Important GM lessons you learned early

[Trask]

I was thinking today about the most formative experiences I've had as a game master, and one that came to mind is "Don't reveal the man behind the curtain." I'll explain:

Years ago I was running a Pathfinder 1e campaign using Frog God Games' "Lost City of Barakus" module as a big sandbox. The players just arrived in the city and were looking for adventure so I rolled up some rumors. One of them is that the city has a vast underground sewer system that is the remnant of an older under city built by a previous unknown race. So they decided to head into the sewers in search of adventure and treasure, and after a bit of travel I rolled a random encounter, which ended up being an Otyugh. It was a very tough encounter for 1st level characters, especially ones new to Pathfinder, but there were 6 of them so they managed. Afterwards, the party wizard wanted to roll a knowledge check to see if he could identify this beast, he succeeded and I told him it was an Otyugh and a bit of lore about it, namely that they are monsters often created by magic-users to guard their lairs and eat corpses and other trash. They excitedly decided that there must be a wizard hiding out in the sewers who created this monsters and decided to go in search of him and take his treasure. I thought, "What a great idea!" That was about the end of the session because there was a lot of RP in the beginning and the fight ended up being something of a tutorial for many of these players who were new to Pathfinder, and some new to tabletop roleplaying. But it was fun and tense and a good time was had by all.

Later in the week I ended up talking to one of the players, he was older than me and more experienced with D&D and its progeny and I was eager to impress. He was praising me for having a set piece encounter ready no matter what we chose to do, and in my eagerness to show off my ingenuity I told him that it was actually a random encounter, but that the player's idea gave me an idea for adventure in the sewers. He immediately seemed somewhat disappointed, and at the start of the next session, his character (who somewhat naturally fit into the role of group leader) decided that the party shouldn't go after this supposed wizard after all and they should just return to the surface and find something else to do.

I was pretty disappointed by that, but I don't entirely blame him. I can understand his feelings about not wanting to follow a random encounter plot thread and would rather find the "real" adventure elsewhere. It taught me an important lesson, that almost all players, regardless of age or experience, want to have a diegetic experience within the game world, and don't want to have to factor in meta-information to their decision making. In less words; they don't want to see the man behind the curtain. It ended up being a good sandbox campaign, and it was an important lesson learned.

I think some of the lessons we learn early on are the most important, so let this thread be a collection of your own bits of wisdom :smallsmile:

[Buufreak]

Inviting all your friends and ending up with a party of 14 by session 2. That's a big ole no no.

[KineticDiplomat]

Games don't live or die on the the fun work, they do so because of basic, boring, housekeeping. Schedules, consistency, reasonable forewarning about breaks and delays, informal policies stated out loud, re-checking player attendance at the end of each session to see who can make the next one...

If you're really lucky and run a hundred good sessions someone might think back and go. "Yeah, that was really cool." But every single time you need to bail or punt on game day, especially if "one less than enough" players made it, the game teeters on the edge for a moment.

[sktarq]

Managing the table is far more important than managing the party. (People over PCs always)

When presented with door one and door two they will open the secret door number three that logically had to be there but as DM you didn't remember to plan for....(okay actually I learned this as a player and was how I got into DM'ing in the first place)

Have a session zero and always have a plan for what to do in the first five minutes of the session...even if it is a PC sandbox game...just something to get the players moving and preferably in the same direction.

if you know the world and the rules well enough...improvisation is amazing.

[Veila]

It's more important to stay true to your GMing style than it is to try and change yourself to please players. You're going to make a better game that way. And finding the right players to suit your style is what will make for amazing experiences for everyone involved.

[Kurald Galain]

Games don't live or die on the the fun work, they do so because of basic, boring, housekeeping. Schedules, consistency, reasonable forewarning about breaks and delays, informal policies stated out loud, re-checking player attendance at the end of each session to see who can make the next one...
This is a big one for me. A GM who insists on only having a session when all players are available, is likely to not have a session for a long, long time.


I was thinking today about the most formative experiences I've had as a game master, and one that came to mind is "Don't reveal the man behind the curtain." I'll explain:
I completely agree. But oddly enough I know several GMs who, after an encounter, will spend a long time explaining "IF you had instead done X, then Y would have happened, and IF you had tried to do this, then..." and get away with that with no comments. Personally I really dislike that, though.

[KillianHawkeye]

I completely agree. But oddly enough I know several GMs who, after an encounter, will spend a long time explaining "IF you had instead done X, then Y would have happened, and IF you had tried to do this, then..." and get away with that with no comments. Personally I really dislike that, though.

Oh man, one of the guys in my group does this after a session and I HATE it. Like, dude, you don't gotta tell us what could have happened if we did X or Y, or that the guy who ran away only had 3 hp left or whatever.

