best way I've seen to undo the opening scenario is 'you suddenly wake up.'

I would say that there are a couple more ways to deal with overpowered enemies. If your players get defeated horribly, there are a few ways out: 1: Intelligent enemies might see more benefit in keeping the players alive and make them work for themselves. So if your players get knowcked out, maybe they get saved and magically forced to work for the villain. This would be a very interesting twist. 2: Unintelligent creatures might drag the defeated Heroes to its nest of starving young. This gives the heroes the possbility to recover and sneak away. 3: Deus ex machina, they get saved by an NPC. But this can be done in a way that doesn't feel like cheating, namely by adding consequences. For example, this NPC could die whilst saving the players, or it could demand a service in exchange for the player's lives.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Those are awesome idea's to get out of TPK. 1 and 2 are lovely. 3 needs to be set-up very carefully so it does feel like DEM. The players need to know where the NPC came from, why they were there and what they were doing. But it is a good way to get a party out of trouble. I like it and it's inspired a video in my mind! Thank you.

@Orzagh

7 жыл бұрын

Yeah absolutely, you (for example) need an NPC the players have heard of before or have met. But the "consequences" part is best interpreted broadly, so that creativity is sparked. And the thought that me, a young 2 year old DM who's still wet behind his ears has given an idea to mothafucking Matthew Colville sends chills down my spine. Cheers!

This helped me to build my confidence and forget just stats and to just enjoy running my first game. Thank you!

lol, love this. On the subject of retreating, my players recently attacked gnoll warband and thanks to some pretty fantastic rolls took have the warband down in the first turn. The rest promptly fled and the players spent the rest of the adventure expecting the "obvious trap/ambush that they were clearly being led into by the apparently fleeing gnolls". At the end of the session one of them asked me what happened to the gnolls, I blithely replied with "They ran away because you killed half of them in around 6 seconds. They were very clearly routed".

_"five copper and a dead cat"_ That made me chuckle. Really enjoying your videos, and I agree on the overwhelming majority of things you say. Your approach seems pragmatic and inclusive rather than dogmatic and excluding, which I admire in a GM. A player shouldn't be able to (wilfully or not) meta-game themselves into getting the upper hand by presuming the GM's behaviour. Keeping them on their toes will keep them interested and coming back for more, especially moderately experienced players, I feel. Bingeing your content while working on my RP planet's geography in Photoshop at the moment and having quite the lovely afternoon. Thank you very much! =]

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Well that is great feedback and what a lovely way to spend an afternoon - mapping and chuckling. I'm glad :) Thank you for being a part of the channel!

@flannelpillowcase6475

7 жыл бұрын

why do people find dead cats funny? i don't understand. people don't find dead dogs funny :|

@cyclone8974

6 жыл бұрын

people are assholes.

Guy, you're the best D&D channel on the net for us DMs. Please keep the great videos coming!

The intro is how I think Doofenschmirts would be if he actually succeeded

This is amazing advice, and certainly helping me consider my encounters in a new light. Also, I think his humor is fantastic!

This is some of the best advise that I have ever heard. I do this all the time. The point of the game is to have fun. If the players are having fun you are doing it right.

I'll fudge rolls with if the dice are behaving in a completely unreasonable matter, but that's a lot less obvious. I could pull this with some of my players who are less experienced or less experienced with statistics-heavy games, but my experienced players would never let me get away with it. And it's not a matter of them looking stuff up in the monster manual, because none of them would sink to looking up the stats of what they're fighting, but they tend to approach combat very tactically and so they pay careful attention to how much damage a monster is doing and how often its hitting and how often they're hitting it and so on. If the monster's stats started changing during encounters, or if monsters scaled with them as they levelled up, they'd notice. If I had them fighting nothing but homebrewed creatures that don't exist anywhere outside my notes, they'd still notice. And you don't have to even be paying that much attention to notice. If you're playing a first level fighter who was recently a farmboy with his piecemeal armor and rusty shortsword and you get in a fight with an orc and it's a brutal, life or death struggle you barely manage to walk away from alive, and then you get to fifth level and you've got the enchanted sword of some former king and masterwork armour forged for you as a gift when you saved the son of a dwarven smith and four times as many hitpoints as when you started out and you get in a fight with an orc and its a brutal life and death struggle you barely manage to walk away from alive you WILL notice that these orcs are scaling with you. Now maybe that first orc was a diseased, old cripple orc and the second orc was a hulking champion of his people. But if when you're level 1 all orcs are diseased old cripples and at level 5 all orcs are hulking champions of their people that's just going to make the scaling more obvious. There are places where this scaling could make sense, like if the process to make some kind of robotic soldier is still being refined, and newer models are developed as the players advance, or something along those lines, but most of the people I run for would find widespread scaling obvious, gamey and immersion-breaking. And then they're going to lose interest in the encounters, because when they know monster statistics are swinging all over the place to keep each encounter at a prescribed difficulty regardless of how powerful they are or how well prepared or how they're rolling, it's going to start feeling a lot less "real" and then their characters will also start to feel less real. If every time a second level bard and a fifth level fighter get into a physical struggle against an orc the orc is exactly as challenging to them, then there's no difference between being a fifth level fighter and being a second level bard. They're going to stop caring that their character is a bard or their character is a fighter or about whether they've made it to fifth level. Maybe you don't think they *should* care about those things, but then you really shouldn't be playing something like Dungeons and Dragons (Or Shadowrun or Torg or anything with similarly granular rules). If you play Fate or Cortex or go all the way in the other direction to something like Lasers and Feelings then you won't have a game implicitly telling the players to pay careful attention to things that don't actually matter. ...and punishing a player for catching me at it is a terrible idea. If anyone in any of my groups responded to criticism with that sort of "Oh yeah? Well now your character is on fire" passive aggressive drama they'd quickly find that they're no longer the one running games. Because, as a a bunch of non-children, we're not about to put a child in charge.

I really don't understand why so many Channels say to be vindictive in case you have a ruleslawyer/DM-Bookreader. It is a out-of-game problem and should be adressed out of the game. Personally I would lose the player quickly if he doesn't refrain from reading my stuff. On the main topic. I personally like to use the stats more often than not, because it gives my players a feeling of progress. An example: I had an encounter early in the adventure with Drakes which turned out to be really difficult. Now 4 Levels later I had a very similar encounter and my players were VERY HAPPY to just breeze through it. I agree with you on the part, that a "final encounter" should be somewhat climatic. However I also think you should reward your players for careful and good planning, so my advice to DMs is that they should NOT change anything if the party just did well. An example: A inbetween "boss fight" in my game was a wash due to a good use of a silence spell against a powerful mage. They surprised the mage and used a good spell against him so I gave my players the satisfaction to easily defeat him.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Ah yes - you touch on a good point here, and on a nuance point too if I might say. The challenge is for new GM's just getting through a session without stuffing up places a lot of pressure to perform. So your advice is excellent and I totally agree - a party that actually comes up with a plan should be allowed the opportunity to reap the rewards. It does require however your GM'ing level to improve as well. My current Patreon group are very good at planning, which means under normal circumstances they'd walk through all my adventures, I have to now up my game, and effectively up the craftyness of my NPC's to match. It's a wonderful challenge for me as a GM, and the players enjoy the 'harder' game. The reason I am vindictive against rules-lawyers is if it's raised DURING a game. It breaks the flow and breaks the immersion. It also sows seeds of doubt as the GM's ability to run a game if some player is constantly calling him or her up on rules. Now if that rules-lawyer comes in AFTER a game and discusses stuff and rules and offers advice - that's a different story. That's excellent. Everybody wins.

@DummyUrD

7 жыл бұрын

I absolutely agree that ruleslawyers are a big issue, especially if they disrupt the sessions, that is why I'd talk with them first and then kick them out of the group if they don't better themselves. I also agree that you need to tailor encounters and adventures to your group and since in important encounters there should be the dread of failure and death looming, I can see a changing encounter come in handy. My group/s myself usually don't play with perfect information, sometimes even faulty once, which severely cuts down their ability to "A-Team" their way through all encounters. The one thing that helped me the most is playing with other GMs and talking about story ideas, encounter building and "how to handle games" to bounce of ideas, which both i do quite a bit.

