Claim your copy of Aizendore’s Vault of Tragic Treasure before the pledge manager closes forever: bit.ly/3zO7BdB Thanks to Penny Dragon Games for sponsoring this video!
You gave me an idea, for players having trouble figuring out clues for the main story, like maybe the miss all 3 clues, you can have a random NPC start a short side quest that leads them to a new clue, or even directly to the information you're trying to clue them in on. Also this can be used when a party player can't make it to a session. Having in place already or creatively improvising a side quest would give the players something to do that would be interesting and could still tie into the main story in a small way, but not be so major the players that miss the quest are left feeling like they really missed out on key parts of the story.
Back in the early/mid 90's when I was running AD&D 2nd, everyone used to put £2 or £3 into a pot, and the next week, the guy whose house we played at would use that money to buy ingredients and cook everyone a chilli or spiced potatoes. Everyone, even myself as DM, put money in because if you didn't, you wouldn't get any and his cooking was amazing.
Long before "safety tools" was a common thing (we're talking 90's ish) I had "....aaand Fade to Black." In Session Zero, I informed players that if ever they were uncomfortable with a scene they could end it immediately with "aaand Fade to Black." At that point everyone stopped immediately, no questions, and took a 15 minute break. If it wasn't obvious, I pulled them aside and we discussed, in as far as they were comfortable, what aspect upset them. Where initially I did this to better understand what to avoid in the future, it inadvertently worked as a check system as well (I had three a-hole players try to abuse this by "fading" RP cause they were bored and the attention wasn't on them.) Over the years my Session 0s and tools evolved (questionnaires and such) but I always kept "...aaand Fade to Black". And for those wondering why I keep writing it like that instead of just abbreviating FtB, I've tried it without the "...aaand". There's something about that sound that overpowers all dialog, breaks verisimilitude, draws everyone's attention to the player's distress, and sometimes adds just the right amount of levity to break the tension of a scene gracefully for everyone. It's been used many times over the years (fewer as I've gotten better at DMing) but I can't tell you how valuable having a simple, quick "Stop" button has been for my players.
Fade to Black is a very common safety tool, actually. next to the X card I'd say the one that's mentioned in every list of rpg safety tools I've ever seen. But glad you were so ahead of your time with that, making sure everyone at the table feels safe and comfortable is always good and important! Also, I think the reason the "and" may be so effective is because it builds anticipation and clearly announces that the DM has something to say, drawing it out with the expectation that you'll show them you're actually listening before they continue. and then having that followed with a well understood shorthand for "let's take a breather" subverts the dread this initially prompts xD or something akin to that
This is actually awesome! I've been dming for over six years, and I've always defaulted to "just get my attention if you become uncomfortable" This would work way better!
I missed saying this on Twitter, but....session zero. That's kinda like the first point, but (just speaking for me) when you're a person that hasn't played in a fair few years or are just starting with a new group, session zeros for both group and player could be really good to have.
This. Session 0 is so so important. Like, always, but especially if someone is new to the game as a whole, new to a group (or playing with strangers), or hasn't played in a while. I'm honestly surprised it took Wizards until _Tasha's_ to be like "Hm. You know what? This is important. Let's add it to a core rulebook".
I love session zero. however the biggest complaints I have seen in my group is 1) my group at least love to pull surprises on everyone (DM and players a like) 2) some say its boring and just want to start the game. yes in my group I have stopped doing session zero because I keep getting complaints about it. my players just want to ask questions over text at most. so I have just started sending out the general idea of the game. starting level and equipment. I ask about characters... but frequently get you'll love this character. but no other details. yes the group frequently ends up as a giant mess and stuff but my group just seems to love being the problem group.
I am a new player in all this and in the campaign I am playing right now we started out with a session zero, and i am so happy we did that. For me to feel comfortable, for me to understand, to ask all the questions, and many other things. So happy for session zero
There was a shocking number of people who wanted their DMs to provide food during a session. That’s ghastly. The DM is providing the whole ass world you play in for hours on end, players should feed each other AND the DM. C’mon, guys, some care & etiquette please.
That's a big oof, as you said GMs have enough going on. It's different, if the GM lays that out as a ground rule (I had one). I told my players to bring stuff and it's a running joke that one of them has to bring chips with a weird/unusual flavor xD
My group is great about this. One player sometimes bakes goodies or gets Sonic drinks, another brings donuts. I provide some tea for those who might want it, just some jugs in my fridge, but no one expects me to do that. Ultimately, we work together to provide what we decided we needed early on and it works out for everyone!
For a long long while, I and my co-DM's in a group of mutually-run games operated by the phrase "snack XP best XP". Everyone who brought snacks got a very small XP bonus for that session, even if XP wasn't awarded overall.
Great video! Personal note on the “rule of three.” It’s also a perfectly valid strategy to pose your party with a problem that you haven’t worked out solutions for yourself. Don’t make it an impossible problem, but allow them to come up with ideas, plan, investigate, ask questions, and see how their plan comes to fruition. Discovering TOGETHER what will happen is one of my favorite things about d&d.
It really comes down to style but in the context of the point you're addressing, players were asking for more guidance. I use the rule of three when prepping but I don't rule out other options just because I have three ways for them to get the information and I make things modular a lot of the time
I usually have still some solutions in mind but try to stay as open as possible for my players ideas. Usually they'll come up with something entirely different then what I would have planned anyways.
I CONSTANTLY come up with challenges I have no idea how they will overcome. My wife was reading an encounter I had just planned and she asked me "How are they going to get out of this?" I replied I have no idea. My job is to come up with challenges and the players' job is to figure out how to overcome them. In all honesty, they usually come up with something much better and more imaginative than I would. That is part of the fun of DMing
@@thomasmurphy6501 challenges and encounters yes but the that's not what the rule of three is for. It's like Ginny said generally related to information.
Me leaving letters on the study table for the players to find. Me mentioning the letters multiple times during investigations of the area. ... The players literally setting the building on fire and walking away without reading the letters.
😝 My current character is a private investigator with several fire spells. We were recently fighting inside an enemy battlefield commander's tent, and I made a point to gather up all the papers (on the desk, etc.) before I set the tent ablaze and dropped it on the remaining enemies. Remembering why you're there in the first place is important!
I think it's important to note that common requests are theming and guidance. There's so much rhetoric out there against railroading, which I get, but at the end of the day (at least for me), I'd much rather go through a slightly more linear adventure than an adventure that I feel like I'm floundering in.
I think my solution to this works well for #9, #3, and #2. I just ask my players to collectively agree upon what they want to do (usually session 0, but I suppose any time would do), and run the campaign with that as the central goal. It kind of obviates the need for railroading, because then you can really only help the players accomplish what was always their own goals. Player agency is implicitly central to the plot. It's also pretty good for working in player backstories. As a DM, my real adversity with integrating player backstories were because they were completely unrelated to the plot and no players were ever really interested in doing anything with each other's backstory. It was only ever some side thing between the player and DM, and it never felt worth it. But if the player's entire character was built for the same goal as everyone else's from the start, you don't have this issue since their backstory ostensibly leads into the goal they all chose to build their characters for!
Brennan Lee Mulligan said something about that that i keep reminding myself about: "If you're playing with new players it can be cruel to put the own-ness of creativity on them and say 'i don't want to railroad you guys, so you do the adventure' and they're like 'dude i don't fucking know, i'm an elven ranger, i'm just excited to have a panther familiar, _I don't know what i want to do_ ' If youre playing with people who are not really confident in their creative or improv abilities _it is kind_ to say ' your old mentor shows up and says there are monsters at the edge of the forest' and let them go 'cool i want to help my mentor out' Thats a really simple digestible story" It can be good to railroad, to keep it linear, at least in the beginning of a campaign with new players, and i feel especially when youre a new DM.
Regarding the rule of three. Being a world open to creativity it's very possible that players don't find any of the three solutions. This is why I let them succeed after the third or fourth idea that seems doable. Remember: game design doesn't end when when the session starts.
I just had session where my lawyers got into a tower of a Dwarven stronghold that was buried underground. It was suppose to be one of those, "ohhhh that neat, we should come back later things" But they ended up getting in. *laughs* So anyways, the bottom room of the tower had a secret door that lead down into the fortress...that's all I had planned...so I just sat there and let them investigate the room answering all their questions. Finally one player was like "I know! Dwarves have dark vision right?!" I was like yes? Character is 8 foot tall, he climbs back up yhe stairs and blocks the hole that leads to the next floor, so that NO light can reach this room. I was like...yep, that's it. *laughs* Then describe how even though it was pitch black the parry could see in the room just fine as thw walls gave a weird glow, and a space on the floor was missing revealing the stairs down. They were soooooo excited they "figured" it out. Bahahaha. I never tell them I didn't know either, it takes away from that good feeling of success. It's one of my go to moves a GM. Just plod along until a players idea or comment triggers my own, and just role with it.
an example for #4: one of the games I am watching on twitch, one of the Players has some real world conflicts that came up and can't make it to the table for a few weeks. The DM and her got together and worked out that they will have the party go forward in the campaign, but in the game world, her Character is being taken to court by her Grandfather in an attempt to take the Family Business back from her, which is why she is missing for the sessions.
I designed this super cool campaign about a stolen unicorn for my party. One had an emergency, and the other had scheduled a tattoo weeks in advance. His character was sick with ink poisoning.
As a near forever DM I always look forward to these vids. I either learn something new to improve my skills and games or I get validation for the things I already do as a DM
Suggestion 1 is such a great rule. Its sounds like such a small thing, but the difference is night and day when your players have a built in reason to be together and a theme to work on. Gets buy in from everyone and gets everyone on the same page of what it is we are doing.
Carefully balancing player agency with driven story (sandbox and railroading) is definitely one of the best things a DM can work towards. You don't want the players to have no idea what they're supposed to do but you want them to feel like their choices actually matter. It's tricky at times, but well worth the effort
For me, that balance is all the way over in sandbox. I don't do stories, the players do stories. I will provide plenty of situations, but they need to figure out how to get involved.
Your video's help me so much to stay motivated as a DM! Once in a while I ask all the players what their favorite moments are in either my campaign or in other campaigns as well, it really helps paint a picture of the exact things my players like to do!! That helps me personally to make the world around them a bit based on what they have liked so far!