[Satinavian]

When the players can do whatever they want, that means most stuff technically to do won't be done.

Don't overprepare. This is not a video game where people can and will explore the whole map.

Instead prepare stuff that you think is interesting for your players in higher detail and make them visible/lay out hooks. Leave the stuff unlikely to come up to improvisation. There is nothing forcing you to spread your attention and preparation evenly. If you do, most will only go to waste and the important stuff will lack details.

[KorvinStarmast]

Oh man, one of the guys in my group does this after a session and I HATE it. Like, dude, you don't gotta tell us what could have happened if we did X or Y, or that the guy who ran away only had 3 hp left or whatever. Yes. It is best to leave OOC info OOC. This allows for a bit of mystery and uncertainty, as well as for serial encounters with those foes who fled.

Also: what Satinavian said about prep.

[Easy e]

Off load more work to the players, the GM does not have to do it all.

Too many GMs try to do it all. Don't. Ask the players to do more for you, including creating plot hooks, plot lines, foes they will face, challenges, and describing the results of their own actions.

[Keltest]

"No" is the most important thing to be able to say as DM. Yes is frequently more fun, but No is the difference between DM burnout and being able to keep going every session. Enforcing your limits as a DM is critical.

[PhoenixPhyre]

When the players can do whatever they want, that means most stuff technically to do won't be done.

Don't overprepare. This is not a video game where people can and will explore the whole map.

Instead prepare stuff that you think is interesting for your players in higher detail and make them visible/lay out hooks. Leave the stuff unlikely to come up to improvisation. There is nothing forcing you to spread your attention and preparation evenly. If you do, most will only go to waste and the important stuff will lack details.

Also, don't prepare too far in advance, at least in any kind of detail. No plan survives first (or second) contact with the players, unless you're railroading hard. And if that's your style and you've communicated that to the players and gotten buy in, knock yourself out. But even then, being willing to listen to players speculate about stuff and tweaking unreleased details to better fit what's actually happen can smooth the rough patches.

Basically, my personal path is that anything world- or story-related that hasn't been said at the table (or posted in the background material) is indeterminate--I may have an idea of where things might go or what the "canon" explanation for something is. Anything else is subject to change as I find a better path.

[King of Nowhere]

I completely agree. But oddly enough I know several GMs who, after an encounter, will spend a long time explaining "IF you had instead done X, then Y would have happened, and IF you had tried to do this, then..." and get away with that with no comments. Personally I really dislike that, though.

weird. as a player, i am curious to know what's behind the scene, after the decisions are made. most people don't?

then again, i also like to read authors commentaries on books i like, and i suppose most people don't?



anyway, my lesson was: when balancing the game, make decisions according to the actual situation at the table, not to what an internet forum tells you should be happening at the table. after reading a bunch of posts on the "fighters are useless, tier 1 classes do everything" i ended up overbuffing the party fighter to the point that he was basically winning fights alone. the thing is that the other players were noobs who could not use their t1 classes at a fraction of their power, nor they had any intention to learn.

[Pex]

Hard lessons for me to learn:

1) Do not overdo it on using puzzles.
2) Do not create an adventure that has no combat by design.
3) Do not create an adventure that forces the party into a situation to have a big reveal crucial to the plot.
4) Accept that despite past errors I'm not doing anything really wrong. Not everyone will like my style, and players are actually liking the game. They're coming back to play every week. Forget the ones who didn't.
5) Do not cancel a game session just because one player can't make it. Keep to schedule and play. Only playing when everyone can make it means you'll never play, and the game itself will end.
6) My DMs of the past were not geniuses while I'm struggling to create adventures. They were running published modules I didn't know at the time were published modules they bought. Do run my own adventures, but also run some published modules as well to improve my game.

[Jay R]

From my "Rules for DMs":


26. A backstory is like a sword. Some characters are incomplete without one, and others wouldn't use one even if they had it.

I had one player whose basic back story was always, "He's a fighter who likes to hit things."

I once insisted on at least a paragraph, and it came out something like this: "Forlong grew up watching the fighters at practice, and always wanted to join them. He considers his sword his closest friend, and always takes care of it. He's now looking for opportunities to use his fighting skills to help people."

I read that, and never insisted on a backstory or character description again (although I prefer to have them). I’m quite sure that if I had required a five-page backstory, he could have handed me five pages that boiled down to “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.”

