease... :D
On point 1) I had a Story Teller at one point get on me for suggesting that they should always always always have at least 1 answer to their own traps, and it can't be the Gordian Knot solution. He seemed to be completely offended by the idea that you should NEVER put a player in a situation that you yourself cannot figure your way out of, and the idea that this makes the game unfun just was completely outside of his realm of possibilities. We once had a game with like 13 people and all of them ended up staring at this wall which was essentially the Gordian Knot. It had all sorts of bells and whistles on it, but in the end the only way through was the knock it down which would then summon guardian spirits you had to fight. What actually happened was we spent 4 hours on that wall and the game ended with no one feeling good about it. BEING A VILLAIN IS ABOUT AESTHETICS AND FUN! You are not trying to stop the heroes you are trying to entertain them. If you can't solve your own puzzle and are relying on your players either A) Ignoring it or B) Being Smarter Than You then you have created A BAD PUZZLE.
Mr No Buddies not true. I run a game called monster hunters. It is 100% Combat roleplaying, and the villains are designed to be deadly, with no concern over how players will defeat it. It is also quite an open system, there are no spell lists or special Combat abilities, it’s all just inventing ideas based on a skill system. Every fight is me not knowing how they will win, or if they even can, based on the characters they chose (all toons are pre made and can be played by any player). Sometimes t hey kill my fave guy in seconds, sometimes a filler fight is a TPK. It’s only wrong to force them to think further than you In certain situations, especially when there is no other path.
So your monsters have no details to them at all that act as vulnerabilities or health? When you throw a monster at them it has no way of dying at all until the players make it up? Are you free form RPing or something?
Like most games have a health track, so the way you overcome this challenge is "Get health to 0". Whats wrong is when you put a level 1 team up against a CR 20 monster knowing its DR, Etherealness, SR and HP are all out of reach for those players.
My greatest moment as a GM that is on your explaining the history of the world. Was that for a year and a half my players slowly learned about the world I created but more importantly about their home cities as they traveled acrossed the continent to return their. Then when they finally arrived a plot that had been brewing though out the adventure finally became center stage and as one of them attempted to hide and rolled a natural 20 I decide to add another layer to the history by making them hide in ancient hidden ruin in the city where for a brief moment they learned that the history I was give them was wrong on many different levels. Unfortunately real life happned after this moment so my group never really got to explore that plot or the main plot at the time. But 2 years later we are back together and are restarting the campaign and we have talked about what meta knowledge they can keep. So their adventure across giant country is a go again as are heros head back to Fenrir
On your third mistake about too much background information, this inspired me to have the players experience the history through a vision as part of an encounter
I love that you admit to not being perfect and go down the same hole we all get caught in from time to time. Thank you for the reminders, wisdom, and honesty.
I've been following you for over a year now and got over 10 years of GM experience, and still I learn new things. Thank you so much for you dedication to this channel.
Awesome list. You really are a deep thinker. I strongly agree with everything except your first point. Stories in literature are all crafted to fit the characters. While you certainly shouldn’t hit everybody’s weaknesses at once, I find the best mix is planning each encounter to spotlight someone’s strength and usually expose some weakness as well. Not extremely, just enough to be felt. For example, in a post-apocalyptic setting, your best shooter might need to put his (loud) guns away while the martial artist choked out the guard.
Yes, I have used the good ol' trick of an antimagic field protecting the enemy stronghold. Hence, the main-challenge was not defeating the boss, but finding a way to disable the antimagic field. I had a little fun by having huge inert golems standing guard over the device. And the players knew the golems were going to awaken once they disabled the antimagic- field.
*I am a* first time DM hosting a campaign for my girlfriend and best friend. We're all really enjoying the intimacy it brings; the ability to create deep stories, to involve everyone in, and not having to wait around for the next turn. I would like to find us a third player at some point, but for now me and my best friend are using this campaign to teach DnD to my girlfriend :) All 3 of us also have an artistic background which really helps with the roleplaying.
I often design my mini-bosses in the meta-gaming method, but I generally don't include abilities and items the players have gotten during their current level. So in simple terms, I'm letting the vice-commanders of the enemy forces meta-play based on outdated information. This generally gives the players the chance to let their new items and abilities shine a little, and seems to be decently accepted in the group where I'm leading. Any thoughts on this?
What I do is to splash different monsters and abilities to the party and if the enemy start spying on them, giving them the opportunity to know it so they can "counter the counter" when the time comes. If they don't do anything, keep giving them hints of espionage and ramping up the difficulty until they get the idea.
I'd say modify the level of knowledge based on who exactly the enemy is- a brutish orc chief might figure out the martial characters' strategy but be clueless about their magic. while a diviner is probably going to know *everything* just by nature of who they are. I thought of another one- as Guy brought up, there's the Genius villain subtype- the kind of person who can, through sheer brainpower, figure out what the party is doing. The important thing here is to make sure the villain doesn't present any actual physical threat, so while he's going to be a right pain in the arse up until they confront him, the moment they do they're the ones in the position of power.
I like to use that same tactic too: the orc chief knows about fighting, the cleric knows about divine magic, and so on. As for the genius villain, when one of my villains is supposed to be very intelligent I usually just make them do very clever things that work around all people. In D&D, for example, a "Silence" spell casted on the axe of the previously polimorphed minotaur it's just priceless against basically EVERYTHING in simple battle terms. Anti casters and a very big scary monster all in one.
Chrysanthus I’m not getting how “Silence” spell cast on the polymorphed minotaur’s axe works? What does the spell add or detract from? I get you can’t hear it roar, and even that it can stealth attack (for its 1st attack) better, but after that? Please explain.
A silence spell makes spell attacks with a verbal component impossible. Most attack spells include one, that 's why they are fast enough for combat. A fighter with a silence spell in the enemy magic-users face is facing a defenseless bookworm.
nooo dont destroy your experience with roll20. Its a cesspool of players that get rejected in LGS and IRL games and collect there since its "free". Dont do this to yourself, try to find a dnd discord make some friends and see if you can roll with them. But never just join random roll20 games if you have any standards towards your players or GMs
An important note on the world builder/historian type GM is that building all of that is a lot of work (often unfulfilled) and can lead to burnout. Your DM prep is as long as you make it and if you are going to the detail where you are describing the hopes and dreams of farmer #3 that is a bit too much
Okay this is so weird. The current gm of one of my games isn't bad by any means but he is guilty of literally all of these ESPECIALLY 5. The biggest problem with just improvising everything is that it ruins the illusion of a consistent living world because it's incredibly obvious that everything is conjured on the spot, and it not being a consistent world means that player impact is muted and kinda tossed in the proverbial blender always running through/churning all the gms ideas. Thank you for raising awareness of it cuz it really is a hugely overlooked one xD
I'm completely new to D&D and about to have my first Session Zero as a GM (to a bunch of other new players) this week. This channel has made me feel so at ease and like I'm ready to at least give it the best go I can. Information like this is invaluable!
There is a somewhat case for metagaming at times. It can potentially help the experience if having the situation be completely oblivious would result in a less fun campaign. For example if the difficulty the PCs are having is vastly swaying too far away from what was intended, if they're breezing through everything which should be difficult, or if they're really struggling with things which should be easy... or if the PCs are a bunch of murderhobos the guards sent to arrest them should sorta be equipped with anti-player weapons. Jut as long as you don't break the golden rules of pulling it off successfully. Firstly, you as the GM are not trying to "beat" the players, you may be responsible for his actions but you are not the bad guy and are not trying to make them lose. Remain impartial and keep things solvable. Secondly, that the information NPCs have on the player characters should be generally realistic, if one of the player character's quirks is that they have a phobia of tinsel but it's never come up in the campaign, the bad guy conveniently setting up their christmas tree as the PCs invade his castle is a little bit suspicious, and likewise a random hoard of bandits who've never heard of the PCs before shouldn't immediately know their full character sheet off by heart.
I ran HotDQ and then me and the other players weren’t feeling it and added some new players and started a homebrew campaign, except it was set in the same world. The pc’s from the prior campaign lived on did amazing things, things that the current PCs are aware of but don’t have the details of. Giving them the info bit by bit is oh so rewarding and they hate me when i don’t give them all of it lol. Awesome video as always, keep up the good work!
You opened my eyes with the group size. I GM'ed a game some 4 years ago. We started out with 6 people. A lot, but it was okay. I had fun, since the players were very good, involved and it was just genuinely good roleplay. I guess I was also very good at being a GM, since the players wanted to bring friends. And I did exactly what you said: "who am I to say no". So our playerbase grew... and grew. We were 12 people by the beginning of last year. It was horrible for me. People started to be distracted and who could blame them: I couldn't keep up with all of them. I thought this was my fault: I attributed it to not being prepared enough. So I put more time into it. That worked for a while, until they eventually got bored again. Some started drinking, and I don't mean a beer or two, I mean they were straight up drunk. Some criticized me heavily whenever something happened they took personally, like me making them roll for damage when they fell of a house due to a failed balance check. It was impossible to play for anyone. I burned out so fast. Being a GM was completely ruined for me and I thought it was because I am not good enough... when I just should have said no. I am back to GMing once more, but I will never GM more than 4 players at once. I have learned my lesson.
That's a good point about inventing. I'm always disappointed by GMs who just make it up as they go along, because that (in my experience) has always created plot holes and contradictions, and as you pointed out, leaves me no reason to take notes or follow the story. It can also be easily manipulated, if I think a GM has forgotten a specific detail, I can later ask a question knowing I'll get a different answer (in my favor).
5 mistakes GM's / Storytellers make in the Act of running a Game, huh? Well... there are a few that I can think of. 1) The DM says, "No! You are not allowed to play that! Because I said so.". This, to me, smacks of a DM os not bert well aquainted with the rules in a System. As such, I do have the Pre-Requisite that each Player go ober their Character with me, but I RARELY turn anything down, as I started as a Power Gamer, I see no reason that a DM should not be able to handle Power Gamers, with a good command of the Game. 2) When a Player makes a check to divine information, or search for traps, or make a difficult task. I see SO many stories online that make my Blood Pressure Redline, because the DM told the results in a manner of, "A nat 1? You drop your sword, and stick your foot to the ground!!!". Or, conversely, "A Nat 20!!! You leap over the 40 ft canyon, and stick the landing on the other side, despite you being a one-legged Halfling!". These results are not representative of what would make sense, even with those extreme rolls. Just because they make a 20 on a bluff check, doesn't mean tge Player has Converted the Raging Orc Barbarian trying to gut him into his best friend. More likely, the Orc has lopped the plauer's head off while it made noises at the Frothing-Mad Death Machine. Basically, overblown results, disregarding almpst all the circumstances. 3) DM's acting like Not defeating the players is a poor reflection upon them. Sometimes, the Players circumnavigating or brilliantly solving your Situation is a cause for celebration. 4) DM's allowing TOO Much access to Magical Items, Rare Materials, or Seemingly Bottomless Town economies. Basically, when the GM doesn't account for the Fact that selling that "Staff of Godly Might", is worth enough gold to empty the Coffers of Most Kings, let alone Shopkeeps. 5) Being Afraid to kill Player Characters, and letting them live because they will get upset. Even if they Cowboyed out, 300 ft away from the Party, and Tar-Pitted 30 Orcs, at level 2....
Great Content as per usual! You caught two of the four mistakes I see on a regular basis: putting one player on a pedestal and making it up as you go. The two biggest mistakes I've seen recently however are: not listening to what your players want and enjoy (which I think your point about pages and pages of history fits into), and too much time spent creating magic items and new monsters at the expense of story and enjoyment.
