/rrg/ Railroading General - Too Soon for Edition Editon

>DM

>a little more in-depth than I use.
post up my brother

as long as you're volunteering to do it...

which DMGs? I feel like that stuff is system specific and there are generals for that. I've been watching "How to be a Great Gamemaster" on youtube but the guy is pretentious as fuck.

Are there any guides or resources for DMs outside the normal system material that's easily found?

Good idea.
Right now I'm running blades in the dark I don't think I'm running as well as I should (forgetting or just not using some of things that could be used not making that many clocks and I don't have much NPC on pc conflict) But it seems like my players are having a good time and thats not to say I'm not learning anything from it either.

OK /rrg/ let's talk
>Starting the Adventure

here is the loose plan so far. starting at level 1:
>backstories will lead to some loose ill defined but individual task (assuming players into it)
>said task will require travel
>travel will require charter on a certain ship but...
>before all that they'll start more or less independently if they don't already have relationships with other character, in more or less the same town
>roleplay shopping and getting on the ship, buying passage where necessary, volunteering for guard duty etc
>if they wander too much "getting to the ship on time" will be a thing
-and I just realized I need a contingency plan when they don't make it (a fast schooner leaving port a few hours later)
>minor town interactions/altercations
street thug shakedown as they try to make it
>once on the boat(s) a few minor encounters with small ocean threats and/or the crew/cargo
>cargo is kobolds. lots and lots of kobolds to be sold as individual servant slaves
>a few kobolds are actually serving on the ship, playing up the whole weak scared kobold when alone

Basically I'm planning to play "on the ship" for at least session, giving them time to gel as a party in a closed environment and feel out their characters a little. Then I hit them with the big shipwreck storm and let them work through it, helping to save the ship but giving every indication it's actually utterly hopeless along the way.

then when they are almost to their destination with calm seas and a good wind, out of nowhere a fucking roc eats the ship. Or rather tries, flys it away and drops it somewhere. The players end up shipwrecked after all on an island with those lots and lots of kobolds.

Haven't got much further but in my pre-sessions they seemed to really enjoy futzing over rations and GPs so I think they'll like a survivor island kind of thing. A native goblin tribe and a big war canoe they'll have to get will most likely be their way off the island.

thots?

I don't know many GM advice books/pdfs but tools and such might be a good idea
>deepnight.net/tools/tabletop-rpg-map-editor/
Seems to be a stright to the point map editor that can be used for any kind of setting.

I don't have a link for it but the doorkickers editor can be used to make urban settings.

For Dm "guides" I think I have a few that I found around here that I can upload if I find them.

The only thing that comes to mind is that I would try to keep them all on the same boat it just seems easier to track--well to me that is.

What could the players do to change or impact the course of these events in a meaningful way? I'm concerned it would feel like they are just along for the ride throughout the first session.

I like the idea of this thread, but I have a question that's the complete opposite of this thread:

How do I get my players to not want to be railroaded?

I started a campaign and basically said
>"you guys explore this world, I wrote up a few towns and quests so you can do what you want and next session I'll expand on the choices and paths you guys want to explore"
But the first session was spent with my players basically going around asking "where is the main quest?" and I finally improved a legend about a magical sword that they want to go and find.

This is all fine and good, but while planning said adventure I also want my players to sidequest a bit and have some fun not just doing the main adventure, what's a good way to sort of nudge my players to do other things rather than speedrun through the main quest?

I too like the idea of this thread as it gives a generic/obscure rpg GMs a thread.
Anyway, my question is this: How would you do a campaign where the PCs are the bad guys? More specifically a raider gang in a post apoc setting.

Expect the PCs to murder and dominate everyone they come across, so if you make an NPC you don't want them to murder you'll have to come up with a really good reason why they shouldn't be killed immediately.

Goals should probably be straightforward, and should be rewards such as wealth, new vehicles, and bigger guns. Rewards like power and influence will make your players probably conspire and kill each other unless that's what you're going for

I'm one of a few DMs in a West Marches style game which has been running for about half a year now. It's going pretty well, we've got a little over 20 active players. I enjoy getting to game with such a variety of people, and some of the players are really cool guys. We're using D&D 5E, which I'm not a huge fan of since I gravitate towards more crunchy systems, but it was easy to pick up and very serviceable for what we're doing.

