What are the sins of GM's? (GM here, trying to improve)


Advice

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I think the greatest sin of mine that keeps coming back in the constant return to the dark, to transformation, to the witnessing of things that few people should be subject to and the PCs contemplating if what they have seen or done to survive has a lasting impact on their characters. Don't get me wrong, things can be happy, silly, and aloof, but when the set-piece moment happens I'm actively trying to traumatize the PC's characters. Of course this is partially why I encourage over the top characters since they tend to just power through it and their force of personality is barely changed, but that extremely timid, innocent, and "hopeful" character that someone is playing is unlikely to stay that way.

I suppose it becomes an outlet for negativity, but to be honest no one has minded. They realize there are going to be situations where they cannot save all of the innocent people from gruesome deaths, and that they, in their time frames, are likely unable to do anything to the people responsible.

I think when I make "evil" people they tend to be light enough on the evil side that they could easily jump to neutral. Suppose 67% evil and 33% good. But then I have characters who are so depraved that such a jump is all but impossible. Think more of 100% evil. Nothing is beyond them, and while they can disguise this quite well or take actions that disguise it for them, they are still wholly depraved people who have no problem tying logs in a logging town to peoples' ankles, tying said people to a building, and then pushing the log into the river to build up speed and tear the person in half. Hopefully right as soon as the PCs come to save them, and with there being several people with each tied to the other with a few rounds of slack between them and the log after one dies.

I don't want my PCs to just dislike or loath a villain, I want them to hate him. He probably isn't going out of his way to kill children, or strangle the elderly, but by the gods if someone is in his way or makes some sort of sleight, actual or perceived, against him his cruelty and malice is unmatched.

So, I suppose, that is my Sin as a DM. The best part is that sometimes these villains are not even important to the plot. Sometimes they are just the people running the town. Other times they are literally just someone the PCs encounter.

Of course, this does balance out with the wholly good people. In a sea of grey if there is some black there needs to be at least a little white. I like horror, I like fantasy, and the grim reality is that the PCs, the Adventurers are usually in a fantasy, which by definition is a comedy that ends well, whereas the NPCs are in a horror, which by definition is a tragedy where people die. The PCs learn of the horrors these people have endured, they learn of the local heroes who fight and struggle against such doom and thereby take a stand to help or not to help.

I think my most enduring PC (while I as DMing) was a guy who played a paladin like a straight arthurian knight. He was a hospitaler who just cared for the innocent without worrying if they could pay him. Regardless of how dark it became he was there to cast light into the dark places regardless of if he knew he could win or not.

Anyway, I have rambled far too long.

Shadow Lodge

Mark Hoover wrote:
Oh Tri, what happened to you... :)

I hold all viewpoints in a quantum state.

Lantern Lodge

With respect to earlier posts

Don't allow BULLYING at the table. Be fair to everyone.

1) Don't let the player/s bully the GM and other players. - EVERYONE should have a fun time. Don't allow a player or players to bully you, the other players or pick on 1 player in the party.

Don't let allow players to force you into accepting their ideal of how a situation should have played out. For example, a player might try to abuse his or her diplo skill, by quickly saying out his character's actions and rolling the dice straight away.
Slow down! Make sure you understand what the player is doing in the given situation. Analysis it, THEN decide which skill the player SHOULD be using for the given situation. Don't be afraid to clarify or pause the game.

On the other extreme, don't allow a player whose character lack the proper skills to "Role-Play Power-gaming" pass situations. A player's character is not represented sololy by the player's own personal social skills. Make sure proper rolls are made by the player in question. Don't let the -2 to diplo Barb auto-succeed on a DC 20 dilpo roll, just because the Barb player is good in talking. If he/she wants to play a party face character, he/she should have made a party face character.

Also avoid logic loops, they are often use by players to justify actions that should not be allowed. Like nonsensical justifications for PvPing.

2) Be Fair - State house rules clearly and early. If there is a need to include new rules or changes to existing ones, make it clear the reasons why. Like to make the game more fair in some ways, or state why you feel a rule/feat/spell has been abused... etc.

Overall the game should be fair and fun for everyone. Be flexible with players. If the player whose character has the best social skills is not good at talking in real life, allow him or her to explain her character's actions in 3rd person. Don't punish players for their imperfections, it is their characters that the story is interacting with.