My DM has been giving a lot of combat because some of our party just want to yada yada the social and exploration side. In lieu of story, I've been dropping my character's development through her actions in battle. She stated off as a feisty Tempest Cleric and after realizing the consequences of battle, she's matured and is seeking a more peaceful option where she can support others and deescalate confrontations. I talked to DM about switching to the Peace Domain and he had backstory stuff planned and it would totally make sense.
@@annafantasia he ended up liking the idea and my initiative so much that he ended up giving my character a piece of magical armor that has thematic mechanical buffs for the new play style but also lore that ties into my character's family for us to explore at some point.
A terrific list. But I think the last point -- LOTS of communication with your players, setting rules, expectations, and an open pipeline for further discussion before, during, and after game as needed -- is the most crucial one.
I start a new campaign this week for a group where we've been playing together for 2+ years, but my first time DMing for them (I've been DMing with other groups for over a year). I'm glad to say most of this is stuff I've learned through getting feedback in previous DM experience, but still, a good reminder. I think the toughest part is balancing between giving enough guidance to move the story vs. railroading. I think the best advice I've learned (from running Princes of the Apocalypse, which... oof, yeah, PCs need help in that sandbox), is don't be afraid to give players enough breadcrumbs to give players guidance, but always leave them options. And even if they choose something that was wasn't according to the module or your DM plan, do your best to allow it, so you don't take away player agency. Sometimes that means, "Hey, you can go there, but I haven't prepped that so there's not really a map or it may go slower because I'll be catching up on the module as we're running it. As long as we're good with that, let's go." (In my experience most of the time players still want to go, but they at least know what to expect and they are very forgiving of things we beat ourselves up for as DMs.) There will be times you have to say no. "No, it hasn't been 24 hours and you're in the middle of an enemy dungeon. You can't benefit from a long rest and if you stay idle for 8 hours, expect heavy resistance when you open the door." "No, you can't persuade the merchant to give their inventory away for free, even with a Nat 20 persuasion." "No, we can't f*** off from this module and play something else because you, Person A is bored with your character build. Let's just rework your character or find an epic way for them to die and roll up a new one." But most of the time you can say, "Okay, so you know the Ogre has the noble's family in the hills, there's an adult dragon who has been attacking settlements a week away at a rate of one settlement per every 3 days, and in town there have been a series of unsolved murders... what do you want to do?" While you may expect your PCs to choose the immediate and close options, if they say, "DRAGON!" let them go after that darn dragon.
On the inspiration/guide stuff. I gave coins for inspiration to my players to re roll any die roll as well as have a table coin that could be used once per game for anyone to use and could make Me(dm) reroll a d20. Out on the table with a provided die. For birthdays I would give my players a 1d4 Motes of Intuition/Wish. Where they could at any ask me a question about their quest or ask to do or have something that they may have not been possible. And depending on what was asked I would provide info they would need if it was being forgotten, misunderstood or ignored. As well as gage if what they wanted would be to much/powerful for them to have. To keep it a little balanced
Thank you so much for this Ginny! That #1 tip really hits home for me. I am both a player and a DM and I can definitely be self critical in both aspects. It’s hard for me to just enjoy the big heist or persuading an NPC sometimes because I get so caught up in my head. This makes me realize that I’m not the only one who is negatively affected by this. It is everyone. This was a great video :) keep it up
Number 1 is huge! It is admittedly something I struggle with as well, but I've had a couple players go out of their way to express gratitude for the work I've put in to the game. And it helped me realize that even when unspoken, it's still true. So I can promise, if you're putting in a real good faith effort into the game, the vast majority of players will be grateful
This is such a Great companion/complement video to the "game masters of exandria” on Cirtial Role. talking about all things DM… Matt Mercer Aabria Iyengar and Brennan Lee Mulligan. Brennan makes some great point about the conflict with what players want in meta sense and what characters want … he says breaks down what some people really mean when they say they don’t want to be railroading… he also reframes the idea of “railroading” in a great way (to make it necessary and good in that context but I leave it to him… Ps love your Jester CR cameo … hope to see you play with them in the future!
A device I learnt from Heart: the City Beneath - form with each player a list of story beats they want to weave into the campaign that together establish a personal story ark (Thief: steal a valuable item; silence a witness; return the stolen item; etc), then have them mark for the next session 1-2 out of the list. Splendid way to have something to bite from when you need to prepare a plot for the upcoming session.
Let's talk about feedback for a sec. I personally love 'Stars and Wishes' and end up doing it after every session for a new game and then settling into once every two or three sessions after things get acclimated. It is a great way to give and receive feedback and doing it regularly de-stigmatizes the 'feedback is always bad' anxiety a lot of people have.
Ah man that last one hit a bit too close to home. I started DMing for what was one group that eventually changed to another group due to scheduling issues. After that I started running a campaign I was extremely excited for, Storm King's Thunder. I was excited to run my very first "real" and grand campaign (I ran LMoP before this). However I put a lot of stress on myself to basically create a ton of content for my players in the ten-towns that I needed to also be in line with the official forgotten realms content(Of which there was none at this time). This made every hour of session prep a big chore and I burned myself out. With some very minor exceptions (as in I ran two one shots over the course of like 2 years and an attempt at a campaign that lasted 1 session) I never really got back into it. For the DMs, be kind to yourself. Don't be afraid to stray away from the "written plot" if using a book or some elaborate planning you did yourself. Recently I've started prepping again, now for what is supposed to a short arc in a campaign that I will be able to pick up at a later date. Take it easy, not every session needs to be your magnum opus. The player's are there to have fun and so are you, take it easy and relax a bit.
In an ideal world everyone would have hair as cool as yours. Seriously, what a great shade and it is so vibrant. If you did a video on how you get your hair such vibrant shades my daughter would be SO happy! I am on the wrong side of time, and have to shave my head, but I still appreciate a great shade of green.
Been playing for five years and my DM has never given us inspiration. Someday, I hope. I want to see it. However, I did learn that my DM actually changed a roll once behind the screen because he thought it would lead to a lot of pain for me, or between me and another player. The other player told me, but thought that this was shameful. I was actually incredibly relieved to hear it. It was something I had spoken to my therapist about, how I wasn't sure if I could ask for this in the game. I'm glad it naturally happened.
On themes, one of the campaigns I'm in started with all the player characters as prisoners where we became a sort of suicide squad. The guide us section did remind me of a session in our previous campaign where us players spent several minutes trying to find a way to reach the second story balcony using magic or something until our DM reminded us that we have rope. 😂
I've been a DM for our group of childhood friends since we started playing about 6 years ago, and this June/July I finally got to play as a player in a campaign ran by my other friend, and you know what, yes, players should be thankful that a DM exists, it feels so amazing to be a player that I can hardly describe how much joy the campaign we are playing is bringing me. Some great tips here by the way, I will definitely be implementing a few when I'm back to DMing. :D
Not only do I love your discussions and videos, but your sponsor plug-ins are the absolute best, I never skip them. Just something that needs to be appreciated and I felt you should know
As a dm who sees a lot of different dms who are "better than me at dming" this video really helped me see that im not total shit at everything. Cus i know a lot of dms who are amazing monologuers and ones who make amazing stories and some that are great at remembering rules for combat or dnd lore, and im not really good at most of that but i try to offset my weaknesses by not having monologs and letting the players say stuff instead, or making a strong theme and communicating with my players that theme, or fudging roles or bending rules so that the players can do really cool stuff, are things that i try to do so that everyone can have fun. So to know that the players want to have stuff like that makes me feel a lot better! Though i do struggle with the "dont be so hard on youself" thing. Thanks for the amazing video!
How I do it? Session zero: Lay out expectations for: combat, role play, how much backstory is to be used, topic content/rating etc. Then I ask what they expect: topics to avoid, combat difficulty, hints when stuck, plot direction, etc. Then after every session I ask each player individually what did you like; what did you not like; what do you wish was happening instead? This goes a long way for determining what a player wants to have happen because the experience is fresh and now I can plan next session with this information in mind. It requires open and honest communication from everyone involved. It’s my number 1 priority: making my players feel welcome. Another huge tip is to allow some meta gaming as DM provided information. e.g. A player wants to know if they could get down a 70 foot cliff with 50 feet of rope. Just tell them that it would take 10 feet of rope to secure it and then 30 feet of fall damage. Roll damage to show the player what would happen if they did that before they commit to doing it. Especially for new players, expose some of the gears of the game so they understand and can find more enjoyment.
"Silence is golden" As a long-time dm and musiker, my favorite note is the rest note. You put into great words why: "To make sure everyone feels like there is room for them to speak" Playing a rest note is demonstrating that same respect to your band
What I like the most of this video is that you quoted your sources! That, right there, is value that almost no creator brings to the table. I take my hat off!!! =D
I made a deck of cards I call The Deck of Inspired Memories that the group holds in a common pool. The context is that while doing something they want to use inspiration on they are remembering something awesome someone did in the past - not just themselves. They can hold as many as there are PCs in their group. The deck currently has 3 unique cards in it with varying amounts to balance the rarity and power. I intended to add more but for now 3 works really well and the group likes it. One of the cards is just regular inspiration, the second is straight up Bardic Inspiration, the final card is a reroll on any of their rolls. At first I had balancing concerns but in all honesty it made for some really exciting moments and the players even started RPing "remembering the memory that inspired them" while doing their thing. I was so proud!
My group have a really simple safety tool that we use. after every session we have ten minutes open floor discussion about the session where the players can bring up any issues they had with the session or as happens more often ask a fellow player about the thought process that lay behind a certain action that caught other players off guard. this is backed up by a second really simple tool. every player has a red token that they can place on the table if something is happening that they are uncomfortable with and need the session to stop so we can deal with it there and then. this second tool has never actually been used but it is there if needed.
Just a note about number two- dms, please remember that not all players want their back stories to be engaged with, or not all parts to come up in the game. It's a pain to get asked for the fifth time to have *More* backstory when I'm just like "dude I just wanna be a war vet and I don't want literally anything else to matter to the story at all". Or worse when a throwaway line about a friendly baker is now the campaign villain and I'm wondering why out of all the stuff I put into the backstory, the one I didn't care about is now super important
@gangsteroyster yeah exactly! Some dms value the twist over good communication, but I don't see anything wrong with just talking about stuff with players. You can ask if they are comfortable with a twist and still do the twist, it just takes some getting used to but isn't too difficult. Like a simple "hey is someone in your life being secretly evil cool with you?" which can be answered with a "yeah but not the mentor or mother please" or something like that. Still an unknown, but also talked about with the player.
oof. I think the lesson in this thread is “run with a player’s backstory, not against it.” Take your clues from the player and don’t try to revise what they’ve done in some way.
