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Here we discuss the art of game mastering and ways to improve in our craft.
Thread topic: How do you prepare for a campaign or game session? What are some nice life hacks that help prep?
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We've had game master threads hundred of times. People don't listen. nu/tg/pol/ won't be able to cope.
I'll keep this open but it seems incredibly impractical.
I'm working on a one-shot dungeon with a 4-dimensional twist. The aim is to pursue and ultimately kill the 4-dimensional monster imprisoned there, while solving some puzzles along the way.
Trouble is, I'm finding it hard to strike a balance between too easy and too hard, especially since I don't explicitly plan on stating that the 4th dimension is involved. I'm also having a bit of trouble stringing the set pieces together in an elegant fashion.
Well how is the 4th dimension involved?
This smacks of that dude who said he was trying to dilute Veeky Forums with general threads.
Why would somebody do that?
This is actually from a thread where someone asked why there isnt a gming general.
The players will interact with a 3 dimensional 'slice' of the dungeon,which will for simplicity's sake look pretty normal. At a certain point, they're going to find an artifact that will let them step 'up' or 'down' a set distance in the 4th dimension. This'll let them navigate around obstacles that weren't passable earlier, complete puzzles, etc.
In addition, because the monster is 4 dimensional, it will be able to interact with the dungeon in unusual ways (as a basic example, it can attack through obstacles by going 'up' and back 'down' 4 dimensionally
>How do you prepare for a campaign or game session?
When I prepare a campaign, I think about themes, concepts and mood that I want to play with. Based on that I discuss the campaign with the party. We choose together the narrative vector and concepts of party and characters. I take the input from players and draft a setting. I flesh it out only when there is a need. I create some driving forces for the campaign and important NPCs for each force.
When I prepare for a session, I don't do much nowadays. I think of a rough idea of what the party might be doing, what is their goal and then try to create an interesting challenge based on that. I try to understand the environment and driving forces, but aside from names, I don't really write anything. I do a lot of physical props though, like letters, maps, documents, newspapers, etc. I don't do stats, I either make the shit up or take pre-written things from the book (Granted, I rarely do combat). My main tool for GMing is a list of names, appearances and mannerisms. I also tend to make a lot of stuff on a whim in the middle of a session.
Not entirely on topic but why don't some of you give me your favourite puzzles to steal for my 5e game.
Not really a puzzle but heres something.You come across a statue, this could be in some dungeon somewhere or a hidden corner of a forest. A check reveals the imagery on the statue belongs to some good god. The statue depicts a scowling cleric looking past a bowl of coins with the inscription "do not be greedy". Taking a coin animates the statue and a fight breaks out. Giving a coin makes the statue disappear leaving some of the coins. Donating something more powerful leaves the whole bowl.
I'm definitely a fan of those types of obstacles. I like to make their solution a little more ambiguous and sit back, watching my players come up with a solution.
Generally I have an idea of how it might be overcome, but sufficiently inventive alternatives will also work in my book.
I would suggest leaning toward too easy unless your players already have a lot of experience solving puzzles together. Puzzles are nearly always harder than you think they are. I've watched 6 grown men spend 45 minutes debating with each other how to cross a pool of acid.
4th dimensional maps?
>How do you prepare for a campaign or game session? What are some nice life hacks that help prep?
donjon, go google it, bookmark the various random generators.
Need NPCs? here's 10, randomly generated,with physical descriptions and personality quirks.
Need magic items for 5e? Here's 10, and you can decide rarity/type etc
It goes on and on, it's such a great resource, I always have 3 tabs of it open beside me on my laptop when I DM.
Other advice from a seasoned DM:
>Don't overprepare
>Have a couple of level apropriate encounters that aren't too fleshed out, just page numbers and statblocks, ready to go. You never know when you'll need a level apropriate challenge to throw at the players in combat.
>Improvisation is key, not prep. Prepare yourself so that improv-ing is easier.
I like the idea of a GM general if it encourages more people to try GMing.
>How do you prepare for a campaign
Copying and translating skills, advantages, and rules to the point of burnout before even a single (N)PC is created.
mediafire.com
Includes some (but not all) of the stuff posted last thread () and some bigger files, for example Laws of Good Game Mastering.
