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Anderlith
2012-09-27, 11:17 PM
I love to worldbuild, I love to make these vast, complex, realms that have all kinds of interesting things for my players to do/interact with. I make cohesive plots, I love combat & intrigue, all the elements of a great campaign are there....

except I suck at the delivery. I muddle things up a lot. I don't seem to put enough emphasis on the right things, & all my NPC interaction sounds like boxed text even when improvised. I find it hard to hook my characters, I hate to railroad things & I'd like to see them choose the path ahead, but they never seem to want to do anything

Can the playground offer me any advice or show me where I might find such?

Please be brutally honest. Don't worry about being vague or generalized because you don't want to harm my playstyle. My playstyle obviously sucks & can use a change, lol.

Deathkeeper
2012-09-27, 11:45 PM
First, sometimes it's okay to be obvious about a plot hook if all the PCs are goofing off. There have been several times where I realized I'd missed a hook or hint or such only in hindsight. The worst is in town; new PCs are the worst, but even veterans can sometimes end up sitting around waiting for the plot to happen because the DM just assumed they'd have the common sense to look at the job board.
In getting characters involved, working at their character angles can work, too. The Lawful dwarf is going to have a tough time ignoring the dwarf city being attacked, in all likelihood.
Dialogue is the killer in a lot of times. If absolutely necessary, you can switch to third person of you're floundering at getting the point across. Yeah, it breaks immersion and you shouldn't do it if the players don't like that sort of thing, but every once and a while it's easier to just say "he gives you directions" and assume the adventurers remember their hometown's landscape than give a long set of directions in-character and hope the players remembered every detail of the introduction. And yes, that has been a problem for my fellows in the campaigns I've been in.

NotScaryBats
2012-09-27, 11:46 PM
Sometimes this can be as simple as: Make sure your PCs and you are playing the same game.

Do they want a bust-in-the-door dungeon crawl, where your choices are 'check for traps' and 'advance without checking for traps' while you've built an awesome setup for a 'whodunnit' style noble's party?

Its fun to surprise your players with crazy things happening, but make sure the key assumptions are the same.

I once turned my brother's werewolf into a vampire, and made him take a quest to cure his vampirism -- really cool twist right? Except I didn't tell him that was the direction the game would take from the get-go, and he ended up hating the one session the game lasted for.

Kitten Champion
2012-09-28, 01:43 AM
I've never GMed before, but I've been story-telling for some time now.

Read to others. Preferably people you know and want to listen to you. Pick a work of fiction off the shelf and read a chapter, get some criticism, and then do it again. Go through a variety of characters in a number of different genre to get some flexibility in your characterizations. I love writing stories, weaving fictional worlds and characters into a narrative, but I was brutal in performing them -- an emotionally empty monotone, stuttering, forgotten words which i felt necessary to stop and return to breaking my cadence horribly. I had to work at getting comfortable at not just speaking clearly, but in a manner that others found entertaining.

If you can draw them in, then they'll want to play along.

nedz
2012-09-28, 05:54 AM
Do some Drama ?
Study people's dialogue ?

Totally Guy
2012-09-28, 06:08 AM
I get the feeling that the games you play use the GM role as the only means of insigating play.

Check out games like Mouse Guard (or Burning Wheel), Inspectres and Apocalypse World (or Dungeon World) for examples of games in which the GM is assisted by the mechanics of the game to make play happen.

Kaervaslol
2012-09-28, 10:47 AM
Read more. And read more of the classics, Vance, Leiber, Moorcock.

Have dialogues in your head between the npcs and the players, I do this all the time and have them out loud in the shower.

Practice funny voices, personify characters, get mad, laugh and plan schemes.

Most of the work I do as a DM is that kind of work, reading to get ideas for cool scenarios, creating characters in my head, having discussions and stuff.

Kol Korran
2012-09-29, 04:34 AM
I love to worldbuild, I love to make these vast, complex, realms that have all kinds of interesting things for my players to do/interact with. I make cohesive plots, I love combat & intrigue, all the elements of a great campaign are there....

except I suck at the delivery. I muddle things up a lot. I don't seem to put enough emphasis on the right things, & all my NPC interaction sounds like boxed text even when improvised. I find it hard to hook my characters, I hate to railroad things & I'd like to see them choose the path ahead, but they never seem to want to do anything

Can the playground offer me any advice or show me where I might find such?

