Tip to new dms

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Make sure you have a way to name every NPC. Have a lists of names somewhere close. My current DM says sometimes that names don't matter but it takes me right out if someone has no name. WHen I dm'd I had a list of 20 male and 20 females names to use on the quick

This should be an obvious one but have a session 0, even if its just 15 minutes of a quick chat. Helping players coordinate and understand the setting will ensure that you have to go through a lot less headache. You can also use this time to talk to your players and figure out what they would like to see in your game.

Also, ask for critique from your players to try to understand what you can do better.

As a GM that didn't have this last session, I second this.

Unless you've expressed interest and have verbal consent from every player, stay out of your magical realm

This one can't be stated enough.
Thirded, if I don't have something like that I can stall real badly.

My tip is, remember you're all imperfect human beings and sometimes you need to step back from the table and have a chat if things are getting heated, awkward, or hitting a snag in general.

I quite like this and I don't know why.

Here's a tip: apostrophes exist.

Use an ethnic or national name generator.

There are websites where you can come up with a list of not just random names, but random French names, or random British names, or random Roman names, or whatever else.

There are also generators where you can put in specific sounds or letter combinations and it'll generate based on those, but unless you're a turboautist about linguistics I'd suggest just sticking to real names.

One of the best subtle little ways you can do with naming NPCs and the like is making them sound like they came from the same place - or not. Instead of shitty fantasy names, having a town full of people with names like Jacques and Yvonne and Louis St. Clair and shit and then having one guy named Ivan Sergeivich will really help you storytell. Who is that guy? Why is his name different? Is he a foreigner? Why is he here? You've evoked questions and told something about a guy's character already and we literally only know his name.

Keep a slush pile.

What I mean is just a disorganized list of ideas, concepts, characters, thoughts, magical artifacts, whatever, that you didn't end up using.

They can be sidequests or characters or jokes or even just detail fluff shit. Doesn't matter.

Give your slush pile a thorough read through once in a while, not looking for something specific or critically examining, just sorta keeping it in memory.

I can't even count the number of times I was stuck, or stalling for something to do, or just needed some extra element to keep things from being boringly straightforward, and remembered some stray slush pile item and threw it in.

This is a good one.

It's evocative. I like the big ogre-y monsters

If you're ever truly stuck for something to do, have ninjas or the setting-equivalent of ninjas (assassins, special forces, spies, hitmen, whatever) attack the party.

A combat encounter's usually worth a session or so, so it'll buy you time to figure out what to do long-term. A ninja or equivalent attack can be justified almost anywhere at any time. It can be as hard or as easy as the game demands.

You can figure out why they're attacking the party later if you don't know, and there are some pretty ready-made and easily adapted classic reasons why - if the party have any enemies whatsoever there's your answer, and even if they don't, that just means they made an enemy they didn't know about. Maybe they witnessed something they shouldn't've. Maybe they're mistaken for someone else. Maybe a villain who was previously unrecognized is being too cautious and the attempted cover-up reveals the plot.

It immediately raises questions that need answering and gives the players something to respond to. It can give a game momentum when it's slowing down or add an element of immediacy to a threat that seems nebulous or far away.

If there is a problem, TALK TO YOUR FUCKING PLAYERS about it.

There is no problem that was better served by not communicating about it. And yet every GM learns the hard way not to let problems fester until they boil over and cause some friend to quit the game in a pile of personal drama and asshurt. This is always Veeky Forums's first and best advice in the inevitable "Problem here, wat do?" threads Veeky Forums gets - talk to them about it. Who knows, maybe the problem you thought was a big deal isn't really bothering anyone else. Or maybe everyone quietly agrees with you.

In fact, talk to them in general. Get feedback about what they like. About what they don't. About what they're hoping to have happen. About what they're bored of. About what they think is going to happen next.

I ask my players after every major ebin tweest where they think the plot is going. Sometimes, the epic twist I had in mind was actually visible miles away, and knowing that allowed me to rethink whether it was good storytelling or not while I still had time to foreshadow something else. Other times, players are way off-base and I know what I'm going to do next will work really well. Sometimes, players have a great idea that's way better than what I was going to do and I play "Yes, that was totally my plan all along!" Sometimes, players reject what was actually planned because they noticed a plothole you didn't.

