/tg/ - Traditional Games

Don't make all the extra stuff important unless the players explore it.

Do you need to know all about the economy of Germany or who the current major political parties are if you're visiting for a week?

If the players are interested in certain bits then feed them more information, otherwise you can just develop it as you go. Have a base idea for how something should be (monotheistic, feudalist, agrarian) but only put in work to flesh it out once it's needed.

The secret is that you're basically throwing down the pieces of the game right before the players get to them, so to speak.

>>420516

This guy has the right of it. Focus on what your players will immediately see and then extrapolate from there. It's worked for me, at least.

>>420516

I need to know about the economy of Germany and it's political parties if I'm doing an essay on those matters. And if I'm running a game in Waterdeep for instance, as I tried and failed once to do, I damn well better know the who, what, when and where. Even after reading like 5 books (fiction and campaign settings) I still found myself constantly groping for answers.

>>420517

I guess improvisation is not my strong suit. Every time I've tried to run a game (like twice) I feel ill-prepared. I've been trying to do world building for years now but it always feels unfinished and lackluster no matter how much time and detail I put into it.

>>420519

The only way to get better at something is to do it so make a throw away roll20 account, find some 5E faggots, and run some modules or run with no prep and just work out your improv issues. Nobody has a magical verbal bullet that will enable you to develop a skill you don't have.

>>420519

I'm not talking about improvisation. I mean you do this shit before the game starts so you don't have to improvise. You aren't gonna be Tolkien anytime soon.

>>420518

I was gonna type some shit up, but this guy said everything. Nobody really cares about how cool your history or geography is outside of how it's relevant to THEM or THEIR CHARACTER. If you get lucky and find a player that is actually interested in that shit on their own, then treasure them.

>>420515

An easy solution is to use game systems that allow narrative control or co-GMing (whatever you call it when everyone can be the GM) which completely eliminates the burden of being one yourself because now everyone is, although I doubt thats what you're here for. You can also try things like Microscope which are rulesets designed to generate worlds, you grab your players for a session before 0 (what do you even call that?) and have them help you put the world together, piece by piece. If they're interested in certain elements then they'll assemble themselves as the "game" progresses and this also gives you an avenue to see what they're interested in, a player who cares about giving the town a name and a unique currency is likely going to care about those kinds of things at the table as well but the guy who spends his turn detailing how King Chad fucked a dragon with two toothpicks obviously has other interests. After that you can continue to flesh out the world with the players as the need arises.

Either of these options doesn't solve your problem but it does circumvent it.

>>420519

To continue the analogy, your players are the tourists, not you. They won't go investigate this stuff to the degree that you'd be totally fucked- I find there's always a session or two in between to flesh out the content.

If you're looking for improv practice, try playing Paranoia with your friends.

>>420524

post more art like that

>>420524

>I keep doing the thing that makes the problem

Don't do that.

>>420527

He's right, though. It's simple. How easy it is is up to you.

Here's some tips.

>Improvise everything

>Pretend you know what you're doing

>Hide your dice and fudge them whenever convinient

>Your players are all fucking cunts. Treat them like shit, but be polite about it so it seems like a challenge.

>>420527

>horned helmet

Top tier taste.

>>420557

>(and the ability) to improvise.

Since it's related, I want to ask: is there anything you guys do to improve your improvisational skills? I mean any sort of exercise or reading any of you do with any regularity.

>>420567

The best practice is to run some games.

Improvisation is a polite way to refer to bullshitting. If your players do something you didn't account for, don't panic. Just put on a poker face, go "just as planned" and roll with it. Then change your notes later to reflect what happened as totally legit and planned like the masterful GM you are.

GMing boils down to being a lying asshole so long as you and your mates are having fun with it.

>>420515

Your first adventure doens't need to be a world spanning epic. Keep it small and build out as you go. Most DMs do not build the entire world before running games; they just make a general concept and flesh out only what then need for the next few sessions.

Starting out, use modules. A lot of guys think that using modules is heresy, just ignore them. Once you have your feet under you, then write you own adventure.

