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View Full Version : Things I have learned in 8 years of gming (lots of text)



Elvenoutrider
2013-06-23, 01:48 PM
Before I begin, please let me start with who I am. I am a college student who has been gaming since I was a freshmen in high school. I am familiar with d&d 3.5, pathfinder, gurps, all flesh must be eaten, deadlands, World of darkness, d20 modern, and pokemon tabletop adventure. the vast majority of my gaming has used pathfinder and gurps. I decided to post this this morning because I wanted to share my experience and bounce my opinions off of others in an effort to put together an advice thread for dms. I am open to criticism and would love to see how my advice compares to those who choose to reply. Anyways there's a lot here so pull up a chair, ur going to be here for a little bit.


1) You are not lovecraft/Tolkien/rowling etc. You do not have to be to be a good gm:

One problem I would run into, and still do, is I watch an episode of my favorite TV show, or a great movie, or I play through one of my favorite video games again for inspiration, and find myself blown away by what they came up with and realize that I could never come up with something so amazing by my next gaming session. The thing that it took me a while to realize is that I didn’t have to. In my experience players surprise me with the low standards they have for what they consider a good story. One of the best sessions I ever had was my players waking up in a boarded up tavern surrounded by mindless undead. I had no idea where I was going with it, and an explanation was never given but they still look fondly on it. As long as the players are actively involved in some form of problem solving they will be having fun. Don’t be too critical of yourself. Your players will probably enjoy your game no matter how one dimensional your plot is. Keep plugging away at it you will get better.

2) Clichés are common because they are fun. Don’t be afraid to use them.
The king corrupted by his closest adviser, the dragon sitting on a pile of gold at the end of a dungeon, the princess kidnapped by monsters; these are all very common tropes in fantasy and even outside the genre, and because they are considered too common, most gms will not use them. Because many gms try so hard to avoid them I have noticed that some players consider it refreshing to see these things. The scene of bringing the king to his senses and watching his guards haul off the adviser to the dungeons makes for an amazing scene. A proper dragon encounter can last hours and never get boring. The princess grateful at her rescue telling the adventurers she will spread word of her deeds are all very rewarding. For a new player writing their first adventure don’t be afraid to embrace the tropes. They are popular for a reason.

3) Following the last piece of advice, avoid the urge to do something very new for your first adventure. Stick to what is familiar at first.
For my first adventure I decided that my group needed a break from fantasy, so I looked through my friend’s bookshelf and noticed something that looked like fin – a copy of d20 modern. Now many people have offered many conflicting opinions on the system. IM just going to go right out and say I hate it. The system is broken in the extreme, but in a way that makes the game less fun for players. The majority of the internet seems to agree with my opinion judging from the many threads on many sites for how to fix the system. I don’t want to turn this into an argument over which systems are the best. My experiences with this one were negative. I wrote a story that my players were interested in. I did a lot of things right, but my unfamiliarity with the system and the broken rules caused my pcs to wind up with more equipment than they could ever run out of and their character’s abilities were more powerful than even enemies at 6+ their cr. I was completely overwhelmed and failed miserably. Now building on the first it is interesting to note that my pcs still said they had fun. I was still too afraid to run a game for several months after.
OK so after that rant what it boils down to is for my first game I tried a completely new story, with a completely unfamiliar system, with a few unfamiliar players, and if failed. So what should you do? Looking back my advice for new players is to run a prewritten module for your first game. This will help flush out rules you are unfamiliar with, and identify to you which players may be problems in the future and give you an idea of some of your weaknesses as a gm.
For your second game, go back to your inspirations. Watch an episode of your favorite show, play through some of your favorite levels of one of your favorite video games. Now look at each and ask “how could I turn this into an adventure?” The story will probably boil down to characters go here, they are presented with a problem. They have to go to some place and do something to fix the problem. Then something gets in the way. Rinse and repeat. Now take this adventure and replace the characters with your pcs, replace their setting with yours, and replace their obstacles with a puzzle or monster encounter of your own, and their goal with one that fits your game and you have your story. I find myself doing this with adventures from mass effect, battlestar galactica, star trek, and bioshock nowadays.

