I think a lot of people in the comments are mistaking the advice to mean "don't ever get off the path" or "no goofing around or silly roleplay!" The point of the video is not that you should stop the players from doing that, but that a lot of DMs accidentally (and unknowingly) force their players into arbitrary or confusing situations that don't have a clear dramatic or practical point. Great video, great advice!
Very true, probably something that shouldn't be forced by the GM but if players are talking to Monchberger and like getting into that acting mindset it can be fun to play with a little, but I agree there is a point where the DM just moves story along to get to the important thing on track, players might remember the fun of the conversation but the game isn't just 4 to 6 people having a make believe conversion with one person having to pull off 100 voices
Right on, I have a table of drama llamas (TWO of them, actually), and I describe our sessions to other people as "awkwardly emoting at each other with the occasional die roll". But I move the action along when I sense it's becoming boring or otherwise not going anywhere.
I guess it also depends on the atmosphere. If you want to maintain a serious vibe than really it's best to skip anything goofy. In the games I play, we switch from googy to serious all the time (just like life)
I have one group where the youngsters seem to enjoy the awkward role playing most of all😂. Give them an opportunity to explore town and they’re off to the pet store to start a fracas. Aaaaargh!!
Correct, If they wanna come up with some disguise that they come from the kings order and whatever that is cool I don't see why I as the DM should not allow it, I do not think that everything ever so plane is always the way to go, sometimes a little bit of craziness is what brings the fun to the table
exactly. People love to roll their dice. Thats why they play in the first place. Rolling initiative takes a few seconds and then it is set when you play D&D. We play Earthdawn, where many players have Skills and Talentsd to manipulate their Initiative or depend on a good Initiative. And: It's rolled every turn. If I tried to introduce a mechanic to avoid Ini rolls the players would just leave the game. Even so in D&D. Ini rolls are one of the most fun things for a lot of people. Since our GM is married with cildren he only has about 4-5 hours to play (only once a month). For me that's the perfect amount that I plan when I am GM. (I plan to play 4 hours with a break after about 2 hours, with some extraa time for talking - so about 6 hour max.) But for most other players of our group that's a reason to not even leave their home. It's too short. They only come because we play this campaign for about 30 years now. And the professor is bragging that he plays only 2 hours. I don't know players that would even consider playing for such a short time. It's not a PC game. And shopping sprees can be the best and most memorable thing to do. Most people know Critical Role: Some of the fan favourite NPCs just exist because the party went shopping. In Season 3 a long forgotten threat during shopping lead to a side arc where now a bounty hunter is on the trail of Chetney. We had such things in our Group too. Sure: you shouldn't play every trip for new trail rations or a replacement of the cloak you cut into stripes to create a makeshift rope. If the GM can't or don't want to create an interesting place with interesting enough NPSs: dont do shopping trips. Most often it's boring because even if something happens to a character the rest of the group is not interested in this, because it's not something they are included. Often players go: "Oh wow. That Swordmaster met an arch enemy in the weapon shop. What do I care about that? Boooring!" on the other side they love when stuff like this happens to them. But that is a social problem. If your party only consist of egomaniacs you should look for other players.
@@mirafeder7992 Indeed, while my players have - upon occasion - lamented that they never get enough done during a session because they get stuck in the details, every time I try to push them along they resist and - finally - when we discussed it, they admitted they liked getting lost in the details and I should ignore their bitching.
I think many of my favorite memories playing D&D come from strictly unnecessary details. The world exists and it's lived in. Stripping the world bare takes the life out of it. A balance has to struck. I prefer the moment of, "I wonder if that's significant" to, "Okay, well I know I'm supposed to interact with that so I will. This DM never describes anything unless I'm supposed to touch it." It sounds like the teenagers probably had fun attacking that tree, they were probably so accustomed to only significant things ever being mentioned that they assumed the tree had to be significant.
I fully agree to that statement. My mind didnt picture anything in Munchburger's office, or how he looks. It was just some random PDM talking to me out of nowhere. I NEED description. My mind doesnt work like yours, PDM.
This video is great for one-offs, convention play, or playing with people you don't know well, but other than those scenarios I agree! Most of the memorable moments in our home games come from that 'dumb stuff' that at a convention or paid game would feel like a waste of time. It isn't a speed run! 😝
If I don't get enough narration, I have difficulties engaging, even if maps and tokens are right in front of me. And if the maps are too detailed, they become invisible to me. I'm not here to play a video game OR listen to a story, but some well-balanced interactive hybrid thereof.
Absolutely agree. I like descriptions and fluff. It does depend on the players, and yourself as gm, a lot. Many of my players want the game to be a bit whimsical. And if you don't fill out the world a bit with unnessecary detail they won't have stuff to play with. Like in the mountains, our paladin randomly decided to try to befriend a mountain goat (that I thought of as scenery) rolled nat 20 and now they have a goat friend for life. It later helped them survive a blizzard. So I like to gm by throwing some stuff at the players, see what sticks, and go from there. But there is definately a tricky balance with pacing. And with making sure they don't get hugely side tracked or don't get the clues at all. So with this style, you really need to make important details extremely obvious sometimes, or sometimes even tell the player outright 'it would be reasonable to find this piece of information extremely important'.
I think this is great advice for people who wants to play in that way. it isn't for my table, as we kinda enjoy roleplay that is not necessarily geared towards advancing the plot, but the general idea of trimming the fat is good one. In my game I'd trim it less than what you do in yours, but I think your narrative style is a great one if that is the experience you're looking for.
I was about to say something similar. All groups play DnD differently and get entertainment in different ways. They bring storytelling and playstyles from other media and hobbies. IMHO, the most prominent player types are: war gamer, theater nerds, cinematic storytellers, literary nerds, video gamers, and fanfic shippers. There's probably more. Based on this video, Professor is more of a cinematic gamer. Critical Role is DnD played by theater nerds where the roleplaying performances are the centerpiece of their game. I prefer the old school survival which emphasizes travel as a major part of the adventure (e.g. Tolkien and Homer's the Odyssey). There are many valid playstyles based on the type of players at your table. It's what Matt Colville calls the "juice" for the player.
Yes. Our group really enjoys roleplaying walking from A to B, get in some character moments, do some theorising and planning before they get there. A quest that will usually take 1 session according to the book will usually take 2-4 with us. And we all love it. But a campaign module will take 3 times as long to complete. I do really like the ideas for how to shorten awkward conversations. Often my players try to milk antagonists for every bit of further information instead of going on the adventure and finding out. Feel like this could help to tone that down a bit.
I think it is ironic that he is using si much critical roll references given every gm they feature has a highly narrative and descriptive dm style where the players chew the scenery. They have several running gags about "shopping episodes" and a long standing joke about a door no one could get past.
I love all Dungeon Craft videos. Seriously, this one has so much great advice for DMs. Wonderful example with Munchburger cutting out the shoe leather. Thank you Professor, and thank you Death Bringer tackling that tiethling problem
This is a sensible use for otherwise pointless seeming skills such as Library Use. It's not about whether you find a book or not, but how long it takes you to find the relevant information.
I often use what I call "better/worse" rolls. Skills checks can still be success or failure, but the context of those things can vary. Maybe you can't pick the lock, but in your fiddling with it you see that the screws on the door hinges are loose, so failure suggests alternatives. Maybe you were successful, but there were unforeseen consequences, such as picking the lock but alerting the guards. Making a skill roll implies some amount of actions have just taken place. Not necessarily ONLY the action you rolled for.
In many CoC modules, it will tell you about how long it takes to find based on your player's Library Use rolls. Some even say that your character becomes fatigued if you push the roll and spend all night searching.
Like the Tree incident I made the mistake of overly describing an entry door to a hall (it had an intricate carving depicting something) and the players wasted so time trying to figure out if the door was either trapped, a puzzle or magical. In my head I’m like just open f-ing door already! 😂
"We want to search the room" - "Make an Investigation check." "I want to look under the bed" - (Knowing there is a lock box hidden under the bed) "You find a small iron box pushed back into the corner under the bed."
@@robinstubbings7659 Have you ever entered the kitchen to look for your glasses/car keys/whatever and you can't find them? Then you search every other room of the house because "they have to be somewhere, right?". Then 20 minutes later you return to the kitchen and they're right there on the kitchen table. Alternatively, your spouse suggests "I think I saw them on the table!" and you find them right away.
I think a critical detail that a lot of newer players will miss is the subtext in this video: There's a time and place for this kind of pacing. It's good for driving toward the action and giving quest details. Moments like that are when you need your players' attention the most. Mess up and you end up explaining it all over again, maybe two or three more times. But there *is* a time for the great stage setting paragraph or the long-winded NPC. You just have to make sure your whole game isn't you describing the props and set pieces or when you come to it, it'll get lost in the sauce. If your game runs as Prof describes and then you hit your players with a talkative NPC, the contrast can make it memorable. I like this video as a baseline. Deviate from it like you would add seasoning while cooking. Too much and you don't taste the food. Too little and you don't *want* to taste it.
Yeah, agreed. I just started a horror fantasy campaign where I had a 2min written introduction to the setting to set the mood. But now as they get into a hex crawl situation I'm going to fast track them to the interesting tiles ,and just tell them how long it took them to travel.
I have to agree: If we did it this way all the time, where I just "cut the fluff" and jump straight into telling you what you need to know, there's a major loss of roleplaying opportunities. It becomes me describing things to you unless it's combat, the one area you can do a thing.
Yes, taken to the extreme, you could just say, "A bunch of clues led you to the secret entrance you need to access the eart of the enemy lair. Enter the lair and roll for initiative." If you give no extraneous information, you are removing a lot of potential for the feelings of mystery and discovery.
On the other hand. If you are taking 6 sessions of travel time loaded with random encounters that do nothing to further the plot. You should probably need the Profs advice and just get on with it. I agree with the shopping. Unless you want to introduce a new reoccurring NPC,.it can probably be done in downtime.
@@maycontainviolence5587as a player shopping sessions are gueniuenely the most fun thing to me, it feels like a reward, and it allows me to indulge in something i csnt indulge in real life, aka spending exorbstant ammounts of money on unnecasarry things
00:33 Professor admiting he's wrong is one of the reasons why I like this channel so much. Insta-liked! Now he just has to do the same with the "is Paizo in trouble" video/debacle and it would be perfect.
Aside from possible demonic possession, none of us can predict the future. I think it would probably be a waste of everyone's time if UA-camrs who make guesses about the future had to create a new video every time their guess wasn't 100%. We should probably also note that PDM says at the close of most videos, '...that's what I think. What do you think?'.
I think your approach of cutting off the details and getting to the important "scene" so to speak, is great. Although I will say, the skill is in knowing when to go into details and when to just run through the boring formalities. And not many have mastered that skill.
There is literally a few scenes in 'Batman Begins' where Bruce and Lucius Fox basically unbox gear they've ordered online 😂 But I get your point. "Does it come in black?"
This is great advice for GMs who are trying to make campaigns that run much further into the kick-in-the-door portion of the spectrum run smoother, but, uh, not gonna lie, a lot of this seems like a recipe for your players not remembering and not caring about the world beyond the combat. "Go through castle with no description and get quest from a king you can't interact with" sounds like NES RPG shizz... actually, worse, because in OG Final Fantasy you can at least see what the castle looks like.