Focus on the adventure at hand rather than the entire world. If you have reasonable players with a little maturity, they should cut you some slack. Learn enough about the local area to make it work. You don't need to remember the entire library of reference material on The Forgotten Realms, just the place the adventure is taking place in.

Get a map of the area you're playing in. It'll make life a lot easier on you.

If you're running one of the 200+ page modules, you won't need much else until you're near the end. (I don't recommend starting here.) If you're using smaller modules like the Adventure League modules or some of the others on DM's Guild, then you'll want to have a couple more skimmed through and a source book for the local area.

>what about theology

Just rip off a pantheon you like and reflavor it. It's literally that easy.

>what about politics

Play Diplomacy. For your first adventures, you don't even need to get into politics. Just hint that they are there and move on. As you develop your campaign, it'll sort itself out.

>what about economy

Just keep it simple. "You are in the town of X and they export Y." I'd bet cold hard cash you have never played an RPG with a more advanced economy than that. Other games maybe, but not RPGs.

>what about guilds

Your would doesn't even need to have guilds. If you want guilds, just write a list of them and mentioned them to your players. If your players try to contact on of the guilds, you can delay. (Having a secretary make an appointment for the players is my favorite delay.) Then you can write up NPCs and features you want the given guild to have.

Here's the thing, no DM has the entire setting with all it's workings in his head. He gets the flavor of the setting and then he focuses on the details for the adventure.

I would also recommend you watch some youtube videos on DMing. Geek and Sundry, WASD20, Taking20, the DM Lair, Dungeon Craft, How to be a Great Game Master, and Matt Colville all offer good advice with a varied perspectives. There are a lot of others but these are the ones I have watched extensively. Matt Colville's Running the Game series has been the most helpful and inspiring to me.

One last thing, don't fear retconning minor setting details. IRL, lots of things change all the time. Just don't retcon major plot points or geography.

>>420578

I worry about creating plot holes and contradictions in the story, I know nerds absolutely love pointing that shit out.

I guess a good way to avoid this treat your game like an episodic tv series. Sorta how Scooby Doo and the gang just show up whenever they need to be at the start of the show. That way the players spend more time on the adventure and less on the minutia of the world.

>>420584

Keep your plots simple. Keep notes when you make decisions as to where your plot is going. If you have a NPC that's going to lie, betray, give incorrect info, etc. set that before you use the NPC. If for some reason you need to change that about an NPC, come up with a good reason like the BBEG is holding the guy's kid hostage or the party has killed someone that he cared about.

Also, run a few one shots, then a short campaign, then ramp it up.

The key to not having plot holes is good notes. you should know who knows who and what their relationship is. If a character gets an important item or forms an important relationship during the course of the campaign, have a where, when, how, and why answered before introducing it into the game.

>>420524

>ew. not as bad as fourth i suppose

At least 4th had character customization.

>>420522

> the guy who spends his turn detailing how King Chad fucked a dragon with two toothpicks obviously has other interests

Kek

>>420587

This. Notes are the thread sewing up your plot holes. Each time something happens, note it and adjust other notes.

The keep it simple advice is also good. Grand, elaborate stories quickly fall apart the moment your party inevitably fucks things up.

Just give locations and some plot points for each location. Adjust the plot there and around based on the actions of the characters, not your own planned plot.

>>420515

The oldest running campaigns all went the same way:

1. Create the first level or two of a dungeon.

2. Put a town on top or right next to the dungeon.

3. Pin it on a terrain map.

4. Overlay hexes to map a hex map to explore.

5. When you think of something interesting, pin it in a hex.

6. When you think of something interesting, expand your dungeon.

7. Plop your players down in front of the dungeon.

The rest of the information will follow. There's a lot of OSR content designed to facilitate and expand upon this mode of world design. You should come up with some basic essentials, like "what god does my cleric worship?" and things like that - not a pantheon, just a god and maybe a devil.

>>420567

To be good at improvisation, the best thing is to be derivative, but to have so much shit you can mix and match your derivations. The more you read, the more you learn, the better you'll be able to fill in with content. Genre fiction is good. Academic material helps to add realism.