4) Your first instinct when your pcs present you with a request or a plan should be to say yes, unless the idea would obviously destroy your adventure, or be completely unreasonable.
Your pcs are going to do it at some point – one of them is going to think or a brilliant or ridiculous way to trivialize an encounter that you spent hours planning. For some examples from my life, in one instance when I was a new gm, I had a climactic rooftop battle, and then discovered that my bbeg was within the barbarian’s charge range. He ran in and bullrushed my spellcaster off the roof in the first round of combat, drastically reducing the cr of the encounter down to his minions. In another case, my players grappled a spellcasting undead, threw him in a coffin, chained it shut, and threw it in the ocean. In a third case, they were sneaking through a guard barracks, cast silence, and used the time to nail all of the doors shut while no one could hear them. I could go on and on. One of your biggest challenges as a dm is going to be to let this go and let the players have their way. This sort of thing is really only an issue if it happens more than once an adventure. Your players will never have more fun in an adventure than when they are using some truly silly plan to completely ruin your encounter. They will talk forever with their other gaming friends about how their silly plan made the gm take a 20 minute break to leave the room to figure out how to pick up the pieces of his adventure. Telling them it doesn’t work will only make them resent you as a gm and will significantly lower the fun of the night. Try to keep in mind the bbeg can always have a back up plan. He can have allies that can break him out of prison, he can have a magic device set to resurrect him after this encounter, that he was of course only using to guage the pc’s strength. He could have a cousin who is out to avenge his death, or a superior who can call in someone more competent to take his place. If the pcs get ahold of something they shouldn’t maybe there is something else out there. If the pcs catch the murderer two sessions to early, maybe he inspired a copycat or maybe it was the weekend butler who did it. You have backup options when you are in full control of the world. If you really find yourself in a situation where you cannot continue if the players perform this action, be honest with them. Tell them openly that they have outsmarted you, give them extra xp for their creativity, but tell them that if they do this the adventure will end. It isn’t ideal, but hey, they earned it.

5) If you must have the pcs be captured, there is a good way to do it and the bad way. Either way the pcs will resent it so avoid this if you can.
I have a running count of how many times I have seen players and dms complaining about being captured or their pcs refusing to be captured and the frustrations and arguments that result. It is up to 14 since I started counting. The players are used to their characters succeeding in most things that aren’t horror games. They also perceive themselves to have worked very hard to level up their characters and to get their equipment. Them being captured means these things that they have worked for will be taken from them and they will be suboptimal. They will fight this blood tooth and nail to prevent this. Players are also very good at escaping these things – between their efforts to raise their saves, their ability to conceal weapons, their spell lists, and the fact that falling damage doesn’t do much in most settings means the pcs will have ample opportunity to escape from their decidedly superior attackers. If you do manage to capture them you must give them notice that they will get their equipment back or they will resent it. It kills the mood of a session. Now if you must capture your pcs there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. Simply presenting the pcs with an overwhelming force is the wrong way. The pcs are used to being successful and will assume this is something they can overcome or run from and no matter how good you are, the pcs will find a way out of it. It is a difficult skill to translate enemy cr into descriptions. I once described a collosal monster rampaging through a city wrecking houses and devouring guards left and right and my 2nd level party’s reaction was “wow we need to stop that right now, lets go shove our pointy metal bits into it while the wizard casts magic missile a few times.” Now after several rounds of trial and error I believe I have discovered a right way to do it:
Debuffs or negotiation: the first option is do not give the pcs the ability to fight back. Cast hold person on the fighter, immobilize the rogue, hit the wizard with strength reducing poison, drop them into a pit trap, tear gas or flashbang them, trap them in a net. Put them in a position where they are obviously at a disadvantage. It is surprising how much more effective this is than presenting them with an obviously more powerful opponent.
The second method is to ask the pcs to surrender and give them a reason to. The negotiator should be sympathetic, like a police negotiation, tell the pcs they have a chance to clear their names. Role play it out. If playing good cop doesn’t work tell them they have a favorite npc or dependent and you will feed them to a pack of dogs if they don’t come out with their hands presented. Conclusion: if you must capture your pcs use debuff bombs or role play, as a plan b just level with them and tell them for the next part their pcs will be captured but you as gm will make sure they get their stuff back. Make sure you follow through with this promise.

