What are you self-conscious about as GMs? Like cruel NPCs, hard or impossible tasks, ye olde magic realme...

I have perhaps considered E6?
enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?206323-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D

The amount of your preparation shouldn't interfere with players' illusions of choice. Your penance is watching Back to the Future trilogy, to understand that everything can be changed.

This is hubris, my child. I exclude you from DMing for 30 days to rethink your misguided ways.

Practice moderation. Read the sidebar for optional lingering injuries every night before sleep for seven days.

You might want to learn from others' experience. Read 1d6+3 WotC adventures and try to write one of your own. As for the voices, try lightning some incense while practicing with the mirror.

There's nothing bad in this.

Don't despair, my child. You might want to watch Twitch or Youtube games to raise your spirits. Also, seek out scrolls of GM lore by the holy Perkins, his is the wisdom.

Have you tried playing fifth edition?

You might want to talk with your players about what you truly want, there's nothing bad in opening your heart to kindred. Don't be afraid of the preparation hardships for they bear the fruit of great gaming.

>Implying 5th edition fixes Caster Supremacy AT ALL.

Look, i won't argue that Concentration Spells wern't a good idea, but it's a bandaid trying to fix a gaping decapitation wound. Full casters are still wayyy more versatile, wayyy more powerful, and have wayyy more agency than non-casters and half-casters.

I used to think I'm a great GM until I read what a good GM should be. Now I'm too self-conscious and make shitty decisions.
I also don't use smell and sound enough in my descriptions.
I also put way too much work into my NPCs, leaving every else unplanned.

This whole thread is a testament to how badly designed the tools are that get included in the handbooks. D&D is such utter shit it's just

>Rule Zero design ur own game and use this encounter table lulz

>D&D is such utter shit
I'm not playing D&D

I don't run games. I want to, but I haven't. It's hard to get up the effort to do so. Every game in the past I ran, I killed on my own terms and now I have guilt and hesitation at the thought of trying to get another online group together.

Other than the guy rightfully bitching about caster supremacy, none of the issues in this whole thread have anything to do with DnD specifically.

Play something else. I had the same problem with DnD, and it feels so nice to be unshackled.

I don't have a solid grasp of the rules and I cant do math in my head, I just let the players tell me whats going on and if I get confused (which happens a lot) I just role random dice behind my screen and sigh.

I am a fraud, sooner or later someone will notice.

There are two shitGMs in my group of friends and they are both bitched about when not around.

I worry that I am an unknowing shitGM, and that my friends complain about me when I'm not around too.

They probably do because gossips are shitty people all around.

I've repeatedly Quantum Ogre'd every game the PCs are trying to avoid anything I throw at them.
And next week I'll TPK everyone.

Give me four.

I wouldn't call them "gossips." They're just so incapable of dealing with confrontation that they'd rather endure the shitty games than voice their complaints.

How long have you been GMing?

5 years

do your players have fun? sensory descriptions might hold weight in written novels, but unless your descriptions are lacking, it's not worth worrying about. if you're running a game that people are enjoying, you're a good GM.

user, you managed to entertain people for five years
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
get help
for the sake of your mental health

My players never understand what they need to do in my campaigns. They just wander around, ignoring any hint that I basically throw at them each session while the world around them is rotting away. What the hell am I doing wrong?
Why don't they care even after they agreed on the adventure pitch? Why do they even choose Good alignments if nobody is actually playing a hero? How will I ever run a full campaign?

My mom called it pitter-patter when people go back and forth bitching like that. I was in a circle like that for a while and when I stopped playing into it, I stopped getting invited.

Truthfully, I started pointing out what everyone else was whispering and named all the names because the bullshit was killing my buzz and got to find out what they were saying about me. Turns out I wasn't actually friends with any of them and they went right back to the "who's the asshole pariah this week" drama. That shit isn't healthy. I had it pop up at work recently and cause some serious tensions until I had enough paperwork to get rid of the main perpetrator for other reasons.

