Many of us, have read GM-sections in RPG, RPG blogs, forum discussions, and sometimes books about the storytelling art.

All of these contains tons of interesting tips/techniques (and some will contradict each other, you don’t GM a gritty mega-dungeon and high-school drama game the same way), so I am curious which ones are your favourite and how do you use them in your game

  • Susaga@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    2 days ago

    A few favourites from the Alexandrian:

    • Don’t prep plots. Prep scenarios. If you give the players a goal and a world, they will make the plot themselves, and it’ll be more interesting. And it’s not like you wouldn’t need those things for a railroad plot anyway.
    • Don’t plan contingencies. Instead of explaining everything the party could do to get past the guard, just describe the guard. It’s a lot more flexible, and it takes less time to prepare.
    • With the 3 clues rule, make sure to have different clue types. If all your clues are pieces of evidence, then a party who prefers to talk to people is clueless.
    • If you feel the need to ask “are you sure you want to do that”, there might be a miscommunication to figure out. Maybe you didn’t explain the situation clearly, or a player misheard you, or the player has an item to help things work out.
    • When creating a system within your setting (eg, nobility), add two exceptions to the neat and tidy rules. “Each region is ruled by a count, except for those over there which are ruled by comtes.” This adds history to your world while making it less daunting to add more exceptions if you need them later.
    • sirblastalot@ttrpg.networkM
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Addendum to the “Are you sure you want to do that” bullet: if a player ever does something that seems nonsensical to you, ask them what they expect to achieve by doing that. Understanding their motivation is often what resolves the miscommunication and/or allows you to steer them towards a better way to do what they’re trying to do.