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gridloreI've been immersing myself in the D&D rulebooks because I really don't want to be the DM who is constantly stopping play to look something up. I like my games to be organized and to have options ready for when the players gleefully run in the opposite direction of my well-crafted adventure.
I think this is why dungeon crawls are such a standard. There's really little more to do than move along to the next encounter on the map. Those kinds of adventures have their place, but not as a steady diet. I like to mix in other things, like political thrillers where the characters get caught up in the machinations of a noble's court and have to find solutions that don't involve slaying. Or pulling out the Man v. Nature trope, where simply surviving the elements is the challenge. This is where having a shelf filled books on plots and characters comes in handy.
I'm also a great fan of using in medias res as a campaign tool. No "you all happen to be at the same inn, a wizard approaches you" bullshit. Get to the action! One of my favorites is starting the characters in a shipwreck or on the losing side of a battle. Being in a besieged city that is about to fall to a monstrous horde can forge quick bonds as the characters struggle to escape. Get things moving right from the start, even if the action is only a prologue to the actual campaign.
When planning out a campaign, I love to use scenes and flow charts. I can write a specific set of scenes covering major events in, say, the City-State of the Invincible Overlord (a module I only ever got to admire from afar, alas,) that allow me to move things to where I want them while still accounting for the players' actions and decisions. I can look at the list and mark some scenes as vital, others are transitions, and so on.
This gives me better in-game control of the flow. If the players don't pursue the thief in the marketplace or fail to catch him, I can seamlessly move to another scene that will establish the same basic goals of the missed opportunity, which might be a hint that the city sewers are hiding a terrible secret. Or something.
The goal is to have a tool in front of me that aids my mechanical running of the game so I can focus on the fun of role-playing the entire world. Having this planned plot also shows me points where I may have to improvise, so I can make notes. To take the market scene, I need to think about what I'll do if the party's rogue decides to use the confusion of the hue and cry of the thief escaping for some petty larceny of her own.
Another tool I use is a chart of pre-generated die rolls. In D&D, this can be a list of d20 rolls, as that is the most common type of roll called for. This really speeds up the game because it speeds up the actions of my NPCs and monsters. Rather than having to roll each time, I just check the next number on my list and use that. Admittedly, online platforms like roll20.net make die rolling for initiative, attacks, and other rolls extremely easy, I still like my cheat sheet to save time.
I've also found that combat trackers, even when playing online, are a great tool to speed play along. Having all the encounter information in one place right in front of your eyes makes combat, which really can be a time drag in a game, fly by. Again, there are great online resources for this, and I am exploring them.
But probably the best tool I have as a game master is preparation. I always try to have several "stock" encounters planned for when a session needs some excitement. I can even build encounter stacks, the same basic encounter with increasing levels of difficulty. Chewed through my squad or orcs? Try three squads with a leader type and a war shaman. Having the stats and details ready to do when needed keeps the game moving.
Back in the Army, we had a very alliterative saying: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I know for a fact, from both my military days and my career as a commercial driver, that this is as true as it gets. So I apply this to my gaming. Oh, sure, sometimes it's fun to fly off the handle and roll on improv mode, but I am happiest when I have players who are into the game and not so concerned with the mechanics of the system, and that's what my tricks do.
I think this is why dungeon crawls are such a standard. There's really little more to do than move along to the next encounter on the map. Those kinds of adventures have their place, but not as a steady diet. I like to mix in other things, like political thrillers where the characters get caught up in the machinations of a noble's court and have to find solutions that don't involve slaying. Or pulling out the Man v. Nature trope, where simply surviving the elements is the challenge. This is where having a shelf filled books on plots and characters comes in handy.
I'm also a great fan of using in medias res as a campaign tool. No "you all happen to be at the same inn, a wizard approaches you" bullshit. Get to the action! One of my favorites is starting the characters in a shipwreck or on the losing side of a battle. Being in a besieged city that is about to fall to a monstrous horde can forge quick bonds as the characters struggle to escape. Get things moving right from the start, even if the action is only a prologue to the actual campaign.
When planning out a campaign, I love to use scenes and flow charts. I can write a specific set of scenes covering major events in, say, the City-State of the Invincible Overlord (a module I only ever got to admire from afar, alas,) that allow me to move things to where I want them while still accounting for the players' actions and decisions. I can look at the list and mark some scenes as vital, others are transitions, and so on.
This gives me better in-game control of the flow. If the players don't pursue the thief in the marketplace or fail to catch him, I can seamlessly move to another scene that will establish the same basic goals of the missed opportunity, which might be a hint that the city sewers are hiding a terrible secret. Or something.
