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General Category => RPGs => : pwvogt August 30, 2009, 03:31:41 PM
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What makes a good GM? Is it hours and hours of prep time or is it good improvisation skills? What do you think for you personally and what has made games you've been a part of particularly great or interesting due to the GM?
This thread obviously comes from inspiration from Ross' Bad GM Habits thread, but I thought we could instead think of what makes GM's do well instead of frustrate and infuriate their players.
I'll start!
The other inspiration for this thread comes from my GM'ing experience from this past Friday night as I hosted a game (our group's first game) of 3:16: Carnage Amongst the Stars. The game is great because a notebook page's worth of notes and about 10 minutes of my time and I had the entire scenario, or at least enough to get us going, all prepared.
I didn't really know how I was going to end the story other than "big alien swarm attacks them in the end, OH NO!" The players were to land on the planet, make their way to Bunker 6 to reinforce Lt. Carlson's force and help him take out the alien queen. Carlson had gone kind of crazy and not much of his force was left (he was in fact taking one of them out at a time for "scouting missions" and going crazy, coming back alone).
They went off to hunt the queen taking the survivors with them, but leaving Carlson behind to "protect the bunker." They get to a cave and see some of the dead troopers armor with little sticks set around them spelling out "Carlson" and their first thought was "Oh SHIT, Carlson's been infected by the queen and is the host body for her, we gotta go kill her!"
Well, no, not really, he was just a crazy ass military dude, but I went with it, molded the details to fit the story they had all come up with, and they all got a very satisfying final fight of taking out the remaining aliens on the planet on the way to take out that bastard Carlson the queen.
It was excellent, and I've never had so much fun improvising. Basically, this thread is about good GM habits, or I guess good times had as a GM also. :P
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never be boring
no long periods of time where nothing happens
start shit all the time
get all ADD and throw random challenges at them because they're not entertaining you (that is their job)
if they pick a fight with a random NPC that NPC will be back to torment them
focus on their weak spots - if a PC is moral tempt them with an easy success but only if they do something violent or evil - if the PC is greedy bribe them to betray the group - if the PC is a lecherous bastard make the prostitute a drow agent - if the PC is a wall flower then random goons attack them
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Pit players against one another when it organically works.
For instance, the other day, I was running a game at school. An NPC hires the group fighter to battle in a tournament. Everyone makes Streetwise checks to see if they hear about the tourney. One girls hears about it and tells the other party members. They decide to cheer him on, but the paladin of the group decides it would be unethical for him to go. I inform him that he would want to break it up, so he decides to round up a posse and break up the illegal tournament.
Just as the fighter is about to win, the paladin and his team burst in and start arresting everyone. Skill challenges for all players to see if they can escape the scene.
It was the best game I have ever run before and this was just the climax to everything. It was all because I helped to pit the characters against each other.
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I unfortunately had no time to prepare for last weeks game so had to do all but one encounter "on the fly".
Funny thing was that they really didn't feel like pursuing the planned encounter so it was all "on the fly".
The things the PCs responded to the best:
1.Have NPC's frame the innocent and do your best to make the innocent look guilty: A workaday thief ran into a tavern and sat next to a couple of dock workers and talked to them, then sneaks out the back. The party split into two and I have to tell you the pulp fiction interrogation that ensued was the most fun I've had GMing.
2.One munchkin in my game was dying to bang a drunk chick, I had "Layonya" come back for more, each time having him roll a d100. Would you believe he was surprised to find out shes extremely pregnant now?
3.Present opportunities that pit player against player (not so much violently as situationally):
The players were presented with a potent hallucinogen and seeds to grow more.
Druid: Cultivating it in secret and doing everything to not allow it integrate into the city
Dragon Shaman: Attempting to brew potions and poisons with it for party benefit and profit
Hexblade: Essentially the teetotaler of the party
Rogue: Believes offering it like candy negates poor diplomacy rolls
Just make sure you can read the players and determine when they're have a good time, also make sure you are having a good time. That's the most important part. (I swear I'm insightful and not belaboring the obvious)
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Erm.
I always ask the players to give themselves a round of applause after a campaign or a really good session.
