A Monster Can Be The Whole Adventure

 If you didn't know, over the past weekend Dungeons & Dragons had an online convention of sorts complete with some panels and live games. Two of the panels I found particularly cool. First was this one, with a bunch of real life bards talking about what it means to be a bard that just gives a lot of insight in ways to play a bard and why being a bard can be such a powerful identity for some people. Second was this one, with the fine folks from Asians Represent talking about how to include Asian stories in your game without stepping on harmful stereotypes.

Why Do You Play? Why Do You Run?

 With all the stuff going on in the world of late, I've found myself lacking motivation for prepping for game. This is unusual for me, because normally game is the thing I look forward to all week. Prepping for game is thus a fun activity that brings some of the joy of the actual playing into the monotony of my week. Of late though it hasn't been as fun.

For my professional life, I'm reading a couple of what I guess would be called 'self-help' books for getting organized and approaching projects. In reading those, one of them brought a question to the fore that has led me to what might be part of my problem. The question is the topic of this post.

"Why do I run game?"

Don't Fear 'Getting In Trouble' In The Game

In discussing the differences between several different games various members of my friend group and I am involved in, I couldn't help but notice that there was a common difference between the games the players all seemed to really look forward to, and the ones they just looked forward to. Now, this is not to say people aren't having fun in all of these games, or that any of them are bad games, but it is hard for humans to not have a preference and in discussing these preferences sometimes a common theme will emerge.

Sometimes A Helpful NPC Is Just A Helpful NPC

A conversation with some friends recently brought up this point. One friend mentioned that in a game they were in they had the inevitable betrayal from the friendly NPC, and that the GM was a little disappointed everyone saw it coming. I got unasked for kudos in this conversation because it was compared to my game where the friendly NPC betrayal came out more as a surprise, but the friend didn't quite know what the difference was. Having talked about this a few times over the years, I explained that the difference is that in my games 90% of the time or more a friendly NPC is just a friendly NPC, and that I not only make sure to keep the ratio like that, but I take pains to make sure I do.

Two Questions You Should Be Asking Your Players

People often have different ideas of what exactly is going on, and how things are happening in a game. This isn't so much a problem - for the most part - as it is just a fact of the way the game works. Everyone takes the data of what the GM says and filters it differently, and they have their own assumptions and thoughts on what and how the other characters act when they're not being actively updated with description or narration.

People also often use simple statements. "I attack" or "I steal the item" or "I cure the disease." To the functional plot movement aspect of the game, these are totally functional, valid options that get the important message across of what is being done. What they don't do is engage the story telling aspect of the game, or the characterization in how those things are happening. Which brings me to the topic, and two questions I find very useful to ask players to get them to give that information:

1. How do you do that?
2. What does that look like?

De-escalation & You Choose What Actions to Reward

One of my goals in the newer of the two D&D games i'm running is to keep situations where it has to end in combat a minority. This has been easier than I expected simply by having goals for each side. After all, if there are orcs because they are hungry then it stands to reason that asking for food might work instead of just attacking. I haven't used that specific example, but you get the idea.

GM Tip: Players Will Always Interrupt Monologues

Just a quick tip for today. In several threads across the past week I've seen people talk about things like villain monologues. I've also had several people I play with comment on them. GMs have wondered how to do them well - I blame Matt Mercer for this. Players have talked about how they've reacted to them.

The thing is, in 20+ years of gaming I have literally only seen two tables allow a villain to monologue. One was Critical Role, where the players are all very good at letting everyone have their moment and have a blast just watching their friends go ham on their acting chops to deliver a moment. The other was in a superhero game I ran - and I paid the players to make it happen.

Villains As Proactive Heroes

There is old advice for writing that says "A villain is the hero of their own story." I used to think this was one of those 'always true' things, but my thoughts on it have grown nuance. At the surface level essentially it just means that from the villain's perspective they are the good guy trying to do a thing, and that is fair. However, there is room for villains to be good villains that break that.

As with everything there is variance, there are exceptions, and there is wiggle room to be found - especially when it comes to how you define terms. Which means, to go forward I need to define a term and for the purpose of this the term in question is "Hero."

Villain Points

I am a huge fan of Hero Points in almost every system that uses them. I love having tokens that the players can have and spend to help them be more awesome. I love how the economy of them allows me to flat out bribe the players for playing to the theme and genre of a game by rewarding heroic actions. I also love that they let me 'pay' the PCs when I do fiat against them specifically to make things more interesting.

One thing I really like about Hero Points though, is that if the 'heroes' get points to help them be more heroic why can't I give the Villains 'Villain Points' to help them be more villainous?

Don't Allow A Roll If You're Unsure How To Handle Success or Failure

A surprising number of RPG stories and stories form people's tables basically follows this format:

Player: I want to do an impossible thing.

GM: ....roll a skill check

Player: HAH! Natural 20, the impossible thing happens

And when it is not a natural 20, or other form of critical success making the impossible happen it is the other way. The GM calls for a roll, someone fails, and so some horrible, inexplicable thing happens and the GM has to pause the game because now they need to figure out what is going on.

What Is At Stake?

What are the stakes of your story? What are the stakes of any given encounter? Do your players know? Do their characters? Do you?