If you're the kind of GM that likes to write intricate stories with great amounts of fluff, careful worldbuilding, story design, and so on, never under any circumstances whatsoever ask them to explain what they're doing, the name of the NPC they just met, or hinge a plot arc on the player's functional understanding of the world's social mechanics, such as which faction hates which. You'll only discourage yourself.

Do make some kind of resource available for any particularly long-running campaign (more than a few sessions). I use a public google docs where I type in a few quick notes - just a sentence or two - noting important NPCs who I think might come back, or towns or locations the party's been to, and so on. I type a couple sentences each session saying what the party did last time and what they're intending to do next. It's open for editing so my players can jot down any notes they find personally relevant as well. I've found it really cuts down on "Wait, who is that guy???" and allows everyone to keep pace with a more intricate and involved story than "go here, murder everyone in that dungeon, return treasure."

Despite my tone, I'm not entirely judging players for it. Everyone has a different skill level when it comes to long-term memory, sorting of trivial details, understanding social connections and using them appropriately, and so on. Letting the players who aren't as good at that stuff keep up with those who are increases the fun for all.

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If you want to get your players invested, homebrew the setting and let players take part in building parts of it together with you.

Bam, instantly you can draw players in and they'll be invested in the world because they've spent time building it.

The problem is, if you try this, with many players you'll get shit like this everywhere and zero constructive additions other than "there's anime catgirls with big tits dude"

Always make sure each player gets to do something awesome at least once a session. Some players make this harder than others, but don't ever let a player just sit there a whole session and then at the end of the day wonder why they even showed up. It doesn't have to be some epic crazy stunt or a combat feat, it could be just eliciting a secret out of an uncooperative NPC or finding something useful on their own or taking the lead in a social exchange or having some event happen that appeals to their particular skill. It shouldn't be that hard to come up with ONE thing per multi-hour session, and if it is, that sounds like a problem you might want to talk to them about.

Always let a player's character have some kind of plot arc or development. This gets them invested in roleplaying and lets them feel like they're achieving something, and gives you something to work off of when applying the above advice as well by giving you something personal to work with.

Never try too hard to keep a problematic player in a game. If their problem behavior can't be fixed, there needs to be a time when you admit it's just not working. Every tabletop gamer has seen a group bend over backwards to accommodate a personal friend who, frankly, just wasn't very good at it or even worse just didn't "get it." Sometimes you just need to let go, otherwise you'll ruin not just your game but your friendship too.

If this is their kind of contribution, could you not take this as a hint that they're looking for this kind of tone in the game? Maybe you're trying to force fit a 'fun' group into a serious game, ultimately to the detriment of all involved.

If I don't have a name ready, I let the players name them. They love that shit.
>You meet a merchant
>What's his name?
>Yeah, what IS his name?
>Uh.... Goldberg?
>Yeah his name is Goldberg
Often it turns into silly shit, but it's far more memorable. Of course this is only for surprise encounters.

I dmed some sessions for L5R where I did have a list of names handy, because making up japanese names is harder, especially as I had some people who could actually speak japanese so a name that doesn't make sense tickles their autismo

>I dmed some sessions for L5R where I did have a list of names handy, because making up japanese names is harder, especially as I had some people who could actually speak japanese so a name that doesn't make sense tickles their autismo
behindthename.com/random/random.php?number=2&gender=both&surname=&randomsurname=yes&all=no&usage_jap=1

This. Sometimes you might not want to put forth an idea due to feeling it will come out half-baked but fret not as your players are likely to give plenty ways for you to finish crafting your ideas by interacting with them. Say you are running a technologically advanced setting where robots are common but only the wealthy have anything that equate to an average (if emotionless) person. One night while the PCs are going back home they see, laying in a heap, a robot with a top of the line head and a last generation body.

You might not have written anything beyond the details on that robot and the player finding them but you just dropped a huge hook into your game that can be refined over time with input from the players.

Great advice.

Yeah there's plenty of ways, for major characters I actually look up kanji to make sure the kanji fit the character's personality. But that's way too much work for random characters.

For those I just used Wikipedia. Great source of names. That name generator could be more useful.

On that note, what we found to work really well is to force a player to make a summary of the previous session. Our group often has long breaks between our sessions, so we need it to jog our memory, but it also helps in understanding what the players remembered from the session.