@Sabamonster

7 жыл бұрын

For me that boils down to Game Etiquette. Even back to my first game, I was made aware of the etiquette involved in DnD (and RPG's in general). First rule.. You don't argue with your DM. It's perfectly fine to point out a ruling if you feel the ruling was "incorrect" based on the rules you are familiar with. However, that extends only to your understanding of that rule. If the DM explains why it doesn't apply, you don't fight the point because of what is written. The DM is the DM. You go with it and play the game.

I have to admit, the beginning would make for an interesting antagonist. It's pretty funny.

I loved the intro! Difficulty level has been a problem I have been struggling with alot, so this has been a great help for me, thanks alot! :D Do make more videos, please

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Glad to have helped! And many more videos will be made! If you have suggestions head on over to our www.greatgamemaster.com website.

Is this GM tiny, look at the size of those dice. I'm guessing he is 3 ft 1

@dullahan_of_light6047

6 жыл бұрын

gamesdisk rumor confirmed Guy is a halfling.

@oz_jones

2 жыл бұрын

@@dullahan_of_light6047 or a gnome

Changing stats is fun, but is nice to have some progress. I found out that my players love when they are getting stronger, they love the feeling that they can can walk in the middle of the road and know that the hooligans will never try to rob them (at least without a good plan and some political backup), they will no longer ask the party for money just to let them continue on the road, they know that those guys killed a chimera and fought 1 to 4 against the savage orcs.

Great video. I prefer story heavy games and don’t like bringing in extra technical complications. Thank you!

I really appreciate this video. I've been having trouble with my players breezing through encounters like they were wet tissue paper. They're in for a more difficult, though hopefully more fun surprise next session.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Splendid! Let us know how it goes!

Your dog earned the like! Anyway, awesome channel mate! Keep up the good work!

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

The dogs thank you. Although they ate your like. And would like to know if there are any more?

Oh my, this intro… yes, we’ve all been there. I would love to hear more about the Encounter Design in detail - the way you play it. I like to believe every game have rules, as in boundaries, tendancies and a range of possibilities. I clearly understood you get rid of most mechanical rules (which is fair) but what about narrative rules? What would you never allow your monsters or your character’s players to do? What does your players expect from an encounter? Are they avoidable? Do they reinforce a type of play? How do you build an encounter to move the story forward? And what do they bring to the story nothing else could? Well, I guess I’m asking for a Game Master Tips 102b. I’ll write to Santa about it :)

The intro was amazing.

Reminds me of when I didn't read the whole encounter and made level 3s fight a guy that did his attack plus 6d6 damage

I'm a relatively new GM running a game for complete newbies to roleplaying games. It's a homebrew game in which I created a number of low level bandits/orcs/goblins etc for when they were low levels themselves. They're now coming towards mid levels and so i asked them whether they would prefer I scaled the random mook encounters to keep them all a threat, or would the prefer that I left them at the lower levels. Unanimously they said that they would prefer they stayed the same to give a sense of progression. Of course this allows for me to add captains or leaders in the various groups, but if they run into a bandit camp then they are going to be equal to the bandits they ran into 5, 6, 7 levels ago. I have found doing it this way means I can throw much harder encounters at them at other times and it makes them feel like there is much more at stake, because there is a noticeable difference between the random encounters and the "scripted" ones. I just stumbled across your channel and really enjoy your style. Subbed and will look forward to more things - always looking to improve/see other ways of running :)

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

It sounds like you are already a great GM! Glad you have you with us, as you can share your experiences and help us all improve.

I feel pretty happy that my players put roleplaying way above the game mechanics, I feel like I can get away with all this as long as the story is cool and fun

In the past you have said that dice rolls are subject to the story. This is not a criticism but well, a show that hey I have listened! I have said you have been a great help!

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

I do appreciate your comments, and the fact that we can discuss points and learn!

I tend to modulate things on the fly. Like I'll have reinforcements arrive if the enemies are a little too easy, or at one point I just decided to cut the enemy HP in half because it was too difficult. Nobody knew what was going on under the hood, and it was still a rough encounter even after I made it easier.

as ever really helpful! palace for challenge is something i struggled with and still do somewhat. to be honest, id say 90% of my games are made up on the spot stat wise. always let them kill the beast just before they think they're all gonna die - the cheers are cacophonous! other times i let them steamroll - they are heroes after all.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

that's the balance you need - easy, difficult, moderate... and keep mixing it up.

hahaha LOVED your intro!!!

First time i really watch one of Guy's videos and disagree. Damn ! But it is opinion, of course ;). I really think that some things slipped under the radar and are major points as a GM : - Coherence. You need to keep a certain logic in your game. If every monster has stats that are way off just for the sake of balance, your players will quickly loose interest. in my opinion, keeping the stats and the visual together is of first importance. Players will need references to play around and play smart, and visual indicates weaknesses they will want to exploit. Always justify your increase in stats with something (Second form, amulet of life saving, shapechange, half demon/dragon, cyberware, ...). If you ignore this, after three fights, your players will just go "Oh yeah that human beagar sure can breath fire and hits as hard as the 5meters tall bear we had last time. Well, my stats are worthless", and all of a sudden, players will loose interest in your game. - Fair and Just. In order to enjoy the play, i strongly believe you have to be fair as a GM. Don't make up rules all the time each time different. Players have to resolve problems based on there knowledge, and that implies reliability. If they struggle against a troll because they have no fire, next time having the fire will feel really satisfying. But if that troll just blows up instead, you loose all credibility because the world suddenly does not seem cohesive or fair. - Bully. I really am not a fan of bullying. It breaks immersion in the game for all the players, and creates a players versus GM scenario that i really dislike. I'dd rather explain or ignore. But this is preference. That said, i agree in many points and really think those are good advices, perhaps not for beginners but really solid. I tend to think that beginner GM have a hard time messing up with the rules and monster stats are often used as guide for new GM. For treasure perhaps a link to the episode on naming things could be good. But yeah treasure is a topic of its own. My add on this is to always cut fights as soon as they are won. You don't want to spend an hour on chasing the remaining goblin. When the enemies hit 50%, just make them flee, allow opportunity attacks of some sort and just narrate the epic victory and what happens to the remaining enemies.

@wizard1399

7 жыл бұрын

I agree. Humans on the whole learn through experience. The first time you touch the burner of the stove, you may not know that it is hot, but after that you tend to avoid it. A good GM creates and uses the history of experience his players have to give versimiliture to the world he is creating. If a GM completely ignores stat blocks, the game degrades into a hack, slash, zap, and shoot. No strategy. No history to compare things to. No calling on the players to use knowledge of your world to play creatively. On the other hand, modyifying a stat block to give a new experience to the encounter is done all the time. GM's often swap out one trait for another trait to keep the play experience new and challenging. The guy in the video seems to have completely glossed over the topic of metagaiming as well. If you players know to burn trolls from other campaigns, but have no knowledge of that in the history of this campaing, call them on it and tell them that is meta gaming.Then ask them what their character knows and make a decision based on that knowledge.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your comment, and it's wonderful to disagree! It gives us a point to work around and unpack and see if we can change or learn. So Coherence / Consistency is critical, however mechanically you face a problem with higher levels and level advancement. Once a character is level 14 (in a system that has levels) then all the level 1 monsters become useless. I always hated that because it meant my world suddenly had to have monsters who were capable of destroying whole cities lurking in the shadows - for no reason - just waiting for some big bad hero's to show up. So if my monsters scale around the party it provides context as to why the level 20 dragon didn't just arrive and eat the town in the first adventure because nothing could stop it. In other words, a world full of different level creatures or creatures of different power capabilities, is going to operate very very differently from a normal world. At least in my opinion. What I perhaps was not clear about was that if 'trolls in my world don't burn' then ALL trolls in my world don't burn. Fair and Just - absolutely. You have to be fair. And I hope my video didn't indicate that you should change the rules each time?! If it did than I am sad because again like the troll - once you decide on how to make the 'climb skill check' it should ALWAYS be that. I didn't mean that you should change it each time. Bully - I don't like players trying to 'bully me' with quoting rules at me. Don't slow the game down with mechanical questions. If you do that - why don't you run a game where you can decide on the mechanics. I agree we all need a reference point (system) that we can work from, but to try to force a GM to use rules is being a bully in my opinion. If a player says - um last week you said it was this skill... then I accept my fault and go with it. Maybe I am a bit of a bully 0.o... Thank you for taking the time to share, and discuss, and for also pointing out totally valid points!