I've been watching a few of your videos lately, and honestly your videos are awesome. You also do the best and most entertaining ads I've ever seen. Never felt like watching an ad til I saw yours
This is a great video! As the DM, I'll definitely be keeping some of these tips in mind. I think I'm doing pretty well on several of them, but I also know there are ways to do better. On the other hand, some elements are pretty encouraging. My default for setting up a campaign or one shot is "You were all hired by X group for X purpose," which gives the characters a reason to stick together. One thing I do wish I'd done better . . . I really wish I'd known about and thought about some measure of safety tools before starting the group. I play with a group of my close friends, so I probably would've had that attitude you referenced, but it also would've saved us an awkward and tense conversation last summer when one character/player wanted to torture a villain for information and the rest of us were all like "Uhhhhhh we are suuuuper uncomfy with that, can we not?"
To this day, years after thr campaign ended my most cherished example of a dm using backstory was for my Ifrit Occultist in pathfinder 1e. He used almost every aspect of my backstory from majorly featuring my elven rival to making a dungeon full of constructs knowing my caster had a crippling fear of them. Its so rewarding when a dm leans into the character you present them.
This speaks to my group on a truly deep level. We recently had this whole discussion ourselves at the table after alot of problems with our DM. Now our table is much happier. Amazing video Ginny, thanks.
About using safety tools, my friend who will be DMing for their first time hopefully next week has given all their players a consent sheet of sorts, with every theme that could possibly come up in their story that could be triggering. It's a checklist with 3 options that can be boiled down to "I have no issue with this", "talk to me about it before the session starts", and "please do not include". And they're going to make sure that the themes people absolutely do not want won't be included and will find a way to drive the story forward without it. It's a wonderful tool that I think more people should be aware of and using!
One of the DM tools I've found useful for the "Guide Us" request is the session recap. The start of each session is a recap of what took place last time in a narrative style, along the lines of: "The last time we left our intrepid heroes, they (insert key moments from last session) in their pursuit of (insert key goal they are trying to achieve this session)...". This affords the opportunity to highlight a clue you dropped last session that they didn't pick up on, or highlight an NPC they could talk to that might offer a new quest, or just remind them of what they wanted to do or were working towards in case its been a while since the last session. It also lets you as the DM highlight what you loved about how the players solved a problem or handled an encounter. One player even said having an exploit mentioned in the recap was akin to 'making the highlight reel' which I thought was pretty cool.
Back in the D&D Next playtest for a brief period the Commoner Background had the Feature of "You have a house." I absolutely loved that. Our fighter, Brah, was a commoner Fisherman and I was like "How about a houseboat?"
Just gotta say i appreciate your videos. You have helped me improve a ton as a DM. My player have been having way more fun since i started watching your vids.
Once tried out a session with a group I was new too. Went disastrously, DM provided no reason for why I would ever want to work with these people and no one in the group stepped up, one of them was implied to have murdered my contact for unknown reasons and so I had even less reason to work with them, and the session ended with us not really having accomplished anything. Next session I wasn't invited back and I was happy not to go.
"Guide us" also is a good thing for when yo make a puzzle with just one solution, there's a lot of times puzzles are good, but if you're stuck, it really sucks to just stand there or give up. Or simply, have 3 different solutions for that problem (or say "that makes sense" to something the player does), and thus make players feel like they're brilliant.
What I sometimes do, is once in a while I let my players fill in a feedback survey, which only has 3 questions: What did you like? What did you dislike? What would you want to see more of? It gives GREAT insights!
I used to do that. Then I started feeling anxious about it. One session a player told me I could prepare more. He had no idea I had prepared much more than usual and was actually struggling with my note the whole session. I wasn't mad at an honest answer. It just useless and destructive to ask "What's wrong?' when everyone is having fun. It's not just a D&D thing mind you.
For number 3 I came up with something for my strixhaven. So my players were going to bust some other students out of prison but they had no idea how to do it. So I invented a magical book that kind of acted as their patron who gives them advice and tips on how to prepare and conduct a heist of that scale. I am also slowly including more professors who they can go to in roleplay to ask for council and I tell them both in and out of character this is the stuff you can or maybe should think about doing.
Things I wish my DM did: ask for feedback And I mean ask specific fucking questions when pulling feedback, in a one on one setting at a convenient time. Make it via text or email if you have to. Asking the whole table 'anybody have some feedback?' at 10pm at the end of a session when everyone wants to go home and sleep isn't going to get you anything useful. So why did you bother asking? Ask specific questions: "do you have any thoughts about that big combat we ran?" "Do you have any future multiclassing plans?" "What character options or spells are you planning to pick up on your next level up?" "Was there anything you thought was lacking about that shop you visited?" "Do you think Jeff talks too much?" That sort of thing.
Half of these definitely applied to the DM of the campaign I was in briefly from last year to this (it combusted after ten sessions due to players clashing). That's not to say anything bad about the DM, though. It was his first time running a game, he decided homebrew was the way to go, and it just didn't go well for many of these reasons. I think it's important to note that if at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again. Use failure as a learning experience to do better in the future. The best thing the table can do is have a session zero to determine what everyone is looking to get out of the experience.
THEMES! BARD BAND! They set out just trying to find gigs in villages of the campaign setting, but they keep finding wacky hijinks, a la The Monkeys, Spinal Tap, or Scooby-Doo. It starts out monster of the week, but as their performances get more high profile they get caught up in the political intrigues of their wealthy patrons, possibly even becoming spies. (there's actual historical prescient for this) Bonus if you can figure out a way to emulate musical performance in game that encourages roleplay!
9:27 - I really like the hint rule from Call of Cthulhu for this! Just roll a WIS check or insight/perception/history/arcana/etc. if you want to be more specific about the type of clue that they will get.
I'd really like to know in advance if it's safe for me to make a "social" character. I've been burned by this too many times, where I make a character with strong charisma/social stats, and then it never gets used because the campaign focuses on combat or the characters get flung into a far-off, sh*tty jungle like Chult. (fu Tomb, no one likes you) It aligns with "create a theme" for GMs, but I'd appreciate more than a cursory "yeah okay run with that" from a GM to vet an idea so it doesn't run into issues later on.
Number 1 got me man. I am the dm for my group and I often feel like I'm not doing a good job or could be better, even when my players say they enjoyed session. It's nice to know that other dm's feel this way and players are so nice
I like how one of your items also helps with others - the GM is the one who gives inspiration, which means if you're doing it often, especially in combat? Combat feels MUCH less antagonistic. Bonus: you'll get some AMAZING attack descriptions. Inspiration is also a great way to tell players what's important. If one of your players notices your NPC has a certain accent, and you're hoping to take them to that area in a session or two? Drop 'em an inspiration and watch them interview that character like they're their biographer. You might end up with this area exposition dropped completely painlessly.
really great video ginny!! i hugely second the point about making combat matter; i've been playing a rime of the frostmaiden campaign for the last few months and because of our party's connections to the world that our dm helped us add in, almost every combat has felt less like a cut and dried "kill the bad guy to solve the problem" scenario and more like a complex issue where we've been trying NOT to fight our opponents immediately because for the most part they've been humanoid and we don't feel that killing someone makes sense for characters who are supposed to be helping the Tentowns. in our last session we had a clash with a frost druid who my own druid character knew from her backstory and in the middle of combat my character had an emotional confrontation with her instead of trying to just fight first and ask questions later, and it made the stakes feel so much higher and the combat feel more believable. this is the first time i've played a campaign where combat didn't just feel like an arbitrary encounter so we could get to use our class abilities, and it makes for such engaging play.
I ported a system from The One Ring that essentially allowed me to replace inspiration. My world is very grim (it's literally the end of the world) and so I pulled the Hope/Misery system from TOR. Basically, players get points of hope when something cool happens, those can be used to crit on succesful checks or reroll failed, but players recieve misery points when something bad happens. Those can't be spent, but if at any point misery points exceed the amount of hope points the character becomes miserable and has a higher chance of critical failures. (Misery points go away 1/long rest). I like the risk/reward of that system a lot.
As to your combat area, I generally make it so that even some of the 'random encounter combat', are actually orchestrated by the BBEG,watching and assessing the PC PARTY.Learning thier secrets,strengths and witnesses, to devise his eventual and inevitable encounter with them.Preferably in his mind, in such a manner, which provides the BBEG with a distinct advantage
I think it could also be great to discuss before a session starts what everyone wants to do. The same adventure can be a self organised trip through a world or a straight but rich in action. I'd take a beautiful railroad trip where I can sit and drink over getting lost in the woods..
Im DMing for the first time and Im finding these videos quite helpful. My players are so fun to DM for, they can be on a flaming ship about to crash and their priorites are to discuss their personal favorite attires. I facepalm so hard but in hilarious fun ways and I just let them have their fun and they seem to be really good at having fun on themselves, I literally planed 1 session and we almost had to divide it in 3 due to how much time they spend arguing with each other characters and discussing past traumas xD
And that was just the tutorial, I'm now reaching the second stage of the campaign where we are going to explore their backstories and they seem really hyped for that. I've been having a lot of DMing but I couldn't do it without the enthusiasm and support they've shown me
Great video! I really like how the advice given here ties back to multiple other topics you've covered - allowing people to drill down and find more specific information on the things they might struggle with/be most interested in.
The top3 things I could hope of any dm. 1. Railroad railroad railroad. I want to be taken on a tour of your brain space not make you sweat improving. 2. Lots of combat and multiple player deaths. 3. Make tropey referencey ect.
The "Guide us" and "Play with us" ones remind me: I like the way the Sentinel Comics RPG handles overcomes. It gives you a challenge, for example rescue a civilian from a burning car before it explodes. How do you do that and what dice to you roll? Whatever you can justify. Use your Cold Power with Ranged Combat to extinguish it the fire with a precision burst of snow? Sure. Use Leadership + Presence to urge the civilian to find the inner strength to struggle out? Why not! Wall-crawling + Otherworldly Mythos? Err... I don't personally see how to make that one work, but if you can, sure! :) It's engaging for the players and takes a bit of the load off the GM having to work out ways in advance for the players to succeed.