[Pauly]

1) Players are very good a telling you what they don't like. Listen to them. Feel free to ignore there suggestions on how to fix it though.
2) If you lay out the tactical map the players will immediately think there is a tactical solution to the problem. It doesn't matter if your intention is to show them the overwhelming odds they face, let them see the covered path they can sneak around to avoid the guards, give them a better understanding of their location or whatever. Once the map is out and the minis are down the player's mindset turns to combat. Also don't pack away anything until the combat is completely resolved.

[Cygnia]

No plan will ever survive first contact with the players.

[RedMage125]

One lesson I learned early was that a certain amount of metagaming by players sometimes happens, and it's understandable human nature. A player rolled a 4 on the die when searching for traps and found no traps, as opposed to when they got a 17 on the die and found no traps. They acted way more cautious and paranoid. To combat this, I now make that roll for players behind the screen, ask for their modifier, and simply tell them whether or not they find traps.

Another thing I learned was the way players respond to Bluff/Deception attempts. So when players declare that they want to make an Insight/Sense Motive check, I let them, and I make the Bluff/Deception check behind the screen, even if the NPC is telling the truth. My house rule (and I tell players this) is that any NPC [who believes they are] telling the truth gets a +30 circumstance bonus to the check. And my response if they beat the player is the same, "you trust them implicitly". And since my players know this and get used to it, it means they always treat an NPC who has successfully lied to them the exact same as one who really was telling the truth.

[King of Nowhere]

My house rule (and I tell players this) is that any NPC [who believes they are] telling the truth gets a +30 circumstance bonus to the check.

Opening a small tangent here, as an alternate way to handle sense motif on truthful characters, I read somewhere that when you are being honest a DC 15 diplomacy check persuades the other people that you do believe in what you are saying. it can be used instead of a bluff check with a +30 circumstance bonus.

[Keltest]

When somebody is being honest and the player asks for a check to catch them if theyre lying, I usually just set a DC 10 or 15, and if theyre above it theyre confidant the truth is being told, and if they fail they don't know.

[RedMage125]

Opening a small tangent here, as an alternate way to handle sense motif on truthful characters, I read somewhere that when you are being honest a DC 15 diplomacy check persuades the other people that you do believe in what you are saying. it can be used instead of a bluff check with a +30 circumstance bonus.
As a matter of policy, I don't use Diplomacy on my players. I don't want a game mechanic to override the agency a player has over how their character thinks or feels (exceptions, of course for enchantment magic that literally overrides such). That's why I have those house rules. Players are still free to act how they want, I'm only controlling elements of the way the dice are rolled.


When somebody is being honest and the player asks for a check to catch them if theyre lying, I usually just set a DC 10 or 15, and if theyre above it theyre confidant the truth is being told, and if they fail they don't know.

I like my way, because there's a huge advantage. My players got very used to the idea of "you trust them implicitly" being the result of a truthful NPC. Unlike trap searching, I don't make this roll for them.
The roll really helped when I ran Age of Worms in 3.5. At a decently high level, they encounter an NPC who is helping them, but is secretly an evil vampirism silver dragon in league with one of their enemies. And she had a phenomenal Bluff modifier. My players got over a 30 on their Sense Motive, and she beat it on her Bluff check (barely). When they got the usual response, they ACTUALLY trusted her, in and out of character.

[thorr-kan]

Oh man, one of the guys in my group does this after a session and I HATE it. Like, dude, you don't gotta tell us what could have happened if we did X or Y, or that the guy who ran away only had 3 hp left or whatever.
YMMV.

The Friday Night Gaming Group often asks "What if?!" when we post-mortem my sessions. But they're asking; I'm not volunteering. And that makes a difference...


No plan will ever survive first contact with the players.
That's why they're called The Enemy! Wait...

What I Learned Early: Make sure the DM's Girlfriend is friends with the other players before including her in the campaign. Fortunately, my girlfriend from between high school and college got on good with my buddies. So when she joined us for one last summer campaign, it went well. It even survived her deciding gaming wasn't for her.

32 years later, she's only ever demanded I break one gaming session, and that was legit. Mixed marriage DO work if everyone's an adult.

[Catullus64]

If a player's character is killed, even by mistake, don't retcon or pull something out of your a$$ to make them survive. Yes, both you and the player will feel bad for a little bit about the death, but they'll feel worse in the long run when they feel like their character's story has been cheapened.

When naming places, NPCs, creatures, etc, say the name out loud to someone else first.

If your players have an idea for approaching a problem that's not how you envisioned, try to roll with it even if it doesn't make perfect sense. You can usually find a plausible reason to say yes.

Portcullis traps.

[Leon]

Don't plan too much. Know what you want to do broadly and how you'd like to do it but expect it to change.

