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With my players, I have had one of my veteran players (36 years) say that one of my best games was in the Mwangi Expanse with some interesting things I came up with for it.
First it was the Lady of Snakes, then it was a giant society of Aasimars along with some different towns from Nex, Cheliax, and Absalom. They were all invested in a black bug there that transformed people into age-sucking creatures.
That has been it so far, so, I'd like to know what your favorite DMing sessions have been. And any advice to help others run good games.
THANKS IN ADVANCE!
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I'm a sandbox gm. Always have been always will be. Obviously try to find out what interests the characters and if they can agree on a goal, go with it.... For sandboxes, your first and only job as a gm is to let the players pick a goal for themselves and then find ways to make that goal happen, whether they're easy or hard to accomplish. It's not hard to think on the fly about 'what would be really cool here'... so when you get inspiration. use it as much as you can while still having it make sense.
but for a campaign to have longevity it needs 4 most important ingredients: First
-Take each player's character sheet and find the things they're really good at
-Then find the things they really suck at.
Dot
I'm not a fan of the "full sandbox" experience, as in a game where the players can do whatever they want without the GM planning out what will happen in the campaign.
But the most criticial thing about planning a campaign is understanding that you don't have only the two choices between Adventure Path style railroading (where every scene, their order, and their outcome is pre-determined) and sandbox games (where there is no goal for the players to complete).
As a GM creating your own campaign, you don't have to stay on a single path from the starting point of the adventure to the final defeat of the villain. And it is actually easier to improvise an open-ended adventure than to plan out every single part of a linear module. You only need to know who the villains are, what bases and troops they have, and what plan they have to achive their goal. Then you can let the players chose what base to attack, which door they use to enter, and what enemies they fight and which one they sneak by. After they "completed the dungeon", you just spend a few minutes to think what the main villain will do now that his base is destroyed and one of his lieutenants killed or captured.
If you don't have plannned out what exactly the players will do, there are no problems to let the players try whatever plan they come up with. It's great fun for the players to make plans to outsmart their enemies, and as a result they will care a lot more for the story, which makes it more enjoyable for GMs.
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I prefer to run in episodic format where each adventure is self contained and another adventure in a completely different spot with completely different enemies could come at them for the next adventure. It keeps things fresh and lets people really develop their characters to do more than one thing. The full DnD experience comes from having all kinds of different adventures, and I think a big part of having a good experience is not only one where you see at least one of every type of challenge, but you also have an adventure where every player gets a moment to shine.
I'm currently running a game with 8 players (going to be 11 next week) and that last part is really the most important.
A lot of advice to give involves the DM staying organized and actually doing some prep work to balance encounters, rather than just throwing random crap out of the book at the players then DM fiating their success. Players appreciate it so much more when they actually accomplish something.
For larger groups, have initiative rolls done early, so when combat happens there isn't a moment where the game doesn't happen and everyone is sitting there trying to bide time while you put together the initiative list. It also makes it seamless if the initiative is already done and as soon as the enemy becomes hostile you can just say "Dave's turn, go!"
Try and incorporate most skills into your game, not just perception. The more you make things like that matter, the more diverse palette you will get from your PC's and it really adds color to the experience.
Big one is to keep your rulings consistent. Not necessarily RAW, since every game has its house rules, but make sure that the way you do things doesn't change at your convenience. Extremely lenient DMs get punished by this because they let their players get away with too many things that break the game, so be careful.
Last thing is to remember that it's a game, and that it's okay to talk to the players at the table like you are one of them, because you are. This isn't war, and if you make it that way, it takes away from the experience. This approach I've found also makes it easier to deal with problematic players since everyone else at the table sees that you are not some tyrant, they will respond to it when someone is giving you a hard time.
Be ready to adapt your adventure on the fly, nothing is more frustrating then being railroaded by a DM (Simple changes help a lot to work against the railroad feeling, even if the players never know (transform kobolds into bandits (even if the stats are the same) etc.)
Also know your stuff (monsters, spells, world, background), to make your game flow and don't become "let me check this quickly *book grab*" Session.
I'm a sandbox gm. Always have been always will be. Obviously try to find out what interests the characters and if they can agree on a goal, go with it.... For sandboxes, your first and only job as a gm is to let the players pick a goal for themselves and then find ways to make that goal happen, whether they're easy or hard to accomplish. It's not hard to think on the fly about 'what would be really cool here'... so when you get inspiration. use it as much as you can while still having it make sense.
but for a campaign to have longevity it needs 4 most important ingredients: First
-Take each player's character sheet and find the things they're really good at
-Then find the things they really suck at.Make sure each session includes something for each character that requires the use of that thing that they're really good at so they have a chance to shine and feel badass like they made a good choice.
