>4 hour game session due by tommorow >haven't

>>51983899
People write before their sessions?

My session preparation consists out of spending the last 15 minutes quickly sketching something on a napkin.
Never failed me.

With my groups decision making, that's two fighting encounters and one interesting room.

>>51983899
>"We want a politics driven game"
>Spend all my free time that week planning the session
>Open on negotiation scene
>"Yeah, nah. I hold him at swordpoint and offer my terms"

>>51984097
>two fights in four hours
Okay there buddy you don't have to brag or anything

File: how appropriate, you fight like a cow.jpg (24KB, 400x279px) Image search: [Google]

24KB, 400x279px

>>51984129
>"Yeah, nah. I hold him at swordpoint and offer my terms"
"You fight like a dairy farmer."

>>51983899
So?

Best game are the organic ones that grow as the players move about, writing shit down just leads to showing the players at it or it being ignored.

>>51983899
Learn to fly by the seat of your pants. No plan survives first contact with the PCs anyway.

>>51984149
EPIC! xD

>>51983899

Hello, me.

Except my game is "root out the hidden cultist" and I don't know anything except the name of the villain.

>>51984397
When I have to come up with a mystery for a session I often find that the best thing to do is rip off an episode of Scooby-Doo.

>>51983899
Is this a riff on the n word essay due tomorrow meme I used to see on /sp/?

I'm writing a Oneshot that takes place during the Rangdan Xenocides of the 31st millennium.


Help.

>>51984457
nigger essay?

>>51984470
That's easy! Genocide is some planning then a long combat session.

>>51983899
>Not just improvising in a sandbox with notes you made before the campaign started.
Pleb.

>>51983899
>only 4 hour session
>needing to plan it for it to work, let alone be good

Haha, what level is your gming skill, friend?

Just wing it, also make the PC's decide what to do with their times and lives, just fill in where they go and force them to interact with people who sre not "quest givers".

>>51983899
If you can't improvise you shouldn't be a gm, or a leader of any sort.

>>51984129

>not having their opponents be ready for threats of violence with overwhelming threats of their own, forcing the party back to the negotiating table in a position of weakness

>>51983899
>all of this shit advice in this thread
If you don't have anything worked out, expect to get nothing done. You should at least know what you want your players focusing on, what kind of world you're building, and maybe have some NPCs that you like put together to lead or interact with.

Unpreparation leads to a bunch of fucking around, spending half of the time not even playing the game and bored players most of the time. You can improvise a LOT, I've done it a lot too, but you improvise with a solid base prepared and ideas for what's happening in the story. Else prepare to get ignored for people's fucking mobile games.

>>51985269
t. gm who isn't good at improv
How does it feel tp be an improvlet?

>>51985298
You're probably a legitimately shit GM who has no clue about pacing. How does it feel to spend 20 sessions to get through 8 sessions worth of content?

>>51983899
Just freestyle it my dude

shoulda made a sandbox

i dont plan anymore, i wrote out enough random tables to roll up anything so I can improvise a lot more fluidly

one big example of this is making decisions about villains without bias
quests dont have to be save-the-world dramas and dont always have to resolve by player action

choices are meaningful in a very real way and you have an answer when the players decide to say "screw this" and dump the quest they're on because it isn't worth it anymore

Forget about planning, it's all about taking notes of what's happening on the campaign, world building and knowing your players.

I stopped planning when my players made me mumble like a retard when they took a totally unexpected course of action. Surprisingly no one seemed to realize how ass pulled was that session and even thanked me for such a great game. They have no fucking clue how panicked I was.

What I do now is try to think about their different play styles and imagine different scenarios based on what's been going on. It almost feels like throwing social experiments at 4 people in a team.

We're also following a plot so I write down events that important events and their respective hooks.

Many times, players don't bite any, that's when world building comes in. World building gives you a more to work with to improvise, since you know how all of that works. It doesn't have to be much either, just a name and a short but precise description.

>>51985269
I was assuming this was not day one for rhe game, IE. The chars have fone some stuff and have a party goal? If its the first night of a new campaign. Your right he is screwed.l if its a brand new campaign

>>51986220
World building is the way I run

Between each session, I write a quick whats happening in the world (King declares war, famine here, vampire breakout in the sewers) so I know whats going on in the world regardless of the players. It also helps me work up a more ground base for players actions. Killing a certain NPC and how that effects the world

>>51984543
n as a variable, like n=amnt. of words

With my groups adhd no work required. "You have a week, what do you do?" 2 hours later...."I rent a room"

>>51984452
Make the culprit be the character with the least screentime?

There is nothing wrong with telling your players that tomorrow you'll instead be chilling and playing boardgames because you haven't had time to prepare.

>>51985458
Pretty good. My players brag about how long our campaigns last. There's about 12, 5 hour sessions worth of material stretched to about 54, 6 hour sessions. And this is how they want it. The game is the excuse for us to get together and dick around for an evening. Who cares how much or how little you get done when you're sitting around a table with your closest friends?

jerk off go to sleep and get tanked before the game
it will work out great

>>51989318
You're pretty much assuming you can't have a good time while dicking around with your best friends and still have a coherent and well paced narrative.

Playing games that have a beginning and end means that you can. You know. Experience several different narratives with said friends. Doesn't that sound enjoyable?

>>51989387
But we do that too. Dicking around and cohesive narrative aren't mutually exclusive. My beginings, middles and ends are just more spaced out than yours, and interspersed with random acts of insanity.

Last week, we took three hours out of our session so we could all try Carolina Reapers. Doesn't that sound fun?

>>51989545
Not really. I'd rather do things like these on a different occasion, not when specifically gathering to play a game.

If I drop by someone's place for a movie night, I'm not overly thrilled if they bust out a board game unless the power's out.

>>51989579
You sound like a lot of fun.

We're adults. With careers and families and responsibilities. "Game Night" is only called that in the loosest possible sense. It's the one night each week where we can relax and hang out. And if we get some RP in, then cool. If we decide to watch a movie or play a videogame or go out for a drink, then that's okay, too.

Over the years, we've kicked out several "Must RP all the time, no badwrongfun allowed" people who would get mad any time anyone wanted to do anything even slightly different. and now we're much happier.

>>51989545
>>51989737
Original guy you were replying to here. You seem to be using the Appeal to Chad method of deflecting the argument that your GMing skills are weak here. (It's fine, I use this one a lot too.)

If your players enjoy your style, that's great! That still doesn't diminish the fact that you're the traditional gaming equivalent of Crossfit.

>>51983899

> tfw when all I did for my first sesion as a GM was write a page then scrap it.

>>51989868
>my hardcore gaming is better than your casual gaming

While I respect your opinion, I also will express my right to call you a Cock- Goblin.

>>51990121
No, no, no. I'm specifying that on a technical level, your style is bad.

Not to mention your argument against the first guy who gave some actual points was a weak ass ad hominem that looks like it was copypasted from Krautchan's /int/.

Then, when someone calls you on your shit? You start deflecting.

TL;DR
t. Gmlet
How does it feel to be a GMlet?

>>51989318
>>51989545
>The game is the excuse for us to get together and dick around for an evening.
>interspersed with random acts of insanity.

So, a bunch of lolsorandum casuals with a GM who does no prep.

I'm not pulling a badwrongfun, if you want to enjoy a plate of shit then go ahead. It does put your advice in context though.

>>51983899
I'm bored and I had hoped I could help a lazy GM prep for a game.
Pity that doesn't seem to be what the thread is about.

>>51985298
>my casual gaming is better than your hardcore gaming
"While I respect your opinion, I also will express my right to call you a Cock-Goblin."

>>51990178
Also this