The practical arts and methods applied to gamemastering.
44
votes
7answers
929 views
How can I make my game more “noir” as a GM?
I ran a couple of Shadowrun games at Dexcon, my first time GMing at a con. It's not my first time running Shadowrun; I based the games off of a couple jobs my players did in a then-ongoing campaign. ...
40
votes
6answers
979 views
Preventing saturation in a horror campaign
I am currently designing my first horror campaign and what I've come up with so far is pretty dark and gruesome. I worry that if it is gut wrenching the whole way through, eventually the players will ...
21
votes
14answers
1k views
How can I add sound to our sessions?
I've been toying with the idea of adding sound to our typical sessions. I was thinking about throwing in some sounds for atmosphere's sake, like some of the following:
Birds chirping/water running ...
32
votes
10answers
563 views
Helping new players learn a setting on the go
I started a new Eberron campaign last night, and I quickly ran into the problem of my players not knowing much of anything about the campaign setting.
What is the Mournland?
Where is the Eldeen ...
25
votes
5answers
640 views
Dealing with people who turn up late for sessions
I run sessions every Monday evening at a pub in the centre of London, and most people come to play straight from work. Up until recently we were attempting to start at 7pm, but there were one or two ...
40
votes
12answers
736 views
How do I make weather an important part of the game?
We're starting up a dark ages fantasy game, using some homebrew rules similar to D&D.
As the GM, how can I make weather an important part of the game?
To be clear, I'm not trying to just toss in ...
40
votes
14answers
1k views
How do I get the PCs to stop focusing on a red herring?
Okay, I'll cop to it -- this is totally my fault. I get a little excited at the slightest opportunity to expound upon the setting, and in this case I added a small mausoleum to an otherwise boring ...
20
votes
5answers
657 views
As a GM, how do I keep Dungeons & Dragons more interesting for young players?
Currently, my group of players is my children, ages 7+ through 14+ (and several in between). They all are really excited about playing, but I am having great difficulty keeping them all interested ...
36
votes
14answers
2k views
How do I stop my PCs from acting like insomniac monkeys on crack?
An issue came up in the last session of my Pathfinder campaign - that of chronic PC impatience.
It happens especially when they go to cities and between major adventures. They go into a frenzy of ...
24
votes
14answers
632 views
Story Arc vs. Player Creativity
I want to put the players in a challenging spot by putting them in a no win situation and having them captured and stripped of their equipment (assuming they might get it back as they make their ...
17
votes
5answers
829 views
What do I do with a dissonant player?
We have a gaming group that has been playing the game for about 4 years. One of the players is my old friend, with whom I started gaming about 15 years ago. There is also another player, who has also ...
16
votes
5answers
433 views
How to handle the PCs within a large military?
On some level, this might actually be getting closer to RPGs’ roots: I want to try a campaign where the PCs are members of a larger military. There may be need for them to coordinate with other ...
26
votes
8answers
836 views
Can party betrayal be done successfully?
After reading How much experience should a PC be worth? I was wondering if and how party betrayal can be done successfully, especially since it's a real possibility in my campaign.
Criteria for ...
20
votes
7answers
564 views
How can I convey the nonsensicality of a dream world?
Soon I will be GMing a campaign that allows the players to move freely back and forth between the "real" world and the "dream" world. I do not want this to be a secret or try to confuse the players; ...
15
votes
11answers
902 views
How do you keep the party on the map?
I'm running a fairly sandbox game, where the party can wander around easily from place to place. When the party visits areas I've prepared something for, they generally have a good time. When they ...
17
votes
6answers
952 views
How to kill a character without making their player too angry
I have been DMing a game for a group of friends. In between two sessions, which ended with them facing a few enemy NPCs, I realized that these intelligent opponents had a very good way to kill one of ...
16
votes
6answers
371 views
Techniques for speeding up a game with many players at the table?
I have a table of six players already, and have more people interested in joining my game. I wanted to consult people who had experience with running large tables to see if running for larger groups ...