6) When running a horror game, do your homework beforehand and don’t be disappointed if your players are not obviously effected. People react to fear and discomfort in different ways, some do it by cracking jokes. When in doubt, see rule number 1.
Horror may be the most difficult type of game to run. It is the hardest emotion to invoke in players. Before you decide to run a horror game, find a sourcebook on it. Both 3.5 heroes of horror and the gurps guides to horror are great supplements to anyone running any system. All flesh must be eaten also provides great advice. When writing it, try to get yourself into the mood. Lock yourself in a dark basement with only a few low wattage lights on, watch something scary, read some conspiracy theorist pages, reread slenderman’s many fan materials. Youtube has great short creepy videos for getting yourself in the mood. Once appropriately jumpy, start writing. For advice on running horror, try finding a thread on this subject. Two things I have used are dimming the lights, playing sound effects off my computer (you would be surprised at the variety), and the jenga tower of sanity. Every time your pcs see or experience something scary have them pull out and stack a jenga tile. Tell them when the tower falls something horrible will happen. What happens when or if the tower falls is up to you, but your players will be fixated on that tower and nervous whenever someone goes to move a piece.

7) Gming skills atrophy if not used – keep up with your materials. Keep in mind one bad session does not a bad gm make. Games can also fail for reasons that are entirely beyond your control.
This one is pretty self explanatory. If you havn’t gmed in a while your going to have to prepare extra hard for your next adventure. Don’t forget to take some time as a player, it helps you get in their shoes. If you have a bad session don’t be too hard on yourself, it happens to everyone. Games can fail for reasons that are entirely not your fault. I had one adventure at my school where I thought things were going well. Then half my players stopped coming and we could never find out why. I found out months later that it was due to interclub drama involving one person spreading an STI to 6 different people and the resulting fallout from this. Sometimes players might like your gming style but hate the system you are running. Not all systems are created equally. I can not reiterate this enough. Failure happens.

8) Best description I have ever found for a gm is this: “your job as Gm is not to kill the players, your job is to make sure that by the end of the adventure they are out of resources and on their last legs. Get them as close to this point as possible while making sure that everyone is having fun. A character dying is an unfortunate by product of this goal
I cant remember who told me this but I have definitely run my adventures by this philosophy. For some games there may be a very different goal but this seems to eb the case for most games I run. After each encounter in the adventure you need to take a few moments to analyze how much the pcs have used in each encounter before and how much they have left. This takes practice and might require you to be able to upgrade or downgrade your encounters on the fly. Keep in mind that your villains don’t always want to kill the players – a monster might want to drag them back to their nist, a bandit might want information. Maybe they just aren’t the kind of psychopaths who are ok with murdering people and will feel satisfied knocking the pcs out or deterring them. Accidental crits happen. Keep in mind you are entitled to hide your rolls from the pcs if you see fit. Build yourself a dm screen with campaign notes to hide your rolls behind.
9) Use props
Invest in a good map. If you are technically inclined, pick up maptools and an hdmi chord and display the map on your tv. Your players will be impressed. Play sound bytes, use mood music, get a chalkboard or dry erase board for keeping track of initiative. Use timers to put the pcs on edge. Pull players out of the room when they fail saves. Make players hide under the table when they are invisible or unconscious. The dmgs have great advice on how to do this. Use it to the greatest amount you can.

10) Get someone to write your campaigns alongside you
Keep in mind that some of the greatest video games, movies, books and tv shows were put together by a team of writers and editors. Two people bouncing ideas off each other will make beautiful things happen. Give it a shot. Remember there are no bad ideas when your brainstorming.

I am sure that several of the players here will have had more experience than me and will have very different opinions. I welcome criticism and more advice and I hope this thread will make everyone who reads through it a better gm. I may take some time between posts so I can respond to questions or comments in bulk.

TheOz
2013-06-23, 04:26 PM
I'd like to add a couple, regarding campaign making. Be realistic about how long you have with this group, and plan your campaign accordingly. If it's three weeks until the end of summer and your friends are leaving for college, don't try to start a months-long campaign. There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing a two or three session adventure and leaving it at that, and it's a lot more satisfying for DMs and players to actually finish an adventure than to start one and have just enough time to get embroiled in the plot before they have to leave.

Second, plan how many sessions you want your campaign/adventure path/adventure to run for. A rough estimate is enough. Assume one missed session out of five, or four if your group is particularly flakey. Thus, if you want your campaign to run once a week for six months, plan it such that it will last roughly 21-22 sessions of whatever length of time you have. If you find you're going too fast, add something. It's much easier to add a sideplot than to cut short a plot the PCs have already begun following.