The biggest issues I've ran into so far is the need for consistency between the DMs so that rulings don't change from session to session. We've done pretty good job for the most part, but I usually like to play around with magic items and their creation, but 5E doesn't present a great deal of latitude with that, even less when trying to keep things the same as the other DMs.

I'd love some help on making good traps for dungeons though. I'm not sure how to make them interesting. How do you give hints without just giving the whole thing away?

Offer incentives for them to do sidequests and such. I don't know your players, so I can't say exactly what sorts of things will really motivate them, but loot is not a bad place to start. Maybe they could continue on with the main quest right now, or they could spend a few more days in the frontier and search for an old tomb with a sick-ass magical sword in it. That sort of thing.

I ran into something like this during the time I ran a post-apoc game I ended up hating what you could do is make a few of the "side quests" pretty open and out there like someone in the middle of town being a AD giving a task that you think the players would like doing just in case have like 3 of these kind of "ad's" all being different things and see if any of catches on if they don't follow it it might be because they either just don't want to do it and keep to the "main" quest or just don't care. Either way it might be a good idea to see if they want to do that kind of stuff either way OOC.

They will start as a very tight night gang that has roamed together for years. There will be things designed to test this comradery however.
The NPCs will be mainly survivors from attacks (whom are expected to be killed), useful maniacs (who will be, well, useful) and rival gangs (can be killed but players would die in doing so).

yes. I had hoped agency in arranging passage and getting to/on the boat would be enough.

I am going to prepare them for the idea (it's not a sea fairing campaign but they will know the next stage of their trip is via boat) and if they don't buy into it... contingency plan 27a?
Outfitting and getting to the boat is the plan for the end of session zero so if they want to hump it the opposite direction I will have time to flip the boat into a caravan and salvage some of the pieces.

Once they are on the boat I'd again hoped that not hand-waiving the months at sea would give them agency. Such as: have an opportunity to be for or against the captain on some subject (treatment of the crew, stand up for them or enforce the captain's rule), interact with the kobold slaves and of course curbstomping some Sahuagin.

Ditto the storm, by that time (hits at end of session 2 so they get to mull on it) I'll have time to give their characters ways to tip the balance in saving the ship (how they acted towards the captain crew and individual talents) and if it goes south they get to man the lifeboats and row their little characters' hearts out (and decide to save/abandon certain kobolds maybe).

Thus I won't be tied to the roc, and they can row to the island but I want them to have the opportunity to save the ship. Hmm, is bringing in the roc if they heroically save the ship too "rocks fall you must to desert island!"... yeah I think it is.

Scrap the roc, except for maybe a thematic swoop early in sailing (I want them to understand there are powers way, way beyond them) with appropriate freaking out by all hands and then give them a natural legit chance to save or lose the ship.

The party should be gelled and what happens I guess will depend on their initiative (does one of them feel they need to complete whatever task started their character?) most certainly skipping the deserted island unless they show zero initiative.

I hope that's what you meant. Thanks.

1. they need to be bad, e.g preying on the weak
2. as they rise in notoriety some midtier self appointed sherriff raises a posse
3. after that basically the bbeg is just the bbgg and also happens to be sitting on a phat pile of loot in his heavily armed and defended villa.

>to save or lose the ship.
to save or lose the ship in the storm later (not to the roc who wasn't hungry)

First when my players sidle up to the tavernkeep and ask about a "quest" he acts like they are namby pamby fruit loops playing dress up. If they ask or mention a job or work, well there is plenty that but "a quest"? There's no theater in this town kids.

Most of my NPCs are similarly country stupid (trying to get them into character, e.g. this is a setting, normal people don't think in terms of quests).