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- make sure they arent distracted (only add important info though so not to annoy your players
- good discriptions
- plot twwist lots and lots of them
- voices :D
- pretty much never give you players the chance to know whats going t o happen next
- keep it fair, don't extract revenge on the players (don't torment them if they owe you a couple of bucks or if they killed your payer in a different game) and don't accept bribes for special powers or items it can throw things out off loop
- don't throw the taking away your powers card at them too much maybe at least once in a while
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Pit players against one another when it organically works.
For instance, the other day, I was running a game at school. An NPC hires the group fighter to battle in a tournament. Everyone makes Streetwise checks to see if they hear about the tourney. One girls hears about it and tells the other party members. They decide to cheer him on, but the paladin of the group decides it would be unethical for him to go. I inform him that he would want to break it up, so he decides to round up a posse and break up the illegal tournament.
Just as the fighter is about to win, the paladin and his team burst in and start arresting everyone. Skill challenges for all players to see if they can escape the scene.
It was the best game I have ever run before and this was just the climax to everything. It was all because I helped to pit the characters against each other.
Last game I ran, two of the PC's were told by thier faction to kill an NPC, or risk offending thier patron diety, Two were told to bring him back alive (for a whopping sum of 500 gold), and the last was told to bring back the artifact he carried, whether he was alive or dead was a non issue... and to make the deal sweeter the last PC was going to die if he failed. High stakes, high drama, good game. I think they liked it...
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Pit players against one another when it organically works.
For instance, the other day, I was running a game at school. An NPC hires the group fighter to battle in a tournament. Everyone makes Streetwise checks to see if they hear about the tourney. One girls hears about it and tells the other party members. They decide to cheer him on, but the paladin of the group decides it would be unethical for him to go. I inform him that he would want to break it up, so he decides to round up a posse and break up the illegal tournament.
Just as the fighter is about to win, the paladin and his team burst in and start arresting everyone. Skill challenges for all players to see if they can escape the scene.
It was the best game I have ever run before and this was just the climax to everything. It was all because I helped to pit the characters against each other.
Last game I ran, two of the PC's were told by thier faction to kill an NPC, or risk offending thier patron diety, Two were told to bring him back alive (for a whopping sum of 500 gold), and the last was told to bring back the artifact he carried, whether he was alive or dead was a non issue... and to make the deal sweeter the last PC was going to die if he failed. High stakes, high drama, good game. I think they liked it...
This sounds like a game of Paranoia, except one of the PCs has orders to bring in the NPC dead and alive due to a misprint, one is supposed to bring in the artifact alive, and the NPC is actually one of the PCs
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Lol layers upon layers
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Like an onion or a cake?
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"like an onion donkey"
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1.) Notebooks are your friend. Writing out and preparing all you can before the game really helps with the flow and progression of the sessions, as well as knowing the greater Giga-plot with all the clues, advice, tidbits, trivials and blatant bashings with the plot hammer. Knowing where you want the game to go before you start, helps greatly in getting you all there. Also, its a good place to have access to all your NPCs, notable locations and everything else you need to keep track of and remember. Leave some space as you go, and don't try to fill in every single detail. Things will come up that you need to remember and things won't always work out the way you intend, so always try to write those things in as they happen.
2.) Know your NPC's. Not every NPC needs a full character background, stats or even a name but they all do need some sort of motivation. That one little thing that can flesh out their reasoning. For many it is something simple, like a merchant is usually motivated by making money and a politician is motivated by power. For those NPS'c that are important, do flesh them out as much as possible and give them some semblance of life. The more important they are to the plot, the more information you should have on them. Any NPC that the players deem important should get fleshed out as well. Once they latch on to someone they like, or absolutely hate, they are going to keep going back to them so keep that NPC interesting.
3.) Props and maps. Anything they can hold in their hands, they will and will keep it there until you pry it from them. Every session have a couple handouts for them, either typed or handwritten that has to do with the session's plot. Lists, articles from a newspaper, notes hastily scratched and left in a book, all generally make good handouts which can either just be taken at face value, or can be riddled with clues and secrets for the players to discern. (Or they can just be at face value and the players will torment themselves trying to find the hidden meaning.) Maps can be as basic or as detailed as you want to make them, but either way both the GM and players will find them useful for a quick reference to where things are, how vast a distance a quest will take or getting a feel for their environment. Be ready to update it as things happen, (players burning down a shop, mudslide takes out a high traveled road or a bomb takes out thirty blocks of a large, industrial city) so the players see their effects on the environment and the GM remembers that the nice little old lady NPC's shop burned to the ground.
