Redelia's GM school (Inactive)

Game Master Redelia

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I have a GM logistics question.

In a con such as Outpost or Gameday, do the con event coordinators report the scenario, or do the individual GMs report the scenario?

What about chronicles - does the GM distribute chronicles or does the con event coordinators?

For an online convention, the GM issues chronicles. They also fill out a form that they submit to the event coordinators, and the event coordinators do the actual reporting.

Unless your Shifty and you delegate reporting out to the Table GMs. ^_^

Hi guys - I'm setting up my campaign for outpost but have a question - I want to use the maps in the commencement on google slides but can't work out how to get them from the PDF into Google Slides. Do I have to screenshot each one and then insert as a PNG or JPEG?

Darren are you using a Computer or a Mobile device. If you are using a computer you can right click Ctrl click, w/Mac and click copy on the image. You can then past it into the Google Slides.

As I am also at your table I can offer you my assistance or better yet you can use my Slide Deck which has all the maps you will need for The Commencement.

Thank you! It's great to have yours available, but I will try to pull my own together. We start Monday 5th right?

Darren, you can also often copy an image out of someone else's slide deck and copy it to your own more easily than you can pull it out of the pfd, if that's helpful.

Thanks - I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing :-)

Yep, it's easy to be nervous about something new. I'm sorry that we didn't get far enough into the teaching game for you to have already GM'ed a bit. Please don't forget that we're here if you have any questions once your game gets started.

Plus I am a player at your table should need to rely on me for anything.

Very nice job, Elinnea. I really liked how much Ceren felt like a person with actual motivations and personality.

My one suggestion for improvement would be to perhaps be a little quicker to give more direction for how to fake Ceren's death. Open ended parts can be hard to run in PbP.

(Your turn, everyone else. Let's each give Elinnea one thing she did well, and one bit of constructive criticism).

Darren, are you ready to start?

I also liked how you playee Ceren and Jubair. It made me feel some sympathy for them! I also liked how you narrated the combat.

Similar to Redelia's comment, I'd also suggest giving some instructions on how to approach the open ended portion. This could take the form of some direct ooc comments. Or to make it more 'in character' you could roll culture or intelligence (or something else) for everyone, then give the one or two players with the highest results those options and let the group RP it out.

I thought it was really helpful of you to look up, reference the rulebook, and explain how to use a drone to me when I had no idea. I was purposely lazy and you helped me out, something that new players especially will appreciate.

I actually thought you handled the open-ended part well. You did what you could with the limited information that that part of the scenario provides and I didn't feel that the game really stalled. Sandboxiness and open-endedness has its challenges in a written format - something I've especially seen running APs. What I find works well is providing your players with specific options to choose from to narrow the overwhelming feeling of "what can I actually do here?"

Elinnea, aside from the new identity bit, the flow of your posts and the way you continued to keep everyone engaged through out the section was great.

The only issue that came up was the possible leading of the direction for creating an identity for Ceren and what else we could have done to help with this. In an effort to offer input on how to improve your GMing capabilites when I ran this scenario the last few times I offered up a few examples to the players on what they could do and gaver a few examples of what skills they could use.

Very well done and replacing the ending coorier with Cora was a good way to pull her back in without breaking the immersion factor.

Thanks for the feedback!

I have gone through this as a player once, and I vividly remember feeling totally lost at that open-ended part. Looking back now, I agree that a little more direct guidance, and earlier, would have helped.

Also, sorry that I'm dumping out the next person to start right as Outpost is kicking off as well. : /

Elinnea —

Don’t worry about that. That sort of thing happens all the time!

Your writing style is lovely and lively too.

The whole thing about providing hints and guidance is a delicate thing, but it is such an important part of pacing. There are times when you want to just be completely open about game mechanics and options. Sometimes I will do an entire post as out of character in order to explain what is happening in the background.

Here’s an example of a post where I explain an intrigue mechanic.

Sometimes, the best way to preserve immersion and roleplay is to have a brief post where you explain the game mechanic or options going on in the background, and then let the players act from there. Once they have an idea what’s going on, they can relax and just go with the flow!

(I’ll note that I not only wound up describing it there, but I even offered a reprise when we flipped pages, and a running success tally so that the party could see where they were being successful.)

I just want to say that both Big Boom and Elinnea have been terrific so far. Such entertaining prose and vivid characterizations! I would be proud to be a player at either of your tables.

Hmm

Yep, I’m ready to start. Wish me luck!

Elinnea - I thought the interaction between Ceren and Jubair was excellent and you really managed to create a sense of a strong bond between them and differentiate their characters well. I think I struggled a little bit on the free-form do what you think is reasonable bit but as I said, that was my lack of experience I think and I've certainly learned from it.