Please be brutally honest. Don't worry about being vague or generalized because you don't want to harm my playstyle. My playstyle obviously sucks & can use a change, lol.

I'll try to give some advice, some of it may seem obvious (it's amazing how not obvious some obvious things may seem to be). I don't intend to sound patronizing, but sometime I come of as such. This is not intended.

Before tackling the individual issues, here are 4 big things that help me a lot:

1) Remember this is a game: This is not a novel, a story, or anything like it. It is a game, and as such one should always look for the elements that make it fun: Important choices, effect of character's actions, a mix of emotional experiences- elation, despair, fun and seriousness.

Through out preparing a campaign, an adventure (3 different kinds of preperation though they partly rely on each other), I keep asking "will this make for a good interesting game for SEVERAL people?" if the answer is just one or none i try to alter it.

2) Will the players find it interesting? will the PCs have a reason to be involved? This partly stems from the previous article, but since it is SOOOO important, it deserves it's own merit.

You know your players, you know what makes them tick, so plan to engage them. involving the PCs usually stems from a heavily roleplaying player, the actual PLAYERS are what is important. appeal to their desires, and spread hooks that trigger their interests and so on, and you'll have interested initiating players.

I do this for every adventure, scene, encounter and choices i give the players. The idea is to usually appeal to half or more your party (not just one member) in every encounter to keep the interest in. The players will then bring their own play to the game.

At every stage in the game planning ask yourself: "will this appeal to my players?"

3) Think through your encounters, plots and the like. My group meets infrequently (about once every 3-4 weeks) so i get to rethink and refine everything quite a bit. I don't know if you have the time for this, but I suggest you try. As to matters of delivery, I suggest like a poster before me to run the conversations a few times in your head, and as mentioned before- think what the players might say in return, how will they react to a conversation, a challenge and so on.

True, you won't be able to predict everything, but quite a bit of it you will. More importantly- you'll be more familiarized with the encounter and situation to improvise better and give a better delivery.

This is true on the session, adventure and campaign levels of planning.

4) Keep a log: I'm making a log to each campaign i run (one can be found in my Sig, Many facets...) and these have helped me IMMENSELY. They help me reaxamine and rethink design and choices and delivery I've made before, and how to make these better. The log I wrote here on the forums also enabled me to ask for quite a bit of important advice on the forum.

A few more specific things

I don't seem to put enough emphasis on the right things, & all my NPC interaction sounds like boxed text even when improvised.
I am not a master of delivery yet, but the following technique have helped me quite a lot:
when in the design stage, i write 3-4 "key perormance" items for each encounter. These are the main things i want to deliver in the encounter, be it a conversation, a battle, another type of challenge and so on. I put all of these neatly on one or more pages that i keep decently presented to me.

Before the session i try and go over this a few times, to have a better frame of it in my mind, but in the session itself I might look at it briefly, to get me back to track.

more complex encounters, key pieces, might require more than 3-4, but for these I memorize the important items well before the session.

This technique didn't work out well the first few sessions I tried it. It might feel awkward or bulky to you, but for it it really helped after a few sessions.


I find it hard to hook my characters, I hate to railroad things & I'd like to see them choose the path ahead, but they never seem to want to do anything

Don't hook the characters, hook the PLAYERS. find out what they are interested in, and work it from there. Many times most players are interested in two things only unfortunately:
- Getting more powerful
- A certain style of play. (mucho battles, espionage and trickery, and so on)

The second one can be quite appealing, and the first one is simple but quite easy.

Another way about it is to screw with your players. In the last session one antagonist tricked the players and stole a key treasure piece from them, and another antagonist imprisoned two and took all their equipment. You have ANY idea how motivated they are now against these two? They are sending emails and plans and what not to each other, not even in the session. Don't overdue this though. 1-3 times in a campaign is enough. And give them a decent way out of this, being screwed should come (mostly) out of their own actions if at all possible.

the main idea is to appeal to the players, both in the motivation stage and the choices you give them, but remember- appeal to AT LEAST half the party (it's often hard to appeal to more). If their interests are not the same- use secondary hooks that "happen" to coincide with the choice you present.

