D&D 5E Let's Have A Thread of Veteran GM Advice

[Paul Farquhar]

semi-linear line

 

[overgeeked]

You need to stop offering options after they pick one. Collapse into a semi-linear line then open back up into choices for that plot hook.

Sorry, but what?

 

[Fanaelialae]

So what do you do with false rumors to make sure they aren't "duds"?

That advice was written under the assumption that the players were struggling with being self-motivated, such as it were. If you have players that are struggling with being self-directed, having a rumor pan out as nothing is pretty much the worst thing you can possibly do, because by doing so you're anti-reinforcing the behavior that you're trying to reinforce. Later, once they're better at being self-directed, it's okay to sprinkle in the occasional dud as long as you don't overdo it. It has since been explained that this wasn't actually the issue though.

As for how to avoid duds, simply put something interesting in the path of their investigation.

The PCs hear a rumor that there's a Holy Avenger in an old abandoned keep deep in the forest. They trek out there, but the only thing they find is an old barrow. Inside are a bunch of undead and treasure. They didn't find what they were expecting, but they found something that hopefully made it worth their while. Perhaps they even find clues in the barrow pointing to the existence of the Holy Avenger (the old "the princess is in another castle" trick).

The PCs hear a rumor that the town guards have been infiltrated by cultists. During their investigation they find no evidence of this, but there is evidence that many of the guards are on the take from a crime boss (giving them the option to confront that boss and take down the corrupt guards, or maybe even work with the boss). Either way, it's easy to see how this could lead to further opportunities for adventure.

Or maybe they hear that same rumor of cultists among the guard. Their investigation turns up no evidence of this, but during the investigation they find evidence pertaining to a string of disappearances that the guards have been ignoring because the people who've disappeared were criminals. Following the clues they discover that a living nightmare (not the fiery horse kind) has been murdering people that it deems wicked. They can hunt down and stop this entity, or maybe even work with it (if that's how they roll). Maybe they even find a portal that the nightmare used to enter the PC's reality, and they can explore a nightmarish dreamscape. Up to them, but they found something interesting.

Basically, something happening is almost always more interesting than nothing happening. If you have players that aren't used to the idea of investigating rumors, I find it best to make sure early on that something happens. That way you reward and encourage the behavior you're trying to motivate them into doing more of. If too many rumors turn out to go nowhere, the players are less likely to follow them in the future, IME.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Thanks for the advice everyone. But I think I didn't communicate the problem that well.

I run open-world sandbox games. So dropping rumors/hooks/jobs into the PCs' laps and letting them pick isn't the problem. Getting them to pick one also isn't really the problem. It's what comes next.

The players take up the rumor/hook/job and ask a few initial questions, I provide the answers, point them clearly to some next possible steps, then they largely seem to just falter and stop dead. The fact that they have options seems to confuse them. That there isn't one blinking neon sign pointing to an obvious right choice puts them into analysis paralysis. They're looking for the rails when there aren't any, and the fact that they can't find them causes them to freeze.

I had one group talk themselves into a dead end they'd decided was the only possible option and when I communicated to them that nothing was happening in the location, instead of rethinking or adjusting at all, they literally just sat down and waited for the plot to come to them. At a later point the same group decided they wanted to talk to an NPC. When I told them the NPC was out of town and wouldn't be back for a day or two, they decided to just hold up in the inn where he was staying and waited. Legit refused to do anything else both times. There were other hooks, other rumors, other NPCs or locations they could visit or investigate, other angles they could check out for the same rumor/hook/job...but they noped out.

Now, while I recognize the "hurry up and wait" group is uniquely bad, a lot of other groups I've run for still get caught up in the analysis paralysis I talk about in the third paragraph. I'm a fan of the Alexandrian blog, so I pepper redundant clues throughout, with multiple clues pointing to the same conclusion. I've also run CoC for decades, so the mystery element isn't a problem. I know better than to lock things behind one roll or check. I know better than to use red herrings. I don't devise overly complicated stuff. I love Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, so I'm fine with moving clues to wherever the PCs are. I'm also far more of an improv referee so I have no problem just following the PCs wherever they go.

