GMing Tricks of the Trade

[yougi]

Recently, I tried out 4E with a friend of mine as a DM. There are a few things he did that I thought were really cool, and that I now use in my game. I thought, meh, the people over at GiantITP will probably have a few also, and we can all share, and get better as DMs, and then maybe the "OH I HATE MY DM" threads can stop (yes, I do know that won't happen).

Here is the kind of tricks I'm talking about:

• Original: It needs to be something that not everyone has thought of. "Give your players choice" is not very original.
• Audience: This is not DMing 101. This is meant to be tricks to help DMs who already master the basics of play.
• Helpful: Sometimes, we do things in a particular way, just because we're all a bit OCD. However, it doesn't mean that anybody else would WANT to do it that way. Ask yourself: can this trick HELP someone become a better DM?
• Positive: There are plenty of topics telling us what NOT to do as DMs. Here, we want to know what to do.
• Topic: Maybe your tricks are for planning your campaign world, for planning your individual sessions, for running through your game, or a specific part of your game. It can also be group management (how do you deal with groups who can't agree on anything, or absent players, or friction within the group?). Even specific rules you have which you think can be helpful regarding snacks or time of game. Helpful advice is helpful advice.
• Action, not state of mind: Advice on how to think is rarely helpful, or so I think. Telling someone to "stay open to new ideas" is of no help: how does one keep an open mind? If I'm closed minded, I can still believe my mind is open to new ideas. However, advice on action is more useful: "Ask your players to make a list of things they'd like to do, and include one of them in each sessions" is boolean (either you do it or you don't), and it's hard to tell yourself you're doing it if you aren't.

My tricks:
Initiative cards: In a combat system where order of play is fixed for the duration of an encounter, I have cards which I give my players, on which they write their initiative, and I do the same for my NPCs, and I put them together, in order. You can also write down duration of buffs on them, and tick of a square every time it's that character's turn to play.

Keeping combat snappy: I DM 3.5 D&D, which means that a round of combat is 6 seconds long. I was tired of my players talking strategy during combat, and having to go "6 seconds! 6 seconds!" all the time. I now have a timer: when it's your turn, you have X seconds to decide what you do, where X is your intelligence score (more intelligent characters thinking faster than their players). If when the timer rings, you haven't said what you'd do, you spend your turn scratching your groin-area; if you have, then we roll dice or whatever, but not decision is to be made after that. It keeps combat snappy and more "instinct" as opposed to "perfect tactical master".

Take feedback: After a game, within 24h, I ask my players individually what they thought of the game, usually over Facebook chat, or on Battle.Net. Sometimes, someone who looked like they had fun might not have appreciated the game, or maybe the opposite. I try to know what bothered them, or what made them think the game was epic, and I write that down. After 6 months in my current game, I have about half a page on each player, on what they really like and what annoys them. I take them out when planning, so I remember what to do, and what not to do.

[yougi]

Reserved to make a list eventually, so everything is in the same place

[valadil]

I actually have a blog for my GMing tricks. It hasn't been updated in almost a year because I haven't gamed since my son was born. The content is more discussion oriented and not everything is a trick per se, but some of it is certainly relevant. Link in sig.

[Exediron]

Keeping combat snappy: I DM 3.5 D&D, which means that a round of combat is 6 seconds long. I was tired of my players talking strategy during combat, and having to go "6 seconds! 6 seconds!" all the time. I now have a timer: when it's your turn, you have X seconds to decide what you do, where X is your intelligence score (more intelligent characters thinking faster than their players). If when the timer rings, you haven't said what you'd do, you spend your turn scratching your groin-area; if you have, then we roll dice or whatever, but not decision is to be made after that. It keeps combat snappy and more "instinct" as opposed to "perfect tactical master".

Take feedback: After a game, within 24h, I ask my players individually what they thought of the game, usually over Facebook chat, or on Battle.Net. Sometimes, someone who looked like they had fun might not have appreciated the game, or maybe the opposite. I try to know what bothered them, or what made them think the game was epic, and I write that down. After 6 months in my current game, I have about half a page on each player, on what they really like and what annoys them. I take them out when planning, so I remember what to do, and what not to do.