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Valid points too. Remember though this video is for first time GM's. They don't have an campaign with history. The way I encourage people to learn is to focus on the 'easy' points first. Meta-game is critical, but if you're a new GM, you may not be able to spot meta-game versus rules knowledge, versus character knowledge because you are still figuring out GM knowledge. I still need to do a video on Meta-gaming but that's for GM's who are already comfortable with running a game. To experienced GM's - I totally agree with you - players need to learn about your world through experience and interaction, and meta-gaming needs to be called up if it happens and isn't allowed in your game.

@Nibilli

7 жыл бұрын

As usual, great response and valid points! I got harsh on some parts particularly on consistency. Watching the bacon team, I know you as a GM are very good with all these points. But new GM are not, and just saying "fuck the rules" do whatever goes best for the story can be a bad advice for new GMs. Even without exaggerating, modifying the rules as a beginner is very dangerous in my opinion. For "high level" problem, a "mostly" D&D problem, note that most of the progression systems are meant to always stay on a standard. Even D&D5 know responds to this problem in a great way. With the exception of Pathfinder, D&D4 and below, almost all system can compensate with numbers. Even the strongest of war chiefs will have a bad time against a volley of arrows, even if each sling has 1/10 to hit. I suggest always use number advantage, except for nemesis or bosses (twin boss can be cool XD). I guarantee you that theses 100 kobolds are a great pain in the ass even for very high level, even with the same stats as in the level 1 session, in D&D5, because AC does not scale as well, and arrows will hit and will hurt on the long run. Agree about being adamant with lawyer players. But i tend to never handicap my game because of an annoying player. I sometimes "bad luck" them, but never will i interrupt/modify my game for annoying players. If they insist, i tell them to come next week as a GM, or sometimes even to leave (Skype + roll20 is great to kick players without logistical problems). But i am grateful i have mostly great players ! ^^. But every GM has his way to tackle the problem, so just do you !

@Damnationization

7 жыл бұрын

I agree and disagree. I think it's ok if you change the creatures before the encounter and not just make it up as you go. A DM is a story teller and is their kind of like a judge. If you make up a story and change things ahead of time that it fine. If you just chose to make things harder then not so much. Unless it's adding small things such as minions come running in. But changing creatures totally during the battle is a dink thing to do. I have had this stuff happen as a player and it stinks. I try being fair to my players. Some times things go great for them and other times not so much. For example in Pathfinder the players 11th, 11th, 10th, 8th, and 8th. Were in a bar and got free drinks for being heroes. The truth is it was laced with weak poison DC 15 or be knocked out. This was to be an easy battle against a 11th level thief, 6th level barbarian, two 3rd level thieves, two 2nd level thieves, and six 1st level thieves with 5hp. The 11th level wizard failed, the 11th level paladin rolled a 1 failing, and the 8th level fighter rolled a 1 failing. The 10th level archer ended up being killed.

i agree with what you are saying about modifying the enemies. i had players when we first started try to Meta game the creatures hp or damage output. i would then tell them that is the vanilla of the creatures and i change mine according to what they do. trolls near volcanos have fire resistance for example. though the stat blocks shouldn't be change in the middle of the encounter. sometimes they get that lucky hit and make an extremely hard fight easy then let them, like what you said, unless it is a boss battle.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

All in moderation as they say. :)

Hahaha, this intro made my morning :'D

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Now that's good to hear! A smile is always a good thing!

I try to balance my systems with weak and strong creatures. The party is either facing thugs that they can breeze through in 1 or 2 turns or a villain that seems to keep them pre-occupied for at least 12. I find this works because if you operate in extremes in a system that has a randomized quality with dice it can give the illusion of a middle ground. Rolling very poorly against thugs all of a sudden makes them appear more well prepared for the party and rolling very well against a villain makes him less daunting and portrays much more like a mini boss. I also run it this way because the players get visibly excited and amped up when they roll well against a villain in my game, because they know how difficult they usually are, which makes me happy because i can obviously see they are having fun. However, I run two systems right now... Mutants and Masterminds and Anima Beyond Fantasy, in both those systems the possibility of death is very limited unless I specifically seek out and TRY to kill someone in the party; so I don't know if that this advise can help you in other systems, so make sure you always refer to "Player/Character Deaths" or "Calculating Damage" sections of the guide. Every system should describe how hard it should be to kill a player

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

It's good advice, and you're spot on - some systems are less likely to kill a party than others. Always check your system!

I must say that I have been recently binge-watching your channel and it is both educational and entertaining. I've been a DM for just on four decades now and this old grognard would agree with your approach....with a caveat or two. I have never TPK'd in combat (out of combat is another discussion), but there have been more than a few combats in my time which were far easier or harder than they should have been because someone's dice were hot or cold. So, yes, to dynamically rebalance an encounter to maintain the suitable level of challenge is (IMNHO) reasonable. OTOH, I wouldn't free-form rewrite a known monster on the fly. I find that it would damage the verisimilitude by having creatures without their signature abilities (a banshee without her wail) or ones which have dissonant abilities (a bum with fire-breathing) UNLESS there is a compelling story-arc reason for that. YMMV.

While I do agree that the GM has every right, nay DUTY, to change monsters on the fly, is the right answer to "hey, wait a second..." a punitive action? Wouldn't a reply of, "I guess this isn't a normal BLANK, huh?" lead to more curiosity as opposed to annoyed grumbling or sulking?

@ForeverLaxx

7 жыл бұрын

A lot of that is a case of "meta-gaming" which I'll admit I'm guilty of at times. Players are going to take their own personal knowledge into a session and it's sometimes difficult to separate personal, prior knowledge from the current game session. For instance, most players are going to know that Skeletons are best dispatched with heavy, striking weapons like maces but are basically immune to piercing ones such as arrows. Even if their characters wouldn't be aware, the players are going to notice if the archer is one-shotting those Skeletons when he should actually be disadvantaged against them. What's important in these instances it to make sure things are consistent, or at least have a good reason for your monster to deviate from the normal expectation. Maybe those Skeletons are illusions, or maybe the ritual that created them was done in a manner that reversed their weaknesses, or maybe the archer just happens to have Skeletons as his favored enemy and deals bonus damage to them and the party didn't know that. Or, maybe you just want Skeletons to be weak to everything because they're basic enemies. As long as the rules don't change for that sessions (for no good reason, mind) then it shouldn't be an issue.

oh gosh i started the vid and for a second i thought it was a jim sterling video edit 7:01 how does one learn this spell?

To avoid any bullying, have a custom world. Any differences in the monsters (that I may or may be making up on the spot) are easily countered by 'But x monster doesn't do that', 'They do in this world'.

