Gm advise thread? Thread for competent or great GMs to answer

>>54896215
>My question is how do I let the party choose what they want to do organically?

Don't use games with a rigid prep structure, or at least don't overprep before actually getting to know what they want.

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Bumping with DM inspiration

>>54896286
Little but of back story

Had 4 players and 3 went to a bandit camp and 2 out of 3 died a horrible death, 1 escaped and is a scallywag pirate/assasin and was new to the group, the one that didn't go along (player didn't make it to the sesh) isn't likely to try get revenge either.

I have what was meant to be after the bandits but the bandits weren't stopped/killed. Depending what the players choose to do next sesh with have consequences (bandits get stronger and rape and pillage more of the country side) but if they go after the bandits then the taint in the forests in the opposite direction from *main hub city" will deepen and fuck up that side more. Or they could decide to do neither and both situations worsen (also likely to happen)

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>>54896572
breadcrumb prep method

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>>54896583

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>>54896592

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>>54896609

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>>54896644
some magic items

How do you plan for a campaign where you want the players to be able to organically find things they want to do? I'm lucky in that the system I'm using is more about improvisation (although unfortunately I'm not the best at it) so I can throw stuff together and I've been talking to my players ahead of time to find out what they may want but I don't even know how I would introduce half of them.

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if your letting players find stuff to do organically, plan a couple goals but expect to be making up at least 90% of what goes on, so be prepared to be creative.
if your group is all guys, rape and destruction will be a good motivator. If you have some girls, having a sort of planned adventure is advisable.
The most important thing is to never force a session, if you are half-baked on playing, opt out.

>>54896954
I have a ton of shit and the campaign is already set up in a way where I can just go "hey, do this" but I want them to be more invested in what they're doing.

>>54897014
have an NPC lure them into a plotline, maybe they get fucked over by some guy and want revenge, maybe a path to great power is made clear, maybe they are promised great riches if they do some task for someone then he screws them over. from my experience, players react more to hatred towards npcs than traditional quest starters

How do I encourage players to roleplay among themselves?

They roleplay fine when interacting with NPCs, but they never do it among themselves, all the planning and arguing happens out of character and they do stuff like saying "I tell him all I know about <plot hook>" instead of actually telling him in-character, because all the players were at the table when I introduced <plot hook> to one of the characters.

I tried using the rule of "if you say it your character says it" when they spend too long arguing OOC, but that doesn't really help in a lot of cases, and actually enforcing roleplaying seems a bit shitty.

>>54897094
The plan I have, at least thus far, is that they get assigned to break up a drug operation which threatens to reveal the supernatural to the population at large and on their way out get begged by somebody to help them. The person begging for help is being stalked by an obsessive person with mind control powers as well as a potential lead (college student who can get them in touch with a dealer). From there it can lead them to the gang they want or a cult. The cult isn't totally a dead end (there are two plots it can uncover) but they should end up going after the gang again. The gang can result in uncovering two other plots through a hostage they have and those lead to more. Unfortunately I want the players invested the whole way through.

>>54897222
sounds fun!
best of luck with the dm, I found the best way to keep it fun is to stay interested in your own campaign. Confidence is key

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Here's a freebie: "All X party" is a terrible idea, shitty reddit memes do not translate to good gameplay ideas.

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>>54896215
Everyone wants to avoid railroading, but it's easier to fall into than you think when when you're new at GMing. The best way to avoid it is not assume you know how a situation will play out, and try to keep things open ended.
>>54896806
You're overthinking it. Make things easy for yourself. The answer is very simple: let them do it for you. Don't bother trying to be original. Start them somewhere where there's plenty of obvious choices for things to do. I like to go with port cities, but a large village works too. Let them decide what's going to happen. If you can't find a good way to get the party together, use something dumb or just have them start already knowing each other. Everyone knows it's going to happen. It doesn't have be this awesome, defining moment in the campaign. It's really just another box you have to check before the game really begins, like chargen.

More than anything, focus on what's going to fun at THAT EXACT MOMENT. If most of the party has fun most of the time, you're already doing a great job. I promise you they won't care if it doesn't seem like it's going anywhere.

>>54897281
Well luckily they are in a port city (it may not be the main thing but Boston definitely has ports) and the players are already gathered together (they're part of a PI firm which is actually run by a secret government organization).

>>54897263
That's only because of PF or Dindy bullshit making everything awful.

All X party is pretty good in any game where you have relatively free character building. It's far better than the default play mode of say, L5R for instance.

Provided it is a game that offers some limited ability to specialise outside class, you find that people spread out just enough, while all having this one thing that they can collectively do super well, that is "the thing that their party does" so to speak. All their plans then centre around that while a specific PC handles all of the peripheral contingencies.

For instance, I ran a game of all ninjas at one point. We had a ninja who was a great artist and left flower arrangements at all their assassination targets, we had the ninja who was a master of disguise who would set up for marks, we had the ninja who was a master poisoner who set up all of their concoctions and made sure every blow was lethal, and we had the magic ninja who could summon ghosts to spook people and set shit on fire while staying in stealth. Lastly we had the getaway driver, a ninja who could talk to animals. But at the same time they were all fundamentally very similar in their ability to:
- Infiltrate an area undetected
- Scale walls
- Kill people with swords or throwing weapons from stealth

It was an absolute blast.