Traps, riddles, and puzzles are things that I often loathe in RPGs. Traps tend to be overused when they don't make sense and being too deadly. Riddles and puzzles can slow down play or just stop it entirely. I've just never seen them used well in an RPG, whenever I've encountered them they were either trivial or the GM got tired and told us one of the PCs figured out the answer because he was tired of us halfwits not figuring out his brilliant answer. Also they tend to be in dungeons and their placement also makes no sense.
Has anyone seen a riddle or puzzle that makes things more entertaining for the game rather than less in an RPG?
I'm always curious about encouraging more player participation.
I keep wondering, I guess, whether the status of being low-investment is due to the player or due to the GM.
(It's also plausible to consider the group's player/character combination.)
What seems to work best? Adding more character-related hooks, adding more tension, or getting more motivated players?
Shouldn't it be possible to move forward in a puzzle using an applicable skill?
I think the reason why they're so broken is because they depend on the players to perform something instead of the characters.
I'd prefer puzzles to either be multi-choice, tiered (you can push through the puzzle crudely to succeed albeit with costs), or optional (there's always another way). Keeping the game moving, as you mention, is crucial, but maybe some players really just want to solve a riddle or something.
Every player has something that gets them excited. Most Players get more invested if they know that their actions have a strong effect on the environment. Although they wrote about their character's parents in their bio, they mostly don't have a strong connection to them; background characters are more of an abstract. In my experience, players get more invested when things happen to NPCs they met in their adventures.
The introduction of "3-Line NPCs", which was posted in , I think, gives good advice on that.
Of course I don't know your players, they could be chasing numbers, for all I know. If that's the case, you just got to pump up those numbers and drown them in prospects of loot.
A problem with puzzles in RPGs can be often down to the ruleset, like if the PCs have to roll to find X clue or perception or something. I like the GUMSHOE idea of, if the PC is in the right place with the appropriate skill, the clue is just given them. After they have the clues it's up to them to figure it out.
Traps, I dunno. Some of the deadliest dungeons I've run were goblin lairs since I reasoned that traps were the only way they survived as a species in the wild. Not overly magical but well-prepped traps in a cramped dark dungeon. Dwarfs, especially dwarf theifs, shined in those environments.
Bump.
How do you guys run a complete sandbox? If at all I mean. I've been running a good one for a bit and looking for general advice and thoughts. To contribute to the thread meaningfully, I will say that I make sure to allow my players to completely mess up at any point, whether it be them destroying a town, and being chased until their deaths, or just a bad idea of casting darkness spells
What I've found works very well, and may sound counter-intuitive, is to limit the scope of the sandbox. Set the game on a small island or region with some reason the PCs cant leave and then pack that area with people, locations and events in advance. Obviously you're going to be improvising plenty, but a big world can feel sparse really easily in a sandbox game.
>sandbox/hexcrawl
Have an over arching plot in the background and railroad them for a few sessions until they are interested in the world, then keep sprinkling plot hooks everywhere.
But youll also have to accept that some players/groups just dont do or cannot do sandbox games
bump
So how do you handle cases if multiple events going on at the same time?
I've always been partial to star wars screenwipes.
I'd like to think "a sandbox" is a game with a lot of prepared modules: quest seeds, environments, dialogue, characters, enemies, music, etc.
More crucially, the prepared modules should be recyclable--repaintable, I guess--if the players decide to leave town or destroy the possibility of encountering something.
However, I think quest seeds/hooks will always be necessary to help make the places they visit seem alive, as well as keeping things moving.
How do you go about writing writing out an adventure? How do you set up twists and turns in order to keep things interesting but at the same time cohesive.
Crossing a pool of acid is childs play. I've seen 6 adults spend 45 minutes trying to figure out how to open a door that is pull open instead of push open. I eventually had someone inside open the door wondering what all the noise was.
Start at the end and build until your premise is hidden among layers of narrative. You build layers by asking simple questions. You keep it interesting by making the scope larger while dropping more questions and mysteries when one of the layers is uncovered.
I'm curious about this. Can you elaborate, give some examples? It sounds interesting.
>How do you prepare for a campaign or game session? What are some nice life hacks that help prep?
I'm always thinking about the game. When I listen to music, the game. Walking to and from places, the game. I obsess over the details. I dream about the game. I never stop.
And then you cantankerous pieces of shit decide to cancel last minute.