@kharnthebetrayer8251

7 жыл бұрын

It'll be fun when they run into a building. 'Aha, the Vampire can't enter unless we invite them'. Then the vampire just walks in 'You know, we have no idea where that myth came from'.

that was some beautiful acting in the beginning.

i recently, like yesterday kind of recently, just threw a necromancer at the party that came very close to a full party wipe. he was the Necrodancer, a hilarious necromancer with a few custom spells, one effectively too powerful (hindsight is fun :D) because every turn the party had to roll to see if they could move (due to forced dancing from a ritual spell on the crypt) although the nail in the coffin was the damage values i gave the zombies and skeletons and the number of them i threw at the party. party level across all characters is Lvl 8 and about 6 players with average HP55-60, there were about 5 skeletons, and 5 zombies. Skeletons doing 5d6 and zombies doing 10d6. Combat was about 4 rounds, luckily the barbarian had a wish spell (courtesy of the deck of many things) and was able to boost the party just enough to finish off the Necrodancer. hardest fight we've had in sessions, and was quite interesting, since our goblin arc was a bit disappointing since the party's casters were able to nuke the minions that the Goblin general relied heavily on (was a cleric that augmented allies and not much else)

I haven't commented in some time, but I still watch your videos. I still rather enjoy your videos and enjoy hearing what you have to say. However, I think this topic is a dangerous one. First of all, I think this system you are proposing is a decent one, for new players. When I was a new GM I 100% did the sort of things you are talking about. I think this is a good thing to do for NEW gms. It's playing with some degree of kid gloves. Which is TOTALLY fair. As a GM you have to create a world, a narrative, portray that world to the players, remember a bunch of rules, and overcome stage fright. You have enough to worry about without beating yourself up over matzot prevent yourself from butchering your friends. However, I do think that you need to, as an educator of our GMing youth XD, warn people of the dangers of the philosophy you espouse. 1.) You open yourself up to weird biased decision making. We are all humans... or dwarves or elves, and we all have emotions that sometimes leave us to make silly decisions. Perhaps, you are annoyed with player X and don't want him to get the last hit and kill the dragon, or you are in love with player Y so you without even thinking have had him kill the last 7 monsters. Whatever the case may be, you are flirting with some real danger. When you have a number you have something that a coolheaded version of you agreed to before emotions got into it, but if you run encounters on the fly, bias and emotions can lead to you making poor decisions. 2.) You threaten to lose your players. I understand you are a big fan of story, and as someone working to get their dime story trashy novel published, I can sympathize. However, many of the players signed up for a game. The game element is very important, it suggests a failure state and it poses a challenge to the players as well as their characters. Whenever you make sure the dragon always has just enough hit points for the party to barely win or when you fake a dice roll to be sure it missed, you threaten the game. In a game your strategy, your skill, your build, and/or your luck can all play a role in your success or failure. This is a fairly basic assumption that the vast majority of players will have. However, with this system you propose, the only the thing that really decides player success or failure is the GM. This is you devaluing player agency, which is always dangerous and many react poorly to that. 3.) If the players start to figure out what is going on you will start to rob encounters of any tension. You are giving either your players or your monsters plot armor. This can very easily start to destroy the tension of your encounters if your players can smell what the Rock is metaphorically cooking. This is another notable problem that is similar to #2. In this scenario, the problem is not the lack of agency or "game" but the fact that the encounters become a chore. What do I mean? Well, if your players start to suspect that you are making up numbers on the fly for encounters to ensure excitement or ease, then they will start to not care. This happens because the events are predetermined. The dragon fight will be tense, the goblin fight will be easy, and somehow the bad guy will have a magic scroll that lets him escape. If players start to recognize this, many ESPECIALLY the ones who care about the story, will get annoyed because now they have to spend 20 minutes to learn something the GM could really just tell them. I know I have played games where the players always win or lose because the GM decided as much, and I began to dread encounters. There was no tension in combat because like characters in a greek tragedy, our fates were already decided by the gods of this world. We just had to put up with a fake game to find out what the fates (the GM) already had in store for us. 4.) This will eventually make you a killer. This is something more of a minor point, but it is important. If you are making things up on the fly, or you are faking rolls, then you are deciding the fate of encounters. This means that should a player character die, the cause of their death is you. You could have decided the monster missed, you could have decided it did less damage, you could have decided the monster died the round before, but you didn't. If you take this rule of making up encounter numbers on the fly, when someone dies and they will, you are the one who killed them, you the GM, not the necromancer, not the Sith Lord, not the T-Rex, you. Eventually, you will have made a call or a mistake that murdered someone. This can cause guilt, which is never fun, and player resentment... also not fun. 5.) This is more of a minor point. The system you propose only really works for non sandbox systems. If you are playing a sandbox game where in the players get to do whatever they want it means that they can get in trouble however they want. It means that the players need to start to regulate themselves by how they expect the world to react and accept that being wrong may end them, or that a lot of planning may reward them. Here, you are not to balance encounters, but to have the players do it for you. They have to make the call as to if they can take on 5 guards by their knowledge of how tough your average goblin guard is. If they are wrong then some may die, and they will only have themselves to blame. This is massive can of worms as sandbox games are so very different that to go into it now would be an outrageous diversion in a comment that is already far to long. Welp, that was waaaaaaay to long. if you read that you are a good man. I apologize. Either way, I would like to restate that I enjoy your videos and think they are high quality. There are many out there I consider less informative or interesting, but are currently more popular because of star power or simple already being established. I do hope you don't get discouraged, because you are doing a great job and the cream will eventually rise to the top. Cheers!

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

What a wonderful comment! Though I think you may have answered yourself for the most part. Yes, something that my videos lack are a suitable WARNING or DISCLOSURE clause at the end. It's a failing of my approach as an educator, and it's a quirk of my nature I guess - I believe in teaching people absolutes that hopefully contradict one another. This way the student is forced to either accept one or the other, or realize there is no right or wrong solution, merely options, and to select the best one. So on that point - I agree with you. I have read your entire comment - it's only fair, you wrote it, I can at least read it :) 1 - YES YES YES. I cannot disagree with you, and I'm guilty of doing it. Players do suffer my wrath if they're people I like (I like to make it hard for people I like because it helps make them better people) and for people I don't like they get the boring mundane stuff. 2 - On this point I agree with you - except I add - you will loose players who don't agree with your style. I've had many players come in, get frustrated with my approach and leave. On the other hand, I've had players queuing to get into one of my games because the story component is all important. Not all players care about making a strategically powerful character. I advocate always finding a group that fits with you for the best enjoyment. 3 - Here is where we agree the most. And I'll release a video on Wednesday to address this topic, although I have addressed it before, just in a different form. There have been enough concerns raised on GM 102, to require a GM103 :) 4 - Ah the all important killer point. This links to my advice and answer to question 3. 5 - Here I think I've missed your point, or can't find a common point. Unless your world is structured like an MMO where you have zones for different levels, a goblin warrior in one part of the world should be fairly similar to a goblin warrior in another part of the world. The description should give away their capabilities - a well dressed, well armoured, attentive goblin is likely to be vicious in a fight, a slouched, dazed, bored goblin in a loin cloth should not be? Even though their stats will change depending on my characters level, it will still be less than the average party member making for an easy kill... possibly. So thank you for raising your concerns to eloquently, and with clarity, I really do appreciate your effort and dedication to the channel, it makes it worthwhile for me. And as to the comparison with other channels, I'm happy to agree with you on those points ;)

@CrazyCajun777

7 жыл бұрын

First of all, thank you for reading and replying. As I'm sure many have expressed before your passion and enthusiasm are apparent in the channel. Which is not me trying to belittle your knowledge and experience. On with the continued discussion!!!! As to #5 as I can see how there is some lack of clarity. I shall try to reword for clarity as I can see I did a poor job the first time. In a system that is a sandbox, your players are walking about in situations where they have to make judgement calls and formulate solutions. In these games there are a lot of mechanics devoted to ways of interacting with the world and how the world responds, where as systems like D&D and Pathfinder devote most of their mechanics to combat. As you described, yes they should be able to look at the goblins and have a rough idea of their strength. The problem lies in, "you hear rumors of a manticore." The party shows up, sees it, accesses the situation, plans for it, prepares for it, then fights it. Then the encounter is being steam rolled too easy so you say "then the mother manticore shows up and she's twice as big and has a lightsaber!" In a game system like D&D, this works just fine. However in a system where planning and such are key, throwing spanners into the works that the party would have no way to predict may frustrate the players greatly. I'm speaking directly about systems where planning is "part of the fun." Players want to be able to basically solve the puzzle that is the encounter. When you make mid session alterations for dramatic effect you undermine the work your player's did, or perhaps I should say, the players may feel that you undermined their work. Basically, when you present an encounter as a puzzle to be solved you really shouldn't cheat, even for dramatic reasons. Otherwise it wasn't really a puzzle. Hopefully, that is more clear. Although, now that I look at it, it is a similar point to 3. However, it is agency that is being lost, not tension. I would also like to mention something that point 1 reminded me of. Firstly, like you, I hurt the ones I love. Although, I prefer to think of it as rewarding them with story. My question is this, do you ever find yourself GMing a game where it really feels like a protagonist arises? I tend to notice it happening a good deal. Sometimes one of the players or, oddly enough, character's tends to just be a bit of a leader. Sometimes, one of the characters just ties in better to the plot hooks than others. And let's be honest, sometimes some characters are just deeper and more well crafted. Second, this event, often unintentional, is obviously dangerous, but it just sometimes seems to work so darn well. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the issue. Personally, I feel like as long as you haven't set out to do it, and it arrises naturally without excluding other character's from play it can work. This is a story and you are just asking someone who is well positioned in the group to help you carry a little extra of the story burden. I'm not saying you shouldn't make efforts to give others a chance to shine, but that sometimes having a specific player who is in a position to really work that spotlight for the enjoyment of all can be very helpful. Though, I'm very open to hearing your thoughts on the matter. It's something I don't have a concrete opinion on. Again, post was too long. All the same if you read nothing else, I hope you read this. Great job on the videos. I really do get a smile when I see another one was posted, especially on a topic I enjoy. I really like your setting videos and can clearly see you have some working experience with stories as you tend to hit the theming and emotional tropes right on the head! Have a great day my friend. I do enjoy our chats and only wish we could go into more depth than youtube comments will allow. May your d20s always crit just when you need them to ;)