We're up and running :-)

Hey guys, as I'm sure you've noticed, Voice of Mag seems to have disappeared. We have two options: we can end the game after Darren's faction, and everyone will get partial rewards, or I can do the last faction. Let me know what you think.

I'm fine either way. However, with everything you have going on, Redelia, I'd totally understand if you'd rather not commit to run yet another game.

So if everyone wants to continue, I can run the last Wayfarer mission - unless someone else wants to give it a shot, in which case that's fine by me as well!

Oops, I mean 'Wayfinder' not 'Wayfarer'

I've been having fun with this group, and it would be nice to finish the scenario together, if we can. However, I freely admit that yeah, there's a lot going on around here. I wouldn't be able to GM another mission right now, personally. But if Redelia or bigboom are up for it, I'd be on board!

I'd be happy to GM the last faction mission, if everyone is wanting to continue and not impatient to get done. I've heard from several people wanting to continue, and no one who doesn't, so I'll work on prepping to run the remaining bit. It may be a few days while I make sure everything is ready.

Nice job, Darren!

Ok, let's stick with the usual format: one thing you liked, and one bit of constructive criticism.

I really appreciated how you kept us informed of times you wouldn't be able to post.

I felt like the more free-form portion of trying to upgrade the racers could perhaps have used a bit more guidance as to what the options were or what skills to use for them.

What about the rest of you? What input do you have for Darren?

(by the way, turnabout is only fair play, so I'm going to ask you to do the same thing about the parts I GM)

Great narrative as a GM. Peppering in extra little bits through out really pulled me in to read ever single post with the utmost attention.

Now this could be a personal preference/ observation, but I felt your posts were a little to bunched together at times and could use some spaces in between to help my eyes not become to overwhelmed.

All in all Darren you have done a great job resolving a complicated/rules crazy encounter.

The race was fun and I enjoyed your commentary. It reminded me of some of my own work from a few months back. :)

The upgrade part was a departure from what I was familiar with and I think that confused me. There's the potential for other players to roll piloting for any racers they may have allied with, but no allies were gained in the GM school game, so it meant some players were left out to dry some rounds and had to alternate rolls between rounds. This isn't your fault. Sometimes it helps to gently guide a PC to try other options beyond upgrading the racer.

I noticed that sometimes Chip would roll when asked to, but you'd use another PC's name instead when resolving, or Chip's roll would get ignored entirely and I wasn't sure if I'd missed something.

As a whole, however, I thought it was handled well and I enjoyed the sequence.

I agree with Morroda about the narrative. I really, really enjoyed the story and personality you put into your character and descriptions. You included some very clever, imaginative bits of narration into the mission that I had not yet seen before which made it fresh, interesting and surprising for me.

In my opinion, what may have been better is allowing the players to decide for themselves what role to take in the race. This gives players the opportunity to determine their characters' actions and more fully own their characters.

Overall, it was loads of fun!

Redelia, my offer still stands to run the Wayfinders mission if you're a bit overloaded. Just give the word!

I also liked your narrative posts, especially during the race. It includes a lot of NPCs shooting at each other, which I would think might get tedious as the GM, but I enjoyed reading your descriptions of every round.

And actually in contrast to bigboom, I liked doing the rotation of roles for our team during the race. In my experience, when the players get to choose we always default to 'whoever has the highest piloting bonus just rolls that every round' which I find less fun than getting everyone involved and playing it out, even if you're doing something you're not great at. (I mean, this might be the only chance Cora ever has to actually pilot something, and I had fun doing it. It helped that the stakes were low in this particular situation.)

For criticism, I think it would help to give more specific guidance about the skill checks before the race. You hinted very subtly that we could go check out the competition, but most of us didn't take the initiative to branch out from the specific die rolls that we tried in the first round. There are interesting options in the scenario for talking to the other racers, making alliances and such, so I think it would be nice to present some clearer signals that such activities are available.

On a side note, since I struggled with the same thing in my segment, I was thinking about it some more. I believe that as a GM I didn't want to give away too much (by listing skill checks up front that either stifle creativity or lead to metagaming) or make it seem too 'gamey' by breaking the narrative with a bunch of game terms. But as a player I feel equally broken out of the story if I'm confused and lost as to what I'm supposed to do next. So before, I didn't want to explain mechanics OOC up front, but now I'd be more inclined to do so.

I will be taking tomorrow off from the forums, and then on Monday we can get started on the next mission. See you guys then, and Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it.

OK, guys, since we're nearing the end, it's time to start talking about how to make out chronicles. The way the rules work I'm going to have to sign off as GM, but I do still want you guys to practice. I am going to have each of the students fill out a chronicle for one of the other students, and then I will initial and sign when we are done.