>And then you cantankerous pieces of shit decide to cancel last minute.
Sorry user I was tired, only slept 7 hours the night before ;)
Okay. Let's say I have an epic science fiction campaign. Let's say I want something dark and moody. First I'm trying to come up with the root of the problem. I think of a cool concept.
>What is big, scary and cool?
>A planet disappeared without a trace
>How did it disappeared?
>It vanished because of the giant planet-eater
>What is this planet-eater?
>It's a giant pitch-black orb that travels the space and eats planets
>Why does it eat planets?
>Because it tries to collect some sort of energy from the planets
>So, it's not driven by hunger? Does someone control it?
>Yes. I want the mastermind to be unexpected, so let it be a secret human organization instead of an alien threat
>Why would a human organization do that? They surely have a reason to commit such atrocities with the help of incredibly powerful and complex technology
>I want my space Illuminati to have a "larger than life" kind of thing. Let's say the people drained the universe and it's slowly dying, but the only ones who know that are the space Illuminati. The universe is so weak that it cannot initiate another cycle or a Big Bang. However, space Illuminati found an ancient alien tech - the planet-eater. It was used by the civilization from the previous universe to start another cycle. The end will be fast and silent, so they have to act quickly and desperately. For the sake of intrigue let's make the claim about the inability of starting a cycle dubious and ambiguous.
I have my root of the problems for an epic campaign. Next, I want to hide the mere existence of the planet-eater and I do all this process in reverse - going from big to small.
>How can the planet-eater do its job secretly?
>What traces does it leave?
>How can someone spot those traces?
I do this until I reach the scale I wish. I want for players to have a connection to a missing planet, so I downgrade the problem until they only have a connection to a minor hook that leads to the discovery of symptom to a future cataclysm.
Thanks for elaborating, some cool thought processes and ideas here! Sidenote, sounds like a great plot in and of itself.
>campaign cancelled months ago due to shittiness all around
>still thinking about the game
>How do you prepare for a campaign or game session? What are some nice life hacks that help prep?
It's almost a meme at this point but keep a list of names handy (at least 20 of each race/culture/gender combo you are likely to encounter). This shit has brought my incidental NPC's to life more than any other single measure. If you want to get fancy you can have a list of quirks/traits/habits/attitudes or whatever but just wing the rest because I'm a fucking mad cunt.
Keep track of events in your game with a calendar- not only does this help reinforce your headcannon days/months/holidays, but lets you do things like plot weather in advance AND make notes of when things happened (The party burned that town to the ground on the 4th of Brightsun, a Saintsday, 15 day ago etc.).
Last general tip is to pay attention at the beginning of each session what each player's short and long term goals are. I'm not saying you should necessarily handcraft them content or pander to their wishes (your mileage may vary), but if you keep in mind what the PC's are likely to pursue, you can flesh out those niches and be prepared for when they go off-track to hunt down rare books, or try to pick up the trail of the guy who murdered their brother, or find someone to repair this broken magic item etc. etc. etc.
I generally do the same thing with player characters at session zero. When we decide on a narrative vector and party concept, I talk with each player privately. I ask to answer in a simple manner and not to dig too deep at the start. I start with "Who is your character?" and then try to determine more specific details.
Actual simplified example from my current campaign:
>Who is your character?
>He's a young gambler
>Is gambling his main source of income?
>I don't think so
>Is there more to it than just gambling?
>I think yes. Gambling is his undercover for doing an industrial espionage
>You said, "he's young". What do his parents think about it?
>They wanted him to become a musician. I don't think they're very fond of it
>Why did he start gambling?
>He got involved in it from his bohemian environment, he got hooked, then he got noticed by the "right people"
>Why did he drop his way of living in favour of joining the party?
>He bit bigger than he could chew, things went South, joining was his opportunity to save himself from the trouble
>Could it be that he was betrayed by one of those "right people"?
>Perhaps. My character is uncertain, but he definitely wants to get to the root of it
The dialogue goes somewhat like this with "Yes, and" or "Yes, but" from my part. While going with that flow, I also try to incorporate simple stuff from player's questionnaire like character's social status, place in the world, motivation, conflicts, friends, foes, secrets, etc.
I generally play in rules-light to medium systems, so it's usually not that big of a problem to match the result with the crunch.