4.) Communicate early and often. Give the players as much information as possible before character creation begins. Tell them about where the majority of the game will take place, and any common knowledge that everyone would generally know. Let them know what the style and tone of the game is going to be and give them as much of a feel for it as possible so they can keep everything in mind while they make their characters. Try to have everyone build their characters together, and have them talk about them while that is going on. Let the players work out their own sense of balance and roles to fill, and give them that sense of teamwork before things start rolling. After sessions, ask them how they enjoyed it, what things they liked and what things they didn't and then plan future sessions accordingly. If something you love in the game is something that just doesn't work with the group, either try to modify it so it works or just let it die a gruesome death.
5.) Follow John Wick's advice, "There are no rules. Cheat anyways." Always remember that a game is supposed to be fun and that your players are the arbitrators of that fun. (If that were to be decided by the GM, they would be spending all their time playing with themself.) Fun doesn't mean easy, and no game should ever be too easy. There need to be challenges, puzzles or fights that take on epic proportions, but all of them should be within the player's grasp, even if it is a distant grasp. Keep things moving and interesting, and from time to time be willing to fudge your dice rolls. Nothing should ever really be impossible for the players to achieve, but they can be really difficult. Handle character deaths as a case by case situation, fudging their damage rolls to just knock they out when they are fighting a group of grunts or give them an epic and brutal sendoff that will effect the rest of the players for sessions to come. Either way, know your player and know your game. The GM sets the tone, and never forget after everything else it is your world. The players just happen to live there, so make sure its a world in which they enjoying living in.
(Thanks to Shallazar for bringing up a point of clarification, and no you aren't a donkey sombrero.)
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Chibi, I don't mean this as a flame and I apologize in advance.
But I'm pretty sure that without players, there is no game. its just fiction writing.
Gaming is an opportunity for unanticipated twists and turns, for the story to take on a life different because of the actions of the players. They don't just live in your world. they are the world.
Like in that RPPR episode, it's either Grand Theft Aparatus of Kwalish or So you want to Run a campaign, the only thing that matters is the bubble. How the bubble may drift to and fro, but it is within the bubble that matters. And the bubble is the PCs.
Every other point you make is helpful and pretty much true but seriously, you can't Game without players and if you piss them off by doing things your way all the time they will leave.
Another RPPR maxim "'no gaming' is better than 'Bad gaming'"
I'm sure you already know, and maybe I'm just reading too far into your last statement but w/e.
Alright enough of me sounding like an ass hat.
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@ Shallazar - Maybe the last statement was poorly worded, cause I didn't intend for it to come across as such.
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your game is bad and you should feel bad 8)
my rules
1. fuck da police
2. the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire
3. righty tighty lefty loosey
4. For all other problems:
First, be smart from the very beginning. Pulverize all teeth, burn off fingerprints, and disfigure the face. Forcing a DNA test to establish identity (if it ever comes to that) might introduce the legal/forensic hurdle that saves your ass down the line. An unidentifiable body can, in a pinch, be dressed in thrift store clothes and dropped in a bad part of town where the police are less likely to question it. I don't reommend that disposal method, I'm just saying an easily identifiable body is an even bigger threat than the opposite.
Assuming you have it inside a house where you can work on it a bit, the first thing you want to do is drain it of fluids. This will make it easier to cut up, and slow decomposition a little bit. The best way to do this quick and dirty is to perforate the body with a pointed knife, and then perform CPR on it. Cut the fronts of the thighs deep, diagonally, to slit the femoral arteries. Then pump the chest. The valves in the heart will still work when dead, and the springback of the ribcage can put apply a fair amount of suction to the artria. Do this in a tub. Plug the drain, and mingle lots of bleach with the bodily fluids before unplugging the drain to empty the tub. This should help control the stench of death, which would otherwise reek from your gutter gratings. Do everything you can to control odors. Plug in an ionizer, burn candles, leave bowls of baking soda everywhere. Ventilate the room in the middle of the night, but otherwise keep it closed. Keep the body under a plastic sheet while it's in the tub.