I've bought and read GURPS and it's even worse. Being generic is an excuse for being boring and giving shitty tools to the GM

Are we suddenly pretending Veeky Forums RPG discussion isn't DnD by default? Okay we can go that way faggot. Name a game that DOES give good tools and guides to GMs

Being a GM is a craft and yet these sellers refuse to provide good tools to work with.

You want to define what you mean by good tools or do you just want to shit on every rpg someone suggests? Cause "good tools" is incredibly vague.

God damn I hate the emphasis on flavor when I can't even get a bite of meat out of these fucking high school drama teachers that call themselves GM's

YOU SUCK because you don't know how the fucking world works and nothing functions the way it should, NOT because you failed to point out the dirty fingernails of the fisherman.

Arghhh

I'm awful at designing adventures. I'm good at running something premade, but I get way into my head when I try to come up with my own encounters and environments.

What are you rambling on about autist? You realize these are make believe world's made for fun, right?

>Name a game that DOES give good tools and guides to GMs

>Apocalypse World
>Trail of Cthulu
>Savage Worlds
>Fate
>Dogs in the Vineyard.

Sure I'd be glad to. For example a reference guide for how environments and creatures exist in harmony so that encounters are naturally more interesting and believable. Or some basic education on how economies and International relations can work between different groups so that there are logical scenarios.

The best inspiration comes from a solid understanding, not floaty buzzwords and cliches. Almost every aspect of living in a world like that of Dungeons and Dragons or whatever scenario (sci-fi, etc) could be explored and explained in order to help GMs better simulate things and feel like they have a handle on how things work.

I haven't DMed a game yet, but the big thing I worry about is me boring my players because I have a monotone voice similar to Ben Stein. I'm also worried about not being good at improvising things if the players go a direction i completely wasn't expecting. I like to write and create scenarios but every so often I remember how shit of a DM I might be and I just say who cares and scrap my material.

Every other DM I've played with in our group is good at voices or great at improvisation. I want to run a game but I feel like it'll fall apart because I'm such a dull person my players can't get into the game.

I don't know how feasible that is. I'm not claiming all of that should be obvious because it's dealing with the fantastic, but getting out of the basement for five minutes and a little bit of contemplation will answer those questions. To understand fantasy economy, you first have to understand trade in general and that isn't the purview of a handbook. Not to mention monsters, which originally came from an underworld dungeon that wasn't supposed to make any sense and were never designed to fit into what you're talking about.

Aren't all of those things more specific to individual settings as opposed to GMing in general?

Then some guide for how to believably design those things so they work well rather than just being jumbles of "this looks cool."

So to get the gist of what you want, you want a guide on how to belivavbly simulate fantasy economies and ecosystems?

Balancing fun and challenge is hard. I often bump down DC 's in official modules since my players don't min/max and a DC 30 check at level 2 just isn't possible without help. Am I making it too easy? I feel like giving them more than a 1 in 20 chance to get plot related stuff is fair (looking at you, safe in Carrion Crown). 4 or 5 in 20 with two tries is usually fair I think.

I also had a That Guy in my games. Yelled at players for being "out to get him," almost openly cheated and "forgot" rules, made me pick his feats for him. I've always worried that I might have been enabling the whole thing. But it's hard to confront someone about cheating when they're big enough to snap you in half and angry at the moment.

If you struggle with voices just keep them simple and over exaggerated. Practice in the mirror to help.

Honestly actual content trump's voices for me. Why I find things like Critical Role bad, sure they're all professional actors so it sounds good, but the actual game they're playing is basically railroaded and ignores most of the game rules in favour of improv acting.

I don't know why people are always so afraid of confronting others. You don't have to be mean or provoke them, you can just say no. Fucking pussies.

Yes. Key word being believably. I don't care about GURPS level depth, I want tools to help me make something surface level functional.

I'm a first time GM and with how most of my party is built I have to work around some legitimately really strong PCs when I design encounters, but I'm not great at balancing things so they end up shredding my baddies and my rolls for the badniks to hit are terrible so the party usually isn't in danger.