Finally, always overestimate how long combat will take, especially if it is an enemy that cannot be taken out by just bashing it to death with weapons. I am known for cinematic boss battles, where just doing raw HP damage is probably not going to be enough to kill the BBEG - though characters who do nothing but HP damage will certainly have something to do in the form of killing minions, breaking down obstacles, etc. I have learned to leave a good three hours for these battles, or sometimes longer depending on how complex it becomes. The time boss battles (and others) take will vary by group, by system, and by GM of course.

EDIT: Meant to say how long I've been playing for. I've been playing D&D 3.5 for about 11 years total, Pathfinder since it came out, GURPS for about 4 years, and a smattering of other systems here and there. I have experience DMing 3.5 and Pathfinder.

Kaun
2013-06-23, 06:55 PM
My hardest won lesson which i always seem to forget is as follows.

As a GM never try to many big new things at the same time: I have a massive problem where i continuously bite off more then i can chew with a game. So i need to constantly remind myself of this every time i start a new game.
If your trying out a new game concept, for example, a sandbox game. If you have never run a sandbox game before do it with a system your familiar with. If your trying a new genre or system, keep the session plan simple.
Doing new things as a GM is always fun and exciting but try to stop yourself from doing to many new things all at once. With each new thing you try you will find a learning curve even if you have done a stack of research. If your trying multiple new things at once all these learning curves stacked on top of each other can cause fracture in a game and can become quite over whelming.
If you are desperate to try a few major new things all at once run a short campaign, maybe 3 to 5 sessions. Let your players know its an educational game, feel things out, make some mistakes, learn some lessons and then wipe the slate clean and start again once you have found your feet.
If you front foot this kind of thing with your players it can be a lot less jarring then trying to retacon to fix issues later.

Secondly, Learn your players: Watch them, learn what they like, learn how they think and especially learn what they don't like. Understanding your players motivations can greatly improve your game.
Learning how to discreetly encourage your players to follow a certain path rather then railroading them into it is an amazing tool to have in your kit. learning what aspects of RPGing your players like is also a must for running a good game. Your players will often have conflicting tastes which is ok, you just have to build your game to cater to all of them.
As a side note to this, while it is always good to ask your players what they like, don't take what they tell you as gospel. many players don't actually know what they really like in a game, often because they have never really thought to deeply about it. The answers you get from them are often things they think they would like/like to try, things they used to like but their tastes have changed or just what ever is on their mind at the time. This info can be very useful but it is important to bare in mind that just because they said it is what they like doesn't necessarily mean it is.
So summing that Wall 'o text up, learn your players, learn their tells and learn how to manipulate them in a way they find fun.

valadil
2013-06-23, 10:29 PM
2) Clichés are common because they are fun. Don’t be afraid to use them.


This one took me a while to get into. I used to be obsessed with being unique. All my plots and characters had to be original. If they looked like something in a book or movie, I wouldn't use them anymore.

The problem with that line of thought is that unique does not equal good. If I come up with a new and totally original character, that doesn't mean I'm a creative genius. Most likely, it means that everybody else that came up with that character rejected it in favor of something better. Once I got used to seeing unique ideas that way, they no longer seemed like such a good idea. Clichés on the other hand, are clichés because they work. They were original once and got reused so many times that they became clichés. That's not a bad thing.

Furthermore, I've been listening to the Fear the Boot podcast lately. One of the things they changed my mind on is the use of tropes. If you're running a fantasy game, you want it to feel like fantasy. Stone walls and torchlight aren't necessarily enough. Use some fantasy tropes as a way to show the players they're taking part in a fantasy story. This isn't ripping off a common plot. It's activating a genre convention to communicate to your audience that you're using that genre.

That said, a game entirely composed of clichés and tropes would be boring. Put your own spin on things when you can. Just don't stress out if you have to recycle a convention here or there.

Thrawn4
2013-06-24, 04:32 AM
Good advice, all in all :smallcool:


5) Conclusion: if you must capture your pcs use debuff bombs or role play, as a plan b just level with them and tell them for the next part their pcs will be captured but you as gm will make sure they get their stuff back. Make sure you follow through with this promise.

Capturing players can also be optional. Giving them a small fighting chance is more interesting for the DM. But I think it is also a matter of style. In a more grim game players should know that they can't defeat a city crushing monster in fair combat.

6) When running a horror game, do your homework

Yep. Very important, although I am not very good at it. Sigmund Freud's "The Uncanny" is often recommended by people though. Just saying.

7) Failure happens.

Definetly. Just last week I asked the players for a five minutes break to consider some things. Everybody was fine with that, and it helped me a lot.