Anyway the NPCs being stupid doesn't work you can try playing to their backstories (you get word your mentor at the college is having financial trouble, the letter he penned says it's not that big of a deal but yet has some blood on it) and if they ignore those embrace the railroad and make your side-quests pieces of getting the sword. Like:

>you need to get an amulet of d'kra-loth to unlock the sword it's rumored to have been stolen by the thieves guild
>sure sure, but do us a favor says the thieves guild
>thanks but we never said we had it, we traded it to the sun-temple clerics 100 years ago
>you need permission from the sun-pope to enter the sun temple he's in the sun capital, which since we don't recognize earthly gubment is actually 3 small countries and half a mountain away.

even if they go help their mentor/family/whatever they might get an old journal or something that ties into the legend of the sword.

make it shrouded in antiquity and a lost legend they have to uncover the truth of and experience false starts and dead ends. Hopefully at some point in this one of them will come up with some utterly stupid crackpot theory way more complex than you'd have ever dreamed.

Then after months of sessions they can finally embark on the quest for the Holy Sword of Saga City which grants +2 to INT based skill checks

Has anyone has run a game for a convention?

I did so for the first time last weekend and it was a blast. Felt like I was always on the spot though and I used the 15 minutes between my first and second session to tweak the game.

no but I ran simultaneous sessions of a premade one-shot with a prequel bit of my own. Had a Friday group and a Sunday group that took two and three sessions respectively, not in order.

It was really cool to see the similarities and differences, and I used Friday's game to influence Sunday's and then when Sunday got ahead that to influence Friday's. I threw a skeleton in a burgundy robe at the end of a collapsed hallway because one group was sperging about holy water and left it for the second through- the weird thing is someone in each group wanted keep the robe piece that tore when they manipulated the skeleton, and arrived at this totally independently. I love it when some random detail like that rings somehow with the players.

Neat but exhausting as hell. I then handpicked 6 of the 10 players and invited them to a campaign.

Ah, I'm super nervous about this shadowrun campaign I'm planning on running. I think I have enough familiarity with the rules, but will the crunch end up proving to much for me/my players? Part of why I really wanna just go and get some experience in, but my players aren't near ready yet...

As long as everyone understood the basics of what they read, you'll be fine. If you're trying a new system, try to keep it simple at first and throw things at them that would let them get the hang of it.

don't sweat it. I came back to D&D after several years hiatus, and in 5e I'd only briefly been a player. On top of that I never found time to rtfm. I feel stupid as shit looking up everything, hell I screwed up the OA in the first session and don't get me started on sitting in combat and having to try to use a paper index that cross references everything twice.

your players will forgive you, it's not like Veeky Forums, they'll realized you're learning and not tear you down for it.

I ask
>hows your family?
>hows your life?
>whats your goal?

and regardless of other things weather they want to write me a long back story or a short one.

I insist it get written in short, simple, bullet points. no more than one page of points.

its fast, its easy, and it allows me to better grasp the characters back story and pull shit out of it to make the campaign more fun...

>are you close to your parents?
>how would you feel if your parents got murdered by plot hooks?

Whatever's happening to that car is not normal.

Here's a question I'm struggling with: published setting or homebrew?

In the past I've always used homebrew settings but to no great success. Maybe because my setting isn't all that fleshed out or detailed, it might be hard for players to understand the world and their place in it and come up with backstories and goals for their characters. Though I do tell them to feel free to come up with locations, organizations and the like and encourage them to contribute to the setting, they don't seem interested in doing so. OTOH, I like the freedom that a homebrew setting gives me and I feel like the best stories have their settings tailored to them, not the other way around.

published is great if you know more than your players. This is why I'll never ever ever run a starwars game. Someone's gonna know more than you in a popular setting and will make the game get awkward.

Is this a good background story?

Alex (he has no surname) is son of a Sheperd, his name is Mark and a bowmaker who is named Sora: Alex is one of the middle born children, meaning he has two older siblings- the oldest being his brother Zoss and the secondborn Ella. His youngest sister is called Amelia and is about thirteen years old. Amongst his family, he gets along very well with Amelia and definitely trusts Mark the most. He loves his mother Sora a lot, too, but she passed away from illness when Alex was fourteen, meaning Ella and Amelia wound up taking over the household: at least Ella did, Amelia was much more interested in keeping up with Alex and getting into trouble. So, while Alex helped Mark with the herd most days, Zoss would continue making bows occasionally helped by his brother and Ella would run the house and help Zoss too. Amelia would help where needed or try to at least.