Honestly there’s a very easy solution to setting boundaries when players might not feel comfortable asking the DM directly. Session 0, you give everyone a sheet of paper listing as many topics players might find uncomfortable as you can think of with tickboxes. Then give everyone an identical pen. Then you tell them all to find somewhere private where they can go through the sheet and just put a line in each of the boxes they don’t like with a time limit of about 5-10 minutes. Then, all the players hand you the sheet upside down, you shuffle them around as best you can and read them behind the dm screen. The time limit means that neither you nor the players know how much time each player spent ticking boxes (and therefore who set more boundaries than others) and the identical pens and tickboxes means there is no discernible difference in handwriting or pen that can identify a specific player. Once you read all the sheets. You now have a definitive list of topics your players aren’t comfortable with and you can avoid them. The anonymity is key here, as many players (especially the ones less comfortable with hardcore topics) don’t like asking things directly and feeling like a problem. No one feels uncomfortable in the first place, and no one has to awkwardly ask the dm to pivot and feel like they’re causing issues. It’s also just helpful for the DM because it means you don’t even start planning out the party’s encounter with the uncomfortable topics. It’ll save everyone a lot of time and grief.
This is very good. The "safety" part is a bit over the top for me. But having a discussion before a person plays a character in a session/world - just so they know what they might be in for - is a really good idea. Also, #2, I had a great DM (played same world for over 2 decades). While we did some on the fly backstory that I participated in for my main character, it was quick and collaborative and intentionally incomplete. In Fact. As an elf I got lycanthropy at one point later which is how I found out I was actually a half-elf (oh the scandal). However, this DM would also do one-on-one (or one-on-two) sessions just to develop a characters personal story (not simply backstory). I ended up building a castle eventually in my "downtime away from the adventure group"......and going broke too because castle are really pricey.
Its my first time Dming. I have only played once before this as well so i'm very new, but i loved the idea of being a DM so i asked the group if i could start my own campaign with them. I created the theme of tropical islands and water world. The main group is to collect five elemental stones before a cult leader does. Very simple idea. One thing i have done every single session is at the very end i ask my players if there is anything i can improve on for them. The feedback has helped SO MUCH and we are only 3 sessions in. I feel like the best thing you can do as a DM is be open to hearing your players out. It will make you better in the long run
As a "forever GM" 6 is just as on the players as it is on me. I play with a group of three that really enjoy playing, when I can actually get them all to the table. Two of the players have made it clear that the game isn't a super high priority, which is fine, but it makes moving the adventure forward difficult.
Great content. You have great insigt. I'm also just always amazed at the apparent neccesity to have safeguards in place in some groups. I'll just count myself lucky that it hasn't been an issue with my friend group, yet. And though it feels uneccesary in my case, I'll keep it in mind cause you never know.
The funniest moment of my starting DM time was when a *more* experienced DM told me I was railroading while I had 9 branching pathways and about 15 different conclusions. I looked at his message, laughed and then asked how he came to the conclusion. I never did get an answer. I had played with most of the characters at my table, I knew their alignments, goals and part of their backstories. I knew them so well I could craft personal magical items for those sessions, and they were limited to that table. So, I think he saw my knowledge as a railroad because I already knew what they "might" do and had content prepared for it. They never did something I didn't expect, but I was also prepared to make things up on the spot which I did have to do when we decided to turn a one-shot into a multi-session dungeon crawl.
Luckily for my group we all live in the same area and were a small group of 5. 3 of which (including our DM) all work together so we dont have too many scheduling issues.
Wish you did your polls here, I will not be a part of Elon Musk’s world. I already cancelled my account. It is set to be deleted soon, given that I am in the EU
Silence is also good for letting your players think. There's beginner/intermediate/expert players but there's also slow thinkers, methodical thinkers, cautious thinkers, and rash thinkers. DM knows the lore and the story. The players are still trying to piece the parts together. Give players time.
The thing I and my group have tried to get across to our DM is.. we want chances to feel strong. Our last campaign just finished, and we all had a talk about things we felt off about over the course of it. The main thing that we all agreed on was that we never had any fights where we got to feel like the party of heroes. There was not a single fight where we didn't have at least one person drop, where we weren't overwhelmed and completely tapped on spells just to crawl through it. When we brought this up, our DM's response was 'if it's not always life threatening, it's not fun'. At one point we fought what we thought would just be a simple group of thugs that were threatening a traveling trader... All 5 were swashbuckler rogues, and as such were hitting us with sneak attacks literally every turn. Paladin and Fighter both dropped to lucky crits before the fight was over.. to what should've been a roflstomp encounter. He now wonders why we'd run or avoid most of all the fights in the later half of the campaign. Does not understand the answer of 'Why would we fight if it's always a high risk of death'.
Safety tools are SO important at the table. I DM for my brother, sister, fiance, and a good friend, so I know them very well. I had reflavored what was basically a tentacle attack from an enemy to be a literal dick slap. Three of the four players thought it was funny and dumb, but one of them ended up being super uncomfortable because of it. Luckily they were able to come to me after the session and ask that I don't do anything like that again. I still feel bad about it, but I was very lucky that I play with a group of people who I am very close with, otherwise, it could have been disastrous.
I created a luck points system, in leu of inspiration. My players love it. - start of session gain 1d10 luck points for the session (they do not stack). - use points to add or subtract from any D20 roll. This does not affect critical hits or failures.
Engaging in the characters backstory. We so did that, Its just that as a beer and pretzel group we had going I helped write another players characters back story, so i knew more of the built in subplot hooks then himself, so we agreed that I would guest-dm that since I were the one on top of things... Very interesting to have a guy become the head of his tribe from his backstory and have him ask me how to prononce the tribes name.
That last comment made me laugh out loud! Want to thank you for the clear, welcoming thorough post! I appreciate the nod towards TCoE- I did not know about it :) Just working on creating a patron for the new campaign my friends and I are creating... they don't know they are helping... I am building from their comments, backstories and actions.... shhhhh! I really look forward to the new books coming from your e-store- no pressure, just say'n! I have no doubt they will be as successful as your TH-cam is wonderful. be well J
My DM is a great one. He openly asked people to create a decent backstory because he WISH to bring our character deeper into the story telling than just some mercenaries doing some random jobs. He really want us to have a lore he can put into use giving all of us a chance to be the protagonist in some sessions. Like my rogue is someone that ran from home due to a abusive relationship with her parents and her sister vanished. Due to a curse she has. So my rogue left the home when she was 14. BARELY managed to survive the wilds until she got down to AMN she walked from Cormyr to AMN. Got some little help during her adventure. MY DM saw my lore and ofcourse he did not plan on killing my character due to the story I had but he had me do a duet session where only me and him were doing some Roleplay based on the lore to see how bad or well it went. Let's say....My rogue had seen better days when she finally arrived Athkatla. She were put into a orphanage or not a orphanage but this place with the nuns and all. I do not remember the name due to not mainly english. She turned 16 and became a sailor to adventure more. Trying to find her sister but no luck so I gave a easy to grab Campaign for my DM and a other part he can use for alot later due to she were attacked by a kraken we call The Maw. The first Kraken to exist sent by a evil sea god. Or atleast that is what the story about the maw states. All in all he does a great job including our characters into his plans of story. We do not have a specific theme to our characters. One is a sailor living in the slums (My rogue) My friends is either a mushroom hat wielding kobold. A palading of glory oath. A warlock being a lord. But My character and the paladin's lores were EASIELY connected together due to both of them has our characters turn our gaze towards THAY.
something great i have come across with a lot of helpfull tools in it even for dnd is between clouds, it's a very simple game it uses only d6 and it encourages role play and has no unique mechanic for combat making players think outside the box during combat and narate there actions instead of "i swing my sword" or "i cast eldritch blast/vicious mockery" and the setting is also really intresting too
a great example of a good role playing mechanic that i have used for all my games now is the x-card, whenever a topic comes up and the players don't like it they simply tap the card and the narative changes, you take a break or something else so the players don't need to explain that they feel uncomfortable
Rlyewatch and Vaesen both are like this I think. It's something I noticed overall, playing different kinds of RPGs. The tendency is: less rules = more RP. Also Horrorgames are often Investigation games which is probably one of the greatest themes and that gives a common reason among the PCs to is programmed into the game from the beginning.
Definitely establish a play style and a theme during the zero session. In session, the DM should use PC backstories to cross PCs to NPCs, who drop clues and reveal dilemmas that only a hero could resolve. These are some questions to continuously ask the players: "How do you react to these startling events?" "Your business is concluded. What's your next move?" "You succeed! What happens?" "Do you take the bottle from the wizard's desk, uncork it, and guzzle the contents, hoping to quench your thirst?"
Claim your copy of Aizendore’s Vault of Tragic Treasure before the pledge manager closes forever: bit.ly/3zO7BdB Thanks to Penny Dragon Games for sponsoring this video!
Once again, the only ads I let run through... Funny and slightly ridiculous. Thanks Ginny
As an original backer I'm not even sure I got this surprised its still in pledge manager
when does the pledge manager close?
You gave me an idea, for players having trouble figuring out clues for the main story, like maybe the miss all 3 clues, you can have a random NPC start a short side quest that leads them to a new clue, or even directly to the information you're trying to clue them in on.
Also this can be used when a party player can't make it to a session. Having in place already or creatively improvising a side quest would give the players something to do that would be interesting and could still tie into the main story in a small way, but not be so major the players that miss the quest are left feeling like they really missed out on key parts of the story.
Back in the early/mid 90's when I was running AD&D 2nd, everyone used to put £2 or £3 into a pot, and the next week, the guy whose house we played at would use that money to buy ingredients and cook everyone a chilli or spiced potatoes. Everyone, even myself as DM, put money in because if you didn't, you wouldn't get any and his cooking was amazing.
Long before "safety tools" was a common thing (we're talking 90's ish) I had "....aaand Fade to Black."
In Session Zero, I informed players that if ever they were uncomfortable with a scene they could end it immediately with "aaand Fade to Black." At that point everyone stopped immediately, no questions, and took a 15 minute break. If it wasn't obvious, I pulled them aside and we discussed, in as far as they were comfortable, what aspect upset them. Where initially I did this to better understand what to avoid in the future, it inadvertently worked as a check system as well (I had three a-hole players try to abuse this by "fading" RP cause they were bored and the attention wasn't on them.)
Over the years my Session 0s and tools evolved (questionnaires and such) but I always kept "...aaand Fade to Black".