Good ideas; we don't do anything so formalized on round timing, but if I feel that the player has taken too long I will tell them that they hesitated and failed to act. We also allow characters with a higher intelligence more time to think, or to ask the DM for a good idea. As for feedback, I know my group well enough that I don't really need to ask, but it's certainly a good idea to know what your players like and don't like.

The only one I have to add right now is on the subject of initiative: A system I've found works much better than the way a lot of people take down the order. It may already be common knowledge, but I've played with several groups who don't use it and would be faster if they did.

Spacial Initiative Chart (for lack of a better term): The idea is to allow the initiative to be taken in any arbitrary order with as many last-minute additions as required, without messing up the order or forcing you to right little numbers to the side for the order.

To begin, you need a good idea of the spread of possible initiatives. I usually assume 1 to 60, but that won't be true at lower levels. Let's say 1 to 30 here. When the first player submits their initiative - a 17, for the sake of example - you write it down just slightly above halfway on your initiative chart. The next one is a 3 - that goes almost at the bottom, followed by a 24, which goes about midway between the 17 and the top.

In this fashion, it's easy to assemble the chart without having to worry about the order the players submit their initiatives in - the chart will always read accurately from top to bottom. Mostly useful if you're running a particularly large group or encounter. Sometimes, to speed it up further, I'll print out a piece of paper with numbers for each possible initiative in the range and then just fill the characters into it.

[Ulysses WkAmil]

Something I picked up from a Vet:

Colour Rings: Basically, the little rings on bottles of soda or water can be taken off and used to display current effects on monsters, PC's, and sometimes terrain. Red for bloodied, Silver for buff, Orange for DoT Fire, ect. ect. Not sure if this is uncommon or not, I don't venture much outside my highschool group. Sorry if it is.

[Xiander]

During my time as a player and a GM I have bumped into several usefull ways to think about dicerolls.
Including:

Not asking for dicerolls: If you want your players characters to find a certain item, spot a certain building or path or think of something plot importance, don't ask for a roll that they have a chance to fail.
It can be ruthlessly annoying when the plot grinds to a halt, because every single player rolls natural ones.

Asking for dicerolls which will have no effect If you only ask for spotchecks when there is something to spot, your players might react to the checks by being more carefull or doing things they would not if they had not gotten a roll, even if the fail the roll.
Asking for pointless checks might of course just make them do this even more, which is why I normally state blatantly in front of my players that i do this, so that i can build suspense by throwing red herring rolls at them.
(an alternative is rolling some checks for them, but generally players like rolling their dice themselves, and the GM has enough dice to roll without stealing the players').

Deciding what the npc rolls: For this one i'll go for an anecdote. I ran a shortlived 4th edition game. One of my players had invested in a very high alertness, making his passive spot and listen check intimidating. At a point in the plot, it made sense to have someone make an attempt on the life of this particular character. I did not actually want the assassin to succeed, so when he snuck into the characters bedroom in the middle of the night, i rolled a dice behind my screen and asked for the characters passive listen check. He gave it to me, I looked at the dice, cursed and exclaimed: Failed by one!
I don't remember what i actually rolled, but the point was that the character succeede in something his character was supposed to be good at, and it was close enough that he appreciated his specialization. This trick is a nice way of rewarding a player for making his character good at something, while making sure the scene proceeds as planned.


Thats a start, if I think of more, i'll post em right up.

[NichG]

Use Themes when Improvising: One of the difficulties of improvising is to make it seem like you had everything planned out. Its satisfying as a player when things connect and click and seem natural. One way to kind of fake this is to build things on a theme. For instance, say 'The theme of this game is going to be What Will People do for Resources?' and then when you need a new element or to work something in, have it fall along that theme. This may not make individual things line up, but it will make it feel like there's more of a consistent thing going on.

Use your Troublemaker: Almost every party has one PC who just likes to make trouble. Sometimes this can cause a game to fall apart if its too random or annoying to other PCs or breaks a rigid plot or whatever. A better thing to do is recognize who this is early on, and give them lots of opportunities to break things. The things you want to be broken to help move plot ahead. Often if these things come with personal power (or better yet, power for the party), it'll soften the blow to the other PCs of 'what did you just do?!' and it'll help guide the destructive behavior usefully.

