Granta's GM School (Inactive)

Game Master Granta

Thanks, GM Granta, for the link to your chronicle sheets tutorial. Very helpful.

I agree wholeheartedly!

@GM Hmm, perhaps that tutorial could be added to the pbp GM kit?

I'd like to hear from them. What went well, what went wrong, some suggestions for new GMs from their perspective and recent experience GMing a PbP game for the first time.

I had GMed a bunch before face-to-face, so for my first PbP GMing I went big and ran a 7-11. In addition, the scenario I chose (6-23 Darkest Abduction) is a mystery on a strong railroad. These are the challenges I was was prepared for.

My advice for new GMs is to stick to the script as much as possible, and when you add your own words, keep them direct. Text is a difficult medium in which to convey subtlety. I accidentally primed my players to a heightened degree of paranoid suspicion with some embellishments to the VC briefing. I had to step in with some out-of-character text to prevent a derail before the first encounter.

One aspect I am still learning is keeping your players informed about the meta-game. When you ask players to act, are you in combat rounds? pseudo-rounds? Should they describe actions/intent and let you resolve the action? (I don't have a good name for this last one). Making your expectations clear makes gameplay more enjoyable.

In the same vein, if you don't put your skill checks behind spoilers or called out in OoC text, try to telegraph appropriate skills or actions in text. I prefer to put information behind spoilers, as it allows characters to actively explain information to their party. However, in the mystery scenario, putting a spoiler tag might have inappropriately spoiled the fact that there was information to learn. I did end up putting a couple "bogus" Sense Motive spoilers in a conversation with an antagonist. If he lied, it would have been too much of a tell to post a spoiler for just that statement.

@Ladile: Here is a tutorial I made for filling out chronicle sheets.

@GM Hmm, perhaps that tutorial could be added to the pbp GM kit?

I would love to have it in there! Granta would you be willing to revise it slightly? My issue: once you "sign" a chronicle in Adobe Reader, you cannot edit it again once you save it. I would rather the signature be one of the last steps.

(Also... I would love it the example showed a fully completed chronicle sheet, as shown in the Guide. This is less critical, but our Venture Captain Jesse Davis likes to encourage all online chronicle sheets to be filled out completely -- not just the gray areas. I would love it if there was an example that showed how to do that as well.)

@Alicorn: Have you tried Slides or just Drawings? Google Slides is supposed to work on mobile devices, and quite honestly, I can't imagine doing a combat without it.

Google slides works great in mobile. There is no UNICODE setting for the forums. Wounded Wisp is a good scenario, but it consider it somewhat map-dependent for the final battle. You might be able to run the rest of it as theater of the mind, though.

Hmm

@Granta - Thank you for the tutorial! I'll second adding it to the New GM kit :)

Reading KoA's post (as well as having gotten some sleep) reminds me of some more stuff I can add about my GMing experience. First off, I'd never GMed anything before - RL or PbP - so that's why I picked something simple to run. My preference is to not run something until I've experienced it as a player first, so that's another reason that I went with The Confirmation - I think I've played it 4 times via PbP and once IRL at this point.

I liked KoA's point about being careful of what you say if you choose to embellish certain parts like the mission briefings - luckily there wasn't really any reason for this sort of thing to happen in my case but I've played in games where the party zeroed in on an embellishment and was at risk of completely going off the rails of the adventure. It's something I'll keep in mind for myself going forward since there's a part of me that dislikes just cutting-and-pasting text verbatim for some reason.

Another thing that running a game has made think about is how I wish to handle certain mechanical aspects of running a game. Going back to 'subtlety doesn't always translate via text' I'm in the camp of preferring to present knowledge/skill checks via spoiler. The debate on how to handle initiative is another - I generally preferred running blocks because it speeds things up but the point about someone potentially getting gimped if you have 5 enemies all acting at once definitely merits consideration.