Depends on the table, our favourite part is all the so called "shoe leather" we barely even care about combat. For us the character dialogue and development within an immersive puedo-simulation fantasy world is what we are going for. We'll have a 3 hour session where the party just asks questions of witnesses and I GM 8 different people many having different perspectives but little meaningful information to progress the situation. It's up to the players to find relevance in the little things and pursue the leads. Another time the players spent the session going through the markets and in character started chatting at a tea shop.
It’s fascinating how different the same game is played between tables. I tend to assume I could sit at any table of DnD and have fun, yet to me, the game you’re describing sounds like abject torture, so I’m obviously wrong.
I wish I could articulate best how this type of video is super engaging and lights my imagination, so thanks for that professor! As an editor by craft, I am always looking at what tells a story in as few scenes as possible, with little cutting, to make sure flow and immersion are maintained, so it’s nice to hear how that translates into RPG spaces. I’d also say that if you can cut a roll for a piece of information, it’s always best bang for buck if you gift that information to a character that has a background relevant to the info, or a mechanic skill or character creation choice that can be related. Makes it feel like the player’s choices have an impact on the game world (which it should), and will help with the investment and onboarding to your game where the players feel like their choices have a measurable value beyond rolling dice.
This is one of my favorite videos of yours. A useful tool to speed up sessions and reduce drudgery, combined with examples! I don't utilize it all the time, but between this tip and hand-waving certain perception and search checks you've saved me a lot of game time. Thanks, Professor!
What I think: (1) Take 10/Take 20 was a great way to eliminate unnecessary die rolls, especially when there is time for unlimited die rolls. Failure should have an interesting consequence. So, roll to find traps - failure is interesting - don't roll to find clues - failure is boring, and possibly plot-killing. If you like to improvise, it may be worth calling for clue-finding rolls, but then interpreting the results not as "find a clue or don't", but rather "success means finding a clue that helps us bring things to an end, failure reveals a clue that things are worse/more complicated/etc. than they seemed." (I got this from how Ironsworn handles Gather Information, and suspect PbtA games have a similar philosophy) (2) traditional initiative is, in fact, awful. I like group initiative (allows for more strategic team-based play) with first group determined by whichever group started the fight. That's typically pretty obvious from context. If not, each side rolls a die, high wins the toss.
I much prefer the employ of "passive" skills; Perception, Investigation, etc are all things that - outside of combat - don't need rolls. Your character is either very perceptive or not, they know what to look for when investigating an area, or they're athletic, or they're insightful. Only when it comes to opposed checks, like deceiving NPCs or fighting, should we need to bring the random chance factor into it... That said, also allowing some puzzles/investigations/social encounters resolve purely based off the player's intellectual approach (telling you what they want to do and that being the correct action to solve the puzzle) is simply *better* narratively while also speeding up the session... if the players aren't cracking the code, give them hints and help them feel like their *characters* would have solved it even if they couldn't... the RNG factor doesn't improve the roleplay.
@@revenantcode7633RNG Is my table's bread and butter. I allow for a failure to find a clue, if the clue isn't absolutely required. If the clue was information about a false protagonist, that just means it's up to the player now to decipher any other clues if they missed the big one. I'm entirely happy to make a bebg reveal at the end, just as happy as I am to allow players to find it out themselves. Hell, let them rally the officials. RNG in my opinion is the real difference between running a campaign and just a module. I am also entirely for tpk, because the fear of death and loss is what pushes realistic decisions. Like running from an owlbear at level 2.
This definitely isn't advice I'd take to every DnD table, because people generally I think enjoy a lot of those unnecessary details and awkward conversations. I think it gives the game a lot of life and personality that might get lost in the spirit of the "performance".
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 moving where tho? The game itself is a PROCESS, not some kind of destination. If players are having fun with whatever silly bullshit they do no matter how "unimportant" it is, then the game is a success. If players are doing something and this something is bringing them joy, that means the game is, well, moving to the right direction already and there is no need to fix anything. There were a few times where i mistakenly though that players are "doing nothing" by indulging in some intricate and "unimportant" details of the game because they lack direction and i should do something, to "make thing moving" and it nearly ruined the game on several occasions. So i've learned my lesson: isn't broken - do not fix. It's always better to have unfinished game where the process of playing it was fun than the finished game with clear destination, where players had to speedrun and constantly moving to get to this destination, while not having fun during the process.
@@u1frickb1ack55You could always get player feedback. Ask them if they’d like to act out getting supplies and mix up exchanges with NPCs and ask them which style of NPC they preferred. You can also make the unimportant thing arbitrarily a part of the plot. The search for the lost spoons of Granny Smith leads them outside of the cave where a cart carrying a spoon crate has been ransacked, causing them to go into the dungeon to look for the spoons.
Additional Investigator trick. Librarians are an underappreciated asset. Home addresses can be tough to find for those who might want to avoid such contact. BUT... there are community phonebooks, "village" newsletters, and other community communications not so readily available online. So, pick up the phone, or visit a library wiith some nice books to donate (like Harry Potter hardbacks when they being released), and ask the librarian for help. Have found many "secret" resididences, vacation spots, and even "actual" residences carefully concealed from property record searches all with a conversation with a librarian at the public library. Also, be cool to your libraries. When popular kids books are released buy a couple of copies and donate them. Some kid out there will appreciate it.
I agree with most of this, but a lot of my players like to banter with NPC's so i doubt i could skip over the "I want to talk to the bar keep" or "I want to haggle with the merchant"
I don't know if modern, real-life libraries are the best comparison to DnD's often medieval libraries. The archive systems are quite different. In fact, librarians are a relatively recent profession historically, first appearing in the 19th Century. I get the spirit of what you're saying.
I'm right on for all of this, I had to take a break from table top rp games cuz I was leaking brain matter at every game- and I think all of the shoe leather (plus really mucky combat and the general level of detail in the more popular games) was the issue. Ever since getting into OSR and Professor DM's tips (and others!) I'm actually feeling excited to run a game again haha
I use a technique for introductions and sessions start (especially from inside a town) where I steal movie or play intros and adapt them to the setting. Intro to Conan the Destroyer where they're finishing up an adventure and they have to escape capture (where win or lose leads to a job offer), Goodfellas except the trunk is an actual trunk and the car is a carriage, Pulp Fiction is a favorite intro of mines. Gets the action started and cuts out the need for over-explaining.
I'm guessing from the speech near the end PDM will be doing a "re imagined" version of The Oldenhaller Contract from WFRP at some point. The Munchenburger Contract?
My DM tried to eliminate shopping, but he was the only one bothered by it. I liked planning out clever solutions and getting needed equipment in safety, else the DM would just tell us we didn't have the needed equipment and should have planned ahead. He decided we would henceforth shop between sessions, which made it awkward to know how to react when we arrived in a town: what do we do besides leave? (Got me...) It also meant we were less prepared and didn't devise strategies. The only person to engage with the out of game downtime stopped when the DM wouldn't let him visit other towns, etc. in between sessions. Out of game downtime eliminates all social components to downtime.
this may be a shock to some of you all. But some people like the "Shoeleather" and that is as much as what they are after as they are a good battle. Also, that tree you described may have slowed the game, but it made an interesting story, and that is what people remember from their games, the interesting stories and the silliness of a detail that the players gave extra importance to. Talk to your table and see what they are after instead of making unilateral rules like "No shoeleather" or "don't do X ever." I have seen more than one amusing side NPC become the players favorite part because one of the players tried to haggle and botched and the Shopkeep's rejoinder was enough to make them all love him.
Batman going shopping is definitely something id love to see, that clip was hilarious. But I understand if this was to become a common oocurence it would quickly lose its fun factor, the fact its a unique event is whats funmy.
I played both 2e and B/X at PAGE this week (very sorry I somehow missed you, sigh). I agree about initiative and extra rolls. I ran 2e style initiative for 2e and…it was a slog. B/X was so much faster. Individual initiative works on A VTT, but in person it was so slow. In person I like how Numenera works. You roll to beat the monster level. If you succeed you go before the monsters, if you fail you go after…fight. My BFRPG table enjoys annoying merchants for some reason, so they tend to do shopping on screen every now and again-but even then I try to keep it short. A personal note, I would love to have you come on my channel sometime to chat if that’s something that could fit in your schedule.
I remember watching a one shot session online where the set up was a group of different pirate captains were sent on a mission, but also all had their own secret agendas. Cool concept. Then the DM made the shopping mistake The party had just met. 10 minutes into the session. "Ok your in town. If you want to pick up a couple of quick things for your adventure there are a few shops nearby". The 2 girls in the group proceeded to spend over 2 and a half hours of a 4 hour session shopping. The 2 guys and the audience, bored out of their skulls. They never even made it into the dungeon.
2:58 Sorry but that is fundamentally untrue. Of course you need to make such roles as in your example because the chance is absolutely not 0 % that the characters don't find the door, it is in fact very realistic that they don't find it if it is well hidden. There are even examples from real life castles where real people searched for real doors and couldn't find them regardless of the time they spent searching. 3:14 It's not about "do they see it". The question is do they see it in time - or do they see it too late. The role is only unnecessary if someone in the party has a high enough skill that he cannot fail the role. But even in that case only the character with the skill should get the information, not the rest of the party. However - the moment all characters need at least a 2 to succeed the role is NOT unnecessary.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 What have HP to do with the discussion? It's about the necessity of roles. I'd even counter your "the role is not necessary because there's a 0 % chance to miss it" argument with your own answer: Yes, story trumps realism - and secret doors are secret for story reasons. This means they should never be detected with a 100 % certainty unless there's a specific reason why the adventurers cannot miss the door. In the case of hidden things like secret doors it is both realistic and because of story reasons that players should make a roll - or, even better and a common thing here in European groups - the DM rolls search and perception checks in secret. In case the players find the secret or succed at perception you can simply tell them what they found, and in the case of a failed role it adds to the mystery if the players don't know if they failed to find something because they failed the role or because there's nothing to be found.
Jeez, your players must love you. I wish you were around when I was a teen so I could have played more and with a competent dm. Great work, on the video and from what I can gather on your hobby as one of the best dms on Earth
Thank you. Very flattering. This is one of my best videos, IMO. I have an upcoming one on the First 10 Minutes of your game that you'll like too. Only it will be called, "You'll Never Believe What This DM Did!" or something else clickbaity. So stay tuned!
If a PC tells me exactly what they are looking for exactly in the place it is, I hardly ever ask the roll to be made: they found it. I've seen people ask for investigation checks when they search the corpses of the fallen... seriously? They have stuff, you defeated them, they get it. When characters sneak around, I try to do the stealth roll when someone gets a chance to notice them, not before. Limit rolls! I get lots of compliments for doing so as Professor is right, moves the game faster.
This is a great video. 1. Don't call for unneccessary rolls. Think about if there's a realistic chance of failing -- often, there isn't. 2. Skip the shopping trips. Just do it off screen. 3. Don't overdescribe. Player's imaginations can often fill in the blanks. 4. Skip the shoe-leather. Get to the good bits of the RP. (This one I may selectively ignore. Mundane RP can go a long way to colour a character. But it depends on your table) Also, a note from the final clip: The most interesting bit of a scene is the actionable information! (there's an item, it's mine but I won't tell you why, I will pay you if you get it for me). That's what had me interested, no description of the mansion needed!
I love player based interactions with the world. Sometimes the most random piece of fluff can lead to the most interesting options. Perhaps the tree was infected with twig blights and attacking the tree set off a swarm of them. Or who knows. The fluff gives life to the game. Sure it doesn't move fast but as long as everyone is engaging and having fun then it's all according to plan.