Have a Why Ready: It gets old if its done too much, but it can be neat if you have an in-setting reason in mind for some of the quirks and oddities of your game system. Even if this reason is not known generally by people in the setting, when the PCs discover it it can generate an aha moment. For example: I decide that hitpoints are actually little spiritual entities that accrete on people based on the importance of their deeds, and they're quantized because each one is an individual spirit. It isn't known or advertised to the PCs, but maybe one of the more spiritually sensitive PCs sees some kind of evidence of it or it gets integrated into the plot somehow and there's the 'aha'.

[WarKitty]

Let Your Players Build the World: This is surprisingly helpful. I provide a very basic outline of the world, then ask my players who they would like to be. If you have creative players, let them run loose. My player is from such-and-such a city? I put that city on the map. Lost their village to roaming orcs? One of the major conflicts is the decaying kingdom's inability to keep the orc marauders out. It helps build characters that belong in the world without hampering the players' sense of control. And makes the GM's job easier.

[Totally Guy]

Big Four Things Required for Legit Dice Rolls
GM should consider the following prior to dice rolls;
Intent: What does the player expect to happen on a successful roll?
Task: How is the character trying to accomplish the intent? Does this action match the expectation from the intent?
Engage System: What does the player roll? Know what result is required for success.
Failure Consequences: What is at stake here? Does the player have an expectation of what failure would cost?

If task and intent do not align then question the player's goal and their method until they do match or the player decides to do something different.
It may be that nothing is at stake, most games have a rule for when to roll dice that may discuss this, you might be familiar with "Take 10", "Take 20" or "Say Yes or Roll the Dice".

[falloutimperial]

It's the little things- Making sure there are many small and almost useless objects everywhere it makes sense for them to be is important to preserve the feel of the world and thwart accidental metagaming. "He mentioned a pen? It must be meaningful." In addition, it subtly encourages players to be inventive in encounters. Saving the world is infinitely more satisfying when done with a tea kettle and some string than a magic sword.

An open field- If an encounter is imminent, I try to ensure the surroundings are interesting and varied. Most players would prefer to scale the Eternal Staircase of Ytrour while dodging the lions of Opulence to combating them in the forest clearing. Battles are won and lost due to the terrain they are fought on, and allowing players another depth of tactical savvy.

What's in a name?- In most settings, everyone has a name. Don't be afraid to use them. It will create characters who may later appear and give depth to one-offs. A list of generic setting-appropriate names is a valuable tool.

Demon's Run-on- Many settings involve an evil organization with a long and sneaky plan. It is imperative that the plan not only seem puzzling to the players as they discover each part, but that is makes logical sense from the plotters' perspectives. Ensure that there is not an easier plan that the antagonists could come up with.

[WarKitty]

Naming Conventions: Pick a dead or really obscure language for each culture. Go on a baby name site and look for names from that origin. Use for people, places, etc. For more variety, think up a few common prefixes/suffixes for different things. For example, in one culture, all last names are the parent's name followed by -ma or -no. In another, the prefix "kite-" means city.

[Gamer Girl]

Just Use the Stats Need a creature to encounter but don't have one handy? Just use the stats for anything! Say you feel like having a skeletal warrior around the next corner, but don't have one ready. Just flip open any book and use some random stats. 'Fire Giant' works just fine for a skeletal warrior. And it's even more fun if the 'skeletal warrior' as the ability of say a basilisk.

Keep A Database of Names of People, Places and Things. You don't need details, just a ton of names. Then when you need to name something, just pick off the list.

Take NotesRead a book, read the paper, watch a movie or TV show, write down any interesting names.

[KnightOfV]

Just Use the Stats Need a creature to encounter but don't have one handy? Just use the stats for anything! Say you feel like having a skeletal warrior around the next corner, but don't have one ready. Just flip open any book and use some random stats. 'Fire Giant' works just fine for a skeletal warrior. And it's even more fun if the 'skeletal warrior' as the ability of say a basilisk.