[Cygnia]

What I Learned Early: Make sure the DM's Girlfriend is friends with the other players before including her in the campaign. Fortunately, my girlfriend from between high school and college got on good with my buddies. So when she joined us for one last summer campaign, it went well. It even survived her deciding gaming wasn't for her.

32 years later, she's only ever demanded I break one gaming session, and that was legit. Mixed marriage DO work if everyone's an adult.

On a related note, DON'T FORCE YOUR PARTNER TO PLAY IF THEY DON'T WANT TO!

[Draconi Redfir]

Read monster abilities CAREFULLY. and then do it five more times before running them.

i once misunderstood how a Thin Man worked and ran an encounter with a Thin Man in fog. it did not go well, and when i realized the players weren't having fun, i ended the encounter full stop without hesitation.

[thorr-kan]

On a related note, DON'T FORCE YOUR PARTNER TO PLAY IF THEY DON'T WANT TO!
I dunno about the yelling, but that, too, is sound advice :smallsmile: .

We were Very Much in the Infatuation Phase, she did ask, and we were all capable of consent. If she hadn't been interested, I would have pushed.

I still offer every now and then, but it's perfunctory at this point. The Friday Night Gaming Group would love to have her, its not her thing, and we'll all cool with that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One very important role of a DM is to find fun and engaging (for the players, inflicting trauma is always fun for the DM /semi-blue) ways of inflicting horrible emotional and similar trauma on the characters.

[Jay R]

Players are human, with human weaknesses. Accept it.

I set out minis on a small table to use during the game. I soon noticed that one player glanced over at the table occasionally. I could get annoyed with him, or I could accept that he is human. If I were a player, my eye would be drawn to it. But there was no good place to set them up that would be hidden from all players.

Now I have a dragon or demon or other large mini on the table in front. Nobody notices whether the minis behind the dragon are gnolls or orcs.

It also came with a side benefit. When I did introduce a dragon to the game, I didn’t have to hide the mini in advance. It came as a complete surprise, even though the dragon had been in full view.

[Telok]

Don't assume anyone has seen the same movies, read the same books, heard the same riddles, followed the same news, etc., that you have. Even once you know what someone has watched/read something, you cannot assume that their experience & understanding of it are the same as yours.

For example; people have completely different standards of what things are "easy" and what are "hard" based on their own aptitudes and experiences. Some people categorize movies they've seen by the actors or the directors, but cannot give a synopsys of those movies. Others will flip that and can produce a synopsys of anything they've seen, while having little or no clue who the actors or director were.

[Cygnia]

I dunno about the yelling, but that, too, is sound advice :smallsmile: .



Heh. It's a lesson I keep needing to remind my hubby of. I don't need to be in the same game you're GMing, hunny!

[Gnoman]

This doesn't quite fit because it took me a long time to learn it, but even small misunderstandings by players can have enormous ramifications on how they approach the world - I have a player in my current police-based game that's picked up on every clue I've given them, correctly deduced the meaning of them, and come very close to putting everything together only to hybridize all that with some other story arc events and wind up so far from the truth that they will never ever get there on their own. This means that if you're running a game heavily based unraveling a mystery (or series of such), it s a really good idea to have your players regularly tell you what they think is going on - it lets you adjust your breadcrumbs to put them back on the right path. Sometimes.

[Pex]

This doesn't quite fit because it took me a long time to learn it, but even small misunderstandings by players can have enormous ramifications on how they approach the world - I have a player in my current police-based game that's picked up on every clue I've given them, correctly deduced the meaning of them, and come very close to putting everything together only to hybridize all that with some other story arc events and wind up so far from the truth that they will never ever get there on their own. This means that if you're running a game heavily based unraveling a mystery (or series of such), it s a really good idea to have your players regularly tell you what they think is going on - it lets you adjust your breadcrumbs to put them back on the right path. Sometimes.

Another DM tool is not have a solution/reason why something is happening. Let the players figure out a reason why things are the way they are and let that be the truth. Saves the DM the trouble of needing to account for everything, and the players feel awesome for figuring it out. This works better for puzzle rooms perhaps than mysteries, but maybe don't have an answer on who the assassin is until the players look at the clues and decide for themselves what's a clue and what's a red herring.

[thorr-kan]

Heh. It's a lesson I keep needing to remind my hubby of. I don't need to be in the same game you're GMing, hunny!
Some lessons require renewal.

My Owner tried it, decided it wasn't for her, and we moved on. She'll rib me about my obsession with this hobby and the shenanigans I get into RPGing with the kids. But harassing each other is one of the reason we got married, so it's not really Wrong Hurting Fun...

ObOP: Another lesson I learned early it pick-up games with your bored college suite-mates are unlikely to last longer than one night; enjoy them for what they were.

