/tg/ - Traditional Games

>>74767563

>>74172428
I got more if you'd like

>>72705071
>>72703542
FUCKING FOUND IT
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/22848975/
was under the "advice" tag

>>56862328

>>56553616
Here's a bunch of tips i tend to come back to when i feel my GM-fu is getting weak or when i'm running a one-shot for people i haven't GM'd for before

Hope this can be of use.

>>54249678
Here's some of it anon

>>53551219
First time GM Advice thread?

First time GM advice thread.

First piece of advice: ask your players if they want you to roll openly or behind the screen. And brace for TPK and the shitstorms that it brings.

>>52662780
What're you up to these days anyway?

>>51762283
pic related

How does one go about actually planning a campaign? I've ran a couple of sessions and felt they were a little to unstructured. I want my players to be able to have freedom, have long term goals and be structure.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also general advice thread.

>>50777044

>>50082039
This might be a bit helpful.

>>49814289
Congratz, you are not me- as in: you are able to roll fairly well in any given situation.

Me? I have rotten fucking luck and I've found myself more than once on either extreme spectrum of
>holy shit, these goblins are going to TPK the party wtf!
and
>hold on ffs! The party is just styling on my main villain. He hasn't even fucking touched one of them, wtf!

>Otherwise, if you're building your own encounters from scratch, it shouldnt be that hard to get the challenge correct.
It happened more than once that minor encounters almost killed half the team, which I really did not want to happen or plan for.

Most groups I have played with do not mind a bit of fudging to keep the game interesting and engaging. If open rolling works for you, good on you.

>>49814312
You keep using the same old tired argument: I won't kill half the party everytime they face an encounter just because I rolled too damn well and drained all their luck, thus killing half the group who now has to re-make characters and then introduce them somehow to the party.

And you still haven't debunked the aspect that, with open rolling, you actually encourage players to play the same-old, bored, tired out of my fucking mind, min-maxed statblocks.

>>49796907

>>49695396

>>49606709
Alright, let me address it this way: I like how STORYTIEM puts it, very aptly.

Stupidity begets stupidity.
Actions have consequences.
Stupid actions also have consequences.

Let's have another example:
>campaign starts with characters low-mid level (5-6 something)
>the king asks for their help in dealing with an enemy duke who is ammassing an army to conquer the kingdom
>players are fucking idiots and start going on about sjw shit like gay marriage
>the game goes on like in the other greentext
>the day they finally make a democracy and legalize gay marriage the evil duke comes over with his army, several months earlier because he doesn't need a lot of men, since, you know, the kingdom is already weakened because of the shitty infighting
>the players are slaughtered in the ensuing fight
>yadda yadda

This is how I would play it because I want the players to make their own decisions: they are big enough, they can do what they want. Occasionally I will throw them a reminder of the situation with the duke (an NPC asking them what they should do regarding him and his ambitions to conquer the kingdom) but if the players are FUCKING IDIOTS then they are going to get what's coming for them.

>>49312779
Not a sin.

Post something legit or gtfo

>>49124313

>>48630611

That's a bad way of putting it, but its right in spirit.

The key is to remember that as the person running is that your players are supposed to enjoy themselves. That means just because the dice seem to enjoy making your players never hit that enemy and have him kill them one by one two fights into a longer quest doesn't mean that it has to end that way.
See pic related.

Aside from that, try to figure out what your buddies like (if not from prior experience playing together then by picking up on it during game and running with it). A party full of fpeople who love rping and a party of people who just want to kill things should have different focuses.

>>48199980

>>47849970