If you want to bury, I recommend seperating the body into several parts, and burying them seperately. For one thing, it's easier to dig a deep enough hole for a head than for an entire body. this reduces your chances of being discovered while you are actually outside and digging the grave.
That is the one thing you can't do inside the doors of your house, and represents a vulnerable moment you want to keep brief, under 2 hours. Do it between 3 and 5 am. It's also less likely for someone to call the police if their dog digs up some chunk of meat, than if they dig up an enitre body. They may assume it's an animal carcass disfigured by decomposition, and leave it alone or dispose of it. It's also more likely that the dog will consume all of it before anyone knows the difference. A whole skeleton is another story. You can cut a body into 6 pieces faster than you think. It's not much different than boning a chicken, but it takes more work, a big knife, and time. A hammer will be useful for pulverizing joints or driving the knife deep where it doesn't want to go. Anyway it's wise to crush as much of the skeleton as you can along the way. It will aid in making the body less identifiable for what it is as it decomposes.
Don't return to the same site 6 times for 6 burials.You'll attract suspicion from anyone nearby, and you'll wind up placing the body parts close enough together to be found by any serious investigation. Put them in plastic bags with lots of bleach, and store in a freezer until you have enough time to bury them all.
Depending on what tools you have available, you may find that you're get really good at deconstructing the body. You might prefer to slowly sprinkle it down a drain without leaving your house. This avoids the long-term risk of discovery associated with burial, and the overwhelming supply of bacteria in a sewer accelerates decomposition, while providing a convenient cover smell.
Truly grinding down a body takes a lot more work, and you run the risk of fouling your plumbing and calling in a plumber. So don't try it unless you know how to clear bones and meat out of a drainpipe. A good food processor can be useful. But don't over-use it, or power drills or saws. They're noisy and they attract attention. And forget the kitchen sink. It's better if you actually remove one of the toilets in your house from its base, which will give you direct access to one of the largest sewer pipes that enters your house. Follow any disposals with lots of bleach and then run the water for 5 or 10 minutes on top of that. And plug that pipe when you're not using it, to prevent any sewer gasses from backing up into your house. Usually, a U-trap inside the toilet does that for you.
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Now, Ross, I'd always thought that drowning the body in acidic liquid, such as vingar, after removing most of the body's own fluids would help to leech calcium from the bones and make them easier to cut or grind, as well as prevent the body from rotting in the conventional manner.
I have to say your method sounds more proactive, but what if I don't have enough bleach to properly dilute the surprisingly large amount of blood and fluids within the human body?
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If you want to kill somebody and get away with it, look at the people who got away with it: Jack the Ripper did a fine and dandy job by knowing the neighhorhood well, killing his victims, and just leaving them there. Ted Bundy wouldn't have been caught if he hadn't let Carol da Ronch escape his VW bug: grab your victim, render him unconscious, and transport him to a spot deep in the woods to finish the job, leaving the evidence there. The Green River Killer excelled at body disposal: choose an openly accessible, but too large to patrol all the time, area and dump the bodies there. The key is to kill a stranger, and have only *one* crime scene: murder and disposal in approximately the same place. When you have secondary and tertiary crime scenes, you're just creating more places to leave evidence.
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Well I certainly agree with that. Killing someone you have no connection to in a place you have no connection to would be the best way to go.
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not only can ross handel a machine gun hes good at boddie disposal. great things to have knowlage of.
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@ Shallazar - Maybe the last statement was poorly worded, cause I didn't intend for it to come across as such.
No yeah, just clarifying for other weirdos who might also read too much into it.
Come over to my neighborhood and I'll get you a drink, and a mickey. ::)
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If you want to kill somebody and get away with it, look at the people who got away with it: Jack the Ripper did a fine and dandy job by knowing the neighhorhood well, killing his victims, and just leaving them there. Ted Bundy wouldn't have been caught if he hadn't let Carol da Ronch escape his VW bug: grab your victim, render him unconscious, and transport him to a spot deep in the woods to finish the job, leaving the evidence there. The Green River Killer excelled at body disposal: choose an openly accessible, but too large to patrol all the time, area and dump the bodies there. The key is to kill a stranger, and have only *one* crime scene: murder and disposal in approximately the same place. When you have secondary and tertiary crime scenes, you're just creating more places to leave evidence.
