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Another way of describing this is "curve balls" or "yes, but" and can also be player driven. if they plays say "whats the bet that [narrative thing 1] is related to [narrative thing 2]" if it makes sense, change the narrative to allow this to be true, they'll love it and you then dont have to generate literally all the story

That’s a great way to put it… It’s like quantum mechanics, it’s not real until observed… You just need to make sure consistency is maintained

As a fellow teacher, you did an awesome job showing how the two practices relate! great video ! :D

Grand video! It opened my eyes to so much more than I expected, thanks! :)

C'est magnifique! Thank you for your time, effort, and especially your generosity!

Again, I’m highly enjoying your videos and appreciate the content-as I will be utilizing it in GMing my own games! Question: what are you using to edit your videos? Thanks! ☺️

This is a fantastic video! I loved how you correlate being a teacher and game master! Keep putting out more content! I can’t wait to watch it all!🎉

Superb video ))

This girls accent is killing me i cant put a finger on it

Looks like waaayyu too much effort more me. Looks cool tho

I want to see this in practice at the table otherwise it sounds like just hypothetical rambling.

Ive come back to this video because i needed advice for both teaching and dming. Thank you for being a great guide for both

I watch few of your contents, but you really explain well what you trying to say. Thanks for all the help you are telling us and keep the good work.

It's not too late to support Moonsoon! Late pledges are open til the end of august, go check it out! kck.st/3W0NFic Big thanks to them for sponsoring this! I’ve got a few friends working on this project, and I’m hugely excited about it, I hope you are too!

😍😍😍

The idea of using scenes that, by normal standards, the characters could never actually see allows much wider character development especially of arch-enemies! It can be used to punctuate scenes involving the players with story-telling elements. It breaks a golden rule of roleplaying yet is standard in every movie we ever watch.

I bingewatched (or more likely read) a lot of dm device a few years ago. But at a certain point it felt very repetitive. You have a way of summarizing things and bringing in new perspective that I have never seen so clearly stated. Thanks a lot for all the advice. Your videos for me are either: entirely new perspectives (which I don't need to agree with, but are always full of value) or videos where it feels like you reading my mind but then give me new ideas how to solve some problems or see the essence of the problem. I also like to do the storyboarding phase with my players together. It can be so much fun to find a picture that everyone agrees on and use the "yes, but" rule.

Absolute Gold as always! <3

I am able to maximize immersion in my TTRPG games however, this is not for everyone because it can be costly and time-consuming. I use a tremendous amount of props from handmade coins, potions, scrolls, handouts, ect. I have playlists and apps for sound effects. Lastly, I spent a lot of time working on accents and studying different cultures to become more immersive when playing an NPC. But the ultimate immersion is, if you can find methods to get your players to emotionally invest in the plot of your game.

The emulation of the movie approaches is what killed videogames. If pursued, it will kill table top games as well.

Thanks again. Keep on keeping on 😎🤘🍻

Great video. Only thing I didn't use yet was transitions. As You said in word of warning it's dangerous to overdo. I myself only go for cinemating feeling in most important adventures of the campaign. And sometimes even go for what I call "superproductions" when I add carefully curated soundtrack, songs, premixed sound effects etc. But that has to be rare for the "wow! factor" to have power. I did this maybe 3 times in last 5 years. Two times in my L5R campaign (adventure during the Siege of Otosan Uchi during the Coup and adventure durign the Second Day of Thunder) and once during my Star Wars campaign. I also used experimentally (but it was a success) another idea of "cinematic experience" when my Star Wars campaign hited the time of Original Trilogy I made a "companion adventure" for New Hope. It was adventure with pauses when we all watched movie. It was fun so we did it also for Empire and Return of the Jedi. But for this to work PCs have to be intermingled with characters or events from the movies.

Damn, this is such good advice - any chance of a worksheet or some kind so I can check this advice while I play!?

Excellent video. This is definitely something I have struggled with. Rad music too!

I believe that the first half of this video is rubbish. It contains no information that a GM could implement that would increase a player's enjoyment of a game. The premise of the video itself is inherently flawed; it is based on the malformed conjecture that TTRPGs and films are compatible mediums. While one could say that cinema and TTRPGs have the same ultimate motive - to entertain - the methods with which each achieves this are vastly antithetical. Since this video is based on the comparison of mediums, let us compare cinema, specifically films, with short stories. I find these two mediums to be much more similar. Short stories, according to Edgar Allan Poe's "unity of effect" theory, share with cinema the need for brevity. For example, few people are going to complete a short story in one sitting if it requires an extended amount of time and few people wish to sit in a movie theater for five hours. Thus, there is a need to change scenes and anything that does not further the plot. As Poe said, "No part can be displaced without ruin to the whole." In a TTRPG, we are not plagued by the need for such brevity because, rather than observing and interpreting, we are interacting. Ideally, in a tabletop game, the players are not witnessing the GM unfolding an epic battle instead, players are the ones fighting those battles. Most interactions in a tabletop game, be they extraneous or otherwise, have the potential to increase enjoyment because, TTRPG's source of entertainment springs from the interactions. Cinema's source of entertainment on the other hand is derived from observation and interpretation. Assuming my conjecture regarding the source of entertainment is correct and I have sufficiently proven brevity is often unnecessary in a TTRPG, the "kill your darlings" approach is intrinsically counterproductive to the method by which TTRPGs achieve entertainment: interaction.

This is part of why Draw Steel calls their GM a “Director,” I think

Thx again for all the good advice :) Made me think about how to continue the next sessions!