Especially for new or timid players, be sure to throw in some easy encounters, ones that let them show off their class abilities and feel genuinely larger than life. Have a few low-stakes situations to give contrast to the high-stakes challenges.

If everything they face is an awesome, unstoppable engine of slaughter and darkness, you're running a horror game rather than heroic fantasy.

Silver Crusade

If you have a problem player, address their behaviour early and do it Out Of Character.

In an early campaign I ran (Skull+Shackles), I had a player reacted to being kidnapped and stripped of all his weapons by initiating combat straight away. When he had his ass handed to him, he then tried to cast doom on a pirate in front of a lvl 17 captain. He didn't respond to the real threat of having his ears cut off. He then planned to burn the rum on the ship, without considering the like response from a bunch of alcoholic pirates. This all occurred literally in the space of the opening set up for the campaign (pages 1-3 of the outline).

My mistake was thinking that his character would react to negative incentives in the game (the rest of the party got it very quickly). Instead I should have had some quite words with the player and nipped it in the bud.


The Crusader wrote:

Be prepared for Passwall.

There's a broader definition than just the spell, of course. Sometimes you are going to spend an enormous amount of time and energy and creativity engineering an encounter that is going to be incredibly challenging and epic. But, your players found a skeleton key you didn't anticipate (figuratively speaking) that allows them to bypass all the challenge and awesome.

Just accept it. Reward their creativity. Learn a lesson about the gap in the encounter. Save the encounter for a future session, if you can. Don't try to reset on the fly to force the encounter on your players! That usually leads to a very unsatisfying encounter and a lot of player death, without any of the awesomeness it could have had.

While The Crusader used 'Don't try to reset...' Let me put it another way: Don't cheat the players out of their clever solution. Just accept it and move on.

Take care,

Harry


1) My Friend's GM said "Just because you roll a 20 doesn't mean you succeed. The enemy might have a higher bonus than you" and that defeats the entire purpose of the 1/20 auto fail/win system. So avoid that.

2) If a PC wants to roll a new character because their rogue is doing nothing compared to the other three players, find a way to help them. MY friend started having her rogue attack people to get killed. GM just stuck her character in prison and will not let her out. All she wants is to roll a new character (Tiefling Witch most likely)

3)Don't level the enemies for your strongest character. One reason my two friends are thinking of giving up on Pathfinder is their GM levels the enemies for the Wizard. So The Rogue mentioned in #2 is having more trouble than she can handle, even the Paladin is finding things tough at time.


Skills are not automatic successes on a roll of 20 or 1, this does not defeat the purpose because the purpose is there in terms of hitting in combat (against impossibly high AC) and saving against effects (against impossibly high save DCs).
I heavily doubt that a PC should have even a 5% chance of detecting the master rogue who has +20 to stealth when the PC has +0 to perception. The maximum that the PC can roll is a 20, the minimum that the master rogue can roll is a 21, therefore the PC doesn't even have an Infinitesimal chance of detecting the enemy.

This is in place to make it so that PCs, as a party, should strive to cover every skill in the game. The iconic party (Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard) does this pretty well. That said there should always be work-arounds that are harder than the simple skill check. Perhaps no one has Knowledge: Engineering and therefore cannot deduce that the Bridge is going to collapse if 2 people go on it. Therefore the bridge collapses, but since we can assume people on said bridge are likely on a rope that the others are holding this shouldn't result in death. Perhaps after the bridge breaks the PCs fight off an encounter that came from a hidden location which circumvents the bridge.

If the PCs all fail their climb checks to summit the mountain, then perhaps they must go underground. If they fail their skill checks in the underground then they fight extra battles until they blunder upon the exit after a maximum number of additional fights is reached. This tends to devour resources, pit the PCs against increased danger, and all the while give them the exact same amount of XP they would have received from just completing the skill challenge.

The point is that good DMing doesn't need to hold you hand to only use skills you are good at because a good DM plans work arounds that are equally effective.