[gbaji]

weird. as a player, i am curious to know what's behind the scene, after the decisions are made. most people don't?.

I think there are ways to do this that work, and some that don't. My general rule of thumb is that if/when the PCs "win" an encounter or combat, discussing things that went right or wrong works out fine. If you thought that they'd use X tactic, and they did Y, but it still worked out great (or even better than you expected), telling them that doesn't hurt at all. And even something like "I thought you guys were hosed when you decided to do <whatever> since the bad guys were using <something that whatever didn't work on>, but then you pulled it out by doing <some other thing>, so that was awesome", will be well recieved by the players.

Such discussions don't work nearly as well if the PCs "lost" the encounter or combat though. It will always come off as the GM rubbing their noses in it. My recommendation to handle loss situations is to allow the players to discuss things, and as the GM just be there to answer questions they ask. Don't push solutions or tell them what they did wrong. Let them figure it out. That way, there's still a "win" for them when they do figure things out, come up with a better way to handle things, and then gird themselves for a round two attempt (obviously, this is less relevant if this was a total wipe).



Don't plan too much. Know what you want to do broadly and how you'd like to do it but expect it to change.

Yeah. A couple people touched on this. There are a few approches to adventuring. But the most important thing I've learned is that you can/should plot/script the NPCs and what they are doing, but never plot/script the PCs actions. You can (and arguably should) have a number of "things that are going on". But as to actually writing an adventure, I usually just stop there. I write one document with a set of "hooks" in it, and some very short adventure descriptions (like a paragraph or two maybe) behind each one. The initial session(s) will be the PCs encountering the environment and some hooks maybe. I've written just enough to provide some information based on which direction they go, but no more.

Think of the adventure as unwritten branches flowing from that point. If they go in one direction, then take that initial description and expand on it. If they don't, then you've wasted like 5 minutes on something they didn't do. If they do, you more or less write the world/adventure in front of them, but following the broad plot outline you wrote initially. The players don't need to know any of this. From their perspective, any direction they go and any path they follow seems complete and well fleshed out. That's a good thing IMO..

Also. Don't forget those unfollowed branches though. Later adventures can be generated just by going back and looking at those older initial hook documents and asking "Ok. what will happen if the PCs never get involved in this plot/scheme/whatever?". Don't make this punative though. If your players feel like it's a punishment for them not doing something, that wont be received well. But having them run into something later on, and then realizing that this new thing/problem is connected to some side info they ran into previously, will make the world feel full and "real". It'll seem like you are a brilliant GM thinking far ahead and giving out foreswhadowing of "things to come". You aren't though. It just looks that way.


Other lessons I've learned:

1. Social encounters are as important as combat encounters. This is really important when fleshing out a setting. There's a temptation to run a combat to anchor a game session, but in situations where they don't make sense, you should avoid them. For example, when the party is traveling between townA and townB in a kingdom, it may not make sense to have a "level approrpate random encounter". Instead, having the party have social encounters on the road makes more sense. Could be farmers taking their goods to market, or merchants with trade goods, a patrol of soldiers, or maybe a noble and their entourage. These encounters could take just a few minutes, but by playing out the NPCs here, you can provide a lot information about the area the PCs are traveling through, and really make the world feel like a real place and not just a backdrop for the PCs to adventure in. I've found that having NPCs tell the PCs things about the area, how they feel about things going on, what they are worried about, etc, can do far more to build the setting then just handing the players an info doc or something.

2. Don't be afraid to have consequences result from PC actions. This kinda ties into my "branching plots" I mentioned above. Don't make these punative (or at least not too much), but if you can do this correctly, you will make the players feel like they are both playing in a dynamic world, but also that their own actions have an impact on that world. If they discover something, but then choose not to do anything about it, then that "something" should become a bigger problem later on. But always present this as another shot at a bite at the apple.

3. And I suppose a corellary to the above: Occasionally, let them know that they aren't the only "heroes" in the world. Maybe the next time they travel through some city where they didn't follow a thread, have them hear about some group of NPCS who dealt with that problem instead. It's still a callback. It still makes them feel that world is "real", but also allows them to realize they aren't the only thing out there. I usually pull this out if it's been a long time since they passed on a plot hook, since realistically that should have gone well past a raw apple, and well into a fully baked pie by then. I suppose another sub-method for this is to have a second group of bad guys take out the first group, and now there's yet another plot hook to follow. I guess the main point here is to avoid making the world feel like plots will just hang suspended in time until the players get around to dealing with them (ie: we're not playing a CRPG here). Lots of different ways of handing this though.

