I have to admit I have always been a GM snob. I'm good & I know it. However I can get lazy & worse complacent when running a campaign which makes me feel as though I'm betraying myself. The hobby needs good GM's in order to be any fun at all. TTRPG's are competing with so much else that we as GM's need to push ourselves a little. Nothing is worse than apathetic players & GM's going through the motions, what's needed is a little passion & energy.

My last Campaign ended in January due to external influences lost jobs, sick kids, new jobs, etc. I decided to quit gaming & even reading about gaming for most of the first half of 2014. I got a new job & my interests drew me away from fantasy & RPG's.

Then in April I began gaming with my nephew's group a bunch of 16 to 20 year old guys who had very mediocre GM's due mostly to laziness & railroading. I had some fun just being around a these new guys only 2 of whom I've ever gamed with. Then my niece's bf started gaming with us & he quickly was getting bored with the zombie apocalypse campaign being poorly done by a young inexperienced GM. I thought he was an excellent player, inexperienced & ambitious, but excellent & I didn't want to lose him as a player. So my nephew decided to ask me to GM next after the zombie apocalypse game ended.

I asked that our sessions be lengthened from 5 hours (5:30 to 10:30) to 8 hours (3 pm to 11 pm), but the players balked. Instead of whining to them or trying to brow beat them into agreeing with me I accepted their decision & just went about doing it my way.

Long story short each session has been longer than the last (I'm 4 sessions in now) & its all because the players are demanding more & more time every session leaves them (& me) wanting more. My players are ready to go as soon as I arrive (earlier & earlier) & force me to keep running even after 1 player has to leave. Last session even the guy who has to getup early to go to work the next day didn't want to stop until nearly midnight.

This feeds my ego & makes the game a blast for everyone no one checks there phones during the game, no one wants music on in the background to distract them. They are focused on the setting, their characters, & the game. It's been a blast.

Pure awesome, dude!

It sounds great! What are you running?

I'm running a fairly heavily house ruled AD&D 2nd ed. The house rules are to fit the game to the setting which is Shadow World which was designed for Role Master.

I have organized the classes like RM 2 Professions except for hybrids I just stuck Hybrids in the proper (per my own definition of proper) Realm (Bards Essence, Astrologers Channeling, Sorcerers Essence, etc.). I use spell points & spell lists along RM 2 lines. I even went through all of the spells for 2nd edition AD&D from the spell compendiums, from the net spell & prayer book, & from the 2nd ed Diablo supplement & organized them into Realm (i.e. open/closed lists) & class/profession lists then discarded the ones I couldn't fit into the lists.

I am also using crit charts from Combat & Tactics and Spells & Magic to complete the Rolemaster feel. It required quite alot of front loaded work, but NPC's are easier than AD&D 2nd ed with all the options turned on. This is especially true of spell casters.

I have experienced more gaming magic from AD&D 2e driven by a good GM than any other game. That thing sings as it power drifts through a setting's curves. Glad to see more magic made!

Quote from: Opaopajr;769941I have experienced more gaming magic from AD&D 2e driven by a good GM than any other game. That thing sings as it power drifts through a setting's curves. Glad to see more magic made!

I've been using & abusing the 2nd edition rules since 1989. It simply holds up under so many situations. The  lamented splat bloat & the Player's options bloat are over. One can now go over the options & integrate the useful ones & create a very different style of game than anyone else yet still use 4 volumes of magic items, 4 volumes of wizard spells, 3 volumes of priest spells, & all those monster books & compendiums. Even after all that I can still use all the judges guild, Role-aids, OSR, OD&D, BD&D, & 1st edition modules virtually unmodified. I have decades of personal notes from dozens of both successful & failed campaigns too.

This is why I won't be participating in the new edition. Not because it looks bad, but because TSR D&D already has so much more to offer.

Sounds awesome.  Give us your techniques or we will force you to spend a week posting only at TBP

When I look back at my gaming "career" (starting in 1980ish), when I list out the campaigns we have had most fun in, the 7 of the top 10 all took place in AD&D2.  I've brought this fact out to my group, and on several forums, and generally people express the belief that it was because we had more time back then and ... "nostalgia".

I don't really think it was, anymore.  I'm giving 5E a try, as I like a lot of what they are doing.  But if it doesn't pan out, I'm going back to 2E - especially now that they are putting 2E stuff out in PDF...

Now ... gives us your techniques!    (please!)

Quote from: Obeeron;769980Sounds awesome.  Give us your techniques or we will force you to spend a week posting only at TBP

When I look back at my gaming "career" (starting in 1980ish), when I list out the campaigns we have had most fun in, the 7 of the top 10 all took place in AD&D2.  I've brought this fact out to my group, and on several forums, and generally people express the belief that it was because we had more time back then and ... "nostalgia".

I don't really think it was, anymore.  I'm giving 5E a try, as I like a lot of what they are doing.  But if it doesn't pan out, I'm going back to 2E - especially now that they are putting 2E stuff out in PDF...

