Sup /tg/.
All of us who've run games know that things go sideways easily - you have to keep things together without the players realizing that you're directing them, or how much of the session you're pulling out of your ass. For a project, myself and a bunch of other DMs are putting together a care package - a pdf for download that will have a whole bunch of game resources.
At present, we've got the following:
Adventure hooks - a few hundred, divided by genre.
NPC Generator tables - a helpful tool to quickly roll up a name, personality, and background for an npc you're generating on the fly, again broken down by genre.
Location generators - similarly, a handy tool to quickly roll up villages, cities, governments, even entire planes, if an unexpected plot direction takes you away from where you've prepared.
Links - online tools, dice rollers, ambient music, tip repositories, the kind of thing that you've relied on in running a game.
Despite the bulk of this, it still feels sparse - not enough of a resource. With that in mind, what else would you add? Anything that goes in has to be strictly text-based; as much as we'd love to, we can't include an actual dice roller in this package.
Also, general DM tip thread - things to help out first time DMs, and the best DM ass-pulls, when your players took your campaign entirely off the rails.
>>43872966
Tips for making maps, structuring scenarios/campaigns, basics of improv, that kind of thing.
>>43873059
>>43873064
>a bunch of tables aren't going to teach a DM how to improv
>basics of improv
A good point - I actually come from an improv theater background, so the problem for me had always been what to come up with. I usually tried to do the standard D&D thing of plotting out everything, statting NPCs, and figuring out every which way the plot could go.
Then my players got distracted by a carriage with an imperial seal on it that I had put in for plot direction, and I threw away the entire plot for some bullshit about a doupleganger coup that I had to cook up AS I WAS PLAYING.
It was the first, but not the last, time I had to throw away notes.
>>43873181
Plot decoration, rather.
Do all this, release it and then worry about adding new content. This seems more than enough for the start and most projects like this fail because the goal is set too high
pic not related obv
Hooks to pull a game together or how to tell a player that it won't work.
Dealing with players is a big part of being a DM, it should have plenty of hints on how to deal with players in and out of the game. Doesn't have to be for TG, but tips on how to get players interested as well.
>how to get a shy person to really get into it or teach the hyper active idiot to be patient.
I've had both of these types of people.
>>43873211
You misunderstand - this isn't the project. This is something we want to release as part of it. I won't go into specifics, because I don't want to be that douchebag advertising, but we're working on a /tg/-related kickstarter campaign and this is going to be one of the almost-free backer rewards.
>>43873181
I mean, all most RPGs are is a bunch of people rolling dice and using the result to "yes and" each other. Any tips that would encourage GMs to rely less of their notes and more on their creativity would be good.
>>43873232
On a similar vein, a question - people who play traditional games have tended to fall on the mouth-breathing end of the nerd-to-jock spectrum. When we play, we tend to play as wish fulfillment. A person who has always been weak can, by putting a number higher, be strong - and it's easy to imagine what a strong person would do, and roleplay accordingly. Likewise someone being dextrous, hardy, or perceptive - it's harder with charisma or situational wisdom, but that's easy enough for the DM to help prop the guy up. Give that player surreptitious hints about the kinds of things that would be good to say to be diplomatic, or pointing out the things they should pay attention to.
The problem, though - what if you have a player who is not smart, but wants to be?
I have a player, let's call him Gerry. Gerry is a great guy - loud and boisterous, great at getting into a character, able to empathise and roleplay well. He always has to play the bruiser in one way or another, though, because he's just a bit too thick. He would love to play the sherlock holmes style detective, who pieces things together, but as a player he can't manage it.
PnP games are for a lot of us about wish fulfillment. How would you, as a DM, try to help a player like Gerry fulfill his?
>>43873305
... I think I might just go ahead and call this the Yes And manual.
Have an adorable dog for that.
>>43873443
Make notecards for him to use. Helpful hints to remind him of interesting things to say or think about and maybe guide him along from there. I've been in the same situation and I had to kind of railroad the guy through, not to say he didn't have a blast because I gave him sly hints that he figured out on his own and felt good about.
Describe stuff in detail and even repeat a thing or two. While it may seem like you're giving the guy special treatment, but make sure the players understand before hand.
To that point, I've actually DM'd for a guy with downs and he sure had fun.
Where do you plan on like posting this guide? I'm very new to dming and dnd and my party are all just as inexperienced. I've been made DM for life because nobody wants to do it and I'd love to read the Yes And guide. Would really help me.
>>43873552
>>43873443
Maybe specific puzzles for him? Something easy, but not blindingly so, which the other players aren't around to solve?
I actually am really proud of him. When he contracted Lycanthropy (Were-giant-crocodile, don't ask), I had his tribal barbarian going on a vision quest to master the stages of his transformation. The first stage was to wrestle a giant croc, which he managed. The second, though, was to battle the hybrid form - and I had the hybrid challenge him to a game of chess, at which point I actually played chess against him.
Halfway through, he realized what his character would do, and he had his barbarian pick up the chessboard and beat the hybrid into submission with it.
>>43873619
Once we make it, you can bet it'll wind up on TG - either from someone who posts it up, or just as a thing that's given away once the kickstarter is done.
>>43873059
Why'd this get deleted?
How about a list of assets and complications that the players or your NPCs can have? System-agnostic, if you give the PCs a list of them and say they have to pick at least one from each, it really encourages good roleplaying. Your Bard can mimic local accents and learn new languages quickly, but he's an amorous sod, and thinks with his lower head. Your Rogue is duty-bound to their friends, and would do anything for them, but is battling an addiction that might kill her. Your Paladin is a pillar of moral strength, and brings hope to all around him, but he only joined the order because he was on the run from a past life, which is catching up with him.
I'm not saying it's a replacement for good character play, but it's a great way to get your players to think about their characters as whole people.
Off the rails, huh?
Here's one. It's how I learned to be careful with my set pieces.
Serenity game, the crew are raiding an asteroid that serves as a dead drop for some crime gangs - a place they can dump and pick up cargo, which gives them at most an hour or two to steal what they can. I intended it to be the hook for a bit of back-and-forth for the party between the criminals and the law, with a mcguffin they stole being important to both, and a way to introduce a new character, who was there in a shipment of cryo-frozen slave labor.
Instead, the engineer takes one look at the horizon, where I've put in a com shack, with a defense cannon mounted beside it on the far rim of the asteroid.
And jumps for it. It's Zero G, I don't have a reason not to give it to him. He passes the check to make the jump, to land, and to work out how it works.
So he spends the hour unbolting the cannon assembly from the platform, and pulling it - again, Zero G - back to the ship, after which he mounts it on the cargo bed of the air-to-ground shuttle they have. Cannons are pretty rare in the Serenity setting, most arms are hand-held, and I accidentally gave them a fucking tank.
They didn't even find the McGuffin - just freed the slaves, and then helped the engineer get the gun on board.
Best asspull from my campaign was when my players were exploring a little fishing town in the continent of Atlantis on the Plane of Water. One of them asked if there were any libraries in the capital (which there basically had to be, it's a goddamn continent) so I had to make up the entire city on the fly. They would have gotten the information they got later had they taken the hook I gave them but nooooo, needed to go and visit a library.
To get back at them I had their efreet boss send some minions and they had to bluff their way out of getting murdered by said minions.
>>43873734
Looks like this particular tripfriends posts are getting wiped off the board at the moment.
>>43873280
>kickscammer
What is it like being cancer?
>>43876941
Hey, you got a better way to generate venture capital for a business, you tell me. I'm going to do it above board, though, and deliver.