@@dwil0311eh, fluff is just like every spice in the GM rack, like drama or comedy. Players got different taste, it's the GM's job to figure out what taste the players like.
Buying 10000 mirrors after you already bought a ton of other items, changing your mind three times over and trying to outsmart the DM by not telling him what you want to accomplish is going to ruin your groups' shopping guaranteed. But to stick with Critical Role examples, a lot of the casts and the audiences favourite NPC are memorable shopkeeps, librarians, etc. It's always hugely entertaining when they meet Pumat Sol, Pumat Sol, Pumat Sol, and Pumat Sol in their second campaign. Also this way the DM can offer them magic items they might not have thought about themselves. There are a few times Matt leaned in and went "since you are return customers, the boss has something special in the back that just came in. I am not even sure what it does, you want to take a look?"
I agree. If pro voice actors are riffing and having fun, that's the game. If I'm waiting for another player to trade their +1 dagger for a +2 dagger, it's snoresville.
Many issues can avoided by simply asking the players what their goal is with a given action and train them to give you the goal and their approach every time so you can more accurately and quickly sort through narration and skill checks in one shot. Ancient advice from the Angry GM still applicable to this day
I agree with most techniques, but I think it also depends on the table and the mood. RPGs aren't a Blockbuster flick or a Netflix series, most tables aren't meant to be enjoyed by an audience, they are to be experienced. With caution, the GM should spot if the players are having fun even if the plot is not advancing at all. Some players will have a blast with things like: Window shopping at a magic-candy shop or ask the guard to judge their juggling skills. There was a time when I strived to GM games as a roller coaster and cut to the interesting parts from a story point of view, until my players told me to slow down and don’t cut or skip scenes or dialogues in which they were having so much fun. Nowadays when I believe the game is getting to a halt, I try to make sure to ask the players first: “I think this scene is stagnating for too long, are you okay with it or shall we skip to the next scene?”. And, as I like to constantly be a player as well, I have realized that there are many things that are fun from a player’s perspective, but meaningless from a GM or an external audience perspective, specially, when the players barely need GM’s input to keep interacting with each other. IMO.
Personally, I like describing the scene or having the scene described to me, if it is available. A picture is worth a thousand words, so unless you've got a picture, get your thousand words in order. It's easy for us older GMs/players to fill in the gaps, but younger players have never been to a sea-side tavern... this I learned GMing for my kids... without a description or a picture they may no idea what to actually visualize.
Yeah, the scenery tells you a lot about the environment you are in and much about the people or creatures that lived there. Everyone runs games differently people should find there own voice.
Sometimes having things like a dead tree in the room is a good thing cuz it creates funny moments of messing with the thing when it wasn’t really important to begin with. Then perhaps that tree may later on turn into an important plot point, like the party angered a group of treants because they attacked their cousin who was sleeping.
It's also worth noting that not everyone plays RPGs for the same reasons. The game doesn't have to be a speed-run, if the players and MC enjoy narrative or frivolous role-play you don't have to skip every thing that isn't plot relevant. If you're just hanging out with friends at your kitchen table you don't NEED to keep things moving to keep the audience entertained (well the lot of you ARE the audience so you do but not like if you were streaming your game).
One of my favorite, TTRPG memories is a shopping trip. I found a cursed book that slowly tried to bring me to the dark side. More than 20 years later I still remember it was wrapped in baby blue leather. The GM kept the pacing up by not dwelling on buying normal run of the mill thing but every now and then, we would stumble across hidden treasures, like a magic chocolate bar.
My players love shopping because it gives them an excuse to really engage with the location. You see people from all over the city at the market, learn about what's trading in the area, get to see all sorts of interesting things, and just experience the world. Stores can also be hiding interesting objects or npcs, with knowledge of the area. There is so much roleplaying being missed by the advice in this video.
I used to leave more to the players’ imagination as you suggest, but I eventually learned that some people don’t conjure images in their heads the way I do. So to that end, I’ll provide a visual reference of roughly what I want them to see. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that.
I like the tree bit, mostly because it's totally what players do but also because it illustrate the point so well. If the tree isn't integral to the story, there's no point in it being there. Players automatically take our details as being significant due to the fact that some details can kill you. An old knotted tree stands before a bridge, the tree is grey and weathered obviously dead for some time. Vs. The bridge shows much disrepair, holed wood on wisp like rope covered in dust, motionless in the stale air. Which description leads the players to believe the bridge dangerous?
Seeing as I do most of my games over on Discord, knowing what to cut out really does help speed things along. This channel never fails to give me fresh things to work on, and for that I am thankful.
What i think is tabletop roleplaying games are not movies , books , tv shows & music. All of those are passive media. A tabletop roleplaying game is a interactive media.
I like to encourage my players to come up with things on their own. Like why the tavern smells. But in my experience it's really hard to get players to learn how to do that. Most of my players are indecisive and not particularly quick with a quip. I think a part of the Mercer effect is because Matt really does spend way too much time describing shit, and that's what a lot of new players have come to expect - to have the adventure handed over to them on a silver platter and they don't have to do anything.
The commercial was hilarious. I got the Grimtooth tome that you could actually use on its own as a deadfall trap. You'd be amazed how much use I've gotten out of it.
“Grimtooth’s Ultimate Traps Collection!” Though out-of-print, I lucked out and found a new copy for cover price on eBay last year. Best purchase ever! System neutral, the book’s lack of game mechanics means that the only way players are going to avoid these traps is to pay attention and engage with their in-world details. No die rolls are going to save them here!
A lot of this is great advice for groups that want to get into combat as soon as possible. However, some groups love to indulge in the RP aspect - they want to meet the merchants, they want the extended conversation with the quest-giver, town guard, witness, or generalized random NPC. But I do completely agree with cutting out unnecessary die rolls, especially for anything which is at least plot adjacent.
That's why I don't like callig all ttrpg "D&D". the role play, story telling stuff is the default, and the only thing people think of when you say D&D. the grit and the sandbox used to be WAY more prevelent. the two are almost completely impompatible. why try to shoehorn them into the same pigeonhole?
A 2-3 hour session sounds like a nightmare. It also sounds like you're cutting out all the interesting roleplaying and engagement with the world just to jump to the "featured content". That works fine for a movie but roleplaying is about building characters and their relationships with the world over time. The players need freedom in which to do those things - rather than being shuttled from one encounter to the next. What you're talking about is a very linear, very railroaded, very board-game-esque experience. This is all fine advice if you're running a 1-shot game but not for a campaign where you want natural character growth.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Good for your players, I guess, not everyone expects the same level of immersion in their games. My table of 30+ year veterans would hate this.
I tend to economize my descriptions as well, though sometimes I think it's too little... when I remember, I try to go through the 5 senses and use those as my guide to setting a scene. It's a balance, though, I agree. You don't want to overdo it, but you still need to give them something.
Good video as always. Disagree on a lot of things: I like shoe leather, and it’s bothered me ever since I was a kid that people are so rude on the phone in Hollywood movies. I grew up with static initiative and used it for 20+ years. Made an active choice to go with dynamic initiative instead, because it’s not boring. Static is boring. Not knowing whether the enemy is getting two consecutive turns creates tension. “Awkward role playing” is often the most remembered part of our games. I do call for search rolls if a player just says “I want to search the room”, but not if it’s searching in the right place, so I think I mostly agree with you there at least. 😃
For shopping for mundane items, I agree. If the party is shopping for an albino basilisk’s tale preserved in amber, that’s going to be a part of the session, maybe even a big part.
In GURPS initiative is your DEX ( DX ) score. And it's recommended that you seat yourself in order of your Dex, so you just take your turn clockwise like many board games. I've always wanted to try this but never brought it up as I think some players prefer to sit next to certain people. seems super efficient though and would cut through a lot of cripe that initiative rolls bring.
Thank you for making this video. I and a friend are making a tabletop RPG ruleset, and this video has highlighted a number of things we need to go back and address in order to keep the ruleset simple, speedy and engaging.
Investigator trick 26: Always check their shoes, and then their ensemble. No one with money wears crappy shoes, and their ensemble almost guaranteed to be coordinated - or seems to make sense. Wanna make them nervous, maybe elicit some odd behaviors, comment on their shoes or ensemble and let the squirrelly-ness commence.
Something I thought I'd share about searching an area. In most games, I agree with the way you do it here, PDM--no need for a dice roll if the players are right on the money. However, in my homebrew system for dungeon crawls, I make timekeeping a big part of the game. I have searching rolls effect how quickly you find something, not whether it is actually there. If you succeed, you will find a secret (if there is one to find) in one dungeon turn. If you fail but there is a secret, you will find it in another turn (I give players the option to try again without a roll). Critical success means you find the secret immediately and get a bonus maneuver on that turn. So the rolls relate less to finding a secret and more to managing time as a resource.
Shopping trips have to be some of the worst scenarios. That seems to be where ALL the stupid comes out. Haggling, cheating, stealing, lying, all of it gets so old, so fast. I'm all for skipping the whole thing, but I did try to find a happy middle ground to make it interesting. In our current campaign, there's a shop the players can warp to between "chapters". I made a big list of stuff the shop can have, and the players "roll" the stock when they arrive. There's a lot of junk things like bolts of cloth, fruits, veggies, cloaks, then there's odds an ends like dented helmets, basic armors, basic weapons, ropes, grappling hooks, and then the rare chance of more useful things like potions/healing supplies. And then there's a super rare chance for magic items. The players can spend money to reroll the stock ONCE per visit. They can also select one item to be "held" while they save up. So it's kind of like a mini game. As for curbing the stupid stuff, the shop is run by a rather large crocodile guy and his 3 friends who like to hang out there, one of them being twice the size of the rest. Somebody still tried to swindle the shopkeep and I had to ask "are you sure you really want to try that? Like, REALLY sure? Not only are these guys a lot bigger than you, this is your only shop." Their answer? "Oh yeah ... I didn't think about that. I guess I better not." I don't know what happens to players when they enter shopping mode. Their brains just exit the scene.
One of the things I like about the Professor is that he's not afraid to let his biases and preferences and playstyle show through. Definitely not a "safe space" or "D&D is for literally everyone at every table no matter what". And he's truly a master of HIS style. Very much the "Don't bore us, get to the chorus" type. It's about the very bare essentials. Get rid of the dice rolls, the long combats, the strategy, and the narrative. Get straight to the punch and the action and don't let it falter. Where rule of cool prevails over whatever the rules have in line. Make the game your own and get straight to what you have the most fun with. Totally NOT my style. As I love the immersion and getting into the little ticks and nuances and all of the roleplay interactions. Maybe I was a drama kid in another life or something, lol. But I love seeing ALL of the different styles of playing. I've played the "wargamer" before and it was a ton of fun too (though still not my style). And I'd love the opportunity to play the bare bones "wing it" style that the Professor does just to see what the experience is like.
Spot hidden is the most annoying skill because Keepers use it to much. "Are the keys in the car?" "Roll spot Hidden" "but I am just looking to see if the keys are in the ignition, how can you hide the keys in the ignition?"
@@shepherd76 Well honestly that's less the rules themselves and more bad GMing. Some GMs, usually less experienced ones, get into this mode where they feel everything requires a roll. Don't require a roll unless the result is uncertain.
@@taragnor Agreed. My GM thinks that the more rolls equals a better game. I have told him that I find them annoying and immersion breaking but he is set in his ways.
