Confessions of a Newb GM: When the NPCs Aren’t There

In the last article we looked at the basics of why an NPC is in a scene. Today we’re looking at where an encounter is taking place. I know I’ve covered it, @Brometheus has covered it, and @theangrydm has covered this before. Here I’m going to be looking at it a little differently. What happens when an NPC isn’t in the room, but you still need to get information across to the players. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: When the NPCs Aren’t There”

The Atypical Campaign Tale

We talk about adventures without combat in this episode. And look at many different ways of creating a dramatic narrative without forcing the players to pick up a blaster.

Continue reading “The Atypical Campaign Tale”

Eyes Up: Change with your Players

Plans change.

As a GM you know this at least theoretically, combats don’t go the way you expect or even don’t happen at all. The changing course of how people interpret information you give them is often seemingly bizarre. Players jump to one conclusion and are unwilling to give up on that idea. I’ve seen players do it time and again. This isn’t a bad thing, but what you do with it can be. Continue reading “Eyes Up: Change with your Players”

Confessions of a Newb GM: Making NPCs That Care

Getting a group together and sitting down to play can be fairly nerve wracking for a GM. Building the world that people are living in is a weird sort of skill to expand. I see the expectation time and again in many RPG products, GMs are expected to be able to go create something and make it wonderful for players off the top of their head. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: Making NPCs That Care”

The Deep NPC Tale

We talk NPCs and how to make them and your base interesting in an Age of Rebellion setting, as well as the varried locations you’ll run across in Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny. Continue reading “The Deep NPC Tale”

Eyes Up: Rewarding the Player, not the Character

Let’s talk about rewards for players. I have yet to meet a GM or player who doesn’t get the basics of rewarding players with experience points. In some systems it’s an equation as simple as putting monsters in at one end, running them through the shiny bladed grinder of players, and dropping at the feet of the players blood splattered items of surprising usefulness. This is all well and good, and keeps the characters growing in power, but this can be minor to rewarding the players for their actions instead of just their characters. Continue reading “Eyes Up: Rewarding the Player, not the Character”

Confessions of a Newb GM: Clunky Randomness

I’ve been talking with my D&D 4th Edition DM over the last couple of weeks. After trying to bring my DM to The Mad Adventurers Society and The Angry GM blog, in an attempt to bring the perverbial horse to water, we were discussing how the two of us envisioned a 5th Edition campaign. He wanted to wait for the 5th Edition DMs guide and delve into its depths before he was willing to run a new adventure. The biggest reason he gave for this was his memory of the DMs guide from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons with tables upon tables of things that can be rolled on. He was describing why this was a great thing, but there are some concerns when it comes to random encounters as a base for a campaign. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: Clunky Randomness”

The Hard Crime Tale

We go looking at new ways your players can slip deeper into a crime lords grasp and how you can give the players two choices that they don’t want to take. Ben and David talk about how crime in fiction isn’t always happy go lucky and can be a huge moral quandary for those involved. Continue reading “The Hard Crime Tale”

Eyes Up: Focused Intentions

Hi,

I’m Deuterium Ice, you may know me a bit from Tales from the Hydian Way and Confessions of a Newb GM. I have been doing an article series about how to run adventures, but @TheAngryDM is doing that with attitude, so I’m shifting to something less obvious. When we were recording next week’s Tales from the Hydian Way it became clear to me how I could help and how I can use my own experience, foibles and all, to give ideas and guidance to people doing campaigns to try to make them more interesting. Continue reading “Eyes Up: Focused Intentions”

Confessions of a Newb GM: Scaling the Story

As I have done more and more planning for different campaigns, I find that beginnings and endings to have to be the most solid points. Without these two points set in stone the wild twists and turns that the players throw at me have a knack for throwing me into a tailspin that takes quite a bit to recover from. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: Scaling the Story”

The Crossed Personalities Tale

We talked about The Crossroads Sector last week. This week we populate it with a family with a dark secret, a desperate criminal with a heart of gold, and a ghost ship that holds a terrifying secret. Continue reading “The Crossed Personalities Tale”

Eyes Up: Messing with Money

Creating a story out of, or imposing a story upon, a roleplaying group is a very daunting thing. Taking a look at what The Angry DM has written this week got me back thinking about why we use anything at the table, from an NPC to a blaster pistol. There are so many different levers you’re able to use to get to the same place whether it’s character power or world based. Continue reading “Eyes Up: Messing with Money”

Confessions of a Newb GM: Loudly Thinging

Creating a good atmosphere with your games locations is both amazing and hard to accomplish. Adding to the tale that is retold over drinks another day is a great feeling for a GM, but a problem arises when the setting is all there is. A carefully crafted setting can bring great excitement and create an eerie mood, for instance, but if the encounters are all similar the setting slowly loses its majesties. If every room and hallway that the players get into is of a similar style, everything around it becomes routine; making any positive impressions made fade into a faint grey shroud. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: Loudly Thinging”