In 2013 I had an eye opening moment after 13 years of being a game master when I read the GM (Or MC) section in Apocalypse World that said: "Play to find out what happens" and ever since it has been so much fun.

This is such an important episode. As more and more the corporate tries to own the hobby (and our lives in general), we tend to forget it doesn't NEEDS to be like that. This is incredibly important that we don't think and act just as consumers but we can think and act as creators, as bonding humans, as artisans, as artists.

Please remember folks "RPG Mainframe Ep. 34 Originally published on Patreon Nov 15, 2018" Now let's dig in for some RPG Mainframe goodness!

Love the VODs, RH. You're very passionate about the hobby. Glad I found your channel. Great DM tips. Glad to hear someone keep mechanics simple, memorable, and relatable to other systems. Keep up the good work. I got a copy of ICRPG last weekend. I've read a lot of RPG books, both old and new material, and I have to say, your basic d20 rules are great. Love the content and art as well. Index Card RPG is now my favorite game book in my collection. Keep the YT content coming.

@Runehammer1

3 ай бұрын

thanks!!!

I loved the old videos of encounters to start your campaign, and I love the videos now. Keep up the good work, Hank! I also loved the crafting videos!

Whether it’s GM-driven or player-driven… someone’s gotta drive the game. Like someone has to decide what the game/the world/the gameplay is gonna be, player or GM. So you’re picking a more player-driven game. I think I’m drawn to more of a GM-driven campaign, whether I’m a player or a GM. Like… obviously I want my player actions to matter and affect things, but I also want to play the GM’s story. Or maybe it’s just that I want to be in someone else’s world for a while and tell my character’s story within it. I think that’s it. Then it requires a lot of compromise on both parties to make a satisfying story: the GM maybe compromises on the exact nature of his world and maybe the player compromises on how he wants his character to play/behave. “Rules and Compromises” is maybe my modus operandi.

Hail Shields!

@HeathBadhwar

6 ай бұрын

Hail brother!

@lordofdorknessdm3085

6 ай бұрын

Strength! Honor! Beer!

The game is very much alive just as the players live. It is forever changing & cannot be transfixed. To predict the outcome of what has yet to be, imprisones the freedom of expression that employs the soul to create art. Books are made to tell a story, RPG's paint a living experience of collaborative imagination. Thank you for this video!

Son of a... Woke up to this suggestion on my KZread feed. The algorithm is working I guess. I'm like "That's me! He's talkin' about me! Honey -- Runehammer is answering my question!" But more importantly, I don't think I was ready to hear this when I asked the question. I tried a "tell me" method of DM'ing with our first session and it was epic. I built the rooms, the threats, the treats, the timers and then let the gray be gray. When the gray showed up -- a person is being thrown into the pit -- I said 'who is this person?' and the first person to answer, that became the person who they watched die. Then in the next scene, I inserted that person's wife and kids into the gray -- prisoners in cells -- to increase the player connection to the world. At one point they had to pick a direction in the prison cells under the city and when they asked do we know the way, I said do you? Have any of you been here before? And the bard said yes -- I performed here once to lift the spirits of the prisoners during the Feast of Saints. BAM! Now we have Feast of Saints in our world. I still made the bard roll because he was spun around; he failed. I wrote down 'right - gear lockers / left - main encounter' on an index card and then said pick right or left. He got lucky and picked right. The party could gear up before the final fight but it developed organically at the table and was awesome. All they had in the moment were clubs, chains, rope, and rocks. They loved the 'one night of prep with areas of gray' approach.

The best 5e supplement WotC put out was Eberron, Rising from the last war. It wasnt adventues but a massive lore dump of a whole world built for 5e play. No set story lines to follow, but a huge world for players to crash into and explore. Also, Keith Baker really knows how to build lore for gameplay. I want more books like this one.

@Runehammer1

6 ай бұрын

Symbaroum fits that description well...

Brother, your explanation of your mantra and where you are at currently on this shared adventure in the first 30 minutes, is the most refreshing thing I've heard in this hobby in years. I share your outlook and the burden of crippling your own wealth or even status in certain circles because of your adherance to our moral code. awesome stuff

@Runehammer1

6 ай бұрын

wow thanks!

caution! genius at work here :) you are brilliant man, great voice and never get bored with listening to you, keep up the great work [clap, clap]

This is a great example of why I love arcane libraries cursed scroll hexcrawls!