Also, Dysseus, send your current DM this chart:
It tells him what to send per PC to give each member X amount of XP for their level. Just average the XP between the PCs, but let the lower level people gain extra experience whenever the PCs rest equal to CR Their level (so a standard for them, or 400 xp at level 1) to catch up with the higher level person.
4 monsters per player (4 players = 16 monsters)
CR (APL-8), CR (APL-7), CR (APL-6), CR (APL-5), CR (APL-4), or CR (APL-3) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)

3 monsters per player (4 players = 12 monsters)
CR (APL-7), CR (APL-6), CR (APL-5), CR (APL-4), CR (APL-3), or CR (APL-2) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)

2 monsters per player (4 players = 8 monsters)
CR (APL-6), CR (APL-5), CR (APL-4), CR (APL-3), CR (APL-2), or CR (APL-1) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)

1 monster per player (4 players = 4 monsters)
CR (APL-4), CR (APL-3), CR (APL-2), CR (APL-1), CR (APL-0), or CR (APL+1) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)

Cheers. Honestly it sounds like your DM sucks. Perhaps you should start your own game and invite everyone, perhaps the DM as well, to play at your game.


Fortunately I do not have to play with this GM, but my friends have had pathfinder ruined because of it, if we didnt already have 6 players i would invite them to our game.

About the 20, wasnt talking Bout skills....just rolling 20s for any reason. Though I didnt know about the skills not applying for it, it does and doesnt make sense in some ways.

How you solved the issue makes sense to me, and your alternatives would be acceptable, if only the gm was that good. I play with 2 other Gms who do this well. They dont hold your hand but every once and a while they throw you some bread crumbs. One even allows the sense motive check against GM to determine what to do (gives a vague push in the right direction). Several times we have missed out on big quest rewards because we didnt investigate or use skills properly. Like the time we lost getting a tenuki follower who would have watched our wagon in exchange for booze., all because our druid didnt stealth or perception becore going to visit him at night.....and kinda tortured the captive tenuki.

Second part, when i say leveled for the wizard, i meant their defense and damage output is such that only the wizard deals enough damage to take them out fast enough.

The Exchange

Gregory Connolly wrote:
Muad'Dib wrote:
Do not tell Players what their characters feel. Drives me batty when GM's do this. Describe the scene and allow them to react.
So much this!

Another agreement for that....

Don't fiat to ensure that the PCs fail because it is part of the story. Whether this means they are supposed to be enslaved, taken prisoner, GM wants them to fail saves to drive the story, etc. If you want them to be captured or to fail some save vs. be someone's puppet, use narrative to do it instead of playing it out. It breaks the Player/GM trust and is a crutch that makes the game into a GM's story instead of a PC's story.

Don't use high level NPCs to swoop in and "save the party" at the last second with their awesomeness. Giving the party help from some reinforcements is way different from "Elminster suddenly pops in, blows up all your foes and saves you from the overwhelming odds....now you owe him."

Roll combat rolls in the open. If you want to nerf rolls give hero points out, allow a set number of rerolls per session for GM and players, use some sort of system where players and the GM can have a set number of fudges.... Rolling combat rolls in the open is something that breeds trust and helps keep the feeling of fairness going among the group. Rolling perceptions, bluff/sense motive, etc that should be secretive can remain so, but there is really no point to concealing combat rolls unless there is a plan to "theatrically" add in a monster crit or miss whenever the GM wants to. If you want to tell the story, tell it...but the PCs should be driving it, not nerfed rolls for drama.

If you are gonna use a standard, done a thousand times scenario, like meeting in a tavern or something, try your best to add some element that is original and adds to the scene. Barroom brawl that ends with the PCs either getting arrested or wanted by the law is somewhat standard but if while imprisoned the spoiled prince comes down and tortures one of the PCs or a cellmate of the PCs, you help the PCs have a scene where they can develop a feeling towards an NPC that may bear fruit later in the campaign.

Don't have players make PCs with starting equipment and gear only to have their first scene be a GM fiat of them losing all their gear and having to scrounge for stuff. Tell the players to make PCs without gear, narrate the scene instead of having them play out the unwinnable scene, and start with them trying to escape if that's where the story starts.

And for Gods sake, let the players actions always mean something, even if it messes up the story...a good GM adjusts the story to the PCs but never adjusts the PCs for the story.

The Exchange

Nostrum wrote:

If you have a problem player, address their behaviour early and do it Out Of Character.