Having a clear eye on the stakes is important. To quote Mastiff Press and their new game Lancer:

It’s important to start a mission with both a goal and

some stakes established. Not only does this give the

characters clear motivations for why they’re

embarking on a mission, but it also sets up the

possible consequences of failure and allows the GM

to push harder if that should come to pass – after all,

you knew what the stakes were!

Splitting the Party!

The common advise is to not split the party. In fact, it often goes NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY. And you know what? Normally it is pretty good advice. It could even be considered a rule. The fun thing about rules though is that if you understand them, know why they're there, and why they work, you can break them.

Today I want to talk about splitting up the party.

Helping a PC Feel Bad Ass

I'm going to start this off with a shameless plug. You want your players to feel Badass then you really want to be playing Philgamer's BADASS RPG. He's revising and revamping it for 2019/2020, but it is a game all about feeling Badass and has good insight into how to make badass moments happen as a player or GM.

That being said, let's talk about how you as the GM can help your players to feel like bad asses in your game.

Losing vs. Failing

One thing that is important to remember as a GM is that in table top RPGs there is a big difference between the PCs losing a fight, and the PCs failing a fight.

When the PCs lose a fight, this means they are defeated. The defeat criteria in most RPGs is being reduced to 0 hit points. It is possible the PCs will simply retreat before that happens. Frequently though once the PCs start to lose, they continue to lose until they are all defeated. And this is where TPKs happen.

How I Set Up My Notes For The Next Session

I'm always looking for better ways to take notes. I'm always looking for better ways to prepare for a session. It occurs to me that if I am always looking for those ideas, that other people may be too. And while I am not so arrogant to think I have my shit together, everyone is at a different place in their journey and maybe my setup could help. So with that, today I want to go over the basic set up for my session preparation notes.

End of Session Note Taking

Ever have the meme above happen as a DM? It sucks. It completely sucks. I ended up having to axe a 7th Sea campaign one time because we missed a session, and during the break I completely lost the campaign in my brain and for some reason either didn't take notes, or didn't put them in the right place from the last couple of sessions.

Since then I tend to take my notes with a rocketbook notebook, and scan them to my google drive so I have a digital copy accessible anywhere of the previous session. Even with that though I've had times where I lost exactly where the PCs were. It leads to a muddled beginning of trying to recap with the players what they did, vs what they talked about doing, towards the end of the previous session and then figuring out what is going on from there.

Which is why I have started - or at least I am trying to start - a new practice.

At the end of each session, at the bottom of my notes, I write down where all the PCs are, what they are doing, and what they are planning to do at the beginning of the next session. I then copy these notes into the beginning of my prep-notes for next session essentially doing my recap bullet points and giving me a "current situation."

The sessions I've done this has made the transition a lot smoother. I know exactly where the PCs are. I know exactly what they are up to. I know what we talked about them doing. And once we get going on that, my brain fires up, and I can ease into the next session properly.

Sometimes what they are going to do changes. They have had a week or two to consider and maybe have a new idea. It happens. But often it doesn't.

With only a few attempts at this done, it has already been life saving more than once. And maybe it will help you too.

Don't "Fix" Your PCs

One of the knee jerk reactions I see a lot of DMs, GMs, Storytellers, etc suffer from is that when PCs are displaying unwanted behavior they want to fix it. To be clear, I'm not talking about cheating, harassing other players, or actions that harm the game when I say 'unwanted behavior' in this post. I mean things like murder hobo'ing, being overly aggressive with NPCs, not caring about social aspects of the game, etc.

You'll see posts in online communities about these situations like "my players just kill NPCs for their stuff regardless of whose side they're on" or "how do I stop my players from just being murder hobos."

I'm not saying this behavior isn't problematic for your game. However, what's going on here isn't "my players/player characters are broken." It's something else, and you need to find what that is. Some big things to check? Yeah, I got that.

Game Prep When Your Mind Is Blank

You know the feeling, I'm sure. You've got game in two or three days. You've got players telling you they're looking forward to the next session, or e-mailing to make sure things are still on. And you've got a blank piece of paper with a little note at the top that says "Session Prep" with the coming game day's date right beside it. You've got nothing, but you need more than that. So what do you do?

It's Ok To Let Your Players In On The Plan

One of the more counter-intuitive pieces of advice I've seen for GMing that I find myself agreeing with is that it's ok for your players to be in on the plans you have for them as a GM. This is especially true in games where you are trying to have bigger story interaction with who the PC is, or when a Player is looking for specific things from their character. I say it's counter-intuitive because it feels like you're ruining the surprise, and you're ruining the 'moment' of the reveal. But honestly, you're not. If anything, you're making sure that those moments don't get wasted.

Stage Fright

I want to start the year off by talking about what I view as my biggest failing as a GM. I know the year technically started over a week ago, but the day you read this on is going to be my first day back at work for 2018 and so I'm kind of treating it as the beginning of my new year. Besides, last week what about the actual transition of years.

Failure may be too strong of a word, but it is how it feels like - especially after a session. It's something I've tried working on for years, and this year may be no different. The failure in question? I suffer from stage fright when I'm GMing.