On the flipside, the one time I designed an encounter expecting my shit rolls and compensated for them with enemies being tough and numerous was the same encounter where I couldn't stop rolling hits and fucked the party up so bad that I had to throw a pair of friendly NPCs onto the field to avert a TPK from my shit job balancing things.

I also have a lot of trouble prepping world details and sessions in general, and every time game night rolls around stresses me out a bunch because I need something for them to do and they can only spend so long on interacting with all the friendlies they keep bringing to home base.

My players are good guys to have along and they like my game a lot but I feel like I'm letting them down with shoddy fights and improv sessions. Augh.

I would think by now they would realize this and just give everyone spells. Full BAB guys get Ranger/Paladin spell progression, Medium BAB guys get Bard spell progression, and Slow BAB guys get Wizard/Sorcerer spell progression.

Modules tend to be badly designed.

If the thing they need is plot critical then there shouldn't be a roll to get it they should just get it at the appropriate time that makes sense.

You can also always tell someone their behaviour isn't appropriate for a game. If they literally do resort to physical violence you report them to the appropriate authorities and ban them entirely . Be an adult.

What safe are you talking about exactly?
It's been awhile since I've read the module but if I'm not mistaken it's pretty easy to achieve when one takes 20, and everyone else uses the aid another action.

They did this.

Well, not everyone got spells, but everyone got "spells".

Then everybody threw a bitchfit and now we are stuck with 5e.

I'm always scared that I'll say something magical realm-ey, and now that my group is trying to make a podcast with our sessions I'm very scared that I'll accidentally make or say something with weirdly racist or sexist undertones.

I feel like for most of my players they have fun so I'm not to worried. Recently one of them brought a friend who is a murderhobo like full on all my npcs and even the players sometimes he constantly lies about things like his class and racial abilities (I often assume my players are honest) none of the players have complained yet and no amount of punishment seems to stop him I'm kinda lost. I would talk to him but there isn't anywhere I could do it in private. I've killed his characters I've cucked him in stockades for a full session while everone else played and he still does it what the fuck do I do?

I'm terrified that as my players delve deeper into my setting they'll end up hating it and thus killing the game, the more pressing matter is I'm scared the players are going to find subsequent encounters too easy, especially since I can only throw so much at them because one of the players didn't like me changing things up with undead and silent hill esque monsters in a game where the most common enemy is "guy with a gun".

Tip for voices: Don't do accents. It's all about tone of voice.

The only options you seem to have here are find a way to talk to him and tell him to cut it out, or boot him from the game if it's too destructive and he refuses to stop. There's no point in GMing if you're not enjoying the game yourself.

>and even the players sometime
I just say "We don't do that here." and move on when they try to do it and if they try the same thing again I tell them they have to leave. The first warning is enough for most people that this isn't GTA. But that only works if you do it from the start. Punishing them in-game is petty and does nothing. I've only had to do it twice because my friends don't like it either and started vetting who they bring with them after the first one had to drive the fucker home right then and there.

>5e
>BAB

Believe me, I want to.

Unfortunately playing anything besides DnD basically means not having a game. Despite popular opinion on the matter, I'd rather have a bad game than no game.

Even though I'm making several paths, some of which to the same thing, I'm afraid of railroading. I can improv yeah since I'm not really telling they have to go down x path but still but.

I've been gming for ten years now but only have experience with D&D, 4E , Pathfinder and 5E to be exact.

I've played in various other short lived games including Scion, Rolemaster , World of Darkness , Dungeon World, LOTR, WHFB and ran a one shot of Dark Heresy but they all fell through fast.

I'm going to give apocalypse world a try soon but fear I've been so sculpted by D&D that I'll have no idea how to run anything else.

This how the confrontation actually went.
"So guy I had people watching you and was told your rolls were looking sketchy."
Guy goes red immediately. Immediately starts pointing fingers at people spying on him. Didn't let me get a single word in edgewise. Super aggressive. Also over twice my size and taller. It's damn hard to think when there's a huge angry dude right in front if you shouting a mile a minute.