In an early campaign I ran (Skull+Shackles), I had a player reacted to being kidnapped and stripped of all his weapons by initiating combat straight away. When he had his ass handed to him, he then tried to cast doom on a pirate in front of a lvl 17 captain. He didn't respond to the real threat of having his ears cut off. He then planned to burn the rum on the ship, without considering the like response from a bunch of alcoholic pirates. This all occurred literally in the space of the opening set up for the campaign (pages 1-3 of the outline).

My mistake was thinking that his character would react to negative incentives in the game (the rest of the party got it very quickly). Instead I should have had some quite words with the player and nipped it in the bud.

Some players make up characters that were once slaves or prisoners and they have a "I will never let that happen again" attitude.

I haven't run Skull and Shackles but if the opening has the players playing through a capture scenario with a level 17 captain NPC then that is a horribly designed encounter. It is effectively "you have no options, you will do what I want, and if you don't I will ruin the PC" and that is just bad encounter design that creates GM Fiat and removes player/GM trust. I would have read that and just done a narrative instead of playing it out, and let the players know that it was needed by the adventure path to drive the game forward. Sometimes to keep the game rolling in an adventure path you have to stay on the rails is how I would have talked to them and let them know that you plan to allow as much latitude and lee-way in their story as possible.

Scarab Sages

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Be prepared to kill your darlings - its okay to sacrifice your carefully drawn out plots and schemes if it will ultimately make things more fun for the the whole group. Having fun is more important than having a coherent narrative.


Fake Healer wrote:

Roll combat rolls in the open. If you want to nerf rolls give hero points out, allow a set number of rerolls per session for GM and players, use some sort of system where players and the GM can have a set number of fudges.... Rolling combat rolls in the open is something that breeds trust and helps keep the feeling of fairness going among the group. Rolling perceptions, bluff/sense motive, etc that should be secretive can remain so, but there is really no point to concealing combat rolls unless there is a plan to "theatrically" add in a monster crit or miss whenever the GM wants to. If you want to tell the story, tell it...but the PCs should be driving it, not nerfed rolls for drama.

I too like to roll in the open and I wish more DM's would give it a try. You recommend hero points, below is how I handle hero points and how players can earn them.

I give players the game mastery tokens as rewards for good role playing, good ideas, heroic moves and after big battles I let the players choose one MVP and they get a coin. The coin can be used to roll two dice and choose the more desired roll (for there rolls only, not the GM's dice). Players can have no more than 3 at a time.

The coin is nice to have when the poop hits the fan.

I have told players that if they each chip in a coin I will re-roll one of my rolls. It has never been invoked but it could potentially save a PC from a death blow that happens quite often in PF.

Just another fun way to encourage good role playing, creative thinking, and heroic moves.

-MD


Be ready to change your campaign to fit the playstyle and desires of the PCs, but also be prepared, if not hopeful, for that player who actively tries to forward the plot.

Also be ready for if you have aforementioned player who forwards the plot for there to be someone there who tries to foil him and ruin his fun by doing idiotic crap that makes no sense what so ever and for no logical reason. "I punch the guard!" <<Why?>> "Cuz."

Let people bring in new characters, I cannot stress this enough.

When it comes to money you need to decide how you are going to run it. If you are using WBL then do not allow the PCs to share their funds. If you are using wealth by drops then only allow new characters to "refund" all of their equipment in full, add the total to their current money, and then that is all their new character gets.

The best intentions sometimes have the worst consequences.


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Oh where to begin? Well, most people have given a lot of good advice, but I'll add my spin to the main one people keep bringing up.

Don't Exclude Anyone. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Out of your 5 players, only one's having fun if there's a star to the show, that person being the star. So make sure everyone gets some spotlight.

Now, that being said, there's some important caveats.

1. Not excluding anyone is not equal to not giving people the spotlight. This is important, everyone's playing unique characters with unique roles and unique personalities. Sometimes the rogue is going to be the star of the show, doing his rogue thing and leading the party through traps or through the mean streets of the underbelly of the city. But sometimes it's the fighter's job. Or the bard, the poor bard is especially prone to needing some spotlight time in non-dungeon areas. Sometimes it's good to make sure everyone's in the spotlight, but sometimes it's also good to give one particular player a little moment in the sun to let him be the star and the rest of the players ooh and ah over their prowess... and then move on, widen that spotlight to include everyone, and then focus the spotlight on someone else at a different time.

