Hot answers tagged story
44
You have the right answer in your choices.
Being a DM isn't about writing a script and continually nullifying player choices to keep them "on script". If you want to write a story without much outside input, then write fiction. Nothing wrong with that.
A DM is only one participant of the story when role-playing. Sure, typically the DM will set up the ...
34
Since he was wrongly convicted, you could use that to your advantage. Have the group argue the PC's innocence (in the flashback), and better yet, give them plenty of time to prepare the defense. Let them totally outshine the prosecutor. Then have the (corrupt?) "Judge" say something like, "well, we can't let him go because then it would encourage everyone ...
26
Realize it's not a dead end
No storyline ending action is a dead end unless it also kills all the PC's. There is always a new direction to go. Sure, plotline #1 is over because they wiped out it's boss-thing and its psychotic killer henchwomen... and that leaves a power vacuum that will be filled.
Remember that PC's don't actually have the big picture.
...
22
There are two broad categories of "fix" available to you here. The first is to work on preparation, the second is to work on failure recovery.
Preparation
From your question, the biggest issues you have are leaving out details in descriptions, and ad libbing NPC dialog. Your preparation should shore up those weaknesses:
Organize your notes such that all ...
22
Keep it open-ended.
Have a lot of loose ends. A childhood friend who dissapeared, a mentor figure who turned evil (supposing you are not evil yourself), an unsolved murder in the family, a power your character can't explain, an organisation having a bounty on your character's head...these are just ideas that the GM can play with, which are all bound by the ...
19
Little By Little
I am, in fact, running a Dresden Files campaign right now. We're nearing the end of our third "book" - we've arranged the game in books and I've got some things I've learned that might be of use to you. But as the title says, the way to do what you want to do is little by little.
First of all, forget about plotting RPGs. The plot of a ...
18
Were either my expectations to "get started and wing it a bit in the beginning" or her expectations of "I want the whole backstory up front" wildly out of place?
Either one is reasonable, as long as it is understood up front. I tend to go with the "wing a whole lot of it" version personally, but I make sure the group knows that up front.
And yes, ...
17
The first part, seems like a classic miscommunication problem which can be solved by just talking about it after it first appear but before it becomes a major issue. It is all about expectation and disclosure of what the GM and player want. The first part of your question would superbly server as an example of what you are trying to do. Making sure that ...
17
Borrow from the story of Walter White wikipedia
Might I suggest watching the AMC TV series Breaking Bad? wikipedia It is the story of the transformation of a low-key high school chemistry teacher into a drug lord.
American author and essayist Chuck Klosterman said that Breaking Bad is "built on the uncomfortable premise that there's an irrefutable ...
17
I wrestle with this myself, see the related question How do you help players not focus on the rules?
There is a tendency among people to start Pharisaically treating any body of rules as the end in and of itself and not the means to the end. Combined with a sense of rules entitlement fostered by both computer gaming and RPG Organized Play campaigns, it can ...
17
First off, all of edgerunner's answers are great. But I wanted to add some Dungeon World specifics:
Check p.19 and you'll see that 6- isn't "failure" - it's "trouble". The GM will say what happens and the player will mark XP. You are attaching non-DW simulationist ideas to DW mechanics by your supposition that 6- means "failure."
These principles can apply ...
16
Run a one shot during the "better days" you mention. Tell the players it's just to get them used to the system. Give them pre-made characters who actually do know a thing or two about their technology. Then it'll actually mean something to the PCs when the characters they make 200 years later are less skilled, less powerful, and wonder how their ancestors ...
16
There is no reason to have the PC do anything interesting while captured. He may look at the walls or if he's lucky they give him a ball like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. There is also no reason why the PC should know anything about the NPC staging his escape.
But there is no reason to have you player being bored 3 days just because his character is ...
15
This looks like a good spot to let them succeed with complications. Some ideas that come to mind are:
He climbs the chain but drops his weapon in the progress
The chain he climbed happened to be on the wrong side of the tower, so he must brave more of the tower's denizens to reach his goal.
The chain also happens to ground the tower's lightning rod, and ...