Since before Alex was born, Mark had this tattoo of an axe on his shoulder: saving as much money as he could, Alex one day set off to the town a couple of miles away from here with his father, to get the very same tattoo. His whole family, including his deceased mother have the same tattoo on their shoulder, all made by the same nosy old man who has been a friend of Mark since ancient days apparently. This old man, Alex learned, was an uncle of his father and taught the boy a little bit about gambling, to the chagrin of Mark.

A bit of gambling aside, Alex is a good kid, if supersticious as most peasants: in fact, after a hedge wizard passed through the village, he noticed that Ella had lost the necklace of silver with a cute flying sparrow depicted on. Of course, Alex' sister was shaken that the necklace had vanished and the young man decided to get his mother's heirloom back from the "thieving cunt" that had stolen it: he would pursue the wizard, who had been seen taking off to the town the day before, and get back the necklace.

We need to make links to map making/ map books.
Links to a list of obscure Systems with downloads.
And many links to a Best of the thread saved?
Also a link to common questions asked and answered?

I feel the maps and map making stuff might draw more people and also might help people?

I ran 3 games with homebrew settings and I never really put that much thought into it the only reason why I ever did it was because there was things about the game current I didn't care for or didn't want to worry about at all so I just end up saying it never happen. For systems that doesn't come with a setting I only give it details around the parts I think is needed and if it ever comes up I ask the players what they think would happen or what the lore is around it I only do it with players I trust and just don't just do it for some kind of gain and if they don't want to take part in it then I tend to bullshit something and most likely they are fine with it because they didn't care in the first place.

I think it's fine maybe a bit too long but I don't think you need to make it shorter

I usually try and leave my parents alive when I play.
>a fine painting arrives at their cottage
>depicting their son on a small throne made of bound together sexy women, overlooking his fine sailing-ship/estate.

Sounds like you literally have to railroad the side quests and "random" adventure and railroad the "exploration".

If your players want it then you just gotta accept it. Eventually they will begin to guide the adventure but until then you gotta keep it on the tracks.

Getting ready to start a game in urban setting and what worries me is that I don't want to make a ton of maps that might not be used or have them not work well when it comes to range and shit. I was thinking if I should make a basic gird map like in ff tactics or disgaea placing cover how I see fit and other things and I would more detailed maps for times where I think its more needed. I like the idea but I would like to hear others views on it.

Maybe links to premade- repositories, random name/town/etc generators for people to use?
Some basic hints and tips FAQs on a pastebin, 'what not to do' stuff for railroading or dmpcs?
I could see a lot of useful stuff tha could be added and written up there

Sounds good just give it time

bump

I wanted to make a new thread for that, but might as well try asking here first.
Introductory sessions for total beginners
How do you think they should look like? What elements should they have? What to avoid? I mean rather one-shots, supposed to show people who've never played RPG in their life how it more or less looks like and invite them to the hobby.

make everything unlabeled buildings
make list of buildings A-Z with details
they go to the west end of the map and go in a building, mark it A and describe A
if instead they went to the east side of the map and up a block and in a building mark it A
have each A-Z listed with type (deli, shop, apartment) so if they go "we want to find a market" you can browse your list, pick D-market and say ok, this building here is a market and if they go in mark it D, if they don't just note market.

in general describe things generically (there are shops, markets, storefronts) and don't nail down one of your detailed building descriptions until they breach it. this way they can blow through several blocks and stop anywhere and you'll have that place fully detailed.

one exception would be special buildings, like gas stations, a roundabout, parks. you'd have gas stations marked as gas stations and gas stations together in your detailed list, so "you pass a gas station, ok another mile north and east a block you see another gas station, oh you check it out? It's a Kwik Feed with ..."

Where as the generic buildings would be mixed
A-market B-shop C-deli D-bank E-market F-bank G-Abandoned

as opposed to
R-gas station 1
S-gas station 2
T-gas station 3
U-park 1
V-park 2
W-park 3

Hope that's clear. I know this process has a name but damned if I can ever remember it.

Just do it, like they say. You have to start somewhere.

I'm reposting this from another thread cause this one is more relevant.