Start with a very general idea of how the world is put together, have a bit more of a specific idea of what the region is like where they players start, and only flesh out the starting village/town.

>>420515

>How the fuck do people run games successfully without constantly fucking things up?

Two rules

>1) have a general plan and wing things to fit the bizarre bullshit your players come up with

Unless your players decide to spend the entire session sat in an empty room behind barricaded doors you can find some way to make your plot hook the most interesting thing in front of them.

>2) Your players are evil and must be punished

This will come naturally after a few sessions of your players trying to seduce/rape everything without a Y chromosome in your setting (yes, including the rocks), making fun of the villain you put so much time into, and declaring that they would rather spend 3 months worth of sessions opening a 'bespoke hat and codpiece merchant' enterprise rather than engage with the campaign that you lost sleep over. As long as you don't go full 'rocks fall' on them they're likely to interpret it as extra challenge and enjoy your games all the more. Basically, loath them but don't hate them.

>>420515

My man, a campaign does not have to be continent spanning.

Realistically, you can spend a low level adventure around a single castle and its countryside.

If your scope is outside of the province/county you're in... then you're just world building for fun at that point. Which is absolutely fine, but recognize how it is absolutely not needed within the context of GMing

Most plot the content they want to use before the session which results in railroading.

A better method is to draw a map, write down story hooks throughout it, and get some sense of the local lore.

You can railroad player's somewhat by locking the region, but they're free to explore within it and you develop the story organically from what they do.

Some reasons they can't leave the first area

>it's an island. No boat.

>quarantine on account of the plague

>city's under martial law during wartime. Gate doesn't open til the siege's lifted.

>characters would be considered fugitives if they ran before their court date

>>420515

1. Get a free copy of Stars Without Number.

2. Get extras as needed (at least Infinite Stars, for more random stuff)

3. Randomly generate sector, planets and everything.

4. Figure out how it all comes together.

One month late so you might not read but, in case you have the same autism as me, I'll present the opposite approach to everyone. Intense and thorough planning. You will need to have an understanding of the PCs and players but it will cut down on the improvisation needed. In fact, improv will be reserved to NPCs most of the time, which will feel more real if you plan them.

Been running a campaign for half a year and my players have only managed to sort of surprise twice, mostly cause they play their PCs seriously.

When it comes to world-building, stick to basic rules of economy and society. Makes things easier to roleplay. Don't be afraid of tropes. If a city doesn't follow these rules and the players are there, make sure it's a possible plotline cause they might want to explore it.

Of course, make sure you have fun as well. If you like lots of improv, go ahead. If you prefer a balance, sure. Lots of planning is also an option. Above all it depends on what you have fun doing.

I REALLY want to run a game, provide a break for our forever GM since they're always expected to run and even though they like to play they never get the chance.

Now my question is, I can plan just fine but it all fucking falls apart when I try to map. Does anyone have like a bank of general building layouts or references I can use for designing smaller areas\inside buildings? I know it's really minor but I'm always so bugged by if it's a logical layout or not that I feel like I get too hung up

>>423029

Just use theater of the mind. The exact layout doesn't matter for buildings, unless you're doing some sort of massive Shadowrun corporate HQ set-up. And if you're going in that direction, you really just need a flow-chart of what obstacles are keeping you from getting into one specific room or whatever, so layout still doesn't really matter.

>>420515

One good way of solving the problem is to use Dawn of Worlds. It's a system where the GM and other players build a world together. Starts with shaping the land. Creating races, starting wars, making history. It helps all of the players learn about the world together, instead of the GM being the only one who knows the stuff. I've used it twice to great effect.

https://worldbuildingschool.com/dawn-of-worlds/

>>420524

> I think I'm just too autistic and possibly OCD about "being prepared". I also tend to write long back stories for each of my characters, names of family and stuff like that. When I'm a PC that is, and I feel inclined to do the same when I try to DM.

Don't think of worldbuilding as if you have to write a fucking history book. Think of the world as general ideas. What do you know about the history of Germany, buddhism, Alexander the great? Let's say an alien asks you questions about them, you don't need to have a comprehensive explanation about them. Just a few sentences to give him a general idea. If the alien gets interested in buddhism, later on you can study more about the subject or invent shit.