4. Oh. And probably the most important thing: Take notes! Seriously. Always scribble things on your printed papers, or in a notebook, or wherever. Assuming you're doing the whole "partially fleshed out" adventure method, the PCs will likely ask for specifics and details that you didn't already define. Make something up, but then write it down. This is usually names of NPCs that I didn't think to detail, or places, or times, or whatever. Then, between this session and the next, while you're fleshing out the adventure based on the path they choose, you can drop those details you made up on the spot into that write up. If you get in the habit of doing this, you'll find yourself less anxious about doing things "on the fly", and be better at making everything fit together as the players explore through it all. Once again, this is aimed at the players never realizing that you didn't already have every single detail already written up ahead of time. And yeah, taking notes about what the PCs are doing, who's going where, who's talking to whom, etc, allows you to cover for this. The players don't realize that you're not just writing down stuff about what they are doing, but also furiously making up NPC names and info, and scribbling that down, under the guise of looking stuff up, and making notes.

5. And I suppose it doesn't need to be said, but I'll say it anyway: Don't be afraid to just let the PCs go off on a tangent. Ties into a lot of stuff I wrote above. Sometimes, the players will choose "none of the above". If you've gotten used to ad-libbing bits of things based on thinly sketched details, you'll become pretty good at just making stuff up out of whole cloth too. Follow the same techniques above about not-followed plot hooks, and then go off in another direction. I've honestly found that if you present the players with some obvious "bad thing", and a decent path to follow to deal with it, they'll almost always follow that path. But if they don't? Let them do what they want. Trying to force or script the PCs actions just never works out well IMO (which I suppose loops me right back to my initial point)

[VampiricLongbow]

Yeah sadly, the players do not want, really, to see how the sausage is made. Never invite them behind the screen, for only disappointment resides within. :smallfrown:

[Jay R]

Yeah sadly, the players do not want, really, to see how the sausage is made. Never invite them behind the screen, for only disappointment resides within. :smallfrown:

This principle, like any other generalization about players, depends on the players.

The players at my table want to hear about other ideas and other options. Of course, they are also all college graduates, middle-aged or older, and comprise a J.D., a D.C., a Ph.D., two high school teachers, and two paralegals. This is not a typical table.


Another generalization, which applies to my players but not necessarily to yours, is this:


What the players want today is a quick, easy victory. But what they will want tomorrow is to have brilliantly and valiantly turned the tables to triumphantly defeat a deadly opponent when it looked as if they were all about to die.

[J-H]

What the players want today is a quick, easy victory. But what they will want tomorrow is to have brilliantly and valiantly turned the tables to triumphantly defeat a deadly opponent when it looked as if they were all about to die.

Yes. This is true.

[King of Nowhere]

I think there are ways to do this that work, and some that don't. My general rule of thumb is that if/when the PCs "win" an encounter or combat, discussing things that went right or wrong works out fine. If you thought that they'd use X tactic, and they did Y, but it still worked out great (or even better than you expected), telling them that doesn't hurt at all. And even something like "I thought you guys were hosed when you decided to do <whatever> since the bad guys were using <something that whatever didn't work on>, but then you pulled it out by doing <some other thing>, so that was awesome", will be well recieved by the players.

Such discussions don't work nearly as well if the PCs "lost" the encounter or combat though. It will always come off as the GM rubbing their noses in it. My recommendation to handle loss situations is to allow the players to discuss things, and as the GM just be there to answer questions they ask. Don't push solutions or tell them what they did wrong. Let them figure it out. That way, there's still a "win" for them when they do figure things out, come up with a better way to handle things, and then gird themselves for a round two attempt (obviously, this is less relevant if this was a total wipe).


I don't mean in combat, i mean in terms of plot decisions. stuff like "oh, if you had not discovered the trap of the evil overlord, then he would have done X". or "congratulations on discovering that Y was a traitor! now, remember that time you were ambushed? how did your enemies knew where you would be? Y tipped them. and in all your interactions, she always tried to dissuade you from poking in certain places, while showing you something that didn't implicate her to gain your trust.".
sometimes I plan for the party to fight their way through a situation, and they manage to sneak or weasel their way through it, and afterwards I could tell them what kind of combat encounter I planned. Sometimes I plan for an enigma to be solved in a certain way, and the party comes up with something unexpected but sensible, and after they solve it I tell them how I was expecting them to do it. that kind of stuff. not in much detail.
After a big villain reveal (which happens once or twice per campaign) I want to explain how the villain concealed his secrets all along, and why it didn't reveal himself earlier, or why he didn't cross the party when he had opportunities to do so. it's the kind of things players tend to be curious about too. at least my players, and myself. especially when the villain has complex intentions and complex plans

[Kurald Galain]

After a big villain reveal (which happens once or twice per campaign) I want to explain how the villain concealed his secrets all along, and why it didn't reveal himself earlier, or why he didn't cross the party when he had opportunities to do so. it's the kind of things players tend to be curious about too. at least my players, and myself. especially when the villain has complex intentions and complex plans

For me what's important here is that this is (or can be) in character. The characters may want to find out what the complex intentions and plans were, and the characters can find documents or interrogate witnesses or whatnot to find out. This I'm fine with.