There's other stuff, too - most guides I've seen advocate leaving 'buff' management as the responsibility of the PCs. However I found that it was more helpful for me to keep a tracker of active effects happening during combat so I myself didn't forget to account for something (such as someone having Mage Armor or Barkskin active) when taking actions for my bad guys. Of course this only applies to the PCs - if the bad guys have buffs of their own running, the PCs aren't going to be made aware of that without first making the necessary checks :)

I'm a big fan of asking players at the start of a scenario if there's anything special they do that warrants some extra consideration/research on my part - in this case I had a mounted combat guy as well as a combat maneuver guy, so I had a better idea of what to expect from them during combat encounters.

Hope those additional random thoughts are helpful :)

I would love to have it in there! Granta would you be willing to revise it slightly? My issue: once you "sign" a chronicle in Adobe Reader, you cannot edit it again once you save it. I would rather the signature be one of the last steps.

GMs shouldn't be saving the chronicle at all. That permanently changes and locks the entire scenario PDF, and is why I say to "print to PDF" instead of saving. Actually, I should probably add a note explicitly saying to exit Reader without saving.

(Also... I would love it the example showed a fully completed chronicle sheet, as shown in the Guide. This is less critical, but our Venture Captain Jesse Davis likes to encourage all online chronicle sheets to be filled out completely -- not just the gray areas. I would love it if there was an example that showed how to do that as well.)

I'll add an example, but it's not going to be the official format that Jesse wants. You know my feelings on that issue :-Þ

And now it's time to learn together. I don't like my old expectations dialogue and want to create a new one. And of course, that should be part of the GM School for you guys, too.

So to get this discussion going, I have two questions:

• Are there any GMs whose expectations/introduction you really like? links please
  
• As a player, what information do you want the GM to provide?

For example, I like how GM.Kashka discusses the ordering of dice rolls, and am going to include something like that in my new introduction.

Speaking of character sheets, I seriously dislike most standard electronic sheet formats. They are cramped, oddly "shaped" (where everything is placed), and feel more like they were designed for books where space is limited.

As a programmer, I can testify that white space and color variety is very important to readability, and on an electronic screen, space is plentiful (unless you need multiple things at once or positioned for direct comparison).

So I created the character sheet in this profile (a large part is someone else's work [primarily the links and structural inspiration], whom I no longer remember the name or place, but I heavily modified it) and this sheet adds quite a bit of readability. Naturally, shifting to a new format always requires a period of familiarization, but I suspect this sheet would be far faster and easier to figure out than any other I've seen to date.

So to get this discussion going, I have two questions:

Are there any GMs whose expectations/introduction you really like? links please

This is an audio example of something I've recently tried to incorporate into my games. One podcast I listen to is running through an Adventure Path, and as a Patreon goal they are creating PFS characters to play in PFS modules. Many of them are actors, so they have studied plays and movies. They like to make movie introductions.

Fast forward to the 50 minute mark to hear the way they introduce 7-10 The Consortium Compact:

Link (no sign up required)

A strong introduction can really set the mood for the PCs and give you some insight into the NPCs to get the party hooked and treat them more as people who need help, rather than statblocks who are blocking the way to XP and loot.

Speaking of character sheets, I seriously dislike most standard electronic sheet formats. They are cramped, oddly "shaped" (where everything is placed), and feel more like they were designed for books where space is limited.

As a programmer, I can testify that white space and color variety is very important to readability, and on an electronic screen, space is plentiful (unless you need multiple things at once or positioned for direct comparison).

So I created the character sheet in this profile (a large part is someone else's work [primarily the links and structural inspiration], whom I no longer remember the name or place, but I heavily modified it) and this sheet adds quite a bit of readability. Naturally, shifting to a new format always requires a period of familiarization, but I suspect this sheet would be far faster and easier to figure out than any other I've seen to date.

This is similar to the character sheet format I use. Hero Lab's sheets tend to produce one large blob of densely packed text, which is very herd to read and sift through. Before I had Hero Lab I made my own format using a lot of spoiler tags to hide multiple sections. It looks like we arrived to pretty similar formats.