14
votes
7answers
330 views
How can I make my carrying mission interesting
Often my quest will boil down to Dungeons or Go to X because of Y to do Z (I may over simplify it but let's focus on that). Dungeons, I can make those as awesome as they can be. Awesome rooms with ...
12
votes
5answers
219 views
How to I create material (on the fly) to support plot changes?
In both pre-plotted adventures and more story-telling ones, a lot of situations occur where monsters/npcs/magical items/geography appear, which wasn't thought of beforehand. I.e. I do not have the ...
11
votes
5answers
409 views
How do I encourage player-GM storytelling collaboration without “breaking” my game?
I've DM/GM'd for several gaming groups, young and old, and have found that one of the things that separates my younger players from older players is their eagerness to elaborate/collaborate in the ...
17
votes
9answers
560 views
How to help players settle down and focus?
We have a weekly game in the evenings; however, we often don't start playing for a few hours after we get together, if at all. This has been exacerbated recently by other events with the same people ...
14
votes
8answers
317 views
What are some proven methods of generating attachment to locations/objects in a campaign?
It is a truism that a GM can never really be sure what a group of players will do, or which NPCs they are going to grow fond of. Places and objects, however... are they the same? In games like Star ...
12
votes
3answers
1k views
New GM Advice - How to best use an Adventure Path
I'm new to tabletop RPGs (although I have been interested for a long time, just had difficulty finding like-minded companions, and the funds required to get some of the stuff).
When I was finally ...
8
votes
2answers
564 views
How do I run a single player 4e essentials game? Drow Hunter
I am trying to create a set of encounters for my wife. She will be playing a Drow Hunter (controller) from the Essentials line of DnD 4e.
I'm looking for advice on how to make encounters (2 levels ...
20
votes
4answers
295 views
How do I construct an individual session as part of a larger campaign?
I've been GMing/DMing on and off for years. I prefer playing. Mainly because when I run a game, I'm more a fly by the seat of your pants kind of dm, and it works sort of..
My problem is that, while I ...
20
votes
7answers
508 views
Building a good comedy adventure?
I was wondering how to build a comedic adventure for D&D (or at least get some tips on it). The DM guide mentioned the multiple ideas for campaigns and one of them was comedy! I tried to start ...
18
votes
6answers
817 views
What to do when a player character does something suicidal?
Every now and then a player character does something extremely risky because "it would be fun." What are some good ways to handle this as a GM, for the different styles of play? I like playing ...
15
votes
2answers
444 views
How can I play monsters and NPCs up to their potential?
In many cases discussions about balance in 3.5 will, inevitably, involve one side or another invoking an anecdote of the time they fought this monster, or a member of that class, and they didn't ...
15
votes
4answers
298 views
GM Tips for a Rashomon style game
I want to run a Rashomon style session soon and I'm looking for solid advice, as well as lessons learned from your own experience doing so.
14
votes
2answers
277 views
How can I make diseases non-trivial?
As noted here, diseases in 4e seem more trivial than I think they were intended: they rarely last more than one increment!
What rules can I make/break, or what actions can I take, so that contracting ...
14
votes
5answers
368 views
When planning a campaign, should I know what the ending is before we start?
I am planning the next campaign while the current one comes to a close. Our group favours sandbox play and I facilitate that with Icar's event driven system. While writing down the list of events ...
12
votes
3answers
343 views
How do I respectfully make use of non-Western accents?
I pretty much exclusively alter my voice to represent characters' speech in-game, both as player and GM. I have a pretty good handle on most of the numerous Western accents - probably due to the ...
12
votes
3answers
174 views
What kinds of player contributions work well and under what circumstances?
Introduction
In Amber diceless roleplaying game players get extra points for building their characters by committing to player contributions, such as: Writing a diary, writing game reports, drawing ...
10
votes
5answers
314 views
How to go from a humorous campaign to a more serious one?
