Okay, I've been reading a lot of theory stuff (and on this board no less ) and it's been fun. But what are the essential tricks,if you will, that keep games sailing smoothly. I mean concrete advice that would help GMs whatever their playstyles.

So, how about it. What have you learnt over the years that have helped you make games fun for your players.

For me the most important thing is improvisation. Learning to roll with the punches. Taking something the players throw at me and running with it. Realizing that my planned adventure is not the point of the game, but rather the way how my players react to situations before them.

Any others?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David ROkay, I've been reading a lot of theory stuff (and on this board no less ) and it's been fun. But what are the essential tricks,if you will, that keep games sailing smoothly. I mean concrete advice that would help GMs whatever their playstyles.

A lot of mine could be labelled as 'N heads are better than one', I guess.

1.  Group character creation.  It's easier to get people making characters who have good reasons to interact and interesting connections to each other if the group gets together.  This doesn't necessarily have to be at a session -- I'd find that awkward, because I don't come up with character concepts or characteristics quickly.  In my last group I forwarded the character proposals, refinements of same, and discussions of how the characters would get together back and forth between the players in email.

2.  I usually find it helpful to discuss the scenario I have in mind before play begins, to see if the players will buy it as an interesting or reasonable thing for the characters to be doing.  If somebody doesn't, I can fix it ahead of time.

This combination means that we can start out with a group that has a reason to be together, addressing a particular problem that has some connection to the characters, rather than starting out with a bunch of random strangers who don't know each other, getting hired by someone else they don't know, to retrieve something they never heard of.

Quote from: Keran2.  I usually find it helpful to discuss the scenario I have in mind before play begins, to see if the players will buy it as an interesting or reasonable thing for the characters to be doing.  If somebody doesn't, I can fix it ahead of time.

Interesting. You don't find that it takes away some of the element of surprise/discovery from the scenario. Or do you keep it vague when you discuss this with your players?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RInteresting. You don't find that it takes away some of the element of surprise/discovery from the scenario. Or do you keep it vague when you discuss this with your players?

Occasionally, there's something specific I conceal, but mostly I don't have to keep it vague.  There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. The scenario isn't an actual plot.  It's a setup with NPCs who are at odds, often in factions; the PCs will be related to at least one of the groups somehow.

In my current campaign, for instance, for the political angles, there's

• a traditional conflict for land and power between two groups of nobles that has taken on ideological overtones.
• There's an undecided great lady to whom the PC's family has ties, and whose ultimate decision I don't know -- there's a significant chance that the PC will sway her view.  
• It's not obvious which side the PC will come down on, since both sides can make some decent arguments.  
• There's an order of mages that have some purpose that they never seem to get around to revealing.
• There's an order of cleric-mages dedicated to stamping out the practice of a very dangerous form of magic that's potentially as bad an environment wrecker as radioactive contamination; but the PC has just formed a secret tie to someone who's practiced it as a matter of necessity, and who is showing the effects.
• The church is divided as to how far involved in the political questions they should be.
• The merchants have some reasons to want the increase in government and centralization one party espouses, but also have reasons not to want the position of greatest influence to go to the noble who's likely to get it if they win.

While I know how some of the NPCs lean, I don't know what decisions the many undecided ones will eventually make, and I don't know what the PC is going to do.  The set of interactions is so complicated that there's no way I can predict what's going to happen already, and they're likely to get even more complicated as we play and the world develops.  I can't predict the end from the setup, so neither can anyone else.

2.  We're immersionists, which means, among other things, that our main characters take on lives of their own and sometimes do things the players don't consciously foresee.

3.  I'm sort of an anti-plotting genius,  I actively tried to plot a short campaign as an experiment a couple of years ago, and not only did we not end up executing the plot I was thinking of, the game didn't even come out in the same genre.  What can you say about someone who tries for an occult murder mystery and ends up with science fiction in which the PCs discover that ball lightning is the larval form of auroras?

The last two are things not everybody does, of course.  But I suppose that there are fair number of styles where creating up a complicated and unpredictable open-ended set of conflicts that the PCs could expect to affect would be a workable technique.

The only rule I tend to use often is;
 
Keep your ears open to better ideas and suggestions from your players that you never thought of.

"The road to great achievements is paved at great risk with many small ones, and a fair share of setbacks."

If the players are up for running at epic style goals you have to make sure that they have a chance to make their gains. At the same time it should never be easy, so there should be times where some gains are lost, and there should always be the chance of total loss if they make too many mistakes and refuse to learn from them.

I'll echo group character creation.  Pretty often, having players come up with a somewhat specific character concept before they touch any dice (it doesn't have to be mapped out to the last hit point and sibling, but a good starting concept with some details) steers them towards not min/maxing in a way that might not fit in with the setting, but rather towards building towards the character precepts they already defined.  Plus, with group character creation and being involved as a GM, you have a a greater ability to nip anything that might break your game in the bud, and you have time to sort of get everyone on the same page, if they aren't already.

My favorite is the maxim "say yes or roll dice."

Or roll dice behind the screen and say no.