The confiscated goods room in the first module that gives you the items to defeat the bosses. It's DC 30 disable device and the only key is found after the lairs of several of said bosses. At level 2 my party's ninja could only do it on a nat 19 or 20 even with masterwork tools. Which he had to sell his loot to afford.

>Talking about BAB in a topic about 5e.

I don't prepare enough, especially when I really need to. Next session is Monday, and I only have a hard concept about what is going to happen. I've been playing Witcher 3 and procrastinating. I can make by with some amount of improvisation (I work at a local theatre group and am really good at improv), but this next session really needs some planning. But I'm always self-conscious about too much planning turning into railroading.

Maybe online, but IRL people will play whatever. Anybody who only plays DnD isnt worth playing with.

Havnt touched 5e. I remember in the playtest they had BAB. What did they change it to, nothing?

Yo hit me up with that podcast senpai, I've been looking for new listening material

They replaced it with a proficiency bonus that's universal across all classes. Most classes do have spells or an archetype that allows them to cast spells.
If nothing else, you should at least glance over 5e. Even if you're not into pirating the PDFs you can get most of it via the free basic rules and SRD.

Try level 3.

Descriptions. I know that every time I direct the player's attention to something, there's a non-trivial chance that the players will bizarreley fixate on some random detail and de-rail things in an orgy of nonsensical inferences based on one offhand line.

Sometimes I come up with a riddle challenge and don't figure out an answer. I just wait until the players have an answer that sounds right, then say "Yeah that was it"

>Savage Worlds

You mean the game that teaches you to wank your players by handing them a Benny reroll point for every retard idea they have? The one that fills up with plot armor bullshit and broken weapons so the characters win without even trying? Yeah fuck that game. Savage worlds is a piece of shit and filled with d&d- style trap options and caster supremacy to boot.

You must be fun at parties.

You mean "in parties"

None of that is even slightly relevant to the subject at hand. Please take your autistic screeching somewhere else.

You faggots brought up svaage worlds as an example of good GM advice. I called that out as bullshit. Fucking deal with it.

But literally none of your complaints have to do with GMing tools and advice. A system can be awful and still offer great advice for how to GM and great options for how to build an adventure in its awful system.

Try actually addressing the assertion made rather than just tossing out unrelated bullshit and strutting like a pigeon.

I keep frigging not...challenging my players during big-ass boss battles, oftentimes forgetting what skills and powers the big bad can use to make things a legit difficult encounter, as such everything feels anticlimactic.

Like, a single Khorne Berzerker should be quite a challenge to one Sister of Battle, and one Sister Hospitallier (armed with a laspistol, the former a chainsword), but man that was just a shitty encounter- they practically walked over the bastard.

>there's nothing bad in opening your heart to kindred

Someone's never played Vampire

kek, good one

Plots are too complex.

I mean not "deep" but too wide scope and with too many characters that the 4 around the table can't keep up.

divide
make each of the plots into subplots that are interconnected
I at least can better remember many plots between a few people than one plot that seemingly involves half the populace

I have two big problems as a GM. The first is that I'm always afraid to hurt my players - in my current game, no one has anything that speeds up natural healing, so an injury can demand a week or more of rest before we can move on with stuff. Additionally, I'm always afraid to use the social system on my players, out of fear of seeming like I'm trying to force them down a path, even when I know that it's the NPC that is trying to convince them, not me.

I sometimes feel really fucking weird while doing the npcs. I know how to make a campaign, and I think i'm pretty good at it. I can do engaging and interesting descriptions and bring the world to life, but fuck me if I don't worry about my npcs. Are they real enough, is this character interaction awkward, have I invested way to much into these npcs that they don't seem to give a shit about for some reason. In particular, female npcs make me uncomfortable. Not all of them mind you, I've played female characters when I was they player and I don't neccesarily have a problem with it, its just doing certain archetypes of female characters makes me really fucking uncomfortable. Fuck dryads and nymphs man.