>>54897617
Good choices, anon. Your instincts are probably better than you think. Starting the players off as part of a larger organization makes some things harder, but it does mean you get to spoon feed them plot hooks and they'll have good, in-character reasons to bite.

People love mysteries, so a lot of your job is already being done by simple human nature. Just give them an intriguing question ("Her husband was murdered, why won't she say what his job was?") and a satisfying answer that makes sense of all the details, and keep them from getting bored before they figure it out.

>>54896577
Setting up the players to fail no matter what they choose is bad GMing, anon.

>>54897917
The organization isn't much larger than them actually, I wanted to essentially let them grow it through their actions and structure it how they wanted to some degree from the start. I even have loose plans for if they plan to investigate their benefactors although I should probably shore up my plans for if they try to break the masquerade.

Unfortunately I have no real mysteries so far, just cases where a fair bit of the information is clear up front they just need to figure out how to meet their goal. For example with the drug dealing case they know what the drug is, what it does, and even who first made it (but that guy died 14 years ago in Chicago) the problem is following the distribution paths in the city all the way to the gang. I'm hoping the players do their research to figure out what the gang is and if not that they charge in during the full moon so they get their shit kicked in (but still probably win).

>>54898043
They've got a boss and clients, right? That's all you need, an easy to deliver plot hooks and a bit of structure you or the players can cling to when you're not sure where to go next.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the problem is. You've got it all set up and you've done as much planning as you need for the major contingencies. You seem to understand how to set up a mystery. Have a little faith in yourself.

>>54896609
>doesn't know what water tables are

>>54897211
Seconding this question

>>54897211
Well, start by thinking of ways that not everyone can see to develop plot hooks. Secret messages to specific members through sticky notes are one such method.

Second, If they spend too long arguing OoC, have an NPC get impatient and try to move the plot along.

Third, actively have the NPCs react to their out of character BS. If it gets them in deep shit, so be it.

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>>54897211
>>54898530

Our DM has us sit down and brainstorm character interactions between our party during downtime, and encourages us to supply ideas for eachother.

Instead of "what do you do at camp" it's more "so anyone got any good scene ideas for in camp?", and then he'll ask any leftovers how they'd fit into the scene.

Not sure if that helps, given our playstyle is far more drunk-people-at-a-theatre than straight RP.

>>54898292
Thanks, I'm a first time DM and honestly have shit self esteem so I guess that's why I'm so nervous. I mean it seems a lot more together here than it really is especially since some important NPCs are still largely unwritten.

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>Players get into a hard encounter/tough situation.
>They just give up immediately instead of trying to find a way out or fight it.

I honestly have no idea how to deal with this issue since from most accounts parties usually seem to fight to the bitter end against impossible/retarded odds. But usually my players will give up qhen they think they ran into a 'hopeless' situation and literally lay down and wait to die. Even if the situation isn't even that challenging or hasn't even gone wrong, if they think they can't win they just suicide.

OK anons
I've not DMed before and I've decided that instead of doing an established setting I'm going to do a homebrew setting including rules... Its a tall order and I have half the settings worldbuilding and a lot of the rules down pat, the issue I have is that my players are coming into this blind and they are used to playing a bastardized version of DND that is very rules light, while my setting is a lot heavier.

How can I ease my players into the rules without disrupting play?

One of my solutions is to make FAQ cards with all the combat related rules for their type of character including the maths for their character eg DMG reduction and proficiency scores

Any other methods?

First time DM here. I tried playing DH with the starter mission in the core rulebook and things went to shit before the investigation really began. I'll give you a quick rundown of what happened.

>Meet the inquisitor
>Inquisitor tells them to stop xenos artifacts from being imported to Hive Desoleum
>Warband gets shown the safe house
>Right off the bat, the IG tries to mug a nobleman for his clothes
>He gets garbage rolls right off the bat and gets knocked out instead
>Loses his pants
>Fails an agility roll in a dark alley, falling in emperor-knows-what
>Spergs out in the street and gets pict-recorded
>Meanwhile the rest of them, save for one, go out announcing they're from the inquisition in front of everyone to ask questions about a noble's erratic behaviour
>Only one person does actual undercover investigation work
>The rest of the party get bored and try to do odd jobs for money and the guardsman gets arrested after he threatens the locals with his laspistol while washing himself in public.

How do I guide them to doing actual inquisiting without railroading them?
>

>>54899779
Seems like they're not particularly attached to their characters, if they sacrifice them so easily. Its a hard one to solve.

Alternatively, you could try running a higher powerlevel game or system, I guess.

>>54899906
Honestly, this sounds like a case of different expectations and desires from a game.

Talk to your group and find out whether they actually want to do any investigation and role playing, because it sounds like they'd all prefer (or expect) a straight up murder-hobo adventure.

It will either turn out that hey expected something else and will correct their behavior, or that they don't want any of that "serious role playing" non-sense and you'll either have to change the style of the game or change the group.