Here's a character sheet for a new Magus I made. I also added character creation and links to chronicle sheets (and PbP threads, when appropriate) so I don't forget which sessions my character played and the purchases she made. My first PC had way less XP than I thought she did and I had to apply some GM credit to keep up with my teammates.

I've completed only two PbP scenarios, one with GMG/Magabeus and one with GM Red.

GMG's introduction was short and sweet. He made it the first post in the discussion thread. I like it.

GM Red's introduction was less formal in the recruitment, discussion, and gameplay threads. What attracted me to play for him were the two things he entered in his profile. "Why a Fast PbP Works" and "My Goals as a PbP GM." Exactly what I was looking for as a player and as a future PbP GM myself.

Both games were excellent, and we jumped right into the action without a hitch. Absolutely loved the experience with both GMs and the other players.

I took a look at GM.Kashka's intro. It's a little more prescriptive than I'd like, especially the points about "I'll roll these, and ignore any such rolls you make," etc. First impression gives more of a "No" vibe than a "Yes, and" vibe. Keeping an open mind, I'd want to look at a couple of sessions he or she has run, before joining that session.

In addition to Wounded Wisp, I'm currently playing one module, Thornkeep Level 2. GM key's intro is longer and more extensive than GMG's, but also worked well. Another thing I liked was GM kuey's offer to let the party adopt SOPs for opening doors, detecting traps, etc. Very helpful in a dungeon crawl.

GMs shouldn't be saving the chronicle at all. That permanently changes and locks the entire scenario PDF, and is why I say to "print to PDF" instead of saving. Actually, I should probably add a note explicitly saying to exit Reader without saving.

Ah, I can see what you are doing, and why. I can also see now why you can do Chronicle Sheets three times faster than I can.

I should let you all know that right now I am wearing my official VL Tiara right now. (It's sparkly.)

Jesse Davis on Online Chronicle Sheets

To sum up, Jesse requests that filled out chronicle sheets be:

1) Complete -- All boxes filled out, and reflecting a character's purchases and prestige expenditures.

2) Not editable -- In Adobe Reader, this means signed and saved.

Of these two, by far the more important of these is the 'not editable' part. There is a great deal of trust in the PbP community, but removing temptations to tweak or alter a chronicle sheet is considered good practice.

___

In order to avoid making your entire scenario uneditable, what I do first is "print" the chronicle sheet portion to PDF. This creates a second file that I can complete. I fill in the bottom line with the stuff that will be the same for each chronicle: event name, event number, GM number.

Then I save a new version of this file for each character. I fill in the data collected from the players at the beginning, including purchases and prestige purchases, starting XP, starting PP, etc.

And then I sign and save each one as I finish them.

I'll add an example, but it's not going to be the official format that Jesse wants. You know my feelings on that issue :-Þ

[doffs Venture Lieutenant Tiara]

I know your feelings on the matter. :)

[dons Venture Lieutenant Tiara]

I am aware that filling out chronicle sheets in this manner is not the most common practice. But in a GM School, I feel it important to state clearly what the official recommended practice for them is, so that everyone has at least heard it once!

Hmm

And now it's time to learn together. I don't like my old expectations dialogue and want to create a new one. And of course, that should be part of the GM School for you guys, too.

So to get this discussion going, I have two questions:

• Are there any GMs whose expectations/introduction you really like? links please
  
• As a player, what information do you want the GM to provide?

For example, I like how GM.Kashka discusses the ordering of dice rolls, and am going to include something like that in my new introduction.

This has been something that I've struggled with for a while. My GM profile was blank for 2 years!

I like what I have here now. I'm not going to tell people how I make rulings, because for me that is not a critical thing for players to know. I want them to get a feel for me and the unique things that I offer.

Also, I want my profile to be a resource for those looking to find and get into games, as I'm not just a GM anymore, but also a representative of the PbP community.