Hmmmmmm I think I'll avoid your town :-)
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The Best GM
PC: "i determine a number by adding together two numbers. the latter of these numbers is obtained by a mutually agreed method of obtaining a semi-random number between 1 and 20 inclusive"
GM: "the result does not equal or exceed a certain pre-determined quantity. the numerical difference between the integers was not greater than an arbitrary number. i deem it acceptable to give you a small quantity of information."
PC: "this judgement is acceptable to me"
GM: "indeed. let us continue with our merriment"
The Worst GM
PC: "I check the walls for traps!"
GM: "The walls all seem perfectly normal. Too normal."
PC: "I'm not sure i understand the consequence of "too normal walls"? Too quiet in a forest means there aren't any animals around, meaning something scared them. Too quiet in a town means everyone is away/dead/hiding in ambush. Walls can't be "too normal". Either there are traps or there are no traps. saying the wall is normal, too normal doesn't tell you as much as "the woods are quiet, too quiet". too normal walls means you're expecting traps and that there aren't any, too quiet means you're expecting noise and there's none. I mean, "The walls are normal, too normal" shouldn't mean "The walls are hiding traps". Anyway, unless the DM answers the resulting "Too normal how?" question accurately (As in, answers them to explain why the walls look too normal to the character), "too normal" walls doesn't really tell you anything since it could be construed to mean anything from no traps to traps. his sword is harmless, too harmless. Is this a good sword or a bad sword to use? Hell, think about this. "This sword is deadly... too deadly." This could easily mean that the sword is dangerous, more so than a normal sword, and to the point where it is harmful to above and beyond the "normal" deadliness. Therefore, this could be a sword that hurts the user or perhaps his friends or, perhaps, thirsts for blood. It could mean a lot of things, all bad. "This wall is normal... too normal" can mean some things, it can mean there are no traps where traps are usually found, it can mean they have been recently built or repaired. The problem is, most of these scenarios are probably easier to discover than the cryptic "too normal". If you find that the wall is recently built, it's not "too normal", because a recently built wall in an old castle is not normal at all. If the wall has no discernable traps when there usually are expected to be traps, it's merely "normal, as far as you can see". If it's "too normal", it's not fucking normal at all, by any stretch of the word. "too normal" is an oxymoron. Look, "the walls are too normal" is a fucking oxymoron and doesn't tell you anything. The only kind of DM who would use it (that is, just tell you that and not elaborate, as in the situation that was presented) is the kind that would pull the "Well, you said you looked at the water, not that you looked for piranhas." thing. Walls being too normal is nothing like the woods being too quiet. Walls that are "too normal" are either normal or not normal. They can't be "too normal" because it's not normal for something to be "too normal"."
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Those kinds of GMs are dicks. One at my FLGS:
PC: Wants to swing on a rope to ambush someone on a bridge. "I take the rope, tie it to the bridge, and tie it to myself so I can swing down and get the guys under us."
GM: Okay. Roll Use Rope DC 15.
PC: 27, got it easy.
GM: The rope seems sturdily attached to both yourself and the bridge.
PC: Okay, I swing down now.
GM: You swing down on the rope and slam into the ground. Take 4d10 damage from falling.
PC: What? Did the rope break? It was silk, it should have held me.
GM: Oh, the rope held. But it was a 50 foot rope and a 40 foot bridge. You never said you shortened the rope.
No perception check. No reflex save by anyone to realize something was wrong. No intelligence roll to catch the "mistake". No room for discussion. The character, now seriously wounded and lacking the element of surprise, was then murdered by bandits.
:[
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haha! now thats a Dick!
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Those kinds of GMs are dicks. One at my FLGS:
PC: Wants to swing on a rope to ambush someone on a bridge. "I take the rope, tie it to the bridge, and tie it to myself so I can swing down and get the guys under us."