Great intro... ;) For me I find the biggest error that GM might make is not seeing the game as a whole. Plotting and planning without really taking the characters into account. Not using the players as a resource to build up parts of the story writing/telling. Taking some of the responsibilities and giving it over to the players, making them more engaged and more invested as they see what input they have given be woven into the tapestry before them. I always love the behind the scenes chats where we gave away our observations or assumptions with the knowing possibility that you the GM would take and twist them to your own devices... Keep the good times roll... (Dwarf Barrel 174)
Can't post this to anyone as they may take it as a personal assault, but it is comforting to know that some of this stuff that rankles isn't a matter of me being a bad player, but rather a possible behaviour that is less than ideal on the other side of the screen. My son (19) is interested in getting into GMing though so I sent him this and hopefully the tid bits of wisdom will serve him well, especially adapting as I see that as an ideal skill, we aren't railroaded and GM hasn't wasted his time
My greatest moment as a gm was in a module where I had a magic well, and one of the players decided to jump in this well. Due to a couple of awful rolls (nat 1 and a 3) they ended up suicide diving headfirst all the way down the well and immediately going unconscious. Sounds pretty boring but the description I used has the whole room literally on the floor rolling in laughter and it’s definitely my favorite moment as a gm. Description is everything
I've done the first item the most. I'm definitely guilty of that. But there is one thing that I am curious as to everyone's opinion on. I've done this item where you plan an encounter, a trap, etc based on your player's abilities, but instead of planning something that specifically thwart their weakness. No, what this encounter does is it looks a player's strength, something that they did. A magic item that they picked up in the last chapter, a feat that they took, an ability that they have and then give them an opportunity to use what they have. This, I believe, is beneficial in multiple ways. - First, you are giving a player a chance to shine. This is particularly useful if the other players have had their time in the limelight. - Second, you are going to make your players feel smart. Hey, I'm glad I picked up that feat, that weapon, that item, that whatever because that was really useful there.
I started a dungeons and dragons group in our high school, and I was the only person who was willing to DM. There were about 12 of us in the group, and as I was trying to grow the group, I didn't want to leave anyone out. Ouch. Trying to keep 8-11 people a week (people in our group were pretty involved so we had so many drop ins and outs that we developed a system) is a pretty hard thing to do. Now I'm graduated so hopefully I'll join one of the sessions at my college as a player for a few years and then maybe throw in so DMing later on with a much smaller group which I would feel a lot more comfortable with. Great video!
If I had three and a half people at my table I’d be freaking out. XD Actually just starting to get into DMing. Your videos have helped give me some tips for writing a plot.
for the making it up as you go along, me and my friends started playing 2 years ago, and the GM was brand new. Minimal planning would go into each session early on, and we played multiple times a week. It was hilarious fun. It most certainly is possible for a new GM to make it up as they go, and even now, he only makes a couple maps and a single page of notes for a weekly session. Which is the same I do for when I GM to give him a break.
Excellent tips. The table size issue is huge. I find I am comfortable running a game for one to four players. More than that, and I personally have a hard time making sure each player character has equal time. Usually the players who are really into the game take up all the spotlight time. With fewer players I can make sure each of them get pulled into the story and game world. This is especially true in remote games, where the more gregarious players run away with the game. Thank you for these game tips Guy!
The last part i think is the most important tip. Never lack a plan of some sort; always have a place to fall back to. In my experience, even just having a list of names for your small encounters or events can be game changing in this respect. Naming something forces you to imagine the situation. Something basic like "hydra attack" or "the old man and the highway robbery" gives you reference for the imagined event. Once you see the name you remember how you wanted things to go. You can then morph the event to fit the current scenario. As for your main quest/campaign; i find it best to have hard plot points with the flexible space on how to resolve them. An example would be The party has to get information from a noble to advance there goals. . getting the information from the noble is your hard point but how you get it is up to the party. They could maybe persuade the noble with skill or bribery, maybe they steal the info; either by stealth or by force, maybe they help the noble with a problem they are having in exchange for the info: you could have the noble give multiple missions as well to increase player choice, maybe the players involve a rival of the noble to help with any of the above. The best part about everything above, is if your players are even remotely engaged, they will come up with the best method for there party on there own by thinking about the situation and looking at there skills. Let them solve the problem. This gives the players a sense of agency and takes a massive load off your administrative needs since you don't need to think of what course they will take to get the info. Since you have the hard point of the players needing to get the information from the Noble; No matter what the players decide you know there end goal, and can therefore easily adapt to any changes. Give your players someplace to go; let them decide how to get there.
I absolutely favor players and my players all know it. People who show up consistently and aren't bailing are more likely to get story arcs based around their character. People who give me backstories to work with are more likely to get things that tie into those backstories. This is not to say I favor characters. In fact, my players all know that earning a dedicated rival or other story hook often means they are more in the crosshairs. The campaign where I did this the most is the one my players are still talking about to this day and wanting to play a spiritual sequel to. As far as table size goes. I always though 3 was the minimum to run a game until I lost one of my three. After that I developed a different campaign, a buddy steampunk western, for the remaining two and it was also a blast so now, rather than calling off game day if we drop below three, I run it with two and I have really enjoyed some of those two man sessions. The biggest group I have run for was 5 or 6 and that was fun too but I don't think I would go above 6 regardless of game or genre. I would love to see a video on GM'ing a really long session. The players I mentioned above have convinced me to run that spiritual sequel campaign as a massive 16 hour one shot and, while I have plenty of ideas for how to make this work I would appreciate any tips from GMs who have done it before.
Though the best part of my current campaign is that all three of my regular players are that super engaged player who don't flake out, who talk to me about stuff outside of sessions etc. This is great because it lets me reward that kind of attitude without favoring anyone.
Hey Map Room Gaming! I came across this, and as a player of multiple 24 hour sessions, I would love to point out some advice if it will help! An old friend always ran all-nighter one shot sessions for us, and although it required quite a bit of work on his end, it was very fun and memorable. What we would do, is run 5 hours on, and take an hour and half break to release tension, have food, talk about the game, etc. This is essential, as sitting in the same spot for so long is near impossible for any human being. Also, to keep things moving and not have bored players, keep the count to 3-4 players. Any more will leave players bored on the side waiting for their turn. Rule #3 comes in handy here. For the session itself, make it like a full campaign, except its played all at once. It will have a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution. We would hit each one by the end of each mini 5-hour session of the one-shot. It doesn't need pages of Lore, just a great hook, believable characters, exciting combat and social encounters, and a really cool BBEG, whoever/whatever it is in your campaign! I like to think of it as essentially 4 game sessions (each 5 hour time block is one). So accordingly, as you plan for a session, do the same for a block. That gives you a good idea for how much you need prepared. Our DM usually had a page and a half of story, a bunch of planned maps and locations (we used miniatures and Dwarven forge/ homemade 3D maps), and pre-printed monster/ NPC stat blocks (the NPC's who mattered). Another note is to focus more on key story points to keep the adventure fresh, and so players will want to continue it. I personally find travelling is my boredom factor as a Player and a DM, so I tend to forget random encounter tables, and have 1-2 encounters that matter directly to story and plot. It works better, and is more immersive for the story and engaging for the players. To wrap it up, it isn't too difficult to do it, but the last thing to remember is staying awake to do it! Coffee, energy drinks, chocolate milk, snacks and food (we do pizza and pasta) will keep you and your players energized to keep you playing the awesome story you have so finely crafted for the last week. I hope this helps, and good luck friend!
I love this guy, hes a million times better than the dungeon bros. This guy is more informational and puts it in a more interesting and digestable way imo, good job keep it up :)
Focusing on your better players is a actually somewhat good because you are rewarding people who make the game more fun for you. Other players will tank hints. Also some people are wallflowers/observers.
Generally I just ask the observers if they are having fun. If, in the end, they are just observers, and they comfortable with it, I just roll with it. I keep trying to make them do stuff, but only gently so they at least know the chance is there for them to shine when they want.
I have found a huge variety of game cultures in the different games I have played, and a lot of less serious GMs and players really don't need some of the advice I see on any channel. I think a lot also depends on whether you have established rapport with your players yet. I know in one particular game I was playing, our DM was mediocre and the players knew it, doing something like that would have caused everyone to leave en masse (in the end though the players did anyway due to him being too much of a rules lawyer type and the players just weren't up to playing that strictly).
@Chrysanthus has a pretty good take: people need to remember as DMs to ask *WHY* someone is engaged vs. not engaged; are the "wallflowers" just shy, are they totally new to the game, or are they flat out bored? Each has a different answer, and each needs to be contemplated so as to properly ensure everyone's having fun. I really like Matt Colville's take on that: as a DM, you have fun when EVERYONE else is having fun.
Good video! 1 of my peeves is - when you pitch an idea for your Character, or you don't know if your GM is cool with something you came up with - and you ask them about it - and they never respond. I get that we all have busy lives, but a little *hey, that works, or not so much, or, let me look into it* and there would be nice.
A note on improvising an adventure: Some of the most fun times I've had playing and DMing were improvised adventures. Players usually don't get too much on you about improvising as long as you're up front about making things up as you go. Writing things down as I go on such quests helps me in large part to keep things consistent. Keeping things consistent is the major problem with improvising adventures. I'm not the DM who doesn't do any prep for an adventure, but sometimes one has to make up side adventures along the way, or be that "Railroading DM" that most players dislike intensely. In my early days of playing D&D, my group was on board ship in the US Navy, and didn't have much time to prep adventures due to watch schedules, so we'd lay out our campaign map, and go a Viking with the DM rolling up encounters as we went. Those some of the most memorable times playing TTRPGs.
Do not use campaigns and run inventive/adaptive session for some 30ish years. Can see the view point but struggle seeing it as mistake for me (earlier years may of been different story as a GM). Style has adapted by having players build and edit their own story. Beginning of each session. Ask the players what they remember from last session. What ever was important to them is usually what they remember or had written down and that is where the next session leads off from. Studying the game system's lore, classes, monsters, and many rules is plenty preparation.
Agreed. I let my players paint their own story. I just provide the canvas. With a world rich with lore and history it doesn't matter which way they go, or how they do it. Only been DMing for 5 or so years, but I learned quick not to have too much planned out. My players always want to go a different direction. Usually coinciding with there characters' backstories. I love it.
As a GM and a player, one thing I run into is mercy and being invested in a person's story. As a nice person, I started out on my party's team and wanted everyone to survive. So suddenly an athletics check of 4 is enough for a player to catch an ally and keep a hold of the wall over the pit of lava. I learned pretty quickly that a sense of danger is a real thing, and sometimes the man looking for revenge for his family's murder really does die to a skeleton who got a random critical hit.
I've metagamed my players a few times. This was due to them simply turning each encounter into a tank-n-spank. I changed this by taking mobs that bypassed the "main tank's" defenses. I left the rest of the party unhindered however. They took care of it fairly quickly but the fight was much more dynamic. A tip for adapting, keep some nondescript dungeons at your disposal. A couple small and a large is usually sufficient. Unless you want to "reskin" some mobs also keep some plug-n-play encounters handy of various themes you are expecting the group may force on you. IE, the group goes into a cave instead of down the mountain. You pull out a small dungeon and call it a cave by replacing doors with tunnels. It is inhabited by undead so you pull out a few level appropriate encounters and dump them in wherever along with a few bandit encounters reskinned as zombies with typical zombie bonuses / weaknesses tacked on. The party reached the end so you add a shaft that connects to another small dungeon you've handy. It gets the same treatment as the first and you keep dropping in encounters while reusing a few. Boss time happens so you pull out the MM and pluck out an undead beholder, but, you let the party have to drop on it. After the boss, the party finds a poorly hidden secret door the leads via tunnel to the base of the mountain. The party will know you are making this up as you go, but, when it comes to encounters they typically won't mind so long as flow isn't interrupted and fun is being had.
Overall good summary, but you may be mistaken (at least in part) about putting players on a pedestal. If one player can make better use (and thereby more fun for all) of attention and material, why not bestow your gifts where they will bear fruit? The only reason not to is consideration for the other players. Some players will indeed resent any hint of favouritism, but other more mature individuals will prove quite amenable to fulfilling a support role for the main hero. So long as you are not actually neglecting or slighting anyone, and no one resents the bonus material and attention for the focal player, you have no problem. Wheel of Time heroes are a very good example of how this could manifest. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Rand is the principle hero of the story. But far from being left behind or punished for their supporting role, Mat and Perrin are, while slightly less prominent, are just as involved and perhaps even as crucial to the success of the quest as is Rand. Just because Rand is the focal point of the entire adventure does not by any means imply that their mission is not a group effort; everyone's contribution is essential, and the survival of everyone involved depends on teamwork: even "The Chosen One" cannot save the world alone.
the point he made about group size almost had me in tears :D i'm a new GM and recently i started playing with my gf 1:1 - that was stressful. then i introduced other people into the game and now i got a group of 7 players
My nightmare campaign is the 12 players, it’s separated into 3 groups, yet yesterday they all showed up for once and I learned the hard way about giving multiple plot hooks. My plan was to give a list missions and have it as a “pub day” where they chat and there characters learn from one another in a random inn.