If there is stuff that you think I should add or modify, let me know.

Hmm

Love your profile page, Hmm.

I took a look at GM.Kashka's intro. It's a little more prescriptive than I'd like, especially the points about "I'll roll these, and ignore any such rolls you make," etc. First impression gives more of a "No" vibe than a "Yes, and" vibe. Keeping an open mind, I'd want to look at a couple of sessions he or she has run, before joining that session.

Strangely, that vibe is completely wrong. I got the same feeling you did, but Kashka was actually one of the most permissive GMs I've played with.

Of these two, by far the more important of these is the 'not editable' part. There is a great deal of trust in the PbP community, but removing temptations to tweak or alter a chronicle sheet is considered good practice.

Interesting. I had just assumed that Reader considered the "printed" PDF saved and uneditable, but it doesn't. Not only was I able to edit one of the PDFs, but saving it at that point didn't lock it down.

In light of this technical difficulty, I will definitely be reworking my procedure!

GM Hmm wrote:

Of these two, by far the more important of these is the 'not editable' part. There is a great deal of trust in the PbP community, but removing temptations to tweak or alter a chronicle sheet is considered good practice.

Interesting. I had just assumed that Reader considered the "printed" PDF saved and uneditable, but it doesn't. Not only was I able to edit one of the PDFs, but saving it at that point didn't lock it down.

In light of this technical difficulty, I will definitely be reworking my procedure!

Forgive me for chiming in here (I've been lurking), but when I follow your method, the PDF it produces can be edited, but not in the way you might fear. New things can be typed in, but I was not able to remove anything already present. This at least limits the mischief someone can do by editing.

Forgive me for chiming in here (I've been lurking), but when I follow your method, the PDF it produces can be edited, but not in the way you might fear. New things can be typed in, but I was not able to remove anything already present. This at least limits the mischief someone can do by editing.

That might actually be enough protection then. All of the ways I can think of to cheat would involve deleting or changing what's already present.

The only real 'cheat' I can think of would be to change a single digit character number to a double digit one to hide a character death.

I don't think that'd be enough - character deaths are reported online (I think), so I can only assume that'd cause a dispute.

Character deaths are reported online. You could mess with your chronicles, but a casual audit (which doesn't happen all that often, but still happens) would catch it. I do know of a couple GMs that do pre-game character audits for PBPs and I just had a mini-audit now that Zahra hit level 11, in her prelude to going into Eyes of the Ten.

I've also had to do audits when it's become really clear that a character is messed up -- usually in order to help them become legal to play again. This evening I watched someone be told that they had to buy the resources that they were using, or play a pregen. It was discovered in the course of the audit that they did not own the resources they were using.

They spent the first five minutes of the game buying PDFs. Don't be this person!

Hmm

How would such an audit know if a player has hard copies? I'm quite sure there is no electronic link showing my 1st edition core rulebook bought at Rincon around release time. (of course, my birthday present was a humble bundle with the pdf, but I was lucky to get that.)

Heh. That's why most of us don't do audits in Play-by-Post, and go on trust. That said, the traditional method of proving ownership of hard copies is to take a photo of yourself surrounded by your library.

:)

Hmm

I may need to take such a photo even for F2F play. After 3-4 years of purchases, my collection is getting prohibitively heavy.

If you do that... Take the photo with the organizer of the place you normally game. That will make it even more official.

Hmm

But a picture would tell everyone what gender I am and how young I am!

(This is a joke. Do not take seriously.)

Wear a beard (even if it's fake) and a tutu (even if it's not). Keep the ba$tardz guessing, I say!

(That's a joke, too.)

Pffffft. I suppose if you're worried about physical appearance/identity, you could try taking a picture of all of your physical copies with the day's newspaper and your name on 'em? Or some way of showing the date at the start of each game? It's not quite as official as showing your face might be, but it helps keep your identity safe?