Now ... gives us your techniques!    (please!)

I never post TBP I only skim it for the occasional useful or fun bit.

My only technique is to follow in the footsteps of the very best DM I ever had his name was Irving. Irving taught me a lesson I will never forget make every player feel like what they do matters. He was so good at it that he would run campaigns with 9, 10 even 11 players and everyone was excited. Since his tragic break with reality & descent into mental illness I have sought to bring to the table that same style. The main way to bring this about is to make sure that the campaign reacts to the actions of the PC's. I let the chips fall where they may. If the PC's outsmart their foes & lure them into an ambush so be it or if they stumble into a trap & die so be it too.

I try not to repeat myself too much. I have never given out a quest in a tavern nor have I ever had a damsel in distress be the core of an adventure. Honestly until I read some stuff online in the late 90's I didn't actually know they were cliche it never occurred to me to do them. In fact I don't give out quests that seemed too restrictive. Instead players should be telling me what they want.

If players get a hold of game breaking magic items I don't try to nerf them or neutralize them i roll with the consequences. If I'm too generous with gold or magic that's my problem not the PC's, besides usually my players are too paranoid not to take precautions against theft. I never play GMPC's, I never tell players how to play their characters and I love it when a player outsmarts or surprises me.

I think a player's sense of control over their own characters is important & I think a GM's sense of control over the rules is important too. That's also why I continue to use 2nd ed. Its packed full of flaws & advantages, but I'm completely familiar with them all. If I put a magic item in my game that is a combination of a ring of air elemental control (easily the most useful magic item ever) and bracers of blinding strike I know what I'm in for when Jeff the power gamer's Fighter/specialty priest gets a hold of it. If I roll up a random encounter with a 600 member orc caravan I can wing it because the first time I rolled one up I was 12.

I can convert from 3rd ed. D&D to 2nd ed. AD&D on the fly. I can convert from 1st ed. Stormbringer to 2nd ed. on the fly too. Simply because I am so familiar with the rules & how they're applied in a million situations. Yet I still find my players doing things I've never expected and instead of filling me with consternation I am filled with confidence. I am certain I can deal with it.

Most crunchy RPG's I've played are like jenga if you pull out a few bits & move them around you risk toppling the whole mess. However AD&D especially 2nd was designed to be personalized.

If stoneskin is too powerful in 2nd ed. use the 1st ed version or raise the spell level to 5th.  If Fighters are too easily over shadowed give them Mastery. If level limits aren't cool get rid of them. If clerics are too powerful use priests from the Priests Handbook. If Paladins suck use the 1st edition  paladin instead. Use 1st & 2nd edition Bards in the same campaign in the same party at the same time as you go through the Dark Tower.

Use WoD Vampire clans & Rune weapons from Palladium it won't break & crumble around your head. Replace Non-weapon proficiencies with Runequest % Skills. I loved that each setting in 2nd ed. was chock full of house rules, psionics in Dark Sun, brooding Immortal Elves without priestly magic in Bithright, Sha'irs in Al-Qadim, scaling monsters from Diablo, & sinful seducing demons from Role-aids. Include them all in a dark demon haunted  campaign where immortal psionic elves summon demons to do their bidding & bring them spells versus clans of vampires wielding Rune Swords in an eternal twilight struggle.

Or just have the players roll up a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, & a thief to go see what's over the next hill.

Thanks for sharing that. I enjoyed reading it and was sort of surprised how unsurprised I was at the familiar experience. It's like there was a shared experience and outlook throughout 2e's big pile of stuff, regardless of how different each table could be.

I also like the Wisdom of Irving, "make every player feel like what they do matters." There's no promise of spotlight, or goodies, or happy endings in there. Just the feeling that their actions have consequences, an effect, meaning!, that it matters. He sounds like an amazing GM stolen from the community too soon.

QuoteIn my regular game, it's not unknown for there to be 4 hours of just talking. It's not the norm, but it's not fatal either.

Plotting, rumors, exposition, spying, flirting and assorted intrique. Politics. Sometimes history. All that good stuff.

I like a mix, so the next session is usually more violently stepped up.

Saskganesh said this in another thread & it reflects what happened in my last session with my new group. Its the first time the only die rolls were a rather perfunctory battle with over matched brigands who decided to be sporting & ask questions first. The battle lasted 3 rounds & took all of 10 minutes in real time.

Yet this session had the PC's nearly start killing each other over the fate of a woman taken captive by the brigands who was seen by the other hostages as a treacherous whore for being the lover (i.e. slave) of the bandit lord. The other hostages attacked her, even throwing stones at her. The party's white knight acted like a "White Knight" & saved her.

This led to much turmoil & gnashing of teeth as the party's assassin objected to an extra useless mouth. What followed was 5 hours of arguments, hostility, passive aggressive dick waving, & treachery. All of it in character with even the pure power gamer speaking in character for entire paragraphs at a time.

I loved it.

yep... the best stuff.