So much this. Not only does this keep things more interesting and unique, but it prevents a lot of metagaming on monster stats and makes those knowledge checks to find weaknesses more useful. Recently stated up a Lamia Matriarch as the enchanting and tricky Erlkonig (Elf King), and all I had to do was change the creature type to fey and be descriptive!

[Kelb_Panthera]

For D&D:

Ready Cards
Take a pack of 3X5's and when someone, player or GM, wants to ready an action, have them write the action they're readying on the card, then lay it face down on the table. When the trigger event occurs flip the card and resolve the action.

It's done wonders for reducing the metagaming thoughts on readied actions at my table, though you wanna make sure your players have a good idea of how specific the action they write has to be for it to be acceptable.

[The Random NPC]

This is more for the players, but since is benefits the DM,
Have a reason to be a party
For example, I'm playing a Evil rogue in a party with a paladin. Why am I with the paladin? Because they are easy to manipulate. Why is the paladin with me? Because he's trying to keep me from doing evil and redeem me in the process.

[Eldan]

Keep A Database of Names of People, Places and Things. You don't need details, just a ton of names. Then when you need to name something, just pick off the list..

This is a really good one. I am really bad at coming up with names quickly, so I printed out a list of 100 random names from a generator. For a commoner, pick one, for a noble pick three that sound noble-y. Done.

When I had a cleptomanic character, I made a list of "100 small items a commoner may have in his pockets". Two hours later, the character had a collection of sewing needles, fish hooks, twine and bent cutlery.

Addendum: Another one.

Just go with it
This happened to me once or twice. You write a story of intrigue, surprises, twists and turns, or so you think. Your players start collecting their clues, they come closer to the goal, and then one of them explains his theory. And it is so good. Why didn't you think of that? Of course this entire story makes more sense if X did Y! Z makes the much better culprit! Involving religious sect Q means you can immediately segue into a story of international cloak-and-daggery! Brilliant!
At this point, sometimes it's just better to chuck half your notes away and go with your player's idea. Then throw another twist on top, so it doesn't get too predictable. Not only will your player feel smart and content for partially figuring it out early, the story was quite likely better than yours.

[yougi]

Use your Troublemaker: Almost every party has one PC who just likes to make trouble. Sometimes this can cause a game to fall apart if its too random or annoying to other PCs or breaks a rigid plot or whatever. A better thing to do is recognize who this is early on, and give them lots of opportunities to break things. The things you want to be broken to help move plot ahead. Often if these things come with personal power (or better yet, power for the party), it'll soften the blow to the other PCs of 'what did you just do?!' and it'll help guide the destructive behavior usefully.

I'm not sure I understand this one: would you care to elaborate, to give us an example?

For D&D:

Ready Cards
Take a pack of 3X5's and when someone, player or GM, wants to ready an action, have them write the action they're readying on the card, then lay it face down on the table. When the trigger event occurs flip the card and resolve the action.

It's done wonders for reducing the metagaming thoughts on readied actions at my table, though you wanna make sure your players have a good idea of how specific the action they write has to be for it to be acceptable.

Once again, I'm not sure what problem this helps solve. Could you enlighten me?

[Eldan]

"I ready an action to shoot the next person coming through hte door!"
"Hah, sucker! The goblins are all coming through the window instead!"

Which I guess is a bit extreme, but similar, if less adversarial thoughts can go through a DM's mind.

[NichG]

I'm not sure I understand this one: would you care to elaborate, to give us an example?

Sure. In my last campaign I had a player that was very power-hungry, liked to dominate NPCs and PCs alike, generally had a 'my way or you all die' attitude, and generally got into trouble from overreaching.

So I could've just crushed him at every turn, but then he'd not have fun and I'd be losing an opportunity.