And for those wondering why I keep writing it like that instead of just abbreviating FtB, I've tried it without the "...aaand". There's something about that sound that overpowers all dialog, breaks verisimilitude, draws everyone's attention to the player's distress, and sometimes adds just the right amount of levity to break the tension of a scene gracefully for everyone. It's been used many times over the years (fewer as I've gotten better at DMing) but I can't tell you how valuable having a simple, quick "Stop" button has been for my players.
Wow, that sound great! thanks for the tip
Fade to Black is a very common safety tool, actually. next to the X card I'd say the one that's mentioned in every list of rpg safety tools I've ever seen. But glad you were so ahead of your time with that, making sure everyone at the table feels safe and comfortable is always good and important!
Also, I think the reason the "and" may be so effective is because it builds anticipation and clearly announces that the DM has something to say, drawing it out with the expectation that you'll show them you're actually listening before they continue. and then having that followed with a well understood shorthand for "let's take a breather" subverts the dread this initially prompts xD or something akin to that
This is actually awesome! I've been dming for over six years, and I've always defaulted to "just get my attention if you become uncomfortable"
This would work way better!
Oh this is great advice!
I'm gonna steal this 😊 thank you for the tip!
I missed saying this on Twitter, but....session zero. That's kinda like the first point, but (just speaking for me) when you're a person that hasn't played in a fair few years or are just starting with a new group, session zeros for both group and player could be really good to have.
I do session 0 whenever I start a new campaign, even if it's a group I've been playing with for a while
This. Session 0 is so so important. Like, always, but especially if someone is new to the game as a whole, new to a group (or playing with strangers), or hasn't played in a while. I'm honestly surprised it took Wizards until _Tasha's_ to be like "Hm. You know what? This is important. Let's add it to a core rulebook".
Yeah. This.
Had a campaign that ended up in the under dark and the fey. Only two people spoke Sylvan and two had dark vision.
I love session zero. however the biggest complaints I have seen in my group is 1) my group at least love to pull surprises on everyone (DM and players a like) 2) some say its boring and just want to start the game.
yes in my group I have stopped doing session zero because I keep getting complaints about it. my players just want to ask questions over text at most. so I have just started sending out the general idea of the game. starting level and equipment. I ask about characters... but frequently get you'll love this character. but no other details. yes the group frequently ends up as a giant mess and stuff but my group just seems to love being the problem group.
I am a new player in all this and in the campaign I am playing right now we started out with a session zero, and i am so happy we did that.
For me to feel comfortable, for me to understand, to ask all the questions, and many other things.
So happy for session zero
There was a shocking number of people who wanted their DMs to provide food during a session. That’s ghastly. The DM is providing the whole ass world you play in for hours on end, players should feed each other AND the DM. C’mon, guys, some care & etiquette please.
That's a big oof, as you said GMs have enough going on. It's different, if the GM lays that out as a ground rule (I had one).
I told my players to bring stuff and it's a running joke that one of them has to bring chips with a weird/unusual flavor xD
Back in the day, the GM never paid for his pizza. It was even a phrase, "Any GM worth his pizza...", meaning if the GM was good.
Hard agree - when we played in University, it was always the players who provided food. If you didn't, people made note.
My group is great about this. One player sometimes bakes goodies or gets Sonic drinks, another brings donuts. I provide some tea for those who might want it, just some jugs in my fridge, but no one expects me to do that.
Ultimately, we work together to provide what we decided we needed early on and it works out for everyone!
For a long long while, I and my co-DM's in a group of mutually-run games operated by the phrase "snack XP best XP". Everyone who brought snacks got a very small XP bonus for that session, even if XP wasn't awarded overall.
Great video!
Personal note on the “rule of three.” It’s also a perfectly valid strategy to pose your party with a problem that you haven’t worked out solutions for yourself. Don’t make it an impossible problem, but allow them to come up with ideas, plan, investigate, ask questions, and see how their plan comes to fruition. Discovering TOGETHER what will happen is one of my favorite things about d&d.
It really comes down to style but in the context of the point you're addressing, players were asking for more guidance. I use the rule of three when prepping but I don't rule out other options just because I have three ways for them to get the information and I make things modular a lot of the time
Yes!
I usually have still some solutions in mind but try to stay as open as possible for my players ideas. Usually they'll come up with something entirely different then what I would have planned anyways.
I CONSTANTLY come up with challenges I have no idea how they will overcome. My wife was reading an encounter I had just planned and she asked me "How are they going to get out of this?" I replied I have no idea. My job is to come up with challenges and the players' job is to figure out how to overcome them. In all honesty, they usually come up with something much better and more imaginative than I would. That is part of the fun of DMing
@@thomasmurphy6501 challenges and encounters yes but the that's not what the rule of three is for. It's like Ginny said generally related to information.
Me leaving letters on the study table for the players to find.
Me mentioning the letters multiple times during investigations of the area.
...
The players literally setting the building on fire and walking away without reading the letters.
😝 My current character is a private investigator with several fire spells. We were recently fighting inside an enemy battlefield commander's tent, and I made a point to gather up all the papers (on the desk, etc.) before I set the tent ablaze and dropped it on the remaining enemies. Remembering why you're there in the first place is important!
Lol!! You, groaning, copy and pasting the information and figuring out where else you can shoehorn it in… my sympathies 😆
Ugggghh! So much for the prop letters you took time to prepare. 💔
An updraft from the heat of the fire could have made the letters go out of the window and float towards the party. Just an example
I think it's important to note that common requests are theming and guidance. There's so much rhetoric out there against railroading, which I get, but at the end of the day (at least for me), I'd much rather go through a slightly more linear adventure than an adventure that I feel like I'm floundering in.
I think my solution to this works well for #9, #3, and #2. I just ask my players to collectively agree upon what they want to do (usually session 0, but I suppose any time would do), and run the campaign with that as the central goal.
It kind of obviates the need for railroading, because then you can really only help the players accomplish what was always their own goals. Player agency is implicitly central to the plot.
It's also pretty good for working in player backstories. As a DM, my real adversity with integrating player backstories were because they were completely unrelated to the plot and no players were ever really interested in doing anything with each other's backstory. It was only ever some side thing between the player and DM, and it never felt worth it. But if the player's entire character was built for the same goal as everyone else's from the start, you don't have this issue since their backstory ostensibly leads into the goal they all chose to build their characters for!
That's the difference between a railroad and a clear path
@@andruloniIf there's only one path and all else is featureless scrub, it may as well be a railroad.
Brennan Lee Mulligan said something about that that i keep reminding myself about:
"If you're playing with new players it can be cruel to put the own-ness of creativity on them and say 'i don't want to railroad you guys, so you do the adventure' and they're like 'dude i don't fucking know, i'm an elven ranger, i'm just excited to have a panther familiar, _I don't know what i want to do_ ' If youre playing with people who are not really confident in their creative or improv abilities _it is kind_ to say ' your old mentor shows up and says there are monsters at the edge of the forest' and let them go 'cool i want to help my mentor out' Thats a really simple digestible story"
It can be good to railroad, to keep it linear, at least in the beginning of a campaign with new players, and i feel especially when youre a new DM.
Regarding the rule of three. Being a world open to creativity it's very possible that players don't find any of the three solutions. This is why I let them succeed after the third or fourth idea that seems doable. Remember: game design doesn't end when when the session starts.
I just had session where my lawyers got into a tower of a Dwarven stronghold that was buried underground. It was suppose to be one of those, "ohhhh that neat, we should come back later things"
But they ended up getting in. *laughs*
So anyways, the bottom room of the tower had a secret door that lead down into the fortress...that's all I had planned...so I just sat there and let them investigate the room answering all their questions.
Finally one player was like "I know! Dwarves have dark vision right?!"
I was like yes?
Character is 8 foot tall, he climbs back up yhe stairs and blocks the hole that leads to the next floor, so that NO light can reach this room.
I was like...yep, that's it. *laughs*
Then describe how even though it was pitch black the parry could see in the room just fine as thw walls gave a weird glow, and a space on the floor was missing revealing the stairs down.
They were soooooo excited they "figured" it out. Bahahaha. I never tell them I didn't know either, it takes away from that good feeling of success.
It's one of my go to moves a GM. Just plod along until a players idea or comment triggers my own, and just role with it.
an example for #4: one of the games I am watching on twitch, one of the Players has some real world conflicts that came up and can't make it to the table for a few weeks. The DM and her got together and worked out that they will have the party go forward in the campaign, but in the game world, her Character is being taken to court by her Grandfather in an attempt to take the Family Business back from her, which is why she is missing for the sessions.
I designed this super cool campaign about a stolen unicorn for my party. One had an emergency, and the other had scheduled a tattoo weeks in advance. His character was sick with ink poisoning.
As a near forever DM I always look forward to these vids. I either learn something new to improve my skills and games or I get validation for the things I already do as a DM
Suggestion 1 is such a great rule. Its sounds like such a small thing, but the difference is night and day when your players have a built in reason to be together and a theme to work on. Gets buy in from everyone and gets everyone on the same page of what it is we are doing.
The "exist, lol" got me so hard that i started crying
I LOL therefore I am.
Carefully balancing player agency with driven story (sandbox and railroading) is definitely one of the best things a DM can work towards. You don't want the players to have no idea what they're supposed to do but you want them to feel like their choices actually matter. It's tricky at times, but well worth the effort
For me, that balance is all the way over in sandbox. I don't do stories, the players do stories. I will provide plenty of situations, but they need to figure out how to get involved.
Your video's help me so much to stay motivated as a DM! Once in a while I ask all the players what their favorite moments are in either my campaign or in other campaigns as well, it really helps paint a picture of the exact things my players like to do!! That helps me personally to make the world around them a bit based on what they have liked so far!
She said she got us general data, but data is a lieutenant
My DM has been giving a lot of combat because some of our party just want to yada yada the social and exploration side. In lieu of story, I've been dropping my character's development through her actions in battle. She stated off as a feisty Tempest Cleric and after realizing the consequences of battle, she's matured and is seeking a more peaceful option where she can support others and deescalate confrontations. I talked to DM about switching to the Peace Domain and he had backstory stuff planned and it would totally make sense.
That’s such a great idea!
@@annafantasia he ended up liking the idea and my initiative so much that he ended up giving my character a piece of magical armor that has thematic mechanical buffs for the new play style but also lore that ties into my character's family for us to explore at some point.