2. Personal plots, hooks, and YOU! This is the diciest thing to do right, but the most beautiful thing when it happens. This is how characters make bonds with other characters. Too many adventures just give this loose conglomeration of adventurers the incentive of money and push them through encounter after encounter, until they're fabulously rich... oh, and they save the world or something.

This relegates players to being a group of people who occasionally shoot banter around, but leaves their characters as little more than a Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, etc. The characters get defined by their roles because that's all they're really there for. This is where the personal plots come in, and this is also where so many GMs are going to crash and burn and ruin everything, so be careful in how you do it. I'd give this two main steps to follow, that are definitely broad guidelines more than anything you can really follow to a T.

Firstly, get various character quirks and traits written up and sent your way from the players, then begin incorporating things that'll bring these out in play. For example, I've written a character I'm currently playing as being afraid of lightning. Drow, living underground for 100+ years without ever seeing lightning left them a bit sheltered and terrified of the new phenomenon of the surface. The GM knew this, and in play, the characters were going about trying to investigate disappearances in a local village during a thunderstorm. I was saying that I was holding things together because my characters a grown adult and scarred or not, I'm going to grit my teeth and keep investigating.

This is when the GM said that a lightning strike hit a VERY nearby tree and asked me to roll a Will Save against fear. One failed save later I was running screaming into the nearest building my character could find, frightening the inhabitants and bringing a party in tow who were wondering what the hell just happened. This little instance got a lot of RP between me and the other characters, and suddenly, everyone was invested in my random character beyond "Oracle." This is the seed that gets everyone interested in each other's characters, not just their own.

Once you've gotten a good amount of this done and it doesn't take much coaxing to get the players to say "we sit around at the tavern and chat for a while." This is when you bring in personal plots. Once everyone's involved in say, the Paladin, and is really invested their characters into them. If the Paladin gets a letter from his fiance begging for help as she's being forced to marry the local evil baron, most of the time players are just going to either let the Paladin exit the game stage right, or all go along with it with a sigh because I guess the GM's picked a favorite. But if that level of connection is there, that's when the players all in one voice say "WHAT!? OUR PALADIN'S FIANCE WHO HE'S BEEN SENDING MONEY TO TO HELP HER BUILD THAT ORPHANAGE OF HER DREAMS!? THAT EVIL SCUM! LET'S GET HIM!"[/b] and then ALL the party goes and does their best in the plot, the Bard is telling the of the poor Paladin's fiance and how Baron McEvil is forcing her hand with his evil, the Rogue is sneaking in and knocking out the minister so that the cleric can take his place and stall the sermon long enough for the fighter to distract and lure away the guards at the wedding so that then finally the Paladin can bust in and challenge the Evil Baron to a duel in the middle of the church while the now angry at the Baron crowd cheers and applauds at this sudden and dramatic turn of events.

The personal plot stops really being about the Paladin after a while, because everyone's so invested in what happens that while yes, the Paladin's the star of the show, no one minds and gets their moments too because they're all involving themselves because they feel compelled to defend the Paladin's fiance too.

This is where the stories that people tell come from, this is where people come together and play something that really goes above and beyond anything that a mere video game or what have you can do. This is when the wizard charges his 7 STR into melee combat with his piddly quarterstaff trying to draw enemies away from the fallen fighter while the cleric does the healing. Is it a wise choice? Of course not, but it's one fueled by the emotions of the player, and that makes it far better than just the most logical spell choice for that moment. This is when the players stop the adventure to hold a funeral for a fallen party member. This is when the players have their characters suffer tragedy and take on mechanical penalties because they want to roleplay their character losing an eye instead of just complaining and asking if the cleric can just hurry up and fix it. Once the players are all as involved in each other as they are in their own characters, take time to let them deviate from dungeon crawling and just enjoy their characters as more than just a stat sheet and their loot.