8) Best description I have ever found for a gm is this: “your job as Gm is not to kill the players, your job is to make sure that by the end of the adventure they are out of resources and on their last legs. Get them as close to this point as possible while making sure that everyone is having fun.

Personal decisions, social interaction or just a good atmosphere can also to the trick. Just let everyone have a nice evening.

9) Use props

I rarely use maps, but I can see their appeal. Nice props can definitely add to the atmosphere.


Improvisation is good and can be learned.
Every DM experiences within their first hour of DMing that the player's don't do what the DM expected. Which is good and should be encouraged. However, a good DM can describe the ensueing events in the same quality as the planned bit. Just remember to describe the basic scene (the most important bit of information) and add one or two specific details that make the the room / the character unique. A different decoration, a different smell or what have you can make a lot of difference. Avoid the "only important characters have a name" trap.

Surprise the players
That one is sometimes difficult for me, but changing everything with a surprise, especially towards the climax, can make the game very exciting. The ally turning against the players, the cake that might or might not be a lie... if player's can't anticipate the course of the adventure, it is much more exciting for them. Masterful DMs add clues to the adventure so that the players can figure it out a few seconds before it happens, so that it still happens but the players have a small advantage.

Personal drama beats world drama
Something I just figured out recently (I think). The world is in peril, which is always exciting, but if you don't care about the world, you are not really involved. But if you really care about a character, this can be much more exciting. Most stories have a threat that put the characters you like in danger, and you care much more about them than the guys in the background.

mcbobbo
2013-06-24, 11:05 AM
4) Your first instinct when your pcs present you with a request or a plan should be to say yes, unless the idea would obviously destroy your adventure, or be completely unreasonable.

This is best handled by something in improv and customer service circles as "Yes, and..." There's almost always a way to say yes.

Cealocanth
2013-06-24, 01:41 PM
I admit that I have a lot of trouble with number 4. This is mostly due to the fact that I know my players. Usually driven by the ideas of a particular individual, when my players discover that a plan worked once, they will take that call as absolute canon for the entire campaign and complain when it doesn't work again. For example, say the party finds themselves treading water in a flooded cavern, and only a few pieces of debris are there to stand on. One player can't seem to escape the water, and another wants to help this player but not waste their damage output for the turn to do so. His idea is to use teleportation abilities to teleport himself into a strategic location and bring the drowning ally with him. Clearly a good plan and a unique idea, but the second I say yes, that automatically means that whenever anyone teleports anywhere at all, they can bring creatures they grapple or that are grappling them with them, making it impossible to teleport out of a grapple. Simply put, the consequences of saying yes to everything can often be dangerous in some groups. It's a good idea to reward creativity, but sometimes it's safer to remain in the rules of the game.

As for things I've learned in my brief (4 year) time as a DM:

It's okay to stretch the structure of the rules and of the game for the sake of the story. If your players defeat every monster and every trap every time, then they quickly get bored and realize they're just being fed easy encounters, not actually overcoming any challenges. The world and lore shouldn't scale in difficulty just because the players have leveled. If the demonic army who is invading the town is renowned in legend as being unstoppable and ruthless, then the encounter turns from stand on the front lines to avoid the army, evacuate the citizens, and survive as long as you can. The players need to rise to meet the challenge, the world does not need to fall to their level.

Keeping the play experience interesting is not the same thing as directly countering everything the players can do. Know the player's power level, and scale the number of monsters or the difficulty level of them to fit. Not every encounter needs a new fancy gimmick to play through. Not every monster gets darkvision or tremorsense, or immunity to psionics, or bullet resistance. Sometimes the kobolds should just be easy, and the players will enjoy slaughtering them. Sometimes the kobolds should try to compensate for the player's power level and attack in large swarms. Without a legitimate excuse, a monster should be what players expect it to be, so they don't have to come up with crazy plans or find holes in the story for their tactics to work.

The DM's enjoyment is as important as the players. If the players are having fun, but the DM is not, then the DM will feel less motivated to make good games, and as a result the players will have less fun. The position as DM is to be the guide to the world. It's to test the player's thinking abilities and to try their strength. The DM isn't a slave to the enjoyment of the players, he stands at an agreement with his players that they will both work toward the general enjoyment of the game. As a DM, if you find that you are bored out of you mind in sessions, ask the players if they would like to try a change of setting in a new game system or campaign setting, or maybe offer the seat of DM to one of the players. As a player, if you notice the DM seems to not be enjoying sessions, ask what you can do to help, or offer to take up the mantle. We are playing a game, it should not be a chore for anyone.

