Dungeon Mastering.
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Join Date: 2002-11-24 Member: 9807Members
Join Date: 2002-11-24 Member: 9807Members
Now that we've gotten our own forum, I take that as a sign that the RPGs are getting quite popular. Thus, I think it's time to start to try and share experiences to help dungeon masters get their RPGs running and working well. Rulesets, for instance, are so far pretty inconsistent (probably because none of the RPGs so far have their combat or skill rules in the open).
I personally use dice mainly to make sure the decisions get that random touch, because I myself didn't like the non-random results of earlier versions. What I do is that when someone takes an action, I simply decide how hard that would be (with 5 being really easy, 15 being hard, 20 being really hard and anything above that being specialist level and tasks in between having values in between). Then I roll a 20-sided die and add/substract a number corresponding to the skill of the player in question. That way I can compare the result to the difficulty and think of a result that fits that (having a result of 2 if the difficulty was 15 gets an ugly result). That system is more to help me keep the story dynamic than to set rules for happenings, and the players never see the rolls themselves.
Also, there's a few things that DMs should keep in mind (pretty basic stuff, but I'll mention it anyway)
<ul>
<li>Know your story. Know the place, the surroundings and possible NPCs, rather than make them up on the run. That way, the flow will be better because things seem less constructed.
<li>Let the players decide. It's tempting to decide both where the story begins, how it progresses, and where it ends. But such stuff is better left to fan-fic writers. Decide on the world, and have some likely turns of events, but don't stick to them at all costs. In the end, having the story develop differently from what you'd expected also rewards yourself because the story turns out to move along another path than the one you had chosen, and such tell a story new to you.
<li>Leave the DM'ing behind the scenes. Each time you post something out-of-character that shows the reality behind the RPG, you take away a bit of the players' suspension of disbelief. Don't railroad them obviously(decide on where they MUST be going), don't tell them why things happen unless neccesary(i.e. don't say "to add a little action", just add the action) and above all, don't tell what the characters do unless completely neccesary, because losing control of one's character is VERY frustrating as a player (except, of cause, when the character himself loses control, such as if hypnotized. But as long as the character has his own will, that will belongs to the player)
<li>Keep a text-file on your desktop with notes, that way you won't forget stats, places or names.
<li>Try to provide situations that encourage the players to express their characters. When the characters surface is when roleplaying becomes fun. Have them encounter a situation where different people would act differently.
</ul>
What about you? Any experiences, questions or suggestions?
I personally use dice mainly to make sure the decisions get that random touch, because I myself didn't like the non-random results of earlier versions. What I do is that when someone takes an action, I simply decide how hard that would be (with 5 being really easy, 15 being hard, 20 being really hard and anything above that being specialist level and tasks in between having values in between). Then I roll a 20-sided die and add/substract a number corresponding to the skill of the player in question. That way I can compare the result to the difficulty and think of a result that fits that (having a result of 2 if the difficulty was 15 gets an ugly result). That system is more to help me keep the story dynamic than to set rules for happenings, and the players never see the rolls themselves.
Also, there's a few things that DMs should keep in mind (pretty basic stuff, but I'll mention it anyway)
<ul>
<li>Know your story. Know the place, the surroundings and possible NPCs, rather than make them up on the run. That way, the flow will be better because things seem less constructed.
<li>Let the players decide. It's tempting to decide both where the story begins, how it progresses, and where it ends. But such stuff is better left to fan-fic writers. Decide on the world, and have some likely turns of events, but don't stick to them at all costs. In the end, having the story develop differently from what you'd expected also rewards yourself because the story turns out to move along another path than the one you had chosen, and such tell a story new to you.