@@shepherd76 Often the best cure for this is often for the GM to try being a PC and having it done to him. Some of my biggest improvements as a GM have come from being a PC and seeing how unfun some things are when the GM does them to you.
This video shows one thing: US culture is all about rushing things along. For Petes sake, take your time to smell the roses. Not everything has to be a supercharged action movie.
One of the most consequential encounters in my current campaign was the players killing a shopkeeper who they found out was working for the villain. Wouldn’t have happened if we did our shopping between sessions.
We had some shorthand in one of my old groups. We often played in modern settings and would just say things like "You're in a kitchen." We didn't bother with describing the nitty gritty detail of where the stove or fridge was located. At best it would be "You're in a small, dirty kitchen."
I wish more people did this. I like painting the scene, but maybe not in every single one shot with dodgy plot hook that is meant to handwave a lot of things so we can get going 😁
I don't know, I've got a very colorful shopkeeper in my setting. The players often ask to go visit him just because they want a little levity. He's unknowingly quite funny, thinking he's some kind of "cool" dude, but actually pretty much a big goof.
I understand the spirit behind this kind of roleplaying but I believe that having more balance would work better for me. Sometimes the little details really come together to push the story and paint the world. After all, you can't have a good seared steak without just a bit of fat for the flavor.
Great video on how to deal with dead time aka “shoe leather”! I really liked how you gave practical examples and then put it all together at the end. I believe you apply this philosophy to all your videos, which is probably why I love them so much.
This video helped me immensely. I have a table that mostly enjoys the "shoe leather", but sometimes I feel self-conscious about the slow pace of the game, especially because I enjoy long adventuring days with multiple encounters (combat and otherwise). This is very useful advice on how to cut a few corners every now and then, in order to gain precious session time. Thanks!
I think the critical thing is just to know your group and let them have the fun that they want while cutting out the stuff they're not having fun with. For me, personally, all of this advice is wrong or needs to be tweaked. I dislike when people try to eliminate most of the die rolls, because that's part of DnD's core playloop. Like, why should I spend points on investigation if the DM is going to skip that part of the game? I also enjoy shopping trips. My DMs tend to put nuggets of story in the little interactions, which makes talking to random villagers and shopkeeps more fun, but it probably also makes a difference that my noble is shopping for souvenirs instead of game items like armor. Please don't ask me as a player to describe the setting. Please do describe npcs if it's important. If it doesn't matter that one player thinks the guy is thin and the other thinks he's rotund, it's ok to leave out that description, but don't assume that your little mannerisms or tone of voice will look the same in everyone's head.
I love how you give examples, not just information. It really helps to drive the point home and for people like me to retain the information you impart. While i dont fully agree in the premise, i like alittle room to let the players be dumb from time to time, i appreciate the stance. Thanks
As an experienced DM and player who has played the game for over 30 years, this is bad advice. In many ways, he is advising you to skip some of the best parts of a table top role playing game. This might work for him in his games, but it is not good general advice. And he should have had the wisdom, given his experience, to recognize that before making the video. Not impressed.
No. I'm advising you to play the cool parts and skip the boring parts. BTW--I've played for FORTY years, have been published by TSR, Goodman Games, Kobold press, MET Gygax, played with Tracy Hickman, and published a TTRPG that has been in Drive-thru RPGs top 20 bestseller list for TWO YEARS. How's that for experience?
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 that's impressive. But it doesn't help turn your bad ideas into good ones. Unfortunately your wealth of experience did not inform you to make better choices. I'm not saying everything you ever done was bad, you should be proud. But this video simply doesn't contain good content.
I think You virtually eliminated 90 percent of social interaction. You even eliminated the Charisma roll that is supposed to eliminate social interactions and gave the players an automatic success. You rolled a twenty if the goal is hack n slash and you rolled a one if the goal is roleplay.
when playing tactical games, initiative is crucial. when playing TTRPG, initiative is never spoken, unless it's part of the plot. it's a game mechanic that gets tossed immediately. we simply don't use it.
Deliberately going back and re-watching previous videos rather than watch your latest Critical Role video. :) Love your videos, Professor, and will continue to point the algorithm toward these much-more-useful gems of yours.
Ah--but the Critical Role video is actually about how to handle character death. I have another CR in production--"How Scripted is CR"--but it's really about how I write out a scenario in my notebook. So don't skip any DungeonCraft!
I think there's a fine line between cutting the fat and cutting off your players while they're enjoying something. I do agree with most of the pointless mechanical bullshit being trimmed, though shaving off too many pointless details can make your game feel too polished and like a boardgame; the random thing in the corner that has nothing to do with anything that you still bother to describe because it logically belongs in that room can lead to some interesting outcomes, like players interacting with it in combat or roleplay in unexpected or funny ways. I once had a player impulsively decide to steal a bunch of spoons I described in a pile of random other objects off the cuff and it became this long running joke in the group after it led to a bunch of other stuff happening. Why'd he steal them? Because... I'm not entirely sure why, as they weren't particularly valuable and it seemed like a poor use of action economy during a chaotic blackpowder gunfight, but that's sort of my point, isn't it? You never know how your players will decide to interact with seemingly unimportant details. Additionally, shaving off all details that don't matter can make players feel... mildly railroaded or 'rushed' when they realize that the things you're describing initially are the only things that matter, which can lead to people (not everyone, obviously) turning their brains off or becoming incurious about anything you don't describe. If your group starts getting the sense that the only detail or description that matters is what you offer initially, they can start to feel like asking about anything else is pointless or even 'wasting the time' of the group.
I recently described some birds riding an updraft, mostly as "birds for scale" as the party approached some ruins and my druid player instantly became obsessed with what type of birds they were.
It's all about the table. Sometimes the gory details are what add the flair and nuance players are entertained by. It's like the relationship between a good author and a good reader, a good author knows how to move the plot along and describe just enough detail to make the reader feel like they are in the room, but not everyone reads and some people just need to be told they are standing in a room because they don't care to know that there are cracks in the walls or that there is a roaring fire in the room or that their patron, for better or worse, appears to be a dwarf of the Foehammer tribe. To some, details are needless, to others, details are what make a good story and help put the subject in the room. Great video. Thank you.
I somewhat disagree with some of your points here. While I get the point of eliminating shoe leather from a movie script, A D&D Session isn't a movie script, it isn't a movie, and cutting out the pleasantries and small talk makes things feel less immersive. It also has the effect of making everyone you talk to seem like a dick, which may be fine for some characters, but certainly not all of them. You mentioned a scenario in there about your player's favorite NPC being kidnapped. Here's the thing, they'll never become the player's favorite NPC unless you have immersive conversations with them. Also, some of the most fun I've ever had in a D&D Game has been during a shopping session. While it is true shopping sessions can get tedious from time to time, in my experience it is only tedious for the DM who wants to move the plot along. When I've been a player, I crave those shopping sessions, interacting with unique shopkeepers, and trying to find that one item that is going to improve my game. And even as the DM, it can be a lot of fun crafting an NPC shopkeeper and making them memorable. I had a game I was a DM for and my players walked into a hat shop, I came up with the NPC shopkeeper on the spot and something unique about that shop, and wouldn't you know it, but that shop and that shopkeeper ended up being my players' favorite part of the entire campaign, to the point that I ended up creating a whole mystery around them that the players really wanted to solve. In Critical Role (since you started this video talking about it) who are some of the most memorable NPCs in each campaign. Campaign 1: Victor the crazy gunpowder salesman and Shaun Gillmore, the extremely charismatic shopkeeper of Gillmore's Glorious Goods Campaign 2: Pumat Soul and his simulacrum Campaign 3: Imahara Joe the tinkerer who creates/repairs/enhances the mechanical crawlers used in the death race These memorable characters are some of the most beloved characters in the entire critical role game and they wouldn't exist if shopping sessions were off scene.
Thank you for sharing. Newer episodes of CR move a LOT faster than season one, no? That's because Matt has learned to cut the shoe leather. I'm not trying to convince you to do it. I'm saying Matt has already done it--onscreen and in Daggerheart.
Really appreciate this video. I didn't even realize I needed this until you pointed out how asking the players what they want to do after too much description chips hours out of game time. Plus that is an excellent shopping tip. Thank you!!!
I think a lot of people in the comments are mistaking the advice to mean "don't ever get off the path" or "no goofing around or silly roleplay!" The point of the video is not that you should stop the players from doing that, but that a lot of DMs accidentally (and unknowingly) force their players into arbitrary or confusing situations that don't have a clear dramatic or practical point.
Great video, great advice!
THANK you. And thanks for commenting.
Sometimes awkward roleplaying is lots of fun. I would say the GM should be able to move things along when it isn't.
Very true, probably something that shouldn't be forced by the GM but if players are talking to Monchberger and like getting into that acting mindset it can be fun to play with a little, but I agree there is a point where the DM just moves story along to get to the important thing on track, players might remember the fun of the conversation but the game isn't just 4 to 6 people having a make believe conversion with one person having to pull off 100 voices
Right on, I have a table of drama llamas (TWO of them, actually), and I describe our sessions to other people as "awkwardly emoting at each other with the occasional die roll". But I move the action along when I sense it's becoming boring or otherwise not going anywhere.
I guess it also depends on the atmosphere. If you want to maintain a serious vibe than really it's best to skip anything goofy. In the games I play, we switch from googy to serious all the time (just like life)
I have one group where the youngsters seem to enjoy the awkward role playing most of all😂. Give them an opportunity to explore town and they’re off to the pet store to start a fracas. Aaaaargh!!
Correct, If they wanna come up with some disguise that they come from the kings order and whatever that is cool I don't see why I as the DM should not allow it, I do not think that everything ever so plane is always the way to go, sometimes a little bit of craziness is what brings the fun to the table
I think one man’s shoe leather is another man’s dinner
Well said
Yeah... my group likes to role-play every detail... even if it costs time
indeed
exactly. People love to roll their dice. Thats why they play in the first place. Rolling initiative takes a few seconds and then it is set when you play D&D. We play Earthdawn, where many players have Skills and Talentsd to manipulate their Initiative or depend on a good Initiative. And: It's rolled every turn. If I tried to introduce a mechanic to avoid Ini rolls the players would just leave the game. Even so in D&D. Ini rolls are one of the most fun things for a lot of people.
Since our GM is married with cildren he only has about 4-5 hours to play (only once a month). For me that's the perfect amount that I plan when I am GM. (I plan to play 4 hours with a break after about 2 hours, with some extraa time for talking - so about 6 hour max.) But for most other players of our group that's a reason to not even leave their home. It's too short. They only come because we play this campaign for about 30 years now. And the professor is bragging that he plays only 2 hours. I don't know players that would even consider playing for such a short time. It's not a PC game.
And shopping sprees can be the best and most memorable thing to do. Most people know Critical Role: Some of the fan favourite NPCs just exist because the party went shopping. In Season 3 a long forgotten threat during shopping lead to a side arc where now a bounty hunter is on the trail of Chetney. We had such things in our Group too. Sure: you shouldn't play every trip for new trail rations or a replacement of the cloak you cut into stripes to create a makeshift rope. If the GM can't or don't want to create an interesting place with interesting enough NPSs: dont do shopping trips.
