Hot answers tagged gm-techniques
38
It sounds to me like an expectation problem. You should easily be able to resolve it by asking the player why they feel the need to say those things. Once you figure out why, you can do something about it. Although my suspicion is that the player is used to a GM vs Players style of gaming and thus covers all his bases because otherwise, they get picked on. ...
27
Tell them the consequences of the standing order, and ask if they really want that.
For extreme and unreasonable ones, they might go like this:
You're always on high alert, always searching for secret doors? Each piece of wall and floor takes ten minutes to search, so that means your progress will be very, very slow.
Also, you will eventually ...
19
I think I'd be okay with the bolt recovery. I see that as weapon upkeep and it's part of the game I'm just not interested in spending time on. I don't ask the fighter to oil and sharpen his sword, nor does the bard change out the strings on his lute to get new string sound.
I would not be okay with the high alert standing order. A character that paranoid ...
12
I do not know under which system you are running this, and the answer may stray from the expectations you might have from your system, but still:
I find it perfectly reasonable that a player may want to always search for traps and hidden stuff in enemy territory, such as a dungeon or hostile residence. It is not reasonable that he is upset about having to ...
7
Your group hasn't determined the expected behavours of a professional 'hero'.
In addition to taking the same page tool discussion, you need to discuss some additional bits of your social contract. Specifically, the expectation of professionalism in your shared narrative.
If all characters are professionals, then they should be treated as professionals in ...
7
For the first, it's not super duper difficult to say that it's unfair. Unless they have a feat or quality that says otherwise, they can't just "always be on high alert". They get the same chance to spot things as anyone else, unless they go to look. If they complain, simply tell them that they were too busy examining [shiny potentially deadly thing like a ...
6
Labyrinth is exactly what you want. You have the ability to populate multiple maps with characters, places & objects, link them together and write a bunch of notes for every one of them.
Also there are a time tracking tool and plugins for cryptography (yes, riddles) and relationship calculations.
I've found it preparing an investigative game and it ...
6
If I correctly understand the question being asked, you are asking us for effective techniquest to use in describing combat against multiple oponents.
I could answer this in an system-agnostic manner, as Im not very familiar with 7th sea, but Im sure you will be able to relate my advice to this system.
What is important for mass combat, I dont think you ...
6
I'm going to contrast with some answers here.
Red Alert!
The ultra-alert "standing order" is reasonable while in the enemy's stronghold, much less so when walking through the local tavern to get a few mugs at the end of the day. In your question, you say, "This is what the player says as he infiltrates an enemy NPC's mansion." Prudence and caution is ...
6
Sounds to me this is a simple lack of communication between the GM and the player. Talk to him, ask him what he expects. Usually things like this happen when the player is interested in something else other than mundane checks. eg: Roleplaying with npcs, fighting stuff, some even just want you to be more creative.
5
What is the real problem
I think the problem arent the standing orders themselves. The problem is creating the necessity to issue them!
You have to ask yourself, what exactly are you trying to achieve by not allowing players to issue such standing orders?
Lets take the arrow gathering example. Do you really want the players to go through a checklist after ...
5
I think the answers given so far cover most aspects. However, an angle that has not been mentioned is the effect that the game's genre and atmosphere would have on what 'standing orders' were allowed and generally how you'd deal with them.
For example, in an apocalyptic survival game where resources were at a premium and characters had to count every single ...
4
Mundane is a pretty tricky word for Shadowrun. I'm writing with the assumption that you're asking for the elements of a "baseline" game of SR.
I. Don't try anything fancy.
Simple as that, keep to the core book for a while - meaning less options to manage. You'll have plenty on your hands already anyway. An interesting run will include varied elements from ...
2
The closest I've come to this was Xmind. It lets you make huge hierarchies of nodes and relationships between them. I've seen a bunch of other mind mapping software out there, but what I found helpful with this one was that you could zoom in and refocus on a single node and its children, ignoring the parts of the game that weren't quite relevant.
Where it ...
2
You already have pointed out your problem:
It is still discouraging when my only other attempt at a prepared story ended with the players wanting to go in a complete opposite direction of where I planned.
You have written your story and then you feel disappointed when your players don't follow it as you planned. Players are not actors in your movie. ...
2
I asked this exact question on my blog after asking Relationship Mechanics for D&D/Pathfinder? here. I've gotten a large number of suggestions, none of which I have successfully used - they all basically seem to be too much work for the value they give.
Per suggestions from the post I've looked at yED, The Brain, Kumu, Freeplane, XMind, and Omnigraffle ...
1
It sounds as if you want your first few games not to contain anything unusual. Nothing wrong with that, though it's the opposite of what most GMs worry about. I suggest you distinguish between what, in your campaign, can be introduced later (say paranormal animals and initiation), and what will be in from the beginning; the interplay of firearms, combat and ...
1
I believe that what you are looking for best modelled as a graph.
Graphviz is a graph drawing tool and as such is suitable for modelling NPC relationships. However, it fails on your requirements: it is general thus complex, is not RPG specific, and has no GUI. However, since you widen your question, here is the comment expended as an answer. I have used ...
1
I have been a DM of many games for the better part of a decade and I also came across this problem. The key is to be more biased. Document your encounters and make sure they are appropriate CR for your players. This will do two things: First, it makes it so the encounters will not be unfair. These creatures are designed for their level, period. Two, it ...
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