Obviously, the same rule as above applies, even if you give this spotlight sidequest to a character, let them blend into the general cast afterwards, and next time around, unless it's really warranted, choose a different player to be the one in the spotlight, maybe next time the party will be supporting the Cleric's desire to found their own church, or the fighter's desire to reconcile with his father, or the rogue's reclamation of his noble lineage, who knows? But when the characters start being more than just classes and 1 dimension personalities is when you know that your job as GM is just to let the magic happen naturally, sit back, relax, and watch the players write the story for you. That is the hardest thing to accomplish as a GM, but the most rewarding when it happens.

Well, at least that's my take on it.


Here are the lessons that have been the most useful to me

1) Be open with your players-Is your min/maxing player just destroying everything while everybody else gets a bit bored and isn't having fun? Talk to him. Explain your position "Hey, your character is optimized and fun, but the other players just can't keep up. You are stealing the show, any way we can find some middle ground? De-optimize a bit to give the other guys a chance, maybe pick up some item creation feats or add some new flavor to your character?"

2) Fun is the most important thing-Good GMing is about making sure your players have fun. But if you aren't having fun as well, you won't be able to put as much into the game as you should, and it will show.

3) Fun =/= immediate gratification-A lot of players want their characters to be super powerful. That is not a good reason to give them a 35 point buy. They need to work for their reward. When they get that item they've been wanting, they need to get excited because they have been working hard. When that belt of dwarvenkind +4 drops, the party should fight over it a bit, because con bonuses aren't just raining from the sky. But strike a balance there.

4) Don't design a lock and a key, design a door and a toolkit-A lot of GMs make the mistake of designing problems with only one solution. A dungeon where the only exit is through a secret door they might not find. The only way to find to get the information is to follow clues they might not find, or connect things in a way they might not be able to. Plan for a few solutions, but give the players enough tools that they can surprise you and come up with something that you didn't expect, and you can run with it. It's the difference between solving a puzzle, and guessing how many fingers are behind your back. One is rewarding, the other is annoying.

5) Switch it up-Every group is different, but some change of pace is nice. Just got out of the dungeon and went back to the city? Now they need to find out who the guy is who doing bad things. At a dinner party, with a few clues. No combat needed, just some detective work.


Mulet wrote:

Hey,

I'm one of two GM's running a game with 5 PC's. The group is very polite, and it's difficult to get them to complain. When they get started though, I learn quite a lot and the game drastically improves.

I'd like to hear what are your issues with GM's in general. What screws up a game, or makes you leave the table? What little things turn an awesome night into a good night?

This is the first Campaign I've ever run, so I don't know the depths of my ignorance just yet.

Don't Burn Out. Being the GM is hard work. Learn to not burn out. Succeed in that and you will have opportunities to learn everything else.

There are aslo the always-crucial social skills of social confidence and being playful and wantless. But I hope you have developed those already from real life.


My three biggest GM rules:

1. Don't be afraid to say no to players.
2. Don't be afraid to say yes to players.
3. You, as the GM, are going to lose. Accept this. Don't latch onto your NPCs. This is your destiny, and the dice's will.

Silver Crusade

Fake Healer wrote:
Nostrum wrote:

If you have a problem player, address their behaviour early and do it Out Of Character.

In an early campaign I ran (Skull+Shackles), I had a player reacted to being kidnapped and stripped of all his weapons by initiating combat straight away. When he had his ass handed to him, he then tried to cast doom on a pirate in front of a lvl 17 captain. He didn't respond to the real threat of having his ears cut off. He then planned to burn the rum on the ship, without considering the like response from a bunch of alcoholic pirates. This all occurred literally in the space of the opening set up for the campaign (pages 1-3 of the outline).

My mistake was thinking that his character would react to negative incentives in the game (the rest of the party got it very quickly). Instead I should have had some quite words with the player and nipped it in the bud.

Some players make up characters that were once slaves or prisoners and they have a "I will never let that happen again" attitude.

I haven't run Skull and Shackles but if the opening has the players playing through a capture scenario with a level 17 captain NPC then that is a horribly designed encounter. It is effectively "you have no options, you will do what I want, and if you don't I will ruin the PC" and that is just bad encounter design that creates GM Fiat and removes player/GM trust. I would have read that and just done a narrative instead of playing it out, and let the players know that it was needed by the adventure path to drive the game forward. Sometimes to keep the game rolling in an adventure path you have to stay on the rails is how I would have talked to them and let them know that you plan to allow as much latitude and lee-way in their story as possible.