In my early time as a GM, I've played with a group of over a dozen people. They caused enough chaos that I just had to play the reactions of the NPCs and could get away with very little preperation for plot. It was so much fun! I hope, that some day I can assemble another group that large. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to find so many people who are all able to play at the same day of the week.
Love the video! On point 5: I regularly improvise material and I find it really works _if_ the players know upfront that's what's happening. (In fact, I played a game of GURPS Bunnies & Burrows recently that was 100% improvised with pre-gen characters and it was amazing!) I find that if players know it's improvised, it can lead to a fun kind of game where the players take on more of the storytelling/setting (e.g. asking leading questions like "This is a hospital, where are the ambulances?") (of course if it's not pre-arranged that it'll be an improv session, improvising large amounts is not much fun!)
As I am about to be a first time GM/DM, I appreciate your videos for reminders like this. Luckily, my players are fairly inexperienced. One has never played, the other two haven't played in years. I'm hoping to not look too incompetent. I've went ahead and given them a choice between a few campaign ideas, wanting to know what they would want to play. Hoping involvement before the game has even started will excite them.
As a GM it hard to admit you have a favorite but we all totally do and sometimes I find myself doing this and have been trying to curb it but sometimes certain PC's character just speak to you and jump out at ya an your excited to see them. It a Work in progress. However one thing I would like this amazing group opinion is I kinda feel like I might have meta gamed a villian for my group. He has had a few encounters with the party; He is a Warlock 3/ Rogue 3 Hexblade/Assassin. Party is Druid Circle of the shepards, Cleric of the Forge, Arcane Archer, Champion, College of Lore Bard. After watching this video one of the most recent encounter where the Villian who is only in truth a "Side boss" of the cult they are currently dealing with. One of my players noticed that I used the disengaged bonus action alot moved him and re-positioned to get advantageous attacks. Now this was during assult on one of the cults facilities. Eventually the Villian ran cause after his henchmen were done and it was him vs the party he didnt like those odds.. My question is did I overly metagame this? or does that all sound reasonable? Cause I mean I want to get better as a DM and after watching this video I am worried my players might think I Ex Machinca saved him etc. When he fled they didnt pursue because they were badly wounded too but worries ya know
I knew about my tendency towards giving too much forced exposition, so for my first game that i played out last week, i decided to tell the story through either them inquiring it or them finding pages of a diary that my villain wrote. I included puzzles that, when solved, reveal the villain's powers and they were SO stoked when they found it out. It's their choice if they want to engage with the story though, since it's all homebrew, and can't be found in any book.
An error I made as a GM was a bit of mix of 1 and 4, however, in a sort of inverted way. I was running a game where one of my player min-maxed to have a lot of damage output but neglected his chances to hit. This led to him failing to hit most of the time and he started to not have fun. Well, my error at that point was to redesign what a PC could do to gain stat so he could increase his chances. He started getting in that mindset of "the favorite player" before I could realise it where he startedacting as a MC. The worst about it is that he got stuck in that confort zone so whatever game he's in, he doesn't think at all about the rules/the kind of game/the plot/the other players and just go that way : "I want a new power..." , "I ask X to make me a special item to allow me to do this...", "I use my power to do (something it was never said to be able to do)...", " I use all that time to train to increase my stats",... and arguing anytime he can that he shoulnd't have to roll because... basically a power gamer munchkin. It didn't help that an common friend of us decided to homebrew a game which, with RP and plot focused players, would work, because of a personnalised by player power system. Well, that friend I mentionned earlier created 2 characters. The first was a sort of barbarian knight race who somehow started to be cunning as another race, then pulled more power-ups ,than a DBZ character. This led the other player not having fun so they replaced it...with a OP PC which doesn't fit in the setting whatsoever : a rune using druid who reprograms the world in a Steampunk world. When I joined the game, I asked the GM "Isn't that OP? And isn't that magic in a world with psychic powers but no magic" to which the player replayed "Ah! But he has limits and that's not magic that's prpgramming." The limits were never specified as he started using that habiliy to turn indefinitely invisible, create armies of invicible intelligent golems, manipulate others gravity,... In the end, the game was cut short when only him was having fun. To end on a fun note : I later ran a Call of Cthulhu with the same players... he acted as usual and got mauled by a bear because despite everyone's warning, he acted like this: I put my hand on my fedora and say: "yare yare..." and shoot the bear (who was sniffing around) with my revolver. Roll -> hit -> roll for how the bear react: roars at the pc -> still "yare yare" -> OHKO by the bear. The moral, for me, is that a GM has to be strict. It's good to think about how to let the players have fun but you should always watch out for the consequences if you let them too loose.
I remember I made one mistake as a GM. It sorta links with the point of Adapting and inventing. There was a situation where one of my Players fell for a trap and was captured by one of my villains, (who was masquerading as their ally; the royal spymaster) while the others managed to escape. They other 2 then got more info, broke into the palace, rescued the player and managed to escape back out of the palace The mistake I made was when I started the next session, I realised that I didn't really have anything that exciting planned and it was primarily going to be talking and roleplay. So I changed it so that one of the npcs they cared about was still in the palace oblivious to the fact that it was no longer safe, and because one of the players had mentioned him to the villain who was in disguise, the villain is now looking for him. So as a result, they broke in again, rescued the npc and escaped again. As one can imagine, doing it twice sorta diminishes the enjoyment and impact of the feat. The first time I could tell they enjoyed it, the second time, I could tell it was sorta dry. So yea, I didn't really think it through before doing that and it probably would have been better if I stuck with my original idea that the npc was safe and I just proceeded with the non-combat focused session.
My ideal table size is 6, but I ran a game for over a year with 10-12 regularly. I wish it was easy to just say: " No you can't play because I don't want that many players." Our group has brought up our kids to play, and that game had a good percentage of late-teens playing their first game along with their parents (lifelong friends btw). So I did what a good GM will do: I adapted. I set up strict rules, the most important of which was BE READY WHEN YOUR TURN COMES! If you had to look up a spell effect our Feat when it was your turn, you lost your place due to indecision. Harsh maybe, but you had plenty of time to get Plan A and Plan B together. It worked well, and taught people to focus on the game.
Related to the point on inventing, I (as a pretty new GM) managed to do that one step worse: Invent and then forget to note down for later. I was almost thankful when that first campaign eventually had to be cancelled due to scheduling issues before it all came crashing down around my ears. These days post-session making, gathering, and analysis of notes is every bit as important to me as pre-session prep. It's a lot easier to work out where you're going to go if you know where you are.
I once DM a game and my friend brought some friends to try the game, and it ended up being 12 players, their friends and me. It toke 30 minutes to do 1 round of battle.
And that is when you modify things so that you have ways to incapacitate large groups of PCs for a period of time, or to split them up into smaller combats, or just plain avoid situations where combat is the solution.
Thanks this really helped. I really want my players to have fun and you're very pleasant to listen to. I feel like I'm listening to a lecture on DnD by an engaging lecturer.
I really like what you said about the villains Metagaming the players. I have a strong fire sorcerer in my party and I was really tempted to give everything fire resistance or immunity. In the end I didn't because that would have made it really unfunny for them to play their character. I did however have one instance where the "villain metagaming" made sense: The mini-BBEG had made a kind of tournament where my PC's could win a magic item. Greedy as they are they didn't hesitate to partake and use all their best tactics and abilities. So now the mini-BBEG knew exactly how they fought and had devised a plan to counter everyones abilities. It turned out to be a really tough battle where they had to use almost every consumable and trick they knew and expending every spell slot they had. They also had sick dice rolls that day hitting almost everything and dealing absurd damage. Not sure they would have won otherwise
Thanks for this! Your comment about DM metagaming for the NPC's is interesting. I think I would like every encounter to be entertaining and challenging for everyone at the table. So, knowing the character's preferences and styles can be helpful in designing encounters. But I also agree that these encounters shouldn't be so difficult for the players that they are sure to fail (unless, of course, it is not designed for them to win the battle but rather to make it through the encounter another way).
I have had a wonderful beginning in D&D through starting with two groups. One is awful, with a GM that clearly favors two players of a group of five, hardly thinks of anything for the world, but expects us to carve our own in it, and makes every character an eye candy waifu, (the group is why I play, mostly). My other group is a detailed pro, who tweaks everything for the characters as well as taking the players into mind, and introduces various types of NPC's. I'm very thankful for both (started with both in the same week or so, newbie to both systems). One gives me things to learn from, and the other gives me a plethora to guard against. With videos on specific subjects, I'm eager to finally start my own game as soon as I have enough confidence to deal with the Chaotic Chaos that is a party.
Hey I wanted to really thank you for your videos! I'm new to the channel and been listening to and watch your videos pretty much for the whole day, every day for the past two weeks. I truly think that I'm reborn as a GM after 15+ years of GMing, on so many aspects!! But there is one very thing that I have to complain about your videos: your intros are waaaaaaay too looooud! :D Thank you again Guy, we love you!
Finding a table size that works for you is something as a DM I wish I had heard years ago. One-time I got pulled into a game where I was DMing 8 players and I was miserable. Not only did all of them have different play styles, but I couldn't get them to do anything and it felt so messy. I've recently found that my ideal group size is 4. I can do 3 or 5 players but 4 seems to be my sweet spot where there's a good mix of story I can make, while playing off of my players.
So far I am loving running a group of four players; it makes me really want to try running a larger table in the future. Though I have only ever run a table of 4 players. It helps that my players all like building their characters with me so I can get to write all of them into the story. But I can definitely see myself trying to invite more players to see what 5 or 6 players feels like. I am actually a bit surprised that I somehow avoided all of these GM sins (It had been years since I last GM'ed so I have been scraping the rust off these past months). I do have my weaknesses and will continue to grow, but I am just a bit surprised I have avoided these mistakes.
I'm a big supporter of inventing on the spot, HOWEVER, I only do that from time to time. Mainly to kickstart my creative process. Most of the times during those sessions I will take notes like mad and see how my players respond to bits of newly invented plots and npcs, and then I work out the details for the next session. The reason I would urge every one to try to improvise once in a while, is because it is a great learning experience, maybe even the best way, in becoming a great GM. It can teach how to handle your nerves, how to be bold, how to tell a story, creativity and generally everything a GM usually does. It's basically preforming under pressure. And pressure can create diamonds. I also wish for a 3 and a half players group. Too bad it would destroy the reality as we know it.
I'm a fairly new DM. I think I ran my first session at Adventurer's League in something like June of 2018. And in my experience with varying table sizes I would say that I like a table NO LARGER than 6. And counter to what I'd first imagined, I enjoy running with 5 or 6 players most. (Realistically it could be because the six are my only real friends and I enjoy the company of ALL of them.) I'm also quite fond of really small intimate type sessions as well, a session of 2 for example. And I've found that if I know my attendance is going to be low on one particular week, I will write narratives that are very much smaller in scope. Sometimes with low group numbers, we integrate alternate characters as a way to sort of mix things up. Giving my players a chance to try different things. And in these instances I usually keep the setting FAMILIAR to our grand campaign whose characters are becoming at least locally famous. But I completely remove our alternate characters from any context to the GRAND PLOT. It's fun to write about a group of very ancillary adventurers trying to make ends meet, who perhaps have no grander plans than to open a baked good shop a couple of towns over from where all the REAL PLOT is happening. It can make a good lighthearted session. And it gives you as the DM a chance to write about a perspective in your campaign that you perhaps hadn't considered before. Often it also gets your players fondly wanting to return to they're characters in the main group narrative you've constructed when attendance makes it back to normal. Lastly, prior to watching this video I hadn't ever considered running a session with only one other participant as anything other than a "character test" type thing. Very impromptu and off the cuff. I think I'd really like to try and write something now that is aimed at just one player character.
Another great video. Thank you very much. I have been binging through some of your older content as well as I am starting a new Group this weekend after not being in the GM role for over a year.