A year or so ago, I ran a D&D campaign. In this campaign, there was a group of villains set on destroying the party for whatever reason that's not important right now. Among these villains there was a huge Phase Spider that could cast various spells up to 8th level that I figured made sense, such as dream, teleportation, etc. Long story short, he ended up being a very annoying reoccurring NPC that caused various problems with the party. He temporarily made the Rogue's girlfriend really stupid, he almost killed the 2 sorcerers in the party, etc etc. Although not doing 1,000 AOE lightning damage, he was a pretty tough nut to crack, and in fact, never got cracked.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Ooooh - sounds like a lot of fun. Did the campaign end before he was faced? Or was he just too elusive?

I would be curious on your thoughts on creating creature from scratch. With the system I am going to try to run it encourages the GM be as brutal as possible at every turn since it's a horror based game. If you ever had to make creatures from scratch from very little or no reference at all how do you balance out the monster so it doesn't wipe out the party before you get to see the character sheets of your players? I ask because typically the party I work with is both easily distracted and sometimes impatient so when they roll out a character sheet they want the game next session or even that session. As a first time GM this kind of situation seems very intimidating to me.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU BASED GUY

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching ;)

I've got this short Campaign planned out which I've divided into four 'Acts'; each act focusing on a different element of D&D gameplay. The first act is a daring prison-break from a remote castle in the Cold Lands of Faerun. This will require a stealth-focused approach. The Castle's guards are going to be low-level Fighters for the most part; they're essentially just there to force the players to roll Stealth Checks, or as fodder to be rushed by the party if/when the stealth check eventually fails, but the 'boss' is the Captain of the Guard: A huge and intimidating man (ala 'The Mountain' from Game of Thrones stylee); a sort of 'fallen-from-grace' Ex-Paladin who was once about as Lawful-Anal as Lawful-Good gets, and through years of circumstances and disillusionment has become very much a "prisoners deserve death" kind of guy. System-wise, he's a 'Sorcadin'; I like the idea of a man of his size clad in that much armour being able to move alarmingly quickly through the use of the 'Quickened' Spell. Lore-wise, at the beginning of the campaign I plan to really build up a picture of the menace of this guy. Guards gossiping about his past feats, and whatnot. Make the players realise that - as a party of Level 1s - he's NOT someone they want to run into. The PLAN is for the players to evade him, and thus starting Act 2 of the Campaign: Survival. Being pursued by this man whilst surviving out in the frozen wilderness. System-wise I'm happy to keep the Captain and his men juuuuust outside of touch; close enough to build suspense and keep players on edge and make them decide if they want to take that Long or Short Rest or not, but never really close enough to capture them. Then eventually, as the Party find they way to the edge of the Cold Lands towards less inclement weather and towards civilisation, the pursuit is broken off and the party engages in Act 3: Diplomacy (or 'Roleplay', since it shows much more of the players' roleplaying abilities and their ability to bring out the nuances of their characters than combat situations do). And so on. Eventually the campaign comes full-circle and in Act 4 he is meant to be the Final Boss. This is all well and good, except my players - especially the *fucking* Paladin in the party - may decide they're going to get the Captain separated from his men, stand their ground and fight him. The problem here is how to I make him strong enough to be a difficult Final Boss, when I'm expecting the characters to be around level 4 each, whilst also not being ridiculously powerful if they choose to fight him in Act 1. Do I even manage it at all, and just treat it as "Well, YOU all chose to fight him when you clearly knew you had to avoid him, so now you're all going to die", or so I scale it down to make it an extremely difficult but winnable fight? Do I fudge the rolls for the Captain? Or do I find some sort of excuse for not killing them outright, like the Captain of the Guard being summoned to an emergency elsewhere just as the party is on the brink of death? I think this is where your advice comes in about making the numbers up.

7:00 speaking of particularly terrifying what the fuck did your merging software just do to you

HAHA! im looking forward to tonights session, gonna share this with my group! That start sketch happened to us at lvl 1 :p My DM killed his girlfriend by mistake after i told him Inflict Wounds was 3d10, not 1d10 :p Straight up dead, no death saves :P He has not been close to killing anyone since, and its been more than a year... :`(

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

That awesome moment when the dice say 'DEATH' and the GM goes... um... um... we have all been there for sure!

The monster manual uses average stats and hp. Humans average is 10 for stats in many games. One trick I like to use in pathfinder and #.5 is give an enemy a level of warrior. It does not change the CR.

Modifying monsters and so on is great but I'm a bit worried about making all monsters scale up. It would feel very pointless and unfair that my adventurer and friends would struggle just as much against a pack of regular goblins when we had a lot of fighting experience and new spells and magic swords as we did when we first started out. If the goblins were lead by an ogre mage and maybe an orc lieutenant who had been teaching them better fighting techniques and so on then that's an entirely different thing. But a gang of normal goblins mysteriously keeping strength with the party no matter what advantages we get? Not fun and how does that even work story wise?

i make sure the party has enough scrolls and potions and whatever other consumables because i plan to beat them to within an inch of their life every time and it it doesn't then i don't then they don't need to get any more till after the next one

I disagree with your first example. The *worst* type of enemy is one that's easy to hit and can't really harm you in a serious way, but that just has ridiculous HP. It turns fighting it into a chore. "The fighter does another 20 damage to the bear. For the third round in a row. The bear swings and misses the fighter. Again." is not an interesting encounter. It's not a fun encounter. It's just waiting for your dice to maybe roll that 1 in 20 critical so you can finish combat in nine turns instead of 10. If the bear had a toxic bite or got a bonus to hit when below half health as it flies into a beserk frenzy then that's great. It's interesting and adds variety to the combat encounter. Just adding HP to a monster because you think your players are doing "too well" (as though that's actually a thing - they should be allowed to feel powerful every once in a while) is bad DMing. Also, certain things just don't make sense if you do that. A group of bandits shouldn't pose an issue to a party post 3rd level. Nor would a mob of goblins pose a threat in the face of AOE. Goblins suddenly getting stronger because you've managed to reduce their numbers makes no sense whatsoever. Sure, if you have a goblin shaman buff them then go for it, but just adjusting it on the fly doesn't make a good game. Adjusting a creatures' to-hit based on the players' level punishes players for making choices. My fighter gets +8 to hit, but he's got an AC of ~22. Now, a creature with +8 to-hit is going to pose a serious threat to him because it can still hit him about half the time, whereas a creature that would normally have a +4 to-hit (which is appropriate for most mooks) is going to whale away at him with little effect. He's supposed to be able to charge into a group of half a dozen orcs and not get obliterated in the first round of combat, and giving the orcs bonuses to hit based on his skills invalidates almost all of effort that went into him searching out a legendary magical shield and training for years. It also punishes low-AC characters even more by ensuring that rather than being hit two thirds of the time they're getting hit all the time, and low-AC characters are generally not the kind of characters that can take a lot of punishment. Also, your "bullying" example was silly. Don't hand out in-game punishments for OOC stuff. Just explain to the player that the monster manual gives an explanation of an average dragon as understood by the historians of the town. It doesn't necessarily describe /this/ dragon, which has just shrugged off what you would have thought was a fatal blow. Tell the players that they can't use knowledge from the monster manual because whilst they might know it their characters may not. Really you're complaining about metagaming, which is better solved by talking to the players about it early on and not by arguing about it in the heat of the moment.