<li>Leave the DM'ing behind the scenes. Each time you post something out-of-character that shows the reality behind the RPG, you take away a bit of the players' suspension of disbelief. Don't railroad them obviously(decide on where they MUST be going), don't tell them why things happen unless neccesary(i.e. don't say "to add a little action", just add the action) and above all, don't tell what the characters do unless completely neccesary, because losing control of one's character is VERY frustrating as a player (except, of cause, when the character himself loses control, such as if hypnotized. But as long as the character has his own will, that will belongs to the player)
<li>Keep a text-file on your desktop with notes, that way you won't forget stats, places or names.
<li>Try to provide situations that encourage the players to express their characters. When the characters surface is when roleplaying becomes fun. Have them encounter a situation where different people would act differently.
</ul>
What about you? Any experiences, questions or suggestions?
Comments
Depends. Wether or not to kill a character is one of the really tough calls. On one hand, not killing anyone makes the RPG "riskless". Combat is not exciting when there's no risk. On the other, killing him is probably not gonna make the player too happy. So, killing one from time to time is neccesary, but not too often (it's one of those cursed issues, not too much, not too little, impossible to give an accurate answer <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> )
actually, there are some pritty useful ways around that. the best i know of is to let the player 'respawn' with a penelty. usually ranging from loss of skills/items/position to completely nuking the charicter (imho a bad thing to do). to take an example from agp2: venmoch.
yes, he was a much beloved charicter. both for his hivesight and his personallity. however, he had a habit of storyjacking and i dont think you approved his hivesight.
so, kill him? yes. but there is anouther way. (i know you had too many people in the rpg to run it properly). you penilize him for every story jack, etc. so he gets 'hivesight' he gets pegged by the enimy. storyjack? send him to base for medical treatment.
the best thing to do if you kill them is to make them restart vanilla, but as the same person. forum-goers cant change thier name easily, so it gets confusing for the same idjiot to get killed twice and be three different people. but also, its not good to ban someone for falling on thier sword.
Actually sounds like a good solution, but how does one explain away the same person having more lives? As I've understood it, the people "respawning" in NS are actually new frontiersmen. Anyway, I must agree it's a better alternative than death.
Killing people is a little too drastic, and I personally would only use it as a last resort, after PMing them and dropping lots of hints during the story. I understand why you killed ven though, it was getting a little out of hand.
Yeah, but I'm not really talking about kills as a punishment here. What I'm saying is that when there's no risk of death, the fun goes off after a while. A game without risks become boring after a while, combat is always the same "shoot, shoot, shoot" thing. So once in a while, someone has to snuff it to keep things interesting, simply to avoid boredom creeping up on people in the long run.
the sweet thing about ns is that the technology is easily bendable. the easy way to explain the low mortality rate, disappearing marine corpses, respawn time, and being able to have multiple lives is a simple perversion of the technology the marines have.
give then a 'code white recall device' in thier armor. based on phase technology this device will create a small phase event at the moment of death, as per the distress becon. the marine will be phased to a code white medical center, where the staff will attempt to recive him/her. once healed, the marine is free to reinforce.
as with all technology (ff system, whatever), the device is fallible. there must be an active and staffed code white medical center within range of the very limited device the marines wear. not all marines are revivable, as some injuries are too grave. also, there is a chance the recall will misfunction, either pulling a health marine from battle or causeing the marine not to phase through properly to the other side.
hows that? gives the dm a story reason to weild thier power over life and death.
Not bad, not bad at all. Gotta remember that one <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ok, I have NO interist in participating in these games (I am a horible typist as many of you know, and will know simply by reading this post).
However I am a heavey PnP RPGer (having played almost all of the big ones, and made chracters for most of the smaller ones <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->)
A few things that I thought would be nifty for this:
1) <a href='http://www.fudgerpg.com/fudge/' target='_blank'>http://www.fudgerpg.com/fudge/</a>
Basicaly, its a nifty STUPIDLY simple system that can give you 'rules' and a 'set way' to deal with tihngs that need tests with out ANY sort of bogging down.
All you gota do is keep a few D6s by the desk(3) and your set.
