Wendel

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I strongly recommend you look at the Matt Colville Youtube "Running the Game" videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 Start at the beginning, then jump around.

His advice is system agnostic. He talks about how to keep things running, how to make it interesting and fun.

I've been playing and DM'ing for over 40 years now and started watching his videos last year and I learned SO much it was amazing. (Would you believe I started before I was born?)

The other pro-tips:
"AND" is more important that "no". The players are wanting to try something that your gut tells you is kind of cheating. Don't say "no" ask them what they want to happen. Assign it a moderate difficulty AND let them try it. I find that what they do doesn't usually have that big an impact. The monsters are there for them to beat anyway.

Their shenanigans "ruined" the encounter you spent all week planning and scheming and building and they completely bypassed everything? Easy: "Congratulations, you have defeated the <insert theBigBad> and you find a <plothook> to <location> where the party will fight <theBigBad's Brother/rival/clone> that and now you use what you built.

Also, put a lot more of the improv work on the players. Often players will ask something like, "Why do we want to go defeat this wizard/help this village/rescue this prince/princess/critter?" Put that right back on them: "That's a great question, why do you?"

"What is the villager's name?" "I don't know, you tell me?"
They explore something you didn't plan, go some route you haven't fleshed out yet. Ask them what they expected to find when then randomly left the path. Take what they tell you AND run with it.

It's crazy how often they completely forgot that they came up with the idea and you just ran with it. They will think you are brilliant.

"We look around for any ruins at the top of the hill." "You don't find ruins, per se, but you do find the entrance to a crypt/cave/portal to the past."