Good GMs copy, Great GMs steal

Share your latest adventures with anything tabletop: RPGs, boardgames, miniatures, etc.
TMC_SHerpa
Posts: 29
Joined: 04 Jul 2014, 21:05
First Video: umm something from enn or unskipable?

Good GMs copy, Great GMs steal

Postby TMC_SHerpa » 22 Apr 2016, 21:12

Hi! I'm Sherpa and I wanted to start a tips and tricks thread for GMs and players. I would prefer if this didn't evolve into specific rules or builds or stuff like that but I believe my current title is Minion, 2nd Class so there you go. My intention in more along the lines of things that help with the creative side. These can be sources of inspiration or mental exercises or whatever. The simple truth is you become a better GM by GMing. It's a skill and the only way to get better is by practicing. But it never hurts to have a few extra springboards handy.

I'll start with the one I've given out more times than I can count which is a useful sanity check called the three whys. I'm almost positive I read it in the Cyberpunk 2020 rule book but after a quick flip I couldn't find it. It doesn't matter. The short version is you ask why, answer, ask why again etc.
Example:
I want to play as a thief, why?
Because I want to steal from the king, why?
Because the king killed my father, why?
The final answer is one of the main thrusts of the campaign I was running and has its own three whys to explain it.
I've used this for character motivations, historical events, locations, forum games of werewolf, all sorts of crap. It certainly isn't something that I use all the time but if I need to make sure something odd makes sense it's a handy way to make sure I've thought things through.
Lazy and willing to work very hard to stay that way.

Also dang misplaced caps!
TMC_SHerpa
Posts: 29
Joined: 04 Jul 2014, 21:05
First Video: umm something from enn or unskipable?

Re: Good GMs copy, Great GMs steal

Postby TMC_SHerpa » 30 Apr 2016, 21:12

Alright, so now you should have some idea of what your players want and why they want it. Great! Now you know what sorts of stories to think about and what hooks you can use to get their interest.
But Sherpa, you say, I have a great story about a wizard taking over the world and my players want to do a million other things. That's fine. Let the wizard start taking over the world, just because you ignore a problem doesn't make it go away. Heck, it helps your world appear to be alive. Maybe they decide to take them out later, maybe they join forces, maybe the party keeps moving to areas that haven't been corrupted. All I can really say is be gentle about it. Don't have the big bad kill and eat someones dog, murder someone elses childhood sweetheart etc. That's not to say the players shouldn't be affected but be careful about making it too personal.
How do you keep tract of this stuff? Print out a calendar. Or make a spreadsheet. Or buy a day planner from the dollar store (my personal preference). Unless you're planning on making your own calendar, which I've done but it's almost never worth the time and effort, it doesn't matter which year is at the top so go for cheap and convenient. I will be the first to admit that I'm horrible with names. And places. And times. And Dates (This was supposed to be written on Friday. Whoops). However it's pretty easy to flip pages after you say "You've been in town a couple days" or "It takes two weeks to get to place X" and see what stuff happened while the party was away. You can do whatever you want as far as picking dates goes. Choose national holidays, or phases of the moon or throw dice. Yes I'm a nerd. Yes I own a d30.

Huh. What I really wanted to talk about was themes but everything I wrote sort of spilled out instead. Oh well, a topic for next time.
Lazy and willing to work very hard to stay that way.

Also dang misplaced caps!
TMC_SHerpa
Posts: 29
Joined: 04 Jul 2014, 21:05
First Video: umm something from enn or unskipable?

Re: Good GMs copy, Great GMs steal

Postby TMC_SHerpa » 06 May 2016, 21:33

Lets talk a little about choices. In order for a choice to be meaningful, according to me, it needs to satisfy a couple criteria. One: There needs to be consequences, both for “failure” and “success.” Maybe one of them is good for the party? Maybe both are bad in their own way. I'll get back to that in a sec. Two: The group needs to have some idea of what those consequences are BEFORE they make the decision.
If Morpheus says “I have two pills. Which one do you want?”
Neo “What do they do?”
Morpheus “Shut up. Just pick one.”
It doesn't work, it's no longer about the story and all about authorial intent. Try not do do this.
Three: There has to be a chance of “failure” so the “success” can have meaning. I'm pretty sure this should be self explanatory? But I've messed parts of this stuff up and I'm the idiot who wrote it down. Usually I mess up part two. It's very, very easy to not realize you haven't given out enough information when you know everything. Books, movies, video games, people way smarter than me have gotten it wrong before and I have faith they will get it wrong again.

Alright, back to my scare quotes. Just like real life, sometimes every option is bad in some way and sometimes (or so I've been told) every option is good. Well, on the surface anyway. This is where I start to bring up themes, because they will help with parts one and two.

Except I've run out of brains and need to get some sleep. Next time, for sure.
Lazy and willing to work very hard to stay that way.

Also dang misplaced caps!
TMC_SHerpa
Posts: 29
Joined: 04 Jul 2014, 21:05
First Video: umm something from enn or unskipable?

Re: Good GMs copy, Great GMs steal

Postby TMC_SHerpa » 13 May 2016, 19:41

Another Friday, another post.
Themes are good. I recommend you have one.
Lazy and willing to work very hard to stay that way.

Also dang misplaced caps!
TMC_SHerpa
Posts: 29
Joined: 04 Jul 2014, 21:05
First Video: umm something from enn or unskipable?

Re: Good GMs copy, Great GMs steal

Postby TMC_SHerpa » 27 May 2016, 20:56

Crap, I didn't write one last week. Erm...
OK, theme. It's a tool to focus your creativity for one thing, it can also help to make sure you aren't writing a railroad plot. Obviously that depends on what you want your central question to be but by making it open ended there isn't a wrong answer. In my last long campaign the theme was: Do you help someone do "bad" things for a "good" reason or do you fight against them. The center piece was a king doing horrible things to free the kingdom from the influence of Orcus. The head of the local thieves guild (they wanted a thieves guild) was a very powerful vampire who kept worse individuals in line. Do you help the King or the Prince whom he thought he killed? Do you keep the vampire secret or do you let the crazy man run the show?? Neither mattered to me, either action would result in an interesting story where a "bad" thing would happen immediately or down the road. If the players payed attention they could see that both options were going to cause problems but it didn't matter if they chose a side, ignored it for now or decided to take both sides out of the equation. Their choices mattered but didn't end the story.
Multiple posts where I don't really cover themes very well. I'll get there eventually.
Lazy and willing to work very hard to stay that way.

Also dang misplaced caps!

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