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

[Distracted DM]

I'd welcome some input! I've been running for a long time, but we all make mistakes- especially in service of upping player choice and drama... or it's just hubris.

A BBEG swept the heroes into a vision, and told them they were too late, their small victories mean nothing, what has begun can't be undone, etc. "Better to serve me and be rewarded." Figuring that as a group they'd of course say "screw you BBEG," I and the BBEG thought to divide them then and there, and offer each of them, individually, the opportunity to serve... and even if none of them took the offer, then there'd be suspicion sown among the party.

Turns out that when spoken with individually some players took the offer, and others didn't.

I have a stated but rarely needed policy on "Open Secrets" aka "Characters keep secrets, players share them."
If you want a rivalry or to pickpocket some bauble as a joke from a player, ask that player first and if y'all are into it, or cool letting the dice decide etc, good.

But this is a bit more than "my character wants to plant a rotten egg in your pack" or "roll insight vs my deception to see if you notice that I'm going to kill this goblin after we're done here."
I suggested the "open secrets" thing and checked with each player if they're cool sharing what they chose and separating the meta knowledge from their characters knowledge. Almost everyone was cool with it- but one wasn't; they thought it'd be better for the story and consequences if it was kept secret from players, that people would make different choices etc.

The entire intent of the "open secrets" thing is to prevent PvP, friction between players, etc. My players are all mature, in our 30s or older.. but folks still get emotionally invested in what happens in the game.

 

[GuardianLurker]

@Paul Farquhar Always know your audience. I'm not aware of any Firefly-like anime, though I'm sure there is one. Somewhere.

@Distracted DM Given that you've got one player voting to conceal, but none of the others, I'd consider that a RED flag. If you haven't already, I'd suggest bringing up the results of the vote in-session, without naming names, and ask for the players' input on how to resolve the issue. Since the stand-out is obvious, the actual stance will actually become very obvious as well. That's probably the best option, IMO.

Another option is to offer the standout a "double-agent" option, but I'd really recommend exposing this in session. Or offer it to the players during the in-session discussion.

The more typical option is to discuss it with the standout privately, and just get him on board with the rest of the players. But I suspect you've already tried that.

Regardless, your "open secrets" policy is a very good one.

 

[Voadam]

I'd welcome some input! I've been running for a long time, but we all make mistakes- especially in service of upping player choice and drama... or it's just hubris.

A BBEG swept the heroes into a vision, and told them they were too late, their small victories mean nothing, what has begun can't be undone, etc. "Better to serve me and be rewarded." Figuring that as a group they'd of course say "screw you BBEG," I and the BBEG thought to divide them then and there, and offer each of them, individually, the opportunity to serve... and even if none of them took the offer, then there'd be suspicion sown among the party.

Turns out that when spoken with individually some players took the offer, and others didn't.

I have a stated but rarely needed policy on "Open Secrets" aka "Characters keep secrets, players share them."
If you want a rivalry or to pickpocket some bauble as a joke from a player, ask that player first and if y'all are into it, or cool letting the dice decide etc, good.

But this is a bit more than "my character wants to plant a rotten egg in your pack" or "roll insight vs my deception to see if you notice that I'm going to kill this goblin after we're done here."
I suggested the "open secrets" thing and checked with each player if they're cool sharing what they chose and separating the meta knowledge from their characters knowledge. Almost everyone was cool with it- but one wasn't; they thought it'd be better for the story and consequences if it was kept secret from players, that people would make different choices etc.

The entire intent of the "open secrets" thing is to prevent PvP, friction between players, etc. My players are all mature, in our 30s or older.. but folks still get emotionally invested in what happens in the game.

If I was told and there was open secrets and I had agreed to that then it turns out secrets were kept, I could see feeling ticked off about that, like it was a specific lie to set up the PCs for the one PC exception secret's impact.

If I was you I'd stick to what everybody explicitly agreed to up front.

 

[Umbran]

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?

So, I sometimes steal a method from Spirit of the Century to accomplish this. It establishes connections between the characters before play beings.

Sit the players down at a table - imagine a virtual table if you are playing online. Give each player an index card, and tell them to imagine that their character's backstory before play was a novel. Write down the title of that novel, and a couple of sentences giving the main conflict or problem in that novel, like the blurb on the back of a paperback.

