-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
D&D 5E Let's Have A Thread of Veteran GM Advice
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
DragonLancer
Adventurer
Where rules lawyers are concerned, I try and get them to be a tool for me. When a rules situation comes up, I ask them for the answer or better yet, ask them to find the relevant section in the rules for me. Not in a combative way but to utilize their knowledge for the benefit of the game. When they don't feel like you are being argumentative with them and actually their knowledge comes in handy, I find rules lawyers tend to calm down.
GuardianLurker
Adventurer
My biggest concern was avoiding the railroad, but that advice has been given. I'd still be interested in more tips on how to proactively encourage my players, as well as good tools to assess my own proclivities without bias.
Likewise, any suggestions on how to encourage high amounts of roleplay or narrative input?
Oh, and for the powergamers the two best tools I've found are: 1) "If you can do it, so can your opponents. Are you sure you want to do that?" 2) "I'll let you get away with a rules exploit ONCE."
Likewise, any suggestions on how to encourage high amounts of roleplay or narrative input?
Oh, and for the powergamers the two best tools I've found are: 1) "If you can do it, so can your opponents. Are you sure you want to do that?" 2) "I'll let you get away with a rules exploit ONCE."
Shardstone
Hero
How do you get your players to start taking notes???
Shardstone
Hero
This is what the police would say. Suspicious.
GuardianLurker
Adventurer
Tell them there WILL be a quiz.
Honestly - offer an in game reward for writing a session summary for the group, being able to supply a recurring NPCs name to the GM, etc. Bonus inspiration could be good.Or a one-check pass. If you give XP it should be really small - no more than they'd get for a trivial encounter of their level. If you really want to crank the pressure up, make it a communal award for a single player's effort.
Fanaelialae
Legend
Lately I've been using ChatGPT whenever this happens. I just plug in whatever random ideas/threads I have and let it generate an adventure for me. I virtually never use the adventure itself, as it tends to be fairly generic. But for some reason it gets my creative juices flowing. I can look at the adventure and say to myself "This isn't a great adventure but it could be so much better if I just made changes X, Y, and Z". And before I know it I've got solid bones for my next session.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
I do the same. I needed some elemental based apocalyptic prophetic dreams and just asked Chat GPT to write me some. They were not exactly what I needed but they served as a seed that was easier to revise for my use than to write them from scratch.
I am terrible at taking notes as a GM, and this mixes poorly with also being highly improvisational, so I tend to offer XP or equivalent bonuses to players who do take notes.Tell them there WILL be a quiz.
Honestly - offer an in game reward for writing a session summary for the group, being able to supply a recurring NPCs name to the GM, etc. Bonus inspiration could be good.Or a one-check pass. If you give XP it should be really small - no more than they'd get for a trivial encounter of their level. If you really want to crank the pressure up, make it a communal award for a single player's effort.