@elgatochurro

5 жыл бұрын

Use multiple bears

@guidokreeuseler9566

5 жыл бұрын

Actually, the "these guys get stronger if you kill more of them" is a pretty cool idea which I actually used in a WFRP campaign long ago. stole it from "the chronicles of prydain" novels where the heroes have to escape these 5 huntsmen of the Horned King (book's villain). Everytime they killed one, the remainder got stronger. Basically I stole it straight (numbers and equipment) and based the original stats on zombies or Ghouls but +10/+1 to all stats for every casualty suffered (and maybe even scaling up every time to +20/+2, +30/+3 etc.). The fight against these NPC's I recall as a bit of a slog and I think I didn't really use them well enough (they should have been a hit-and-run team but we just slogged it out). It was one of my first adventures as GM and I might revisit the idea some time... Maybe with Goblins or some other typically "cannon fodder" creature, just to make them more scary even at higher party levels.

This has really helped me in a campaign I'm building for a few friends. I've usually just been a player, using a rough outline of the Runequest rules. However, for this campaign, I'm building the game around superheroes; while using the hero system rules. Do you have any experience with this? Do you have any advice you could offer for a first time GM using this system? Currently I have been really bogged down by the amount of math, and numbers involved. What are your thoughts? Cheers

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

I am glad that you have found use in the videos! As for the system I haven't played it, and as I said in this video - don't get bogged down. Get an over-view of the system and how is works on the surface, and go with that - don't worry about hard math. Slowly over-time you can get into the hard and fast rules.

I am of the opinion that using the tiers of encounters tend to work better. If you want an encounter to be more of a nuisiance or distraction, or to wear down the PC's, you make the encounter easy or medium. Medium difficulty might require some use of healing after the battle, but not much. A hard encounter should be difficult for the players to overcome and maybe require some strategy to overcome. It should use up a good chunk of resources the characters have available to them. The last level is deadly and this type of encounter has a very real possibility that one or more players may die in the encounter. This type of encounter requires strategic gameplay, not just your normal hack and slash, zap and shoot.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

I love that idea, and often use it in my games, if somewhat subconsciously. With so many comments around encounters I will certainly release a video focusing on encounters for the more experienced player and this is certainly going in there! Thank you.

My approach generally depends on the system I'm running. If I've got something that has a pretty straightforward progression like DnD then I tend to stick to stats as written and I've gotten better at judging what is and isn't a challenge in 5th ed (because, seriously, the challenge system is only a guideline at best. I've got a whole story about misjudging that). Now, in a system thats much more free-form for progression like Fading Suns, Savage Worlds, etc, I'm more comfortable making up stats on the fly, mostly because one's ability to absorb damage doesn't change, combat is as deadly at the beginning of the game as it is at the end. I also find this also makes it easier to tell bigger stories right out of the gate, rather than stretching credibility by sending a pack of level 1 characters after a dragon (though I did have them fight a wyrmling at level 3 so I might just be contradicting myself a bit) Bah, sorry, rambled.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Not rambling at all! You make an excellent case here. We have to adapt our styles to a large degree based on the system we run. It is something I didn't mention. So thank you for raising it!

Whoa whoa whoa those pictures of Neelisa Killian Khalasa and Guy are fucking awesome....BUT WHERES BARADOR NOONE EVER REMEMBERS BARADOR

One piece of advice I'd give is be vague about your critters. If it's something the PCs wouldn't necessarily know about, then don't refer to them by name. Simply describe their appearance. For example, in my Pathfinder campaign the first encounter was a group of Compsognathuses. I didn't refer to them by name at first, simply describing them as "small therapods with a bird-like body and a snake-like head". Until I realized one of my player's characters would without a doubt know what a Compy is (they were a wizard with a Compy familiar) so I referred to them by name.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Love those little monsters... hate spelling them though lol. Yes - that's a great piece of advice. If you keep the beast limited to a visual description and only if the players make a nature check, or a magic check (or whatever check the system uses) do they get the name. It works well often!

T-shirt idea #1: Do all trolls regenerate? Not in my world!

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

I LOVE THAT... also: YOU DO WHAT? OK... and OH YOU WALK OVER AND HIT IT DO YOU? REALLY? REALLY!

@donforsman5712

7 жыл бұрын

How to be a Great Game Master A

The best way I can think of to handle the "This enemy is too weak/strong for the players to fight" issue is to avoid it altogether, whenever possible. For example, max level characters wandering in a forest filled with relatively harmless enemies? Maybe have those harmless enemies fight them at first, but altogether encounters should be avoided- Have those enemies respect the party's power and stay out of their way. If the characters go out of their way to pick a fight in that kind of situation, put a twist on it to make it more difficult without simply changing stats- That bear they decided to pick on for no reason turns out to be a nature god incarnated as a bear, and now they have to fight this supernatural being that can actually pose a threat to them. Maybe a group of powerful druids notice the fact there's a bunch of warriors massacring wildlife and they intervene. Maybe the entire forest itself turns out to be alive, and whilst judging the party's actions has finally decided that their cruelty towards nature is unforgiveable, resulting in every plant and animal in the forest suddenly out for the party's blood. While that black bear is still relatively pathetic compared to the party, they're now fighting a more appropriate enemy or a large group of enemies. You definitely need to justify this narrative-wise though, and tying it into the party's actions/traits (such as their level, fame, or some other attribute one of their characters posesses) is generally how you do it like with the examples I gave. The nature god, spirit of the forest or the druids didn't decide to suddenly attack the party, the party got a commupance in the form of a real fight for attacking wildlife that was cowering in fear of them. Overlevelled monsters should consider the party not worth paying attention to, underlevelled monsters should consider the party scary, balanced monsters should be hunting down the party or vice versa- If the balance is being disrupted (such as the party hunting down under/overlevelled monsters), you as the GM need to figure out a way to make balanced monsters turn up anyway (or have no monsters turn up in the first place)- Such as, that massive dragon's lair actually wasn't in the place where the villagers assumed it was, and in reality it was just a cave filled with kobolds. That group of petty pickpockets, upon realizing a group of the most powerful adventurers in the world is hunting them down, simply packed their bags and left the city in fear- Or maybe, they contacted the ultra-powerful warlock commanding them from the shadows to ask for backup that could actually stand a fighting chance against such a threat. At least, that's how I prefer to handle things. Definitely way harder to do (and not always practical), but it's generally a more immersive way to handle things in my experience.

May I ask the name and model of the mic ?

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Samson handheld condenser running into a Berhinger analogue desk being fed into Audacity ;)

Hi, I'm trying to create a massive siege of a castle but I'm not sure how to go about it. My players have spent a few sessions gathering an army and can now besiege an orc castle. Can you give me some advice on how to go about it? Thanks and I love your videos.

@nathanpevlor5046

7 жыл бұрын

Hey man, if you're running DND 3.5 I HIGHLY recommend purchasing/downloading the PDF for the stronghold builder's guide. It provides lots of information and ruling on what it costs to build specific strongholds, and provides the "landlord" feat which allows a character to procure an allowance of gold specifically for building a stronghold or improving one. Discuss with the designated player who has the most leadership qualities, be it the feat "leadership" or the highest skill points allocated to diplomacy and knowledge local, or things like that.

@nathanpevlor5046

7 жыл бұрын

If not I'm sure you can still apply the rules to another tabletop with a bit of tweaking.

@FatefulMatty

7 жыл бұрын

Yeah I was actually playing Open Legend RPG so it wasn't so difficult to alter some rules here and there. Thanks for the advice :)

@nathanpevlor5046

7 жыл бұрын

Not a problem man. To be honest I'm kinda looking for some pointers myself. You see, I'm running a naval campaign using DND 3.5 and the story takes place in a sort of pirate like setting. I've offered flintlock pistols and muskets as a weapon option but it's hard to find rulings on firearms in any of the books. I want to make it authentic, so you'll need to pack gunpowder and put the bullet in. As such, loading the gun takes longer Than a crossbow... which is bad. Should I scale up the damage on it, homebrew some feats specific to firearms... are there resources about it in a book somewhere I don't know about?

