Overworked and underappreciated GMs of Veeky Forums, post your tips, tricks, and most closely-held secrets in this thread, for the edification of the other GMs out there.
And no posts just saying "LOL, I don't do any prep work and all my players love it." Even allowing that it may be true, it doesn't add anything to the thread/
My tip is that I use cities in Texas to name my NPCs. So far, my players have been introduced to:
LOL, I don't do any prep work and all my players love it.
Colton Martin
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Nicholas Myers
kys there all prep work done
Bentley Torres
Best prep I ever did was learning to do as little as possible.
Some NPCs with conflicting motivations and a list of thematic names is usually all I need.
Colton Moore
I haven't written stats for an enemy in months. I just let the players hit them until I think they should go down, and have them hit the players when I think they should take some damage. I keep it interesting by giving them gimmicks like teleporting or area attacks. I don't think the players have caught on yet.
Elijah Ward
I haven't had to put any thought into the minutiae of my game world for ages. Any time a player asks me a question about the setting that I don't know the answer to, I simply roll d100; the more beneficial the reality. I don't have to do as much and the dice usually write a better story than I am able to anyway, it's a win-win.
A good way to handle monsters if you don't want to bother with HP is simply to go by number of hits, it will usually give you a close enough approximation to actually tracking the numbers. You should at least be making attack roles, though. Otherwise, the PCs will never be in any real danger and the players will eventually realize this, even if only subconsciously. It will affect their play and create bad habits, especially if you ever plan on running anything crunchier with them in the future.
Gabriel Garcia
>Utilize the power of threes. Come up with three adventure hooks that you can describe in one to three sentences (three adventure hooks is key, as it gives the players just enough options to make them feel like they have choices). Come up with three major NPCs per adventure hook (one that is helpful to the PCs, one that is neutral, and one that works against the PCs). Describe them in one to three sentences.
>Steal everything Don't bother trying to come up with everything on your own---just steal stuff from everything else. To make things easier to translate into your games, break down everything to a one to three sentence describe. Plots can become adventure hooks, and places and people can be turned into other places and people. Take proper nouns from everything, and tweak as necessary so the theft isn't TOO obvious.
>Know when to say "no." There are still going to be times where you will have to flat-out say "no" to the players, but try to utilize their creativity to your advantage. If they think of things that you didn't think of, try using a "yes, but.." statement. Throw in a stipulation. Sometimes the players will create an adventure hook of their own.
>If you need a moment, say so. Players tend to throw you for a loop. If this happens and you don't know how to respond, just tell your players you need a moment to think about how things unfold. Your players will appreciate a thought-out response more than your fast response for shit you didn't expect.
Landon Taylor
>Use the monsters that are already made Don't get so hung up on creating new monsters when there are a bunch of them that are already published. Just take existing ones and change the flavor of their attacks and abilities. I have used one monster block for a whole dungeon, but I described the creatures in different ways and had them do different types of damage.
>Need your players to make a quick response? Give them a timer. Have a stopwatch at the ready when you need the party to make a timely decision. A minute should suffice once they're being timed. This tends to add more tension to a situation.
Dylan Nelson
You can have some fun with your 3 important NPCs by not making it obvious which one is helpful, harmful, or neutral. Sometimes the one that is easiest to make friends with is also the worst one to ally with in the long run. This has the added benefit of setting up a "difficult moral choice" without actually having any complicated morality.
Robert Jones
>>Know when to say "no." This is the most important skill I ever learned as a GM, and probably the most important skill I ever learned for life in general. Not just knowing when to say it, but being able to say it at all. Being a doormat is no fun.
Nathaniel Mitchell
>This has the added benefit of setting up a "difficult moral choice" without actually having any complicated morality.
Elaborate.
William Bell
This is fantastic
I relentlessly steal ideas. By the time it gets adapted to the setting, the players, the system, and personal touches, it's enough of its own thing.
Joshua Rodriguez
Some random stuff for the next half hour
Colton Green
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Gabriel Rivera
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Mason Ward
People are often reluctant to double cross someone they consider a friend. So if the players have already spent time working with the first guy the met by the time they realize the third guy is actually a better option they'll face a dilemna as to whether or not they should forsake their old friend.
Julian Lopez
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Jaxon Cox
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Oliver Ramirez
Please do. This is some good stuff.
Aiden Young
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Juan Brown
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Camden Taylor
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Bentley Campbell
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Joseph Harris
Relying on your own ability to gauge and dictate how a battle will go encourages bad habits and an unhealthy overconfidence in your skill. It also robs you of the opportunity to encounter surprises in the narrative and the creative challenge of responding to those surprises.
Jason Hall
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Samuel Cruz
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Xavier Morales
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Jose Roberts
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Carter Gray
Any IRL tips?
Don't be too loud. Neighbours and shit, but besides that loud noise grates other players too. For you apartment with paper walls dwellers, even dice on a wooden table are noisy. Play within 12AM to 9PM if you can. Don't be unclean. Deodorant and showers. Breath fresheners, mints too. Don't leave trash. Don't mess up the place, clean up after yourself. Do go out for a lunch break if the game's longer than 4 hours.