But really, remember the first 4: Is it game worthy, What in this will appeal to my players? Think through the game and it's scenes, and keep a log, even if it's just for yourself.

I hope this wasn't too obvious and boring, good luck to you. Wanting to improve is already half the battle.

Jay R
2012-09-29, 10:02 AM
It doesn't matter what the skill is, you will be poor at it when you start.

It doesn't matter what the skill is, it will take practice to get better.

It doesn't matter what the skill is, the longer you spend practicing, the better you will get.

It doesn't matter what the skill is, some people will start off better than you. But they need practice to get good just as much as you do.

Mando Knight
2012-09-29, 01:25 PM
It doesn't matter what the skill is, you will be poor at it when you start.

It doesn't matter what the skill is, it will take practice to get better.

It doesn't matter what the skill is, the longer you spend practicing, the better you will get.

It doesn't matter what the skill is, some people will start off better than you. But they need practice to get good just as much as you do.

In other words, if you suck at ad-lib, just keep on GMing.

Knaight
2012-09-29, 04:14 PM
What you need is practice, plain and simple. Players who are on board are a major help, but they won't substitute for practice. It also sounds like your issue is more in intonation than in syntax or structure, which makes practice a very broad category. Keep playing RPGs, read books out loud, pay attention to what good GMs and good audiobook readers do, and look to exemplary examples of various kinds of speech. Exposition probably necessitates a focus on fiction, but dialogue is a different matter entirely. At that point, you can benefit from watching notable speeches, or recorded debates, or really any form of communication between people which is well conducted. See what is good, and try to synthesize it into your style; eventually your style will improve.

Dr.Epic
2012-09-29, 04:21 PM
Can the playground offer me any advice or show me where I might find such?

Just reuse the plots of your favorite (fantasy) stories. Problem solved.

Gamer Girl
2012-09-30, 01:15 AM
except I suck at the delivery. I muddle things up a lot. I don't seem to put enough emphasis on the right things, & all my NPC interaction sounds like boxed text even when improvised. I find it hard to hook my characters, I hate to railroad things & I'd like to see them choose the path ahead, but they never seem to want to do anything

Can the playground offer me any advice or show me where I might find such?


1.Watch TV, lots of TV. TV by it's nature is full of storytelling, delivery and such. You have tons of fantasy and sci-fi shows to pick from, but you can use any show really. You will want action/adventure shows, of course. You should have no problem watching a show online or just renting them from your local library. You can also watch movies, of course.

2.[B]Pick a fictional character from a TV show or movie. It does not matter the one you pick, but a TV show with a character you can get to know after a couple episodes works best. Then use that character for your own, but not the character, just the personality.

Example:I have Gomson HighThumb a gnome. For a personality, I pick Scotty from Star Trek. And it fits and flows nicely having a little gnome saying things like ''I'm giving my magic all I got with my spells hot crossed like a pot of soup''.

It's best to pick a slightly less popular character, so there is no chance your players will figure it out...as it can ruin the immersion if they figure out that Lord Doom is just Darth Vader. But you do have hundreds of characters to pick from after all.

[B]3.It's not the hook, you just need better bait. You need, in fact, great bait. Don't use bait like ''five gold pieces'', no player will go for that. You need stuff that will get their attention. Anything that they want. Just listen to and observe your players. You should be able to find several things they want. And by default, you can always use things like power....every player would want a
'raise dead gem', for example. Quite often you will need to simply bribe the players. Even more so, you will need to often throw them some bait before they take the hook.

Aux-Ash
2012-09-30, 01:59 AM
Some other people mentioned this one, but it's perhaps the most important one:

Know your players. Know what they think is fun, learn to read their bodylanguage, know what drives their characters. In all storytelling, giving the audience what they want (even if they didn't know they wanted it) is key. Never be afraid to ask what your players thought of the session, what they'd like to see next time and what they thought you need to work on.