GM: Okay. Roll Use Rope DC 15.
PC: 27, got it easy.
GM: The rope seems sturdily attached to both yourself and the bridge.
PC: Okay, I swing down now.
GM: You swing down on the rope and slam into the ground. Take 4d10 damage from falling.
PC: What? Did the rope break? It was silk, it should have held me.
GM: Oh, the rope held. But it was a 50 foot rope and a 40 foot bridge. You never said you shortened the rope.
No perception check. No reflex save by anyone to realize something was wrong. No intelligence roll to catch the "mistake". No room for discussion. The character, now seriously wounded and lacking the element of surprise, was then murdered by bandits.
:[
To be honest though, I can imagine something a bit like this being fun in a one-shot, where everyone tries to be as dick-ish as possible and has to think everything through very thoroughly...
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To be honest though, I can imagine something a bit like this being fun in a one-shot, where everyone tries to be as dick-ish as possible and has to think everything through very thoroughly...
See, that could work. This was an ongoing campaign situation, and one in which told them it would be "lighthearted and fun fantasy adventure".
Social contract anyone?
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To be honest though, I can imagine something a bit like this being fun in a one-shot, where everyone tries to be as dick-ish as possible and has to think everything through very thoroughly...
See, that could work. This was an ongoing campaign situation, and one in which told them it would be "lighthearted and fun fantasy adventure".
Social contract anyone?
Oh, totally understand your point, would irritate me if my GM just pulled that one out of me out of the blue. It just struck me as a funny game concept...
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To be honest though, I can imagine something a bit like this being fun in a one-shot, where everyone tries to be as dick-ish as possible and has to think everything through very thoroughly...
See, that could work. This was an ongoing campaign situation, and one in which told them it would be "lighthearted and fun fantasy adventure".
Social contract anyone?
Oh, totally understand your point, would irritate me if my GM just pulled that one out of me out of the blue. It just struck me as a funny game concept...
I would play in it. :D
Game Genie: The tabletop edition. "Choose your words carefully."
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Good all around advise: never be a player if your GM is a language student.
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Good all around advise: never be a player if your GM is a language student.
I'm pretty nit-picky with semantics, but I also always allow the "Oh, maybe I misunderstood, let's just go back and say you shorted the rope."
I also usually ask "The bridge is only 40', so I am assuming you are not using the full length." Then if they say they are, it's all fair because I gave them a chance :)
I'm a dick, but I always give you a chance. Everyone else at the table usually laughs when these situations come up, as the player had fair warning if they were paying attention...
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Good all around advise: never be a player if your GM is a language student.
I'm pretty nit-picky with semantics, but I also always allow the "Oh, maybe I misunderstood, let's just go back and say you shorted the rope."
I also usually ask "The bridge is only 40', so I am assuming you are not using the full length." Then if they say they are, it's all fair because I gave them a chance :)
I'm a dick, but I always give you a chance. Everyone else at the table usually laughs when these situations come up, as the player had fair warning if they were paying attention...
So what you're saying is you are a dick, but not a "Tricky Dick"?
(I guess we can't accuse you of being a crook?)
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GM: Oh, the rope held. But it was a 50 foot rope and a 40 foot bridge. You never said you shortened the rope.
Now, see, I would do something like this if the conversation leading up to the decision included "I've still got my 50' of rope" and someone had judged the distance fairly. If they had the information already, and ignored it, I would have him hit the ground. If they didn't, I would find it more entertaining to see him succeed and see where he goes with it next.
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All the best GMs I've seen have one thing in common; they like the setting and are well-versed in it. Nothing's worse than a GM who can't adapt to their players going even slightly off-script, or who runs a game that's not internally consistent, because they can't be bothered to give a crap about which political faction that one NPC assassin actually worked for.
I think knowing the world enough that you can improvise things or react well to player initiative is a key part to being a good DM.
And have some enthusiasm for the setting. If someone doesn't give a crap about L5R, then maybe they shouldn't run it, no matter how many of their players are crying about not being able to play Crane Clan courtiers in Shadowrun.
A really half-ass game that takes place in a really awesome setting is the worst kind of game. Expectations are too high, and if the DM can't deliver or doesn't care to put in the work, then it's better to just pull the plug on it before everyone's fun gets ruined.