Most often it's boring because even if something happens to a character the rest of the group is not interested in this, because it's not something they are included. Often players go: "Oh wow. That Swordmaster met an arch enemy in the weapon shop. What do I care about that? Boooring!" on the other side they love when stuff like this happens to them. But that is a social problem. If your party only consist of egomaniacs you should look for other players.
@@mirafeder7992 Indeed, while my players have - upon occasion - lamented that they never get enough done during a session because they get stuck in the details, every time I try to push them along they resist and - finally - when we discussed it, they admitted they liked getting lost in the details and I should ignore their bitching.
I think many of my favorite memories playing D&D come from strictly unnecessary details. The world exists and it's lived in. Stripping the world bare takes the life out of it. A balance has to struck. I prefer the moment of, "I wonder if that's significant" to, "Okay, well I know I'm supposed to interact with that so I will. This DM never describes anything unless I'm supposed to touch it." It sounds like the teenagers probably had fun attacking that tree, they were probably so accustomed to only significant things ever being mentioned that they assumed the tree had to be significant.
To each their own.
I fully agree to that statement. My mind didnt picture anything in Munchburger's office, or how he looks. It was just some random PDM talking to me out of nowhere. I NEED description. My mind doesnt work like yours, PDM.
This video is great for one-offs, convention play, or playing with people you don't know well, but other than those scenarios I agree!
Most of the memorable moments in our home games come from that 'dumb stuff' that at a convention or paid game would feel like a waste of time.
It isn't a speed run! 😝
If I don't get enough narration, I have difficulties engaging, even if maps and tokens are right in front of me. And if the maps are too detailed, they become invisible to me. I'm not here to play a video game OR listen to a story, but some well-balanced interactive hybrid thereof.
Absolutely agree. I like descriptions and fluff. It does depend on the players, and yourself as gm, a lot. Many of my players want the game to be a bit whimsical. And if you don't fill out the world a bit with unnessecary detail they won't have stuff to play with. Like in the mountains, our paladin randomly decided to try to befriend a mountain goat (that I thought of as scenery) rolled nat 20 and now they have a goat friend for life. It later helped them survive a blizzard. So I like to gm by throwing some stuff at the players, see what sticks, and go from there.
But there is definately a tricky balance with pacing. And with making sure they don't get hugely side tracked or don't get the clues at all. So with this style, you really need to make important details extremely obvious sometimes, or sometimes even tell the player outright 'it would be reasonable to find this piece of information extremely important'.
I think this is great advice for people who wants to play in that way.
it isn't for my table, as we kinda enjoy roleplay that is not necessarily geared towards advancing the plot, but the general idea of trimming the fat is good one. In my game I'd trim it less than what you do in yours, but I think your narrative style is a great one if that is the experience you're looking for.
Same. I'd find it hilarious if my players were pretending to be royal health inspectors checking beds for lice, and i know they'd be laughing, too
100% agreed. Most DM's are not very good at narrative play...
I was about to say something similar. All groups play DnD differently and get entertainment in different ways. They bring storytelling and playstyles from other media and hobbies. IMHO, the most prominent player types are: war gamer, theater nerds, cinematic storytellers, literary nerds, video gamers, and fanfic shippers. There's probably more. Based on this video, Professor is more of a cinematic gamer. Critical Role is DnD played by theater nerds where the roleplaying performances are the centerpiece of their game. I prefer the old school survival which emphasizes travel as a major part of the adventure (e.g. Tolkien and Homer's the Odyssey). There are many valid playstyles based on the type of players at your table. It's what Matt Colville calls the "juice" for the player.
Yes. Our group really enjoys roleplaying walking from A to B, get in some character moments, do some theorising and planning before they get there. A quest that will usually take 1 session according to the book will usually take 2-4 with us. And we all love it. But a campaign module will take 3 times as long to complete.
I do really like the ideas for how to shorten awkward conversations. Often my players try to milk antagonists for every bit of further information instead of going on the adventure and finding out. Feel like this could help to tone that down a bit.
I think it is ironic that he is using si much critical roll references given every gm they feature has a highly narrative and descriptive dm style where the players chew the scenery. They have several running gags about "shopping episodes" and a long standing joke about a door no one could get past.
I love all Dungeon Craft videos. Seriously, this one has so much great advice for DMs. Wonderful example with Munchburger cutting out the shoe leather. Thank you Professor, and thank you Death Bringer tackling that tiethling problem
Instead of all-or-nothing skill checks, have skill checks represent how long it takes or have a failure represent success with complications
This is a sensible use for otherwise pointless seeming skills such as Library Use. It's not about whether you find a book or not, but how long it takes you to find the relevant information.
You mean like how it is in many non DND games? Good suggestion.
I often use what I call "better/worse" rolls. Skills checks can still be success or failure, but the context of those things can vary. Maybe you can't pick the lock, but in your fiddling with it you see that the screws on the door hinges are loose, so failure suggests alternatives. Maybe you were successful, but there were unforeseen consequences, such as picking the lock but alerting the guards. Making a skill roll implies some amount of actions have just taken place. Not necessarily ONLY the action you rolled for.
This is the way
In many CoC modules, it will tell you about how long it takes to find based on your player's Library Use rolls. Some even say that your character becomes fatigued if you push the roll and spend all night searching.
The story about the tree, and the example of PC making up an identity about being health inspectors sounds like the most DND/TTRPG things ever.
That poor gnarled, 70-year old tree.
Druid , while entering the dungeon after healing the tree you hear a whisper on the wind and in the creaking of old branch“thaaannk yooouuu”
in anguished GM voice: "ok, so you've all tried to romance the river. It won't return your favors. Can we please move along now??"
it’s ok, next time i will make sure the tree is completely destroyed.
This channel practically writes itself.
I remember describing a single tree in an open field when I was a teen. That was two hour mistake.
Like the Tree incident I made the mistake of overly describing an entry door to a hall (it had an intricate carving depicting something) and the players wasted so time trying to figure out if the door was either trapped, a puzzle or magical. In my head I’m like just open f-ing door already! 😂
"We want to search the room" - "Make an Investigation check."
"I want to look under the bed" - (Knowing there is a lock box hidden under the bed) "You find a small iron box pushed back into the corner under the bed."
That’s how I would do it too, more or less, except I would call for a notice roll. 😊
@@GodzillasaurusJr Sounds like S/W/CWN ?
Ask this question of yourself: If you were going to search a room, would you NOT look under the bed?
@@robinstubbings7659 Have you ever entered the kitchen to look for your glasses/car keys/whatever and you can't find them? Then you search every other room of the house because "they have to be somewhere, right?". Then 20 minutes later you return to the kitchen and they're right there on the kitchen table.
Alternatively, your spouse suggests "I think I saw them on the table!" and you find them right away.
@@DerLolmann666 I play Savage Worlds with notice rolls. Or in OSE I use a d6 roll.
I think a critical detail that a lot of newer players will miss is the subtext in this video: There's a time and place for this kind of pacing. It's good for driving toward the action and giving quest details. Moments like that are when you need your players' attention the most. Mess up and you end up explaining it all over again, maybe two or three more times.
But there *is* a time for the great stage setting paragraph or the long-winded NPC. You just have to make sure your whole game isn't you describing the props and set pieces or when you come to it, it'll get lost in the sauce. If your game runs as Prof describes and then you hit your players with a talkative NPC, the contrast can make it memorable.
I like this video as a baseline. Deviate from it like you would add seasoning while cooking. Too much and you don't taste the food. Too little and you don't *want* to taste it.
Yeah, agreed. I just started a horror fantasy campaign where I had a 2min written introduction to the setting to set the mood. But now as they get into a hex crawl situation I'm going to fast track them to the interesting tiles ,and just tell them how long it took them to travel.
I have to agree: If we did it this way all the time, where I just "cut the fluff" and jump straight into telling you what you need to know, there's a major loss of roleplaying opportunities. It becomes me describing things to you unless it's combat, the one area you can do a thing.
Yes, taken to the extreme, you could just say, "A bunch of clues led you to the secret entrance you need to access the eart of the enemy lair. Enter the lair and roll for initiative."
If you give no extraneous information, you are removing a lot of potential for the feelings of mystery and discovery.
On the other hand. If you are taking 6 sessions of travel time loaded with random encounters that do nothing to further the plot. You should probably need the Profs advice and just get on with it.
I agree with the shopping. Unless you want to introduce a new reoccurring NPC,.it can probably be done in downtime.
@@maycontainviolence5587as a player shopping sessions are gueniuenely the most fun thing to me, it feels like a reward, and it allows me to indulge in something i csnt indulge in real life, aka spending exorbstant ammounts of money on unnecasarry things
00:33 Professor admiting he's wrong is one of the reasons why I like this channel so much. Insta-liked!
Now he just has to do the same with the "is Paizo in trouble" video/debacle and it would be perfect.
He won't, had plenty of time to do so.
@@The_Yukki Yeah, I know. At least we have GUST's video mocking the situation.
Aside from possible demonic possession, none of us can predict the future. I think it would probably be a waste of everyone's time if UA-camrs who make guesses about the future had to create a new video every time their guess wasn't 100%. We should probably also note that PDM says at the close of most videos, '...that's what I think. What do you think?'.
I did. On Roll for Combat. Very publicly.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Could you please link the video or mention the name so I can search for it? Thanks for great content, Professor!
I think your approach of cutting off the details and getting to the important "scene" so to speak, is great.
Although I will say, the skill is in knowing when to go into details and when to just run through the boring formalities. And not many have mastered that skill.
Almost 20 years of tabletop games, and I still found this helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. It took me 40 years of playing TTRPGs to figure this out. So I saved like 20 years of your life!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1
I'll be sure to save someone 10 years.
This... may be the single best advice I have ever heard about running a game.
There is literally a few scenes in 'Batman Begins' where Bruce and Lucius Fox basically unbox gear they've ordered online 😂 But I get your point. "Does it come in black?"
Even those were almost ironic too. It’s not like you “need” to see that stuff
Like that scene in the 1989 Batman, where Joker says, "Where does he get all those wonderful toys?" Now, he'd just google it and get his own.
This is great advice for GMs who are trying to make campaigns that run much further into the kick-in-the-door portion of the spectrum run smoother, but, uh, not gonna lie, a lot of this seems like a recipe for your players not remembering and not caring about the world beyond the combat. "Go through castle with no description and get quest from a king you can't interact with" sounds like NES RPG shizz... actually, worse, because in OG Final Fantasy you can at least see what the castle looks like.
Depends on the table, our favourite part is all the so called "shoe leather" we barely even care about combat. For us the character dialogue and development within an immersive puedo-simulation fantasy world is what we are going for.
We'll have a 3 hour session where the party just asks questions of witnesses and I GM 8 different people many having different perspectives but little meaningful information to progress the situation. It's up to the players to find relevance in the little things and pursue the leads.
Another time the players spent the session going through the markets and in character started chatting at a tea shop.
If you are having a good time, I would never stop you.
It’s fascinating how different the same game is played between tables. I tend to assume I could sit at any table of DnD and have fun, yet to me, the game you’re describing sounds like abject torture, so I’m obviously wrong.
I wish I could articulate best how this type of video is super engaging and lights my imagination, so thanks for that professor! As an editor by craft, I am always looking at what tells a story in as few scenes as possible, with little cutting, to make sure flow and immersion are maintained, so it’s nice to hear how that translates into RPG spaces.
