Best GMing Advice you've ever gotten

[Lanefan]

2, Failure is and should always be a possibility -don't put an obstacle/encounter in or call for a test unless you are prepared for it to fail or the party to be defeated. (It's a thing I see in a lot in adventures where there is, for example, a hidden door that calls for a check to be discovered but needs to be found for the adventure to progress)

This contradicts itself. First you say failure should always be a possibility (I completely agree!) but then you seem to criticize a type of adventure design that in fact makes failure a very real possibility.

Put another way, failure is and should always be a possibility whether on the individual-task scale or the whole-adventure scale.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

This contradicts itself. First you say failure should always be a possibility (I completely agree!) but then you seem to criticize a type of adventure design that in fact makes failure a very real possibility.

Put another way, failure is and should always be a possibility whether on the individual-task scale or the whole-adventure scale.

Sorry it or I wasn't clear. I'm criticizing adventure design that doesn't allow for failure but puts in something that could cause failure but is written assuming it won't actually happen.

The illusion of failure if you will.

My GM advice is when you put a test or obstacle in stop for a second and think if they screw this up, zig instead of zag, are there options for the players or is it just fudge or come to a grinding halt.

 

[Lanefan]

Sorry it or I wasn't clear. I'm criticizing adventure design that doesn't allow for failure but puts in something that could cause failure but is written assuming it won't actually happen.

The illusion of failure if you will.

Got it. Makes sense.

My GM advice is when you put a test or obstacle in stop for a second and think if they screw this up, zig instead of zag, are there options for the players or is it just fudge or come to a grinding halt.

Where I see "grinding halt" leading to a (temporary or permanent) fail-state for the adventure as always being a possibility.

 

[MGibster]

Don't forget to have fun.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

Be like water.

Ruin every book you touch for more than a moment? No!

 

[pemerton]

For me, it's something implicit in Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World:

Nothing happens is not a GM-side move.

 

[messy]

“Stop.”

 

[delericho]

The best DMing advice I ever received was also the very first, from the old Red Box: be fair.