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

[Thomas Shey]

BOO

I will fight you.

YAY

I did something similar with a terrestrial scenario where cryo preserved folks woke up during the Apocalypse, except I said "You were rich enough to get frozen hoping to wake up even richer based on investments. What were your now useless skills."

Well, the difference there was their skills were still useful; they just didn't really remember they had them until they came up.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, I am currently watching a game (not one I run or play in - I'm a third party who hears about it), and we can add to this:

Make sure you pay attention to what you are actually doing.

The game is falling apart, and the GM had mentioned "I've been waiting for you guys to try creative things, and push the edges of your abilities..."

For several weeks before, the players: "Every time I try to get creative, he says, "No.""

Yup.

It can sometimes be a fine line, too, if you have conflicting wants, where you want people to think outside the box a bit, but some of what they come up with is too ridiculous for the tone of the campaign. How you refuse the latter without discouraging the former is not trivial.

Edit: Of course some of this can be up-front communications problems where you think you've conveyed the tone you're aiming for, and either they have ignored it, or their perception of what you've said and your intentions with what you've said are out of sync.

 

[Umbran]

Yup.

It can sometimes be a fine line, too, if you have conflicting wants, where you want people to think outside the box a bit, but some of what they come up with is too ridiculous for the tone of the campaign. How you refuse the latter without discouraging the former is not trivial.

That's definitely a potential pitfall.

In this particular case, I think it is more that he has some focused preconceived notions, and is making the players guess what will work and what won't, with little guidance or feedback.

He's certainly doing that with his major adventure elements. He seems to think he's running a sandbox, but it is populated more like a linear adventure, and his telegraphing of where the interesting stuff has been insufficient. End result is PCs wandering around waiting to stumble upon the plot, so to speak.

The real problem is that the guy thinks he's the greatest GM that ever was, is considering doing it "professionally", with livestreams and such, but he hasn't actually run a game in like a decade, and he will not talk to anyone about how to improve his game.

Edit to add: I see the :wow: emoji - yes, this guy is a poster child for this thread. If he could drop his ego and talk with me for an hour or two, I could help him shake out so many problems.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's definitely a potential pitfall.

In this particular case, I think it is more that he has some focused preconceived notions, and is making the players guess what will work and what won't, with little guidance or feedback.

He's certainly doing that with his major adventure elements. He seems to think he's running a sandbox, but it is populated more like a linear adventure, and his telegraphing of where the interesting stuff has been insufficient. End result is PCs wandering around waiting to stumble upon the plot, so to speak.

The real problem is that the guy thinks he's the greatest GM that ever was, is considering doing it "professionally", with livestreams and such, but he hasn't actually run a game in like a decade, and he will not talk to anyone about how to improve his game.

Edit to add: I see the :wow: emoji - yes, this guy is a poster child for this thread. If he could drop his ego and talk with me for an hour or two, I could help him shake out so many problems.

Yeah, that's someone who's almost certainly overrating his GMing skills, or at least extending them beyond the area they're actually skilled in.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The real problem is that the guy thinks he's the greatest GM that ever was, is considering doing it "professionally", with livestreams and such, but he hasn't actually run a game in like a decade, and he will not talk to anyone about how to improve his game.

I, for one, think you should encourage him to stream. There would be many benefits for the community to see DMs of his caliber run games.

 

[MNblockhead]

I do have to note I was able to do this with nothing but my laptop, a big screen TV that could be projected to (which a rather lot of them do now) and a free piece of software. It wasn't down in front of people, but I found it a lot easier than messing with physical maps by the time I did it.

Basically, I was doing the same thing. Laptop plugged into a TV. Started with RealmWorks but moved to MapTool.

One difference is that I had a case built for the TV for some protection, looks, and easier portability.

 

[MNblockhead]

I, for one, think you should encourage him to stream. There would be many benefits for the community to see DMs of his caliber run games.

We could use more counters to the Mercer effect.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Basically, I was doing the same thing. Laptop plugged into a TV. Started with RealmWorks but moved to MapTool.

One difference is that I had a case built for the TV for some protection, looks, and easier portability.

Well, I was GMing all at one place at the time, and now I'm all-in on remote GMing/play so the TV is no longer necessary.