14
Big List of RPG Plots
Seventh Sanctum - Generators for lots of things
Adventure Generator - Generates a very detailed dungeon
Hope these help :)
14
The GM takes on more work than any individual player in making the world and the game come to life. Obviously a GM without players has nothing, but the lynchpin of the game is still the GM. Having played in many games and GMed many more, I come into any game with the understanding that because the GM has to do so much work just to get the game going, that ...
14
I set a limited numbers of must, might and should rules for character creation. Those generally look like:
Your character must agree to do X — plot of the game. For example, work for Black Mesa, help NPC X, need work because of repayment on space ship, yadda, yadda…
Your character must have Y — linked to theme of the game. For example, be a known hero, ...
13
Here are the steps I would take:
Make sure you understand the group's current goals.
Get together with just the new player and work together to design a character that has at least one common interest with the other characters.
Still with the new player, design a scene where the new player meets the party.
On your own, design a scenario where the new ...
13
Tragic heroes can become villains when they decide the ends justify the means. As their willingness to do "whatever it takes" to achieve what they consider to be righteous goals grows, "whatever it takes" tends to become more and more terrible.
As with blackmail, these things start small and snowball: once you've lied to the king about how his lost son died ...
12
Put the players into story telling mode. A situation with a fixed outcome is not fun to game, but it can be fun to story tell.
I had a similar situation two sessions ago. We're fast forwarding through the levels because the game is coming to a close soon. The players had about a thousand miles of travel ahead of them. I figured we could skip that and ...
12
New characters must be woven into the backstory of the plot or other characters.
Trust is a function of time. Expecting characters to trust without historical basis is silly and leads to moments like these.
Apocalypse world has a method of integrating new characters by establishing a history between them and other characters. Assuming you're not using ...
12
I think you need to sit down and talk with your players about why they are not letting him join the group: It sounds very much like they are being deliberately obtuse, which is often a sign of something else. It could be they don't like the player, or feel his character is a good fit for the party. I'd do this when the new guy isn't around, in case it is ...
12
The thing about racism is that you really can't portray it accurately without making it frustrating for the players involved. In most cases, there's nothing wrong with scaling it down to the point that you can give the players an idea of what racism is like and still make the campaign understandable and playable ... think about the standard Hollywood script ...
12
First of all, I love when this happens. If it doesn't ever happen then all the fun is creating the story, and running it is dull, unless the players add interest in other ways.
That being said, it can be tough if you laboriously prepared 12 hours of material for an 8 hour session (just in case) and it's all moot in 15 minutes.
I know you said not to ...
11
If you don't want it to be part of the story or to entice the players into acting on it, simply make it part of the flavor.
You come into town, sell your loot, and load up on supplies. Players,
you can purchase items up to 500gp here. Bob, you get a lot of dirty
looks and the occasional stranger spits as you pass.
Leave it just as that. Bob can ...
11
Your player should be able to do something, no matter the scenario, or it's not worth it putting him there. If you want to give him something to feel useful, I can think of a few off the top of my head:
Let him interact with other prisoners. He might get useful info, start planning an escape (if you don't want him to succeed make it something that's ...
11
Abandon your plans for the NPC's development and just skip straight to the scene where the next interesting thing happens to the PC (presumably freedom, or something leading to it).
Don't fret about your plans fizzling – keep the actual game (as opposed to the stuff hidden in your head that's only potential now) moving, and you will get another, better ...
10
Blank checks are always fun
As a player and as a GM, I like handing out/being handed the equivalent of a blank check. In narrative terms, this is an allusion to a past conflict that shows that the player is interested in having that conflict reoccur without the player defining the scope of the conflict or many of the major players.
By leaving the precise ...
10
There are a number of generally useful techniques that are worth looking at, but of course a lot of it depends on how they went off course.
They made an enemy of someone that needs to be an ally This happens in real life and fiction all the time. One of the most common resolutions is to find a way to work together anyway because there is a need, at least ...
10
Roll with it - as previously suggested this is why we are GMs not novelists.
Maybe the players did the unfortunate action deliberately, chances are it was pure dumb luck - either way, nullifying the action will probably annoy your players far more than your finely crafted story is likely to entertain them.
This is their free will after all.
So now it's ...
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