This will also alow for players who are more interested in RP then mechanics to enjoy them selvs <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Often when one of our DMs (who realy likes the system) needs to decide something random in ANY game he will quickly roll some fudge dice and tadah! action <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
2) The Question of Death
I would sugest putting in a section of your 'rules for this game' how you plan on dealing with combat/death (realistic, grity, epic fantasy etc just how deadly will things be?)
A Second idea is that if some one 'drops' simply have them have x mins/turn/posts to be cared for before they die (this is taken from just about every pnp system <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->)
So yah, I hope you all get this working (I will definatly look in every so often <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->)
If your players want to try something, let them; after all, you're completely in control of what actually happens as a result of their attempts <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
As far as any player can tell the illusion of freedom is just as good as actual freedom... except maybe it doesn't ruin your story as often =3
"As you walk down the tunnel in the ankle deep brakish wastewater, the sounds of dripping water echoing around you, you can faintly hear rushing water. On your left, a red emergency light faintly illuminates a very large, steel lever."
"Any signs around it?"
"'Do Not Pull'. There's another sign under it, but it's very faded and you can only make out the words 'Emergency' and 'Flow'.
"Does it look like an emergency handle of some sort?"
"Uh... duh."
(He consults with the team) "What do you think guys?"
(Someone else)"Leave it."
(Player)"It might be like an emergency alarm. Like a fire alarm and activate the emergency systems. Okay... I pull it."
"... You're sure?"
"Yeah. I give it a big yank."
"Okay... you pull the handle, and a sharp squeal of metal on metal echoes down the tunnel. The sound of rushing water increases and..." (Arbitrarilly rolls some dice) "A wall of water hits you with the force of a freight train, fractures your ribcage and crushes your lungs, and ironically enough, you die of asphyxiation before you die of drowning. You're all dead. When you reach hell where you rightly belong, Satan says 'Don't pull levers that might possibly mean 'emergency flow release' while standing in a wastewater outflow tube. The end."
"As you walk down the tunnel in the ankle deep brakish wastewater, the sounds of dripping water echoing around you, you can faintly hear rushing water. On your left, a red emergency light faintly illuminates a very large, steel lever."
"Any signs around it?"
"'Do Not Pull'. There's another sign under it, but it's very faded and you can only make out the words 'Emergency' and 'Flow'.
"Does it look like an emergency handle of some sort?"
"Uh... duh."
(He consults with the team) "What do you think guys?"
(Someone else)"Leave it."
(Player)"It might be like an emergency alarm. Like a fire alarm and activate the emergency systems. Okay... I pull it."
"... You're sure?"
"Yeah. I give it a big yank."
"Okay... you pull the handle, and a sharp squeal of metal on metal echoes down the tunnel. The sound of rushing water increases and..." (Arbitrarilly rolls some dice) "A wall of water hits you with the force of a freight train, fractures your ribcage and crushes your lungs, and ironically enough, you die of asphyxiation before you die of drowning. You're all dead. When you reach hell where you rightly belong, Satan says 'Don't pull levers that might possibly mean 'emergency flow release' while standing in a wastewater outflow tube. The end." <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Cool, I found that story to be very amusing
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I don't think I have posted in this thread, now I have
The RPG's look to be cool<img src='http://mywebpages.comcast.net/tigerplt/daub.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
just to be random <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo-->
"As you walk down the tunnel in the ankle deep brakish wastewater, the sounds of dripping water echoing around you, you can faintly hear rushing water. On your left, a red emergency light faintly illuminates a very large, steel lever."
"Any signs around it?"
"'Do Not Pull'. There's another sign under it, but it's very faded and you can only make out the words 'Emergency' and 'Flow'.
"Does it look like an emergency handle of some sort?"
"Uh... duh."
(He consults with the team) "What do you think guys?"
(Someone else)"Leave it."
(Player)"It might be like an emergency alarm. Like a fire alarm and activate the emergency systems. Okay... I pull it."
"... You're sure?"
"Yeah. I give it a big yank."