A terrific list. But I think the last point -- LOTS of communication with your players, setting rules, expectations, and an open pipeline for further discussion before, during, and after game as needed -- is the most crucial one.
I start a new campaign this week for a group where we've been playing together for 2+ years, but my first time DMing for them (I've been DMing with other groups for over a year). I'm glad to say most of this is stuff I've learned through getting feedback in previous DM experience, but still, a good reminder. I think the toughest part is balancing between giving enough guidance to move the story vs. railroading. I think the best advice I've learned (from running Princes of the Apocalypse, which... oof, yeah, PCs need help in that sandbox), is don't be afraid to give players enough breadcrumbs to give players guidance, but always leave them options. And even if they choose something that was wasn't according to the module or your DM plan, do your best to allow it, so you don't take away player agency.
Sometimes that means, "Hey, you can go there, but I haven't prepped that so there's not really a map or it may go slower because I'll be catching up on the module as we're running it. As long as we're good with that, let's go." (In my experience most of the time players still want to go, but they at least know what to expect and they are very forgiving of things we beat ourselves up for as DMs.) There will be times you have to say no. "No, it hasn't been 24 hours and you're in the middle of an enemy dungeon. You can't benefit from a long rest and if you stay idle for 8 hours, expect heavy resistance when you open the door." "No, you can't persuade the merchant to give their inventory away for free, even with a Nat 20 persuasion." "No, we can't f*** off from this module and play something else because you, Person A is bored with your character build. Let's just rework your character or find an epic way for them to die and roll up a new one." But most of the time you can say, "Okay, so you know the Ogre has the noble's family in the hills, there's an adult dragon who has been attacking settlements a week away at a rate of one settlement per every 3 days, and in town there have been a series of unsolved murders... what do you want to do?" While you may expect your PCs to choose the immediate and close options, if they say, "DRAGON!" let them go after that darn dragon.
On the inspiration/guide stuff. I gave coins for inspiration to my players to re roll any die roll as well as have a table coin that could be used once per game for anyone to use and could make Me(dm) reroll a d20. Out on the table with a provided die.
For birthdays I would give my players a 1d4 Motes of Intuition/Wish. Where they could at any ask me a question about their quest or ask to do or have something that they may have not been possible. And depending on what was asked I would provide info they would need if it was being forgotten, misunderstood or ignored. As well as gage if what they wanted would be to much/powerful for them to have. To keep it a little balanced
Clicked on this on accident, 22 seconds after release, but this is EXACTLY what I need rn, I’m doing my first game this week!
Best of luck!
Good luck! Let us know how it went!
🤔 secretly a were badger🤔
Good luck! Have fun!!!
Here, have a d4 of Inspiration!
Makes me happy that my DM basically checks all these boxes
I really appreciate him!
Make sure to tell him that, DMs often struggle with insecurities and hearing complaints from players really helps.
They like compliments, more.
Thank you so much for this Ginny! That #1 tip really hits home for me. I am both a player and a DM and I can definitely be self critical in both aspects. It’s hard for me to just enjoy the big heist or persuading an NPC sometimes because I get so caught up in my head. This makes me realize that I’m not the only one who is negatively affected by this. It is everyone. This was a great video :) keep it up
Number 1 is huge! It is admittedly something I struggle with as well, but I've had a couple players go out of their way to express gratitude for the work I've put in to the game. And it helped me realize that even when unspoken, it's still true. So I can promise, if you're putting in a real good faith effort into the game, the vast majority of players will be grateful
This is such a Great companion/complement video to the "game masters of exandria” on Cirtial Role. talking about all things DM… Matt Mercer Aabria Iyengar and Brennan Lee Mulligan. Brennan makes some great point about the conflict with what players want in meta sense and what characters want … he says breaks down what some people really mean when they say they don’t want to be railroading… he also reframes the idea of “railroading” in a great way (to make it necessary and good in that context but I leave it to him…
Ps love your Jester CR cameo … hope to see you play with them in the future!
A device I learnt from Heart: the City Beneath - form with each player
a list of story beats they want to weave into the campaign that together establish a personal story ark (Thief: steal a valuable item; silence a witness; return the stolen item; etc), then have them mark for the next session 1-2 out of the list. Splendid way to have something to bite from when you need to prepare a plot for the upcoming session.
Let's talk about feedback for a sec. I personally love 'Stars and Wishes' and end up doing it after every session for a new game and then settling into once every two or three sessions after things get acclimated. It is a great way to give and receive feedback and doing it regularly de-stigmatizes the 'feedback is always bad' anxiety a lot of people have.
It sounds like, for the most part, players wish their DMs watched Ginny! That said, I'm so proud of this community for making "be kind to yourself" #1
Ah man that last one hit a bit too close to home. I started DMing for what was one group that eventually changed to another group due to scheduling issues. After that I started running a campaign I was extremely excited for, Storm King's Thunder. I was excited to run my very first "real" and grand campaign (I ran LMoP before this). However I put a lot of stress on myself to basically create a ton of content for my players in the ten-towns that I needed to also be in line with the official forgotten realms content(Of which there was none at this time). This made every hour of session prep a big chore and I burned myself out. With some very minor exceptions (as in I ran two one shots over the course of like 2 years and an attempt at a campaign that lasted 1 session) I never really got back into it. For the DMs, be kind to yourself. Don't be afraid to stray away from the "written plot" if using a book or some elaborate planning you did yourself.
Recently I've started prepping again, now for what is supposed to a short arc in a campaign that I will be able to pick up at a later date. Take it easy, not every session needs to be your magnum opus. The player's are there to have fun and so are you, take it easy and relax a bit.
In an ideal world everyone would have hair as cool as yours. Seriously, what a great shade and it is so vibrant. If you did a video on how you get your hair such vibrant shades my daughter would be SO happy! I am on the wrong side of time, and have to shave my head, but I still appreciate a great shade of green.
Been playing for five years and my DM has never given us inspiration. Someday, I hope. I want to see it.
However, I did learn that my DM actually changed a roll once behind the screen because he thought it would lead to a lot of pain for me, or between me and another player. The other player told me, but thought that this was shameful. I was actually incredibly relieved to hear it. It was something I had spoken to my therapist about, how I wasn't sure if I could ask for this in the game. I'm glad it naturally happened.
On themes, one of the campaigns I'm in started with all the player characters as prisoners where we became a sort of suicide squad. The guide us section did remind me of a session in our previous campaign where us players spent several minutes trying to find a way to reach the second story balcony using magic or something until our DM reminded us that we have rope. 😂
I've been a DM for our group of childhood friends since we started playing about 6 years ago, and this June/July I finally got to play as a player in a campaign ran by my other friend, and you know what, yes, players should be thankful that a DM exists, it feels so amazing to be a player that I can hardly describe how much joy the campaign we are playing is bringing me. Some great tips here by the way, I will definitely be implementing a few when I'm back to DMing. :D
Not only do I love your discussions and videos, but your sponsor plug-ins are the absolute best, I never skip them. Just something that needs to be appreciated and I felt you should know
As a dm who sees a lot of different dms who are "better than me at dming" this video really helped me see that im not total shit at everything. Cus i know a lot of dms who are amazing monologuers and ones who make amazing stories and some that are great at remembering rules for combat or dnd lore, and im not really good at most of that but i try to offset my weaknesses by not having monologs and letting the players say stuff instead, or making a strong theme and communicating with my players that theme, or fudging roles or bending rules so that the players can do really cool stuff, are things that i try to do so that everyone can have fun. So to know that the players want to have stuff like that makes me feel a lot better! Though i do struggle with the "dont be so hard on youself" thing. Thanks for the amazing video!
How I do it?
Session zero: Lay out expectations for: combat, role play, how much backstory is to be used, topic content/rating etc. Then I ask what they expect: topics to avoid, combat difficulty, hints when stuck, plot direction, etc.
Then after every session I ask each player individually what did you like; what did you not like; what do you wish was happening instead? This goes a long way for determining what a player wants to have happen because the experience is fresh and now I can plan next session with this information in mind.
It requires open and honest communication from everyone involved. It’s my number 1 priority: making my players feel welcome.
Another huge tip is to allow some meta gaming as DM provided information. e.g. A player wants to know if they could get down a 70 foot cliff with 50 feet of rope. Just tell them that it would take 10 feet of rope to secure it and then 30 feet of fall damage. Roll damage to show the player what would happen if they did that before they commit to doing it. Especially for new players, expose some of the gears of the game so they understand and can find more enjoyment.
Good tips
Sometimes it’s hard to do all these things but you have to try.
Remember have fun too!
"Silence is golden"
As a long-time dm and musiker, my favorite note is the rest note. You put into great words why:
"To make sure everyone feels like there is room for them to speak"
Playing a rest note is demonstrating that same respect to your band
What I like the most of this video is that you quoted your sources! That, right there, is value that almost no creator brings to the table. I take my hat off!!! =D
I made a deck of cards I call The Deck of Inspired Memories that the group holds in a common pool. The context is that while doing something they want to use inspiration on they are remembering something awesome someone did in the past - not just themselves. They can hold as many as there are PCs in their group. The deck currently has 3 unique cards in it with varying amounts to balance the rarity and power. I intended to add more but for now 3 works really well and the group likes it. One of the cards is just regular inspiration, the second is straight up Bardic Inspiration, the final card is a reroll on any of their rolls. At first I had balancing concerns but in all honesty it made for some really exciting moments and the players even started RPing "remembering the memory that inspired them" while doing their thing. I was so proud!
My group have a really simple safety tool that we use. after every session we have ten minutes open floor discussion about the session where the players can bring up any issues they had with the session or as happens more often ask a fellow player about the thought process that lay behind a certain action that caught other players off guard. this is backed up by a second really simple tool. every player has a red token that they can place on the table if something is happening that they are uncomfortable with and need the session to stop so we can deal with it there and then. this second tool has never actually been used but it is there if needed.
Just a note about number two- dms, please remember that not all players want their back stories to be engaged with, or not all parts to come up in the game.
It's a pain to get asked for the fifth time to have *More* backstory when I'm just like "dude I just wanna be a war vet and I don't want literally anything else to matter to the story at all".
Or worse when a throwaway line about a friendly baker is now the campaign villain and I'm wondering why out of all the stuff I put into the backstory, the one I didn't care about is now super important
@gangsteroyster yeah exactly!