The trouble is, after a few choices...they just freeze. They're looking for the tracks and the fact that they can't find them stops them dead. I've been running and playing RPGs almost 40 years now and, in my experience, this is a uniquely 5E player thing. I've never had this issue with any other game or any other edition of D&D. It literally never happened until running 5E.

That's a lot trickier to crack.

Have you tried starting from a minimal number of options (2) and gradually working up to more?

Also, while I realize this really isn't your style, if they get stuck maybe have an NPC show up to provide some direction. Think of it like giving them training wheels. Eventually, you don't want them to need the training wheels, but while they're still learning they might be helpful. As the players become more comfortable in making group decisions, the NPCs could become less committal about what decision the group should make, or not show up at all.

I'll stick with my advice from my last post and say that something happening is pretty much always better than nothing happening. If they stall out, have something happen to nudge them out of their stasis. If they're staying at the inn for two days, maybe some bandits roll into town and start causing trouble.

If you want them to play in the style you prefer, you may need to bend your DMing style temporarily and meet them halfway, until they've learned how to play in your style and grow comfortable with it. Admittedly, if you give them time and they still behave as though they need the training wheels, it could be that your play preferences and your group's simply aren't in alignment, which is unfortunate but can happen. At that point the best option IMO is to discuss with the group and hopefully reach a compromise on play style that everyone can be satisfied with.

 

[DragonLancer]

How do you get your players to start taking notes???

When I am a player I HATE taking notes outside of NPC names. With a lengthy campaign, notes just get convoluted. What my group tends to do is have a single player to take notes and then we have everything in one place.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Raymond Chandler said “when in doubt have someone come through the door with a gun in his hand.”

This applies to D&D “when the players are in doubt, roll for initiative.”

More broadly, in a sandbox game, have proactive villains. If the players don’t act, the villains* will. So someone’s been sniffing around asking questions? The Guild knows how to deal with nosey parkers.

*or a party of rival adventurers.

 

[DragonLancer]

They're looking for the rails when there aren't any, and the fact that they can't find them causes them to freeze.

I think it is because traditionally, role-playing game scenarios are designed to be a little rail-roady. It's generally get hired, go to the location, explore/do the job, come home and get paid. In a nutshell. Same with campaigns. My experience has been that when you go the sand box approach players get lost and disorientated.

I would suggest having a dedicated start to the adventure/campaign and have something on the rails but let the players pick up and follow any side quests or whatever comes into the their minds. Have something ready to guide them back in case they get lost again.

 

[DammitVictor]

One thing I still struggle with after all of these years is finding a concise but effective way to note the PC abilities. I believe that in an ongoing campaign, the DM should at least no and sometimes even cater to the mechanics of the PCs -- because those mechanics, the things the players chose, tells you as DM a lot about what they are looking for in play.

In my games, I replace the standard "backstory" with an index card for every PC; the player gets to write down their name, race/gender/(sub)class/background/theme/kit/omgwtfbbq, and then six facts that would have come from their "backstory" that they want me to use. Every player is privy to every other player's index card. Up that amount to eight or ten and let them include character abilities or tactics they want you to focus on. I think I might start doing that now.

A question I’ve been mulling… When you’ve got a lot of house rules (like me), what have you found is the best way to disseminate that info to your players? This is assuming players are bought in / that conversation has been held. Do you let it be a slow build of knowledge, pointing out house rules as they come up? Do you assemble a document and if so, do you go over it together at beginning or do you expect players to read it on their own? Do you find a wiki is effective or players don’t even check? Do you redo char sheets with house rules embedded? What works for you insofar as communicating lots of house rules with your players?

Google Docs is free and you can control who can see your documents and who can edit them. Otherwise... you can host a website with wiki software for like $15 a month. (I recommend DreamHost.) That's less than you're spending on pizza.

I usually make a small handout, Google Docs with AI art, that I do expect players to read and then I break the more in-depth stuff into topics that players should read if they're relevant to their character. If I were paying for a website, I'd use that... or else I'd just use Google Docs.