We just start the session with someone narrating the summary of the last session like it's the previous Pokemon episode

BUMP COUSE I NEED TIPS

Same, exactly

Improvisation might be a good way to build up the world around PCs if you're running low on ideas. Of course, players should understand that they are not on rails.
This helped me a lot for several sessions as I was low on any ideas whatsoever (and didn't really wanted to GM). I made a village from scratch and, later, some places of interest in a pretty big town, as well as people that live in it. With a list of names and common sense everything becomes new even to you.
Also, most important thing is to know when to stop. You may find yourself forgetting whatever you've said couple of hours ago and realize that you've set up two events happening at (almost) the same time. So write that shit down and solidify it after the session is over. Notes are still your best tool.

roleplayingtips.com/articles/city_places.php

Great little list if you find yourself constantly going back to the same three or four buildings in a city.

If you're running a campaign with lots of NPCs, get a pack of note cards, and write their names and a brief description on them.
For example:
>Eilmyon, High Elf Prince. Captains the ship "Wind Strider"
>"Fixit" Joe, short, pot-bellied bookie for the Carcetti Gang
>Bokron the Blaster, leader of the Outer-Rim Marauders

Then, hand them to the players when they meet and encourage the players to jot down notes about the npc during the course of their encounters. It'll help both you and them to keep track of characters, and makes it fun when some lesser antagonist they ran in to four sessions back shows up again to cause trouble.

>Always make sure each player gets to do something awesome at least once a session.

Absolutely! Think of it like an ensemble tv show: some episodes may focus more on one character or another, but everyone should still get a little moment that reminds you why they're there.

I do this exactly and reward a small amount of xp to the PC that does it each session with a rule that everyone should take a turn.

The small reward means my players take good notes and outside of session they actively discuss what has happened.

If the players find a plot hole, there are two good options. Option one is to plug the hole but don't explain how. For example, let's say that the players travel to a sacred floating island where only elves and their most trusted friends are allowed, but you accidentally put in a dwarven shopkeeper because he's a good character and he travels a lot. The players bring this up, and you could simply answer "I know, it's strange isn't it," and just smile. You can make up a reason later while making it look like you set up a mystery. Option two is just to admit that there was a problem without a fuss.

One of the most fun things about improv is letting the players be right. Leave a question unanswered, and let the players start stewing about it. Pick one of their hypothesis to be right. They'll never forget if they fell that they "were smart enough to figure your plan out".

“You don’t think you see anything." If you have a perception check of some sort in your game, use the exact same response for a failure and when there is nothing to see.

The players don't hate an enemy enough? Steal their favorite gun. Or their money. Or anything they really like. They will hate the thief now and follow him anywhere.

Sometimes it's more fun to describe a common fantasy creature to the players rather than just saying what it is. It puts the fear and wonder of a new player back in an old player's heart, especially if your system has levels and lower levels are especially lethal. "You find a vaguely human creature bent over a corpse. It is tearing at the dead man with hooked talons and a maw full of mismatched teeth. Merely standing in the same rooms as the creature fills your nostrils with the nauseating stench of rot. Alerted to your presence, the creature turns, fixing its reflective eyes on you. With a gurgling moan, it hurls itself at you." Later on, you could just say "You see a ghoul and it attacks you."

>Sometimes it's more fun to describe a common fantasy creature to the players rather than just saying what it is.

My GM does this all the time in our post-apocalypse game, but with pieces of ordinary modern day technology we find in the ruins. It's great.

That's why you build it with the players.
"Why are there big titted anime catgirls in there?"

You're bound to come up with something interesting together!

I gave my party a genie, but it only has two wishes and he really wants the party to make a wish. They don't know if they can trust him. They also don't want to lose it. It's a fun dynamic.

You should honestly made it one wish or three wishes.

One wish is very potent of course, having no idea how useful it would be and only having one chance.

Having three wishes is both the classic and also allows for the following; First wish is cast, use the second wish to fix/reverse the wish. Then you have a 3rd wish you can't get rid of easily or fix the consequences of.

Two wishes just means they can make the first wish and then fix it, that's it.

It's a good portrait as it is, but the blood and the scale of each creature against each other is what gets me thinking. Either they're in a battle and arrested by a sudden miracle, or they're inside during a battle and this is where the tide can turn.

This is more opinion than anything else, but do you think it's better to homebrew a world or use an existing one?

This weirdly mimics a setting I made where a race of Half-giant knights pledged their loyalty to the Not!Roman Empire.

Homebrew.