Some dms value the twist over good communication, but I don't see anything wrong with just talking about stuff with players.
You can ask if they are comfortable with a twist and still do the twist, it just takes some getting used to but isn't too difficult. Like a simple "hey is someone in your life being secretly evil cool with you?" which can be answered with a "yeah but not the mentor or mother please" or something like that.
Still an unknown, but also talked about with the player.
I just want to be an adventurer who goes on adventures, simple as that.
oof. I think the lesson in this thread is “run with a player’s backstory, not against it.” Take your clues from the player and don’t try to revise what they’ve done in some way.
Know your players for sure. If you have a player that wants no backstory other than an archetype, so be it. They can be "Terribly Mysterious".
I've been watching a few of your videos lately, and honestly your videos are awesome. You also do the best and most entertaining ads I've ever seen. Never felt like watching an ad til I saw yours
I love that last point about DMs trusting themselves. I'm going to send this video to mine and tell him to especially pay attention to that point
This is a great video! As the DM, I'll definitely be keeping some of these tips in mind. I think I'm doing pretty well on several of them, but I also know there are ways to do better. On the other hand, some elements are pretty encouraging. My default for setting up a campaign or one shot is "You were all hired by X group for X purpose," which gives the characters a reason to stick together.
One thing I do wish I'd done better . . . I really wish I'd known about and thought about some measure of safety tools before starting the group. I play with a group of my close friends, so I probably would've had that attitude you referenced, but it also would've saved us an awkward and tense conversation last summer when one character/player wanted to torture a villain for information and the rest of us were all like "Uhhhhhh we are suuuuper uncomfy with that, can we not?"
To this day, years after thr campaign ended my most cherished example of a dm using backstory was for my Ifrit Occultist in pathfinder 1e.
He used almost every aspect of my backstory from majorly featuring my elven rival to making a dungeon full of constructs knowing my caster had a crippling fear of them.
Its so rewarding when a dm leans into the character you present them.
This speaks to my group on a truly deep level. We recently had this whole discussion ourselves at the table after alot of problems with our DM. Now our table is much happier. Amazing video Ginny, thanks.
I never skip through your commercial skits!
About using safety tools, my friend who will be DMing for their first time hopefully next week has given all their players a consent sheet of sorts, with every theme that could possibly come up in their story that could be triggering. It's a checklist with 3 options that can be boiled down to "I have no issue with this", "talk to me about it before the session starts", and "please do not include". And they're going to make sure that the themes people absolutely do not want won't be included and will find a way to drive the story forward without it. It's a wonderful tool that I think more people should be aware of and using!
One of the DM tools I've found useful for the "Guide Us" request is the session recap. The start of each session is a recap of what took place last time in a narrative style, along the lines of: "The last time we left our intrepid heroes, they (insert key moments from last session) in their pursuit of (insert key goal they are trying to achieve this session)...". This affords the opportunity to highlight a clue you dropped last session that they didn't pick up on, or highlight an NPC they could talk to that might offer a new quest, or just remind them of what they wanted to do or were working towards in case its been a while since the last session. It also lets you as the DM highlight what you loved about how the players solved a problem or handled an encounter. One player even said having an exploit mentioned in the recap was akin to 'making the highlight reel' which I thought was pretty cool.
Back in the D&D Next playtest for a brief period the Commoner Background had the Feature of "You have a house." I absolutely loved that. Our fighter, Brah, was a commoner Fisherman and I was like "How about a houseboat?"
Just gotta say i appreciate your videos. You have helped me improve a ton as a DM. My player have been having way more fun since i started watching your vids.
Once tried out a session with a group I was new too. Went disastrously, DM provided no reason for why I would ever want to work with these people and no one in the group stepped up, one of them was implied to have murdered my contact for unknown reasons and so I had even less reason to work with them, and the session ended with us not really having accomplished anything. Next session I wasn't invited back and I was happy not to go.
Don't blame you. That's stupid behaviour of them.
"Guide us" also is a good thing for when yo make a puzzle with just one solution, there's a lot of times puzzles are good, but if you're stuck, it really sucks to just stand there or give up. Or simply, have 3 different solutions for that problem (or say "that makes sense" to something the player does), and thus make players feel like they're brilliant.
What I sometimes do, is once in a while I let my players fill in a feedback survey, which only has 3 questions:
What did you like?
What did you dislike?
What would you want to see more of?
It gives GREAT insights!
I used to do that. Then I started feeling anxious about it. One session a player told me I could prepare more. He had no idea I had prepared much more than usual and was actually struggling with my note the whole session. I wasn't mad at an honest answer. It just useless and destructive to ask "What's wrong?' when everyone is having fun. It's not just a D&D thing mind you.
For number 3 I came up with something for my strixhaven. So my players were going to bust some other students out of prison but they had no idea how to do it. So I invented a magical book that kind of acted as their patron who gives them advice and tips on how to prepare and conduct a heist of that scale. I am also slowly including more professors who they can go to in roleplay to ask for council and I tell them both in and out of character this is the stuff you can or maybe should think about doing.
Things I wish my DM did: ask for feedback
And I mean ask specific fucking questions when pulling feedback, in a one on one setting at a convenient time. Make it via text or email if you have to. Asking the whole table 'anybody have some feedback?' at 10pm at the end of a session when everyone wants to go home and sleep isn't going to get you anything useful. So why did you bother asking?
Ask specific questions: "do you have any thoughts about that big combat we ran?" "Do you have any future multiclassing plans?" "What character options or spells are you planning to pick up on your next level up?" "Was there anything you thought was lacking about that shop you visited?" "Do you think Jeff talks too much?"
That sort of thing.
ask the dm to do that
Half of these definitely applied to the DM of the campaign I was in briefly from last year to this (it combusted after ten sessions due to players clashing). That's not to say anything bad about the DM, though. It was his first time running a game, he decided homebrew was the way to go, and it just didn't go well for many of these reasons. I think it's important to note that if at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again. Use failure as a learning experience to do better in the future. The best thing the table can do is have a session zero to determine what everyone is looking to get out of the experience.
THEMES! BARD BAND! They set out just trying to find gigs in villages of the campaign setting, but they keep finding wacky hijinks, a la The Monkeys, Spinal Tap, or Scooby-Doo. It starts out monster of the week, but as their performances get more high profile they get caught up in the political intrigues of their wealthy patrons, possibly even becoming spies. (there's actual historical prescient for this) Bonus if you can figure out a way to emulate musical performance in game that encourages roleplay!
Absolutely loving the Neopets paintbrush shirt!
I need to know where to buy it!
9:27 - I really like the hint rule from Call of Cthulhu for this!
Just roll a WIS check or insight/perception/history/arcana/etc. if you want to be more specific about the type of clue that they will get.
I'd really like to know in advance if it's safe for me to make a "social" character. I've been burned by this too many times, where I make a character with strong charisma/social stats, and then it never gets used because the campaign focuses on combat or the characters get flung into a far-off, sh*tty jungle like Chult. (fu Tomb, no one likes you)
It aligns with "create a theme" for GMs, but I'd appreciate more than a cursory "yeah okay run with that" from a GM to vet an idea so it doesn't run into issues later on.
Number 1 got me man. I am the dm for my group and I often feel like I'm not doing a good job or could be better, even when my players say they enjoyed session. It's nice to know that other dm's feel this way and players are so nice
Please shower, people. At bare minimum, when you have company over, come on guys.
Remember, your CHARACTER knows Prestidigitation. YOU do NOT.
These videos are so wonderful! As a long-time DM, it is nice to see this stuff put out there! Thank you!!
I like how one of your items also helps with others - the GM is the one who gives inspiration, which means if you're doing it often, especially in combat? Combat feels MUCH less antagonistic. Bonus: you'll get some AMAZING attack descriptions.
Inspiration is also a great way to tell players what's important. If one of your players notices your NPC has a certain accent, and you're hoping to take them to that area in a session or two? Drop 'em an inspiration and watch them interview that character like they're their biographer. You might end up with this area exposition dropped completely painlessly.
really great video ginny!!
i hugely second the point about making combat matter; i've been playing a rime of the frostmaiden campaign for the last few months and because of our party's connections to the world that our dm helped us add in, almost every combat has felt less like a cut and dried "kill the bad guy to solve the problem" scenario and more like a complex issue where we've been trying NOT to fight our opponents immediately because for the most part they've been humanoid and we don't feel that killing someone makes sense for characters who are supposed to be helping the Tentowns.
in our last session we had a clash with a frost druid who my own druid character knew from her backstory and in the middle of combat my character had an emotional confrontation with her instead of trying to just fight first and ask questions later, and it made the stakes feel so much higher and the combat feel more believable. this is the first time i've played a campaign where combat didn't just feel like an arbitrary encounter so we could get to use our class abilities, and it makes for such engaging play.
I ported a system from The One Ring that essentially allowed me to replace inspiration. My world is very grim (it's literally the end of the world) and so I pulled the Hope/Misery system from TOR. Basically, players get points of hope when something cool happens, those can be used to crit on succesful checks or reroll failed, but players recieve misery points when something bad happens. Those can't be spent, but if at any point misery points exceed the amount of hope points the character becomes miserable and has a higher chance of critical failures. (Misery points go away 1/long rest). I like the risk/reward of that system a lot.
As to your combat area, I generally make it so that even some of the 'random encounter combat', are actually orchestrated by the BBEG,watching and assessing the PC PARTY.Learning thier secrets,strengths and witnesses, to devise his eventual and inevitable encounter with them.Preferably in his mind, in such a manner, which provides the BBEG with a distinct advantage
I think it could also be great to discuss before a session starts what everyone wants to do. The same adventure can be a self organised trip through a world or a straight but rich in action. I'd take a beautiful railroad trip where I can sit and drink over getting lost in the woods..
Im DMing for the first time and Im finding these videos quite helpful. My players are so fun to DM for, they can be on a flaming ship about to crash and their priorites are to discuss their personal favorite attires. I facepalm so hard but in hilarious fun ways and I just let them have their fun and they seem to be really good at having fun on themselves, I literally planed 1 session and we almost had to divide it in 3 due to how much time they spend arguing with each other characters and discussing past traumas xD
And that was just the tutorial, I'm now reaching the second stage of the campaign where we are going to explore their backstories and they seem really hyped for that. I've been having a lot of DMing but I couldn't do it without the enthusiasm and support they've shown me
Great video! I really like how the advice given here ties back to multiple other topics you've covered - allowing people to drill down and find more specific information on the things they might struggle with/be most interested in.