Making up unnecessary details just makes things more convoluted. You are hindering the creative process. Start on a general level. Come up with interesting details only when necessary.

>>420548

That makes sense I suppose. I guess I do tend to look at the macro more than the micro. On the rare occasion I've actually sat down to run a game for a few players I'm always befuddled over what they do. I give them an npc offering a quest, they fucking rob her and throw her off the ship. I give them a clear-cut path towards an adventure, and they decide to go to the forest or the sewer to fight random monsters instead. Infuriating.

You should understand the basic motivations and values of your PCs. If your quest giver is a weak cleric who can offer them nothing of value except his thanks, but the players are common thugs who only care about money, booze and women, they will ignore that cleric or rob him for fun. If the NPC is a lord who offers them money and has soldiers protecting him, robbing him won't be easy. If they still try, at least you have an adventure of them trying to rob him.

If a player character is a cleric dedicated to eradicating necromancy from the world, make a necromancer NPC. Make some details to interest at least some of the other players in killing the necro as well.

Main point: know what makes the PCs tick.

The most important thing about GMing is that you have a story you want to tell. Have a vision. A general idea what sort of narrative you want to create and stick to it. It will change over the course of time due to playes' actions or dice rolls. Don't worry. Let it grow organically.

Like any decent movie or novel, the writer has a story he wants to tell. The audience will become intrigued by it. If you don't have a story you want to tell, there's no point in GMing.

>>423057

That is 100% wrong. If you have a story you need to tell, you sit down and write a book. Having a good handle on GMing means providing a world your players can interact with. Whatever stories come from it will emerge organically through play. If you come in with a "story to tell", you pollute the world with it.

>>423215

At most a rough outline for a main quest (with room for deviation) but otherwise I agree.

>>423216

I think a main quest can be fine, but it has to be a persistent aspect of the world. If you have an outline like:

>A then B then C then D

You run into a problem with railroading. On the other hand, if you work with individuals, and have it such that:

>X wants A

>Y wants B

>Z wants C

This create a nice rogues gallery of recurring NPCs (recurring until you kill them, at least) to run into, and lets you have things happen. Players can ignore it if the want, but it might come back to them. Assassins that show up every 1d4 months to cause problems, assholes stealing the same shit the PCs were after, and similar complications are all fun. Rival parties are really nice for this one.

>>423215

Having a story to tell at least works for me. The best campaings that I've run have started with an idea that I like, whereas when I don't, like it's only because I like the game setting, or I think "the players will think it's cool", the campaign usually falls flat. You have to trust your own vision.

Naturally you have to take into account that the players will manage to fuck up their plans on occasion, and sometimes fuck up your plans. Just roll with it. My second philosophy when it comes to GMing is to simulate a world fairly and believably. But it has to start with an idea I like.

To prevent "pollution" and railroading, you have to present the vision as a rough outline. Don't get too caught up on the details. I don't mean you have a strict guideline that in session 10 they rescue the princess from the hamster king, and in session 50 they fight the lich dragon on top of a burning castle. Since that won't ever work out.

>>423225

Yeah I plan like that more ot less. I have a final encounter planned and a vague outline of rogues, but the actual adventures Im planning as they come.

Of course I havent been able to introduce it quite yet because we're only three sessions in and the party's been gaining the favor of Goodsprings-- I mean Hernar village.

>Players can ignore it if the want, but it might come back to them. Assassins that show up every 1d4 months to cause problems, assholes stealing the same shit the PCs were after, and similar complications are all fun. Rival parties are really nice for this one.

Shit, now thats an idea...

>>423215

I think that's the ideal, but it depends on the players as much as the GM. Some players respond really well to being given a map of the world and a few ruins to explore, but I've played some games with players whose characters won't take a piss without being given a quest to do so - not because they want more reward for the tasks, it's just a lack of initiative.