Find a style you're comfortable with and stick with it. Both in terms of doing the preparation/studying for each session and how you present the story itself. Look at how you play and use that as a model. Like first person? Then play each NPC in first. Like third? Use that instead. Spend the time you need to prepare the session. I personally usually practise key npc in front of a mirror or when out walking.

Write notes. Having notes to go back to, both to evaluate where the next adventure will go and to pick up the thread whenever you drop it, is very helpful. Learning to write shorthand is very useful here. Keep descriptions short and easy to read. A block of text is useless. Similarily, only mention characters that will be in this session. Key phrases you want them to say as well. Keep things simple... worry about long term consequences between sessions.

Just relax and be yourself Don't worry about it too much. If your players are having fun, that's what matters most. Make sure you have fun too.

If you think of the 14 things your players can do, they will think of the 15th and do the 16th. Yep, sorry. They'll never do what you plan. So if they don't exactly go do what you wanted them to do, know that it's not your fault. It's par for the course.

Make sure you get something hot to drink. Just to restore your voice. It can take quite the beating. Failing that, keep plenty of water around.

In one of my books I got a neat suggestion on what things a human eye notices first of all. Which is useful tips for descriptions I feel. I can remember it all off the top of my head and can't access the book at this moment. But the first thing a human eye notices is movement, so always begin describing with that. In other words... don't begin describing the elaborate pattern on the floor when there's a dangerous beast staring them down in the middle of the room. Patterns can be noticed -after- it is dead.

Hanuman
2012-09-30, 03:06 AM
Perform [Oratory] [CHARISMA]

Unlike DnD, you gain stat in individual things instead of global XP, and there's no such thing as fair balance in RL.

You do this by taking risks and adventuring into unknown waters.

Take social risks, practice going over what you want to do and have a sense of boldness and refusal to accept negative emotions, when walking by people on the street talk to them and chat them up, this will improve charisma. Gather information, diplomacy, bluff, perform, ect.

Push it out of your lungs and brain, force it out if its not going smooth.
If I ever get stuck with a lot of data or I don't know how to tastefully connect some events I pretend it's a doctor who plot and BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM things happen really fast all at once and it all works.

valadil
2012-09-30, 08:22 AM
Soo, I suck at storytelling :'(

So don't tell stories. Let the players tell them.

One of the big misconceptions I've seen from some GMs is that they're performing and the players are the audience. Not sure if you're making this mistake too. At any rate, the players are the main characters. They need to be in the spotlight and the story should come from them. Your job is to facilitate their storytelling.

Sure, some GMs are great orators and a couple minutes of description from them will help set the scene. They're taking on the role of narrator, but the players should still be the source of the story.


except I suck at the delivery. I muddle things up a lot. I don't seem to put enough emphasis on the right things

That's okay. I hate to resort to filthy stereotypes, but gamers are not known for their social interaction. Game with friends and they'll forgive you for stumbling over a sentence here or there.


all my NPC interaction sounds like boxed text even when improvised.

So what exactly are you doing when you're interacting with your players? Even the best actors will read what you're doing. If you've got a notebook in front of you and you're looking at that, the players will assume you're reading from it. If the notebook's closed on the table and you're making eye contact, the players will have no reason to assume you're giving a scripted speech.

Here are a few of the habits I've built up to make my interactions more interactive. Don't know if they'll help you or not.
* No laptop. The screen always felt like a barrier between me and the players. I'm curious if an iPad would fix that problem, but I'm not interesting in spending $500 to find out.
* Limited description. So this is tangential but I'm awful at description. I can picture a vivid scene, but the players need to ask about it for me to tell them anything. To combat this I started writing description in advance, just to force myself to spit it out. Well, when I did this, the box text alarm went off and the players zoned out. They didn't ignore the game or anything, but it got really difficult to get them back from listener mode. The solution was to limit description. I give myself three sentences to describe any scene. That's enough for the important details, but short enough that it doesn't push the players into listener only mode.
* Cigarettes aid roleplay. Well smoke breaks do. One of my players/GMs smokes. Every half hour or so he goes outside to have a smoke break. He and I are usually the most interested in roleplay at any table, so I usually go outside during those breaks for NPC interaction. It works this way in both our games regardless of who is GMing. Anyway, away from the books, dice, and minis is where our best roleplaying happens. It's just two people talking. Nobody checks notes. Nobody rolls dice. Sometimes that stuff gets in the way. I'm not suggesting you take up smoking, but maybe find a way to do some roleplay away from the table.