Do any of my fellow gms use props in their games? Physical puzzles and such?
I've only tried once and it worked a charm

Draw a map on a piece of paper and draw a secret extra part of the map on another pice of paper. Then glue them together and btown the paper with coffee and burn the edges to hide that it's 2 pieces. When you give them the map say "let the light reveal the truth"
The trick is when they hold the map up to the light they can see the secret second piece and the information it holds.
My players were sitting on this map for like 6 months before they accidentally figured it out and they freaked the fuck out in excitement it was priceless.

The map led to an optonal boss fight with a powerful magical weapon as a reward so it didn't matter if they never got it

Anyone else got any idea's along this line?

Just be up front about that.
Any time I've been new to a system (or returning to one after a long hiatus) I just tell my players and so far everyone's been perfectly understanding.

I mean, you're giving them a campaign, after all. They're shouldnt mind if you have to get into the flow of the system a little bit.

I never did anything like that, though it sounds awesome.

But back at university when I ran shadowrun, I found out that my computer could connect to bluetooth.
So, before the session, I got all of my friends to sync their phones with my computer.

When they got updates on targets and objectives, it was sent to their phones. When the hacker got some particular data file I sent it to his phone, all sorts of shit like that.
It was somewhere between cheesy as hell and kinda cool, players liked it though.

Sure I do and yeah, it works wonders, but I rather use props that simply help immersion, rather then being a part of the game. Bike/skiing helmets for when the PCs were astronauts, when a session took place in a lighthouse I turned off the lights and placed a slowly rotating construction light in the centre of the room, to imitate lighthouse's light. This Halloween I'm planning to run night shift and I'm making name tags for players and placing some colourful lights in the room meant to simulate gas station's sign. I will also ask them to come in same colour t-shirts to imitate work uniforms.

If you're really passionate about homebrew, do that but don't get bogged down in all the details about your world, flesh out the bits they're interested in as they play. As new characters they shouldn't be rushing across the continent to some random place anyway and if they insist play out the travel long enough to prepare the destination.

I'm planning to have them focus locally and possibly drop the whole existing bit into Forgotten Realms when and if necessary, but then only borrow bits to support whatever campaign they're interested in- because last time I came up with a whole detailed world build and story arc the players ignored it, purposefully broke the story, went off randomly and then complained it was boring. On the other hand they all lived in Forgotten Realms for years of play so I would never actually say "you're in Forgotten Realms" because, yeah I'd run into the whole "we know everything about this" (which ironically was the problem with the homebrew they broke, they were convinced the knew something I didn't and headed straight for it without ceremony).

Luckily I have a whole new group to twist to my own designs, bwhahahahaa.

Generic homebrew if you know that your players don't give too much of a fuck about the setting anyway and just want to have fun and adventures.
Otherwise published setting. Setting it in a homebrew you actually do care about and expecting the players to give a fuck as well is almost always a lost cause.

I've never played shadowrun but that sounds awesome
And I didn't even consider lighting, awesome tip. I'm doing ou of the abyss now I might use candles a's our only light source to set the mood.

I'm thinking about printing magic items like sword and potions on 6x4 photo cards and writing the contents of chests on cards and putting them in evelopes and giving that to my players, rather than me just saying "you found x and y"
Hopefully it will envoke some Christmas morning/present unwrapping excitement?

that is damn hard to read son. content is fine but it's a Gordian knot:

>Alex is the son of Mark and Sora Shepard. The family doesn't have a surname as such, but are called "Shepard" because that is what the family is known for locally.

>Sora Shepard on the other hand is a bowmaker of some renown. Alex is just Alex, having no profession, & prefers it that way.

>Alex has X brothers and Y sisters. The eldest etc.

Additionally try to expand on how Alex feels about these things, because the family being called Shepard or Alex not having a surname is not useful for character motivation if we don't know how Alex feels about it. He's mad about getting the tattoo because he doesn't understand or he's ecstatic to go to town and finally become a man, signified by getting tattooed, even if he doesn't understand why his father and older brothers all bear the same tattoo. Or whatever.

Same with the necklace. It's a good reason for him to strike out, but the writing is convoluted and does little to support motivation.