If it goes strictly meta, like "this guy had a fort save of +20!" or "if you had used Spell X in combat then he would have employed Counter Tactics Y" then I don't like it.

[gbaji]

I don't mean in combat, i mean in terms of plot decisions. stuff like "oh, if you had not discovered the trap of the evil overlord, then he would have done X". or "congratulations on discovering that Y was a traitor! now, remember that time you were ambushed? how did your enemies knew where you would be? Y tipped them. and in all your interactions, she always tried to dissuade you from poking in certain places, while showing you something that didn't implicate her to gain your trust.".
sometimes I plan for the party to fight their way through a situation, and they manage to sneak or weasel their way through it, and afterwards I could tell them what kind of combat encounter I planned. Sometimes I plan for an enigma to be solved in a certain way, and the party comes up with something unexpected but sensible, and after they solve it I tell them how I was expecting them to do it. that kind of stuff. not in much detail.
After a big villain reveal (which happens once or twice per campaign) I want to explain how the villain concealed his secrets all along, and why it didn't reveal himself earlier, or why he didn't cross the party when he had opportunities to do so. it's the kind of things players tend to be curious about too. at least my players, and myself. especially when the villain has complex intentions and complex plans

Oh yeah. That works just fine IMO. After an adventure, it's not uncommon to discuss with the players what was going on, and some of the choices/actions that happened along the way. It helps them understand my mindset and how I run the NPCs in my game. I'm always cautious with this though, especially if I've got other side plots going on which may be relevant to any of that stuff. But sure. Having a kind of post-mortem discussion on a game, what worked, what didn't, why it worked, etc. Letting the players get a bit of a glimpse "under the hood", so to speak.

And yeah. Some of this can be phrased more as an in-character discovery of "what was really going on" as well. I've had a few adventures that were longish and complex, with lots of moving parts. So sometimes, having a bit of a wrap up and recap helps them remember all the details and put them in place. The players only live in the game world for a few hours each week, while their characters live in it full time, so I always account for the fact that their characters are not likely to miss some of the more nuanced ramifications of the adventure, even if the players perhaps didn't really consciously think them all through (I do this during the adventure as well, to ensure the players don't miss key plot points that their characters should know).

And yeah. Sometimes this is just a matter of me having worked out all of these details and not wanting them to go to waste. Sometimes, it is just a bit of GM to player conversation about things like the motivations for the bbeg they defeated, which they might not otherwise have known. Kinda depends.

[WilliamJoel333]

Most of the important GM lessons I've learned, I didn't learn early!

Don't hand out too much powerful loot too quickly!

Don't overdevelop NPCs, villages, towns, or cities until players start interacting with them!

Use mood music to set scenes!

Use Microsoft OneNote to build game worlds and prepare for games!

...just a few of the many lessons that didn't make it through my thick skull for at least a few years!

[King of Nowhere]

For me what's important here is that this is (or can be) in character. The characters may want to find out what the complex intentions and plans were, and the characters can find documents or interrogate witnesses or whatnot to find out. This I'm fine with.

If it goes strictly meta, like "this guy had a fort save of +20!" or "if you had used Spell X in combat then he would have employed Counter Tactics Y" then I don't like it.
well, after the seemingly helpful friendly npc turns the table and reveals he's been leading the players by the nose, it's kinda hard to have an in-character conversation afterwards.

I had a plot with a crazy nymph with demigod powers controlling a large wild magic area with a plan to eradicate all life to end all pain, and she started interacting with the players as they were exploring said wild magic area, and at some point the players got suspicious and tried a sense motif and got a natural 20. cue the players trying to restrain and interrogate her, rolling another natural 20 on a hit and missing (in my games natural 20 is 30, and the nymph was really that powerful), realizing they had the final boss instead of a simple henchmen (yes, that's a meta knowlege, but what else could I do, have them roll to hit in secret? plus, it saved me the hassle of capturing them and figuring out a way to let them escape later), barely escaping before she could act. she then proceeded to flatten a major city that was built specifically as stronghold against the wild magic.