TuggyNE
2013-06-24, 05:42 PM
For example, say the party finds themselves treading water in a flooded cavern, and only a few pieces of debris are there to stand on. One player can't seem to escape the water, and another wants to help this player but not waste their damage output for the turn to do so. His idea is to use teleportation abilities to teleport himself into a strategic location and bring the drowning ally with him. Clearly a good plan and a unique idea, but the second I say yes, that automatically means that whenever anyone teleports anywhere at all, they can bring creatures they grapple or that are grappling them with them, making it impossible to teleport out of a grapple.

Willing creatures only! :smallwink:

Barsoom
2013-06-24, 06:59 PM
1) You are not lovecraft/Tolkien/rowling etc. You do not have to be to be a good gm:

One problem I would run into, and still do, is I watch an episode of my favorite TV show, or a great movie, or I play through one of my favorite video games again for inspiration, and find myself blown away by what they came up with and realize that I could never come up with something so amazing by my next gaming session. The thing that it took me a while to realize is that I didn’t have to.
Quoted for importance.

A lot of DMs forget that the story is interactive, and it's not their responsibility to come up with an overreaching epic plotline. A GM that sets the scene and lets the PCs resolve it in any way they want, can often be more successful than the one who tries to plot down everything.

Dethklok
2013-06-25, 09:20 PM
5) If you must have the pcs be captured, there is a good way to do it and the bad way. Either way the pcs will resent it so avoid this if you can.

I have a running count of how many times I have seen players and dms complaining about being captured or their pcs refusing to be captured and the frustrations and arguments that result. It is up to 14 since I started counting. The players are used to their characters succeeding in most things that aren’t horror games. They also perceive themselves to have worked very hard to level up their characters and to get their equipment. Them being captured means these things that they have worked for will be taken from them and they will be suboptimal. They will fight this blood tooth and nail to prevent this. Players are also very good at escaping these things – between their efforts to raise their saves, their ability to conceal weapons, their spell lists, and the fact that falling damage doesn’t do much in most settings means the pcs will have ample opportunity to escape from their decidedly superior attackers. If you do manage to capture them you must give them notice that they will get their equipment back or they will resent it. It kills the mood of a session. Now if you must capture your pcs there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. Simply presenting the pcs with an overwhelming force is the wrong way. The pcs are used to being successful and will assume this is something they can overcome or run from and no matter how good you are, the pcs will find a way out of it.
You and I run very different games, my friend. My players are accustomed to adversaries that outmatch and outclass them; probably a quarter of their encounters end with them running away, and another quarter end with them winning only due to a tactical advantage.

They also don't have pots of treasure and magic items. If they do have an important item, when they are captured, they go to great lengths to recover it. Never once can I recall my players complaining about being captured. In fact usually what happens when one of them is taken captive is that I take their character sheet away without any more than a suggestion that they take over playing one of the NPCs for the rest of the game. Excited questions along the lines of "Am I still alive?" are met with shrugs that nobody knows what happened because everyone ran away or was knocked out, or your body just disappeared in the confusion. When their character sheet reappears, they're overjoyed.

Jay R
2013-06-26, 12:01 AM
Today, the players want to face something they know they can defeat. But tomorrow, they will want to look back on the time they faced something they didn't think they could defeat.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-06-26, 12:46 AM
Never once can I recall my players complaining about being captured. In fact usually what happens when one of them is taken captive is that I take their character sheet away without any more than a suggestion that they take over playing one of the NPCs for the rest of the game. Excited questions along the lines of "Am I still alive?" are met with shrugs that nobody knows what happened because everyone ran away or was knocked out, or your body just disappeared in the confusion. When their character sheet reappears, they're overjoyed.

My problem with capturing PCs is threefold:

A. It can all too easily be a pointless, frustrating distraction for everyone involved. Players generally make their characters because they want to play that character: If they want to play something else, they'll (hopefully) let you know. Unexpectedly playing someone new can sometimes be a fresh and entertaining break... for maybe half a session, or at least for me. After that you get bored of the new one and want to go back to your old one. Then you're just passively going through the game not really caring about anything that happens until you get your old character back, and that's always a sucky place to be.

B. It can also be a ham-fisted railroading tool. "Oh, you guys are all knocked unconscious and forcibly dragged to where the plot is happening." I don't think I need to explain why this is generally a bad move.