I’d also say that if you can cut a roll for a piece of information, it’s always best bang for buck if you gift that information to a character that has a background relevant to the info, or a mechanic skill or character creation choice that can be related. Makes it feel like the player’s choices have an impact on the game world (which it should), and will help with the investment and onboarding to your game where the players feel like their choices have a measurable value beyond rolling dice.
YES! Good advice. Editing is an art--the art of cutting out what does not need to be there. Leave it to an editor to make such an insightful comment.
"Tieflings, the kender of 5th edition"
My god you're right.
I used to thing that Deathbringer was comic relief, but he’s more like a Greek chorus.
Deathbringer is never wrong.
This is one of my favorite videos of yours. A useful tool to speed up sessions and reduce drudgery, combined with examples!
I don't utilize it all the time, but between this tip and hand-waving certain perception and search checks you've saved me a lot of game time.
Thanks, Professor!
Based, eh? How do you do, fellow kids?
Truly, this video title will remain just as dope and fresh in the future as it is right now.
Based and Deathbringerpilled
@@PeculiarNotions based 😂
Right? xD I didn't expect such slang on the professor's channel.
Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.
1. Rolling Needlessly
2. Shopping Trips
3. Over Narration
4. Awkward Roleplaying
What I think: (1) Take 10/Take 20 was a great way to eliminate unnecessary die rolls, especially when there is time for unlimited die rolls. Failure should have an interesting consequence. So, roll to find traps - failure is interesting - don't roll to find clues - failure is boring, and possibly plot-killing. If you like to improvise, it may be worth calling for clue-finding rolls, but then interpreting the results not as "find a clue or don't", but rather "success means finding a clue that helps us bring things to an end, failure reveals a clue that things are worse/more complicated/etc. than they seemed." (I got this from how Ironsworn handles Gather Information, and suspect PbtA games have a similar philosophy) (2) traditional initiative is, in fact, awful. I like group initiative (allows for more strategic team-based play) with first group determined by whichever group started the fight. That's typically pretty obvious from context. If not, each side rolls a die, high wins the toss.
Good advice.
I much prefer the employ of "passive" skills; Perception, Investigation, etc are all things that - outside of combat - don't need rolls. Your character is either very perceptive or not, they know what to look for when investigating an area, or they're athletic, or they're insightful. Only when it comes to opposed checks, like deceiving NPCs or fighting, should we need to bring the random chance factor into it...
That said, also allowing some puzzles/investigations/social encounters resolve purely based off the player's intellectual approach (telling you what they want to do and that being the correct action to solve the puzzle) is simply *better* narratively while also speeding up the session... if the players aren't cracking the code, give them hints and help them feel like their *characters* would have solved it even if they couldn't... the RNG factor doesn't improve the roleplay.
@@revenantcode7633RNG Is my table's bread and butter. I allow for a failure to find a clue, if the clue isn't absolutely required.
If the clue was information about a false protagonist, that just means it's up to the player now to decipher any other clues if they missed the big one. I'm entirely happy to make a bebg reveal at the end, just as happy as I am to allow players to find it out themselves. Hell, let them rally the officials.
RNG in my opinion is the real difference between running a campaign and just a module.
I am also entirely for tpk, because the fear of death and loss is what pushes realistic decisions. Like running from an owlbear at level 2.
This definitely isn't advice I'd take to every DnD table, because people generally I think enjoy a lot of those unnecessary details and awkward conversations. I think it gives the game a lot of life and personality that might get lost in the spirit of the "performance".
There's always room for improve. But I like the game to keep moving.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 moving where tho? The game itself is a PROCESS, not some kind of destination. If players are having fun with whatever silly bullshit they do no matter how "unimportant" it is, then the game is a success. If players are doing something and this something is bringing them joy, that means the game is, well, moving to the right direction already and there is no need to fix anything.
There were a few times where i mistakenly though that players are "doing nothing" by indulging in some intricate and "unimportant" details of the game because they lack direction and i should do something, to "make thing moving" and it nearly ruined the game on several occasions. So i've learned my lesson: isn't broken - do not fix. It's always better to have unfinished game where the process of playing it was fun than the finished game with clear destination, where players had to speedrun and constantly moving to get to this destination, while not having fun during the process.
@@u1frickb1ack55You could always get player feedback. Ask them if they’d like to act out getting supplies and mix up exchanges with NPCs and ask them which style of NPC they preferred. You can also make the unimportant thing arbitrarily a part of the plot. The search for the lost spoons of Granny Smith leads them outside of the cave where a cart carrying a spoon crate has been ransacked, causing them to go into the dungeon to look for the spoons.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 the game is for the players not for you. i would not wanna play on your table tbo
@@u1frickb1ack55 not doing it yourself doesn't mean you can't let your players do it if they want to.
Additional Investigator trick. Librarians are an underappreciated asset. Home addresses can be tough to find for those who might want to avoid such contact. BUT... there are community phonebooks, "village" newsletters, and other community communications not so readily available online. So, pick up the phone, or visit a library wiith some nice books to donate (like Harry Potter hardbacks when they being released), and ask the librarian for help. Have found many "secret" resididences, vacation spots, and even "actual" residences carefully concealed from property record searches all with a conversation with a librarian at the public library.
Also, be cool to your libraries. When popular kids books are released buy a couple of copies and donate them. Some kid out there will appreciate it.
I agree with most of this, but a lot of my players like to banter with NPC's so i doubt i could skip over the "I want to talk to the bar keep" or "I want to haggle with the merchant"
In that case, they're seeking out a particular exchange. Otherwise it's implied they just accepted the original price and moved on.
I don't know if modern, real-life libraries are the best comparison to DnD's often medieval libraries.
The archive systems are quite different. In fact, librarians are a relatively recent profession historically, first appearing in the 19th Century.
I get the spirit of what you're saying.
I'm right on for all of this, I had to take a break from table top rp games cuz I was leaking brain matter at every game- and I think all of the shoe leather (plus really mucky combat and the general level of detail in the more popular games) was the issue.
Ever since getting into OSR and Professor DM's tips (and others!) I'm actually feeling excited to run a game again haha
Cool! That means a lot to me.
I use a technique for introductions and sessions start (especially from inside a town) where I steal movie or play intros and adapt them to the setting. Intro to Conan the Destroyer where they're finishing up an adventure and they have to escape capture (where win or lose leads to a job offer), Goodfellas except the trunk is an actual trunk and the car is a carriage, Pulp Fiction is a favorite intro of mines. Gets the action started and cuts out the need for over-explaining.
I'm guessing from the speech near the end PDM will be doing a "re imagined" version of The Oldenhaller Contract from WFRP at some point. The Munchenburger Contract?
My DM tried to eliminate shopping, but he was the only one bothered by it. I liked planning out clever solutions and getting needed equipment in safety, else the DM would just tell us we didn't have the needed equipment and should have planned ahead. He decided we would henceforth shop between sessions, which made it awkward to know how to react when we arrived in a town: what do we do besides leave? (Got me...) It also meant we were less prepared and didn't devise strategies. The only person to engage with the out of game downtime stopped when the DM wouldn't let him visit other towns, etc. in between sessions. Out of game downtime eliminates all social components to downtime.
Thanks for sharing.
Here's what I bought.
Done. Except that Hammer of Thor and Ring of Invisibility. It was out of stock.
this may be a shock to some of you all. But some people like the "Shoeleather" and that is as much as what they are after as they are a good battle. Also, that tree you described may have slowed the game, but it made an interesting story, and that is what people remember from their games, the interesting stories and the silliness of a detail that the players gave extra importance to.
Talk to your table and see what they are after instead of making unilateral rules like "No shoeleather" or "don't do X ever." I have seen more than one amusing side NPC become the players favorite part because one of the players tried to haggle and botched and the Shopkeep's rejoinder was enough to make them all love him.
Batman going shopping is definitely something id love to see, that clip was hilarious. But I understand if this was to become a common oocurence it would quickly lose its fun factor, the fact its a unique event is whats funmy.
I played both 2e and B/X at PAGE this week (very sorry I somehow missed you, sigh). I agree about initiative and extra rolls. I ran 2e style initiative for 2e and…it was a slog. B/X was so much faster. Individual initiative works on A VTT, but in person it was so slow. In person I like how Numenera works. You roll to beat the monster level. If you succeed you go before the monsters, if you fail you go after…fight.
My BFRPG table enjoys annoying merchants for some reason, so they tend to do shopping on screen every now and again-but even then I try to keep it short.
A personal note, I would love to have you come on my channel sometime to chat if that’s something that could fit in your schedule.
Ok, I know it's just an ad. But I want more Grimtooth guest appearances.
That's the best commercial ever.
I beg to disagree. I'd rather see Deathbringer deal with that dork pretnding to be Grimtooth. LOL.
Wow that was a hardcore sponsor 😅
Also -> excellent video.
I remember watching a one shot session online where the set up was a group of different pirate captains were sent on a mission, but also all had their own secret agendas. Cool concept. Then the DM made the shopping mistake The party had just met. 10 minutes into the session. "Ok your in town. If you want to pick up a couple of quick things for your adventure there are a few shops nearby". The 2 girls in the group proceeded to spend over 2 and a half hours of a 4 hour session shopping. The 2 guys and the audience, bored out of their skulls. They never even made it into the dungeon.
Shopping trips in RPGs are weird. I will die on this hill.
Commercial was so well done, I didn't skip it.☺
2:58 Sorry but that is fundamentally untrue. Of course you need to make such roles as in your example because the chance is absolutely not 0 % that the characters don't find the door, it is in fact very realistic that they don't find it if it is well hidden. There are even examples from real life castles where real people searched for real doors and couldn't find them regardless of the time they spent searching.
3:14 It's not about "do they see it". The question is do they see it in time - or do they see it too late. The role is only unnecessary if someone in the party has a high enough skill that he cannot fail the role. But even in that case only the character with the skill should get the information, not the rest of the party. However - the moment all characters need at least a 2 to succeed the role is NOT unnecessary.
3:14 If a time limit is important, you are correct. 2:58. In RPGs, story trumps realism. That's what the very concept of HP is about.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 What have HP to do with the discussion? It's about the necessity of roles. I'd even counter your "the role is not necessary because there's a 0 % chance to miss it" argument with your own answer: Yes, story trumps realism - and secret doors are secret for story reasons. This means they should never be detected with a 100 % certainty unless there's a specific reason why the adventurers cannot miss the door.
In the case of hidden things like secret doors it is both realistic and because of story reasons that players should make a roll - or, even better and a common thing here in European groups - the DM rolls search and perception checks in secret. In case the players find the secret or succed at perception you can simply tell them what they found, and in the case of a failed role it adds to the mystery if the players don't know if they failed to find something because they failed the role or because there's nothing to be found.
Jeez, your players must love you. I wish you were around when I was a teen so I could have played more and with a competent dm.
Great work, on the video and from what I can gather on your hobby as one of the best dms on Earth
Thank you. Very flattering. This is one of my best videos, IMO. I have an upcoming one on the First 10 Minutes of your game that you'll like too. Only it will be called, "You'll Never Believe What This DM Did!" or something else clickbaity. So stay tuned!
If a PC tells me exactly what they are looking for exactly in the place it is, I hardly ever ask the roll to be made: they found it. I've seen people ask for investigation checks when they search the corpses of the fallen... seriously? They have stuff, you defeated them, they get it. When characters sneak around, I try to do the stealth roll when someone gets a chance to notice them, not before. Limit rolls! I get lots of compliments for doing so as Professor is right, moves the game faster.
Thanks for sharing.