well, at this point there were a lot of open questions. I was able to convey the fundamentals of who she was and why she was acting by the trick of shared dreams, but there was so much more than that, and no way to convey that to the players, and it wasn't relevant anymore now that the villain was revealed. the players themselves asked most of the questions, but I also wrote up everything and put it in the shared folder.
"she was directing the creatures to attack the wall - that's why this wild magic area is different from the others. she was directing only big dumb monsters to attack the wall; this way the city would answer by placing cannons and machine guns on the wall, and would not prepare for something different. now she attacked with hellwasps, and guns were useless, and she was able to take control of the troops and use all those heavy weapons against the city, she planned for it all along"
"those high level people that disappeared in the area without anyone even being able to find their souls? yeah, she captured them. she has a bunch of high level dominated (hellwasped) henchmen"
"once the party cleric aquired a magic mutation, she was able to see through his eyes. she also thought she could control him like the other mutated creatures, which is why she let you go. besides, you're too low level for her; she was hoping you'd power up some more before capturing you."
"and her being suddenly able to see through the cleric is the reason she could find those two brothers who previously lived in her domain for 50 years escaping her notice".
"she could have overtaken the city decades ago, but she was waiting to develop a few more magic tricks for her long term plan; but now that you discovered her, you forced her to act"

there were a dozen small plot mysteries like those that were perfectly explained.



And yeah. Sometimes this is just a matter of me having worked out all of these details and not wanting them to go to waste.
yes, that plays a large part in it. I put a TON of effort into thinking all the parts of the plan and making sure it would check out. Would have been a waste for it to stay hidden. I admit, I was also showing off a bit, but it was deserved :smallsmile:

[Cluedrew]

One I learned early but did not have occasion to put to words for a while: Make sure you are enjoying running the game. There are some types of games that I and my group enjoys playing, but I have always kind of petered out trying to run.

Other than that, I would like to reiterate the various takes on: Not every lesson will apply to you and your group (and even the ones that do might have to be applied differently)? Like I have found the opposite rule given in the first post to be true. Not to the opposite extreme some other people wanted to know, but I think people want a bit of confirmation that what they did changed the adventure. I forgot to ask.

[gbaji]

Don't hand out too much powerful loot too quickly!

Oh yeah. That's a biggie. Some games have helpful charts and whatnot to guide GMs in terms of what kind of items/whatever PCs should have at some given stage of development. But some do not.

There's a concept I refer to as "power creep", and it's really easy to fall into. It is amazingly problematic if you run a longer term game setting, and are wanting to allow players to have multiple characters, all in the same world, that they can pick from to play (and at different levels of advancement). You hand out some cool loot to otherwise somewhat wimpy characters, and it makes them more powerful. So you up your enemies to adjust to that. But now you have to hand out similarly powerful stuff to each successive group of PCs to get them "up to snuff". Fast foward a few adventure cycles, and you've got the equivalent of first level characters expecting to get powerful artifact loot on their first adventure. Yeah. No bueno.

You have to be really careful about what you hand out, and to make sure it isn't going to create problems, not just for the adventure you are running, but for future adventures as well. And you have to figure out how to make sure that the powerful item you handed out to characterA, doesn't make them so much more powerful than the others in an otherwise similar level adventuring party that it's not fun for the rest of the group. And yeah. It's hard to unwind things. There's this temptation that if you handed this guy something really cool, that you have to hand something cool to the other's as well. And that way leads to madness and despair!

And yeah. That leads me to an observation I've made many times: Players hate hate hate having stuff taken away from them. So it's super important as a GM to be really really cautious about handing out powerful items. They should be rare and somewhat narrow in power (ie: even if "really powerful", they only do so in one aspect of the game, ensuring that the character doesn't become godlike as a result). But yeah. You hand out a powerful item, it's handed out. No take backs (well, special items for a singular purpose with the intention of being consumed along the way excepted of course).

And that leads me to my second observation/methodology. If you are playing in a continous game setting, don't at all be afraid to tell players if the character they want to play is too powerful for the adventure you have planned. Some time back, we were revamping our game setting, and the three primary GMs at the time got together for a series of meetings where we discussed all the changes we wanted to make. One of the core rules we agreed on was that whomever was GMing an adventure had absolute power to veto a character for any given adventure. We could roleplay it however we wanted (busy signal at Avengers HQ), but it had to be allowed. We'd all previously played with a GM who had a "you can play any character in any adventure" rule, and been burned when his response to characters he percieved as too powerful for the adventure was to nuke them and their items in some way. So we realized that failing to allow for this rule would pressure us to violate the one above. And that's just not something any of us liked or wanted.

These sets of rules have worked out reasonably well. Not perfect (cause no one's perfect), but nothing horribly bad has happened. And yeah, some characters do have some pretty powerful items. But they are powerful characters all on their own anyway. So it works out. Just have to be very careful about overdoing it.