C. Worst of all, in the hands of a sadistic DM it can be used as an excuse to go all Theon Greyjoy on your characters. Depending on the tone of your game doing this off-screen is almost as bad as just killing the character outright (someone who's been mutilated and traumatized probably is no longer appropriate as a PC). Doing it on-screen is justification for never playing with that DM again.

Dethklok
2013-06-26, 02:14 AM
Today, the players want to face something they know they can defeat. But tomorrow, they will want to look back on the time they faced something they didn't think they could defeat.
Oh yeah.


My problem with capturing PCs is threefold:

A. It can all too easily be a pointless, frustrating distraction for everyone involved. Players generally make their characters because they want to play that character: If they want to play something else, they'll (hopefully) let you know. Unexpectedly playing someone new can sometimes be a fresh and entertaining break... for maybe half a session, or at least for me. After that you get bored of the new one and want to go back to your old one. Then you're just passively going through the game not really caring about anything that happens until you get your old character back, and that's always a sucky place to be.

B. It can also be a ham-fisted railroading tool. "Oh, you guys are all knocked unconscious and forcibly dragged to where the plot is happening." I don't think I need to explain why this is generally a bad move.

C. Worst of all, in the hands of a sadistic DM it can be used as an excuse to go all Theon Greyjoy on your characters. Depending on the tone of your game doing this off-screen is almost as bad as just killing the character outright (someone who's been mutilated and traumatized probably is no longer appropriate as a PC). Doing it on-screen is justification for never playing with that DM again.
I really think we play different kinds of games. I don't stage an overwhelming fight that ends in a predestined kidnapping. Instead, the players tackle adversaries that they cannot defeat. Some run away, and the adversaries drag the unconscious bodies of the others back to their master or to their filthy, bone strewn lair. Kidnapping in my games isn't a way to create a break from routine, railroad into a plot point, or be sadistic. Rather, it's a way for me to avoid saying, "The monsters eat you. You are tasty."

Endarire
2013-06-26, 03:13 AM
Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8940.0) - This is a lot of the advice I've accumulated.

Also, I agree with the OP's first point, at least in my current group. More people want something to do than something you consider grandiose.

Finally, I wrote a post about advice to new 3.5 and Pathfinder GMs (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9359750).

faams
2013-06-26, 04:46 AM
you have learned many things from gaming since last 8 years..good job..

Jay R
2013-06-26, 11:20 AM
Captured PCs are usually PCs that would otherwise have died. After a TPK, having the characters all wake up in a dungeon is good news for the players.

It's a rare situation, but still better than the alternative.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-06-26, 12:14 PM
I really think we play different kinds of games. I don't stage an overwhelming fight that ends in a predestined kidnapping. Instead, the players tackle adversaries that they cannot defeat. Some run away, and the adversaries drag the unconscious bodies of the others back to their master or to their filthy, bone strewn lair. Kidnapping in my games isn't a way to create a break from routine, railroad into a plot point, or be sadistic. Rather, it's a way for me to avoid saying, "The monsters eat you. You are tasty."

My mistake: I thought you were talking about predestined kidnapping of players that you plan in advance, as the OP was. Using it as an alternative for character death after some unlucky rolls is much less problematic.

Elvenoutrider
2013-06-28, 08:39 AM
So the forum reader says this post has just under 900 views. which is awesome. I really hope that many people were able to read and take something away from this that will make them a better gm.

mcbobbo, the yes.. and philosophy is a great way to think abut that. if I ever write this up again I will include that bit in the title

Jay R, I have your quote written down as well. I will work it in for the next time. I definitely should have put more as to what I think a gm is but of course that would be worthy of its own thread.

Endarire, I will definitely search your links as soon as I have the free time

Now Dethklok, it does seem that we do run very different games. I am very curious to see how you go about setting up these encounters that your pcs know to run away from. I really like what you said about having them play an NPC temporarily. if one of my pcs gets captured I will definitely do this


This has been really great so far. a lot of amazing things have been put forward and I am writing it all down.

EriktheRed
2013-06-28, 12:13 PM
Formatting wise, it would be easier to read if you put each main point in bold text.

I have to say, I agree 100% on you first point. I've always tried really hard to tell as amazing a story as I can with my games, but I am running a game right now in which I just got tired of it (the planning work involved in doing so), and have been running pretty much entirely off the cuff for months now, and my players haven't even noticed a difference, and still love the game.