Great video... great discussion... great topics! Over histrionics... We (my D&D circle) usually call that "diarrhea of the mouth" and there was another gaming circle I was party to that often called it "mental masturbation"... (lolz). It goes hand in hand with another symptom of GM's exposition fixations, where EVERY NPC is a major character of some kind. A barmaid simply is NEVER a barmaid in these worlds. Instead of just giving a little flare or flirting comically or some other "quirkiness" the GM has to invent a huge great backstory about her being some fallen princess or a long lost heiress to family fortune and how she went to be an assassin and then hid from the Emperor as a barmaid... (and how the hell do we first-level PC's know any of THAT???)... Pro-Tip... SOMETIMES a raggedy little NPC is JUST A RAGGEDY LITTLE NPC!!! Take a little time and just go out and "people watch" or even walk the streets or markets and such and interact with total strangers. Bring along a notepad and tally how often you gain some REAL insight in those interactions... Check out quirky activities, actions, etc... BUT while your paying attention notice how you don't really know anything about anyone. That's the nature of "strangers"... Table-size... Yes, there's an optimal table/circle size for everyone... I've found that I top out about 5 or 6... I prefer 3 or 4, since I can keep the details relevant and keen, make the game feel as personal and personable as possible, and relatively rotate spotlight to interact with everyone... Smaller groups are still GREAT, though, and I say that because once you've got the PC-GM relationship relatively well set-up, you can GIVE more agency to Player(s) to help create story as much as they participate in it. That's not so easy when you've got four or five (let alone more) Players vying for literary or dramatic muscle to manipulate anything from NPC's to Forces of Nature in the game... BUT smaller groups are also more intimate. There's a bigger reliance on GM for details and input to keep structure in the world and setting, and to make it more personal for each of the participants. SO this kind of scene can cut both ways. Invent/Improvise... I think, Guy, you had a somewhat negative experience in getting called out on the fly... While around seasoned Players over-doing your inventions on the fly IS a mistake, I don't believe invention or running a game on the fly is necessarily a bad thing. You shouldn't be afraid of going off on some tangential misadventure mid-quest simply because you (GM) just got a great inspiration for the thing and don't have a "break" to set up the scenario... You're still a damn decent GM, so go for it... OR you're just beginning as a GM, it's the perfect excuse to flex some developing in-game storytelling muscle and see what you CAN do with it. I think it's the blatant HABIT of relying on improvising an adventure out of some mish-mosh of past experience and theatrical inspirations at the table that becomes the real mistake. AND even there, if you're relatively consistently being asked to introduce new Players to the game, the system, or even the concept of RPG's, it's perfectly excusable to "toss" an adventure to the table right out of your hat (or pulled fresh from your ass)... New Players are usually going to be tentative in their manners of taking agency and running with it, so you might be better advised in those scenes to invent crap on the fly and not sweat the "meatier" investment until these new Players have developed at least enough understanding and habit in the game to dive deeper and really get into the hobby. Sure, it means once in a while, a Player will excuse himself to go to a different table, "because this other GM is so much better" and that's as it should be. Players are to be encouraged (in my experience) to go investigate other GM's and tables to find their place... their style... their best fit. It spreads the game and does all the rest of us a favor when a long-seasoned GM can drop the habit of taking his table and personal styles too seriously, so he can improvise a spot of misadvaenture and render a whole new table of Players VERY VERY late for dinner. Just... maybe don't expect the seasoned vet's to look past the invention "on the fly" and congratulate you on "your best work" when it's not. ;o)
Yea I’ve personally learned to be careful when running campaigns as anything you do will entice players to investigate During my first campaign I tried to scare a player away from the main dungeon of the area but only succeeded in bringing the rest of the party (with one player being effectively forced due to my incompetence) and it ending up with a very angry player and a quick retcon to placate them. I haven’t continued that game
You can tell he’s a GM because he does the whole video in one take without stumbling over his words.
I think i need to take some lessons from him on that part haha. I stutter all the time
shadowkreep
Well it’s hard on the spot to think of stuff when you are dming or playing
*1:50
It helps if you write some kind of script to follow. Not word for word, but the general ideas. I'm excellent at public speaking, but not so much at improvising (working on that).
@ Why?
It's good to know your strengths and weaknesses and nice to share some helpful advice.
metagaming as a dm 01:00
too much info about historic details 06:53
u need to know how to adjust your playstyle according to your group size and what is your favorite group size 11:00
putting a player to a pedestral 15:00
adapt vs invent 17:14
THANK YOU! At the end of that floundering mess I wasn't even sure what it was all about. The video should have been half as long. And clear.
@Marc Felton One of my gripes with this character. I don't like it when people take whole minutes repeating themselves instead of being concise.
@Marc Felton Well, he's a GM
@Marc Felton 1.5x Speed...
@@fex144 I agree. At one point he says the same thing like 20 times in different ways and I nearly lost it.
I mix Adapting with Inventing. Mainly because my players DON'T take interest in what I put forward. I describe whispers of dragons amongst the populace, nope... But that Gnome horse merchant? They want to know more about her! Now I need to invent a name, backstory, and even give her a quest that ties into the plot I want to lead but not FORCE them back onto. The moments they seem to like best and remember most dearly ARE the moments I had to wing it.
I found the trick with winging it is... never be wrong. "Wait, the villain went and kidnapped her in broad daylight? Isn't he a vampire!?" to which I stroke my chin, lean back in my seat, and lay a hand across my chest and say "Yes, that is interesting isn't it?". Roll with your mistakes, make them apart of the world and story.
Mega Mawile I agree, I have to invent a lot with my group, also because they don’t care much at all about following a story, they like the npcs and the action. They are addicted to my game, so I can’t really just change it based on principles
you have to take notes though. Like when people do interesting things, you always have to take notes. In mine, the party just put expensive drugs forward as seed money for a bar for hooligans. I have to remember that people actually want a bar there and that the party has a stake of 3% of profits.
Two weeks ago I GMed my first ever game and of course I made mistakes but I really enjoyed playing those mistakes off as character quirks and overlapping plot points. The fact that it's a brand new system that's still changing every few months makes it hard to be super familiar with all the mechanics, even for someone who's been playing it since alpha testing.
Mega Mawile That’s awesome! “Yes, that’s interesting, isn’t it?” I am SO stealing that!!
I wing a lot of the details, but plan large story arcs. I also think thru key points for each scenario per game, to make sure I have just enough details for the key location, a key NPC, and a couple of minions or critters to fight.
That said, I agree, notes from each game are critical!! Prior campaign I ran for more than a year, I did everything!! I even wrote up each night’s game afterwards, including critical dialogue (!) & sent these to the players each week. It was crazy! As it progressed I realized it could become a script for a book I wanted to write, so I kept it up. Aaaaand, a few years later, that PC died hard & it was all lost.
Now, I have a mysterious Benefactor who pays in gold & trades in knowledge for every logbook each char returns!!! I reward the chars who send me actual notes from each game!! They’re learning. ;-)
Late I know but I like to think that the NPCs have different information than what it entirely the truth. I've done it in my games and it has worked flawlessly every single time.
i once had a gm, who wanted us to jump through a portal, i outright refused, as i knew it would be a trap. He then had 1 npc jump through, and assured me irl that it was safe. I begrudgingly jumped through, before he laughed at how stupid we were for jumping through, as it was obviously a trap.
flint9
My fucking god, that's lying!
I even make sure, that when players theorize about something I accidentaly forgot, about some plot hole, I make sure to fix it.
"Hm, he doesn't seem to be affected by the curse"
"(Oh shit) That's because he's a double agent!"
i promise you this is a true story, and although he has improved, he has done some things worse after this one. Also, what do you mean about theorising about stuff he forgot? When did I do that in this story?
flint9
No, I mentioned I do that.
He was inconsistent. I try to change even the slightest things, for sake of getting rid of inconsistencies.
wtf are you talking about with him being inconsistent? Also you said I was lying, which leads me to believe that you thought I was lying.
@@flint9759 He's saying that the GM lied about how the NPC was safe when jumping through, and how he (PhilSwitch) tries to fix inconsistencies like that with plot twists or added story elements
A mistake I made in the earlier days of DMing is not properly describing rooms, areas, NPC's etc. I always imagined it in my head, but forgot to translate my thoughts to my players. When I started to implement things like scent and temperature my players RP'd a lot more, because they felt like they were in that very space.
(edit) I learned a lot from watching Matt Mercer describing situations. He describes everything in the smallest detail so you can see it clearly in your mind. Also what I picked up from him is to act the combat. So instead of "you do 8 damage." stand up and act as if you got hit by an axe and look angry at the player who hit the npc.
To be honest, sometimes I forget objects in the room, but almost never the mood, the scents, the lights or temperature of it... Same problem, but in reverse, I guess :P
Chrysanthus in the very beginning my party arrived at a town and I said "the road is made out of dirt" that's it. So yeah, it was worse than forgetting objects and mood haha
Chrysanthus do you have any tips to better describe a mood? I often forget or don't really translate it well enough
If there are NPC's around, describing their apparent moods works perfectly. Some examples: "Somber, silent and serious robed figures are sitting around a simple wooden table, with maps and ancient looking books which smell of dust, with the poor light of the candles reflecting shadows all around, their faces pale and full of worry. You see some of them with their hands trembling in fear..." "As you open the door, people are singing and dancing at the tavern, saluting the party even before seeing who you even are, laughing and cheering!" That kind of thing. When there is no NPCs, just say things like you actually are affected by the mood. If the room is mysterious, make a mysterious voice, and so on.
Chrysanthus that actually helps more than you can imagine, thanks a lot!
Holy shit the intro is loud.
lol, hell yeah!
yeah really really really loud!
Yeah, RIP headphone users. Like me.
Blooming heck, think I just woke my whole family #3amviewing
Trying to write campaign shit late at night with soundproofing headphones to keep me into the writing? OW
When you said “table size” I looked at my table and thought ‘this table is perfect for my group’. LOL. Thanks for the advice.
Glad I wasn't the only one who thought that at first
Same lol
I was halfway through the Ikea catalog before I figured out he was talking about the amount of people.
Yesterday my players asked me about the changes in my style. I initially thought they were unhappy and said "im just trying out some advice from another more experienced person".
It turns out they were actually enjoying the benefits of said changes not only in terms of being less unfairly treated by extreme outcomes of rigid adherence to the rules of the system we are using. No the experience of role-playing characters they thought they had already created but in fact came to get to know most intimately one peice at a time has made quite an impression on them. Whilst other influences have been involved you sir have been instrumental and you have the heartfelt thanks of my players and I. Much respect.
Plz be my DM.... :( Mine can't handle when people are unhappy with the game. It doesn't even feel like a team.
"Have your villain plan their traps, and then watch with glee as the players manage to work their way through them with relative ease or with some difficulty, but not that you designed it to thwart your players." Good stuff
One mistake that I fall into all the damn time and I think a lot of other DM's do as well is the utter *need* to hit the story "scenes" you've planned out. Making your rush past all the other things, the descriptions the interactions the player shenanigans.
What I mean is when you have this GREAT idea for ending a session on a specific cliffhanger, or a specific scene but the game has already been going for 4 hours and you're not even half way done, you start rushing and pushing the players ahead. It's a mistake, if the session is going slow 1. See why it's going slowly, if it's something you can fix, do so 2. If it's just going slowly because everyone is having a lot of fun and interacting and role playing lengthy interactions in the tavern that's brilliant! Let it be, don't rush past it and if need be end the game at a different "story" point than you've originally intended.
I have experienced this so much as a player, so as a GM I have a world in mind that is a bit closer to something like Mount and Blade flow-wise than Pillars of Eternity / Balder's Gate / etc. Deeper than M&B of course, but it is pretty open with a lot of different story-undercurrents going on simultaneously such that no matter where the player is or what they are doing, one of those story-undercurrents will have an impact. What impact exactly, of course, depends on what the players do with it. I have about 7 or 8 different stories and I haven't even counted how many objectives players could set themselves on. But if the players wander off one, they will inevitably wander into another. If they get curious about the first one, the next step is generally going to be pretty obvious.
One thing I've learned is this (but I love improvising stories): your players don't know the story you've planned for them. Let them explore and somehow have them believe they're still vaguely following your tale.
In my main campaign we've openly accepted full-shenanigans sessions. We find they develop naturally when the PCs haven't had time to investigate rumors or even meet each other, as is often the case in sess1. It allows them to explore what interests them the most, further flesh out characters, and understand the world (and sometimes game rules).
I will advise that this requires a level of patience. We don't meet every week and we play a lot of other games too so we're not rushing. But at the same time our game is developing very slowly.
I have another campaign. That party's sess1 was a bit unstructured as well, but I do not think it is a good idea for that party to regularly do that.
@@daniels.9061 Oh yeah, in my group we have what we call "birthday games", that we do for someone's birthday and a few sessions after, which are over the top, short campaigns with totally decked out characters to try out wacky stuff.
