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I donāt have the reading time for RPGs I once did (or for anything). Iād like to chalk if up to being an adult with a job now, but perhaps the truth is just āinternetā.
Whatever the reason, I want to write better for GMs. Here are the principles Iāve picked up from reading/ writing (no credits given - I canāt even remember which ideas are mine, and which I found, never mind where I found them).
An adventure scene which references 3 creatures or NPCs must contain all of those people, or NPCs, on the same (or next) page. The book should not say āsee that NPCās description on page 87, and find that monster in the Monstrous Manualā. Iām running combat here, not doing a dissertation! I need those stats, stat!
A friend considered running my BIND RPG, but noted the complexity, such as how Skills donāt tell you how they operate.
Like you have crafts, but it doesnāt tell you what the Target Number is to make arrows.
I wanted to make a contemptuous snort at this point, and explain that real GMs make up numbers on the fly, then record or memorize them to keep the world consistent. I then realized why this answer was bad before I said it, and later wrote a stonking-great list of examples of skills being used in the GMās section.
My adventures now follow suite, with a few notes on āif the PCs do X: then the NPC does Yā. The examples might not get used, but hopefully the āif-thenā statements allow the GM to more easily digest the encounter when reading it initially, and having a simple list (with if-statements in bold, to catch the readerās eye), might be useful for a flustered GM in a pickle.
Iāve placed this in numerous places in BIND, and I think a lot of RPGs could benefit from this.
rather than the GM rolling to attack. It means the combat goes from a GM rolling twenty attack dice for the goblins, to five players rolling four defence dice. The GMās only job is keeping track of things, and declaring results to the table as someone kills a goblin or gets stabbed by one.
so the GM doesnāt have to ask what might happen in the deep forest - there will always be some encounter which can play out anywhere in the deep forest.
or the GM will have to stop (as Gygax once requested I did, in A,D&D), look up ātreasure type Pā, and then roll 5 percentile dice to figure out what kind of loot this monster is carrying.
I can see the appeal of assigning a random treasure which fits - different monsters have different items, but a griffin it more likely to use a magical scroll for its nest than a magical ring. So Iāve programmed in the randomness. BINDās monster statblocks get random treasures assigned, which feeds into the rule of reprinting statblocks rather nicely. If your adventure contains three griffins, then there are three different statblocks, with three different random treasures.
even if it seems obvious. Nobody complains āthis book had too many footnotes, and the index was too long!ā. They only complain about the lack of index.
whenever the players need to see something. Place it in a new pdf, or in separate pages at the back of the book.
If you have any other tips for this list - however small - Iād love to hear them at [a].