Maybe it's because they come into RPGs carrying a lot of the wrong video game baggage, maybe they just can't picture the world in their minds, or maybe they're just retarded, but trying to run an improv hex crawl with people like that is an exercise in frustration, no matter how smoothly you can run the game. If you run games for more than a couple of groups it's best to have both story-driven and player-driven styles of GMing in your toolbox.

>>423249

My impression is that an old school sandbox adventure where PCs go around exploring, killing monsters and gaining loot appeals to younger players. At least in my experience as teenagers we used to do it more like that. Money was its own reward. Now I need a character motivation to go to a dungeon. Is it to find a magic carrot to kill the necromancer king, to save an important NPC? Especially adventuring to get loot is tedious by itself. Of course gaining money as a means to gain something else is a different affair. The assassins are after me? Get money to buy equipment to defend myself and the party. Or I really want to build that tavern with gnomish lapdancers. I'll need about a million gold to do it.

>>423251

What you're describing is still player driven activity, though. Your character has goals he wants to accomplish that aren't necessarily best served by raiding the Wight Barrows of Certain Death, but if left to his own devices he'll try and achieve those goals, which is fun in itself, especially when those goals don't necessarily align with the other players'. Some players just fall into stasis until a mysterious old man tells them that the Dark Lord is rising again, because they just don't want any creative input besides rolling to hit.

>>423249

Motivation is easy. GP=XP. Want XP, go get GP.

Players figure it out quite easily. If you really feel like adding in story elements, it also gives a good way to do that: Players want GP, some other asshole:

1) Has GP

2) Is competing for the same GP

3) Stole their GP!

For fantasy adventure just insert capitalism.

>>423252

Sure, PCs should have their own goals except simply Acquire Currecy. The GM should weave those motivations into his main plot. Perhaps they stumble onto the main plot while chasing their own goals and also become intetested in it.

Precisely because some players are passive, the GM should use some effort to make them part of a story.

>>423255

Hell no. I bet you're 15-17.

>>423291

I don't even know what you're rambling about.

Gygax's greatest contribution was alignment languages. And they're gone too.

>>423294

Lots of people have been playing roleplaying games for decades where "treasure based progression" is not a thing. White Wolf games are not about acquiring loot, for example. You make "Story-games" sound like it's some fringe idea that only a few crazy mavericks have tried.

>>423296

"40 years of gaming history" doesn't imply that's the only thing that's been practiced, only that it has been continually practiced. Games going in a different direction is earlier than White Wolf. But when we're talking about adventure games, specifically, that doesn't mean the idea actually works as well in practice.

Nothing about what I posted posed story-games as a fringe idea, either - I specifically called out what makes them work, which is player-to-player interaction. There's a reason that games like Vampire translate well to large-scale LARPs, because they're directed by player action. The mechanics are designed specifically to support that. But when you look at how they're put together, they're not designed for the storyteller to actually "tell a story" - they're designed such that the storyteller provides a scenario, and the players work through it. One GM trying to "tell a story" to his players does not work - it just ends up being a guy sitting and talking, and hoping he's keeping the player's engaged. And hell, if he's good at it, he might even engage them. But he's not engaging them with the game - they have to engage themselves.

There's nothing wrong with games like that, but when we're talking about the problem of:

>lack of initiative

You cannot run a story-game unless the players have initiative, and actively want to engage in the story-building process. On the other hand, when running an adventure game, you can do nothing more than provide a mechanical incentive, and it corrects the problem.

Besides that, I assume going by the first half of your post that you're being willfully ignorant to the actual processes that went into 70s-era game-design, or just shit-posting. Assuming it's not that, but just being pedantic, I'll clarify to put your mind at ease: "Gygax and Arneson".

>>423023

I am in this camp as well. I've only been running this game around 2 months but so far the only issue I have run in to has been forgetting about some minor details and that's something the player doesn't see anyway, and is thus something I can work around.

The main continent on which my players spend most of their time is planned to the degree that

>every major city has a purpose

>every city's connection to the other cities makes sense in the world

>the continent has a history beyond the scope of the players as they started the campaign, and this history further explains the relationships of the major cities

and so on, until it all comes together in a cohesive way that I do not forget the details of due to its verisimilitude not to toot my own horn as it is far from great and the details are not very numerous.