Then make sure each session includes something for each character that requires the use of something that they suck at, to enforce the idea that nobody can do everything and that's why you're in a TEAM.
Give them plenty of encounters that are hordes of pushovers... nobody doesnt love laying waste to hordes of baddies.
Every once in a while toss in something that nobody in the entire team is equipped to deal with in a staggeringly obvious way to remind the players that no matter how powerful they get, they're small in a big big powerful world.
we need more GM's like you good sir!
Honestly my favourite experiences are based around side quests, puzzles and little games. Some of the best fun I've had was when my party was helping aboard a ship and we had to use various skill rolls to work around the ship.
We could choose between cooking, hoisting the sails, fishing and various other activities. Simple little rolls to apply skills outside of battle somehow makes things extra fun.
In my experience running friendly "games" inside pathfinder has always been a healthy distraction from the epic story lines and a great way to shape character development.
I don't understand??? Why would you want to run from a good game??????
;)
And any advice to help others run good games.
Just give Players snack of marinated Player that last session complained not having fun.
Then everyone have fun! And snack.
we need more GM's like you good sir!
Thank you sir!
Running a good game IMO is about knowing your audience. What I think is fun is different from what Spaz or VT or the Already Dead thinks. If there were a couple singular things to guarantee a good game, we'd all be doing them. Even Whitefur and Linkin Park there.
In my Sunday game I have 3 players. One is a closet optimizer and rules guy; another is a reformed video gamer who just wants alliterated names and murdering hobos. The third is a gal who feels story is everything and every detail is important.
In short: 3 different styles of gaming.
So I try my best to accommodate. I run a lot of little combats; this helps the numbers guy test his build and gives my other guy the fighting he likes. Every once in a while I throw in a set piece that's super descriptive. I also try to bring them back to town frequently and add non-combat encounters that ONLY advance story.
Ironically, this is not the kind of game I set out to make. I began this campaign intending for it to be a sandbox where the party ranged all over the homebrew world I made going from town to town investigating supernatural myths and ending them. I've compromised some there by allowing them a home base and piling a lot of the stories close to that place.
Talk to your player, find out specifically what they liked about the "Black Bug" adventures; was it the non-combat stuff, the story, the unique monsters, or something else besides? Then try to sprinkle those elements through other adventures.
The most fun I have/make while running a game is (strangely) role-playing NPCs with players whose idea of RP meshes with mine. I choose key NPCs and develop them more before the game starts. These are the ones I really get into and the PCs can interact with the most. I suppose this supports the above sentiment of knowing your players.
As for combats, its the same deal. Some encounters I create have more on the combat map to interact with. I tend to draw it out for them. Some players get it and do more than move and attacks. They see a dynamic environment. Others just see the 2D surface and monster figurines and they... move and attacks. Interacting with the map - immersing ones or role-playing the combat - is something I've always tried to encourage in my games, but with limited success.
Thats another great thing to add. Everyone shows up to the gaming table with a 'purpose'
Something they want to accomplish.... And a lot of times what they want to achieve isn't the same thing as what another player wants to achieve... So it's important to make sure your campaign caters to the motivations of your players....
It follows (or rather precedes) then that you should know what those motivations are.
At my table
C likes to be aggressive and destroy everything that moves. He's under 12 and here to kill things in the face. Even friendly things. As fast as possible.
D likes to be authoratative and heroic, though oddly closed minded and inflexible. somewhere between captain america and judge dredd.
Z likes explosions and access to unlimited gear. He's a hoarder who would prefer to issue maximum death with minimum risk. His character's name is Torgue if that gives you any clue.
J likes chilling out in the background and doing his own thing. He's more the pulling a funky trick out of his hat and problem solving guy than a combat junkie.
N is pretty much like slapping boobs on drizzt. Every time. EVERY time.
B wants you to create a detailed, brilliant colorful world so he can destroy it at whim when you least expect it. He wants to know you have a lengthy and well thought out plot so he can ignore it. He likes to find the plot's key players (the critical cast of the plot) and kill them.
T is for traitor. He likes to play the spazz in the background and attack the party whenever he gets bored. Assassinate your allies time is pretty much the only time you know he's even there.
We don't see much of N, B, and T anymore... Z is starting to develop some B tendencies.