I would say play into the psychology of the game. Mirroring is especially effective in creating horror as you said beause it takes something familar and changes its context. For example, Strahd is a very psychological villain and I’d suggest you take advantage of that. Say you have a PC or NPC do something subtle to a PC (i.e. caress their cheek, tap them on the shoulder etc.); the PC turns around to find something familiar to them but make it a bit off. For this to work you want to do something that the PC expects from someone they are familiar with. For example, my group’s DM had us encounter Strahd in an abandoned house. During this encounter Strahd teleported behind Evelyn and started whispering into her ear and caressing her cheek. What scared me about this seemingly subtle interaction is this was the same action that another vampire, Alexander (Strahds youngest brother) did to my character (Zelda) shortly before this encounter. The encounter served to establish how similar Alexander was to Strahd. This is terrifying because of the love hate relationship Zelda has with the brothers. She knows Alexander loves her while Strahd hates her. The duality of the two emotions indicates how Alexander and Strahd are two sides of the same coin. If Strahd reflected on and harnessed his goals and desires, he could become like Alexander. Likewise if Alexander lets his emotions and ego get to his head, he could become like Strahd. The interaction made me ask questions like where is the line between love and hate? Why does Strahd hate Zelda so much? Has Strahd been spying on the couple? How long? These are just some of many questions my DM had me asking but there are many more. There is a very thin line between love and hate. In fact, many in psychology see the two as different expressions of the same emotional state. Love is driven by selflessness care while hate often occurs when the object of one’s love is threatened. If this hypothesis is true then there must be something about my character that Strahd either secretly loves or is emotionally threatened by or both. Use this type of mind game to mess with your players, putting them in morally complex situations where their ideals are tested. In short the fear and horror came in the execution of the mirroring between something wholesome and sweet with something creepy and unnerving.

I adore this!

Amazing as always,

I recently ran this for my table, and they absolutely loved it. The PDF was great, but the video was absolutely essential! Listening to you explain each scene gave me so much inspiration for dialogue and the tone of the characters, really helping me bring them to life. My players aren't the strongest role-players, but this session, they really dove in deep, desperately trying to unravel the mystery. Getting them up on the catwalk and pulling their focus away from the NPCs for a possession was tense, but it all played out perfectly in the end. Appreciate the great session! I'd love to see more content like this and look forward to trying out some of your other adventures in the future. I've 100% shared this with my community. Keep up the fantastic work. Cheers!

Those insights about storyboard and camera transitions are so useful. Great video!

This is the best video from you that I have seen, and you have done many great videos. It may seem elementary to you, but many people need those elements to know how to get the game experience they want, and you have provided that. Great job.

Nice work on the video!

Groovy video

Honestly a lot of it is just giving yourself permission to step away from the idea/illusion of the open universe linear progression. Once you pull your brain away, it is easy.

At 4:04 I knew the accent was real.

Interesting approach but I must disagree that we should play to an imaginary audience. The audience is already there; its the people playing the game, the pc's and GM. They are simultaneously the production and the audience, since the whole point of the game is the amusement and enrichment of the people playing.

Great ideas!

Supported on Kick. You are great. Keep spellcasting.

I'm old. So old I was there when you humans were crawling from the ocean. I ran D&D for you tadpoles. Here's what I've learned. You're advice is awesome for writing fiction but may be too strict for free form DMing. Here's my unsolicited two cents. 1. Practice. And read a lot. 2. Close your eyes and look around at the scene. I still do this. Oh yeah, I run "theater of the mind" or whatever its called. 3. I pre-write the entire game with major scenes. I memorize this. And then I throw it out when players change everything. Knowing the beats allows me to set the game up and have a goal but player agency rules. I will never, ever, ever wrap a scene up. Ever. I let them indulge. I learn from them. The KEY is "are they having fun." If they get quiet, if they seem less engaged, I'll move onto the next, but I never, ever interrupt fun. 4. Your point on using a camera is on point. Sometimes you can even describe scene openings as the camera zooming in. It is all preference. The best example of this is from the podcast NeoScum. *If you want a master class in running games, check it out.

The thing that taught me most about cinematic gaming was Pbta, and then games without a GM like BoB. I find it really fun and it gives the player a new lease of life to let them control the camera and frame the scene. One of the best pieces of advice I've learnt from Pbta is to play your character like a car stolen 200km away!

I try to use a lot of imagery and set up scenes, But I do let things meander sometimes partly due to allowing player free will to wander. It kinda a hybrid...maybe its like a director's cut with extra material :)

I agree with this. I also apply GM Robert Hart's technique in using "the camera shifts" when he describes scenes or transitions. Cinema is a good framework for immersion indeed. Thank you for this video.

Yes! Great tips! And great video also! 🙌

I really like this channel. I hope you grow and can make something of it

I understand everything *pulls strings with cinema manager friend and runs a session in actual cinema*

Nice to know I am not alone in this style. Absolutely banger tips for adopting the style without it overtaking the aspects of TTRPGs which make said medium special. Some stuff I've learned from this approach is including music descriptions, even only in vague generalities, to help set the tone of a scene for us round the table (which then helps inform character decisions). EX: When the car engine roars to life the soundtrack kicks on to a building synth which then bursts into empowering hyperactivity the instant foot slams pedal. Specifically learned from playing GMless games (so doesn't work with all groups) and related to the "Meanwhile.." scenes such as the skyscraper one described: Include the table during them with a helpful bit of direction. You keep the table involved/collaborating while getting surprisingly dramatic options made, since often folks see it as an excuse to not hold back. If anyone reading this has concerns with this getting abused then I say don't play games with that person, as I promise you the tool isn't faulty. Different from those that prefer not playing said way, to be clear.

Another banger! Every one of your videos is filled with so much wisdom and practical examples of how to use it!