Quote from: David ROkay, I've been reading a lot of theory stuff (and on this board no less ) and it's been fun. But what are the essential tricks,if you will, that keep games sailing smoothly. I mean concrete advice that would help GMs whatever their playstyles.

Before I plop down a challenge (planned or improv) that has potential consequences, make sure that all possible outcomes are acceptable to the flow of the game. Randomness is fine in keeping the spice of variety in the game, but it's never good to 1) have one dice roll kill the game 2) have to retcon/fudge because you want to avoid doing so.

Quote from: David ROkay, I've been reading a lot of theory stuff (and on this board no less ) and it's been fun. But what are the essential tricks,if you will, that keep games sailing smoothly. I mean concrete advice that would help GMs whatever their playstyles.

So, how about it. What have you learnt over the years that have helped you make games fun for your players.

For me the most important thing is improvisation. Learning to roll with the punches. Taking something the players throw at me and running with it. Realizing that my planned adventure is not the point of the game, but rather the way how my players react to situations before them.

Any others?

Regards,
David R

Know your stuff.
If your running a mystery or investigation know the puzzle well enough to improvise.
If your running combat know the people, place, objects, etc... that are taking part well.
If your engaging in court drama know the persona's, goals, and personalities of the people at court.

If you can create them and know them in a few seconds, improve is great.  If you can't, try and create at least a few things before hand or be willing to take notes of what you do create.

Recap at the start of a session.

First it makes a definiate begining point to the gaming. It forms a smooth transition from the out of character banter that always goes on before a game session and the actual in character roleplaying that's going to happen next. Second it gives you a chance to focus on each characters actions and make them feel special and help them get into character. Third you can remind players about plot hooks, clues, event and other things they might have forgotten about.

This can be as simple as a few words to remind everyone where things were left, or more elaborate for example...

In a Birthright campaign I ran, each session began with a quote or reading from ethier a historical document written several hundred years after the PC's were alive or from a storyteller, months after the event. In each case it would pick out one or two actions by each character and make them sound even more heroic than they actually were. Sometimes PC's were refered to as future kings, or the archmage (even though at the time they were only 5th level). This worked really well at setting the tone for the campaign, that the PCs were writing history by their actions.

My first point brings me to my second point....

Make notes during the session

I suppose technically this should be the first point, since without decent notes you can't do a decent recap (well I can't my memory is crap).

Have a pad that you can just jot things down on, not something that's intend to be particularly neat (so long as you can read it). Start a fresh page each session and date it at the top. Each session try and make a note of one particular action or event (good or bad) that happened to each player so you have something to make the stand out next session in the recap.

There you can make notes of names you gave to innkeepers and folks PC's might well visit again, but you had to invent on the spur of the moment. To keep your campaign consitant, and thus more believeable.

You can write up notes that end up being important in more detail and store them in whatever is your favourite method for organising your campaign, the rest is still in the pad if it's needed later.

A simple trick I use when a player wants something on the 'set' to be a certain way- eg. 'Is there a window there?'; or to decide some aspect of timing- eg. who gets round a corner first: roll a quick dice-off; if the player(s) win, things go the way they want, otherwise, it's the way I want. This is handy to keep things moving, but I fear I have a habit of overusing it when I should pause and think which outcome would be more interesting.

My most helpful Gming/Game advice.
These are the things that have helped my game run better and smooth.
 
* Standard game day. Play at the same day, same time, evry week (or every other week). That way people know when you are playing, can schedule around it at work (or wherever else they have to). It also gives you a deadline to work with for your next adventure.
 
* MySpace groups. I have a MySpace group for each Game I'm running or planning on running. You have in and out of character discussons, supply general knowledge the group should know, post inspiring artwork, have in character journals etc. So very useful for group communication between games.
 
* Random Name list: There are many random name generators on the internet. Or you can come up with a list of setting specific names (10-20 male and female names works well for me).So you're not left with "Uuuuummm...my name is......Ralph" "Ralph what?" "Ralph....Smith...son, Ralh Smithson, Siimpson, Ralph Simpson"
 
This might just be how I do things, but I don't plan anything but an event or two, unless I'm running some kind of Dungeon Crawl. I just let the charcters react to them. NPC's just come as I need them. I stat up reoccuring characters eventually.
Events include things like:
 
* You arrive to a town, the town has been tithing children every season to Deathknights from a nearby Shadowland. You hear they will be coming to collect again in 1 week.
 
* While drinking coffee at your favorite Café, you see someone who looks exactly like you walk in the door. He sees you, turns and runs.
 
 
I also do something simialar to JMcL63:
If a player comes up with some sort of lucky break or dramatic dramatic piece of scenery that I think would be pretty cool thet gat a "chance die" (my groups name for it, predates WoD chance die system), I have the player call high or low and assign a probability based on how plausible the circumstance is. Something vey possible gets a 30% chance (ie 1-3[low] or 7-10[high] on a 10 sider). Something completely improbable but cool has a 10% chance (ie a 1[low] or a 10[high] on a 10 sider.

Let's discuss specific issues.

Pacing the session/campaign

Establishing/Sustaining tone/atmosphere

Creating NPCs

I've got my own methods which I will detail later - need to gather my thoughts

Regards,
David R