I am currently running a D&D 4E game. The game started off kind of goofy (we have a thrikreen rogue with glowing blonde hair, an ale-obsessed dwarf battlemind, a ditzy human wizard, and a dwarf ...
8
votes
2answers
337 views
Creating encounters for a DFRPG party
I've got a 2-person party and i'm having some difficulty with balancing encounters for them. It seems that what i'm making is either way too easy, or harder than i really want it to be (ie, they're ...
21
votes
10answers
250 views
Keeping a published module interesting when some players have already played.
When running a published adventure which some players have already played, such as a RPGA module, are there any suggestions for keeping it interesting for all involved ?
14
votes
4answers
224 views
Is there a method for sliding seamlessly from one system into another during a campaign?
Has anyone changed system/setting/genre but kept the characters during a campaign?
Players can become very attached to their characters, even when the campaign/setting/genre or system is getting ...
13
votes
3answers
253 views
Reducing Preparation time for Gumshoe GMs
As a new player in a game of Mutant City Blues, it has struck me that the GM has a very large workload when prepping the investigation scenes if there is to be any real interaction with that scene for ...
13
votes
8answers
559 views
Non-magical encounter suggestions
I'm once again turning to the good folks at Stack Exchange for help regarding my non-magical campaign. I've written several encounters in which the PCs fight the main bad guys and their followers ...
13
votes
5answers
307 views
How to handle lack of PC communication?
I've currently got a DFRPG group, and it's struggling a little bit. The main issue right now is that there's a good lack of communication between PC's. How can I encourage the players to communicate ...
12
votes
10answers
517 views
How to motivate players without the promise of gold and XP?
The only way I seem to be able to motivate my players to go on adventures is the promise of gold or XP they don't seem to want to go anywhere unless some kind of physical reward is promised.
For ...
12
votes
9answers
810 views
How to help players who roll really badly? [duplicate]
Scenario: player rolls to attack, rolls a 1. Next round, rolls a 1. Round after that, rolls a 1. Fourth round, rolls a 2.
This really happened today. He was going back and forth between two different ...
11
votes
2answers
260 views
Tips for keeping track of NPC stats and conditions
Is there a good paper based solution to keep track of NPC stats so they are avaliable when you need them in-game but don't take hours to keep up to date?
I have a bunch of NPC notes and lists of ...
10
votes
7answers
440 views
Ending combat: should I “kill” monsters prematurely?
Out of time constraints (my group can generally only meet for 3-4 hours every other week), as a GM I frequently find myself prematurely "killing" off monsters when it seems clear to me that the ...
9
votes
3answers
197 views
Ending a Campaign Gracefully (With a Newbie In Tow)
My Shadowrunners have been going on a five (real-life) month streak of destruction and have gotten immensely powerful to the point where they are near gods, but also gotten incredibly shafted due to ...
8
votes
3answers
700 views
How can I successfully run one-on-one adventures in D&D 4E?
It seems clear that 4E really wants the party to have at least four PCs, so that all four roles can be covered. The official rules give tips on what to do when you can only have three PCs, but when ...
5
votes
4answers
224 views
How to avoid the feeling of railroading in my campaign pregame?
This question is related to my other question. Please see that one for campaign background, rather than me repeating it all here.
I don't want the players to feel "trapped" and forced into a ...
30
votes
12answers
588 views
How do I allow player agency in situations with predetermined outcomes?
One of the current members of our group joined a little later than everyone else. His character's history wasn't developed too well, so I am running a one-off session so that the group can play out ...
27
votes
6answers
697 views
How can I check whether an extremely adult/mature plot idea would be accepted by players without revealing any details of the idea itself?
I am running a post-apocalyptic zombie game with a dark and mature story, exploring a number of adult themes. I have complete buy-in from the players; some of them have stated it is their favourite ...
17
votes
6answers
446 views
Difference between writing a one-off scenario and writing a quest for a campaign?
I want to get some of my friends into roleplaying by running a self-contained single-session game with them rather than an actual campaign opener (for lack of a better term, I'll refer to this sort of ...