Having family in intelligence and having studied it, I don't think you can ever take too many precautions!

But, of course, sending an image of your appearance with the GMs probably isn't going to go anywhere terrible and bad unless one of our kindly GMs is secretly connected with the player-eater. c:

I am sure GMs will work with you on this!

I totally need a picture of me with red mask and opera cape.
Hmm

I want to apologize for my recent (and possibly continued) absence. I'm feeling very burned out right now, but will hopefully be recharged by next week.

GM Hmm wrote:

Why yes, I did!

Cynan, what is your name and PFS number. If it is for Mivvy, I could write something up for her.

Hmm

Oh, that's awesome!

Mivvy is indeed #3812-2

** spoiler omitted **

Cynan, this is long overdue.

Welcome to Pathfinder!

Hmm

Take your time, GM Granta - burnout is a scary and bad experience. Don't forget to delegate or ask for help if you need it! c:

Cynan G Elberion wrote:

GM Hmm wrote:

Why yes, I did!

Cynan, what is your name and PFS number. If it is for Mivvy, I could write something up for her.

Hmm

Oh, that's awesome!

Mivvy is indeed #3812-2

** spoiler omitted **

Cynan, this is long overdue.

Welcome to Pathfinder!

Hmm

Ha, awesome!

I still remember buying Burnt Offerings at my FLGS and subscribing the next day.
I made Mylvwara the moment I realised what PFS was but never even considered having more than one

Alright, let's get back to learning instead of just playing! So, maps . . .

Does everybody know how to export a map into Google Slides from the scenario PDFs?

I'm interested in hearing people's solutions. I'm a software engineer, so I use the command-line tool pdfimages to extract all of the images from a pdf, then delete the ones I don't want (there's a lot of ones I don't want. The background of each page has about 6 images!) Anyway this is free, no waiting, it's the highest quality rip from the PDF and doesn't require an internet connection and it doesn't nag you for payment.

If you're comfortable with command line tools, here's an article to get you started.

You could also screen capture the pictures from the PDF. On Windows you can use the Print Screen button to copy the screen to the clipboard and then paste it into MS Paint. On the Mac you can press  Command + Shift + 4, then spacebar, then click in the PDF to save a screenshot to your desktop. Unfortunately it has all of the markers for traps and enemy spawns so it can spoil encounters.

I've heard there are online PDF extractors where you can upload a PDF and it will send you a zip file of the images it extracts. Never used them since pdfimages works so well.

For everything other than seasons 5 & 6 (I think), I just copy and paste the images.

There's a description about how to do this in the GM Kit in my header!

Hmm

I'm a traditionalist: I burn a copy to ashes, mix into a paste and feed it to my familiar.

Genuinely, the guide in the GM kit seems solid.

Any unusual corner cases?
Do we ever have to build our own maps?

Do we ever have to build our own maps?

There's been one time: #6-18: From Under Ice. If I remember correctly, they give the boat but the enemies are on the riverbank.

Assuming everyone is able to learn from GM Hmm's tutorial, or already knows how--here are some particulars to discuss:

• Enlarging the map (often includes rotating)
  
• Highlighting tokens with (different) colored borders
  
• Drawing arrows, both straight and curved
  
• Listing buffs
  
• Marking terrain and other effects
  
• Changing the order of images so that tokens can always be moved

Here is an example with a whole bunch of that stuff on it.

I want to suggest drawing a side view of any 3D encounters you get your hands on. It doesn't have to be fancy, just grab some graph paper.

Here's an example where the PCs start 15 feet above ground level and encounter flying enemies near a boiling pot that is suspended by chains. The two times I ran this, the PCs tried to run to the ground level to break the chains, even though they hang from the ceiling. Only when I provided a side view of the room did the third group change tactics.

I use the copy/paste method! The maps are usually in pieces, so I just kind of assemble them in Photoshop and enlarge as necessary. c: Photoshop is awesome for trying to maintain quality!