A round table is often better than a long table. A small table is better than a huge table. As a GM, if you're standing while everyone else sits down your stature and voice can be more imposing. It's a good idea to sometimes stand up and stretch. Have small breaks.
The very best gaming place is a country house with no neighbors nearby and shit wi-fi.
Don't let the designated driver get drunk. Don't let the guy riding shotgun get shitfaced either, he might have to stay awake and alert the driver on the way home. Having more trusted drivers within the group is a good idea.
Beware of pets and small children, they eat dice. Beware of wind if you're playing outside. Also you might get curious strangers pausing your game, be curteous and patient.
Nathaniel Smith
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Evan Sanders
>My tip is that I use cities in Texas to name my NPCs Now I feel like a retard for not thinking of that first. I name my NPCs by hand. Pic related.
Kayden Turner
The players were tasked with resolving a power struggle between two gnoll clans. One of the clans shunned all outsiders while the other was far more open to talking. Unfortunately, the more welcoming clan were a bunch of expansionist upstarts as well as literal child-killers; the more insular clan, while by no means good, were still traditionalists who were far less likely to start a massacre if given free reign. This was not a difficult moral quandary, it was perfectly clear which of the two apparent choices was objectively superior. It still had the dynamics of one, though, with the players trying to find the best, if imperfect, solution to a problem. Though the players eventually found out what their best option was, they already had an in-road with an option they knew would be worse in the grand scheme of things. That they were chummy with the upstarts made the traditionalists even more weary of them, making a better solution even harder to obtain. Besides all that, they had made friends with some of the upstarts; (that was before they figured out they were working with the greater evil) even though they knew they would have to betray the ones who welcomed them, there was still some reluctance to do so.
Basically, the attitudes of the parties involved turned a straightforward problem into a complex one- the complexity itself rising almost entirely from the actions of the PCs.
The GM should be either the most Alpha or an Alpha type person that doesn't take shit. GM should never get bullied, because this quickly ruins the game. GM should never play favorites or get bought with favors/sex. GM should never bully a player, lest the others gang up on the bullied. GM should be energetic or at least match the feel of the game, for the players will follow your energy/enthusiasm/mood. Don't make jokes constantly and then complain how your players don't take anything seriously. GMs should often attempt to place themselves in their player's positions; maybe your plump, verbose description thick with ye olde words was misunderstood. The Gazeebo tale (where a player doesn't know what a Gazeebo is) isn't there to make you laugh at someone not knowing what a weird posh building is, it's there to teach you that as a GM you should be sure to explain exactly what their character is seeing right now.
Offload info on your players and let them decide. If they make a decision that makes no sense (such as shooting the gazeebo), explain their character's situation further.
There's a lot of responsibility on the GM. Thankfully the job's fun.
It is the single greatest characterization tool I have ever seen. It really helps you design a campaign, too. The advice works for any system.
Unconvinced? It also briefly includes an evil loli.
Easton Ross
>he uses concepts from a debunked study Come on, man.
Grayson Williams
>>Alpha Not that user, but is it really that hard to translate it to: >The GM should either be a leader or have leadership qualities and doesn't take shit. ? Yes, I realize one doesn't literally mean the other, but the meaning is clear.
Josiah Brown
It's not hard, no, but it's fun to mock him for using outdated concepts from a debunked and deeply flawed study of the behaviour of animals that are fundamentally different from humans.
Lucas Reyes
YES I've been looking for this for eons! Know this, user. Today, you are not a faggot.
Zachary Reed
Don't expect even the slightest iota of rational thought from anyone who gets triggered by /r9k/isms. You're only going to frustrate yourself.
Xavier Hill
>list of legendary creatures >"Jesus (Christian Mythology) - Can walk on water and transmute water to wine, may resurrect once"
kek
Michael Edwards
I've developed a trick that combines two different philosophies at the game table regarding dice. >I think I should roll my dice out in the open. I want the players to trust my rolls, and if I was going to veto a dice roll, I would remove the encounter altogether and >I want to roll my dice hidden. I don't think the players should be aware of the numbers that are rolled, as it alters the way they act.
Technique: Roll every single dice you need to roll for every single random encounter/event/skill check you need to openly at once.
So lets say you run random encounters, and the encounter happens on a 1 out of 6 chance, and the dice you roll on that chart is 2d4. Then you have the skill check for when someone wants to perform a skill and you don't want them to know what the result is, and when a monster performs a skill, and also percentile dice for good measure. Then in that case, you would gather up 2d4, 1d6, 2d20, 1d100, and just drop all of the dice out on the table open all at one for every roll outside of combat. Never tell them what you're looking for, never tell them what each dice is used for, and never confirm any speculation on what they think you're looking for. Always stare at the dice and think for a moment. Even when they should logically know what dice is being rolled, I'm usually shocked by how often this will throw off the players.