All my NPCs have names and personalities ahead of time. If they last, I give them more than that.

All my villains have goals related to the world and their place in it (or their drive to carve out their place in it).

I have spent many hours, and they are hours well-spent because me and my players' enjoyment of the campaign is greater.

>>420515

Localise, localise, localise. You don't need a world to start with, you need a village. A tavern, a place of worship, a shop of some description, a few dwellings and a place of employment for the inhabitants. Could be a farm, a sawmill, a mine, whatever.

That's your nucleus. Come up with a few simple, memorable traits for the people living in the village. The parish priest has a stutter. The blacksmith fired his apprentice to replace them with a golem. The sheriff walks with a limp that plays up in the cold and still bears a grudge against dwarves like the one that gave it to him. Don't worry about geopolitics or how the economy works. Those are concerns for the elite. Right now your players are mingling with countryfolk who figure the council of elders (or whoever the fuck is in charge) can go to hell so long as they get the harvest in this year.

Next, dot the surrounding countryside with quest locations. Keep them remote but not too remote. A creepy manor on the hill owned by a reclusive nobleman. A herbalist's hovel in the woods who gets her groceries delivered from the village. Again, keep it local. You want everything within a day's journey of where the players start out. Travel should be difficult and rewarding. Don't give them a boat or an airship. At most let them have horses, but not enough for everyone, or have the horses be old or lame or sickly.

At some point they're going to strike out into the wider world. The longer that takes them, the more rewarding it will feel, and the more time you'll have to prepare. If you know a couple sessions ahead of schedule the rough direction of travel, you can figure out what they'll run into much easier than sketching out an entire continent which will mostly go to waste. Let them explore, but make them work for it, and use the time that gives you productively.>>420515

>>420567

YES AND

>>420567

Not sure if this helps or not with improvisation, but for me it's generally easy to run a long session without much planning if I build the groundwork first. Let's say the campaign (for the most part) takes place in city X. You design the major locations in the city first, the various important factions, characters. Once you know how the thing works "by itself" without interference from players, it's easier to adapt to what the players do.

>They blow up a bakery while fighting thugs

<The mafia owns the bakery, and react negatively to it

>They uncover a cache of ancient tomes and try to pawn them off

>The Society of Secrets takes an interest in them

Just a few examples.

Improvising new locations out of thin air is difficult as fuck, unless you're some genious. If you run a typical fantasy RPG where the PCs travel from wilderness locations, to cities, to mystical places, you can't make up the locations as you go. You have to have at least a few key words in your mind beforehand, even if the details are not fixed yet. Don't try to make something out of nothing. That's not how improvisation works if you're a mere mortal.

>>423403

Stage improv "yes, and" style only works if everyone at the table is throwing ideas in. If it's just the GM running things, that doesn't work at all.

>>423423

Wrong. Every action your players take is something you can "yes, and."

>>423429

I don't think you understand what "improv" means in this context. Responding to player actions is standard GMing. The "yes and" game is something you do where anything established is accepted and proceeded without contradiction or questioning. This requires the players to be narrating in tandem with the GM, and also for the GM to run with anything the players throw out.

>>420515

>what about theology

>what about politics

>what about economy

>what about guilds

<Forgotten Realms instead

You know if you go with Forgotten Realms then you're using a setting that's basically passed up on worldbuilding to begin with and is a hodgepodge of shit with no coherence or thought put into it, so you're just as well off making your own setting and not worrying too much about the details. You're just as well off as if you'd used Forgotten Realms. Probably better off because your shit will start off less bloated.

>>420515

Anon I can tell you how to be a good GM.

Don't tell a player they can't do something unless its literally impossible.

Learn to think on your feet.

Don't be afraid to tell a player to go fuck themselves if they try to cheat or pull a fast one on you.

Heres a big one: Don't try to come up with some grand story bullshit. Remember, you're a referee not a storyteller. You should be thinking about how the game should appropriately respond to the players actions rather than what the players should do next, that's for the players to decide.