"Okay... you pull the handle, and a sharp squeal of metal on metal echoes down the tunnel. The sound of rushing water increases and..." (Arbitrarilly rolls some dice) "A wall of water hits you with the force of a freight train, fractures your ribcage and crushes your lungs, and ironically enough, you die of asphyxiation before you die of drowning. You're all dead. When you reach hell where you rightly belong, Satan says 'Don't pull levers that might possibly mean 'emergency flow release' while standing in a wastewater outflow tube. The end." <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Cool, I found that story to be very amusing
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I don't think I have posted in this thread, now I have
The RPG's look to be cool<img src='http://mywebpages.comcast.net/tigerplt/daub.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
just to be random <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
w00t. lets quote the entireity of the post above us, simply to waste space
That is one annoying kid
(+1)
And as I am comm in my RPG I kindda tell them where to go, but they can choose their actions, like to chase an enemy when I stay hold their positions. Though I won't feel two ways about killing a 'Rambo'.
ok, so i'm just sad no one took my idea and ran with it <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
DM controlled characters. May sound tempting, especially when the player count is low. But watch out, it's a MINEFIELD. When a character and the story is controlled by the same person, that character ends up being marked by that fact, it's inevitable. Your character ends up making the right calls in situations where the other character's haven't even had hints to point them the right way. Your character ends up being a tool to progress the story, which is fine untill it becomes obvious to the players (and believe me, you can count the posts THAT takes on one hand on most occations), and after that the character ends up becoming some sort of heavenly chosen party leader, robbing the party of free will. Of cause, there's also the power issue. If the DM character finds a cool item, who's to say if he found it for real or the DM just wanted a cool item for himself? That's a tough one, because the DMPC can't be completely without power either.
Of cause, non-player-characters are neccesary. Just watch out that they don't become "party members".
Some DMs have been able to do that well, but it's VERY few. I've personally had to remove the self-controlled commander from my game for the same reason.
Uhm, player controlled NPCs?
Talking about characters run by the DM. And having them take orders too much just makes them faceless IMO.
Talking about characters run by the DM. And having them take orders too much just makes them faceless IMO. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Urm? I meant DMPCs, you know what I mean <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Yeah, just my experience that DMPCs often end up being sort of "mute". Because they can hardly expressed an opinion or idea without either being colored by the storytelling, percieved by the players as such, or both. So the simplest solution by far is to stay away from it <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
That'd be an NPC. But if I'm not mistaken, that mantis wasnt an actual part of the party in the same way DMPCs tend to be. He was a secondary character rather than a player character.
They got annoyed at the mantis for eating their goblins but they kept it in the party because it was just such a likeable char outside of it's carniverous tendancies ^^
anything else we should put here for noob DM's?
of course, there hasnt been too many new dm's lately...
listen tou your players! if they dont like something, its not fun, then its probibly best not to have it in your RPG.
One is that we are gamers at heart. When we create a game, they go for action. That means that the game is build with a classic mission-enemy-battle in mind, which is fine for games but sucks for roleplaying. It's simply not possible to build a good roleplaying athmosphere that revolves around action. Action is fine, but not as the one and only storypiece.
The second is a classic new-DM mistake. When DMs begin a story, we want a good and exciting story to come out. Too often we even decide that story and think "It would be cool if this happened, and then this, and then I will reveal this plot hook, and suddenly they will realize that...". That is good for fan-fics, but again, sucks in roleplaying. Because no matter how much you try to hide it, believe me, the players will quickly realize that they're being railroaded and that their control over the story is limited by the script the DM has in his head. In fact, it's a common gaming thing too, since all cyber-RPGs have the same pattern. Given that there's no human intellegence behind the "DM", there's no way those developers can create a totally free game.
Avoiding the first is basically about thinking a bit before starting a game, and most importantly, KNOWING the trap. Know that cool game concepts make poor roleplaying environments. Avoiding the second is harder, because a "good" story is really tempting. But if you keep reminding yourself that this is the players' story, not yours, you should be fine.