>Alex was fascinated when a wizard came through town and he ignored his chores that day and followed the wizard through all his doings that day and in fact was the only person to observe the wizard stealing his sister Ella's beloved sparrow necklace.

>Angry that no one believed him, he then set off from home that very evening determined to catch the hedge wizard and recover his sister's necklace.

Motivations (how Alex feels) and Narriative (Alex left home in a rush/Alex fumed and prepared for weeks before setting off after the wizard) gives your character a basis for motivation and his character (flys off the handle unprepared vs. brooding preparer)

Last I'd leave the hedge off of wizard. Maybe even leave the wizard off of wizard- Alex wouldn't necessarily know but only might have heard people say "powerful wizard" about the figure. It lets the DM have more license with using it, sooner, later and what to make the NPC who stole the necklace.

Recently I took a trap that was laid out in full color with a poem solution on the wall in magical writing and covered it all with dirt and bones indicative of the actual state of the ruin it was in.

Then I took the cleaned version and the filthy obscured version and changed both of them to grayscale. Then I printed all four out.

It worked amazing because I track torches and darkvision and I would only let the people who looked actually see the prints, so after two of the darkvision characters had seen it without torches the party spent 10 minutes at the table before anyone else looked at it, and they brought a torch so I was like, ah OK now it looks like this and gave them the colored version. The idiots never did clean it off though.

>printing magic items
>putting them in evelopes

that's pretty cool and you can just toss the envelop to the player whose character opened it and let them physically deal with distribution, who sees etc.

Anyone here had any experience with Pathcrawling in their games? It's like hexcrawling except on a pre-determined set of routes. I wanted to do that for the majority of travel in my game, with the train being the fastest, the highway after that, then dirt roads, and lastly paths in the wilderness.

That's actually a really cool idea too - you can throw it to the person who opened the chest and they can either just open it up and spread the loot out across the table for everyone to see, or they can try and hide some of it for themselves.
That's a pretty fun idea.
I will very possibly steal it.

>I found out that my computer could connect to bluetooth.
did that take any kind of special software/hardware?

cause that sounds hella-awesome...

None at all actually, my laptop just had it natively.
It was one of the old macbooks, like 8 years ago.

Should be much easier to achieve nowadays with discord or something on phone!

I've been using the Dresden Files RPG setup system a lot lately, where you just do character / setting creation as the first session (note I don't play FATE, but the setup is easily portable). Basic gist is:

1) Each player makes a name and High Concept for his character. Fills in a super thin backstory (where / why / who), like two or three sentences tops.

2) Each player passes his sheet to the left (or right). The sheet you get, you write a little 2-3 sentence narrative about the time your character and the one you're borrowing met and had a little adventure or whatever.

3) Pass to the left again (assuming >3 players), rinse repeat step 2.

4) Get your sheet back, add in another line or two about recent events in your character's life, and maybe tidy up for cohesion.

5) Reading over the backstory, add a 2nd line to the high concept that has to do with a major Weakness, Flaw, or Trouble.

If using it in FATE, each of the 5 steps produces a mechanical Aspect that's used in the game. I don't do that, but I do encourage players to take skills and abilities that are logically tied to each of the things. It also helps to list the relationships produced by the shared history bits, like "Me and Skell are a good team", "Rodney Rogue is a douche", etc. Helps with RP.

Then you can do basically the same thing to flesh out the setting. Like, for instance, each player makes up a location with a location concept, pass to the left, add, pass to the left, add, etc. Same thing works for NPC's. Helps the weaker / newer players especially with getting into the groove, and saves a little work for the DM to boot.

this is good for avoiding a "you all cross paths in a tavern brawl" or a contrived meeting.

but sometimes players just don't cooperate with usual plans...

So, tell me how bad of an idea this is:

Eberron campaign in which the PCs start out as elite Cyrean soldiers near the end of the Last War. The PCs help defend against a Karnathi invasion, then counterattack and, while they're out of the country, the Day of Mourning happens (if you're not familiar with the setting, this was an event in which almost everyone in the country of Cyre died and it became a horrific wasteland of mutants, undead and the like).