A successful long running campaign will continue to revolve around and support the goals of its players... Just hope the player isn't a T.
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Vincent T. gives some great advise above, but to expand upon it…
Some GMs work better in a sandbox or in a rail-road setting. Fun can be had in both ways. Some GMs will make up stuff on the fly with glorious abandon and take folks on a roller coaster ride that may or may not end up with a one-horned guy chasing them until they get home Others prefer to use the skeletons laid out from Adventure Paths to share a story that their players will be able to compare and contrast to other folks who have also played through similar scenarios. There is no right or wrong answer to this one, but a lot of it is about mind set, skill set, and time.
That said, I’m not suggesting you can’t improve. If you know you aren’t good at sandbox & surprise player decisions, there’s nothing wrong with starting with an AP until you get your sandbox skill set a bit more of a workout and use side quest opportunities or off-the-cuff adventures when not everyone is able to make a game to get a bit more experience. Likewise if your games tend to be an ADHD wonderland of 16 kitchen sinks and an industrial sandblasting machine that players sometimes lose track of, you may want to consider running a more “rail roady” game using a module or AP as a touch stone to make sure you are taking your players in a common direction.
I find that even table top players tend to fall in areas similar to those covered by the famous Bartle Test :
Some players mostly show up to hang out with their friends (Socializers).
Others want to know what will happen next in your commonly woven story (Explorers).
Some just care about more loot, xp, and ways to advance their character (Achievers).
A very few (especially in PF) are more PvP or (more commonly) competitive style players (Killers).
Almost all are actually a combination of the above.
In addition to making a character feel special, it often helps to make sure that you use the things that motivates your players to show up.
Most GMs I’ve encounter know how to deal well with Explorers & Achievers fairly well, but have a bit more issues with the Socializers & Killers.
Socializer issues I normally see are from a “keep in play” viewpoint versus what the Socializers may actually want to discuss or do. If approached correctly, the Socializer players can really make your game memorable drawing all of the other players in even deeper and creating an even greater emotional investment in all of the players by leading by example. If handled poorly, they tend to be the ones that can subtly or not so subtly sabotage the game before finding something else that is more up their alley.
Killers are a bit more of an issue, especially in “no PvP” style games, as is common in Pathfinder. They are the ones who tend to be a bit more competitive than the other players, a bit more likely to try to drive things to interparty conflict, and always the ones most prepared when things look to be going south to jump on the “kill it now, speak with dead is for questions” sort of band wagon. They can also be the most antagonistic towards non-combat parts of the game.
That said, Killers also like to be in effective teams and if approached correctly can be very good for assisting newer players or less effective players in character building & optimizing. They also tend to be very rules savvy and can be of great assistance to a GM to keep things flowing. Many will hold themselves to even higher standards than other players and will enjoy whatever lethal challenges you throw at them as they tend to thrive most in areas where their Killer mind set and skills are most useful.
Bit rushed on this #3, so may come back to expand on it a bit more later…
Know how to communicate expectations to players:
This can be as simple as making sure your players know that you aren’t running a game any higher than 6th level or making sure that players know that you “Rule Zero” a lot of things and that continuity and RAW are not on your priorities list.
I find that this is probably the most commonly overlooked aspect of campaigns that are just starting up, which can lead to lots of frustration and general badness after folks have invested potentially hundreds of hours (especially for the Achievers mentioned above) and feel their time investment was in vain.
Know when your preferences & your players may not line up and how to deal with this dichotomy:
Sometimes just talking over in broad strokes where you see your campaign will go solves lots of future headaches.
If you see your campaign as a gritty, morally destitute campaign where the seedy underbelly of human & demi-human society is laid bare and the PCs are often pressed to come up with a difference between the corrupt officials over their home city and the insidious daemon hordes which are infiltrating their world then you may find that there is a bit of expectation clashes when a player brings in an aasimar paladin devoted to serving his common man and defending them from the winged scourges of the world, dragons! (and swimming in “appropriate” amounts of loot).
Another point to go over sooner rather than later is the commonality of magic & magic items – the “magic mart” viewpoints are often heated and best explored before game play begins.
Hope that helps.