I find it hard to hook my characters, I hate to railroad things & I'd like to see them choose the path ahead, but they never seem to want to do anything


Have you ever asked your players?

I request a background story from everyone in my games. Usually the stuff they put in the back story tells you want they're interested in doing. I pick through the back stories with a fine toothed comb. Any name they mention will show up in game. Any plot thread left dangling will end up dangled in front of them. These are free adventure hooks that your players will be excited to chase down. (P.S. players LOVE it when stuff they come up with becomes part of the main plot. They don't love it when a session turns into Steve's side plot. Make the things they contribute the game important and they'll thank you by contributing more to the game. Done right, you won't have to come up with anything. You'll just manage the ideas they throw at your.)


My playstyle obviously sucks & can use a change, lol.

Don't be so negative. Seriously. Arrange your games so you can showcase your strengths. If you have a weakness, you don't have to show your players. You're the one running the game, remember? I suck at dungeons. The solution is to keep my players in the city. (Most of the time anyway. Exploring outside of your comfort zone is important too. Build up confidence in your comfort zone and then take a day trip somewhere new. If I have a strong urban campaign, putting the players in a hole for 2 weeks isn't going to harm the campaign. We'll just have 2 weeks of subpar game and then get back to the good stuff. Maybe I'll learn a thing about dungeons or maybe I'll confirm why I don't like them.)

Finally, communicate your playstyle to the players. Some of them aren't even aware of what playstyle is. I invited one player to a gritty, dark, intrigue game and she didn't recognize it as D&D because she only knew dungeon crawls. We were mutually disappointed because her expectations didn't match with the game. If you know what your strengths are and offer those up in a game, make sure the players know about that in advance so they can play characters who will be interested in those strengths.

Anderlith
2012-09-30, 02:30 PM
So don't tell stories. Let the players tell them.

One of the big misconceptions I've seen from some GMs is that they're performing and the players are the audience. Not sure if you're making this mistake too. At any rate, the players are the main characters. They need to be in the spotlight and the story should come from them. Your job is to facilitate their storytelling.

Sure, some GMs are great orators and a couple minutes of description from them will help set the scene. They're taking on the role of narrator, but the players should still be the source of the story.



That's okay. I hate to resort to filthy stereotypes, but gamers are not known for their social interaction. Game with friends and they'll forgive you for stumbling over a sentence here or there.



So what exactly are you doing when you're interacting with your players? Even the best actors will read what you're doing. If you've got a notebook in front of you and you're looking at that, the players will assume you're reading from it. If the notebook's closed on the table and you're making eye contact, the players will have no reason to assume you're giving a scripted speech.

Here are a few of the habits I've built up to make my interactions more interactive. Don't know if they'll help you or not.
* No laptop. The screen always felt like a barrier between me and the players. I'm curious if an iPad would fix that problem, but I'm not interesting in spending $500 to find out.
* Limited description. So this is tangential but I'm awful at description. I can picture a vivid scene, but the players need to ask about it for me to tell them anything. To combat this I started writing description in advance, just to force myself to spit it out. Well, when I did this, the box text alarm went off and the players zoned out. They didn't ignore the game or anything, but it got really difficult to get them back from listener mode. The solution was to limit description. I give myself three sentences to describe any scene. That's enough for the important details, but short enough that it doesn't push the players into listener only mode.
* Cigarettes aid roleplay. Well smoke breaks do. One of my players/GMs smokes. Every half hour or so he goes outside to have a smoke break. He and I are usually the most interested in roleplay at any table, so I usually go outside during those breaks for NPC interaction. It works this way in both our games regardless of who is GMing. Anyway, away from the books, dice, and minis is where our best roleplaying happens. It's just two people talking. Nobody checks notes. Nobody rolls dice. Sometimes that stuff gets in the way. I'm not suggesting you take up smoking, but maybe find a way to do some roleplay away from the table.