Yeah, that's a good point about just doing it all as an intro. The AP is actually well written, and the inclusion of the lvl17 guy is to foreshadow him being the main villain through out the whole adventure. The characters basically wake up shanghai'd on a ship, under the lingering effects of knockout drugs, and without their weapons. They've been kidnapped by this badass pirate, and for the first act of the game basically have to do a variety of diplomatic and skill-based challenges getting used to life on the pirate ship. They get their gear back at this point, and more of the combat stuff starts.

The character in question wasn't a 'ex-slave, i'll never be enslaved again" although we did have someone with that back story in our party. Instead he was a fisherman who found the locket of some CE fish/water god, and traded that locket to him in exchange for magical clerical abilities. The guy treated his lvl 1 cleric as if he was already a walking avatar of divinity. And although our campaign rules said no evil character, this guy was basically playing his CN character as a full CE character. Without harping on about it, I basically should have addressed the guy earlier than I did, because I had other players saying that they couldn't enjoy the game because most of their actions were spent trying to deal with this guy's fallout.

The Exchange

Muad'Dib wrote:
Fake Healer wrote:

Roll combat rolls in the open. If you want to nerf rolls give hero points out, allow a set number of rerolls per session for GM and players, use some sort of system where players and the GM can have a set number of fudges.... Rolling combat rolls in the open is something that breeds trust and helps keep the feeling of fairness going among the group. Rolling perceptions, bluff/sense motive, etc that should be secretive can remain so, but there is really no point to concealing combat rolls unless there is a plan to "theatrically" add in a monster crit or miss whenever the GM wants to. If you want to tell the story, tell it...but the PCs should be driving it, not nerfed rolls for drama.

I too like to roll in the open and I wish more DM's would give it a try. You recommend hero points, below is how I handle hero points and how players can earn them.

I give players the game mastery tokens as rewards for good role playing, good ideas, heroic moves and after big battles I let the players choose one MVP and they get a coin. The coin can be used to roll two dice and choose the more desired roll (for there rolls only, not the GM's dice). Players can have no more than 3 at a time.

The coin is nice to have when the poop hits the fan.

I have told players that if they each chip in a coin I will re-roll one of my rolls. It has never been invoked but it could potentially save a PC from a death blow that happens quite often in PF.

Just another fun way to encourage good role playing, creative thinking, and heroic moves.

-MD

Consider that stolen. I like the "players vote for an MVP to award a coin to" part. Lets them know what everyone thought of them on occasions.


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Do Not Take Too Much Advice

Kinda ironic, really... but always remember your group isn't generic roleplaying group #143254, it has its own dynamics, its own style, and its own wants and desires. Even at a PFS table that's true, except you have to adapt on the fly and there are limits on what you can and can't change.

Don't go reading something on the Internet (or in the rulebook, for that matter) and thinking "this guy says doing it this way is wrong, and it should be done that way." The right way is whatever makes the game work best for your group, period.

Asking for and reading advice is great. The more ideas you read, the bigger your GM toolkit becomes. Just be selective on which pieces of advice you actually follow, and let your game be the deciding factor in which work for you, and not someone that has no idea what will work best for you. Except me, obviously ;)

Sovereign Court

I don't think everyone is cut out for DMing.

At least, not everyone can pick it up and run with it.

Really, you have to be diligent and imaginative at the same time. The fun only ends if you ignore it. Consistency of discovery, and maintaining it, are difficult sometimes.


A quick one I didn't see:

- Never have the dice roll for anything where you are not prepared to accept the consequence of success OR failure.

So many DMs have players roll expecting they will pass/fail and have huge issues adapting when things don't go their way. It is one of the main sources of railroading and drives players nutty when they feel their dice rolls become irrelevant.


Blakmane wrote:
- Never have the dice roll for anything where you are not prepared to accept the consequence of success OR failure.

I remember an old Call of Cthulhu adventure where the plot hinged on the PCs making a perception check (or whatever it was called in that gaming system) at the beginning to notice that there was something unusual about an NPC. If they didn't make the roll, the adventure basically ended right there.


tsuruki wrote:
Kill your players.

The police could have problems with that. I recommend to keep to the PCs when it comes to killing.

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