This is a great video.
1. Don't call for unneccessary rolls. Think about if there's a realistic chance of failing -- often, there isn't.
2. Skip the shopping trips. Just do it off screen.
3. Don't overdescribe. Player's imaginations can often fill in the blanks.
4. Skip the shoe-leather. Get to the good bits of the RP. (This one I may selectively ignore. Mundane RP can go a long way to colour a character. But it depends on your table)
Also, a note from the final clip:
The most interesting bit of a scene is the actionable information! (there's an item, it's mine but I won't tell you why, I will pay you if you get it for me). That's what had me interested, no description of the mansion needed!
Thank you for your support!
I love player based interactions with the world. Sometimes the most random piece of fluff can lead to the most interesting options. Perhaps the tree was infected with twig blights and attacking the tree set off a swarm of them. Or who knows. The fluff gives life to the game. Sure it doesn't move fast but as long as everyone is engaging and having fun then it's all according to plan.
@@dwil0311eh, fluff is just like every spice in the GM rack, like drama or comedy. Players got different taste, it's the GM's job to figure out what taste the players like.
Buying 10000 mirrors after you already bought a ton of other items, changing your mind three times over and trying to outsmart the DM by not telling him what you want to accomplish is going to ruin your groups' shopping guaranteed. But to stick with Critical Role examples, a lot of the casts and the audiences favourite NPC are memorable shopkeeps, librarians, etc. It's always hugely entertaining when they meet Pumat Sol, Pumat Sol, Pumat Sol, and Pumat Sol in their second campaign. Also this way the DM can offer them magic items they might not have thought about themselves. There are a few times Matt leaned in and went "since you are return customers, the boss has something special in the back that just came in. I am not even sure what it does, you want to take a look?"
I agree. If pro voice actors are riffing and having fun, that's the game. If I'm waiting for another player to trade their +1 dagger for a +2 dagger, it's snoresville.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Fair enough
Many issues can avoided by simply asking the players what their goal is with a given action and train them to give you the goal and their approach every time so you can more accurately and quickly sort through narration and skill checks in one shot.
Ancient advice from the Angry GM still applicable to this day
Good advice.
I agree with most techniques, but I think it also depends on the table and the mood. RPGs aren't a Blockbuster flick or a Netflix series, most tables aren't meant to be enjoyed by an audience, they are to be experienced. With caution, the GM should spot if the players are having fun even if the plot is not advancing at all. Some players will have a blast with things like: Window shopping at a magic-candy shop or ask the guard to judge their juggling skills.
There was a time when I strived to GM games as a roller coaster and cut to the interesting parts from a story point of view, until my players told me to slow down and don’t cut or skip scenes or dialogues in which they were having so much fun. Nowadays when I believe the game is getting to a halt, I try to make sure to ask the players first: “I think this scene is stagnating for too long, are you okay with it or shall we skip to the next scene?”.
And, as I like to constantly be a player as well, I have realized that there are many things that are fun from a player’s perspective, but meaningless from a GM or an external audience perspective, specially, when the players barely need GM’s input to keep interacting with each other. IMO.
I genuinely want a deathbringer montage of all the wild shit he's said over the years! He's the best
Perhaps.....
Agreed. And he needs to do something about that dork pretending to be Grimtooth.
"The Royal Mattress Inspectors are here to check the tags on the mattresses! Quick, tell them everything -- anything to make them leave!"
Personally, I like describing the scene or having the scene described to me, if it is available. A picture is worth a thousand words, so unless you've got a picture, get your thousand words in order. It's easy for us older GMs/players to fill in the gaps, but younger players have never been to a sea-side tavern... this I learned GMing for my kids... without a description or a picture they may no idea what to actually visualize.
Yeah, the scenery tells you a lot about the environment you are in and much about the people or creatures that lived there. Everyone runs games differently people should find there own voice.
Sure, but you still can be economic with your words - read the Conan stories for inspiration.
Also, absolutely wholesome that your run for your kids.
Id get up and leave about 40 words into your 1000 words.
Sometimes having things like a dead tree in the room is a good thing cuz it creates funny moments of messing with the thing when it wasn’t really important to begin with. Then perhaps that tree may later on turn into an important plot point, like the party angered a group of treants because they attacked their cousin who was sleeping.
It's also worth noting that not everyone plays RPGs for the same reasons. The game doesn't have to be a speed-run, if the players and MC enjoy narrative or frivolous role-play you don't have to skip every thing that isn't plot relevant. If you're just hanging out with friends at your kitchen table you don't NEED to keep things moving to keep the audience entertained (well the lot of you ARE the audience so you do but not like if you were streaming your game).
Of course. I agree.
"... the Kender of Fifth Edition " -- brilliant!
One of my favorite, TTRPG memories is a shopping trip. I found a cursed book that slowly tried to bring me to the dark side. More than 20 years later I still remember it was wrapped in baby blue leather. The GM kept the pacing up by not dwelling on buying normal run of the mill thing but every now and then, we would stumble across hidden treasures, like a magic chocolate bar.
My players love shopping because it gives them an excuse to really engage with the location. You see people from all over the city at the market, learn about what's trading in the area, get to see all sorts of interesting things, and just experience the world. Stores can also be hiding interesting objects or npcs, with knowledge of the area.
There is so much roleplaying being missed by the advice in this video.
I used to leave more to the players’ imagination as you suggest, but I eventually learned that some people don’t conjure images in their heads the way I do. So to that end, I’ll provide a visual reference of roughly what I want them to see. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that.
I concur.
I literally *can't* visualize and think only in sound or in sort of formless, pure *data.*
I like the tree bit, mostly because it's totally what players do but also because it illustrate the point so well. If the tree isn't integral to the story, there's no point in it being there. Players automatically take our details as being significant due to the fact that some details can kill you. An old knotted tree stands before a bridge, the tree is grey and weathered obviously dead for some time. Vs. The bridge shows much disrepair, holed wood on wisp like rope covered in dust, motionless in the stale air. Which description leads the players to believe the bridge dangerous?
Seeing as I do most of my games over on Discord, knowing what to cut out really does help speed things along. This channel never fails to give me fresh things to work on, and for that I am thankful.
One reason I come here is, even after a lifetime of GM'ing, I do occasionally fall into bad habits. Prof always gets me back on track.
Glad you found something you could use.
What i think is tabletop roleplaying games are not movies , books , tv shows & music.
All of those are passive media.
A tabletop roleplaying game is a interactive media.
I agree. I want to make it as active as possible by cutting boring stuff.
I like to encourage my players to come up with things on their own. Like why the tavern smells. But in my experience it's really hard to get players to learn how to do that. Most of my players are indecisive and not particularly quick with a quip. I think a part of the Mercer effect is because Matt really does spend way too much time describing shit, and that's what a lot of new players have come to expect - to have the adventure handed over to them on a silver platter and they don't have to do anything.
Thanks for sharing.
Good gm adapts to the players.
If the players aren t the kind to take initiatives or be imaginatives, the gm has to pick up the torch.
The commercial was hilarious. I got the Grimtooth tome that you could actually use on its own as a deadfall trap. You'd be amazed how much use I've gotten out of it.
“Grimtooth’s Ultimate Traps Collection!” Though out-of-print, I lucked out and found a new copy for cover price on eBay last year. Best purchase ever! System neutral, the book’s lack of game mechanics means that the only way players are going to avoid these traps is to pay attention and engage with their in-world details. No die rolls are going to save them here!
A lot of this is great advice for groups that want to get into combat as soon as possible.
However, some groups love to indulge in the RP aspect - they want to meet the merchants, they want the extended conversation with the quest-giver, town guard, witness, or generalized random NPC.
But I do completely agree with cutting out unnecessary die rolls, especially for anything which is at least plot adjacent.
That's why I don't like callig all ttrpg "D&D".
the role play, story telling stuff is the default,
and the only thing people think of when you say D&D.
the grit and the sandbox used to be WAY more prevelent.
the two are almost completely impompatible.
why try to shoehorn them into the same pigeonhole?
A 2-3 hour session sounds like a nightmare. It also sounds like you're cutting out all the interesting roleplaying and engagement with the world just to jump to the "featured content". That works fine for a movie but roleplaying is about building characters and their relationships with the world over time. The players need freedom in which to do those things - rather than being shuttled from one encounter to the next. What you're talking about is a very linear, very railroaded, very board-game-esque experience.
This is all fine advice if you're running a 1-shot game but not for a campaign where you want natural character growth.
My players do plenty to build their characters. After 30 years with them, I find they like this style best.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Good for your players, I guess, not everyone expects the same level of immersion in their games. My table of 30+ year veterans would hate this.
I tend to economize my descriptions as well, though sometimes I think it's too little... when I remember, I try to go through the 5 senses and use those as my guide to setting a scene. It's a balance, though, I agree. You don't want to overdo it, but you still need to give them something.
Good video as always.
Disagree on a lot of things:
I like shoe leather, and it’s bothered me ever since I was a kid that people are so rude on the phone in Hollywood movies.
I grew up with static initiative and used it for 20+ years. Made an active choice to go with dynamic initiative instead, because it’s not boring. Static is boring. Not knowing whether the enemy is getting two consecutive turns creates tension.
“Awkward role playing” is often the most remembered part of our games.
I do call for search rolls if a player just says “I want to search the room”, but not if it’s searching in the right place, so I think I mostly agree with you there at least. 😃
For shopping for mundane items, I agree. If the party is shopping for an albino basilisk’s tale preserved in amber, that’s going to be a part of the session, maybe even a big part.
In GURPS initiative is your DEX ( DX ) score. And it's recommended that you seat yourself in order of your Dex, so you just take your turn clockwise like many board games. I've always wanted to try this but never brought it up as I think some players prefer to sit next to certain people. seems super efficient though and would cut through a lot of cripe that initiative rolls bring.
Thank you for making this video. I and a friend are making a tabletop RPG ruleset, and this video has highlighted a number of things we need to go back and address in order to keep the ruleset simple, speedy and engaging.
Wow, Professor DM has really been hitting the gym
I hate it when my gm ELIMINATES my dress shoes
Investigator trick 26: Always check their shoes, and then their ensemble. No one with money wears crappy shoes, and their ensemble almost guaranteed to be coordinated - or seems to make sense. Wanna make them nervous, maybe elicit some odd behaviors, comment on their shoes or ensemble and let the squirrelly-ness commence.
Something I thought I'd share about searching an area. In most games, I agree with the way you do it here, PDM--no need for a dice roll if the players are right on the money. However, in my homebrew system for dungeon crawls, I make timekeeping a big part of the game. I have searching rolls effect how quickly you find something, not whether it is actually there. If you succeed, you will find a secret (if there is one to find) in one dungeon turn. If you fail but there is a secret, you will find it in another turn (I give players the option to try again without a roll). Critical success means you find the secret immediately and get a bonus maneuver on that turn. So the rolls relate less to finding a secret and more to managing time as a resource.
Shopping trips have to be some of the worst scenarios. That seems to be where ALL the stupid comes out. Haggling, cheating, stealing, lying, all of it gets so old, so fast. I'm all for skipping the whole thing, but I did try to find a happy middle ground to make it interesting. In our current campaign, there's a shop the players can warp to between "chapters". I made a big list of stuff the shop can have, and the players "roll" the stock when they arrive. There's a lot of junk things like bolts of cloth, fruits, veggies, cloaks, then there's odds an ends like dented helmets, basic armors, basic weapons, ropes, grappling hooks, and then the rare chance of more useful things like potions/healing supplies. And then there's a super rare chance for magic items. The players can spend money to reroll the stock ONCE per visit. They can also select one item to be "held" while they save up. So it's kind of like a mini game.