-TimD
we need more GM's like you good sir!I'm a sandbox gm. Always have been always will be. Obviously try to find out what interests the characters and if they can agree on a goal, go with it.... For sandboxes, your first and only job as a gm is to let the players pick a goal for themselves and then find ways to make that goal happen, whether they're easy or hard to accomplish. It's not hard to think on the fly about 'what would be really cool here'... so when you get inspiration. use it as much as you can while still having it make sense.
but for a campaign to have longevity it needs 4 most important ingredients: First
-Take each player's character sheet and find the things they're really good at
-Then find the things they really suck at.Make sure each session includes something for each character that requires the use of that thing that they're really good at so they have a chance to shine and feel badass like they made a good choice.
Then make sure each session includes something for each character that requires the use of something that they suck at, to enforce the idea that nobody can do everything and that's why you're in a TEAM.
Give them plenty of encounters that are hordes of pushovers... nobody doesnt love laying waste to hordes of baddies.
Every once in a while toss in something that nobody in the entire team is equipped to deal with in a staggeringly obvious way to remind the players that no matter how powerful they get, they're small in a big big powerful world.
We do need more of this, but what I find is it's tough to find players with enough initiative to pull it off. They tend to drift into mercantilism or just float around doing nothing. Passing up adventure opportunity after opportunity to go to some place where they think they might find some adventure.
Vincent T. gives some great advise above, but to expand upon it…
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
I just wanted to say that this post was fantastic and thought-provoking. That's pretty much all I can say.
Geez, Vincent Takeda... Why do you even show up for these people?! A couple of them don't sound so bad, but you've got some player types who sound to me like they need a sound smack with a two-by-four and a boot out the door.
As I've mentioned in a few of my older threads, we're some serious grognards, but our primary interest is in the hobby itself and maximum fun within the hobby itself.
I have enough experience in both the hobby and training that I feel our table is a gateway to helping people be better players and gms.... When we see players and gms behaving badly, we don't just freak out on them or kick them out.
We take a methodical approach to showing them the downfall of their chosen playstyle in order to make them better gamers, so that we all can continue to enjoy the hobby instead of chasing another person away from the hobby for having short sighted inexperienced techniques.
That's how you learn. If we just kicked them out for sucking... How would they ever stop sucking?
Heheheh. They're all good guys. And if you care about the guys at the table, you want them to be the best possible gamers they can be and, more importantly, understand why we do things the way we do.
By the same token while I know the way I describe them uses the 'least favorable terms'... It is a very accurate representatin of what each player really enjoys and even if you don't agree with what they're at the table to accomplish, a successful enjoyable memorable long lasting game will make sure that every players personal preferences are being met, even if you don't necessarily agree with them.
We do need more of this, but what I find is it's tough to find players with enough initiative to pull it off. They tend to drift into mercantilism or just float around doing nothing. Passing up adventure opportunity after opportunity to go to some place where they think they might find some adventure.we need more GM's like you good sir!I'm a sandbox gm. Always have been always will be. Obviously try to find out what interests the characters and if they can agree on a goal, go with it.... For sandboxes, your first and only job as a gm is to let the players pick a goal for themselves and then find ways to make that goal happen, whether they're easy or hard to accomplish. It's not hard to think on the fly about 'what would be really cool here'... so when you get inspiration. use it as much as you can while still having it make sense.
but for a campaign to have longevity it needs 4 most important ingredients: First
-Take each player's character sheet and find the things they're really good at
-Then find the things they really suck at.Make sure each session includes something for each character that requires the use of that thing that they're really good at so they have a chance to shine and feel badass like they made a good choice.
Then make sure each session includes something for each character that requires the use of something that they suck at, to enforce the idea that nobody can do everything and that's why you're in a TEAM.
Give them plenty of encounters that are hordes of pushovers... nobody doesnt love laying waste to hordes of baddies.
Every once in a while toss in something that nobody in the entire team is equipped to deal with in a staggeringly obvious way to remind the players that no matter how powerful they get, they're small in a big big powerful world.
I agree. Every once in a while you do encounter a group of adventurers who's idea of adventure is to hang out in town and carouse with the locals... These are the 'social' and 'explorer' types that TimD's post refers to... But they seem to prefer a 'safer' urban exploring.
It can be helpful to give those folks a lot of lower difficulty encounters to help get them some practice and confidence in their abilities. Orthey may be throwing you a hint that they are the rare group of players who really would enjoy an entire campaign within a completely urban/metropolis setting, which can also be really cool. Not everyone thinks the idea of a great game is to march through the fields laying waste, burning, looting and terrorizing all they see. A refreshingly different group indeed!We've had plenty of campaigns before that never went further than 25 miles from where it started in a large city and that campaign lasted for several months... It's a cool refreshing change and a good thing to be open to trying.