After this the campaign would open up more, with PCs free to pursue their own interests. Still the prologue would necessarily involve railroading the players, and the players might be especially reluctant to give their characters family and stuff if they know what's going to happen (I'd need to find some way for them to survive, because I'm not That GM, but the players would likely assume I'm just gonna kill them all). And since I might be recruiting from Veeky Forums they may be especially on guard about this sort of thing. What do you guys think?

>familty and stuff possibly need to survive
I dont know anything about the setting so bear with me, but maybe they could have like foreign military bases do irl and you can bring your partner or family along?
So they'd lose extended family to the Day of Mourning, but immediate relations and partners might have a reasonable chance of living?
Or hell, i mean, if 'almost everyone' in my home country died and I was a soldier, first thing I'd do would be to go home and try and find my family.
Sounds like a pretty legit plot hook.
>oh my wife is fine, but what about my parents? I need to go home and see.

Had first session tonight. One player flaked, decided to go on without them after waiting 30 minutes, which caused another player to become a passive aggressive asshole and they quit right as I was about to start. leaving me to have to apologize to 3 awkward feeling players. Feel mad and sad at the same time.

Groovy story.

I made a modern setting one-shot where the PCs (pre-made) were U.S. Marshalls tasked with escorting a drunkard who was a criminal acquisitions man for a modest sized criminal organization from Maine, where he had ended-up in a stupor, back to Las Vegas so that he could testify against some of the higher-ups in the gang.

I feel like I ran it a bit too straight the first time and decided to make the second session a bit less like a police procedural and a bit more like Fear and Loathing by way of Quentin Tarantino.

Also I know what you mean about it being fascinating how different groups play. Group 1 was easygoing and very much into the RP part while Group 2 was more focused on their task and much more paranoid likely due to being mainly composed of my usual gaming group.

Can you go into more detail?
If the first player just left why would the other get mad?

>make a bunch of macros for a game
>forget one detail
>I have to go back and fix all of them

Gotcha, I'll do better next time

You can still play with 3 players. I'd consider that a solid party

Why'd be become passive aggressive?
Like, annoyed for going on without the other guy or because you waited for the other guy at all?

Either way, a 3 man party is eminently workable. Plus, i mean, it sounds like you got rid of the shitty/flakey ones in one fell swoop.

just remember to boost the party XP more than a straight proportion to cover the missed manpower...

I have people who will write 10 page backstories, not share them until we are about to play and ask me to read it in the 5 minutes we are setting up. Then expect me to remember a fine detail on page 6 and get pissy when I don't remember his brothers second cousins twice removed name

see, I demand that bullet-point page.

if you write more, fine, but FUCK RIGHT OFF if you want me to read pages of text with no time before the game.

try that for a start, tell them that the bullet page is mandatory, typed, no MORE than 1 side of one page, text no SMALLER than 12pt.

it'll cut down on time-to-start and give you something to annotate for character RP reference.

I had a player in my first game do something like this in shadowrun I was really upfront and told them "This is really nice but I'm not going to keep all of this in mind seeing how I have to worry about other things" the player understood and it seem like she was just really excited to play seeing how they been sitting on that sheet for a long time. They still was one of the players I really didnt get along with but I still count it as a teaching experience

>After this the campaign would open up more

Since they are elite, and players maybe give them a choice: Defend against a Karnathi invasion OR leave and strike them at home. If they choose the first have a backup for the day of mourning, either another reason for them to be out of the country or a way for them to be safe as a unit (deep underground base or something).

Give them some choice in the opening, let them determine where to defend if they stay, play the travel if they go. The Day of Mourning can happen when it's most convenient to the campaign, you don't need to hit the ground with everything predetermined.

Yeah I really couldn't have been too upset cause he was super excited to play and had a pretty cool character planned out, but yeah from now on I'll ask for bullet points on the fine details.

Three is great. Three is fine. I mean it sucks ass the tone was set but how did the campaign itself go?

Also sorry about the assholes. Be glad it happened before you started and not deep in the tombs with a rogue and tank that just aren't going to show up ever again. Roll with 3 and worry about adding another player later.

and remember, they don't have to leave off the long story too, they just have to put everything important in the bullet-points and have no conflicts between that and the back-story.

furthermore, it prevents any possible chance of an Old Man Henderson situation.