Gets really fun.
@@Kokorisu One of my players is working on a one-shot now, while I'm out of state for work. It's a modern super hero themed campaign, and he's rebuilt the world as this Communist distopia after Vietnam took over, and the heros have never worked together before, but all are well-known by what's left of the US.
The bit about not putting players on a pedestal. I so agree with you. I have a player who is always willing to talk to me about D&D and his character and always tries to think from his character's perspective.
Makes me wanna reward that. And yea sometimes you forget the other players when you do that.
True that. As a GM i love my job. Letting my imagination spin, always planning this memorable moments for players. A lot of players take the effort you put into the game or the session as granted, altough they don´t do this on purpose or to insult you. These are likely to enjoy your game (thats the reason why they keep comming) - they may just don´t have the spare time to give those extra thoughts between sessions. When there is this player telling you how much of a great time he had and he´s giving you input or asking you questions about the game it feels kind of rewarding. It´s like a good padding on the back "Your did good. Thanks for the great time".
Long storry short - i fight with the urge to reward my "favorite" players to much. hopefully i can resist that urge most of the time :-)
kyubii972 I think you do have to balance how much you interact with each player similarly, but if somebody puts in more effort I think sometimes rewarding can motivate other players to follow his example, while ignoring positive behaviour can cause a "Why should I even bother..." mentality
I have honestly never seen a GM do that, and I have been fortunate in that regard. There was a case where the GM knew one of the players for much longer than the other players, so I got the sense that he was more competent at making it interesting for that player, but I never felt that he favored that player intentionally. Of course, in that particular game there were only 3 of us.
How we handle that in our group is we vote on who gets inspiration. If you value story you vote on the best rp player, if you value combat you vote for the lifesaving battle changing plays. If comedy is your thing, you vote that. Everyone voted for get either 25-50 xp or an inspiration for each vote (Inspirations capping at one)
It makes us all feel rewarded and helps us all try a little harder
While I agree in principal, what if that player is the only one carrying the story?
I've come across far too many a player that want to be railroaded through the story, and I have lost some 'open world' campaigns because of it. The frustrating part is the fact I sit down with players and explain the core concept of these type of campaigns, explaining how the group is on the frontier and will need to find a safe place to build a house of their own... clearing out bandit camps and exploring ruins along the way. Yet so many groups just sit around the starting trading post, waiting for people to come along begging for help!
When a single player begins to choose every response, and no other player has any interest in leading....
Yet... she was one of the most gifted role players I have ever played with! If you ever have a player come to you and ask 'how evil can I be' give the same answer I did: As evil as your party will let you. There can be fun, insanely so, at watching a party of semi-good characters seeking to bring law to the frontier slowly slips towards a complete genocidal* take-over as they are played by one skilled manipulator.
Murderous, yes, but Hobo, no:
She earned that crown!
.
*Not kidding, I called the game after she successfully pulled off a 'night of the long knives' that involved killing a majority of her own people with a carefully grown cult of Red-Mantis fanatics... replacing the government with an evil theocracy.
Where do you go from there?!
My parents told me a story about how a big bad they faced had an antimagic field. They thwarted them by shrinking boulders and then throwing them at said big bad.
I'm sorry, I just need to be sure I understood the unstated fact here correctly: Your _parents_ are/were both roleplayers and played in a group together before your birth? You're a second generation roleplayer?
I wish my parents played RPGs themselves.
Now THAT is a creative and resourceful solution to that problem.
Djaevlenselv I GM a game with my friends and my daughter and her friends twice a week and My son runs a campaign at college. So ,yes ,RPG generations do exist. ( and its really great!)
My dad also played RPGs when he was young. He told me a story about how his party got around not having silver weapons when a werewolf attacked by beating it to death with silver coins. He also told the story about one of his old friend's paladin characters getting into a stalemate with a greater devil in hell. The greater devil kept summoning minions but the paladin was so strong that he couldn't be worn down by lesser devils. The GM eventually gave up trying to determine a winner.
A huge mistake I've seen is a GM who GMs a story they hate. If you don't even like your story, just stop. Reevaluate the game and have someone who loves the story take over or start a new game with a story everyone enjoys.
MWestover that's why it's important to have understanding of everyone's wants, which takes time.
I had this happen once but it was more to do with the engine. We ended up scrapping that game and doing an engine that I was already kind of an expert with and that some my players had experienced and enjoyed and the whole group started having more fun.
More like a GM who loves the scenerio but hates the 5e rules after converting it from AD&D to 5e and then complaining that he can't kill our PCs because the HP is too low in the 5e monster manual while throwing in tables from AD&D and percentile tables for rogue abilities. Then, have a hissy fit because one player was unsatisfied with how the GM was running the game because of the shouting match that happened and completely throwing out flanking in the middle of the game because the players exploited the rules that could also work for the enemy.
+Adalaide Kahless Sounds to me like they don't know how to properly modify a system or monsters.
I feel like my encounter I'd going bad, I throw in reinforcements, or "they seem a bit tougher than the rulebook states" HP, stats, etc.
Usually I don't have to do that, and I wouldn't, unless the players were enjoying combat; gotta read the table (or in my case the call), and judge from there.
If you don't like flanking, just make it where it's difficult to flank your goons; don't REMOVE flanking! There's an in universe solution to every situation...
Great video, great comments.
Have a great day everybody, best wishes ;)
Yeah my group has that problem right now. we are playing a campaign that was stated to be played over 5 years, we are 3 years in and only on adventure 3 of 7. But the adventure we are currently running is apparently pretty bad and our Gm has to do a lot of work to make it playable, and it kinda starts to show, he isn´t having fun anymore but with a campaign like that you kinda can not leave out adventures like that and still have it make narrative sense
maybe a little down on that intro noise. It was cool but I also like functioning eardums
Ah - bodily integrity is way overrated. Also my speakers commitet sepuku, just before my lung ruptured. Soooo, everything is fine i guess...
If just those annoying beeping in my ear would cease...
:D
Just lower your volume, problem solved.
It's not loud, we all just rolled a critical on our listen checks
haha it woke me up i tell ya what
My roommate is mad cuz I woke her up when I started this video. It's kinda crazy cuz I'm listening on earbuds.
On point 1) I had a Story Teller at one point get on me for suggesting that they should always always always have at least 1 answer to their own traps, and it can't be the Gordian Knot solution. He seemed to be completely offended by the idea that you should NEVER put a player in a situation that you yourself cannot figure your way out of, and the idea that this makes the game unfun just was completely outside of his realm of possibilities.
We once had a game with like 13 people and all of them ended up staring at this wall which was essentially the Gordian Knot. It had all sorts of bells and whistles on it, but in the end the only way through was the knock it down which would then summon guardian spirits you had to fight. What actually happened was we spent 4 hours on that wall and the game ended with no one feeling good about it.
BEING A VILLAIN IS ABOUT AESTHETICS AND FUN! You are not trying to stop the heroes you are trying to entertain them. If you can't solve your own puzzle and are relying on your players either A) Ignoring it or B) Being Smarter Than You then you have created A BAD PUZZLE.
Mr No Buddies not true. I run a game called monster hunters. It is 100% Combat roleplaying, and the villains are designed to be deadly, with no concern over how players will defeat it. It is also quite an open system, there are no spell lists or special Combat abilities, it’s all just inventing ideas based on a skill system. Every fight is me not knowing how they will win, or if they even can, based on the characters they chose (all toons are pre made and can be played by any player). Sometimes t hey kill my fave guy in seconds, sometimes a filler fight is a TPK. It’s only wrong to force them to think further than you In certain situations, especially when there is no other path.
So your monsters have no details to them at all that act as vulnerabilities or health? When you throw a monster at them it has no way of dying at all until the players make it up? Are you free form RPing or something?
Like most games have a health track, so the way you overcome this challenge is "Get health to 0". Whats wrong is when you put a level 1 team up against a CR 20 monster knowing its DR, Etherealness, SR and HP are all out of reach for those players.
@@hugmonger TPK of the week does not have players for long.
Last paragraph needs to be first, this is so important
My greatest moment as a GM that is on your explaining the history of the world. Was that for a year and a half my players slowly learned about the world I created but more importantly about their home cities as they traveled acrossed the continent to return their. Then when they finally arrived a plot that had been brewing though out the adventure finally became center stage and as one of them attempted to hide and rolled a natural 20 I decide to add another layer to the history by making them hide in ancient hidden ruin in the city where for a brief moment they learned that the history I was give them was wrong on many different levels. Unfortunately real life happned after this moment so my group never really got to explore that plot or the main plot at the time. But 2 years later we are back together and are restarting the campaign and we have talked about what meta knowledge they can keep. So their adventure across giant country is a go again as are heros head back to Fenrir
That sounds epic!
On your third mistake about too much background information, this inspired me to have the players experience the history through a vision as part of an encounter
Meta-gaming, group size, you got everything covered except when the DM/GM is gamemastering a story he doesn't particularly enjoy.
Makes villains attack PERSONALITY weakness not gameplay ones
I love that you admit to not being perfect and go down the same hole we all get caught in from time to time.
Thank you for the reminders, wisdom, and honesty.
I've been following you for over a year now and got over 10 years of GM experience, and still I learn new things. Thank you so much for you dedication to this channel.
Awesome list. You really are a deep thinker. I strongly agree with everything except your first point. Stories in literature are all crafted to fit the characters. While you certainly shouldn’t hit everybody’s weaknesses at once, I find the best mix is planning each encounter to spotlight someone’s strength and usually expose some weakness as well. Not extremely, just enough to be felt. For example, in a post-apocalyptic setting, your best shooter might need to put his (loud) guns away while the martial artist choked out the guard.
Yes, I have used the good ol' trick of an antimagic field protecting the enemy stronghold. Hence, the main-challenge was not defeating the boss, but finding a way to disable the antimagic field. I had a little fun by having huge inert golems standing guard over the device. And the players knew the golems were going to awaken once they disabled the antimagic- field.
14:18 my perfect player size is medium humanoid
Sizeist.
You gotta love when you've never played D&D before but you still the dm 😭( I'm so bad but I'm trying ). I like being the dm
Same here
Same herea❤
*I am a* first time DM hosting a campaign for my girlfriend and best friend. We're all really enjoying the intimacy it brings; the ability to create deep stories, to involve everyone in, and not having to wait around for the next turn.
I would like to find us a third player at some point, but for now me and my best friend are using this campaign to teach DnD to my girlfriend :)
All 3 of us also have an artistic background which really helps with the roleplaying.
Bravo! That druids building the standing stones experience teleporting back to live it was genius.
Hello, happy to watch another amazing video! Love your content!
I often design my mini-bosses in the meta-gaming method, but I generally don't include abilities and items the players have gotten during their current level. So in simple terms, I'm letting the vice-commanders of the enemy forces meta-play based on outdated information. This generally gives the players the chance to let their new items and abilities shine a little, and seems to be decently accepted in the group where I'm leading. Any thoughts on this?
What I do is to splash different monsters and abilities to the party and if the enemy start spying on them, giving them the opportunity to know it so they can "counter the counter" when the time comes. If they don't do anything, keep giving them hints of espionage and ramping up the difficulty until they get the idea.
I'd say modify the level of knowledge based on who exactly the enemy is- a brutish orc chief might figure out the martial characters' strategy but be clueless about their magic. while a diviner is probably going to know *everything* just by nature of who they are.
I thought of another one- as Guy brought up, there's the Genius villain subtype- the kind of person who can, through sheer brainpower, figure out what the party is doing. The important thing here is to make sure the villain doesn't present any actual physical threat, so while he's going to be a right pain in the arse up until they confront him, the moment they do they're the ones in the position of power.
I like to use that same tactic too: the orc chief knows about fighting, the cleric knows about divine magic, and so on. As for the genius villain, when one of my villains is supposed to be very intelligent I usually just make them do very clever things that work around all people. In D&D, for example, a "Silence" spell casted on the axe of the previously polimorphed minotaur it's just priceless against basically EVERYTHING in simple battle terms. Anti casters and a very big scary monster all in one.
Chrysanthus I’m not getting how “Silence” spell cast on the polymorphed minotaur’s axe works? What does the spell add or detract from? I get you can’t hear it roar, and even that it can stealth attack (for its 1st attack) better, but after that?
Please explain.
A silence spell makes spell attacks with a verbal component impossible. Most attack spells include one, that 's why they are fast enough for combat. A fighter with a silence spell in the enemy magic-users face is facing a defenseless bookworm.