Instead, I dropped items into the game that no sane player would ever use, but which were very powerful. A gauntlet that permanently lowers your maxhp by a bit when you fire it, but utterly removes the target from reality (i.e. the damage it does does the same to the target, so if you kill it that way it can't be revived). An addictive potion distilled from the corruption of people's ideals that makes you powerful when you use it. Things like that. I knew that out of the entire party, he'd be the one to use those things (and more to the point, his presence meant they would reliably get used), so I could tie those objects and their use into the plot. Basically, I could do an honest 'its the PCs fault' plot sometimes without having to make it a hidden gotcha from an innocent action. None of those actions were innocent or sensible, and everyone knew it

He also managed to start a somewhat plotty war between four or five nations, and that one was entirely me just reacting to what he did. Basically with him as a player I didn't have to plan sessions half the time, I just had to use whatever he did in downtime as a plot hook.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Remember, your goal is their entertainment..
If they insist on knowing when the next game is before leaving the table for the evening... you did something right.

Remember fellahs, this is a game. If people aren't having fun, then there's something wrong.

A Gm facilitates the entertainment by providing plot and challenges to overcome. The players provide the characters and the motivating force.

The highest compliment you can be paid as a GM is "Aw, come on man, just one more scene before we quit for the evening".

[WarKitty]

Remember, your goal is their entertainment..
If they insist on knowing when the next game is before leaving the table for the evening... you did something right.

Remember fellahs, this is a game. If people aren't having fun, then there's something wrong.

A Gm facilitates the entertainment by providing plot and challenges to overcome. The players provide the characters and the motivating force.

The highest compliment you can be paid as a GM is "Aw, come on man, just one more scene before we quit for the evening".

Corollary: Don't Bore Yourself: Not only does it mean you're not having fun, but a bored or uninterested GM is usually not a very good GM.

Give Them some Plot Beforehand: This is something that's saved me a lot of headache. Tell the players before character creation what the first plot hook is. All PC's come to the table having agreed to take on the quest/accept employment/whatever. Why they're there is their problem. Saves a lot of time that would be wasted on "but my character wouldn't do that!"

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm not sure I understand this one: would you care to elaborate, to give us an example?



Once again, I'm not sure what problem this helps solve. Could you enlighten me?

It's a relatively minor problem of meta-gaming. Using this makes it less likely that a person will change their action because based on the fact that someone else readied. For instance, if a player likes to open combat with a charge, but the badguy wins initiative, he's more likely to charge if the DM just says that baddy X readies an action, rather than that baddy X readies his weapon against a charge. That enemy could just as easily be readying his action to throw a weapon at the spellcaster when he begins casting, or to use some alchemical item once an enemy is within range, etc.

The player has every right to ask for a sense-motive check to determine his enemy's intent.

[Gamer Girl]

Don't get too caught up in the rules Say you want to have a wall of energy that zaps a person into time. But you can't find any thing in any rule book that even comes close. Just do it anyway!


Try to Over-describe This is lots of fun. Get ready with your dictionary, thesaurus and such. Then when you need to describe something, don't go ''it's a guy with a sword'', say ''the vile and dark looking near humanoid with gray skin and glowing red eyes brandishes a long slim blade that reflects the firelight''

Add lots of Flavor and Spice A 'flaming sword' by the rules just catches on fire...boring. How about ''the blade of the sword is covered with flame, and from the flame tiny several inch long dragons made out of flame whirl around the sword''. They don't even need to 'do' anything, except look cool.

Or ''Your magic bolt flies at the demon...who holds out his hand and catches your spell in a glowing green ball of light, then he 'eat's that light and glows green for just a second''. What happened? The demon make a save, or a spell resistance roll or what ever.....but it sure sounded a lot worse then that, eh?

[Techwarrior]

Voice The GM who has the Lizardfolk actually splutter and hiss is a lot more fun than the GM who you have to ask who's talking when he speaks. Practice several different voices and noises. If you have to stop and say "The first fisherman says..." and then "The other fisherman replies..." it ruins immersion. When you're describing what they hear on the other side of the door, and the party says "It's <name of the BBEG>" you know you're doing it right.

On a similar note:
Make the Villain Special Even if all you do is give them a distinctive voice, or a special power never seen before, you want your big bad to be something that people remember. Even 'Evil Cleric of Slaughter' can be something special, given the right quirks.