Don't worry about making some huge world. You're players shouldn't be going to the other side of the planet very quickly anyway. Just start out with a town and a few guilds, a few npcs, and enough gods to cover the alignments if any and expand from there as the game progresses.

Also if you're playing a good edition of D&D ie 2nd and earlier then make sure you use the gold = xp rule. Its extremely important. If you're playing any other edition then just do whatever.

>>424128

>Also if you're playing a good edition of D&D ie 2nd and earlier

Man, why do you have to go and try and start edition wars in some completely unrelated thread?

>>424129

>Man, why do you have to go and try and start edition wars in some completely unrelated thread?

NAYRT but he does bring up a good point - the system you're running plays a big part in encouraging or discouraging good behaviors while running the game. Running post-TSR games (though 2E is where a lot of these things started) encourages a lot of terrible behaviors, like rolling to bypass social interactions instead of role-playing, thinking of the game in terms of combat encounters instead of favoring negotiation and avoidance, and encouraging railroading.

These are all things hard-baked into the core assumptions. Game systems aren't create equally. FATAL might be a hyperbole to use, but it serves well enough to defeat the straw-man "all games can be good, the only thing that matters is the players".

>>424128

>make sure you use the gold = xp rule

make sure they understand the gold = xp rule too

the idea is that you would spend the gold to train, not trade endlessly with a merchant for mutual level ups

>>424128

>make sure you use the gold = xp rule

This is just really stupid.

>>424267

The way I explain it is that your character is not just a fighter or a cleric or whatever but also an adventurer as well. So it makes sense that you should get a bit of xp for being a good adventurer.

And of course the best metric of how good an adventurer you are is how much loot you can haul out of a dungeon without dying!

>>424269

It's only stupid if you operate outside the paradigm of "kill shit and loot shit".

>>424282

>It's only stupid if you operate outside the paradigm of "kill shit and loot shit".

While GP=XP actively encourages the second, it does the exact opposite pertaining to the second. Killing shit means fighting shit, and fighting shit means possibly dying - meaning it's almost always better to negotiate or avoid combat.

The incentive to "kill shit" first and think second starts first with PCs getting dramatically buffed sometime around AD&D (and other games that started to come out at the time), swells when you remove GP=XP and minimize reaction mechanics (or equivalents) and move to tournament module-based games (i.e. all monsters are almost immediately hostile), reaches its breaking point around 2E making XP for killing monsters the dominant mechanism of advancing, and finally shatters apart once you get to WotC era.

In terms of creating a game where characters in a fantasy setting go adventuring in search of fame and fortune it's the best way to pull it off, and generally minimizes the casualties. This assumes you're actually making a living, breathing world, and not just running modules other people wrote and calling yourself a DM.

>>424270

>that edit

Anyone who needed those 2 red circles should probably not laugh about the image.

>>420515

Sandbox & steal stuff. Moradin exists in many settings for example, might exist in yours. Rest is "when it becomes relevant".

>>424397

It was in original, B/X, holmes , and 1st edition. For 2nd edition it only applied to the rogue with it applying to all classes being an optional rule in the dmg.

>>424397

Te rule is that characters gain 1 experience point for each gold piece worth of treasure they successfully bring home from the dungeon.

>>424404

Class specific experience awards in the DMG were a core rule in 2nd-ed, Nobody I ever gamed with used them. It was either DMs like me who doled XP the B/X style, or just doing XP for monsters and "story" awards.

>>420521

>Nobody really cares about how cool your history or geography is outside of how it's relevant to THEM or THEIR CHARACTER.

Most of the time you're lucky if you can get them to care about that...

https://pastebin.com/BxjLPEi2

It's not all that technical, but this is my initial draft of How To Avoid That Guy.

>>425789

>muh tagaming

Okay, riddle me this: what the fuck does the ex-DM's 20 INT wizard with Nature proficiency do when he faces a troll and rolls poorly at identifying the monster? Does the character suddenly become dumb and you start rolling a d20 to check which random spell do you use to probe the monster's weaknesses? Can you make an informed guess such as "if the troll's blood coagulates instantly, maybe we should cauterize it"?