Never played games like this but always wanted to. Unfortunately, difficult to do when you live in a small town in the countryside. One day though.
try to find a game online, there are many players out there.
jason jeffery Check out Roll20
Dungeons and dragons online is free on steam and tabletopfinder.com enables you to set up games online! :)
nooo dont destroy your experience with roll20. Its a cesspool of players that get rejected in LGS and IRL games and collect there since its "free". Dont do this to yourself, try to find a dnd discord make some friends and see if you can roll with them. But never just join random roll20 games if you have any standards towards your players or GMs
Ummm... If there is no GM in your town, you could be one. ;)
The standing stone example was awesome. I think i need to steal that!
Your videos are what I watch during my cool-down time after DMing.
I’m a new dm, and these videos are extremely helpful. Thank you so much for your work!
"A tavern on a old Dusty road on a continent that no one will visit"
My players: Tavern? Let's go
An important note on the world builder/historian type GM is that building all of that is a lot of work (often unfulfilled) and can lead to burnout. Your DM prep is as long as you make it and if you are going to the detail where you are describing the hopes and dreams of farmer #3 that is a bit too much
Okay this is so weird. The current gm of one of my games isn't bad by any means but he is guilty of literally all of these ESPECIALLY 5.
The biggest problem with just improvising everything is that it ruins the illusion of a consistent living world because it's incredibly obvious that everything is conjured on the spot, and it not being a consistent world means that player impact is muted and kinda tossed in the proverbial blender always running through/churning all the gms ideas. Thank you for raising awareness of it cuz it really is a hugely overlooked one xD
I'm completely new to D&D and about to have my first Session Zero as a GM (to a bunch of other new players) this week. This channel has made me feel so at ease and like I'm ready to at least give it the best go I can. Information like this is invaluable!
THAT INTRO!!
Scared the piss out of me at first!
It was cool, but also far too loud.
... made my ears bleed... but, equally, was awesome.
Love the new intro! Nothing wrong with your previous one though.
Maybe it would be better to use the dragon intro for player tips and keep the library intro for the GMs.
There is a somewhat case for metagaming at times. It can potentially help the experience if having the situation be completely oblivious would result in a less fun campaign. For example if the difficulty the PCs are having is vastly swaying too far away from what was intended, if they're breezing through everything which should be difficult, or if they're really struggling with things which should be easy... or if the PCs are a bunch of murderhobos the guards sent to arrest them should sorta be equipped with anti-player weapons.
Jut as long as you don't break the golden rules of pulling it off successfully.
Firstly, you as the GM are not trying to "beat" the players, you may be responsible for his actions but you are not the bad guy and are not trying to make them lose. Remain impartial and keep things solvable.
Secondly, that the information NPCs have on the player characters should be generally realistic, if one of the player character's quirks is that they have a phobia of tinsel but it's never come up in the campaign, the bad guy conveniently setting up their christmas tree as the PCs invade his castle is a little bit suspicious, and likewise a random hoard of bandits who've never heard of the PCs before shouldn't immediately know their full character sheet off by heart.
3 - 4 players and that should be it! Thank you Guy!
I ran HotDQ and then me and the other players weren’t feeling it and added some new players and started a homebrew campaign, except it was set in the same world. The pc’s from the prior campaign lived on did amazing things, things that the current PCs are aware of but don’t have the details of. Giving them the info bit by bit is oh so rewarding and they hate me when i don’t give them all of it lol. Awesome video as always, keep up the good work!
As someone whos just starting to play Pen&Paper and being a DM -> this Videos are gold. Thanks alot.
He is great at doing it to. He even is willing to admit his own faults. It's great advice for anyone trying to learn to GM
You opened my eyes with the group size. I GM'ed a game some 4 years ago. We started out with 6 people. A lot, but it was okay. I had fun, since the players were very good, involved and it was just genuinely good roleplay. I guess I was also very good at being a GM, since the players wanted to bring friends. And I did exactly what you said: "who am I to say no". So our playerbase grew... and grew. We were 12 people by the beginning of last year. It was horrible for me. People started to be distracted and who could blame them: I couldn't keep up with all of them. I thought this was my fault: I attributed it to not being prepared enough. So I put more time into it. That worked for a while, until they eventually got bored again. Some started drinking, and I don't mean a beer or two, I mean they were straight up drunk. Some criticized me heavily whenever something happened they took personally, like me making them roll for damage when they fell of a house due to a failed balance check. It was impossible to play for anyone. I burned out so fast. Being a GM was completely ruined for me and I thought it was because I am not good enough... when I just should have said no. I am back to GMing once more, but I will never GM more than 4 players at once. I have learned my lesson.
WOAH! That intro, though!
I like being a sidekick. I get to support everyone's attempt at telling a good story
That's a good point about inventing. I'm always disappointed by GMs who just make it up as they go along, because that (in my experience) has always created plot holes and contradictions, and as you pointed out, leaves me no reason to take notes or follow the story. It can also be easily manipulated, if I think a GM has forgotten a specific detail, I can later ask a question knowing I'll get a different answer (in my favor).
5 mistakes GM's / Storytellers make in the Act of running a Game, huh? Well... there are a few that I can think of.
1) The DM says, "No! You are not allowed to play that! Because I said so.". This, to me, smacks of a DM os not bert well aquainted with the rules in a System. As such, I do have the Pre-Requisite that each Player go ober their Character with me, but I RARELY turn anything down, as I started as a Power Gamer, I see no reason that a DM should not be able to handle Power Gamers, with a good command of the Game.
2) When a Player makes a check to divine information, or search for traps, or make a difficult task. I see SO many stories online that make my Blood Pressure Redline, because the DM told the results in a manner of, "A nat 1? You drop your sword, and stick your foot to the ground!!!". Or, conversely, "A Nat 20!!! You leap over the 40 ft canyon, and stick the landing on the other side, despite you being a one-legged Halfling!". These results are not representative of what would make sense, even with those extreme rolls. Just because they make a 20 on a bluff check, doesn't mean tge Player has Converted the Raging Orc Barbarian trying to gut him into his best friend. More likely, the Orc has lopped the plauer's head off while it made noises at the Frothing-Mad Death Machine. Basically, overblown results, disregarding almpst all the circumstances.
3) DM's acting like Not defeating the players is a poor reflection upon them. Sometimes, the Players circumnavigating or brilliantly solving your Situation is a cause for celebration.
4) DM's allowing TOO Much access to Magical Items, Rare Materials, or Seemingly Bottomless Town economies. Basically, when the GM doesn't account for the Fact that selling that "Staff of Godly Might", is worth enough gold to empty the Coffers of Most Kings, let alone Shopkeeps.
5) Being Afraid to kill Player Characters, and letting them live because they will get upset. Even if they Cowboyed out, 300 ft away from the Party, and Tar-Pitted 30 Orcs, at level 2....
Great Content as per usual! You caught two of the four mistakes I see on a regular basis: putting one player on a pedestal and making it up as you go. The two biggest mistakes I've seen recently however are: not listening to what your players want and enjoy (which I think your point about pages and pages of history fits into), and too much time spent creating magic items and new monsters at the expense of story and enjoyment.
Great intro... ;)
For me I find the biggest error that GM might make is not seeing the game as a whole.
Plotting and planning without really taking the characters into account. Not using the players as a resource to build up parts of the story writing/telling. Taking some of the responsibilities and giving it over to the players, making them more engaged and more invested as they see what input they have given be woven into the tapestry before them.
I always love the behind the scenes chats where we gave away our observations or assumptions with the knowing possibility that you the GM would take and twist them to your own devices...
Keep the good times roll... (Dwarf Barrel 174)
I've never actually "played" D&D before. I've only ever DMed. Thank you for all the great advice. You've helped me out a lot.
Can't post this to anyone as they may take it as a personal assault, but it is comforting to know that some of this stuff that rankles isn't a matter of me being a bad player, but rather a possible behaviour that is less than ideal on the other side of the screen. My son (19) is interested in getting into GMing though so I sent him this and hopefully the tid bits of wisdom will serve him well, especially adapting as I see that as an ideal skill, we aren't railroaded and GM hasn't wasted his time
My greatest moment as a gm was in a module where I had a magic well, and one of the players decided to jump in this well. Due to a couple of awful rolls (nat 1 and a 3) they ended up suicide diving headfirst all the way down the well and immediately going unconscious. Sounds pretty boring but the description I used has the whole room literally on the floor rolling in laughter and it’s definitely my favorite moment as a gm. Description is everything
I've done the first item the most. I'm definitely guilty of that. But there is one thing that I am curious as to everyone's opinion on.
I've done this item where you plan an encounter, a trap, etc based on your player's abilities, but instead of planning something that specifically thwart their weakness. No, what this encounter does is it looks a player's strength, something that they did. A magic item that they picked up in the last chapter, a feat that they took, an ability that they have and then give them an opportunity to use what they have.
This, I believe, is beneficial in multiple ways.
- First, you are giving a player a chance to shine. This is particularly useful if the other players have had their time in the limelight.
- Second, you are going to make your players feel smart. Hey, I'm glad I picked up that feat, that weapon, that item, that whatever because that was really useful there.
I started a dungeons and dragons group in our high school, and I was the only person who was willing to DM. There were about 12 of us in the group, and as I was trying to grow the group, I didn't want to leave anyone out. Ouch. Trying to keep 8-11 people a week (people in our group were pretty involved so we had so many drop ins and outs that we developed a system) is a pretty hard thing to do. Now I'm graduated so hopefully I'll join one of the sessions at my college as a player for a few years and then maybe throw in so DMing later on with a much smaller group which I would feel a lot more comfortable with. Great video!
I just discovered this channel and as a mediocre MG this is exactly the kind of videos I was looking for !
Thank you so much !
If I had three and a half people at my table I’d be freaking out. XD
Actually just starting to get into DMing. Your videos have helped give me some tips for writing a plot.
for the making it up as you go along, me and my friends started playing 2 years ago, and the GM was brand new. Minimal planning would go into each session early on, and we played multiple times a week. It was hilarious fun. It most certainly is possible for a new GM to make it up as they go, and even now, he only makes a couple maps and a single page of notes for a weekly session. Which is the same I do for when I GM to give him a break.
Excellent tips. The table size issue is huge. I find I am comfortable running a game for one to four players. More than that, and I personally have a hard time making sure each player character has equal time. Usually the players who are really into the game take up all the spotlight time. With fewer players I can make sure each of them get pulled into the story and game world. This is especially true in remote games, where the more gregarious players run away with the game. Thank you for these game tips Guy!
I'm stealing the druid stone idea. It's a really cool idea.
The last part i think is the most important tip. Never lack a plan of some sort; always have a place to fall back to. In my experience, even just having a list of names for your small encounters or events can be game changing in this respect. Naming something forces you to imagine the situation. Something basic like "hydra attack" or "the old man and the highway robbery" gives you reference for the imagined event. Once you see the name you remember how you wanted things to go. You can then morph the event to fit the current scenario.
As for your main quest/campaign; i find it best to have hard plot points with the flexible space on how to resolve them. An example would be The party has to get information from a noble to advance there goals. . getting the information from the noble is your hard point but how you get it is up to the party. They could maybe persuade the noble with skill or bribery, maybe they steal the info; either by stealth or by force, maybe they help the noble with a problem they are having in exchange for the info: you could have the noble give multiple missions as well to increase player choice, maybe the players involve a rival of the noble to help with any of the above.
The best part about everything above, is if your players are even remotely engaged, they will come up with the best method for there party on there own by thinking about the situation and looking at there skills. Let them solve the problem. This gives the players a sense of agency and takes a massive load off your administrative needs since you don't need to think of what course they will take to get the info. Since you have the hard point of the players needing to get the information from the Noble; No matter what the players decide you know there end goal, and can therefore easily adapt to any changes. Give your players someplace to go; let them decide how to get there.
I absolutely favor players and my players all know it. People who show up consistently and aren't bailing are more likely to get story arcs based around their character. People who give me backstories to work with are more likely to get things that tie into those backstories. This is not to say I favor characters. In fact, my players all know that earning a dedicated rival or other story hook often means they are more in the crosshairs. The campaign where I did this the most is the one my players are still talking about to this day and wanting to play a spiritual sequel to.