I will point out that I mostly follow GM Granta's rules, but I don't stick with the arrows. I'm not using the buffs list yet, but I'll probably be starting, since it's a nice reminder when you're looking at the map, and terrain markers seem like a good idea - I really like chadius's idea about showing the side view. (Also, I've been traumatized by that particular scenario - that was frightening!)

It's a particularly creepy scenario. That fight is also not fun if you do it the wrong way!

I use GIMP to chop up very large maps. In this scenario, I have one slide with the overall map (with unexplored rooms hidden by rectangles), and then I cut out single rooms, like the encounter in my previous example. That way the players don't have to zoom in on the map. Here's an example from the same scenario.

I really like the idea of cutting the maps up/out - it really does help make it all more visible. c: I might start doing that, too! ^o^

I've chopped up maps to enlarge one room at a time before, but I really like the "you are here" slide. Will definitely use that next time!

Last chance for questions about map slides. Tomorrow I'll move onto combat tracking.

Yes, it's tomorrow. I did not get busy and forget; you're all just confused <jedi wave>.

Below is an example of the combat tracker that I use, and here is a link to the formatted text, in case you want to use something similar.

Out of character responses to previous posts

GM Rolls:

Maps

Round 1
Effects none
Terrain none

• Character 1 acting - status
  
• NPC waiting - status
  
• Character 2 waiting - status

Narration of the round.

Out of character calls to action for coming posts

Once the NPC acts, initiative will look like this:

Round 1-2

Effects none
Terrain none

• Character 2 acting - status
  
• -----Round 2-----
  
• Character 1 acting - status
  
• NPC waiting - status

But why do I do things that way? . . . .

The first thing most people want to hear is an answer to what they asked; otherwise, they may still be thinking about that and not paying full attention to what's being said.

There's no particular reason for the spoilers to go next, and I don't know that it really matters where they're put.

Next is the map link, which should be included with every combat post. Players using Wayfinder on mobile devices aren't able to access links at the top of the campaign.

And now we get to the combat status: round, effects and terrain. I include effects and terrain even when there's nothing, so that people know for sure there isn't anything. It doesn't take me any additional work to copy and paste two more lines of text, and it saves players the trouble of wondering whether there's difficult terrain anywhere or if anybody has buffed the party yet.

Then, the initiative status. A bolded name means your initiative is up and you may post actions. Gray, ooc text is used for hp, individual buffs (group buffs go in "effects"), conditions (poison, confusion, etc.).

Narration can be very flexible. Some GMs really put in a lot of effort here (looking at you, Crunch), others get it done quick and dirty. Whatever works for you is good enough. My only recommendation is to make sure you mention failed actions as well, so that players know they failed rather than that you missed their action.

And lastly, the call to action. It's the players' turn to post, and I want to make sure they know what needs to be posted. For example, if they need to roll saves, I will request that here.

To add to Granta's excellent post: if you reply to your own post you get your previous initiative tracker back and can make the changes you need. That saves you typing it all in again and thus saves you time.

If you reply to your own post you get your previous initiative tracker back and can make the changes you need. That saves you typing it all in again and thus saves you time.

DUDE!

I had been saving a copy in the Campaign Info tab, but your way is even easier! <face palm>

Next is the map link, which should be included with every combat post. Players using Wayfinder on mobile devices aren't able to access links at the top of the campaign.

This is also a better idea than leaving the map link in your campaign info. When I'm in your campaign and I try to preview my response, the campaign info is not displayed, so I can't review the map. I need to reopen the thread in another window to see that. Often I'll start typing my round's action, only to change my mind halfway.

My GM Alias usually has a link to the maps as a result. That way, every post I make has a link to the map automatically. Are avatar statuses hidden on mobile or Wayfinder?

You can always use your GM profile to keep all of your text templates that you want to copy-paste, like the initiative tracker. I usually keep them on Google Docs and text editors like emacs, but use whatever is convenient for you.