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

[Lanefan]

@MNblockhead
Thanks for the amazing response.

That sounds pretty close to what I want to start doing actually. Over the years I've amassed hundreds of miniatures though, so thinking of using a digital map case to get the best of both worlds:
View attachment 351054

Yikes - how much $ does a set-up like that set you back?

 

[Jahydin]

Yikes - how much $ does a set-up like that set you back?

It varies quite a bit: Digital Map Case - Etsy

I'm quite the nerd, so have most of the electronics and cables for it, would just need the case. But that's still quite the investment for a game I only play once a week now.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

All the drawbacks of a VTT, without the benefit of everyone being able to play from the comfort of their own homes....

 

[Bagpuss]

Even if you only ever want to run D&D, play or even run different RPGs from time to time, they can teach you stuff about pacing, give you new mechanics and ideas you can bring back to your D&D game.

 

[Bagpuss]

If your players are having trouble figuring out what to do next, it's usually as simple as dropping and NPC on them with suggestions. If they don't want to take suggestions, you likely need to talk about that outside of the game.

You don't even need to drop an NPC on them, you can just remind them of things their characters would know, but as players they might have forgotten from the last time you played.

If you want to get flashy and mechanical about it, you can even produce quest cards, that kind of work like an CRPG Journal to help keep them on task.

 

[FrozenNorth]

That's my single biggest piece of advice I can give. If your players don't want to engage with your game, it's likely because you didn't get their buy-in when you started.

Definitely this. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that most problems in TTRPGs comes from communication errors. Just because you believe you were clear, doesn’t mean that the person you were speaking to understood what you were trying to convey.

Best example comes from these boards. The DM told the characters they were going to run a pirate adventure. The players arrived ready to play “Pirates of the Caribbean”, but the DM was running a low-fantasy, high-lethality, “historical” campaign.

 

[Reynard]

Definitely this. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that most problems in TTRPGs comes from communication errors. Just because you believe you were clear, doesn’t mean that the person you were speaking to understood what you were trying to convey.

Best example comes from these boards. The DM told the characters they were going to run a pirate adventure. The players arrived ready to play “Pirates of the Caribbean”, but the DM was running a low-fantasy, high-lethality, “historical” campaign.

I have had that very problem with Space Opera. I wasn't specific so I had one player that wanted Dune, one that wanted Star Wars and one that wanted Galaxy Rangers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I have had that very problem with Space Opera. I wasn't specific so I had one player that wanted Dune, one that wanted Star Wars and one that wanted Galaxy Rangers.

One of the advantages of playing the Star Trek RPG (which I did in the 90s) is all the players knew what kind of game they were signing up for. I suppose it applies to any RPG tied to a specific IP that the players are familiar with.

Me, trying to explain Traveller to one of my players "It's kind of like WH40K without the grimdark weirdness".

 

[Wolfpack48]

So one of the questions I always like to ask of vets is what things you do to make the initial meeting of the party feel smooth and natural? Everyone knows "you all meet in the inn" but I'm always looking for a good kick off for the party that automatically gets all the players to gel and feel like they know each other or drives them together in a way that will form long-lasting bonds?

 

[SteveC]

You don't even need to drop an NPC on them, you can just remind them of things their characters would know, but as players they might have forgotten from the last time you played.

This is such a good point. I am running a game every two weeks and it's been going on for almost a year. There's no way the group would remember stuff from back at the start. You communicate and solve problems. The thing to remember is that the characters are actually living in the environment of the game, so when they forget something that happened a couple of in-game days ago but was a month ago in real time? You remind them! When they're going to do something stupid because they don't get the right information from your description? You clarify it.

I know there are tons of stories where DMs laughed about things like characters stepping in a pit because they didn't specify they were looking at the floor. I always think "yeah, glad I'm decades beyond that..."