As for curbing the stupid stuff, the shop is run by a rather large crocodile guy and his 3 friends who like to hang out there, one of them being twice the size of the rest. Somebody still tried to swindle the shopkeep and I had to ask "are you sure you really want to try that? Like, REALLY sure? Not only are these guys a lot bigger than you, this is your only shop."
Their answer? "Oh yeah ... I didn't think about that. I guess I better not."
I don't know what happens to players when they enter shopping mode. Their brains just exit the scene.
One of the things I like about the Professor is that he's not afraid to let his biases and preferences and playstyle show through. Definitely not a "safe space" or "D&D is for literally everyone at every table no matter what". And he's truly a master of HIS style. Very much the "Don't bore us, get to the chorus" type. It's about the very bare essentials. Get rid of the dice rolls, the long combats, the strategy, and the narrative. Get straight to the punch and the action and don't let it falter. Where rule of cool prevails over whatever the rules have in line. Make the game your own and get straight to what you have the most fun with.
Totally NOT my style. As I love the immersion and getting into the little ticks and nuances and all of the roleplay interactions. Maybe I was a drama kid in another life or something, lol. But I love seeing ALL of the different styles of playing. I've played the "wargamer" before and it was a ton of fun too (though still not my style). And I'd love the opportunity to play the bare bones "wing it" style that the Professor does just to see what the experience is like.
I am so happy to see the "Library Use" skill mentioned here. I love Call of Cthulhu, but that, and a few other skills, are absolutely unnecessary!
Spot hidden is the most annoying skill because Keepers use it to much. "Are the keys in the car?" "Roll spot Hidden" "but I am just looking to see if the keys are in the ignition, how can you hide the keys in the ignition?"
@@shepherd76 Well honestly that's less the rules themselves and more bad GMing. Some GMs, usually less experienced ones, get into this mode where they feel everything requires a roll. Don't require a roll unless the result is uncertain.
@@taragnor Agreed. My GM thinks that the more rolls equals a better game. I have told him that I find them annoying and immersion breaking but he is set in his ways.
@@shepherd76 Often the best cure for this is often for the GM to try being a PC and having it done to him. Some of my biggest improvements as a GM have come from being a PC and seeing how unfun some things are when the GM does them to you.
This video shows one thing: US culture is all about rushing things along.
For Petes sake, take your time to smell the roses. Not everything has to be a supercharged action movie.
To each their own.
One of the most consequential encounters in my current campaign was the players killing a shopkeeper who they found out was working for the villain. Wouldn’t have happened if we did our shopping between sessions.
tbh, the royal health department story would be really funny.
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We had some shorthand in one of my old groups. We often played in modern settings and would just say things like "You're in a kitchen." We didn't bother with describing the nitty gritty detail of where the stove or fridge was located. At best it would be "You're in a small, dirty kitchen."
I wish more people did this. I like painting the scene, but maybe not in every single one shot with dodgy plot hook that is meant to handwave a lot of things so we can get going 😁
I don't know, I've got a very colorful shopkeeper in my setting. The players often ask to go visit him just because they want a little levity. He's unknowingly quite funny, thinking he's some kind of "cool" dude, but actually pretty much a big goof.
I understand the spirit behind this kind of roleplaying but I believe that having more balance would work better for me. Sometimes the little details really come together to push the story and paint the world. After all, you can't have a good seared steak without just a bit of fat for the flavor.
I agree. "Little" details are cool. Too many details--not so much.
Great video on how to deal with dead time aka “shoe leather”! I really liked how you gave practical examples and then put it all together at the end. I believe you apply this philosophy to all your videos, which is probably why I love them so much.
Glad you liked it!
Makes sense. Especially when you consider players tend to bypass 80% or more of the DM's preparatory work.
Exactly.
This video helped me immensely. I have a table that mostly enjoys the "shoe leather", but sometimes I feel self-conscious about the slow pace of the game, especially because I enjoy long adventuring days with multiple encounters (combat and otherwise). This is very useful advice on how to cut a few corners every now and then, in order to gain precious session time. Thanks!
I think the critical thing is just to know your group and let them have the fun that they want while cutting out the stuff they're not having fun with. For me, personally, all of this advice is wrong or needs to be tweaked. I dislike when people try to eliminate most of the die rolls, because that's part of DnD's core playloop. Like, why should I spend points on investigation if the DM is going to skip that part of the game? I also enjoy shopping trips. My DMs tend to put nuggets of story in the little interactions, which makes talking to random villagers and shopkeeps more fun, but it probably also makes a difference that my noble is shopping for souvenirs instead of game items like armor. Please don't ask me as a player to describe the setting. Please do describe npcs if it's important. If it doesn't matter that one player thinks the guy is thin and the other thinks he's rotund, it's ok to leave out that description, but don't assume that your little mannerisms or tone of voice will look the same in everyone's head.
I love how you give examples, not just information. It really helps to drive the point home and for people like me to retain the information you impart. While i dont fully agree in the premise, i like alittle room to let the players be dumb from time to time, i appreciate the stance. Thanks
Thank YOU. Your comment was very helpful because I need to know exactly what people like--so I can include more!
We definitely have very different definitions of entertaining if you don't think I'd watch hours of retail Batman
Every Tuesday I search the tube to check if there is a new Dungeon Craft episode. Of all the Baldwins, professor DM is my favourite one
As an experienced DM and player who has played the game for over 30 years, this is bad advice. In many ways, he is advising you to skip some of the best parts of a table top role playing game. This might work for him in his games, but it is not good general advice. And he should have had the wisdom, given his experience, to recognize that before making the video. Not impressed.
No. I'm advising you to play the cool parts and skip the boring parts. BTW--I've played for FORTY years, have been published by TSR, Goodman Games, Kobold press, MET Gygax, played with Tracy Hickman, and published a TTRPG that has been in Drive-thru RPGs top 20 bestseller list for TWO YEARS. How's that for experience?
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 that's impressive. But it doesn't help turn your bad ideas into good ones. Unfortunately your wealth of experience did not inform you to make better choices. I'm not saying everything you ever done was bad, you should be proud. But this video simply doesn't contain good content.
I simply MUST go to my local library and ask for an old book bound in human skin.
I think You virtually eliminated 90 percent of social interaction. You even eliminated the Charisma roll that is supposed to eliminate social interactions and gave the players an automatic success. You rolled a twenty if the goal is hack n slash and you rolled a one if the goal is roleplay.
My games have more RP than anything else. Read my module "Frankenstein." If you want to encourage RP, limit CHA rolls.
when playing tactical games, initiative is crucial.
when playing TTRPG, initiative is never spoken, unless it's part of the plot. it's a game mechanic that gets tossed immediately. we simply don't use it.
Deliberately going back and re-watching previous videos rather than watch your latest Critical Role video. :)
Love your videos, Professor, and will continue to point the algorithm toward these much-more-useful gems of yours.
Ah--but the Critical Role video is actually about how to handle character death. I have another CR in production--"How Scripted is CR"--but it's really about how I write out a scenario in my notebook. So don't skip any DungeonCraft!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Hahaha! Make the algorithm work for you, nice.
Okay, I’ll go back and watch it. ;)
I think there's a fine line between cutting the fat and cutting off your players while they're enjoying something. I do agree with most of the pointless mechanical bullshit being trimmed, though shaving off too many pointless details can make your game feel too polished and like a boardgame; the random thing in the corner that has nothing to do with anything that you still bother to describe because it logically belongs in that room can lead to some interesting outcomes, like players interacting with it in combat or roleplay in unexpected or funny ways. I once had a player impulsively decide to steal a bunch of spoons I described in a pile of random other objects off the cuff and it became this long running joke in the group after it led to a bunch of other stuff happening. Why'd he steal them? Because... I'm not entirely sure why, as they weren't particularly valuable and it seemed like a poor use of action economy during a chaotic blackpowder gunfight, but that's sort of my point, isn't it? You never know how your players will decide to interact with seemingly unimportant details.
Additionally, shaving off all details that don't matter can make players feel... mildly railroaded or 'rushed' when they realize that the things you're describing initially are the only things that matter, which can lead to people (not everyone, obviously) turning their brains off or becoming incurious about anything you don't describe. If your group starts getting the sense that the only detail or description that matters is what you offer initially, they can start to feel like asking about anything else is pointless or even 'wasting the time' of the group.
I recently described some birds riding an updraft, mostly as "birds for scale" as the party approached some ruins and my druid player instantly became obsessed with what type of birds they were.
"You recognize these birds as very common for this region and their behaviour as nothing out of the ordinary, yet a beautiful sight to behold."
It's all about the table. Sometimes the gory details are what add the flair and nuance players are entertained by. It's like the relationship between a good author and a good reader, a good author knows how to move the plot along and describe just enough detail to make the reader feel like they are in the room, but not everyone reads and some people just need to be told they are standing in a room because they don't care to know that there are cracks in the walls or that there is a roaring fire in the room or that their patron, for better or worse, appears to be a dwarf of the Foehammer tribe. To some, details are needless, to others, details are what make a good story and help put the subject in the room. Great video. Thank you.
We agree.
I somewhat disagree with some of your points here. While I get the point of eliminating shoe leather from a movie script, A D&D Session isn't a movie script, it isn't a movie, and cutting out the pleasantries and small talk makes things feel less immersive. It also has the effect of making everyone you talk to seem like a dick, which may be fine for some characters, but certainly not all of them.
You mentioned a scenario in there about your player's favorite NPC being kidnapped. Here's the thing, they'll never become the player's favorite NPC unless you have immersive conversations with them.
Also, some of the most fun I've ever had in a D&D Game has been during a shopping session. While it is true shopping sessions can get tedious from time to time, in my experience it is only tedious for the DM who wants to move the plot along. When I've been a player, I crave those shopping sessions, interacting with unique shopkeepers, and trying to find that one item that is going to improve my game. And even as the DM, it can be a lot of fun crafting an NPC shopkeeper and making them memorable.
I had a game I was a DM for and my players walked into a hat shop, I came up with the NPC shopkeeper on the spot and something unique about that shop, and wouldn't you know it, but that shop and that shopkeeper ended up being my players' favorite part of the entire campaign, to the point that I ended up creating a whole mystery around them that the players really wanted to solve.
In Critical Role (since you started this video talking about it) who are some of the most memorable NPCs in each campaign.
Campaign 1: Victor the crazy gunpowder salesman and Shaun Gillmore, the extremely charismatic shopkeeper of Gillmore's Glorious Goods
Campaign 2: Pumat Soul and his simulacrum
Campaign 3: Imahara Joe the tinkerer who creates/repairs/enhances the mechanical crawlers used in the death race
These memorable characters are some of the most beloved characters in the entire critical role game and they wouldn't exist if shopping sessions were off scene.
Thank you for sharing. Newer episodes of CR move a LOT faster than season one, no? That's because Matt has learned to cut the shoe leather. I'm not trying to convince you to do it. I'm saying Matt has already done it--onscreen and in Daggerheart.
Really appreciate this video. I didn't even realize I needed this until you pointed out how asking the players what they want to do after too much description chips hours out of game time. Plus that is an excellent shopping tip. Thank you!!!