@nathanpevlor5046

7 жыл бұрын

I'm mostly running the campaign out of stormwrack.

Reading the comments I see a lot about hating scaling and not changing the rules. My approach to that is scaling but took my approach from reading tons of different 3rd party monster books, rules, ect and keep their base form (say kobold for a simple example) but change their appearance and mannerisms a little so the characters know there is something different about these guys and anyone with the ability to know so can tell these aren't just your typical kobold. Or a dozen other approaches but they are not blindsided. They know before hand, or pretty quickly as soon as the encounter starts, that these aren't your normal kobold. They won't necessarily know just how different but once the first guy decides to treat them as a typical (whatever monster it is) and fails despite the hints to the contrary things get real intense quick not knowing what to expect.

I could use some more tips along the lines of this video

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Oh could you be more specific?

@konkyolife

7 жыл бұрын

We signed up for coaching he has a plan for that, its cool to get to ask questions directly and get immediate answers over skype.

hahahahaha "five copper and a dead cat" 😂

how about, instead of giving the bear quintouple hit points, don't use a common brown bear against experienced characters? use monsters that fit because experienced characters shouldn't have trouble with a common brown bear.

@georgebuckton230

6 жыл бұрын

Doesn't have to be a common brown bear. It's 12 feet long, scarred. The beast has seen many battles! Grey mottled fur. Maybe it's a baby hydra, that lets lower level players have a taste of the hydra hype train? Being able to make the stories awesome is more important to me than using CR appropriate monsters.

@elgatochurro

5 жыл бұрын

What if its a very powerful bear?

@inakiiribarrenlineros8594

3 жыл бұрын

U can homebrew it

is it possible to create a game where dying is okay?

@flannelpillowcase6475

7 жыл бұрын

well you could add some sort of magical technology or something to the world, like maybe soul retrievers scattered about the land that pull dead souls who aren't ready to pass on yet back into the world and shoving them back into their bodies (or for a more interesting twist, into different bodies, forcing players to hunt down their original bodies to take them back somehow, or even just playing in their new body if they like it better); or maybe make resurrection magic in a high supply, low demand market making resurrection scrolls ridiculously cheap and available from practically any trader or merchant; or you could alter the culture of the land to something like overpopulation being a serious problem and rulers of provinces or cities are offering high payments to the families of deceased adventurers and guards where the younger a person dies, the higher the payment to their family, giving an effective incentive for adventurers to go out and "seek death" in a sense, or for citizens to join up as a guard and volunteer for dangerous missions with a high risk of death. plenty of ways to make dying okay

Let's be fair, chopping most anything up into tiny little pieces and lighting them on fire is generally a pretty surefire method to kill anything.

Just to say: if the goblin has a +1 sword, flying potion or bomb. He should be using it, rather then it just sitting in his back pack. why would he be holding on to that healing potion for later while his head is getting to know the floor over and over.

In my opinion, unless youve specifically told your players and shown them that this enemy has this much health and this enemy does this much damage and so on, all numbers you be story driven. The only reason full stats should come into play if NPCs are no longer NPCs but rather GMCs (Game Master Characters)

Honestly a universal rule is not practical. I think party make up and experience as a GM controls the encounters. I constantly modify the encounter stats. So if I want one that is hard I will make it something that would challenge the skills of the party. Are they damage heavy but not very resilient I will break them up or use traps. If they are magic heavy use enemies that rush. Or give them enemies they are weak too for an easier one.

I've got my disagreement on this note, for me it's the world exists. Things are happening both above and below your abilities, and leave it to them to figure out what's what :)

Wait. So does this mean that all prior videos were only Part 1?

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Just the beginning? Yes... mwahahahahahaha. Nah. Just the one labeled 101 :)

The funny thing is that it's the PCs that actually occasionally kill another PC by accident in our games. "I'll hit him with the flat of my blade to make him see reason" low level party. Roll, critical hit, maximum damage plus modifiers. "Well you all see the warrior casually swing his bastard sword with the flat at the goblin shaman, hitting his head and baseballing it into orbit, hitting the blue moon...and it explodes. Aliens?! Brah ya wanna fill out a new character?"

You sound so mean to your players sometimes 😂

OMG IS THIS THE GAME MASTER WHO IS MESSING 2ITH REBECCA ZAMOLO AND MATT SLAYS

Oh i just watched the first minute. And in my defense for litueraly every single dead player, they died from an op enimy. Its cuz they just poket stealed from a badaas warrior later in the story, or just punching an explosive race in the balls when it was angry.

There more like guide lines really

While I don't, personally, agree with some of your methods, good video nonetheless. I prefer to use the rules of the system, but, I have to admit, I can't really see much down side to your method. Again good job. Happy Gaming.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

My thanks for your comment. To be honest, my of my videos are broad strokes that are meant to be taken, internalized and then used as needed. I do often turn to the monster book and use the stats there, but I'm also not afraid to just ignore them. So often I see GM's fail because the numbers don't help tell a good story, just a great maths challenge. And there are times when the numbers tell a great story, and the narrative has to follow it.

@Chameleonxx3

7 жыл бұрын

While the rules are great. If you only use the creatures the way the rules show them you will run into problems that sometimes the same enemy type gets encountered to often because other enemies make no sense or are simply to weak/strong for the party. This would result in a pretty boring adventure in my opinion. If you fight your way through an undead swamp it would get boring to only encounter skeletons. Why not a skelet dragon hatchling that uses some of its mothers rules? Why not a hive mind of undead bees? Why not some kind of ooze group? If you amend the rules you gain more freedom for your imagination and you can create better encounters. Also helps with making the world looking real, interesting and dangerous.

I kinda fail to see how making monsters exactly as strong or bit stronger than player no matter how long you keep failing makes the game more fun. ''Oh look it's orcs,we fought these at lvl1 so now that we've been playing for 6 months and are lvl 8 we should be able to just murder them,hell yeah...what do you mean 45 damage isn't enough to kill it? oh..well..ok then.''

7:08

This is exactly how I GM my game. Thank you, I felt pretty guilty about the amount of fudging.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

Never feel guilty! IT's your game. But glad to provide some support and relief :)

@kharnthebetrayer8251

7 жыл бұрын

Judging is needed. In the first session with this group, I ended up needing to give a monster almost double it's health in an attempt to make it a decent fight. It's rolls were 8, 9, 2, 4, 1, 6, 2, 20, 5, 4. It did nothing for so long. And then were slowly whittling it down (they all brought piercing weapons against a Wight), and it just ended up being a 5 minute slap fight, as the wight couldn't hurt them, and I kept trying to make it a decent fight. I should have fudged some of his rolls, but I'd react before I could think to do so.

@flannelpillowcase6475

7 жыл бұрын

Kharn The Betrayer wow, that really is a pretty crazy (unfortunate) string of rolls. i hate when that happens

The thought of the bard fighting the handicapped orc reminded me of this: kzread.info/dash/bejne/g4qazNiGhKfJYM4.html

Going off THAT much from the books removes the players ability to follow the rules, since they don't know what shit you just pulled out from your backside, which makes the world completely unpredictable and shatters immersion (there are NO 1 hit point ancient dragons, and no 1000000000000000000000000000000 hit point kobold younglings, that's just bonkers). Practically makes any sort of charsheet and statistic completely irrelevant. Which can be fine if you upfront with your players. Good luck finding a group with that mentality tho.

and your players still play with you?... that would never work with mine. They rely heavily on meta-gaming. If they can not anticipate some of the way combat and effects of their attacks will go, then they don't just grow bored, they grow irritated. They hate it. All players hate this.