The goal is to have a tool in front of me that aids my mechanical running of the game so I can focus on the fun of role-playing the entire world. Having this planned plot also shows me points where I may have to improvise, so I can make notes. To take the market scene, I need to think about what I'll do if the party's rogue decides to use the confusion of the hue and cry of the thief escaping for some petty larceny of her own.
Another tool I use is a chart of pre-generated die rolls. In D&D, this can be a list of d20 rolls, as that is the most common type of roll called for. This really speeds up the game because it speeds up the actions of my NPCs and monsters. Rather than having to roll each time, I just check the next number on my list and use that. Admittedly, online platforms like roll20.net make die rolling for initiative, attacks, and other rolls extremely easy, I still like my cheat sheet to save time.
I've also found that combat trackers, even when playing online, are a great tool to speed play along. Having all the encounter information in one place right in front of your eyes makes combat, which really can be a time drag in a game, fly by. Again, there are great online resources for this, and I am exploring them.
But probably the best tool I have as a game master is preparation. I always try to have several "stock" encounters planned for when a session needs some excitement. I can even build encounter stacks, the same basic encounter with increasing levels of difficulty. Chewed through my squad or orcs? Try three squads with a leader type and a war shaman. Having the stats and details ready to do when needed keeps the game moving.
Back in the Army, we had a very alliterative saying: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I know for a fact, from both my military days and my career as a commercial driver, that this is as true as it gets. So I apply this to my gaming. Oh, sure, sometimes it's fun to fly off the handle and roll on improv mode, but I am happiest when I have players who are into the game and not so concerned with the mechanics of the system, and that's what my tricks do.
no subject
Date: 8 Jan 2019 18:23 (UTC)“Failing to Prepare is Preparing to Fail,” is the version of that I've heard.
Using pre-generated rolls is an interesting idea, but it smacks of using store-bought cake mix instead of baking from scratch. The rolling of dice is the very soul and sound of the game!
no subject
Date: 8 Jan 2019 18:41 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Jan 2019 20:40 (UTC)Now there, you touch upon an entirely separate subject: Storytelling. One of the better rules in WEG’s Star Wars the Role Playing Game addressed how long a hyperspace journey from star to star should take. They hashed around the usual excuses about “the Kessel run,” and arrived at the answer: However long (or short) the story requires. If it’s irrelevant, then it only need be zipp-to-zopp. If it’s a race against time or you’re developing a character or simply want to impress upon the players that this is a Magellanic journey, time can hang heavy.
Just so, in this case - if it is necessary to the story that the characters become aware of something then they do, and hang saving throws! Only if I had an entire alternate storyline laid out in case they don’t, would I leave that up to a die roll.
[Star Trek the Next Generation even included this idea, at first: One of the early episodes had it as backstory that the Enterprise had been in flight for an entire year to reach the story setting. Whatever happened, they were on their own - that being the original idea for the series.]
no subject
Date: 10 Jan 2019 17:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Jan 2019 17:25 (UTC)Last time I ran a big D&D campaign, I was the main plot GM. I'd tell me co-GM "Okay, Jon, the players are on their way from area A to City B with the MacGuffin, and their path is here on the map you guys saw - route involves trade roads and a trek through some mountains. I would love to see a classic dungeon crawl and maybe a small dragon encounter in here, as well as - here's the trade roads encounter list I drew up, and a suggested list of mountain encounters, but lay off the giants, because there's a white giant encounter as part of the main plot once they get through this pass. You've got a week of travel time plus any the party wastes; go nuts. I'll take over once they get through the mountain range." Then Jon would slot in a baby ice dragon and a classic ruined-tower-dungeon of an evil wizard whose monsters had begun to terrorize a local village, with me providing color and interest but not much 'hard work', and I had prep time to write the giants and the dwarves for the Main Plot ahead.
As to the map: The characters didn't have a good map - more like a rough sketch and a lot of local rumors, half of whom came via the bard I controlled - and that meant I could fudge things. If Jon got overtime at work and didn't finish the ice dragon, I'd move the mini-encounter with two feuding trade merchants up a 'slot' or the 'village of the ice people' would mysteriously end up a lot closer than it had originally been on my map, and the mountain with a baby ice dragon in it became further away. Having lots of parts ready to go means you can almost shuffle your notes and pick an encounter.
no subject
Date: 21 Jan 2019 10:15 (UTC)My struggles now are learning new rules in 5th ed when I don't have much time - like how rests work, or death, or whatever. I really need a good summary sheet.