Finally
Only say it once I've seen a lot GM's that get overrun by some of their players. If you're talking, and the other players start saying stuff to each other, or goofing off, just keep talking. Then, when the players ask the NPC to repeat what he said, roleplay him getting upset with them for not paying attention. If you were describing the room, tell them they weren't paying attention to the room and didn't notice anything. Appropriately done, you can easily condition your players to stop when you start describing.

[WarKitty]

.
Only say it once I've seen a lot GM's that get overrun by some of their players. If you're talking, and the other players start saying stuff to each other, or goofing off, just keep talking. Then, when the players ask the NPC to repeat what he said, roleplay him getting upset with them for not paying attention. If you were describing the room, tell them they weren't paying attention to the room and didn't notice anything. Appropriately done, you can easily condition your players to stop when you start describing.

Please don't do this. The only players it hurts are the ones that actually want to roleplay.

[The New Bruceski]

Voice The GM who has the Lizardfolk actually splutter and hiss is a lot more fun than the GM who you have to ask who's talking when he speaks. Practice several different voices and noises. If you have to stop and say "The first fisherman says..." and then "The other fisherman replies..." it ruins immersion. When you're describing what they hear on the other side of the door, and the party says "It's <name of the BBEG>" you know you're doing it right.

Just be careful with that, an over-the-top voice can ruin any sense of seriousness in an interaction. How far is "too far" heavily depends on the GM and the players, it's just something to be aware of. If it would fit in fine with Monty Python (welease Wodewick!) it's probably too much.

[falloutimperial]

With voices, less is more. Giving everyone a dstinct voice can mix you up, and when the young girl talks like your antagonist, the immersion is broken. So just put the right amount of "voice" in.

[Slipperychicken]

Only say it once I've seen a lot GM's that get overrun by some of their players. If you're talking, and the other players start saying stuff to each other, or goofing off, just keep talking. Then, when the players ask the NPC to repeat what he said, roleplay him getting upset with them for not paying attention. If you were describing the room, tell them they weren't paying attention to the room and didn't notice anything. Appropriately done, you can easily condition your players to stop when you start describing.

I personally have trouble hearing in real life, even while paying attention, and often need to ask people to repeat themselves. People are usually willing to repeat themselves when it matters. I figure that's why there's a Listen DC for hearing people talk. And yes, that does cause problems for me in real life. But that's part of why I play tabletops; to escape from my real-life problems.


If no-one's going to repeat it for me (in-character or out), I'll just dump CHA and WIS on my next character, and play as a socially-retarded violent Barbarian who knows nothing but combat. And whose first reaction is to hit the thing giving him problems until it stops moving. Acting in-character will be a breeze then, especially if I don't hear everything.

[WarKitty]

I personally have trouble hearing in real life, even while paying attention, and often need to ask people to repeat themselves. People are usually willing to repeat themselves when it matters. I figure that's why there's a Listen DC for hearing people talk. And yes, that does cause problems for me in real life. But that's part of why I play tabletops; to escape from my real-life problems.


If no-one's going to repeat it for me (in-character or out), I'll just dump CHA and WIS on my next character, and play as a socially-retarded violent Barbarian who knows nothing but combat. And whose first reaction is to hit the thing giving him problems until it stops moving. Acting in-character will be a breeze then, especially if I don't hear everything.

This might be just a tad unfair to the OP. I'm sure he didn't mean it to apply to people that have a harder time hearing, or even when there's a reasonable distraction (being often in charge of the cooking during the game I run into those a lot). It sounds more like the concern is when players are goofing off when the DM is talking and then want things repeated. Which I agree is a problem, though my worry is that the players that want things repeated and the players that were talking often aren't the same set! Honestly, I'd just handle that OOC.

[kyoryu]

Follow your players

Let's say you've got a questgiver NPC working for the local king or whatever. He's on the up-and-up, and is getting the PCs to work for the king/whatever and promoting whatever cause he seems to be.

But the PCs are *convinced* he's corrupt.

Let them be right. Rework your plot so that he is corrupt. The players are telling you they want a game about a corrupt person, so give it to them.

Similarly, if they keep making noises about getting on a boat, give them an excuse to do so. They're clearly telling you what they want, why not give it to them?