DM tips thread

>Is there a good way to "abstractly" design areas such that you can refluff them on the fly?

I find it helpful to create a structure for settlements of a certain race/culture/planet etc. That tends to exist regardless of size. Once you have that you can figure out scaling of land mass vs population. From there it's just details, how many shops/inns/transit stations/police precincts would belong in a settlement of that size, and are they relevant enough to mention.

Given your love of flash cards I'd say 3-5 of them would let you improv cities for a handful of cultures fairly consistently.

That's a good idea, but I meant more like battle maps. I could probably have that kind of "template" for battles as well, I'll try it out.

For that larger scale I usually get a player to tell me what the settlement/whatever looks like. Usually in session 0 we each come up with 2 factions and locations each, and if in play questions about them come up we can get the creator to give us their idea of what the answer should be (though the GM has final say).

I use Microsoft OneNote as my primary organizational tool. My job demands constant attention and activity, so I keep a notepad in my pocket, to jot down ideas during slow moments. I then transfer those notes to the computer at the end of the day.

I also keep separate folders for each campaign/story, where I store relevant images and sound files.

Pic related. This is a concept map I threw together in OneNote for a Mage: the Ascension game. Spoilered, because my players sometimes come to Veeky Forums.

MS OneNote sure looks a lot like MS Paint.

What benefit does using it over just the notepad give?

I just have a knack for improving battle maps and so forth. For everything I can't do off the top of my head I do what I suggested previously, except I use a laptop because I hate having to keep up with any more paper than necessary.

I also enjoy city and nation building, so I build up certain places in my setting even though there's a chance my players will never touch it. That said, my players are pretty easy to Bait into going where I want them most of the time. I've been able to use all but one city so far, and I've yet to railroad them into one, give or take some really well constructed bait.

Creating a handful of battle maps for a few different situations isn't all that difficult (unless your dealing with 3d movement). I would just spend the time one day to crank out a dozen or so, and set yourself some guidelines for improv editing them if I were you.

Having your players do your world building for you could be a lot of fun if they were decent and cooperative. My group would crank out too many anime clones and magical realms for it to work for be though.

>plan story

ishyddt

OneNote is pretty much Word, Excel, and Powerpoint put together, with auto-save enabled by default, then given the ability to synchronize across devices so you can access your notes/files on other machines.

You can put in footnotes, sidebars, hyperlinks, images, sound files, charts. It organizes into pages, folders, and notebooks, which can be dragged, duplicated, or deleted. You can export as PDF or webpage. And it has a great search feature.

And best of all, it is probably installed on your computer right now, so no need to buy it.

He inserts a text box......
You can insert text boxes in MS paint.
So he would just insert a text box along side his art.
Like let's say he did his thing, but needed to write his stuff. He would select to insert a text box. Then adjust the text box to the correct size and make it fill the correct area. He would then pick a found and text size. After he made all his choices he would type words into the text box by typeing the words into his keyboard after selecting to type into his text box.

Dumbass.

My system is not conducive for very long stories, but it works for the kind I like to DM. I have a notebook in which I write down highlight, key story points, NPC, treasure and other things that would be time consuming or strenuous to look or make up. I also draw my maps there. Then, while playing, I have an empty piece of paper in front of me that I jot down 3 word notes throughout the session. This paper needs to be in view at all times so I don't fuck up names, meanwhile the notebook gets opened to whatever the players are interacting at the moment. I then start the process over again, plan for next session in the book except now I have this extra paper I consult regularly to make sure I'm not forgetting any interactions. I slowly cross out old interactions that become inconsequential as the story goes on. The problem with this system is that inventually I have upwards of 10 loose papers that I'm constantly rereading before I'm confident that I'm not fucking up. Eventually I buckle and write the 3 word loose paper notes as full fledged notes in the notebook, but at that time, some of the notes have lost their meaning and I start having to probe the players for a more concrete information.

I also have begun using OneNote recently.
I tend to build top-down because I find it easier to come up with things on the spot if I have a detailed world around to create them.
Recently I've been thinking about ambient soundscapes for horror campaigns which seem nice.

What I'd be interested in what 'gimmicky' things you guys do... you know, aside from the usual passing notes without saying anything to players. Like, letting your players play a hand of blackjack against you as the dealer if they are gambling, or having them balance objects to determine if they fall over an edge or similar

>Not worldbuilding with the players in session 0 and playing it by ear with only a few milestones planned

...what I want to say is "it depends on the system used"

In head mostly and writing down the most crucial things in notebook.

>YOUR story
>planning
That DM detected. Learn to improvise instead of railroading your players through your shitty novel.

>Preparing anything beforehand = railroading and being unable to improvise

You got it. Now ditch the sarcasm and you're good to go.

Shame on you. Not all DMs can improvise a story arc on the spot, and they shouldn't ever have to.

I know, there are a lot of shitty DMs out there. It's sad, but what can you do? But yes, that is exactly what they should be able to do.

Yeah, they should, I agree that this is a vital GMing skill. But plot which was actually carefully written beforehand and only adapted to the circumstances ensuing in the game, rather than invented completely on the spot, will almost always be of much higher quality and doesn't have to be railroading at all.

>But plot which was actually carefully written beforehand and only adapted to the circumstances ensuing in the game, rather than invented completely on the spot, will almost always be of much higher quality
No it won't be. Learn to improvise, you retard.

>and doesn't have to be railroading at all.
Yes it does. You've already straitjacketed your players into whatever you planned out beforehand. That it doens't railroad as much as it could be doesn't mean it's not railroading.

>Complete sandboxes are only good kind of sessions
You're either literally retarded, autistic or baiting, I'm not giving you any more (you)s. And I can improvise just fine - which doesn't mean that's the only thing I should rely on

I wrote a bunch of short stories in college so I just basically use those as setting and progression inspiration.

Completely agree with this approach feeling the best.

Bumping this

You improvise too, of course, but a bit of planning doesn't hurt. The fact that you're so passive-aggressive about people playing in a way you don't like doesn't really paint you as a master of improv either.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

...

You ever have a lapse in story telling? The beginning and end come rather natural to me, but it's the middle that gets me stumped. I'm currently writing a campaign where a party has to go to 4 major places, but breaking it up is tough.

No, but I also am aware that it can happen if you read pre-written materials too fast, or lose track of where the party is. I'm concerned about it happening my Adventurer's League game, since we're running Princes of the Apocalypse.

I have like 20 graph paper notebooks full of campaign notes and character sheets

Never really got the appeal of a computer for that stuff.

I write maybe 10 bullet points of things that I want to be in the session then just make it up from there.
I don't even use monster stats. I just let the players fight til I think they've had enough.