The top3 things I could hope of any dm.
1. Railroad railroad railroad. I want to be taken on a tour of your brain space not make you sweat improving.
2. Lots of combat and multiple player deaths.
3. Make tropey referencey ect.
I'm glad you mentioned group patrons. I was about to suggest that myself.
The "Guide us" and "Play with us" ones remind me: I like the way the Sentinel Comics RPG handles overcomes. It gives you a challenge, for example rescue a civilian from a burning car before it explodes. How do you do that and what dice to you roll? Whatever you can justify. Use your Cold Power with Ranged Combat to extinguish it the fire with a precision burst of snow? Sure. Use Leadership + Presence to urge the civilian to find the inner strength to struggle out? Why not! Wall-crawling + Otherworldly Mythos? Err... I don't personally see how to make that one work, but if you can, sure! :)
It's engaging for the players and takes a bit of the load off the GM having to work out ways in advance for the players to succeed.
Honestly there’s a very easy solution to setting boundaries when players might not feel comfortable asking the DM directly. Session 0, you give everyone a sheet of paper listing as many topics players might find uncomfortable as you can think of with tickboxes. Then give everyone an identical pen. Then you tell them all to find somewhere private where they can go through the sheet and just put a line in each of the boxes they don’t like with a time limit of about 5-10 minutes. Then, all the players hand you the sheet upside down, you shuffle them around as best you can and read them behind the dm screen. The time limit means that neither you nor the players know how much time each player spent ticking boxes (and therefore who set more boundaries than others) and the identical pens and tickboxes means there is no discernible difference in handwriting or pen that can identify a specific player. Once you read all the sheets. You now have a definitive list of topics your players aren’t comfortable with and you can avoid them. The anonymity is key here, as many players (especially the ones less comfortable with hardcore topics) don’t like asking things directly and feeling like a problem. No one feels uncomfortable in the first place, and no one has to awkwardly ask the dm to pivot and feel like they’re causing issues. It’s also just helpful for the DM because it means you don’t even start planning out the party’s encounter with the uncomfortable topics. It’ll save everyone a lot of time and grief.
This is very good. The "safety" part is a bit over the top for me. But having a discussion before a person plays a character in a session/world - just so they know what they might be in for - is a really good idea. Also, #2, I had a great DM (played same world for over 2 decades). While we did some on the fly backstory that I participated in for my main character, it was quick and collaborative and intentionally incomplete. In Fact. As an elf I got lycanthropy at one point later which is how I found out I was actually a half-elf (oh the scandal). However, this DM would also do one-on-one (or one-on-two) sessions just to develop a characters personal story (not simply backstory). I ended up building a castle eventually in my "downtime away from the adventure group"......and going broke too because castle are really pricey.
Just wanna say thank you for the proper closed captions 🥺
Its my first time Dming. I have only played once before this as well so i'm very new, but i loved the idea of being a DM so i asked the group if i could start my own campaign with them. I created the theme of tropical islands and water world. The main group is to collect five elemental stones before a cult leader does. Very simple idea. One thing i have done every single session is at the very end i ask my players if there is anything i can improve on for them. The feedback has helped SO MUCH and we are only 3 sessions in. I feel like the best thing you can do as a DM is be open to hearing your players out. It will make you better in the long run
As a "forever GM" 6 is just as on the players as it is on me. I play with a group of three that really enjoy playing, when I can actually get them all to the table. Two of the players have made it clear that the game isn't a super high priority, which is fine, but it makes moving the adventure forward difficult.
Great content. You have great insigt. I'm also just always amazed at the apparent neccesity to have safeguards in place in some groups. I'll just count myself lucky that it hasn't been an issue with my friend group, yet. And though it feels uneccesary in my case, I'll keep it in mind cause you never know.
The funniest moment of my starting DM time was when a *more* experienced DM told me I was railroading while I had 9 branching pathways and about 15 different conclusions. I looked at his message, laughed and then asked how he came to the conclusion. I never did get an answer. I had played with most of the characters at my table, I knew their alignments, goals and part of their backstories. I knew them so well I could craft personal magical items for those sessions, and they were limited to that table.
So, I think he saw my knowledge as a railroad because I already knew what they "might" do and had content prepared for it. They never did something I didn't expect, but I was also prepared to make things up on the spot which I did have to do when we decided to turn a one-shot into a multi-session dungeon crawl.
Luckily for my group we all live in the same area and were a small group of 5. 3 of which (including our DM) all work together so we dont have too many scheduling issues.
Wish you did your polls here, I will not be a part of Elon Musk’s world. I already cancelled my account. It is set to be deleted soon, given that I am in the EU
Are you trying to make me cry with the last point...
Silence is also good for letting your players think. There's beginner/intermediate/expert players but there's also slow thinkers, methodical thinkers, cautious thinkers, and rash thinkers. DM knows the lore and the story. The players are still trying to piece the parts together. Give players time.
Good video and great points. Pathfinder adventure paths have player guides that give a lot of those initial issues.
The thing I and my group have tried to get across to our DM is.. we want chances to feel strong. Our last campaign just finished, and we all had a talk about things we felt off about over the course of it.
The main thing that we all agreed on was that we never had any fights where we got to feel like the party of heroes. There was not a single fight where we didn't have at least one person drop, where we weren't overwhelmed and completely tapped on spells just to crawl through it. When we brought this up, our DM's response was 'if it's not always life threatening, it's not fun'. At one point we fought what we thought would just be a simple group of thugs that were threatening a traveling trader... All 5 were swashbuckler rogues, and as such were hitting us with sneak attacks literally every turn. Paladin and Fighter both dropped to lucky crits before the fight was over.. to what should've been a roflstomp encounter.
He now wonders why we'd run or avoid most of all the fights in the later half of the campaign. Does not understand the answer of 'Why would we fight if it's always a high risk of death'.
Safety tools are SO important at the table. I DM for my brother, sister, fiance, and a good friend, so I know them very well. I had reflavored what was basically a tentacle attack from an enemy to be a literal dick slap. Three of the four players thought it was funny and dumb, but one of them ended up being super uncomfortable because of it. Luckily they were able to come to me after the session and ask that I don't do anything like that again.
I still feel bad about it, but I was very lucky that I play with a group of people who I am very close with, otherwise, it could have been disastrous.
Who else do I sit through ads for, because I like the effort and acting of the ad. Nobody.
I created a luck points system, in leu of inspiration. My players love it.
- start of session gain 1d10 luck points for the session (they do not stack).
- use points to add or subtract from any D20 roll. This does not affect critical hits or failures.
Engaging in the characters backstory. We so did that, Its just that as a beer and pretzel group we had going I helped write another players characters back story, so i knew more of the built in subplot hooks then himself, so we agreed that I would guest-dm that since I were the one on top of things... Very interesting to have a guy become the head of his tribe from his backstory and have him ask me how to prononce the tribes name.
That last comment made me laugh out loud!
Want to thank you for the clear, welcoming thorough post!
I appreciate the nod towards TCoE- I did not know about it :) Just working on creating a patron for the new campaign my friends and I are creating... they don't know they are helping... I am building from their comments, backstories and actions.... shhhhh!
I really look forward to the new books coming from your e-store- no pressure, just say'n!
I have no doubt they will be as successful as your TH-cam is wonderful.
be well
J
My DM is a great one. He openly asked people to create a decent backstory because he WISH to bring our character deeper into the story telling than just some mercenaries doing some random jobs. He really want us to have a lore he can put into use giving all of us a chance to be the protagonist in some sessions. Like my rogue is someone that ran from home due to a abusive relationship with her parents and her sister vanished. Due to a curse she has. So my rogue left the home when she was 14. BARELY managed to survive the wilds until she got down to AMN she walked from Cormyr to AMN. Got some little help during her adventure. MY DM saw my lore and ofcourse he did not plan on killing my character due to the story I had but he had me do a duet session where only me and him were doing some Roleplay based on the lore to see how bad or well it went. Let's say....My rogue had seen better days when she finally arrived Athkatla. She were put into a orphanage or not a orphanage but this place with the nuns and all. I do not remember the name due to not mainly english.
She turned 16 and became a sailor to adventure more. Trying to find her sister but no luck so I gave a easy to grab Campaign for my DM and a other part he can use for alot later due to she were attacked by a kraken we call The Maw. The first Kraken to exist sent by a evil sea god. Or atleast that is what the story about the maw states. All in all he does a great job including our characters into his plans of story.
We do not have a specific theme to our characters. One is a sailor living in the slums (My rogue) My friends is either a mushroom hat wielding kobold. A palading of glory oath. A warlock being a lord. But My character and the paladin's lores were EASIELY connected together due to both of them has our characters turn our gaze towards THAY.
It being a priority is so true. There is nothing worse than feeling like no one else is as invested in it as you are
I feel like #8 is the most important one for all DMs to hear. Especially new DMs.
something great i have come across with a lot of helpfull tools in it even for dnd is between clouds, it's a very simple game it uses only d6 and it encourages role play and has no unique mechanic for combat making players think outside the box during combat and narate there actions instead of "i swing my sword" or "i cast eldritch blast/vicious mockery" and the setting is also really intresting too
a great example of a good role playing mechanic that i have used for all my games now is the x-card, whenever a topic comes up and the players don't like it they simply tap the card and the narative changes, you take a break or something else so the players don't need to explain that they feel uncomfortable
Rlyewatch and Vaesen both are like this I think. It's something I noticed overall, playing different kinds of RPGs. The tendency is: less rules = more RP.
Also Horrorgames are often Investigation games which is probably one of the greatest themes and that gives a common reason among the PCs to is programmed into the game from the beginning.
Thanks Ginny! Well done as always!
IDK why but while watching your videos about being DM, I actually noticed that I'm making most of stuff from your videos correct.
I didn't expect #1 at all, so cool
Definitely establish a play style and a theme during the zero session.
In session, the DM should use PC backstories to cross PCs to NPCs, who drop clues and reveal dilemmas that only a hero could resolve.
These are some questions to continuously ask the players: "How do you react to these startling events?" "Your business is concluded. What's your next move?" "You succeed! What happens?" "Do you take the bottle from the wizard's desk, uncork it, and guzzle the contents, hoping to quench your thirst?"