As far as table size goes. I always though 3 was the minimum to run a game until I lost one of my three. After that I developed a different campaign, a buddy steampunk western, for the remaining two and it was also a blast so now, rather than calling off game day if we drop below three, I run it with two and I have really enjoyed some of those two man sessions. The biggest group I have run for was 5 or 6 and that was fun too but I don't think I would go above 6 regardless of game or genre.
I would love to see a video on GM'ing a really long session. The players I mentioned above have convinced me to run that spiritual sequel campaign as a massive 16 hour one shot and, while I have plenty of ideas for how to make this work I would appreciate any tips from GMs who have done it before.
Though the best part of my current campaign is that all three of my regular players are that super engaged player who don't flake out, who talk to me about stuff outside of sessions etc. This is great because it lets me reward that kind of attitude without favoring anyone.
Hey Map Room Gaming! I came across this, and as a player of multiple 24 hour sessions, I would love to point out some advice if it will help! An old friend always ran all-nighter one shot sessions for us, and although it required quite a bit of work on his end, it was very fun and memorable.
What we would do, is run 5 hours on, and take an hour and half break to release tension, have food, talk about the game, etc. This is essential, as sitting in the same spot for so long is near impossible for any human being. Also, to keep things moving and not have bored players, keep the count to 3-4 players. Any more will leave players bored on the side waiting for their turn. Rule #3 comes in handy here.
For the session itself, make it like a full campaign, except its played all at once. It will have a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution. We would hit each one by the end of each mini 5-hour session of the one-shot. It doesn't need pages of Lore, just a great hook, believable characters, exciting combat and social encounters, and a really cool BBEG, whoever/whatever it is in your campaign!
I like to think of it as essentially 4 game sessions (each 5 hour time block is one). So accordingly, as you plan for a session, do the same for a block. That gives you a good idea for how much you need prepared. Our DM usually had a page and a half of story, a bunch of planned maps and locations (we used miniatures and Dwarven forge/ homemade 3D maps), and pre-printed monster/ NPC stat blocks (the NPC's who mattered).
Another note is to focus more on key story points to keep the adventure fresh, and so players will want to continue it. I personally find travelling is my boredom factor as a Player and a DM, so I tend to forget random encounter tables, and have 1-2 encounters that matter directly to story and plot. It works better, and is more immersive for the story and engaging for the players.
To wrap it up, it isn't too difficult to do it, but the last thing to remember is staying awake to do it! Coffee, energy drinks, chocolate milk, snacks and food (we do pizza and pasta) will keep you and your players energized to keep you playing the awesome story you have so finely crafted for the last week. I hope this helps, and good luck friend!
I recently left a campaign due to the DM playing favorites too much. I'm glad you brought it up in this video.
Meta gaming villain escapes are the worst. As a player I ask the GM "do you wish for this person to escape?" And then I stop pursuit.
I love this guy, hes a million times better than the dungeon bros. This guy is more informational and puts it in a more interesting and digestable way imo, good job keep it up :)
You mind if I use that standing stone interaction as a side quest option. Great idea!
I'm making that part of my main plot next week. Transport all over the world he says? The possibilities are endless!
Focusing on your better players is a actually somewhat good because you are rewarding people who make the game more fun for you. Other players will tank hints. Also some people are wallflowers/observers.
Generally I just ask the observers if they are having fun. If, in the end, they are just observers, and they comfortable with it, I just roll with it. I keep trying to make them do stuff, but only gently so they at least know the chance is there for them to shine when they want.
I have found a huge variety of game cultures in the different games I have played, and a lot of less serious GMs and players really don't need some of the advice I see on any channel. I think a lot also depends on whether you have established rapport with your players yet. I know in one particular game I was playing, our DM was mediocre and the players knew it, doing something like that would have caused everyone to leave en masse (in the end though the players did anyway due to him being too much of a rules lawyer type and the players just weren't up to playing that strictly).
@Chrysanthus has a pretty good take: people need to remember as DMs to ask *WHY* someone is engaged vs. not engaged; are the "wallflowers" just shy, are they totally new to the game, or are they flat out bored? Each has a different answer, and each needs to be contemplated so as to properly ensure everyone's having fun. I really like Matt Colville's take on that: as a DM, you have fun when EVERYONE else is having fun.
Yeah, your job as a DM is to ensure everyone is having fun (which includes yourself, obviously)! Prime directive, first rule, the golden one.
Good video! 1 of my peeves is - when you pitch an idea for your Character, or you don't know if your GM is cool with something you came up with - and you ask them about it - and they never respond. I get that we all have busy lives, but a little *hey, that works, or not so much, or, let me look into it* and there would be nice.
A note on improvising an adventure: Some of the most fun times I've had playing and DMing were improvised adventures. Players usually don't get too much on you about improvising as long as you're up front about making things up as you go. Writing things down as I go on such quests helps me in large part to keep things consistent. Keeping things consistent is the major problem with improvising adventures. I'm not the DM who doesn't do any prep for an adventure, but sometimes one has to make up side adventures along the way, or be that "Railroading DM" that most players dislike intensely. In my early days of playing D&D, my group was on board ship in the US Navy, and didn't have much time to prep adventures due to watch schedules, so we'd lay out our campaign map, and go a Viking with the DM rolling up encounters as we went. Those some of the most memorable times playing TTRPGs.
Thank you for all this helpful advice. I'm writing my first One-shot and this has already saved me a lot of time.
Do not use campaigns and run inventive/adaptive session for some 30ish years. Can see the view point but struggle seeing it as mistake for me (earlier years may of been different story as a GM). Style has adapted by having players build and edit their own story. Beginning of each session. Ask the players what they remember from last session. What ever was important to them is usually what they remember or had written down and that is where the next session leads off from.
Studying the game system's lore, classes, monsters, and many rules is plenty preparation.
Agreed. I let my players paint their own story. I just provide the canvas. With a world rich with lore and history it doesn't matter which way they go, or how they do it. Only been DMing for 5 or so years, but I learned quick not to have too much planned out. My players always want to go a different direction. Usually coinciding with there characters' backstories. I love it.
As a GM and a player, one thing I run into is mercy and being invested in a person's story. As a nice person, I started out on my party's team and wanted everyone to survive. So suddenly an athletics check of 4 is enough for a player to catch an ally and keep a hold of the wall over the pit of lava. I learned pretty quickly that a sense of danger is a real thing, and sometimes the man looking for revenge for his family's murder really does die to a skeleton who got a random critical hit.
I've metagamed my players a few times. This was due to them simply turning each encounter into a tank-n-spank. I changed this by taking mobs that bypassed the "main tank's" defenses. I left the rest of the party unhindered however. They took care of it fairly quickly but the fight was much more dynamic.
A tip for adapting, keep some nondescript dungeons at your disposal. A couple small and a large is usually sufficient. Unless you want to "reskin" some mobs also keep some plug-n-play encounters handy of various themes you are expecting the group may force on you. IE, the group goes into a cave instead of down the mountain. You pull out a small dungeon and call it a cave by replacing doors with tunnels. It is inhabited by undead so you pull out a few level appropriate encounters and dump them in wherever along with a few bandit encounters reskinned as zombies with typical zombie bonuses / weaknesses tacked on. The party reached the end so you add a shaft that connects to another small dungeon you've handy. It gets the same treatment as the first and you keep dropping in encounters while reusing a few. Boss time happens so you pull out the MM and pluck out an undead beholder, but, you let the party have to drop on it. After the boss, the party finds a poorly hidden secret door the leads via tunnel to the base of the mountain. The party will know you are making this up as you go, but, when it comes to encounters they typically won't mind so long as flow isn't interrupted and fun is being had.
Overall good summary, but you may be mistaken (at least in part) about putting players on a pedestal. If one player can make better use (and thereby more fun for all) of attention and material, why not bestow your gifts where they will bear fruit? The only reason not to is consideration for the other players. Some players will indeed resent any hint of favouritism, but other more mature individuals will prove quite amenable to fulfilling a support role for the main hero.
So long as you are not actually neglecting or slighting anyone, and no one resents the bonus material and attention for the focal player, you have no problem.
Wheel of Time heroes are a very good example of how this could manifest. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Rand is the principle hero of the story. But far from being left behind or punished for their supporting role, Mat and Perrin are, while slightly less prominent, are just as involved and perhaps even as crucial to the success of the quest as is Rand. Just because Rand is the focal point of the entire adventure does not by any means imply that their mission is not a group effort; everyone's contribution is essential, and the survival of everyone involved depends on teamwork: even "The Chosen One" cannot save the world alone.
I've spoken English all my life and you're still teaching me new words! And DM stuff! thank you :D haha
LOVE the new intro. And this is the perfect video as my first ever campaign just drew to a close. Thank you for such great content.
the point he made about group size almost had me in tears :D i'm a new GM and recently i started playing with my gf 1:1 - that was stressful. then i introduced other people into the game and now i got a group of 7 players
My nightmare campaign is the 12 players, it’s separated into 3 groups, yet yesterday they all showed up for once and I learned the hard way about giving multiple plot hooks. My plan was to give a list missions and have it as a “pub day” where they chat and there characters learn from one another in a random inn.
In my early time as a GM, I've played with a group of over a dozen people. They caused enough chaos that I just had to play the reactions of the NPCs and could get away with very little preperation for plot. It was so much fun! I hope, that some day I can assemble another group that large. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to find so many people who are all able to play at the same day of the week.
Love the video! On point 5: I regularly improvise material and I find it really works _if_ the players know upfront that's what's happening. (In fact, I played a game of GURPS Bunnies & Burrows recently that was 100% improvised with pre-gen characters and it was amazing!) I find that if players know it's improvised, it can lead to a fun kind of game where the players take on more of the storytelling/setting (e.g. asking leading questions like "This is a hospital, where are the ambulances?")
(of course if it's not pre-arranged that it'll be an improv session, improvising large amounts is not much fun!)
As I am about to be a first time GM/DM, I appreciate your videos for reminders like this. Luckily, my players are fairly inexperienced. One has never played, the other two haven't played in years. I'm hoping to not look too incompetent. I've went ahead and given them a choice between a few campaign ideas, wanting to know what they would want to play. Hoping involvement before the game has even started will excite them.
As a GM it hard to admit you have a favorite but we all totally do and sometimes I find myself doing this and have been trying to curb it but sometimes certain PC's character just speak to you and jump out at ya an your excited to see them. It a Work in progress.
However one thing I would like this amazing group opinion is I kinda feel like I might have meta gamed a villian for my group. He has had a few encounters with the party; He is a Warlock 3/ Rogue 3 Hexblade/Assassin. Party is Druid Circle of the shepards, Cleric of the Forge, Arcane Archer, Champion, College of Lore Bard. After watching this video one of the most recent encounter where the Villian who is only in truth a "Side boss" of the cult they are currently dealing with. One of my players noticed that I used the disengaged bonus action alot moved him and re-positioned to get advantageous attacks. Now this was during assult on one of the cults facilities.
Eventually the Villian ran cause after his henchmen were done and it was him vs the party he didnt like those odds..
My question is did I overly metagame this? or does that all sound reasonable? Cause I mean I want to get better as a DM and after watching this video I am worried my players might think I Ex Machinca saved him etc. When he fled they didnt pursue because they were badly wounded too but worries ya know
I knew about my tendency towards giving too much forced exposition, so for my first game that i played out last week, i decided to tell the story through either them inquiring it or them finding pages of a diary that my villain wrote. I included puzzles that, when solved, reveal the villain's powers and they were SO stoked when they found it out. It's their choice if they want to engage with the story though, since it's all homebrew, and can't be found in any book.
An error I made as a GM was a bit of mix of 1 and 4, however, in a sort of inverted way. I was running a game where one of my player min-maxed to have a lot of damage output but neglected his chances to hit. This led to him failing to hit most of the time and he started to not have fun. Well, my error at that point was to redesign what a PC could do to gain stat so he could increase his chances. He started getting in that mindset of "the favorite player" before I could realise it where he startedacting as a MC. The worst about it is that he got stuck in that confort zone so whatever game he's in, he doesn't think at all about the rules/the kind of game/the plot/the other players and just go that way : "I want a new power..." , "I ask X to make me a special item to allow me to do this...", "I use my power to do (something it was never said to be able to do)...", " I use all that time to train to increase my stats",... and arguing anytime he can that he shoulnd't have to roll because... basically a power gamer munchkin.