But a really kick-ass game that takes place in a setting that maybe the players don't like as much, but that the DM can get excited about, will usually turn into something really fun, because it's the DM's job to keep things moving.
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Well beyond the real basics; don't pause unless it's to allow a player to speak, never force a character but sometimes it's ok to coerce them, be consistent in everything from physics to NPC motives and always play the system as abstractly from the rules until you feel you need them to resolve a situation.
I'll elaborate on what I believe the basics are and provide some more of my personal insight.
'Don't pause'- comes from the ability for players to sometimes find themselves stagnating. If you aren't telling them something new within lets say 30 minutes then something is happening poorly in the game. Now I know there are times when in character debates can go on longer than that but you should always provide some insight (perhaps from a players personal musings on an NPCs motive when you think they may of misunderstood). This is especially true in combat situations. It's a sad fact that many of us can get caught in the lurch with modifiers at times and even in systems like one-roll when using 'gnarly' and 'awesome' powers. If you can crack the maths then you've cracked combat. Perhaps the best way to do this for yourself is to have little cards with the maths already worked out on them, ala 4th. ed D&D character builder.
'Never force the player' - This is very simple stuff. So to that end I'll focus on the other half of the sentence -'but it's ok to coerce them'. I think you should always give your players the number of quest/mission/diplomatic options they can complete...+1. While some people may think it is dis-satisfying to have an option that will never be played I think this is the best way to give the players the illusion of choice. An example would be offering a party of good players an incredulous evil option. If they feel there has always been another solution to the problem they haven't worked out then they will begin to seek all the options. I think we can all admit as GMs it is a gratifying experience to have our players try and poke around and fiddle in your world until they believe they have discovered every course of action...including making up ones you had never thought of.
'Be consistent'- Well again so simple that it doesn't require much elaboration but it is a basic that some GMs do slip up on.
Finally as a basic I have included is one you may disagree on. I am always one for role over roll play but some people define that differently. If you obey the above rule, being consistent in rules and NPC motives, then I feel the game mechanics themselves can always take a bit of a sideline.
For example if the party had been interacting with a diplomat on and off for awhile and had found him to be a staunch supporter of some ideal or another then you shouldn't let them roll diplomacy. You should only let them shake him from his views if they provide information so ground-shatteringly important to him that he would change his entire compass of opinion. When the person is rather contested on an idea and the party advocates one ideal then perhaps you should look to player logic. In the New World game when do the players agree and help people? When they are nice to them or have another appealing characteristic. It may sound stupid, as player logic often is, however I think it works far more interestingly than rolling a dice.
There are far more complex and specific things than those I outlined above but more often than not if you those basics down you're more or less set.
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For example if the party had been interacting with a diplomat on and off for awhile and had found him to be a staunch supporter of some ideal or another then you shouldn't let them roll diplomacy. You should only let them shake him from his views if they provide information so ground-shatteringly important to him that he would change his entire compass of opinion. When the person is rather contested on an idea and the party advocates one ideal then perhaps you should look to player logic. In the New World game when do the players agree and help people? When they are nice to them or have another appealing characteristic. It may sound stupid, as player logic often is, however I think it works far more interestingly than rolling a dice.
I tend to use diplomacy as a short-term, nicer intimidate. For any long-term impact, you have to have actions, not just words.
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Thread Resurrection!!!!
My favorite DM to play under has been doing this for quite a long time, and he has this technique.
He does alot of things that make you more interested, one of my favorites is when he roleplays one of our NPC party members.
Nessus is a fat fuck. Damn that man is a gluttonous pig, he is half orc and tips the scales in at a husky 300 lbs of pure fat. Another thing to know about Nessus is also a Rogue.
As long as the situation makes sense, he will grab any and all snacks on hand and any character interaction with Nessus is done while Nessus is pigging out, complete with him talking with his mouth full.
Also, when he is describing the situation to you, he does this subtle change of tone making his voice slightly deeper and more serious. He does this whenever something important is happening. It is very subtle, you don't really realize he has done it till after you've already gotten all worked up about the situation.
It sounds lame when I describe it but it totally works.