Today's step towards chronicles is to extract the chronicle sheet from the PDF. I realize there are other ways to do chronicles, but I'm going to ask you guys to follow my directions as closely as possible this time.

Start by opening the PDF of the scenario.
Now, navigate to the page that is the chronicle sheet.
You want to get the chronicle sheet to be its own document. On my computer which is Windows 10, using Adobe Reader, I do this by printing, with the selected printer 'Microsoft Print to PDF' and the print option of current page only. Save it as a name like 'Commencement Chronicle.' You do not need to show me the chronicle you have extracted, but please let me know when you have completed the assignment.

Tomorrow we will talk through filling out the chronicle sheet you've just made its own document.

Done on my end!

Actually, that reminds me. The credit reward on The Commencement chronicle is incorrect. However, I received an email from Paizo about a week ago that said the Commencement PDF has been updated so that the chronicle is now displaying the correct credit reward amount of 753 credits.

But when I re-downloaded the Commencement, the chronicle was not actually updated. Additionally, on my Paizo downloads page, it shows that the Commencement was last updated by Paizo on 'July 2017' rather than 'April 2018.'

Does anyone's copy of the Commencement PDF show the correct 753 credit amount?

Yep, I'm aware of that issue, bigboom, and I have also been unable to locate a copy with the fixed chronicle. We will just have to enter the correct number and put a note on the chronicle.

Elinnea, have you completed the assignment?

Elinnea, how are you doing with the assignment?

hmmm...I don't have a print to pdf option - at least on my laptop. Will have to try on my desktop when I get home tomorrow if that's okay, but for now, assume I can do this!

Darren, can you tell me what operating system and PDF reader program you are using?

Adobe Acrobat Reader and Windows 10 - but I am back home tonight and this should be fine on my main PC

Apologies - I was traveling for a bit, and didn't have my normal computer. I should be able to get it done tonight. You can go ahead and give the next instructions if everyone else is ready.

Once you have the blank chronicle extracted, the next step is to fill it out. Elinnea, please fill out the chronicle for Darren, Darren fill out the chronicle for Bigboom, and Bigboom please fill out Elinnea's chronicle. They should have provided the information for the top of the page earlier in this discussion thread. The gold earned should be 753. Do not put anything in the initials or signature fields; I will need to do that this time. For the bottom section, please use event #152951, event name Redelia's Online Games. The GM PFS number to use is 184425. For date, please use tomorrow. When you are done, please put them in the folder for the class so I can look over and sign them.

If any part of what I have described is unclear, please ask and I will explain further. I didn't want to overwhelm you guys with instructions how to do things you already know.

OK, guys, that's it for the gameplay portion.

I did warn you that you would be asked to provide the same critique of my GMing that we did for each of you. As GMs, we always have things we can do to learn to do even better.

Gm Redelia I enjoyed your running of the Wayfinders section. It was nice to see your GM Style. The way you have changed a few things on how the interactions with the children was great and Especially for a non-Combat Encounter how you handled the interaction with Floofy was fun and how you ensured to involve everyone.

So the Meat of the Positive Negative Positive Sandwich is my only real nit pic with your running is the First post it was all smusshed together and had I not known how the Scenario goes having been through it 6 other times I honestly would have passed over it and tried to figure it out myself. You do tend to space out your paragraphs in other areas so i figured you were rushed when you made the post.

The nice GM poke/Nudge was a good way to get your players back into the game play thread and to keep to your 1 post a day as the GM situation.

All in all thank you again for running the final chapter and it has also been fun running along side each and everyone one of you.

Looking forward to another game in the future.

I just looked, and you guys have never posted the information for your chronicle. Could you please do that? Here is a skeleton for you to use:

player name:
character name:
PFS # and character #:
faction boon slotted:

Player: Gary Pepper
Character: Morroda Metalbender
Society Organized Play Number: 43992-704
Faction: Exo-Guardians
Day Job Roll: Profession Mercenary: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21

Player Elinnea
Character Cora Jex
SFS# 270121-702
Faction Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)
Day Job Profession (Cook): 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (9) + 13 = 22

I got my chronicle extraction to work. Should we also fill in the reputation/day job/xp/fame boxes?

Also could you explain how to calculate the credits garnered? Specifically, I'm trying to figure out if you would subtract the credits for buying the album from the total earned. We'd also have to subtract for not completing some of the tasks (right?), but I think we got them all completed so that's simplified at least.

Good question, Elinnea.

You guys did indeed complete everything, so there is no need to subtract for missed stuff.

You should subtract off the money spent for acquiring the album.

You should fill in the boxes that are marked GM only for the day job and things like that.