If your players have to lobotomize their characters so you can feel good about your security-by-obscurity encounter, then maybe you should consider not using the fucking Monster Manual verbatim. Reskin the monster or make up some new ones, but the metagaming hysteria has to go. I am tired of playing characters who know nothing about the world around them.

>>425811

Most monster lore checks tend to go like this:

>5

You recognize the name of the monster.

>10

You recognize the most well-known weaknesses or strengths of the monster. (For trolls, fire and regeneration respectively)

>15

If it's a variant, (let's say, an ice troll) you know the differences. Otherwise, you know if the common knowledge is a pile of lies or not.

Assuming you have 20 int, that means you auto-succeed on the first, and have to roll below a FIVE to fail the second, which I'd fluff as this being simply a hole in the character's knowledge - it never came up in studies, they weren't common where he did his work and grew up, etc.

If you've ranks in knowledge (Magical fauna), even more than one or two, you'd auto-succeed the second, and if it's 4e, you would ABSOLUTELY auto-succeed the second and probably have to roll, like, a two to fail the third, because of base level bonuses. It's up to the DM how obscure trolls and their abilities might be, though.

Essentially: Monster lore checks are kinda low anyway, this shoudn't be a problem

>>420515

Sure, you need to read lore or even invent a lot of your own.

From Whizzards, "Behind the Screen" articles: archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/bs

Also look for Greenwood's old articles. Aside of the style (he does LARGE HAM acting, but if you're not very good at it, it's not going to fly) there were tons of good tips.

For example: dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/when-stuff-happens-whats-dm-do

Many were lost when Whizzards fucked up their site, but someone saved them on googledrive.

There are also those, but mostly for 3.*: archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/sg

>>425789

>That guy who keeps making "hot and sexy" female characters that "use their sex as a weapon"

Could you tell me how is it an example of "that guy"? It seems a genuinely good idea, because it's an example of how female characters might have different roles and different approach than men.

Unless it's only about the magical realm, then I understand.

>>425888

Note the scare quotes - it's about magical realm. Session Zero isn't about restricting playstyles so much as it is about determining what play styles should be brought to the table for this game, specifically.

>>420515

Honestly, it's a matter of keeping to the dungeons really- you should establish a play area, and keep adventure expansive, but confined within that area.

The greatest issues arise when you know too much, and you have to keep the PC's from doing shit that will not just get them killed, but might destroy everything contextually within the gameworld. It depends how invasive and inquisitive players are to choice.

Now- in the supreme ideal world, D&D would have moved to an open-source online program in the vein of NWN, but actually complete.

>want to run a game

First question of all. Did you play before? if not the only advice I have is to learn when to adapt and when to railroad.

We do fuck things up constantly, the secret is to roll with it. I once created a god of war with a split personality, one LN, the other CN, and both wanted to kill the other, because I couldn't remember his fucking name.

>>425928

>And maybe get the hang of mechanics first?

That's a fucking given.

>>420515

Never tell a player that they cant do something unless their character cant actually physically do it.

Dont be afraid to kill player characters.

All barmaids and tavern wenches are ugly.

OP, do light notes at first since your plans can and will be derailed

1. start off with some vague story pieces

2. present them the problem as one of these pieces (but not the rest of them. the rest are spoilers)

3. see how they respond, where they go, and what they do

4. plan out your gameplay in response to the players

5. this includes making the BBEG and all relevent NPCs respond to the changes happening in the world, even if these edits remain offscreen and are (currently) unknown to the players

6. unless the players know about it, consider it malleable. if the players do know about it, then its set in stone and breaking it requires justification

>>425888

a type of town guard i sometimes scatter around in places is a plainclothes officer. a young, attractive woman, armed with concealed weapon

players go for seduction checks then have no idea they're already talking to the popo

I know I'm late, but I'd like to throw my two cents in.

Take notes during gameplay. I'm not the best at doing this myself, but when you have to make up random details about the setting on the fly, you should note them down for future reference. It's weird how pointless details I've made up previously would become relevant later.