Sometimes talking doesn't really help, because players will on occasion be unaware of their own preferences or straight up lie for various reasons. So when you talk to your players they will insist that they want a heavy role-playing game full of political intrigue but in practice they want to walk up to the king and stab him in the throat and be able to fight their way out of the palace. If this happens you'll just have to infer after getting to know the group.

>>54896215
Your players need agency. This means they know the consequences of their actions and make a choice knowing that they are giving something up to gain another thing. For example, say your players are moving a magical item across a mountain range. They can either go over the mountain and face the magical fury of a powerful wizard, or they can take an abandoned mines under the mountains and face the goblins that infest it. The players have to know that there's a choice and they have to know they can make the choice. If you just say "there's a fork in the road, do you go right or left?" the players have no agency. You need to inform the players what their choice actually means, even if it means giving them meta game knowledge.

>>54899963
I asked the about it beforehand. They didn't have a set idea of what they wanted. A little of each, they said. After the mission completes, I'll ask them what they really want in the campaign.

Any tips on how to keep track of combat? I'm mostly doing this online over Discord until I can convince them to get a roll20 account. Should I have maps and such?

>>54900110
You need to explain to them what the campaign is about. Just say "In this campaign, you need to do undercover detective work in order to solve mysteries. Lying and sneaking around are required. Eventually you'll reveal a deep crime ring within the city (or whatever)." Pile on the metagame knowledge high so the players know what's up.

Also, let the players have fun. When they go into an alley, dont make them slip on a banana peel. Have them find some interesting clue. When words gets out that inquisitors are looking for them, the criminals stop by to threaten the PCs. They leave behind a symbol of their guild. When the PCs do something cool, reward them.

>>54900201
I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.

>>54899793
>How can I ease my players into the rules without disrupting play?
You can't. But what you can do is giving them several "tutorial encounters"; learning by doing. Walk them through the mechanics of the game step by step. FAQ cards don't hurt either.

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player conditioning

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>>54897985
Not failing but having a believable world, they k ow shits going g down in the forest, they know the bandits are getting bolder, the need to choose what they want to sort out first

It's shadow of the demon lord btw, my campaign isn't about "hey look how strong my char is" it's about "oh shit that was a close fight, too bad we were too late to save the villages children, at least they are the last to die by this *insert horror*". It's gritty and horrible and everyone has discussed this before we started.

Plus others in my group gm other non horror games we can fool around and have fun in

>>54900201
>When they go into an alley, dont make them slip on a banana peel.

What if they try a disguise?

>>54899779
Are you giving the players an incentive to actually want to win? Because the only reason I as a player give up in a fight is if I know that
A: The DM is being a dipshit and I am going to argue with him about it and probably toss out whatever happens
B: The character is a throwaway
C: The campaign sucks

>>54900486
This, I can't stress enough how important it is to give players something for roleplaying, thinking creatively, or having their characters do cool shit.

>>54900556
But whichever they choose is the "wrong" choice, because shit is going to get worse on the other side. It's not a real choice anymore at that point.

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>>54900989
Did you read the second paragraph? That's how it's supposed to be, the setting is grim and gritty, that's exactly what I'm going for and what the group knows the campaign is about, shadow of the demon lord is maybe 1 or 2 steps below warhammer gritty. It's not automatically bad GMing if things getting worse no matter how players act is what's meant to be happening.

>>54897211
the reason this tends to get skimmed over is if there's nothing interesting for the players to be gained by just talking. If you really want to encourage it maybe you could tell all the players to come to each session with a question about another PC and they can try and get an answer during that session, gives them a goal they want to achieve for those scenes.

>>54901071
Not that guy, but here's a question, do you plan for it to ever get better? Are they going to get to the point where they won't always have a lesser of two evils option? If it's supposed to be a depressing spiral of doom and despair the whole way down where they have only a small handhold on the outcome, make sure they know that. As an opener it is fine I'd say, bUT being screwed one way or another the whole way no matter what I try would make it feel like the GM is just wanking over some narrative of his.

>>54899779
I haven't had that problem yet, but I can see how the "players just giving up" thing could happen.

I think >>54900893 has something going there with the "incentive to actually want to win". As I've said, I have no experience with this, but does the following sound like it might work?

Why would a player want to win? Investment. Investment in their character, or the outcome of the battle. I would put any new characters made in the same world/location, so they see the results of failure and how the world was affected by their death and the battles outcome.

Besides that, I would talk with them ahead of time about what kind of campaign they want to play, or what they want to do.

>>54901374
Things aren't always going to be a choice like I'm planning right now, things will even out, just wanted their actions to effect the world around them in game. It also ties into the way they will level up and the enemies in x mission will be harder.

technically shadow of the demon lord is about the downward spiral into doom yes but I'm not planning on having them just succeed in the final mission and the void opens up anyway

>>54901374
Pointers for not getting too narrative wanky?

>>54897281
>You're overthinking it.
>More than anything, focus on what's going to be fun at THAT EXACT MOMENT.
This.

>>54901374

Sounds like a matter of taste.