When your creativity is falling short, how do you create the bones of an interesting session when prepping?

I use very simple political models of all the major NPCs in my games and update them based on events in-game. One thing I try to make sure of is that for any adventure the PCs are pursuing, they have at least one ally that wants them to fail, and at least one enemy that wants them to succeed. Make sure every adventure is a choice between the party's friends and the party's goals... and then the tension from that will shore up more boring quests.

I don't really prep sessions or adventures in advance. I prep a handful of inciting incidents that I can pull out of my pocket when things get slow. Basically, if you have one really hot WHAM! moment, everything that leads up to it and everything that follows from it feels a little hotter. Prep those and fill in the rest on the fly.

I may have even asked this here on ENW before - how do you onboard a new rules set into your brain so that the experience for the players is pretty ok?
(not perfect, but pretty ok)

Make up as many NPCs as you need-- use the PC creation rules-- and play them through some scenarios using the rules you need to use. Mock combats, hacking runs, dreamquests... whatever fans of your chosen game consider the hardest part.

The only problem with that for me is that if the ruling you make on the fly doesn't set a binding precedent, or can be overturned later, you risk invalidating play that took place after the later-changed ruling. And you open the door to later arguments.

My policy is to make a ruling in a minute or two that goes for the rest of the session, and we take a few minutes after the session to talk about it... and we start the next session by discussing a permanent ruling. Keep the game running, then take the time afterwards to come up with a better, more binding solution.

How do you get your players to start taking notes???

Since I am really bad at continuity and really bad at taking notes, I ask my players to email me their session notes before every session for some kind of in-game bonus-- XP in D&D. I'll use those to write my recaps, and to shore up my own inconsistent memory.

 

[Shardstone]

Sorry, but what?

tldr; The river splits, then it reconvenes. If its splitting all the time, decision paralysis sits in.

You are offering too many choices. When you offer story choices to players, at least in our contemporary climate, they likely don't want to immediately make more choices. Give them a briefly linear path after they make their choice that leads to something, then open up to more choices. If a choice leads to more choices, players can stall out and get confused. This isn't true for all tables, but is something that's helped me with this same problem.

Example: the party is investigating a Medusa serial killer. They know there are several places to go. If they go to every place, instead of giving them more options to investigate from there, have it all lead to one place, and that one place contains a non-insignificant amount of story to play through. Then once that is resolved, give them more choices again, but likely fewer than the first time.

 

[Jahydin]

I've been gaming for over 30 years now and still struggle with how to run dungeon crawls, especially mega-dungeons, in the most fun way possible. Specifically, navigating the labyrinth, resource management, and encounter balance (since consequences of death in RPGs is so high).

Video Games knock this out of the park thanks to being able to visually move around the maze with "fog of war" and tracking inventory with fancy User Interfaces. Both of these are designed so "fun", they're practically games in themselves. Oh, and PC death is never an issue, since you can just revert to an older save and try again. This gives the designers a lot more wiggle room in balancing encounters.

How am I suppose to compete!?

Closest I've come to "perfect" with navigation is:

• Complete dungeon drawn out ahead of time that's slowly revealed as the party explorers.
  • I've used 5ft squares with individual PC minis, but that takes up a lot of space. I've found 10ft squares with one "party" miniature easier to manage.
• Printing the dungeon out on standard sized paper and cutting out all the individual rooms. When the players explorer, I just hand them the room they just walked in and let them use glue sticks to "map" it.

With resource management:

• Just ignoring it unless obvious encumbrance issues arise.
• Periodic dice rolls to "test" resource depletion.
• A mixture of Shadowdark's approach of losing a torch every hour of real-time and losing food whenever a rest is taken.

With PC death:

• Roll up a new character at (or close to) party's level.
• Take control of a befriended NPC (Baulder's Gate like).
• New PC at Level 1, but hey, at least the party can share some better gear to give them a chance to survive long enough to "catch up".

Curious to hear what others have done!