I enjoyed listening this tonight, as I consider my next session GMing Metamorphosis Alpha 1e and how to simplify things for the players.

So true Hank! I have been starting Rime of the Frostmaiden, but figured out the players had no interest in the main story and BBEG. So I twisted and planned and replanned (the fun part of being the DM), used their background stories and came up with complete new story parts. I even introduced a dark grimoire for my shadow sorcerer who eventually fell for it (player changed character at one point) and who is now becoming the new BBEG.

Illuminating content as always! I typically find myself purchasing pre-published adventures for the skeletal structure of the campaign and some key encounters, then I overhaul the rest and improv most of it. I think a key distinction to make with regard to published adventures and player agency concerns a kind of social contract that the players agree to when knowingly playing a pre-published adventure. The GM should always be transparent about whether the adventure is pre-published and how much leeway the party has available to just go do their own thing. I'm currently running a D&D 3.0 module in 5e, converting the encounters on the fly, and reworking the meta-narrative to my own tastes. The players are having a blast, but they also understand the somewhat 'linear' nature of the adventure arc they're pursuing. They had buy-in at the very beginning to understand they've been put on a quest and should stick to it for purposes of engaging the content. I'm a huge proponent of establishing meta-narratives and/or overarching adventure paths, and I'm waiting to try a more "organic," player-driven progression using Crown & Skull in the near future. :)

I pretty much use only homebrewed material instead of published adventures. Granted, sometimes I use published settings but not always. This is almost exactly the way I run my games. I might have a longer arching plans to what might happen in the future so I can sort of plant the seeds and if players have not done anything to change the course of action, those plans go to fruition. I also prep my sessions, maybe even too much, but the point is to make things clear to myself and help myself in the events when players surprise me and do something unexpected (that is always fun). Now, on reflection, it would be very difficult even if not impossible to create a similar multi session experience if I had written it all down and run it straight from there without taking into account what had happened in previous sessions. What could be published? Tools, like you said but perhaps modular sandbox style settings with factions, locations and NPCs that can be used as is or mined and modified for own use.

Runehammer your are the best

I think you could publish a campaign that isn't a railroad. You could follow the model of the TV miniseries and create an episodic campaign that gives the players the freedom to choose any direction or order they want, but in doing so they will slowly pick up clues to direct them to major encounters and ultimately the Final Encounter. The campaign could have a flat power level - as most TV series - or the episodes could be scalable.

really good show!

Great show! I think it sounds like a GM inspired by your technique still need to focus on the actual worldbuilding and setting the framework in addition to the one-session-prep. Develop the world with enough detail for the players to be intrigued by locations and drawn to POIs. Without a solid world you'd require really heavy worldbuilding improvisation - and that at least to me is a whole other level of improvisation compared to NPCs, plots and reaction to player actions.

Great topic

Well said!

We love Doodles‘n‘Drawings ❤

I've been DMing for over 40 years now, and have taken both routes many times -- extended planned campaigns and campaigns of plan-1-night-only sessions -- but I would never make the claim that some DMs are amateurs or haven't become "truly skilled" because they prefer one model over the other. Both approaches require mastery from DMs who have figured out how to push their campaigns and players to the limits of fun. The style of campaign also should depend on the players and the group. Some groups are far more intrigued by intricate set pieces and complex scenarios that are impossible to design without planning ahead, and others thrive better with the unbridled openness and whimsy of the unplanned campaign. There is no single best answer, here. Beyond that, I'd suggest that the "players make the truths" be considered a little different. Instead, let their queries become "half-truths" in the setting. If the player ponders whether gnomes are evil in this world, then the truth is maybe they are evil, but it's because they have been cursed (or who knows what?!) in the distant past and must satiate that curse by offering blood sacrifices each year, or whatever. This is just an example, of course, but twist the player's inquiry or assumptions so that they become excited by the extra layer of epiphanies you throw at them later. Which leads to another a tip I would leave for DMs of any sort -- whether it's a single night or a whole campaign of play you're planning out, your major twists will often be the most compelling and drama building affairs you can provide to your players and yourself. The goal is to force your players to realign themselves or make a big decision that alters their trajectory based on a novel understanding of their world or situation within it. Part of the art is timing the revelation appropriately close to an already heated moment, like an upcoming epic battle or important social encounter, to crank up the tension as they tear apart their delicate plans to accommodate your revelation. Then, let them surprise you with how they answer it!