Hello? Kindly saint? You gonna minister to us poor unfortunate souls or what?

Assuming you're playing D&D, the system basically requires you have a cleric.
You can get by with a paladin and potions, but after a while it starts becoming less effective and slows down the game significantly.

That's not dnd. In dnd you heal everything after a nights sleep. I'm betting it's a white wolf game. I remember that healing after getting slashed up in those was hell.

>In dnd you heal everything after a nights sleep
No. You heal 1hp per hour of sleep.

Sorry, correction: 1hp per level per hour of sleep. So a level 10 character will regain 10hp per hour.

Which edition? Cause I swear i remember hp getting reset.

3.5. I checked, and 5e is kind of weird about it, but a full bed rest does refill HP entirely. Frankly, I think that's open to abuse.

I have a lot of great ideas for settings and themes, but I feel like they barely ever come out in play. When I asked someone who plays in my game, he said that he was enjoying the game and the setting. So it's probably not a major issue. But I always feel like I'm not properly conveying what I want to convey.

has it right, we're playing 3e Exalted. One of my players got shot with an arrow, and another got knocked out and fell off his cloud after he got hit by a strong kiai. Took them 8 days to recover.

To be fair, it should take time to recover, unless there is magic shenanigans involved. It's just healing is so damn hard to come by, and you only have a few points of hp to start with. At least that's how it is in the ones i've played, but i've never tried exalted.

You gain your level in HP after a full night's sleep, nothing per-hour about it.

Pushing the "realism" card too hard that it actually makes the game too difficult, despite being someone that actually prefers the fantastical to the realistic. i.e. Bard magic is performed through music and/or song unlike other arcane spellcasters, paladins are literal champions of a divine power and aren't just knights, barbarians channel primal energies or spirits aren't just pissed off tribesmen, and so on. Heck, even fighters should be seen as paragons of the physical form.

However, as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't mean things like gravity or distance or time don't have their roots firmly planted in the real world. So, when your 1st or 2nd level fighter tells me he's going to jump that 30 foot crevice and I tell you he can't do it, don't come bitching to me when your character dies from simple fall damage because you did it anyway. Also, it literally takes a month or more to sail to another continent, so fuck off when the whole party begins to starve because you only stored enough food for five days at most — I fucking warned you retards.

>but getting out of the basement for five minutes and a little bit of contemplation will answer those questions.
I guarantee you are very ignorant if you think so.

>To understand fantasy economy, you first have to understand trade in general and that isn't the purview of a handbook
There's absolutely no reason it falls outside the purview of the handbooks. You only think so because it's neglected by most RPG books.

>Not to mention monsters, which originally came from an underworld dungeon that wasn't supposed to make any sense and were never designed to fit into what you're talking about.
No shit, Sherlock. Has it ever occurred to you that this shit from 50 years ago needs to be updated?

>Aren't all of those things more specific to individual settings as opposed to GMing in general?
No. What you call "setting" is a meaningless buzzword used by RPG designers to escape responsibility for giving good tools to GMs so they can construct functional and logical worlds. They handwave it all with shitty little references to Tolkien, Lovecraft, or Starship Troopers, and then throw customers into the deep end with no directions.

>There's absolutely no reason it falls outside the purview of the handbooks.
How about 'nobody gives a fuck about that shit'?

Still haven't got the first episode uploaded yet, so if this thread is 404'd by then look out for the Of Dice and Mencast (still not in love with the name, but we're already committed to it).

I have too high of standards for my own work. I'll write up an entire plot arc and scrap it because it doesn't meet my personal writing standards, or worse, start it before losing interest halfway through since I feel like its shit. I've lost at least three campaigns at session 3 because I start getting insecure about how good my plotlines are and how engaging I am as a DM.

The worst part is I'm not sure if my players are actually having fun, or are only telling me they're having fun because I'm all they've got.

Latest D&D campaign has been going well though. I took the watchtower idea Veeky Forums came up with a while back and ran with it. The results have been interesting and to my standards thus far