@m.s.365

6 жыл бұрын

If my players meta gamed, I would address it immediately. That's a huge no-no for most people. Especially for a game that's meant to be about RPing. If the knowledge they're using isn't logical for their characters, why would you allow that to continue? Just let them auto-win every combat if cheating is allowed, no point wasting time on dice rolls.

doesnt work for shadowrun - or any cyberpunk game in that matter. combat in these settings should be realistic and players (or their characters) should try to not get into combat as first option. the combat should be deadly, be it against a few gangers with knifes and shoddy pistols, or against the corporate police with all their tech and cyberware. world is not nice, its stacked against the players character and is ACTIVELY trying to kill them. but thats a different style of game, where just surviving is the goal and combat is not the focus, but rather something to be avoided.. also, I haaaate this "just take the players values" approach. it takes away the accomplishment of getting new gear, raising a skill or whatever Progression is there in the game. I strictly prepare bad guys ob the merit of story and what they are likely to gave, but then again... shadowrun is not as abstract and open ended in terms of power.

@HowtobeaGreatGM

7 жыл бұрын

You make a valid point about not all systems can be treated the same. I disagree about any cyberpunk game however. I can still adapt my NPC's, even if they are supposed to be terrible. You speak of raising a skill, getting new gear as an accomplishment - I understand now your gaming approaching - I think - and can see how GM 102 wouldn't fit well with you. I hope you watch When you Should Cheat - the next GM video and find it more in keeping with your style ;)

@Bigslam1993

7 жыл бұрын

How to be a Great Game Master "You speak of raising a skill, getting new gear as an accomplishment - I understand now your gaming approaching - I think - and can see how GM 102 wouldn't fit well with you." Oh, its not my "gaming approach". Its the game. In shadowrun, you start out as a superhuman mercenary out of chargen and you dont get much better after that - its more common to go "broad" after chargen and learn things like "decent human behavior" and "how to use your smartphone/commlink" after chargen. Mostly because how the games progression system and character generation work in a different way. The Characters dont get much better at their specialty and are hired by people with loads of money to do stuff they are specialized in. The Characters in this game are by definition "better" compared to a normal corporate equivalent (the guys at a facility, not the guys the relevant corp send when they get the message that dangerous criminals are whiping the floor with their security). By that, I cant give a "normal corp-guard" the statistics of a "Transhuman Streetsamurai" or whatever. Aside from that, I dont want this "Transhuman Streetsamurai" to loose the accomplishment of finally learning the basics on how to persuade people by having NPCs just throw more dice if its not someone that would have more dice. Also, the main goal in Shadowrun is (most of the time) not "kill this" but more on the line of "steal this, but leave copy and make sure nobody knows you were even there" or "steal this, but dont kill anyone at site. Make sure it doesnt break or gets hacked. Also, get me the scientist that made it and all of his research data. I dont care if he wants or not". Its more of a criminal puzzle with strings attached, than a combat-game. I agree that its a good aproach for general fantasy adventuring games, but its not applicable to the game I play. But thats fine, but I just wanted to point out that this is not applicable to all games.

"Are you still alive, and are you still asking me questions?" Player: "Nope, and I commit suicide even if I did survive." (Tears sheet in half, and walks away, never to be seen by you as GM ever again, potentially walking away from the hobby). What you just did was advocate bullying a player. The player was not bullying you by pointing out that they'd done a full HP down of the creature, and it just "Shrugging it off" means they did effectively nothing. That's not "Challenging", nor is it enjoyable or fun, it's just padding, and no, it's not even cinematic. Make better fights, don't just arbitrarily get lazy behind handing every monster extra HP. That's not a challenge, or even balanced, that's a slog. It's thoroughly unenjoyable, and it's a straight up browbeating for the player. You expect the PCs to abide by the rules as presented, except that you constantly change those rules, which means that they've been duped by you in the commission of this. A question is not an attack, especially when it is entirely reasonable to ask that when the things whole hit points were taken out in a round or an attack. I mean, come on, "Shrugs it off?" That's the best you had? It's D&D, man, why do you have to cheat? Give it Bear's Endurance, upping it's Con for extra hit points, give it the diehard feat, so that it stays up until it fully dies, rather than dropping at zero. Have a magical item that ALLOWS it to shrug off the damage, or is regenerating it. But do it BEFORE the encounter, put it to paper, and have it follow consistent rules. They're not a straight jacket as you treat them, they're a frame on which to build. Why? So that when your rules enthusiast goes, "Hey, this thing should've dropped by now!" You can smile, and go, "You're absolutely correct! It SHOULD have dropped by now!" Your scenario slaps the player down, after all, how DARE they question you. My way rewards the player for noticing some details, ENGAGES THEM, and puts their mind to work on HOW it works within the rules. They are engaged, and if their theories pan out, they'll question noticeably fewer calls, instead focusing on how it could've been done, rather than assuming cheating. Here's the thing: You want me as a player to follow the rules? You first. You are the GM, you are not just the storyteller, you are the EXAMPLE of how we are to comport ourselves at the table and the *second* that your players realize the double-standard there, you'd best believe they're going to either step in with cheating of their own, quiet down and try not to make waves, or they're going to just do the sensible thing, and walk away. In no scenario does your way work out well.

@derptharmcgiveup8025

7 жыл бұрын

Going off book is a fairly common practice for DMs and makes the game more interesting. PCs should not know what to expect when you encounter a monster. If DMs don't have the authority to change some rules then why bother having a DM. Role Playing is not about strictly following what a book says; it is about having a unique adventure that the players will enjoy. They are called Dungeon Masters for a reason, spicing things up will not harm the party in any way.

@dragonstryk7280

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah, they should know what to expect, so that when something is off, it really IS interesting, not just to be dismissed as a creature that's been padded for fight length. They have to have expectations for you to meet those expectations, or to mess with them. Casually changing it cause they're doing well is just silly. I still get old players talking about my hobgoblin war campaign. The vast majority of them were just the regular cr 2 grunts you'd expect, they just employed tactics (because they're militaristic by nature), so when someone popped their head up who could stand up to them, my players knew something was different, but because I follow the rules, they engage, trying to work it out, instead of what happens at that sort of table "Oh right, it's a fight on rails". Either play a system that fits that sort of grittier style where a bear is going to be a direct threat to even a veteran party, or use the rules of the system you're using. Don't wuss out behind "I'm the GM". Those sorts of encounters *aren't* interesting, ever. They're just a slog, a time waster that could be put to far better use, and they putnish effective tactics and teamwork.

@Klaital1

6 жыл бұрын

I personally hate the rules lawyer type players who keep the monster manual open during encounters and pipe up whenever anything differs from the norm. And as result, I rarely use the standard monsters from the book, but very often scale things up or down or give them class levels or some unusual abilities, or at the very least modify their equipment.

@dragonstryk7280

6 жыл бұрын

Klaital1 See, that's not rules lawyering, anymore That is, in fact, cheating. In every single edition of D&D the Monster manual is a GMs eyes only book. It's one thing to ask for a rules clarification, or to check on an ability that could be a life or death matter for the group. it is another to keep the book so that you can perfectly plan out your tactics OC. It's also a violation of using OC info IC. Your character is not walking around Golarion with a book of perfect knowledge of monsters. The other reason to use standard monsters a bunch IS to get the party used to them to the point that they start using a standard set of tactics, so that you in turn can flip the switch later, using an upgraded version that can answer back in some manner, and put them back on their heels. It's like a magician not doing tricks because you'd expect tricks. The key is to do the standard encounters so that when you do suddenly spring something truly different on the party, their reaction is "OH SHIT!", and not "Uh huh". You can make things unique without changing the stats. Fighting kobolds can be horrifying. Take a standard run-kobold bandits. They've been sacking merchants for a bit now, and the PCs go to clear them out. When they show up, the kobolds immediately hit a fighting retreating. Unbeknownst to the party, the kobolds have heavily trapped the path back to their camp, and while they know the pathways that are safe, the PCs do not. If they're overestimating the encounter, as many do, they'll almost assuredly blunder into traps for simple belief that it's "just kobolds". I've not broken a rule, I've just used them to build the encounter, along with remembering kobolds are crafty little bugger who love traps. And when you do need to beef up an encounter? Do it, but use the rules, don't just give it "til I feel it's challenged them stats".

@ratholin

6 жыл бұрын

This does seem pretty lazy. More like a cheap video game that levels the whole world with your character, negating their advances just so they don't have to render new monsters. If you don't want to run combat then don't but just having a set of stats at each level that you pretend are different monsters is a bit like food in the matrix. Everything tastes like chicken.