It didn't help that an common friend of us decided to homebrew a game which, with RP and plot focused players, would work, because of a personnalised by player power system. Well, that friend I mentionned earlier created 2 characters. The first was a sort of barbarian knight race who somehow started to be cunning as another race, then pulled more power-ups ,than a DBZ character. This led the other player not having fun so they replaced it...with a OP PC which doesn't fit in the setting whatsoever : a rune using druid who reprograms the world in a Steampunk world. When I joined the game, I asked the GM "Isn't that OP? And isn't that magic in a world with psychic powers but no magic" to which the player replayed "Ah! But he has limits and that's not magic that's prpgramming." The limits were never specified as he started using that habiliy to turn indefinitely invisible, create armies of invicible intelligent golems, manipulate others gravity,... In the end, the game was cut short when only him was having fun.
To end on a fun note : I later ran a Call of Cthulhu with the same players... he acted as usual and got mauled by a bear because despite everyone's warning, he acted like this: I put my hand on my fedora and say: "yare yare..." and shoot the bear (who was sniffing around) with my revolver. Roll -> hit -> roll for how the bear react: roars at the pc -> still "yare yare" -> OHKO by the bear.
The moral, for me, is that a GM has to be strict. It's good to think about how to let the players have fun but you should always watch out for the consequences if you let them too loose.
I remember I made one mistake as a GM. It sorta links with the point of Adapting and inventing.
There was a situation where one of my Players fell for a trap and was captured by one of my villains, (who was masquerading as their ally; the royal spymaster) while the others managed to escape.
They other 2 then got more info, broke into the palace, rescued the player and managed to escape back out of the palace
The mistake I made was when I started the next session, I realised that I didn't really have anything that exciting planned and it was primarily going to be talking and roleplay. So I changed it so that one of the npcs they cared about was still in the palace oblivious to the fact that it was no longer safe, and because one of the players had mentioned him to the villain who was in disguise, the villain is now looking for him.
So as a result, they broke in again, rescued the npc and escaped again. As one can imagine, doing it twice sorta diminishes the enjoyment and impact of the feat. The first time I could tell they enjoyed it, the second time, I could tell it was sorta dry.
So yea, I didn't really think it through before doing that and it probably would have been better if I stuck with my original idea that the npc was safe and I just proceeded with the non-combat focused session.
My ideal table size is 6, but I ran a game for over a year with 10-12 regularly. I wish it was easy to just say: " No you can't play because I don't want that many players." Our group has brought up our kids to play, and that game had a good percentage of late-teens playing their first game along with their parents (lifelong friends btw). So I did what a good GM will do: I adapted. I set up strict rules, the most important of which was BE READY WHEN YOUR TURN COMES! If you had to look up a spell effect our Feat when it was your turn, you lost your place due to indecision. Harsh maybe, but you had plenty of time to get Plan A and Plan B together. It worked well, and taught people to focus on the game.
Related to the point on inventing, I (as a pretty new GM) managed to do that one step worse: Invent and then forget to note down for later. I was almost thankful when that first campaign eventually had to be cancelled due to scheduling issues before it all came crashing down around my ears. These days post-session making, gathering, and analysis of notes is every bit as important to me as pre-session prep. It's a lot easier to work out where you're going to go if you know where you are.
I once DM a game and my friend brought some friends to try the game, and it ended up being 12 players, their friends and me. It toke 30 minutes to do 1 round of battle.
And that is when you modify things so that you have ways to incapacitate large groups of PCs for a period of time, or to split them up into smaller combats, or just plain avoid situations where combat is the solution.
Personally, I would split the group in two
Thanks this really helped. I really want my players to have fun and you're very pleasant to listen to. I feel like I'm listening to a lecture on DnD by an engaging lecturer.
I really like what you said about the villains Metagaming the players. I have a strong fire sorcerer in my party and I was really tempted to give everything fire resistance or immunity. In the end I didn't because that would have made it really unfunny for them to play their character.
I did however have one instance where the "villain metagaming" made sense: The mini-BBEG had made a kind of tournament where my PC's could win a magic item. Greedy as they are they didn't hesitate to partake and use all their best tactics and abilities. So now the mini-BBEG knew exactly how they fought and had devised a plan to counter everyones abilities. It turned out to be a really tough battle where they had to use almost every consumable and trick they knew and expending every spell slot they had. They also had sick dice rolls that day hitting almost everything and dealing absurd damage. Not sure they would have won otherwise
Thanks for this! Your comment about DM metagaming for the NPC's is interesting. I think I would like every encounter to be entertaining and challenging for everyone at the table. So, knowing the character's preferences and styles can be helpful in designing encounters. But I also agree that these encounters shouldn't be so difficult for the players that they are sure to fail (unless, of course, it is not designed for them to win the battle but rather to make it through the encounter another way).
I have had a wonderful beginning in D&D through starting with two groups. One is awful, with a GM that clearly favors two players of a group of five, hardly thinks of anything for the world, but expects us to carve our own in it, and makes every character an eye candy waifu, (the group is why I play, mostly). My other group is a detailed pro, who tweaks everything for the characters as well as taking the players into mind, and introduces various types of NPC's.
I'm very thankful for both (started with both in the same week or so, newbie to both systems). One gives me things to learn from, and the other gives me a plethora to guard against. With videos on specific subjects, I'm eager to finally start my own game as soon as I have enough confidence to deal with the Chaotic Chaos that is a party.
Hey I wanted to really thank you for your videos! I'm new to the channel and been listening to and watch your videos pretty much for the whole day, every day for the past two weeks. I truly think that I'm reborn as a GM after 15+ years of GMing, on so many aspects!!
But there is one very thing that I have to complain about your videos: your intros are waaaaaaay too looooud! :D
Thank you again Guy, we love you!
For the Swarm!
Finding a table size that works for you is something as a DM I wish I had heard years ago. One-time I got pulled into a game where I was DMing 8 players and I was miserable. Not only did all of them have different play styles, but I couldn't get them to do anything and it felt so messy. I've recently found that my ideal group size is 4. I can do 3 or 5 players but 4 seems to be my sweet spot where there's a good mix of story I can make, while playing off of my players.
So far I am loving running a group of four players; it makes me really want to try running a larger table in the future. Though I have only ever run a table of 4 players.
It helps that my players all like building their characters with me so I can get to write all of them into the story. But I can definitely see myself trying to invite more players to see what 5 or 6 players feels like.
I am actually a bit surprised that I somehow avoided all of these GM sins (It had been years since I last GM'ed so I have been scraping the rust off these past months). I do have my weaknesses and will continue to grow, but I am just a bit surprised I have avoided these mistakes.
I'm a big supporter of inventing on the spot, HOWEVER, I only do that from time to time. Mainly to kickstart my creative process. Most of the times during those sessions I will take notes like mad and see how my players respond to bits of newly invented plots and npcs, and then I work out the details for the next session. The reason I would urge every one to try to improvise once in a while, is because it is a great learning experience, maybe even the best way, in becoming a great GM.
It can teach how to handle your nerves, how to be bold, how to tell a story, creativity and generally everything a GM usually does. It's basically preforming under pressure. And pressure can create diamonds.
I also wish for a 3 and a half players group. Too bad it would destroy the reality as we know it.
I'm a fairly new DM. I think I ran my first session at Adventurer's League in something like June of 2018. And in my experience with varying table sizes I would say that I like a table NO LARGER than 6. And counter to what I'd first imagined, I enjoy running with 5 or 6 players most. (Realistically it could be because the six are my only real friends and I enjoy the company of ALL of them.) I'm also quite fond of really small intimate type sessions as well, a session of 2 for example. And I've found that if I know my attendance is going to be low on one particular week, I will write narratives that are very much smaller in scope. Sometimes with low group numbers, we integrate alternate characters as a way to sort of mix things up. Giving my players a chance to try different things. And in these instances I usually keep the setting FAMILIAR to our grand campaign whose characters are becoming at least locally famous. But I completely remove our alternate characters from any context to the GRAND PLOT. It's fun to write about a group of very ancillary adventurers trying to make ends meet, who perhaps have no grander plans than to open a baked good shop a couple of towns over from where all the REAL PLOT is happening. It can make a good lighthearted session. And it gives you as the DM a chance to write about a perspective in your campaign that you perhaps hadn't considered before. Often it also gets your players fondly wanting to return to they're characters in the main group narrative you've constructed when attendance makes it back to normal. Lastly, prior to watching this video I hadn't ever considered running a session with only one other participant as anything other than a "character test" type thing. Very impromptu and off the cuff. I think I'd really like to try and write something now that is aimed at just one player character.
Another great video. Thank you very much. I have been binging through some of your older content as well as I am starting a new Group this weekend after not being in the GM role for over a year.
Great video... great discussion... great topics!
Over histrionics... We (my D&D circle) usually call that "diarrhea of the mouth" and there was another gaming circle I was party to that often called it "mental masturbation"... (lolz). It goes hand in hand with another symptom of GM's exposition fixations, where EVERY NPC is a major character of some kind. A barmaid simply is NEVER a barmaid in these worlds. Instead of just giving a little flare or flirting comically or some other "quirkiness" the GM has to invent a huge great backstory about her being some fallen princess or a long lost heiress to family fortune and how she went to be an assassin and then hid from the Emperor as a barmaid... (and how the hell do we first-level PC's know any of THAT???)...
Pro-Tip... SOMETIMES a raggedy little NPC is JUST A RAGGEDY LITTLE NPC!!! Take a little time and just go out and "people watch" or even walk the streets or markets and such and interact with total strangers. Bring along a notepad and tally how often you gain some REAL insight in those interactions... Check out quirky activities, actions, etc... BUT while your paying attention notice how you don't really know anything about anyone. That's the nature of "strangers"...
Table-size... Yes, there's an optimal table/circle size for everyone... I've found that I top out about 5 or 6... I prefer 3 or 4, since I can keep the details relevant and keen, make the game feel as personal and personable as possible, and relatively rotate spotlight to interact with everyone...
Smaller groups are still GREAT, though, and I say that because once you've got the PC-GM relationship relatively well set-up, you can GIVE more agency to Player(s) to help create story as much as they participate in it. That's not so easy when you've got four or five (let alone more) Players vying for literary or dramatic muscle to manipulate anything from NPC's to Forces of Nature in the game... BUT smaller groups are also more intimate. There's a bigger reliance on GM for details and input to keep structure in the world and setting, and to make it more personal for each of the participants. SO this kind of scene can cut both ways.
Invent/Improvise... I think, Guy, you had a somewhat negative experience in getting called out on the fly... While around seasoned Players over-doing your inventions on the fly IS a mistake, I don't believe invention or running a game on the fly is necessarily a bad thing. You shouldn't be afraid of going off on some tangential misadventure mid-quest simply because you (GM) just got a great inspiration for the thing and don't have a "break" to set up the scenario... You're still a damn decent GM, so go for it... OR you're just beginning as a GM, it's the perfect excuse to flex some developing in-game storytelling muscle and see what you CAN do with it.
I think it's the blatant HABIT of relying on improvising an adventure out of some mish-mosh of past experience and theatrical inspirations at the table that becomes the real mistake. AND even there, if you're relatively consistently being asked to introduce new Players to the game, the system, or even the concept of RPG's, it's perfectly excusable to "toss" an adventure to the table right out of your hat (or pulled fresh from your ass)... New Players are usually going to be tentative in their manners of taking agency and running with it, so you might be better advised in those scenes to invent crap on the fly and not sweat the "meatier" investment until these new Players have developed at least enough understanding and habit in the game to dive deeper and really get into the hobby. Sure, it means once in a while, a Player will excuse himself to go to a different table, "because this other GM is so much better" and that's as it should be. Players are to be encouraged (in my experience) to go investigate other GM's and tables to find their place... their style... their best fit. It spreads the game and does all the rest of us a favor when a long-seasoned GM can drop the habit of taking his table and personal styles too seriously, so he can improvise a spot of misadvaenture and render a whole new table of Players VERY VERY late for dinner.
Just... maybe don't expect the seasoned vet's to look past the invention "on the fly" and congratulate you on "your best work" when it's not. ;o)
Yea I’ve personally learned to be careful when running campaigns as anything you do will entice players to investigate
During my first campaign I tried to scare a player away from the main dungeon of the area but only succeeded in bringing the rest of the party (with one player being effectively forced due to my incompetence) and it ending up with a very angry player and a quick retcon to placate them.
I haven’t continued that game