>and.... Alpha Foxtrot Donut Steel was killed outright in our first encounter. We'll have to [dramatic flip to page 6] let Xirs family know.

>Patrick, roll a new charcter please.

Haha, I actually had my group write backstories and then they tried to share and I was like, don't care don't need to know. The NPC I started with didn't give a crap and neither does the world. I'd hoped it would get them RPing or at least leave them with a desire to share their characters with each other but ... well not so much. It was still a good game.

Well it might be better to tell them to have a smaller background and if each of them want to build it they should during the game but telling them that you don't care OOC and having a NPC do the same thing gives off that you don't want any kind of RP

good point. I just hate the
>ok everyone read your character sheet and background, now let's start playing.

If they're strangers, they're strangers. People IRL don't go around and go
>Hi I'm Harold, a Fry Cook at Denny's and I come from a broken home with an alcoholic mother!

But I'll definitely make sure my NPCs are interested in the characters next time!

Yeah, I find that kinda weird too.
My latest game, everyone summarised their character's vague storyline - which makes sense for the setting, since they'd all be given brief files on each other - but then they also went through their skills (by number), motivations, gear, everything.
I've not seen quite that level before, it was kinda weird.
But once they got past that, they all went hard on roleplaying nonstop.

Im still not sure what to make of it.

I think a good way to have a NPC not care but still allow the PC to give off some background if needed would be just have the NPC in question bearly/acting like they *really* care.

"Mhm hun your the leader of forgotten sect of knights thats real nice I bet you killed some evil king right?"

Granted I don't know how you handled it but I think that might work if you want to have a NPC that doesn't give a fuck.

Sunday I'll run my first game, starring brand new players (close friends, thankfully)
All my prep was reading the first part of Lost Mines of Phandelver. I plan on teaching them how to level up their sheet afterwards. Am I fucked? Is it too little for a 4 hours session?

I don't know how long the first part of that lasts (its a pre made D&D thing right?) but if you get to the point where you run out of stuff you had plan be sure to just let them know that OOC or think up something for them to do thats kinda simple like the the town's hunter is looking for a few hands to help get meat or leather and have it stop after that.

For the level up stuff It should not be too hard as long everybody waits and doesn't try to speak over each other let them know that the first few sessions *will* be rough and questions should be asked but not till the point it holds up the game during the middle unless its 100% needed.

Ye, it's a pre made adventure
Thanks for the answer man

>is it too little
If everyone's a newbie, I'm sure you'll be fine.
You won't be blazing along at maximum speed after all, you'll all be checki mechanics and taking your time.
Which is fine!
But I wouldn't worry about running short.

when it's done, if you guys finished early just be honest - tell them you weren't sure how long that would last, but now you have an idea for the future.
So next time you can make a more educated guess at how long they'll be to do things.

I ALWAYS underestimate how long it'll take parties to do things.
I've planned out a session before only to have it end up taking five.

Print some sheets of first level monsters with appropriate CR. Then if things seem to be going too fast you can dip into your folder for appropriate random encounters.

one better is keeping a bunch of truncated monster sheets on your phone or tablet.

and for the tech savvy a hyperlinked document attached to random encounter tables so all you do is click the number you rolled and it pulls up aforesaid monster-charts

>mlpg.co/qt/src/1471037960673.pdf
The lazy DM guide there was a other one that talked about sandbox games but I can't find that PDF nor I know the name of it

>get ready to make a map on roll20
>barely can see the ruler
>if I make the hexs too big the map would look bad/weird
>if I make them too small tokens on set at all
Would anyone here have some kind of ruler token? I don't mind making one but I rather ask first before I make 6 and fuck them all up.

Give them a few opportunities to be evil early on and (mostly) get away with it to gauge the level of evil they are going for.
They could come across an elderly couple with a broken down vehicle. Not to obvious, of course. Maybe they see it in the distance and investigate, stuff like that, make it seem incidental.
Then, when they get there, the couple is somewhat trusting as they expect help and no challenge to them combat wise.
Then you can see where the players take it. Do they just leave them there? Do they rob them? Do they violate the woman while cannibalizing the husband in front of her?

Roll20 has a built in ruler function, one of the buttons down the side.