Might I recommend the very interesting article *Adding Congruency to Anti Canon Worldbuilding* from Mindstorm to help out? 😄

Allowing players to mould the world is definitely going to require a lot of grace with the players. I think it’s fundamentally easier to let them decide how many horns are on the dragon skull.

So should I not create factions, npcs, encounter ideas or whatever that falls outside of the scope of the next session?

@MietoK

6 ай бұрын

He probably means that do not assume what players are doing. Plan for the next only and see what happens. It’s ok to have ideas. But for what I have noticed that best way to avoid gm-burnout is to plan only for the next one and nothing else.

@tristanbentley6257

6 ай бұрын

Just synthesizing this and RHs session prep videos, I think that the idea is don't plan the plot and encounters you expect to use past the next session. View one of those videos - factions and general ideas of what is happening around the players in the campaign get sketched out, but only sketched so they can easily be shifted and changed

@lordofdorknessdm3085

6 ай бұрын

World-building is a bit different than planning future encounters and events. My take away is that you're more than welcome to freely flesh out the backdrop of the setting, but let the players drive the where and when of everything. I recommend GMs to ALWAYS embrace the concept of "no wasted content." As Brandish mentioned, you can always reflavor/reskin encounters to fit the needs of the players. It's just a matter of scaling and adapting.

@PhilipJensen

6 ай бұрын

I think this goes well together with Sly Flourish's way of preparing. You could look him up if you want a more "practical" guide on how to do it.

@Runehammer1

6 ай бұрын

sure! follow your nose, but let yourself only put detail on the immediate

I use leved foes. Started soing this with warhammer fantasy and 40k ttrpg then when we went to dnd and pf i brought it with me. Basically i never balance my combats. All enemies have a "class" and i lvl them just like players do. So you could fight a lvl 3 goblin and a lvl 15 goblin in same battle. Now fighting a bunch of lvl 3 goblins is gonna be hell at lvl 3 but say players dont do that missin till ther lvl 9 well its a walk in the park. They get the same exp as if they went there at lvl 3. If you build a map do it like most video games and build low lvl in and high lvl out away from starting location. But i am a dick and will put a lvl 20 hidden in a city or in the mountains and if players go and dont head the warnings well i said this in session 0 so dont be surprised granted my players are smart and never tpked them selfs yet

I have a lot of players say the same thing when I do a one shot with ezd6. This game is good good for one shots and conventions I can't see a campaigning

It was extremly taxing for me to through a campaign planing just the next session. It burned me out after about 7 sessions becouse I was strugling to create a session sized mini story/adventure. I'm not a great gm, and my group is not there for tactical dungeon exploration, so every session I tried to give them some kind of a story stup. Some NPC with their goals, some hooks and a general idea of what's there to explore and mess with. It was too much for me honestly. Now I'm torn. On the one hand I know that dungeon delwing is not gonna cut it for my players, and on the other I know it ain't gonna be fun for me to either throw any b.s. at them or come up with a mini adventure for every session. What am I missing? What is the way out of it?

@Runehammer1

6 ай бұрын

a blend of the two, I reckon, is your only choice, assuming energy levels and tastes are immutable... span a 'story' over 3 sessions, but BS it up in between....

Faxanadu!!! Yes!

Hail shields!!

The path that is not a (rail)road, but a journey. This is the way.

Idk, I kind of disagree. I think a world does need some concrete rules. Like… “this is how dragons work.” If a dragon, for instance, can be/do anything… then it really loses all meaning. Idk. Maybe I misunderstand. I think when we allow the players to just invent things wholesale… the game becomes a lot like playing pretend from when we’re kids.

Who here in 2024

I don't railroad my players. I just bait them in the direction I want them to go because I'm a master...at it.

@Xplora213

6 ай бұрын

😜