Now, pass the card to the left. The next player as a "supporting role" in the book. They can ask the main character a few questions so they can understand the gist of the story, and then adds a couple of sentences describing a bit more of the story, and how their character helped (or "helped", if it is that kind of game). Pass the cards again one space to the left, and repeat with a second supporting character.

When you are done each character will have their own novel, in which two people had supporting roles, and will also have played supporting roles in at least two other stories. So, in a table of 5 players, every character has met all the others before play begins.

Then you can start however you want, with the addition that the characters have some sense of each other and a bit of personal history to draw on.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Always know your audience. I'm not aware of any Firefly-like anime, though I'm sure there is one. Somewhere.

Yes, a good rule thumb for the DM. It’s useful to be able to include cultural reference points that the players understand - especially when they are of a different generation. I think it’s quite common for the DM to be the oldest participant.

 

[Wolfpack48]

If I was told and there was open secrets and I had agreed to that then it turns out secrets were kept, I could see feeling ticked off about that, like it was a specific lie to set up the PCs for the one PC exception secret's impact.

If I was you I'd stick to what everybody explicitly agreed to up front.

Agreed. I'd pull the player aside and tell them you need to keep the open secrets stance agreed on originally for the good of the campaign. If you've played with these folks for awhile, and they are mature, they should understand. You may need to backtrack on the decision to allow voting and offer a mea culpa to the group.

 

[SteveC]

If I can give another piece of advice from experience, it's to know pacing. This doesn't have the same sense of urgency for all campaigns, but if your game is filled with people who have busy lives, you want to make sure that something interesting happens in each session, and that the session ends appropriately with interest for the next one.

I say "maybe this isn't important for everyone," because in my days in school when I didn't have anything competing for my attention, playing all day and not doing that much wasn't a big deal. Now that I work and have a family, wasting my time means I won't have time for your game.

So pacing is structuring the game so something interesting and exciting happens at a decent clip. You have to know your players so you know how much roleplaying, discussing things, planning things out they can take before they want to do something interesting. This is particularly easy if you're running a pre-written adventure where you have a very good sense of what's coming next. You can pace out when important encounters happen, and you can plan to make sure the game reaches some sort of conclusion. Or you can leave it on a cliffhanger for next time.

If you're playing a more sandbox or procedurally generated game, this can be harder. What you need to do is remember that your hex crawl needs to come up with something interesting at regular intervals to keep the game engaged. I've played hex crawls where we dealt with travel and camp logistics for the entire session, and the dice didn't generate something fun to do, nor did the GM have something planned for us to run into ... and that was not good. I have a remarkably patient group, and their attention span for something interesting is about 20 minutes.

And as I'm writing this, I know this advice isn't for everyone. There are some DMs that are going to run several uneventful days dealing with watches, foraging for food, and catching glimpses of foes ... and that's their style. If that is your style, let people know about it upfront. I know for someone like me, that's a game I am not willing to negotiate time with my wife to play, but some of my younger, single friends might be all-in for it.

 

[SteveC]

With the open secrets and party betrayals, I think this is something you really want to go over with the group before the game starts. One of the things Strahd delights in is corrupting groups fighting against him and turning them on themselves. It makes it much easier for him to destroy them.

When I ran my game, I told them about this, and that they would definitely have chances to turn to the dark side for their own benefit. I also reminded them about how that sort of thing typically works out in horror stories. I told them there would be the option to flirt with a dark part, but also that there would come a time when there would be no turning back. And I got everyone to be okay with it.

Since we've been talking about Firefly, remember there is an episode where Jayne turns on the crew and tries to turn in River for a bounty. Mal finds out about it and comes this close to killing him. They work things out in the end and it's a good piece of character development. Maybe your Strahd game is going to have a moment like that.

But maybe not, too. I had my group all have backup characters just in case.

 

[jasper]

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)

A. Bob, you have been playing 5E for 2 years longer than me. You are the rules guru. Speak up when I am doing something wrong.
2. People I am new to 5E please accept my foul ups. Or take the seat yourself.
III. People speak up if I am way off base.
4. I will put down my fiction book, and try to read 1 hour of a source book each week.

 

[DragonLancer]

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?

Several years ago I wrote a homebrew campaign for my Pathfinder group. The characters were just paying passengers on a merchants caravan/wagon heading towards a large city. The opening scene was the wagon ambushed by a highwayman and his bandit henchmen. I set the battle map up, placed the models in cool positions that fitted their abilities, and just said roll initiative! They learnt who they were having to fight together, thrown in at the deep end. It worked great and they gelled immediately.