Have you ever asked your players?

I request a background story from everyone in my games. Usually the stuff they put in the back story tells you want they're interested in doing. I pick through the back stories with a fine toothed comb. Any name they mention will show up in game. Any plot thread left dangling will end up dangled in front of them. These are free adventure hooks that your players will be excited to chase down. (P.S. players LOVE it when stuff they come up with becomes part of the main plot. They don't love it when a session turns into Steve's side plot. Make the things they contribute the game important and they'll thank you by contributing more to the game. Done right, you won't have to come up with anything. You'll just manage the ideas they throw at your.)



Don't be so negative. Seriously. Arrange your games so you can showcase your strengths. If you have a weakness, you don't have to show your players. You're the one running the game, remember? I suck at dungeons. The solution is to keep my players in the city. (Most of the time anyway. Exploring outside of your comfort zone is important too. Build up confidence in your comfort zone and then take a day trip somewhere new. If I have a strong urban campaign, putting the players in a hole for 2 weeks isn't going to harm the campaign. We'll just have 2 weeks of subpar game and then get back to the good stuff. Maybe I'll learn a thing about dungeons or maybe I'll confirm why I don't like them.)

Finally, communicate your playstyle to the players. Some of them aren't even aware of what playstyle is. I invited one player to a gritty, dark, intrigue game and she didn't recognize it as D&D because she only knew dungeon crawls. We were mutually disappointed because her expectations didn't match with the game. If you know what your strengths are and offer those up in a game, make sure the players know about that in advance so they can play characters who will be interested in those strengths.

I don't use a laptop or computer of any kind. I use notebooks & index card (I love using index cards for monsters) Mostly my notebook is for HP & init stuff like that, as well as a long list of names for Random NPC's & a list of NPC, Town,& Plot notes. Most are not much longer than a single sentence. I'm not much of a notes guy, I keep most stuff in my head. The problem is that I can organize an encounter, a dungeon, anything... except RP. I can't organize RP, conversations don't have patrols, or reinforcements, they aren't tactical (where I excel at). I don't know what the PC's will ask or say or do. I try to make sure then they know what they need to know from NPC's but as soon as I break from improvised small talk into talking about plot it's like a prerecorded message given in monotone. Like the weather alert system lol. So basically any plot information seems forced into conversations.

Knaight
2012-09-30, 03:13 PM
I try to make sure then they know what they need to know from NPC's but as soon as I break from improvised small talk into talking about plot it's like a prerecorded message given in monotone. Like the weather alert system lol. So basically any plot information seems forced into conversations.

Here's your issue. You're using NPCs for exposition, which is limited in utility. Briefings certainly work, but generally NPCs aren't the best tool for most exposition, unless the players are acting in such a way as to directly ask questions. I'd recommend using in game written sources more, focusing much less on the plot as a whole and instead letting it emerge, with NPCs acting towards their own goals, in accordance with their own methods.

valadil
2012-09-30, 03:15 PM
I don't know what the PC's will ask or say or do. I try to make sure then they know what they need to know from NPC's but as soon as I break from improvised small talk into talking about plot it's like a prerecorded message given in monotone. Like the weather alert system lol. So basically any plot information seems forced into conversations.

What is your roleplaying like as a player? Do you have the same problem sounding monotonous as a PC? If not, what are you doing as a PC that you aren't doing as an NPC?

Hanuman
2012-09-30, 09:29 PM
Make a video of you telling a story and post it up here.

OttoVonBigby
2012-10-01, 07:59 AM
Assuming you're talking about D&D or a similar fantasy game...

...don't try to be subtle about the plot. This weekend I DMed one of my most successful single sessions--like, it provoked visible thrill and terror--and if I had interviewed myself a week earlier about the scenario's quality, I would've said "Aw, that sounds dumb and hackneyed and cliched, and it'll come off as not only unoriginal, but boring."

As a fierce self-critic, the thing I sometimes have to remind myself is that immersion comes more easily for a player in an RPG than it does for a reader of a book, for reasons which are obvious when you think about it for a second.

Not to say the advice above about reading more is bad advice--it's great advice. But the storytelling mechanism is different in a few major ways.